Nicole Jordan (22 page)

Her eyebrows lifted curiously. She suspected that while Nicholas might not be as great a libertine as his friend, he knew what drove a rake. “You sound as if you speak from experience. Is that why you still seem to be pursuing me? Because my reluctance to be your wife presents a challenge to you?”

He cocked his head, scrutinizing her with a half-lidded gaze. “Partly, I expect. But it goes deeper than that. As implausible as it may seem, I’m motivated by concern for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. It disturbs me to see you so limited by the strict observations of widowhood. That you’re forced to lock yourself away from the world. This is not India, where widows are burned alive with their husbands’ remains.”

The tea tray arrived just then, brought by Aurora’s very proper butler. She gave a guilty start, realizing their conversation could have been overheard. Vowing to be more discreet, she fell silent until Danby bowed and withdrew.

After offering Nicholas scones and jam and small finger sandwiches, she hesitated, eyeing him uncertainly. This man was her husband; they had been together in the most intimate way possible. And yet she had no idea how he even liked his tea. “Do you care for milk or sugar?”

“Sugar, no milk. I know,” Nicholas said wryly, reading her thoughts. “For a husband and wife we are still practically strangers. Perhaps we should remedy that.”

“I see no reason for us to become more closely acquainted.”

He studied Aurora as she poured tea from the silver pot into china cups. She performed the task as she did everything else, with a graceful elegance that was the product of a lifetime of training. The perfect lady. And like most gently bred ladies, she had been raised to honor the stifling codes of society.

Yet she continued to surprise him. Aurora was not like so many of her contemporaries—shallow, vain, self-centered, arrogant—although with her breeding and beauty, she could very well have turned out that way. She had unexpected depths, intriguing facets that he found enchanting, sensual. He had been captivated this morning by the glimpse of her free spirit when she’d galloped in the park. And he’d tasted the hidden fire in her embrace more than once….

There was a keenly passionate woman beneath that ladylike exterior, and he was determined to find her, to chip away at her very proper inhibitions. She was too young to bury herself away in a living tomb of celibacy.

It wouldn’t be easy to break through her defenses, though. Not when Aurora held such an aversion to risk, when she was so determined to deny any vestige of desire. Like now. When he took the cup of tea she offered, their fingers brushed, creating a frisson of heat. Aurora drew back as if burned. Averting her gaze, she picked up her own cup, clearly intent on ignoring the attraction between them.

Nicholas felt his resolve harden. She needed shaking up, even though she didn’t know it.

“So,” he said finally. “Do you mean to live the rest of your life hiding behind your widow’s weeds?”

Her blue eyes lifted to his. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve immured yourself in a prison here. Not one of your own making, but a prison nonetheless. You’re a captive of convention and decorum, letting society dictate your every action.”

“There is nothing wrong with following the dictates of society.”

“There is if you let it drain the very life from you.”

Aurora pursed her lips together in a frown. “I am not like you, Nicholas. I want a quiet, orderly life.”

“I don’t think you do, or you never would have come to my rescue and agreed to wed a stranger.”

“Those were highly unusual circumstances. I am perfectly content with my situation.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. I enjoy a very full life, despite my current limitations. My household may be much smaller than the one I managed for my father, but it still requires effort. I write letters often—actually, I have a wide correspondence. Friends call on me frequently. I read a great deal. I ride daily….”

“Ah, yes, your secret vice. What other hidden desires do you harbor, Aurora?”

She ignored the question. “I have what I have always wanted…independence.”

“I don’t think you can call this independence. You live in constant fear of what others will think. You can’t go out in public without hiding your face or out after dark at all. You feel trapped here, you’ve intimated as much.”

“Perhaps, but only because I am determined to avoid scandal. What is acceptable behavior for a man is not at all tolerable in a lady, much less a widow.”

Determinedly, Nicholas held her gaze. “Either you’re deceiving yourself or you don’t know yourself very well. I think there are two sides of you. The woman who bows down to convention, worshiping as if it were an icon. And the one who loves galloping wildly through the park for the sheer joy of it. The same one who gave herself to a stranger in a blazing night of passion.”

