Hardly aware of speaking, she said, “The maze. Where did David get the design for the maze?”
“From a stranger in a bar,” Daniel said absently. “It’s an interesting story. Remind me to tell it to you one day.” Then he went down on his knees.
Laura caught her breath when his big, warm hands touched her ankles and began sliding up, pushing the hem of her long skirt higher. She wanted to remind him that it was the middle of the day, that anyone might be strolling through the maze and happen upon them here, but somehow the words wouldn’t emerge. She could barely breathe, and she couldn’t look away from the hot glitter in his eyes.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he said, his hands on her thighs now. “About you. Remembering last night.” His fingers slid up the outer curves of her hips and hooked into the waistband of her panties.
Laura felt herself lifting up a bit to help him as he pulled the scrap of cotton and lace down her legs. Letting the panties fall where they would, he put his hands back on her, this time easing her legs apart as he pushed the skirt high on her thighs. She caught her breath when he gently stroked her inner thigh, and then her mouth was opening eagerly under the hungry pressure of his, and her hips were pushing toward him, her arms going around his neck.
It was like a tide washing over her, a living thing too powerful to resist. She wanted Daniel, right now this minute, and nothing else in the world mattered except that. She was hardly aware of the sounds coming from her throat, little purrs and whimpers of pleasure. She could only feel. His shaking hands on her breasts, wildly exciting even through her bra and sweater. His mouth feeding on hers as though he needed the taste of her to live. The softness of his hair beneath her fingers and the strength of his arms and the hard delight of his body.
And then he was inside her, stretching and filling her, and Laura cried out, her legs closing around him as her body arched to push herself even closer, to take more of him, all of him.
The pleasure washed over her in waves of heat and throbbing delight, building and building until it reached a crest of ecstasy so overwhelming that she lost herself in it.
There were tears on her face when Laura finally came back to her senses, and in that naked moment she accepted a truth that would no longer be denied. She was in love with Daniel Kilbourne.
Chapter 13
Josie fixed her gaze on the doorway of the library when she heard the front door open and close. A moment later, Alex appeared. “What the hell are you doing working on Saturday?” he demanded, far more abrupt than usual.
His tone might have made her bristle, but Josie could see that he had something on his mind, something that was worrying him. So she merely said, mildly, “I’m not working, actually. I was just writing checks, paying a few personal bills.”
His frown lingered for a moment, but then he laughed shortly and came into the room. “Sorry, sweet. My day has not been a lot of fun so far. How about yours?”
“Oh, it’s been okay, if you overlook Anne having some kind of breakdown over lunch and asking, among other things, if Jeremy would approve of me—um—having sex with his cousin.”
Alex sat down on the corner of her desk and stared at her, brows lifting. “I gather she used a less polite term?”
“You could say that. You could also say that in a few short minutes, Anne managed to insult, expose, and alienate everyone at the table—with the possible exception of Laura, who was merely stunned.”
Reflectively, Alex said, “I’ve got to start coming home for lunch.”
Josie couldn’t help laughing, but she also shook her head. “It was horrible. She even attacked Kerry, saying she was a widow without ever having been a wife—and I’ve never seen Amelia so frozen after Anne got through needling her about her not really being the one in charge. If Daniel hadn’t come in and shut Anne up, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Alex took her hands and drew her to her feet. “You shouldn’t let her get to you, Josie. She’s a resentful and unhappy woman and gets pleasure out of causing as much trouble as she can. Just ignore her.”
“It’s a little hard to do that when she’s announcing at the top of her voice that we’re sleeping together.”
He looked at her steadily. “So she announced it. So what? Did the sky fall? Did Amelia fire you on the spot and order you from the house? Did everyone look at you in horror?” Did the ghost of Jeremy rise up in wrathful condemnation?
He didn’t ask that last, but Josie heard it anyway. “No. But I felt so … defenseless somehow. And it hurt to have my private business laid out in front of everyone without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“But you didn’t feel guilty?” he probed. “Or ashamed?”
“No,” she replied slowly, a little surprised.
Alex smiled. “Then we’re definitely making progress, sweet.” He kissed her, lazily but with a difference Josie could feel and yet couldn’t define. “Maybe Anne’s little scene had some redeeming value, after all.”
“I don’t think Daniel thought so,” Josie said a bit absently. “I’ve never seen him look like that before.”
“How did he look?”
“Hard as nails and about that unbending. After Anne ran from the room, he told us it would never happen again, and then I assume he went after her. I haven’t seen either of them since, but I’m willing to bet he told Anne she’d better behave herself from now on, or else.”
Alex grimaced. “Not what he needed at the moment. I’ll tell you something, sweet—it’s not a barrel of fun being responsible for this family.”
She looked at him searchingly. “Are you and Daniel still … cleaning up after Peter?”
“Something like that. Also not much fun.”
“And you still won’t tell me about it?”
“Josie, there’s nothing you could do to help, and no reason for you to be worrying along with Daniel and me. We’ll get to the bottom of it sooner or later, and then I’ll tell you everything. All right?”
