Chapter 19 #3
He dragged his shirt tails up higher and tucked her skirts out of the way. “Helping you make love to me, ma chérie.”
“Like this?” She looked perplexed.
“No,” he said, and pulled her bottom up until she was kneeling over him. “Like this.” Then he guided her down onto his cock.
As her warmth engulfed him, he uttered a sigh of pure pleasure.
“Ohh!” she cried. “How very . . . intriguing.”
“How very satisfying.” He settled her better on top of him. “Being inside you is pure heaven, sweeting.”
She looked down to where they were joined. “So, I suppose it is I who must do the seducing?” She wriggled a bit atop him, driving him to the brink of insanity.
“Not like that, you don’t,” he groaned.
A minxish smile tipped up her lips. “Like this, then?” she said, and came up just enough to torment him before sliding far too slowly down.
“If you’re trying to tease me,” he rasped, “you’re doing an excellent job of it.”
“I am just making sure of the proper procedure, sir,” she said in a tone of perfect innocence.
He glared at her. “The proper procedure is that you move up and down on top of me as quickly as you can . . . before I go out . . . of my . . . bloody mind, damn it!”
She laughed flat out. “Oh, very well, mon chéri.” Then she began to slide up and down on top of him.
It was magnificent. She was magnificent, part goddess, part witch, determined to drive him to distraction.
So, he sought to do the same. Down where they were joined, he rubbed her the way she liked, relishing her every little moan and sigh of enjoyment. With her breasts mere inches from his mouth, he took advantage of those, too, sucking each in turn, enjoying her pleasure almost as much as his own.
Soon he was driving into her—or she was sucking him in—he wasn’t sure which, but either way it was the best thing he’d felt in his whole life.
And somehow, his feelings were all tangled up in hers, especially once she began rocking faster and harder atop him, her breath coming in sweet, soft gasps and her hands grabbing his arms so tightly that he could feel her fingernails through his shirt and coat.
He didn’t care how hard she gripped him. All he cared about was the surge rising in him, pushing him forward . . . “That’s it, my darling wanton . . . just like that . . .”
Suddenly, a look of pure bliss crossed her face, driving him to feel his own release stampede over him like a herd of Thoroughbreds. When she quaked above him and around him, crying out her ecstasy like a swan uttering her last song, he spilled himself inside her and let out a cry of his own.
They clung to each other then, their half-clothed bodies entwined and holding on to those last few moments of bliss.
Gradually, their frantic breathing slowed.
He scattered kisses over her cheeks and her closed eyes; she ran her fingers through his hair, then swept them down to caress his bare hips and thighs.
Suddenly, she uttered the words he had most dreaded hearing from any woman: “I love you, Heath.”
She loved him? How could that be? Hadn’t she heard a single thing that had been said about him these past few days? “That’s just the pleasure talking,” he said flippantly, though he couldn’t keep his breath from hitching as he did so.
The shattered expression on her face made him wish he could take the words back. “So, that is what you think of me,” she said coolly. “That I say things I do not mean, as we French always do.”
When she started to leave his lap, he grabbed her about the waist. “No, I don’t. I was just . . . I mean, I didn’t . . .”
She struggled free of him and left his lap to go jerk her gown down about her legs and smooth her skirts.
He leapt up and hastily began to fasten his drawers and trousers. “Listen, sweeting, I sometimes say things I don’t mean. Because the truth sounds far worse than a jest.”
She faced him with her chin set. “And what is this truth, exactly?”
“That I’m not sure I’m capable of loving anyone anymore, if I ever was.
Look at my record on that score. I abandoned my first love—and our son—because Father commanded me to.
I could have refused him, run away, or told him flat out that I had taken Lily’s innocence, so I was marrying her. Instead, I did as he ordered.”
“You were sixteen, Heath. You had no money, no way to support a wife if your family did not stand by you, and you did not know she was pregnant. Anyone else of your age and rank would have done the same.”
“You didn’t. You were eighteen—and a woman alone—when you ran away from your family to Verdun. You did it for love. A different kind of love—love of the father you’d never known—but still love. My love for Lily was so . . . insubstantial that I abandoned it the first chance I got.”
