Emily Greenwood (19 page)

Felicity rubbed her wrists and breathed deeply. What had just happened? She’d been so caught up in what she and James were doing, more caught up in desire than she could ever have dreamed. And their wicked play… her body was still humming everywhere he had touched her. But now there was the disaster of Lila Pendleton’s arrival.

What on earth was James up to with this engagement business? Was it some sort of joke? She couldn’t bear it, not from him.

“This is all just a game to you, isn’t it?” she said.

One corner of his mouth tipped up in a half smile, and his eyes flicked toward the wardrobe she had emerged from earlier. “You seem to enjoy games well enough.”

She ground her teeth in frustration. “No, I don’t. This isn’t me,” she insisted.

A raised eyebrow mocked her, and she made a sound of exasperation. “Oh, fine, it is me, obviously, but I never do things like this.”
Anymore
, she thought. Once upon a time when she was young, she’d been so game for fun.

“They seem to come to you naturally enough.”

“But I don’t like risk!”

“Don’t you?” he asked, his voice seductive, as if the idea of her taking risks interested him. “Creeping about in a gentleman’s home after dark is certainly a risk.”

She was grateful for the darkness that hid her flaming face. She wasn’t like him. She would never have bet her future on the turn of a card. But a little voice was insisting she had loved the risk of playing games with him.

“If I could have gotten you to leave, it would have been worth it,” she said.

“Ah, so you
are
a gambler.” He paused. “Felicity, aside from the fact that we really have no choice now that Lila has seen us in my room like this, is it such a terrible idea to marry?”

Her jaw dropped. “You are serious.”

“Of course.”

“But I’m not going to get married.”

He looked as if she had just said she was going to visit the moon later that night. “What are you talking about?”

“Exactly what I said.”

His mouth compressed angrily. He crossed his arms, and it seemed like the line of his jaw had suddenly gotten harder. “I knew it! You’re secretly engaged to Markham. Damned sham of a vicar!”

“I am
not
engaged to Crispin,” she said, feeling exasperatedly as if she was destined to have a conversation about being engaged to Crispin every twelve hours. “I mean I’m not going to get married, ever.”

His eyes squinted in disbelief. “What is this about then, some kind of vow?”

He saw her eyebrows flick upward in surprise. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve made some kind of strange vow. What is it, eternal chastity? You’re a daughter of Artemis, something like that?”

She pressed her lips together in embarrassment. Chastity was the one thing she couldn’t claim. “I vowed when I was seventeen that I would never marry.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, for pity’s sake. What does seventeen have to do with now? You can just forget about this silly vow.”

“No, I can’t.”

“You have to. Unless you prefer Lila Pendleton’s brand of gossip, because if we aren’t engaged, she’s going to be very busy spreading rumors, and she won’t even wait until she’s gone—she’ll start with Josephine, and then move on to dropping hints among the servants. It’s too juicy a story.”

She sank back against the bedpost, feeling ill.

“So, that’s settled,” he said, taking her posture as surrender. “We’re engaged.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Why the devil not?”

But suddenly she’d had enough. She’d carried this wretched secret for three years, and instead of fading over time, it was causing her more trouble by the day. She was sick of its weight in her life. It had been part of what had made her so willing to make Tethering her life, but now Tethering was no longer hers. Let someone else look at this secret for a while—she was tired of tending it.

“You want to know why, James Collington? Fine. I’ll tell you. Because I’m not a virgin.”

His head jerked as if she’d struck him.

She’d managed to shock him. Well, fine, she was angry now, angry about how she’d told herself three years ago that it didn’t matter what the secret would cost her, angry that he’d pushed her to speak of it, and she didn’t care what happened now.

“Felicity,” he said, his voice a warning, “if this is one of your charades—”

“It’s not. I am entirely serious.”

His hands tightened into fists at his side and his eyes flashed at her in the candlelight. “So, you are having an affair with Markham. How long has this been going on?” His voice was icy. “And I warn you, you’d better not lie to me again.”

