Longing (26 page)

“Here,” he said finally, drawing her down to sit on a level piece of grass and heather quite high up. “We will see the last of them going down and then I will take you home.” He drew his cloak right about her, his arm clasped about her shoulders beneath it.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Here and now? I am not sure,” he said quite truthfully.

“About the demonstration,” she said. “About the strike. About
the men you must have seen even in the darkness and can identify. What are you going to do?”

“I am going to do what I should have done at the start,” he said, “and what I have been trained all my life to do. I am going to take all the responsibility for those dependent upon me on my own shoulders and on my own conscience.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Precisely what I said.” He looked down at the valley as the moon made another brief appearance from behind the clouds. “It means that I will be doing what I think necessary. It means I care.”

He heard her drawing a deep breath as her head tipped sideways to rest on his shoulder. “Why do I always believe you when I listen to you?” she said. “It is against all reason. Why do I believe that you care?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “because you recognize truth when you hear it, Siân. Perhaps because your heart knows that I am to be trusted.”

But he was not at all sure that he was to be trusted in the present situation. He swallowed and rubbed his cheek against the top of her head.

“Or perhaps,” she said, “because I am foolish and gullible.”

“Siân.” He closed his eyes and knew that he certainly was not to be trusted. “You have come up the mountain with me after all.”

He waited through the silence that followed for her to turn the moment, for her to rescue them both.

“Yes,” she said.

His hand fitted itself beneath her chin and held there for a few moments, stroking, before he tipped it up and set his mouth to hers. Her lips trembled beneath his but did not pull away. And then she turned in his arms and one of her own came about his neck. Her mouth opened.

“Siân.” He feathered kisses along her jaw, up her cheek to her temple, trying to impose rationality on his mind.

“Alexander,” she whispered.

It was the sound of his name that snapped his control. His full name, which almost no one else ever used, spoken with her lilting accent.

And then she was on her back and he was over her, his mouth finding hers, both of them wide and hot and seeking. He searched out inner heat with his tongue, plunging it deep into her mouth, stroking surfaces, circling her tongue.

Her hands were on him, strong and demanding, pulling him down to her, one going behind his back, the other tangling in his hair. She arched her back to press her breasts against his chest.

He was lost, the last vestiges of his control gone. She wanted it. She wanted him. And he loved her. By God, he loved her. In his physical need he could not remember any reasons why he should not have her.

He began to make love to her, his mouth on hers again, his hands roaming over her body, worshiping her curves, pausing at her breasts to stroke and arouse. He touched her nipples with his thumbs through the fabric of her dress and found them already hard with desire. His own need was throbbing in him like a heavy pulse.

“Siân.” He had an arm beneath her and rolled her onto her side against him so that he could open the buttons down the back of her dress. Despite the chill of the night, her skin was warm beneath his cloak and her shawl. He moved his hands over her back. “My love.”

She helped him remove her bodice and reached for the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt. And finally after frenzied moments he was able to draw her against him and feel the naked magnificence of her breasts against his bare chest.

“Ah,” she said. It was almost a cry of agony.

“Beautiful.” He kissed her softly on the mouth and trailed hot kisses down over her chin and her throat to one full breast. He spread his mouth over her nipple and breathed warm breath on it while he licked it.

She moaned again, arching up against him and clutching his hair with both hands.

“So beautiful,” he said, moving his mouth into the valley between her breasts and up to suckle the other.

“Cariad,”
she murmured when his mouth returned to hers. “Ah,
cariad
.”

It sounded like a caress.

And then his hand was beneath her skirt, moving up slim and strongly muscled legs. For a moment rationality returned. If she did not stop him now or sooner than now, or if he did not stop, he would be unstoppable. It would happen. But it was too late for rationality, too late for control. She wanted him, and he wanted her. He loved her.

She lifted her hips as he withdrew her undergarments, and lay quietly gazing up at him as he adjusted his own clothing. She reached up her arms for him as he lowered his head to kiss her. Her legs and her arms and breasts gleamed pale in the faint light provided by a silver-edged cloud.

She was very ready for him. His hand found heat and wetness when it touched her between her legs and parted folds and stroked her. He would not have to use any expertise to prepare her body for penetration.

Siân. He did not say her name aloud again as he brought his body over hers and down onto it and felt all her soft, warm, womanly curves against the hardness of his own body. He could not see her. The moon had receded farther behind its cloud again, and he had his eyes closed. But she was Siân. Every inch of his body and every particle of his mind was aware that she was Siân. His beautiful Siân. His woman. His love.

