The Prisoner (22 page)

“Come, duckies,” said Eunice, wiping her nose with the hem of her apron as she fought back her own tears. “Let's leave Miss Genevieve and Charlotte to have some time on their own.”

Doreen sniffled loudly. “There's some nice warm bannocks in the kitchen.”

“I'm thinkin' a wee walk might be just the thing,” suggested Oliver, his voice choked.

“No.” Genevieve shook her head as she held fast to Charlotte. “I want my children with me.” She opened her arms, beckoning them to come and be enfolded in her protective embrace.

The children surged toward her in a crushing wave, engulfing both her and Charlotte in a ring of love. Genevieve hugged and kissed all of them, feeling desperately protective, promising herself that she would never let any of them so much as leave her sight ever again.

It was only as Oliver closed the door that she suddenly realized that Jack was not amongst them and that Haydon had silently slipped away, leaving her noisy, clamoring family strangely incomplete.

 

N
IGHT HAD SPREAD ITS VELVET WINGS OVER THE
house, leaving Genevieve to make her way up the narrow wooden stairs by the pale waver of her candle flame. The children were all sleeping safely in their beds, and judging by the steady rumble of phlegmy snoring that greeted her on the third floor, so were Oliver, Eunice, and Doreen. She stood outside the door of Haydon's room and listened, her flesh chilled by the cold night air. She did not hear anything. She did not know whether she was glad of that or not. If he had been snoring loudly, she would have swiftly descended the stairs and retreated to her room, telling herself that she would speak with him another time. But the silence beyond his door was deafening. Somehow she knew that he did not sleep, but was awake, listening to her standing lost and alone in the corridor. She hesitated a long moment. Finally, she poised her knuckles to tap upon the wood.

Before her skin brushed against the panel, the door opened and Haydon stood before her, naked except for the plaid from his bed, which he had carelessly draped around his waist. His muscular arms, chest, and torso were sculpted in the wintry shadows of the night and the flickering glow of her candle. He regarded her intently, his expression guarded but composed, as if he had been expecting her.

Her courage began to fail as she stared at him. She wanted to leave, she was certain of it. Instead she adjusted the soft woolen shawl she had wrapped around herself and slipped past him into the room, filling the inky space with a wash of golden light. She set the candle upon the small table that stood by the narrow, rumpled bed.

There was a plain wardrobe in one corner of the room, with a door that wouldn't close properly. Doreen had asked Oliver numerous times, if he could fix it and while he always assured her that he could, he never seemed to find the occasion to do so. Within the wardrobe hung several neatly arranged jackets, shirts, and folded pairs of trousers. Obviously Eunice and Doreen had been trying their best to outfit Haydon in the midst of keeping up with all their other household responsibilities.

There was a low washstand in another corner, which needed a fresh coat of paint. On it sat a chipped jug and basin that was decorated in a clumsy pink rose pattern. It had all seemed clean and cheerful enough when the room was prepared for Doreen, but for a man of Haydon's enormous physical stature and wealth, it was hopelessly cramped and shabby and spartan. The Marquess of Redmond was undoubtedly accustomed to spacious, luxurious surroundings, and here he was sleeping in a servant's room without so much as the benefit of a chair. A shiver rippled through her and she realized the room was also gruelingly cold, as it lacked even a tiny hearth to generate some heat.

“Here,” said Haydon, jerking the remaining plaid off the bed. “You're shaking.”

She held her breath as his hands grazed her shoulders, steeling herself against the potent eroticism of his touch. The wool was suffused with the masculine scent and warmth of his body, and she realized he had been lying naked beneath it before she came. It seemed shockingly intimate to have his warmth wrapped all around her, but the sensation was so comforting she made no move to take it off. Instead she retreated to the far corner of the small room, no great distance in terms of space, but enough that she felt marginally safer.

From herself or Haydon, she wasn't certain.

Haydon could not imagine what had prompted Genevieve to seek him out in the middle of the night, dressed in nothing but a thin nightdress and shawl, but it was clear that something was troubling her. He realized that she had suffered horrendously over the last few days, and even though Charlotte had been safely restored to her that afternoon, her emotions were still ragged. For this reason he vowed he would keep his distance from her. Even as he made this oath, every fiber of his body was awakening to the memory of her lying lush and hot beneath him, writhing and pulsing against his touch. All he wanted to do was strip that flimsy nightrail off her and crush her to him, to lay her on the floor and bury himself inside her and lose himself to her silken heat and strength and staggering beauty. He was disgusted with himself for having such base desires, and yet he could not stop them, could not keep his body from growing hard and beginning to ache with need.

