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  Each article of clothing removed rendered her more naked and more vulnerable, but it was not embarrassment that seemed to fix Mary Kate’s feet where he had placed her. It was a feeling she had only felt on dark, lonely nights, when even the air itself seemed to caress her skin, leaving her unfilled and wanting something that had been withheld from her.

  Here, and now with his gaze predatory and ravenous and unveering, she would discover what it was that she had always wanted.

  His hands reached out and cupped her breasts. She licked her lips, the sight of his dark hands against her body leaving her too warm. It was as if she’d run a great race and could not breathe, but such would not explain the sensation of melting from within. When his thumbs reached out to brush against her nipples, she almost moaned with the sensation. She wanted to press his hands against her breasts. No one but she had ever touched her there. Certainly no one had done what he was doing now, leaning down to suckle upon her as if he were her babe. He held one nipple between his teeth, scraping gently against it, and this time she moaned softly, a sound of entreaty instead of protest.

  Archer raised his head, a smile glimmering on his wet lips. The echo of that wetness was on her breast, the nipple tightening and puckering in the air. He slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her closer to him, gently pushing her head against his chest. It was a gesture a longtime lover might make, desire shielded in tenderness.

  She had never before been naked in front of a man, never dreamed of being drenched in candlelight while doing so.

  He did nothing but hold her; his clothing felt odd against her skin. She sighed into his shirt, her breath dislodging a tuck around his neck. She inhaled deeply, the smell of him so familiar, so oddly necessary to the sense of rightness she felt at this moment. His hands rested on her shoulders, cupped them in large palms, slid down her back in a waterfall of sensation, then slid to touch her naked buttocks. She ground her forehead into his shoulder, wondering what more he wanted from her. For her to cry surrender? Had she not, standing here naked and uncomplaining, a lamb quite peaceably led to slaughter?

  One finger perched under her chin, raised her head. Had he read her thoughts, then? Was he another ghost in her mind? He kissed her then, a kiss unlike any other they’d shared. His lips were hot, his tongue hotter, exploring and demanding and giving no quarter for the license he took. He did not demand her compliance, he expected it. Anticipated, too, she thought, that the sensation would overwhelm her, so much that when he bent down and caught her under the knees and carried her to his massive four-poster bed, she would utter not one word of complaint and protest. Nor did she.

  It had never been possible to completely forget the dreams of a nude Archer St. John, but propriety and an odd feeling of shyness had dictated that she try. Yet even if she could recall each separate part of him, Mary Kate could never have anticipated the mind-numbing impact of seeing him naked in candlelight. The curves and hollows of his flesh were both shadow deepened and touched by brightness. He was, quite simply, beautiful. He was crafted of muscle and sun-browned skin, wide shoulders and deep chest, and an arousal that should have terrified her with its proportions but managed only to render her speechless.

  Being married to Edwin had not prepared her for this.

  Archer stood beside the bed, seemingly unashamed and unabashed by her curiosity. Instead, a smile played about his lips, as if he understood her sudden insatiable desire to watch him move. Mary Kate wanted to ask him to turn, but it was a request she could not quite utter. With his nakedness, he had equalized hers, so that when he sat down on the edge of the bed, she felt less shy than she had before, less exposed. Yet she found a strange and novel thing had occurred in the moments since he had last touched her. It was as if her body thirsted for him, her breasts ached to be touched, her skin needed to be stroked by his large hands.

  Still, he did not move.

  “I would wish that this night were dawn instead, Mary Kate, and that the light of it was in this room, all rosy and orange, just as you are. Are you a nymph of dawn, then, come to steal away night?”

  She shivered, so much that her bottom lip quivered in response. This, then, was anticipation. This heady feeling pooling in her stomach, in her very blood. It was as if she readied herself for him, her nipples pointing, her skin warming, the wetness rendering her open and swollen and receptive. Still, he did nothing but smile softly at her, a tender smile lined along the edges with a hint of rapaciousness.

