A Rebel Without a Rogue (22 page)

Experienced, perhaps, but she held her body with passive pliancy, offering herself, demanding nothing.
Take me
, she’d said; had she commanded past lovers to do the same? Had they simply taken, accepting what she offered, giving nothing in return? No wonder she’d been able to manipulate Ingestrie, if he did no more than greedily seize the reflection of his own desires, without any consideration for hers.

No, their exchange could not be one-sided, not if he wanted Fianna to stay beyond the time it took for his own passion to be sated. He needed not just to take, but to give. To startle her beyond her protective self-possession, push her outside that clever mind. Bind her to him with pleasure and with need. Make her care, as he was growing to care for her, so it would become anathema to do him, or any member of his family, harm.

And so he forced himself to slow, to turn the seductive weapons she’d used last night on him against her. Tiny nibbles against a lip. Fingertips that skimmed over the lightest hairs on exposed skin, then glanced away. Breaths that teased against the tendons of the neck, the sensitive lobe of an ear, fleet and thrilling as a whispered confidence.

Her body stilled, grew taut. With pleasure? Or in fear?

“I’m right here,” Kit murmured, tracing his tongue over the curve of her ear. “Be here, too. Be with me.”

She gasped, a shudder tremoring down her spine. Kit pulled her closer for a moment, then drew back, just enough so she might see the truth of what he wanted from her, wanted for her, in his face, in his eyes.

“Fianna,” he whispered, entreaty entangling with command. “Touch me. Want me, as I want you.”
 

Kit held his breath for what seemed hours, watching her eyes widen, the black of the pupils almost eclipsing the green. He swallowed as her hand finally, gently, cupped his jaw.
 

“I am. I do.”

A heady rush of triumph washed through him as he scooped up the warmth of her into his arms, a rush that only grew stronger at her cry of welcome surprise. Without haste, he made his way down the passageway, shouldering open the bedchamber door, kicking it closed behind him. Kneeling on the bed, he set her atop the coverlet, holding still as her slim hands gingerly pushed aside his coat, then worked at the stiff buttons on his waistcoat.

“May I?” he asked, fingers itching at the ties of her gown. At her nod, he pulled the knots free, quickly unlacing until the fabric fell open and down over her slim shoulders. She wore no stays, only a thin chemise held closed by a pale green ribbon.

 
As she worked, he toyed with that ribbon, undoing its bow, sliding its tip down the column of her neck, tracing it over the seductive arch of her brow. She shivered, but remained intent on her own task, tugging at his recalcitrant neckcloth with tantalizing, persistent fingers.

When at last it drew free, she murmured in satisfaction, then slowly pulled at the ties of his shirt. As it, too, fell open, she mimicked his actions, drawing one tie with painstaking care across his left collarbone, then the right, until he, too, began to shiver. He wanted to close his eyes, to concentrate solely on the sensation of touch, but he forced them to stay open, unwilling to give up the sight of her, so serious, so intent. But when her tongue began to follow the tie, tracing a warm, slick path up his throat, up the line of his jaw, his lids lowered of their own accord, his neck arching in response.

As she moved the tie to tickle against the lobe of his ear, he growled and pushed aside her hand. Clutching the tails of his shirt with both hands, he yanked the linen over his head, baring himself to her gaze.

His hands clenched as she took him in, drawing her gaze over the planes of his chest, the muscles in his abdomen and arms. Those green eyes darted lower, just for an instant, to the bulge behind the fall of his trousers. His cock tightened in greedy response, straining for freedom against the constraint.
 

Her eyes fixed on his, Fianna shrugged against her shift. His own eyes followed the garment’s path as it slid slowly, so slowly, down her arms, over the small mounds of her breasts, falling to pool in a puddle of white around her slim hips.
 

“Touch me,” she said, even as her own hand, light as a dragonfly, skimmed over his chest.

He reached out then, each hand cupping the weight of a breast, marveling at their curves, at the responsiveness of each rosy tip as he circled it with the pad of a thumb. When his fingers caught a nipple between them, she moaned, the sound vibrating deep in her throat. His grin of satisfaction disappeared, though, when her hands jerked away to cover her mouth. Did she think to push the too-revealing sound back from whence it had come?

“Fianna,” he said, one hand tilting her chin up so he might meet her eyes. “I want to know what pleases you. What makes you groan with wanting. What will make you come apart in my arms. Tell me.” Placing her hand over his free one, he then moved both back to the swell of her bosom. “Show me.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Fianna watched a shaft of sun drift over the drowsing form of the man beside her. She had been made for the shadows, for the murky dark of overcast days and moonless nights, but Kit had been formed for the glories of the light. It limned his curls, the whorls of hair on his chest, even his eyelashes, adorning each with hints of gold, as if he were a page she’d stolen from the Book of Kells.

She reached out a finger, skimming it over the very tips of his lashes, as if she might sweep free a tiny speck of that light for herself. But it came away empty. Of course. It was simply a trick of the sun, after all. She couldn’t steal it, or him, not his warmth, not his heart. Only bask in them for a while, until the shadows claimed her once more.

With a sigh, she lay her head down on his shoulder, her hand tracing circles on his chest.

An arm stole around her shoulders, pulling her body close against his. The pad of a thumb stroked against her temple, then toyed with the damp curls beside her ear. She closed her eyes as his head turned, his lips and nose burrowing deep in her hair.

“Did I please you?” he whispered.

Oh, the vanity of the man! As if he hadn’t even been there in the bed beside her, a witness to her hedonistic cries, to her body shuddering so completely beyond her control. Even now, she could barely believe she’d allowed herself the luxury of indulging her desire. With men she’d only seduced out of vengeance, disgust, at both them and herself, had made it easy to keep her own passions firmly in check. And with Ingestrie, disgust had been sharpened by discomfort and pain—she never would have persuaded him to bring her to England if she had complained about his dreadful lack of skill.