He could see by the darkening of her expressive eyes that he had hit a nerve. “I think you want to escape that straitlaced prison of yours,” he pressed in a low voice, “to let yourself be a sensual woman, but you’re afraid to take the risk.”

When she didn’t respond, he drew the journal from his pocket and set it on the table before her. Aurora stared at it, her eyes very blue.

“I thought of you the entire time I was reading this. You’re very much like the anonymous lady who wrote it.”

“I cannot see any resemblance,” she replied defensively, as if embarrassed by the thought. “Our circumstances could hardly be more different. She was French, enslaved by corsairs and imprisoned in a Turkish harem. She was forced to become a concubine and engage in acts no lady would ever willingly abide.”

“She was innocent of carnal knowledge until she met a man who could fire her blood.”

“Indeed. And her…her lust came to rule her.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “Have you never wondered what it would be like to experience that kind of passion? To want someone that desperately?”

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Nick suspected he’d come close to the truth.

“I’ve wondered,” he admitted. “My father once tried to explain how he felt about Raven’s mother. He said that if I read the journal, I might understand.”

Aurora lowered her gaze, her ivory skin flushing. “It was a very compelling story,” she said finally, “but their love was doomed to fail. Desiree lost her heart to her master and became trapped by her obsession.”

“But she never regretted loving.”

“That was not the lesson I took from the journal,” Aurora murmured, although not as staunchly as before. “I thought she was foolish to allow any man to rule her heart in that manner.”

“My father believed it was better to have only one moment of true passion than never to know it at all.”

She hesitated. “And look what it gained him. A lifetime of misery, yearning for a woman he could never have.” Aurora shook her head, as if trying to convince herself. “It is far better never to give your heart than risk having it torn out.”

Nick’s gaze dropped to her tempting mouth that had hardened in resolve. A rush of desire swept over him as he thought of transforming her stubborn conviction into melting surrender.

Nicholas drew a ragged breath at the erotic image. “I think you are a woman like Desiree, Aurora. You have the same wild spirit.”

She set down her cup unsteadily. “You’re mistaken.”

His gaze never faltered. “What is it that frightens you about that notion? That you could feel passion that intense? Or that you could be jolted out of that cocoon you’ve wrapped around yourself?”

She rose abruptly. “I think you should go, Nicholas.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he set down his own cup and stood. When he closed the distance between them, she didn’t back away, obviously determined not to let him intimidate her.

Deliberately he took her hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a kiss on the inner flesh of her wrist. She stood defiantly, unmoving, yet her cheeks flushed, betraying her struggle for control. More revealing, he could see the yearning of long-suppressed desire in her eyes.

She was ripe for passion, for life, Nicholas knew. She desperately needed to be freed from the rigid shackles that bound her, and he was the only man to do it. But he wouldn’t fight her just yet. The battle had scarcely begun, and he could be patient.

“I am not mistaken, siren,” he said softly. “I’ve tasted all that sweet fire hidden beneath your layers of cool reserve. There’s a sensual, passionate woman waiting to be set free. And I intend to find her.”

With a brief bow, he turned and walked away.

Aurora stood frozen, staring after Nicholas’s retreating back. When he had left, she let out a shaky breath. Her heart was still hammering in her chest from his nearness, his sheer magnetism.

How did he always manage to overwhelm her that way? How could he make her blood race with a simple touch, turning her knees to water and her willpower to jelly? Why did he kindle such inner turmoil? He brought out the worst in her—dark emotions she didn’t want to feel. This time, however, his probing questions had unnerved her as much as his physical presence and his provoking behavior.

Weakly she sank into her chair. Was Nicholas right? Was she like Desiree? Did she have a wild spirit just waiting to be set free?

Certainly she was a different woman since meeting Nicholas Sabine…driven by desires she had never known before. She had fought her powerful attraction to him, along with the restless yearning he roused in her so effortlessly, but it was there, simmering below the surface.

