“Why are you here?” His voice sounded rusty from disuse.
Somehow Beatrix managed to drag her mesmerized gaze away from the glinting fleece on his chest.
“I came to return Albert,” she said. “He appeared at Ramsay House today. He says you’ve been neglecting him. And that you haven’t taken him on any walks lately.”
“Has he? I had no idea he was so loose-tongued.”
“Perhaps you would like to put . . . more clothes on . . . and come for a walk with me? To clear your head?”
“This brandy is clearing my head. Or it would if my damned servants would stop watering it.”
“Come walk with me,” she coaxed. “Or I may be forced to use my dog-training voice on you.”
Christopher gave her a baleful look. “I’ve already been trained. By Her Majesty’s Royal Army.”
Despite the sunlight in the room, Beatrix sensed the nightmares lurking in the corners. Everything in her insisted that he should be outside, in the open air, away from confinement. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s caused this?”
He lifted a hand in an annoyed gesture, as if to bat away an insect.
Beatrix moved toward him cautiously.
“Don’t,” came his sharp rebuke. “Don’t come close. Don’t say anything. Just leave.”
“Why?”
He gave an impatient shake of his head. “Whatever words would make you go, consider them said.”
“And if I don’t?”
His eyes were devil-bright, his face hard. “Then I’ll drag you to this bed and force myself on you.”
Beatrix didn’t believe that for a second. But it revealed the extremity of his torment, that he would threaten such a thing. Giving him a patently skeptical glance, she said, “You’re too drunk to catch me.”
She was startled by a burst of movement.
Christopher reached her, fast as a leopard, and slammed his palms on the door on either side of her head. His voice was harsh and low. “I’m not as drunk as I look.”
Beatrix had raised her arms reflexively, crossing them over her face. She had to remind herself to start breathing again. The problem was, once she resumed, she couldn’t control her lungs, which were working as if she had run miles. Faced with a hard wall of masculine flesh, she could almost feel the heat of his skin.
“Are you afraid of me now?” he asked.
She gave a slight shake of her head, her eyes huge.
“You should be.”
Beatrix started as she felt his hand glide from her waist to the side of her ribs in an insolent caress. His breathing deepened as he discovered that she wasn’t wearing a corset. His palm moved slowly over her natural shape.
Christopher’s lashes half lowered, and his color heightened as he stared at her. His hand came to her breast, lightly shaping the roundness. Beatrix felt her legs threaten to give out beneath her. His thumb and forefinger caught at the rising tip and squeezed gently.
“Last chance,” he said in guttural voice. “Get out, or get in my bed.”
“Is there a third option?” Beatrix asked weakly, her breast throbbing beneath his touch.
For answer, Christopher picked her up with stunning ease and carried her to the bed. She was tossed to the mattress. Before she could move, he had straddled her, all that sleek golden power poised above her.
“Wait,” Beatrix said. “Before you force yourself on me, I would like to have five minutes of rational conversation. Only five. Surely that’s not too much to ask.”
His eyes were pitiless. “If you wanted rational conversation, you should have gone to another man. Your Mr. Chittering.”
“Chickering,” Beatrix said, squirming beneath him. “And he’s not mine, and—” She swatted his hand away as he touched her breast again. “Stop that. I just want to—” Undeterred, he had gone for the button placket of her shirt. She scowled in exasperation. “All right, then,” she snapped, “do as you please! Perhaps afterward we could manage a coherent discussion.” Twisting beneath him, she flopped onto her stomach.
Christopher went still. After a long hesitation, she heard him ask in a far more normal voice, “What are you doing?”
“I’m making it easier for you,” came her defiant reply. “Go on, start ravishing.”
Another silence. Then, “Why are you facing downward?”
“Because that’s how it’s done.” Beatrix twisted to look at him over her shoulder. A twinge of uncertainty caused her to ask, “Isn’t it?”
His face was blank. “Has no one ever told you?”
“No, but I’ve read about it.”
