Stranger in Camelot

  “Yes,” she whispered, her lips brushing the front of his throat.

  John kissed her hair. The darkness surrounded them and the moonlight feathered down on the fiery red curls. He wound his hands through them and slowly rotated his hips into her yielding belly. Giving a small moan of pleasure, she put her arms around his neck again and lifted her mouth to his.

  They swayed together, struggling sensually against the creaking clapboard wall behind them. The motion of his body made her brace her legs apart and let him rest closer to her center. John thought he’d die with pleasure from the deep, hidden pulse between him and her.

  He caressed her outer thighs at the edge of the dress’s hem. She stroked his back, moving her hands down until they rested on his hips, then urging him to flex into her softness. Slowly he drew her dress upward. The knowledge that they were tempting each other to be reckless in a public place made every action more seductive and forbidden.

  Her sighs were rich and trusting in his ears; he wanted to please her even more than himself. And there was a sense of being her protective partner. Her defender. Her knight, he thought.

  She caught one of his hands and brought it to her breasts. John smiled against her lips as she kissed him again. First he stroked his fingers over the bodice of the dress, then, gauging the encouragement in her trembling body, reached behind her and grasped the dress’s zipper.

  She made a sound of surprise in her throat but trembled harder against him. Slowly he slid the zipper down. The bodice sagged loosely around her torso. Whispering his name into the crook of his neck, she raised her arms a little to help him push the material down.

  It crumpled into a stiff bundle around her waist, and above it in the moonlight, as she leaned back, her breasts jutted forward delicately. Their white skin looked soft and silvery.

  John leaned forward and murmured his admiration into her ear. She made a whimpering sound low in her throat. “Please touch me.”

  Putting his spread hands over her breasts, he lightly scrubbed his thumbs over the peaks. He felt her knees buckle. John swept one arm under her hips and lifted her high off the ground. She caught his shoulders, and her head draped back. He bent over her erotically upthrust breasts and sucked each one, alternating between roughness and exquisite tenderness. He bit her carefully, heard her make a mewling sound of pleasure, then heard it again when he fathered his tongue over each nipple.

  He tantalized her until she began begging him to stop. “You’re making me feel faint. I’m breathing too fast,” she explained, chuckling weakly. As soon as her feet touched the ground she sagged against him and took his mouth with a new series of devastating kisses.

  Her hands moved down his body, feathering over his exposed chest, caressing his sides, then brushing across the fashionable pleats along the front of his white trousers. When he trembled under her stroking hands she cupped them gently over him, tracing him through the material with her fingertips.

  “Oh, Mr. Bartholomew,” she whispered raggedly. “You’re fantastic.”

  He wanted to whirl her around in a circle and shout to the world that he’d found the sexiest, most loving woman in the world. But nothing was more important than putting his arms around her again and holding her warmly, stroking her naked back.

  John curved his hands over her rump and memorized her curves with his palms. She curled against him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her hard nipples tantalized him through his shirt, and the quick, helpless rhythm of her breathing aroused him to more desire as well as a new, more fervent intention to make every moment special for her.

  He curled a hand under the hem of her dress, lifted it, then cupped her bottom. Sleek pantyhose made her thighs feel like warm, polished porcelain. Inside their practical cover she was dissolving into elemental feminine need for him, and he knew it. He slipped his fingers between her thighs and stroked her through the sheer covering.

  She whimpered, then arched against him and buried her face in his shoulder, murmuring his name over and over. Shaken at the power of her response, he lowered her skirt and cradled her in his arms again, rocking her a little. A gentleman probably shouldn’t tell her that he’d like to rip her pantyhose apart, lift her legs around his waist, and take her with her back buried in grapevines and the rough boards of a wall scrubbing her shoulders.

  After a minute she drew her head up and looked at him. They couldn’t see each other well in the shadowy moonlight, but he knew she was happy. He felt the edges of her smile when he kissed each of her warm, damp cheeks.

  She rested her forehead against his. He grasped her hands and brought them up again, then cupped her palms along his jaw. While she stroked his cheeks he pulled her bodice into place and deftly slid his hands around her back, then zipped her dress up.

  “Aren’t women the lucky ones,” he teased in a hoarse voice. “No one can tell what they’ve been doing. But we men are different. We have to stop before our, uhmm, affection becomes impossible to hide.”

  “It’s all right to be shy,” she said, and kissed him tenderly. “I understand. I’ve never done anything like this in public before either.”

  No, she didn’t understand, John thought mildly. He was ready, willing, and able to make love to her right there, and he’d never been shy about sex.

  “I want to learn everything about your body,” he told her, stroking her face with the back of his fingers. “Let’s not hurry even one second of intimacy. It’s too precious.”

  She cried out poignantly and kissed him until he thought he’d lose his mind from wanting her. He pulled her tighter against him. “I want to sit across a restaurant table from you and watch you be very polite, while I think about what we were doing in this arbor and watch you think about it.”

  “I’ll have to play footsies with you under the table. I won’t be able to control myself.”

  “I’ll encourage your feet to be bad, very bad. Agnes, I have to warn you—by the time dinner ends, your feet will be in ecstasy.”