“I have not lied to you about Crispin,” she said coldly.

“But it was him, wasn’t it?” His nostrils flared. His jaw had grown hard and stern. With each moment he looked more tightly wound. Dangerous. She crossed her arms, as if that would protect her from him. Her anger would protect her.

“Yes!” she said acidly. “It was him. It happened once, three years ago, and he feels even worse about it than I do. I vowed afterward that I would never marry, because then I would have to explain myself, as I am doing now.”

“Are you in love with him?” he snapped.

“No! I never was. And that’s all I’ll say.”

His dark eyes bored into her. “And you expect me to believe you?”

“Believe what you want, but it’s the truth,” she said, returning his gaze unflinchingly. “And now you see why I cannot marry.”

She was astonished to find that suddenly she felt strangely lighter. The truth had been spoken and the earth hadn’t swallowed her up. She was almost…proud?

But she
did
feel that—she was proud of herself for releasing the hold of that secret. There would be consequences—starting, of course, with James’s disgust and renouncing of the engagement. But speaking the truth out loud had brought release, and she knew suddenly in her bones that she would find her own path in life, one that was not dictated by what happened one night when she was seventeen. Probably she would have to leave the area, once Mrs. Pendleton spread her gossip. But she’d go somewhere and start a life for herself—maybe she’d even find a way to travel to a distant land where no one had ever heard of her.

For a time he merely stood where he was, his lips grim, the sound of his breathing pronounced, as if he were gathering himself. If she had ever imagined such a scene, she would have painted herself cringing, waiting for cruel words from him. He was doubtless preparing them now, but she knew that however much she wanted his respect and love, she would not deny who she was to have it.

James watched Felicity, feeling as if the world had just been stood on its head. Jealousy burned hot in his chest and made him want to smash his fist against the heavy oak bedpost. Why had she done this thing? Had she been so attracted to Markham—God, the name made him feel sick—that she couldn’t stop herself? And yet she said she was never in love with him. How could he trust her?

A swirling miasma of dark feelings rushed about in him, demanding answers that he didn’t even want. It tried to supply visions of the two of them together, whirling images of the orchard, a hay cart, the back of a market stall—there were acres of places where two willing young people could sneak. They could have been together easily.

But he could not look at those imagined scenes.

He
would
not.

Slowly another part of him was struggling to gain his attention. He was angry—furious—about something Felicity had done when she was seventeen, it whispered. What was it he had just said to her—
what
does
seventeen
have
to
do
with
now?
He hadn’t even known her then. But he knew her now,
knew
that she was honorable—and hadn’t she just proved that, with this painful confession, when she could easily have agreed that they would be married and left him to be surprised on their wedding night?

He respected her. Which meant that he believed her, believed that there was nothing between her and Markham beyond this one—encounter.

As James stood before Felicity in silence, his face registering dark emotion, the tension in the room grew by the moment. Just when she was certain she couldn’t stand the silence a second longer—when she was about to make for the closet and run as fast as she could back to Blossom Cottage—he spoke.

“All right,” he said.

“All right what?”

“So you are not a virgin,” he said with a heavy sigh. “We are still engaged.”

She blinked, unable to believe what he was saying. “But—but don’t you care?”

“Yes,” he said darkly, “the very thought of—”

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw a moment, then opened them and ran a hand roughly through his hair, making his already wild locks more crazed. “Done is done. What I am interested in is now.” He reached out and traced a warm hand along her shoulder toward her neck and rested his hand in the curve. How she wanted, right then, to melt into his strength. “And now we are engaged.”

Had she really just confessed her secret fault to him? Yes, and she’d been prepared for his disgust, hatred even. But she could never have thought he would still want to marry her.

“But why?” she asked, her heart starting to beat loudly in her ears. “Honor does not compel you now.”

“It damned well does. And even if it didn’t,” he said, his eyebrows giving the barest sizzling wiggle, “I find I quite have to have you.”

