Jo Goodman (33 page)

Colin lifted his head and the moment was over. His narrow smile held a hint of regret but there was no apology. He stood, pulling Mercedes to her feet. Upright now, he wavered unsteadily. She was instantly available to him, offering her entire body as a crutch. He glanced down at her as she fitted herself against him. When Mercedes brought his arm around her neck and gripped his hand so that it lay close to her breast, it occurred to Colin that she delighted in practicing sweet torture. But when she lifted her face, her gray eyes were merely grave, not guilty, and he was reminded that she had little sense of herself as someone desirable.

"Are you quite certain you're ready?" she asked.

"You have no idea how ready," he said. When she frowned uncertainly, he sighed. "Lead on, Mercedes."

They made it to Colin's room without stopping, but Colin only made it as far as the wing chair before he sat down.

"I don't think you want to sleep there," she told him.

"I do." He was making himself comfortable, slumping against the brocade back and stretching out his long legs. He folded his arms across his chest then shut his eyes.

Mercedes studied him a moment. Colin's head was already listing at an odd angle that would cause him grief in the morning. And no man's back could curve at such an unnatural angle without pain upon straightening. He would be sorry in the morning for having ignored her advice. She could walk away now and know she had given her best effort to make him see reason.

She turned to go, paused, and thought better of it. Would he blame her for all his ills in the morning? On those occasions when the earl was pained by the consequences of his drinking, Mercedes found herself the target of his anger. No matter that any effort to keep him from his excesses would have meant physical retribution. Somehow the earl expected her to try and fail and, having failed, be punished for it.

Could it be the same way with Captain Thorne?

Mercedes knelt at his feet and began to remove his boots.

"What are you doing?"

It was clear what she was doing. What was not clear was if he objected. "Trying to make you more comfortable."

He grunted impatiently. "If I were any more comfortable I'd be a puddle on the floor. I can take off my own boots, you know."

She sat back on her heels and waited.

Colin lifted one foot and tried crossing it over his knee. It slid right off and thumped to the floor. "Later," he said, closing his eyes again.

When Mercedes reached for his foot a second time he didn't object. She removed the right then the left. She knew she had done the right thing as he wriggled his toes and sighed. Leaning back, she managed to grasp the navy throw on the wing chair behind her and unfolded it over Colin. He murmured something but didn't open his eyes. Mercedes placed the footstool that rested beside the desk under Colin's feet. Satisfied that she had done what she could for him, she started to leave.

The firm hand around her wrist brought her up short.

"Don't go," he said.

She noticed that he hadn't roused himself enough to open his eyes, yet he had managed to find her. "There's nowhere for me—"

Colin pushed the stool with his heel, nudging it just to one side so she could sit. "Right here."

Mercedes stared at him, then the stool. She hesitated, wondering at his motive.

"Please."

She sat. Her back rested narrowly against the chair and her shoulder brushed his leg. Her own knees were drawn up toward her chest, her robe and nightgown spread out around her like a bell. She stiffened a little as Colin laid his hand on her shoulder. His thumb made a pass along her neck just where Marcus Severn's fingerprints blossomed on her pale skin.

"Do you believe in keeping promises?" he asked.

The question surprised Mercedes. His hand on her neck distracted her. "I don't think I understand," she said carefully.

"Do you believe in keeping promises?" he repeated.

It was hardly any clearer to her the second time. The question wasn't difficult, but why was he asking it? "Well, yes," she said slowly. "It's a point of honor, isn't it?" She tried to turn to see him but his hand kept her looking straight ahead.

Behind her, Colin nodded gravely. "That's what I thought." His fingers slipped into Mercedes's hair. The pins that held it in place loosened under his gentle urging. He sifted through the strands, letting them slip over his fingers as if they were liquid.

His attention confused Mercedes. Her breath became shorter and harder to draw as she waited for his hand to tighten in her hair and yank on her scalp. It was her experience that tenderness was the precursor to some pain. Anticipation was often more cruel than the reality. She willed him to have done with her.

"And promises to oneself?" he asked. His fingers drifted to the nape of her neck. "How do you figure those?"

Words seemed to be frozen in her throat. "I... I don't know what you mean," she said. A shiver ran the course of her spine as the rough pads of his fingers drifted over her skin.

"Is it still a point of honor to keep a promise to oneself?" His hand was buried in her thick hair again. Tendrils of bittersweet chocolate poured through his splayed fingers.

It was almost as if he were speaking to himself, Mercedes thought, as if he were asking the questions aloud to hear himself think through the answers. "Honor starts with oneself," she said softly. His hand stilled in her hair. Mercedes tensed, raising her shoulders to ease the pain she was certain was coming.

Colin sighed. "I thought we might be of one mind on that point." He let his hand fall back to his lap.

Mercedes waited. Her shoulders ached from holding them so stiffly. The back of her neck was cramped and her heart was thumping uncomfortably hard in her chest. She swiveled her head slowly to look at him. There were no visible lines of strain cutting across his forehead or narrowing his mouth. He appeared as relaxed as anytime she had seen him sleeping, yet Mercedes could sense by his breathing that he was still awake. When she started to move away his eyes opened immediately.

"You're very skittish this evening," he said, studying her with his implacable dark eyes. "Is there somewhere you're supposed to be?"

"I... no, there's nowhere." She regretted her slight hesitation as it caused her to be regarded with more scrutiny. "That is," she corrected. "I'd like to go to bed."

Colin was instantly agreeable. "Of course." He pushed himself to his feet, drew Mercedes to hers, and gave her a gentle nudge in the direction of the bed.

"I was thinking of my own bed," she said.

"I wasn't."

