Sweet Bea (17 page)

He shifted and stilled.

Beatrice plunged forward. “We are taught pride goes before destruction and I should know that by now. Except, this time, I have dragged you and Tom and Ivy and Newt with me. And I have no idea how to fix it.”

She wobbled and put her hands on the ground for balance. “You have been so good to me.” After all Garrett had done for her, she’d repaid him with heaping a greater load on his shoulders. “I asked and you dropped everything and agreed to lead me to London. Tom has not been fair to you, but you have not allowed him to provoke you. I am grateful for that, too. When I rushed in to help Ivy, you saved both of us and you were tender with her. And today when you were ready to ring my neck, you rescued Newt and did not, once, threaten to box my ears.”

Garrett tightened his jaw.

Her chest ached. She’d only made him angrier. “You are a good man, Garrett, and I do not deserve any of the kindness you have shown me.”

She’d said what needed to be said, but it was cold comfort. With Garrett still sitting as if he’d been carved from the tree. Nurse always said doing the right thing was its own reward. Nurse was wrong. Her misery was like a dull blade sawing through the center of her. “I am done. I wanted to thank you for your kindness and beg your pardon for causing you all this trouble.”

She shifted away.

“Stay.”

* * * *

Garrett was speechless. What had she bloody done? He was done for. Nobody had demanded an apology of her. Yet Beatrice had come and thrown herself on his mercy. Jesu. Her sweetness ran right the way through to the bone. It tied him in tighter and tighter knots. He’d made the mistake of thinking her lack of guile worked to his advantage. And it had. Up to a point. It also completely disarmed him.

You are a good man, Garrett, and I do not deserve any of the kindness you have shown me.

He ground his teeth together until his jaw ached.
Nay, I am not. I am a bastard and a whoreson. I am a conniving churl, looking to use you to exact my revenge.

You are a good man, Garrett, and I do not deserve any of the kindness you have shown me.

And as she’d said those words, he’d known it—for one moment—the sharp need to be that man. What was he to make of any of this?

He latched his hand behind her neck and tugged her forward. Her face inches from his, he could read her eyes. All she was, right there for him to see in its purity. He soiled her merely by touching her, and yet his hand wouldn’t uncurl from her nape and release her. She ran like a fever through his blood.

“Beatrice, what am I to do with you?” He hadn’t intended to speak.

“I am not sure.”

Garrett bit off a short bark of surprised laughter.

“I think, mayhap, you should leave me here to my own devices and go back to your life. I did not want you to leave me in anger though.”

Garrett’s groan rose from the deepest part of him. Where was his anger now? She said the very thing he’d been brooding on. God’s bones, but she invited him to go. Perversely, it made him reject the notion.

“And what would happen to you if I left you here?”

“I should get along.” She gave her chin a valiant lift, but the pillowy softness of her lips trembled “I might not reach London, but I should get along.”

“Beatrice the Brave.” Christ, she was killing him. She had such courage, just no understanding of where her true strength lay.

She dropped her gaze to the ground.

He couldn’t see in this light, but Garrett was willing to bet his right arm her cheeks were flushed with color.

Garrett marveled at her; at the same moment he wanted to shake some sense into her. She had no weapons to ward off predators. She was like a hedgehog without its prickles or a rose without its thorns. It wasn’t his job to be her protector, his mind screamed at him, but the rest of him wasn’t listening. It was looking, at the clear lines of her face. There was no artifice to Beatrice. She concealed nothing.

She’d known he was angry with her. Instead of puffing up with feminine outrage, she’d slunk over here and offered him the sweetest apology he’d ever heard. Not because of it being lyrically worded, but more because she made no excuses for herself. How did one fight someone who kept scattering flowers in your path?

“Beatrice.” He’d never been as she. Not even when he was a small child. “You give away pieces of yourself too easily.”

Look at how she was with him. Never once had she questioned his intent. She refused to take note of Tom, her best friend. She’d opened herself to him like a flower before the sun. It had made her an easy target for such as he. A nasty shock sparked through him. What would happen when he was gone? Would she be as vulnerable to the next sod with murky intentions? And suddenly, he couldn’t bear the thought. Or worse, the idea Beatrice would grow bitter and hard. That she would lose the wondrous, openhearted embrace with which she viewed the world.

