The Beloved One (30 page)

The long, slow sound of breathing made her turn her head, and she saw that he had closed his eyes and finally succumbed to the fatigue of their journey, the traumatic events of the evening, and the lateness of the hour.  He was sound asleep.  A rush of warmth swept through Amy and gently, carefully, she lifted his hand and cradled it to her heart.  Seeing him thus reminded her of those early days back in Newburyport, almost two years ago now, when Will had first brought him home and he'd discovered he was blind.  How many evenings she'd spent with him, caring for his needs, talking to him, and, as now, watching over him while he slept.

How many hours she'd spent fantasizing about him, and wishing that he was hers.

And here they were, still together, three thousand miles away in England,
England!
— where
he
had brought her.  She shivered with excitement at all that lay before her.  Was she really here with him at his ancestral home, where there was nothing, really, standing in the way of their own possibilities except Charles's self-imposed torments and the fact that Amy was only a colonial nobody?  She shook her head.  No.  No!  She couldn't let herself even
think
such a thing, let alone dream it.  The duke would never allow it, she herself did not deserve it, and Charles ought to marry some fancy lady whose family was as old, whose blood was as blue, whose —

"Amy . . . ?"

She started to answer, but then she saw that his eyes were still shut, his head still resting against the wall behind him — and that he still talked in his sleep.  Amy smiled fondly.

"The soap," he mumbled thickly.  "Soap . . . itches . . .  wipe it off . . ."

So he hadn't forgotten that long ago evening, either, when he'd come to her, blind, soapy and damp, and innocently, perhaps naively, asked her to wipe the suds off.  Even now, she remembered how she'd responded to his nearness and virility . . . and how he'd grown hard with arousal beneath his breeches, despite the fact he'd called it nothing more than a "physical reaction."

He had wanted her, then.  He had wanted her many times since, and had told her as much — but only once had he let himself prove it.  Only once had he shown her the pleasures she'd never believed would be hers.

And now, looking down at his dear, dear body twitching a bit in a shared, remembered dream, Amy saw that he wanted her now.

And wanted her badly.

Between them, it had never been, and would never be, just a "physical reaction."

She swallowed, hard.  His hand brushed Amy's thigh, and her own flesh answered his unconscious touch with a sudden tingling warmth.  The temptation was too much.  She would wipe the soap off, then, if only to give him peace in his dreams — if only for the excuse to touch him. 
Oh please, Lord, just to touch him.

His blue frock coat was unbuttoned, as was the pewter-buttoned waistcoat of dark grey wool he'd brought from America.  With gentle fingers, Amy teased them apart.  She caressed his chest through his linen shirt, re-creating, for his dreaming mind, for her own wistful memories, the sensations she had unwittingly given him that long ago evening.  How solidly muscled he was beneath the shirt's loose folds  . . .  How warm was his chest, how taut and hard was his stomach, how splendid the length and power of his thighs!  Unbidden, memories of that day on the riverbank, when he had made her a woman, swept over her and she trembled with a savage longing.  If only to be in his arms, to be cherished and loved and made love to, to once again experience that bliss, that delight, of a man who wanted her so much,
and oh, if that man were Charles!

She covered his heartbeat with her hand and gazed down, her eyes misty with a sudden wistfulness.  "Oh Charles, my love — my Beloved One.  Will we ever be together?"

"We are together now, dear Amy."

Her gaze flew to his face, for she hadn't realized that he'd woken and was now watching her from beneath half-lowered lashes.  "I thought you were sleeping!"

"An impossible pursuit, I think, given the circumstances," he murmured, with a little smile.  He had his far leg drawn up, the near one outstretched in front of him, and now he took her hand and rested it on the hard thigh of the latter, covering it with his own.  Amy caught her breath, but his expression was kind, even a little teasing.  He looked down at himself, and at her hand, imprisoned beneath his and resting so near to his arousal, and raised one brow ever so slightly, as though he wasn't sure whether to be amused or concerned about his very noticeable reaction to her.  "Hmmm.  I recall that we have acted out this scene before," he mused.

