She grimaced. “I’m not entirely sure I don’t hate you.”
“For this?”
“For everything.”
He didn’t ask what everything was. He knew. The specter of their parting had haunted every word they’d spoken since they met downstairs. “I’m sorry about that night. I was drunk. I thought it was you.”
“Then you should have come after me and explained.”
“I know.” And if she hadn’t called him every vile name on earth, he might have.
“But you didn’t. You stayed with her all night.”
“I’d been drinking for two days if that’s any excuse. I probably fell asleep.”
“You probably didn’t I know what you probably did.”
“And you ran to Louvois,” he said as bitterly as she.
“Do you blame me?”
He shut his eyes for a moment and then stared at the ceiling as he spoke, his voice constrained. “I don’t want to fight about this. He’s gone; she’s gone. Five years are gone. I missed you. And that’s God’s own truth.”
“Because it’s useful to say that right now.”
He turned his head and looked at her. “Because it’s the truth.”
It took her a very long time to respond.
“Very well, then.”
His gaze narrowed. “What a condescending tone. Are you my mother?”
“I dearly hope not,” she said in an altogether different tone, “considering my carnal interest in you.”
His smile was suddenly sunshine bright “Are you finally sure?”
She nodded.
It was his turn to pause. “Just to be absolutely certain there’s no misunderstanding,” he said, each word measured, “say five years from now or five minutes from now-you have to ask me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She edged away.
“I don’t want any recriminations later about who did what to whom.”
“I’m
‘Jesus, Caro, you never had any problem asking before.“
‘That was different. You’re
He took a deep breath. “Fine. We’ll both ask. Would that be better?”
Another long pause and then she nodded.
“Arranging the peace treaty with France was probably less onerous,” he grumbled, sitting up and drawing an imaginary line between them on the bed. Holding out his hand so it rested directly above that designated halfway point, he tipped his head in her direction. “I would very much like to make love to you, Lady Caroline. If you approve of the arrangement, we could shake on it.”
She held up one finger to test the temperature of the air.
“It’s warm,” he said.
“Your warm and my warm are different.”
He grinned. They never used to be.“
“Very funny.” But she rose to a seated position and held out her hand just short of his. “I find myself inclined to make love to you, Your Grace.”
His laughter filled the room and then he grabbed her hand and shook it soundly. “I accept, although I don’t believe I’ve ever been propositioned with less enthusiasm.”
“I’m impelled by circumstances,” she said with restraint.
He grinned. “Me too.”
“You mean you’re next to a woman with a heartbeat.”
“Come, Caro,” he murmured. “Stop sulking. We both want the same thing.” His voice went soft “And it has nothing to do with proximity,” his brows rose faintly, “or at least for me it doesn’t.” He could send for one of the serving maids if he just wanted a woman. He’d received enough sly looks downstairs to know they were interested. “I consider myself the luckiest of men to have been driven off the road by this storm and to have found you.”
If only his charm weren’t legend; if only she could believe him. But suddenly she wanted to believe. Whether it was weariness that persuaded her or whether she’d been alone too long, she simply wanted to be held in someone’s arms whether they cared or not. “Perhaps the storm was serendipitous for us both.” She looked at the man who had once meant so much to her and gave in to her impulses and his allure. “I’m going to kiss you, now.” A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready from the moment I saw you in the parlor downstairs.”
She had been too, if she cared to admit it. Which she didn’t. “You’re persistent I’ll give you that”
And you’ve become cautious, he wanted to say. “I had good reason,” he said instead.
“Stop talking.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A second later, she brushed his cheeks with her palms, a light, petting touch. “You’re scratchy.”
“Should I shave?”
A tiny frisson shimmered through her senses. She shook her head.
“I’ll be careful, then,” he whispered.
And they both remembered how he’d always shaved twice a day for her and why.
She drew him near, her hands warm, her breath delicate against his mouth and it took every shred of willpower he possessed to keep from pulling her into his arms. He waited for her lips to touch his, feeling as though a decade had rolled away and he was waiting, with bated breath like this, for Caro’s first kiss.
Finally, her mouth grazed his in a velvety caress, the tiny flecks of gold in the green of her eyes so close he could count them. “Do you remember our first time?” he whispered, feeling as though he were going to burst.
Her heart lurched and letting her hands fall, she eased back as though putting distance between now and then.
Leaning over, his hands at his sides, he kissed her gently like he had that night because she’d been trembling then too. “It was my eighteenth birthday,” he said, sitting upright again, not wishing to frighten her.
“It was stormy like this.” Her voice was barely audible, her hands clenched in her lap. Every detail of that night was etched in her memory.
“And our parents never got out of London because of the snow.”
She smiled because he had and she’d gained control of her susceptible emotions. She wasn’t fifteen anymore; she’d learned how to guard her heart “The cook had made you a cake,” she said in a normal tone.
“But you were my best present”
You were the best everything, she wanted to say, but too many disappointments clouded their past “Thank you,” she said instead. “I regarded you as a wonderful present that night as well.”
She drew in a sharp breath, his touch inciting an answering tremor in the heated core of her belly, treacherously reminding her of all she’d missed since leaving England.
“Our coats were covered with snow.” His voice was rough but soft. “We’d just come in from the stables. Remember?”
She nodded her head and leaned into the slight pressure of his finger, wanting more, wanting everything he had, like she had that night so long ago.
The pad of his finger sank into her soft flesh, and she moaned, the imprint, however light, riveting to senses so long denied. Her body was aching with desire, opening of its own accord, immune to principle or caprice and after five long years and a night of wavering indecision, she could no longer wait.
“I want you now,” she said, because she wasn’t an innocent like she’d been that snowy night long ago and she wanted him for reasons that had nothing to do with romance. Or at least so she told herself. “Hurry,” she charged. “I don’t want to wait”
He generally took offense at females giving orders, but what he wanted was immune to scruple. She could insist on being master of the world and he wouldn’t have cared. “Yes, ma’am. Right away ma’am.”
