Noble Destiny (27 page)

“No, of course I can't! What woman in my position wouldn't marry for money or title or handsome looks?”

A familiar look of resigned confusion came over his face as he released her wrist to rub his forehead. “You're saying you did marry me for the very same things I can no longer give you, and yet you're offended when I point that out?”

She peeled off his somber black eye patch and moved around behind him to tie on the new kilted one. “Red looks very good on you. I'm not offended that you know why I married you; I'm offended that you think those things still matter to me. Once I managed the feat of falling in love with you—no easy task, considering your temperament—everything changed. A woman in love doesn't care about money or looks.”

She returned to his front, trailing her fingers down his lifeless arm until she caught his fingers in hers, bringing their joined hands to her mouth. She kissed each of his fingers.

“And does a woman in love not care about standing or titles?”

“Titles, no,” she answered with dimples flying. “Standing…well, women in love reserve the right to retain their standing so as to better further their husband's successes. I really do think I've had as much of your self-pity as I can stand, Alasdair. Therefore, I will take Dr. Milton's advice and give you an intermatum: You will decide right here and now that you wish to continue living. You will realize that despite the loss of your eye and the diminished strength of your arm, you are still a vital, important man. You will remember that you swore before God to cherish and honor me, and you can't possibly do that if you are dead or moping around in darkened rooms. I very much deserve to be cherished and honored. For that reason, you will kiss me and hug me and touch me in those womanly parts that tingle when you are near, and then you will bed me. Every night. Possibly two times a night once you regain your stamina. In short, husband mine, you will return to the Dare I knew and loved, and you will do so this very minute!”

Dare looked as if he wanted to smile, but was afraid to. Slowly the fire died out in his eye as he reached up to rub his thumb against her shoulder. “The word is
ultimatum
, not intermatum.”

“I know,” she said softly, allowing her eyes to fill with all the love she felt for him. “I just liked the sound of intermatum better. It's more forceful.”

His lips twitched. “My beautiful wife. My beautiful Charlotte who deserves better.”

“Yes, I do,” she agreed, rubbing her cheek against the back of his hand. “I deserve a husband who is not a coward, a husband who doesn't know the meaning of surrender. I deserve a husband who loves me enough to fight for me.”

“You deserve a husband who can give you want you want,” Dare said softly, his shoulders slumping as his hand dropped from her shoulder. “What have I to offer you? I'm penniless, crippled, and half-blind. My title is in question, and our one means of salvation lies in a heap of twisted metal. You deserve far more than what I can offer you, Charlotte.”

She refused to let him back away, wrapping both her arms around his waist, rubbing his nose with hers. “You told me once that appearance wasn't everything; I'm telling you the same now. Crippled and half-blind you may be, but you're still
you
, and that's all that matters. And as for the other things…you'll have more money than I'll possibly be able to spend once you sell your engine. Your title might be lost—although Crouch is working diligently on the matter—but you still have standing in the
ton
. You might have lost one eye, but you have another, and Dr. Milton is convinced that you'll regain at least some use in your right arm if you set your mind to it. And as for your engine, I have every confidence that if you dedicate yourself to it, you could have it ready in time for the scientific exhibition.”

He was shaking his head even before she stopped speaking. “There's only two weeks left. I couldn't rebuild the engine in that time.”

She brushed her lips against his, smiling at the flicker of passion in his eye. “We'll all help. Batsfoam examined the engine and said he believed all that would need replacing was the boiler. You have a little more than two weeks—can you build a boiler in that time?”

Dare frowned, an act that made Charlotte want to cheer. He was thinking about it. She could see him working mental calculations regarding what would need to be done to have the engine ready.

“It would only take me a few days to rebuild the boiler, but that's not the problem. Obviously my design was flawed, or else it wouldn't have exploded under the pressure of a half-filled boiler.”

“Then you will simply have to design a new one,” she said helpfully, and kissed him again, this time her lips lingering on his mouth, her breath mingling with his.

