Heather Graham (38 page)

Then a climax, fierce, violent, burst upon him. He tried to fight the waves of it washing over him, anxious that he had brought her to this sweet point along with him. But the fiery tremors shot through him again and again, and he was powerless but to drive sweetly homeward into her feminine sheath. And when they had subdued, he fell to her side, still trembling. He pulled her into his arms, and felt her resist, but it didn’t matter. His voice shook when he whispered, “My God, my love, but that was good. By heaven, I swear, I waited far too long.”

She remained silent. He rose up on an elbow to look at her. Emerald eyes, just a touch glazed, returned his stare. His eyes didn’t remain upon hers, but stroked warmly over the body he had just loved so thoroughly. She had changed so little. Her breasts had swelled. Her nipples were deep, dark, dusty rouge, evocative even now. Perhaps her hips had gained an attractive half an inch. Two tiny little hair-thread lines trailed from low on her abdomen into the fiery dark red down of her mound.

He stroked a finger down her body, tenderly, from the fullness of her breast to the base of her abdomen. “Dear God! I missed you!” he murmured. He touched one of the little lines. She stared at him, then caught his hand.

“What now? My love, if I was not tender enough—”

Her lip curled in a subtly wise smile. “When will you understand!” she said softly. “Oh, you are good! You’re experienced, and you’re powerful, and you know it very well! But—”

“Ah, yes!” he said softly, his eyes glittering in turn. “I haven’t groveled at your feet for a hundred days like a supplicant for ever having doubted you!”

“Doubting me!” she exclaimed. He pressed a finger quickly to her lips, and she spoke in a whisper once again. “You damned well deserve to grovel! You didn’t doubt me. You accused me of everything!”

“Rose!” he hissed in return. “I am trying to beg your pardon. But how would it have looked to you?” he demanded heatedly.

“Well, milord, I will tell you this! I am innocent. I have been cruelly and pathetically wronged since I found myself awaking in your bed that morning. I never, ever plotted with anyone to marry you, I never desired to marry you. And I certainly never wished Anne’s death! Nor yours, nor the agony I went through that night, or in the months that followed. So, my lord, you are right. I am your wife. And fool though I may be, I am delighted to see that you are alive. And you do have the power to demand what you want, to take me or ignore me, but if you wish a response from me—a total, freely given response—then …”

“Then what?”

“Well then, you definitely do need to do a little more groveling!”

His muscles were tensed like wire. His teeth were gritted, and he seemed to be fighting some awful battle with himself. “Dukes do not grovel!” he snapped out.

“This duke had best learn to do so!”

“Oh, really?”

“Oh, really!” She snatched up her sheets. He just as quickly snatched them away from her.

“What are you trying to cover now?” he demanded, pouncing upon her.

Jaw hard, hair spread wildly beneath her, she stared up at him. Her mood had swung again. “Don’t look at me so!” she pleaded suddenly, startling and confusing him.

“Rose, you are exquisite,” he told her, puzzled. Was she disturbed by what was almost invisible? She had never been more beautiful to him. “Rose, you have given me a beautiful son. And you are still the most stunning woman I have ever seen.”

She shook her head. Puzzled, he lifted her hard-set chin. Her eyes, green fire, met his. “My Lord DeForte!” she said in a husky whisper, heated in the night. “I know you, I married you.”

“And what does that mean?” he inquired at a total loss to understand.

“Would you get up, please! Your weight is killing me!” she murmured.

It was a lie, a ploy, he was certain. But for the moment, he obliged her anyway,

“Tell me what you’re talking about, Rose!”

“It’s still my night!” she hissed back. “My turn! You’re in my father’s house! You had no right to come to this room, and you’ve still managed to come in and—and—”

“Claim all that is rightfully mine?” he suggested.

“You are an incredibly arrogant man!” she told him, sitting up, inching away from him, pulling the covers chastely to her chest.

“I want to know what you’re talking about!” he persisted.

“All right!” she lashed out. “Ah, let’s see! You were given up for dead. But you survived. Then you were picked up by Spaniards, and …”

Rose paused for a moment. She didn’t doubt that story, and a catch seemed to form in her throat even as she spoke. Her fingers had moved feverishly up and down his back just moments ago.

