Patricia Rice (23 page)

When he finally eased into her, she cried out in relief and
pulled him down to take her kiss. Their tongues met in the same union as their
bodies, and she shuddered. It was happening again, but she was no more prepared
for it now than she had been the first time.

The bed creaked as they gave of themselves, tasting,
touching, abandoning their restraints to find a plane where they could both
exist in joyous union. For a few short moments they found it, claiming and
being claimed, acknowledging the power and possession.

After their glorious joining, they returned to the more
natural boundaries of existence. A bird sang outside, and Cassandra turned her
head to watch the branches of the tree. Wyatt’s kiss whispered along her cheek
and throat, and she closed her eyes to better absorb the sensation of his heavy
weight pressing her into the mattress. She wasn’t quite so sore this time, but
she was still sensitive to that part of him inside her.

Wyatt, Earl of Merrick, her staid and proper lover. She
smiled.

Wyatt kissed her cheek and idly played at the still-swollen
tip of her breast. “Tell me what you’re dreaming.”

“Of this. Of holding you. Of having you near and hearing you
speak. Will you come to me often if I agree to stay here?” The words came out
in a hushed rush. She always spoke too hastily, without thought, but she needed
to know. She wanted him here every night, and in wanting, knew it was
impossible.

Wyatt kissed her cheek and rolled on his side, pulling her
with him. “I would be with you every night and every day if I could, Cass, you
know that. It will take time, but that day will come. I promise.”

Bitterness welled up inside her and Cassandra turned from
his honest gaze. “It can never come. You will never understand, so please just
accept it. I will be happy to know you are close by. Perhaps I could still come
once in a while to sing with you.”

Wyatt caught her chin and forced her to face him. “I won’t
be happy knowing you are here alone, and I can’t come to you. Be reasonable,
Cass. We must marry. Let me deal with Rupert.”

The anguish marring her perfect features was so deep and so
unalterable that Wyatt felt his heart shrivel and die even before she spoke.

“I’ll not agree to an annulment, Wyatt. If that is the cost
of staying here, I will not come. If you go against my wishes, I shall leave
and never come back.”

She meant it. He knew better than to underestimate the power
of Cassandra’s will. Her words hurt like all the brands of hell, but he refused
to let her see the damage.

“You are willing to settle for being my mistress?” he
demanded harshly, still holding her face between his fingers.

“For me, it is not settling,” she whispered, tears in her
eyes. “It is a great leap upward to my heart’s desire. Please, Wyatt. I need you
to be my friend and to hold me. Just that. Can that not be enough for you?”

His whole body grew taut with the need to reject that
proposition. He didn’t need a friend. He needed a wife. And despite all the
differences between them, all the reasons that made them unsuitable for each
other, he needed this woman to be his wife.

But if he couldn’t have what he wanted, he would take what was
offered. He didn’t think he could drive the need for Cassandra out of his soul
anytime soon, if ever.

Knowing that she asked the impossible, knowing the world
would soon come crumbling down upon their heads, Wyatt bent to take her kiss. “Friend
and lover,” he corrected her.

Wyatt paced the library floor like a caged animal,
stopping to stare at the shelves in search of a book that didn’t exist, roaming
between the tables and leather wing chairs as if they were trees in a jungle
where he didn’t belong. He halted at the far end of the room overlooking the
park, pulling back the heavy draperies to stare into a darkness that gave him
no glimpse of the lights he sought.

He dropped the draperies and forced himself to face a shelf
of philosophy. He needed a good sound philosophy right now to persuade him that
what he was doing was right. He didn’t think Socrates had anything that would
apply to his situation, but if he were lucky, the Greek would put him to sleep.
He felt as if he hadn’t slept in years.

It had been only a week. One week. Wyatt stared at the
shelf, his search for the Greek philosopher forgotten. Except for the briefest
and politest of social calls in the company of others, he had not seen
Cassandra since she had moved into the cottage. She had seemed so happy and
content feathering the nest he had provided for her that he couldn’t think of
sullying her happiness by forcing her into a relationship that could only be
disastrous for both of them.

