Beloved (19 page)

“Should you like to have the dagger?”

Amazed, she opened her eyes to look at the elegantly wicked thing that now rested across his palm. “Thank you, but no.” What
would he say if she told him she had thought— for a time—that he might use it to harm her? “I wish I need never look at it
again. It’s hateful.”

Reaching, he put it on the mantel and wrapped both of his arms around her. “I’m sorry I left you alone here. I am confused,
Ella.”

Confused? About his feelings for her? How easily hope blossomed. “I’m confused too. These years when I have tried not to think
of you have been terrible.”

“But you did manage not to think of me, surely. Not too much of the time?”

“All of the time,” she said shortly. “I cannot make you feel as I do, but I’m helpless to feel otherwise. On an evening that
seems long ago, yet perhaps only yesterday, I saw a young man at Franchot Castle.”

“Don’t, Ella.”

“I was newly come to this world of ours. A lucky girl rescued by a kind man. A girl who spoke like a street urchin— like the
urchin I was. And the young man was in his cups.”

She smiled into his jacket and felt him sigh. “He was in his cups and angry because his wicked cousin—or the man he thought
was his cousin—would not give him what was rightfully his.”

“All past,” Saber reminded her. “Etienne was a usurper. Not my cousin at all. Calum is that cousin and, thank God, Calum has
been returned to his rightful place as Duke of Franchot, so all is well. He gave me what was mine.”

“And now you do not care a whit for it.”

“Ella—”

“No,” she told him gently. “This is my story. Then you can tell yours. That young man—foxed as he was—looked at me as if I
was like no girl he had ever seen.”

He stroked her shoulders, rubbed the back of her neck. “You were like no other girl I had ever seen. You still are.”

Ella could scarcely swallow. “That night you wanted to accompany me back to my rooms.” She laughed. “Mama—although she was
not yet my mama—but Mama was most firm. She put you in your place.”

“She did indeed,” Saber said. “Were you glad?”

Ella buried her face in his coat and chuckled. “Were you?”

“Were you, Saber?”

“In some ways females are all the same,” he said with mock gravity. “They like to push a man to indiscretion. No, I was not
glad. In fact, if I remember my drunken thoughts of the time, I was decidedly put out. An exotic creature came into my company,
only to be snatched away so quickly.”

Ella withdrew her hands, then replaced them—beneath his coat this time. “I thought you the most handsome man I had ever seen.
I wished we were alone—even then when I didn’t know you at all. I wanted to go somewhere with you and just look at you.”

“You would not wish to look at me now,” he said with bitterness in his voice.

She squeezed him as hard as she could. “Pish, posh, as Great-Grandmama Franchot would say. If I say too many pretty things
to you, I shall turn your head. But looking at you is still the greatest pleasure of my life.”

His breath moved her hair. “So much promise. All gone.”

“No! Not all gone. Now it can be ours, Saber.”

He rocked her, rested his chin atop her head, played the tips of his fingers over the sensitive skin at her nape.

“You came to me at night—in the garden at Franchot. I was little more than a child then. I didn’t understand how gallant and
honorable you were. You were already a man with a man’s desires, yet you treated me with such gentleness, with such reserve.”

“Don’t, Ella.”

“Why? It is true. And it brings me gladness to speak of it. I cannot tell anyone else. You spoke to me and listened to me.
And you made me a promise.”

“Ella—”

“You promised me you would always be my friend. You said you would be there if I needed you. And you meant much more, didn’t
you?”

His long, powerful hands splayed wide over her back. Spreading his fingers, he let his thumbs come to rest against the sides
of her breasts.

And Ella trembled anew.

“India was a cruel place to me,” he murmured.

She held her breath. “I had never seen …I saw things I had never seen before. I cannot forget them, Ella, and they have changed
me.”

“They changed you when you were wounded, didn’t they?” Raising her face, she gazed up at him.

Saber looked over her head. “It wasn’t the wounds.”

“What, then?”

Like a man rising from sleep, he shook his head. “It’s past now.”

“Is it? Is it past for you? Over?”

Saber glanced down into her eyes, tilted his head, and bent to kiss her neck. Always he turned the scars away from her.

