When Cam finally slipped into Gemma’s bedchamber some two hours later, he was bone tired. But he’d been almost constitutionally incapable of returning to the vicarage with his brother and sister-in-law. After almost losing Gemma to a madman’s shot, he had to hold her in his arms or he’d never get a moment’s rest.
She’d gone up a half hour before and when he shut the door behind him, he saw that she had left a lamp burning on the bedside table.
Despite that, she was fast asleep, her hair glinting around her like a halo as she lay curled beneath the blankets.
As quickly and quietly as he could, Cam shucked off his boots and coats and stripped down to his smallclothes before slipping beneath the covers with her.
She murmured something as he pulled her warm body against him, but didn’t wake up. And for the first time since they’d left the inn that morning, he relaxed and breathed in the violet scent of her, then fell fast asleep.
When he came awake again the first rays of light were peeking through the narrow gap between the curtains, and a warm mouth was working its way down his neck.
“Who is this intoxicating creature?” he asked, his voice still thick with sleep.
“You’re dreaming,” she said, crawling up his body to kiss him on the mouth. “I’m a mere figment of your imagination, Lord Cameron.”
“If that’s the case then I don’t know what I will tell my intended,” he said, sliding his hands down to cup her bottom. “Because I fear she’s a very jealous lady. She won’t like your being here with me at all. In fact, I think you’d better go, imaginary lady.”
“And what if I told you she wouldn’t mind?” Gemma took his lower lip in her teeth, and Cam felt himself harden against her.
“Would she not?” he asked, moving his hands to grasp the fabric of her nightdress and slide it up her body. “I don’t think you know her as well as I do.”
She shifted to let him remove the gown completely, and sighed against him as her bare breasts brushed against his chest. “I think I do,” she said, moving her hips to tease herself against his hardness. “She likes this very much, I think.”
“Does she now?” Cam asked, grasping her hips and moving her so that he was right where she wanted him.
Gemma breathed out a sigh of pure pleasure before shifting to brace her hands on his chest. Then in one fluid motion, she sat up, seating him fully inside of her.
Cam looked up at her, naked and glorious as she sat impaled on him. He moved one hand to cup her breast, while the other guided her hip as she began to move. There were no more words, then, only sensation as she experimented, finally finding a rhythm that they both found pleasing. And he watched her for as long as he could, her eyes closed and her mouth wide with ecstasy as she rode him to completion.
When he felt her quiver around him, Cam held her tight, and flipped them so that he was on top and let himself go, taking her, claiming her, loving her with his body as he whispered words of love against her neck until he felt himself fly over the edge into bliss.
He came to himself again with the soft stroking of her fingers in his hair. He’d collapsed on top of her, he realized with a start, before he began to roll to the side.
“Don’t you dare move, Cameron Lisle,” she said, clasping him to her with her ankles locked around him. “You’re perfect just where you are.”
“I don’t want to crush you,” he protested, moving a little so that he could see her face.
She moved her hand to brush an errant lock of hair from his face. “I like it. You may be sure that if I ever find you are doing something I dislike, I will tell you.”
He laughed. “I suppose that’s right.”
“Now,” she said firmly, “lay your head back down so that I can stroke you.”
“Your hair,” she said in response to his raised brow.
Laughing again, he laid his head on her breast while she continued to toy with his hair.
“We’ll have to marry soon,” she said conversationally. “If only so that we don’t have to sneak around in order to do what we just did,”
“There’s also the small detail that we’ve already passed ourselves off as a married couple,” he said wryly. Though he too would like to marry so that they could enjoy one another without fear of being caught.
“But there is one thing we haven’t talked about,” she said thoughtfully. “The matter of where we will live.”
“We haven’t discussed it, of course,” Cam said, moving so that he was lying beside her where he might see her face. “But I do have a tidy little manor house just down the coast on the other side of Brighton.”
She frowned. “Do you, indeed?”
“You didn’t think I’d wed you without having something to offer you besides a collection of fossils, did you?”
Her expression was sheepish. “Well, I had thought since it was so sudden—” she began.
“Gemma,” he said with a shake of his head. “Did you really believe I had nothing more to my name than fossils? That I wished to marry you so that I might lay claim to Beauchamp House?”
He wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or amused.
“Not to get Beauchamp House, no,” she corrected him, sitting up with her back against the ornately carved headboard. “But if it were necessary, I would not have objected to our living here. I am the last of the heiresses after all, so…”
“But we’ve a full month before the year ends,” he reminded her, kissing the end of her nose. “So, last or not, you too will be wed before the first year is up. You’ll all have to share joint ownership.”
