The Mistress of Trevelyan (35 page)

"Ride with me," he said softly. His voice was deep and smooth against my ear and rumbled along my back through his chest. His thigh brushed mine as he urged Gunnlod into motion, and I opened my eyes, feeling a new world unfold before me. Minutes later we cleared the trees to a hilly stretch of grass that slowly sloped to the deep blue of the bay. He pushed Gunnlod into a canter, and we went racing across the turf. I could feel it all. The power. The freedom. The excitement. Experiencing the exhilaration within the safety of his arms made me feel as if heaven had reached down and carried me to the stars. He stopped on a knoll, and one of his hands left mine to curl around my stomach and press me tighter against him. His lips brushed over my ear.

"God help me, Titania. I can do naught else but fall beneath the spell you cast."

I leaned into him, turning my head to his questing lips. His mouth covered mine, his kiss demanding as his tongue sought to ease his burning need. Fire flared between us, insistent, desperate to feed its licking flames with my very soul. He leaned me back against his arm, urging me around on the sidesaddle's seat until I was completely sideways and could twist to press my breasts to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, eager to touch him, feel him, know every curve, every silken hair, every ripple of muscle, every difference that made him a man.

One of his hands supported my back, and the other cupped my breast, spreading sweet fire to my loins. I moaned, arching to him, needing so much more than this embrace could give me. I slid my hand down his chest, pressing and kneading the contours of his chest and abdomen, moving down until I brushed his hard arousal. He groaned harshly, jerking as if he'd been shot.

"Every night I long for you," he said.

I placed my hand over his heart, absorbing its thundering beat. "And I you. It is most disconcerting to know that I care for naught else but your kiss, your arms, your love." My body froze. Love? I'd not meant to reveal my heart to him. Not ever.

He pulled away from me, groaning as if I'd stuck a dagger into him. I had to grab the saddle horn to stay upright.

"I am sorry," he said, moving back and sliding from the horse. As before, he kept his back to me, breathing deep, ragged breaths.

This couldn't be happening again. He couldn't be shutting me out as he had before. I refused to go back to being Miss Lovell in private.

"What is it?" I demanded. "What is it that drives you away from me?"

"Honor. What little I have left of it."

"But why? Is there not honor in love?"

He turned to me. "Do you understand that I cannot offer you love? The shadow of my wife's death hovers over my life. The world sees me as a murderer, and it is a burden I cannot allow any other to bear." His eyes were stark, burning coals that were turning to hopeless ashes.

"But the inquest ruled your wife's death a suicide." Though I knew that Francesca had been murdered, I found myself searching for ways to prove him innocent and to prove it to the world. Why wasn't he trying to prove to the world his innocence?

"The court ruled what I paid them to decree. Did you know that the rich can buy justice, Titania?" His voice rang bitterly. "The only thing I cannot buy is innocence."

Buy innocence? The blood drained from my head, rushing to my heart to keep it beating. Only one who was guilty would need to purchase that. Had he truly had a hand in his wife's murder? No. I knew that he hadn't. So who needed innocence? Then it hit me. Benedict wasn't trying to prove his innocence because he was protecting someone else. Someone he loved and felt responsible for. Who? Stephen? His mother? Katherine?

Cursing, Benedict turned from me. Then he took up Gunnlod's reins and walked back the way we'd come. We traveled in silence. I gripped the saddle horn with one hand. In the other, I pressed the secret passage's key against my heart. I wanted to prove him innocent.

For a man who claimed he didn't run away from complexities, Benedict was very good at avoiding me. At least, avoiding being alone in my company. By Saturday morning, I deduced from the servants' activities that Benedict was planning on leaving for a long business trip the next day.

Part of me thought that his departure would be best. We both needed time to reclaim our sanity. But another, more truthful part of me dreaded his leaving.

Longing for Benedict when he was gone was more difficult than longing for him when he was near, for when he was near, I had hope, and the ever-growing choice of going to him. When he was gone, I had nothing. Rather than brood in my room all day, I made my way to town—more for the need to clear my head than for any errands I had to attend. It didn't take me long to purchase the few items I needed; then I went to Mr. McGuire's. As always, he was relieved and glad to see me. Neither of us had any new information about Francesca's death, and I was reluctant to discuss the Trevelyan family too much. I feared my feelings for and involvement with Benedict would become too apparent.

