He dropped her hand, but he couldn’t move away. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was bad enough when I was supposed to be a woman. You certainly can’t go off with two unmarried men.”
“Then marry me.” She sat up, looking at him defiantly. “There, I’ve shocked you, haven’t I? My mother may be a ridiculous person, but she taught me to go after what I want. And I want you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying to back away, but she reached out and caught his hand, pulling him toward her.
“Yes, I do. You explained it to me, quite nicely, in the gazebo that day. I want to marry you and make love with you and have your babies.”
“It’s quite impossible.”
“No, it’s not. You’re not Valerie Ramsey at all. You’re …” Her forehead creased in sudden confusion. “I don’t even know what your name is.”
“Valerian,” he said. “And I don’t have an honest last name. I’m a bastard, with no family, no money, no prospects.”
“I have money and prospects enough for both of us.”
“I’m wanted for murder,” he said desperately. She looked too damned beautiful sitting there in the moonlight, beseeching him.
He expected her to pull away, to run from him as she had earlier. Instead, her mouth curved in a dazzling smile of relief. “I knew you had to have a good reason for lying to me,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t you even want to know whether I did it or not?”
“No,” she said. “If you did, you would have had an excellent reason. If you didn’t, it needn’t concern me.”
“I won’t marry you, Sophie.”
She considered this for a moment. “Very well.” she said. “We’ll live in sin. My mother makes noises about free love—we’ll give her a chance to prove her convictions.”
“Sophie, Sophie, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said miserably. “I won’t do this to you. You need to find some worthy man and marry him, have his babies …”
“Like Captain Melbourne? No, thank you, Valerian. I want you.”
He stared at her in mute frustration, his determination almost at the breaking point. “Get up,” he said flatly. “I’m taking you home to your mother.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Because I turned my ankle when I jumped out of the way of your horse,” she said simply.
Remorse flooded him. “God, Sophie, why didn’t you say something?” He flipped back the hem of her skirts with unconscious concern as he took her slender ankle in his. “Does it hurt?” he asked.
“A bit. But not that one. The other,” she said with a faint tremor in her voice. One that could have been pain. Or something else.
He picked up her other foot, more gently this time. She was barefoot, and she had the most beautiful ankles he’d ever seen in his life. The right one was faintly bruised from her tumble, and he gave in to temptation, telling himself it would be just once. He leaned forward and put his mouth on her ankle, and she let out a squeak, one he knew damned well wasn’t of pain.
Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, he thought, kissing her other ankle. This time the squeak was closer to a sigh, and the sound of it made the blood burn in his veins, pooling in his groin with such blatant sexuality that he ought to be ashamed of himself. But he couldn’t be. He’d wanted her too desperately, for too long.
He kissed her calf, moving up the faint swell of it until he reached her knee. He kissed the back of her knee, using his tongue, and her skirts frothed back against her hips, and she shuddered with pleasure.
He groaned, deep in the back of his throat, fighting the urge to push her into the sand. Her cloak lay spread out beneath her, and he wanted to throw her skirts up to her shoulders and push himself between her long white legs. He was shaking with need, and he made one last attempt to stop himself.
“No, Sophie,” he said, his voice tight with tension. “I can’t do this to you.’
“Valerian,” she said gently, “you can’t help yourself.” And she reached her arms up to him, offering herself, to him and to the moonlit night.
It was too much for him to resist. “You’re right,” he said. “Even though I’ll be damned for doing it.” And he caught her arms, pulling her up to him, and set his mouth on hers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was the kiss he’d always longed to give her. His mouth opened against hers, wet and warm and seeking. He used his tongue, his teeth, kissing her so thoroughly he was dazed with the wonder of it. And the knowledge that she was kissing him back, clinging to his shirt with surprising strength, parting her lips beneath his forceful pressure, tilting her head back to better receive him, only added to the glory of it. He groaned, telling himself he was every inch the bastard to do this to her. Knowing it was too late to stop.
His arms were around her, and he could feel the fastenings of her dress. He was far more familiar with women’s clothing than he had ever been before, and he knew how to unfasten the dress. Despite his shaking hands, he could do it in a trice, and it would fall down to her shoulders and beyond, baring her to the night air and his hungry gaze.
Maybe if he stopped kissing her he could keep from unfastening the dress. But he couldn’t stop kissing her. And his hands were deft, busy, untying the ribbons, slipping the thin muslin down her shoulders, her arms, and then they were no longer deft, they were shaking, and he tried to pull away.
She wasn’t letting him go. She clung to him, and her lips were damp and beestung, and the dress fell to her waist. She was wearing a thin cotton chemise, similar to the one she’d worn at the inn, and while he couldn’t see the dusky color of her nipples in the moonlight, he could see their shape, distended against the thin cloth. He bent down and covered her breast with his mouth, suckling it through the thin cloth, his tongue swirling against the hard nub, and once more she shrieked, digging her hands into his shoulders in reaction.
He was beyond rational thought. He pushed her down, and she went willingly, pulling him with her. The cloak was a blanket beneath them, cushioning the sand, turning it into a bed. He sank between her legs, pressing against her, and she felt hot and damp and ready for him.
