Three Heroes (46 page)

She laughed. “Always the Hawk! It wasn’t anything dire or suspicious. Just curious. I wish I could pin it down.”

He’d relaxed again, but she thought his eyes still seemed intent. He’d told her he couldn’t resist a mystery, and it seemed to be true. She was definitely right to be binding him.

“Well, then,” he said, “where might you have met her?”

“That’s it. I have no idea. You have to understand, Hawk, I haven’t led a very adventurous life.”

He laughed, and she protested, “I haven’t! Things have happened to me recently, but most of my life has been positively boring. The only place I might have met her was last year in London.”

“More or less at the time of Waterloo, when Lieutenant Rowland was in Belgium fighting and being wounded. It would be strange if his wife and children were in London then.”

“And I’m sure I never encountered a Belgianwoman. I was restricted to fashionable circles, and rarely escaped my mother’s eye.” She shook her head. “It’s probably a mistake. Some people look like others.

”

“But you aren’t confusing her with someone else, are you?”

She could only shrug. That faint sense of recognition was becoming less substantial by the minute. The talk had passed some time, but she was no longer interested.

“Never mind,” he said, one finger stroking the long stem of his glass. It reminded her of his stroking of Jetta, and of how very much she wanted him to be stroking her.

She couldn’t bear it. She stood and carried her wineglass around to his side of the table.

Their eyes locked for a moment, and then he pushed back his chair, inviting her to sit on his lap. An invitation she took, heart racing, heat surging through her.

It must be the wine, but it was magical.

“Another adventure,” she said, adjusting herself and looping her free hand around his neck. “I’ve never sat on a man’s lap before.”

“As usual, you get the idea very quickly.” He accepted her daring kiss, then one hand rose to cradle the back of her head. His lips opened and she settled, melted, into a deep joining.

After a languorous time, their mouths parted and he whispered, “Do I want to know what other adventures you have planned?”

“Plan?” she said, exploring his jaw, his ear with her lips. “I’m a creature of impulse.”

“Heaven protect me. What impulse drives you?”

“I think you know.”

He moved her apart a little. “Clarissa, I promised Van that I wouldn’t seduce you.”

“I didn’t promise anything.”

She swooped in for another kiss, but he held her away. His face was flushed, his breathing unsteady. “I think perhaps you’re unaccustomed to wine…”

“Not that unaccustomed.” She cradled his face, feeling the roughness of a day’s beard on his cheeks. “

Why wait? What if they do manage to stop us?”

“Then it would be better.”

“Or our marriage would be essential.”

He captured her hands and held them away. “Clarissa—”

“There’s only one bed. Where are you going to sleep?”

“On the floor. I’ve done it before.”

“You’ve eloped before?” she teased.

The look in his eyes filled her with a sense of extraordinary power. She could hardly believe that she was doing this—trying to seduce a man. She, Clarissa, the plain one that no man ever looked twice at.

But she was, and she was winning, and it didn’t seem so extraordinary, so ridiculous. She could feel it in his hands, still controlling her wrists, and see it in his eyes. She could sense it in the very air around them.

His scarce-checked desire.

For her.

For her.

“What would you do if I started to undress here, in front of you?”

His eyes closed with what looked like pain.

“You’d like it?” she asked, astonished to hear it come out in an almost Jetta-like purr.

“Would I like to be burned to a cinder?”

“Well, would you?”

His lids lifted, heavily. “It’s every man’s deepest longing.”

That might be teasing, but she knew it went deeper than that. It was hunger.

She leaned forward, letting him keep control of her hands, to brush her lips across his. “Make love to me tonight, Hawk. It is my deepest longing.”

His lips moved beneath hers for a moment, then slid away. “What if you change your mind, if you decide you don’t want to marry me?”

“You think I will be so disappointed?” she teased.

He avoided her lips again. “Clarissa, I’m trying to be noble, dammit. If anything prevents our marriage, you’d be ruined.”

“Are you saying you won’t marry me?”

“No. But you may change your mind.”

“You forget. I’m in love with your house.”

He laughed, and rolled his head back, eyes closed. “Think. You might get with child.”

