"Twenty-six."
Luke slowed as the cottage came into view--a tidy, thatched-roof dwelling hunched between two tall pine trees.
"Twenty-six," he repeated, coming to a stop.
She turned to him, clutching his hand tight. "Yes. Twenty-six. Not counting the invalid soldiers." The color of her eyes deepened to an intense cobalt blue. "You cannot know how I have fought for you, Luke. Not in the same way you have suffered, to be sure. But I have waged my own small battles here. I have fought the pressure to marry, fought the envy for my friends who did. I have struggled against my own desire for companionship and affection." Her voice broke. "I am not a woman formed for solitude."
"I know it," he whispered, raising his free hand to her cheek. "I know it. That's why you need a husband who can--"
"I have fought despair," she interrupted, "when months, years passed with no word of you."
Guilt twisted in his gut. "I could not have written. We weren't engaged."
"Yes, but you might have written Denny. Or any one of our mutual friends. You might have casually asked for word of me."
"I didn't want word of you."
She recoiled, and he whipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close.
"How can I explain? You know my parents died several years ago. I've no siblings, very few relations. And it didn't take but one dusty skirmish in Portugal for me to realize--if I died on that battlefield, there would be no one to mourn me, but a handful of old school friends." He touched her cheek. "No one but you. I did think of you. Constantly. I did remember that perfect, sweet kiss when I was bleeding and starving and pissing scared. It was the thought that kept me going: Cecily Hale cares whether I live or die. I couldn't risk asking word of you, don't you understand? I didn't want to know. Surely I'd learn you'd married one of those twenty-six men queuing up for the pleasure of your hand, and I would have nothing left."
"But I didn't marry any of them. I waited for you."
"Then you were a fool." He gripped her chin. "Because that man you waited for . . . he isn't coming back. I've changed, too much. Some men lose a leg in war; others, a few fingers. I surrendered part of my humanity. Just like the ridiculous werestag you're out here chasing."
"I'm out here chasing you, you idiot!" She buffeted his shoulder with her fist. "You're the one I love."
He kissed her, hard and fast. Just for a moment. Just until her mouth stopped forming dangerous words and melted to a soft, generous invitation, and her fisted hand uncurled against his chest.
Then he pulled away.
"Listen to me. I admire you. Adore you. Hell, I've spent four years constructing some twisted, blasphemous religion around you. And you must know how badly I want you." He slid a hand to the small of her back and crushed her belly against his aching groin, then kissed her again, to stifle his unwilling groan. "But I can't love you, Cecily, not the way you deserve."
"Who are you, to judge what I deserve?" She wrestled away from him and stalked to the cottage door, taking hold of the door handle and giving it a full-force tug. "And what do you mean, you can't love me? Love isn't a matter of can or can't." She pulled again, but the door would not budge. "It's a matter of do or don't. Either you do love me, and damn the consequences"--she tugged again, to no avail--"or you don't, and we go our separate ways."
She let go the door handle and released an exasperated huff.
Slowly, he walked to her side. "There's a little latch," he said, pulling on the string above her head. "Just here."
The door swung open with a rusty creak. Together they stood on the threshold, peering into the cottage's dimly lit interior.
"After you," Cecily said wryly. "By all means."
"The light's fading. We should return to the manor."
"Not yet," she said, pushing him forward into the dirt-floored gloom. "Strip off your shirt."
Chapter Six
"What?" Luke crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes darted from the cottage's single window to the straw-tick bed huddled under the sloping corner of the roof. "You can't be serious."
Cecily found his panic vastly amusing. "Certainly I can."
"Cecy, this is hardly the time and place for--"
"A tryst?" She laughed. "You think I mean to trap you in this secluded cottage and have my wicked way with you? You should be so lucky. No, remove your shirt. I want a look at your arm."
"My arm?" His eyes narrowed. "Which one?"
"Which one do you think?" She crossed to him and began unknotting the cravat at his neck. "The one you injured while wrestling the boar last night."
Oh, the look on his face . . .
