Evelyn glanced around at the disarray of clothes strewn about, the buttons littering the floor, the mattress stripped bare, the curtainless window, the dust-coated floor.
“Please leave,” he muttered, hunching over slightly, pressing his hand to his side, no doubt suffering excruciating pain from his wound. But she saw more: his humiliation at her discovery of his secret.
The strong man who had protected her, provided her with sanctuary appeared defeated, and it tore into her soul.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Sit in that chair by the fireplace while I get sheets for the bed.”
“I don’t want sheets. I can’t stand them.” Gingerly, he eased himself into the chair. “They make me feel as though I’m smothering.”
And she had tucked them in securely around him. Quietly, she walked over, knelt before him, and lightly placed her hands on his knees. Holding his gaze, she said, “You’re not mad.”
“Look about you. Of course, I am.”
She could argue until she was blue in the face, but he was obviously past the point of listening. “Please, let me tend to your wound.”
“The bandage wrapped so tightly is killing me. I need to get it off. And my trousers. I need you to leave.” She watched his throat muscles work as he swallowed, his gaze on a distant spot on the wall. “Please go, Eve.”
The rough, ragged plea nearly sliced open her heart. Tears stung her eyes. “I can’t. I can’t leave you alone, not like this. I’ll take off the bandage and your trousers. You can lie on my bed. We won’t put the covers back on, but I can stop the bleeding. Then you can rest.”
Reaching up, she tenderly combed back the hair from his brow. He grabbed her hand. She expected him to fling it aside. Instead, he turned his face into her palm, and pressed a kiss to its center. He closed his eyes, and she thought he might be drifting off to sleep, holding her like that.
“I just need a few moments in here,” he whispered.
Bending down, she picked up a shirt. It was ripped, several buttons missing. “I can mend—”
“I don’t want them mended. I gather them up occasionally. Take them to a poorhouse. They can mend them.”
If he wasn’t having the clothes repaired, then he was purchasing new. She supposed he didn’t want the servants or anyone else questioning how his clothing came to be so tattered. “Your tailor must absolutely adore you.”
He chuckled low, the sound vibrating against her hand where it rested against his throat. “He does.”
He was breathing less erratically. It appeared the bleeding had stopped. An intimacy was weaving around them, something deeper than anything they’d shared in bed. She was loath to bring an end to these moments. “People aren’t usually born feeling as though they’re smothering. What happened?”
He lowered their hands to his lap, hers cradled within his, her palm upturned. It was as though he were studying all the lines, searching for the answers, or perhaps merely the words to explain the unexplainable.
“I won’t tell,” she whispered. “I promise.”
His eyes slid closed, his voice raspy when he finally spoke. “Promises hold no sway, Evie. They can be broken.”
“Not mine,” she said with conviction.
He opened his eyes, but still didn’t look at her, his finger tracing over her palm. He released a long slow sigh. “My brothers left me at a workhouse. Horrid people owned it. But it costs money to manage a place like that, and the people inside certainly haven’t the means to pay. So they had an agreement with the owners of a nearby coal mine. Before the sun rose, we were woken up, fed our milk porridge, and marched off to the mines. We worked there until long after the sun set. It got to the point that when I did see the sun, it hurt my eyes.”
He trailed his finger over one line and then another as though he were etching his story on her palm.
“I was a coal bearer. I carried the coal that others dug up from deep in the pits. Backbreaking work. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever be able to stand up straight again. Then one day several of us were gathering up our burdens, when someone shouted at us to run. I wasn’t very nimble. In spite of the fact that I’d lost weight, I wasn’t as slender as I would become. Not then. So I was slow. Another lad and myself. The ceiling and walls caved in on us. We were pinned there. In the dark. The lanterns had gone out.
“I was fortunate. My head, shoulders, and one of my arms were free. I started to try to dig myself out. Then I heard the other boy. In the pitch black, I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t find him. I could only hear his cries, his whimpers, then his silence. His silence was the loudest of all. As impossible as it seemed, it had echoed around the cavernous pit, through my mind, straight into my soul. I knew he was dead. And I was alone again, certain that death was going to claim me as well. I could find no air to breathe.”
She desperately wanted to wrap her arms around him. “But someone came and rescued you.”