  All the bawdy songs she’d learned at taverns, all the earthy comments she’d heard as a dairymaid, all the advances she’d fought back, and all the nights she’d lain uncomplaining and unprotesting as Edwin took his husbandly rights were as nothing to these moments. This simply could not be the same thing.

  The candles lent the room an otherworldly glow. One window was left ajar; enough breeze blew in to tempt the curtains to furl and lend the air a spiced sweetness and chill. Still, it was not atmosphere that made her breathless, or wondering that made her lips part as if they could not contain another full breath. It was the look in Archer’s eyes, dark and glittering like the most precious onyx given life.

  Circumstance had brought her to him, implausible, impossible, improbable fate. Her own wishes had brought her to this place, this moment, lying upon his bed as if for sacrifice, a willing one if he but knew it.

  Or perhaps he did. Why else would he turn her to her side so that her breasts pillowed together, reach out and brush her hair forward so that the curls almost shielded her breasts from his gaze? Why, then, would he palm her skin, trail his hand down from her waist to hip to thigh to long leg to foot, to the tip of her toe, increasing the pressure within her lungs with every soft stroke?

  “You are so lovely.”

  “It is the candlelight. All women look lovely in candlelight.”

  “And do such women have such lovely skin, soft and white, except where it is pink and glowing?”

  “You have, St. John, a greater experience of that than I.”

  He lay on the bed, stretched out full length beside her, as if they were replete from the act and there was no place he had not stroked, or caressed, or saluted with a kiss. He propped his head on his hand, gazed down into her face. She wondered what he saw as he studied her.

  “You seduced me more readily when I was clothed,” she said, her lips turned up into a smile. Her eyes, however, did not mirror that smile, they still hinted at confusion, a little hurt, a wondering.

  “I admit to being an odd child, in that I savored my vegetables first.”

  “And is that what I am, a vegetable?”

  “You are a most delicious dessert. Certainly a treat to be savored.” His fingers trailed from her hip to thigh, as if following an imaginary trail. She shivered.

  “Do you grow cold?”

  She smiled, a daring smile, he thought, one that matched the sudden sparkle of her eyes. “Too hot, rather.”

  “You are an improvident woman.”

  Her smile brightened the room. “I am naked upon your bed. I cannot but admit to such a thing. It seems, however, that I am as safe as if I were in my borrowed chamber.”

  “Is that what you want to be, safe?”

  “If that were so, I wouldn’t be here.”

  One long finger measured the swell of breast. She bit her bottom lip at the touch.

  “I am a spice merchant, Mary Kate, for all that I’m earl.” His finger trailed up to her shoulder and then down to her neck, tracing an imaginary line to her temple. “I have learned that most people do not understand the essence of spice. Did you know that?”

  She shook her head.

  “Too much will spoil a dish. It requires only a hint of it, a subtle flavoring. A taste.” He bent forward and touched his lips to her temple. “You have a taste all your own. An intoxicating one. Too few people understand that something so rare should be appreciated, relished.”

  “First I’m a foodstuff, now I’m a spice.”

  He pulled back,
his smile as daring as hers. “Yes. A hint of cinnamon, a taste of nutmeg. Perhaps a dash of pepper.” His palm caressed the edge of her chin, cradled her face, supported it as he bent down and placed his lips on hers. It was a soft, pillowy kiss, hinting at restraint.

  “What do you want, Mary Kate? Of all the pleasures, what do you want for this moment?” His voice was impatient, hinting that he was not as unaffected as he would pretend.

  She was no longer shy. Shyness had disappeared beneath the very great hunger he’d coaxed forth.

  “I want you to touch me.”

  “Where?” His lips brushed against her temple again, his fingers played at the line of her chin. She nipped at one finger, a gesture that made him smile into her hair. She was growing restive, hungry.

  Her hands had been folded in front of her, clasped at the juncture of her waist. She’d not explored him, not touched him as she’d wanted, had burrowed all of those hidden needs and wanton responses beneath a prudish temperance. Now she extended one hand and trailed her fingers over his hip.

  He jumped at her touch, startled.

