“I am not most young ladies.”
He tilted up her chin to look into her eyes. “No,” he said at last, “you’re not.”
She smiled and stretched up to kiss his lips.
The heat between them was instantaneous and he wondered if he would ever be the same again. She’d brought him alive.
“The storm,” he asked her. “Have you always been afraid of them?”
“Yes. Ever since I can remember. I’ve thought about it and perhaps it has something to do with my mother leaving. I remember . . . well, I think I do, that there was a storm the night she left. She came to my room to say good-bye and I was crying, and then she was gone. Nanny Fredericks tried to comfort me, but it was never the same again.”
“I’m sorry.”
But she shook her head at him. “Hardly your fault. And you know, she wasn’t a very reliable sort of mother. She was very beautiful, but she would always be out somewhere, or rushing off somewhere. I felt as if I could not rely on her. She and my father argued very loudly sometimes. But I suppose people forgave her because she was so beautiful.”
She ran her fingers over the scar on his chest, lightly, but there was a frown between her brows. “Did your wife’s brothers do this, too?”
“Yes. They wanted to kill me or geld me. I was lucky.”
“They blamed you for her death?”
“They preferred to blame me than her. I suppose I understand it. She was beautiful and they loved her, and when she left me and ran off with someone else . . . She was a free spirit and they blamed me for that, too. I was young, Averil. I was impulsive. I let her go and thought good riddance, but then when I received an urgent message that she was about to have a child—my child—and the man she was with had abandoned her . . . I tried to save her, but it was too late.”
Averil was still frowning. “We sound alike,” she said. “Both scarred by beautiful women. Only you can’t see mine.” Then she bent her head and ran the tip of her tongue over the line of puckered flesh, and he caught his breath. Her hair tickled him, and his body went hard again. Her fingers stroked the hard length of him, and he tried not to grab her and take her as he longed to, letting her satisfy her curiosity about him. Just when he thought he couldn’t take any more, she looked up at him, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling.
“I don’t want to be the sort of woman who closes her eyes and thinks of England whenever you come to my bed,” she said bluntly. “I want to please you, Rufus, just as you please me.”
He really wondered if he could take any more.
“I love you,” she added, defiantly.
He felt as if she’d knocked him sideways. “Do you?” he murmured, and reached to smooth her hair back from her face. “I love you, too, Averil. Wildly. Passionately. Although I probably shouldn’t.”
She made a restless movement. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” Her breast was naked against his chest and, distracted, he reached to touch the pink nipple, watching it peak.
“You think you’re not good enough for me. You have some outlandish idea that you shouldn’t have me because of your past. That doesn’t matter to me, Rufus. I see you as you are, not as others see you.”
He tried not to smile but she was onto him, moving away, covering herself.
“And now you think I’m a naïve young lady,” she muttered crossly, beginning to do up her buttons.
“No, I don’t.” He covered her hands with his, forcing her to meet his eyes. “I think you know your own mind, my l
ove, but whether that is a good thing . . . You were speaking of your mother, and how she ran off, how she made mistakes. I don’t want you to see this as a mistake in the years to come. I want you to be happy. I want us both to be happy.”
She searched his face and then she smiled. “I am happy. We will be happy.”
He pulled her back into his arms, kissing her mouth, his hands sliding inside her half-buttoned bodice. Her lush curves were his for the taking and he meant to take advantage. It was too late for regrets, he’d chosen his path, and he would take her down the aisle. His bride, his wife, his heiress.
She was gasping and kissing him back, and he arranged her on his lap, so that he had free access to her body. She didn’t demur, in fact she hurried to help him, and when he entered her this time she was hot and eager and sweet. He thought this would be a quick encounter, but instead he found himself drawing it out, moving slowly, languidly, taking his time.
Her eyes widened as she reached her peak, the gray darkening, the gold flecks brighter.
Rufus watched her slide into ecstasy and knew he would never tire of it. Even as he climaxed himself he was thinking of the next time, and the time after that, and all the years ahead of them.
Averil wondered if it was possible to feel any happier than she did right now. Her doubts were gone. Rufus was her man. He’d asked her to marry him but she didn’t want it to be something he felt obliged to do. She wanted it to be something he wanted to do, in his heart, and it seemed that was so. He loved her and they would be so happy together.