Guarded Heart (28 page)

He was frowning, she saw, and was almost certain it was not entirely in concentration. She must act soon, she was sure of it; he was far from dense, could read her much too well. Choosing her moment with care, she skipped forward in a sudden attack, met his parry, then hesitated in her turn, allowing her guard to grow slack just as she was driven back by a particularly fast and economical riposte. His blade was a flash of silver, a blur as it came toward her, slid into the batiste of her nightgown, barely missed her left hip.

His virulent oath singed the air. “God's teeth, woman, what do you think you're doing? I might have gutted you.”

It was true in its way; he might have done real damage had he been slower in his responses, less agile in the turn of his wrist. “What? You object to being allowed a touch? It seemed only fair given those you allowed me.”

“You think I'm humoring you.”

“I know it.”

“Protect yourself then,
ma belle.
”

It was what she wanted, wasn't it? She should have been happy. Instead, she shivered inside with a sudden chill that did not blend well with her frantic excitement. His eyes had an icy gleam behind their gold-tipped lashes; his mouth was set in lines of forbidding sternness. Whatever his game had been, he played no longer.

They came together with the clash of steel against steel; it clicked and clanged, slid and scraped while fiery sparks dripped down like rain. Within moments, Ariadne's brow was damp with perspiration and she could feel a slow trickle between her breasts. Her wrist was numb from the jarring power of his strokes communicated through her steel and the muscles in her arm tingled, beginning to burn. She breathed in quick gasps, grunting with effort, and she didn't care. This was a true duel and she gloried in it. He was holding nothing back and it was a thing of magic and miracle that she could meet his steel, return his attacks, execute a sudden, wrenching move or two that made him step back and square his shoulders before he began again.

The pace was measured yet incredibly fast. There was little time to think or prepare. It was war with no quarter, a battle of nerves and will and stringent, unwavering intention. She made a riposte that opened his eyes, then she was driven back, breathlessly defending. Seconds later, she heard fabric tear, felt cool air around her shins. Instantly, he retreated, stood waiting, ready for what she would do next.

Ariadne looked down at her feet in their soft slippers. She could see them because the hem of her nightgown with its frill of black lace had been cut away at her knees as cleanly as if with a dressmaker's scissors.

Was the desecration in retaliation or warning, or was it, just possibly, an attempt to make certain she did not trip on her hem this time? She could not tell, though she looked up, staring at her opponent for long seconds. His eyes were empty of all emotion there in the gloom lit only by firelight and a single candle. It was as if he had retreated from her, from the bedchamber and what he was doing in it, from what might be required of him here in its feminine confines.

Was this the way he looked on the dueling field when he faced another duelist? Did he retreat inside himself so he might not be touched by what he was forced to do?

Forced.
Why had she put it that way in her mind?

Abruptly, she realized he had not finished his account of the duel with Francis, did not want to go on with it any more than he wanted to continue with her. He didn't want to remember what had happened that fatal morning. That made her only more determined to hear everything he could be brought to tell her.

Lips tight, eyes narrowed, she came to the guard position once more. Skipping forward, her breathing ragged, she attacked as she railed at him. “Francis could not have been a match for you in any sense during your meeting. You were just arrived in town, or so I'm told, and had not become a sword master. But you were not without experience—certainly you had more maturity. Why in God's name could you not have simply drawn a little of his blood and declared yourself satisfied?”

“For the same reason this farce continues,” he answered, executing parry and riposte with fierce skill. “I was not allowed the opportunity. It had rained the night before, the grass was wet. He made a wild swing that snapped his sword in half as it struck mine. He slipped, fell forward. My sword—” He stopped, and for a second, his hand used normally for balance clenched in a fist that touched the scar he carried high on his shoulder.

A scar she had kissed. A scar Francis had given him.

“I am sometimes unlucky in my meetings.”