She eyed him. “You Kilbourne men are secretive as hell. Except for Peter, of course, who appears to have told Anne every blessed secret he knew.”
“Did he, now? That’s interesting.” Alex’s greenish eyes took on a faraway expression briefly, then cleared. He smiled at her. “Well, never mind. Why don’t we get out of this depressing house for a few hours? I’m sure we can find something to do.”
“I should check and see if Amelia wants me—”
“It’s Saturday. Whatever Amelia might want can wait.” He got off the desk, still holding her hands, and said casually, “By the way, though I didn’t get a chance to mention it this morning, you look great today.”
Josie felt herself color, and thought it was ridiculous for her to be blushing like a schoolgirl. “Thanks.”
He smiled at her and, gently, said, “I don’t think Jeremy would mind. As I recall, black was never his favorite color.”
A sudden lump in her throat made it impossible for Josie to speak, so she merely nodded and went with him from the library, wondering if he had any idea at all that she had stopped apologizing to her dead husband for what another man had taught her to feel.
AS THEY WALKED slowly back through the maze toward the exit, Laura looked down at their clasped hands and wondered if it mattered to him that she loved him. He had to know. She doubted she was capable of hiding her feelings where he was concerned, not now, and besides that, from the day they had met he had seemed attuned to her moods and emotions. Surely he knew. He had brushed the wetness from her face with gentle fingers but hadn’t questioned or commented, and he’d been virtually silent since. Did he know? Did it matter to him at all?
“You’re very quiet,” he said finally.
Laura gathered all the casual calm at her command and said, “I’ve just been ravished in a gazebo. I’m entitled.”
He stopped and looked down at her, smiling slightly. “And I didn’t even say hello first, did I?”
“No. You said something
…” Laura felt a slight sense of panic when she realized she couldn’t remember whatever it was he had said. Oh God, will I ever be the same after this?
With his free hand, Daniel tipped her chin up and kissed her. “Hello.”
“Hello. Somebody could turn that corner up ahead and see us, you know. In fact, somebody could have gotten an eyeful just a few minutes ago.”
Dryly he said, “After Anne’s little display in the dining room, you surely can’t doubt what I said about secrets not lasting long around here.”
“No,” she agreed with a sigh. “In fact, since she seemed determined to expose everybody’s secrets, I half expected her to blurt out that I was in your room last night.”
“How would she know that?”
Laura hesitated, then said, “She could have been in the hallway and seen me.”
“Her bedroom’s in the east wing, on the other side of the house; what would she have been doing near your room or mine?” Daniel frowned slightly as he looked down at her.
She knew the perception of that searching gaze and tried to avoid it. “Oh, you’re right. It’s just that I was the only one in the dining room she hadn’t attacked, and I figured I was next. Did you hear much of what she said?”
“Most of it. Laura, has something else happened? Something worrying you?”
She hesitated again, uncertain, then said, “While I was in your room last night, someone was in mine.”
He frowned again. “How can you be sure of that?”
Laura hadn’t planned to tell him she had the mirror with her, though she had considered just suddenly showing it to him in order to study his reaction. But she heard herself say, “When I decided to stay here over the weekend, I brought the mirror with me. When I left my room last night, it was lying facedown on the coffee table. When I came back, it was faceup.”
After a moment, his face showing no reaction to the information, Daniel said, “Amelia often walks the halls at night.”
“So she told me.”
“Did she admit to being in your room?”
“No. But … I got the distinct feeling she was toying with me. Do you think it was her rather than Anne?”
“I think it’s more likely.”
“Then she was toying with me.”
Daniel touched her face gently, his fingers lying against her neck and his thumb brushing her cheek. “Maybe. Or maybe she just didn’t want to admit to invading your privacy.”
A little puzzled, trying to understand, Laura said, “It seems to me, given the history between you two, that you’d always think her motives negative ones. But you don’t, do you? Daniel, why do you let it go on? The way Amelia’s … testing the boundaries with you, struggling to get her own way, has got to be stressful, maybe even dangerous. Yet you’ve let it continue, all these years. Why? To spare Amelia embarrassment?”
With a slightly wry smile, Daniel said, “Call it quid pro quo, as Alex would say. You’d never know it now, but Amelia was very kind to me when I was a boy. My father spent time with me, but Mother was … distant. Completely wrapped up in Peter. Amelia paid attention, talked to me, took an interest. For a while we were very close. It made a difference, Laura. In my life. I can’t forget that.”
Laura didn’t say anything for a minute, just searched his hard face intently. Then, finally, she said, “But it’s all coming to a head now, isn’t it? The struggle, the tension between you two. It’s almost visible in the air sometimes. You’ll have to stop it.”
“I’ll have to stop it,” he agreed quietly. “Soon.”
“She’ll hit back. You know she will.”
He nodded. “I know she’ll try. But there’s nothing I can do about that right now. I have other things that concern me more at the moment.”
“Such as … what Peter was up to before he was killed?”
Daniel’s hand fell away from her face. “Guessing?”
