Elizabeth Thornton (36 page)

Whimpering, she pulled herself up and away from those tantalizing kisses and the brush of those beguiling hands.

“What’s wrong, Abbie?” he asked softly. “Don’t you want me to?”

Yes. No. She didn’t know what was wrong except that she was in an erotic haze and couldn’t think straight. The
ripe flavor of their lovemaking clung to her skin, and her thighs were sticky. She was just beginning to discover what it meant to be a man’s lover, and she didn’t know if she was ready for it. They didn’t talk. All they did was this.

When his warm hand palmed her breast, she jerked away from him.

“Abbie!” The sensual color in his voice had faded as had the caressing touch of his hands. “No, don’t turn away from me. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

That was the problem. They didn’t talk. And it didn’t flatter her ego to know that he had only one use for her.

She didn’t want to quarrel with him, so she gave him a reason that was close to the truth. “Everything is happening too fast. I don’t know what you expect from me.”

Hugh knew he could have her very easily. He could sense her arousal. If he persisted, in another minute or two he could sheathe himself in her warm, willing flesh and take her on that wild ride to oblivion he’d been thinking about since he last took her there.

But he also sensed the resentment behind her confusion, and he understood that too. Since bringing her here, he’d made her spend most of her time on her back.

Maybe he wasn’t as civilized as he thought.

The thought irritated him. Such things would never have occurred to him if Abbie hadn’t called him a gladiator. Other women had called him worse, but other women didn’t know him as Abbie did. Only Abbie’s opinion counted; only Abbie could hurt him. And, by damn, how she could hurt him.

He pulled back from her. “I’m glad you brought that up,” he said, “because there is something I want to say to you.”

He swung out of bed, lit a taper from the embers in the grate, then put the flame to the candles on the
mantelpiece. When he came back to her, she had the sheet drawn up to her chin. He reached for his shirt, not because he was cold, but because he thought she’d be more comfortable without the evidence of his arousal betraying where his thoughts were taking him.

“Abbie,” he said, “I don’t think it’s such a good idea for us to be lovers. I mean, I want us to come to some arrangement where we both get what we want. Are you with me so far?”

“I think so,” she said.

Her eyes were huge and steady on his. Her hair was a golden haze and fell around her shoulders in a sensual riot. She was more than beautiful, more than intelligent. So brave yet so fragile, his Abbie.

He chose his words with care. “You told me you wanted children. Is that true, Abbie?”

She tossed her hair back, draping it over her shoulders. In a prosaic voice he knew so well, she said, “We can’t always have what we want.”

“In this case, we can. You want children. I want you. Marriage, Abbie. It’s the perfect solution for us.”

She was afraid to believe him, afraid to hope. She said cautiously, “We don’t have to get married. We can wait and see if I’m pregnant first.”

He put the flat of his hand on her belly, over the sheet, and gently massaged it. “You’re missing the point, Abbie. I want to make you pregnant. It pleasures me to think of my seed growing inside you.”

She didn’t know how such cold-blooded words could make her feel so hot. But when she looked up at him, she saw that he wasn’t as unmoved as he pretended to be. He was watching her with eyes that were both heated and wary.

She leaned back on her elbows as she studied him. “You’ve really thought this out, haven’t you, Hugh?”

More than she realized. “Is that yes or no?”

She felt a sudden shiver of apprehension as she pictured Hugh coming face-to-face with Nemo. Hugh was only one man and he was mortal. What did it matter if he wanted her for only one thing? Who knew what would happen tomorrow or next week?

“Yes,” she said with a catch in her voice, and she held out her arms to him.

A slow smile spread across his face. He pulled back the sheet, climbed into bed, and spread her legs.

“Easy,” he said, as she began to shudder. “This time let’s savor the pleasure.”

And he showed her what he meant, tormenting her with intimate, lingering caresses until her body ached for release. Her hands ran over his back, testing the hard muscles that rippled as he moved rhythmically inside her. He was lean, hard, and powerfully built. But he was just a man, and she was so terribly afraid of what could happen to him.

When her body convulsed under the driving pressure of his, she began to weep, and not all his frustrated entreaties could coax her into telling him what was the matter with her.

Hugh lay brooding for a long time after Abbie had tumbled into sleep.