Pain gripped her. With it as a goad, she skimmed her foil under his arm, felt it catch shirt, bandage, skin. Then he was gone like a ghost, swinging away, coming back at her in a flurry of steel mesmerizing in its power and beauty, lethal in its control. When he drew back this time, the lace was gone from the yoke of her gown. More than that, a capped sleeve had been sliced so it barely clung to one shoulder, threatening to expose her.

“Satisfied
now?
” he asked again, his voice strained, not quite even.

She could feel his gaze on her bare skin, feel her near nakedness like a blow to the pit of her stomach. She had thought to retain a veiling of respectability in the flowing folds of her nightgown made by modest nuns. Now it was being stripped away from her. Whatever protective benefit it possessed had almost vanished. The question was how much farther he would go. Yes, and what he would do when she had no protection at all.

Her hands were shaking, her throat unbearably tight. The wild tangle of emotions inside her, anger and despair, terror and excitement, made her feel ill. She had been a fool for embarking on this desperate gamble. Now there was no way out.

His blood, the blood she had shed, gleamed wetly red in the candlelight. It added to her illness. What if he had been without fault in Francis's death? What if she had hurt him for nothing?

Lowering her sword but keeping the hilt in her clenched fist, she met his eyes. “Why?” she demanded. “Why did you agree to have me as a client? Was it simply to mock me?”

“No, no. For the sake of your
beaux yeux,
of course, and because we are so alike, both caught in the ultimate snare.”

“Which is?”

“Oh, nothing dangerous, merely self-pity.”

“Self-pity!”

“You thought it grief?” He reached out with the tip of his sword to flick away a bedraggled scrap of black lace that still hung from her hem. “You missed Francis, I don't doubt, but did you truly mourn him there in France where you had journeyed, so blithely, when he left you alone? Did you yearn to have him with you or only long to know that he was safe and whole, living the life of the bon vivant to which he so grandly aspired? Was it him you missed or only your dream of home, that place where you might always be welcomed and adored instead of being shuffled off like some stray that did not, never could, belong?”

Her heart hurt, crowding against her chest walls. The back of her nose burned with a thousand unshed tears, each one of which told her he was more right than he knew. Or perhaps not. He had said, after all, that they were the same. “You have no home either,” she said in quiet discovery.

“No. No matter how great the longing. Still I have discovered from the examples of my friends that it is better to live as if there is no pain, to find another dream to take the place of the one abandoned. Like great lumbering swamp turtles, we all carry our homes with us. They are invisible, but our own. Within them we are free to squat like ignorant peasants in hovels, spitting at fate, or to make them into palaces of our own design.”

He was a shadow touched with gold before her eyes, a wavering ghost edged with tears. She swallowed hard before she could speak. “I don't want to forget Francis.”

“Nor will you, not as long as you breathe—and what other immortality is there for any of us? Neither will I forget him.”

She shook her head, an uncertain, almost aimless gesture. “You have scars enough as reminders.”

“And will have more, of a certainty. That is still more tolerable than being beyond pain or love or life.”

“Yes,” she whispered, and turned away, trailing strings of black lace as she moved to put her foil on the nearest table, holding it there with both hands until she was certain it would not roll off, could harm no one by falling. It would have to be cleaned. But not now, not now. Her mind shied away from the thought, much less the task.

Drawing a deep breath, she said, “You will need medical attention.”

“Nothing you can't supply.”

“I don't…I'm not sure I can.”

“It would be as well, perhaps, if no one else knew of our…exchange of opinions.”

Better for her sake, he meant. “If this was the farce you called it in the beginning, isn't that taking it a little far?”

“To the last degree, yes. But then, that will be the end of it, I should imagine.”

Yes, it would have to be. There was no place for them to go from here. Her purpose was ended, as was his.

Yes, the end of it.

She glanced around, her gaze settling finally on the wash stand with its pitcher and bowl. “Then if you'll remove your shirt…”

“As you wish, madame,” he agreed, his voice soft with final acceptance. “Always as you wish.”

