The Next Best Bride (19 page)

She glanced around as if afraid someone followed. "What is this place?"

He pushed aside some dense shrubbery, revealing a spacious, secluded area. It was shaded, but still received enough of the sun that he could see her when he needed to — when she at last understood what it was he wanted her to feel.

"My secret hideaway."

Cautiously, she crept in. "This is a bower." At last she relaxed, a smile of appreciation lighting her face. "However did you find it?"

He watched her eyes, worshiping his secret place as he had done when he found it. His impulse had not been a mistake. She saw what he did when she looked at the shelter — a safe haven from the world. "When I was a child I explored here often. This was a place I could come to where no one could hurt me."

The effects of wine and passion had dimmed enough for her to catch more of his meaning than he liked. She put her hand on his arm in a soothing gesture. "Did others often hurt you?"

He pulled her toward him and began to unfasten her gown. "No. That was just my childish way of viewing things, I suppose."

She twisted so that she could look at him full on. "I won't hurt you."

He could hear the urgency with which she spoke. As if she thought he needed reassurance of the fact. He took her face in his hands for a brief moment, meeting her gaze. "You couldn't hurt anyone, my love. You are the most gentle woman I've ever known."

He pushed her gown down to her waist and began to work on her corset laces with eager fingers. She lifted her hands to his chest and tried to push away, but could not because his arms were around her, locking her to him. A touch of panic tinged her movements. "What are you doing?"

He released her and saw the panic that had begun to rise in her eyes recede. "No one can see us here. We can do the thing properly. We are safe here."

"Safe?" Her gaze softened at the word. There was more indulgence than passion in her smile, but she stopped protesting and began to unfasten his shirt. "You are a single-minded man, my lord. No wonder you made your wager so fearlessly."

He wished the reckless bet to Hades. No doubt his boast that he would have a son in ten months time was the main reason for her refusal to give herself fully to him. "It is not the wager I am thinking of."

"No." She smiled and there was a knowledge in her smile. A radiance that spoke of understanding. "You are thinking of me, and my pleasure. You are thinking that if you please me, you will please yourself even more."

His groin tightened at the way her lips curled up and her eyes lit. The depth of her understanding might have made him wary if he were in the mood to be cautious. But he was not. He spread their discarded clothing on the ground and pressed her back atop the makeshift bed. The fever of his passion returned as he held her against him, warm and soft. "Do you feel safe here? With me?"

His heartbeat dipped in alarm when she turned her face away from him. "I should not." And then she rubbed her cheek against his. "But I do."

He pressed a kiss to the smooth warm skin of her shoulder. "There is no need for haste, then?"

"No."

"Good." He rolled over to lean on one arm above her. "Then let me look at you."

She lay back shyly, allowing him to enjoy the sight of her body dappled with light and shadow. He said softly, tracing the patterns on her skin with one finger. "I wish I could paint you like this, Helena. I would use oils and hang my portrait of you above my bed."

"I would not let you," she answered with a smile, rising up to twine her arms around his neck and kiss him.

He pressed her back to the ground gently. "Will you let me use your body for my canvas then?"

Her smile held a puzzled question. He leaned in to kiss the tip of her nose, but escaped before she could capture him for a full kiss. "You, my bride, are a creative, imaginative spirit. Today, however, you will learn what it is to be the work of art that I create with my brushes." He fluttered the tips of his fingers across her belly and bent to dip his tongue into the little depression there.

She would have bolted upright at the shock of sensation, but Rand was done preparing the canvas. Moving over her, he put one hand on each breast to hold her gently down. It was time to create a masterpiece. His thumbs deftly stroked her nipples as he moved his tongue down her belly and dove for a pearl beyond price.

She gasped and surged against him, partly in protest, partly in surprise. He had found his prize, though, and moved his tongue against her, slashing and swirling until she moved with him and her hands came down to twine in his hair. Encouraging him. Guiding him.

She was such a quiet woman he had not been certain he would know when she climaxed. But there was no mistaking when the convulsion toward orgasm began. The pulsations strengthened even as she cried out.

