Diamonds and Dreams (30 page)

She couldn’t. She couldn’t speak, or
breathe, or even think. Spiraling through her was a desire so great
it stole every thought she had. Every thought but the one of Saber
and what he was doing to her. Instinctively, she arched into his
hand.

It was all the hint he needed. “What I am
about to do,” he began, pressing kisses to her cheeks, temples, and
brow, “will bring you pleasure, Goldie. The kind of pleasure a man
desires to give to a beautiful woman.”

She felt a shred of fear at this unknown
pleasure he was going to give her. “I don’t know what you’re
sayin’, Saber. I’ve never...”

“I know you haven’t,” he told her, his lips
at her ear. “But tonight you will. For the first time, tonight you
will.”

She felt his hand dip lower. His fingers
found her most secret place. She knew she blushed, but she was
beyond caring. The pleasure he’d spoken of, the one he’d already
begun, sharpened. His hand, his warm palm made moist by her,
circled rhythmically upon her. And then he was inside her. First
one finger, then two. He moved them in, out, deep, deep,
deeper.

“Give yourself up to it, Goldie. Let it
happen. Let me make it happen to you.”

She clutched his shoulders, closing her
eyes. It was beginning. Something strong. Something she felt she
had no control over. It was a thing of power, and Saber mastered
it. It was a beautiful wave, and Saber directed it onto her. It
drowned her with feelings too wonderful to contain. She felt as
though she were awash upon a sea of exquisite sensation.

“Saber.” She moaned his name over and over
again. And the pleasure seemed never to end. Saber’s hand seemed
never to stop moving.

“Goldie,” he answered, and knew she’d found
the bliss he’d promised her. She pulsed around his fingers, her
ecstasy filling him with such wild desire, he could barely subdue
it.

But suppress it he did. Tonight was not his.
It belonged only to her. He wanted this night to remain branded in
her memory until the next night came. The night they would
share.

“Goldie, you’re beautiful. So delightful to
me. Your stories, your smile, your giggle...you’ve no idea what
they do to me. Your simplicity touches something inside me that I’d
forgotten I had. Everything, Goldie. Everything about you...there
is no part of you that doesn’t charm me. Enchant me.”

His words and the feelings he’d given her
brought tears to her eyes. She looked up at him, seeing his
concern. “I’m not cryin’ because I’m sad. I’m cryin’ because I’m
happy. You’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been. You’ve told me
things I didn’t think I’d ever hear. Dreams...you’ve made dreams
come true for me tonight, Saber. And no matter what happens, no
matter where we go or how far apart we might be one day, I’ll never
forget this night.”

He winced at the thought of being separated
from her. It was becoming harder and harder to think about the day
they’d say good-bye. Gathering her into his arms, he stood and
carried her from the library. Up the staircase he took her,
stopping only when he reached her bedroom. Gently, he laid her upon
her princess bed, kissing her cheek before he straightened and
smiled down at her.

He willed her to tell him how she felt. God,
how he wanted her to tell him he was as special to her as she was
to him. He waited a long moment to hear the words. But she only
stared up at him. He felt stabbing disappointment but reminded
himself that her years of abuse had left deep scars. Such profound
wariness couldn’t be erased in one night. It would take time to
make it fade.

He wondered how much time he had left with
her.

“Good night, Goldie.”

“Saber?” she called when he turned to leave
the room.

“Yes?”

“Do you think it’s all right to have two
best friends?”

He rubbed his chin while trying to think of
an answer. “How can there be two bests? Don’t you think there can
only be one?”

“I think there can be two.”

“Very well,” he said, thinking her quite
lovely lying there on her huge white bed, moonlight pouring down on
her.

“Big’s already my best friend,” she told
him. “And now...so are you. You’re my other best friend,
Saber.”

Though he couldn’t understand how that could
be, her declaration filled with him contentment. Friendship. It was
the beginning of the kind of relationship he wanted to have with
her. It was the foundation upon which he could build.

“‘Night, Saber.”

“Good night.”

“Saber?”

“Yes?”

“It was like a sneeze, only better.”

He laughed out loud. “Yes. Like a sneeze,
poppet.”

