Dangerous Joy (17 page)

A slight toss of her head seemed to throw off weakness. "I regretted it immediately."

"But it was done. It wouldn't surprise me, you know, to learn that Gardeen knew what would happen and made her own death in the cause."

She frowned at him then, tiny drops of the blowing drizzle on her curly hair and even on her lashes. "That's nonsense."

"Is it? Or don't you want to admit that no one, no creature on earth, thinks you should marry Rupert Dunsmore."

She turned sharply away. "I do what I have to do. And to be thinking there's a conspiracy of cats out to stop my marriage is to be moon-mad, Miles Cavanagh!"

She swept back to the house and he followed, dogs at his heels.

His words had largely been whimsical, but now he wondered. There'd been times in his life when he'd felt, like Hamlet, that there were more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in logical philosophy. In Ireland, belief in magic and mysteries ran deep.

He glanced back at the tiny grave, remembering the way the dogs had seemed to honor it, unsure what was reasonable anymore.

And what of Felicity? Was Irish magic at work there, too? His feelings were shifting, growing, without any hope of conscious control, so that her care, her happiness, were central to his life.

And it had nothing to do with guardianship.

But she, of course, was still dead set on marrying Rupert Dunsmore.

The best he could do for Felicity's happiness was to keep her distracted, so he insisted on giving her the tour of the house. By hard work, he soon reestablished superficial good manners between them, and even a degree of humor and teasing.

He wanted that moment back, that moment on the journey when he'd carried her in his arms and a chord had hummed between them. He'd settle for some ease, however, and a smile now and then.

As he showed her the family portraits, she began to relax. Admiring the skilled plasterwork of the dining-room ceiling, she made a joke about the half-naked deities. As they handled his father's porcelain, his hand brushed hers. The way she flinched away gave him hope.

Hers was not the manner of a fearful or disgusted woman. It was the manner of a woman disturbed by a touch, aware of the vibration of the air between them.

"Have you more delights to show me?" she asked rather breathily, clearly hoping he would say no.

"One last thing." Without further explanation, he led her toward the west wing.

"What?" she asked, being careful not to touch him as they walked.

He opened the door on the billiard room specially constructed by his father, who had loved the game.

"Oh," she said, moving forward. "I've always wanted to try. It's generally considered a man's game."

He'd guessed right. A man's game was exactly the thing to enthrall Felicity Monahan. "I'd be happy to teach you."

With luck, this would take her mind off her troubles all afternoon and keep her nearby, where he needed her to be. That need bothered him, but he was losing the will to fight it.

She hesitated, poised for flight, but then walked in to inspect the rack of cues.

With a sigh of relief, and perhaps of surrender, Miles explained the rules of the game. He soon found, however, that the intimacy of their situation intensified the nerve-tingling atmosphere. It took immense control, as he guided her hand and aligned her body, not to turn each touch into a caress.

And his control was weakening...

When Colum came to join them, Miles could have hugged him, for he brought sanity with him. He was disconcerted, however, when his mother arrived and picked up a cue. During his father's life, she had shown no interest in the game at all.

"Colum has been teaching me," Aideen said.

"I find it a game of considerable skill and challenge."

Much to Miles's astonishment, she beat him.

Colum beamed and applauded. "Sure, and isn't she the finest woman in the world? But I don't need to tell you that, my boy."

He didn't, but to Miles it seemed against the rules for a mother to change so dramatically mid-course, so to speak. Now he came to think of it, the caps she wore these days were more flighty, and he suspected she'd had her dresses altered to be more formfitting.

When the happy couple wandered off, Felicity chuckled. "You look dumbfounded. I think I'll practice so I can beat you, too."

That wasn't what had knocked him for a loop, but he didn't say so. He was just delighted to hear her laugh. "By all means. You have the eye for it. You'll master the game in no time at all."

The glow of laughter dimmed. She turned back to the table and lined up a shot. "That's as well since I only have a week."

Chapter Ten

Felicity sent a red ball slamming into a corner pocket, wishing...

She didn't know what she wished for anymore. Yes, she did. She had to wish for Rupert's return and their marriage. She had to wish to evade Miles, to escape his care, his concerned eyes, his gentle humor.

His touch.

She knew he was working hard to ease her day and both loved and resented him for it.

No. Not love. Never that.

Her thoughts warred with each other until she was tempted to scream, or to run and hide like a child fleeing a thunderstorm. For it was a storm, a wild energy thrumming in the air around them all day, like a deep, disturbing chord.

A chord that could shatter the guard on her heart.

There was nowhere to run to, though, so she steadied her nerves and settled to mastering the game of billiards.

Surely a safe enough way to pass the time.

Or was it?

The lesson involved Miles touching her-to adjust her grip on the cue, to align her body for a shot. There was nothing untoward in his manner, and yet she felt each touch as a shiver on her skin, even through layers of winter clothing.

It was worse when he leaned around her, encompassing her, as he helped her master the more difficult techniques.

Could he really be oblivious to the atmosphere, deaf to that nerve-jangling chord?

She glanced at him, and he smiled quite calmly.

Then his eyes darkened and seemed to shift, to linger on her lips.

She realized she was licking them.

Hastily, she concentrated on the white ball at the end of her cue, though her hand shook and a tendril of hair fell over her right eye.

If only it weren't so hot!

It was just the fire...

It must be the fire, for Miles was stripping off his woolen jacket. Her own long-sleeved, high-necked gown of sturdy Circassian cloth was stifling, and yet she had no layers she could shed. Her careful shot ricocheted pointlessly from cushion to cushion.