"I'm sorry," she breathed, trying to pull away.

"Are you?  I'm not."  He kept her hand where it was, resting solidly atop his thigh, and stroked the back of her knuckles with his thumb.  "I daresay I was rather enjoying that."

"You were talking in your sleep.  Dreaming, I think, about that night you asked me to wipe the soap from your skin."

"Ah, yes.  I remember that night well, Amy."  His head still resting against the wall behind him, he turned it ever so slightly and looked at her, his down-tilted, sleepy eyes romantic in the scattered moonlight, in any light.  "Do you?"

She smiled, her face suddenly warm.  "Of course."

"And do you remember all those nights we used to sit up and talk together, long after everyone went to bed?"

"I do."

"And the way you coerced me into eating that broth when I wouldn't dine in front of others for fear of making a fool of myself?"

"How could I forget?"

He smiled and gazed once more at her hand, still caught beneath his, resting oh-so-close to that ever-growing bulge beneath his white leather breeches.

"Amy," he said softly.

"Charles?"

"That talk we had earlier . . . I have been thinking.  Thinking about what you said, as compared to my own standards of perfection, my own belief that if something isn't done correctly, it isn't worth doing at all."

"Yes?"

"Well, I beg your forgiveness for what I am about to ask, that is, for what I am about to suggest . . . and this, out here in a rather damp winter stable, certainly not the most comfortable of settings, certainly not perfect by anyone's stretch of the imagination, least of all mine —"

"Charles, what
are
you trying to say?" she chided with a little laugh, though everything inside her tensed with expectation, with hope, with desperate, fervent longing —

"What I am trying to say, Amy, it that I would like to make love to you."

Chapter 22

He added, almost apologetically, "It will not be perfect, of course . . . I would far prefer to lay you down in a soft mattress . . . to have a candle by the bedside so that I could see your face, your lovely, tawny skin . . . a damp stable is not quite what I envisioned, but —"

"But it will be all the more wonderful for what it is, not what it isn't," she said, and reaching out, touched his cheek.

Her hand was shaking.

She saw his slow smile.  He had once admitted that he was not a worldly man when it came to bedplay, that he had been betrothed since birth and thus, had never seen a reason to stray — but was he as nervous as Amy suddenly felt?  Her own experience was limited by what he had taught her, and what her womanly instincts bade her to do.  He was relaxed, yes — she could see that — but was he also, given his strident sense of perfection, worried that this wouldn't be done right?

"You're trembling, Amy."

She blushed.  "I'm a bit nervous, suddenly . . ."

"Why?"

"Why?"  She gave a little laugh.  "Because for nearly two years I've dreamed of this moment — of having you in my arms, all to myself.  Now that I do, I . . . I just don't know what to do!"

"You could start by touching me, if you like."

"Yes — I think I'd like that."

"You see, I am a bit nervous, as well."

"Are you?"

"Well, tense.  I could do with being touched."  He smiled, still lying totally relaxed with one leg drawn up, his shoulders and head propped against the wall behind him.  He looked devastatingly attractive.  A little bit wicked.  "I like to be touched, Amy."

She touched him.  First the soft, wavy hair that swept back from his brow, then his temple, then his cheek, slightly rough beneath her palm, a man's cheek.  His skin was warm, the faint light making his hair seem darker than it really was.  He was splendid.  Unbearably handsome.  Beautiful in a very masculine sort of way.  Oh, Lord Gareth with his good looks and easy charm, he was handsome, too.  Lord Andrew with his defiant eyes and warm russet coloring — he would turn any woman's head.  And Lucien, the duke — enigmatic, fascinating, everything about him emanating danger, power, omniscience — there was no word to describe him.  But Charles . . . none of them, as far as Amy was concerned, held a candle to The Beloved One.

"And I like touching you, Charles," she breathed, her fingers grazing his mouth, which now curving up in the faintest of smiles.

"You weren't just teasing me, were you?"

"About what?"

"About your having wanted to do this for nearly two years?"

She paused, her fingertips still against his lips, and gazed into his eyes.  "No, I wasn't just teasing you.  I once told you that I've always loved you, Charles.  But I would never, ever have acted on that.  Not with you betrothed to Juliet."

