Always a Temptress (18 page)

She was surprised, really, that it had lasted through the years. That it still seemed as sharp and vital as when they’d been young. And yet it did. Sitting here touching only Harry’s hand, she felt a surge of power spiral through her, a sweet, hot light that spread across her skin and warmed her belly. She couldn’t believe that her body remembered. That it yearned, even for Harry.
Especially
for Harry.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t still attractive. He was a striking man; not handsome, so much. Handsome had long since been chiseled away into starkness, jaw and cheek and forehead: weathered now, creased from squinting into the sun. His sandy hair was a little shaggy; his ears stood out a bit. But his throat was a work of art, etched in moonlight, arms crafted for protection and care. He’d been drawn in sleek lines of sinew and bone, with the faint gleam of sweat on chest and belly, and she could smell crisp linen and fresh air on him, the faint hint of horses and a tang of tobacco. A man’s smell. Harry’s smell.

At least she was safe from his eyes. She had so loved those eyes. Once upon a time she’d seen the sky reflected there, impossible, endless eternities. She’d lived to see his eyes go languid with hunger, brighten with impish humor as they’d fenced with arcane quotes from dead authors. She had loved the bright, trenchant intelligence that lit them as he’d expounded on weight and load and line.

Was Harry right? Was there a way to cobble a life together? Even after what he’d done? What
she’d
done? Could she possibly have that much courage? Already her heart was stumbling, but was it with fear or anticipation? Harry said he could help her get past what had happened. He could give her back the matchless, breathless freedom of pleasure, separate it from the pain. He’d said that. He’d also once said he would save her.

She closed her eyes, and the world shrank to Harry. To that odd, restless lightning in their hands. She tasted it, champagne on the tongue; heard it, the quickening stutter of her heart. She didn’t fan the feeling; that would have been foolish. But she warmed her fingers in it, tempting herself. Daring herself.

Harry was asleep; he need never know. The heat was just too tempting; she’d been cold for so long. If she could maybe just stay here for a while, quietly, and drink in a bit of life. If she could remember what it had been like. That shivery, anxious feeling of wanting, of expectation, of fear. That breathless catch of wonder, when fingers touched, when a hand, callused and broad, slowly swept down her skin, shoulder to belly to thigh, setting everything in its path alight like a mad brushfire. The sharp wonder when eyes met, hot, dark, heavy with hunger. The wild, soaring exhilaration of possibility that only complete trust inspired.

Had it really felt like that? Had she been so sure it would simply go on? She couldn’t quite remember now. She only remembered the jagged flashes of lightning that stunned her body to life. The way her nipples had tightened and her blood slowed to a deep throb that echoed in her ears. She remembered that Harry had looked on her as if she were his personal treasure, seduced her without a word. Without a promise.

Most of all she remembered the feeling of soaring exhilaration, knowing that Harry would always be there to catch her if she fell. That he would hold her dreams for her, her secrets, her discoveries, as if he were a schoolchild’s grubby tin box full of buttons and feathers and sparkly rocks collected from a beach.

With him to shield her, she had begun to believe that she might be more than the unfortunate child who had killed the most beloved woman in the county. She had begun to believe that her father was wrong; that she deserved more than isolation and silence.

Inevitably, though, that final memory slipped through to mock her. Her last day with Harry in the glen; frantic, fumbling, begging him to believe her. To save her. So sure that it would be all right, because Harry promised. Even if he hadn’t made her his, he would claim her. He would fight for her.

Instead, when she’d slipped out into the whispering, moonlit garden later that night, it had been her father waiting for her. “I think I knew that one day you’d come to this,” he’d said, his sad eyes so much sadder.”But did you have to include an honorable boy?”

Impatiently she shook herself to attention. It would not do. Remembering would solve nothing. It only left her trembling and cold. She needed to get out of here.

She pulled at her hand. This time, it popped free. Jumping up, she ran for the door.

She was too late. She was struggling with the knob when she heard his voice, muddled and sleepy. “Kate?”

“Go back to sleep, Harry,” she said without turning, “Everything’s fine.”