Christopher rolled off her, relieving her of his weight. He wore an odd expression as he asked, “From what books?”
“Veterinary manuals. And of course, I’ve observed the squirrels in springtime, and farm animals and—”
She was interrupted as Christopher cleared his throat loudly, and again. Darting a confused glance at him, she realized that he was trying to choke back amusement.
Beatrix began to feel indignant. Her first time in a bed with a man, and he was laughing.
“Look here,” she said in a businesslike manner, “I’ve read about the mating habits of over two dozen species, and with the exception of snails, whose genitalia is on their necks, they all—” She broke off and frowned. “Why are you laughing at me?
Christopher had collapsed, overcome with hilarity. As he lifted his head and saw her affronted expression, he struggled manfully with another outburst. “Beatrix. I’m . . . I’m not laughing at you.”
“You are!”
“No I’m not. It’s just . . .” He swiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and a few more chuckles escaped. “Squirrels . . .”
“Well, it may be humorous to you, but it’s a very serious matter to the squirrels.”
That set him off again. In a display of rank insensitivity to the reproductive rights of small mammals, Christopher had buried his face in a pillow, his shoulders shaking.
“What is so amusing about fornicating squirrels?” Beatrix asked irritably.
By this time he had gone into near apoplexy. “No more,” he gasped. “Please.”
“I gather it’s not the same for people,” Beatrix said with great dignity, inwardly mortified. “They don’t go about it the same way that animals do?”
Fighting to control himself, Christopher rolled to face her. His eyes were brilliant with unspent laughter. “Yes. No. That is, they do, but . . .”
“But you don’t prefer it that way?”
Considering how to answer her, Christopher reached out to smooth her disheveled hair, which was falling out of its pins. “I do. I’m quite enthusiastic about it, actually. But it’s not right for your first time.”
“Why not?”
Christopher looked at her, a slow smile curving his lips. His voice deepened as he asked, “Shall I show you?”
Beatrix was transfixed.
Taking her stillness as assent, he pressed her back and moved over her slowly. He touched her with care, arranging her limbs, spreading them to receive him. A gasp escaped her as she felt his hips settle on hers. He was aroused, a thick pressure fitting against her intimately. Bracing some of his weight on his arms, he looked down into her reddening face.
“This way,” he said, with the slightest nudge, “. . . is usually more pleasing to the lady.”
The gentle movement sent a jolt of pleasure through her. Beatrix couldn’t speak, her senses filled with him, her hips catching a helpless arch. She looked up at the powerful surface of his chest, covered with a tantalizing fleece of bronze-gold hair.
Christopher lowered further, his mouth hovering just over hers. “Front to front . . . I could kiss you the entire time. And the shape of you would cushion me so sweetly . . . like this . . .” His lips took hers and coaxed them open, wringing heat and delight from her yielding flesh. Beatrix shivered, her arms lifting around his neck. She felt him all along her body, his warmth and weight anchoring her.
He murmured endearments, kissing along her throat, while he tugged at the buttons of her shirt and spread the fabric open. She wore only a short chemise beneath, the kind commonly used as a corset cover. Pulling down the lace-trimmed strap, he exposed a round, pale breast, the peak already tight and rose colored. His head bent, and he caressed her with his mouth and tongue. His teeth grazed lightly over her sensitive nerves. And all the while, that relentless, rhythmic stimulation below . . . he was riding her, owning her, driving the need to an impossible pitch.
His hands cradled her head as he kissed her again, openmouthed and deep, as if he were trying to draw the soul from her body. Beatrix answered eagerly, holding him with her arms and legs. But then he let go with a hoarse exclamation, and moved away.
“No,” she heard herself moan. “Please—”
His fingers came to her lips, gently stroking her into silence.
They lay side by side, facing each other, struggling to regain their breath.
“My God, I want you.” Christopher sounded far from pleased by the fact. His thumb swept over her kiss-swollen lips.
“Even though I annoy you?”