She melted against him. Her body was not the same with Saber—it was not her own. Where his touch met her breasts, she ached,
and the ache filled her with burning, with longing. She remembered the caress of his bare skin on hers and pressed her eyes
shut.

With maddening care, he made circles on her breasts, through silk and muslin. His mouth was both firm and gentle on her neck,
her shoulder.

The still room was only a place to contain their bodies, their spirits—the sensations Saber evoked in Ella. She stood on tiptoe
and wound her wrists behind his neck. He kept his face turned away and she could only kiss the jaw he showed her, the cheek,
the corner of the mouth she saw, waking or sleeping.

“The other night,” she said. “When you and I were together.”

“I was wrong,” he breathed. “You were right. It was right for us. I want to be with you like that again. Saber, is it unnatural
for me to want to be naked and for you to be naked?”

“No,” he said indistinctly. “Then I want it now.”

His chest heaved. “Please don’t… Ella, your carriage will return soon. Even if…It isn’t proper and it must not happen again.”

“Why must you fight me?” She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “You are impossible!”

“I must be sensible. For both of us.”

“Kiss me.” She was forward, but he was her love.

“Close your eyes,” he told her after a moment’s hesitation.

“Ah, ah, don’t argue. Close them.”

Ella did as he ordered and lifted her face. She lifted her face and waited.

“Do not open them. Promise?”

She screwed up her eyes. “I promise.”

“You are the loveliest creature I have ever seen.”

Ella started to open her eyelids.

“No! You promised. I am going to tell you things I have no right to tell you. If your eyes are closed, you can pretend you
are simply listening to a creation of your female imagination. A character from one of the novels you no doubt enjoy.”

“One of the novels men should also enjoy so that they can know what women would enjoy.”

He laughed shortly. “As you say, my dear. No doubt you are right. I must let you select some volumes for me. Meanwhile, I
shall have to improvise.”

She pressed even closer. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”

“Patience. When your eyes are open—which, of course, they will not be until I say so—they are the darkest of browns and they
shine. Like cinnamon diamonds. Cinnamon diamonds would suit you. You should wear them often. Your brows remind me of birds’
wings, and your nose is straight and a little tip-tilty.”

She wrinkled the part in question. “Tip-tilty?”

“In the nicest possible way. Your neck is soft, as soft as the skin on your shoulders and arms—and on your breasts.”

His fingers, applied to her eyelids, stopped them from popping open.

“Hush, beloved,” he murmured. “There may never be another time for us. Your breasts are soft yet firm, and when I filled my
mouth with them my manhood was not the only part of my body to leap. I should be damned for speaking so to you, but it leaps
now.”

“I know,” she said before she could stop the words. Her hips tilted into his.

“Do you indeed?” He brushed his mouth over her brow. “Do you indeed, my girl? Do you know that as my body quickens, it longs
to feel again the soft curls between your legs?”

She let out a small cry. “There you become wet. You are wet now, perhaps?” Heat blazed in her cheeks. “Mmm. I see that you
are. That is as it should be, Ella. To be fully with a man—as it is meant to be—your heart and soul, and body, should be open
and welcoming. The entering for the man is the receiving for the woman. It is the joining of their bodies as something more
than flesh. If that is not the way of it, then the joining is only for passing pleasure and when the pleasure is over there
is nothing remaining.”

“The pleasure is wrong?”

His laughter was deep. “Oh, no, beloved. Not wrong at all. The pleasure is unbearably sweet. The thought of it turns my loins
to fire.” He covered her breasts, tucked his fingers beneath the neck of her bodice, and flirted with her straining nipples.
“Fire that will consume me when you are gone.”

“Then keep me,” she told him, breathless with her need. “We could go away from here now. I need nothing but you. I want nothing
but you.”

“And your mouth”—his lips covered hers in a deep, deep kiss—“your mouth is the stuff of my dreams as well. I look at your
soft lips and feel them on mine. When they part, mine part also.” He kissed her again, slipping his tongue into her mouth,
moaning softly, deep in his throat.

“Saber,” she said when he nuzzled his way to her ear. “Don’t send me away again.”

