Dark Angel (23 page)

He stopped behind me. “You were not at dinner. And when I inquired as to why, I was told you had gone to the village today, and upon your return, left instructions you were tired and had no wish for my company.” His jaw clenched.

He took hold of the brush and set it aside, then gathering my hair, moved it out of the way.

His fingers slid across my throat, his darker skin in the mirror a stark contrast to my paleness, the strength in them giving me pause. Then, slowly, with featherlike caresses, he stroked his fingers down each side of my neck. The sensation transmitted itself throughout my entire body, and my skin flushed and tightened. Anger pulsed through my body that even his most casual touch could subdue my better sense.

“Perhaps you wished for extra time to consider my proposal,” he offered. “Perhaps you visited with the good vicar to ask him to officiate at our wedding.” Jealousy dripped from his words, despite the gentleness of his touch.

“I did not,” I said tightly.

I stood and tried to move away, but he tugged me back by my sash. The bow slipped free.

I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming at him, then loosened my jaw enough to squeeze out a reasonably civil excuse. “I’m tired, Gerard. I’ve had a trying day, and I wish to be alone.”

“So I’ve heard. What I have not heard is why.” He slipped his hand between the wrap and my chemise, and his palm branded my hip through the thin cloth. “Do not try to keep me out,” he said, his voice low, and he wasn’t referring only to the closed door.

I gripped his wrists. “Very well, then. If you must know, I have decided there will be no wed—”

The kiss he pressed upon me silenced me. It was not a gentle kiss. It was a hungry and impatient kiss. It cracked against my reason like a whip, and my knees buckled. I took hold of the lapels of his dinner coat to support myself while he held the back of my head, keeping me with him. After several minutes, he lifted his head, gazing down at me with eyes that had gone nearly black with desire.

He might be working his dark magic on me even now.
Perhaps I, like Mrs. Howard, had had my will stolen from me and had been bewitched.

I shook my head, attempting to clear it. “I must find another place to liv—”

He kissed me again, silencing me even more thoroughly this time, drawing the velvet of his tongue across mine and sucking slowly on my lower lip before he lifted his head.

My belly turned to molten honey.

“Must you do that?” I hissed, my legs shaking.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “You do seem to like it.”

“I meant, must you kiss me every time I try to speak?”

“Only if you insist on speaking. It means you have a logical, well-reasoned argument you wish to impress upon me, and I have learned where you are concerned, logic is not my friend.”

His fingers stroked the fine bones of my throat and his lips circumnavigated the tender skin around my ear, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

Do not, you silly woman, succumb to him.

“By now, you have formed a half-dozen reasons as to why we cannot be married, and will no doubt begin enumerating them the instant I allow you a coherent thought.” He walked me backward toward the bed. “The key, then, is to keep coherent thoughts at bay.”

“We must talk sometime. You cannot kiss me forever,” I protested, even as I felt the back of my knees hit the mattress.

His slow smile said otherwise. “There are approximately fourteen hours between dusk and dawn tonight. It may not be forever, love, but it will do.” He studied me, his head at an angle, his eyes narrowed. “Sit down.”

My chin rose in an act of bravado. “What if I do not want to?”

“I don’t recall asking you. Sit down.”

“You are being an overbearing tyrant.”

“I know what you want, and I’m going to give it to you. How does that make me a tyrant?” He pressed a finger across my lips, stopping my hot retort. “Never mind. And you’re still standing,” he said silkily. “You’re not helping your case.”

“Gerard, this is ridiculous—” The word ended in a squeak as he spread his fingers across my chest and gave me a little shove.

I landed flat on the bed, and he landed on top of me, his elbows planted on either side of me. He looked down, his gaze searching. “See how easy that was?”

He kissed me again, this time using his entire body to do so, plunging his tongue into my mouth while stroking against me through my chemise, causing me to moan and compulsively arch my back. He shut his eyes, his breath escaping in a hiss of pleasure, then dropped his forehead onto my shoulder with a groan and lay there, tense and unmoving.

I was trembling, aroused, and absolutely livid.

“You’re a beast,” I snapped.

He raised his head, his eyebrows arched. “I believe we’ve already established that.”

“Don’t twist my words. And get off me.”

“I’ve decided that I have not dealt with you properly, not in the garden or here the other night. I have come to you each time, hat in hand, like a supplicant, when what you need is what all my people need—to be mastered for your own sake.”

“What?”
I exploded.

“I know what you want, Cat. I told you. And I’m the only man who can give it to you.”

I was speechless at his arrogance. I simply stared at him, my mouth agape.

