Jo Goodman (47 page)

Colin drew Mercedes toward the fireplace. He added a log, poked at the fire, then invited her to sit on the hearth rug. She looked at him questioningly but complied. Colin poured wine in two glasses before he joined her. Mercedes took her glass and moved closer so that Colin's chest offered partial support for her back. The leaping, licking fire was hypnotic. Orange and yellow flames shimmered as they consumed the logs. The light that was cast lifted the rich hidden colors in Mercedes's hair to the surface. Dark chocolate strands were threaded with shades of auburn and copper, and the play of light across her face was more interesting to Colin than the fire she was looking at.

He touched his glass to hers, pulling her attention away from the hearth. "Mrs. Thorne."

The husky tenor of his voice quickened Mercedes's pulse. "Yes?"

His narrow smile touched his eyes. "Nothing. I wanted to try it out. Mercedes Leyden Thorne. I like it."

She liked it, too. Smiling agreeably, she sipped her wine.

Watching her, Colin was moved to taste the wine on her lips. He took the glass from her hand and set it on the marble fireplace apron. He placed his own glass beside it.

Colin had no grand seduction plan. The fire, the wine, the informality of sitting on the rug, it was accomplished more by accident than design. He lifted her chin. Her skin was soft under his fingertips. He could feel her warmth and knew better than to credit the fire. Her mouth was damp and for a moment her breathing was trapped in her throat.

He kissed her long and deeply, fulfilling the promise of the kiss that had sealed their vows. She turned into him and his hands framed her face, holding her still and steady while his mouth ravaged hers. Mercedes felt the kiss in her breasts which swelled tautly, the nipples hardening and pressing against her camisole. She felt the kiss along the length of her spine as she arched to match the curve of her body to his. Between her legs she could feel the rise of moist heat.

It did not seem she could get close enough. Her arms came around his shoulders. She rose to her knees and then she was straddling him without ever knowing quite how it was accomplished. Her gown and petticoats fell around her modestly, but beneath them she was cradled intimately to Colin's thighs. Mercedes gave herself up to his hands and his mouth. Her head fell back, exposing her throat, and Colin's lips laid a trail from her chin to the base of her neck. He unfastened the buttons at the back of her gown and slipped the material over her shoulders. In contrast to the dark fabric, her skin had the luminescence of a pearl.

The corset and camisole and shift were all removed and she knelt in front of him, naked to the waist. His eyes, so dark now they seemed black, were all that covered her. Her heart raced as she raised his hands and laid them across her breasts. She moved, her nipples caressed by the center of his palms, and raised herself higher, offering herself up to the hot suck of his mouth.

Mercedes moaned softly as his lips caught her nipple. Colin's tongue flicked the tip. His hands moved under her gown, caught her hips, and settled her hard against his groin. Her body rocked against him. She tore at his vest, his shirt, and laid kisses across his jaw and shoulder. Her hands slipped under his shirt and the hard muscles of his chest and belly retracted as he sucked in his breath. He found the anticipation of her touch almost as intensely pleasurable as the touch itself.

Colin tugged at Mercedes's drawers. He opened the front of his trousers. He lifted her again and this time brought her down on his hard tumescence. There was only a faint darkening of her eyes as she was filled by him. Her slender, elegant fingers closed around his shirt more tightly as though to gain purchase. Her head tilted to one side and she leaned into him, slanting her mouth across his in a kiss that robbed him of breath and thought, everything in fact, except sensation.

She rose slowly, contracting around him, drawing out the exquisite pleasure of their joining, then lowered herself again. The rhythm was hers this time and she made it a sweet torment.

Mercedes closed her eyes but he couldn't stop looking at her. Nothing in his life had prepared him for the enormity of the gift she was giving him. She touched him in ways that had nothing to do with her hands in his hair, her mouth on his skin, or the joining of their bodies. What she offered was the raw honesty of emotion and the fierce passion of a soul that had never been opened.

In healing him she found herself healed.

Mercedes was captured by the pleasure that flooded her. At her back heat from the fire licked her skin. At her breast it was the damp edge of Colin's tongue that caused the same sensation. His fingers unbound her hair. It fell like a cascade of water around her naked shoulders and the fragrance was reminiscent of the flowers she had carried that morning. He breathed deeply as she rocked forward.

One of Colin's hands slid across her hip and caressed her inner thigh. Mercedes's body tensed in response to his touch. He teased her, straying closer to the center of their joining until she trapped his hand between them. His fingers grazed her most intimately and the intensity of it caused her to arch and cry out incoherently. His mouth covered hers, cutting off the sound and tasting her pleasure.

Colin's chest swelled. His skin was stretched taut over the muscles of his back and shoulders. In response to his need her rhythm changed. He arched under her, thrusting upward and twisting so that she was finally under him. He drove into her hard and she gave up another cry at the back of her throat.

A shudder shook his body first, then hers. The tension that had strung them so tightly vibrated now. For a few seconds pleasure was crystallized, tangible. Then it was gone. In its wake was a satisfying lethargy. Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.

They might have remained that way for the best part of the evening if Mercedes hadn't minded the occasional spark that leapt from the fireplace and singed her hair. She let one pass. The second time she sat up and pinned her hair.

Colin watched her slender arms rise elegantly. Her breasts lifted. Her skin glowed in the aftermath of their loving. He sighed when she finally raised her shift straps to her shoulders. One of them immediately fell back when she leaned over him. He appreciated the swift response to his prayers.

"Why are you smiling?" she whispered.

"That must be what you call a rhetorical question."

