Late that evening
Cecily bullied Hamish into bringing her hot water, then washed off all the chapel dust, then offered Mrs. McVittie her pearl ear bobs to tell her where Robin had his chambers. The scrawny, stooped old Scotswoman cackled like a witch and asked what she would do with pearl ear bobs and then, with a toothless grin, told her the location anyway.
But now, creeping up the cold stone staircase, shielding the flicking candle with her hand, it occurred to Cecily that the old lady might have been teasing her, because why would Robin stay in the abandoned part of the castle?
The corner room above the bailey tower, the old lady had said. Well, here she was and there was the door leading into that room, a thin line of light delineating the bottom. She pulled the blanket she’d draped over her shoulders closer and, taking a deep breath, pushed the door open.
Beyond was a small chamber, lit by the glow from embers in a tiny hearth in the opposite wall. It was a monkish room with only a few pieces of furniture. A large wingback chair stood facing the hearth, turned away from her and a narrow bed had been pushed hard against the wall.
She did not see Robin at once, and for one terrible moment thought he’d left after all. But then she saw a man’s hand appear over the arm of the chair, the long fingers curling over the carved end.
“If that draught is you, Taran, come to lecture me some more, go away,” Robin said tiredly. “If it is Hamish, leave the bottle on the table, and my thanks. And if it is Marilla, I am sorry, my dear, but I am not receiving tonight. Or any night. Or day, for that matter.”
She took a breath. “What if it is Cecily? How is she to act?”
The fingers tightened reflexively over the chair’s arm. For a moment he did not reply, and then in a very careful voice he said, “Sensibly. By leaving. At once.”
She smiled at that. “But it turns out I am not sensible. Or dutiful. Or circumspect. Or any of those things for which I have been admired. So I believe I will stay.” She let the blanket slip from her shoulders to the floor.
He stood up, slowly and without turning at once, as though carrying with him a great burden, and once erect pulled back his shoulders. He was wearing only a white lawn shirt, the sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms, and a pair of skintight buckskin trousers that showed his athletic figure to great, distressingly great, advantage. A little thrill raced through her at the sight of his tall, broad-shouldered form silhouetted against the fire.
Then he turned and saw her. The mask he’d composed failed him at the sight of her, for she wore only an antique chemise of the softest, sheerest linen, the deep, rounded neckline edged in lace, the sleeves falling free to her wrists. His eyes burned in his pale face and a muscle jumped at the corner of his hard jaw.
“Cecily. You must leave,” he said. “Please.” But in his expression she read everything she needed to give her the courage to stay.
“No,” she said. She moved to his side, tipping her head to look up at him. He stared silently back.
“I am cold, Robin,” she said.
Still mute, he pulled his discarded jacket from the back of the chair and draped it over her shoulders. She shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. “Still cold,” she said.
She stepped right up next to him and wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed herself tightly against him. The muscles in his chest jumped into tense rigidity. She laid her head against his shoulder. The rightness of it was startling. Every bit of tension, every last bit of doubt dissolved into his body’s warmth and heat and strength. She sighed, a soul finding its moorings, a homecoming and an awakening all at once.
“For God’s sake, Cecily,” he finally rasped, “please. What is this?”
His heart thundered beneath her ear.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you, and I want you to marry me. Marry me.” She would never have imagined herself saying something so bold, so extraordinarily forward. A woman should make her plans and then wait for a gentleman to fall in with them. She did not . . . climb the ivy. Yet it felt right, perfect. In fact, the only possible thing she could say.
A shudder ran through his big body. She rubbed her cheek against him, her eyes closing as she luxuriated in the sensation of being this close, this connected.
“How can you ask this? What has happened to make you forget your situation, your family, your name?”
“You,” she replied simply.
He put his hands very lightly on her shoulders. “You are the most extraordinarily forthright young lady I have ever known.”
“Not to everyone. But always to you. Loving you has made me so.”
“So many sins on my head,” he murmured, his breath stirring the hair at the top of her head.
“I would never recognize myself in the woman wrapping her arms around you, unconcerned with anything other than the fact that your arms are not around me. Why aren’t you holding me, Robin?”
“Because if I embrace you, I am afraid I will not be able to find the will to let you go.”
“Then embrace me. “
His hands slipped from her shoulder, crushing her to him.
She laughed shakily. “See? I warned you. I am without shame, capable of anything where you are concerned. And you, what are you capable of?”
“Too much, I fear.”
“I don’t know that is true,” she said, tipping her head back to study his face, her unbound hair cascading down over his arms. “Are you capable of living on my wealth? Of enduring my father’s suspicion and my mother’s mistrust and society’s worst speculations? Are you strong enough to endure the whispers that may follow us for years before they fade, if ever they do? Because that is what marrying me will mean.”
He released her but did not step away, reaching up instead to cradle the back of her head with one hand and tip her chin up with his other. “It was never myself I wished to spare.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I will not lie to you, Robin. I would just as soon none of those things happen, and everyone we loved would bless our union and be confident of our future happiness. But the alternative is to live without you, and that I cannot do.”
In reply, he dipped at the knees and scooped her into his arms, his mouth descending hungrily on hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to get closer. His mouth still closed on hers, he moved to the chair and sank down in it, holding her on his lap.
