Wild Star (Star Quartet 3)

“May I ask why?”

Byrony sighed. She really didn’t want to look at him, it hurt too much, but she did. “I’m leaving, Brent. I can no longer live with your lack of trust, your cynicism. I thought you were coming to truly care for me on our trip here. But that changed, once you were faced with your boyhood indiscretion, with your own betrayal. If you cannot bring yourself to deal with it, how can you expect me to?” She waited, her back ramrod straight, her shoulders back.

“No, Byrony, you’re not leaving. You belong to me. My child belongs with me. Look, we belong together, and you know it.”

“No, Brent, you look. A child should be raised with loving parents. I should know. Because my mother’s husband is as he is, I was sent to Boston, to be raised by my mother’s sister. My child will at least know a mother’s love.”

He drew a deep breath, knowing she was utterly serious. “You have no money,” he said.

“I imagine that I can get some easily enough from dear Laurel. I imagine that she would sell her jewels to be rid of me.” She drew a deep breath, not looking at him. “After my child is born, I shall get a job. I’m young and healthy. I shall be just fine.”

He cursed. Byrony turned to continue folding a petticoat.

She heard him walk to her, felt his hands close around her shoulders. Slowly he pulled her back against him. “Listen to me, Byrony, please. I want you. I want our child. I want us to be together.”

“No, I don’t believe you.”

“Will you believe me if I tell you that I love you? That I’ve loved you probably from the first time I saw you, your face covered with flour?”

She said nothing, and he sighed. “There’s so much I have to make up to you, love. So much between us that shouldn’t have been, had I not been so blind about you. And you’re right. of course. Coming back here was a mistake, and I’ve acted like an ass. Everything you said, it’s true. Forgiveness is tough. I do love you, Byrony.”

He gently turned her around and looked into her face. “I love you,” he repeated. “I’ve said those words before,” he continued, almost as if speaking to himself. “To women I knew expected to hear them, but they were just words. I would ask that you try to forgive me. Will you stay with me? You can even keep your whip, just in case I backslide.”

She wondered briefly if her father had said such things upon occasion to her mother, then shut out the thought. Brent was nothing like her father. “Why? You value your freedom highly, Brent. If that is the way you are, the way you want to be, then I don’t want you to change. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

He laughed at that. “I’ve been an unhappy bastard for as long as I can remember. Always something missing. That something was you, of course, and the feelings that fill up every part of me. You’re such a joy, Byrony. I want you to share yourself with me, always.”

For the first time since she’d met him, she saw uncertainty in his eyes. There was really no question as to her feelings, as to what she would tell him. Love was like that, she supposed.

“All right,” she said.

She saw the flash of relief in his eyes and felt his arms close around her so tightly it hurt. She buried her face in his shoulder.

“I love you,” he said against her temple. He felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his spirit. He felt warm and, oddly, complete somehow.

She wanted to tell him some minutes later that she could imagine no man who could take a woman’s clothes off more quickly than he. But she said nothing. She felt too elated, too urgent.

When he came down onto the bed next to her, she raised her hand and gently stroked her fingertips over his jaw. “You’re a most beautiful man, Brent.”

“And you don’t look like you have a babe in your little belly.”

“I will be fat enough soon enough.”

His strong fingers were caressing her breast. “Does that hurt you?”

She shook her head, her eyes never leaving his face.

He gazed down her body, taking in the flat belly. He drew a deep breath, gently laying the palm of his hand over her stomach. “Give me a little girl, Byrony, one as giving and sweet and forgiving as you.”

“I was thinking of a little boy, a hellion who would give you gray hair.”

The look in his eyes changed, and she sucked in her breath, responding as if he had been caressing her.

“Do you know something?” she whispered. “I would slay dragons for you, Brent.”

“You would, would you? An easy promise, Byrony. I’ve never seen a one, at least not west of the Mississippi.”

She laughed, punched his shoulder. He kissed her long, thoroughly, then pulled back. He gently parted her legs and sat back on his heels. “No,” he said as she tensed a bit, “I want to look at you. Don’t be embarrassed or shy. You’re mine, after all.”