She nibbled down his neck. “So, I’ll be the even more scandalous Devil’s Heiress. I don’t care.”

“The child might.”

“Then I’ll buy it a father. But, Hawk, I want you. Nothing is going to change my mind. I love you.”

His lids lifted, heavily. “You said you loved my home.”

“And you. If Slade tears down Hawkinville Manor, I will still love you. But he won’t do that. We are on our way to our wedding to prevent it.”

He swallowed. She felt it.

“Do you feel your feet sliding, Falcon?” he said softly. “Love only greases the path. It doesn’t promise a safe landing.”

“Some paths lead to heaven.”

“Downward?”

She chuckled and moved her lips downward, nuzzling at the edge of his collar. “It would seem so…”

Dimly, somewhere far away in the house, a clock began to chime. She decided to kiss his neck and jaw for each chime, and ended at ten. “Ten fathoms deep,” she breathed against his skin.

He released her hand to hold her off at the shoulders. “I surrender to the depths.”

Triumphant, sizzling, she relaxed away from him, and he raised her left hand to his mouth. “I give you my love and allegiance, Falcon. I swear that if this falls apart, it will be at your desire, not mine.”

“Then it will never fall apart.”

He slid her from his knee to lead her to the bed.

“Electricity,” she said.

“Lightning.”

“Yes.” She knew she was blushing, but she didn’t mind. Despite The Annals of Aphrodite, she was unclear about what was going to happen here, but she didn’t mind that either.

She simply waited, for Hawk.

He raised his hands to her hair, which she knew was a mess. “I suppose your maid arranged this carefully this morning. Does that seem a very long time ago?”

“A mere century or two.”

“And the destruction is considerable.” Pins fell to the floor, and his fingers threaded into her curls. “But it is rioting, tempestuous hair, like its owner.” His eyes met hers. “And as lovely.”

“You like storm and riot?”

“Very much.” He raised her hair and let it fall. “It catches the lamplight in a net of fire.”

He lowered his hands and turned her to the bed. It was set high, and steps stood ready for them to climb into it. Should she take off her clothes yet, or would he do that for her?

He dropped her hand to pull off the buttercup-yellow coverlet. Meticulously, he folded it and put it on the chest that sat at the base of the bed. Then he folded down the other covers, exposing a large expanse of pure white sheet The precise preparations stirred a pang of panic. “Won’t I bleed?”

“The people here must suspect what is going on. If it bothers you, we can stop now.”

“Oh, no.” Then she plunged into honesty. “It’s just that this suddenly frightens me, but in the spiciest way.

Does that make sense?”

He put his hands on her waist and lifted her to sit on the high bed. “Of course. It frightens me, too.

Because I want it too much.”

He was looking into her eyes as if searching for doubts, for retreat. She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him.

He laughed, broke free. “Stay there.”

He went to pile the remains of their meal on the tray, then put it outside the door.

“You think of everything,” she said, and heard a touch of a pout in it.

He came back toward her. “That is my reputation.” He went to his knees and began to unlace her right half boot.

Clarissa sat there, feeling slightly like a child, but at his touch, intensely woman. Keen anticipation suddenly swirled inside her.

And impatience.

“I feel,” she said, looking down at his bent head, “that at a moment like this I should be wearing satin slippers, not muddy shoes.”

“At least they’re leather.” He put the right one on the floor and began on the left. “The mud and water don’t seem to have soaked through to your stockings.”

She flexed the toes of her liberated right foot. Her daisy-embroidered stockings were pretty, but sturdy. “

I should be wearing silk stockings, too.”

He glanced up, smiling. “For a day in the country? I’d think you a flighty piece.”

“You don’t think me a flighty piece?”

He discarded her left boot. “Hmmmm. Now that you come to speak of it…”

He began to slide his hands up her leg beneath her skirts, making her stir and catch her breath.

“Is this… is this the way it’s usually done?”

“What?” He met her eyes, but his hands continued to move up.

“Is the gentleman supposed to remove a lady’s shoes and stockings? Is that part of it?”

His lips twitched. “Are you going to analyze every step?”

“This is a very important experience for me, you know.”