And then had touched the welts left by the Spaniards’ cat-o’-nine-tails.

“Yes, I was picked up by Spaniards,” he said impatiently. He crawled from the bed and stared down at her, naked and lithe in the fire-cast shadows. “Pray, go on.”

“But then you fought your way free,” she said softly. “Free to become a pirate king—the Dragon-slayer.”

“Do continue.”

“That was a while ago. Several months, at the very least!”

“At the very least,” he said.

She felt a flood of color come to her face. “Well, then I am quite certain you didn’t actually wait for me.”

He smiled. A broad, deep grin that made her long to slap his handsome face.

“My love! It’s quite unbelievable. You’re jealous.”

“I don’t care to be one of many,” she said primly.

“You’re jealous,” he said smugly. He strode across the room like a fantastic beast, at ease with his muscled frame, and with his nakedness. He paused, looking out the window, hands on his hips. He spoke softly.

“Well, if you are jealous, you needn’t be,” he assured her. “I was a pirate king, and I did have many opportunities. It was the damnedest thing about a few of my hostages! They seemed to
want
to be ravaged by a pirate. It was all that I could do to hold them off and maintain my reputation!”

Rose stared at him, her eyes widening. “You are a conceited rogue!” she informed him.

“Not really. Some of my hostages were nearing eighty, and trust me, they were sorely in need of a good ravaging, but not from me.”

“You didn’t touch another woman in all that time?” she queried softly, incredulously.

He paused, then decided to be honest. “Once,” he murmured. “I had made myself nearly ill hating you, blaming you—wanting you. And she was young, and very pretty. And a whore.”

He sat upon the window seat, looking over the elegant walkway that led to the front of the house.

“Just—once?” Rose said.

“Once.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated. “I told you, I was bitter—”

“No,” she interrupted, her emerald gaze steady on him. “Why just once?”

Why indeed? Why not be honest in this, too? “Because,” he answered quietly, “I discovered that there was no satisfaction in another woman, no sweet pleasure, no reward. I should have been fulfilled; I was empty. I told myself it was the anger.”

“And was it?” she murmured.

“No.”

“Just once …” she repeated.

“Just once!” He was giving away enough of his heart!

But it wasn’t enough for her, oh, no!

“Why should I believe that?” she queried. “You were deeply in love with Anne, but the very night we were married, you were determined to make love to me.”

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, “Rose, if we are confessing all, then I must confess this. I did believe that I was in love with Anne. I did care for her deeply. But …” He hesitated, then continued tenderly, “From the moment I first saw you, I wanted you. Even that wretched day when you unhorsed me—”

“And you half drowned me!”

He shrugged. “Even that day, I was captivated. In all of my life, there has never been anyone like you.”

Rose was careful, looking downward, feeling an unbelievable joy race through her. “But you did think that you loved Anne. And you still managed to make love to me.”

He groaned. “I think that any man might
manage
to make love to you.” He sighed. “Rose! Anne and I were right for one another. She was independent, very wise and mature, experienced, and—I haven’t lied about that—I cared for her greatly. But I don’t think that I ever really knew what love was until I met you. Until I held you. And once I had fallen in love with you, well then … nothing on earth could ever equal you, my love.” He pointed toward the nursery door. “I swear on his life that all I have said is true,” he said very softly. “Is that enough?”

She bit into her lower lip, watching him, pulling the covers to her breast. She was trembling so that she could scarcely bear it. She wanted to throw her arms around him, but she was still afraid to believe the wonder of the night.

“You love me?” she whispered softly.

“Milady, I do.”

She trembled, ready to hold him, to forgive him. But it remained her night. She was still determined that he would make amends.

“And you only slept with another woman once?”

“Once, Rose! I’ve said it—”

She threw back a lock of her hair. “Then,” she murmured very softly, “since I have been a saint, I shall only have to cheat on you once in retaliation!” She leaned back, still secretly smiling. It hurt her. She couldn’t bear the thought of him with anyone else. But it had been so long ago now. And in that night, he had discovered that no other woman could be her.

