Surrender The Night (3 page)

The morals that were her bedrock stayed firm. “There is no such place on this earth,” Katrina responded quietly. “Nor has been, nor will be, since God evicted us from Eden.”

“How do you know? Come, let me show you that a little bit of Eden can be with us always. . . .” He finished the last word against her mouth. Maidens dreamed of such a first kiss. His mouth was gentle, soft, and sweet. Entreating rather than demanding. Hinting at what joy his warm hands and hard body could offer, if only she would accept. Every tender slide and silken caress made her yearn for fuller knowledge. When he deepened the kiss, she arched beneath him and ran her hands through his hair, loosening it from the queue. It fell, thick and soft as her own, about his shoulders.

She felt his heartbeat accelerate to a drumlike cadence that echoed somewhere deep and empty within her. He broke the kiss only to slide a fiery trail down her neck to the soft hollow of her throat.

“Ah, Katrina mina, come with me, let me cherish you as you deserve. Horses, servants, a house, jewels, whatever you desire. I’ve never wanted a woman so.”

His words ripped through her sensual haze. She pushed him away and sat up, brushing her own loose hair back over her shoulders with a shaking hand. “You know my background. My father was a vicar. I’d not dishonor him, much less myself, so.” She tried to rise, but he caught her wrist and pulled her back down.

‘ ‘It dishonors you to be offered a more secure, easier way of life?”

“Secure? For how long? A month? Maybe even only a week?”

He thumbed the throbbing vein in her wrist until she wrenched away. “You do yourself a disservice. I’d want you much longer than that. You’re different to any woman I’ve known.’ ’ He cocked his head as he studied her, and had it been any other man, she might have believed the bewildered

uncertainty in his gaze, as if he didn’t understand her power over him. “And even at the end I’d see you were cared for—”

              “Like an old dog. No, thank you.” She laughed harshly and rose, calling for the children. They spoke little on the ride back, and the brooding look about his mouth made her glad to escape upstairs to her room. She pleaded a headache that night at dinner, but a servant knocked soon after and told her she was requested below. She considered refusing, but then she' straightened. This would be the last time she’d have to face him, she sensed. She’d do so with all the courage of the convictions she knew were right. She marched downstairs.

Devon was in the study, nursing a glass of port. He straightened from staring out the window at the sunset and turned to look at her. He tossed back the dregs of his wine and snapped the glass decisively down on a table. The servant discreetly closed the door, leaving Katrina alone to face the greatest temptation of her life. Conviction suddenly seemed a poor substitute for the passion she was rejecting.

He seated her courteously on the settee, then sat beside her and took her hand. “ Would it do me any good to go on my knees?’ ’

“What do you mean?” she whispered, her heart leaping with hope.

He looked puzzled, then uncomfortable. “I regret any . . . misunderstanding. I plead for your favors, but I want you to know I would keep you safe and cherish you under any circumstances.”

Her heart settled back like a lump in her breast. Delicate as it was, the d
isclaimer was still an insult. ‘If I were of your world, you’d not offer me a slip on the shoulder.” He shifted his feet, but did not reply. She looked down at their twined hands and droned, “I know you don’t intend to insult me, but you do. My blood may not be blue, but I have just as much pride in my name as you do in yours.”

“Pride is a poor substitute for companionship. Take it from one who knows.” He
lifted her chin to delve into the resolute depths of her eyes. “What happiness do you think you’ll find as an outcast, neither servant nor family member?’ ’ When she flinched, his tone gentled. “You deserve better, Katrina. Your

strength of conviction only makes me admire you—and want you—more.”

He eased his arms about her waist and pulled her face against his waistcoat. “And you, my dear, want me. Come, kiss me. Deny then, truly, your longing to accept my offer, and I will bother you no more. You have my word, as the Earl of Brookstone.”

When he lifted her chin to lower his mouth over hers, Katrina didn’t turn aside. She owed herself this last memory. . . . But at the touch of his lips, she forgot to store up images for the lonely future and reveled in the present. This time his passion was bare, so raw that he quivered with it. He bent her back over his arm and urged her mouth open. She was shocked at the sudden hot probe of his tongue, but the deep exploration made her long to open every secret place for him. Somehow she knew she belonged with him. His lips fit so perfectly over hers, his chest shielded her from harm, his arms cradled her like a treasure beyond price.

