Just One Touch (18 page)

“Forget Traversleigh. Colin told me that Althorpe was here today. What did he say?”

“He had a lot of things to say. Now I want to hear what you have to say.”

Her directness brought a frown to his face. “You sound angry with me.”

“I don’t know how I feel right now.” She met his gaze squarely. “You’ve been keeping things from me, Rogan.”

“What did Althorpe say?”

“What did Mr. Archer have to say?”

She could see she’d startled him. He narrowed his eyes. “How did you find out about him?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” she shot back.

“Answer the question.”

“You answer mine.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“What did Althorpe say to upset you?” he asked again, softly.

She had difficulty holding on to her outrage when he spoke to her so gently. “Lies,” she replied. “He told me lies. Just like you did.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Caroline.”

“Lies of omission are still lies. Why didn’t you tell me you were investigating Randall? And don’t you dare say it was to protect me!”

He lifted a brow. “It was.”

“Dear God, not again!” She spun away, rage bubbling up, rage that had been simmering inside her for years. “I’m not a child, Rogan.”

“I know you’re not a child.”

“Yet you keep things from me as if I am. Randall tells me my father is being poisoned. Is that true?”

“He told you that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? And you’ve known all along. In fact, Randall says you are the one doing the poisoning.”

He stilled, and his eyes grew watchful. “And what do you think?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot, Rogan. You’ve hired one of the best investigators in London to look into Randall’s affairs, and then Randall himself comes to visit and tries to convince me that my husband is a murderer.” She gave a humorless little laugh. “He even brought up…what was her name? Isabel.”

He stiffened. “I told you what happened with Isabel.”

“Yes, it was an accident. But my father’s illness is deliberate.”

“I’m not trying to kill your father, Caroline.”

“I know that.” She sent him a chiding look. “It’s Randall, isn’t it? He’s hurting Papa.”

“That’s what we believe.”

“We?” She glanced back at him, puzzled. Then realization swept over her. “Papa knows.”

“Yes.”

She let out a long sigh. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. Then again, of course I can. He was trying to
protect
me.”

“He loves you. Of course he was trying to protect you.”

“And what of today?” She stalked over to him, thrust her face as near his as her lesser height would allow. “I was alone in a room with my enemy, and I didn’t even know.”

He cupped her cheek. “I would never let him hurt you.”

“But you weren’t here.” She backed away from him, and his hand fell to his side. “If Randall can so easily poison a powerful man like my father, what’s to stop him from harming me?”

“He has no reason to harm you.”

“And where is this poison coming from? Why hasn’t Randall been taken into custody?” She clenched her fists at her sides. “Make him tell you how to cure my father.”

“We haven’t been able to prove anything.” Rogan dropped his chin, weariness weighing on him. “Archer is the best, and if there is any underhanded business to be found about Althorpe, he will find it. In the meantime there is nothing we can do until we have some sort of proof.”

“I can’t just sit here and watch him
die
!” Tears stung her eyes; grief welled up to choke her. “It was bad enough when we merely thought him ill. To know that someone did this to him is unbearable.” She came to him, clenched her hands on the
lapels of his coat. “Please help him, Rogan. I can’t lose him.”

“I know, love.” Tenderly, Rogan pulled her into his embrace, cradling her as if she were precious. His gentleness struck at the raw anguish deep inside her, and it spilled out in a torrent—anguished, bitter sobs that soaked the fabric of his coat in moments. She clung to him, barely able to stand on her own, and he held her, rocked her, until the storm wore itself out and she sagged in his arms, spent.

T
he nightmare started as a pleasant dream.

She rode Destiny, laughing as the mare charged like lightning across the green fields of Belvingham. But suddenly the white clouds darkened to gray, filling the sky until not a hint of blue could be seen. Caroline pulled up on Destiny, alarmed.

Suddenly they were everywhere—laughing, leering men who clawed at her riding habit and tried to rip her from the saddle. She cried out, kicked and fought and bit in a desperate effort to escape.

They laughed at her.

