But, of course, he couldn’t say any of that to her.
“Put your head back and close your eyes.” She obeyed, pliant as a child, and he poured the last of the warm water over her hair to rinse it. “I’m finished. Pretty mermaid, do you want to get out now?”
“Yes, please,” she answered, smiling beatifically. “Otherwise I might slide down the drain with the bath water.”
He helped her out of the tub, folded her into a gigantic bath towel, and blotted her dry. He found a smaller towel and wrapped it around her head for a turban.
Unexpectedly, she lifted her arms and embraced him. He held her close, a warm bundle of damp terry. “Thank you,” she said. “That was a perfect gift. I would like to give it to you someday.”
“What a stimulating thought. But your gift isn’t over yet.” When he began to peel the towel away, her eyes lost the dreamy look and sharpened attentively. He smiled, because what she thought would happen now wasn’t going to happen for a little while longer.
But it was hard to wait. In the glow of the candles, her skin looked warm and inviting, flushed pink from her bath. And she was smiling at him in a way she never had before—knowingly, eagerly, wanting exactly what he wanted. Her slender, fine-boned body was perfect, just as he’d said, and she was infinitely more desirable than any woman he’d ever known.
He unfurled a dry towel and spread it over the rug, knelt on it and pulled her down beside him. “I want you to lie down,” he said gently. “No—on your stomach.” Something flickered in her eyes before she could look away. He touched her cheek with his fingers. “It’ll be all right. I promise.” She hesitated another second, then stretched out beside him, facedown on the soft towel.
Trailing his fingertips down the long, graceful line of her backbone, it came to him that he’d been wrong all along about what he really wanted from Rachel. Power, he’d thought; the ability to control her. But that wasn’t it at all. What he wanted was trust, and the thing she’d just done told him he finally had it.
He pressed his lips to her shoulder blade. “Thank you,” he whispered, conscious of the inadequacy of the words. “You are lovely. So very beautiful.” Her lips curved in an indulgent smile. She didn’t believe him. But she would.
He chose a small glass bottle from the basket, uncorked it, and poured a few drops into the shallow, enticing hollow at the base of her spine. She made a low, indescribable sound, squirming her hips, then lay still. “This is a special oil, Rachel. It has unique properties.”
“What does it do?”
“It eradicates all of one’s inhibitions.”
She pillowed her cheek on her folded arms. Her smile was slow, sly, self-conscious, and it went straight to his heart. “I think you’ve washed all mine away already.”
“There may be a few left.” He began to fan the oil out from her spine with his thumbs, pressing gently at each vertebra, smoothing the balm into her skin. She went softer, limper by the minute, her body like warm wax he could shape and mold in his hands. She loved having her shoulders rubbed, and she told him so with low, heartfelt groans that only increased his arousal. He used the heels of his hands on her long, strong thighs, gliding them up and over the slope of her buttocks. There he lingered, beguiled, lavishing all his care and creativity, and his reward was another squeal of pleasure and the stimulating feel of her muscles bunching and relaxing under his palms.
If he could, he’d have ignored the small white ridge of scar tissue at the top of her left thigh. Each time he saw it or touched it, helpless anger came boiling up, and deep, hot sympathy. A nightmare picture would flash in his mind before he could censor it, and he would see it happening, the unspeakable violation of the pretty, sweet-faced girl in the family photograph. Eighteen years old.
“Sebastian?”
She’d risen on one elbow and twisted around to look at him, wondering why he’d stopped the massage. He made himself smile. “Sorry. I was distracted,” he told her, pretending nothing was wrong. This was no time for ugly memories.
“By what?”
“Hmm? By this very fetching behind.” He smoothed his hands over her bottom, and soon she was purring again like a warm kitten.
“Turn over now.”
She rolled onto her back, slowly, languidly, keeping her arms over her head. Her face was fascinating. She watched him, speechless, lax, all eyes and slack muscles, waiting. He slipped a white satin pillow under her head and fed her a grape from the fruit basket. “More?” he asked innocently, and when she nodded he held the bunch of grapes an inch from her mouth. She captured one with her lips and pulled it off with a succulent pop, then chewed and swallowed it with slow relish. She was smiling, but he doubted she had any idea what she was doing to him.
He lay down beside her and propped his head on his hand. Watching her eyes, he tilted the vial and poured a drop of oil on the nipple of her right breast. She caught her breath. “Don’t close your eyes. Look at me.” Their gazes locked while he plucked and rolled the tight, crinkling bud between his fingers. She moaned softly. “If you knew what you look like. Your mouth . . . you have the most delicious mouth.”
“Kiss me . . .”
“I will.” He trailed his hand in lazy circles down her belly, inserting a gentle finger in her navel. “No, don’t look away,” he murmured, his mouth a breath from hers. “This is where I’m going to kiss you,” and he made a comb with his fingers and feathered it through her curly pubic hair. He was losing himself in the lucid wanting in her eyes, wide on his, incandescent with hope and fear and excitement. “May I kiss you here?” She couldn’t speak. He slipped his fingers inside her very slowly, and when she closed her eyes he glided his tongue between her parted lips. Sweet. Warm and wet, ah, tight and sleek, her muscles pursing, her tongue circling. She clutched at him, squeezing her legs together while her body writhed and stretched and lengthened on the damp towel. He took a last bite of her full lips and sat up.