“I can't—” he started to say, one arm snaking around her waist to pull her even closer. She rubbed against him, almost purring with the feeling of the hard, muscled planes of his chest and thighs.

“You can do anything you want,” she answered, sucking his lower lip into her mouth. He groaned and pulled her tighter, grinding his hips against hers. “I believe in you, Dare. I believe you can succeed. I would never have married a man who couldn't keep me as I deserve to be kept.”

“Little witch,” he murmured against her lips. Her hands were busy until she had the buttons of his shirt free, sliding her fingers along the smooth, muscled planes of his back, along the pleasing contours of his chest. Even after a month of illness and inactivity, his body was still hard with muscle and sinew. “If you think you can goad me into doing what you want—”

“Never,” she breathed, nipping at his lips, wordlessly begging him to take charge. When he didn't, she murmured, “I do not goad. Seducing, however, is another matter…”

Since he still wasn't kissing her the way she wanted to be kissed, she decided to take matters in her own hands—so to speak. She demanded entrance to the warm lure of his mouth, and when it was given, she ruthlessly invaded—tasting him, teasing him, stirring the embers of passion that burned between them.

With a groan, he succumbed to the fire, his mouth moving over hers with increased heat, his tongue doing all those amazing tongue things she previously believed she would never find the least bit interesting (but was happy to be proven wrong), his body pressed hard against hers, moving with a seductive slowness that threatened to drain all reason from her mind. His hand was everywhere, fingers one moment tugging her head back to angle her mouth for deeper penetration; the next they were skimming along the tapes at the back of her gown, tugging down the fine lawn until his fingers met her bared flesh. In the passion-fogged depths of her mind she remembered a scene from the past, and broke away long enough to push him backward, into the wine-colored armchair. She followed, pulling up her gown so she could kneel astride his thighs.

“Char, I can't—”

“Don't you remember?” she cooed, her hands working feverishly to free him from the confines of his shirt. “You promised to show me how to conduct a ravishment in a chair. I'm still curious as to the exact logistics of it all—assuming I'm correct in believing your erected instrument will function upside down, not that I've had any experience with upside-down instruments, you understand, but since your instrument appears to be straining your breech buttons, I gather you are pleased with the thought of being ravished in this chair. Therefore, I have faith that you'll make a most satisfying explanation of where the legs and such go.”

Dare kissed the wits—those remaining—right out of her head before pulling his lips from hers and kissing a hot trail down her neck. “I can't do this, wife. I can't…I don't know that I can…you can't want…”

“Oh, but I do,” she corrected, nipping his jaw as her fingers fumbled with the tightly strained cloth at his groin. “You cannot possibly imagine how much I want you, Dare.”

“You deserve better than a half-man with a scarred face and a useless arm,” he groaned into her bare shoulder as she released the last button on his breeches, pushing aside the material to take his hardness into her hands.

“I deserve you.” She smiled, then gently removed his eye patch. He moved then, tried to stop her, his face twisted with anguish as the fingers of his good hand dug into her wrist. “Men! I'll never understand you. Such a fuss over a few scars.”

His jaw tightened as she kissed the line of damaged skin that ran down the side of his face, moving upward until she reached his closed eyelid.

“No.”

The word was spoken on a half sob, only one word, but so filled with pain that it brought tears to her eyes. Tenderly she pressed a kiss to the slack eyelid. How could he imagine that something so inconsequential as the loss of an eye could diminish her love for him? “Yes. Until you realize that your injuries don't matter to me, yes.” She kissed his eyelid again, and once again until he turned his head so he could look at her.

His eye was burning bright with the fever of desire, glittering with love and passion, but tinged with wariness, as if bracing himself for a blow. She smiled, and kissed the eyelid over his whole eye as well. “
From
their
eyelids
as
they
glanced
dripped
love
,” she quoted.