Mercedes gave him an uneasy, over the shoulder glance. "Very well." She turned away, bent her head, and began to loosen the belt of her robe. She would have allowed it to fall to the floor, but Colin caught it and folded it carefully over the back of the desk chair. He watched her turn back the covers on his bed. Instead of crawling in, she perched on the edge, her heels resting on the frame. He was not so many sheets to the wind that he couldn't see the lines of apprehension that defined her every feature.

Unnerved by his steady regard, Mercedes's chin came up. "Have done with it," she said flatly.

Colin's brows lifted and his eyes took on a certain blank look that could not be feigned. "Have done with what?" he asked.

She raised her hands helplessly, struggling to find the words. "With whatever you're going to do."

"I'm going to get undressed."

When Mercedes's hands dropped back to the bed her left one fell on the pillow. No thought was involved as her fingers curled around the corner. In a swift, swinging motion she tore it free from the sheets and let it fly in Colin's direction.

Surprise, more than the whisky, port, and brandy, was responsible for Colin's staggering step back. He caught the pillow against his gut and steadied himself before he threw it toward the foot of the bed. "What was that in aid of?" he asked, standing his ground. "Are you trying to provoke me?" Even as he heard himself ask the question, he knew the answer. The blank look in his eyes faded and they sharpened with understanding. His voice lowered as he spoke, this time to himself, "Of course, you are." Colin's head tilted to one side as he skimmed Mercedes's wide eyes and pale face. "Why, Mercedes? What do you want?"

Her fingers tightened on the edge of the bed. She spoke in a burst of staccatos. "I want it over with."

Colin recognized the alcohol
had
made him thick-headed. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "That's what you've been expecting, isn't it? That I'm going to punish you for that bit of bad business with Severn this afternoon."

Mercedes was not convinced. "Aren't you?"

"I told you once that I would never hurt you. Have I given you reason to think I might change my mind?"

There was an ache in her throat that made it difficult to speak. The same ache spread and became a stinging sensation behind her eyes and a throbbing in her temples. She felt the press of tears and blinked them back. The lump in her throat was swallowed hard. "What then was all that talk of promises?" she asked. "Are you a man who keeps or breaks them?"

Colin felt her question as a blow. Had she hit him with her fists, he could not have felt it more keenly. "I was speaking of other promises," he said. "It had nothing to do with you."

"It has
something
to do with me," she contradicted. "Else you wouldn't have made a point of saying it in front of me. You meant to make me wonder at your intentions. And if you have to ask yourself if promises should be kept, then why wouldn't I be concerned that you might not honor the ones made to me?"

Colin stared at her for a long moment while silence filled the space between them. He could see what it had cost her to speak so plainly. Where her fingers clutched the edge of the mattress, her knuckles were white. Her gray eyes shone with a wash of unshed tears. The cascade of dark hair along her shoulders shimmered with the faint trembling of her tightly held frame.

What she suggested he had done was nothing short of cruel. He had asked her to sit beside him because she quieted him in a way only the sea ever had. He recalled laying his hand on her shoulder, touching her neck, her hair. Her skin was achingly soft beneath his fingers and her hair was like silk. There was comfort to be drawn from the steadiness of her pulse along the fragile cord of her throat. And all the while he was taking pleasure from her presence, she was waiting for the first blow. The anticipation would have been an agony.

"You're wrong about me," he said at last. Colin turned on his heel and stepped into the dressing room.

Mercedes picked up the pillow at the foot of the bed and held it against her. He hadn't raised his voice. He hadn't threatened. He hadn't lifted a hand against her. Still, she had the sense of being beaten down, this time by the weight of her suspicions and mistrust.

Mercedes glanced at the door. She could leave. She knew she could and she knew he wouldn't follow—not tonight, not when she had accused him of deliberately playing to her fears. Did she want to leave? That was a question she had been avoiding, less certain of herself than she was of Colin. It was far simpler to think about what he wanted.

She listened to him moving around in the dressing room, the sound of him washing his face, cleaning his teeth, removing his clothes. She heard him swear softly as he stubbed his toe. This was followed by an intermittent thudding as he hopped on one foot. For reasons she didn't entirely understand, it was the hopping that made up her mind. In his inebriated state, he couldn't have managed it with any grace.

Mercedes was lying on her side facing the far wall when Colin entered the bedchamber. He was wearing a pair of drawstring drawers that rode low on his hips and nothing else. He paused at the bedside to turn back the lamp, then raised the sheet and crawled in. She hadn't lingered on his side of the bed long. The sheets were still cool. He stretched out on his back and cradled his head in his hands. He listened to her breathing and knew she had been waiting for him.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You don't have to be here," he said.

They spoke simultaneously and neither quite heard the other.

Mercedes turned over so she could face him. "I'm sorry," she repeated.

"I said, you don't have to—"

"No, I didn't mean that I didn't hear you. I mean I'm sorry that I misjudged your intentions." She fell silent but Colin didn't answer her apology. "You don't know what it was like with my uncle," she said.

"No, but I'm learning a little more every day."

"I don't want your pity."

"I didn't think you did. I imagine that if you could help yourself, you wouldn't give me any hint of the dark side of his nature." Colin's short laugh was without humor. "To say he has a dark side suggests there's something redeeming about the other half. From what I've observed, the Earl of Weybourne made a thorough job of being a bastard."

A small smile tugged at Mercedes's mouth. "Now you've insulted bastards everywhere."

Colin glanced at her, surprised. "So you don't always come to Weybourne's defense."

"Not always," she said quietly. "I suppose I'm hating him a little more these days. Just when I think he's out of my life, something he's said or done comes back to touch me."