He pushed his hands beneath her as her legs parted about the pressure of his, and kept them firmly there, a cushion between the hard ground and the press of his body. He found the entrance to her, pushed against it, and stopped there. He held still for a few moments, unconsciously giving her one last chance to avoid what was to happen. Her arms came about his waist.

She was slick with wetness. And soft and warm and wonderful. He drew a slow breath as her muscles clenched about him while he pushed inward, drawing him deep, contracting against him so that his control almost went. He held deep in her, regaining control, reveling in the feel of woman intimately sheathing him.

Siân.

He found her mouth with his without opening his eyes. It was relaxed and warm and open and inviting. He put his tongue inside.

She moved with him almost as soon as he began to stroke her, pivoting her hips up and down, contracting and relaxing her inner muscles, setting up a rhythm with him instead of lying still and letting him set its pace and depth. There was no sense of mastery with her, as there had been with every other woman he had ever possessed. Instead there was a sense of togetherness, a sense of give and take, a sense of making love with her instead of to her.

He found it infinitely exciting and satisfying. He prolonged it well past the time he normally spent inside a woman before spilling his seed. He wanted it to go on and on, this loving, this deep sharing of bodies, this intimate knowing and being known.

Knowing Siân. Known by her. My love. My love, my love.

“My love.”

He could feel the growing tension of her body. She was no longer riding to his rhythm, but had twined her legs about his and was pressing up against him. God, he thought, she was going to climax. It was something beyond his experience in a woman. But Siân was beyond his experience. This was all new, this loving of a woman he loved, this giving as well as taking. This yearning to give her love, to give her himself, to give her everything there was to give.

He acted from instinct and from love. He had nothing else to guide him. He slowed and deepened his rhythm, concentrated on sensing the needs of her body, holding deep and still in her finally while he felt her tension reach a breaking point.

“Yes, my love,” he whispered into her mouth. “Yes, come. Don't be afraid. Come.”

And she came with shattering force, all the tension in her muscles exploding into uncontrolled shudderings. She cried out. She called his name. He held her tightly until all the inner tremors and outer shaking had stopped and she lay relaxed beneath him. And then his body was aware again of its own hardness, of its own need for release. He moved in her once more, aroused by her very stillness,
thrusting and withdrawing until the blessed moment when he spilled into her. Into woman.

Into Siân.

Heedless at last of the hardness of the ground beneath her, he relaxed all his weight onto her and lost himself for timeless moments.

She was quiet and relaxed and awake when he came back to himself and disengaged from her body to move to her side. He kept his arms about her and brought her over onto her side against him. He smoothed her dress down over her legs and drew it up over her breasts before drawing her shawl about her and his cloak over them both. Her eyes were open. She was looking at him.

“What does it mean,” he asked, “
cariad
?”

“Love,” she said. “It is used as an endearment.”

“My love?” he said.

“Yes.” Her eyes fluttered closed.

He kissed her softly.

“Say my name again, Siân,” he said.

“Alexander.” She did not open her eyes. A few moments later he knew that she was sleeping.

He closed his eyes and held her close. His woman. She was his now. He would look after her for the rest of his life. She would not wed Parry now. And he would never marry again. He would not treat her to the indignity of knowing herself his mistress while he had a wife at home.

She was his. He was going to love and cherish her forever. He was going to shower gifts on her. He was going to give her everything that wealth—and love—could give.

He loved her.

Siân.

My love.

Cariad.

W
HEN
she woke up, she was not at all disoriented. She knew immediately where she was and with whom and what had happened. Just as she had known at every moment while it was happening what it was she did. She had not at all been carried away by passion. There had been passion, yes—more of it than she had ever experienced before. But she had not been made mindless by it. She did not have that excuse.

She had given up everything, she thought, her eyes still closed, her body still relaxed against his warmth, in exchange for an impossibility. She had given up Owen—she could not now marry him—and she had given up the effort of years to belong fully to the community of her grandparents and to their religion and values. It was all gone in exchange for one night of passion with a man not of her world.

Perhaps with a cunning and cruel man. Only her heart trusted him. Her head was not sure.

She had known what was going to happen as soon as they had sat down and she had seen how far up the mountain they were and how very much alone together. Even before he had commented on it she had known. And yet she had done nothing to prevent it. He had given her the chance. He had not rushed her at all. At every stage until her body had been finally penetrated he had given her a chance. But she had wanted him. Not just physically—oh, not just that way. She would have fought if it had been only that. Her soul had yearned for him.

And so she had given up everything.

