Sylvie Sommerfield - Noah's Woman (17 page)

She could see clearly enough to recognize what she was looking for when she found it. Gregory had described it to her in minute detail. She couldn't miss it if it was here.

She went immediately to the desk, which was large and had a number of drawers. She slid the first one open. By the time she got to the last, she was sure of two things. The packet wasn't here, and Noah Morgan was extremely neat and careful.

She stood for a minute gnawing her lower lip and gazing about her. Where . . . where? As she gazed about she suddenly had the nerve-wracking feeling that the room was occupied. Over a nearby chair hung the same jacket Noah had worn at dinner. On a small table next to a huge wing chair lay an open book and an empty brandy decanter with a glass beside it. Her heart began to pound and her legs grew weak. Noah had not gone to bed! He had been in this room possibly minutes before she had come. She

could feel his presence everywhere. She started for the door and froze as it slowly opened.

Noah had found sleep totally impossible. He had lain fully dressed on his bed, tossing and turning and imagining Charity only a few doors away. After a while he couldn't stand it anymore. He'd gotten off his bed and gone down to his study. Perhaps a little work or a good book would settle his mind.

He tried to make himself comfortable, but Charity's vivid green eyes came between him and the pages of his book. Finally he went to the cabinet and took out the brandy, only to find it was nearly empty. He took the last drink in one gulp and set the empty bottle and glass on the table by his favorite chair. One drink was not going to be enough to wipe her from his mind. Charity . . . a plague. He was angry at himself. With all the danger and intrigue in his life, with the kind of women he found a necessity, he had no room for Charity . . . innocent, sweet Charity! But dammit! He wanted her. He went for another bottle of brandy. In fact he opened it on the way back to his study and took a healthy drink straight from the bottle. If there was no other way to rid himself of this desire for her, perhaps brandy would do it.

He walked back to his study, bottle in hand. When he opened the door he was stopped by what he was sure was his too vivid imagination, or his deepest and most desirable dream come true.

She stood between him and the fireplace in a mist of lavender that revealed much more than it concealed. The fire picked up the light of gold in her hair

and made it look like an ivory gold veil. As a matter of fact, she looked like the most sensual angel anyone could have drawn up from the depths of the imagination. For several seconds neither could move.

Charity tried to think of some reason why she should be here, but came up with no logical explanation. She could not think of anything except how magnificent he looked and that the warmth in his eyes was doing something to her she found unbelievable.

He had rolled the sleeves of his shirt above his elbows and opened the neck, making his shoulders appear massive. His dark pants made him look lean, yet tremendously strong. The tan of his skin magnified the blue of his eyes. Eyes that held her mesmerized while he slowly closed the door and walked toward her, the bottle of brandy hanging indolently from his hand.

Charity could not have moved if her life had depended on it. If she felt that he was a predator it was because she was so obviously his prey.

When he stopped, he was so close she could feel the warmth of his body. She looked up into his eyes and struggled for something to say that would release her from his relentless magnetism. But he spoke first.

"Charity." He said her name at the same moment one of the candles sputtered and went out. Charity inhaled a deep breath, but nothing could ease the trembling in her legs or the way her pulse was racing.

"I'm . . . I . . . ah . . . I couldn't sleep."

"Nor could I." His voice was velvet smooth and wrapped around her senses like a gentle caress. "How

beautiful you are." He reached to touch her hair and let his hand roam to her cheek. Had she come to him because she knew and understood this hunger that had been gnawing at his vitals from the moment they met? His heart was beating fiercely. If he had been condemned to death for it, he could not resist holding her for this one perfect moment.

Slowly, gently, as if the magic of the moment was too fragile to be broken, he spanned her slender waist with one hard-muscled arm and drew her against him. His breath caught when their bodies touched. He, who had bedded the darlings of the court, was shaken by the intensity of the fire that seemed to ignite in his depths.

