Desire

'But this is impossible.'

'Hell's teeth.' Gareth's hand stilled on his other boot.

He turned his head to stare at Clare. 'What are you talking about?'

'I had no notion that you would be able to make me feel such powerful emotions.' Clare pushed her hair out of her eyes and gazed at him anxiously. 'Or that you would be faced with such temptation yourself, my lord.'

'Clare, I don't know what kind of lovers Nicholas and de Coleville were, but I can promise you that I?'

'Raymond de Coleville was never my lover.' Clare clutched at the edges of her unlaced robe and scrambled to her knees amid the rumpled sheets.

Her eyes flashed. 'Nor was Nicholas of Seabern, although no one seems to believe me. I vow, I have had my fill of everyone assuming that I am no virgin.'

Gareth reached out to touch her hand. 'Calm yourself, Clare. There is no need to protest your innocence to me. It doesn't matter.'

'You're right.' She scowled. 'You will not hear any more argument on the subject from me, my lord.'

'So be it. I am pleased to learn that.'

'In truth, the status of my virginity is neither here nor there.'

'Aye. What's done is done.'

'And when all is said and done,' she said a little too sweetly, 'I have no doubt but that I come to this bed at least as pure and untouched as yourself.'

Gareth grimaced. 'No doubt.'

'Surely no man can ask more than that of a bride.'

Gareth was stunned to feel the sudden heat in his face. Belatedly he wondered if she was teasing him.

He glared at her. 'Mayhap we should change the subject, madam.'

'Aye, you are right, sir.' Her expression softened. She put out a hand and lightly touched his arm.

'In all fairness, our mutual virginity, or lack of it, is not the problem at the moment, is it?'

'Nay.' Gareth was unable to think of anything else to say. He did not want to talk about anything at all. He simply wanted to make love to his wife. Was that too much to ask? he wondered glumly.

'The important thing,' Clare continued crisply, 'is that I have just learned how powerful physical desire truly is when it is wielded by a man of your nature, sir.'

Gareth eyed her cautiously. 'My nature?'

'Tis obvious you are a man of great passions.'

'Tis obvious you are a woman who incites great passions, madam.'

'I am well aware that I have a responsibility in this matter,' she assured him.

'Excellent. We have that much established, then.' He dropped his second boot on the floor and rose to remove his undertunic.

Clare frowned in thought. 'Tis plain that we must take care to control this extremely volatile force before it assumes complete command of you, my lord.'

Gareth had his tunic half over his head. He stopped, hesitated for the count of three, and slowly released his grip on the garment. The gray gown fell back down over his body.

'What did you say?' he asked very softly.

Her expression of grave concern deepened. 'I said that we must exercise extreme caution if we are to protect you, my lord.'

'Protect me from what?' he roared, now out of patience.

Her eyes widened, but she appeared startled rather than afraid. 'You're shouting.'

'Nay, madam,' he said through his teeth. 'Not yet. But soon, mayhap. Very soon.'

She sighed. 'Tis simply more evidence, of course.'

'Evidence of what?'

'The strength of your passions.' She smiled with gentle understanding.

''Tis clear that because of your warm nature, you are on the verge of forgetting our understanding.'

'I am?'

'Aye. As your wife and for the sake of our growing riendship, I must help you resist this great temptation. After all, your honor is at stake.'

Gareth wondered if he had lost count of how many:ups of wine he had downed during the long banquet. He lever allowed himself to get drunk.

Indeed, he did not feel Irunk, he thought, but his wits were beginning to reel.

'Are you trying to tell me that making love to you onight will somehow put my honor in jeopardy?' he asked very carefully.

'I know how much it would distress you to awake in he morning knowing that you had allowed passion to seize you in its clutches and caused you to forget our understanding..'

'By the fires of hell, madam, I do not believe what I m hearing. Forget that damned understanding. We did not have one.'

She stared at him. 'But we did, sir. We agreed that we rauld become friends before we consummated this marriage.'

'No, we did not agree to that.' He spaced each word out with great care.

'You announced your foolish intention, but you never asked for my agreement. And by the devil, I never gave it.'

'Surely you can see that if we succumb to passion onight it will ruin our chances of creating a marriage based in friendship and trust.'

Gareth grabbed at the reins of his temper and held on to them with all of his strength. 'This is the most crazed thing I have ever heard.'

'You did not say that yesterday.'

'Rest assured I was thinking it.'

She looked stricken. 'Do you not want trust and friendship to grow between us?'

'They will both come with time.' He groped for a way to turn her logic in a new direction. 'Do you trust me, Clare?'

'Aye.' She sighed. 'But you do not trust me.'

'That is not true.'

'You think that I have allowed other men to make love to me, even though I have told you that I have never lain with any other man.'

'I have also told you that your virginity or lack of it does not matter to me. I am not concerned with the past. Only the future.'

'I'm sure that is very gallant of you, sir, but we cannot have a satisfactory future together unless that future be built? upon a foundation of trust.' She fixed him with an unhappy i gaze. 'And you do not trust me. Admit it. You think I have lied to you.'

'Devil take it, madam, your virginity is your own business.'

'I appreciate your enlightened attitude on the subject. But that is not really the issue, is it?'

He speared his fingers through his hair. 'I feel as though I am sinking into a marsh.'

'Sir, I am convinced that we must both learn to trust each other if we are to be mutually content in our marriage.'

He saw the pride and the hurt in her eyes and in that moment he suddenly knew that she was telling him the truth. No other man had touched her.

He had been a fool to believe otherwise. Clare would never lie to him about such a thing.

Clare was too proud, too spirited, too bold to lie about anything.

Satisfaction rushed through him. He had no right to be so fortunate, he told himself, but he was not one to protest against the happy fate that had given him an untouched wife.

He smiled slowly. 'I believe you when you say that no other man has made love to you.'

She gazed at him, uncertain and wary. 'Tis the passion talking now, my lord. The lure of it is making you say what you think I want to hear.'

He shook his head, still smiling. He recalled her untutored response to his intimate kisses. 'Nay. I want you very much, but I am not such a weakling that I am a complete slave to passion. It does not have the power to