“Alexander.” She tipped back her head and looked up at him. His name made him a real man to her, a real person. She could no longer think of him as the Marquess of Craille, as that impersonal figure of authority. He was part of her. They had made love. He had been inside her body. She could see his blond hair and sharply chiseled features in the darkness. He was looking back at her.

He dipped his head and kissed her warmly, open-mouthed. She marveled that she had never known a kiss could be like this. Even when it was without passion, as it was now, it could suggest intimacy and tenderness.

“Owen is not my lover,” she felt compelled to say. “There has only ever been Gwyn. Until tonight.”

He smiled slowly at her. She could see the expression in the darkness. She found herself smiling back.

“You called me
cariad,
” he said. “Did you mean it?”

“You called me my love,” she said. “Did you mean it?”

He continued to smile. “Yes, I did, Siân Jones,” he said. “My love.”

“And I did, Alexander Hyatt,” she said.
“Cariad.”

They had spoken the truth—she believed that he spoke it, and she knew that she did. Yet they faced an impossibility, a future that just did not exist. But there was this night. She had given up everything for this night and it was still not over. The present was possible even if the future was not.

He kissed her again, softly, almost lazily, while his arms drew her closer against him. He was splendidly tall and well muscled. She moved her body slowly against him, feeling him with her shoulders and breasts and stomach and thighs. She felt him harden with returning desire and enjoyed the quickening of sensation in her own body. But this time, she knew, she could relax and enjoy every moment and try not to coax her body to react faster. He made love slowly, giving her time to participate and to gather together the excitement of their coupling to fling recklessly to the stars when she could bear no more. And to discover what was the other side of passion.

With Gwyn, although she had always enjoyed their intimacies, she had had to snatch what pleasure she could from his hasty, lusty lovemaking.

Alexander had made her feel that he was doing something with her rather than to her.

She let his hands arouse her after her bodice had been lowered again and her skirt raised. She let him touch her in places she would have thought embarrassingly unpleasant to be touched but found wonderfully and surprisingly erotic. And she touched him and learned from his sharpened breathing that it was possible to arouse a man further even after he was physically ready for the act of love.

She knew instinctively when the moment had come for their bodies to join. She turned over onto her back and reached for him.

“Let me take the hardness of the ground this time,” he whispered to her, and strong arms were beneath her and lifting her to lie flat on top of him. He lifted her chin and set his mouth to hers.

“How?” she asked. She knew that there were different sexual positions, but she had experienced no other than the one Gwyn had always used and Alexander too a little earlier.

“Kneel astride me,” he said.

When she did so, he drew her knees and thighs snugly against his sides and positioned himself before setting firm hands on her hips and drawing her sharply downward. She gasped as she knelt upright, and threw back her head, her mouth open. It seemed impossible that there could be room. And yet there was. She drew in on him when he was deeply embedded in her. He was magnificent. Ah, dear God, he was magnificent.

His hands lifted her slightly away from him and he began to move in her with deep, bold strokes that had her gasping and arching backward against his updrawn knees. Her head was still thrown back. She did not move with him. She hovered on the edge of pain, on the edge of ecstasy.

“Siân.” He was moving more gently. His hands reached for her arms and drew her down toward him. She set her hands on either
side of his head and leaned over him, gazing down into his face. Her hair fell like a curtain on either side of them. “My love. Ride me.” He stilled in her.

And so she rode him, slowly and tentatively at first, with growing boldness as she found a rhythm that brought back the pain and the promise of ecstasy and that had him closing his eyes and moaning and finally moving his hands from the grass on either side of him to grasp her hips and drive into her rhythm.

They reached glory together and cried out together. And relaxed together into the panting aftermath of passion. And slept together after he had pulled his cloak over them.

One step closer to impossibility, Siân thought as she came back to herself. But she did not care. What had happened had been beautiful beyond imagining. And it was beyond putting into words. For it had not been a purely physical thing, though that was how it had manifested itself.

She had known love, she thought, for a brief moment in time. She was privileged. Surely the vast majority of people went through life without ever having known it. She was fortunate.

One of his hands was massaging the back of her head.

“You will not be marrying Owen Parry,” he said.

“No.” There was a pang of regret but no more. Perhaps tomorrow she would feel more. Perhaps then she would feel the great weight of her loss. But not yet.

“I will be good to you, Siân,” he said. “I will love you and cherish you. I will care for our children. I will never marry again. I will not put you through that distress. You will not be sorry for tonight.”

Ah. He did not understand the impossibility. She nestled her head more comfortably on his shoulder.

“I am not going to be your mistress, Alexander,” she said.