Up on the hill, she saw her father sitting in his favorite chair. Randall appeared and offered him an apple. He took it and smiled, and as he went to bite into it, a snake came out of Ran
dall’s coat pocket and began to slither toward her father.

“Papa!” she screamed, but then the men surrounding her dragged her from her mount and shoved her to the ground, their greedy hands making free with her body. “Papa!” she screamed again, straining to see past the bodies of her abusers.

“Where’s your papa now?” one of them sneered. He pointed, and she saw that her father was gone, and Randall now sat in her father’s chair.

“Caroline!” Rogan’s voice seemed to come from far away.

“Papa,” she whispered. “Don’t go.”

“Caroline, wake up.”

She couldn’t take her eyes from her father’s chair, from her father’s murderer. Even when the dark men tore at her clothes, she couldn’t look away.

“Save him, Rogan,” she wept. “Save him.” And then she awoke to find her husband sitting on her bed in his dressing gown. She blinked away the tears that had welled even in sleep. “Rogan?” she croaked, her throat raw.

“Wake up, love. You’re safe.” He stroked a hand over her cheek, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Though he smiled, his eyes were shadowed with concern.

“It was a dream.” She closed her eyes in relief, but then she remembered and opened them again, anguish flooding her. “No, it wasn’t. Randall is trying to kill Papa.”

“We’re doing everything we can.” He scooped her unresisting into his lap and cuddled her close.

Gratefully, she burrowed her face into his strong chest. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you weren’t here to hold me,” she whispered. “Without Papa, I am alone.”

“No, you’re not.” He stroked a hand over her tattered braid. “You have me. You even have Colin, though he’s a troublesome piece of work to be sure.”

Her lips curved in a weak smile. “Your Irish is showing, husband.”

“That doesn’t surprise me a bit.”

She turned her head to look up into his face. Those soulful eyes of his held so many emotions, it was hard to sort one from the other. His mouth formed a grim, unsmiling line, but when she reached up to touch his lips with her fingertip, some of the bleakness left his expression.

“What are you about?” he murmured as she slowly traced his lower lip.

“My father wanted you to marry me so you could protect me,” she mused in a soft voice, “didn’t he?”

He swallowed when she trailed her finger along his chin and down his throat in a slow, lazy pattern that left a trail of tingling sensation in its wake. “That was one of the reasons,” he managed to say.

“What else?” She leaned up, pressed her lips against the pulse pounding at the base of his throat. “Besides Destiny and my dowry.”

“I wanted to.” His hands slid down, closed around her waist. “Caroline—”

“You wanted to marry me?” She shifted in his lap, noted the gradual hardening beneath her. And wasn’t afraid.

“Yes, I wanted to marry you.” He leaned down and touched his forehead to hers. “Now sit still before I forget I’m supposed to be comforting you.”

“Do you think I’m pretty?” She shifted ever so slightly in his lap, watching with satisfaction the hunger that flickered in his eyes.

“I think you’re beautiful.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “You’d best go back to sleep now.”

She gave a long-suffering sigh. “Rogan, you’re treating me like a child again.”

“Believe me, I’m well aware that you’re no child.”

“I’m not a simpleton, either.” She cupped one hand along his cheek. “You want me, Rogan.”

“That’s no secret.” His voice roughened, and he cleared his throat. “Enough playing. Back to bed with you.”

“Good God!” she snapped. “You’re still talking to me like I’m some schoolroom miss!” She struggled out of his lap and got to her feet, whirling to face him. “Look at me, Rogan.” She smoothed her hands down over her body, her thin night rail clinging to every feminine curve. “This is the body of a woman, not a little girl. And this woman wants you.”

“You’re overwrought,” he protested, yet his eyes followed every movement of her hands.

“Of course I’m overwrought! My father is dying, murdered by my cousin.” Caroline came closer, cupped his face in her hands. “And if it weren’t for you, I’d be all alone in this, vulnerable to Randall’s whims. You saved me.”

“I don’t want your gratitude.” He took her wrists and pushed her hands away. “This isn’t a game of ‘even the score,’ Caroline. You don’t need to offer yourself to me to reward me for protecting you.”