Dare opened his eye, puzzled. She smiled. “That is from one of those musty Greek men Papa was forever fussing over. I don't remember which one—Iliad, I think his name was—but I do remember Papa reading him aloud to us. Mr. Iliad wasn't very interesting until he started talking about pouring sweet dew on tongues.”

His lips curled ever so slightly. “I believe the gentleman in question was Hesiod, not Homer.”

She leaned forward against him, pinning the rampant parts of him between them, cupping his face in her hands. “Does it really matter who said it?” she asked between little kisses to his cheeks and jaw. “Does anything matter but the fact that you're my husband, and I love you, and I want you to show me how the armchair ravishment you so temptingly teased me with a few months ago is managed?”

Dare fought within himself for a moment. The sober part of him, the part that knew he wasn't worthy of her, the part that counseled taking the coward's way out of his misery as the only possible way to free her, urged him to push her from his lap and retreat. Retreat to his bedchamber, to the darkness that hid his scars, even the ones that lay beneath his skin. But the warmth of his wife, the pressure of her against him, the love glowing from her clear blue eyes filled him with an emotion so strong it cut his despair to shreds. He knew he should force her away, but he was too weak to refuse the haven she offered.

She murmured his name as he fought with her gown until her breasts—those glorious breasts—were released, framed so charmingly in the green and cream of her gown and the lacy froth of her chemise. He cupped one breast in his hand, gently rubbing the pad of his thumb over her nipple until she groaned and arched her back. He swore silently as he gritted his teeth and tried to make his right arm respond to the need to touch her, startled when she took his limp hand and held it to her breast.

“Like the costliest silk,” he murmured as he stroked her breasts, an amazing heat tingling its way down his fingers to burn strongly in his chest. His hand slipped out from under hers, but by locking every muscle he had, he managed to stop his arm as his palm rested against the swell of her hips, warm even through the fabric pooled around her.

“Do you know, I was going to say the very same thing about you,” she answered, using both hands to caress the heated length of him. “Your manly instrument is so hard, and yet at the same time, your skin is so soft. It truly is an amazing instrument, isn't it? I mean, when it's quiescent, it's not much to look at. I would almost say it's comical when it just flops around and lies limply. But then when you make it like this, it's quite awe inspiring. How exactly do you do this, Dare? Did it take long to learn? Did you have to take lessons? I've seen animals, of course, but men are beyond the level of animals, so I cannot help but wonder how the erection business comes about.”

Dare withstood her touch—which continued to explore his nether regions the whole while she was talking—as long as he could. He gritted his teeth. He tensed his jaw. He tightened his fingers into her gown. He thought briefly of anything that would take his mind off the fire she was building with every stroke of her fingers, but he knew he wouldn't last much longer if she continued to touch him.

“Charlotte,” he said as sternly as a man who was on the verge of sexual ecstasy could, “if you don't mind, we will save the lecture on male physiology for another time.”

She leaned forward until her soft breasts were pressed against his chest. “Do you promise?” she asked, nipping at his lips until he wrapped his hand in her hair and plundered her mouth. She was so good, he had to plunder her a second time, and only the fact that she was squirming restlessly against his hardness kept him from spending long hours paying homage to the wonders of her mouth.

“I always keep my promises,” he murmured against her breast, just before his mouth closed over the delicate little morsel that beckoned him. He teased and nibbled the first nipple, her moans of pleasure filling his ears even as her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders. Then he turned his attention to the second breast, licking and suckling her until her breath was as wild as his. He untangled his fingers from her curls, enjoying her little shiver of delight as he stroked a path down her spine, sweeping his hand over her hip to tease the part of her he knew was aching for him.

“You'll have to excuse my personal parts.” She gasped as he cupped her mound of Venus. “They're a bit moist. They seem to do that quite a bit around you. I was worried about it at first, but then I remembered how you touched me there on our wedding night, and you seemed to find the moistness a desired state, so I stopped worrying. Unless you don't like me being moist, and if you do, I'm afraid you're just going to have to—”