The Wolf of Winterthorne: Scandalous Secrets, Book 4 (30 page)

“Scones …” Logan’s cadence was gentle. “How did I fail to recognize you when you mentioned your love of scones?”

“I don’t think you did,” she glanced at Logan. “Your heart knew who I was. You were too frightened to acknowledge it. I cannot blame you. You were afraid of the pain the memories would evoke.”

Pain
.

Her vision clouded, the memories so fresh now. The love, the loss … finding her parents only to lose them all over again, this time over a very short duration.

Logan brushed a tear from her cheek. Arabella had remained unaware that she was crying, albeit softly. “I remember everything as if it happened yesterday. Perhaps that is because it all came flooding back in my dreams last night. Visions assailing me. One scene followed by another then another – all were jagged, out of order. Gradually, they became more vivid until I awakened to discover that my mind was no longer murky, my past no longer shrouded in a thick haze. The pieces fit chronologically. My dreams, my nightmares made sense.”

“Oh, Bella. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I needed time to wallow. I know I sound like a petulant child, but pain immediately followed happiness, a stark reminder of the losses.” She reached into his vest pocket, fumbling with his pewter pocket watch. “This belonged to my father, did it not?”

Nodding, Logan studied the precious metal, old yet lovingly preserved first by Bella’s father, then by him. “Your father refused my assistance. However, he would allow me to do business with him. I purchased the watch along with some other heirlooms.”

“Why would he part with such things?” Bella wished she hadn’t removed her gloves, her fingers now cold. The chill seeped into her chest, through to her core.

“Because I promised to return them to you,” Logan’s chin quivered, his baritone rough with emotion. “It was my reason for keeping track of you all these years, though truth be told I would have done so regardless. Because I loved you still. Even after so many years. Your father knew that.”

“He was well aware that I had never gotten over you.” Arabella clutched her father’s watch, the metal cool within her fingers. “What would my parents think of me now? Of me and Sybil? They sacrificed so much for us and one is destroying the other. My parents would be mortified.”

Logan placed his hand over hers. “With her, not you.” His flesh exuded warmth however, his touch failed to infuse her with it.

Instead, her fingers were growing numb.

Bella placed the pocket watch in her lap, the circular pewter in staunch contrast to the vibrant emerald and gold fabric of her skirts. She began to pry a bunch of pine needles apart, their scent becoming more potent, as she attempted to move her fingers, to ward off the chill.

It was a losing battle.

At last, she voiced the sentiment that was like a noose around her neck, choking her. “I should have done more to reach Sybil. I was judgmental and renounced her – my own twin.”

“Stop,” Logan took her hands in his, prying the needles from her grasp and rubbing her flesh with his palms. “None of this is your fault, Bella. You cannot control Sybil. No one can. Your father knew that.”

“How can you be certain?” Her eyes searched his for a sign that he was correct.

Logan brushed a stray tendril behind her ear. “He confided in me during our last conversation. When I acquired the watch. He understood that Sybil was not to be trusted and that even with the kindest mother and sister, she chose greed and desire to over family. He advised me to find you, to have faith in us.”

“Why didn’t you?” her voice cracked.

He bit his lip before inhaling a ragged breath. “I did. I went to your last known residence to find it in disarray. One of the maids who liked to gossip pulled me aside, told me that you had been sacked for bedding your employer. She had seen you together, caught you in the act. Your reputation was ruined and you had fled. The whole household was in an uproar.”

“And you had no reason not to believe her.”

An unnatural silence befell them. No breeze, no birds … not even the leaves could be heard rustling. It was as if a hush hung heavy over the landscape, over their past, perhaps over their future?

Arabella stared at the sharp pines spread out before her. It was all she could see, all she could concentrate upon, for the rage she felt for her sister was rising within her chest, emanating from her core. She felt as if she may combust, her fury so palpable.

“I am sorry I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt.” Logan’s shoulders stooped. Arabella saw the action through the corner of her eye.

Leaping to her feet, Bella paced the expanse of deadened earth around the tree. “How could you – why should you? It was yet another piece of me that Sybil tainted. That she stole from me.”

All it had taken was one instant for Arabella’s ire to rear its ugly head, to overtake her in a rush.

Adolphus lifted his head in alarm.

“It is all right, boy,” Logan patted the dog as he stood. “Go to the house.”

The canine looked at Arabella before returning his attention to his master who was now towering over him.

“She is safe. Now, go,” Logan ordered. The dog whined as he followed instructions, returning to the residence.

Logan reached Bella in two swift strides, encircling her in his arms.

“Please, don’t,” Bella pulled away, though Logan clutched her tighter. “Please, Logan. I am exhausted … I am tortured. My heart aches with memories of incidents from long ago that feel like fresh wounds because of Sybil. I am drowning in the overwhelming realization that I cannot win against my own sister’s methodical destruction of my life. I feel as if I will collapse under the pressure of this all-encompassing loss. My fury is all I have to sustain me.”

“No, I will sustain you,” Logan cupped her face in his palms. “Do not allow your anger towards Sybil to overpower the good in you. We will overcome her duplicities. We will survive your sister. You and I. And our hound.”

There it was again.
Our
. One word that filled her heart with rapture. “Our hound?”

“Everything is ours now,” Logan pressed the cool metal of his watch against her palms. “This beloved trinket is proof of our fate. Your father entrusted me with his possessions, believed that I would love you again and he was correct. His faith endured, as will ours. Surely your father has proven that there are some things your sister cannot destroy?”

Like fog rising from the moors, Arabella’s tension abated. “Who would have suspected you of being such a proponent of faith?” She released a nervous laugh.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, love,” Logan scoffed.