I didn't want Mr. McGuire to learn that I'd been foolish enough to fall in love with the master of Trevelyan Hill. Nor did I want to hear another person claim him guilty. But Mr.McGuire noticed my distraction, my evasiveness about his inquiries, and several times I caught him looking at me with concern and a question heavier than he wanted to ask in his watery blue eyes. I decided not to linger for the tea he offered. I was glad to see he'd kept his promise and hired an assistant, though. Manuelo was a boy of no more than twelve, but eager to help and more than capable of moving Mr. McGuire's cartons of books and climbing ladders.

Upon leaving Mr. McGuire's shop, I felt oddly strange, as if I'd lost my hold on something precious, but I refused to examine myself too closely. I didn't want to see anything that would sway me from the path I'd chosen. I went to the florist, deciding the single bloom that I could afford to buy more decorous than a handful of wildflowers. I bought two blooms at the last minute, deciding to place one on Francesca's grave for Robert and Justin.

At the cemetery, I stopped suddenly and ducked back into the shadows when I saw Constance at her sister's grave. Her voice drifted my way. She was talking to her sister as if her sister sat beside her, discussing a day of shopping. She held up a scarf, modeled it, then drew a hat from a box and put it on, asking Francesca what she thought of the combination. Constance had said that when she shopped, she shopped for her sister, too. Grief had many faces, and I was learning that some of them were very strange indeed. I left without her seeing me; some moments weren't meant to be disturbed.

Taking both of the blooms, I went to my mother's resting place, looking for the white wooden cross marking her grave. Only it wasn't there. I swung around, thinking I'd mistaken my way, but I hadn't. I was exactly where I should be, but...

Moving closer to the beautifully carved granite headstone, I looked with disbelieving eyes. There, etched in stone, was my mother's name. I read the words he must have remembered by heart
Her life was as finite as the earth, but her love reaches beyond the stars.
He'd added another line.
Beloved and missed by her loving daughter Titania Lovell
. Tears filled my eyes and ran unchecked down my cheeks as I knelt near the headstone. Just as Robert had, I took my finger and lovingly traced every letter engraved upon the stone. Then I cried, not from sadness, but from the love bursting inside of me. Only one person on this whole earth had known of my precious wish, and his caring struck me deeply.

Taking lavender-scented water, I washed myself, scrubbing every part of me to a rosy, tingling awareness. Then, leaving off any undergarments, I put on a soft nightgown, one that I'd yet to wear from my treasured collection of clothes from Mrs. Talbot's Fashion Emporium. I followed that with my robe and slippers and brushed my long hair to a silky shine. Finally, I was ready. I could no longer deny my love, deny myself the memory of his passion. The grandfather clock struck the eleventh hour. I gathered my lamp and entered the schoolroom.

My hand trembled as I placed the key in the lock and turned it. The soft click seemed to echo in my mind. After tonight, there would be no going back. I'd chosen, and that choice would forever be etched upon my heart.

It took only a moment to descend and press open the panel to Benedict's room. He stood looking out the window of his room, wearing only his trousers, a drink in his hand. He didn't turn my way, though I knew he heard me. He could see me reflected in the glass. I set down the lamp, slid off my slippers, and slowly untied my robe, letting it fall from my shoulders into a puddle at my feet.

I watched him watch me. He took a drink, downing what was left in his glass in a single gulp.

"You should not be here, Titania. I am not strong enough for this, and I do not think you realize what you are asking for. I cannot marry you."

"I never thought that you would. I want to be here," I said. "And I do not want you strong. I want to feel and know your weakness for me, for I have a weakness for you that knows no boundaries, no shame." Stepping closer, I undid the top button of my gown.

"I cannot marry
any
woman," he said harshly.

With each step, I let loose another button, until I reached his back. "I am not asking for marriage" I said softly. "Only to know you." Then I pressed myself to him, wrapping my arms around him, laying my cheek against his warm, supple skin. He smelled of fresh sandalwood, and his skin was slightly damp, as if he too had just washed. I shut my eyes and breathed deeply several times.