“About that,” she said with a look of embarrassment. “What if we waited until after the first of the year to marry?”
He stared at her. “Are you serious?”
She stared back. For so long that his heart began to beat with alarm.
* * *
Gemma watched as his eyes shone with real alarm, and she couldn’t punish him any longer.
“Of course not, you madman,” she said as she threw her arms around his neck. “I am in love with you. I don’t want to wait, and I wouldn’t wait even if it meant full ownership of Beauchamp House.”
He breathed out a sigh and she realized she’d held out a little too long for his comfort.
“Just for that,” he said pettishly, “I won’t give you the present I brought you.”
She pulled back to see his face, to determine whether he was jesting.
His response was raised brows. “Yes, I have a present for you, but I’m not sure I wish to give it to someone who would toy with my feelings like that,” he said in mock-pique.
Deciding she’d have to win him back no matter the cost, Gemma began peppering his face with kisses, until, that is, he caught her face between his large hands and stilled her so that he could kiss her properly.
When they were both breathless, he pulled away and lifted her off him.
She watched with great appreciation as he strode naked across the room to where his greatcoat lay draped over a chair.
“I wondered why you brought that up with you,” she said, sitting up and fluffing the pillow behind her.
He kept his back to her as he removed something from the inner pocket of the coat. To her great disappointment, he hid whatever it was behind his back as he came back and slid beneath the bedclothes and sat beside her against the headboard.
She turned to look at him, and to her wonderment, he actually looked a bit nervous.
“Before I give this to you,” he said solemnly, “if you think it’s foolish you need only tell me and we’ll forget it ever happened.”
Gemma blinked. She never thought she’d see Lord Cameron Lisle so shy. It was a side of him she’d never thought to see. And her heart seemed to flip over at the knowledge he’d trusted her enough to show it to her.
As she watched, he proffered his closed fist and, in one fluid motion, opened it.
There, nestled atop his palm was one of the brightest blue banded agate stones she’d ever seen. With a shaking hand she took it from him and traced the bands of different hues of blue that surrounded the asymmetrical triangle of lighter blue in the center.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, too moved to say more. She knew without him telling her that this was important to him.
“I found it on the shore near Lisle Hall when I was a small boy,” he said softly. “It was my first find. My father helped me polish it, and he found a man to shave off the side so that the striations would be revealed. It was the beginning of a lifelong love.”
“It’s lovely,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him. “But I can’t take it from you.”
But Cam shook his head. “I need to give it to you. To show you how much you mean to me, Gemma.”
He cupped her face in his hands.
“You mean more to me,” he said fiercely. “More than this stone. More than geology. If it takes me giving it up to make you happy, I will do it. I love you that much.”
Gemma felt tears fill her eyes. All this time, she’d been afraid that somehow marrying Cam would mean she’d have to give up some part of herself. The scholar, the fossil-hunter, the bluestocking.
Aunt Dahlia was wrong. Marrying this generous, loving, wonderful man wouldn’t diminish her. It would make her stronger.
They would make a formidable team.
“Thank you,” she said, kissing him again. “But I could no more ask you to give up fossils than you’d ask me. I love you, you see. I’m not quite sure how we will manage it, but I do know that I can imagine no one else I’d rather comb beaches and quarries for specimens with.”
As she spoke, she watched as his smile transformed his entire face. There was joy there, and relief, but also love. “Are you sure?” he asked, though it was clear from his expression that he believed her.
Still, she couldn’t help but say, “I think I’ve loved you since that day that we fought over your silly geology magazine. I simply didn’t know it yet.”
* * *
He pulled her against him. “But why didn’t you say? I poured my heart out in the carriage yesterday and you never said a thing. I could have kept my prize agate.”
* * *
She gave him a playful punch in the shoulder.
“I wasn’t sure of it,” she told him honestly. “I’ve never felt this way before and I didn’t want to tell you I loved you when I might discover later it was … I don’t know, indigestion.”
“So now you know it’s not indigestion?” he asked, his mouth curved into a smile.
Her heart clenched. “I knew it when I saw Lord Paley holding that pistol.”
She clasped him to her and held on tight.
“I love you so much, Cam. More than I can ever show you.”
He whispered a suggestion of how she might do so in her ear.
“You, sir, are a tease,” she said before kissing him.
“But you love me anyway?” he asked, pulling back a little.
“Of course I do,” she said with a serene smile. “How could I possibly resist such a rogue?”