“No one has ever fought for me before,” Genevieve murmured, her voice soft and yet raw, as if it pained her to speak.

Haydon said nothing.

She swallowed thickly, trying to find the words. “For over eight years, I have had to fight alone for my family. I have fought to feed them, clothe them, educate them, and give them a sense that they are loved and worthy.” Her voice cracked slightly as she added, “And there have been some dreadful pitfalls along the way.”

Haydon could well imagine that there had been. Aside from the constant threat of deadly childhood illnesses, there had been the unending battle to find funds to maintain the household, and the painful contempt and censure of the entire community around her.

“I think most of the people around here have always wanted to see me fail,” she continued, her words tinged with bitterness. “Of course, they would never admit to having such uncharitable thoughts, but secretly, they believe my failure is inevitable. They delight in their conviction that my children are lowborn, and that their sinful natures cannot be overcome. And that is why everyone was so ready to send Charlotte back to prison. Everyone felt it was no more than what she deserved. Most of the citizens of Inveraray undoubtedly believed it would ultimately do her good, to lock her up with others who are just as irrevocably flawed and base as she is. But you didn't believe that.”

She regarded him as if she were looking at him for the first time and didn't understand what she saw. “You could have been killed, Haydon. All it would have taken was for Governor Thomson, or Warder Sims, or some lowly clerk at the courthouse to recognize you, and you would have been dragged into jail and hanged by nightfall.”

Her gaze bore into him, trying to delve beneath the layers to find out who he really was. Haydon regarded her with steady calm. She sensed his powerful attraction to her, felt it as keenly as if his hands were upon her and his mouth was raking hard over hers. She drew the blanket around her tighter, only to feel his heat and scent engulf her senses further. Her voice was barely a whisper as she finished, “Why?”

It seemed a simple enough question, and yet there was no easy answer. Haydon wasn't sure he understood his actions himself. All he knew was that he couldn't bear the thought of Charlotte being imprisoned so much as one more day. If the governor and the sheriff had not released her, then Haydon would have gone into the jail and stolen her out of there himself, and damn the bloody consequences. He felt a special affinity toward Charlotte and had wanted to protect her, but he knew that wasn't the sole reason why he had acted as he did. The memory of Emmaline, and how utterly he had failed his fragile daughter, had played a significant role. But he could never admit that to Genevieve. She seemed so pure and good and selfless to him, he could scarcely imagine the contempt she would have for him were she to learn of his selfish, cowardly history.

She stood there, studying him, waiting. He felt as if she were stripping away the layers of him, trying to pull him apart and look inside and understand who he really was. It was understandable that she would be curious, or might even feel that she had a right to know. After all, she had risked both herself and her beloved family to protect him and keep him safe. But he had no desire to have his deepest secrets and failures ferreted out and exposed to the light. She had found him lying in the filth on a prison floor, convicted of murder, and had been told nothing but ghastly stories about his brutality and lack of worth. He wanted her to think him nobler than that—not perfect or free of sin, but at least capable of acting out of a clean, unadorned desire to help others. Beyond that, there was only one reason to explain why he had acted as he did, and it seemed so incredibly simple yet complex that he scarcely dared admit it to himself. And yet in that shadowed, silent moment he could suddenly no longer contain it, could not bury it beneath the crushing depths of his past and his present and whatever little remained of his future.

“I did it for you, Genevieve.”

Her eyes widened. And then she waited for him to qualify it, to say that he had done so because he felt a sense of debt toward her, that he owed her something for all the risks she had taken and the trouble she had gone to on his behalf, and now their account was settled and they could part on equal terms.

He said nothing.

It was this that cracked the wall of resistance she had so carefully constructed against him. A man like Charles would have blathered on incessantly about the whys and wherefores, and what all of this must now mean between them. He would have expected payment of some kind, although not with anything so crass and simple as money. No, Charles would have expected a debt of gratitude, in which he would forever own some part of her, and whatever she gave of herself would never be sufficient to render the debt paid. But Haydon merely stood there, strong yet strangely vulnerable. It was as if he had opened some long-hidden part of his soul to her, and was now waiting to see whether she would trample upon it or treat it with care.