For minutes on end he kissed her, his mouth and caressing hands proclaiming in the age-old way his yearning. There was a fine edge of desperation to the way he clutched her so tightly, as if more than lust drove him. In response her own muddled emotions surged beyond her control. What else mattered but this? She moaned under his kiss, then shyly answered the demanding thrusts of his tongue.

He broke away, his chest heaving like a bellows. “Oh God, Kat, tell me you don’t
want me and condemn us both to perdition.”

Her eyes fluttered open and fixed on his flushed face. Her lips, tender from his passion, tried to form the words, but could not. She shook her head and buried her face in his shoulder, no longer able to control her tears.

He petted her back and shoulders, making soothing noises. “There, don’t cry. I’m not worth a single tear upon that lovely face. Shhh . .
.I’ll
torment you no more.”

When she hiccuped, he set her away and dried her tears with his kerchief. “So . . . you do want me. What are we to do about it?”

Wearily she leaned her head back against the settee. “Nothing. I’m not meant to be a kept woman, Devon. If I thought I would be happy, I’d accept your offer. But my shame would eat away at me, until there was nothing left but regret. Is that what you want?  Eventually I’d hate not just you, but myself.”

He gritted his teeth, but shook his head.

Feeling as if every bone would crack, she forced herself to her feet. “Then there’s nothing left but good-bye.” She turned to leave, then whirled and flung herself into his arms for a last wild kiss. When he tightened his grip, she wriggled free and ran toward the door.

His harsh tone stopped her after three steps. “I’m letting you go, Katrina mina, not for my sake, but for yours. But
...”
He strode around her to meet her eyes. She had heard whispers about the exploits that had earned him the nickname Demon. She’d doubted their veracity, but the look in his eyes now made her wonder if she should have given them more credence.

“I may be the first to offer you protection, but make no mistake. I’ll not be the last. Your beauty will tempt every man who meets you. If your resolve stays firm, then you will be safe in your ivory tower, your unicorn protecting your chastity.” His tone hardened. “But know this: If you succumb to another after rejecting me, I will consider you fair game. Then, Katrina mina, one way or another, you will be mine.”

Their eyes held for one last time. She read her own confused feelings in his: yearning, regret, desire, resolve. She nodded her understanding. “Good-bye, Devon.”

“Good-bye, Katrina. Be happy.” After a last long, encom
passing look he was gone. Leaving her alone. She was glad, she told herself—but tears trickled down her face as she listened to his receding footsteps, then the gentle closing of the door.

Katrina blinked and found herself in a present that was even more distressing than the past.

Be happy . . . How very little of that she’d known after sending him away. Sometimes, in the quiet of her lonely heart, she’d regretted the choice; now, finding him here, she knew she’d been right. And to see him dressed as a unicorn when he was a menace to every comely female’s virtue—he desecrated all the romantic dreams she’d wove
n about him.

The thought did not occur to her that he’d worn the mask to help her identify him, and to reassure her. That he
’d come to save her, believing in her virtue. That the length of his strides attested to the anger that he felt at hearing, from her own lips, that she’d been another man’s mistress, after refusing him.

Katrina’s emotions were too muddled to allow for clear thought, but the shock of his presence had been cathartic. Fury bolstered her. How wrong she’d been about him. He was not here to help her; he was here to get at last the only thing he’d ever wanted of her. In any way he could,
had he not warned her as much three years ago?

Watching him now as he strode up and down, arguing with Sutterfield about his understanding of their rules, she wondered why she’d not recognized him forthwith. She knew that fluid, arroga
nt stride; the walk of a man born to conquer. She knew that splendid physique; the build of a man who relished a fight.

“Enough! The right of challenge was plainly explained to me, and I exercise that right now. I usurp the role of Pan.” Devon stood casually, one foot propped on the first step, one long, white hand caressing the wooden banister. The member
ship muttered resentfully, but quieted, one by one, as that glittering horn was turned toward them like a bared dagger.

