Sweet Temptation (24 page)

“And, of course, I’ve dreamed of marrying a man who will love me. Every woman does. No matter how important his wealth or title may be to her, she wants to be loved for herself, not just her beauty or her dowry or her ability to provide an heir.”

Sara broke off when Betty knocked on the door and then entered without waiting for permission. “I’ve waited as long as I can, milady, but it’s time for me to put you to bed. Lord Carlisle can stay up drinking all night if he likes, but I won’t have you staying up a minute longer.”

“Thank you, Betty. I’ll be ready in just a minute.” Betty closed the door louder than necessary, and both Sara and Gavin could hear that her footsteps stopped outside the door.

“It is rather late,” Sara said.

“She doesn’t like me very much, does she?” Gavin said quietly. Sara blushed with embarrassment.

“You see, she … that is …”

“She doesn’t think I’m nearly as much of a gentleman as Ian Fraser,” Gavin finished for her.

“He found beds for us at night, emptied wagons so we wouldn’t have to walk, and never let anyone forget I was a lady.”

“And all I’ve done is mistreat you, abandon you, and force you to travel the length of England alone.”

“I didn’t mean to say…”

“You don’t have to,” Gavin replied bitterly. “I’m not so taken up with my own concerns that I can’t face a few more unpleasant facts. I’ve been damned disagreeable, and I don’t know why you didn’t turn your back on me from the beginning.”

Sara didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

“Well, you can tell her I won’t keep you up late tonight. That ought to make her happy.”

It might please Betty, but it didn’t please Sara. There was only one bedroom, with only one bed. Surely he didn’t mean he wasn’t coming to bed. Sara suddenly felt like her hopes had been blighted by a winter frost.

“To be sure it’s nicer traveling in a coach and staying in a fancy inn, instead of one of those dratted cottages with the master and his missus scowling fit to put you off your dinner, but I was sorry to see the last of that Mr. Fraser. He is such a nice gentleman.”

“Everyone treated us kindly,” Sara answered her maid, “but we couldn’t stay with them forever. It’s time Lord Carlisle took us home to Estameer. That’s what we came to Scotland for.”

“Humph! I say handsome is as handsome does, and your lord doesn’t look so good next to Mr. Fraser.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m married to him and not you,” Sara said, firmly dismissing her maid. “And I’d appreciate it, if you would try to make it less apparent to Lord Carlisle that you think I married the wrong man.”

“You want me to hide my real feelings?” Betty asked in surprise.

“Yes, for my benefit, if not for his. He’s not as bad as you think.”

“Humph! If he’s only half as bad as I think, he’s still not worthy of you. Now if he were just more like Mr. Fraser—”

“Not everybody can be what you want them to be.”

“Including myself,” replied Betty, indicating her tall body. “It’s hard to be thought of kindly by a man, when there’s enough of you for two.”

“As you said, handsome is as handsome does, and I wouldn’t trade you for any little French maid in the whole kingdom. I don’t know how I could have gotten through these last weeks without you.”

“Or I without you, once we got started,” Betty replied. She sniffed determinedly to ward off the threat of tears. “Do you remember that big Scot who captured you? The look on his face when he discovered you weren’t a boy!” Betty started to laugh at the memory.

“I imagine he was considerably more astonished when you sat on top of him in the middle of the lane.”

“How about that first night, when you found out you had to share a bed with that squire …”

“And spent half the night lying awake because he snored like thunder!”

They laughed heartily for a minute, then Betty wiped her eyes and said, “Well, you’ll be sharing your bed with another man tonight. Let’s hope he doesn’t snore.”

Sara sobered quickly. “If that were the worse thing that could happen, I wouldn’t mind it too much.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right, milady? If you want, I could—”

“I’ll be fine. I admit I’m a little nervous, but it has more to do with being newly married and not yet sure what my husband wants. I used to think I knew all about Gavin, but those were just a young girl’s daydreams. I woke up to find myself in a woman’s world, and it was a bit of a shock. That’s all.”

“That’s as may be, but if you want me, you only have to call. I’ll be sleeping in the next room.”

Sara allowed Betty to fuss over her some more while she put her to bed, but she steadfastly declined her maid’s offers of protection. Instead, she tried to remember everything Letty Brown had told her that day in the garden, tried to convince herself there was no reason to be frightened. She could feel her body growing ever more tense, and she consciously tried to relax, yet every time she managed to ease the tension for a few moments, it would return again even stronger than before. She finally gave up. Nothing was going to erase her fear, except a very different experience from that first night.

But then a sudden thought struck her. Why should she like being with a man just because Letty did? If there were thousands of women who professed to dislike it, surely some of them must be telling the truth. A shudder of apprehension ran through Sara’s body as she confronted the possibility that she might be one of those women. She tried to ease her fear by reminding herself that she did remember experiencing some slight pleasure before, but she knew that was like saying you experienced the pleasure of relief after your tooth had been pulled. Gavin wouldn’t come to her very often, if she couldn’t give him a warmer welcome than she would a tooth-drawer.

Sara realized that tension had been building up within her ever since she saw Gavin in Glasgow; tension that had its origin in their inability to understand each other. That pressure as now intensified several-fold by the memory of their failure to relate physically, arid the certainty that she would have to make a second attempt very soon.

Sara decided that the first time with a man must be a difficult thing for all women of sheltered backgrounds. After years of being taught that a female must guard her modesty at all costs, and having the lesson repeated over and over again until it was ingrained in practically every fiber of her being, a woman was then expected to cast it all aside in one evening. Sara didn’t see how it could possibly be anything but a terribly wrenching experience, and that discovery made her feel a little better. I’m sure it’s much easier when two people care strongly for each other, she thought to herself a little wistfully, but it would have been much better for her if someone had at least told her what she would be expected to do. She wondered how many other marriages began badly because of ignorance.

