Linda Needham (22 page)

“Oh!” She covered her mouth, and her eyes shot wide in scandalized shock. “Oh, God, it’s not that, Charles. Not at all. I wouldn’t. He’s nothing, Charles.”

“What the hell does
nothing
mean?”

“I mean, Charles, that he’s
nothing
.” She slipped past him, brushing her arm against his chest. “Just a man. Just…a name to me. That’s all.”

“A name?” His head was spinning with her unimaginable landscapes, with possibilities. “What the hell does
that
mean, Hollie?”

She lifted her arms to the side, her sleeves drooping, a supplicant. Her hair hung loose at
her shoulders. The shirt molded around her thighs, taunting him with shadows and glorious ecstasies.

“It means that I’m not married to anyone, Charles.”

Not married. Holy Christ!

The whole world tipped and teetered. Joy was filling him so fast with bits of sunlight that he couldn’t contain it, felt it shooting out of his fingertips.

And yet Hollie was staring numbly at him, terrifying him.

“What the bloody hell are trying to say, Hollie? You’re not married?”

“Not to Captain Spindleshanks or to Adam MacGillnock or to anyone.” Now she was weeping into her sleeves.
His
sleeves.

Because she loved him.

And he loved her. Madly, irrevocably. Because she had become the air he breathed and the morning dew on the fields. And because she would be his wife and the mother of all his children.

“I’m sorry, Charles.”

Christ, he wanted to see happiness in her eyes. But she looked utterly defeated.

“Hollie, why?”

She turned sorrowful eyes on him, pleading for something he couldn’t imagine. “I…I thought I could help. I…admired his work. His crusade.”

His beautiful, grand-hearted reformer. No wonder he loved her. “Admired him so much that you did his printing for him.”

“Yes.”

“And lied to protect him.”

She only sobbed into her cuff.

“To preserve all the good that you believe he stands for.”

“Yes, of course.”

“A damned foolish thing to do, Hollie.”

She nodded carefully, obviously terrified when she needn’t be.

For she’d just made him the happiest man in the world.

And he was about to show her just how madly a husband could fall for his wife.

“Do you know that I love you for it, Hollie Finch.”

Charles Stirling loves me.

It was all Hollie could do just to breathe, for happiness, for the terrible half-truth that she’d just told him. Her inescapable little lie made nothing better, except that Charles was looking at her in a delicious way. Like he was going to devour her and make her love every bite, every kiss.

“You’ve no reason to love me, Charles. You shouldn’t. I lied to you in the most unforgivable way: I told you I was married when I wasn’t.” She couldn’t move for the sudden change that came over the man—a bewitching power that
should have sent her out the door and down the stairs, except she could swear he was smiling.

“But you
will
be married.” A crooked, slanted smile, with a whole lot of devil in it.

“Maybe someday.”

He shook his head with a savage sort of arrogance and shrugged slowly out of his fine wool coat, the hungry look of the hunter in his eyes. “A month from now would do very nicely.”

“A month, Charles?” Hollie laughed at his absurdity and then ducked out of the way of all that broad-shouldered brawn. “I doubt very much that I could be married in a month.” Or ever.

“And I have no doubt that you
will
be.”

The impossible man was unbuttoning his waistcoat slowly, inexorably. Moving closer to her, leaving her no escape, and no reason to escape; because he’d backed her against the thick face of the cruck and he was simply wonderful to look at, to smell, to feel.

“Easy to say, Charles, but first I need a groom.”

That made him smile all the more, so charmingly cocky she thought her heart would burst with hopeless love for him. He was looming over her, looking thoroughly at home in her bedchamber, thoroughly handsome.

And terrifically intentional as he braced his elbow against the slanting arch, then dipped his head and caught his mouth against her neck with a kiss that buckled her knees.

“Will
I
do, madam?”

Oh, yes.
“Will you do…oh, my…what, Charles?” Ah, and now he was nuzzling her with his fine mouth, nibbling along the ridge of her shoulder.
Yes, yes, yes
.

“
Will
I do, my love?” He caught both his hands around her waist and fitted her hips against his, her belly and the glorious ridge of his erection.

