Again she heard a noise outside the door. A jingling or ringing, like sleigh bells. She looked at the bright sunlight that warmed a long rectangle on the floor and thought, How foolish to be afraid of a ghost in the afternoon.
Stupid to be afraid of a ghost who had done her such a favor, too. If he hadn’t lured her from her room on the night before her wedding, she’d have been hurt, perhaps badly, by a sham ghost. By the person who even now lurked outside her bedchamber?
Silently she slipped from the bed, and shivering, she crept to the door. Opening it just a crack, she looked out into the hall.
A new table stood against the opposite wall, draped in a tablecloth that hung almost to the floor on the sides, and beneath it sat Jasper. He held a ring of keys and sorted through them one by one. Occasionally one clinked against the other, and he jumped. Then the keys made the jingling sound she’d heard, and he moved the edge of the tablecloth to peek guiltily down the hall.
Carefully shutting the door, Sylvan leaned on it. What was Jasper doing? She’d never seen anyone behave as oddly as Rand’s coachman and body servant, and she hoped he hadn’t gone quite mad. In fact—she gulped—she hoped that guilt hadn’t driven him insane. She had suggested him as the sham ghost once before, but she hadn’t really believed it. Jasper had seemed so normal, but when she thought about it, he had had the opportunity to attack those women, and her, too. He’d been assisting the mechanic when the steam engine exploded, and although Stanwood had died, Jasper had not sustained a single scratch. Was he lurking outside her door waiting for the proper moment to murder her? Or was he part of a team who planned to…to what? Sylvan still didn’t understand what the madman hoped to accomplish with his vicious attacks on the women and his destruction of the mill.
Hearing voices in the hall, she leaned her ear to the door. She could hear the rumble of men’s voices, then the doorknob twisted and the door began to move. She braced herself against it, and she heard a grunt from the other side, but the pressure didn’t ease. Her feet slid inexorably on the smooth floor until the door opened completely and Rand poked his head around. “Sylvan! What are you doing?”
The voices in the hall took on new meaning, as did Jasper’s unusual behavior. Had Rand asked him to guard her? Seeing Rand’s puzzlement, it seemed a logical conclusion. Smiling with false good cheer, she stepped away from the door. “Sleepwalking.”
Rand moved into the room. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he still wore the formal knee breeches, white stockings, and black pumps that a funeral required. However, he’d removed his black coat and waistcoat, and his cravat hung loosely around his neck. The starch in his white shirt had failed, and his informal appearance was explained when he let someone—Jasper, she supposed—toss in a pile of bags. To her, he said, “You should be in bed. You’re obviously overtired.” Her white nightgown might be modest in its sweep from neck to toes, but Rand’s worried frown lightened at the sight. “No, Jasper.” He held up his hand to his manservant who still stood in the hall. “I’ll unpack.”
She sprang toward the bed and scampered beneath the blankets as he shut the door. “What are you doing here?” she asked brightly.
“Moving in.”
The pile of bags gained new significance, and she eyed them with foreboding as she tucked the sheets tight under her armpits. “Already?”
If anything, he looked taken aback. “Already?”
“Well, it’s just so soon after…”
To her surprise, he gave her a wobbly grin. “After Garth’s funeral? I assure you, Sylvan, Garth had an earthy nature. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that my crafty brother…had marriage in mind the first time he met you.” His voice sounded thick with tears; obviously, he wasn’t as composed as he appeared. “Let me assure you, if he were here, he would have carried the bags in for me, regardless of the grievous circumstances.” He hesitated, then said delicately, “I looked for you first in the duke’s chambers.”
Her toes curled as she pulled her knees closer to her chest and tucked the skirt of her nightgown around her toes. “I like this room better.”
“It’s very nice,” he said politely, and did not point out that it scarcely compared to the grandeur of the duke’s apartment. “However, if you are avoiding me, let me relieve your mind.” Opening one carpetbag, he began to unload bottles onto her table with false briskness. “You don’t need to feel you must perform your conjugal duties now. I would prefer to have a bride who doesn’t doze off during the initiation.”
