A Lady of His Own (27 page)

Then he filled her.

Relief fell from her in a soft sob. Braced above her, he looked down at her as he moved, and started a slow ride of his own.

Long, slow—how a compulsion so fraught, so driven, could feel so languid in execution was something she couldn’t comprehend. He made it seem so, yet it wasn’t. He seemed almost relaxed as he rhythmically drove into her, yet he was very far from that.

Reaching up, she ran her hands over his chest, over the locked muscles in his upper arms, over the broad sweep of his shoulders, then she tugged, arched as he drove deeper, harder, then he groaned and obliged.

He lowered his body to hers, and she stopped thinking.

Her existence shrank to just him and her in the soft shadows of her bed, to shared breaths, gasps, to the wonder of swift shared glances in the dark, to their bodies flexing, merging to the dance they performed it seemed instinctively. She didn’t need to think to know what to do, but could simply let instinct guide her.

Could be with him in this way without thought or concern, or restraint, could simply give herself up to him. As he gave himself to her.

In the end, wholly, completely, without reserve. The wave reared, then crashed, and swept them both away.

They clung, held tight to the moment, to sensation, to each other.

The wave receded and left them, for a moment adrift on a sea of their own making, then they sank back to earth, to the earthly comfort of her bed.

Wrapped in each other’s arms, they slept.

She woke in the deep watches of the night with no idea what had roused her.

She lay still, and listened…realized as she registered her breathing and his that she hadn’t, not even in that fleeting moment of first awareness, felt surprised to find Charles beside her, to feel his arm lying over her waist.

The moon was now high; silvery light streamed through the open curtains, the bright shaft striking the floor beside the bed, throwing enough light for her night-adjusted eyes to see clearly.

No ripple of the unexpected disturbed the stillness about them.

All seemed peaceful. Comforting. Right.

As it should be.

She shifted just enough to look at him. He was slumped facedown in the bed beside her, deeply asleep. Even so, one arm lay flung over her, long fingers relaxed against her side; she wouldn’t give much for her chances of sliding from the bed. Of leaving him.

That odd look she’d seen and even more sensed in his eyes returned to haunt her. Frowning, she tried to fathom what it meant. In that moment, she was perfectly sure neither he nor she could have pretended anything. He’d sworn he was no longer capable of pretense, not in that sphere; she now understood enough of his past to believe him.

Sinking into the soft mattress, she thought back over the night…smiled at the success of her strategy.

That strange look floated once again across her mind.

She shook it aside. She knew what they were doing this time; it was a physical engagement, an affair with no emotional strings on either side. That was the mistake she’d made last time, imagining something that hadn’t been, not understanding how he saw it. He hadn’t felt for her as she’d thought—not as she’d felt for him—and that’s how he’d always see her. They were close friends indisputably, lovers in the physical sense, but nothing more.

This time she accepted that that was how it would be; she’d gone into this with her eyes open. They would share and indulge in physical pleasure as they would, until they grew tired of it; she had no doubt that whatever transpired they would remain forever friends. He would go off and do whatever he would do, and she would continue as she had been, but with a wealth of memories to warm her, to reassure her that she was as female, as feminine, as desirable as any of her sex.

She knew, this time, what she wanted from him; this time that matched what she could expect to receive. This time, she hadn’t put her heart on the table and expected to receive his in return.

Her gaze drifted to his face, the section she could see. His dark hair lay in heavy locks over his forehead; his beard was starting to shadow his jaw.

Again, that odd, lingering,
wanting
look of his filled her mind…

He’d spoken of a jigsaw with pieces that didn’t fit; this seemed more like one thread too many for the tapestry she’d thought they’d been weaving. That look was evidence of an extra strand, something she hadn’t expected, something that didn’t fit with the picture of them she’d assembled in her mind.

But that look had been real, not imagined, not something concocted for her distraction. It had been raw, undisguised, unshielded.

Which was why it wouldn’t leave her mind.

Charles came awake in the instant the tumblers of the lock on Penny’s door clunked. He sat up, looked across the room, aware she was awake, too.