“Reward you?” Furious now, she planted her hands on her hips. “Let me explain something to you, Rogan Hunt. I want you. I. Want. You.”

He got to his feet, towering over her with a grim expression on his face. “You learned some disturbing news today, Caroline. This is not a good idea.”

“What will it take to convince you?” She slid her hand down his chest and toyed with the knotted sash of his robe. “We’re married, Rogan. Don’t you think we should act like it?”

His hand covered hers, stilling her fluttering fingers. She met his gaze, not hiding anything, hoping he could read the honest desire in her eyes. Silence stretched on, one heartbeat at a time, until finally he guided her hand to the end of the sash. She tugged. His dressing gown fell open.

Caroline felt only the tiniest tremor of anxiety as she looked at Rogan’s bared flesh. He was a beautiful man, his powerfully built chest covered
with a sprinkling of dark hair that arrowed downward along his flat abdomen. She followed that trail with her eyes, not even hesitating as it led her to the source of her fear.

He had the muscled thighs of a horseman, she noted absently as she studied his lower body. But it was his sex that fascinated her, thrusting boldly from the nest of dark hair. Even as she watched, it moved, growing stiffer.

“A man can’t hide his desire,” she mused. “I imagine that can be inconvenient sometimes.”

“Caroline,” Rogan said in a strangled voice. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

She glanced up at him and flashed him a nervous little smile. “Please hold still, Rogan. I’m exorcising my ghosts.”

She reached out and touched him.

He hissed in a breath, and she snatched back her hand. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes.” His jaw clenched, he nonetheless attempted a smile. “It feels good, that’s all.”

“It does?” She gave him a speculative look. “As good as you made me feel?”

“Almost.”

“I see.” She reached out again but hesitated a few inches from her target. “Don’t move,” she reminded him.

He met her gaze, need glittering in his eyes. “I wouldn’t move an inch, even if Prinny himself ordered me to.”

She closed her fingers around him. His erection was hot in her hand, the skin smooth as velvet,
which surprised her. She glanced up at his face. He was looking down, watching her hand. She trailed her fingers along the length of him and was satisfied to see the flare of pleasure that swept across his features.

The knowledge flooded her senses, embracing the feminine cravings she had long suppressed. She stepped closer to him, still stroking him with her fingers, and laid a hand on his bare chest.

“I want you, Rogan. Not out of gratitude. Not to win your protection. I want you because I trust you. You’re the only man I have ever wanted to give myself to willingly.”

“Caroline,” he choked, stroking a hand over her hair. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Ah, but you’re saddled with me for life.” She leaned up on her tiptoes and stopped with her mouth barely touching his. “Shall we not make the best of it?”

“You will stop me.” He cupped a hand around the back of her head, his gaze deadly serious. “If I do a single thing that makes you uncomfortable, you tell me immediately.”

“You’ll be the first to know,” she murmured with a smile, then closed the distance between them.

The first kiss started as a slow exploration, as if they were lovers touching for the first time. But after only a few moments the heat took over. He pulled her close with one arm around her waist and the other still cupping her head. His kiss was
long and deep and terrifyingly intimate, but she opened up to him, gave him what he asked for, closed her eyes and blindly put her trust in him.

Long-suppressed desire raised its head and howled. Passion exploded, flooding both of them with hot demands. Caroline clung to Rogan as her emotions swept her away to a world of hungry mouths and heated touches. His body fascinated her, and she explored it first with her hands, then with her mouth.

The first touch of her lips on his chest made him groan, her shy uncertainty devastating him with its innocence even as it inflamed his need for her. Curious as a kitten, she licked here, touched there, rubbed her nose in his chest hair. His hands clenched around her waist, heart pounding as he let her explore to her heart’s content. The slow, leisurely pace drove him mad, his body clamoring for more, for her.

He tangled her long hair in his hands. She slid a glance at him, her dark eyes alight with feminine mysteries, and he tugged her face back to his, kissing her hard as he swept her against him. Her body warmed his, the slide of her nightdress an erotic caress against his naked skin.