"And how do you feel about me now that I am a free man?"

"I still love you.  Of course."

"Would you marry me if I asked you?"

"I . . . I don't know, Charles.  You were born to something I will never know, can never be.  I'm afraid that I could never fit into your world.  That you would, eventually, come to resent me."

"Juliet was not of my world either.  Do you think I would have resented her?"

"Yes, but for different reasons."

"Well then, do you think that Gareth will come to resent her?"

"I don't know," she said honestly.  And then, in a little voice:  "
Are
you asking me to marry you?"

"I . . . I am asking myself if I am ready to ask you to marry me.  Does that make sense, Amy?  With all my heart, I want you as my wife, as my lifelong companion, as my best friend forevermore — but I am so afraid, after all that has happened to me, that I will let you down.  That I am not worthy of you.  You think you don't deserve me, because of the differences in our backgrounds.  Well, I don't think I deserve
you
, because I'm but a mere shell of the man I once was, and you are entitled to far more than that."

"Charles —"

"No, please.  Hear me out.  When I feel confident in my abilities again, when I am once again the man I was before that fateful day in April, then . . . then, Amy, I will feel worthy of you.  Then I will ask you to be my wife, and by God, you had better accept."

She shook her head and gazed at him with a mixture of love, frustration, and affection.  "Oh,
Charles
."

"What?"

"You're doing it again.  Being the perfectionist, all or nothing."

"I know."  He grinned.  "But you're doing it again, too."

"Doing what?"

"Belittling yourself."

He gazed up at her through his long, down-tilted lashes, one brow raised, a little smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.  She grinned back at him; then, laughing, she playfully swatted his chest with a handful of hay.  "Very well then, you've made your point!" she said, her body responding to the deliciously seductive picture he made, reposing so carelessly in the straw.  "Now take off your frock, then lie back and close your eyes."

He lifted a brow, but did as she asked.

"Amy, my dear, what
are
you doing?"

She slid her hands beneath his open waistcoat.  "I'm taking your clothes off."

He opened his eyes.  "I say, I'm supposed to be undressing
you
—"

"You'll get your turn in a moment.  Now how does one untie this thing?"  She leaned over his chest, her heart beating with erratic, fragile little pulses of growing excitement, and fumbled with his cravat, the only concession he'd made in his humble American clothing toward high style.  "I'm glad that we women don't have to find ourselves choked by one of these things!"

"Oh, but it is far preferable to the stays and hoops that you have to wear," he said, grinning as she finally got the knot loosened.  Holding it by one end, she pulled the expensive length of lace from his neck, then slid her hands beneath his shirt and found the bare, warm skin of his chest.  Beneath it, the muscles were tense and hard, his heart almost pounding, and as she began to caress the ridges and valleys of bone, muscle, and sinew with her palms and fingertips, he lowered his lashes and gave a soft moan of delight.

"Relax," she said.

"I am relaxed."

"No you're not, you're hard as a slab of marble."

"Am I?"

"You are," she laughed, bending her head to place her lips against his warm skin.

"Well, I have never been seduced before," he said pensively.  "I don't quite know what to expect!"

"And I have never before seduced anyone," she murmured against his throat, "so I don't quite know what to do.  But isn't that half the fun?"

For answer, he only curved an arm around her neck, then ran his hand down her shoulders, her back, and out over her bottom.  Oh, it felt good, that broad, warm, hand of his against her body, even if her petticoats still separated it from her skin.  No, it felt better than good; it felt delicious.  Oh, more.  More!

His hand explored the curve of her bottom.  She kissed the base of his throat, where his pulse was beginning to beat quite rapidly now.  She was not unaffected herself.  She heard her own heartbeat in her ears.  Felt a strange shortness of breath, and a feverish glow kindling her blood, making her skin feel warm, making all her nerve endings tingle, making the heretofore chilly air feel blessedly cool against her skin.

"Charles?"

"Yes?"

"Do you mind that I'm doing this?"

"No, it is rather . . . novel."