“But first…” He shifted and put his hand in his pocket, drawing out a small black box. “I’ve waited all night to give you this. Since you made me chase you down to do so, at least indulge me by accepting it without biting my head off.”

He flipped open the top of the box, and inside, nestled in velvet, gleamed a ruby ring with a stone as big as my thumbnail surrounded by icy chips of blue aquamarines, all gently worked in gold filigree. I gasped at its beauty, then snapped my mouth shut at my lapse. When I did not reach for the ring, he waved it beneath my nose.

“It is for you. A small token of my affection. I would have given you the matching earrings today, but my jeweler could only work so fast. I will make them a wedding present to you once you resolve yourself to the fact that we
will
be married.”

“I don’t want gifts from you,” I snarled. “And I haven’t agreed to marry you.”

His brows drew together. “What the devil is wrong with you?”

“Why don’t you ask
Mrs. Howard?
” I pushed him off me and stood.

He rolled to his side, looking genuinely perplexed. “What does she have to do with anything?”

I stormed to the window, turning my back on him, tying my sash into place with quick, angry gestures.

“Catherine, I have many abilities. Mind reading is not one of them.”

I could not conquer my jealous suspicions, whether he deserved them or not. I decided he at least had the right to understand why. I looked out at the moon, hugging myself in a protective embrace, and took a deep breath. “My husband was unfaithful to me before he died.”

“What?” He was stunned. I could hear it in his voice.

I turned and watched him while he rose from the bed, but wisely, he did not approach.

He closed the lid on the ring box. “You said he loved you.”

I smiled thinly. “Apparently loving one’s wife does not preclude the possibility of adultery. In fact, Jonathan tried to convince me it was
because
he loved me that he had been unfaithful.”

That brought his eyebrows up again. “I…see. On second thought, I don’t. Perhaps you should explain.”

“I discovered his affair two months after I delivered our daughter, and I confronted him. He said it had begun a few weeks after I conceived. I’d been very ill during much of my pregnancy, and he felt it would have been unkind to burden me with his attentions. The woman was a convenience, he claimed. She meant nothing to him.” I pressed a finger to my temple, rubbing at a now-throbbing headache. “He ended it immediately, but things were never the same between us again.”

“You could not forgive him for being with another woman?”

“In fact, I did forgive him. In a way, I suppose I understood why he had done it. Even in this, he thought he was being considerate of me.”

Gerard crossed his arms. “How generous of you,” he said drily. “And how convenient for him.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You will not judge Jonathan. God has already done so.” I leaned back against the window and felt the cool panes of glass chill my shoulder blades, the cross-shaped dividers cutting across my back. “I saw the woman, much later. In Town. She was exquisite. Beautiful in a way I was not. I knew then that any man who had been with her would not think their relationship meaningless, because she would not have allowed it.”

I looked down at the florid swirls on the Savonnerie carpet beneath my feet, and they blurred together. “Seeing her made me feel…inadequate, in the most elemental of ways. As a woman. And that is what I could not forgive. I had been so confident in Jonathan’s love for me, but after I saw her—I always wondered if, and when, it would happen again.”

I gazed at Gerard, trying to make him understand. “I realized then the reason he had strayed lay in me, not in him. Despite the fact that he loved me, I was not…
enough
for him. I accepted that, because I had no choice—he was my husband, and that would not change. But I could never forgive him for making me see myself that way. Still, I had to make the best of things. We had a child and a life together. We had just found our way back to being friends when he and my daughter died.”

Gerard’s expression was unreadable. “Are you telling me this because you believe if we marry, I will be unfaithful to you?”

“What happened with Jonathan taught me a great lesson. Even the best of men, the most well intentioned, the most loving, cannot be trusted. And you are not the best of men, Gerard.”

He snorted derisively and leaned against the bedpost. “This is quite a change from when you believed in the innate goodness of the beast. But perhaps you like him better than you like me.”

“At least he is honest. I do not say this to be cruel. I thought you should understand what marriage means to me. And what fidelity means, too. I am not the sort of woman who can command the affections of a man like you for a lifetime, let alone an eternity. I was foolish to hope—” My voice caught, and I paused to collect myself. “I do not think marriage is the right step for us, and I am not suited for anything else. I am sorry you have gone to the trouble of having a ring made, but I must refuse your suit. I plan to find other living arrangements at the earliest opportunity.”

He was quiet for a long moment, standing there, dark and foreboding, framed by the green swaths of satin surrounding my bed canopy. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and the knuckles of his hand whitened around the little black box. “And so, because your husband was a bloody fool, I am not to be given the chance to prove myself?”