He cupped one small breast in his hand, teased the nipple to hardness with his thumb. A quiet mewl escaped her lips. He moved his hand away, thinking she was afraid, but she arched her back, pressing the soft mound into his palm again. He groaned and dipped his head to nip at her neck.

“Make me your wife, Rogan,” she panted, trembling with the force of her emotions.

His wife. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her welcoming body, to claim her as his. But she was a virgin and had more reason than most to fear what was to come. He needed to be gentle, to ease her into womanhood.

But her small hands sweeping over his body clouded his mind with desire, and her questing fingers over his erection made his eyes practically roll back in his head with pleasure.

“We have to slow down,” he mumbled, gliding his mouth down her throat to her shoulder. “I need to be careful.”

“No.” When he pushed the strap of her night rail down her arm, she helped him by slipping free of the other one. The night dress pooled around her feet, and she stood naked before her husband. “I want to feel everything.”

“Caroline,” he breathed. Almost reverently, he reached out to touch his fingertip to her burgeoning nipple, then gently pinched it, watching how she gasped, how her eyes slid half closed. He bent forward. “Caroline,” he said again, against her flesh, then took the pale pink bud in his mouth.

“Good God, Rogan.” Heat flared between her legs, and passion clouded her brain. She clung to him as he suckled first one breast, then the other. By the time he lifted his head, both of them were breathing hard, barely coherent.

He kissed her, hard and fast, silently demand
ing her complete surrender. She gave it willingly, arching into him as his hand slid along her spine, down the curve of her hip. Then his fingers slid between her legs, parted the moist folds waiting for him. Her knees nearly buckled as he caressed the tiny knot that seemed to be the center of all her pleasurable feelings.

She parted her thighs wider, clung to him. He laid her down on the bed.

She was ready for him. Her musky scent tickled his senses, clung to his fingers. Impatiently he shrugged off the dressing gown. Naked, he knelt on the bed.

As he started to cover her, she slapped both hands against his chest, stopping him. Her eyes held a flicker of fear. “Rogan…” she whispered, her cheeks growing the faintest shade of pink. “Please, not like this.”

He shifted his weight to the side and stretched out beside her. “Have you changed your mind?” He dropped a kiss at the corner of her mouth, managing to keep his voice steady though his body raged to take her. Here. Now.

“No, I haven’t changed my mind, but you can’t…if you lie there, on top of me—” She stumbled to a halt, too mortified to continue.

“That’s all right. There are other ways.”

“Are there?” she asked hopefully.

“Certainly.” He rolled onto his back, dragging her with him until she sat up, straddling him. “Do you like this better?”

“Hmm.” She appeared to ponder the matter, even as she dragged both hands through his chest hair. “Like riding a horse.”

“Almost.” He slid his hands up her supple thighs to firmly grip her hips. “Now ride
me
, wife.”

Color swept her cheeks, but her beautiful doe eyes sparkled with fascination at the idea. She lifted up and balanced with her hands on his stomach, but couldn’t quite get the deed done. “Help me, Rogan,” she whispered.

Half mad with wanting her, he slipped his hand between her thighs. She was damp, and as he stroked open the petals of feminine flesh, his head spun with the delicious scent of aroused female. Her head fell back as he caressed her, her long hair tickling his thighs. Her eyes slid closed, lips parting on a soundless sigh of pleasure as he pressed his sex to that open heat. It was all he could do not to slide inside, hard and deep.

It was her first time, he reminded himself, trying to ignore the instincts that screamed at him to thrust home. Sweat misted his forehead and his muscles trembled with the effort to hold back. “You do it, love,” he rasped. “Take as much time as you need.”

Her eyes opened, dark pools of heated desire. He couldn’t take his eyes from her face as she began to lower herself onto him, an inch at a time.

She bit her lower lip in concentration, and for some reason the sight of those small white teeth aroused him beyond reason. He shuddered as her
body yielded to him, as he slipped deeper and deeper inside that welcoming heat.