Cecily wanted to kiss him. He was so adorably befuddled. At last, he'd let slip that hard mask of indifference he'd been wearing since his arrival at Swinford Manor. And in its place--there was Luke. Engaging green eyes, touchable dark brown hair, those lips so perfectly formed for roguish smiles and tender kisses alike.
This was the man she'd fallen in love with. The man she still loved now. Yes, he'd changed, but she had too. She was older, wiser, stronger than the girl she'd been. This time, she wouldn't let him go.
"You knew?"
She smiled. "I knew."
His breath hitched as she slipped the cravat from his neck. Attempting to ignore the wedge of bare chest it revealed, and the mad pounding of her blood that view inspired, Cecily set to work on his waistcoat buttons.
"How?" he asked, obeying her silent urgings to shed the garment. "How did you know?"
"It's a fortunate thing you weren't assigned to espionage. You've no talent for disguise whatsoever. If I hadn't suspected already, I would have figured it out this afternoon. My stocking was found in this remote cottage, and you just happen to know the secrets of the door latch? Then there's the fact that you've been favoring your arm since breakfast." She undid the small closure of his shirtfront before turning her attention to his cuffs. "But I knew you last night. I'd know your voice anywhere, not to mention your touch." She gave a shaky sigh, unable to meet his questioning gaze. "It's like you said, Luke. You still make me tremble, even after all these years."
His voice was soft. "I don't even know why I followed you. The way we'd parted so angrily . . . I just couldn't let you go, not like that."
"And I'm glad of it. You saved my life." With a brisk snap, she jerked the shirt's hem from the waistband of his trousers, gathering the fine linen in both hands. "Arms up, head down."
She made a move to lift the shirt over his head, but he stopped her.
"I caught a bayonet at Vitoria. I've scars. They're not pretty."
"I've been tending wounded soldiers for a year. I'm certain I've seen worse."
And she had seen worse, Cecily reminded herself as she surveyed the pink, rippling scar slanting from his collarbone to his ribs. She had seen worse, but not on anyone she loved. It was so difficult to contain all the silly feminine impulses welling up inside her: the desire to weep, to hold and rock him, to trace his scar with her lips.
But he wouldn't want that sort of fuss.
Clearing her throat, she turned her attention to his injured forearm. It was a clean wound, and not deep enough to be truly worrisome. But as she'd suspected, the binding had come loose--most likely when he'd sprung Portia's trap.
"There's water," he said, nodding toward a covered basin on the table. "I filled it last night."
Together they moved toward the table and settled on the two rough-hewn stools. Cecily dipped her handkerchief in the cool liquid, then dabbed his arm with it.
"If you knew last night," he asked quietly, "why tell the others it was a werestag?"
"Because it was obvious you didn't want the others to know."
"Hang the others. I didn't want you to know." He swallowed hard, and stared into the corner. "I never wanted you to see me like that. When a man faces death, he meets the animal lurking inside him. When it's hand to hand, blade to blade, kill or be killed . . ." Defiant green eyes met hers, and he slapped a hand to his scar. "Th
e man who did this to me--I killed him. With his bayonet stuck in my flesh, I reached out and grabbed him by the throat and watched his eyes bulge from his skull as he suffocated at my hand."
She would not react, Cecily told herself, calmly dabbing at his wound. That's what he expected, what he feared--her reaction of revulsion or disgust.
"And he wasn't the only one," he continued. "To learn what violence you're truly capable of, in those moments . . . It's a burden I'd not wish on anyone."
She risked a glance at him then. "Burdens are lighter when they're shared."
Luke swore. "I've shared too much of it with you already. I can't believe I'm telling you this."
"You can tell me anything. I'll still love you. And I warn you, I've learned something of tenacity in the past four years. I'm not going to let you go."
He shook his head. "You don't understand. Sometimes, I scarcely feel human anymore. The brutal way I took down that boar, Cecily. That barbarism with the stocking . . ."
"Ah, yes." She put aside her handkerchief and stood. "The stocking."
She propped one boot on the stool and slowly rucked up her skirts to reveal her stocking-clad leg.
"Cecy . . ."