Their lips met with a delicate touch, tasting the newness of this heady emotion. Charity felt as if she were clinging to the edge of a chasm, about to fall into oblivion. She clung to Noah because he was the only stable thing in a world rapidly spinning out of control.

Lightly his tongue found the sensitive corners of her mouth and traced their softness, and the pleasure filled him to capacity when her lips parted to accept his. With slow, torturous deliberation he let the kiss grow deeper and deeper until he was drinking in her sweetness as his tongue dueled with hers.

She was bound to him in a prison in which she'd lost the will to escape.

Charity's mind was clamoring a warning, but her senses were drowning it out.
This was wrong
, it shouted . . . but she had never felt so wonderfully womanly before. This was not Gregory! The deceitful

voice whispered that Gregory had never made her feel this way.

When his mouth left hers, both were breathing heavily and Charity felt bereft of his delicious warmth. Then she gasped and her eyes closed as he traced heated kisses down her slender throat.

Oh God, she thought. If she surrendered, as she desperately wanted to, what would this make her? She couldn't carry deception this far. She could not allow herself to be seduced by a man she knew would discard her at the first opportunity.

She forced herself to remember all that Gregory had told her about how expert Noah Morgan was at getting what he wanted.

"Noah . . . Noah . . . no, please." She pressed her hands against his chest in what would have been a futile struggle had she been any other woman. Had she been any other woman, Noah would have known her resistance was a way to draw him on. But when he looked down into Charity's eyes, his heart saw otherwise.

What he thought he saw was pure virginal panic, and the realization struck him with jarring force. He was about to take the woman he was coming to love, on the floor like a bought whore. The thought was chilling enough to stop him in his tracks. Grimly he fought for a way to rein in passion that had nearly raged out of control.

Her eyes were wide and glazed with unshed tears. He could feel her body trembling through his fingertips. Her cheeks were flushed, and her mouth was full

and moist from his kisses. His voice was thick and shaky even to his own ears.

''Charity . . . I'm sorry. It's just . . ." He inhaled a deep breath and slowly released her.

Charity could feel the emptiness as soon as he let her go, and wanted nothing more than to step back into the warmth and strength of his arms.

She looked up into the ocean blue depths of his eyes, and a wave of guilt washed over her. She had allowed this to happen on purpose and now she was caught in her own dilemma. She didn't want to want him, didn't want the taste of him to linger on her lips, nor the feel of his hard body to remain imprinted on hers. She had come to take something from him and had not planned on the possibility of leaving something behind.

"Noah . . . I must go back upstairs. What if someone should find me here like this?" Her cheeks grew even more flushed at the thought.

"What are you doing here?"

"I told you. I couldn't sleep."

Without a word Noah took her hand and drew her with him toward the fire. He stopped by the table and poured two glasses of brandy. He handed one to Charity, who took it almost reflexively. Then he set the bottle aside and took the other glass of brandy. He turned to face her.

"Perhaps a little brandy would help." He touched his glass lightly to hers.

She drank a sip and watched him over the rim of the glass. She realized then that he wore an almost

puzzled expression. He set his empty glass aside and took one of her hands in his.

Charity held her glass in trembling fingers. She did not need brandy; her blood was heated enough, and she needed nothing to make her more aware of Noah than she already was. But she held the glass as if it were an effective barrier between them.

"I'm glad you came down. I'd been thinking of you." His voice was as warm as the brandy. "Charity, the truth is, I've been thinking of nothing but you since the night of the ball."

"Noah"

"No, let me finish. This is rather a unique situation for me. It's just that you are such a combination of creatures that I'm left fumbling like a schoolboy." He captured her face in one large hand and lifted her chin to force her fleeing gaze to meet his. "I learned long ago that innocence and sweet honesty are forgotten qualities. I never expected to find them in one so beautiful as you. What I'm trying to say, Charity, is that I believe I'm falling very much in love with you."