“It’s not that,” she protested, knowing it to be the truth. “I’ll have to move there someday, but not today.”
He looked at her inquiringly.
Stumbling, she tried to explain. “Not when it seems the bed still bears the warmth of Garth’s body, and the scent of Betty’s love still lingers among the linens.”
Rand stared at her for one more moment, then tears sprang to his eyes and he returned to his work with the feverish intensity of one driven. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, of course.” He wiped his cheek across his shoulder. “At the funeral, Betty bore herself with all the dignity of the finest lady, and James…poor James.” Rand sighed. “I’m afraid his guilt has placed him beyond consoling.”
“Guilt?”
“At the many fights he and Garth indulged in.”
She didn’t answer, but wondered if James…
Rand reached the bed before she realized and lifted her chin. His blaze of indignation had dried his eyes, and he said, “I know what you’re thinking, and I want you to stop. James didn’t sabotage the mill. He’s our cousin, for God’s sake.”
“But the guilt—”
“If you’re going to use guilt as a gauge, the culprit is standing before you. I’m guiltier than anyone. I didn’t help Garth with the mill, and if I’d just seen beyond my own problems, perhaps I could have discovered whether the source of my problems and the source of Garth’s was the same. I think he must be, so don’t judge me or my people.”
A scathing rejection, and one she supposed she deserved. She wasn’t one of his people, and she leaned back with a sigh and closed her eyes.
He noted the weariness that tugged at her sweet mouth and the lines where dimples had once resided. He had done this to her; he and the riddles at Clairmont Court and his own volatile reactions. He tried to relieve the burden of responsibility from her. He wanted her to stop worrying, yet here she was, awake and restless, observing him as he wrestled with his sorrow and, no doubt, wrestled with her own. “Have you slept at all?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She tugged the blankets closer around her chin. “I’m cold and I’m…well, it just seems I can’t shut off my mind. Every time I close my eyes, I see the women, suffering, and I just can’t”—her eyes popped open—“sleep.”
He knew of a cure for insomnia, and a salve for their grief. It was an attestation to the spirit, a consummation of their marriage, and, in a sense, a toast to Garth and the pleasure he seized in life. Rand trembled with the need to lift the blankets and slip between Sylvan’s legs. Her delicate appearance restrained him, and he wondered if he would be the worst sort of cad to help her in that manner. Then, drawn by an irresistible force, his hand reached out and he smoothed the hair off her forehead and away from her ears. She turned her head toward his touch. His hand slipped behind her neck, and when his fingers massaged a strained spot, she moaned. “You want to sleep?”
She nodded.
“I can help you.” He withdrew his hands and walked to the table. He searched among the scattered bottles until he found the one he wanted. Going to the fire, he set it where it would acquire the warmth, and laid enough wood on the grate to last for hours. Then, taking the warmed bottle, he returned to the bed to find her watching him warily. She was no fool, his Sylvan, and her suspicion seemed appropriate, considering her virgin state and his intentions. He asked, “Do you believe in me?”
She hesitated.
“When I could only
walk in my sleep and women were hurt on those nights, you believed in me so much you forced me to believe in myself. Has that changed?”
“No. No, I believe in you.”
Her gaze clung to his with the sorrow of a pet caught in a poacher’s trap. She needed him to rescue her and heal her wounds, and he needed her just as badly. Stripping the blankets away, he sat by her feet, and she bounded up. He pressed her down to the pillows with his hand on her shoulders. “You have to relax.”
“I am.”
He grinned and wished he could strip away the nightgown that covered so well and tantalized so much. He poured a bit of oil into his palm. The citrus scent incited him, and he waved the bottle in her direction. “This one smells good, but I’ve got some rose oil over there. Would you rather have that?”
