Chapter 9 #3
Haydon could not imagine what had prompted Genevieve to seek him out in the middle of the night, dressed in nothing but a thin nightdress and shawl, but it was clear that something was troubling her.
He realized that she had suffered horrendously over the last few days, and even though Charlotte had been safely restored to her that afternoon, her emotions were still ragged.
For this reason he vowed he would keep his distance from her.
Even as he made this oath, every fiber of his body was awakening to the memory of her lying lush and hot beneath him, writhing and pulsing against his touch.
All he wanted to do was strip that flimsy nightrail off her and crush her to him, to lay her on the floor and bury himself inside her and lose himself to her silken heat and strength and staggering beauty.
He was disgusted with himself for having such base desires, and yet he could not stop them, could not keep his body from growing hard and beginning to ache with need.
“No one has ever fought for me before,” Genevieve murmured, her voice soft and yet raw, as if it pained her to speak.
Haydon said nothing.
She swallowed thickly, trying to find the words.
“For over eight years, I have had to fight alone for my family. I have fought to feed them, clothe them, educate them, and give them a sense that they are loved and worthy.” Her voice cracked slightly as she added, “And there have been some dreadful pitfalls along the way.”
Haydon could well imagine that there had been. Aside from the constant threat of deadly childhood illnesses, there had been the unending battle to find funds to maintain the household, and the painful contempt and censure of the entire community around her.
“I think most of the people around here have always wanted to see me fail,” she continued, her words tinged with bitterness.
“Of course, they would never admit to having such uncharitable thoughts, but secretly, they believe my failure is inevitable. They delight in their conviction that my children are lowborn, and that their sinful natures cannot be overcome. And that is why everyone was so ready to send Charlotte back to prison. Everyone felt it was no more than what she deserved. Most of the citizens of Inveraray undoubtedly believed it would ultimately do her good, to lock her up with others who are just as irrevocably flawed and base as she is. But you didn’t believe that. ”
She regarded him as if she were looking at him for the first time and didn’t understand what she saw.
“You could have been killed, Haydon. All it would have taken was for Governor Thomson, or Warder Sims, or some lowly clerk at the courthouse to recognize you, and you would have been dragged into jail and hanged by nightfall.”
Her gaze bore into him, trying to delve beneath the layers to find out who he really was.
Haydon regarded her with steady calm. She sensed his powerful attraction to her, felt it as keenly as if his hands were upon her and his mouth was raking hard over hers.
She drew the blanket around her tighter, only to feel his heat and scent engulf her senses further.
Her voice was barely a whisper as she finished, “Why?”
It seemed a simple enough question, and yet there was no easy answer.
Haydon wasn’t sure he understood his actions himself.
All he knew was that he couldn’t bear the thought of Charlotte being imprisoned so much as one more day.
If the governor and the sheriff had not released her, then Haydon would have gone into the jail and stolen her out of there himself, and damn the bloody consequences.
He felt a special affinity toward Charlotte and had wanted to protect her, but he knew that wasn’t the sole reason why he had acted as he did.
The memory of Emmaline, and how utterly he had failed his fragile daughter, had played a significant role.
But he could never admit that to Genevieve.
She seemed so pure and good and selfless to him, he could scarcely imagine the contempt she would have for him were she to learn of his selfish, cowardly history.
She stood there, studying him, waiting. He felt as if she were stripping away the layers of him, trying to pull him apart and look inside and understand who he really was.
It was understandable that she would be curious, or might even feel that she had a right to know.
After all, she had risked both herself and her beloved family to protect him and keep him safe.
But he had no desire to have his deepest secrets and failures ferreted out and exposed to the light.
She had found him lying in the filth on a prison floor, convicted of murder, and had been told nothing but ghastly stories about his brutality and lack of worth.
He wanted her to think him nobler than that—not perfect or free of sin, but at least capable of acting out of a clean, unadorned desire to help others.
Beyond that, there was only one reason to explain why he had acted as he did, and it seemed so incredibly simple yet complex that he scarcely dared admit it to himself.
And yet in that shadowed, silent moment he could suddenly no longer contain it, could not bury it beneath the crushing depths of his past and his present and whatever little remained of his future.
“I did it for you, Genevieve.”
Her eyes widened. And then she waited for him to qualify it, to say that he had done so because he felt a sense of debt toward her, that he owed her something for all the risks she had taken and the trouble she had gone to on his behalf, and now their account was settled and they could part on equal terms.
He said nothing.
It was this that cracked the wall of resistance she had so carefully constructed against him.
A man like Charles would have blathered on incessantly about the whys and wherefores, and what all of this must now mean between them.
He would have expected payment of some kind, although not with anything so crass and simple as money.
No, Charles would have expected a debt of gratitude, in which he would forever own some part of her, and whatever she gave of herself would never be sufficient to render the debt paid.
But Haydon merely stood there, strong yet strangely vulnerable.
It was as if he had opened some long-hidden part of his soul to her, and was now waiting to see whether she would trample upon it or treat it with care.
A desperate longing surged through her, the need to be held by him, to be kissed and stroked and crushed by the glorious power and heat of him.
She was suddenly aware of the thinness of her nightdress and the cool air upon her bare legs, the worn, frigid floor beneath her slippered feet, and the promise of warmth from his flesh.
She had lived for over eight years amidst a constant blur of people who needed her, children and adults who relied upon her to provide for them, to show them how to be strong and fight back against a world that seemed determined to reduce them to rubble.
But until that moment, as she stood staring into Haydon’s heart, she had not understood how terribly alone and afraid she had been.
And suddenly she could not bear it a moment longer.
With a little sob she ran to him, wrapped her arms fiercely about his neck and crushed her lips to his, losing herself to his powerful longing as she drew him closer to her heart.
Haydon moaned and hauled her slender body against him.
The plaid he had wrapped around his waist slid down his legs and puddled upon the floor, leaving him naked.
He pressed himself against her, maddeningly aroused by the soft caress of the woolen blanket that was slipping down Genevieve’s body.
Her thin shawl followed, until finally she was garbed in nothing but the transparent linen sheath of her nightgown, which was worn and plain and thoroughly arousing.
He began to fumble with the closures at her neck, kissing her deeply as he did so, but his ardor made his fingers clumsy and the tiny buttons refused to yield.
With a growl of frustration he tore the fabric apart, exposing her silky cool skin.
The night rail trickled down her body with a whisper, leaving both of them naked in the flickering peach light.
“Genevieve,” he murmured, his voice rough with awe.
He lifted her up into his arms, enjoying the softness of her cradled against his own muscled body, then kissed her ravenously as he laid her upon the narrow bed.
Her hair spilled in glorious red-gold waves across the pillow, and her flesh was luminous against the sun-bleached sheets.
He stretched out over her and covered her with himself, plunging his hands into her hair as he stroked and tasted the deepest recesses of her mouth.
She was all softness and curves and coolness and heat, and he could not seem to get enough of her.
His hands roamed across her milky flesh, touching and swirling and caressing, learning every inch of her as his tongue swept along the ivory column of her throat, down the fine structure of her collarbone, over the lush hill of her breast. He drew a claret-colored peak into his mouth and suckled long and hard, causing her to moan with pleasure, then went to the other breast and suckled it as well, until both nipples had tightened into swollen buds.