The Saint (10 page)

“You have crossed a line, sir. It is improper for you to speak with me like this, even if you are my guardian.”

He cocked his head and a wry little smile flickered. “I have crossed a line, haven't I? Rather decidedly. I astonish myself.”

He glanced around as if suddenly realizing where they were. “Are you finished, or did you intend to practice further?”

“I want to rehearse the aria once more. I will return to the house shortly.”

“I will wait and escort you back.”

He settled against the wall again, in a pose of relaxed patience. She experienced a peculiar shyness.

She began to turn away, but he shook his head. “If you cannot practice with one man watching, how can you perform in front of an opera house full of them?”

Because that is different.
An irrational response, but it
was
different. The focus of two eyes,
these eyes,
discomforted her more than a sea of faces. The attention of one person,
this person,
unsettled her more than a packed music hall. If even one other body were present, it would dilute the singular connection. After all, he had been present in the music room and she had not reacted this way.

She averted her gaze and tried to erase the awareness of him, but it didn't really work. The aria started weakly, as if her breath dodged an obstruction in its path to her throat. The blockage was her swelled heart pounding nervously. Stupid.
Stupid.
She located some composure within resentment at his intrusion, and hit her stride.

The music took care of the rest. Concentration on technique and expression absorbed her. The exhilaration transported her. It was not like the last time, however. Another spirit joined her on the journey, following, crowding, encompassing. As the song progressed, she could not resist looking at him. He waited with a detached manner, looking down, a man courteously biding his time before moving on to important things.

He sensed her attention. His gaze rose and met hers. She almost faltered into abrupt silence. His eyes were more startling than usual. Their expression glowed deeply warm, subtly savage, and definitely male. Not the least avuncular or aloof, and hardly protective.

Goodness, had her singing done
that
?

Despite her startled dismay, an amazing thrill streaked through her. Instead of stumbling, her voice soared. She could not look away and the aria created a provocative union between them. Spiritual. Sensual. Almost erotic. Perplexed alarm shook her, even while a heady sensation of power grew. The euphoria transformed into something undeniably physical within their mesmerizing link.

She could not have ended it even if she wanted to. Unknown emotions propelled her voice with new passions. She closed her eyes at the end, as much to contain the sensations as to savor the finale. The stones held the last sounds like a silent echo for a long heartbeat.

She did not want to open her eyes. Something had happened here that she did not want to acknowledge, something wordless and touchless, but more improper than Dante's kiss. He should have known better. She should have stopped it. She did not want to look at him until this terrible breathlessness abated.

A breeze of warmth caused her to open her lids a slit and see polished boots very close to her skirt. His fine, strong hand took hers and raised it to his lips for a fleeting kiss. “Your singing is nothing short of magnificent, Miss Kenwood. Catalani should be suitably impressed this evening.”

She had to look then. He gestured formally toward the stairs. His expression had resumed its normal restraint and hauteur, but the other still shadowed it, as if the drape of reserve he had drawn was translucent.

He led the way, handing her down the winding stones, a careful representation of detached, courteous concern. As they strolled along the wall toward the path, he paused and looked up at the battlements.

“It is very picturesque,” she said, hoping small talk would vanquish the odd mood throbbing between them.

“My father considered restoring and rebuilding it. Just as well he chose to remodel the house instead. This would have cost three fortunes instead of one, and resulted in a dwelling barely habitable.”

“I think that it is nicer as it is, with bits and pieces of history breaking through the brush. It would look a little silly all repaired and newly mortared.”

“We used to play here as children. Dante and I were the knights, and we pressed Pen into playing the lady imprisoned by her evil guardian.” A broad smile broke as soon as he said it. “You can have that role now.”

The little argument that he invited might help diminish how conscious she was of him standing beside her, but she simply could not pick up the cue.

“Didn't your older brother join your play too?”

“When we were very young he did. Then he outgrew us, I suppose.” His gaze on the battlements turned reflective. “As he got older he retreated into his own interests, and his own mind. By the time he went to university, he was a stranger.”

“Is that why you want to read his letters and such now? To get to know him in ways he did not permit in life?”

His head snapped around and he gave her a very odd look, as if she had surprised him. “I suppose so, in part.”

His attention called forth the emotions from the tower again. She forced her own gaze away, up the wall. “I would like to explore the keep one day.”

“I do not advise it. It has been unsafe for years. The wall walk too. Not all of these stones scattering the ground were here when I was a boy.”

As if to emphasize his point, a fist-sized stone plummeted to the earth, landing at their feet. Vergil frowned up, his eyes scanning the battlements. Bianca turned to scoot away.

An ominous scraping sounded above. Another stone fell, hitting her shoulder.

Suddenly everything blurred. He grabbed her arm and swung her around, smacking her against the wall. She found herself wedged between unyielding stone and a hard body, her shoulders embraced by covering arms, her face tucked against his neck while his head pressed down on hers. Her sight had barely righted itself when a lethal avalanche of large rocks fell right beside them, one of them bouncing above their heads before grazing along Vergil's back.

She stared aghast at the shower of death and cringed inside her haven. It seemed forever before the scrapes and rumbling stopped.

Vergil raised his head to examine the upper wall. “A whole machicolation came down.”

“An apt lesson to give these ruins wide berth in the future. Who would expect peaceful Laclere Park to be so dangerous?”

She spoke nervously into his starched cravat. The blue superfine of his coat caressed her cheek and her fingers rested on the silk embroidered roses of his gray waistcoat. The shock had made her extra alert and a part of her mind absurdly contemplated the varied textures of his garments. And the blissful protection of his arms. And his masculine scent. “Could my singing have done this?”

“It was most likely gravity finishing off what time began. Still, the odds of witnessing such a thing are rare. It is possible that your voice added a push.” He angled his head down to see her face. “Were you injured?”

