Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

‘He touched you. They both did. It made me angry and now I have alarmed you.’ He stroked his fingertips down her flushed cheek. ‘I am sorry, Meg.’

‘I can take care of myself.’

‘Can you? Have you any idea what you want?’ Her heart was slamming against her ribs and she had no idea whether the vibration running through her was her own body or his, trembling.

‘Yes, I want you. We both know that. But it is not…not…’ Meg wrestled for the words to explain her confused feelings. ‘I will not sell myself to you, Ross Brandon.’ Tell me you love me, she thought hopelessly. I know you will break my heart, but love me…

Denying him seemed the hardest thing she had ever had to do, harder than facing the shocked and scandalised faces of the ladies of the regiment after James had disappeared, harder than pretending she was another man’s lover only weeks after being labelled a sinful adulteress, harder by far than it had been at the time to elope, heedless and innocent in the July dawn, leaving her sisters behind her. But she just did not think she had the strength to cope with the inevitable pain.

‘Then give yourself.’ She was in his arms, carried against his broad chest as he strode towards the sofa, before she could catch her breath. ‘Take me,’ Ross said as he went down on to the broad satin seat with her tumbled in his embrace.

Chapter Thirteen

His mouth was hard and demanding and utterly ruthless on hers. It asked no questions, for he knew what he was doing, where he was going and he was no more prepared to discuss it with her, Meg thought as she tried to find the strength and the will to fight him, than he would have discussed his orders with his men.

On the terrace she had gone willingly into his arms and now he was not going to give her the opportunity to explain or argue or reason with him. I want you, she had said just now and he was taking her at her word.

Ross’s weight was on her, his hands were at her breast, then at her waist, then, as lawn and cotton slid over her skin, on her thigh with her skirts rumpling up under the pressure of his fingers. And his mouth never left hers, capturing her gasps, her moans, her protests that were as much at her own response as at his onslaught on her.

She was losing herself in him, in his heat and in the scent of him, his strength, his masculinity. The reasons why she should say no to him were slipping away from her like mist under the first rays of the sun and all that was left was the delicious, aching torment of wanting and touching and being touched.

Ross’s hand found the soft mound at the junction of her thighs, cupped it, wringing a moan from her lips that had him raising his head to look down into her face. His eyes were black, intense, deep with arousal and emotion and everything female in her responded to that look.

‘Ross…’

‘Mine,’ he said hoarsely, burying his face in the angle of her neck, his teeth rasping over the quivering flesh, nipping at the tendons with a delicacy that his strength belied. ‘You are mine. I will not have other men touching you.’

The possessiveness shocked Meg’s eyes open. She stared over Ross’s disordered hair at the table still laid out with the tea things, at a display of jade bowls. They were in the Salon, on the sofa, in broad daylight and her entire body was flooded with feelings so overwhelming, so thrilling, that they were almost painful. This was the truth of what she felt for him, of what he made her feel. This was not for a tumble on the sofa, this was something else entirely, something precious and wonderful and utterly terrifying.

‘No. Ross, stop! Someone could come in at any moment, we are in the Salon, for goodness’ sake—’

‘Then come up to my bed.’ He raised his head and fixed her with a look that spoke of raw sensuality and need. ‘You are mine and you know it.’

‘I am not yours.’ Not yet, not like this. Meg realised that his fingers were still laced into the intimate, damp, tangle of curls, still sending quivering darts of lust through her belly and down the inside of her thighs. ‘Stop it, take your hand off me…Let me go!’ She wanted him so much it was an almost physical pain as he left her, thrust himself off the sofa and stood staring down at her, baffled desire and anger etched on his face.

‘Come to my bed, Meg,’ he repeated.

‘No. You think I am yours and I tell you I am not. I am no man’s.’ She dragged her skirts down, almost panting with reaction, the words all wrong because of the one she dare not use to him, her agitation emerging as anger when all she wanted was to sob out her feelings in his arms. ‘You are so strong—’

‘You think I would force you? Was I forcing you just now?’

‘No! I mean your personality is so strong. You command, you demand, you expect obedience. You expect to get what you want. And I must stand up to you or I will go down like wheat before the scythe and I will hate myself for it. And I will hate you,’ she flung at him as she got to her feet and went to the looking glass, her fingers desperate amongst pins and lace to order her hair and set her cap back on her head.

‘You own this house, this land, your title. But you do not own me.’ The long hair pins hurt her skull as she jammed them back. A good pain, a deserved one. ‘My father owned me, my husband owned me—now nobody does. You pay my wages,’ she told him in the mirror, his face a stark reflection over her right shoulder, ‘and for that you get my services as a housekeeper.’ I love you and I need you to love me too, or my heart will break and I am too weak to bear it. And she was too weak to say the words and face his rejection, the truth that he wanted her body and that was all.

‘You would deny yourself?’ he said softly, moving up until he stood directly behind her, speaking to her reflection as she had to his. ‘Just to keep me in my place?’

‘No, that is not why.’ Meg whirled to face him, refusing to move aside when he stood his ground, however much her knees were trembling. She could not say what she felt and the frustration was making the words tumble out heedlessly as she snatched at excuses. ‘Mine, you said. I am not one of your fields or coppices for you to put a fence round and nail a No Trespassing sign to.’

‘You are saying I am jealous?’ Ross laughed, a short, mirthless sound.

‘I am saying you are territorial and possessive, my lord. You are beginning to fill your father’s shoes very well.’

That was unforgivable, she knew it as soon as the words left her mouth. Ross had confided in her about his relations with his father, had given her a glimpse of what the late Lord Brandon had been and how he had scarred the boy whose dark eyes stared at her from the man’s face. Now she had told him he was turning into that person.

Perhaps his deep reluctance at coming back was not only sadness at what he had lost or the guilt that had tormented him over Giles’s death, but fear of becoming the man his father was. The thoughts flashed through her mind even as his expression began to change, to close against her, every emotion masked behind the harsh bleak face she had recoiled from at first sight on the dockside.

‘I…I am sorry, Ross.’ What have I done? No…undone. All the peace that his meditation by Giles’s grave had given him dissolved into anger.