Dancing With A Devil (43 page)

“
No, darling, I don’t. You misunderstood me a moment ago. What I meant was I refused to accept you are anything but the honest, kind-hearted woman that I love.”

“
That you what?” Her words were a shaky whisper.

“
I love you,” he said simply.

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t respond. The three words hung in the air between them, the moment stretching until his taut nerves strummed in his ears. Desperation curled in his belly and knifed a path to his heart. “Am I too late? Is your mind set against me and for Thortonberry?” His heart pounded against his breastbone.

Audrey could scarcely believe what she’d heard. “Too late,” she mumbled, too shocked to make her incoherent thoughts come out correct.

Audrey blinked as a pleading look swept across Trent’s proud face. Heaven above, now he was misunderstanding her! Before she could say a word to clarify, he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Audrey.” His hoarse whisper filled with entreaty shook her so badly she placed her hands on his shoulders to steady herself.

He glanced up at her, his green eyes glowing with pain. “I’ve been a fool. Desperate not to be hurt again. Until the moment I held my son and felt immediate love for him shove its way into my heart, I thought I could live without ever loving anyone with a completeness that left me vulnerable again.”

She swayed toward Trent, his confession filling her heart, body and soul. Gently, she stroked a hand through his hair and sighed when he curled his fingers around her hips tighter, possessively―like he would never let her go. She grazed her fingers lovingly across his cheek. “What do you think now?”

“
That if I’d been smarter, I would have realized months ago my fight against loving you was hopeless from the moment I met you. You smile, and my heart tugs. You flay me with a rejoinder and my chest tightens. You sway your hips and my body burns. But most importantly, you’ve shown me what it is to truly be loved by someone. You never gave up on me. On us. Please, I beg you―”

She pressed a finger to his warm lips, a ripple of awareness flowing through her as their skin made lingering contact. “Don’t beg.” She tugged on his arm to make him rise.

Slowly, he moved to stand, but instead of letting her go he slid his arms up her back and locked his hands around her waist. He pulled her against his hard chest while his eyes implored her. “I will gladly beg, if it will make you reconsider marrying Thortonberry and marrying me instead.”

A happy chuckle burst from her. “I have no intention of marrying Lord Thortonberry.”

“
You don’t?” Astonishment crossed Trent’s face, followed swiftly by a look of stark relief. “Did your aunt know that?”

“
Of course. Why?”

“
She tricked me, but I’m damn glad she did.”

She twined her hands around his neck. “I’d convinced myself it was my duty to marry and provide my aunt with the comfort she deserved, but in the end, I just couldn’t do it. And after I talked to Whitney I felt secure in my decision and not as if I was abandoning my aunt.”

Trent grinned. “What did my cousin say?”

“
She delicately pointed out I would be acting just as my father had if I married Lord Thortonberry. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Maybe my father thought he would be a good husband to my mother.” Audrey shivered at the possibility that she’d been thinking exactly as her father might have so many years ago. “Between Whitney and myself we came up with an alternative solution to my financial dilemma other than marriage.”

“
And what was that?” Trent asked, grinning at her.

“
Sally needs a new nanny, so she agreed to let me take the position, and your mother, it seems, wants a companion to live with her, so I was going to send my aunt there. My mother always said a million tears won’t change a lady’s life but a well-thought out plan can alter her future.”

“
Your mother was clearly a brilliant woman,” Trent said huskily before cupping Audrey’s face and bringing his lips mere inches from hers. “Will you marry me and let me love you forever?

The tenderness in his gaze made her heart flutter. “Forever?”

He nodded as he pressed his lips gently to hers and then drew back. He took her hand and laid it against his pounding heart. “What I feel for you will never die, even when I do. Marry me.”

She curled her hand over his. “Gladly.”

His tender gaze turned possessive and bright. A tingling burst in the pit of her stomach as he claimed her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss. She met his hunger with her own need to possess him and make him hers. His heart thudded against her breasts as he deepened their kiss and bid her silently to open her mouth for him. She did so willingly wanting to taste him once again, as only dreams had allowed for so long.

The sweetness of his kiss made her head spin, but he gathered her more firmly in his embrace so all her worries fell away. Her mouth burned with his branding, but it was a sweet fire. He kissed her lips, then trailed a blazing path of kisses across her neck before lavishing his attention to her jawbone, her nose, her eyelids, and finally when she thought she would die of wanting his lips on hers once again, he settled there with a ragged moan.

Blood pounded in her head, swirled in her veins and made her body tremble. As his lips gentled, her pulse dipped, but he traced his tongue seductively across her lower lip before delving into her mouth and making her pulse leap while her body tensed with longing.

She plunged her hands into his hair to tug him closer, but as she did, a sound behind her stilled her. Trent pulled back at once, a cold, hard look crossing his face. She knew before turning that Liam had arrived. Nervousness and regret twisted her stomach into knots. “Please,” she mouthed at Trent in way of asking for his cooperation.

He gave a terse nod and turned toward Liam. “Keep your hands off her, Thortonberry.” Trent’s voice held a menacing note, but at least he had been kind enough not to blurt the news of her decision. It confirmed what she’d believed all along. Trent was a man who cared deeply for others’ feelings, which was why the wound his deceased wife had inflicted on him had taken so long to heal. She watched as he moved a far enough away to give her privacy yet still, she assumed, be where he could see her.