T
he urge to apologize bubbled up inside Ariadne like a spring released from some hidden cavern. But that was ridiculous, to flay him then regret the damage and the pain.

His cuts were not deep; he had seen to that. It was hardly surprising, considering that he had allowed them, allowed himself to be hurt in the misguided hope that she would own herself satisfied. He had, in a way, harmed himself, so why should she be sorry?

Except, of course, that it was she who had begun what might have ended as a deadly game. Or had it ever really approached that level since he had been in control from the instant she handed him a sword?

Why had she not realized that he would be? The answer was that she had, but hoped it might be counterbalanced by his old injuries and her wiles. That was where she had made her mistake, in trusting that his attention could be diverted in such a fashion. Or had she thought he would be deterred by her womanly softness? Had she counted on it?

She didn't know. She hoped it wasn't so since that argued she had meant to kill him without danger to herself. But how could she know? The chance that it would make no difference whether she was male or female had always been present.

Oh, but that was mere specious reasoning. She had known. He had let pass a thousand chances to harm her over the past days. Why should he start this evening, after they had been lovers?

She had, without doubt, been a little mad since learning of Francis's death. The things Sasha had said this morning had only added to it. How incensed she had been to think Gavin had made love to her while knowing exactly who she was and what she wanted of him, that he had tried to use her emotions to deflect her purpose. Yes, and had succeeded.

What she had done was worse. It was unforgivable. There was no point, then, in seeking absolution.

She was silent as she sponged away the blood from his cuts and wrapped them with bandaging, being careful not to touch his hot skin with her bare hands. When she had tied the last small, flat knot, she stepped away from him. “Your shirt is ruined. Again.”

“So it is. And here I am, half naked, gamboling around your pristine bedchamber like a satyr in search of female prey. And there you hover, a half-naked nymph uncertain whether to run or succumb.”

Hot color surged into her face. “The thought never crossed my mind.”

“No? Little else has exercised mine while you so diligently bound up my wounds. It's become a habit.”

“You mean…”

“I do mean,” he agreed, his smile wry. “It's the usual result of a man facing death, the urge to reaffirm life after he has survived. It seemed you might recognize it, if not share it.”

“How can you, when I just tried to kill you?”

“Perverse of me, isn't it? But no more perverse than you binding me up to heal and then slicing me open again.”

“Don't!”

“I could always hope it was for the sake of healing me a second time, since my excuses for claiming Maurelle's hospitality were scabbing over far too well. A few more could have meant a joyous extension for Nathaniel. Yes, and for his maître.”

“I'm sorry,” she cried, the words torn from her by guilt and the soft goad of his words.

“Don't be, please, for it's another insult,” he said, fingering a bit of dangling black lace that hung down from her rent neckline, lying over her breast so his knuckle grazed the nipple into a tight bud of anticipation. “Healing was the subject, not compensation for being wronged.”

“You are not the only one who has been hurt.”

He met her gaze, his own darkly blue. “Nor did I say that the healing would be one-sided. I will make for you a poultice of caresses and concern, hold you until the sweet land of forgetfulness is found, if you will undertake the same.”

But what of afterward?

The question hovered in her mind but she did not let it reach her lips. There could be no afterward; they were too different. Too much lay between them. He would return to his atelier and his male clients who understood all the desperate measures of the dueling game. She would pack her things and the little dignity she had left and return to Paris, to Europe, some place where forgetfulness was permanent. They would become strangers again as they had been so short a time ago. If they ever saw each other in years to come it would be merest accident. If she heard his name finally, after a few decades, she would shake her head, unable to recall his face, his touch, his smile, the way the light gleamed on the golden strands of his hair or turned the laughter deep in his eyes to blue magic.

