The Lass Wore Black (23 page)

“I learned where things were placed,” she said. There, the truth, watered down and acceptable.

She stood with her back to him, her hands gripping the edge of the vanity.

Slowly, before she lost her courage, she withdrew three of the pins that fastened the veil to her hair. Before she withdrew the remaining two pins, she hesitated. Was this the wisest idea?

She’d gone a year without kissing. A year without the suffocating fullness of the veil in a man’s presence.

She wanted to be naked, free, unadorned by anything but her own will and wishes.

For an hour, maybe two, she wanted to pretend. Not that she wasn’t who she was, damaged and alone, but that she could have what other women had. Right now she’d have an interlude of magic. Not purchased, or arranged, but because each of them wanted it.

“Are you afraid?”

“Dear God, yes.” An unwise admission, but one that escaped before she could censor herself.

He came and stood behind her, then enfolded his arms around her waist, bending to speak softly next to her ear.

“I have a reputation for kindness,” he said. “For caring. For being gentle.”

Tears spiked her eyes. How did he know that she desperately craved all three at this moment? Would he be understanding as well?

She turned in his arms, jerking on the veil. It clung to the remaining two pins before floating to the floor.

He didn’t say anything, and the hollow feeling in her chest magnified. Could he see her? Please, don’t let him be able to see her. Give her that, at least.

Lowering her face, she rested her forehead against his chest. Her pulse was racing and every muscle was tense. For several moments he didn’t speak, move, or do anything but stand there with his arms linked around her loosely.

Other than her physicians, only two people had ever seen her: Jean and Aunt Dina. Both were generous and kind people, possessing good characters and capable of selfless love.

Mark was being kind because he wanted her body and her kisses. For that, she wanted to hold him close and thank him. For the gift of lust, she wanted to weep in joy. For passion, she wanted to respond in kind, praise his body and enjoy him.

Laughter was a strange thing to feel bubbling up from the fear.

She raised her head and kissed his shirt.

Slowly, she tilted her chin up, wishing she were taller. As it was, he would have to bend to reach her.

The hunger for kisses had been inside her for months. Now that it was soon to be appeased, she was impatient.

He lowered his head, finding her mouth with his. She sighed against his lips, feeling a flood of sensation when he opened his mouth and touched her bottom lip with his tongue. She did the same, reciprocity in seduction.

Fear had been replaced by heat.

She slid the tip of her tongue inside, touching his. He tasted of coffee and cinnamon. His mouth took hers as he pulled her to him. He kissed her as if he had her naked and on the bed. He kissed her as if the world would end in the next moment and he wanted the taste of her to last him for eternity.

Helplessly, she gripped his back, pressing him to her, standing on her tiptoes so all the places that ached and wept touched all his spots that were hard and hot.

She’d never wanted anyone as much as she wanted him now.

Without removing her lips from his, she walked him back to her bed. When the back of his legs hit the mattress, she pushed him with both hands. As soon as he landed, she was atop him and kissing him again.

Her skirts were too full; her bodice was too tight. She had entirely too many clothes on, and it seemed as if he agreed. His fingers flew over her clothing, undressing her with a skill that rang a far-off bell of warning in her mind.

Soon her bodice was off. Her left hand fumbled with his shirt. A second later he laughed into the kiss, pushing her hands away to unfasten the buttons and open his shirt.

Her fingernails scored his skin and his amusement vanished. He bucked and rolled with her until he was on top, his hands unfastening her busk, spreading the corset wide before ripping her shift with both hands.

He broke off the kiss to say, “I want you naked. If I can’t see you, then I’ll damn well feel you.”

She writhed beneath him, but he pinned her by sitting astride, stripping her of her garments and her will at the same time.

She’d always dictated the pace of lovemaking, but he just pushed her hands aside, bent, and kissed her again.

Had she ever been kissed like this?

His tongue traced her bottom lip, coaxed open her mouth, played with her, teasing and taunting.

She could barely breathe, but if she lost consciousness, it would be because of bliss. Who would call a halt to that?

He was suddenly standing, stripping off the rest of her clothing. She didn’t have time to marvel at the sensation of cold air on her heated body before he was covering her again.

“I’m naked,” she said, “but you aren’t.”

“Give me a moment,” he said in a raspy voice.

She smiled. At least she wasn’t the only one affected by this suffocating passion.

He peeled off his shirt, and she rubbed her palms up his chest, marveling at the beauty of him felt through her hands. How magnificent he was. His duties had evidently been hard in the past, because his arms were roped with muscle. His chest was well defined, his stomach taut.

She reached out, suddenly bereft when he left her again. When he returned a moment later, she wrapped his arms around his naked shoulders to hold him there.

His body pressed against hers, warming her.

When she breathed, she inhaled his scent. His fingers skimmed along her skin, creating skeins of sensation. She felt as if he were stripping experience and knowledge from her, making her virginal, naive, and unsure at his touch.

Before, she’d tried to hold herself aloof. Now, when he bent his head to surround her nipple with his lips, she shuddered, adrift in feeling, lost but not alone. With his kiss and his hands, he urged her to come with him, as if he alone were familiar with the journey to pleasure.

No one had ever kissed her as softly and urgently. No one had ever worshiped her with his hands, or murmured praise because of the curve of her waist or the hollow of her navel. Not one man had ever spread her legs with gentleness and fervency, his fingers tenderly stroking.

“You’re trembling,” he said. “Are you afraid?”

“No.” A word breathed on a sigh.

“Are you certain?”

