Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

When he stood facing her, naked in the midst of his discarded clothes, she gasped, her eyes on his sex. “You will not do this, Alex. I will fight you, do you hear? You will not force me.”

She was a fool, she thought, just as she had been in the garden the night of her mother’s wedding. She had believed then that he would try to savage her like the men at Madame Lucienne’s. He was stretched his full length on top of her, his long legs covering hers, her hands trapped in his above her head.

She stared up into his dark eyes, but inches above her, and tried to steel herself against him. Why would he not be brutal? she thought, trying to free her hands. “You are hurting me, you big bully.”

She was not sure if he did, but in the next instant her body was cool to the air. He had rolled off her and risen. She watched him numbly as he doused the lamps, then felt the bed dip when he lay down again.

Alex lay on his back, his arms pillowing his head, cursing himself for seven kinds of a fool. His frustrated anger had led him to dominate her in the most primitive way imaginable, and the most despicable. There was much he had told her and quite a bit that he hadn’t. Damn her. She knew he was right, at least about her acting with blind bravado, denying him and their child. And she knew he didn’t want her to leave him, didn’t want her to take their child back to England. How could she be so natural in his bed, share such pleasure with him, and still consider returning to a desolate, spinsterish life after she left him?

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t hate me.”

His frust

ration made him say, “Not hate you until after you’ve taken my child and left me?”

She gave a pained cry, but he hardened himself against her. He turned on his side to face her. “What do you want from me, Giana?”

He could hear her breathing harshly, her indecision almost palpable in the silence between them. Suddenly she hurled herself against him, and he felt her hands drawing his face to her. He accepted her against him, kissing her deeply, his hands sweeping over her body. He let his fingers probe over her woman’s flesh. She was swollen and moist, and the light touch of his fingers made her gasp. So it was no game she was playing with him. He wanted to yell at her to trust him, to forget. To forget what? The truth? That many men treated their wives just as she feared he would treat her?

He felt her hand move from his chest, tangling in the thick hair at his groin, until she found him. He jerked as her fingers closed gently about him, and tightly closed his mouth against the groan building in his throat.

There were no more words between them, only the sounds of pleasure as they caressed each other.

When she lay against him, her leg thrown over his groin, her hand curled in the hair on his chest, he found to his surprise that sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. His heart finally slowed from a climax that had made him want to yell his possession of her. He would not let her leave him, not after the birth of their child, not ever.

Chapter 20

Leah cleared her throat as she opened the London Times, Alex’s gift to Giana, delivered in bundles nearly every week since Giana’s arrival in the Saxton household, and announced her daily tidbit of news to everyone at the breakfast table.

“The most interesting event in London today,” she began, “or three weeks ago was the triumphant arrival of”—she stumbled over the odd name—“ Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian revolutionaries. Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, you know,” she added proudly, “to show England’s sympathy with the revolutionaries, is offering to pay eight pounds to every Hungarian refugee arriving from Turkey who needs help to pay his passage to America. To us,” Leah finished.

“So much violence in Europe,” Giana said. “In every country it seems, save America and England.”

“Even our country may tear itself apart,” Alex said.

“I saw you reading Mrs. Stowe’s novel, Mrs. Saxton,” Anna Carruthers said.

Giana nodded toward Mrs. Carruthers. She liked Leah’s new governess immensely, from the top of her white bun to the toes of her sensible shoes. She was like a comfortable, very kind mother-in-resi-dence. And Leah liked her. Anna was German, and well-educated.

Alex looked up from his toast. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin?”

“Yes, indeed,” Giana said.

“My business associate in Atlanta, George Plummer, is irate about the book, needless to say.”

“I didn’t know you had a business associate in the South, Alex.”

“There is quite a bit you don’t know about me yet, Giana,” he said.

Giana looked up in surprise at his impassive face, but the brief tension between them was quickly broken by Leah’s giggle. “Oh, this is wonderful.”

She ducked her head behind the newspaper and read aloud, “‘William Hodgson, who just died in Newgate prison, is reported to have been one hundred and six years old when he drew his last breath. He was imprisoned for making a revolutionary speech in 1793.”’

“Pigheaded English,” Alex said.