Come the Dawn (12 page)

India plunged down the rear steps of Thornwood House, her heart hammering. Any moment she expected to see Chilton emerge, or Thorne himself, his face tight with fury.

No matter. She could not stay further. Every hour risked a graver wound to her heart. How wrong she had been to hope that the brush of her lips could make Thorne remember. She remembered the aching moments when he had stood above her, drinking in the sight of her. His expression had been fierce, but not with memory or recognition. Only lust had tempted him in that silent, shadowed bedroom.

What a fool she had been! India plunged through the darkness, her walking stick tight at her side. She looked about for a passing hackney, but her greatest urgency at that moment was to be away from Thornwood House. After that she would worry about her own safety.

The hooves of a team clattered behind her. India turned eagerly, then felt her shoulders gripped tightly.

“You should not have run from me.” Devlyn’s scar gleamed in the moonlight, stark against his hard jaw.

“No? Did you wish to have more time to gloat?”

“I gave you my reasons, damn it.”

“Maybe I don’t
want
reasons. Now let me go before I—”

The next minute India was caught up in Thorne’s arms as he strode to the carriage he had left waiting down the street. He nodded tautly to the coachman who slid open the door.

“Where are you taking me?” India demanded as he pulled her inside and jerked the door closed. Dev tapped on the wall of the carriage and the horses shot forward.

“I haven’t decided.
No
walls seem to hold you.”

India muttered angrily and shoved at his chest. “You can’t do this!”

The movement sent her soft hips grinding over his rigid thighs. His eyes hardened. “I’m a man, not a saint.” He stifled a curse, his fingers tightening on her shoulders. “Stay still or we will both be sorry.”

“I already am,” India hissed, thrown by the carriage as it rocked around a corner. Pain slammed through her side, and she went rigid.

Scowling, Devlyn leaned back and caught her against him, cushioning her from the jolting movements of the carriage with his body.

But the pain India felt in her side was nothing compared to the heat that swept through her at the intimate press of his arms and the tension of his thighs beneath her.

All she wanted was to be
free
of him. Now, before the heat in her blood grew unbearable. “Can’t you even let me escape in peace?”

“Not like this. You could have been killed,” he said harshly.

“Maybe there are different ways of dying.” India took a ragged breath. “But I won’t go back. Nothing you do can make me.” Heaviness gathered in her chest like the dawn mist that clung to the Norfolk marshes.

“You will. I’ll see to it.”

“Will you? The minute you turn around, I’ll be gone. I won’t be your prisoner.”

“Because of what happened between us? If so, there is no need to worry. That particular scene will never be repeated, I assure you.”

The cool edge to Thorne’s voice fired India’s fury. Was his control so perfect that he could simply shove her out of his thoughts like coal dust from a dirty grate?

Her hands tightened.

Some reckless instinct made her yearn to teach this icy stranger that he was not so impervious as he imagined. As the carriage swayed, India moved toward him. She did not stop to think, but followed that first angry instinct, her breast sliding over his chest.

Instantly his body tightened.

A promising start, she thought. Her eyes narrowed. She moved to the next stage of the attack gradually unfurling in her mind.

Her fingers moved over Thorne’s shoulders.

“What do you think you’re
doing?”

“Testing your resolve, my lord. After all, you have assured me that your control is complete.” Her eyes glittered, belying the careful calm of her voice. “But is it really?” Her hand inched into the dark depths of his hair.

“Don’t,” Thorne said harshly.

“Where is all that wonderful control you spoke of?” It was reckless and dangerous, but at that moment India didn’t care. All she knew was a blind urge to see Thorne’s icy control shatter. Maybe then she could glimpse the real man hidden beneath the layers of reserve.

“Do
not
overestimate your luck, my lady.” His voice was like granite.

“Afraid you won’t succeed?”

“Don’t do this. We will both pay for your recklessness.”

But India closed her ears, stubborn as only a Delamere could be. She was facing him, caught across his thighs. Slowly she bent her head. Her eyes locked on his mouth, sharply carved in moonlight and shadow. Silently she raised her hand to his chest.

And in that instant her plan began to backfire, for India found every gesture kindling memories of his low laughter and the heated pleasures he had taught her all those months ago in Brussels. Before she realized the extent of her danger, she was lost. What had begun as reckless provocation became ragged need.

Her eyes locked with Thorne’s.

“You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I have every idea.”

“Do you think so?” Thorne said hoarsely. His hand fell, found the cool line of her neck, and slid lower. In taut silence he worked beneath the layers of muslin until he met the heat of one full breast. As India moved restlessly against him, he bared her to his gaze. “Do you still think so? And is this what you wanted of me, my lady?”

This time there was anger as well as desire in his voice. Dimly India realized that she had pushed him over the edge.

She knew a moment of fear. They were alone in a carriage, on a deserted London street. She was without anyone to help her. But anything was better than this emptiness. A century of pain would be worth one night of knowing he hadn’t forgotten her.

“Still in the mood for danger?”