“You are. As it so happens, I am in desperate need of reminders. Promise you won’t allow me to forget,” Arabella placed her father’s watch in Logan’s vest pocket before resting her hand against his heart. “Sybil was livid with her lot in life, with her lack of social standing, with her failure to become prominent. I cannot let my rage to destroy me the way it did her. Please, make certain that I don’t lose my way.”

Logan caressed the small of her back through the fabric of her cloak. “Never. I will never release you. You belong beside me.”

He bent his head, nipping her ear lobe with his teeth before kissing her neck. Her body shuddered beneath his lips.

Pausing, Logan inhaled. Her essence, mingled with the woodsy outdoor scents, caused his breathing to become labored.

Bella looped her forefinger in the waistband of his trousers. “Beside you, beneath you, on top of you, perhaps?”

Her teasing suggestions, her touch, sent a jolt, a shock to his system. Arabella then crushed her lips against his.

With her life spiraling, he recognized his wife’s urgent need for dominance and was quick to grant her entry. Bella splayed her hands against his chest with such force that Logan stumbled backwards, into the massive tree trunk he had been leaning against moments before.

Pulling away with a ragged sigh, Bella whispered. “I am distracting us. From our guest, from your plan to escape Sybil’s clutches—”

“There is much time to discuss our plan, my love,” he emphasized while unbuttoning her cloak. Logan then traced a path to the fabric above her bosom, his fingers lingering on the flesh at her bodice. “I would much rather spend time alone with my wife, whom I adore to distraction, away from prying eyes.”

“Ah,” Bella bit her lower lip as Logan’s fingertips brushed lower, under the fabric of her gown. Grazing what he knew to be the silken skin near her taut buds. “Are you certain no one can see us?”

Logan nodded, teasing her breast under her shift. “Not since Adolphus departed. We must reward him later for following instructions.”

Lacing her fingers through his hair, Arabella kissed Logan. His manhood throbbed for her as she massaged his tongue with hers.

“How about I reward you now?” she teased.

“For what?” confusion clouded Logan’s brain. He was having a difficult time concentrating on conversation when Arabella continued to awaken his body with sensations so forceful that they wracked his body.

“For loving me when you had every reason not to,” she shoved his jacket from his shoulders. “For being loyal to my father and granting his wish that you love me.”

Logan shrugged out of his jacket. “He was like a father to me.”

“I know. I remember,” Arabella loosened his cravat then unbuttoned his shirt. “Which makes me love you even more. Because you could have left and never looked back after you thought I rebuffed you, yet you chose to do the complete opposite upon your return from India. You offered my father aid, friendship and salvaged his pride by purchasing goods from him. You granted him power when he was losing everything he had worked so hard for. That means more than you can imagine.”

She explored his chest with her fingertips, twirling a springy hair. Logan could barely form the words “I did what I thought just … what I would hope for, had I been in a similar situation.”

“Which makes me the most fortunate of wives,” Arabella teased Logan by dipping her fingertips beneath the fabric of his trousers. “My love, my husband. My heart beats for you.”

Halting his wife’s exploration by lifting her in the air, Logan carried her to his greatcoat, setting her down with care. He joined her on the ground, where Arabella straddled him. Her hands sliding beneath his shirt, she dug her fingernails into his flesh as she kissed him slowly, methodically, as if her passionate kisses were meant to convey all the love in her heart.

She stroked his tongue with hers. Bella’s kisses, lingering and seductive, sent his head spinning. Logan couldn’t get close enough to her, he longed to touch his wife and be touched by her. It was a thirst, and an insatiable one at that.

“Lose yourself within me,” Arabella murmured.

“Your every wish is my command, my love,” his answer, uttered before devouring her lips in another heartfelt kiss.

Beneath the shade of the bank of pine trees flanking them, Arabella rode Logan until their bodies reached euphoria together, spasms of pleasure causing them to quiver.

They lay underneath the warm fabric of her cloak long after their joining as Logan continued to kiss her, to caress her. Each brush of Arabella’s soft lips against his, each massage of her tongue, sent his hands on a new exploration. Logan longed to remember each inch of flesh, each beauty mark, each curve of her body.

How could he ever forget?

Hidden by the large trunks and heavy brush surrounding them, in the spot where Logan loved to read in the spring and summer months, they continued to declare their love for one another.

Uncertain how much time had passed, Logan lay with his wife, his arms wrapped around her waist as he studied the bright blue sky. The sun had shifted, the white fluffy clouds drifting past in different shapes. The shade of the pine trees had grown thicker. It was, by Logan’s assessment, late afternoon.

“How is it possible that the grounds of Winterthorne are so breathtaking?” Arabella sighed, resting her cheek on Logan’s chest. “These grounds, this house, were so imposing at first glance. Now they are comforting.”

Logan kissed her blonde curls, damp from their lovemaking. “That happens when you find your home.”

“I believe my home is wherever you are,” she kissed his chest.

Logan smiled. “I feel the same. Oh, I forgot,” he leaned forward, seeking his jacket then reaching for it.

“Dare I ask what is so essential that you must leave my arms?” Arabella rested her head on her elbow.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Logan removed a gold locket on a matching chain. “This is. It belonged—”

“To my mother,” Arabella traced the oval charm. “When you said you purchased other heirlooms from my father, I was far too emotional to ask what they were.”

Logan winked at his bride. “I wanted you to remember your parents before I gave this to you. So it would hold more significance.” He pried the gold locket open.

In it was a sketch of Arabella’s mother and father on their wedding day.

“Oh my,” Bella’s eyes welled with tears.

Wiping them with the pads of his fingers, Logan’s heart constricted. “I never meant to make you cry.”

His wife offered him the sweetest of smiles. “These are happy tears because I couldn’t think of a more wonderful gift.” She studied the portrait.