Charity was stabbed by a piercing sense of guilt. He was saying he loved her and she was deceiving him. She struggled against the guilt but could not seem to overpower it. Why couldn't the packet have been here where she could have found it? Why had she agreed to this horrible deception in the first place? Gregory . . . she knew Gregory loved her, and she knew that Noah had such a reputation that he could quite well only be seducing a girl he thought too young and naive to resist.

Noah took her silence as shock and again cursed himself for being clumsy. If they had been at court he would have taken her to his bed and proven his point. But a man could not take a woman like Charity in that way. Besides, he needed to know that when she came to him, it would be by her will, not only his. He needed to see the warmth of love in her eyes.

"Noah, you cannot love me. You don't really know me."

"But I want to. Next week, when we leave for London, I want you to be with me. Until then, spend your days with me. Let me show you that love is simple and beautiful between the right people. Give me this time."

Charity, furious that she could not fight the mist of tears in her eyes, and knowing she must make the trip to London to free Gregory, could only nod her agreement.

Noah laughed softly and bent to capture her mouth again with his. His mouth lingered gently against hers as if he were tasting the sweetest of all nectars. He had drawn her one hand up about his neck and put his arms around her. She was not aware that her other hand slowly lowered until the brandy glass tipped and the brandy spilled slowly to the carpet. The glass followed, making a soft sound as it hit the wet carpet, and her other arm circled his neck as the kiss deepened.

It was with reluctance on both their parts that the kiss ended.

"God," Noah groaned softly. For a minute he continued to hold her close, then, his voice thick with

restrained passion, he slowly released her. "You'd better go, for in another minute I'll be past the point where I can let you."

She understood quite well what he meant, for the temptation had eaten at her will, too. She had lost herself in the kiss and was grateful for this reprieve.

"Good night, Noah," she said softly. Then she was gone from his arms, and he did not turn to see her go. He closed his eyes for a second when he heard the door click shut.

Charity lifted the long skirt of her nightgown and ran up the steps. In her room she closed the door behind her and leaned against it until she could get her pounding heart under control and stop herself from shaking. She could never tell Gregory how she had felt or what had happened. Would he laugh at her childishness at falling into Noah's neatly woven trap so easily? Would he be angry and call her a fool, or would he be hurt at how easily she might have ruined all his plans and endangered his future . . . and hers? No, she could not tell him. But then she would be lying to Gregory as well as Noah. She felt entangled in a spider's web of lies.

She went to bed, wishing she had never seen Noah Morgan.

Noah found sleep even more difficult than he had before he'd found Charity. Another glass of brandy made little difference, for he could see Charity's face with her mesmerizing green eyes in the flames of the fire, and he could still feel her soft curves pressed intimately to him.

He had sensed every emotion, had known she had teetered precariously on the edge of surrender. But he had stopped himself because he would have never been able to bear a look of fear, or worse, condemnation in her eyes had he taken the situation to the conclusion he desired.

His body raged with the fire of need, but another, more logical part of him knew he was right to let her go. There would be a time for them, he promised himself. But it would be the right time and place. It would be a night of perfection . . . He would make it so.

Pushing aside the thoughts that would keep him from sleep, he rose from his chair and set his empty brandy glass aside. All the brandy in the world would not erase the indelible memory of Charity's touch.

He walked to his desk and sat down, prepared to do enough work to make him tired. Only then did he notice that one of the drawers was half open. He reached out to slide it closed, a frown drawing lines between his brows.

After a while he dismissed the incident, with a promise to remind the servants that his desk was never to be touched. It was a good thing, he thought to himself, that the things of real value were kept in his family's home in London. There he had the most trusted servant a man could have to stand guard.

It was a long time before he rose and walked up the stairs to what he knew would be a cold and lonely bed. He had to pass Charity's room on his way, and he paused by her door. He reached out and laid his hand on the handle. Would she deny him if he came to her now? He could feel and taste her, warm and

drowsy from sleep. He could imagine the pleasure he would experience to kiss her awake and make love to her the rest of the night.