He hadn’t explained to them that his was an arranged marriage, and from what they’d let fall, Horace hadn’t either. Henni and his mother would know the truth the instant they laid eyes on Francesca Rawlings. No meek, mild-mannered female had ever held his interest, and they knew it. They’d see his reasoning instantly, and disapprove mightily, but by then there’d be nothing they could do.
It was also because of them—Henni and his equally perspicacious mother—that he’d insisted on restricting the time the bridal party spent at the castle prior to the wedding. The less time for unexpected meetings with the gypsy the better. One exchange observed and they who knew him best would guess the truth there, too. He didn’t want them to know. He didn’t want anyone to know. He wished he could ignore that particular truth himself.
Reaching the lip of the escarpment, he drew rein and sat looking down on his home, perched above a curve in the river. Lights shone in some windows—and red pinpricks glowed about the forecourt, the doused flares which would only have been lit if the bridal party had arrived.
It dawned on him that fate had been kind. The rain had been a blessing, the bridal party delayed until the last reasonable minute to a time when he’d had a legitimate excuse not to be there to greet them—to risk meeting the gypsy under everyone’s eyes. He now only had the wedding and wedding breakfast to endure—the absolute minimum time.
Twenty-four hours and he’d be a married man, tied in wedlock to a woman to whom he was indifferent. He would have secured all he’d set out to achieve—a suitable, mild, and undistracting wife to give him the heir he needed, and the Gatting property he wanted. All he needed to do was adhere to his plans for the next twenty-four hours and all he wanted would be his.
Never had he felt so disinterested in victory.
The grey whickered and shifted. Steadying him, Gyles heard the muted thud of hooves. Scanning the downward slope, he caught a flash of movement, shadow against shadow. A rider coming from the direction of the castle stables was angling up the escarpment.
He lost sight of them, then looked to his left. Rider and horse burst onto the crest a hundred yards away. For an instant, the pair was silhouetted against the rising moon, then the horse sprang forward. The rider was small but in control. Long black hair rippled down her back. The horse was the Arab he’d bought a week ago. Strength and beauty in motion, they streaked out onto the downs.
Gyles had wheeled the grey and set out in pursuit before he’d even thought. Then he did, and cursed himself for what he was doing, but made no move to draw rein. He cursed her, too. What the devil did she think she was doing taking a horse from his stables—no matter he’d bought the beast for her—without a by-your-leave and in the middle of the night!
Grimly, he thundered in her wake, not riding her down but keeping her in sight. Anger was what he wanted to feel, but after dogging him all day, his temper had evaporated. He could too easily understand her—how she would feel after being cooped up in a carriage for days, then finding the mare . . . had she guessed it was for her?
Anger would have been safer, but all he felt was a strange, wistfully compelling need—to talk to her again, see her eyes, her face, hear what she said when he told her the mare was hers—a gift so she could ride wild, but safe. The memory of her husky tones slid through his mind. As long as he didn’t touch her, surely one last private meeting would be safe.
Francesca didn’t hear the thud of hooves pursuing her until she slowed the mare. The horse was perfect, wondrously responsive; she sent it circling in a prancing arc, ready to streak back to the castle if the rider was no one she knew.
One glance and she recognized him. The moon was fully risen; it bathed him in silver, etching his face, leaving half in shadow. He was wearing a loose riding jacket, a pale shirt and neckcloth. The powerful muscles of his thighs were delineated by tight breeches tucked into long boots. She couldn’t read his expression; his eyes she couldn’t see. But as she slowed the mare, then halted and let him approach, she sensed no fury, no violent emotions, but something else. Something more careful, uncertain. Tilting her head, she studied him as he drew the huge grey to a halt before her.
It was the first time they’d met since those wild moments in the forest. From tomorrow, they’d live with each other, turbulent emotions and all. Perhaps that was why they both said nothing, but simply looked—as if trying to establish some frame of reference in which to move into this next stage of their lives.
They were both breathing just a little deeper than could be excused by their ride.
“How do you find her?” He nodded at the mare.
Francesca smiled and set the mare dancing. “She’s perfect.” She tried a few fancy steps—the mare performed without hesitation. “She’s very obedient.”
“Good.” He was watching like a hawk, assuring himself that she could indeed control all that latent energy. When she halted, he turned the grey alongside. “She’s yours.”
She laughed delightedly. “Thank you, my lord. I overheard two stableboys—they said you’d bought her for some lady. I had to confess I hoped she was for me.”
“Your wish has been granted.”
She saw his lips lift and smiled gloriously. “Thank you. You could not have chosen a gift I’d treasure more.” She’d thank him properly later—she had plenty of time.
“Come—we should start back.”
She set the mare to pace the grey as they headed back toward the castle. From a trot they progressed to a canter, then he pushed into a gallop. She realized he was trying out the mare’s paces by default. Setting herself to reassure him, she held the mare to precisely the right clip, easing back as he did when they reached the escarpment.
He led the way down; she kept the mare in the wake of the grey. They wound their way around to the stable block. She drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled as the paddock giving onto the back of the stable drew near.