He’d never bedded a virgin in his life. He needed to be gentle, go slow, when everything in his rigid body was telling him to hurry, hurry. He cupped her face, kissing her mouth, her neck, her breasts, tugging the thin chemise down so that he could taste her flesh. She made a breathless little sound, one that might have been desire, or just as easily might have been fear, and he tried to pull back.
She wouldn’t let him. She lifted her hips against his, cradling him. “Show me, Valerian,” she whispered. She took his hand and put it between her legs, to the heated center of her. “You told me I’d be damp and ready for you. Show me, Valerian. Teach me.”
He could no sooner stop than he could have forced his heart to stop beating. She was moist, and hot, and wanting him, and there was no way he was going to deny them both. His hands were clumsy as they unfastened his breeches over his swollen manhood, freeing himself, and he sank between her legs, resting against her, keeping his weight on his arms, feeling his chest press against her breasts. They were damp from his mouth, hard from arousal and the night air, and their tightness against him was one more level of burning that threatened to push him over the edge.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said in a strained voice, trying to hold back.
“It will only hurt the first time,” she said, reassuring him. “I can stand it if you can.”
He laughed, a strangled sound as he began to sink into her hot, milking depths. When he reached the barrier he halted, wishing there were some way he could make it easier for her, some way to keep that haze of confused desire in her passion-dark eyes.
He put his hand between their bodies and threaded his fingers through the damp tangle of hair, just above their joining. She jerked, startled, as he pressed hard, rubbing
against her, and then he felt her begin to shiver and shake, her breath coming in strangled rasps, the tight wet clasp of her drawing him in deeper, deeper, until she shattered, and he pushed all the way into her, breaking through the barrier with no more than a slight force, neither of them even noticing that hurdle had been breached.
She was panting in his ear as stray tremors racked her body. “Oh, Valerian,” she whispered in a voice strained with awe. “That was wonderful. Even better than you told me.”
“Yes,” he said, trying to control his need to thrust madly into her. He was going to explode, he knew it, but he wanted to give her time to get used to him, not fall on her like a rutting beast.
“We aren’t finished, are we?” she asked sweetly. She lifted her legs, encircling his hips, drawing him in deeper still. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said through gritted teeth, trying to pull away from her.
“The worst is already over,” she said practically. “And the worst was splendid. Show me the rest.”
He thrust back into her then, a deep, sure thrust, one she met with welcoming gladness, and he was lost. He surged against her, gone into some lost, dark place of his own making, and she was with him, wrapped tightly around him, as he rocked her against the sand, holding her hips with his big hands, thrusting again and again, and her body was trembling and shivering and shattering around him as he went rigid in her arms, spilling his seed inside her in a glorious wave of love and desire.
He collapsed against her, breathless, panting, trying desperately to regain even an ounce of sanity, enough to make certain she was all right. There were tears streaking her face, her eyes were tightly shut, and her mouth trembled, and he knew he’d been a brute, a monstrous, rapacious brute, and he wanted to kill himself. He wanted to walk into the sea and never come out again. He wanted …
She opened her eyes and smiled at him, a tearful, blissful expression on her face. “That was quite awe-inspiring,” she said in a hushed voice.
He wanted to make a joke, but he couldn’t. “Yes,” he said. “It was.”
“Is it usually like that?” she asked, her voice soft and breathless. “You made it sound delightful, but you hadn’t described it in quite such glowing detail.”
“No, it’s not usually like that. As a matter of fact, it’s never been that good,” he said, looking down at her.
She smiled at him again. “That’s because we’re in love.”
He rolled off her, afraid that if he didn’t he might never leave her body. “Sophie …”
She wasn’t about to hear his attempts at common sense. She glanced down at her body. “Goodness,” she murmured. “You didn’t even take my dress off.”
He couldn’t resist. “I wasn’t wearing it,” he said.
She laughed, a sound of pure joy dancing on the night air, and she pulled the dress off her, following with the chemise, so that she knelt there on her cloak, naked and beautiful, her virgin’s blood staining her white thighs, her breasts high and full and tempting. “I’m going swimming,” she announced. “And then I want you to show me more.”
She was running off into the surf before he could stop her. He watched her go, guilt and desire coursing through his body. And then he stripped off the rest of his clothes and followed her into the cold, dark sea.
He was used to the icy York waters. The chilly Atlantic made no difference to his need—he was already hungry for her again, and the dead of winter wouldn’t have lessened his desire. She flung herself against him, cold and wet and laughing, and her hair was plastered against her white body, wrapping around them both. “We can’t do this,” he said as she slid her body around his, and her mouth was cool and delicious against his, tasting of the sea. “I don’t want to leave you with a bastard, like my mother was left. I should have been more careful, but I won’t take another chance …”
“Too late,” she said cheerfully. “You know a great deal about making love, but I know more about women’s bodies. Women are most likely to conceive when they’re right in between their monthly flows, and we’ve timed it perfectly. I imagine in nine months’ time we’ll be happy parents.”
“Sophie!” he said.
