Marshal and the Heiress (27 page)

She felt his arousal pressed to her thigh, and her fingers caressed. He groaned deep in his chest, which only encouraged her. She, who had always been so contemptuous of Barbara's affairs, was now beginning to understand.

Jamie used to take her quickly in the dark of their bedroom and then leave for his own room. It was his duty, he'd said, to provide a child, and he'd performed it as such. The love act had not been unpleasant after the first time, but neither had she ever felt much pleasure. But then Jamie had never touched her as Ben was touching her. She'd never known that her body could sing, or that she would want to touch and feel and taste a man. It seemed right and natural. And wonderful.

She had to say so. “I didn't know lovemaking could be like this.”

His hands paused in their exploration. “Jamie …?”

She didn't want to criticize Jamie, not now. She didn't want to think of him, didn't want to think that perhaps everything hadn't been perfect at all, that he'd merely needed a son and she'd merely been grateful. She'd made the marriage into something it wasn't, simply because she'd wanted it so badly.

She let her gaze speak the words her lips could not and he pulled her tight against him, his arms offering a safe haven she'd never known. Feelings welled inside, almost overwhelming her. She had always thought love was something you planted and nurtured and harvested. She'd tried so hard to do that with Jamie. But here it was, in full blossom without seeding or tending.

She loved Ben Masters. She'd realized it when he'd leaned over her and picked her up after the fall.

Shyly, she reached for his underdrawers, her hands resting there for a moment. He didn't help. His own hands had stilled, and he watched her with an expression she couldn't decipher.

He took her chin in his hand and forced her eyes to his. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You're hurt.” His concern for her filled Lisbeth with a warming tenderness.

“It's nothing,” she said, then added with a quick grin, “Perhaps tomorrow … I'll be a wee stiff.”

He still hesitated, and she wondered whether there was another reason for his reluctance.

“My leg … it's not very …” he began.

She remembered his fiancée then, remembered the bitterness in his voice as he'd told her about the woman who didn't want a cripple. Ben Masters was anything but a cripple. He possessed a strength that defied the weakness in his leg.

“It does not matter,” she said.

After a moment's hesitation, he pulled off his longjohns. It was immediately clear to her that his leg had been nearly ripped apart. Ugly scars covered nearly every inch of it from just above the knee to the ankle. Her fingers gently ran over the scars, wishing that she could go back in time and take away some of the pain he must have felt. She was awed by the stubbornness and will that must have been required to regain the use of the leg.

Ben was tense, as if waiting for her disgust.

She leaned down and put her cheek against the scars. “How did it happen?”

“A place called Vicksburg,” he said. “Shrapnel from a cannonball.” He paused. “I would have died on the battlefield if a Reb hadn't stopped to give me water and stop the bleeding.”

“A Reb?”

“A Confederate soldier. My enemy.”

Something in his voice made her ask, “You knew him?”

“Not then. He was captured because he'd stopped to help me, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I looked for him for years.”

“Why?”

“I owed him,” Ben said simply. His hand holding hers tightened.

“Did you find him?”

“A few months ago.”

She couldn't imagine a man searching for years to thank someone. Now she understood why he'd come to Scotland with Sarah Ann. Not for himself but for Sarah Ann, for his sense of duty. She had never met anyone like him, hadn't known anybody like him existed.

Lisbeth moved against him, and she felt his immediate response. “You are a very unusual man.”

He chuckled, and she felt every rumble through the only scrap of cloth remaining between them: her chemise.

“Unusual? Usually I'm called hardheaded by the kindest of people.”

“I think I like hardheaded,” she said.

“And I think you have some of that quality yourself.”

“I do,” she said proudly.

He leaned down and kissed her, and without further hesitation, he lifted her chemise over her head. Then there was nothing between them to prevent their bodies from touching. She felt his arousal, and the yearning inside her turned exquisitely painful.