The latch lifted, the door swung noiselessly open—all the way open.

The moonlight streaming in was bright; the unlit corridor was pitch-black in contrast. All he could see was the vague outline of a man.

He swore and leapt from the bed.

The man ran.

Grabbing up his breeches, he yanked them on, stomped into his boots. Penny had sat up, covers clutched to her chest, staring at the open door. The sound of running footsteps receding along the corridor reached them.

“Stay there!” He was at the door on the words; he paused only long enough to grab the key from the inside lock, fit it to the outside, then he slammed the door, locked it, and pocketed the key. And raced after the shadowy figure he glimpsed at the head of the stairs.

The man pelted down the stairs, leaping, swinging from the banister. Charles reached the top, and flung himself after him. The man was making for the front door. The bolts would slow him.

Except that the front door stood wide open.

Charles slowed in disbelief as he ran into the wide swath of moonlight pouring into the front hall. Realizing, he swerved to the side, out of the light. He heard the scrunch of booted feet fleeing—then nothing.

Walking out onto the porch, he looked in the direction of the last sound, but as he’d expected, the shrubbery was a mass of dense shadows. The man could be standing there or fleeing through it; it was impossible to tell.

Hands on his hips, he stood waiting for his breathing to even out, and softly swore. He was far too wise to give further chase. The man had come to Penny’s room; if he left the house, the villain might circle around and try for her again. He wasn’t leaving her unguarded, not in this lifetime.

But why the hell had the front door been unlocked? Not even the best locksman could get past its heavy double bolts.

He was turning to check the bolts when a shifting shadow made him freeze. Then he stared. Hands in his pockets, Nicholas came walking up along one of the garden paths, one easily reached from the rear of the shrubbery.

Charles waited where he was, in full sight.

Nicholas saw him from some distance away; reaching the steps, he started up. “What are you doing here?”

Charles paused long enough for Nicholas to sense how very wrong things were, then said, “Some man broke into Penny’s room.”

Nicholas stepped onto the porch. His jaw fell. “
What?
”

It was a convincing performance, yet Charles wasn’t sure, and wasn’t taking any chances. He waved inside. “The front door was left unbolted.”

Nicholas looked at the double doors, both standing wide. “I…I left them shut when I went out.”

“Shut, but not bolted?”

“Well, no…I had to get back inside.”

“Where have you been?”

“Out.” Apparently stunned, he waved vaguely toward the gardens. “I couldn’t sleep—I went for a walk…” Suddenly, he focused on Charles’s face. “Good God! Is Penny all right?”

Charles almost believed him; his horrified expression appeared very real. “Yes.” He paused, then added, “I was with her.” He started back into the house. Still apparently in shock, Nicholas trailed after him.

Hauling one huge door shut, Charles added, distinctly grim as he thought things through, “Just as well.”

Nicholas closed the other door; he stood back as Charles threw the bolts. “We’d better check the other doors, I suppose.”

“Yes.” Charles did, confirming that the other doors and windows on the ground floor were secure. Not that that meant much; any trained operative could find a way in, and he was sure, now, of the caliber of the enemy.

Nicholas trailed behind him, watching but not volunteering, also just as well. Aside from the fact Charles knew the house better than he did, Charles wouldn’t have accepted his word for anything, not even that a window was locked.

Finally, Charles climbed the stairs. Nicholas followed. Charles halted in the corridor at the stair head; Nicholas’s room was in the other wing, in the opposite direction from Penny’s.

Nicholas stepped up to the corridor; his gaze moved over Charles’s bare shoulders and chest, slid down to the knee buckles on his breeches, hanging free. Halting, he stared at Charles through the dimness, transparently making the obvious connections.

Charles simply waited.

Nicholas cleared his throat. “Ah…you said you were with Penny?”

Crouched behind her bedchamber door, her ear to the keyhole, Penny heard his question and the inference behind it.