“I do not think so.”

One hand slid along her back to gently press her shoulder. “Does that hurt?”

“It is a little sore. I will probably only have a bruise.”

He had not released her. One arm still circled her and his other hand rested carefully on her arm below the injured shoulder. The cocoon of his strength felt very reassuring.

“That is much what you said after the horse threw you. You are supposed to swoon when faced with such danger.”

She knew that he referred not to rocks and poachers, but to the physical closeness both episodes had fostered.

His warning sounded as clearly as a horn blowing in her ear. She could not heed it. His masculinity made her feel small and helpless in a sinfully delicious way.

She looked up into his deliberating eyes. “I never swoon.”

His expression from the stone chamber returned, filling her with wonderful flutters. The hand on her arm slid down to her elbow, then up again. “Do you not? Never?”

The slow caress glided again. Its gentle friction created a rippling sensation. Inside her. All through her. That aria had left her vulnerable, and fear had stripped her of normal restraint. She should say something arch to end this little game, but she only wanted those fingers to glide again.

“Never.”

“Every girl should swoon at least once.”

That hand caressed up, not down. A slowly trailing touch. Gently over her shoulder, warmly up her neck, softly over her cheek, firmly into her hair.

She almost
did
swoon when his head angled and his lips met hers.

Warm lips. Firm and controlling like everything about him. Deliberate. Restrained but determined. He brushed her mouth with caresses before playing more seductively. Subtle nips made her lower lip pulse and quiver. Devilish tongue flicks sent scattered prickles through her face and neck. A sensitivity awoke in her breasts and she instinctively embraced him, searching for the contact that their heavy tenderness craved.

He pulled her closer and looked down in a tense, appraising way. A sigh escaped her throat with the pressure of his chest. Kissing her with fierce capitulation, he dragged her back through the threshold of the tower, into the mottled light and cool stones.

He leaned back on the wall and pulled her against his length and into a whirlwind. His arms surrounded and dominated, holding her firmly to his body and the ravishments of his mouth. Fevered kisses assaulted her neck and ears, arousing a frenzied, insistent yearning. His lips seduced hers open for an internal probing of shocking intimacy. She held on to him and submitted, dizzy with amazing sensations, soaring helplessly into a blurred euphoria.

It felt so good. Glorious. Transcendent. The exaltation of her singing made physical. The power and potential of that last aria given substance.

Here. Now. Yes.
With an inaudible voice her blood pounded demands between her gasps.
Here. Now. Perfect.
Shocking pulses in her body joined the chant. Even her mind, the part that should know better, echoed a litany of scandalous urgings. Her hands shamelessly slid beneath his coat to caress and clutch his sides and back.

Something tensed within him. She felt a dangerous change and knew that her gesture had been an affirmation of some sort. His arms moved in possessive caresses and her arched body stretched in immodest reply. His hands explored for her through the petticoats and stays. His commanding passion and where it ventured should frighten her, but her excitement only allowed resentment that the layers of cloth interfered and separated and inhibited.

Yes. I want … I want …
She did not know what. A crying hunger pulsed through her, with sources and destinations she did not understand.
Closer. More. I want …

As if he heard her silent begging, his hand slid to her waist. Thumb on midriff and fingers on back, he caressed up the sash of her gown. Begging anticipation reduced her breath to a series of sharp inhales. A surprisingly gentle kiss accompanied the rise of his hand to her breast.

Oh …
Oh.
The luscious feelings aroused by his touch stunned her. The sensations streaked and flowed, joining those being stimulated by his inflaming kisses on her neck and his mind-obscuring invasions of her mouth. He gave and took pleasure at will and her limp, overwhelmed body could only accept and submit, too ignorant to offer more than acquiescence to a fervor that both liberated and subjugated.

Fingers playing at nipples grown hard and needful …
yes
… Searching now at the frill of her neckline …
please
… Sliding beneath fabric to explore the new wildness of skin on skin …
Ah, yes …
Arms pulling closer, harder, and a knee pressing between petticoats and skirt, the pressure disgracefully welcome …
oh my … heavens …
Dress loosening and puffed sleeve sliding and her naked breast being cupped up to a dark, lowering head …
oh …
Gently sucking lips …
oh …
Wickedly titillating licks …
OH …
Exquisite streams of pleasure descending, filling, demanding …
YES …

… a movement, a soft crunching, echoing into the stones.

He straightened abruptly, crushing her exposure into the protection of his chest, shielding her with surrounding arms while he listened. The possible meaning of those sounds crashed through her dazed senses, obliterating the dreamy sensual world and plunking her mercilessly back into reality.

“Is someone … ?” she whispered, gritting her teeth against the slow unwinding of her physical excitement. She could still hear something, more of a vibration carried through the wall than an actual sound. It intruded like an invasion between the pounding of their hearts.

He pulled up the band of her chemise and the shoulder of her dress, then set her away from him. “Stay here.”

He strode out of the tower. She grappled frantically with her garments, managing somehow to refasten the dress, experiencing the stark guilt of a criminal caught in the act. A pit opened in her heart.

If they had been seen, it would be disastrous.

She could hear him outside, walking around. The pit widened until it became a sick, hollow void. The full impact of her behavior hit her. This had been madness. She had been shameless. They didn't even like each other.

She heard him returning and braced herself.

He appeared in the threshold, a lean dark form surrounded by light. She could not see his face well.

“If someone was here, they are gone. It may have just been an animal.”

She prayed so, and hoped if someone had come from the house to explore the keep, that they had not peered inside the tower portal.

He held out his hand in a gesture commanding her forth. Wondering what women were supposed to say and do after such brazen behavior, and feeling almost nauseous with confusion and embarrassment, she emerged into the morning. They started back to the house.