A Rose in Winter (66 page)

"Dead? Three years ago?" Erienne repeated numbly. "Then when I married, it was really you..
.?"

"Aye, madam. I could not court you otherwise, nor could I think of a better ploy to confuse the ones who torched the manse than to resurrect the older brother whom they thought was dead. 'Twas you who gave me the guise and challenge when you said you would rather wed a scarred and twisted cripple."

Erienne glanced about, unable to settle her misting gaze on a single object while her mind flew in frenzy. He reached to take her against him, but she eluded his hand.

"Please... don't touch me," she said sobbing, and ran to the windows, there refusing to yield even the smallest glance in his direction. A heavy guilt came upon him as he moved to stand behind her. He saw her slender shoulders jerk with her silent weeping and heard her racking breath, and the muted sound drove a piercing pain through his heart.

"Come, my love ..."

"My love!"
Erienne whirled, and her tear-filled eyes blazed at him as she choked on her sobs. "Am I in truth your love, a respected wife to bear offspring with a proud and noble name? Or am I just some tender tidbit you've taken for sport? A simpleminded wench to fill your needs for a night or two, perhaps? What amusement you must have had playing your game on me!"

"Erienne... listen..."

"Nay! Never again will I listen to your lies!" She swept the back of her hand across her cheeks to fling away the streaming wetness and snatched free as he tried once more to take her arm. "What was it that you wanted? A paramour to while away the hours with? Aye! A tender virgin to entertain you while you're here in these northern climes. That was your first proposal, wasn't it?"

She strolled toward him, hips swaying suggestively while her eyes flashed through their moisture. She caught her finger in his shirt and flippantly jerked the tail out of his breeches. "What does a good trollop earn in the time I've been with you? Fifty pounds? That
was
what you paid for me, wasn't it? 'Tis so hard to recall. You gave with one hand and took with the other."

Christopher cocked a dubious brow, somewhat amazed at the spirit of this woman he had wed. "No such miserly sum, madam."

Erienne deliberately misinterpreted his answer. "Oh? Then you must consider that you bought me for a real bargain if most doxies earn more than that." Her lips turned upward in a coy smile as her eyes grew dark and sultry. "Am I not worth more than that now that I've learned some of the duties? Perhaps my speech is too refined." She leaned her bosom against him and tauntingly rubbed her thigh against his as she slid a hand beneath his shirt to slowly caress his lean, naked waist. "Ain't I worth more'n a couple quid a night ter ye, gov'na?"

He raked her with a brazen stare, able to give as good as he got, yet after a brief consideration he decided it would not be prudent to tempt Fate too far. She had a right to be angry, and it would behoove him to weather the storm with patience.

"What's the matter, gov'na?" she asked in a feigned tone of hurt when she failed to win a response from him. "Ain't I good enough for ye?" She twined her arm about his neck and, catching his hand, brought it to her breast and slowly rubbed the palm against the rising peak. "Don't ye like me?"

"I do indeed, madam," he drawled leisurely. He reached behind him, flipped open an armoire door and, taking out a sheaf of papers, held them before her eyes. "These are the rest of the receipts for your father's bills I paid in London." He tossed the stack in the direction of the bed, careless of how they scattered to the floor. "They account to more than ten thousand pounds."

"Ten thousand?" she repeated in questioning astonishment.

"Aye, and I would have paid twice that had there been a need. I couldn't bear the thought of letting you wed another man. So when your father banned me from the roup, I took my rightful title as Lord Saxton and had my man bid for me."

She stepped away, not willing to relent. "You tricked me. You tricked my father ... and Farrell... the whole village. You tricked us all," she sobbed, tears brimming in her eyes again. "When I think of all those nights you took me... held me in your arms ... and all the while you were laughing at me. How you must have laughed at us all."

"Madam, I never laughed at you. I wanted you, and I knew of no other way I could have you."

"You could have told me..." she cried.