But ignorance of the marriage bed was not the only reason she and Gavin had begun so badly. It seemed she had been unprepared for just about every aspect of marriage. She had learned a lot during this last month and a half; she hoped it would be enough, but she was already aware that the feelings she had for Gavin had been rooted in a fantasy. He might not know her at all, but then she didn’t know him either, not the person he was now. She had married him and pursued him to Scotland because of the Gavin she remembered as a child, but she was married to Gavin the man. She had been able to see that he was an anger-filled man and that his cruelty to her had its roots in hatred that had nothing to do with her, but if she was to be happy in this marriage, it was not enough that she have sympathy for him. She had to learn to love him as he was now, and quite frankly she didn’t know if she could.

Sara had tortured herself so worrying about every aspect of their relationship, that it was almost a relief when Gavin entered the bedchamber. Still, her body stiffened. He was silhouetted briefly in the doorway, then as he walked quickly to the bed, the disturbed air in the room caused the light from the candle Betty had left burning by the bedside to flicker, and shadows danced drunkenly about his face.

Sara almost held her breath. Would she ever grow accustomed to his handsomeness? His thick black hair was worn swept back from his forehead and temples. His eyes almost seemed to withdraw behind his brows, springing to life only in moments of unfettered joy. A broad, strong nose dominated the center of his face, but it was the firm lips and the massive jaw, so reminiscent of the Earl, which made his face almost unbearably handsome, and at the same time reflected the character of the man himself. Strong and determined was the message they sent out, but there was something in the eyes that said
There is mare.

Gavin discarded his robe, standing before her in his naked glory, and Sara’s thoughts were immediately riveted to his body. Even though her memories of him that first night had neither faded nor lost any of their detail, the magnificence of his body overwhelmed her now, just as completely as it had then. There was nothing of his father here. Broad, well-muscled shoulders and chest, powerful arms, and muscle-ribbed stomach spoke eloquently of the heritage he received from his mother. It was her love of the highlands and the strenuous activity it took to live there which had given Gavin his body, and the love of exercise which had sculpted it into such perfect proportion. He reminded Sara of a prowling, wild animal, temporarily brought to live indoors, but unwilling to permanently forsake its natural environment.

She tried to control the tremors of excitement chasing each other up and down her body, but she shook like a leaf.

“You’re cold.”

“No.”

“Frightened?”

“No.”

“Worried?”

“Yes.”

“You needn’t be. There is nothing to hurt you this time.” His voice had changed; it was like a caress, deep, rich, and velvety.

Sara started to tell him that physical pain was not the worst of it, but abandoned the idea. Gavin sat down on the edge of the bed and turned toward her, and her mind could not grasp anything except the overwhelming fact of his nearness.

But Gavin didn’t approach her right away. He sat quietly, looking into her eyes. “If there’s anything that frightens you or you don’t understand, tell me and I’ll stop.

Sara nodded.

“I mean it. Anything at all.”

Sara nodded again and was rewarded with a smile that briefly conquered the perpetual severity of Gavin’s expression. If he could only be like this all the time, she thought, it would be impossible not to love him. He leaned over and traced the outlines of her cheek and jaw with his fingertip; Sara felt her body turn to jelly. How could a touch that was so soft and gentle burn her skin like a hot iron?

“My father told me you had turned into a beautiful young woman, but I was too angry to see it,” he said, drawing that wandering fingertip lightly across her lips and causing her exulting senses to claim all of her conscious thought.

“Maybe pretty,” Sara managed to whisper. “My mother was beautiful.”

“I never saw your mother, but she would have had to be a goddess to be lovelier than you.” If he says things like this all the time, no wonder his mistresses adore him, Sara thought to herself. His fingertip brushed her eyelids, and Sara melted further. Then he took her lower lip between his teeth and tugged gently, insistently, until she relaxed against him, far too weak to feel fear, anxiety, or anything else except expectant delight. She could hardly tell when his lips took over tantalizing her skin, and his fingertips moved to her neck, and then her shoulder.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you have wonderful skin?” he murmured in her ear, as his fingertips caressed her shoulders and fondled her throat. “It’s soft and smooth and rich in texture and smells of roses.”

Someday she would tell him about the rosewater she used in her bath and on her skin and the sachets of rose petals that Betty put in her drawers, but not now, not while his soft breath in her ear made nearly every thought disintegrate like morning mist in a hot sun, not while his touch ignited a flame of desire within her.

“I got drunk because I was ashamed of what I’d done,” he whispered softly in her ear, “but I was a fool. It kept me from seeing what a truly lovely woman you are.”

Sara almost gasped. Gavin was ashamed of his behavior even before that night! Tendrils of hope reached toward the terraces of her consciousness, but the wild sensations rocketing about her body pushed them back into the abyss of her subconscious. Tomorrow she could think; tonight she would experience.

Gavin’s fingers skittered up the back of her neck, causing delicious shivers to race up and down her spine with lightning speed. He removed her nightcap and let her bountiful hair spill over the pillow, until it formed a halo of red gold in the soft candlelight.

“I had to cut it, to disguise myself as a boy,” she murmured in apology, but he seemed heedless of her words as he ran his fingers through the rioting curls, arranging them about her face according to a design that he alone understood.

“I like it as it is,” Gavin replied. His lips brushed hers, skimmed lightly over her eyelids, and returned to her mouth for several long, lingering kisses, each more insistent than the last.

Sara could taste the lingering sweetness of brandy as his tongue probed between her teeth, and she opened her mouth to him Tentatively her own tongue responded, searching, seeking, until it probed his mouth and caused Gavin’s body to tense with anticipation.