Sattler, Veronica (48 page)

Observing
the incomparable beauty of the tiny woman before him, Brett knew a moment of
regret. She was so exquisitely lovely sitting there, her cheeks tinted with a
rosy flush, ebony hair framing her beautiful face so enchantingly with ringlets
that had escaped the thin twist of blue silk. And her eyes, when she'd raised
them to his briefly, were the same hue they'd assumed when she lay beneath him
in passion....

With
a muttered curse, Brett brought himself back to the present. She was a lying,
deceitful bitch who'd barely warmed his marriage bed before playing him false!
She might be beautiful, but beyond that, she was a deserting wife... a cheat...
a betrayer... a...
woman
! And here she spoke of her shame with an order
for him to
leave
in the same breath!
Shame!

A
shriveling sneer twisted his lips as he gave her his softly spoken retort.
"Your Grace, I haven't
begun
to teach you the meaning of
shame."

Ashleigh's
lashes fluttered open as she raised anxious eyes to his, all anger gone at the
impact of his words. In its place came a hard, cold knot of fear that settled
in the region of her stomach. "Oh, Brett," she pleaded, as frightened
tears stung her eyes, "won't you please listen to me? I can explain if
you'll just—"

An
ugly bark of mocking laughter cut her off.
"Explain! Explain, Ashleigh?
I fail to see the need for any explaining! Indeed, your actions have been
quite clear. Having lived up to the letter of your brother's enforced bargain
with me, you promptly sought to rid yourself of a slight encumbrance you found
yourself saddled with: the small matter of a
husband!"

Tears
streamed down Ashleigh's cheeks as she shook her head in denial of his words.
"Brett, no!" she cried. "It wasn't that way at all!"

"Oh
it wasn't, was it?" he mocked viciously, and the bite of his tone cut
Ashleigh to the quick.

"No!"
she shouted through her tears, a thread of anger returning to her voice.
"You're making it sound all wrong, ugly, somehow, and I cannot bear to
think you would believe I—"

"Oh,
I can believe it, all right," he sneered, "of you... of them,"
he added, pointing to an ivory carving of several dancing female figures
resting on a low table nearby,
"of every female alive!
You are
perfidy itself!"

He
was bending forward now, the heels of both hands braced on the rim of the tub
while he excoriated her sex. As he spoke, his fierce gaze was riveted on her
face, his eyes scorching her with turquoise heat.

But
Ashleigh thought she caught something else in his eyes, hiding behind the rage.
Recalling some things Megan had told her about the way his grandfather had
raised him, she had, at the same moment, a vision of a small boy trying
desperately to hold back his tears as his mother's portraits were being
stripped from the walls. And suddenly she understood what was happening.
Suddenly she understood why, no matter what her own feelings were, she had been
wrong—cruelly wrong— to leave him.

Leaning
forward until her face was only inches from his, she cried in urgent tones,
"Brett, have done with this hatred! I am
not
your enemy!"

Brett's
voice was dangerously soft. "Oh, aren't you?" he questioned.

"No!"
she spat, her compassion forgotten at the loathing she read in his response.

"And
I say you are!" he thundered, "You, and your kind, more than
any!"

"My
kind!"

"Yes,
you with your surface look of honesty and innocence! You are the most dangerous
of all as with your guileless eyes and sweet words you lull a man into
believing he might finally trust, might finally—
ah, hell!"

White
with rage, he took her shoulders and jerked her forward, his fingers biting
cruelly into her flesh. Then his hands fell to her waist, and he hauled her
roughly out of the tub.

Ashleigh's
eyes widened with shock as she found herself lowered to the marble floor, water
sluicing off her while she met his anguished gaze. "Oh, Brett," she
whispered brokenly, "I never meant to—"

But
she never completed her sentence. His mouth came slashing down across hers with
a harsh cry. Stunned for a moment by the abrupt reversal in his actions, she
didn't move a muscle as his arms came about her unclad form and drew her
tightly to him.

But
then she felt another change in him. The mouth that had swooped over hers like
a hard, punishing thing began to work more slowly, his lips becoming softer,
more pliant, as they molded hers in warm, sensual movements. Under this gentler
onslaught, Ashleigh found her mouth opening to him, admitting the light thrust
of his questing tongue.

When
his tongue touched the tip of hers, she felt a fire ignite into a now familiar
coil of pleasure at the base of her belly, and she shuddered, quickly reaching
wet, slender arms about his neck.

This
brought a groan from Brett, and he lowered one hand to span her buttocks,
pulling her more closely against his hips where she felt the rigid proof of his
desire through the skintight breeches. His mouth shifted to her ear, then to
her hair where he muttered hoarsely, "Damn you, Ashleigh! I've never
wanted anyone this way before!"

Ashleigh's
own passion was soaring and before it grew out of control, she wanted to reach
him, to try one more time to make him understand. "Brett," she
murmured as he buried his lips in her hair, "Brett, you must understand. I
left you because I was afraid—"

Her
voice reached Brett through the haze of passion that was building to a fever pitch,
and so it was that he only heard the words "I left you," but to him,
it was more than enough.

"Damn
your cheating soul, you bitch!" he shouted, all traces of passion gone as
he thrust her violently from him. "Get yourself out of my sight!"

Ashleigh
staggered backward from the force of his shove, and she lost her footing on the
now slippery marble floor. Bending her knees and twisting with outthrust hands
to break her fall, she landed on the back side of her thigh; this cushioned her
fall but was nonetheless painful, yet, when she raised the back of her wrist to
her open mouth, it was not the physical pain she stifled.

Brett
stood over her, making no move to help her up or in any way come to her aid.
Instead, an expression of contempt crossed his features as he snarled at her
with ill-concealed loathing. "How appropriate! Stay there, you bitch, for
that's where you belong—on the floor with the other dogs!" And with a
parting look of pure hatred, he pivoted and quit the alcove.