Or perhaps not. She might never forget, might always remember the time spent in his arms, the infinite pleasure of his inventive love-making, the pure, drugging ecstasy of becoming lost in him. And if she did not fail to remember, then she might never forgive herself if she refused this last, bittersweet apology of the flesh.

Her gaze meandered down his face, over the perfectly made planes until it rested on his mouth. She put her hands on his shoulders, lightly, almost tentatively as she swayed toward him. He caught her around the waist, lifted her to sit upon his lap so she lay against his chest while he rocked her, burying his face in her hair. Then he rose and crossed in quick, not quite steady strides, to the bed. She felt the feather mattress give under her, felt it sag to his weight. He dropped down beside her, tearing away the last, hanging threads of her nightgown's capped sleeve, pushing it from her, removing her slippers. She helped him divest himself of boots and pantaloons and all the rest. Then they came together, heated skin to heated skin, her breasts flattened against his chest, her belly against his, their legs intertwined. The strutted heat of his maleness nestled at the notch of her thighs, a silken rigidity, perfectly accommodated.

She was painstakingly aware of his injuries. His care was directed elsewhere but was no less meticulous. She sighed and shivered with a rash of goose bumps under his sure hands and inventive mind. He murmured a litany of praise and pleas that was like quiet music, an arpeggio of desire. And between them there was no dissonance but only a slowly mounting dedication to the moment.

Taking her hand, he lifted her arm away from her body, his gaze roving over the curves of her waist and flank. “Your skin shimmers as if sprinkled with crushed pearls,” he said in quiet wonder. “To mar it would be sacrilege. Are you sure I didn't touch you?”

“You didn't,” she whispered. “You wouldn't.”

A shadow moved over his face. “Only by accident, but accidents happen.”

“They do.” She released her hand, touching the jagged scar that ran from his neck to his collarbone. “To all of us.”

“Forgive me.” Taking her hand again, he lifted it to his lips and turned the palm up, placing a kiss there, then laving the sensitive surface with the wet heat of his tongue.

A quiver ran over her while tears rose to her eyes. She bent her head to hide them, pressing her lips to that last part of his scar she could reach, whispered against that discolored, yet silken, skin and the muscled firmness underneath. “Without reservation.”

Placing her hand on her hip, he traced her spread fingers and the curves beneath it, gentling licking as if at some sweet confection. Nor did he stop there. Raising higher in the bed, he eased her to her back and rolled between her thighs to hold them open. Trailing small, hot kisses across her abdomen, he nuzzled an instant, blowing hotly into the fine curls between her legs, then angled down over the joining at her groin to reach her knee. There he licked and smoothed with delicate precision until she writhed under him in ticklish, half-mad abandon. When she could stand no more, he began again, spanning her slender waist with his hands, testing the satin surface of her abdomen, the tops of her thighs, and between. With utter faithfulness, soothing her small gasps and cries with sure caresses, he followed the same path with his lips.

His breath upon the delicate, many petaled opening of her body was warm, moist, incredibly sensuous, impossible to avoid as he held her. She caught her breath with the wonder of it, then closed her eyes and stifled a low moan as she felt the hot wetness of his lips and tongue upon her. Drifting in a purgatory of delight, she discovered how very abandoned she could be. She gave him greater access, touched the gold silk of his hair in token of permission, in beguilement at his knowledge of a woman's body, in wonder for the unrestrained intimacy of his ministrations. At the center of her being there was a hot, melting sensation and a tense emptiness that only he could assuage. She gave him her most exacting concentration in hope that he would accomplish it.

He did not fail her. Imperious, maddeningly deliberate, he laved her, tasted her, applied gentle suction until she was mindless with acquiescence. With firm hands, he cupped her flesh, holding her to him, caressed in slow circles, rolled the nipples of her breasts between his fingers with infinite care. Pleasure flowed in endless tides inside her, eddied and whirled into hot pools until her senses reached such a painful pitch that she twisted in his arms with her breath sobbing in her chest.