“Yes, I think I know that.”

His hands found her garter, and undid the knot by feel, sending the most extraordinary feelings up the inside of her thigh.

“There are a thousand ways to make love, Clarissa. Doubtless more. If this was our wedding night, I might have left you with your maid to undress and get into bed, then joined you later.” He looked down again, and pushing her skirts up to her knee, rolled down her stocking.

“I bought those yesterday,” she said softly. “With you in mind.”

“And they are much appreciated.” His voice seemed suddenly husky, and she couldn’t contain a smile, even though her heart was beating so deeply she wondered if she might faint.

Dazedly, she watched her pale leg reveal itself. Doubts stirred. It was a very ordinary leg.

He stroked his fingers up and down her shin, then raised her foot to kiss her instep. “This is definitely an argument for anticipating marriage.”

“What? Oh, no maid et cetera…”

“Precisely.”

“So many places to kiss.”

“And I intend to kiss every one.”

So many places on him to kiss, she thought. Would she be brave enough to kiss every one?

Then he explored for the garter of the left stocking. Clarissa leaned back on her elbows, closing her eyes in order to concentrate on the feel of his hands. She felt unsteady. Quivery. She wasn’t sure she wasn’t actually quivering.

When he kissed her left instep, his hand cradled her foot warmly to raise it, fingers brushing against the side of her heel. Then his hands slid slowly back up her legs, opening the way for cool air. He was pushing her skirts up now.

She truly did quiver, for he must be close to her naked privacy.

Lips hot on the top of each knee in turn, hands stroking the length of her thighs.

Then he pulled her up and lifted her off the bed to stand.

She opened dazzled eyes to see him framed in a halo from the lamp. “This is remarkable.”

He laughed, and it seemed to be with unshadowed pleasure. “I hope it becomes even more so.” He pulled her suddenly close for a kiss. “You’re not at all afraid, are you?”

“Is there anything to be afraid of?”

“A little pain?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure it hurt to swing on ropes across the wilderness.”

“That was Van, not me.”

“But you’d have been next, wouldn’t you?”

He grinned. “We’d already argued over it. And you’re right. I wouldn’t have counted the scrapes and bruises.” He raised a hand and brushed some hair off her cheek, back behind her ear.

“But lovemaking is dangerous, Falcon. Be warned. At its best or its worst it takes us to places beyond the ordinary. Beyond swinging ropes, beyond battle, even. The French call it the little death. They believe that for a moment the heart stops and all bodily sensations cease, so that return to life is both exquisite delight and exquisite agony.”

She quivered again, deep inside, with hunger. “Can it be like that the first time?”

He laughed, or it might have been a groan. “If I can possibly make it so. Which at the moment,” he added, turning her to unfasten her dress, “might come down to a question of how long I can stand this torture.”

“Torture?” she asked, shrugging out of the dress.

“Only moderate so far. Corsets, however, are the very devil.”

She giggled, but could only wait as he unknotted and loosened her laces. She turned then. “I can get out of this and my shift while you undress. Or do you need me to help you?”

“That would probably be my undoing.” He began to rip off his clothes, as she struggled out of the corset.

He was watching her in a way that brought back every scrap of that sense of female power, and she was clumsy with humming excitement.

He pulled off his shirt, and she froze, corset dangling from her failing fingers. Not so massive as the groom in Brownbutton’s stableyard, but the stuff of maidens’ dreams all the same, with ridged muscles down his belly and curved ones in his arms.

There was a dark mark above his right breast. She let the corset fall and walked over to him.

“The tattoo,” she said. “I see it at last.”

“Didn’t you always know you would?”

She smiled up at him. “Yes. This was inevitable from the first day, wasn’t it?” She raised her left hand to trace the purple lines. “A G and a hawk?”

“Van was a demon. Con a dragon.”

“Why?”

“Why do sixteen-year-old boys do most of the things they do? Because one of them suggests it, and it seems like a good idea at the time. We wanted to be able to recognize one another’s mangled bodies.”

She shuddered and with her left hand on the tattoo, she ran her right down a jagged scar in his side. “You could have died before we met.”