“I have spent a lifetime training myself not to want what I could never have,” he said, and dipped his head to feather kisses along her lower lip. She arched in his arms and he splayed his hand between her shoulder blades to support her.
“But then you arrived,” he said, “and played havoc with my will. Every barrier, every defense, every bit of common sense, and every hard-learned lesson has been shattered by your smile, razed by your glance.”
She smiled, joy slowly blooming in her heart. “Then you’ll marry me?”
In answer, he covered her mouth with his own, kissing her with a thoroughness that left her shivering in his arms. “Oh yes. There’s nothing for it now, my lass. I’ll ask your father and then we can only hope he’s fool enough to agree, because it won’t matter if he does not.
“He could spirit you away, wed you to another man, secret you in a French nunnery. No matter how long it might take, no matter what I must do, I would find you.
“Because, you see, the only thing stopping me before was the idea that you would be happier without me. But now I know you love me and so nothing will stop me until you are mine, by fair means or foul.”
“I do not think we need to elope just yet,” she teased in a shaky voice, because if she did not tease him she might cry, and there were far better things to do this night then cry.
“Unless there is no other way, we are not going to elope at all,” he said severely. “I intend to stand before your family looking for all intents and purposes like the most brazen and bald-faced fortune hunter London has ever seen and pledge before God and gawkers my undying love and devotion and care of you, and it will not matter to me a whit who believes me. Except for you, Cecily. That, I own, I must have.”
“I do,” she said.
“Good,” he said, looking amazed and bemused, a man who has just heard a death sentence commuted into an extravagant reward. Then shaking his head slightly, he gently clasped her shoulders and lifted her upright on his lap. “And now, my beloved, you must leave.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What?”
“You must leave,” he said. “Because I do not want anyone in this castle saying you were forced to marry me because I’d seduced you.”
“You seduced me?” she echoed. She scrambled around in his embrace until she sat straddling his lap, her hands flat against his chest. “No one who’d seen the concerted effort you have put into avoiding me these past four days would even consider the possibility.”
He stared at her, apparently having a hard time coming up with a response. She felt the hard evidence of his arousal, and heat rose and flowed up her chest and neck into her cheeks. It was beyond arousing. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and his eyes narrowed, his gaze falling raptly on her mouth.
“No, indeed,” she said, breathless and exultant. “ ’Tis I who’ve seduced you, and everyone here knows it. Besides,” she said, “I have discovered I do not care what others think.”
He groaned, his eyes slipping shut and ground out, “And I have discovered that I do. At least where you are concerned.”
She frowned, leaning forward, and pressed a soft, clinging kiss against his lips. He shuddered.
“What matter?” she murmured. “We are to be wed anyway, are we not?”
His arms slipped around her, crushing her to him. “Yes. Yes. And yes,” he said, giving in to the irresistible temptation of her mouth before tearing his mouth free. “But,” he said, “and I cannot believe I am about to say this—truly, if Byron were dead I would swear I’d been possessed by his stiff-rumped spirit—but I want you speaking your vows at the altar knowing that you do so only because you love me, not because you were compelled by a rash decision made in a moment of passionate excess and are afraid you might be pregnant.”
“I would very much like to experience your passionate excess.” She sighed, leaning forward for another kiss.
He pulled her close and bent her over his arm, his mouth plundering hers for long, erotic moments before, with a groan, he lifted his head. “You have no concept of what you are doing to me, or the effort I am exercising. But I swear soon enough you shall.
“There will be a better time and better place for these things, my love,” he said, his dark eyes narrowed but unable to hide the hunger burning within them. “Long, passionate nights followed by languid days when we will be undisturbed while we teach each other about desire and pleasure.” He dipped his head, once more sipping a kiss from her lips before jerking his head back, breathing hard.
“I want to explore every nuance of lovemaking with you. Enjoy every taste of you.” He nibbled the tender flesh at the base of her neck, traced the tip of his tongue beneath her chin to the corner of her mouth. She arched into it, her eyes closing in a swoon of pleasure.
With a low, strained chuckle, he pulled her upright, catching her face between his hands and gazing deeply into her eyes. “I will not hurry one second of that maiden exploration, my beloved. Because I have never been in love, you see, and when we do make love, my darling, my wondrous Cecily, I do not want anything interfering.”
She burrowed her hands beneath his shirt, astonished and aroused by the satiny smooth texture of his skin stretched taut across the hard pectoral muscles. “What would interfere?” she asked, breathing hard, riveted by the idea of knowing him, this man she loved, in every sense.
“Well . . .” He hissed with pleasure as she raked her teeth lightly along his jawline.
“Well?” she echoed. He tasted subtly of soap and smoke.
“Taran,” he gulped. “He might pop in for a nightcap. Then I’d have to kill him.”
She froze.
“Dear God, what a hideous notion,” she said, her ardor momentarily doused. “I counted you a great seducer, but I see now you can kill passion as easily as you engender it.”
But then his arms came round her once more, pulling her back into his embrace, and ardor burst into flame anew. She wrapped her arms around his neck, whispering, “But for now we can still practice a bit, yes?”
“Oh yes,” he said, laughing as his mouth settled over hers. “Oh yes . . .”