Stormswept (26 page)

She whirled to face Rhys. “I swear, you have the most disturbing habit of sneaking up on a person.”

“You have some peculiar habits yourself—like destroying perfectly good paper.”

“I’m not destroying it. I’m merely . . . dirtying it up.” She pulled out ten more sheets. “It’s for Evan.”

He leaned against the door frame. “Ah, yes. The boy who took the stained paper off your hands. I take it the ‘staining’ was no accident, either.”

“Of course not. He won’t take good paper from me, so I have to spoil it for him. He’s here for his lesson, and I’d forgotten all about the paper.”

“May I come along?”

Her gaze shot to him. “Why?”

“Since I’ve agreed to do what I can to provide an education for your charge, I ought to be allowed to meet him. Don’t you agree?”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.” Except that it would mean spending time with Rhys.

Gathering up the sheets, she walked toward the door. “I usually tutor him in the schoolroom.”

Rhys shifted position, but didn’t give her enough room to pass without touching him. She could feel his eyes hot upon her, and imagine she felt his breath on her neck.

As soon as she was past him she quickened her pace, but he fell easily into step beside her, settling his hand on her waist in that possessive gesture so common to men. Her breathing began an uneven rhythm she could hardly hide. Nor did it get any better as they climbed the stairs, with his hand riding on her waist as if to steady her when she knew he really did it to provoke her.

Unfortunately, it was working. She was overwhelmingly aware of his lean body beside her, moving with the lithe grace of a Thoroughbred—his thighs flexing beneath the
glove-tight breeches, his arm brushing her back every time she took a step, his fingers resting in the small of her back just inches above her hips.

Oh bother, he was such a devil. So what if he had a fine body? He was an untrusting, stubborn wretch, and totally unworthy of her attention.

Still, by the time they’d reached the schoolroom, her blood was racing and her body aflame. With profound relief, she escaped him to cross the room.

Thankfully Evan took her mind off Rhys. He had apparently either refused the tea and tarts or had wolfed them down, for he now sat engrossed in a book she’d acquired yesterday—Daniel Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe
. Oblivious to her and Rhys, he hunched over the book, eating up the pages. It never ceased to astonish her that he could read at such a pace.

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Juliana said gently.

Evan gave a start, his cheeks flushing as he saw her and Rhys. Shutting the book, he jumped up and gave a bow. “Good day, my lady. I hope you don’t mind. I saw the new book and—”

“Don’t be silly.” She smiled. “I’m glad you took the chance to look it over. How is it?”

He shrugged. “Interesting, I suppose.”

“I thought it might amuse you.” When Evan cast Rhys a curious glance, she said, “Allow me to introduce my husband, Squire Vaughan. He wants to observe the lesson today.”

Evan’s eyes widened. “ ’Tis a pleasure to meet you at last, sir.”

“For me as well,” Rhys said with a hint of amusement.

Juliana took her seat and barely gave time for Rhys and Evan to sit before she launched into the lesson, eager to get this over with so she could escape her husband.

If Evan was surprised that she spent no time chatting with him about his mother or the farm, he didn’t show it. Nor did he seem uncomfortable having Rhys watch them. If anything, he showed off—conjugating French verbs with obvious pride, then reeling off a dozen new words he’d learned from the poem she’d assigned him to memorize.

“And what is Gruffydd’s speaker lamenting here?” she prompted after he recited a particularly complicated line.

Evan thought a moment. “Is he saying he can’t talk poetry while he’s wandering?”

“ ‘Recite’ poetry,” she corrected. “But that’s not it exactly. He grieves for the old ways that are no longer valued. He says no one wants to hear Welsh verses recited anymore, so he must keep his ‘poet’s trade’ hidden.”

Rhys spoke for the first time since they’d begun the lesson. “In Gruffydd’s day, there were few who would stand up to the English. The Welsh language was considered ignorant, and some Welshmen refused to use it. So Gruffydd felt like a stranger in his own land, ‘betrayed to wander the world in search of aid.’ ”

She swung her gaze to Rhys, who was watching her as if trying to fathom her. Gruffydd’s poem had been one of their mutual favorites. Did he remember? And had he guessed that she’d chosen it for Evan for that very reason?

His gaze was soft as he stared at her.