“You don’t annoy me.” Carefully he rebuttoned the placket of her shirt. “I thought you did, at first. But now I realize it was more like the feeling you get when your foot’s been asleep. And when you start moving, the blood coming back into it is uncomfortable . . . but also good. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes. I make your feet tingle.”
A smile came to his lips. “Among other things.”
They continued to lie together, staring at each other.
He had the most remarkable face, Beatrix thought. Strong, flawless . . . and yet it was saved from cold perfection by the lines of humor at the corners of his eyes, and the hint of sensuality edging his mouth. The subtle weathering made him look . . . experienced. It was the kind of face that made a woman’s heart beat faster.
Shyly Beatrix reached out to touch the bayonet scar on his shoulder. His skin was like hot pressed satin, except for the dark, uneven gouge of that healed-over wound. “How painful this must have been,” she whispered. “Do your wounds still hurt?”
Christopher shook his head slightly.
“Then . . . what is troubling you?”
He was silent, his hand settling on her hip. As he thought, his fingers slipped beneath the untucked hem of her shirt, the backs of his knuckles stroking the skin of her midriff.
“I can’t go back to who I was before the war,” he eventually said. “And I can’t be who I was during the war. And if I’m not either of those men, I’m not sure what I’m left with. Except for the knowledge that I killed more men than I could count.” His gaze was distant, as if he were staring into a nightmare. “Always officers first—that sent them into disarray—then I picked off the rest as they scattered. They fell like toys a child had knocked over.”
“But those were your orders. They were the enemy.”
“I don’t give a damn. They were men. They were loved by someone. I could never make myself forget that. You don’t know what it looks like, when a man is shot. You’ve never heard wounded men on the battlefield, begging for water, or for someone to finish what the enemy started—”
Rolling away, he sat up and lowered his head. “I have rages,” came his muffled voice. “I tried to attack one of my own footmen yesterday, did they tell you that? Christ, I’m no better than Albert. I can never share a bed with a woman again—I might kill her in her sleep, and not realize what I’m doing until afterward.”
Beatrix sat up as well. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“You don’t know that. You’re so innocent.” Christopher broke off and drew in a shivering breath. “God. I can’t crawl out from under this. And I can’t live with it.”
“With what?” she asked softly, realizing that something in particular was tormenting him, some intolerable memory.
Christopher didn’t acknowledge her. His mind was in another place, watching shadows. When she began to move closer to him, he lifted his arm as if in self-defense, palm turned outward. The broken gesture, made with such a strong hand, cut straight to Beatrix’s heart.
She felt an overwhelming need to physically draw him closer, as if to ease him away from a precipice. Instead she kept her hands in her lap, and stared at the place where the ends of his hair rested on his sun-browned neck. The muscles of his back were bunched. If only she could smooth her palm over that hard, rippled surface. If only she could soothe him. But he had to find his own way out.
“A friend of mine died at Inkerman,” Christopher finally said, his voice halting and raw. “One of my lieutenants. His name was Mark Bennett. He was the best soldier in the regiment. He was always honest. He joked at the wrong times. If you asked him to do something, no matter how difficult or dangerous, it would be done. He would have risked his life for any of us.
“The Russians had set up rifle pits in caverns and old stone huts built in the side of a hill. They were firing directly into our siege batteries—the general decided the Russian position had to be taken. Three companies of Rifles were chosen.
“A company of Hussars was ordered to ride against the enemy if they tried to flank us. They were led by a man I hated. Lieutenant Colonel Fenwick. Everyone hated him. He commanded the same cavalry regiment I had started in when I bought my first commission.”
Christopher fell silent, lost in memory. His half-lowered lashes sent spikes of shadow over his cheeks.
“Why was he so hated?” Beatrix eventually prompted.