“No. This is fine.”
“You didn’t even smell it.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
Rubbing his hands together, he picked up her foot. She jerked away reflexively. “You’re not relaxing,” he rebuked.
“I’ll try harder,” she promised, and stretched her arms out stiffly and clenched her hands into fists by her side.
She was as tight as the cotton thread the women had spun on the machines and just as likely to snap.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
In a soothing tone, he said, “You liked this last time. Remember?” Starting with her toes, he rubbed with a firm touch and slowly, gradually, she relaxed. He extended his range, rubbing the arch of her foot, the point of her heel.
Each time he changed position, she tensed, and at last she said, “I don’t think I can bear this.”
He touched the callus on every toe and the pad of skin that cushioned her heel, and said, “Any woman who has earned calluses like this can bear anything.” He started again, manipulating the tiny bones of her toes and the rough texture of her sole, and this time she relaxed completely.
That was it; the most important part. He had touched her, stroked her, accustomed her to his hands on her, and now he could move on. Move up. Again he wet his hands with the oil, then laid his hands on her ankles. She didn’t jump quite so completely this time. Her gaze didn’t cling to him quite so anxiously, and as he worked the joints, her breathing began to deepen. Casually he worked up her calves, pushing the prim nightgown ahead of him. She watched him from beneath heavy lids, and he couldn’t decide if she was suspicious or tired, so he rolled her onto her stomach.
She tried to sit up, but he placed his hand on her back and pushed her down onto the mattress. “Relax,” he said. “Believe.”
She took a big breath when he slid her nightgown up, then a bigger one when he slid it all the way up to her shoulders. “Take it off,” he whispered, easing it over her head. She let him strip her, although she trembled.
“You are so lovely.” From the dimples at the base of her spine to the coil of hair at her neck, he worshiped her. He wanted her.
Damn! He wished that he’d undressed before he started, but how did a man casually remove his clothes with a terrified woman watching him? Now that she was no longer terrified, he had to try to slip out of his garments without breaking the spell.
He ripped the fasteners off his breeches, dropped his shoes off the edge of the bed, and skimmed out of everything that covered him below the waist.
The shirt could wait.
Climbing onto the bed, he trickled oil in a thin stream down her spine, then straddled her, taking care not to touch her with his body.
Not yet.
He smoothed the oil across her skin, rubbing the tightness from her neck. Lubricated by the fragrant oil, his hands slipped across her shoulder blades, then his fingers kneaded each sinew and muscle in her back and arms. Anxiety that had held her tight when he started now eased, and he asked, “What do you think?”
In a halting voice, she said, “Troubles are dripping from my fingertips.”
He laughed softly. She had a funny way of saying it, but he knew it was true. Troubles were dripping from her fingertips, and relaxation had drifted in to replace it.
So drowned in tranquillity was she that when Rand twisted her onto her back, she made no move to cover herself. Exposed to his gaze in the bright daylight, she lay as he placed her: arms swung out from her side and legs slightly parted. Beauty was there, and something he had scarcely hoped to win: trust was there, too.
Staring at her, Rand shook with suppressed passion. His woman was prone before him, plucked of all her feathers like a bird at a feast. All except the fanciest ones, and they waved with silken splendor. His eyes burned and possessive fervor knotted his stomach, but the dependence implicit in her supine form kept him from taking her as she drifted.
He ripped off his shirt and rubbed it over his chest. He’d broken a sweat, not from the exertion of massage, but from looking, wanting, and restraining himself. Tossing the shirt aside, he proceeded with the tortuous ascent of her body. He manipulated her calves, her sweet and sensitive thighs. He massaged the firm wall of her stomach, her ribs. With both expert hands, he pulled and stretched her arms, rubbed the hollows around her collarbone, rotated her neck. His fingertips prowled her face until her tense jaw loosened and the worry wrinkles were obliterated.