"Yes, Luke?" She leaned over to untie the laces of her boot, giving him an eyeful of her decolletage.
He groaned. "Cecy, what are you doing?"
"Tending to your wounds," she said, slipping the boot from her foot. With sure fingers, she unknotted the ribbon garter at her thigh, then eased the stocking down her leg. "Making it better." Skirts still hiked thigh-high, she straddled his legs and nestled on his lap.
"Shh." She quieted his objection, then deftly wound the length of flannel around his injured arm, tucking in the end to secure it. "There," she said in a husky voice, lowering her lips to the underside of his wrist. "All better."
"I wasn't after your damn stocking," he blurted out. "When I took you to the ground last night and pushed up your skirts. By all that's holy, I wanted--" With a muttered oath, he gripped her by the shoulders, hauling her further into his lap. Until she felt the hard ridge of his arousal, pressing insistently against her cleft. "Cecily, what I want from you is not tender. It's not romantic in the least. It's plunder. It's possession. If you had the least bit of sense, you'd turn and run from--"
She kissed him hard, raking his back with her fingernails and clutching his thighs between hers like a vise. Boldly, she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and gave it a sharp nip, savoring his startled moan. Wriggling backward, she placed her hands over his, dragging them downward and molding his fingers around her breasts. "For God's sake, Luke. You're not the only one with animal urges."
He took her mouth, growling against her lips as he did. Tongues tangled; teeth clashed. With a small rip of fabric, he liberated her breasts from her stays and bodice, fastening his lips over one pert, straining nipple. He licked roughly, even caught the tender nub in his teeth, and Cecily gasped with shock and delight.
Then his hand left her breast and strayed downward, tunneling through the layers of skirts and petticoats and drawers to find her most intimate flesh. He stroked her there, so tenderly. Too tenderly.
Impatient with desire, she grasped his shoulders and rocked against his hand. A thrill of exquisite anticipation coursed down to her toes. She licked his ear and heard his answering moan.
Yes. Yes. This was finally going to happen.
"God," he choked out. "This can't happen."
"Oh, yes it can." Breathless, she worked the buttons of his trouser falls. "It will. It must." Having freed the closures of his trousers and smallclothes, she snaked her hand through the opening and brazenly took him in hand.
Of course, now that she had him in hand, she wasn't quite sure what to do with him. She tentatively skimmed one fingertip over the smooth, rounded crown of his erection. In return, he pressed a single finger into her aching core.
"Cecily." He shut his eyes and grit his teeth. "If I don't stop this now . . ."
"You never will?" She pressed her lips to his earlobe. "That's my fondest hope. You say you're done with fighting, Luke? Then stop fighting this."
He sighed deep in his chest, and she felt all the tension coiled in those powerful muscles release. "Very well," he said quietly, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Very well. To you, I gratefully surrender."
Clutching her bottom with both hands, he rose to his feet, startling a little shriek from her.
"Too late for protests," he teased, carrying her toward the cottage's narrow bed and tossing her onto it. With an impressive economy of movement, he stripped himself of his boots, trousers and smallclothes before settling his weight onto the bed. "Now you."
All that remained of the daylight was a faint, dusky glow filtering through the small window and the chinks in the thatching overhead. He helped her out of her gown and petticoats, then loosened her stays and the ribbon tie of her drawers. When she was completely bared, he sat back on his haunches and regarded her with a quiet intensity. He sat that way for so long, she began to grow anxious.
"Luke? Is everything--"
"Promise me," he said hoarsely, "that you will give me another opportunity to do this properly." Shaky fingertips traced the pale curve of her hip. "You are so beautiful, Cecily. Yours is a body that deserves to be worshipped, adored. Promise me the chance to kiss every lovely, perfect inch of you--next time."
How she loved those words, next time. She nodded as he prowled up her body. "Of course."
"Good." His voice was strained as he lowered his weight onto hers. "Because--forgive me, darling--this time will have to be quick."
She gasped as he insinuated one hand between them, probing the slick folds of her sex and spreading her thighs apart. Then she felt the blunt head of him--there--pressing, pushing, stretching her to the point of pain. And beyond.