Her very skin felt on fire. The muscles of her abdomen and her thighs tightened, quivering. Her blood tumbled through her veins so swiftly that she felt dizzy with it. Her every gasping breath was a cry. Turning her head from side to side, she caught his shoulders with trembling hands. An instant later, she felt his bandage and released him with a moan of self-reproach for the hurt she must have caused him.

She raked her fingers through his hair instead in the enthralled need to touch and hold. Tangling her fingers in the thick strands at the nape of his neck, she drew him upward.

With a soft sound in his throat, he caught her hands, opening her arms wide as he moved inside them to gather her close. He buried his face between the tender mounds of her breasts, pressing a kiss there before turning his attention to the nipples that were beaded with need.

His body was so firm, so hot and rigid against her. She moved against him, delighting in the heaviness, inhaling his masculine scent mixed with the faint spice of his shaving soap. Desire rose like an intoxicating vapor to her brain. She wanted him closer, felt herself swell toward him while her innermost being waited in liquid suspension.

He brushed his lips across her cheekbone, feathered her eyelids as if to taste the slight saltiness before he drew back, hovering above her. His voice was strained, not quite even, as he spoke. “Hiding from this consecration is cowardly, sweet Ariadne, and unbecoming in a goddess. Will you not open your eyes and see who holds you?”

She wanted to refuse. It hovered in her mind along with a protest for the interruption, for the loss of his caresses, his so very able ministrations. Something in his voice would not allow it. More than that, she did not lack courage, would not slight him in what had become her recompense.

Still, her lashes jerked as with palsy before they obeyed her will, lifting until she could meet his gaze. How bright it was, how limitlessly blue yet marked by pupils that were so wide and dark that he appeared drugged with passion and some desperate longing that glazed his eyes with pain. “I know well who you are, Gavin Blackford, and will never forget you.”

He breathed lightly, if at all. “Hail and farewell? I do see.
Partir, c'est mourir un peu,
to part is to die a little, or so it's said. Then let us seek together the small and glorious death that is nothing of the larger one.”

The ache inside her swamped thought, blotted out the world and everything in it except the dim bedchamber and its soft feather bed shadowed by flickering firelight. Her voice barely stirred the air as she answered. “It shall be exactly as you wish it.”

His hold tightened while his vision lost focus. “If every parting is a death, then every return should be a resurrection,” he said, the words perfectly even. “Prepare yourself, for this may be a promise you will regret.”

Hard on the words, he eased into her, penetrating her engorged flesh in a purposeful and heated slide. He filled her, stretching her resilient softness to the utmost. A wordless cry rasped her throat. Sliding her hands down the ridged muscles of his flanks, she grasped his hips, holding him against her while she took him deeper, embracing him with spasmodic internal contractions.

His breath hissed through his teeth in his grasp at control. His eyes were closed now, squeezed shut, while his mouth set in a hard line. Then he began to move, swirling in abrading contact, testing her depths with small forays, withdrawing against the resistance in her every muscle only to plunge forward again. With every movement he came closer, and closer still, to a conscious rhythm, found it finally in an implacable beat as full and steady as a thudding heart.

Rapture gathered inside her, spilled over to pebble the surface of her skin with gooseflesh, bathe it in a dew of perspiration. Tentatively, she moved with him, against him, gasping at the perfect union, the sounding touches that ignited a fiery gladness inside her. It spiraled higher, too strong to be denied or encompassed alone. He felt it; she knew he did, could sense it in the fierce expression on his face, the shuddering effort of his muscles. They plunged with it, rocking while the mattress jounced on its rope supports, creaking in protest. Her breasts brushed his chest in tingling abrasion; the flat hardness of his belly was sublimely hard against her own softness. Her very bones were dissolving, her body becoming infinitely malleable as if it would conform entirely to his shape, absorb him until they were one. And the ecstasy of it rose higher, reaching, reaching for something just beyond her grasp.