A desperate longing surged through her, the need to be held by him, to be kissed and stroked and crushed by the glorious power and heat of him. She was suddenly aware of the thinness of her nightdress and the cool air upon her bare legs, the worn, frigid floor beneath her slippered feet, and the promise of warmth from his flesh. She had lived for over eight years amidst a constant blur of people who needed her, children and adults who relied upon her to provide for them, to show them how to be strong and fight back against a world that seemed determined to reduce them to rubble. But until that moment, as she stood staring into Haydon's heart, she had not understood how terribly alone and afraid she had been. And suddenly she could not bear it a moment longer.

With a little sob she ran to him, wrapped her arms fiercely about his neck and crushed her lips to his, losing herself to his powerful longing as she drew him closer to her heart.

Haydon moaned and hauled her slender body against him. The plaid he had wrapped around his waist slid down his legs and puddled upon the floor, leaving him naked. He pressed himself against her, maddeningly aroused by the soft caress of the woolen blanket that was slipping down Genevieve's body. Her thin shawl followed, until finally she was garbed in nothing but the transparent linen sheath of her nightgown, which was worn and plain and thoroughly arousing. He began to fumble with the closures at her neck, kissing her deeply as he did so, but his ardor made his fingers clumsy and the tiny buttons refused to yield. With a growl of frustration he tore the fabric apart, exposing her silky cool skin. The night rail trickled down her body with a whisper, leaving both of them naked in the flickering peach light.

“Genevieve,” he murmured, his voice rough with awe.

He lifted her up into his arms, enjoying the softness of her cradled against his own muscled body, then kissed her ravenously as he laid her upon the narrow bed. Her hair spilled in glorious red-gold waves across the pillow, and her flesh was luminous against the sun-bleached sheets. He stretched out over her and covered her with himself, plunging his hands into her hair as he stroked and tasted the deepest recesses of her mouth. She was all softness and curves and coolness and heat, and he could not seem to get enough of her.

His hands roamed across her milky flesh, touching and swirling and caressing, learning every inch of her as his tongue swept along the ivory column of her throat, down the fine structure of her collarbone, over the lush hill of her breast. He drew a claret-colored peak into his mouth and suckled long and hard, causing her to moan with pleasure, then went to the other breast and suckled it as well, until both nipples had tightened into swollen buds.

From there he journeyed down, brushing his lips across the flat of her belly, caressing the velvet cream of her thighs, then pressing his face into the dark triangle between. Genevieve gasped and tried to push him away, but he gripped the slender bones of her wrists and held her firmly. Imprisoning her against the mattress, he dipped his head low and flicked his tongue deep inside her hot, slick opening. She gasped again, but this time it was with pure, undiluted pleasure.

He began to lap at her, tasting her with slow, languid strokes, swirling his tongue in and out, and over the sweet pink petals of her. He found the pearly nub in which her pleasure was centered and he sucked gently upon it, causing her to arch suddenly against him, raising herself up so that he might taste her better.

Genevieve jerked her wrists free of Haydon's grasp and threaded her fingers deep into the ebony mane of his hair, pulling him closer as she opened her legs and wantonly offered herself to him. She felt as if she were melting, and yet she had never felt so incredibly tense. She wanted him to touch her and kiss her and lick her everywhere, to devour her whole, until there was nothing left of her that did not belong to him. The pleasure roiling within her was unbearable, but it wasn't enough, for the more Haydon's tongue and lips swirled and stroked the intimate depths of her, the more she wanted him to taste her faster, harder, more deeply. A terrible ache was blooming far inside her, a tight hollowness that could not be filled by the magnificent caresses he was raining upon her hot, wet womanhood. And then he slowly pressed a finger deep inside her and began to move it in and out in leisurely, deliberate thrusts, dancing in rhythm with the agonizing caresses of his mouth. It was more than she could bear, she was certain of it, and yet it wasn't enough, and so she closed her thighs around the roughness of his jaw and held him fast, taking pleasure in the sandy feel of his cheeks against her silky skin, the scalding slickness of his mouth on her hot, coral cleft, the gloriously deep penetration of his finger as it slipped in and out, exploring and worshiping her until there was nothing but Haydon and the magnificent wet fire that was raging within her.