Teresa Medeiros (14 page)

As Justin watched, Emily lifted her skirts and frolicked through the shallow waves, tossing her head with laughter as the children splashed her. Droplets of water caught in her hair, sparkled on her skin. A flower nestled in her hair, a crimson splash against her chestnut locks.

Had some man wounded her? Justin wondered. His hands clenched into fists. He’d like to get his hands on the wretch. The image of her being ill used at the hands of some scoundrel filled him with both jealousy and rage. And grief—a wistful longing that he could have known her before the shadow touched her smile.

She knelt in the wet sand, cupping her hands around a castle tower while Kawiri dug a moat with his toe.

Had some wealthy rake seduced her? He knew only too well the morals of his London. Propriety and upright thinking were the false gods of society. What went on behind closed doors was another matter. A man could do what he liked to a woman as long as he wasn’t caught doing it. The sinking sun dipped behind a cloud, and Justin shivered. David’s wealth had given him and Nicholas the means to escape London’s stifling confines, but what means had Emily been forced to use? If left alone without the guidance of her guardian, would David’s daughter be forced into similar straits?

The children took their leave in laughing clusters, leaving Emily alone on the beach. Justin stood, hoping to slip away before she caught him spying on her. But at that moment the sun clipped away the edge of the cloud; its rays struck his chest with a fiery warmth. Emily shaded her eyes and he knew she had seen the sun glint off his watch case.

Their gazes locked and held for a long time before she turned her face away and stared out to sea.

Justin scrambled down the bluff, but the proud curve of her back warned him to silence. He was beset by a terrible urge to touch her there. To lay his palm against the warm satin of her bare skin and draw her into his arms. His breath caught in his throat, trapped by an unbearable wave of longing.

He swallowed his questions, hesitant to shatter anything as fragile as her pride. “I saw you in the village.”

“Forgive me for intruding. I hope I didn’t stop you from healing any lepers or raising any natives from the dead.” Her voice was as brittle as her stance as she swung around to face him. “Where are your followers? I expected you’d be trailed by a veritable parade of blind men and paralytics.”

Her mocking tone stung him less than the depth of her emotion. It was not a child’s petulance he read in her darkened eyes, but the anguish of a woman.

He stretched out his hand, no longer able to keep from touching her. She recoiled visibly and his fingers slowly curled into his palm.

He fought to keep his voice steady. “You’re not the only woman to flee to this country to escape an intolerable past. If someone has hurt you … if a man has hurt you …?”

Justin’s compassion stabbed Emily like a blade. She wanted to scream, “You! You’ve hurt me!” but the words were locked inside some dark, secret place.

Her gaze raked him with all the cool contempt she could muster. “I’m not like them. You’re not my savior. I’m not compelled to spill my sins to the mighty Pakeha.”

He stepped back, and she suddenly knew what made his face so compelling. His features came alive with every emotion. Even pain. A desperate need to comfort him flooded her. Fighting it, she struck out like a wounded animal.

“What is it, Mr. Connor? Haven’t I put you high enough on my pedestal?” She stalked him, spurred by some dangerous need to move him, to elicit some reaction that would prove he was no marble saint, but only a flawed creature like herself. “You enjoy their adoration, don’t you? It must be very gratifying for a man like you.”

A moment earlier she wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his face had closed now, gone as immobile as a Maori totem. His words were clipped. “What sort of man might that be, Emily?”

“Patron to valets. Friend to lizards.” She drew the crimson flower from her hair and ran it up his muscular arm, tracing teasing swirls on his sun-heated skin. “Is that what you want from me? Blind adoration?”

His body was rigid with tension, but the uneven rhythm of his breathing warned her she had affected him.

Tilting her face to his, she rubbed against him with a boldness that would have shamed a feline. “Shall I fall on my knees and wash your feet with my tears?”

Emily was mocking him. Mocking his faith and his life. And all Justin could think of was the kittenish softness of her breasts pressed against his chest. He wanted to free them from their thin band of calico, to feel their lush curves brand his skin with their naked splendor, to stroke their coral tips to aching fruition with his fingertips. The velvety petals of the bloom opened against his skin just as her lips might open to his tongue’s invasion, her body to his fierce possession.

She must be truly mad to taunt him in such isolation. His senses sang with the relentless rhythm of the sea. How easy it would be to push her down on the bed of sand and take her without any of the niceties society demanded.

He wrapped one arm around her and pulled her crudely and deliberately into the cradle of his thighs.

Emily hung in his embrace, her courage melting in the heat of his wary, smoldering gaze. Somehow he had seized the moment and made it his own. She trembled with a
primitive fever, but still she met his gaze squarely, refusing to lower her lashes, refusing to shy away from his blatant need.

He pressed against her, moving, seeking, showing her without words how easy it would be for the contours of their bodies to mold into one. He was marble, yes, but molten marble, not cool and distant, but hot and seething. He was not a saint, but a man. All man.

“Which of your foolish lads taught you to play such a dangerous game?” he asked.

“You don’t like danger, do you, Mr. Connor?”

“I don’t like games.”

As she gazed deep into his eyes, his pupils seemed to swirl in a sea of amber. Her need. His power. Her temptation. His challenge. Emily dropped her head back, going light-headed with fear.