"Are you hurt?" He panted against her neck.
"A little."
"Shall I stop?"
"No." She clutched his back and hooked her legs over his. "Don't you dare." She had fought for him, fought to experience this pain, and she felt oddly possessive of the dull ache between her legs. She wouldn't let him take it away. The pain was real, it was now--it meant he had truly come home at last. Home to her.
All too soon, the ache dissipated, lessening with each thrust, and a desperate yearning took its place. She rose up to meet each wild buck of his hips, her hands sliding over his back on a thin sheen of perspiration. His tempo increased, driving her closer and closer to that horizon of delicious pleasure he'd pushed her beyond that afternoon. But this time, it would be so much better. This time he would come too.
With a guttural moan, he froze deep inside her. His gaze caught hers, and Cecily instinctively understood the question in his eyes. They could create a child this way, if she allowed him to continue.
She swept a lock of hair from his brow and waited. He knew her feelings already. This decision should be his.
"I do," he said roughly. "My God, Cecily. I do love you."
Joy swelled inside her, until she trembled with the effort of containing it. Smiling up at him, she whispered, "Then damn the consequences."
No more words after that. Only sighs and moans and wild, inarticulate urgings. Faster. More. There. Yes, there.
Now.
"Can we stay here all night?" Cecily asked. She lay tangled with him on the narrow bed, struggling to catch her breath. Only now growing aware of the musty closeness in the cottage.
"We could," he answered sleepily. "If we wish to be awoken by Denny's footmen crashing down the door. He'll have them all searching for us soon enough."
"He knows I'm with you." In more ways than one. She felt a pang of sympathy for her old friend. There'd been true disappointment in his expression, when she'd broken their kiss and refused him that afternoon. But Denny deserved to find love too, and she never could have made him truly happy. Not when her heart and soul belonged to Luke.
As if exerting his claim on her body as well, L
uke tightened his arms around her. Kissing the hollow of her throat, he murmured, "Perhaps we can stay a half hour more."
Afterward, they rose and dressed quietly, pausing to tidy the small dwelling before latching the door as they left. The night was cloudless, and the nearly full moon provided them sufficient light to follow the path. They walked hand in hand.
"Did you see it last night?" she asked quietly. "The stag?"
"Yes."
"It was beautiful." When he didn't answer, she added, "Don't you agree?" Perhaps men did not think animals "beautiful", or did not admit to it if they did.
"Yes." He gave her a rare, easy smile. "It reminded me of you. Beautiful, graceful, fearless."
"And here I thought him so much like you. Proud, wild, strong." She laughed softly. "Perhaps he didn't exist at all, and we were just out here chasing each other."
If the stag truly existed, they did not see it again before reaching the border of Swinford Woods and emerging onto the green. Then again, a whole herd of bloodthirsty man-deer could have been lurking in the thickets, and Cecily would have remained oblivious. She only had eyes for Luke.
And that fact must have been painfully obvious to Denny, when he nearly collided with them at the entrance to the drawing room.
"Cecily." His gaze wandered from her unbound hair to her disheveled gown, to her fingers still laced with Luke's. "I . . . I was just about to go searching for you."
"There you are!" Portia called from behind him. "Come in, come in." She lay swaddled in blankets on the divan, with her bandaged leg propped on a nearby ottoman. Brooke sat beside her, balancing a teacup in either hand.
Cecily turned to Denny. "I'm sorry to have worried you, but . . ." She squeezed Luke's hand for courage. "You see, Luke and I--"
"I understand," he replied. The serious expression on his face told her he did understand, completely. To his credit, he took it well. He turned to Luke. "When will you be married?"
"Married?" Portia exclaimed.
Cecily sighed. Just like Denny, to take his responsibilities as her third cousin twice removed--and only male relation in the vicinity--so seriously. But did he have to force the issue now? Certainly, she hoped that she and Luke might one day--
"As soon as possible." Luke's arm slid around her waist.
Cecily's gaze snapped up to his. Are you certain? she asked him silently.