The Dark One (38 page)

Her slight intake of breath turned into a soft moan of pleasure. He stroked her with his tongue, sucked gently upon her sensitive nub, and felt the first tremors of release take her. She called his name, convulsing beneath his mouth until her fingers, still twisted in his hair, pulled him away and up to her waiting lips.

He kissed her while his body invaded hers. She was warm, wet, and tight, and the feel of her wrapped around, him was heaven on earth. He thrust slowly inside of her, back and forth until she regained her senses and her body answered the call of his own. In the cold light of dawn, he rolled over and brought her on top of him.

Her lovely eyes rounded with surprise and she gasped at
having him so deeply embedded within her. He showed her how to move, how to ride him, how to bring him pleasure, and how to seek her own. Though he still considered her an innocent, she caught on quickly.

Rosalind felt empowered by her position atop him. He allowed her to set the pace of their lovemaking, to experiment with what movements most stimulated her, and he suffered her inexperience with great patience. She rocked her hips, slowly at first, then faster when she saw the effect she had on him. His eyes flared with heat and his jaw clenched as if he battled to maintain his control.

He let her have her way with him for a time, then his hands settled upon her hips, and he guided her, slowed her so that the pressure she felt building had time to simmer before it became a raging boil. She found release before he did, arching her back as the spasms of deep pleasure washed over her. A moment later he suddenly thrust deep, then lifted her off of him. She collapsed on top of him, felt his pulsing erection against the lower half of her stomach as he spilled his seed harmlessly outside of her womb.

As she lay there, feeling the wild beating of her heart and his, it occurred to her that they had not spoken one word to each other. It also occurred to her that to allow him to make love to her this morning, after a night when she had tested her faith in him and her faith in herself, told her the truth of her heart. She loved him. She would always love him. She would not allow his curse to stand between them, to rob them of the happy future she had once dreamed they might find together. But could she convince him to feel the same?

“That should not have happened.”

She sighed and glanced up at him. “Although you are
quite skilled at lovemaking, your choice of words after the deed is done so far leaves much to be desired. Why must you always make me feel as if I am a regret, Armond?”

He lifted a lock of her hair and twisted it around his finger. “Maybe because I am humbled by the force of our lovemaking. Maybe because I feel as if I am unworthy of you, and all the joy you bring me.”

“Well, that is better,” she admitted. She sobered. “We must talk, Armond.”

Using the lock of hair curled around his finger, he drew, her face closer to his. “Later,” he said, then he kissed her.

Later they did speak. But they spoke of matters that needed attending to rather than of their future together. The house next door had burned to the ground. There were no bodies to lay to rest, but Rosalind wanted a stone erected on her stepmother's behalf.

“You will have one erected for Chapman as well,” Armond surprised her by saying. “There is no need for the world to know that he was not a loving son.”

Armond's gesture surprised her and made her love him more for the sacrifice he made. He might dispel the rumors about his family being murderers if they both told the inspectors what they knew, but instead, her husband had decided to honor her stepmother's memory.

“You don't have to do that,” Rosalind said softly to him.

“When I leave, I don't want more than the stain of being my wife to mar your future, Rosalind.”

He might as well have punched her in the stomach. The soft feelings she had for him were quickly replaced by anger. “You make love to me, then tell me you are still planning to abandon me? It is all right if I am your whore, but not all right if I am your wife?”

His intense gaze caught hers as he stared at her across
the table where they were dining on a cold supper. “I told you that was a mistake.”

His response only infuriated her more. She rose from the table. “And was it a mistake the second time you made love to me today, or the third?”

Armond glanced away from her and ran a hand through his hair. “I wanted to feel like a man, and only a man.”

“
You
wanted?” she echoed, growing more furious by the moment. “What about what I want, Armond? What about our future together? What about the children I want to hold in my arms? What about—”

“What about the curse?” he suddenly shouted. “Dammit, Rosalind I won't ask you to suffer my sins, or my shame, with me! I love you too much.”