“Fenwick was often cruel for no reason. Fond of punishment for its own sake. He ordered floggings and deprivations for the most minor infractions. And when he invented excuses to discipline the men, I intervened. He accused me of insubordination, and I was nearly brought up on charges.” Christopher let out a slow, uneven breath. “Fenwick was the main reason I agreed to be transferred to the Rifle Brigade. And then at Inkerman I found out I would have to depend on his cavalry support.
“Before the riflemen got to the trenches, we stopped in a ravine where there was shelter from stray shots. Night was coming. We formed into three groups. We opened fire, the Russians returned it, and we pinpointed the positions we had to take. We advanced with guns . . . took out as many as we could . . . then it turned into hand-to-hand combat. I was separated from Bennett in the fighting. The Russians drove us back when their support came . . . and then shell and grape started raining down. It wouldn’t stop. Men around me were falling . . . their bodies opening up, wounds breaking out. My arms and back were burning with shrapnel. I couldn’t find Bennett. It was dark, and we had to fall back.
“I’d left Albert waiting in the ravine. I called for him, and he came. Through all that hellfire, against every natural instinct . . . Albert came out with me to find wounded men in the dark. He led me to two men lying at the base of the hill. One of them was Bennett.”
Beatrix closed her eyes sickly as she drew an accurate conclusion. “And the other was Colonel Fenwick,” she said.
Christopher nodded grimly. “Fenwick had been unseated. His horse was gone. One of his legs was broken . . . a bullet wound in the side . . . there was a good chance he would live. But Bennett . . . his front had been ripped open. He was barely conscious. Dying by degrees. I wanted it to be me, it should have been. I was always taking chances. Bennett was the careful one. He wanted to go back to his family, and to the woman he cared for. I don’t know why it wasn’t me. That’s the hell of battle—it’s all chance, you never know if you’ll be next. You can try to hide, and a shell will find you. You can run straight at the enemy, and a bullet might jam in a rifle, and you’re spared. It’s all luck.” He clenched his jaw against a tremor of emotion. “I wanted to take them both to safety, but there was no one to help. And I couldn’t leave Fenwick there. If he was captured, the enemy would get crucial intelligence from him. He’d had access to all the general’s dispatches, knew all about strategies and supplies . . . eve
rything.”
Beatrix stared at his partially averted profile. “You had to save Colonel Fenwick first,” she whispered, her chest aching with compassion and pity as she finally understood. “Before you could save your friend.”
“I told Mark, ‘I’ll come back for you. I’ll come back, I swear it. I’m leaving Albert with you.’ There was blood in his mouth. I knew he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. Albert stayed next to him, and I picked up Fenwick, and carried him over my shoulder, and took him back to the ravine.
“When I went back for Bennett, the sky was on fire, the smoke made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. The ammunition flashes were like lightning. Bennett was gone. Literally gone. They had taken him. Albert was wounded—someone had jabbed him with a bayonet. One of his ears was half dangling—there’s a little ragged place where it wasn’t stitched properly afterward. I stayed beside Albert with my rifle, and we held the position until the Rifle companies advanced again. And finally we took the pits, and it was done.”
“Lieutenant Bennett was never found?” Beatrix asked faintly.
Christopher shook his head. “He wasn’t returned in the prisoner exchange. He couldn’t have lived long after he was captured. But I might have saved him. I’ll never know. Jesus.” Blotting his glittering eyes with his sleeve, he fell silent.
He seemed to be waiting for something . . . sympathy that he would not accept, condemnation that he did not deserve. Beatrix wondered what some person far wiser or more worldly than she might have said. She didn’t know. All she could offer was the truth. “You must listen to me,” she said. “It was an impossible choice. And Lieutenant Bennett . . . Mark . . . didn’t blame you.”
“I blame myself.” He sounded weary.
How tired of death he must be, she thought compassionately. How tired of grief and guilt. But what she said was, “Well, that’s not reasonable. I know that it must torment you to think that he died alone, or worse, at the hands of the enemy. But it’s not how we die that matters, it’s how we live. While Mark lived, he knew that he was loved. He had his family and his friends. That was as much as any man could have.”