S
he slept well into the afternoon of the following day and was finishing her toilette, when she was startled by an almighty crash that came from the parlor. She was out the bedroom door in a flash, dashed into the parlor, and came to a sudden halt. Hugh was sitting at the table and had evidently been writing a letter. There was a young footman on his knees, gathering up broken china that lay scattered on the floor, and he was cursing furiously. The curses stopped when he saw Abbie.

“Bleedin’ dishes slipped right out o’ my ’ands,” he said.

“Tom?” said Abbie. “Good grief, it is you! I hardly recognize you.”

“That,” said Hugh, “is because Tom is wearing a borrowed suit of livery—as a disguise. It’s just a precaution.”

She chanced a quick glance at Hugh, then looked away. She knew that her color was high but could do nothing about it. After the night they’d shared, she was surprised she could still walk. Her body was tender all over, and each movement brought some memory or other vividly to mind.

To cover her embarrassment, she concentrated on
Tom. “And very smart you look, too, Tom,” she said, admiring the dark blue coat with silver buttons, the gray breeches, and the white silk stockings and gloves. “But what have you done to your hair?”

“It’s powdered,” he said, “ ’cos I ain’t ’aving no borrowed wig stuck on my ’ead. Who knows what’s breeding in it? Them things is alive.”

To give herself something to do, she bent down and began to help pick up the pieces of china.

“We’re lucky,” said Tom, “that I brung the dishes first. What if I’d brung in the servers of food? There’d be a right mess to clean up, that’s wot.” He tore off his white gloves. “That’s it, then,” he said. “You either sends me back to the stables where I belongs, Mr. Templar, sir, or I does my work without these confounded gloves.”

“Gloves?” said Abbie.

“It appears,” said Hugh, “that Tom’s fingers are useless when he’s wearing gloves. But footmen wear gloves, and not to do so would make him conspicuous.”

“Wellington doesn’t wear no gloves, not even at balls,” Tom pointed out.

“You are not the Duke of Wellington.”

Abbie intervened tactfully. “You wear gloves in the stables, don’t you, Tom?”

“That’s different. I’m not ’andling dainty dishes, or slippery silver servers. I’m not ladling out soup or pouring out wine or doling out dollops o’ potatoes. Stable work ain’t dainty. It’s rough.”

“Let me see your hands,” said Hugh.

Tom held out his hands. The grime was ingrained, and there was dirt under the ragged fingernails.

“Wear the gloves,” said Hugh, “and Miss Vayle and I will serve ourselves.”

Tom sniffed. “As you wish,” he said.

When the broken plates were gathered onto the tray and Hugh left to lock the door after Tom, Abbie wandered over to the table where there was a silver coffeepot and fresh cup and saucer. She was drinking coffee and looking out the window when Hugh returned. The scrape of his chair told her that he’d seated himself at the table.

“Abbie?”

Her cup jerked, and droplets of coffee spilled on her chin. She dabbed them with a handkerchief as she turned to face him. “Yes, Hugh?”

“Good. I thought you were never going to look at me. Now sit down.”

She sat.

His brows were two dark slashes knit together. “I’m not apologizing for what happened last night, and I won’t have you feeling guilty about it either. What we did was natural. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Maybe I was too ardent, but I would have stopped if you had asked me to. Always remember that: I’ll stop if you ask me to.”

She looked down at her hands. Apologize for those hours of joy in his arms? For the sweetest pleasure she had ever known? “I don’t feel guilty and I don’t want you to apologize.”

“Look at me,” he said softly.

She lifted her eyes to meet his. Whatever he saw there seemed to please him. With the back of his fingers, he lightly brushed her cheek. The gesture made her feel cherished.

“Abbie, why did you cry last night? Afterward, why did you cry?”

For any number of reasons. Because his proposal had
seemed so cold-blooded; because she wanted him to love her. But most of all, because she was so terribly afraid.

She leaned forward in her chair, her hands spread out on the table. “Tell me the truth, Hugh,” she said. “Do you think George is still alive?”

“So that’s it!” He studied her for a moment, then went on. “Yes, Abbie. Now that I’ve had time to reflect on it, I believe that George is alive. Think about it. If George were dead, there would be no point in concealing his body. Nemo would want us to know that he’d taken his revenge.”