He pressed her down gently against the mattress, and slid his hand to the triangle of auburn hair between her legs, his fingers soothing and searching, creating shock waves of sensation. His mouth came down on hers. There was little gentleness now, just hard, driving need that fired her own. Her body arched toward his in instinctive demand.

He raised himself, just enough so that his manhood touched the triangle he'd stroked. He moved slightly, probing, exciting, teasing until she was almost crazy with need for him.

Her arms went around him, drawing him to her, into her, and she felt billows of delicious sensation surge through her as he probed deeper and deeper. Slowly, sensuously, until she was crying with a need she'd never experienced before. His movements quickened. Feelings, exquisitely intense, built one upon the other. Her own body was reacting in new, instinctive ways, dancing to the beat of his. Giving, taking, wrapping around him.

“Lisbeth.”

It was more a moan than a word as suddenly the world exploded in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors and cascading sensations. She felt a warm fullness, then quivers of reaction. The urgency faded, but a honeyed sweetness remained as Ben lowered himself and turned slightly so he lay next to her, their bodies still touching, still intimate, still trembling from the splendid journey.

She felt his heart beating. His breath still came in small pants. His arms surrounded her, cradled her, protected her. She loved his nearness, the way her body curved so easily into his.

His hand moved down to hers and clasped it. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Your leg?”

“What leg?” she replied, still lost in the magic.

His grip on her hand tightened.

“You're beautiful, Lisbeth.”

“No—”

“Dammit, you are. Who made you think otherwise?”

She was silent. No one had ever called her beautiful before. Not even pretty. Her brothers and father had always told her she was homely, too homely to bring about a good alliance, which was the only thing girls were good for. She had been made to feel worthless from the day she was born.

Jamie had wanted her, though. A lord. A future marquess. Even her father had been impressed enough to give her a good dowry. Yet even Jamie had not called her beautiful. Only Ben. How little she still knew about him. How much she wanted to know.

“What happened when you found the man you were seeking?” Somehow, she sensed that man was the key to one of the mysteries surrounding Ben.

He suddenly tensed, remaining silent.

“Is he alive?”

“Yes.”

“And well?”

“I imagine so.”

“Do Americans always say so little?”

“Yep.”

She tried another subject. “Your skin is so dark. Are all Americans bronzed like you?”

“You're asking as many questions as Sarah Ann,” he protested, but his tone said he didn't really mind.

“Because I want to know everything about you.”

“There's very little to tell.”

She twisted her head to meet his gaze. “You are a very complicated man.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. I don't know anyone else who would search for years to find someone who had done them a favor, or would take responsibility for a child who wasn't his own.” With a smile, she added, “Or for Annabelle.”

“You have Henry,” he countered. “I don't know anyone who would adopt a hunting dog that doesn't hunt.”

“Henry needed me.”

A gentle silence ensued. She dropped her gaze and rested her head against his chest. He cradled her, and she was stunned at the contentment—and joy—she felt simply from being held. How could such a thing happen? She'd been so determined to make her own way after Jamie's death. She'd ignored raised eyebrows and Barbara's horror when she'd decided to continue raising jumpers, and especially when she started wearing trousers. She'd resolved to build something of her own. She'd defied convention and scoffed at Barbara's obvious need for a man.

Lisbeth had sworn she would never be like that, that she would never be dependent again.

But, now, for the first time she knew how it felt to be a woman, a desirable woman. She knew how it felt to be touched as if she were a jewel.

“Ben?”

“Ummm?”

“Is your name really just Ben?” she asked.

He raised his head and looked at her, his blue eyes warm and sensuous and amused. The suspicion was gone.

“Does it matter?”

“No. But I told you, I want to know everything about you.”

“Everything?”

“Well, your name will do for the moment,” she amended hastily, fearing he might retreat from her again, that the suspicion might return.

“It's Bennett Sebastian Masters,” he said, kissing her lightly.

“Bennett Sebastian Masters,” she mused. “It's very impressive, but I think I like Ben.”