“Did you lie to me about Mrs. Howard?”

His eyebrows drew together. “I told you the damned truth.”

“But not all of it. I think you only told me what you wished for me to know, only what was necessary. Like Jonathan.”

“The hell you say.”

“Don’t swear at me!” I clenched my fists at my side. “Mrs. Howard said you had an affair with her—a
long-term
affair. That she grew afraid of you and decided to end it. Is that true or not?”

He took a glowering step toward me, then another. “It. Is.
Not
.”

I could not back away, as the window impeded me, so I stood my ground. “Why would she lie to me about a thing like that? What possible reason could she have?”

“I haven’t the slightest notion. Why don’t you ask
her
?” He reached out for me and claimed one of my fists, unclenching it. “Which you can do after we are married, because I’m not letting you out of this house again until after you are wedded and bedded.” He slapped the box into my hand and curled my fingers around it. “And not necessarily in that order.”

I jerked my hand from his and flung the box aside. “Haven’t you heard a word I said? I am not going to marry you!”

He cupped my chin in his hand and lifted my head so that I could not help but meet his gaze. “Indeed you are. You do not wish to marry me because you think I lied about that which I have not. You believe I will be unfaithful to you because you are too inadequate to keep my attention. I can do nothing to refute either of those ridiculous claims but allow time to prove otherwise.” He pulled me against him, holding me fast. “You will see, once we have been married a hundred years, the utter stupidity of those beliefs.”

I pushed my hands between us. “You have to let me go.”

“
Never
,” he vowed, and pressed his mouth to mine.

Chapter Nineteen

Gerard’s kiss destroyed me.

He held my face in his hands and would not let me go. He delved into my mouth with his tongue, into my heart with his suffering. I tasted the salt of my own tears as he bunched the fabric of my chemise in his fists, groaning my name while he backed me to the bed, his kisses full of temptation and need and spiking pleasure. He tumbled me down, never letting go, his face flushed, his hand moving between my thighs. I arched and gasped into his mouth when he found me already ready for him, his long, clever fingers stroking into my response.

I hated him for that. I hated him for making me want him even though I did not trust him, for convincing my body to accept what my heart must deny.

It would be a disaster to love this man, and yet it was already too late. He would break me, and I had been broken too many times before.

In a fury, I pulled back my hand and slapped him hard. His head rocked at the blow. I stared at him; he stared at me, both of us shocked by my violence. I had never in my life hit another person, and I could not believe I had done it now.

His nostrils flared and he grabbed my wrists, stretching them out of the way above my head. His hair spilled over his forehead, nearly covering his intense gray eyes as he gazed down at me.

“No doubt I deserved that, but don’t do it again,” he warned.

My breath came hard and fast, even as heat flowed through my veins and I squirmed against him. He pushed a knee between my legs and flexed his powerful thigh muscles, stroking against me. I bit my lip as pleasure swept through me while my limbs trembled and my body quivered beneath his.

“Look at you,” he rasped, his features tortured. “My God
,
I could stare at you forever. I could take you apart and put you back together again and you’d still be utterly fascinating to me. Is it any wonder I can’t live without you? That I would do anything to make you mine? I’ve waited all my life for you. How can you believe I would
ever
want anyone else?”

He brought his head down, shifting so his body covered me. He took my mouth, stole my breath. I bucked up, again and again, and realized I did not struggle against him, but with him, desperate to have my hands freed, not in order to escape him but to clasp him to me, to hold fistfuls of his black hair in my hands so that I could keep his mouth on mine.

“Gerard…please…” I begged. “
Please—
”

“Yes.”

“Let me!”

“Yes.”

He released my wrists and I grappled with his coat, our mouths still fused while he stripped me of my chemise. I pulled at his waistcoat and shirt until he knocked my fumbling hands away, removing them himself. I unfastened his breeches, and he shoved them down while I knelt at his feet, tugging and pulling off his boots.

“
Hurry
,” he urged, and I flung the boots away and crawled up his body until I sat astride him. He clasped me under my arms and, lifting me, turned me beneath him.

We came together in an explosion of heat and need. There was nothing careful about our mating—we had been building up to this moment for days, and it was inevitable. I was nearly overwhelmed by the tactile sensations bombarding me at once: his woods-and-citrus scent, a hint of musk testifying of his desire; his skin, rougher and darker than mine; the slickness of his tongue as it swept inside my mouth. I climaxed before I even registered his body fully seated inside mine; he thrust hard, pounding into me again and again in frantic bursts powered by an ancient rhythm recalled from the depths of our souls.