His hands stilled. “Is that not what tonight has been all about?” he asked. “You have become my mistress tonight. My body is still joined with yours.”

“We have made love tonight,” she said. “Because we both wanted to do so and because there is something between us that had to be
expressed this way. But that gives you no ownership of me. It does not make you my master.”

“Ownership?” he said. “It gives me a responsibility. I have possessed your body. I have put my seed inside you. Perhaps even now you have taken my child into your womb. I will look after you, Siân. Care for you. Support you. For the rest of my life and as a clause in my will. It is not a question of ownership. I will not be harsh with you or demanding. I will never use violence on you—or on our children.”

He made it sound so enticingly sweet to be his mistress. If it had not been for one fact, she might have succumbed. But it was that fact that constituted the impossibility.

“Alexander,” she whispered, “I will not be like my mother. I will not live in luxury and loneliness. I will not be visited by you for the sole purpose of going up to our bedroom to make love. I will not have my children brought up in isolation from other children. I will not be your mistress or any man's.”

“I thought you loved me.” She could not tell if his tone was harsh or bleak.

“Tonight I gave up the future I had planned,” she said. “I gave it up because I could not deny the present. I gave it up because I wanted you. Not only this coupling on the mountain. I wanted—oh, I wanted to give myself to you. I wanted to know that I had done that in my life. Given all for love. But I cannot base a future on that, Alexander. I will not be your mistress.”

He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This was the beginning and the end, then?” he said. “There will never be another time, Siân?”

She could not bear the thought of that, the finality of it. “Perhaps there will,” she said. “If you want it and I want it at some other time. But I will not belong to you. I will not, Alexander. I will never again be any man's chattel. From now on I belong to myself. I will give where love leads me to give. But I will not be a kept woman.”

She felt him swallow. There was a lengthy silence. She was very much aware of the fact that their bodies were still united. He was a
warm and comfortable bed. She ached with love for him. Her chest and her throat were sore with unshed tears.

“It is time I took you home,” he said at last.

“Yes.”

And yet they lay for several more minutes before his hands came to her hips and lifted her off him and turned her to lie on the grass. She pulled on her undergarments and straightened her dress while he adjusted his own clothing. He was on his feet before her and reached down a hand to help her up.

“The next time curiosity brings you up the mountain to spy,” he said, drawing her shawl about her shoulders and then flinging his cloak about her and drawing her against his side, “wear something dark over your dress, will you, Siân? I was terrified that someone else would notice you before I could get to you.”

“All right,” she said, setting her head on his shoulder and wrapping one arm about his waist beneath the cloak they shared. She was going to ask him again what he intended to do about the demonstration and the strike. She was going to ask if he intended arresting the leaders. She wanted to beg him not to. But she said nothing. She decided to trust him instead. To go with her heart and trust him.

They walked across and down the hills in silence, their arms about each other, until they came to the place just above the terrace where she lived at which they had stopped on a previous occasion.

“You will be safe alone from here?” he asked, turning her against him.

She nodded and lifted her face for his kiss. It was a long and lingering one.

“I am just beginning to realize,” he said, “the enormity of the gift you gave me tonight, Siân. Everything in exchange for nothing. Thank you. But I will give something in return. All the way down you have been worrying about your people again, haven't you? I am going to prove to you that I can be trusted. That is a gift you will value, is it not?”

She nodded again.

“Good night.” He kissed her briefly. “Be careful.”

She turned and ran lightly down the remaining part of the slope and along behind the terrace to slip through the back gate and into her grandfather's house. No one was stirring. Her absence had not been noted. She slipped quickly out of her clothes and into bed.

The night must be almost over, she thought, curling onto her side and pulling up the blankets warmly about her. But not quite. There was still a little of it left. Tomorrow everything would look different to her, she knew. Tomorrow reality would intrude. But there was still a little of the night left.

She closed her eyes and was again in his arms.

*   *   *

The
men came out at the start of the early morning shift. All of them, in both the ironworks and the mine. Apparently on the issue of a strike at least there were no dissenting voices.

Josiah Barnes brought the news to Glanrhyd Castle early, while Alex was still at breakfast. He abandoned his meal in order to join his agent in the study, knowing what the news would be but rather sorry that he could not have acted himself before the strike began.

“Barnes,” he said, closing the study door behind him, “I am glad you are here. I was about to send for you.”

“The news is not good,” Barnes said. “Everyone has come out on strike. Everything is shut down. If you went up to that meeting last night, you probably know about it, unless everyone spoke Welsh. You see the danger of allowing it to happen, sir? If you had stopped it and dismissed the leaders, we would not have this crisis on our hands.”