  “Let’s go! My toes are curling already.” They laughed softly. He’d never known such a poignant combination of tenderness and humor before. They held each other close and didn’t talk anymore, letting the white-hot needs cool down, while the affection burned even brighter.

  He relaxed, shut his eyes, and nuzzled his face into her hair. She tucked her head close to his and sighed happily. Agnes made him forget that he’d ever been anyone but the man he’d created for her. He was beginning to like that image of himself a lot. Perhaps he really was as gentlemanly and civilized as she thought. He shared a perfect cocoon of contentment with her.

  Until someone poked a gun into his back.

  Seven

  Aggie sat stiffly in the police detective’s office, feeling numb. Only her fierce willpower kept her from jumping up and going to find John. Sure, the police were right to have a paramedic check him out. It was good public relations policy for the police to pamper a visitor who’d been mugged.

  But she suspected they also wanted to separate her from John and ask more questions about the incident. She forced herself to be calm, even though she hadn’t finished sorting out what had happened. Plus the setting brought back wrenching memories of the investigation following Richard’s arrest.

  Aggie exhaled raggedly and clenched her hands around her purse. She couldn’t blame them for being curious, not when the muggers were three swaggering beach-bum types with criminal records, and John had put all three into the hospital.

  She stifled a giddy, exhausted laugh with no humor in it. She was thinking she’d have to buy a new baseball bat for the Business Club’s charity raffle. The other one had blood stains.

  Detective Herberts entered and sat down at his desk. He was as compulsively neat as his office, without a stain on his gold tie or a stray tuft in his cropped brown hair. His smooth, round face had a smug expression that said he never let a detail escape. Smiling thinly, he pulled a notepad toward him and began writing.

  “How long have
you known Mr. Bartholomew?”

  “About a week and a half. He’s a guest at my campground.”

  “He says he owns a chain of hobby shops in London. Is that what he told you?”

  “Yes.”

  Herberts read a London address to her. “That’s the address on his passport. Do you have any reason to doubt it?”

  Astonished, she shook her head. “Why are you asking about all this?”

  “Just curious. We don’t get a tourist like him every day.”

  Or every century, she thought. “What do you mean?”

  Herberts ticked off points on his slender, tanned fingers. “Broken noses. Cracked ribs. Concussions. One ruptured spleen. One fractured wrist. That’s what he did to three men who had reputations for being pretty damned dangerous, pardon my language. What I’m saying, Ms. Hamilton, is your average citizen doesn’t methodically beat muggers to a pulp.”

  Aggie leaned forward furiously, glaring at him. “What was John supposed to do? One of them had a gun! The others had knives!”

  “Granted, they don’t deserve any sympathy. But don’t you see what I’m getting at? You heard him when he was describing what happened. Most victims of a mugging can’t remember a tenth of the details. Can you?”

  “But it all happened so fast!”

  “Then why could Mr. Bartholomew remember specifics?”

  “He stayed calm, that’s why. He was cooperating, tellin’ them he’d hand over his wallet, until one of them grabbed me.”

  “Okay. What happened next?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to remember. It was odd that John had been able to recall everything so accurately. As if fighting in alleys was something he did every day. Aggie shook her head. “He kicked the one who had the gun.”

  “Where did he kick him?”

  “Right between the legs. Hard. With the side of his foot.”

  “As if he were trained in martial arts?”

  “I guess. It all happened too fast for me to wonder if John was doing a Kung Fu act. The next thing I knew, he picked up the baseball bat, and those three bastards began figuring out they’d picked the wrong man to rob.”

  “Has he ever said anything to you about his past? Any training in self-defense?”

  Frowning, she shook her head. “But I, uh, think he was pretty good at fencing, when he was in prep school.” Herberts rolled his eyes, and her face burned. “You know, fencing? Two people poke at each other with thin little sabers? Then they shake hands and go to tea, I think.” She made herself grin at him, trying to lighten the interrogation.

  Herberts didn’t crack a smile. “Maybe Mr. Bartholomew ought to offer his batting skills to a major-league baseball team. Or join a street gang.”

  Aggie’s stomach twisted sickly and her patience ran out. She stood. “I think you’d be happier if he’d let those jerks rob us, beat us up, and maybe rape me for the heck of it.”

  “Calm down. It’s my job to be thorough.”

  “You’ve done your job. Now John and I are gettin’ out of here. We’re not in any trouble, and I don’t know why you think it’s odd for a man to react the way John did.”

  Herberts stood rigidly. “Thank you for your cooperation. Good night.”

  She stalked out.

  In the front lobby, John slung his coat over one arm and shoved his hands into his trousers pockets, disregarding the pain in his lightly bandaged knuckles. He was oblivious to everything except his own dark thoughts about what he’d done and how Agnes might be reacting to it.

  He kept imagining what could have happened to her if he hadn’t taken action. Cold shivers ran through him. He’d never had to defend anyone other than himself before.

  After he’d kicked the man with the gun he’d slammed a fist into his face. The man had dropped instantly, and John had gone after the other two. He’d been dimly aware of the first man moving sluggishly on the ground and Agnes dropping on top of him like a ferocious cat. When he finished with the others John whirled toward the two of them, ready to kill the man if he’d hurt her.