He lifted his head to glimpse her expression as she fully realized the culmination he had promised her. Her gaze burned into him, fierce and bright. Focused on some distant point, and yet aware of him. Aware that he had shown her the truth of desire and fulfillment, at last.

An answering surge of desire shuddered through him involuntarily and he rose up to capture her mouth with his. With a moan she melted to him, and he felt her tensions releasing under his hands. His shaft slid into her still pulsing warmth and he had time to press into her once, twice, before he let himself go with a hoarse cry of triumph.

The harsh sound of his ragged breathing didn't completely mask Helena's own struggle to catch her breath. When he kissed her face he tasted tears. He rested his head against her shoulder, felt the way their bodies melded full length together. He had done it. He had melted his ice queen, at last.

Over the edge
. As the last waves of sensation loosened their grip upon her, and sanity returned, Helena gasped for breath. She could see her husband falling into the familiar deep sleep he seemed to need after lovemaking. Every detail of his face etched itself onto her heart. Every breath she took matched his breath. His arms were warm around her and her only regret was that there could be no way for her pens to capture such perfect communion between two souls.

He smiled at her tenderly, and her breath caught in her throat. Had he felt the connection between them? How could he not? Would he speak of it?

He closed his eyes and said raggedly, "I knew I could thaw you, Helena. I knew there was a passionate woman under all that propriety. Now tell me a woman's climax is a myth." He laughed drowsily, pushing back the tendrils of hair which had loosened around her face. His fingers were gentle. His words, however, shattered her heart.

Thaw her? Is that how he saw what they had done? She left the shelter of his arms, ignoring his sleepy murmurs of protest.

She stumbled about, retrieving her rumpled clothes, dressing herself haphazardly without his help. Her head knew her heart should not hurt so. He had never promised her more than he had given. He only wanted to prove a point with her. She was the one who had misunderstood.

She glanced at the bower that had seemed so safe and welcoming not so very long ago. A part of himself no one else had ever seen. When he brought her to his childhood sanctuary, she had thought... No, she hadn't thought, that was the problem. How could she have forgotten herself so? Had she learned nothing from her experience with William?

"Come lie down with me," he murmured lazily. He lay on the ground, a beautiful, sated, male creature regarding her with heavy-lidded eyes that slowly closed as she watched. Who would have expected that it would hurt so much more to be seduced by one's husband than by some unfaithful cad?

His dark lashes fanned his cheek. One hand curled under his jaw. The sleep of an angel. She thought Adam could have looked no less magnificent after Eve had — drat the man. She had fallen. He had held out the apple and she had eaten. Did he even realize what he had done to her heart when he 'thawed' her body?

There was a smile of satisfaction on his face. Self-satisfaction. She was tempted to kick him. She had understood what he was about — proving his prowess as a lover. But she had allowed herself to forget the cost to her if he succeeded.

He had been determined to make her forget. Determined to teach her what she did not want to know. "Did you have a wager on that, too?" she whispered as the breeze stirred the leaves, and the dappled light shifted, caressed the perfection of the form she knew so well. She wanted to sketch him. Even now.

He stirred at the sound of her voice and asked sleepily, "What, my love?"

My love
. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. "Did you wager how many days it would take you to push me over the edge?" His only answer was the deep even breathing of sleep.

She took up her sketchbook and pen. Her strokes were fierce and sure as she captured him in his secret bower. His sanctuary. But not hers.

A tear smudged a taut graceful line of ink. His left arm. Helena brushed away the tear, but did not fix the blemish on her drawing. This sketch was meant to serve as a warning to her heart in the future.

When she finished, she sat for a moment in the peaceful bower and regarded her work. Satisfied, she packed her things neatly and left him where he slept.

* * * * *

Marie turned white when she saw her mistress, pins askew and corset unlaced. "Did he beat you, milady?" She clapped her hands over her mouth and her too pale face abruptly reddened.