Sylvan was only aware of her own body, not of the male body holding her down. Her soul hovered outside her body, floating freely above the scene on the bed. With no real care, she wondered how she would reenter the flesh. She experienced no desire to return to that earthly vessel, nor could she discern a thread connecting that soul with that body lying lax in a trance.
Then she perceived the lightest touch on her nipple and heat bloomed in the pit of her stomach. Warm oil lubricated her bosom, dispersed by Rand’s slick palms. Just grazing the tips with his callused thumbs, Rand forced her to inhale deeply and bring air into her lungs. Resurrected by the life-giving breath, Sylvan endured a tingle of perception along her atrophied nerves. The slow excitement built as he stroked over and over her sensitive breasts, stroked up to her throat and across her belly to her inner thigh, brushing aside her crumbled defenses, ending her innocent isolation.
In one glorious revelation, Sylvan traced the thread that hooked her soul into her flesh. It was her senses; her skin alive to every vibration, her nose quivering with the scent of male sweat and citrus, her ears attuned to the rasp of his breath and the crinkle of the pillow beneath her head.
“Sylvan.” Rand called her, and she opened her eyes to look on the stern face above hers; to see his miraculously nude body, all muscle and drawn sinew; to see his tanned hands as they caressed her white skin, bringing it to a fine-tuned anticipation. His knees were between her knees and he sat back on his heels to view her. “You are so beautiful.”
She wasn’t, she knew, but when he said it, why shouldn’t she believe?
When he met her gaze once more, his eyes were fierce blue slits. She hadn’t realized how thoroughly passion would heat him or how strong his will must be to restrain himself, but she realized now what would happen when he let it go. And he would let it go.
She tried to cover herself with her hands, but he soothed her distress with a whispered reassurance, then bent and put his mouth there. Nothing prepared her for the sweet shock. It was like flowers and candy, a flickering courtship; wet and slow and riveting. Centering her whole concentration on one tiny nub, his tongue wrung smothered cries from her chest as she arched up to meet him, then writhed away. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she called, “Please, please,” and Rand knew.
He knew. Sliding up, he rubbed her all over with his body. The oil lubricated them so each motion was redolent with pleasure. The heat built quickly. She heard herself making different noises now, like a kitten when it is hungry, and she couldn’t stop. He kissed her mouth. Her hands twitched, then rose to dab at his neck. He stretched. She grazed his shoulders. He sighed. She stroked his chest, then slowly, daringly, she lurched along his breastbone to his stomach.
Was s
he doing it right? She must be, because he said things that should have shocked her. Then he thrust himself into her hand, and that did shock her.
She tried to let go, but he liked it so much. She might not know much, but she knew that. He was slick, all over, and she was slick, too, and Rand said, “This is perfect. Put me where you want me.”
It was all so new, but she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what he meant. Trying to be bold, she placed him and glanced up into his face. He was smiling at her, and he promised, “It’ll be easy.”
He nudged himself forward, entering her just a little, and her muscles tried to clamp down, but he uncorked the bottle of oil and poured it into his hands. She thought he would use it to ease his way, but instead he leaned back and rubbed it on her breasts.
Funny, to have him handle her with such care, as if she were precious. Funny, to have his touch on her nipples transmuted to a chill along her spine and a warmth deep inside. He rocked his hips to some yet unknown rhythm, entering her while his palms slid to her stomach and smoothed the skin. Entering her while too many sensations buffeted her and she didn’t know which to heed. “Talk to me,” he coaxed. “Tell me if you like this.”
Another distraction. He wanted her to talk. “I like it.”
“Which?”
She gasped at the pressure inside—the pressure he created, the pressure her own body manufactured.
“Do you like it when I do this?” He circled her hip bones. “Or this?” Taking her nipples, he pinched them hard between his thumb and forefinger.
At the same time, he plunged forward. She came off the bed with a squeal, not sure where she suffered the most and not sure if she’d been tricked or given a treat. “That hurt!”