The Wild Child (21 page)

Could she be merely looking at engravings in an illustrated volume? He watched as her eyes scanned back and forth. Definitely reading. Jena Ames had said Meriel had learned to read at age four, but he’d assumed that she lost that skill along with so many others after the trauma of her abduction. Instead, she had secretly continued to read.

On the verge of explosion, he stalked into the library.

Meriel’s head whipped up when she heard his footsteps. She froze, her eyes narrow and feline.

“What a surprise, Lady Meriel,” he said icily. “What kind of book catches your fancy?”

Her eyes flickered as she considered flight, but she would never be able to get by him to a door. Halting in front of her, he plucked the volume from her hands. “William Blake, Songs of lnnocence.” A poet and artist widely considered to be mad, though Dominic rather enjoyed his work. His otherworldly writing and illustrations must suit Meriel admirably.

He set the book on the table and picked up another slim volume. John Keats. He flipped it open, and his eyes fell on a verse.

I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful, a faery’s child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

He slammed the book shut. Sweet Jesus! Keats couldn’t have met Meriel before writing “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” but he’d described her to perfection.

Struggling to keep his temper and sense of hurt under control, he said, “So you’ve been playing us all for fools. If you can read, you can certainly understand spoken language. You know everything that’s going on around you. This whole great household revolves around your whims and needs, with everyone trying to please you. You accept it all, and give back nothing. Nothing?‘’

When his voice rose, she bolted, darting around him toward the door. He caught her shoulders and swung her around, then had to dodge her clawing hands. “Behave yourself, you little wildcat!”

He yanked off his loose cravat and swiftly tied her wrists together. She kicked him, but bare feet couldn’t do much damage. Sweeping her up in his arms, he carried her to a wing chair where the candlelight would fall full on her face.

He deposited her none too gently, then pulled another chair opposite hers and sat down so closely that their knees almost touched. In her eyes he saw glints of rage and resentment, but of madness there was none.

More quietly, he asked, “Why, Meriel? If you can sing and read, you’re capable of talking if you want. I’m sure of it. Why have you kept silent for so many years?”

Her head turned sharply so he could no longer see into her eyes. She gave up trying to escape and drew herself into a tight ball, rejecting him and everything around her. Wearing a silk dressing gown belted over a fine lawn night robe, she looked small and delicate and feminine.

Feeling like a brute, he untied her bound hands and tossed his cravat aside. “Running is your method of avoiding hard questions, isn’t it? You have everyone so convinced that you’re witless that you can get away with anything you want. It’s freedom of sorts, but you’re paying a damnably high price.”

Still no response, though he didn’t doubt that she understood every word he’d said. A swift pulse hammered in her throat. Brain and tongue might be capable of speech, but she wasn’t going to offer any. Frustrated, he took a deep breath and tried to imagine himself in her place. A bright, sensitive, protected child who was brutally torn from her family and her familiar world, she had withdrawn from harsh reality to survive. For a year or more, she’d not had anyone to speak with even if she’d wanted that. He could understand why terror and misery had traumatized her into silence. But why didn’t she eventually regain her speech, after she was restored to the keeping of people who loved her?

Because once she began to speak, she would never be able to return to her private world. “Silence is your shield, isn’t it?” he said slowly. “To converse with others would mean irrevocably stepping into the normal world. As a child, you would have had to answer painful questions about how your parents died, and what happened to you in captivity. As you became older, normalcy would mean obligations. Responsibilities. You would have been packed off to London to find a husband, for example.”

She shuddered and bit her lip.

Her response triggered another insight. “The Marriage Mart is enough to unnerve anyone, but for you the real horror would be leaving your home, I think.” He remembered her reaction to going outside the wall. “It was a terrible strain for you to travel even a mile outside Warfield Park. If you were a ‘normal’

young lady, you would be expected to do far more than that.”

She sighed, her lids dropping for an instant. Even if he was right—and he was sure he was—she wasn’t ready to admit it.