“I am a big girl. There are enough pieces to go around.” She squared her slim shoulders.

Nay.

He wanted to gather up the parts of her she scattered around and keep them just for himself. The thought was like a rusty blade to his vitals. He craved all the pieces of Beatrice for himself.

He fastened his hungry mouth on hers.

She came without resistance.

Fight me,
part of him wanted to shout.
Open your beautiful eyes and see me for the rotten, miserable whoreson I am.

She sighed and opened her mouth beneath his.

A better man would have chastely saluted her lips and sent her back to bed. But he wasn’t a better man. He was the son of a traitor and a whore and the rot went right to the core of him.

He thrust his tongue into her mouth bringing his hands to cup her face and drag her closer to him. He wanted all of her, to grab the sweetness that was Beatrice and drink until he grew sick with it.

And, sweet Jesu help him, but she gave, as she did everything else, freely and wholeheartedly.

* * * *

Garrett kissed her like he was desperate for the taste of her. His mouth devoured hers.

The woman in her thrilled, as the girl grew shy. She almost pulled back, but as if he sensed her withdrawal, his mouth grew hotter and hungrier.

He wanted her.

It was intoxicating, to know he felt it, too. This yearning for each other.

His hand tangled in her hair, demanding she yield to him.

There was no resistance. She was his for the taking. She slid her hands around his neck, pulling him to her. That awful chasm between them closed. Still, too far. She inched closer to him.

He groaned.

The sound tugged at her matching need.

His hands were rough on her legs as he pulled her onto his lap.

This was where she needed to be.

His thighs were hard beneath hers. His chest rubbed the aching points of her breasts. He parted her legs until she straddled him.

It was beyond improper, but Beatrice exalted. Her thighs were spread across his. Her aching core met his hardness. The intimate contact rippled through her. She should be shocked, but she had to have this. She wanted much more and she had no thought of how to ask for it with words. Small, needy sounds escaped her to get swallowed in the heat of his mouth. Her body knew what to do.

Garrett rocked her against him. There. He pressed her where the ache was keenest.

Her skin was too tight to contain the restless hunger. “Aye.” She pressed harder; she was where she had to be.

“Beatrice, you should stop me.” His chest heaved.

“Nay.” She could not get enough of him. More. She wanted more and more. Beatrice moved on him of her own accord trying to assuage the clamor driving her on.

His hands tightened around her bottom before slipping beneath her tunic.

They were fiery on the bare skin of her back. Beatrice tugged her belt. She craved his touch on every part of her. She wanted to feel his skin touch hers.

He closed his hands over her breasts. His long fingers stroked her nipples.

The ache grew. Pleasure shot to the place where they were joined. Beatrice exalted in it. Her breath came ragged and harsh, as if she’d been running. Nothing else existed for her, except the pressure of where their bodies rubbed and his hands upon her breasts. She was wicked and wild and free. The sensation built until she vibrated to the ends of her fingers.

She came apart into a thousand brilliant splinters.

He tightened his arms as she collapsed onto his chest.

She lay there, melted, panting, and acquiescent. Totally his.

He stroked her back as her heart slowed. The hard ridge of his flesh pressed her thighs.

She buried her head into the sweat-dampened heat of his neck. His pulse pounded beneath her mouth. For her, because of what they had shared. Beatrice traced the motion with her lips.

* * * *

Garrett ached. He wanted her more than he had wanted anyone in his entire life. She lay spent and recovering atop his pulsing shaft and, damn him to hell, all he could think of was how good she felt in his arms. He burned to slide off her braies and ease his aching rod into her.

He beat back the frenzy raging in his blood.

Take her,
whispered his body.
Get from her what we must have.

And yet, he sat there and held her. Like some stupid sot, he was content to smell the slight floral scent of her. Her breath escaped in small puffs, tickling the sensitive skin of his neck. Her mouth branded his throat above his pulse.

She’d given herself completely over to the pleasure.

It humbled him.