Audrey took a deep breath and focused on Liam. “I’m sorry,” she said simply. “I love him, and I cannot change that. I am going to marry him.”

“
Sorry,” Liam snarled. “Sorry is not good enough.”

She blanched at the bitterness in his voice. “It wouldn’t be fair to you if I married you. You deserve a woman who will love you with all her heart.”

He yanked a hand through his hair. “I lost you to my brother and now Davenport. At least my brother loved you.”

“
Loved me?” Audrey wrinkled her brow. “That kiss you saw in the stables was the first I ever exchanged with your brother, and he stole that kiss. He didn’t love me. I was on his long list of the debutantes he fancied he could seduce. Surely you knew that. My brother warned me away from Oscar, because he’d heard through mutual acquaintances about his list. You had to know.”

Liam shook his head as he stalked back and forth in front of her. “I confessed my feelings for you to Oscar and the next thing I knew I stumbled in on the two of you kissing in the stables.”

“
Oh, Liam.” Pity swelled in Audrey’s throat. If he’d only told her this sooner, she would have understood they were both wanting the other for the wrong reasons. He thought he loved her, but he didn’t. Not really. “I suspect your brother pursued me because he knew how you felt about me.” She touched his cheek, biting her lip when Trent growled intensely. She prayed he wouldn’t interrupt. “What did your brother tell you after you saw us that day?”

Liam stopped pacing and gave her a narrow-eyed look. “He said you told him you loved him.”

“
No.” She shook her head and dropped her hand, impressed and glad Trent had kept his temper this long. No need to push him further. “I never said that. The only man I’ve ever told I loved is Trent.”

Liam reached for her as if to grab her by the arms and she scuttled backward but behind her Trent bellowed. She whirled toward Trent to beg him to stay put and as she turned Liam raced by her and charged into Trent. The two men flew back and hit the ground hard. Audrey’s breath seized in her throat as Trent somehow came up on top, flipped Liam onto his back, and straddling him in a blur, shoved his forearm against Liam’s neck to pin him to the ground. She raced toward Trent, fearful he might hurt Liam without truly meaning to.

“
Trent!” she gasped.

He flicked his cold gaze to her and it immediately softened before he returned his attention to Liam, who gasped and bucked under Trent’s hold. “Cease moving and I will lessen my hold so you may breathe a little easier.”

Liam immediately quit bucking and Trent whipped his arm off the marquess’s neck and shoved his palms against Liam’s shoulders. Audrey bit her lip, unsure whether to interfere or not.

“
Get off me,” Liam snarled.

Trent shook his head. “Not until you hear me carefully. I understand the pain you must be going through to lose her. The agony. The anger. I would want to pound my face if I were you, but it’s no use Thortonberry. You will never get a punch in and you will lose her respect for trying. Say goodbye to her and walk away, man. Save your dignity.”

Audrey held her breath as Liam’s wild gaze swung between Trent and her. Finally he nodded. “I’ll go peacefully, so get off me.”

Trent surged to his feet in a blur and stood beside her before she could even release her breath.

Liam staggered to his feet, his cravat undone and his hair in wild disarray. He fixed her with a hostile stare. “I pity you,” he said tonelessly. “I would have given you my heart. All he will do”―Liam glanced at Trent then back to her―“is break yours.”

“
Liam―”

“
No. Do not even bother. There is nothing you can say to me anyway that I want to hear.”

She nodded and held her silence as he strode around the majestically sweeping branches of the tree that hid them and disappeared out of her sight.

Trent gathered her into his arms and a bit of the tension coiling in her shoulders and neck released. “I feel dreadful for having hurt him so.”

Trent nuzzled her neck. “I know you do, darling, which is one of the many reasons I love you.”

She melted easily into his arms, relenting to the happiness and pushing the sadness for Liam away.

“
I am”―he gave her a quick kiss on the lips―“irrationally jealous over you. When it seemed he would touch you―”

Trent quit speaking and raked his gaze over her body before continuing. “I wanted to smash him in the face when I had him pinned simply because he had tried to touch you.”

“
But you did not,” she murmured, glad he had controlled himself.

“
No. I did not. I’m not a ruffian, but I cannot say I will always hold my temper if another man dares to put his hands on you.”

Audrey smiled up at him. “Well, I’ll just make sure to never give you reason to be jealous.”

“
Excellent. Then you promise to never speak alone with another man.”

She started to laugh but stopped at the intense look on his face. “You’re serious?”

“
Quite.”

She slid her hands up his chest. “Darling, if we’re going to be married, then you must trust me completely.”

“
I trust you.” His intense tone told her he believed it to be true.

“
It’s the men I don’t trust. I saw the look in Thortonberry’s eyes. He would have done anything to win you, if he thought there was anything that could be done.”

She cocked her head to the side while playing with a particular enticing golden lock of hair that curled against Trent’s neck. “How do you know that’s what his look meant?”

“
I saw that same look on my face this morning as I was shaving before coming to tell you of my son. I contemplated every possible scenario of what might occur and what I might do. I concluded in the end, I would do anything to make you mine.”

Her breath hitched in her throat and her pulse beat a rapid tattoo in her neck. “Such as?”

“
If I couldn’t convince you to marry me now that I have a son, I planned to kidnap you and ruin you so you’d be forced to marry me.”