  “Everywhere.” She traced her fingers over his chin, feeling the bristly stubble, feeling wanton and decadent and thoroughly wicked. “Kiss me, please.”

  “Another demand, Mary Kate?”

  “You asked what I wanted.”

  “Ah, but I did, didn’t I?” There was a hint of bemusement in his words.

  He did not kiss her as quickly as she wanted, so she grasped his head between her hands and pulled it down to her, her tongue darting across the seam of his lips peremptorily. It was an odd thing, she thought, to want to laugh, to offer up to the gods who knew such things the absolute, utter pleasure of this moment.

  “Shall I touch you here?” His smile was as wicked as the gentle intrusion of his finger between her legs, his palm cushioned upon the fiery delta of hair. A delicate invasion, a tender one, so light and tentative that she might have imagined it but for the gleam in his eyes as he watched her. He probed her delicately, as if testing her response to him.

  She could only hold on to his shoulders and pull herself closer, wanting something he promised in the glint of his eyes and his knowing smile.

  She wanted to pull his head down again for a lusty kiss, to moan, to rub her palms all over his body, kiss him where he thrust so hot and hard against her. A thousand sensations, a hundred impulses. None of them right for this moment, all of them welcomed.

  “Here?” Her words, not his. Her touch, intimate and silken, grasping him with slender, tormenting fingers.

  He pushed her onto her back, extended a leg between hers, made her his captive in this odd enchantment. She lay as he placed her, eyes wide and unquestioning, mouth tempting, begging for a kiss.

  He entered her quickly, but she was ready for him, the arch of her back and soft moan a welcome, an entreaty. He filled her completely, the pressure of his passage ordained by nature itself, the ecstasy of it a gift. His hands slid up her back, gripped her shoulders.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered, “I could not wait.”

  She said nothing. There were, after all, no words she could say. Every nuance of intellect was consumed with feeling. Fill me, complete me, end this. All words she might have said had her mind not been focused so deliciously upon what he made her feel.

  She sobbed when he moved and clutched him with greedy hands when he stopped. She demanded as well as he, arching up at him, cradling him, offering him delight and torment and sorcery. And the end of the world.

  Chapter 23

  He had felt his soul splinter.

  Archer moved his arm from over his eyes, blinked up at the ceiling, forcing it to come into focus.

  Had generations of St. John men and women stared at the canopy above his head? Women in childbirth must have studied the starburst pattern in the center. Perhaps a relative or two, male or female, had been lost in lust or bored enough by the act to stare unseeing at the family crest so artfully embroidered above his head.

  He rubbed his hand over the bristle of whiskers on his chin, ground the palms of both hands into his eyes. Sleep should come with great good cheer, a reward for a day spent in honest labor. Instead, he was awake, prodded not by the voice of his conscience, but by something else entirely. A sense of wonder so profound that it made him question what he knew of the world.

  He rolled to his side, watched her as she slept. She’d screamed. Not a sound of terror, but one of such fulsome completion that he’d felt himself explode inside of her, reaching a depth of sensation he’d never before experienced.

  He’d licked those wondrous lips, crooned words of utter nonsense between kisses, palmed her breasts, licked her nipples, pretended that he was not victim to this woman’s utter sorcery. But that would have been a lie, and Archer St. John prided himself on telling the truth. He’d begun as experienced, proficient, ended feeling as untried as a virgin youth.

  What was there about the look in her eyes that made him want to whisper words of praise? What was there about her lips that made him want to kiss her until night turned to morning? Her green eyes had surprising flecks of brown within them, and gold, too, if one looked hard enough. And there was a mole on her shoulder, as if pointing the way to breasts too luscious to avoid sampling. And her nose was straight, quite autocratic, neither too long nor too short for such a patrician face.

  Archer had rarely watched anyone sleep before; it seemed an invasion of the basest kind. Even his wife had not allowed him the delicacy of this moment, the open vulnerability of it. Alice had wished him gone the moment his seed was disgorged, the object of his visit being the fertilization of her womb and nothing more. Even his mistress had declined the intimacy of sleep. Did the jowls soften, a snore emerge from lips only known in passion? Questions he’d never asked, never wished to have answered. How odd that he should think of them now. Even odder that this particular moment was ripe with an intimacy he’d never before experienced.