He leaned forward earnestly. “Will you talk to me, Meriel? If you wish, I’ll swear to tell no one else. But I’d like so much to hear you speak.” Her voice would be light and musical, he thought. Like fairy bells.

“You may have found safety in silence, but you’re missing so much. Good conversation is one of life’s great pleasures.” He thought with a pang of the endless discussions between him and Kyle in the days when they were friends. Their thoughts had completed and enhanced one another, sparking new ideas.

“Sharing thoughts aloud is the closest two people can come without touching physically. In fact, speech is often far more intimate than touch.”

Indecision showed on her expressive face. He held his breath, sensing that she was on the verge of abandoning the defenses that had become part of her. He also realized wryly that his last statement had been less than the truth. Though she had never spoken a word to him, he felt achingly close to her. Her expression changed as she made up her mind, but instead of speaking, she straightened her knotted body. Then, slowly, sinuously, she placed her feet on the floor and stood, her bare toes almost touching his shoes and her gaze holding his. It was a novel sensation to look up at her. She was indecently close, so he pushed himself back in his chair as he wondered what the devil she had in mind. He no longer believed she was mad—but neither was she like anyone else. Eyes gazing deep into his, she untied the ribbon that secured her braid. Then she combed her fingers through her heavy flaxen hair until it loosened into a shining, rosemary-scented cascade that spilled past her waist.

His nails dug into the arms of his chair as he fought the temptation to reach out and touch. Women had been made queens and empires had fallen because of such magnificent hair. Throat dry, he said, “If you’re trying to distract me, it won’t work. You are… very lovely, but I’d rather hear you talk, even if only to curse me.”

Holding his gaze, she unbelted her robe. A shimmy of her shoulders sent it sliding down her arms and onto the floor. The lawn nightgown beneath was exquisitely embroidered, befitting an heiress, and her narrow wrists emerged from falls of creamy lace. He stared at the translucent fabric, which revealed tantalizing hints of her slim body. Gods above, he should run fast and far, but he could not even force himself to turn his eyes away from the mesmerizing sight.

She bent her head and pressed her lips to his temple. Her hair swept silkily forward over his face, erotic beyond words as she nibbled across his cheek with butterfly lightness. Heart hammering, he reached up and cupped her face between his hands, drawing her into a kiss. Her mouth opened with welcome, warm and intoxicating.

As the kiss went on and on, she flowed into his lap, straddling him. Lithe and willing, she was the stuff of dreams and madness.

This was madness. Gasping for air and sanity, he set her back a little, saying unsteadily, “You’re really, really good at changing the subject, little witch.”

She laughed softly and buried her face against his throat, inhaling his scent as her tongue trailed teasingly toward his ear. At the same time, she curled her hips against his, bracketing his groin with intimate heat. Sense shattered. Yearning to possess her, to become inextricably twined in body and soul, he caught her in his arms and laid her down on the thick Persian carpet, an ivory princess framed in voluptuous crimson. His devouring mouth traveled from soft lips to smooth throat, then to the curves provocatively covered by her sheer nightgown. Her breast was small and perfectly formed, like the rest of her, and her nipple hardened against his tongue.

She gasped, and one of her hands circled his neck as her other arm locked around his back. As he reached for the hem of her robe, she laughed with rich feminine triumph. A fragment of sanity fought through his mind. He no longer believed her incapable of understanding her own actions. She knew exactly what she was about, even if her understanding came from Mother Eve rather than English society. She was discovering her female power—but it would do neither of them any good if she persuaded him to abandon morals and honor for a swift, disastrous rush of passion. Panting, he pushed himself up so that he was braced above her. She was a portrait of wanton innocence, her eyes clouded with desire. Her lips curved into an intimate smile, and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her again.

Instead, he said shakily, “You may be a pagan by preference, but you surely know that society condemns coupling outside of marriage.”

Her expression changed. Confused, she reached for him, one hand running down his body. He rolled out of touching distance and fought to cool his raging blood. “Would you talk if that would persuade me to become your lover?” he said, his voice edged. “Or is seduction your way of avoiding my questions?”

