It was a few moments before she realized that Nicholas was watching her with a hooded gaze.
"You are well rid of him," he said finally.
"Yes." She shook her head, amazed that she had endured his tyranny for so long. "All my life he has been like a shadow hovering over me… dark and menacing. He made my life a misery… He was always so hateful, so violent."
Nicholas's dark gaze intensified, yet held a touch of wariness. "I regret you had to witness that, but sometimes a bully can be stopped only by force."
"Perhaps so." She glanced down at Nicholas's hands. He had strong, beautiful hands, capable of violence and yet… Not all men were angry and brutal as her father was.
She gave him a fragile smile. "Thank you for what you did. I might not have found the courage to break free of him if not for you."
Nicholas felt her soft smile curl inside him and wanted to shout in triumph. She had dealt with one invidious relationship in her past. Now what remained was the ghost of her former love.
At the thought, Nick set his jaw. It would be far more difficult to free Aurora from that powerful influence. But he was determined to succeed. He would make her feel the same love for him that she once had harbored for her dead love. She would be his wife in every way.
The trouble was, he had only two weeks in which to do it.
They arrived well after dark at an elegant mansion hidden in a dense beechwood forest of the Chiltern Hills. At school, Aurora had heard whispered rumors about the pleasure houses wicked noblemen kept tucked away for their sinful purposes, but she had never envisioned anything quite so decadent. The chateau of honey-colored stone more closely resembled a miniature palace than an English manor, while the richly appointed interior had a distinctly exotic cast, with its tapestries and statuary and portraits of nudes.
They were greeted by a small staff and shown to separate rooms. Aurora found herself in a scented, dimly lit chamber hung with silks and brilliant paintings.
A low, wide bed stood against one wall, scattered with tasseled cushions in the Eastern manner. Near the divan, a table was set for a late supper. Along the opposite wall, marble arches led to a walled courtyard paved with brightly colored tiles.
Lured by the quiet splash of a fountain, she went to stand beneath one of the arches, staring out at the dark night. She could almost imagine herself stepping into Desiree's journal, a prisoner in the sandalwood splendor of a palace harem.
But she was no prisoner, Aurora reminded herself. Desiree had been enslaved and carried off to a strange land as a concubine, while she was here of her own free will. And yet she feared that like Desiree, she would be vulnerable to her master's exotic temptations and sweet seduction.
She sensed Nicholas before she heard his soft footfall. Wordlessly he slipped his arms around her from behind and drew her body back against his. Aurora sighed with pleasure at his warmth, his hardness. He was already hotly aroused, and yet they had barely touched. She shivered with anticipation of the night to come.
For a moment they simply stood there together in the hushed silence. She could hear the beating of her heart, feel the strong beat of his.
"Regrets?" he murmured finally against her ear.
He was asking if she was sorry to be here with him. She wasn't. She had qualms, but no regrets. The danger was very real, Aurora knew. It would require all the willpower she possessed to shield her heart from this powerful, vital man and the emotional firestorm he kindled inside her. Yet his promise of paradise was one no flesh-and-blood woman could ever refuse.
"No, no regrets."
"Good," Nicholas said softly.
Somewhere in the darkness came the musical trill of a nightingale.
"Then I have something to ask of you, sweetheart," he added quietly. "I want to renew the pact we made on our wedding night. For these next two weeks we live only for the present. While we're here, we have no past, no future, no discord… no inhibitions. We are lovers, simply that. This will be a time of forgetting, of sharing, of exploring. We can indulge in any fantasy we wish."
Aurora shut her eyes at the vision of heaven he offered. For these next two weeks, she could abandon herself in his arms, could completely indulge her passion for Nicholas. Perhaps then she could appease the hunger that was a constant ache inside her.
And then he would leave her, and her life would finally be at peace.
"Will you do that for me?" he prompted, his lips nuzzling her ear.
"Yes." She couldn't deny him anything he asked; she couldn't deny herself. She needed his kisses, his embrace, his passion. Needed them desperately…
Murmuring his name, Aurora turned in his arms, seeking his mouth. Nicholas was wrong, though. This would not be a time of forgetting, but of remembering.
She had to store up memories of him to cherish after he was gone. Enough memories to last a lifetime.
Chapter Twenty
He led me on an odyssey, into the fiery heart of passion.