A Heart for the Taking (46 page)

Fancy fairly gaped at him, hardly daring to believe she had heard him correctly. When he said nothing more, but continued to stare blankly off into the woodland, she jerked upright and, angrier than she had ever been in her life, spat, “Well, I like that! You seduce me; force me to marry you; force me to share your bed; and now, at the first little obstacle in your path, you decide to throw up your hands in despair and turn me loose.” Her eyes glittering furiously, she startled both of them when she suddenly slapped him. “How dare you! How dare you marry me and then toss me aside. How
dare
you.”

His cheek tingling from her slap, Chance turned his head and looked at her, a dangerous smile curving his lips. His eyes alight, he grabbed her hand as she started to her feet and jerked her back down beside him. Despite her struggles, he brought her hand to his lips and dropped a warm
kiss on the back of it. A hint of laughter in his voice, he said, “Forgive me, Madame, I’m afraid that I have misread the situation.” He turned her hand over and gently pressed another kiss on her wrist, feeling the pulse suddenly begin to race beneath his lips. “You must put my lack of understanding of the situation down to being a mere colonial and not used to the ways of the, er, fancy.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said breathlessly, aware of a sweet languor creeping over her as his mouth continued its soft, oh so seductive exploration of her lower arm. “You are not going to escape the blame that easily.”

“I throw myself on your mercy, Duchess,” Chance murmured, half-teasing, half-serious. “I have greatly wronged you, and I am sorry for it.”

Her uncertainty clear, she asked huskily, “Chance, are you really sorry? Sorry that you married me?”

His light mood vanished and, his eyes steadily meeting hers, he said gently, “Sorry for the way I gained your hand? Yes. Sorry that I married you?” His voice thickened.

“Never.”

“But why?” she nearly wailed. “Why did you force me to marry you in such an underhanded way?” Almost accusingly she added, “It was not worthy of you.”

Chance had come a long way to understanding quite a lot about himself in these few moments with her, but he was not quite ready to make that final confession—not even to himself. His eyes once more on the woodland behind them, he said simply, “I wanted you. I did not want you to marry Jonathan.” His gaze swung back to her. “I have always wanted you—from the first moment I spied you leaning on the ship’s rail in Richmond. I just never knew how much until I feared that you would be lost to me if I did not stop you from marrying Jonathan.” His lips thinned. “And arranging that little scene in your bedroom at Walker Ridge, disgraceful though it was, seemed a simple solution.”

“It—it was not just to take revenge against Jonathan?”

Chance sighed and threw himself back full length on the
ground, dragging Fancy with him. Positioning her next to him, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist, he stared at the canopy of leaves overhead and asked abruptly, “What do you know about my . . . first wife, Jenny?”

Fancy tensed. Chance’s previous marriage wasn’t something she wanted to think about, and she was surprised by the burst of plain old green-eyed jealousy that knifed through her at the soft note in his voice when he said the other woman’s name. Forcing herself to relax, she said casually, “Only that she was a local heiress whom you swept off her feet and married—despite her family’s protestations—and that she died tragically. A suicide.”

Chance laughed mirthlessly. “I suppose I do not need to inquire who told you the ‘heiress’ part. I see Jonathan’s fine hand there.”

“He did mention it, yes.”

“Did he also mention that while I was away in England on business, he seduced my wife? That he got her with child? And abandoned her? That he left her to face me alone—her belly already showing signs of the babe who grew there? A babe who could not possibly be mine?”

Fancy rose up to look at him, her face showing her shock. “No, he did not.” She smiled bitterly. “Jonathan is very careful in what he chooses to divulge.”

Chance cocked a brow. “Learned that, have you?”

“Yes—unfortunately.” A little frown crossed her features. “But if you knew what he had done, why didn’t you . . .”

“Challenge him to a duel?” Chance asked dryly. At her nod, he added, “I thought of it—especially the day I finally discovered who her lover had been. I could have killed him. Easily. But, conveniently for him, Jonathan was away on business in Boston at the time, and it was several weeks before he returned to the area. By then I’d had time to consider the situation more coolly and had realized that,while killing him would have given me immense, immediate satisfaction, it would have hurt Sam and Letty a great deal. They have always been very good to me, and I would not
willingly cause them grief.” His voice hardened. “And I realized that by merely killing him, that Jonathan would have escaped too lightly. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to feel as I had felt when I discovered that my wife had betrayed me.” He stopped and looked away. “I wanted him to feel all the pain of losing someone beloved and to suffer as I did those months and years following Jenny’s death.”