"Don't be silly, Marie," Helena said to calm the child. "The earl would not beat me." No. He preferred to use pleasure to torture her.

"Of course, milady. Forgive me." The maid stood staring at the floor, clearly disbelieving, but in control of herself enough now to know she should not display her misgivings any more than she could help.

Helena sighed. "Draw my bath, please. I took a spill, that is all." A hard spill. "I will be fine when I am bathed and changed."

The maid moved toward the door. "Yes, milady. At once, milady." Marie's quick glance of sympathy told her she had not been entirely convincing.

Chapter Fifteen

The sun rode low in the sky by the time Rand woke in the bower. The dinner hour. He leapt up with a curse and threw on his clothing without bothering to fasten anything properly. Better to shock the servants than be late for dinner.

Why had Helena left him here alone? Perhaps, he reflected, she had tried to wake him and found herself unable to rouse him? He grinned ruefully. No, he had been sleeping the sleep of the dead after she roused him so thoroughly earlier. He had forgotten how effective a love tool the tongue could be, even when it was only used to shape words. She had an unexpected gift for wielding her own, his prim little wife.

Griggson informed him stiffly that his wife had already left in the carriage. Rand attributed his valet's starchy manner to the state his master's clothes were in. But he had no time to placate the man. Helena was alone with the old man.

The carriage had left a good quarter hour ago, too. Damn. He would be late. He hurried to change and waved away the valet's attempt to shave him. "No time for that. Don't want to leave my wife alone with the marquess too long."

He arrived before dinner was served, barely. Both his wife and his grandfather were seated. When he came hurrying into the room, he was greeted with twin glares of equal frigidity. He wished he had been in time for a glass of brandy. He was certain he would need it before the evening was finished.

"Ah," the old man intoned, when he arrived breathless from his trot to the main house. "Decided to join us, have you? Don't trust me with your wife?"

As he settled into place and forced himself to appear unaware of their displeasure, he noticed that there was an atmosphere of suppressed tension in the room. At first he thought his grandfather had said something to put Helena on guard.

"I may not trust you, grandfather, but I trust my wife." He smiled at Helena, hoping she would forgive him for leaving her in the lion's den unguarded. "Forgive me?"

Her look was colder than a dripping icicle. "You have no need of forgiveness from me, my lord. I have no expectations that you will join me for dinner if it does not please you to do so."

He supposed he could not blame her for being put out when he had fallen into deep sleep and left her to return to the dower house alone. Belatedly, he remembered that she could not lace her corset herself. So Marie, at the very least, knew what had gone on between them. And that meant the old man would soon know as well.

Damn. He would have to find some way to appease her wounded pride. But not here, in front of his grandfather. He ignored the complaint that underlay her words and chose to respond only to the outward sentiment. "I am fortunate to have been blessed with so undemanding a wife."

She lifted a forkful of beef to her mouth and he thought she would not answer him. But she paused, the fork held suspended as if she were struck by some profundity. "Fortune has little to do with it, I suspect."

The old man looked from one to the other, his eyes kindling with interest. Rand drained his glass of wine and signaled for more. His grandfather had caught the scent of tension between them and wished to know more.

Indeed, he did not bother with his own meal before he aimed his first question of the evening. "You have been here longer than usual, Rand. May I take it that married life has settled you at last?"

Rand knew that he would have to deal with Helena's ire, but he could not resist goading his grandfather. "I have a wager to win, Grandfather." He did not want the old man in any way to assume he was falling in love with his wife. Or that she cared for him in any more than a haphazard fashion.

The old man pressed, looking for a crack to worm wider and discover the truth. "You have been frolicking with your bride I hear."

Rand wondered if, by taking Helena there, he had revealed his sanctuary in the woods to his grandfather, after all these years. "If by frolicking you mean ensuring that I will soon have a son, yes." No, he thought it unlikely. There was no need to have followed him. They had picnicked in full view of the house. And they had both returned considerably rumpled. Damaging enough details, even if the old man couldn't have yet heard them.