Now her eyes were like smoky mirrors, and he watched them darken as he gently pressed her thighs apart. Her legs were shaking. He bent to her, sleeking his tongue up the soft fruit of her sex, splitting her. She jumped slightly, made a whimpering sound. He penetrated her, stroking her with his stiff tongue, making her gasp. She cried out, “No,” when he found her little nub—“No.” But he softened his mouth and tasted her again—because he wanted her this way, had to have her like this.
“Stop,” she begged, twisting under him. “Please, I can’t bear it. Sebastian, don’t, oh, don’t. Stop, please.”
Finally it was impossible to go on. “God, Rachel,” he grated, rubbing his mouth on her taut abdomen, leaning over her. She was distraught, almost weeping. She really couldn’t stand it. “You’re afraid,” he accused in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes!”
“Afraid to let go.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know! just don’t—do that to me.”
“Shhh,” he soothed her, kissing her cheeks, smoothing the damp hair back from her forehead. “It’s all right, I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”
She calmed quickly—but then she was embarrassed. “I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’ve ruined it all, haven’t I?”
“Don’t say that.” He kissed her again. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“You, though—you . . . I want you to . . .” She stopped, inarticulate.
“Say it. It’s just you and I, Rachel. It’s just our bodies. What do you want?”
“I want,” she whispered, eyes downcast, “you to—have me. Come inside me. I want to give myself to you.”
If he were a strong man, he would resist this sweet, halting invitation, swear her off, renounce her body until she could find pleasure in his. That way they could suffer together.
But he wasn’t that strong. He was aching for her, but even that throbbing, localized agony was b
earable compared to the need he felt to be intimate with her; not to “have” her, but to join selves, to mate with her.
She touched his throat with shy fingers, trailed them down to his chest. “Make love to me,” she murmured. “That’s what I want. Right now. You want it, too, don’t you?”
What a question. He took her hand and dragged it down the length of his stomach—slowly, so she could pull away whenever she liked—to show her exactly how much he wanted it. Instead of pulling away, she squeezed him softly, experimentally, molding the hard flesh under his trousers in her palm. He pressed his forehead against her shoulder.
She whispered his name. “Shall we get in bed?”
“Sorry,” he answered, breathless, coming up on his knees to unbutton his fly. “I can’t wait that long.” He shucked off his trousers and lay over her, taking his weight on his forearms. When he came into her, they sighed together, and kissed, holding still to savor the sensation.
“I’m sorry,” she said presently, her breath warm on his skin.
“Why, sweetheart?”
“Because I couldn’t do what you wanted. But I . . . it was just . . . too much.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry about anything. Have you learned nothing tonight?”
That made her smile. “I’ve learned a great deal. You have no idea.”
“Everything you do, Rachel, everything about you pleases me. It’s just that I wanted you with me,” he tried to explain.
“I am with you. Right now.” She cupped the sides of his face and brought his mouth down to hers in the lightest of kisses. “Love me,” she murmured.
Holding her hands, he began to move in her. She met him thrust for thrust, her eyes wide on his, her face open and giving. He didn’t hold back, did not restrain himself, and in the end it was the cleanest, strongest act of love he’d ever committed. And the most revealing. Always he hid himself at the last moment, afraid or embarrassed, wary of his dignity, fearful of losing control—but now, for once, he felt no self-consciousness, only Rachel’s acceptance, her absolute acceptance of him. Love? She’d never said the word. How could she love him? It didn’t matter. He let her see his naked soul, needy and trusting, yearning for her, and at the end he gave her all of himself.
Afterward, he felt lost in the tenderness of her touch as she stroked him and soothed him, the sweetness of her kisses on his damp face. “Darling,” he called her. “I wish . . .”
“Yes,” she sighed with him. “But it’s all right. I loved your gift, Sebastian. Thank you for the loveliest night.”
She had it all backward. He rolled to his side, taking her with him. Most of the candles had sputtered out; through the open window, he could see the half moon rising, like a luminous profile watching them. “I’m falling in love with you.” The words came with no premeditation, no warning; they surprised him as much as they astounded her. “It’s true,” he said, in case she doubted it.
She didn’t say anything. He waited, but the moment when she could have answered came and went, and afterward the silence sounded strange, unnatural. He kissed her to lessen the strain of self-consciousness. “Sleepy?” he whispered, and she nodded. He sat up, gathered her in his arms, and carried her to bed.
XIV
IT WAS HIGH summer, the beginning of July. No breeze blew in Rachel’s open window, and moonlight made the hot room too bright. She kicked off the damp sheet and got out of bed. Remnants of a dream—the usual one, that she was back in her cell because her prison release had been a mistake—clung to the walls of her mind, depressing her. She decided to get up and go outside, walk along the river until she was tired enough to sleep again.