“And so, thinking I was to be his bride, you decided to punish him by forcing me to marry you,” Fancy said harshly, bitterly aware that she was uncharacteristically jealous of a dead woman.

Chance looked at her, the expression in his eyes enigmatic. “No,” he said slowly, “that was the excuse I used to take what I wanted . . . you.”

A flush stained Fancy’s cheeks. She glanced away from him. Stiffly she said, “It does not seem like a very good reason to me.”

Gently Chance pulled her to him. “It wasn’t,” he said huskily, “but I wanted you so desperately that I was not thinking straight. I never have where you are concerned. All I could think of was having you.” Softly he kissed her cheek. “And of holding you in my arms,” he murmured as his arms slipped around her. “And kissing you,” he breathed against her lips the second before his mouth claimed hers.

His words didn’t answer all her questions, nor did they remove all the hurt. But they did fill her with warmth and hope, and, loving him as she did, she realized dimly, as the familiar sweep of passion rose up inside of her, that for now it would have to do. Wanting was not love—she had no illusions about that—but perhaps from such an emotion, love could grow.

Her mouth opened willingly for him, her hands clasping the back of his head, pulling him closer to her. Her actions told him as clearly as words that he had won the day, and with a smothered groan, he bore her back into the grass, his hands moving urgently over her.

Desire erupted through them both, and heedless of their
surroundings, between hungry kisses and increasingly explicit caresses, their clothing was hastily discarded and provided a bed for their naked bodies. It was like the first time they had made love and yet so very different.

This time Fancy knew the pleasure his hard body could give her; this time Chance knew the sweet completion he would find in her yielding flesh. This time Fancy had no doubts that this was where she wanted to be, that this one man was the only man she had ever loved. And Chance? Well, Chance had not come that far, but he knew that no other woman, not even Jenny, had made him feel the way Fancy did, that no other woman set him on fire as she did, that he wanted no other woman in his arms.

There was tenderness in his touch, a lazy sensuality in the way his mouth traveled from her lips down her throat to her waiting breasts. The warm wetness of his tongue gently laving her nipples, the scrape of his teeth, sent a fiery arrow of need streaking to the throbbing ache between her legs, and Fancy’s fingers dug into his shoulders.

His mouth tugging hungrily at her breasts, Chance caressed her, his fingers drifting over her slender form, kneading and exploring, wooing and pulling her deeper into their own secret, sensual heaven. Her flesh was silky and warm beneath his touch, and the shape of her shoulders, the narrow back, the gentle curve of her hips, were enchanting. He lingered there awhile, his hands cupping and fondling her firm little fanny, marveling at the soft texture of her skin, reveling in the tantalizing brush of her body against his.

The lure of her mouth proved too much for him, and he left off his suckling to kiss her lips, to drink deeply of her. His tongue met hers, tangling and twining with hers, and he groaned his delight as the fire between them leaped higher.

Dizzy and wild with passion for him, her breasts aching for the return of his mouth, the demanding hunger between her thighs becoming urgent, Fancy purred like a cat as she moved beneath him. Her fingers caressed his warm chest,
seeking his small, hard nipples, pleased when he moaned his pleasure at her touch. Tauntingly her hand moved lower to his belly, his gasp and the sudden tightening of his body revealing clearly that he was as helpless against her caresses as she was against his. Made bold by his reaction, she slid one shapely thigh over his, pushing up against the hard length of his member.

Chance groaned and reluctantly lifted his mouth from hers. A lock of black hair falling across his forehead, his blue eyes glittering with desire, he said thickly, “Madame, continue as you are and you may get a great deal more than you expect—and considerably swifter than either of us had planned.”

Fancy looked innocent. “Oh, am I disturbing you?” she asked archly as her fingers played across his groin. It was a new and heady experience for her, this intimate teasing, made all the more so by the satisfying reactions of Chance’s body to her lightest touch.