She kissed him lightly. "Clever man," Mercedes's eyes strayed to the library doors. "Did you lock those?"

"It's a bit late to be asking, don't you think? Are you quite certain you want to know the answer?"

Mercedes jumped to her feet and went to the doors, straightening her clothes as she crossed the floor. She shook the handles. They were secure. Turning on Colin, she placed her hands on her hips. "You might have just told me," she said. "Instead of letting me think the worst."

He sat up and righted his own clothing. "But you rise to the bait so beautifully."

"I've seen the trout you've landed," she told him with some asperity. "There's no compliment in being likened to a great, gaping fish."

He stood. "I shall strive to make more flattering comparisons in the future. Will that satisfy you?"

What he had just done to her
satisfied
Mercedes. Flattery would merely have to do. She couldn't quite contain her smile. "I suppose," she said primly.

His glance lowered to her mouth. She was looking very pleased with herself. He hoped in some small measure that it had something to do with him. Colin picked up both glasses of wine and balanced them carefully in one hand. With the other he took the bottle. "I believe Mrs. Hennepin will have prepared our room by now," he said. "Would you care to join me?"

Mercedes looked past him to the place where they had made love on the floor. She couldn't quite check her smile. "It seems that nothing about this day has gone quite the way I'd imagined."

Before Colin could ask what she meant by that, Mercedes had opened the doors and was leading the way to the staircase.

In Colin's room fresh flowers filled vases on the mantelpiece and bedside table. Rose petals were scattered across the lace pillow shams. Mercedes recognized some of her toiletries on Colin's dresser. She imagined the armoire in the adjoining dressing room now contained part of her wardrobe. Colin was nudging the door closed with the heel of his boot when she turned on him.

"Was this your idea?" she asked.

"The flowers?" He set the glasses and wine on the small table between the two wing chairs. "That's Sylvia's touch, I imagine. Or Chloe's."

"No." Mercedes was shaking her head, her distress visible. "I mean was it your idea that we would share one room?"

Now Colin was puzzled. "We're married," he said. "Of course we'll share a room."

"You should have asked me. It's not done here. Not in a house like Weybourne Manor, not when there are dozens of bedrooms at our disposal. We can have rooms that connect here in the south wing if you prefer the privacy, or in the north wing if you don't mind being close to my cousins."

Colin sat on the edge of the bed and removed his boots. He stretched his legs, crossing them at the ankles. "Mercedes," he said patiently. "We've shared this room before. I don't see what difference it—"

"It was
different
before. When I came here I could leave. I had a room of my own. I can't stay here with you... not all the time."

"You're my wife, Mercedes."

She twisted the ring on her finger. "I had more freedom when I was your mistress."

He sat up straighter, and he leveled her with a cold glance. "It's a little late for cold feet, but then you've already mentioned nothing about this day has gone as you imagined it. Add this to your list of complaints."

"I've had no complaints," she said, her voice rising. "Until now. It didn't occur to me that you would want a single bedroom."

"And it didn't occur to me that you'd want to sleep apart."

Mercedes blinked. Anger subsided as the wind was taken out of her sails. She shook her head, her smile shaded by regret. "I didn't say that I wanted to sleep apart," she said. "Only that I wanted a room of my own. They're very different things." She approached the bed. Colin uncrossed his legs and she walked into the opening he provided. Mercedes laid her hands on his shoulders. "And as far as today not being as I imagined, you don't know that I've always thought I'd be sold to one of my uncle's friends. He threatened me with them often enough. Had I been any less helpful in keeping Weybourne Park afloat, or caring for his children, the earl would have had me auctioned off a long time ago."

Colin knew she was telling the truth. He felt his insides clenching. "Then you weren't disappointed?"

"In what?" she asked.

"You wanted the wedding in the garden."

"It could have been in jail," she reminded him. "And you filled the chapel with flowers. It was lovely."

"We didn't spend the day together."

"It made me appreciate being with you later."

"We consummated our marriage in the library."

"Think of it another way: we put off this argument." Mercedes expected him to laugh. At the very least, to smile. He did neither. Instead he searched her face and the naked need in his eyes captured her breath. "Colin?" she said softly.

He drew her close. His face was pressed against her breast. He felt her fingers gently stroking his hair. Her hands cradled him.

"What is it?" she asked. "There's something. I know it."

A long moment passed before he put her from him and stood. He added wine to his glass and offered her some. She declined. He felt her eyes follow him as he put distance between them. "There's something," he said at last. "The problem is you don't know it."

Mercedes's arms automatically crossed in front of her. The protective posture usually helped settle the roiling in her stomach. This time there was no relief.

He had no idea he was going to say it until it was said. "I've never told you about my parents."

She had no clear expectation of what he might tell her, but she would have never guessed this. Bewildered rather than anxious now, Mercedes drew a slow breath. "Go on," she said.

There was no gentle way to put it. "They were murdered," he said. "Like yours."

Mercedes's first reaction was to offer her condolences. She held back because there was so obviously more.

"Exactly
like yours."

Now she frowned. "I don't understand."

"Six months before your parents were killed there was another robbery on the same stretch of road. Remember? You told me about it the first evening I was here."

"I remember" she said. "The driver was shot. The parents of three boys were murdered."

He waited for her to make the connection. She had known the story for so long that she recited it without feeling now. It was part and parcel of her own tragedy, the larger background to the events that had claimed her parents.

Her chin came up and her delicate brows came together. "Three boys," she whispered. "You and Decker and Grey."

"That's right."

She still didn't offer her sympathies. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because I didn't think you'd marry me if you knew I believed your uncle murdered them."