He left then, but just as he shut the door
behind him, he heard her repeat the name he’d called her. He
tensed, waiting to hear her cry. But she giggled merrily. He looked
at the portrait of his ancestor hanging in the hallway. “I think I
did it,” he told the bewigged man. “Yes, I think I got through to
her.”

He smiled when he realized he was talking to
a painting. This was the second time he’d done it. He spoke to
inanimate objects now. He, the Duke of Ravenhurst. “And all because
of Goldie.”

Still staring at his deceased relative, he
dwelled on all the whimsical things he’d said to her tonight.
Things he never would have thought of before meeting her. The
buckets of freckles. The fat cherubs who painted stars, diamonds,
and flowers on faces. The huge gold coins that danced. The curls
that hugged his fingers. He’d chosen those descriptions
deliberately. “Because of you, Goldie,” he told his mental image of
her. “Because they were words I knew you would take to heart.”

Unable to stop himself, he laughed loud and
long. He felt tremendous happiness.

All because of Goldie.

From the coach window, Saber looked at the
London sky. Whatever pure light the moon shed on the city was
shrouded by thick black flakes of soot and oily smoke. He slid his
gaze away from the depressing sight, allowing it to rest upon the
slight girl nestled against his shoulder. The coach’s rhythmic
rocking had finally put her to sleep. That and the fact that she’d
chattered incessantly since they’d left Leighwood at dawn. No doubt
she’d worn herself out, he decided, and suspected, too, that she
would sleep through the night without waking.

He smiled when he thought of her reasons for
wanting him to come to London. To spy on dukes, she’d said. To do
duke research. She’d even suggested they find the real Duke Marion
and stare at him. “But when we arrive, poppet,” he whispered down
to her, “I think perhaps we will learn that His Grace is in
Scotland with no immediate plans to return.”

Tracing her cheekbone with the tip of his
finger, he dwelled on what it was he felt for Goldie. Affection.
Yes. But how deep it went, he didn’t know. He knew only that during
what little time they had left together, he wanted her to feel it
for him too.

The thought made him sigh. “Goldie, what’s
to become of us? You, a free-spirited American, and I...I’ve had
the proper mode of aristocratic decorum preached to me since the
day I came into this world.”

He picked up the gold ringlet shimmering up
at him from his arm. By its own volition, it twisted around his
finger. He stared at the curl, thinking about how much like its
owner it was. Goldie, too, had wrapped herself around him so
thoroughly that he could not imagine what it would be like not to
have her with him.

He closed his eyes. “The diamond, the
dandelion,” he murmured, his heart twisting at the comparison. “Try
as I have, I cannot find the common link between the two.”

Opening his eyes, he urged her closer to
him, the thought of being without her making him want to hold her
while he still had the time to do so. Pulling a thick quilt up over
her shoulders, he peered out the window again, absently watching
London’s sordid nightlife pass by. His arm tightened around Goldie
as he watched a drunken costermonger kick an old woman’s pile of
baked potatoes out of his way. The hag screeched a torrent of
profanities at the man, then tried in vain to keep the hungry
street urchins from stealing the rolling potatoes.

He saw a public house, illuminated by the
greasy light of yellow street lamps. Whores, some old, some too
young to even understand what they were doing, loitered around the
building. Shouting came from within, and Saber guessed that a brawl
was taking place inside. His guess was confirmed when men came
shooting through the door and windows like fragments from an
explosion, their fight continuing on the filthy sidewalk.

Saber noticed the elegant carriage was
beginning to draw attention. In the past he’d always had his driver
fairly fly through this area, but he couldn’t give that order now.
Goldie’s mount, Dammit, was tied to the back of the conveyance, and
Saber knew the old horse wouldn’t be able to keep up with a quicker
pace. “Blast it,” he muttered, withdrawing one of the pistols
strapped to his side. He had a thought to close the satin
draperies, but decided against it. Yardley followed beside Dammit.
Saber felt reasonably certain that not even the most desperate
thief in London would resort to stealing Dammit, but Yardley,
blooded steed that he was, was worth a king’s ransom.

“‘Ave a ’eart, guv!” one woman shouted at
his window, her hands outstretched in readiness to catch any
coin.

“Potato, milord?” a boy yelled, and Saber
knew the lad offered him a potato filched from the woman down the
street.