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

“Leaving.”

“Kate,” he said, fumbling with the sheets. “Wait.”

She didn’t.

Harry was confused. His chest was on fire, and his head hurt. He swore he could still hear cannon fire, and he had the oddest memory of Kate urging him up the Forlorn Hope. The cannon fire was easy to explain. He’d heard it every night since Waterloo. Kate was more problematic.

“Stop!” he yelled and rolled out of bed.

He didn’t even think to pull the sheet around him. He had the oddest feeling he couldn’t let Kate go just yet. Just as she was opening the door, he slammed it closed.

“Kate,” he said, grabbing hold of her arm.

He saw her instinctively duck, her free hand up, and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Kate.” He made sure she didn’t hear the anger in his voice. He didn’t want her to think it was directed at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to know what you were doing here.”

She wouldn’t look at him. “You had a dream. Believe me. I won’t make this mistake again.”

He couldn’t help smiling. Only Kate would sound surly about being kind. “I appreciate the concern. The dreams are nothing new, though. They don’t hurt me.”

She looked over her shoulder, and Harry was struck by how large her eyes were, how very young she looked with her braid coming loose over her shoulder.

“How can you not mind?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Comes with the job. You have nightmares, too.”

It wasn’t a question. He refused to insult her with pretense.

She looked away again. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Not like yours, I think.” Taking a second, he assessed the night. He could hear early birds, which meant it was after four. He’d only had about five hours’ sleep, which left him muzzy, and Kate’s exotic scent was doing damage to his self-control, which was going to be painfully obvious in a minute. He needed to recover his banyan.

“Let me go, Harry,” she said, pulling against his arm.

Should he? She was a bit softer now, tentative. Was this his chance to begin chipping away at her formidable defenses? Did he
want
to? Did he really want to risk falling prey to her again?

He didn’t know. But he had the most irrational feeling that if he passed up this chance to soften her barriers, he’d never get another.

“Come back and lie down,” he urged. “It’s chilly out here.”

“No!” She gestured toward his rapidly chilling body. “And not like that.”

He looked down with a grin at his nakedness. “It does put me at a disadvantage, doesn’t it?” Letting go just long enough to grab his robe, he shrugged into it. “Just lie down where it’s warm. That’s all. On my honor as a gentleman.”

Her laugh was sharp. Harry bristled, the laugh setting up old hackles. How dare she? Didn’t she realize how bloody honorable he’d been to her?

One look down at the round shadow on the swell of her breast deflated that balloon. They had both served time in hell. He just wished he better understood why. He wished, not for the first time, that the Duke of Livingston had been a man who lied.

Reaching around, he opened the door a crack. “You’re free to go at any time,” he said. “But we need to talk together before we face the rest of the world.”

She stared at him, as if she’d never heard the word
talk
before. “Why?”

He shrugged. “To find out if we can ever again deal well with each other.”

“I thought I wasn’t going to have to deal with my husband. Aren’t the Tuileries waiting?”

He came so close to just saying yes and letting her go. Because if he didn’t, if he forced her to stay, he might be taking an irrevocable step toward something he didn’t want. Hadn’t he done enough already? Wasn’t he entitled to his own life, now?

“Possibly. But possibly we’ll learn to like each other and come to another solution. Whatever happens, we need to learn to trust each other, or marriage is going to be hell.”

She laughed even more loudly this time. “I’m not long on trust, Harry.”

Harry bristled at the sound, because he heard his name implied in the accusation. Still, it wouldn’t help to snipe. “But I think you’re beginning to trust me.”

She stiffened like an outraged virgin. “
Vestigia nulla retrorsum
.”

He chuckled. “Case in point. You may think that there’s no going back, but if I’m correct, you haven’t been making use of your rather unorthodox education in the last ten years. Yet suddenly you’re quoting Homer again.”

Harry regretted his flippancy when her face lost its color and she swayed. He tried to pull her closer, but she shoved at him as if he’d hit her.

“What did he do, Kate?” Harry asked. “Just how did your husband convince you to give up Latin?”