“Damn!”
She’d already sworn in both English and French at Charles for having locked her in. Panic of an unfamiliar and unprecedented sort had attacked her when she’d heard the thuds as two men—Charles and the mystery man—had gone flying down the stairs. After that, no matter how hard she’d strained her ears, she’d heard nothing. Her window gave onto the courtyard; she’d seen nothing either.

Now she listened with all her might. The door was old, solid, and thick, but so was the lock; the keyhole, with no key in it for Charles had taken it with him, was large. With her ear pressed against it, with night’s quiet prevailing through the rest of the house, she could hear their words. She had no idea where Nicholas had come from, but he and Charles were standing along the corridor, she thought near the stairs.

“Indeed.” That was Charles at his drawling worst. In the circumstances, pure provocation.

She heard an odd sound—wondered for one instant if Charles was throttling Nicholas—then realized it was Nicholas clearing his throat again.

“Ah…you mentioned you and Penny had an understanding. Am I to take it that there’ll soon be talk of a wedding?”

Behind her door, she screwed her eyes shut and swore at Nicholas. How
dare
he? She wasn’t his responsibility; he had no right to ask such questions, and definitely no right to prod Charles’s far-too-active conscience to life.
Damn, damn, damn!

“Actually…” Charles’s drawl was getting even more dangerously pronounced. “That’s not the sort of understanding Penny and I have. Regardless, as far as I can see, whatever our understanding might be, it’s no concern of yours.”

Yes—precisely!
She held her breath, listened as hard as she could. Given the tone of Charles’s last words, Nicholas would have to be witless to do anything other than climb down off his high horse and retreat.

“I see.” The words were clipped. After a moment, Nicholas added, “In that case, I’ll…no doubt see you in the morning.”

Charles said nothing; a moment later, she heard his footsteps, soft for such a large man, returning to her room.

Relief swept her; straightening and stepping back from the door, she uttered a heartfelt prayer. The last thing—the
very last thing
—she needed at this point was for Charles to decide that he had to marry her out of some misplaced notion of propriety.

He stopped outside her door; she heard the key slide in, turn, then he opened the door. He saw her, stepped inside, closed the door, and locked it once more. Then he turned to her; his gaze traveled her face. She drew herself up, folded her arms beneath her breasts, thankfully concealed behind the robe she’d hastily donned, and narrowed her eyes at him.

His only response was to raise a faintly resigned brow.

“Why did you lock me in?”

He cocked his head, still watching her face. “I would have thought that was obvious—so he couldn’t easily return to attack you if he slipped past me.”

“
And
so I couldn’t follow you.”

His lips twisted; he looked away and moved past her to the bed. “That, too.”

With a swirl of her robe, she followed him. “What if he’d come back and picked the lock—he did the first time, why not again?”

Sitting on the bed and reaching for his boots, he glanced at her. “I credited you with having enough sense to scream. I would have heard you.”

Faintly mollified—why she wasn’t sure—she humphed. She wasn’t going to even attempt to explain the sudden fear for him that had assailed her. He was used to plunging headlong into danger; she’d told herself that. But she’d never before had to stand by and wait while he did it. “Did you see who it was?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t get any clear view of him, not even height or build. He was fast. When I got downstairs the front doors were wide-open—he went through like a hare and headed straight for the shrubbery.”

“Where was Nicholas?”

He told her. “At least, that’s where he said he was.”

“Well…” She suddenly felt cold. Shrugging out of her robe, she slipped back under the covers, tugging them up to her throat, snuggling back into the lingering warmth. “We do know he hasn’t been sleeping well.”

“Indeed.” Charles had seen her shiver and followed her progress. “What we don’t know is whether he’s so on edge he decided to do something about you, and left the doors open to create a plausible story of how someone broke into the house and attacked you while you slept. He didn’t know until just now that I’ve been staying every night.”

Setting aside his boots, he stood, stripped off his breeches, then crawled over the bed to slump beside her. He looked down at her for a moment, but couldn’t read her wide eyes. Reaching for the covers, he tugged them from her grip, lifted them, and joined her beneath.