“You did not abandon it, or you would not have become so angry at Lily for giving her love to another and at your father for separating you.”
He stiffened. “My point is, I am no prize, Giselle. Loving me will get you nothing, because I’m incapable of love. Hell, even your own father thought me unworthy of you. Which I am, damn it.”
She stared at him with pity on her face.
“Oh, mon chéri. You are eminently worthy of me. You care so much for your brothers—and your son—that you fight for them even though it is hard for you. You always talk about your difficulties with your father, but you forget that we all saw you struggle to get him a doctor when he fell ill. That we watched you stay hopeful even to the end, when your father struggled to speak, that he might still apologize for his past sins toward you. And after he died, we watched you grieve him. That grief is what drove you to want to escape, was it not?”
He just stared at her, not sure how to answer her.
“So, you are most certainly able to love. You are just afraid of it.”
The words hammering in his head made him recoil. “Don’t be absurd. I’m not afraid of a damned thing.”
“You know I am right. And I can understand why you are afraid of it, too. Your father took away your right to choose your own future, nearly destroying you in the process, so you have sworn you will never give up that right again.” She gazed at him with love shining in her eyes.
“But a man must share with the woman he loves his right to choose his future. The two must become one to make a marriage, after all—they must choose their future together. Unfortunately, giving up that much control to anyone goes against every part of your being.”
He scowled at her. “When did you turn into such a philosopher, Giselle?”
“When I fell in love with you all those years ago.”
Her claim caught him off guard. “Now you really are being absurd,” he said, though his words rang hollow, even to him.
“You asked me why I never married. The truth is, I was waiting for you to notice me, to care about me, to love me the way I had already come to love you, even though I did not see it myself at the time.”
She swallowed. “But I cannot love you by halves—I cannot marry you while fearing you will come to resent my love. So, the choice must be yours, mon coeur. Let yourself love me. Or let me go.”
The words let me go pounded in his brain. “Don’t ask that of me. I cannot let you go.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but it was true. He seized her by the arms. “I want you to marry me. I need you as my wife. But you should know from the beginning I can never be the man you wish me to be.”
“Do you intend to stay faithful to me in marriage?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, insulted that she would even question it.
“Will you look after Maman even in her old age?”
He stared at her. “If that is what you want, yes.”
“Will you give me children if we are fortunate enough to be able to have them?”
Had she read his mind earlier at Sydney Gardens, for God’s sake? “I would like nothing more,” he admitted.
“Then you are already the man I wish you to be. And because it makes me love you even more, it also makes it harder for me to marry you. I cannot live without having my love returned. I would wither away in the kind of unequal marriage my parents had.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t bear the thought of watching her leave, yet he balked at saying he was in love with her. The last time he’d thought he was in love it had destroyed his entire future in ways he was still coming to know.
Suddenly, a knock came at the door, startling them both. When he didn’t answer, his butler said, “My lord, are you in there? Master Evan and Master Christopher wish to know when dinner will be served.”
“In an hour,” he called out. So much for no one knowing where he was.
He turned back to her, relieved to have something to keep him occupied that took his mind off the possibility of her leaving him.
“I have to go. I will instruct the footmen to be on their guard against Jones, and I will go into Bath first to find out if the constable and his men have caught the villain, but this business with Yates cannot wait. Still, I do need you to do one more thing for me.”
After scribbling the words “I love you, my son, and I’ll be back soon” on a sheet of paper, he signed it and handed it to her. “Will you give this to Zack?”
She read it and nodded, then tucked it into her bodice.
“And will you look after the boys if I leave before dinner? Make sure that . . . that Zachary is all right until I come back?”
“Of course. Do as you must. I will be here at least until you return.”
Those last few ominous words gave him pause. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to think about Yates, and what the man might do to his family.
Nonetheless . . . He caught her close and kissed her deeply, determined that she keep him in her mind while he was gone. When he drew back, he said, “We will sort it out, chérie. I promise.”
She nodded but did not follow as he left his study.
He understood why. She had to maintain appearances. Still, it rankled that she was already withdrawing from him. Because that hurt more than even Zack’s rejection.