She couldn’t imagine a more soothing, reassuring way to have passed the evening before their wedding. They might not know each other well, but they had enough solid connections on which to base a marriage. Her nerves had settled. Of tomorrow and the future, she felt confident and assured.
“We need to be reasonably quiet.” He dismounted before the stable door. “My head stableman lives over the coach barn, and he’s very protective of his charges.”
She kicked her feet free and slid down.
Gyles led the grey into the stable, turned the horse into his stall, then quickly unsaddled. The gypsy went past with the mare; he heard her crooning softly to the horse.
Leaving the grey, he strode to the mare’s stall and was in time to lift the saddle from the mare’s back. The gypsy rewarded him with a heart-stopping smile, then picked up a handful of straw and started brushing down the mare.
Gyles stowed her saddle and tack, then fetched his. He would have to guide her back to her room without being seen by anyone. And without touching her. He wasn’t fool enough to imagine achieving that would be easy—just seeing her again, hearing her voice again, had evoked something he could only describe as a yearning. A need for her—a deep-seated emptiness that only she could fill.
But he wasn’t going to let it rule him. Ruin him. As long as he didn’t touch her, he’d survive.
Quickly brushing down the grey, he checked the horse’s feed and water, then shut the stall and returned to the gypsy. She was finished, too, just checking the water, still crooning, softly sultry, to the mare. He was quite sure the horse would be ruined for anyone else.
The gypsy saw him. With a last pat, she left the mare and stepped into the aisle. Tense as a bowstring, Gyles shut the stall door and latched it.
“Thank you.”
Her voice had changed—lowered—smoky, sultry, seductive. Gyles turned—
She stepped into him, twined her arms about his neck, stretched up against him, and kissed him.
The simple, passionate kiss slew him—slew all his good intentions, slew any chance of him
escaping—or of her escaping him. His arms closed about her and he crushed her to him, bent his head, and took control of the kiss.
She tasted of wind and wildness, of the exhilaration of riding free and fast, unfettered, unrestrained. The invitation in her kiss was explicit—they spoke the same language, understood each other perfectly; there was no need for thought between them.
Arching against him, she drew him deeper, deeper into their kiss, deeper into her wonder. He held her against him and marveled at her bounty, at the promise inherent in her soft curves and supple limbs. His hands went searching; so did hers. And then she was cupping him, cradling him, fondling him—inexpertly admittedly, yet her desire was very clear. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
That want hit Gyles with a punch that stole his breath, and shook a few of his laggard wits into place. He shifted back, to the side, intending to lean against a stall door—the one next to the mare’s—and try to catch his breath. Try to break their kiss, try to ease back from her—
The stall door swung open behind him. It was the middle stall in the long row—the one the stablelads used to store fresh straw. Gyles stumbled back. The stall contained no horse—just a huge pile of loose straw. They landed in it, on it. Within seconds, they’d sunk into it.
They were cocooned in soft dryness, closed off in a dark world of their own. Gyles groaned. The sound was swallowed by their kiss. They lay trapped in each other’s arms with her largely beneath him. Then he felt her hands shift, remembered where they’d been, felt her fingers grip his waist. Her hands were underneath his jacket; he felt her pluck at his shirt, fingers dancing along his waistband.
Oh, no. He lifted his head, broke the kiss—then couldn’t think what to say.
“You’re . . . impatient.” One small hand was caressing him again. “You want me now.”
A wealth of wonder and discovery laced her tone, confirming beyond doubt that she’d never known a man. It was too dark in the stall, in the well of the straw, to see her face. She could only be seeing him as a dark shadow above her. They were both operating primarily by touch. He wasn’t sure if that was an advantage or not.
“I have to get you back into the house.”
She hesitated, then he felt her soften and subtly shift beneath him. “I’m quite comfortable here.”
Her movements, her tone, left him in no doubt as to her meaning.
His senses, his desires, were fighting to defeat the last of his reason. He let his head fall, trying to garner strength enough to break free. His forehead touched hers. He felt her hands slide—upward, over his chest, fingers splaying against the fine linen of his shirt.
How many women had touched him like that?
Hundreds.
How many others had made him ache, made him shake, with just that simple caress?
None.
Even though he knew the danger, when she tipped her face up and her lips found his, he couldn’t resist, couldn’t break away. She seduced him with a gentle touch and a kiss so innocent it reached his shielded heart.
“No,” he breathed, and tried to draw back.
“Yes,” she replied, and said no more. Her lips held his, not with any physical coercion, but with a power he was helpless to deny.
Francesca drank him in, drank in the promise of the hard body lying atop her, of his flagrant response to her. She was more than pleased; she felt like the cat about to lap the cream. He felt hot, hard; the tension in his body screamed of urgency.
His lips broke from hers, trailed her jaw, found her ear, slid lower.
“You like the mare?”
He sounded hoarse.
“She’s beautiful.”
His lips touched her throat and she instinctively arched, and heard his indrawn breath.
“She’s got . . . excellent bloodlines. Her paces . . .”