“Buy me tarts!” a buxom lass begged, holding
up the fruit pies for him to see. “Buy me tarts, sir!”

“Steamin’ elder wine!”

“Sponges!”

“Buy me nutmeg, guvner! Best in all o’
London-town!”

“Chestnuts! ’Ot chestnuts!”

Most of the vendors were harmless, Saber
knew. They followed the coach only because they were desperate to
make one last sale before returning home to the slums in which they
lived. But one character in particular seemed intent on mischief.
He was loping alongside the coach, his gaze darting from Saber to
the horses following behind. “Steal my horse, will you?” Saber
murmured, raising his pistol.

At the sight of the gun, the man slowed, but
in the next instant, he charged out of Saber’s line of vision.
“Damn,” Saber cursed quietly. As gently as he could, he maneuvered
himself away from Goldie, settling her beside Itchie Bon. After
signaling for the driver to stop, he opened the door. By the time
his feet hit the squalid ground, both of his pistols were in his
hands.

The vendors backed away. Saber ignored them
and concentrated on the beefy man who had hold of Yardley’s halter.
“Are you stealing my horse, or simply admiring his silken coat?
Cates, get down here,” he ordered the Leighwood coachman. “Keep
your back to the door.”

Cates bolted down, his own gun ready in
hand. “Yes, sir,” he replied, proud that he’d remembered not to use
his lord’s title.

Saber’s eyes never left the horse-stealing
lout in front of him. “Are you deaf as well as stupid?” he asked
the ruffian. “Answer my question.”

The man snatched out his own gun, but never
even had the chance to curl his finger around the trigger.
Instantly, and quite neatly, Saber’s bullet grazed his knuckles.
The shot seemed to quiet all of London. Only the man’s surprised
moan of pain broke the heavy silence.

When the man spun and fled into the dense
night mist, Saber was careful not to let his relief show. The only
way to leave this area safely was to show no fear. Slowly, he swept
the barrel of his pistol toward the crowd. “Would anyone else care
to feel my horse’s coat?”

No one said a word. They simply stared.
“Cates, get us out of here.” When the driver moved away from the
door, Saber opened it and stepped inside. But just as he began to
close it, another man neared. Saber felt rising anger when he saw
how intently the pockmarked scoundrel looked at Goldie.

“She ain’t no bigger’n a bee’s knee, she
ain’t. An’ Gorblimey, look at ’er ’air! Canary yellow an’ curlier’n
pigs’ tails!”

Saber’s anger grew to pulsing fury. With one
firm kick, he knocked the brute away and slammed the door. The
coach jolted forward, but not before several curious costers peered
into the window, too. Saber blocked their view of Goldie with his
own body, and kept his pistol at the window. He maintained his
guard until Cates turned onto a quieter street. Only then did Saber
relax.

Here, rows of shops came into view. They
were neat, organized, and Saber knew the coach was approaching the
more civilized side of London. But the odor of the section they’d
just left had permeated the small compartment. The thought of
Goldie breathing such a disgusting smell angered Saber anew. He’d
promised to protect her, and to his way of thinking, that included
shielding her from stench as well. He signaled Cates to stop, and
purchased a bunch of wilted violets from a woman trudging her way
home. Sliding Goldie into his lap, he tucked the sweet flowers
beneath her chin. Thus, he held her until the coach finally came to
a stop.

“Goldie, we’re here, poppet. Can you wake
up, or shall I carry you?”

Her eyes fluttered, but remained closed.
“Here,” she mumbled. “Everything all right?”

He realized she was half-asleep. “Well,” he
began, and took a moment to kiss her nose, “we were accosted a
while back. Someone tried to steal Yardley, and I had to shoot the
brute. I only nicked his knuckles though.”

“That’s nice,” she answered, still drugged
with slumber.

Saber smiled, wondering what it would take
to awaken her. He decided to find out. “And London is on fire. We
rode right through the torrid blazes.”

“Fire,” she murmured into his chest,
snuggling closer to him. “Warm.”

“And after we rode through the fire, a man
shot me,” Saber continued merrily. “He put a hole through my heart.
I’m a ghost now, Goldie. You’re being held by a phantom.”