“Will you do for what, Charles?”

“A groom.” He touched his searing kiss along the underside of her jaw, then followed with the drift of his fingers.

So lightly! Oh, yes, down her neck and across the base of her throat, before he caught the collar of the shirt with his fingers and slid it part way off her shoulder.

“Groom, Charles? What do you mean?”
And what are you doing?

He murmured her name and pulled gently at the fabric, tugging ever downward in his bewitching assault, following the swell of her breast, making her squirm and wait for him and hurry him, until she was holding his hips against hers, braced against him, writhing shamelessly.

“Charles?”

He hissed out a thrilling groan.

“Christ, Hollie,” he growled as he took a deeply ragged breath. “You’re a miracle to me.”

No, the miracle was the intimacy of him, the fever blooming in her stomach and at the joining
of her legs.

“You’ve made the sun shine, Hollie.” He cupped her face in his hands, threaded his fingers through her hair, and cradled the back of her head. “Do you know that, my love? You’ve shown me the sky and the moon.”

My love.
He kissed her lashes and the side of her nose and the hollow of her throat, leaving her clinging to the lapels of his vest.

A sideways smile appeared; his eyes were soft as smoke. “But you see, Hollie, the thing that I couldn’t reconcile with the rest of my life, no matter how hard I tried, was not having you beside me.”

“Beside you how, Charles?” He was making it so very difficult to think. “Do you need a printer?”

“I need a wife, Hollie.”

Of course he did. He was a massively eligible peer. But she didn’t want to hear about his plans for the future Lady Everingham, not now. She wanted to weep. “I wish you well in your quest, Charles. In your marriage.”

He frowned, tilted her chin with the tip of his finger, and gazed down at her. “Hollie, I need
you
.”

And I need you, Charles.

He went down on his knee and took her hands inside his, his eyes alight with passion and promise and miracles. “Marry me, Hollie.”

Marry me, Hollie?

What an impossibly lovely song that was, right out of her imagination. The wicked earl and the reformer.

“Will you, Hollie?”

“Will I…?” Dear God, he meant it! No, but he couldn’t possibly. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“The woman I love, whose life I cherish. I’d be a fool to let you go, my love.”

Marry him! She slipped to her knees because they’d stopped working and carried his hands to her cheek, wishing with all her heart that she could say yes.

“I can’t, Charles.”
I’m a liar and a thief, and there is a wrong that I must put right.

He narrowed his eyes. “You can do anything, Hollie. You’ve proved that to me.”

“No, no, Charles. I can’t do this.” They were two different people who lived in two wildly different worlds. She was a radical reformer with a price on her head. And he was the man who had put it there.

This splendid moment was merely a dream that she could pull out of her memories when she was in Coldbath Prison and he was orating against her and her kind in Parliament.

She slipped away from him and took refuge beside the little hearth and its dying fire.

He didn’t look at all convinced, only more determined when he stood. “I’m gainfully em
ployed, Hollie.”

“And you are a good man, Charles. The very best.”

“You love me. You just said so.”

“I do. Madly. I didn’t know it was possible to love as I do. But I can’t. I shouldn’t.”

“Why the bloody hell not?”

“Because you’re a lord. And I’m a—”

“You’re a snob, Hollie.”

“I’m not, Charles. I’m being practical.” He was the law and she was a lawbreaker. And she loved him with every bit of her soul. Loved his goodness and his greatness. And his little son, who had captured his heart because it was a good and gentle heart.

And she’d only break it.

“I’ve never heard of anything so impractical in my life, Hollie.” He walked toward her, rakishly loosening his neckcloth and tossing it onto her bed while he kept on coming, finally trapping her against the side table.

“I’m a businesswoman, Charles. A printer.” Not a wife. Never that.

“And I love you for it.”

“You’re a Tory and I’m a Whig. Our opinions differ.”

“You’ll be the wife of an earl, my love. You can think and say whatever the bloody hell you wish.”

“Can I vote?”

“In our house you can. Marry me, Hollie.”

“Please don’t ask me to do this, Charles.”

“
This
, Hollie? This bountiful thing that would be our marriage? The fine children we would have together?”

