My Only Love (8 page)

He
moved from the door then and walked to a window. "Come here, Miss
Devonshire."

The
stern directive caught her off guard. She'd been too busy considering the
disturbing upheaval of emotions he'd brought on by mentioning another woman's
name. Ironic, she thought, considering his attempts to shock her (if that was
truly what he had intended) hadn't succeeded in causing so much as a skip in
her heartbeat. "Come here," he repeated.

Putting
her cup and saucer aside, Olivia forced herself to stand. Her knees were jelly.
Preposterous. She had never been some weak-hearted ninny.

"Miss
Devonshire?" he said.

She
moved to join him, being careful, of course, to keep a respectable distance
between them as she gazed out at a vast garden of brown, shriveled rosebushes.

"Once
upon a time," he began, "in the summer this garden would be a
vibrant, shimmering rainbow of colors. My God, it was beautiful. My bedroom
overlooked the garden, and during those months that the roses bloomed I would
wake up in the morning and the fragrance would be so heady in the air I'd
become dizzy."

Olivia
did her best to imagine the lifeless garden in bloom. Instead, her eyes
continued to focus on Warwick's reflection on the dark, rain-speckled glass.
For an instant she thought she caught a glimpse of the youth's eyes that had
looked out upon a garden of sweet-smelling roses and found pleasure.

"I
would sit in the window and watch Dame's mother work with the flowers; I'd
watch her hands, how gently she caressed the tiny buds; she touched her
children with the same tenderness, and I'd catch myself wishing ..."
Frowning, he pressed one finger to a single droplet of condensation on the
glass and rubbed it vigorously, as if doing his best to scrub away the mental
imagery that had wormed its way from his memory.

"If
the roses bring you such pleasure," she ventured, "why do you allow
them to die?" They were dead by the time I took residence." "Are
you certain?"

He
looked at her at last, and though she refused to meet his gaze directly, she
continued to regard his reflection in the window. "Is there a way to the
garden from this room?" she asked.

He
pointed to a single French door near the corner of the room. Olivia moved to
the door, and finding it unlocked, opened it and stepped out onto the veranda.
Here, the driving wind was blocked by two sprawling wings of the house, and
though the icy drizzle continued to fall from the black sky, the cold did not
seem so unbearable.

The
light from the house enabled her to make out the brick walkways that divided
the garden into neat sections. Stepping from the veranda and into the damp
semidarkness, she searched out the nearest rosebush and stooped beside it.
Weeds and brown leaves, having grown sodden and dense through years of neglect,
had piled thickly around the base of the bush. With some effort, Olivia raked
them away from the prickly stalk, and locating a solitary thorn, snapped it
from the stem.

"Mr.
Warwick!" she called. Getting no reply, she glanced over her shoulder to
find his tall frame silhouetted against the light. "Come here," she
beseeched him. "Make haste, if you please. I don't intend to catch my
death of cold while you continue to stand there and brood."

With
some reluctance, he joined her, going down to one knee beside her. Pointing one
shivering finger at the stalk, she said, "There's life yet. Do you see it?
There. Where I broke away the thorn. I wager, sir, that if you were to cut away
all the undesirable refuse, you'd find that there's hope for your garden."

"Do
you think so?" His voice sounded uncharacteristically soft and hopeful,
and so very near.

"Of
course." Her voice didn't fluctuate, but kept the indifferent monotone
that she had perfected over the years. "Once the bad is cleared away, and
that which has been buried is given sunlight once more, I'm certain you'd
discover a rebirth of the bushes. Nothing good can come of complete darkness,
after all."

He
neither moved nor spoke as the cold drizzle whispered amid the dead leaves
blanketing the ground. At last, unable to refrain, she allowed her gaze to
drift to his face, unnerved to discover that he was regarding her, and not the
plant. She stared at him through the beads of moisture on her glasses, and
didn't breathe, wishing to all the saints in heaven that she had removed her
glasses as he'd asked her to minutes before. And she wished that she'd worn
another dress, one that wasn't so atrocious—but then again, she didn't own
anything prettier. To spend money on fashionable attire for herself had always
seemed wasteful.

Standing,
she did her best to slap the mud from her hands, then hurried back to the house
and to the fireplace, where she closed her eyes and allowed the heat to thaw
her. A moment passed before the door closed behind her. Now he would tell her
to leave and remind her that she was an unwelcome and uninvited intruder. And
that she had no business digging about in his garden of dead roses, and—

"You'll
catch your death," came the quiet words. A blanket slid around her
shoulders. Clutching it to her and staring into the fire, she tried to say
thank you, mortified because she could accomplish nothing more than a soundless
twitch of her lips.

They
stood there, both silent, both staring into the fire while the chair arms and
legs snapped and crackled and slowly turned to char-red embers.

"That
was a very nice chair," she told him.

"Yes,
it was."

"Have
you no money for fuel?" "No."

"What
will you do now?"

"Torch
the settee, I suppose."

She
laughed and looked up at him. His face was lit from the golden firelight, and
for the first time since she'd arrived at Braithwaite she noticed the tiny
lines etched into the skin at each outside corner of his eyes. There were two
small vertical indentations between his brows as well. And he needed to shave.
And he smelled slightly of whisky and bay rum. And rain.

Very
slowly, he reached for her glasses and removed them with utmost care.
"That's better," he said. "I rather like your eyes when they
aren't distorted. You have very nice eyes, Miss Devonshire."

They
stood there for several moments, locked in mutual bewilderment by the sudden
bursting forth of sentiments that danced between them as vividly as the fire
flickering in the hearth.

Could
he really find her, even in the remotest sense, attractive? Olivia wondered. Or
was this just another ploy to scandalize her? To send her running from the
house, never to darken his door again?