She stepped back to let him play, brushing the damp curl back and relieved to be able to move as far as possible from that distressing fire.

It did not reduce the heat at all, for it gave her a clear view of him. How could fine linen shirt and brocade waistcoat seem so wantonly underdressed?

He bent and stretched to take his shot. Without his jacket, the strong line of his body-wide shoulders to firm buttocks, then down long, muscular horseman's legs-forced itself on her senses like a crescendo from a massed orchestra, supported by a hundred drums.

The red ball fell neatly into a corner pocket.

Damn him. He felt nothing at all!

Straightening, he quite casually removed his cravat to let the neck of his shirt stand open. But he looked at her as he did it, and she realized he was not deaf to the music at all.

"This is so unfair..." She stared at his naked throat, wanting to lick the perspiration there.

"I've had years more practice at the game."

"You know that's not what I mean." Her eyes met his pleadingly, though she was not sure what she requested. "I can't think. It's so hot."

He dropped his cravat on the floor. "Perhaps, then, we shouldn't try to think." He walked around the table to her side.

Felicity took one step back. "What are you doing?"

He put his cue down on the baize. Then he plucked hers from her hand and laid it side by side with his.

There seemed an absurd intimacy in those two neatly aligned cues.

Then he pulled her into his arms.

"Miles!"

His lips silenced her.

The chord swelled but lost all menacing discord so Felicity had no choice but to surrender to purest, sensual harmony.

With a master's skill, he kissed her deep, he kissed her light, he brought her to join with him in kissing so she had no idea who was giving, who was taking. He raised the heat a great many degrees, but somehow, she didn't care.

Perhaps because by now her gown was unfastened down the back.

`Miles!

His lazy eyes were heavy with passion, but not lazy anymore. He slid her dress off her shoulders and nipped at her skin.

She clutched the dress at her breasts. "It's the middle of the day!"

"No one will come here."

"Your mother..."

"Is off being similarly treated by Colum, I suspect, damn his wicked heart." But there was no anger in him.

"Miles," she whispered faintly, "you're my guardian..."

"I see no profit in it at all, at all," he murmured, sliding into a brogue that stole the strength from her hands so her dress pooled on the floor.

His hands stilled as he looked at her, absorbing her as she wanted to absorb him. "You have the beauty of the Danaan, a muirnin, mo chroi. This is our destiny."

Then the pins came out of her hair and he spread it around her, every delicate touch of his fingers a sweet chord along her nerves.

He cradled her breasts, cupped by her white linen corset but largely vulnerable to his touch, shielded only by her silken shift. "It's not fair that a woman be so well-armored," he murmured as his thumbs softly teased her nipples.

"A corset is armor?"

He laughed and loosened the ribbon at the neck so her shift fell loose over the upper swell of her breasts. "Your armor, my fair swan, is what lies beneath it..." And he brushed his lips, breath hot, over her.

Felicity swallowed, murmuring a disjointed prayer. Though what god would have any part of this, she didn't know.

He loosened the corset-laces and slid it off, but all the time his mouth teased at her ear, her neck, her chest...

She clutched his hair, holding him close, though somewhere in the heated maelstrom of her mind, she realized this did not fit in with her plans at all.

But they had a week.

Didn't they deserve a week?

A ripple of maddening pleasure flowed through her. Her knees gave way and she would have collapsed to the floor, but he swept her into his arms and carried her to the sofa. Placing her there gently, he knelt to slide her shift up, gazing at her legs as she gazed at him.

He had never looked more beautiful. With his red-gold hair disordered and his features in intent repose, he stole her breath and took the remnants of her sanity with it.

His shirt was loose at the waist. Perhaps she'd loosened it. She wiggled her toes under and pressed her foot against his ribs, trying to work the shirt up and expose more of his body.

He grinned and moved to sit on the edge of the sofa, leaving her shift as it was, hanging loose in the top exposing her breasts, and racked up at the bottom almost to the top of her thighs.

Laughing with him, she began to tug at his shirt, using her very useful ability to grip things with her toes. As the front came free of his breeches, he asked, "Can you do buttons?"

"No, but I can tickle."

He captured her feet and tickled back, so they tangled and tussled on the damask sofa until the shreds of her decency were entirely lost.

Then he kissed her between her legs and in her navel and on her breasts and around her neck until he reached her lips and she could kiss him back. And if her toes could not undo buttons, her fingers could, and could do other interesting things, things she had never done to Rupert...

But no. She would not think of Rupert Dunsmore now.

She curled her hand around Miles's erection, determined to take this moment and find the fullness of it.

Fullness.

"You're very big," she murmured.

He'd been licking her breasts in a leisurely, thorough way, but now he stilled. "I was thinking perhaps I should ask if you were a virgin."

She stilled, too. How had she ever imagined they could do this and keep her secret? "I wish I were."

He turned her face toward him. "It doesn't matter, a stor. And," he added with a grin, "I'm exceedingly pleased that I'm bigger."

She fell into laughter, then, though there were tears in it. He drank the laughter from her lips and the tears from her eyes and slid into her so smoothly she scarce felt the change from two to one until they were in complete harmony of the flesh.

She cried out from the perfection of it, and from the sensual sweetness sent running flamelike through her body from crotch to dizzy, whirling head. She kissed him then, holding tight into his curls so he could not resist, wrapping her strong legs about him so he could not retreat, contracting her inner muscles in raptured seizure.