Her eyes widened with outrage. With one swift move, she pulled herself into a crouch, hissing like a cat. He guessed that she was very close to clawing at him. It would almost be funny, if the situation weren’t so wrenching.

“I know you’re angry. I’m not very happy myself,” he said quietly. “But I swear that I want what is best for you, Meriel. You’re like a princess in a tower, high above the hurly-burly of daily life. No doubt you feel very safe and superior up there, but a tower is a lonely place if you won’t let anyone in.”

He caught her tense hand, hoping the warmth of his clasp would soften it. “I want rather desperately for you to let me in. But our minds must meet before our bodies can.”

Her lips parted, and for a suspended instant he thought she was on the verge of speech. Then she yanked her hand free and sprang to her feet, scooping up her robe as she did. Back erect, she stalked from the library like an offended lioness.

This time, he let her go.

Mind and body seething, he let himself out into the moonlit night and made his way toward the old castle with long, desperate strides. What was madness, what was sanity? He was half mad himself right now. More than half mad, to have allowed that scene. If Meriel had accepted his challenge to speak, would he have been honor-bound to make love to her? Would he have been capable of stopping himself from doing so? No wonder society hedged a young girl’s virtue with so many protections. Without those rules, it was catastrophically easy for passion to overrule sense.

God knew that he was living proof of that, for despite all his warnings to himself, he had fallen in love with her. She elicited tenderness and desire, laughter and wonder, a fierce need to protect her from all threats.

With the cool clarity of hindsight, he saw how severing his ties with his family to become his own man had been only the first step. Yes, he’d saved himself from becoming his brother’s shadow, but he hadn’t taken the next step into maturity. Instead he had drifted aimlessly for years because his most powerful desire—to sink his roots deep into his own land— seemed unattainable. That was why he’d jumped at Kyle’s offer of Bradshaw Manor, even though it meant becoming a liar. To be a landowner would give his life purpose.

Now Meriel had given him an even greater sense of purpose, for what higher goal could a man have than to protect and serve those he loved?

As he climbed the path to the castle ruins, a treacherous idea insinuated itself into his mind. What if he asked Meriel to marry him, Dominic Renbourne, not the absent lord who was her intended? Amworth wanted a loving husband who would treat Meriel well, and Dominic was the best possible choice, for no one else could love her more.

But how could he support her? His younger son’s allowance was only enough for a bachelor. Then he remembered, with a cold, sick twist in the belly, that she was a great heiress. Meriel didn’t need his support— on the contrary, her fortune could support them in luxury for the rest of their lives. The worlds—including Amworth—would think him an opportunist, a fortune hunter who had seduced his brother’s hapless bride. Christ.

Did he care what the world thought? In this, yes. He’d never much minded being considered a wastrel, but the idea that people would believe he’d taken advantage of a vulnerable innocent revolted him. But even that was not as bad as the prospect of Kyle’s reaction. His brother hadn’t had the chance to fall in love with Meriel, but he must have been dazzled by her beauty. Certainly he was set upon this marriage. For Dominic to steal her away would be an unforgivable betrayal. As Dominic entered the moonlight-drenched precincts of the castle, he grimly faced the fact that for him to wed Meriel would destroy anything that remained of the bond that had been formed between Kyle and him in the womb. Lord Maxwell was untrusting to begin with—too many people wanted things from a future earl. If Dominic betrayed his brother in such a fundamental way, he would cause irrevocable damage.

Slowly he climbed the stone steps to the battlements, thinking of his first visit. Meriel had frightened him half to death when she had stepped off the wall. That was the day he had begun to fall in love with her, for he had seen first her diabolical humor and then her compassion, when she had attacked a poacher twice her size in defense of a wounded fox.

The memory of her going after the poacher twisted his heart with longing. She was so gallant. So rare. The sobering truth was that he was already so deeply involved with Meriel that to withdraw would be a betrayal as profound as what he would do to Kyle if he claimed his brother’s bride for his own. How the hell could he have been so stupid—so crazy—as to allow this to happen?