  Mary Kate seemed to enjoy a tyranny of possession, her legs spread wide, her arms cast out, she was a Maltese cross upon the plump mattress, but no less charming for her sprawling slumber.

  Her pillow was damp, because she’d wept. Another first, then. He’d never caused a woman to weep with fulfillment. Damn her, that she could make him recall less captivating moments, when he’d cried himself to sleep as a boy. His cheek recalled the feel of scratchy linen, the salty taste of his own tears, the hopelessness that fueled a child’s nightmares. It was not a recollection he wished to explore further.

  She was not childlike however, more a temptress enjoying a respite. Lush and wanton and urging him to forget she was a messenger, a harbinger of deceit. How odd that he should be entertaining thoughts of tenderness when banishing her from Sanderhurst seemed much the better course.

  Archer touched the soft pillow of her lower lip, eased closer and breathed into her mouth, a kiss to incite dreams, to spur her wakefulness. He wanted her again, wanted her awake, to be able to seek in her eyes the answers to all the questions she induced in him.

  She moaned softly, and if he hadn’t been awake, he would have missed the sound, it was so faint. He placed one hand upon her cheek, smoothing his fingers over her skin.

  He made a sound, some crooning nonsense a parent might make to a child in the grip of a nightmare. She turned to him as if seeking warmth and comfort in the long, dark night. He opened his arms and pulled her into his embrace.

  Of what did she dream this time? Which scenario could she envision that bared his soul and stripped his spirit clean? It was a strange question to ask of himself, halfway to a point at which he believed her. Barmaid, tavern apprentice, milker of cows, with a countess’s insouciance and a duchess’s arrogance. Mary Kate Bennett, widow, questioner, sorceress extraordinaire. Why did he think that waking her was a dangerous thing, that he should have her taken sleeping from his room and deposited into a vault with locked doors, a barrier to protect both of them?

  She’d been his captive s
ince the first moment he’d seen her. First in injury, then by inclination. When had he become hers? She’d ensnared him just as easily, within the wall of his own mind, the prison of credulity. Who was she? What, truly, did she want of him?

  No, he didn’t want to know what she dreamed, he only wanted her to wake. He kissed her harder, rubbed his palms upon her arms, gripped her shoulder and pulled her from the mattress into his arms. She lay draped there like some mythical goddess, red hair flaming over his arm. Strange, she was so warm with life, so hot with it that he should have been burned.

  Her smile was fraught with tenderness, an odd thing to think when he wanted to kiss it from her face. He wanted to make her scream again, lead her to passion’s precipice and lead her off the edge of it, soar with her. Instead, she placed her palm over his cheek, looked into his eyes with a green gaze that peered past the ruination of his soul to the smoking embers beneath. In that look she promised new flames and more, a healing touch. He had not died, then, in her arms, but been reborn to die again. Healing life, that was what this surprising woman brought to him. And something else. It glittered in her eyes, promised him comfort and peace.

  Such a look should have frightened him more.

  The soft knock on the door pulled him from reverie, released him from utter confusion. He stood, grateful to be pulled from the web of enchantment.

  “I beg pardon, sir,” Jonathan whispered, “but there is someone who insists upon speaking with you.”

  “Who is it, Jonathan?”

  For once Jonathan’s eternal poise slipped a notch. “It’s your mother, sir. Come back from China.”

  St. John the Hermit? Had he ever aspired to such solitary living? He was inundated with women. None of whom offered him peace. Not even his mother, who stood looking at him as if he were one of those odd statues she’d collected from Africa with sagging bosoms and genitalia not as much obscene as to be envied.

  Except, of course, that he had donned his dressing gown and restored his hair to some order. It did not seem to matter. He no doubt smelled of sex, of wildness and euphoria, and any other scent her flared nostrils detected.