"You hated me, remember, and scoffed at my proposals." He tugged off his shirt and threw it aside. Rubbing his knuckles in the palm of his hand, he began to pace slowly about as he sought some discourse that would soothe her ire. "I came to these climes to seek some clue to the identity of my brother's murderers, and in the course of that venture, I viewed a maid whose fairness seized my heart. She entrapped me as surely as any southern water siren or sea maiden, and I desired her as I have never desired any woman.

"Fate decreed that we should be at odds from the start, and I was commanded to ignore the very one I wanted. The warnings only sharpened my desires to have her. I plied her at every opportunity, and though her words chilled my hopes, I glimpsed some wee chance that she might in time yield to me." He lifted his right arm and rubbed the bandage with his other hand as if to ease a pain. "However, the moment wherein she would be wed to another quickly approached. 'Twas a choice I had to make... to let her go and forever regret that I had not been allowed time to woo her, or to present myself as the beast and take advantage of a ploy that could also aid me elsewhere. The longer I debated the matter, the more possibilities it presented. It seemed plausible, and it would allow me to court the lady at my leisure."

Erienne's voice was ragged with emotion. "So you duped me into believing I was marrying an unsightly beast. If you had really cared for me, Christopher, you would have told me. You would have come to me and eased my fears. But you let me suffer through the first weeks of our marriage, when I was so frightened I wanted to die!"

"Would you have been relieved to find yourself married to me?" he inquired. "Or would you have gone back to your father and set the word out against me? I had this matter of my brother's death to settle, and I had no way of knowing I could trust you. Many had sought to kill us. My mother booked passage to the colonies after the attempt on her sons' lives. She was frightened, for the hand of our foe seemed widespread. She hired a man with a daughter to sail with her and traveled under his name. When she arrived in the colonies, she adopted her maiden name and made a new life for us all. She feared us coming back, but 'twas meant to be. The rebellion in the colonies interfered, but nonetheless, after friendly relations were resumed, my brother came to claim his rightful place as lord. Nothing had changed. He was here only a short time, and they came with their torches and gave him no quarter. I was determined to be more wary, even with the one I had become enamored with. Her father was untrustworthy, and she had often confessed her hatred of me."

Tears blurred her vision, and she wiped angrily at the twin trails of wetness that continued to course down her cheeks. "I tried so desperately to be an honorable wife, but all the while I was just a pawn in your ploy for revenge."

"Justice, madam, and I will yet have it, though I see the sheriff is working diligently to destroy me."

"Allan Parker?" She forgot her anger for the moment as she stared at him in amazement. "Does he not work for justice, too?"

"Hardly, madam. He is the one whom the highwaymen call their captain. He led the attack on the Becker carriage, and that is how he came to know I am the night rider."

Erienne could not doubt his accusation, though the shock of it lingered on, but she had some claims of her own to make. "You have been involved with so many games. The night rider is not the least of them." Her unrelenting distress was evident in her tone. "You played the rutting stud with me and worked diligently to tear through my honor and destroy my self-respect. You seduced me in the carriage. You played your game with me there, and you would have taken me, too, and let me think that I was cuckolding my husband. Then later, when I came to this bed, you made love to me, deceiving me as you did, letting me believe you were another man while you made love to me."

Christopher's brows creased. "My desire for you was hard-driven, Erienne. I saw you as a man craves to see his wife... in the bath... in the bed... always so close under my hand, and so damned beautiful, it became torture for me just to look at you. I was soundly caught in a trap. I never dreamt you would yield to me as Lord Saxton, and when you came, I could not for the life of me deny myself or your plea in that moment, though in the taking of you I made the truth more difficult to tell. After easing my desires, I only wanted you more, and I was afraid I would lose you entirely."

"Have you no ken how I suffered because of your charade?" she asked, choking. "Every time you came to me as Lord Saxton, I was tormented with images of Christopher Seton. It became impossible to separate the two of you in my mind. And now you say 'twas but a game? Do you realize you nearly drove me mad?"

"My apologies, madam." His eyes were soft and yearning as they rested on her. "I was never sure you cared for me until you whispered my name in the dark."