Evan spoke up, oblivious to the sudden current in the air. “Mr. Gruffydd is like you, Mr. Vaughan, isn’t he?”

Rhys lifted an eyebrow. “How so?”

“Well, you had to wander the world, too, and give up your poet’s trade.”

When Rhys glanced at her, she said coolly, “Evan has always been interested in your . . . situation.”

“Oh, more than that, sir,” Evan blurted out. “I think you’re a great hero, to fight so nobly for the Welsh cause, even when it meant being taken by the press gangs.”

She could still feel Rhys’s gaze, but she wouldn’t look at him. “I told Evan how you were forced into the navy.”

Evan warmed to his subject. “She told me how you said we should speak Welsh if we like. And she told me about your poetry. I’ve read all your poems.”

“How did you manage that, when they were never published?”

“Lady Juliana let me read them in the book you gave her. Oh, sir, they were wonderful.”

“Really?” His gaze now bore into her.

“Aye. She told me all about you.” Evan leaned forward confidentially. “She said you were very special.”

Oh, why must Evan be so talkative? “Let’s get on with the lesson, shall we?”

“No, this is much more interesting,” Rhys said. “So Evan, did she tell you what she meant by ‘special’?”

“I don’t know. Like a hero. You know, like the man all the girls in the books fall in love with.”

“And did she say she’d fallen in love with me?”

Evan shot Juliana an uncertain glance. “Well, not exactly.
But she talked about you like . . . like my sister Mary when she talks about that shopkeeper in town.”

Rhys leaned back to cross his arms over his chest. “Ah, but if I were her ‘true love,’ why did she go off to marry that other fellow?”

Juliana fought down anger. Dear heaven, would he never understand?

“She said ’tweren’t a husband she wanted, but children. And since you weren’t here, and she thought you were never coming back—”

“Didn’t she say
anything
about love?” A faint mockery was in his tone.

Juliana glared at him. Rhys had never bothered to ask
her
if she’d been in love with Stephen, yet here he was, badgering the poor boy for his answers.

“My, but we’ve gone far afield of our lesson.” She tried for a light tone. “Let’s get back to it, shall we?”

Rhys’s gaze locked with hers. “Evan hasn’t answered my question. Tell me, lad—did Lady Juliana say she was in love with Lord Devon?”

“Not to me.” Evan shifted uneasily, having finally begun to sense tension in the air. “She wanted a husband who would give her children. That’s all.”

Rhys’s mouth tightened. “But I was already her husband. Did she admit that?”

“No.” When Rhys frowned, he added, “But you mustn’t blame her for it. She thought you were dead. Everyone thought you were dead.”

Rhys smiled ruefully. “You do have a point, Evan.”

“She used to cry about it,” Evan persisted, determined
to defend Juliana. “I’d hear her after we’d read one of your poems. She would cry in the garden.”

Rhys’s gaze burned into her, and she turned away.

“That’s enough. Evan has lessons to do and—”

“I think Evan has done so well today that he deserves a rest from lessons,” Rhys broke in. “Evan, why don’t you go down to the kitchen and tell Mrs. Roberts I said to give you a pork pie?”

Evan looked to Juliana, and she sighed. There was no point in trying to continue the lessons with Rhys asking probing questions. In truth, she’d rather have Evan out of it. “Do as Rhys says.”

“Should I come back tomorrow?”

She nodded, her throat too tight for speech.

Only after he left did she remember she still had his charred paper. She leapt up and said, “Oh dear, I forgot to give him—”

Rhys stayed her with one hand. “You can give it to him tomorrow.”

They listened until the sound of Evan’s footsteps faded. Then Rhys took the paper from her and laid it aside.

He was so close now that she could smell the musky scent of him, see the glitter in his eyes. There was no telling what he thought of Evan’s revelations. He might even think she’d put Evan up to it.

His back was to the window, and the late afternoon sunlight glanced off his hair, giving him a halo. Yet he was no angel. He’d had heaven dangled in front of him and snatched away one too many times.

Even now he looked as if he waited for the push that
would send him plummeting to earth. “Tell me, wife. Were you . . .
are
you in love with the marquess?”

She met his gaze boldly. “Nay. I once thought I could grow to love him. But I know better now.”

Something flickered in his gaze. Relief? Hope?

