candlelight.
«Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had stayed,» Wolfe said, shrugging. «I was never fully Cheyenne. Part of me was always fascinated by the land across the sea where my father lived. Yet I was never fully British. Too much of me belonged to campfires and wild lands. The viscount’s bloody savage.»
She made a soft sound of protest.
Wolfe shrugged again. «In the end I became neither Indian nor British. I became a man who chooses his own way, his own rules, his own life.»
«A Western man.»
He smiled oddly. «Yes. A man with neither home nor family, and a past that was too painful to keep.»
For a moment, Wolfe looked beyond Jessica. The sadness in his expression was almost tangible. Tears stung her eyes once more, for she knew what he was thinking: He was a Western man married to a woman who was all wrong for him.
«Wolfe,» she said huskily.
«Finish the brandy, elf. Then I’ll bathe your face and hands with rosewater. Afterward, if you like, I’ll hold you so that you don’t hear the wind while you fall asleep.»
Jessica started to speak, only to have Wolfe’s thumb press gently against her lips.
«Drink up. It will take the knots from your muscles almost as well as a rubdown.»
Memories of the night Wolfe had rubbed scented oil into Jessica’s aching body leaped between them like invisible lightning.
«Don’t worry, Jessi,» he said matter-of-factly. «I won’t ever frighten you like that again. You don’t have to fight for your life with me.»
Eyes closed, Jessica lifted the glass and drained the last of the fragrant brandy, wondering why she felt unhappy rather than relieved.
«Wolfe?» She coughed and swallowed quickly. «Are all — that is — are most —» She coughed again.
«Slow down, elf.» Wolfe eased Jessica back onto the pillows and tucked the fur blanket up over her breasts. «Let yourself relax.»
He reached into the basin of warm water, retrieved a linen cloth, and wrung it out. Gently he washed her face, removing the trail of tears.
«Wolfe?»
He made a questioning sound that was rather like the purr of a very large cat.
«I thought all marriages were like my mother’s,» Jessica said.
«I realize that. Now.»
«But they aren’t, are they?»
«No.»
«Even in the marriage bed?»
«Especially there,» Wolfe said, wringing out the cloth. «If there is affection between husband and wife, the marriage bed is a place of pleasure for both of them. If there is love…if there is love, I suspect that paradise holds no greater joy.»
The cloth moved gently down Jessica’s arm. For long moments, the scented cloth lay over the sensitive inside of her wrist, where life pulsed softly beneath fine-grained skin.
«Most men,» Wolfe continued as he smoothed the cloth over her palm and fingers, «aren’t drunken or cruel. They take no pleasure in a woman’s pain.»
Jessica watched Wolfe with wide, intent eyes.
«Any man worthy of the name knows his own strength,» Wolfe continued. «He knows that women are more delicately made, more slow to burn with passion; but once a woman burns, there is no fire to equal it, not even a man’s. She will share that fire generously with a careful partner.»
«Despite the pain?»
«An aroused woman feels only pleasure when she holds a man inside her body. That shared fire is the sweetest kind of burning. For both of them.»
«Fire without pain,» Jessica whispered, remembering.
A wave of desire went through Wolfe, but nothing of his response showed as he turned away to rinse the cloth once more.
«Yes,» he said, as he bathed Jessica’s other arm. «Fire without pain.»
Motionless, she watched Wolfe with clear, steady eyes, loving the black angles of his eyebrows, the slightly shaggy thickness of his hair, the bottomless indigo twilight of his eyes, and the sharply defined peaks of his upper lip.
«When the fire is finally quenched,» Wolfe continued, drawing the cloth down Jessica’s arm, «there is the serenity of lying together in the dark and knowing you have found your true mate. There is a rightness in being joined that goes all the way to the soul. There is power as well, the power of being able to summon ecstasy at will. It’s a godlike power. It’s the power of creation, of life itself.»
«Have you —» Jessica’s voice broke as sadness overwhelmed her. When she spoke again, it was a bare whisper. «Have you known that with a woman?»
«I’ve had lovers. Surely that doesn’t surprise you.»
«I wasn’t talking about your penchant for duchesses.»
Wolfe looked up from the slender fingers he wanted to kiss and saw tears magnifying Jessica’s eyes until they were extraordinary gems.
«What are you trying to ask me?» Wolfe said.
She closed her eyes and whispered, «Have you lain in the darkness with your true mate and felt the rightness of it all the way to your soul?»
«If I had, I would have married. Yet I know that kind of closeness can exist between a man and a woman.»
Jessica started to ask how Wolfe knew if he had never experienced it, but the answer came from her own knowledge.
«Caleb and Willow.»
«Yes,» Wolfe agreed. «Caleb and Willow.»
Sadness caught in Jessica’s throat. «Is — does — that is — oh, blazes,» she said despairingly, unable to order her scattering thoughts.
Wolfe’s thumb pressed lightly against her lips. «Slow down, elf. You’ll get yourself tied in knots again. Would you like more brandy?»
«I’ll get muzzled,» she muttered beneath his thumb.
He smiled gently. «I don’t think so. You’ve had only a teaspoon or two.»
When Wolfe started to get up from the bed, Jessica’s hands closed around his powerful wrist.
«Wolfe? What if — that is — do only people like Willow and Caleb find pleasure in — in touching?»
A slow, very male smile was all the answer Jessica needed.
«You don’t have to be a paragon, if that’s what you mean,» Wolfe said.
«Would you —» Jessica’s voice broke. She took a deep breath and held onto Wolfe’s wrist as though it were a lifeline. «Touch me. Teach me.»
Wolfe’s eyes widened, then narrowed in response to the elemental tightening of his body. «I won’t take you, Jessi. That would make annulment impossible. I’m the wrong husband for you. You’re the wrong wife for me. Lying with you would be the worst mistake of my life.»
For an instant, Jessica’s nails bit deeply into Wolfe’s wrist. Then she released him and lay back with her eyes closed, too ashamed even to look at him any longer.
«Sorry,» she said tonelessly. «For a moment I forgot what you thought of me. You should have let me go to the wind. It would have been kinder. But then, you haven’t felt kindly toward me since the night I ran to your room after Lord Gore attacked me.»
«Jessi, you aren’t thinking at all,» Wolfe said. His fingers went from Jessica’s pale cheek to the soft curve of her mouth. «Or have you decided you want to be pregnant?»
Her eyes flew open. They were dark with fear, haunted by nightmare.
«Don’t panic,» he said calmly. «I said I wasn’t going to take you. I meant it. We’re just wrong for each other