He’d reached her collarbone and seemed to forget what he was saying; Francesca saw no reason to prompt him. She didn’t want to talk, she wanted to explore passion, with him, now. She was about to send her hands wandering down his body, when he murmured, “You can take her with you when you leave.”
Francesca stilled. And forced herself to think. She tried a number of interpretations, but couldn’t find one that fitted. “Leave?” Puzzlement, she found, could overcome passion, at least in this instance. “Why would I leave?”
He sighed, and the warmth that had wrapped about them fled. He lifted his head and looked down at her.
“All the guests will leave shortly after the wedding, most after the wedding breakfast, the rest the next day.” He paused, then continued, steel sliding beneath his tone, “No matter how close to Francesca you are, you’ll leave with Charles and his party.”
Francesca stared up at him—at the face that was just a shadow to her. Her mouth was open, her mind blank. For the space of four heartbeats, she couldn’t say a word. Then her world stopped its crazy gyrations, slowed . . . She wet her lips. “The lady you’re marrying—”
“I will not discuss her.” The tension that shot through his body was quite different to the heated resilience of passion. It drove passion out, locked her out.
After a moment, she ventured, “I don’t think you understand.” She didn’t, either, but she was starting to suspect. . . .
She felt the sigh he suppressed; his defensive tension eased a fraction. “She might be meek—a perfect cipher—but she’s precisely what I need, what I want, as my wife.”
“You want me.” Francesca shifted beneath him, defying him to deny the obvious.
He sucked in a breath—she felt his glare. “I desire you—I neither want nor need you.”
Her temper erupted. A hot retort burned her tongue, but she got no chance to utter it.
“I know you don’t understand.” The words were tight, harsh. “You’ve never known a man, certainly not one like me. You think you understand me, but you don’t.”
Oh, but she did, she did, and she was understanding more with every second that passed.
“You think because I am as I am, I would want a passionate wife, but the opposite is true. That’s why I chose Francesca Rawlings as my bride. She’ll fill the position of my countess perfectly—”
Francesca let him talk, let his words flow past her while her mind flitted back over the weeks since she’d first run into him in the shrubbery and rescripted every scene.
Gyles suddenly realized he was doing the very thing he’d said he wouldn’t. Why, for God’s sake? He didn’t owe the gypsy any explanation. . . .
Except that he was rejecting her, deliberately turning his back on her and on a passionate liaison none knew better than he would burn brighter than most stars. She’d never offered herself to any other man; she wouldn’t still be virginal, so untried, if she had.
He felt guilty, severely at fault, for turning her down. Ludicrous, but he felt guilty for hurting her even that much, even for her own good. He felt equally guilty that, even now, he was so obsessed with her he couldn’t even form a mental picture of the woman he would marry on the morrow—a woman who was her close friend. There was guilt enough to sink his soul in this tortured situation.
He stopped speaking, then sighed. “At least she won’t have brought those blasted dogs.”
Silence.
She was still looking at him, staring up at him; he felt her breasts swell and ease against his chest.
A sense of unease slid down his spine. “She hasn’t, has she? Brought that pack of lap spaniels?”
The silence stretched, then he felt her gaze refocus. She hadn’t truly been watching him.
“No—your bride did not bring the dogs.”
Every word vibrated with a determination he couldn’t place. He felt her draw breath.
“She did, however, bring me.”
Her hands had been resting against his chest—Francesca pushed them over his shoulders, twined them tight about his neck, yanked him down, and sealed his lips with hers.
Fury ignited her passion, fueled
it, merged with it. She deliberately let go. Let the fire inside her rage unfettered. It was the only thing she could think of to hit him with, the only thing to which she knew he was not immune.
She couldn’t begin to enumerate her hurts, her feelings, her rational, logical reactions, but her instinctive response she had no doubt about.
He’d pay—and in the coin that would cost him most dearly.
He went under—she knew it—sensed the moment the tide dragged him down. Sensed the moment when his will was submerged beneath a tide of need too strong to deny.
She fanned the flames, kept them racing. Their mouths were fused, tongues dueling, tangling. She didn’t need to hold him anymore. Sliding her hands free, she went to reach down—his hands closed about her breasts and she arched, and forgot, for the moment, about caressing him, reveling in the sensations as he caressed her.
Between them, they opened her short jacket and blouse. Her chemise he undid with two flicks of his long fingers, then his hand was on her breast and she gasped. His lips returned to hers just in time to catch her cry as his fingers closed about one nipple. As the sharp sensation eased, heat flooded her. She struggled to breathe, struggled to cope, struggled to keep pace with him. She’d never done this before, and he was an expert; she’d seen more than most innocents could even imagine, but she’d never been the woman at the heart of the storm.
And it was a storm—of heat, of sensations too acute to express. She writhed like a wanton beneath him, and knew she was arousing him, driving him on.
So she writhed some more. Everything she could think of to do she did, every action that would further enflame him. She wasn’t of a mind to accept anything less than his complete and abject surrender. To her—to their passion. To all that he’d thought to keep out of his life.