She managed to yank her arm out of his grip, but she didn’t leave. “That’s not anybody’s business but mine.”

“I disagree. If we are to have any chance, it has to be my business, too.”

Her head shot up, and she impaled him with a look of derision. “Your
right
?”

He was swamped again with the feeling that he needed to hold her. “No. You’ve taught me that lesson well. But how can I know how to live with you if I don’t know what’s off limits?”

She seemed struck. “Live with me? You think you want to live with me?”

Harry didn’t feel complimented by the acid in her voice. “What did you think? That I’d take all your money and run?”

She quirked a cold eyebrow. “You really plan to settle on an estate in Gloucestershire and grow flowers.”

He knew his hesitation was damning. Of course that wasn’t what he planned. But they were still a long way from that discussion. “We need to start somewhere.”

She gave him an assessing look that took in his entire unclothed body. “Why don’t we start with you going back to bed? We can do the rest in the morning.”

“No. Right now. By morning you’ll have your armor back on.” With a brief grin, he reached over and flicked at her braid. “You should wear your hair like this more often. It makes you look like that girl I knew at the castle.”

She stiffened, her nostrils flaring. “Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking I am,” she said, her voice cold. “I haven’t been that girl for a very long time. She was unforgivably naive.”

Harry almost laughed out loud. If there was one word he would be hard-pressed to use about Kate, it was
naive
. He needed to get her where he could talk to her, though. Quickly grabbing her hands, he pulled her back toward his bed.

Her eyes got even wider. “You are
not
…”

“Kate, my feet are freezing. Please. I promise on my mother’s plum duff that I won’t touch you. I just don’t want to come down with the ague on my wedding night.”

“There’ll be no wedding night,” she retorted.

“Not a wedding night any red-blooded male would recognize, certainly.” Gently, inexorably, he drew her away from the door. “Come.”

With a quick look out the window to make sure that only his own men patrolled the area behind the mews, he nudged her on. He wasn’t quite sure how he did it, but he managed to get Kate into bed alongside him, the covers tucked up to their chins, like twins in a trundle.

“See? Isn’t this nice?” He was getting hard just from the shared heat.

She lay frozen, her hands at her sides. “I hope you don’t mean for me to fall asleep. I don’t fall asleep in the dark.”

“That’s fair.” He shrugged, carefully keeping his space. “I don’t fall asleep at all.”

She huffed. “So I found out. Tell Mudge he doesn’t have to sit outside your door. He isn’t getting any sleep, either.”

“I have. It doesn’t do any good.”

They’d been lying side by side for a while when suddenly Kate sighed. “I loved your mother’s plum duff.”

Harry hoped she didn’t see his relief. “It won another ribbon at the county fair.”

Another silence, this one shorter. “She’s all right? I don’t get back there anymore.”

“She’s blooming. I think she gained at least two stone since last I saw her. She has all those grandchildren to cook for now.”

He felt Kate’s head turn. “Grandchildren…oh, my. Of course everyone is grown.”

“All but Carrie. She’s holding out for something better than Perseus Cleaver.”

Kate chortled. “The miller’s son? Tell her if she needs a champion, I would be happy to help. Percy outweighed your mother by the time he was ten.”

“Tell her yourself when you see her. You don’t think I can get married without showing you off.”

He felt her stiffen and reached over to take her hand. “I won’t deny my mother the satisfaction of seeing me married, Kate.”

She didn’t answer. Harry thought of the times she had shown up at his kitchen door, as if unable to stay away from his mother’s massive hugs. He’d often wondered what a duke’s daughter could prefer in that haphazard house by the millpond. Then he’d wondered how she could have so blithely thrown it away for a quick tumble with a groom.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Kate?” he asked before he could change his mind.

She looked over. “Tell you what?”

He took a breath. He couldn’t believe he was forcing this. But he’d wanted to know for years. He needed to understand before he could take another step toward committing to a marriage of any kind.

“The baby, Kate. Why didn’t you tell me about the baby?”

He couldn’t help himself. He looked into her eyes and expected to see hesitation; guilt; anger. Maybe resentment at being forced to face her misdeed.