Then he drew her into his arms. “Why did you tell Evan about me and let him read my poems?” he asked in a rough rasp. “Why cry for me, after you tossed me aside so easily?”

“I told you: I loved you.”

“But you kept our marriage secret, even from the boy. Why, if you were in love with me?”

She tensed. “Because I was scared and weak. No more.”

He searched her face. “I no longer know what to believe. My mind tells me your claims make no sense. And yet—”

“You know the truth in your heart,” she said, laying her hand on his cheek. “If only you’d heed it.”

“I only know one thing for certain. That I still want you.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “God, how I want you.”

Next he kissed her temple and she nuzzled his chin, seduced into forgetting that he didn’t believe her . . .
wouldn’t
believe her. His heart knew the truth, and his heart was guiding him at the moment.

His mouth skirted the edge of her cheekbone, gliding down the curved line of her jaw so he could tongue her throat. “ ’Tis like the men who disappear into the fairy circle.” He tugged her mob cap loose to bring her hair down about her shoulders. “While they are in the enchantment, they know no rational thought. Only when they leave do they realize they’ve been seduced by a dream.”

“Am I a dream, then?”

His lips hovered above hers as he stared down at her, eyes glittering. “One of you must be. Either the woman I fell in love with—or the woman I hold in my arms now.”

“They’re one and the same, and no dream, either. That, I can prove.” Then she lifted her lips to meet his.

With a groan, he took her mouth, burying his fingers in her hair to hold her still. Desire jolted her. She’d lain awake too many nights remembering their last kiss, too many years remembering their lovemaking. It would turn a nun into a wanton, and she was no nun.

So when he sought to deepen the kiss, she let him. She opened her mouth so he could tangle his tongue with hers so wonderfully that her pulse quickened and her blood heated.

“By thunder,” he murmured, “you taste sweeter with each kiss. What sort of sorcery is this?”

“The best kind.”

Hunger leapt in his eyes and he plundered her mouth once more. With his hands clasping her head, he drove his tongue deep, delving for sweetness, offering heat in return. His body strained against hers in an ancient fight for domination that she was only too happy to yield. Winding her arms about his waist, she dovetailed into him, curving her body around his taut arousal.

“Ah,
cariad
.” He lifted her onto the table and fitted himself between her legs. Before she could even respond to that blatant act, he captured her mouth once more in a sense-stealing kiss.

Through a haze of voluptuous enjoyment, she felt him shove up her skirts and petticoats. Then one hand stroked
gossamer caresses up her bare thigh, while his other tugged loose her fichu, then inched her bodice down to free her breasts.

When his mouth left hers to trail kisses down her throat to the cleft between her breasts, she moaned. He caught her about the waist, stretching her back until she was arched over his arm, laid out for his pleasure. And he took it with obvious delight, sucking each breast in turn.

At the same time, he inched his other hand higher until his fingers were stroking the swirl of hair between her legs. When he rubbed her there, she nearly came off the table, arching into him for more.

So he plunged his finger inside her, in and out, making her insane. She clutched his shoulders, and his mouth teased one nipple with teeth and tongue until she thought she’d die from the intense pleasure. The assault on two different fronts so aroused her that she writhed against him, seeking more.

“Yes, my darling wife,” he murmured against her breast. “Be the wanton for me again.”

She only became that when he did these enticing things to her. Yet how could she resist when his mouth sent myriad sensations rocketing through her and his finger slid so seductively inside her?

He was watching her, his eyes like sapphires at the bottom of a clear stream. Unnerved, she turned her face away. “Please . . .” But what to beg for? Mercy? Forgiveness? He was incapable of either.

She pushed at his chest, but he held her unbalanced, hovering over the table, her breasts raised for his mouth
and her legs held open by his thighs. And she didn’t really want to escape him, did she?

“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured.

As if to prove it, he sought her mouth once more for a gentle, coaxing kiss; that of a lover, not a conqueror. She could almost believe it was the old Rhys kissing her, the old Rhys working magic between her legs.

“Oh . . . yes . . . yes . . .” she moaned as he increased the pace of his strokes, until she was climbing Icarus’s path to the sun, willing to risk total destruction if only she could soar. She scarcely noticed the sheen of sweat forming on his brow, nor the mad way he plundered her throat and breasts while he fondled her harder, deeper, faster.