Meredith’s heart ached. She didn’t know what form of agony he was enduring in that dream, but she knew she couldn’t stand by and watch him suffer a moment longer. In her girlhood, she’d been witness to his pain and never done a thing about it. There’d been nothing she could have done, then. How exactly did a reedy waif of a servant’s daughter protest the lord’s maltreatment of his own son?
But she wasn’t a girl any longer, and she could do something to ease Rhys’s suffering now.
She crept to the bedside and crouched by his sleeping form. “Hush,” she said quietly. “Hush. You’re safe, Rhys. All is well. ”
She forced her fingers to cease trembling and laid one hand to his shoulder. At his sharp wince, she almost withdrew the touch. But she kept shushing and soothing in quiet tones and simply kept her hand there, pressed lightly against his heated flesh, until the tension in his body released. When his fists uncurled at his sides and his breathing steadied, she withdrew her hand and began to breathe again herself.
For a quarter hour or more, she knelt there, watching him return to a peaceful slumber and allowing her own heart rate to slow.
He released a soft sigh in his sleep, one that melted her deep inside, and his lips curled in a little half-smile. She wondered if she was in the dream he was having now. She hoped so. He gave a little groan—one that hinted at pleasure, not pain.
She couldn’t resist any longer. Stealthily, she tugged at the folds of the bedclothes, drawing them loose from his midsection. And then she lifted the side of the sheet and bent her head to peek beneath.
No, no war injury. None that would inhibit his normal male function, at any rate. Whatever scars covered the rest of his body, these parts of him were healthy indeed. Perfect. As if his organ could sense her interest, it jerked for attention. Arousal rushed through her on the receding tide of anxiety. Just looking at him, she felt heat building in the hollows of her knees.
He made a sudden movement, and she dropped the sheet. She pulled her gaze back up to his face just in time to watch his eyes snap open—dark, intense, furious, dangerous. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and her heart battered her ribs. She had the suspicion a fair number of Napoleon’s soldiers had witnessed this very same look in Rhys’s eyes, and it was the last thing they’d ever seen.
“It’s me,” she said quickly. “It’s Meredith. ”
He blinked a few times. Comprehension drove the violence from his eyes. “Christ,” he muttered, sitting up on one elbow and rubbing a palm over his face, then over his shorn hair. “You surprised me. Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong. ” She almost laughed, remembering her reason for the visit. “Everything is perfectly well. I’m sorry to wake you, I just … heard noises, and I was concerned. ”
“Damn nightmares. ”
“Do you want to talk about them?”
“No. ” With a glance at his exposed chest, he swore again. He shrugged to the far side of the bed, diving under the bed linens and jerking them up to his chin.
And now she did laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Have I offended your modesty?”
“No. No, I’m offending yours. I don’t want to disgust you. ”
“Disgust me? How could that be?”
“The other day. You asked me to put on a shirt. ” He drew the sheet tighter about his chest. “I know it must look repulsive … you know, with all the scars. ”
“Oh, Rhys. ” She buried her face in her hands for a moment, then removed them and decided to just be honest. “I asked you to put on a shirt because you’re the most distractingly attractive man I’ve ever seen, and I could barely speak two words of sense for the sight of you. I don’t find anything about you repulsive. ”
He blinked some more. “Oh. ”
She sat on the edge of the bed, in the empty space he’d created by moving over. “As for scars …” She reached for the top of the bedsheet and pulled. He allowed the linen to slip from his grasp, and she drew it down to reveal his chest, marked by battles of various sorts. “Surely you can’t believe they’re disgusting. Don’t you know how women feel about scars, Rhys? Haven’t your lovers been fascinated by them?”
His breathing grew thready as she drew a fingertip across his collarbone.
He said, “There haven’t been any lovers. Not for some time. ”
“How much time?”
“Years. ”
“So long?” Emotion rose in her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her heart down in her chest where it belonged. Rhys was one of the most intensely sensual men she’d ever known. She’d sensed it even as a girl. It was what had drawn her to him, at an age where her own feelings of desire were just beginning to stir and coalesce. She’d always been fascinated by him, but more than ever in her fourteenth summer. That year he’d left for Eton an overgrown boy and returned a young man. She couldn’t help but marvel at his wildness, his strength, his body—these same broad shoulders she traced with her touch now. She let one fingertip wander the small valley carved between his shoulder muscle and his biceps.
What a grave injustice, that this beautiful man had been deprived of physical affection and pleasure for years. And yet, she could not deny the swell of possessive joy in her breast, to know he belonged to her in some sense. She would be his first, after so long. He would always remember her. She would make certain of that.
Flattening her hand, she swept a palm down his biceps, flipping her wrist to caress him with the backs of her fingers as she drew her hand back up.
“Meredith …” There was a warning in his voice. But none of the strength coiled in these formidable muscles marshaled to push her away.
“Hush,” she told him, stroking his arm again. “Let me touch you. ”
He relaxed against the pillow, and his eyes fluttered closed.
