Columbine (14 page)

“Dianna ?”

At first she thought she imagined Kit’s voice, too, but when he repeated her name, her eyes flew open with horror. He’d caught her trespassing, pure and simple. But her apology died on her lips as she confronted the vivid reality of the man before her.

Hot and dirty from a day’s riding, Kit had stripped off his shirt and boots outside and dumped bucket after bucket of icy well water over his head. His hair was still swept sleekly back from his forehead and his bare torso held the sheen of the water, the sun slanting through the windows highlighting the muscles in his arms and shoulders. Stray droplets glistened in the dark curls of his hair across his chest and down lower, across his abdomen to the top of his breeches. There the water had made the wet fabric cling shamelessly to his all-too-male body. How long she stood there, and how long she stared, Dianna could not begin to guess.

Oh, God in Heaven, what must he think of met

What Kit thought was that Dianna was the most enchanting woman he’d ever seen.

He had met Hester in the yard, grumbling about Dianna and faeries, but he’d had no idea that Dianna herself would be waiting in his chamber like some wild woodland queen. Her hair streamed gloriously around her like a cape with wildflowers strewn through the chestnut waves. Gone was the pallor of the long voyage. Her skin was burnished to a rosy gold, her face and body once again pleasingly rounded. As she bent over his bed, her shift had slipped low off her shoulders above her laced sleeveless bodice, offering him a tantalizing view of her breasts. Her lips were half-open with surprise, her pale eyes wide with—with what? Invitation? He had been mistaken about her before, but to find her here this way, with no one else in the house … no, there could be no other explanation than that she wanted him as much as he did her.

And Kit had never desired a woman more. He had spent these past weeks alternately blessing and damning Asa for keeping her from Plumstead, but most often he had cursed himself for driving her away. He tried to be a good man, a kind master and generous neighbor, and yet with her he always seemed to become an overbearing boot. He couldn’t blame her if she loathed him. She was as mercurial as the silver color of her eyes, and each time he had tried to hold her, she had slipped from his grasp.

Would this, then, be his last chance with her to prove he was different?

“So you’ve come back at last,” he said softly, unwilling to risk frightening her again.

“For the kittens,” answered Dianna hastily, and then winced at how foolish she sounded. How could she think at all with him watching her like a great golden lion? She stepped away from the bed and folded her arms across her chest. Where was the apology that she needed to make before she could escape?

“And Mercy wished to see you again.”

“Aye, and I’ve missed her, too.” The beginnings of a smile played around the corners of his mouth.

“But I’ve missed you more.”

“Missed me!” cried Dianna scornfully, all the frustration of these past weeks rising up.

“How can you miss me when you scarcely know me?”

“In some way I feel I’ve always known you. From that night at Sir Henry’s–” “The night you betrayed me!” said Dianna bitterly.

“Ah, you wrong me now, just as I wronged you then,” he said with genuine sadness. With her hair loose, it was too easy to remember how she looked that night and the things that had gone so poorly between them since then. He no longer cared that she had been Sir Henry’s mistress, nor did he believe that she had tried to kill the man, but he was at a loss to admit it without angering her, and justly.

“I

would give much to begin again with you, Dianna.”

“Master Christopher Sparhawk would care what became of a convict, a ten-guinea bonds woman

She had intended to be sarcastic, but instead her words came out as a poignant little plea. She wanted so very much to believe him!

“Master Sparhawk cares very much,” he said, his voice deep and seductive. Slowly he circled around the bed to come stand before her. Even barefoot, he towered over her.

“And you don’t need me to tell you your worth, Diauna.”

With a lazy smile, he plucked one of the flowers from her hair and brushed the star-shaped petals along her cheek.

“Columbine, isn’t it?”

Dianna nodded, her own words scarcely more than a whisper.

“The roots when boiled are a good poultice for burns and scalds.”

He chuckled.

“All from this pretty little flower?

Hester has taught you well.” He let the flower fall, and his hand alone traced along the curve of her cheek. Gently his callused fingertips cradled her chin, and he marveled at her delicacy as he turned her face upward toward his.

“And here I always favored columbine for its beauty alone.”