Erienne was beset with confusion. She knew him to be a man who went after what he wanted, yet his method to win her seemed somehow less than honorable. Still, had he not done so, she would have found herself wed to Harford Newton or any one of a number of suitors she had despised. She had resented Christopher after the roup because she had thought he had done nothing to save her from a distasteful marriage. Could she be too distraught because he had done exactly that?

"You told so many lies to me," she said, sniffing, "I wonder if I can believe you at all."

Christopher stepped toward her. "I love you, Erienne. Whatever you may think, I never lied about that."

She stumbled back, knowing that if he touched her she would crumble, and there was much yet to be settled. "You lied about everything else! You said you were scarred..."

"And so I am. I bear the scar of your brother's shot... and a half-dozen other..."

"Burned!"

"That, too. There was a fire aboard one of my ships and in quenching it, a clot of flaming tar struck my leg and stuck there, burning. It left a scar, not great"—he stared at her, half smiling—"but enough to quench a maiden's curiosity."

Erienne stared at him in bemusement until she recalled the night her hand had moved along his thigh while he slept, and she suddenly realized that he had not been asleep at all. She turned away abruptly. "You said you were Lord Saxton's cousin."

"If you'll remember, my love, Anne said the Setons and Saxtons were cousins, which is true. You assumed the rest. I only played out the game."

"Oh, and how well you did, sir," she jeered. "In bed! Out of bed! You had me either way, whether it was as Lord Saxton or Christopher Seton."

He grinned. "Madam, I was not willing to gamble with so precious a prize."

Erienne backed around the bedside table as he advanced on her. The wall halted her retreat, and she found no other course of escape from the beast that stalked her. Christopher's eyes burned into her, and she could feel the resistance melting within her. The thought began to run through her mind that he was, after all, her husband, and it was quite proper to yield to his caresses, to his kisses, and to anything else he had in mind. Still, her pride had been stung, and she sought to rally a flagging will to her obedience, for in her mind he sorely begged a sound chastising.

An iron-thewed arm slipped about her waist and brought her against that broad, hard chest. She thought to remain passive in his embrace and did not struggle as his mouth lowered upon hers. As soon as their lips touched, however, she realized the idea was ludicrous and a gross miscalculation of her power to deny him, for the kiss went through her with the impact of a full broadside. His mouth slanted across hers with a ravening urgency that would not be denied, and the searing lips sent little tremors of delight boring down through her body, flicking every nerve until they were aflame with desire. Her world began to tilt, and she was lost in a dreamy limbo where the only thing that mattered was the closeness of his muscular body and the circling protection of his arms. She became aware that her arms were looped tightly about his neck, and she was returning his kiss with a fervor that betrayed her own longing. Her fingers brushed the familiar scar, and she thrust aside any lingering thoughts of resistance. There was, after all, no need to play the injured maid when she was very, very content with the turn of the day.

Christopher raised his head to caress her lips lightly with his own and then stepped backward toward the bed, drawing her with him.

" 'Tis daylight," she murmured, glancing toward the windows.

"I know." His gaze probed with flaming warmth into hers, compelling her to follow. There was no need for words. They were no longer bound to darkness, and he desired her now. When the back of his legs touched the bed, he halted and lowered his face to hers once again. His mouth leisurely possessed hers while his hands plucked at the fastenings of his breeches.

"Will you unfasten me, please?" she breathed against his mouth. He raised his head, and his reply burned in his eyes. She turned, lifting her hair aside, and waited while he complied. He pushed the gown over her shoulders, and a shiver of pleasure ran through her as his hand caressed her naked skin. His lips replaced his fingers, and she bent her head forward, closing her eyes in ecstasy as his warm kisses traced a path along her nape. She leaned forward, dropping the bodice away from her, and tugged her arms free of the sleeves. The bed creaked as he sat on its edge, and she cast a glance over her shoulder to find him ridding himself of the breeches. He tossed them aside, and Erienne did not miss the slight wince of pain that flickered over his countenance as he leaned back into the pillows. It was quickly gone, and he seemed unconcerned with his manly display as he awaited her.