“And he’s not going to be a bastard. You’re going to marry me, and we’re going to live happily ever after.”
He was standing in the surf, holding her, her legs wrapped around his waist, her hands cupping his face as she stared at him fiercely. “Do you hear me?” she demanded, over the roar of the surf. “Happily ever after, damn it.”
He gave up then. “How can I fight it?” he asked the heavens. And before she even realized what he was doing, he’d shifted her, pulling her down on his iron-hard arousal, sinking deep into her, and within moments she was clutching his back, clawing him, shattering around him, and he was following her, dissolving into her body, falling into the surf with his body still tight within hers.
He carried her up to the house, wrapped tightly in her cloak. He was wearing his breeches and nothing else, her clothes had been tossed to the four winds, and she was naked, wet, and blissfully happy. The house at Sutter’s Head was dark and silent, everyone long since in bed, as he bore her through the hallways to the room where she’d first discovered the truth.
He set her down on the bed, following her down, his warm, strong body covering hers, and she nestled against him. “Where will we go?” she asked sleepily.
He’d given up fighting her, at least for now. “I’m leaving it up to Phelan. He’s spent most of his adult life abroad—this is one of the few times I’ve been out of Yorkshire.”
“I love Yorkshire,” Sophie said. “My aunt Beatrice has a farm up there, on Robin Hood’s Bay. She’s always said she’ll leave it to me.”
“Romney Hall is very near there. If you run away with me, you’ll never see it,” he warned.
“I imagine France is just as lovely,” she said bravely, dismissing Yorkshire with only a pang.
“I don’t think so,” he said, stroking her sea-damp hair as he held her close. “I think I’d be taking you away from everything you’d ever loved, and you’d grow to hate me.”
“The only reason I’d hate you,” she said fiercely, “is if you left me behind. You can’t seduce and abandon me, Valerian. We belong together.”
“You’ll hate me,” he said again, “but I can’t let you go.”
“Wise decision,” she murmured sleepily, rubbing her face against his chest. “You have such smooth skin.”
“Not usually. I had to shave my chest.”
“You aren’t going to do that anymore, are you?” she asked, suddenly worried. “Or wear skirts?”
“Only if you beg me,” he murmured against her ear.
She slapped at him, sleepily.
“Are you sure you won’t miss your dreams of an English country farm? Of dairies and preserves and closets full of white linen?” he asked her.
“No more than you’ll miss fields of sheep and cattle,” she said. “Truly. I’m certain I’ll learn to be very adventurous and love foreign lands. That dream was just a girl’s fantasy. I’m sure I would have grown dreadfully bored.”
“Dreadfully,” he echoed dryly.
“Besides, as long as I’m with you, I’ll be perfectly happy.” She snuggled closer. “You still haven’t said it, you know.”
“Said what?”
“That you love me. You do, you know. I have no doubt of it whatsoever.”
“Then why do you need to hear the words?”
She pulled herself out of his arms to stare at him. “I don’t need to hear the words,” she said sternly. “You need to say them.”
He cupped her face, looking down into her eyes, and the expression on his beautiful face was bleak. “Not yet,” he said. “Not until I deserve to.”
“Valerian!” she protested, but he silenced her mouth with his. And then there was no more need for words.
“Wake up, slut.” The voice was hissing in her
ear, and Juliette struggled out of sleep. She was lying on a thin pallet on the dirt floor of the shack, and Lady Margery was looming over her in the darkness, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight that shone through the broken window.
“What …?”
“Don’t ask questions. I’ll tell you what you need to know. Barbe has come after me, and she’ll tell on me, I know she will. They’ll try to stop me, and I can’t have that. We must hurry, before they come back.”
“Who? Why must we hurry?”
“Don’t ask questions,” she said again, hauling Juliette to her feet with superhuman strength. “They’ll tell Phelan the truth, and he won’t understand. He’ll think I’m wrong, and he won’t let me do what needs to be done. Come along now, don’t dawdle.”
“Where are we going?”
“Dead Man’s Cove. I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, and it seems the logical spot.”
“The logical spot for what?”
“Why, to kill you, my dear. What else?”
Phelan sat alone in the darkness, listening to the night. No one would bother him. Everyone had steered clear of him during the past three days, unwilling to be exposed to the lash of his vicious temper. Even Valerian had been hard put to be around him.
All of which suited Phelan perfectly. He didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone, deal with anyone. All he wanted was to leave this damnable place and never come back again.
He’d never let someone make a fool of him before. He’d been ready to trust her, ready to give her his heart, something he hadn’t been sure he even possessed. And she’d run away from him, gone off to a life of security and boredom.
It made no difference that she’d done the acceptable thing by going with her lawful husband. He didn’t give a damn about what was proper or not, and he hadn’t thought she did either. He thought she would follow her heart. Perhaps she had.
Never before had he any doubts as to what he wanted, what he needed, who and what he was. One small slip of a creature, one who wasn’t sure if she was a boy or a girl, had disordered his life completely, turning it upside down with far more effectiveness than something as shocking as his father’s murder and his mother’s obvious culpability.