Although her heart should soar over his confessions of love, it could not take flight. “If you truly love me, you will understand that nothing could be worse to me than losing you. Didn't I prove to you last night that you would not hurt me, Armond? You cannot hurt me because you share a heart with the beast.”

“And you want to share a life with it?” he asked. “You want the curse to rest upon the heads of our sons? How could you want that, when you could have so much more? When you could have a normal man, and a normal life?”

She walked around the table to look down at him. “Is that what you truly want? For me to be with someone else? To give him all that I want to give you? Your father, made this mistake with your mother. He did not give her, choice. His decision destroyed her.”

“The curse destroyed her,” Armond argued. “What she had to witness, what she realized would someday befall her own children. That is what destroyed my mother.”

Rosalind shook her head. “No. He broke her heart, just as you want to break mine. He made a decision for both of
them. It was the wrong decision. I pray that you don't make the same mistake.” Rosalind walked away from him.

“Where are you going?” he called to her back.

Rosalind had said her piece. Armond knew that she loved him, that she loved him in spite of the curse that loving her had brought down upon his handsome head. She could not force him into the light. Her dark one. He had to fight for his own happiness. He had to fight for his future and hers. He had to face his worst enemy. Himself.

“I'll be at the dowager's. She can help me with the arrangements for my stepmother's stone. Now the decision is up to you, Armond. You can leave, slink away in the dark of night, or you can walk in the sunlight, with me by your side. This curse upon you is an inconvenience to be certain, but together, we might find a way to break it. Apart, we can do nothing.”

Armond watched her walk away. Letting her go was the most difficult thing he'd ever done in his life. But it was for her that he would sacrifice his own happiness. Two nights of having to suffer the sight of the beast taking him didn't seem perhaps that daunting to her. What about a lifetime of it?

What was he supposed to do? Be selfish? Take what he wanted above all else, and to hell with what that meant for Rosalind? He had sworn to protect her. Didn't that mean to protect her from all that might harm her? A spoken word could rip and tear as easily as a knife. He knew that all too well. To deny her children would hurt her, but wouldn't the hurt be worse for her to bear his sons and know they were damned from birth?

His decision seemed best for her. In time, she would find someone else. Even that thought brought him no peace. He rose from the table and began to pace. He
couldn't stand the thought of another man holding her, touching her, making love to her. She was his, dammit! His love. His life. But her happiness smote out his anger. He wanted her to be happy. In order for her to live the life he would wish for her, he must let her go.

“Lord Wulf?” Hawkins stood stiffly in the hallway.

“What is it, Hawkins?”

“Lady Wulf has asked me to have the carriage brought around. She's packing some things—”

“Yes,” Armond said in a clipped tone. “She's going to spend time with the dowager.”

“And that is all right with you, Lord Wulf?”

Hawkins had been with him for nearly ten years, and the man never made it his business to meddle in Armond's affairs. “Why shouldn't it be all right, Hawkins?” he snapped.

“I simply thought . . . I thought with all the lady has suffered, she would wish to be with you, my lord. The house seems odd without her.”

And it would become odder yet. “For the next few nights, I wish to be left alone after supper. You are not to come upstairs . . . regardless of what you might hear.”

“Very well, my lord,” Hawkins regained his formality. He turned away, paused, then turned back. “You are quite certain you wish to let her go?”

No, he did not wish to let her go. But her going was for the best, for her leastwise. “Yes,” he answered quietly.

It was the first time he'd ever seen Hawkins slump. The man walked away.

Armond stayed in the dining room until he heard Rosalind leave. The house was eerily quiet, but then, he supposed it had always been before Rosalind came to live with him. He'd sent a note off to Gabriel to come, but he'd had no answer from him and he had yet to put in an appearance. Armond had sent him after Jackson. If Gabriel
had given chase, no telling where that journey might lead him.