Chance sucked in his breath at the sensations that rippled through him at her gentle explorations. A crooked smile lifted his lips. “I think, Madame Wife, that you know
exactly
what you are doing to me.” His eyes darkened with an emotion that made Fancy’s already fast-beating heart race. “You have always known,” he breathed against her mouth. “Always.”

He kissed her, and while it was as passionate and hungry as any kiss they had ever shared, there was some new emotion in it, some indefinable emotion that made Fancy’s body shudder with longing. Feeling her response, Chance moaned and his mouth bit more hungrily into hers, his long fingers sliding tormentingly along the inside of her thigh, traveling slowly toward the aching center of her. When he touched her, when he parted that tender flesh between her legs and gently stroked and probed, Fancy’s whole body jumped, a spasm of utter pleasure roiling through her.

She was warm and wet, his fingers sinking deeply inside of her, and Fancy twisted up frantically under his knowing caresses, the fire in her belly consuming everything in its
path, until all feeling, all sensation, seemed to be centered beneath his driving fingers.

Instinctively she reached for him, her hand closing firmly around his swollen shaft. Chance jerked at her touch, and as she explored him, her fingers sliding along the silken length of him, he dropped his lips to her breast, his teeth nipping at her stiff nipples.

Engulfed by the most basic of emotions, Chance pushed her thighs apart and fitted himself between them. His mouth found hers again, and holding her hips to his liking, he lifted her and plunged deeply into her welcoming heat.

Nearly delirious with pleasure, Fancy eagerly accepted his invasion, her body rejoicing at the feel of being one with him. His chest crushed against her tingling breasts, his warm hands clenched her buttocks and urged her to meet his heavy thrusts, demanded her to join him in the intoxicating race for fulfillment. It was a race she was eager to run, the sweet sensations of his body moving fiercely on hers, the texture of his sun-dappled skin beneath her caressing fingers and the heady taste and scent of him all assailing her in the most elemental way.

Her body singing its burgeoning delight, she tightened her arms around him and her hips rose and fell rapidly, matching his increasingly deeper, more urgent thrusts. The feelings that rippled through her were sweet and powerful, the hunger to reach completion growing with every vigorous movement of his body upon hers. Time and time again he plunged avidly into her, stroking the honeyed ache, making her twist and writhe beneath his powerful onslaught. A frantic tension built within her, her body clenching as she was suddenly forced to surrender to the primitive madness, pleasure, hot and intense, shuddering wildly through her, making her cry out.

Fancy’s cry was smothered beneath Chance’s mouth, his own heaven already on the horizon. Compulsively he drove into her, his hands gripping her hips almost painfully, holding her to his demanding rhythm. The convulsions of her body around him, the slick heat and sweet
friction, were more than he could bear, and raw ecstasy enveloped him as helplessly he emptied himself into her.

Only dimly did he become aware of his surroundings, of the sounds of the plantation in the distance, the humid heat of the afternoon. Chance knew he should move, but he was unable to, so he held still with Fancy in his arms, his kiss gentling as he savored the delicious aftermath of their coupling.

Too spent and languid to make any attempt to change their positions, Fancy, too, was thoroughly enjoying this gentle descent from the scarlet heights. She returned his kisses, her hands resting lightly on his buttocks, realizing giddily that there was much pleasure to be gained from such a leisurely interlude.

But it was only an interlude. Soon enough, Chance kissed her once more and slid slowly from her body. Lying beside her, he propped himself up on one elbow and stared down at the slender length of her body. Silky smooth flesh met his gaze, flesh the color of cream, the entrancing expanse broken only by the rosy tips of her breasts and the ebony curls nestled at the junction of her thighs. Her breasts were small and high, the nipples still temptingly engorged, her waist narrow, and her hips and thighs lithe and oh so seductively shaped.

“You are,” he said huskily, as one hand fondled her breast, “undoubtedly the loveliest creature that God ever created—and I am most thankful that you are mine.”

Pleased, but embarrassed, too, Fancy flushed rosily and made some inarticulate reply. It must have satisfied him, for he laughed softly and dropped a kiss on her nose. Suddenly very conscious of their naked state now that passion had fled, she brushed aside his lazily exploring hand and sat up. Pushing back a tangle of hair that fell across her temple, she said hastily, “Shouldn’t we dress? What if someone were to find us like this?”