It terrified him.

The woman in his arms was far beyond his experience.

Take her. Here it was, the opportunity for which he’d toiled for all these years. Here was revenge, laid before him, willing and ready.

And he couldn’t.

He wrapped his arms about her so she didn’t feel the chill on her fevered skin.

She’d come sweetly and completely for him. She gave herself with the sort of abandon that left other encounters feeling cheap and unworthy.

He didn’t deserve the gift she bestowed on him. Some tiny part of him, still clasping a frail tendril of goodness, wouldn’t let him abuse her gift. He would curse himself as the worst kind of sentimental fool for letting the moment pass, but he was equally sure he was going to do it anyway.

“Garrett?” She blinked up at him and his chest ached.

She wasn’t for him. And it had nothing to do with the cur who’d sired her or her title. “You should rest.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead.

“That was,” she wriggled, “marvelous.”

Garrett’s face split into an idiotic grin. Damn her and her honesty, it reached deep inside of him and tugged at the buried part of him. “Aye, sweeting, it was and now you should go back to Ivy before I forget my good intentions.”

The little vixen actually hesitated, as if she was weighing her options and Garrett groaned.

He wasn’t noble. He was a dog with a throbbing shaft and a desirable woman perched right on it. There was a limit to how much he could take. He shifted her hips until she clambered off him. The relief and the disappointment robbed him of coherent thought.

“Garrett? You will still be here when I wake?” She stood beside him, her face soft and beautiful.

He’d put that look on her face. His chest swelled with pride and something else, he dare not put a name to it. “Aye, Beatrice, I will be here.”

He should’ve left when he had the chance.

Garrett snorted. What a sodding liar he was. He’d never been going anywhere. He’d been sitting here brooding, looking for the smallest excuse to stay.

“Beatrice?”

“Aye.

“Put your skirts back on.” Not one more day of watching her glorious ass in those chausses.

* * * *

Garrett’s eyes burned and he rubbed the grit from them. He hadn’t slept all night. This fledgling part of him had flickered into life as he kept watch over the sleeping camp. It struggled for purchase against the rage and bitterness he had nursed since his childhood and won. He welcomed the new day.

As the sky lightened about them, the camp woke.

Ivy was first. She caught sight of him, froze, and nodded. Ivy knew instinctively, what he had fought against. Beatrice had rescued more than her body from those men. As the days passed, if she stayed close to Beatrice, his lady would work her magic for Ivy, too.

Ivy fussed with the smoldering ashes of last night’s fire.

Tom joined her, his much larger form almost dwarfing her.

Ivy tensed but she didn’t move away. It would be some time before she lost her fear. She cried out and sucked her fingers into her mouth. She must have burned them.

The boy nudged her gently out the way and took her place.

It was such a small action, but Garrett saw it for what it was. Ivy had a protector, whether her protector was aware of it or not.

What would his mother’s life had been if she’d had Beatrice to bring back the joy and Tom to watch over her while she did?

Garrett untied the pouch from his neck. His fingers shook as he released the tiny knots that held it closed. He hadn’t looked inside in years. Not since the day he’d tied it around his neck as he left his mother’s grave.

A flash of color fluttered to the ground. Garrett picked it up and cradled it in his palm. A red velvet ribbon, it had once been bright scarlet, but was faded brown with constant use. His mother had clung to this tiny remnant of happier times. She kept it tied to the bodice of her chainse, close to her heart.

She hadn’t loved his father. Wulfric had been a heavy-handed, vicious lout but he’d kept her and Garrett well fed and comfortable. The ribbon came from before. She’d been wearing it when she left her father’s house as a young maid.

Her father had turned his back on her when she took up with Wulfric. She’d been too shamed to return to her family after Wulfric was dead. Or too proud. Garrett was never sure.

The ribbon fluttered in his palm as a gentle breeze rippled through the clearing. Garrett’s fist closed around it instinctively.

He stopped and opened his fingers.

The wind picked up the ribbon and it floated to the ground beside him. It rippled once, twice, and then lifted to be carried into a nearby clump of gorse. It hung there a moment before another light gust took it higher.