“Putting the pieces together. He was up to something, wasn’t he? Trying somehow to raise money to finance his ambition? Is that what got him killed? Did he try to get that money from the wrong place, the wrong people?”
“I don’t know.” Daniel turned and continued down the path through the maze, still holding her hand.
“And you don’t want to talk about it.” Laura wasn’t surprised, but tried to hide the pang of hurt she felt.
His fingers tightened around hers. “No, not now. You said you could accept that, Laura.”
“I need to have my head examined,” she muttered.
They reached the exit of the maze just then, and as they walked out onto the path that would take them back through the garden, Daniel said, “Why? Because you’re willing to give me the time I need?”
“I just wish I understood,” she replied with a sigh. “I still don’t know what you want from me, Daniel.”
He stopped, looking down at her. “Don’t you?”
Laura had no trouble at all in interpreting the shimmer of heat in his eyes and had to clear her throat before she could say, “Besides that.”
Daniel smiled. “I want to know all about Laura Sutherland.”
She blinked. “You do?”
“Yes. Where you were born and grew up, about the family you aren’t close to and the other people you have been. Likes and dislikes. Politics and philosophies. Which side of the bed you prefer. Things like that.”
“That’s … a tall order.”
“We have time. Hours yet until we have to dress for dinner, and I doubt anyone will disturb us out here. Walk with me, Laura. Talk to me.”
She glanced down at their clasped hands and said slowly, “If we spend the entire afternoon out here together …”
“Everyone will know we’re lovers?” His voice was calm. “Someone knows you weren’t in your room last night, Amelia probably. I doubt the others will be much interested. I know I promised to give you time, and I’ll try not to … overwhelm you. But I find I’m liking secrets less and less these days. I’m not ashamed of being your lover, Laura, and I don’t really give a damn who knows.”
“I didn’t say I was ashamed. But we’ve known each other barely more than a week—”
“And so we might offend someone’s delicate sensibilities? If it doesn’t trouble us, then why should we care what other people think? Laura, if it really bothers you that everyone will know we’re lovers, then I’ll go back to the house and leave you out here. No one’s seen us yet; the maze is only clearly visible from my window. We’ll pretend we barely know each other when there are other people around, that we’re indifferent. We’ll keep the truth a secret as long as we can, if that’s what you want. Maybe you can slip into my room tonight after everyone’s asleep, or I can come to you. For a few hours. And then tomorrow we go back to pretending once again. Is that what you really want?”
Laura gave in, to him and to her own yearnings. “No. It isn’t what I want. But, Amelia—”
“I doubt Amelia will say much. But if she does, I’ll handle her.” He lifted her hand and kissed it, an oddly graceful and intimate gesture for a man with such a powerful, rugged appearance. “Now, walk with me, please. And tell me all about Laura Sutherland.”
She decided later that it was the kiss that did it, snapping the last wispy threads of her resistance and making her throw caution to the winds. In any case, she walked with him, and they talked.
The gardens were very quiet and peaceful, and they weren’t interrupted as they strolled the paths, pausing from time to time to sit on the scattered benches, and pausing more than once to take advantage of a particularly secluded spot.
Daniel asked questions and Laura answered them, telling him more about herself than she had ever told anyone. He talked as well, filling in some of the details of his life when she asked, being more open than she had expected.
Laura thought she was probably behaving too much like a woman in love, but there was nothing she could do about it. Just as he seduced her so easily with his touch, he now seduced her with his atte
ntion, his absorption in all the details of her life. He made her forget everything but him, made her world tunnel until it contained only the two of them and these lovely gardens.
It wasn’t until they went back to the house to dress for dinner hours later that she remembered what he’d said about David getting the idea for the maze from a stranger in a bar, and by then the opportunity to ask him about it was lost, at least for the moment.
WHEN LAURA ENTERED the front parlor just before six that evening, she hardly knew what to expect. Not from the others—and not from Daniel. Since she and Daniel had encountered no one during the afternoon, even while coming back through the house to go to their rooms, there was no way of knowing if they had been seen, their intimacy noted. So Laura was braced for any reaction from the others. As for Daniel, what she was uncertain of was how he would behave toward her in the presence of his family.
It was one thing to protest a secret relationship, but quite another to romance a lover before the curious eyes of others, she thought. And he was, besides, a reserved man, controlled and not given to emotional displays. At least, so she would have said before he had walked through the gardens holding her hand, pulling her behind practically every tree in order to kiss her until her knees buckled.
They were still a bit shaky, dammit, and it appeared to be obvious to anyone who cared to study her.
“You,” Alex said lightly as soon as she walked into the parlor, “look like a woman in need of a drink. What can I get you, Laura?”
“I don’t drink,” she said. “Usually. Sherry?”
From his habitual place behind the wet bar, Alex smiled at her and fixed the drink she had requested. He and Josie were the only ones in the parlor, and when Laura took her drink and retreated to her usual place behind the sofa nearest the window, the other woman offered her a smile of sympathetic understanding.