She never had the nightmare when she slept with Sebastian. Her unconscious mind must know she was safe then, even in sleep, if she could feel his warm body wrapped around hers, feel the beat of his heart under her hand, the weight of his arm across her waist. But tonight she was alone in her own small bed, for the first time in many nights. Sebastian had gone to Plymouth to see his solicitors, one of whom was a family friend who had invited him to have dinner and stay the night. He wouldn’t return until tomorrow.
She dressed in the dark, quickly, forgoing a candle; even though no one else slept in her wing, she went quietly down the shadowy corridor, in deference to the quiet night. Passing the arched entrance to the chapel, she heard a soft thump, thump, and froze for a startled second before she realized what it was: Dandy’s tail, smacking the floor just behind the last pew. He liked to sleep in the chapel on hot nights because the stones were cool.
“You,” she said softly, and he rolled over on his back, sleepily delighted to see her. “Some watchdog you’ve turned out to be.” She crouched beside him and rubbed his chest, combing her fingers through his soft fur. He had old, kind, knowing eyes, and they seemed to smile up at her now in a stray beam of moonlight. She scratched him under his rope collar, and he grinned at her and heaved a deep, ecstatic sigh. Luckily he was a patient, affectionate dog, because she never tired of petting him, never seemed to get enough of touching him. He was a funny, happy companion, and the unlikeliest gift she’d ever received. Of all people to give an unruly puppy to, she was surely the most improbable; it was like giving a book to a blind woman, or sending a clown to entertain a recluse. That Sebastian had somehow known that Dandy was exactly right, the perfect gift for someone like her—starved for laughter and silliness, hungry for touching—moved arid delighted her almost as much as the gift itself.
“Want to go for a walk?”
He scrambled up in a flurry of scraping, slipping toenails, energized by the word “walk,” his favorite. Watching him scamper ahead of her toward the courtyard door, she realized her vague loneliness was gone, and the dregs of the prison nightmare with it. Could anyone be cheered so thoroughly by a dog, she wondered, or did you have to be a particularly pathetic case?
The night was hot and still, airless, no wind stirring in the alders that arched over the river’s steep-sided banks. Dandy bounded down for a drink in the trickle of water that was all the Wyck could manage in July, then raced after her, snuffling at exciting scents in the weedy grass along the path sides.
The moon in any phase was still a private, special joy, because she’d gone for so long without seeing it. She gazed up at the gauzy platinum disk and thought of her family, her home, the parents she’d lost. If there was a heaven, could they see her now, look down on her like the moon’s smug, knowing face seemed to be doing? And if so, what did they think of the life their bright, obedient, sweet-tempered daughter had come to? They would be dismayed, of course, and deeply mortified. She wondered sometimes why she wasn’t ashamed of what she had become—a kept woman, for all intents and purposes. It was an identity that flew in the face of every ethical principle she’d ever been taught. But she wasn’t shocked and she felt no shame.
Prison had done more than make her cynical about the criminal justice system; it had also demolished most of her conventional moral assumptions. Now she was the ultimate pragmatist, she supposed. Life wasn’t simple. For the sake of “morality,” she could leave Lynton tomorrow, walk into Wyckerley—or Mare’s Head, or Tavistock—and search for employment. She would find none, and sooner or later she would end up where she’d begun three months ago: in a hearing room where men in robes and wigs would deliberate for a few minutes before deciding what the rest of her life would be like. She could do that—but what purpose would it serve? Better to live in the unprincipled moment a little longer, renewing herself, gathering strength and preparing for the next trial. She could feel herself changing, getting stronger. She might be a kept woman, but she also had a job she found satisfying. And she was good at it: incredible as it seemed, shed turned into an efficient housekeeper. How long could her new life last? Since there was no answer to that question, why waste her scarce emotional resources worrying about what she couldn’t change? Best, she’d learned a long time ago, to
ask for nothing.
Easier said than done. Weeks had passed since the night Sebastian had told her he was falling in love with her. He hadn’t repeated that implausible declaration, and she knew he’d spoken it in the heat of the moment, passion-words that were true for that instant, but weren’t any longer because their meaning had burned up in the heat of sexual desire. She was trying to forget she’d heard them, to go back to the compliant, unexpectant woman she’d been before he’d said them. He was offering her a different gift, a great gift—not love, but the renewal of the body and the senses. She’d been buried alive, and it was because of him that she wanted to squirm up and out of the earth and into the light. If only she could keep her hopes limited to the flesh, be the pure sensualist that he was! But it was too hard—she couldn’t separate body and spirit like that; for her, they always mingled.
The visit of his London friends had changed him. He was a complicated man; she hadn’t understood him before, and she didn’t completely understand him now. She wasn’t so naive as to think his about-face was completely unselfish, but she was needy enough to welcome it on any terms. Affection, warmth, kindness—she couldn’t have rejected those gifts if an ogre had offered them. Under other circumstances, she might withhold trust from a man who had done to her the things Sebastian had done. But these were her circumstances, and pride and prudence were luxuries her bankrupt emotions couldn’t pay for. At least not yet.