She closed her eyes as his mouth swept down. All her senses were focused on his lips upon hers, coaxing her, wooing her with a tenderness she hadn’t expected, Without thinking, she uncrossed her arms and rested her hands on his chest, her fingers uncertainly exploring the damp, curling hair over smooth skin.

In response his hands found and spanned her waist and drew her closer. Her breasts crushed against his chest, the water that still clung to him dampening her shift above the bodice. She felt the heat of his body against hers, and the coolness of the water, and an unfamiliar warmth began to build inside her.

Gradually her lips parted, and she welcomed his deepening kiss. He pulled her closer, molding her body against his, and she felt oddly soft and pliant against the hardness of his muscles and sinews. Her hands climbed up the wide expanse of his chest, across his shoulders and twined around his neck.

Hungrily she stretched herself along his body as his tongue explored the velvety depths of her mouth.

It was all she remembered from kissing him before, and more, for this time, strangely, she was not frightened. She was a virgin, true, but she was not innocent of what passed between men and women.

Four years at court had taken care of that. She realized that she would not flee from Kit this afternoon.

Right or wrong, she wanted him, all of him, too much to fight him or herself any longer.

Kit felt the hot pulse of his desire throbbing through his veins, and as she moved her lithe form seductively against him, his low moan of pleasure sounded deep where their mouths were joined. It had been too long since he’d had a woman, but, God’s blood, Dianna would be worth the wait. Her mouth was unbelievably sweet, and the fire he remembered was there again, searing him with the heat of her unfulfilled passion. He broke free long enough to bury his face in the silky ripples of her hair, relishing the fragrance of her skin mingled with the wildflowers.

His lips brushed down her throat, and she stretched her head back with a little shiver, shaking her hair down over his hands.

With unsteady fingers, he untied the ribbons of her skirt and eased it down over her hips, then unlaced her bodice and pulled it off as well. Only her shift remained to cover her, the thin linen clinging damp and translucent to her body where she had pressed against him. He groaned at the sight, and his kisses now held no gentleness, only the fierce demand of his rising passion. His large hands slid down her body and grasped her hips, kneading the soft flesh as he lifted her up against him.

Dianna let herself be drawn into the irresistible spell of his touch. She was light-headed with desire, her breath shortened to brief gasps, and she scarcely noticed when he tipped her back onto the billowy softness of the mattress. His lips left hers to find first the little hollow at the base of her throat, and then moved lower, to the top curves of her breasts above her shift. With both hands he cupped them, nuzzling the valley between as he tugged her shift’s neckline lower over the dark peaks. His callused fingers circled and teased her, his skin rough against hers, until she moaned and arched up against him. Her nipples tightened beneath his touch and then beneath his tongue as his mouth repeated the sweet torture. She tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer.

Deep in her belly she felt the tension building, the unbelievable yearning that made her heart pound, and she twisted as he tried to free her breasts from the shift. Frustrated, he grasped the linen and tore it to the hem, baring her pale body to his gaze. She was even more beautiful, more perfect, than he had imagined.

Driven by his desire, his caresses grew bolder, more possessive. He would make her forget every

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other lover but him, and he would make her his.

Kneeling between her legs, he traced a teasing trail of kisses along the insides of her thighs until she quivered beneath him, and he caught her knees over his arms and lifted her to his mouth.

Stunned, Dianna gasped first with surprise and then with pleasure. Her whole being seemed concentrated on coiling tighter and tighter around the secret place he’d found, and her back arched uncontrollably as she clutched handfuls of the coverlet. Her knees drew higher, shaking, her body begging for release.

She cried out his name when he came to her at last, and her arms clutched convulsively around him to pull him closer. Instinctively she opened herself to him, and when his fingers slipped between their bodies to ease his way, her hips jerked upward to meet him, and he was deep inside her.

Wild-eyed from the unexpected pain, she stared up at him in confusion. Kit’s expression was rigid with the effort of control; he wanted to prolong the pleasure as far as he could, but, sweet Lord, she was so hot and tight. He began to move as slowly as he could, and with each stroke, Dianna felt the sting fading and the pleasure once again building. He filled her so completely, this huge man, and she could not swear to where he began and she ended, he was so much a part of her. He pulled back and plunged deeply into her, and then again, and tentatively she began to follow his rhythm her own hips rising to meet his thrusts until finally it was itoo much, and she could only cross her ankles over his flank. and trust him to bring her through with him. And he did, carrying her with him to an exquisite level of rapture that neither had dreamed possible.