That wasn’t quite right. He could
think
of it. He thought of it all the time, night and day without
cease. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was wrong.

But he couldn’t stop thinking of her as she lay naked
beneath him on that sun-blessed bed, her hair spilling in wild abandon across
the sheets, her skin flushed with ecstasy, her eyes speaking her desire and
happiness. Had she despised him, he could stay away. Had she been cold and
unfeeling, or even experienced and cynical, he could have stayed away.

But she wanted him as much as he did her, she needed him,
and that drew him more powerfully than any magic potion mankind could distill.

So instead of himself, he had sent presents. Any little
thing that caught his eye that he knew would please her, he had sent by way of
messenger to her door. He tried to imagine her reaction when she opened the box
with the crystal vase that captured the sunlight and filled the air with color.
He liked to think of her sipping from the china teacups he had found stored in
some ancient cabinet of the kitchen. They were fine Chinese porcelain, but the
set wasn’t complete and was never used anymore. He had known Cassandra would
love them as they ought to be.

He wanted to send her music, but even if he could smuggle a
pianoforte into the cottage, she wouldn’t be able to play it. So he had
searched the attics until he had found a wooden music box he remembered from
his childhood. He hoped she would understand when these tokens reached her door
without a message.

But the gifts didn’t appease Wyatt’s restlessness. He needed
to talk with her, to hear her voice, watch her smile, touch her hand. Her
laughter had awakened him and her song had stirred his soul, just as her
caresses had eased his longing.

Wyatt stiffened at the sound of footsteps in the hall. He
schooled his expression to boredom as he pulled down a volume and opened it to
a page when the door opened. The anguish in his soul was his own private
torment, not there for anyone else to peruse.

The butler entered with a card on a salver, hesitating to
disturb him.

A muscle twitched in Wyatt’s cheek as he read the piece of
pasteboard. Without a word to the butler, he turned on his heel and strode
eagerly for the stairs, brushing his hair in place.

Wyatt took the stairs down at a pace greater than was
customary. At the bottom of the eternal length of mahogany stairway stood a
tall, slender figure garbed in a gold pelisse of silk that he remembered
ordering just last week. She wore no hat, and the light caught in strands of
red and gold more brilliant than the expensive fabric. Her eyes smiled as he
approached.

And then he was beside her, taking her hand, guiding her
toward the one room that they could regard as theirs alone, and his soul
soared. He read the questions in her eyes, but he couldn’t answer them here,
not with words. He helped her discard the pelisse, seated her at the piano
bench, and took his place beside her. The music could speak his thoughts.

She had come to him. There would be no holding him back now.

~*~

Wyatt waited outside the cottage in the darkness beyond
the square gleam of golden light from the bedroom window overhead. Cass had not
yet installed draperies, and he could see her slender shadow crossing the room.
She had dismissed her maid and was undressing herself, softly singing a tune
they had shared earlier.

He had done his best to stay away. He knew his mother was
suspicious of his decision to rent the cottage to Cassandra. The neighbors
running in and out all week had eased those suspicions. His presence would have
been conspicuous.

But when she had turned up on his doorstep this evening, he
hadn’t needed any more invitation than that.

So he stood here now like some lovesick fool, staring up at
her window, wondering how he could enter his own house and take her to his bed
without compromising both of them.

The back door opened and slammed behind two incongruous
shadows, one tall and lanky, the other short and plump. Wyatt could hear soft
giggles as they strolled arm in arm through the moonlight. There was no
mistaking the pair. He didn’t know whether to reward them or sack them for
their desertion, but he wasn’t wasting any opportunity.

Cassandra looked up in surprise, but she offered a joyous
smile when he entered. Garbed only in a thin nightrail that revealed every
curve of her body in the lamplight, she lifted her arms in welcome.

Merrick hesitated, aware, as she was not, that they set a
pattern for the nights to come in what they did now. She came to him as a wife
would, or should, he amended, without guilt or self-consciousness, with only
joy at his presence. He would not allow her to feel ashamed for what they felt.