She’d used words like those to comfort her family, and to hear them on Hugh’s lips calmed her a little. “Then where is George? And what does Nemo want with him?”

“I don’t know, Abbie. But it isn’t hopeless. I’ll find Nemo, I promise you. And when I have him, I’ll have your brother as well.”

She felt anguish contract her heart. She didn’t want Hugh to meet Nemo. Whatever happened, she wanted Hugh to be safe. She didn’t want him to leave these rooms until someone else had dealt with Nemo. But there
was
no one else.

He saw the anguish and tried to distract her. “I’ve been making some notes,” he said, indicating a sheet of paper on the table, “just some stray thoughts to fill the time until Harper gets here. But there are gaps in my knowledge. You can help by going back to the beginning, to Paris, and tell me all that you remember.” When he saw the misery swimming in her eyes, he added, “This could be important, Abbie.”

She took a sip of coffee, sniffed, and cast her mind back to the bookshop in the Palais Royal. “Little did I suspect,” she said, “that when I entered Dessene’s bookshop
fate was lying in wait for me. It seems strange, now, that that meeting with Colette should have slipped from my mind. It certainly turned all our lives upside down. But at the time it was all so ordinary.”

When she paused, he said, “You remember the girl?”

“Not very well. As I said, I wasn’t really paying attention. I remember that she was young, younger than I am. And she was pretty. She tipped over my basket of books. That’s when she must have passed me the book for Michael Lovatt. Almost immediately afterward, a group of Lifeguards entered the shop. One said, in French, ‘I’ve never had an English girl before.’ He was looking right at me and the others laughed. I was so frightened, I just wanted to get out of there. George hadn’t heard, and I didn’t tell him.”

She found her handkerchief and blew her nose. “Do you know what I think, Hugh? I think Nemo was that soldier who spoke to me. I think he knew that Colette was hiding in the back of the shop, and he wanted to get rid of George and me. She must have known she’d been spotted, and that’s why she put the book in my basket. Then Nemo murdered her. He told me so himself. He said he put a bullet in her brain.”

Her voice cracked. “Why didn’t she appeal to George and me for help? We could have done something if only we’d known.”

“You would have been killed too. Colette knew that. And you did the one thing she wanted you to do. You left with the book.”

“Only to have it impounded by British customs!” she said furiously. “A great help I turned out to be!”

“Then we owe Miss Fairbairn the credit, since if she hadn’t written that letter, we wouldn’t have known about Nemo.”

His smile coaxed an answering smile from her, and
some of her tension drained away. Not long after, Tom returned with a laden tray, and as they ate she recounted everything she could remember, while Hugh took notes. When he stopped asking questions, she rose and moved restlessly around the room, then she stood by the window and looked out.

It had started to rain. In the street below, carriages were coming and going, and people were walking briskly, coat collars turned up, a few with umbrellas. Ordinary people, on an ordinary day. She wished with all her heart that she could be one of them.

She heard Hugh rise from his chair, then he was behind her, arms encircling her, hands slipping over her ribs to cup her breasts. She couldn’t hide how he affected her. Her breathing became erratic, her breasts seemed to swell to fill his hands. She felt his mouth against the curve of her neck, and she shivered.

His voice was husky. “I need this,” he said. “I need you. Will you come to bed with me, Abbie?”

She turned in his arms and kissed him. When she drew away, he rewarded her with one of his rare, unconsciously sweet smiles.

She led the way. He undressed them both and entered her almost immediately. It was what she wanted. Her body ached for him. At the end, his hands gripped her so strongly she knew that there would be bruises, but she needed that too.

They were still joined, still breathing hard, when he raised his head and looked down at her. His eyes were shaded with apology. “Abbie, I shouldn’t have done that. I should have taken my time with you. I—”

She raised her head from the pillow, twined her arms around his neck, and set her mouth to his in a long, slow, sensual kiss.

“Thank God,” he said, when he pulled himself from her. He began to dress. “I’ve never done that before.”

She reached for her chemise. Her tone was dry. “Then all I can say is Desdemona, Catalina, and Mercedes don’t know what they’ve missed.”