Good
God, he thought. Either he'd been too long without a woman, or Olivia
Devonshire was far more attractive than he'd imagined, with her rain4dssed face
and moisture clinging to her silky black lashes. The curve of her breasts owed
nothing to the artifices so often employed by women, and for a startling moment
he imagined releasing them into his hands, perhaps burying his face into their
lushness . .. while her long legs easily spread to afford him a gentle entry.
Or perhaps she preferred it rough, wild, and abandoned; she was, after all, a
paradox: a woman in an old maid's guise with the heart and soul of a harlot.
Perchance she hadn't come here to wrangle him into marriage. Possibly she had
nothing more in mind than a fast and furious tumble in the sheets. In that case
.. .

"Tell
me," he said. "Why did you really come here, Miss Devonshire?"

She
glanced longingly at the spectacles hanging by the end piece from his index
finger. "I told you. To apologize—"

"Come,
come. I've been more than honest with you. I think you owe me the same
consideration."

Folding
her glasses, he slid them into a pocket in his trousers, his eyes never leaving
her. Her eyes were wide and growing wider by the second. Yet, as he eased one
hand around her nape, he felt her start, and tremble, and for an instant she
looked frightened enough to flee.

But
she didn't. Just remained stock-still while her breathing quickened and her
soft pink lips parted to release a small sound of surprise. Or perhaps it was
simply desire.

He
stepped against her, his body pressing against hers as his fingers gently
tightened upon her nape, drifting upward and into the knot of hair that, with
slight pressure, tumbled from its anchoring of pins and spilled over her
shoulders and down her back. She stretched out a hand in a feeble show of
resistance, causing him to smile his satyr's smile that made even the most
innocent maidens yield.

"Don't,"
she managed to whisper. "You mustn't. You're only trying to shock me
again, and . . ."

"Is
that what I'm doing, dear heart?" He laughed softly, wondering himself.
Perhaps in the beginning, but now . . . ?

Sliding
his arm around her, he held her hard and close, and for a brief moment she
resisted frantically, her body rigid, and her green eyes fearful as they stared
up into his. How she had changed in the space of an instant, with the thick,
soft waves of her hair framing her face and her head fallen back, partially
exposing the smooth curve of her throat. Oh yes. He could imagine this woman
tempting an entire tribe of Gypsies. Or perhaps one of her father's tenants. Or
even some less than noble aristocrat—such as himself—who found himself
drowning in the whirlpool of her eyes. If he was smart he'd send her scrambling
back to her father with a message that Miles Kemball Warwick was nobody's fool
when it came to women, he couldn't possibly be seduced into marriage; but he
wasn't feeling so smart at that moment. Far from it. And he'd been a hell of a
long time without a woman . . .

He
breathed in her ear.

She
gasped.

He
nuzzled the soft, fragrant skin along the underside of her jaw.

She
melted against him.

He
kissed her, tentatively at first, a brash of his mouth on the corner of hers,
then a slow, easy glide of his lips onto hers that were trembling and far
softer than he'd imagined. And he touched his tongue to hers. And buried his
hand into her hair, fondling the curve of her head and holding it closely,
possessively while the nerve endings in his body expanded to minute pinpoints
of pleasure and pain.

Olivia
groaned with the ecstasy of it, the drugging wonder of it that momentarily
deprived her of all power of thought, movement, or denial. The arousing warmth
and wetness of his mouth was intoxicating, overwhelming. Never had she
imagined it would feel like this. Taste like this. She'd waited a lifetime to
experience this moment with him.

Don't
stop! her mind cried, and her body responded hungrily by pressing closer, by
parting her lips eagerly to allow the plunge of his tongue against hers, where
he thrust and withdrew and thrust again in a rhythm that made her body turn
liquid and quivering and helpless. With only a slight hesitation, she slid her
arms around his neck and buried one hand in his glorious hair, as she had
dreamt of doing for most of her life, and kissed him back with an abandonment
that would have shocked even herself just moments before.

He
pulled away. Suddenly. Breathing hard. His eyes burning.

Reality
crashed in on her.

Miles
backed away. They stood facing one another in clumsy silence for several
moments.

At
last, Miles backed away and moved across the room. He propped himself against
the desk and crossed his arms over his chest as he focused hard on her face,
his own disquietude obvious.

"Who
was he?" he demanded in a husky voice. "Or rather, who is he?"

She
frowned and glanced desperately at the hairpins scattered over the floor. She
couldn't think.

"Don't
pretend to be daft. You know who I mean. The boy's father. Who is he?"

This
sudden turn of topics left Olivia even more rattled, if that were possible.
The fact that he had approached the subject of her son so straightforwardly
caused the room to turn unbearably warm. "That is none of your
business," she finally managed.

"Your
father made it my business."

"You
rejected my father's offer, therefore it is not."

"Did
you love him?"

Where
was her cloak? On the settee. She'd be forced to walk directly by him to fetch
it. She wasn't certain she could, not with her knees feeling like aspic and her
heart jumping like a March hare in her breast. How foolish to think she could
confront a man as undisciplined as Miles Warwick and expect to come out of it
unscathed.

She
did her best to focus her thoughts on escape.

"Do
I know him?" came his voice.

"I
really must be going." She started for the sofa.

"Is
he local?"

"I
shouldn't have come here. It was silly really ..."

"Does
he know about the boy?"

"The
boy's name is Bryan."

"Does
he help support the boy?"

"Bryan.
His name is Bryan," she stressed with a growing sense of frustration.

"Is
he married? Obviously, or he would've married you. Are you still lovers?"
Moving before her, he blocked her way to the settee, bringing her to stop
short. Still, she refused to meet his look directly, and proceeded to walk
around him. He stopped her again by stepping sideward. "I've politely
asked you a question," he said.