Her heart dipped low. He wanted her, was prepared to marry her, but he did not speak of love now, at this time when lovers would. But, then, hadn’t she known that was how things stood?

“This is nothing to make a game of,” she said in as haughty and emotionless a voice as she could manage. “This isn’t piquet or vingt-et-un. These stakes can’t be recouped.”

He sighed and closed the distance between them. “I am playing no game, sweet. I have stated in all seriousness that we are engaged.”

She lifted her chin. “I haven’t agreed,” she said.

“I don’t see that you have any choice.” He crossed his arms and stood there looking extremely arrogant.

She wanted to give in and have what she wanted, even if it wouldn’t be wise. She loved this man. With all her heart. She came alive when they were together. The thought that he was drawn to her only because of passion was painful.

But maybe, just maybe, he might in time come to love her too.

“Very well, then, we’ll get married.” It wasn’t the way she might have allowed herself to dream of becoming engaged to him, but the fact was she was going to be married to him. He cared about her, liked her, and definitely wanted her. She allowed herself a tiny, cautious smile.

He chuckled quietly and reached out to pull her into his arms. “Not exactly the way a man imagines his fiancée accepting his proposal of marriage, but coming from my sweet tormenter, a gentle, seemly response.”

She looked up into his dark, now lightly mocking eyes and hoped that she had made a wise decision.

“One kiss,” he said, “and then we must get you home.”

“All right,” she whispered back, already yearning for it.

He bent toward her lips and lingered just next to them for several moments, so that they were each inhaling their mingled breaths. Then lightly he brushed his mouth against hers, his lips soft and firm, his whiskers prickly. Her skin lit with sensation where he touched her, and she opened to him, wanting him to come in.

The kiss had started slow and controlled, a quick taste before she must leave, but all thoughts of departure fled as the kiss consumed them both. He groaned against her, pressing her tightly against him so that her breasts, covered only by her chemise and the thin material of the dressing gown she wore over it, were pressed flat against his chest.

He left her lips to drag his mouth along her cheek toward her ear and whispered there, fairly panting, “Hell’s teeth, woman, shouldn’t you be wearing something more structured out in the world?”

“Ah,” she said as his warm breath against her ear sent shivers down her back. “I didn’t…” His mouth opened against her neck, and he began gently sucking an area that seemed connected to some internal chute that sent a bolt to where she was already slick with moisture. Her knees trembled.

“I didn’t,” she began again, not sure what she had been meaning to say. Something about her clothing. Why
was
she wearing this tatty old dressing gown? Oh, yes. Lovely Annabelle.

She moaned as he pressed his hands against her waist, fingers splayed. He pushed his hands up slowly, snugly molded against her, describing her shape even as he pushed her thin gown and chemise up along with his hands to gather under her bosom. His hands came to rest under her breasts, which felt full, pendulous, impossibly sensitive to every movement of the cloth against them, cloth that was alive with the penetrating warmth of his hands. He made her feel worshipped, and she loved it.

“Your shape is so beautiful,” he was murmuring, head bent as he watched his hands take possession of her breasts. He groaned.

Her own curious hands had found their way into the opening of the shirt he had hastily donned and were now tracing the tautness of his skin, feeling the lean muscle and bone of his hips. She explored upward, where his torso branched out widely at his ribs. Her mind flashed to Greek myths, to stories of handsome, flawless gods come down to frolic among mortals, and she thought,
Ah, I see what all the fuss was about
.

“James,” she whispered breathlessly, feeling amazement at the strong beauty of his perfect male form. “You are rather magnificent.”

He exhaled a shaky laugh. “Rather?” he teased. “Not entirely?”

She glanced up at him, his head still inches above hers even bent over, and saw his dark eyelashes against his cheek, his eyes closed in what could only be pleasure. Feeling her gaze, he opened his eyes, arched an eyebrow, and with a naughty chuckle, deftly unfastened the three little front buttons molding the dressing gown to her bosom and flicked the gown off.