With both hands, he cradled her head and pressed her face to his chest. “I can’t keep you. Not ever.”

She made fists against him. “Why?”

“You could not understand. I don’t want you to.”

“I will not allow you to send me away again.”

“The choice is not yours.”

“You speak such beautiful words. Then you puzzle me. You break my heart, Saber.”

“There are things I cannot share with you,” he told her. “But I can ask you to forgive me for not being what you need—not
anymore.”

“You are—”

“No. Not ever. We must let each other go.”

With unbearable pain? She could not do it. Somehow she would find the way to destroy whatever stood between them. The gold
reticule hung from her wrist. “I have brought the ruby star back to you.”

At first he didn’t respond. Then he said, “Why? It was my gift to you. I got it for you.”

“I brought it back because you said it is not as cold as your heart. A lie, Saber. And I do not accept gifts that are lies.”

“I wish it to be yours.”

She heard a new edge in his voice—desperation? Hardening herself, she said, “You should save it for someone you can love.”

He grew quite still. “I have no reason to save it any longer.”
Because you love me?
“I have given it to you, Ella. Wear it and think of me.”

“I always think of you. Saber, let me heal you. Please.” His response was to embrace her more ardently, to enfold her as if
he would absorb her into him.

Ella took his face in her hands and pulled it down to hers. He tried to avert the evidence of his wounds. “No! No, Saber.
You have not heard me.” She eased his scarred skin against her cheek. “I asked you to let me heal you. There is nothing of
you that I do not love.”

“There are scars you cannot see.”

She smoothed his shoulders, his back. “I have seen them. I want them for my own.”

“Ella,” he murmured. “Please accept that we cannot be together. Regardless of what we may both long for, it cannot be.”

Her head bowed to his shoulder. “What if you discovered that someone wanted to do me harm?”

Beneath her hands, his muscles stiffened. “Do you harm? Is there… Has someone tried to harm you?”

She should not do this, but desperation had stolen her choices. “Possibly. Look.” Catching at the reticule, she contrived
to remove the latest secret delivery to Hanover Square. “This was sent to me today. Left in a packet on the doorstep. Rose—my
maidservant—gave it to me when I returned from Pall Mall. There was no note.”

Saber looked at the scrap of red chiffon she fluttered near his face and frowned. “Someone sent it to you?”

“It is a warning, Saber. Someone wishes to frighten me— to let me know my past is not a secret and that it can be used to
ruin me.”

He shook his head. “Used how? A piece of material?”

“To shame me. To spread rumors.”

Saber took the gauzy thing from her fingers. “You will have to be more plain, Ella.”

How could he know the details? He had not been there.

“This is what I have always feared,” she told him. “I never wanted to return to London—in part because I had met you and wasn’t
interested in meeting other”—she silenced him with a forefinger on his lips—“I did not want to meet other men. I still do
not want to meet other men. But I also knew there would be a risk such as this, that someone would recognize me.”

Understanding darkened his gaze, hardened his features. “Yes,” she whispered. “Papa and Mama were convinced that it would
not happen because I was so young. But I am…different. Like a gypsy, they say. And I have been noticed, and remembered by
an ill-wisher.”

Saber spoke through his teeth. “Who could wish you ill? Who would
dare
to try to hurt you?”

His vehemence shocked her. “I only want it to stop.” And she wanted Saber at her side—by whatever means now. “Shame is the
weapon here. I wore red chiffon for—”

“No!”

“For the auction,” she finished, and felt tears fill her eyes. Her voice broke when she added, “Transparent red chiffon that
did not hide my body.”

Saber closed the material inside his fist. “No one will shame you because of this. Do you understand?”

His intensity shouldn’t thrill her so. “It could happen.”
Take me away.

“I would not allow it.”

“How would you stop it?”

He settled his thumbs at the point of her chin. “You are guilty of nothing. Remember those words. Hold them in your heart.
You have been a victim.” Bending, he kissed her escaping tears. “There will be a man—a man who is truly a man—who will not
be swayed by idle chatter.”

“It is not idle chatter,” she reminded him. “And I have already met a man who is truly a man.”