The bed shuddered beneath us; I clutched at the sheets, grabbing handfuls as another climax swept over me and I locked my ankles around his pistoning hips. I sobbed in ecstasy as he cursed and grunted and held me down and came, my name on his lips, even as he kept grinding against me until I climaxed a third time, weakly, too wrung from pleasure to manage more; until he, too, could give no more.

He collapsed over me. I stared blindly beyond his shoulder until the room drifted back into my consciousness: our clothing scattered around us, the smell of sex permeating the sheets, the fire crackling in the hearth. He groaned, then rolled with me until I lay across his chest, one arm locked around me, one strong thigh possessively intertwined with mine.

He was silent for a long time. “Forgive me,” he finally said, his voice low. “I did not mean for our first time to happen this way.” The bitter chuckle that escaped him was laden with self-contempt. “It seems I really do have little self-control where you are concerned. But at least there won’t be any consequences. I protected you.”

I met his glittering gaze. “You did? You can do that?”

“Only I can.”

“I see,” I whispered, ashamed to realize while we coupled that I had not remembered the consequences if I became pregnant here.

“What happened—I cannot regret it, Gerard.” I looked away from the renewed desire in his eyes. “I do love you. But it doesn’t change anything.”

He did not answer, merely turning me toward him for a kiss. His heart beat strong beneath my hand. My fingers slipped down, and the muscles of his corded stomach jerked and tightened beneath them. I traced the ridges and contours of his abdomen while he kissed me, his gray eyes open and intense. I pulled back and put two fingers in my mouth, wetting them and circling the head of one male nipple until it beaded, tight and hard, beneath my fingertips.

His eyes closed briefly and he rested his head against my pillow, perspiration misting his upper lip while I explored him. His tongue flicked out, licking the moisture off. I imagined the saltiness on my own tongue and made a sound of hungry yearning deep in my throat. I leaned over him, tasting and sucking and kissing the damp skin around his mouth.

With a groan, he readjusted me, lifting me atop him, and passed one hand over my mound. Using his thumb to spread my slickness, he intensified my pleasure while he rocked against me.

“Imagine that is my mouth,” he murmured. “Imagine I am tasting you there right now.”

I tilted my head down to study the darkly lashed eyes, the dewed skin, the strong jaw, the firm lips. I wanted to drown in him, to submerge myself in his essence, his very being. I wanted to master and possess him, to submit and succumb all at once.

“I would like to watch you while you taste me,” I whispered. “The sight of your dark head between my thighs would excite me even more.”

He arched, entering me in one thrust, then gritted his teeth, holding back by sheer will until I moved of my own accord, rising and crashing against him like a wave beating upon the shore. He slid his hands up my thighs to the flare of my hips, past the curve of my waist, and—filling his palms with my breasts—plumped me while I rode him, pleasuring me as I pleasured myself with his body. He watched me carefully until I cried out in climax, trembling like a leaf in the wind, my head dropping forward, strands of hair sticking to my humid skin. Only then did he surrender, rolling me beneath him, pressing his face into my neck and stroking hard toward completion. His flesh was slick against mine; he smelled of the earth and the sea and of Heaven.

I loved him unbearably.

I wrapped my arms around him, and we stayed that way for a long moment, gasping for breath, me folded around him, him hunched over me. Eventually, he released me and slipped out of my body. I felt sated, but achy and well used.

He touched my face, traced my eyebrows, brushed a fingertip over my lips. He looked as though he was trying to memorize my features.

Finally, he set me aside, rose, gathered his clothes, and began to dress. “I will send the carriage to the Pangburns for the festival tomorrow. Afterward, you may go to them, if it pleases you.”

I looked up at him in shock.

“Let Mrs. Jones know which items you wish to have removed to their house,” he continued. “Or if there is another place you would like to go, you have but to tell her and I will have it outfitted with whatever you need. There are some empty cottages along the edge of the village. You might enjoy one of those.”

My heart plummeted. He was through with me already.

“You’re sending me away?”

His face was composed, but I saw his hand clench around the fabric of his shirt before he buttoned it closed. “No,” he said evenly. “I am letting you go. That
is
what you wanted, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t answer.
Was it?
“Why? Why now?”

He stared at me. “Because I love you, and I have no other way of proving it. I cannot tell you my secrets. I cannot give you a family or the world beyond these shores, but I can give you something perhaps as precious.”

A lump had formed in my throat, and I had to clear it before I spoke. “And that is?”

“The freedom to choose. Come back when you can have faith in my love.”

He turned and walked away, closing the door quietly behind him as he left.