Behind his eyelids, Rhys saw tulips. An endless field of red tulips, and a sky the brilliant blue of aquamarine. He’d spied that field on a pleasant spring morn, marching through Holland with the Fifty-second. A light breeze had teased his hair … almost as sweetly as Meredith now caressed his skin. That field of flowers had been the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, so beautiful it made even his healed wounds ache. He’d led his men straight through it, unable to resist. Striding through that field of a million cheery blossoms all facing the sun at his back, he’d felt as though they were welcoming him into their midst. He waded knee-deep in that beauty, bathed in it—as if it could wash away all the ugliness of war. This must be what heaven is like, he’d thought. I’d best look and breathe my fill of it now, because God knows I won’t be enjoying it after I die.
It was only when he’d halted and glanced over his shoulder that he’d seen the truth: the piercing glint of a hundred bayonets stabbing the blue sky in unison. His entire battalion of bedraggled soldiers, crunching through the field, mowing down the tulips with boots and bloodied stumps of bare feet. He’d been welcomed by the beauty of God’s creation, and he was leaving grim destruction in his wake. Because he was a violent brute, and that was what he did.
Meredith’s caress … ah, this was pure heaven. And he knew the longer he allowed her to touch him thus, the further he was treading heedless into that pristine, alluring beauty, insensible of the damage he could cause. But he just couldn’t bring himself to stop her. Not yet.
He kept his eyes closed. She swept her hand down his arm again, and arousal rushed through his body, gathering in his groin and clamoring for release.
“Women find a man’s scars irresistible,” she said softly. “We’re drawn to them, to the mystery. ” Her fingers found the neat round entry wound where the ball had passed through his shoulder at Vitoria. She traced the puckered scar, pressed a thumb against it. A hint of humor lightened her voice. “Think of … think of nipples. ”
“Ni—” Holy God. “Did you say …”
“Nipples. Aren’t men hopelessly fascinate
d with a woman’s nipples?”
He could not have spoken for other men, but suddenly Rhys could think of little else.
She said, “A man’s scars are the same for us. We can’t help but wonder about them, the color and texture. We long to explore them—not just with fingers, but with lips. ”
Her lips grazed his shoulder, and his eyes flew open. A loose lock of her upswept hair brushed his chest as she kissed his old, healed wound. He wanted to catch that dark ribbon of hair in his fingertips, but he couldn’t move. If he dared move, she might stop.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop.
She trailed warm kisses across his chest. Sweet, tender, feminine. And so damned erotic, he was already hard as a gun barrel and primed to fire.
Pressing one last kiss to the scar at his temple, she lifted her head and straightened. He couldn’t have imagined the expression on his face, but the smile on hers told him she liked it.
His gaze slipped downward, and he realized suddenly that she wasn’t even dressed. Her thin linen nightrail slid down one shoulder. The graceful contours of her throat and collarbone drew his eye downward still. He glimpsed her small, firm breasts swelling beneath the sheer fabric.
He cleared his throat. “Like nipples. ”
Her smile widened. “Yes. ”
His fingers went to the ribbon tie at the neckline of her shift. Grasping one frail lace of satin, he undid the simple bow with a slow, agonizing pull. He let his hand fall back so he could enjoy how the fabric gaped to reveal a hint of flesh. Then she rolled her shoulder, and the muslin eased down to bare one breast.
He was stunned immobile for a moment, mesmerized by the milky perfection of her flesh and its rosy pink undertones. And by her lovely pert nipple, just a few shades darker than her skin. As he watched, her areola ruched and puckered, pushing her nipple into a tight bud. A bud that begged to be plucked, sucked.
A soft groan escaped him as he propped himself on one elbow and reached for her with his other hand. Her breast was so small and delicate, and his hand was so big and ugly—if he cupped her, he wouldn’t see anything of her at all. Where would be the good in that? Instead, he brushed the back of one fingertip along the underside of her breast. Her skin shivered and rippled into gooseflesh. He almost drew back, but her soft sigh of pleasure encouraged him. He stroked the place again, then drew a wide circle with his thumb, tracing the outer edge of her areola. She was the softest thing he’d ever touched. His mouth watered.
As if she could sense his need, she leaned forward, meeting him halfway. “Yes,” she urged. “Kiss me. ”
He pressed a kiss to the underside of her breast, tasting her skin with a furtive swipe of his tongue. And it was paradise. The stuff of a laudanum dream. Pleasure so acute it verged on madness. The spicy-sweet scent of her skin intoxicated him. Against his mouth she was cool and perfect, like honeydew. And it was a very good thing he was going to marry her, because he knew from just this one first taste that he would never, ever get enough.
“Take down your hair. ” He said it in an authoritative voice of command that really wasn’t suited to use with his future wife, but damn—he wanted her to obey, and he wasn’t taking any chances asking nicely.
She did obey, hastily pulling free the ribbon that tied her plait. Her bared breast jounced deliciously as she unbraided her hair, then shook it free. Those thick locks tumbled about her shoulders and chest, dark and sensuous as sable. A curve of creamy skin, capped by her pale, taut nipple, peeked out through the fall of hair draping her breast.
Add in that flirtatious smile and the tender invitation in her eyes, and … Jesus. Fields of tulips, aquamarine skies—they had nothing on Meredith. She was the most beautiful, perfect thing he’d ever seen.
He sat up in bed. “I should go. ”