When Ingestrie would lift his clumsy weight off her and roll to his side of the bed, she’d always felt a sense of reprieve, the bone-deep relief of a sinner finally freed from the stocks. But when Kit had pushed up on his elbows, whispering worries about crushing her, she’d pulled him back, one hand on his head, the other on his tight, round buttocks, not nearly ready to give up the comforts of his body. He’d laughed then, his breath warm against her neck, and rolled them both until her weight rested atop him.

“Heartkin? Did I please you?” he asked again.

Had he pleased her, indeed.
 

“Well enough,” she replied in as dampening a tone as she could muster. Best to turn the conversation in a less dangerous direction. “But what is this word,
heartkin
? I’ve not heard it before.”

He laughed, the rumble in his chest echoing against her cheek. “A love word, an endearment of my mother’s. She only used it when speaking to my father, never to my brothers or sister or me. I think I rather envied him, having that word all to himself.”

Nodding proved difficult with her head pressed in the crook of his arm. “Ah.
Mo chroide
.”

“Ma chree?”

“Yes. What my mother called my father.
Of my heart
.”

He fell silent for a moment, his hand resting against the curve of her shoulder. “She loved him that much? Even though he wouldn’t marry her?”

Fianna sighed. “I suppose she must have. But what does a child know of her parents’ hearts?”

“Does she never speak of him, then?”

“I do not know,” she said, the words thick in her throat. “I’ve not seen her since I was a child.”

He inhaled sharply. “Was she hanged, as well as your father?”

“No. But once the English soldiers had finished dealing with the rebellion’s leaders, she feared they’d turn their attention to those who had aided and abetted them. And so they fled.”

“They?”

“Yes. My mother, and her father, and her brother.”
 
How strange, to speak of them and not receive a quelling frown in return.

“But not you?”

“No. My aunt Mary, my father’s sister, agreed to give them coin, enough for passage to America. But I remained in Ireland, with my father’s people.”

She’d spoken in a flat, even voice, one that kept her emotions closely in check. But still his arms tightened around her. “They left you behind?”

“What kind of life could I expect, being raised by unlettered Irish peasants in a foreign, heathen land? Far better to accept the protection of the McCrackens, safe in familiar Belfast. They gave me warm clothes, good food, and an education that would allow me to make my way in the world as a gentlewoman. Just as my father would have wanted. Even my mother agreed it was for the best, Aunt McCracken said.”

“Did she?” An unfamiliar undercurrent of anger edged Kit’s voice. He rolled her to her back and propped himself on his elbow by her side. “And did you believe her?”

Fianna stared at his frowning face. “My aunt was a God-fearing woman. What cause would she have to lie?”

Kit waved a hand. “To shield herself from her own unkindness, perhaps? For it was unkind—no, more than unkind, it was a damned cruelty—to force a woman to give up a child in order to save the lives of a father and a brother.”

On the most difficult days of her childhood, those days when the townspeople whispered
bastard
behind her back and Grandfather McCracken’s gaze skimmed right over her as if she did not even exist, Fianna often consoled herself by imagining a tearful Mairead begging and pleading with Aunt Mary to be allowed to take her child with her. She’d always felt sinful, afterward; her aunt and grandfather had saved her mother, and her mother’s family, at great risk to themselves. To imagine their rescue as a crass exchange, or even worse, a bribe or a threat—no, it had simply been unthinkable to a child dependent upon their care.

But even if her mother had been compelled to leave without her, did that mean she had not grieved for her loss? Was there not room in a woman’s heart for love and sorrow, as well as for fear?

Would Fianna herself not feel both when it came time for her to leave Kit?

Kit caught her cheek in a palm, turning her eyes to his. “Your mother loved you, Fianna. I have not the least doubt of it. And neither should you.”

He made it sound so simple. So obvious. Was this what it would be like, to truly belong to a family? To be comforted, reassured, sheltered from hurt, even when one did not in the least deserve it? Or was it only because it had been Kit who had spoken the words, offered the comfort? Would she always feel so safe, if she knew she would wake up to find him beside her every morning?
 

She jerked her head free of his hand and rolled to her side, shunting away the ridiculous thought. If the son of a Presbyterian merchant could not fathom bringing a Catholic peasant girl into his family, how much more preposterous to imagine the son of an English viscount welcoming an illegitimate Irish whore into his?

And why should she even want to tie herself to a family who claimed as one of its own the very man who had murdered her father? Would she betray Aidan McCracken, then, just as surely as had the men upon whom she’d wreaked retribution?

A warm hand stroked down her back. “Fianna—”

“It matters little whether she loved me or no,” she interrupted, jerking away from the bed and reaching for her shift, which had fallen to the floor. “It’s the McCrackens with whom she left me, and it’s to the McCrackens I must return. Though whether they’ll accept me empty-handed, I’ve no idea.”

She’d whispered the last words to herself, but he still must have heard. “Accept you? After forcing your mother to abandon you, did they then have the gall to make you feel unwelcome?”

“Unwelcome? They gave me shelter, and sent me to the meetinghouse and to school. Far more than many a peasant child ever receives. What more of a welcome could I expect?”

“What more, indeed,” he answered, sitting up on the side of the bed to pull on his trousers. “And so you thought to buy your way into their hearts by killing your father’s executioner?”

She stilled, pinned by his words. He made it sound so crude, as if an act of justice were some low, mercantile exchange. As if she’d disappointed him in some deeply important way. How dare he?

“I thought to support my family by redressing an injustice,” she bit out, yanking her gown over her head. “To wipe away the care from my aunt’s eyes, and make the smile return to my grandfather’s face. The Penningtons are not the only ones who hold family loyalty dear, you know.”