“Oh!” She gasped suddenly. It was a loud gasp. He had startled her, coming so swiftly from the window seat, just like a panther in the night. His hand fell over her mouth at the sound that she made, and her eyes widened as his eyes burned into hers and the weight of his body pressed her down.

“Don’t even think about it!” he warned her, lifting his hand from her mouth. She looked into those silver eyes, so close above her as he straddled her hips now.

“Think about what?” she said blankly.

“Retaliation. In any way, shape, or form.”

She smiled slowly. “And why not?”

“I would beat you black and blue and pull every hair from your head!” he warned her. “And kill the man, of course,” he added as an afterthought.

“You’re already in trouble for murder!” she reminded him.

“So what would another one matter?”

Her eyes shimmered their emerald fire into his. “Don’t say that!” she cried to him.

He pushed away from the bed, rising to stalk the shadows once again. He paused at the window seat, one knee upon it as he stared out at the night.

Dear God, but he had been a fool. All those months, thinking that he needed to seek revenge against Rose! Sometimes he had been a fool for the right reasons. He had been a fool when he had fought for Anne, when he had felt the pain and anguish for her. Anne, poor beautiful Anne! He’d owed her any foolish battle he might have fought, because they had cared for each other!

But then …

Dear God. He’d lived. He’d survived, albeit cruelly at first. Now there was so much ahead!

And he was still an outlaw. Still an accused murderer in his homeland. He had to prove Jerome guilty, himself innocent. There had to be a way.

He was a lucky man. God had been good to him. He had Rose. For all that had been taken from him, he had Rose. Beautiful, fiery, passionate.

And despite everything, she loved him.

He might well have lost her in his hatred and bitterness.

His hands were trembling. He clenched them tightly together to keep them from doing so.

He had Rose. And miracle upon miracles, he had his son.

He rose from the window seat, stretched, seeking to stop the trembling within him. It did no good. He walked back to the bed.

He stared at her, kneeling down beside her there. Rose watched him with wary emerald eyes. He took her hand, and gently kissed the backs of her fingers. Then he turned her hand, and kissed the palm. He looked into her eyes.

“Forgive me!” he said softly. His eyes caught her with a glimmering light. “I shall try very hard to learn to grovel.”

“What?” she demanded in a whisper, a delicate copper brow shooting high.

“Forgive me!” he repeated, smiling ruefully.

She reached out, touching his cheek. “A duke would really grovel, for me?” she whispered softly.

He nodded, pulling the covers from her hands, stretching his length down beside her again, drawing her close and into his arms.

Stunned, she allowed him to do so. She felt the warmth flood from him into her. Felt the tenderness of his arms cradled around her.

“God, Rose, for months all I did was go over and over everything that had happened. I should have trusted in you. But Jesu, it was a bitter time!” he said. “You sent me to Anne—I discovered her dead, and the authorities after me because Jamison was dead along with her. Apparently someone had cried murder. You bade me come back to you, and I did so. And there they came after me again.”

“But—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Not to mention the fact that there had been this rumor your father had determined that I would be your husband.”

“You must know—”

“Ah, but see, I had begun to believe in your absolute innocence! I had believed that you cared for Anne. I had come to …”

He paused. Confessions. He had never confessed so much of his feelings to anyone.

“I thought that I had been duped once, and then that I had been stupid enough to be duped a second time!”

She stared up at him, swallowing hard. He was laying out his heart to her. She began to speak in a sudden rush.

“Truly, it was never so terrible! I think I might have been afraid from the first that I could too easily want you. But I was afraid to do so when I believed that you loved Anne, even while you slept with me.

“No part of me could be elsewhere when I slept with you!” he told her softly. “Though guilt did plague me. I had you, you see. And God knew what Anne was going through.”

But time and distance still separated them. There were only so many things that he could bring himself to say.

“We were all set up easily!” Rose murmured bitterly. “By Jerome!”

“Ah, well, Jamison was in on it, too, at the time. And they certainly had other help. We have yet to discover the whole truth. But I will have my revenge against Jerome,” Pierce promised in such a voice that made shivers rip down Rose’s spine.