Armond hadn't been seen outside of the house since the fire next door. Only Hawkins knew he was home, and Armond supposed when the time came, even Hawkins could be bought off with a nice bundle to see him comfortably into retirement. Then what? Life at the estate, hiding. The thought held little appeal to Armond. Gabriel liked the solitary life of the country, but Armond had always needed to feel life teeming around him, even if he had been more of a bystander than a participant.

Well, he corrected, he'd been a bystander until Rosalind came into his life and forced him to participate. He smiled at the memory of her daring approach the night of the Greenleys' first ball. What if she had never approached him? Would he have noticed her there among the crowd? Would he have lost his heart to her even if she'd never spoken a word to him? Yes, somehow he knew that he would have. Somehow he knew that fate would have brought them together, if not that night, on another.

And now fate had ripped them apart. He walked to a window and looked out upon the side of the house, toward the stable. Rosalind had yet to ride her prized white Arabian. They had yet to picnic in the park or attend a social function as husband and wife. He felt robbed. But then again, he felt blessed in knowing her, in loving her, even for a short time.

She had asked him to walk in the sunshine with her. Could there be sunshine for him? For a man cursed? He had never thought so—had never dared to dream or hope that his life could be any more than what it had been before he met her. And that was what she asked of him. To let go of the bitterness that had kept him a prisoner of his own fears.

He had rescued her from her dark world, and she had rescued him from his. Could he let go? Could he accept the gift she offered him? To love him regardless? To love him unconditionally? These were questions he would ask himself and questions he would try to answer in the next few days, while the moon waxed and he was at the mercy of the beast.

Rumors abounded in London. During her stay with the dowager, Rosalind had learned that Viscount Penmore had been murdered. The man's body had arrived at his home in a buggy pulled by two frightened horses. He had been stripped, his throat cut, and was obviously the victim of thieves. No one made much of a fuss, it seemed, about the viscount's death. He was wealthy, but he was not popular.

The dowager had helped Rosalind to pick out a stone for her stepmother and stepbrother. Knowing what she knew of the duchess's past now, Rosalind instructed the stone to be placed at Montrose beside that of her mother and father. Franklin, she'd decided, could have his stone erected next to the father he hated. The father from whom he had inherited his cruelty.

The packages had arrived bearing her new gowns, even new underwear, capes, mittens; the dowager had evidently spared no expense when it came to spending Armond's funds. The lady had also made a good guess as to Rosalind's size, and a seamstress who arrived with the packages had found only a few alterations necessary.

Now Rosalind stood in one of those very gowns, an apple green muslin frock that fit her perfectly and complemented her complexion. She was enjoying the sunshine in the dowager's garden. The blooms reminded Rosalind of hope. The sight of flowers, delicate but vibrant, lifted
her spirits when they threatened to plummet. It had been a week, and she'd not heard a word from Armond.

Nor had she gone out among society. She had asked the dowager to remain silent as to Armond's fate. Rosalind supposed if she must, she would do what he asked and let it be known that he had perished in the fire that had taken the life of her stepmother and Franklin Chapman. Armond's death would mean her freedom from their marriage, but it was freedom she did not wish to have. Her monthly menses were late. She suspected the first night she had made love with Armond had produced results. Regardless of the curse that haunted his family, she could not find it in her heart to be sad that she might carry his child. She would pray for a daughter, but she would love and cherish a son no less.

Stopping to admire a perfect round rose, Rosalind bent to inhale the flower's subtle scent. She felt a presence before she glanced up and scanned the garden. A man stood in the shadows, watching her. The beat of her heart sped a measure. He was tall, and when he stepped from the shadows into the sunlight, sunbeams danced in his blond hair. God, how she had missed him. But Rosalind would not allow her spirits to lift just yet. Why had he come?

As he walked toward her, he still reminded her of a great tawny-colored cat, graceful and dangerous. His stormy blue eyes were locked with hers, and his expression gave nothing away of what he might be thinking. He suddenly stood before her, his intense gaze still locked with hers.