Her heart still pounding, Dianna lay exhausted beneath him, her mind and body both dazed by what she’d experienced. Surely he must love her, she reasoned joyfully, else how could his lovemaking have been so passionate and wondrous? She smiled shyly to herself and lightly brushed her lips across his chest above her. He made a low growl of contentment, so deep that she felt the vibrations within her own body where they still lay joined.

Slowly he lifted himself up on his elbows to look down at her. With her flower-strewn hair fanned around her face, her lips still swollen from his kisses and her silver eyes liquid with fulfillment, she was unbelievably beautiful. He had never made love to a woman in this bed before, preferring to keep his involvements safely away from Plumstead, but Dianna seemed somehow to belong in this chamber. Already he was planning, quite pleasantly, how to bring her here again. The gossips in Wickhamton would run riot if they ever learned of it, but Dianna was a worldly woman who could be counted on to be discreet.

And he hadn’t had a doubt he’d pleased her well in return: he’d never seen a woman look so blissfully sated. Much, he thought wryly, as he probably looked in return.

Tenderly he brushed a dark lock of hair back from her forehead.

“Ah, Dianna, sweeting, my goddess of the moon and stars,” he said lazily.

“Though it will be with the summer sun that I’ll always see you in my mind’s eyes. You’re a lovely woman, my Lady Grey. A lovely, tempting woman.”

Dianna heard that “always,” and her heart jumped. She’d never dreamed she’d be loved by a man so handsome, so perfect, as Kit Sparhawk. Seductively he moved his hips against hers, and with a little catch in her breath, Dianna immediately echoed his motion and arched into him.

Kit groaned with the pleasure she gave him. God, he wanted her again, right now, with a fierceness he found hard to believe possible.

“Little vixen,” he growled, kissing her throat.

“No woman’s ever done this to me.”

“I’ve never known another man, Kit,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Another man like me,” he finished for her.

“Aye, sweeting, I’ve told you that before, and at last you’ve come to believe me.”

A shadow fell across Dianna’s happiness. Didn’t he understand? He was the first, the only, man, she’d lain with. How could he not have sensed the prize she’d so willingly surrendered to him? His mouth trailed lower, capturing one rosy nipple in his lips, and her doubts fled, forgotten with the desire he fanned within her again. As in a faraway dream, she heard horses, then men calling Kit’s name. She pulled him closer, certain these sounds had nothing to do with them, not now.

But Kit raised his head, listening, his face dark with anger. God in heaven, would he never have a moment to himself?. With one final kiss, reluctantly he rolled away from her and crossed the floor to the open window.

Two tenants from an outlying farm were carefully lifting another man, wrapped in a blanket, from the back of a horse. He seemed unconscious, injured somehow, for his arms and legs flopped awkwardly against the horse. The Plumstead workers were clustered around them, and there was Hester, too. If it was her aid with physicking the injured man that brought them here, then why did they need him, too?

People were forever falling from lofts or clumsily cutting themselves on scythes. Of course, he cared what happened to them, but why this afternoon, of all days?

Then the others moved apart enough for Kit to clearly see the injured man. He was pale as death, perhaps dead already, and the impromptu bandages that swathed his head were soaked through. Kit gripped the windowsill. He’d seen before what a rough-honed scalping knife could do to a man, swiftly, before he’d realized the Indians were upon him. And what it could do to a woman, a child.

He grabbed for his breeches, hastily jerking them up over his legs, and saw the blood on himself. He frowned, uncomprehending, then his glance flew back to Dianna. She lay curled on her side, propped up on one elbow as she watched him, but there was no mistaking the stains on her pale thighs. His conscience screamed that it was not possible, that he could not have done this to her. Virgins fought and wept; they did not wrap their thighs around a man’s waist and writhe with pleasure. And what of her uncle and the other men who’d claimed to have known her?