In a few strides he was across the room and taking her in
his arms. Never would he let her feel anything but joy for what they did now.

~*~

Cassandra awakened to the sun streaming through the open
casement. Summer was finally in the air, and the gentle breeze made her warm
and languorous as she stretched joyfully, reveling in her nakedness.

Her foot brushed a long, muscular limb, and she smiled at
the sleep-tousled hair of the man on the next pillow. She ran her fingers
through the thick chestnut locks and watched his eyes open.

“I’m glad you stayed,” she whispered as she bent to press a
kiss along his beard-stubbled cheek.

A hard arm circled her waist and pulled her closer. There
would be no disguising their relationship for very long if he never slept in
his own bed, but the world could be damned for all she cared this morning.

A half-hour later they were both more tousled than before,
but any tension between them had disappeared. Cassandra lay against Wyatt’s
shoulder, her eyes closed dreamily as his long fingers caressed her breasts.

The knock on the bedroom door startled them back to the
moment. Cassandra threw him a panicky look, but Wyatt merely pulled the sheet
up over her nakedness and ordered the maid to enter.

Lotta failed to conceal her smirk as she came in with a tray
of tea and toast and silently laid it on the bedside table.

“Have you any coffee, Lotta? I prefer coffee in the
mornings.” Wyatt sat back against the pillows.

“I’ll buy some in the village this morning, my lord.” Lotta
bobbed a beaming curtsy and departed, softly closing the door behind her.

Cassandra turned her flaming cheeks in Wyatt’s direction. “That
was uncalled for, my lord,” she remonstrated. “Lotta has no idea how to brew
coffee, we have no pot to brew it in, and we cannot afford the extravagance.
And if you offer to pay for it, I shall kick you from this bed.”

Wyatt watched her with amusement, waited until she was done,
then pressed a kiss to her breast before swinging his legs out from beneath the
covers and reaching for his discarded shirt.

“You will have to grow accustomed to it, my love. If we are
going to shed all propriety and meet the world as lovers, then we may as well
take advantage of the comforts of such a situation. I will provide the funds
for what I need to feel at home. I do not expect you to shoulder the burden.”

Cassandra heard his calm words with suspicion, but she was
distracted by the sight of his bold masculine nakedness in her heretofore
feminine room. Even in undress, he was very much the earl when he spoke like
that.

“You will tell the world that we are lovers?” she asked a
trifle breathlessly.

“I don’t need to.” Wyatt reached for his discarded trousers.
“My servants will have already discovered that I did not sleep in my bed. They
will begin whispering among themselves. Someone will mention that your servants
were seen buying coffee in the village. The dressmaker will remember the gown I
ordered for you. The whispers will grow louder. It will not take long before
the whole town knows of it, no matter how discreet we may try to be.”

As usual, Cassandra hadn’t thought of that. She was so used
to keeping her own company that she had managed to shut out the gossip.

Wyatt wanted to take the wounded look from her eyes, but he
had to be ruthless for her own good. She had to be made to see the consequences
of what they did. It was the only way to persuade her to do what was right.

“I will take you to London, if you prefer, Cass. These
things are more acceptable there. A vast amount of society will still receive
you. You are a married woman, after all. It is done all the time.”

Cassandra shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t want to live
in London. I want to live here. This is my home. I’ll not be driven away from
it again.”

She was ignoring the consequences again. Merrick sat on the
bed beside her and tilted her chin upward. “Do you wish me to stay away? You
have only to say the word.”

Her aquamarine eyes gleamed in a manner that he was beginning
to recognize as confusion.

“I don’t need anyone else, just you,” she said with
hesitation. “Will it be very hard for you? I don’t wish to make you an outcast.”

That wasn’t quite the reply he wanted, but Wyatt could see
it would take time before she realized their position. In the meantime, he
would have his solicitors locate Rupert and begin drawing up the papers
necessary for an annulment. He would have them ready for signatures when the
reality finally sank in.