  But the half-conscious attacker was moaning and shivering as Agnes threatened him with her shoes, which she held in her hands. She’d seated herself on him and stuck the tip of a sharp high-heel into each of his ears. Her intent was clear—one wrong move and he’d need a surgeon to remove the shoes from his head.

  “You got ’em, John, you got ’em!” she’d proclaimed excitedly. He’d never forget the look on her face as she’d gazed up at him. Pride and devotion had glowed in her eyes. Her hair was tousled, and strands clung to her cheeks like tendrils of fire.

  The love he’d tried so hard to ignore had filled him suddenly and so richly that he’d dropped the baseball bat, gone to her swiftly, lifted her up from the half-conscious mugger, and kissed her. And she’d kissed him back, then smiled. Smiled, standing in a dark arbor with her lethal shoes clutched in her hands, and three bloodied men lying around her feet.

  There was no other woman in the world like her. He’d known that before, but now he admitted it.

  When he heard her sharp little shoes on the hallway tile of the police station he turned swiftly. She and he met halfway across the lobby. She looked flushed and a little grim, but threw her arms around his neck and hugged him hard. “Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Yes.” She looked at him in surprise. “The detective just asked me some questions. Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine,” she mocked lightly, her voice catching. She slung her purse strap over one shoulder and quickly took his injured hand in both of hers. “What did the paramedic say?”

  “That I should keep my caveman impulses under control until my knuckles heal.”

  She shook her head firmly. “Don’t talk that way. I’m proud of what you did.”

  “Are you? When we arrived here you were staring at me as if you’d never seen me before.”

  “Nobody’s every defended my honor before. I’m in a daze. And frankly, I was worried. You seemed sort of aloof, or withdrawn.”

  “Aloof? All I’ve been thinking about is you. But you seemed to need some privacy to absorb what happened and decide how you feel about me.”

  “I’m sorry. Being here makes me a little crazy, because of what I went through with Richard. It’s been more than five years, but I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable in a police station again. I know it’s irrational, but I feel ashamed and guilty, even though I didn’t do anything wrong, then or now.”

  He hugged her tightly. “What did the detective ask you?”

  “He wanted to know what your batting average is.” At John’s puzzled frown she added seriously, “He thinks it’s strange that a Mr. Nice Guy like you could fight back so well. He wondered if you’d had martial arts training. I told him no.” She cocked her head and eyed John curiously. “Have you? You and I have talked a lot about our lives in the past week, but there’s a lot I don’t know.”

  “You know me well enough to trust me, I hope.”

  Aggie gazed up into his sleekly carved face, the face that had attracted but unnerved her from the beginning. The slant of the thick eyebrows, the flaring nostrils, the dark eyes and wide, seductive mouth could have been hard and frightening, but not to her. Maybe there was some mystery behind his eyes, but it meant nothing compared to the courage there.

  His dark hair had furrows in it as if he’d been raking his fingers through the thick strands, and his eyes were fierce with concern. He looked depressed, and she couldn’t understand why. “You did the right thing tonight,” she told him softly.

  “But it was ugly. I’m sorry you saw me that way.”

  “John, I love your gallant ideas about protecting my ideals, but don’t worry so much. I wasn’t disgusted by what you did. We’re both alive and unhurt because of you. Think of me this way—I’m as tough as one of those medieval women who supervised the crops, doctored the sick, made the family’s clothes, and went hunting when she needed meat
for the dinner table. You can treat me like the lady of the castle, but Lady Agnes is no wimp, Sir John.”

  His face tightened at her whimsical lecture. He looked almost angry. “I know I did the right thing, but I don’t want you to think I have a dark side I never told you about.”

  She caught his face between her hands and gave him a kiss, despite the watchful gaze of a sergeant at the desk across the room. “We gotta stop making out in public places.” Aggie swallowed a knot of emotion in her throat.

  The affection in his eyes warmed her. “Let’s go home, then.”

  She nodded happily. Home. She loved the way he included himself in it. He held out his good hand and she grasped it. As they left the police station it occurred to her, he hadn’t answered her question about martial arts. Oh, it wasn’t important, anyway. She knew all she needed to know about him and had never been so confident before in her life. She loved him desperately.

  His past was catching up with him, not in a way other people could notice but inside him, because the half-truths he’d let Agnes believe about himself were a black shadow on their future. John watched pensively as she crossed her living room to switch on a window air conditioner.

  He clenched his bruised hand and hardly felt the pain. He had to merge the John Bartholomew she knew with the man he really was, the man who’d demonstrated the difference blatantly tonight. She not only still trusted him, she trusted him completely. To her there was nothing strange about a proper British businessman suddenly doing a switch worthy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  Mr. Hyde isn’t a monster, he wanted to tell her. He’s even won some awards for public service. He’s honest and loyal, despite evidence to the contrary.

  “John?” She came to him and took his hands, studying him anxiously. “Come sit down. You look worn out and upset.”

  “I didn’t enjoy hurting those men. But it couldn’t be helped.”