“The unforgivable trouble I would bring to your life, Charles. You can’t talk me into marrying you. No matter what you say or do.” Not even if he kept kissing her like this for the rest of her days, catching her ear with his teeth, breathing his words of love.

“Yes, I can, Hollie.”

Wouldn’t that be lovely—if he could convince her that dreams were possible? If he could promise that she could preach reform all day and come to her magistrate husband’s bed at night?

“My love, I only ask for the chance to change your mind.”

An extraordinary chance—to be loved by Charles Stirling. Her pulse had become thready and hot, as if it knew what he planned and was joining his conspiracy, leaving her heart without an ounce of resistance.

“I won’t budge, Charles.”

He laughed low in his chest. “Oh, my love, you’ll do more than budge by the time I’m through with you. You’ll be squirming and calling my name.”

“Oh, Charles!” Her limbs lost all their will, the words of his enchanting threats stealing across her breasts though he hadn’t yet touched her with his marvelous hands. “How do you plan to
do this…convincing?”

“I have my ways.” His sultry grin thrilled her. He braced his hands on either side of her.

“Does this involve kissing?”

He didn’t say. He merely kissed her deeply, thoroughly. But only that, plundering her mouth until she was kissing him back, winding her fingers into his hair, pulling at him, at his hips, grinding indelicately against him.

“Yes, lots of kissing, Hollie. Everywhere.” She couldn’t imagine that, only the skiff of his fingertips along her collarbone. “And I have other strategies in mind too.”

“Like…?”

Without a word of warning, he scooped the pitcher and washbowl off the side table, then lifted her onto it, her backside meeting with the lace cloth, her shirttails bunched to her thighs, and her knees spread on either side of his waist, a wantonly unimpeded position.

“Husbandly strategies, Hollie.”

Which brought startling thoughts of his exploring wherever he wished to explore.

Especially with his broad hands spread across her naked bottom, pulling her closer, riding her hips until his thumbs fitted in the indentation where her thighs joined her body, just near enough to her curls to send her senses reeling.

“I’ve dreamed of this, Hollie,” he breathed against her mouth. “My hands here where you’re soft, and my mouth.”

He couldn’t mean there, where his fingers were kneading softly, were pulling her closer against him.

“I like your strategy dreadfully well, Charles.” Feeling thoroughly brazen, she slipped her arms around his neck and lifted herself closer to all that delicious straining at the front of his trousers, knowing she couldn’t let him win.

But dear God, she could encourage him to try!

“Christ, Hollie. This is my war, isn’t it?”

And who’d have imagined that merely slipping her fingers between the buttons of his shirt to the soft fur on his flat belly would cause such a nostril-flaring fury of passion in the man?

“Then do your worst, Charles. I will not bend.”

That made him smile all the more. “I’ll do my
best
, Hollie, my
very
best.”

His eyes gleamed and then his wonderfully damp mouth encircled her nipple right through the linen, a stunning riot of sensation that shook her to her bones.

“Oh, Charles!” She clutched at his shoulders and thrust her breast into his kiss, begging him to come closer, to be sooner, while a swirling madness made her rub against him.

Her nakedness and the wool of his trousers.

“You’re bending, my sweet.”

Bending? Dear God, she was arching backwards, supported by his arm around her waist, begging him. She laughed and sighed, because
he’d known all along how to play her.

He cushioned her breast with his warm hand and nipped at her through the linen, stealing her breath and filling her with the wonder of him. He teased his way down the placket with his fingers toward the joining of her legs.

“But I’m not convinced, Charles.” Not yet! Just a little farther—though she couldn’t allow it. She would only ache for him when the night was finished and the morning had come.

“And now, my love?” She gasped when he touched her through the linen, tantalizing the curls that concealed her sex.

“I’ll kiss you here too, Hollie.”

She couldn’t imagine it. Not the possessive way he kissed her mouth. Not when the merest brush of his fingers struck the breath from her and made her dizzy. “Not fair at all.”

“You’ll think differently, my love.” She watched in delicious anticipation as he unbuttoned her shirt just far enough to slide it off one shoulder, exposing the bare and yearning cleaving between her breasts.