He caught her by the shoulders, his face darkened with emotion. “I never asked you to worship me, Emily. All I wanted from you was a little common courtesy.”

He thrust her away from him and strode down the beach. Emily knew he was lying. He wanted her. Badly. And that was one weapon she’d never thought to hold. Shaken, she sank down in the sand and watched the encroaching tide crumble her castle.

Chapter 8
 

J
ustin had walked the twisted corridors of the Victorian mansion hundreds of times, first in childhood, then in dreams. The plush burgundy carpet unrolled at his feet. He was a boy again, hurrying past dim passages drenched in the shadows of flickering gaslight. Tall doors flanked the hallway, dwarfing him with their mahogany splendor. He was late again, always late, and he knew his father would be displeased.

His thin legs would not carry him fast enough. The corridor stretched into infinity. He began to try doors, afraid they’d be locked, but more afraid they wouldn’t be. He rattled each crystal knob with shaking fingers. If he made too much noise, his father would lock away the piano and send him back to his room without supper. His stomach knotted with hunger.

Light blazed at the end of the corridor. His steps slowed, mired in some unspeakable dread. Now the carpet was unrolling faster, dragging him into the widening arc
of light against his will. As the light engulfed him, he swallowed a scream.

Thank God he had. There was nothing to be afraid of. He was standing inside the dining room, where his family had gathered around the long oak table. He scooted into his seat, perplexed by the empty chair at his side. They were all there. His mother. His three sisters, demure in their ruffled frocks. His ancient grandmother, nodding in her pudding.

Glowering, his father lifted a carving knife and pulled the covered warming tray toward him. The light from the gasolier burnished the keen blade. Justin glanced again at the chair beside him, haunted by its emptiness.

His father’s fingers curled around the handle of the silver lid. Justin’s stomach spun. He slammed his chair back, overturning it. He had to warn his father, to somehow stop him from lifting that lid before it was too late.

His father shook his head. His mouth didn’t move, but the unspoken words pounded through the room in bass counterpart to his sisters’ soprano giggles.
Don’t be so sensitive, boy. You’re too damned sensitive for your own good
.

With a terrible grin his father lifted the lid of the warming tray. Justin screamed. Then he was alone in the dining room, alone with the shadowy figure in the chair next to him. The figure turned, basking in the glow of the gaslight.

Nicky
.

Nicholas in all of his dark beauty, his hair slicked back at the temples, his teeth flashing white against his swarthy skin.

He pointed a tapered finger at Justin. “Your father was right, my boy. You always were too goddamned sensitive for your own good.”

He threw back his head in a burst of baritone laughter. Justin clapped his hands over his ears and backed into the
corner until his own screams faded into the bright, tinkling notes of a child’s laughter.

Emily sat straight up as a hoarse whimper arrowed through the darkness. She rubbed her eyes, disoriented. How late was it? she wondered. Exhausted by the playful beating her body had taken from sea and sun, and unable to endure either the false cheer of Penfeld’s prattling or the sight of Justin’s empty pallet, she had crawled to her own blankets after dinner and collapsed in a dreamless heap.

Her eyes adjusted slowly. Pale wisps of moonlight drifted through the window. Penfeld’s comforting bulk was humped under his blankets. A low moan shuddered the silence.

Emily sat up on her knees, her heart hammering in her throat. Justin was only a vague shape in the shadows. She crept toward him, dragging one of her blankets behind her like a lifeline.

A shallow beam of moonlight caressed his face. His waking defenses had fled, leaving him as helpless as a child in sleep. Sweat beaded his upper lip. Emily wanted to touch him, to smooth away the grooves of pain around his mouth, to wipe the shadows from beneath his eyes. He flung out an arm, startling her, and she jerked back her hand.

He had thrashed his way out of the blankets, and the first two buttons of his dungarees had come undone. There was something touching about the untanned swath of skin beneath the folded flap of calico, a beguiling reminder of the pale, proper young Englishman he had once been. He muttered a name between clenched teeth. Emily leaned over, torn between curiosity and empathy.

His body twitched. His face crumpled in a spasm of horror. She reached for him, despising herself for her hesitation.

His eyes flew open. With dizzying speed and no more
than a grunt of exertion he caught her wrists and rolled over, pinning her beneath the hard length of his body.

A single word, fraught with meaning, hoarse with accusation, flew from his lips.

“Claire.”

Chapter 9
 

E
mily’s heart stopped.

A jolt of recognition blazed like a comet through Justin’s eyes, then skimmed away, leaving her straddled by a bewildered stranger. She didn’t know whether to laugh with relief or weep with disappointment.

“Emily? What in the hell …?”

She chose her words with care. “You were dreaming. Having a nightmare.”

“Dreaming?”

Justin’s gaze traced Emily’s features in confusion. The moonlight had softened her gamin edges, given her brown eyes a glow hauntingly familiar in its tenderness. Why did it hurt so bloody much to look at her? There was something there. Something he ought to remember flirting with the edges of his consciousness. His gaze traveled downward, held captive by the pliant sprawl of her limbs beneath him, her unspoken acceptance of his weight and will. Her slender wrists hung limp in his harsh grip.