How could he concentrate enough to speak? She could only think of him.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m certain. I’m not afraid.”

He pulled her up with one arm, lifting her to him as if she were a sacrifice. As he thrust his tongue into her mouth, he smoothed his hand over her body, touching her everywhere, learning her in long, heated seconds.

She was helpless and wanting. Out of breath and nearly dizzy with desire, she wrapped her arms around his neck, arching her back to get closer, to feel him.

He trailed kisses down her throat, then at her shoulder. A tremor tore through her body, and she shivered.

Slowly, he lowered her to the bed, spread his knees, and straddled her. For a moment that’s all he did, as if he needed the time to calm himself. His breathing was hoarse, the match of hers. Was his heart beating as fiercely?

She pressed her palm against his chest, feeling the furious pounding. Slowly, she trailed her fingers down over his stomach to the nest of hair and below, reaching out both hands to cup him, sliding his shaft between her palms.

He groaned, a sound she’d forever remember, then kissed her again until she was light-headed.

A hand slid over her nipple, his palm gently abrading it. A burst of pleasure raced through her.

He bent and licked first one nipple then the other, leaving the cold air to pebble each. He mouthed them, gently sucking at first, then harder, until she arched off the bed, biting back her cry of surprise.

Her body trembled with her unexpected climax. Spent, she lay beneath him, as he slowly entered her.

Reaching up, she kissed him, then tasted his breath, inhaled it, and returned it. He filled her, causing her eyes to close with the piercing pleasure of it. Bliss started in her belly, wound through each limb, touching every inch with wonder. On a moan, she surrendered to him as he entered her again with long, slow, maddening thrusts.

He took her mouth as she came again, swallowing her cries.

F
or long minutes her body trembled. She lay with her eyes closed, her palm against his chest, feeling the thunderous beat of his heart slow to normal.

A small smile curved her lips.

Had she ever felt as wonderful?

He picked up her hand and kissed her fingers wordlessly.

A moment later the warmth of his palm on her cheek stopped her heart.

She was off the bed as quick as a thought, stumbling backward until she hit the wall. Naked and trembling, she wrapped her arms around her waist, holding herself silent when all she wanted to do was scream.

“What is it, Catriona?” he asked, sitting up and reaching for her.

She skittered out of his way.

“You promised,” she said, hating the faint, frightened sound of her voice.

“What did I do?”

“You touched me.”

“That wasn’t one of the promises.”

It should have been. It must have been. She wouldn’t have been as foolish as to forget that. He would have felt the ridges of her scars, traced the path of them from chin to forehead. A river of remembered pain etched into her face.

If he left now, she could pretend it had never happened. Now, though, before any more time fixed this instant in her memory.

Suddenly, she was aloft, in his arms, and she’d never seen him approach. She gasped in surprise as he held her close, bending down to kiss her gently, tenderly, and so softly that it was no deeper than a breath.

“Forgive me,” he said against her lips. “Forgive me.” A chain of words he repeated as he returned to the bed, lay her down and joined her, pulling her tight against him.

“Forgive me.”

She shouldn’t. She should banish him. Instead, she raised her hand until she clutched his shoulder and rolled closer, breathing against his chest, the soft hair tickling her nose. He was so warm and she was so cold.

“Forgive me.”

He should leave. But if he left, he’d take the warmth with him, the arms surrounding her, and the wordless understanding. When had she become so attuned to him? When had she begun to need him?

“It wasn’t intentional,” he said. “My only excuse is that I forget everything around you.”

“You do?”

He sighed. “I do. A decidedly odd reaction, one that I’ll need to study. I haven’t been myself since the day I met you.”

She stilled, listening.

“I can see nothing of you, yet I find myself looking toward you, watching you, as if you hold the answer to all the questions I have.”

She waited, but when he didn’t continue, she trailed her hand down his arm, then curled it into a fist, tucking it against his chest.

“What questions do you have?”

“No,” he said. “Not now. There’s a time for that later.”

He reached down and pulled the sheet and blanket over both of them.

What had begun in passion muted to become something dear, a tenderness she’d rarely felt. She lay in his arms, feeling protected and cherished. Foolish emotions, and no doubt false ones, but she’d allow herself to pretend, just for a while.

“Where were you? All those days you were gone. Where did you go?”

“Did you miss me?”

“My meals were amazingly serene,” she said, smiling when he bent and pretended to bite her shoulder.

“I had something I needed to do.”

“A nonanswer.”

“May I tell you later?”

“Will you?”

“Another promise?” he asked. “I promise to tell you everything. Later.”

When he slept, she didn’t pull away or demand he leave her room.

Just another sign of her foolishness.

Chapter 21

T
he smell woke him.

Mark left Catriona’s bed, walking to the window naked. He parted the curtains, revealing a scene from Hell itself.

The carriage house was burning.

Noxious black clouds burst upward from the structure like orange-limned bubbles. Tongues of flames licked outward from the carriage bay. Soot clung to the window, as if wanting to render the scene as monochromatic as a daguerreotype.

A stable boy shouted at the others, while the far-off peal of the fire brigade brought hope that the fire wouldn’t travel to the town houses of Charlotte Square.

The sight was bringing out spectators. A group of residents huddled at the end of the alley. Two of the maids, still attired in their nightclothes, were staring in horror at the blaze. As he watched, Dina MacTavish came into sight and, with a militaristic precision he’d previously admired, immediately began giving orders.

She was one of those people who performed admirably in a crisis.

Remembering the paraffin oil the coachman had used, he wondered if the man was trapped now, and turned to gather up his clothes and dress.