A
slim ray of morning sunlight found its way through the drapes that had been
drawn over the single window of Megan's chamber at the White Horse Inn. It
slanted across the narrow, empty rope bed and onto the wide-planked oak floor
where there was a tangle of blankets, sheets and pillows.

From
this mass of bedding Patrick cocked one eye open to see what it was that had
dared disturb his blissful state. Noting the culprit was nothing more than an
errant sunbeam, he grunted, closed the eye again and reached for the
long-limbed woman who lay sleeping beside him.

Megan
stirred, then snuggled contentedly into the comforting warmth of his big body.
A moment later a smile curved her lips when she felt his beard-stubbled chin
nuzzle her ear.

"Faith,
but ye be needin' a shave, ye big
aulaun,"
she murmured as the
smile widened to a grin.

This
time Patrick opened both eyes and raised his head to see a pair of slanting
green eyes meeting his gaze. "Ah, so 'tis complainin' ye are,
ma d
ílse,
and so soon after our first night t'gither!" he grinned while
responding in a fair imitation of the brogue he'd come to love.

Megan's
eyes became two limpid pools of sea-green water while she shook her head and
whispered, "No,
macushla,
no complaints."

Patrick's
blue eyes held a twinkle as he bent to kiss the tip of her nose. "I should
hope not!" he growled. Then his blue gaze softened with infinite warmth.
"I love you," he told her.

Megan's
eyes shut with the sweet pain this wrought; she reached for him with trembling
arms, burying her face in his shoulder in an effort to contain the emotions
coursing through her.
He loved her,
and she returned that love with a
fierceness she hadn't thought possible. Indeed, when he'd seen her up to her
chamber after supper last night and taken her in his arms just outside her door
to give her that first intoxicating kiss, she'd been totally unprepared for the
emotions that rocked her. Oh, she'd been expecting the kiss for some time,
considering her awareness of their incipient attraction to each other. But Patrick
had curbed his appetite and bided his time, wanting, as he'd confided last
night, to be sure their emotions were of the kind that endure, something more
than just a passing infatuation.

And
she had not rushed things, either; but on her part the lingering had had more
to do with fear. She'd been grossly afraid that she'd be unable to respond to
him physically, for she had been like stone to every man she'd taken to her bed
in the years at Hampton House. Well aware that she'd always had to fake all the
ardor she displayed in her former profession, she had feared that she was, by
nature, cold and unresponsive in the physical sense.

So
Patrick's kiss caught her by surprise, awakening a passion she'd been convinced
did not exist, and Megan had soared on wings of rapture last night, eagerly
greeting his whispered suggestion that they spend the night in her chamber. And
the joy they'd found together! That the chamber's single narrow bed was
inadequate to hold a pair their size had not daunted them. They'd gaily torn
the bedding away and thrown it on the floor, and themselves after it, giving
themselves up gladly to their passion.

Yes,
it had been wonderful, but during the course of the night, when she'd come to
realize she was falling in love with him, and now in the wake of his own
declaration, a deeper fear had seized her. How, in the name of all the saints,
was she going to tell him what she was, or rather, what she'd been?

Oh,
it was true that, as he'd begun to undress her there on the floor last night,
she'd stopped him briefly to give him a solemn look and said, "Patrick,
I'm no virgin." And it was also true that he'd taken in her words silently
for several agonizing seconds before he'd responded, "Neither am I,"
and then gone on to kiss her with such sweet, tender warmth, she'd found her
gladdened senses spinning.

But
admitting to a loss of maidenhood was a far cry from confessing to five years
of whoredom! And yet now she knew, no matter if it cost her everything, she
must tell him. It was part and parcel of the underlying honesty that formed her
character. He loved her, and she could no more deceive this man who'd confessed
it and come to mean so much to her than she could deceive herself. He had to
know.

Slowly,
agonizingly, knowing the risk she was taking, Megan drew back within the circle
of their embrace and raised tremulous eyes to his. "Patrick," she
said, her voice barely above a husky whisper, "I must tell ye
somethin'."

"Yes,
ma d
ílse!"
he inquired softly, arrested by the pain he
suddenly saw in the green eyes.

Megan
swallowed, almost convulsively, then continued in a hesitant voice.
"D-d'ye recall me tellin' ye last night I was no virgin?"

Patrick
nodded and smiled, then reached to hold her head gently between his huge hands.
"Yes, I recall it, but you were wrong," he told her.

At
her puzzled expression, he continued. "You may have been without a
physical maidenhead, my darling, but I knew, from the moment I caught the
surprise in your eyes at your own passion, that your body was responding for
the first time."

Startled
that he'd perceived so much, Megan's eyes grew wide; then she nodded. "Ye
read me well, Patrick. But ye see, there's more to it than—than that."
Oh,
Holy Mother Mary, this is so hard!
she cried inwardly, then forced another
swallow to dislodge the lump forming in her throat. Lowering her eyes, afraid
to see the disgust in his face when he learned the truth, she made herself
continue. "Ye see, Patrick, before I knew ye—"

"You
were accustomed to faking your passion," he finished for her, a queer and
tender expression in his eyes when hers flew up to meet them. "But, Megan,
macushla,
I'm hardly surprised, for what else could a sensitive soul
like yourself have done at Hampton House?"

Megan's
eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth, but still, a gasp of shock
escaped. "You
knew?"

Patrick's
eyes held only tenderness and warmth as he raised one hand and caressed her
cheek in a soft, loving gesture. "I knew," he nodded.

Megan's
face was an incredulous mask of shock, then dawning joy, before she threw
herself into his arms with a sharp cry. "And ye can still say
ye love
me?"
she questioned, her words breaking through a sob.