Uncertainly Aurora picked up the journal he had left for her. She had been shocked by the explicit sensuality she’d found there, but the love story had captured her imagination. Vulnerable to her master’s gentle seduction and exotic temptations, Desiree had been swept up in a storm of passion she never before imagined….

What would it be like to know such incredible passion? To be overwhelmed by the madness of love, the blindness of desire? To experience feelings so powerful they could blot out any vestiges of wisdom and reason?

She’d had a fleeting taste of such passion on her wedding night, Aurora remembered unwillingly.

The book fell open to a well-worn page:

I love the many parts of you. I love your hard flesh so deep inside me. I love the weight and strength of you, so powerful against my softness. I love your feverish hunger, your desire that makes me feel so much a woman.

Aurora shut her eyes.
Nicholas.
He reminded her so very much of the Frenchwoman’s lover—bold, virile, vibrantly sensual. Like the prince in the journal, he had awakened a woman’s tender longing deep within her.

Against her will, her mind flashed to a vision of their marriage bed, the two of them together…Nicholas making love to her with such fierce tenderness, moving inside her, filling her with the pleasure she needed, wanted.

The same pleasure his dark eyes had promised moments ago.

She shivered. She would not allow herself to surrender to the promise in his eyes. She dared not yield to him, no matter how his touch set her blood racing.

Still, she couldn’t deny her hungry yearning.

Chapter Twelve

Over the course of the next few days, Aurora found herself cursing Nicholas Sabine more and more readily. The man was dangerous to her peace of mind. By night, he haunted her dreams. By day, the anticipation of seeing him filled her with a taut, achy restlessness that would not leave her.

When she did encounter him, whether on her morning rides in the park or at some other venue, she always experienced a jolt, the same shivering awareness she’d felt when she’d first seen him on the quay in St. Kitts. Now, however, when she met his intense gaze, the heat in his dark eyes and the unguarded message it conveyed scorched her like hot coals.

She couldn’t avoid seeing him wherever she went, possibly because Nicholas had an ally in his sister; Raven evidently was in league with him, inviting Nicholas on their various shopping expeditions. He made their meetings look accidental and innocuous, but Aurora knew his campaign was carefully planned with the precision of a military general.

She had no idea how to defend herself against such tactics. She had never before been the object of such single-minded determination. Nicholas was like a powerful storm sweeping everything in its path, destroying her equanimity in the process. No matter how she strove to remain serene and aloof, to disregard his sensual, ruthless charm, she found it impossible. He was outrageous, bold, provocative…irresistible.

But it was the deeper feelings he roused in her that were the graver threat. He had only to breathe to stir a fierce ache of uneasy emotions inside her.

She considered fleeing London for a time just to escape. Only yesterday she’d received a letter from Geoffrey’s mother, Lady March, asking her to visit. Geoffrey’s ten-year-old brother Harry was proving a handful, and Lady March claimed Aurora was the only one who could control him.

Yet she couldn’t leave London, Aurora knew. She would not act the coward. And she had a solemn obligation to support Raven. Moreover, her father was in Sussex—the Eversley and March estates adjoined—and she had no wish to encounter the duke, even to escape Nicholas.

She thought she understood what drove his pursuit. It almost seemed as if he were wooing her, but Aurora felt certain her appeal stemmed from the challenge she presented. Winning her was a
game
to Nicholas. He was incited by the thrill of the chase.

She began to wonder if resistance was the right course. If she ever actually surrendered to him—if she allowed him to win—perhaps then he might give up the hunt and go home, sparing them both endless grief. She didn’t
want
Nicholas running her life, dictating how she should behave, what she should feel. It was the height of arrogance for him to presume to know her mind better than she herself did. He had compared her to the Frenchwoman in the journal, and perhaps there
were
similarities, Aurora acknowledged. But she had no room in her life for wildfire passions raging out of control, nor any desire for the kind of pain such passion could engender.