Oh God, it was true ... he only wanted to be first. He’d not come here to save her, as she’d at first thought. Indeed, how could he have known she’d be here? She hated him, she told herself, yet her heart quickened when that horn was turned to her. Even behind the mask, the hungry sweep of his gaze made her breath catch. Three years dissolved into mist as she felt, full upon her lips, that last desperate, arousing kiss. She looked away. She’d not respond to him. Never again. Over and over she told herself she despised him. Aided by fury, she almost believed it.

Pan stiffened and glared at the unicorn. “If you know our laws so well, you know of my right of refusal.” He swung about and raised his hands to touch Katrina’s breasts.

In a single bound the unicorn leaped up the three steps. He drawled suggestively, “Then we shall set
tle our dispute as decreed by your laws.”

Pan turned to face his challenger. Tense silence prevailed in the chamber. Only Katrina was close enough to hear Pan’s quickened breathing.

“I don’t wish to fight with you—”

“Then step aside.” No quarter, no compromise. His way, or none. The demand surprised no one, Katrina least of all. She looked back at Pan and knew that beneath his grotesque mask, he’d paled.

His fists clenched and unclenched as he looked from the unicorn to Katrina, then back. The unicorn’s clothes enhanced rather than disguised his broad chest and muscular thighs. With a gnashing of his teeth. Pan swung about and marched back to his throne.

And Katrina was left alone in that brilliant pool of light with the only man she’d never been able to forget. The only man who’d tempted her to forgo the morals she lived by and revel with him in sin. Her eyes betrayed her ambivalence as she looked up at him, but then outrage won.

“You needn’t bother with the mask, my lord. My nightmares have left me intimately acquainted with you.” She bit her lip as she realized how her words could be construed.

He seemed taken aback at her hostility, then he said suavely, “I’m flattered I figure so prominently in your dreams, my dear Kat. It does my heart good to know that you remember me after such an age.” He removed his heavy coat and pulled it over her shoulders to cover what he could, ignoring the protests of the membership. His movements were negligent, but his hands lingered possessively until she wrenched away. She wavered on her bound feet, but she managed to brush aside his steadying hand.

Angry at her contradictory feelings, Katrina refused to be mollified. “Heart, my lord?” she shot back. “You’ve a molten lump of coal in its stead.”

Several gasps came from the audience. Devon Alexander Tyrone Cavanaugh, eighteenth Earl of Brookstone, paused in drawing off his mask. The watching rakes waited for his retribution, acerbically verbal if not physical, for Demon Devon was not known for his temperance. Nor was he known for his predictability, so they were not greatly surprised when he chose to be amused.

Cricking her chin up with a negligent finger, he teased, “Perhaps. But coal is known for its enduring, fiery properties—as I will soon prove to you.” Male snickers rippled through the chamber at the implication.

“It’s also known for fouling all
it touches,” she said clearly, her mouth curled in distaste.

The chuckles died. All eyes went to Devon.

He was still for a moment, then, with a smothered oath, he ripped off his mask and flung it aside. “By all that’s holy, wench, then you’d best take to wearing weeds, for you’ll be black from head to toe soon enough. Besides, it’s hard to foul something that’s already dirty.” He snapped his teeth closed and took a deep, calming breath. His hand stroked her chin with a gentleness that was poignantly familiar to Katrina. “I’m sorry, Kat, but you’re making this deuced hard on both of us,” he whispered.

If he only knew how she’d longed for him . . . She stared at him, wishing with all her heart that they’d met again under different circumstances. The years had changed him little. Dissipation should, by rights, have eaten at that gorgeous face, but if anything,' he’d become more handsome in his maturity. Those lashes were still as lush as a girl’s, that mouth as fine and mobile, that hair as striking a contrast to his black eyebrows. He looked what he was, a peer of the realm, with arrogance, pride, and breeding in every patrician line. He did not look like a libertine so debauched that he’d earned the name of Demon Devon before he attained his majority.