I knew without a doubt that this was what I wanted, to know this man that my heart ached for, that my body longed for, that my mind fought for, that my spirit sang for.

"Please," I whispered softly. "Please do not turn away from me. Do not deny the passion that I never thought would be mine. Give me the gift and pleasure of being in your arms."

"Your gift is infinitely more worthy than mine." He groaned deeply, and his shoulders slumped as if he could no longer bear the weight resting upon him. When he turned to me, there were unshed tears in his eyes.

"Titania, my midsummer night's dream," he whispered. Laying his hands upon my cheeks, he directed my gaze to meet his. Then, holding my gaze captive, he kissed me slowly, with an exquisite gentleness that melted my soul. He spread kisses over my face, and with each brush of his lips, desire fanned hotter. I kissed him back, kissed the indentation in his chin, his bottom lip, and his corded neck- He threaded his fingers into my hair and kissed me harder, his tongue thrusting and seeking mine. I met him eagerly, my hands questing for every treasured nuance of his male body, the supple strength and power of his shoulders and back, the rugged ridges of his chest, the pleasurable intrusion of his hard thigh between my legs.

Instinct had me clamp my thighs around his, forcing his leg tighter against my femininity, so that when I arched to him, pleasure coursed through the damp flesh that ached to know his touch more intimately than before.

He pushed my gown down my shoulders, raking the soft cotton over my breasts before they sprang free, more than ready to feed his hunger for me. I stood naked before him as my gown slipped to the floor, but he gave me no time for shyness. Cupping my breasts, he pressed their peaks upward and laved them with his tongue, nipped gently with his teeth, then suckled my sensitive nipples to excruciating points of need.

"Benedict, please," I cried out to him, feeling as if I were fevered, on fire, and knew no source to bring me ease.

He swung me up in his arms and carried me to his bed, where he tossed me in his haste. I bounced once, then my eyes widened with surprise. He didn't unbutton his trousers; he ripped them open and shucked them down, snatching at the material covering his body until he stood naked, teeming with desire. Every movement, every ripple of his muscles, screamed that his passions were on the brink of exploding out of his control.

I ran my gaze along the full length of his male arousal, then up the full length of his body to meet his burning gaze. He stood there, both powerful and vulnerable at the same time, for there was a deep question in his eyes.

"I have not done this since Robert was conceived. I do not know how gentle I can be."

I opened my arms to him. "I welcome your passion, Benedict. I do not fear you"

He shut his eyes and exhaled as if he'd been holding his breath. He joined me on the bed, his hands trembling as he began exploring my body anew, setting me afire for more of his touch, for another of his kisses. This time he didn't stop his caresses at my breast; he moved lower, delving gently into my feminine flesh with his fingers. As before, he caressed me there until my hips undulated with the rhythm of his stroke.

"Titania, forgive me if this hurts, but the pleasure will come twofold if you relax, feel the movement, and move with me rather than fight the magic."

"I am ready," I whispered, but then had to question myself when he slid a finger into me.

I must have tensed, because he eased his finger out and stroked my most sensitive parts again.

"Believe me. God made a man and a woman to be together, and everything works beautifully."

"Show me," I said, drawing a deep breath. He urged my legs apart and slid between them. I felt the hard, insistent heat of his arousal press softly against my damp femininity. He angled up on his arms and looked down at me. Trembling with restraint, he slowly pressed into me. Just a little, then he stopped. I held my breath, waiting for something to happen, be it pleasure or pain. He moved a little more, then stopped again. My frustration over the matter built until I could no longer stay silent.

"Benedict, you are killing me—"

Groaning in pain, he froze, then tried to move back from me.

"No" I moaned, wrapping my arms around him. "You are making me insane with this infernal waiting." I pressed my hips to his. "Can you not make this happen any faster? I feel as if I am burning alive, and you've no water to douse my fire."

He blinked, groaned as if his agony knew no end, and then kissed me more deeply than before. I'd broken through his restraining wall, and his passion flowed over me. He pushed himself all the way within me in one thrust I felt a burst of pain, then a burning that, when he thrust again, began to tingle with pleasure.