She was. And, heaven help her, she was lost in memories of
him.
So India did not pull away from his possessing fingers, nor the lips that followed in their wake.

Suddenly she was bent over his arm as his mouth covered the hungry line of her nipple. She moaned, desire moving through her like a storm, leaving her weak and flushed.

And Thorne knew it. Like a hunter, he plotted his course, noting every moment of her weakness. With a single motion he slid her gown lower. His mouth turned demanding, nipping gently, drawing forth her husky cry.

“If it’s danger you wanted, it’s danger you shall have, my lady.”

“And — your memory?”

“Memory, be damned,” Thorne said hoarsely. “Maybe I want what
he
had, this man whom I cannot remember. Maybe I need it more than you can know.” His hands molded her hips. A moment later linen and cambric were shoved aside and he found the heat of her, yielding and sweet beneath his strong fingers.

“Dev, no. Not unless there’s more than touch. Not unless you
remember.”

“It’s too late, my lady. Maybe touch is the only way to bring back that stranger you used to know.”

Long months before, he had been gentle, restrained, patient as he brought her inch by inch to an understanding of her own body and all its textures of desire.

Now the patient teacher was gone. Against her body India felt the angry line of Thorne’s desire and knew that this was no teacher, but a man. A man too long denied. But India wanted him too much to stop now. His recklessness goaded her own, which always simmered too near the surface. She felt his mouth nip at her neck and then an exquisite tingling as his teeth left a love mark on her naked skin. Her hands went to his throat, shoving away the buttons that kept his body from hers.

But Dev was stronger. He opened her thighs, groaning softly when he felt the lush, wet heat of her arousal. “My God,” he said hoarsely.

A shudder ran through India. Outside, the clatter of the carriage, the rush of the wind, the neighing of the horses, all were swept away, lost in the sensual haze washing over her. She fell deep into a world of darkness, texture and sensation. And because Dev’s touch was sweet and too long denied, she did not fight him as she was pulled relentlessly along those swift, dark currents.

Somewhere in the night a clock tolled twice. It brought India the memory of another clock in another time when two lovers had stood listening to the last chime fade away, their fingers tightly locked.

“I’ll come back,” Devlyn had whispered huskily. “I’ll find you, my reckless Delamere, even if I have to march back through the gates of hell to do it.” India thought of those fierce words as she studied Thorne’s shadowed face. Dear God, what if it was true? What if he couldn’t ever remember? What if
her
Dev was lost to her forever, leaving only a man with Dev’s likeness?

“Stop,” she said raggedly, shoving at his hands even as pleasure threatened to sweep away her logic. “I can’t, not like this.”

Devlyn’s jaw hardened. “Yes, now. So that I can see exactly what I’ve lost. So I can hear your restless cry of passion. I’ve waited too long for that.”

India shivered at the harshness of his voice, truly a stranger’s now, as his hands eased slowly into unthinkable places. How could she allow him such a caress? It shamed every memory of the man she had loved.

“No, not like this. Not with you — as a stranger.”

She heard him curse raggedly. The next minute his fingers stilled, although they did not leave her.

“A stranger?” His laugh was bitter. “But I’ve told you exactly what I was from the start. I’m Devlyn Carlisle and yet none of him. I’m simply a man, my lady, a man who’s fallen under your spell, intoxicated by your sweet passion. But I shall stop,” he said darkly, “if you tell me you wish that. If you convince me now.” He waited, body rigid, breath checked.

India felt the hard thrust of his manhood and knew that he was not half so controlled as he appeared. And then she realized he had wedged his arm painfully against the small compartment at the center of the carriage wall so that her side would be elevated. In spite of the pain of that position, he had done this without question, protecting her bandaged skin from scraping the sharp corners of wood.

Stranger or not, he had protected her without comment or hesitation.

Whoever this man was, he would not hurt her. His honor was clear, as was his honesty.

Some last shred of reason broke inside her then. She shuddered, driven by need and something far deeper then need. It might have been the force of memories as exquisite as they were tormenting, or it might have been the yearning of a heart that had met its match. Perhaps it did not matter why.

She moaned softly and moved against his fingers.

It was the sign Thorne had waited for. Eyes glinting, he eased deep inside her, every second wild with pleasure and endless torment.

“I want you,” he said harshly. “Right here and right now. With you welcoming and sweet, right out of a man’s darkest dreams. But that wouldn’t be enough for you, would it? You’ll always want answers and memories I can’t give.” His jaw hardened as passion filled her eyes. “But maybe
this
memory is all I need.” His thumb found the tiny hidden bud of her desire.

Instantly India cried out. Her body shimmered, tossed headlong into a blinding wave of desire. Again and again he moved, gentle and expert. And India melted against him, accepting the wild wonder that grew and grew until it took over her body, a body that accepted the dark care of a stranger’s hands, just as she accepted him and this blinding passion he taught her, knowing that somehow, someway he would keep her safe.

Even when her Delamere blood boiled and the very
last
thing she wanted was to be safe.