“So do I.” His mouth curved up in that crooked smile of his.

She wriggled against him, and she felt his arousal.

“God help me,” he whispered.

“In for a pence, in for a pound,” she said.

He didn't chuckle this time. He laughed. The sound rumbled over her like benevolent thunder. God's laughter. She'd always felt that way about storms.

But she didn't have time to explore that particular thought because he had moved back on top of her, and the sensations she'd felt a while ago paled in comparison to the conflagration that swept through them both.

Chapter Sixteen

What in the hell had he done? Ben asked himself as he changed clothes for dinner.

He had felt like a boy earlier, had even found himself whistling. But then reality had played havoc with the euphoria he'd felt.

He grew hard just thinking about the past couple of hours. And his heart constricted every time he recalled the warm, lazy passion in Lisbeth's hazel eyes or the way she so trustingly wrapped herself around him.

She was so honest with her responses that his suspicions had melted away. If someone intended harm to Sarah Ann or himself, it wasn't Lisbeth. He would bet his soul on it. He
had
bet his soul on it. But problems remained, problems that might well make her hate him.

Ben buttoned his linen shirt, shoved arms into a gray vest and a frock coat, and took a moment to straighten the cravat at his neck. A hell of a lot of clothes to wear just to eat. He hadn't questioned that gentility as a child or young man, but after years of freedom on the plains he resented every last stiff, confining garment.

He kept trying to think of everything but Lisbeth, of the realities he had to face. He still had difficult decisions to make. And he had to focus on the fact that someone still might try to permanently rid themselves of the Masters—father and daughter both. Indeed, he might have succeeded in putting Lisbeth in danger, too.

Ben didn't doubt he was only the second man to bed her. He hadn't intended it to happen, and he'd taken no precautions to prevent creating a child. He was determined that it wouldn't happen again, not as matters stood, not when he might well return to America.

The door opened between his room and Sarah Ann's, and she stood there in her favorite dress. Maisie had helped her with her bath and with dressing. “You look very handsome, Papa,” she said.

“And you look ravishing,” he told her.

Annabelle haughtily entered the room behind her, tail up in a fit of pique. “Annabelle doesn't look happy,” he observed.

“I think she knows we're goin' to leave her again.” A bit of wistfulness passed over her face. “Can't we take her to dinner with us?”

“You know she and Henry don't—”

“They really like each other,” Sarah Ann assured him. “Really. Lady Lisbeth said so.”

“She did?”

Sarah Ann nodded enthusiastically. “Annabelle needs a friend.”

“She has you.”

“An
animal
friend,” Sarah Ann insisted.

Ben sighed. Annabelle didn't look as if she needed anyone at the moment. Despite her natural scruffiness, she obviously thought herself a queen.

“She's lonesome.” Sarah Ann pressed her advantage at his silence.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Please. Lady Lisbeth—”

“What about Lady Barbara? And Cousin Hugh?” He didn't really give a flip what either thought, but neither did he wish to end up on the floor again.

“Lady Barbara likes Annabelle. She said so.”

Sarah Ann waited patiently, moving from one foot to another as she did.

Annabelle
had
been on her best behavior. And she couldn't stay in the room the rest of her life. Ben closed his eyes, remembering the horrific scene in the foyer: porcelain shattering, armor clanging over the floor, furniture tumbling about.

But he couldn't dash the hopeful expression on Sarah Ann's face. “We'll try it, but—”

“She'll be good. I know it.” She hesitated. “She feels like she's been … in jail.”

Jail.
What did Sarah Ann know about jail? He narrowed his eyes. Had she heard him talk about Diablo? Or had she heard her mother say something?

He decided it was best to ignore the comment. To ask was to invite questions he really didn't want to answer. And she was just waiting to ask those questions. He knew it. She may not know what she was asking, but she sensed a new subject, a new adventure. Four years old, and she was as tricky as a forty-year-old.