“Eventually. I don’t know how long I was there. Hours, days, weeks. Perhaps only minutes. I knew only that the weight of the dirt and the coal and the beams would crush me, just as it had the other boy. I don’t even know his name. I don’t know why it didn’t flatten me. I was digging frantically when I wasn’t fighting off the rats who wanted a nibble.”
“Did they send you back there, to the pits?”
“Oh, yes, the next day. We had quotas you see, and there were always more children to be found. It was a few weeks before I managed to escape and make my way to London. As frightening as it was to be on my own, it was better than being in the pits.”
“I hate that you went through all of that.”
“The cave-in was the start of it I think, my aversion to being confined. Sometimes I lose my sense of calm. Before you were here, when I came to the residence, the first thing I did was come to this room to strip off my clothes and prowl through it until I regained my composure.”
Now he came to her room and stripped off his clothes. It was an improvement she supposed, but still she wanted to weep for the child he’d been, the one who thought death was coming for him, who had heard it snatch away another.
“You think you’ll lose your calm if I hold you?”
“I know I will. I struck out before at someone who tried to hold me.” He trailed a finger around her face. “I won’t risk hurting you.”
“You should have explained all this to me sooner so that I would have understood, could have helped you with it.”
He scoffed. “Explained what? That I would be naked all the time if it were acceptable? Even my servants aren’t allowed in here. It’s my dark secret. I share it with no one. I certainly had never planned for you to find out.” He angled his head, studied her. “Did I strike you?”
Gently, she touched her fingers to her cheek. “It’s more that I got in the way, I think.”
He slammed his eyes closed. “Ah, Eve.” When he opened his eyes, she saw the remorse and regret mirrored there. “I’ve tried to be so damned careful not to lose control.”
“It’s not as though you did it on purpose. You were locked in the throes of a nightmare.”
“Can you not see that I’m mad, that if I don’t keep a tight rein on myself, I risk becoming a barbarian?”
“I can see that you’re a man who’s battling demons. That’s not the same thing. And you don’t have to fight them alone. Let me help you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
She couldn’t blame him for his hesitancy. He’d been alone for so long now. But there could be so much more between them. She was certain of it. Yet it would require patience. He’d told her far more than she’d ever expected him to, but she was left with the notion that he had failed to reveal everything. “Please, come to my bed and let me tend to you.” Rising to her feet, she held out her hand and waited. She could see the indecision crossing his face as he warred with himself. Where would he seek his sanctuary? Here alone, or with her? She prayed he would choose her. Finally, he placed his hand in hers and came to his feet, sending the smallest spark of hope through her that more would eventually exist between them.
“Perhaps,” he muttered, “we’re both mad.”
Rafe awoke, momentarily disoriented by the silken sheet beneath his back and the velvety canopy above his head. He was as bare as a newborn babe, his wound uncovered. The stitches pulled when he rolled onto his hip. And there she was, turned on her side, a hand resting beneath her cheek, her long lashes lying gently against her skin. Her knees were drawn up, her nightgown having gathered at her calves. Her toes curled and unfurled as though she were dreaming of skipping over green fields. He inhaled her fragrance with each breath, watched her rhythmic breathing.
She’d left a lamp burning just low enough that he could see her clearly, and yet the shadows still formed a gossamer layer over her. He almost found himself envious of the shadows. He remembered how gentle her hands had been as she’d tended him, careful to touch him as little as possible. During that time as her hands had moved so tenderly over him, he’d experienced an unfamiliar sensation: of being loved. And the feelings he felt toward her had very nearly scared the bloody hell out of him. He’d wanted to ask her to never leave him. No, not ask. Plead. Beg.
She’d not been appalled by what she’d discovered in his sanctuary. She’d understood his aversion to clothing, had not thought him mad, had almost succeeded in convincing him that he had nothing of which to be ashamed. She was the most remarkable, kind, generous woman he’d ever known. And she was his.
Until he tired of her or she began to look elsewhere for protection. Not that anyone else could provide her with the security of which he was capable. As long as he was the one to call things off, she stood to acquire a great deal, would become an independent woman.
In the deepest recesses of his soul, the corners that he refused to acknowledge, he wished that the relationship between them was different, that she was here because she wished to be, not because of what she would gain. But then if not for the reality of their arrangement, she wouldn’t be here at all.
Opening her eyes, she gave him a soft smile that was nearly his undoing. “Hello there. How are you feeling?”
“As though I’ve had far too much cheap whiskey.”
“I doubt you know the taste of cheap whiskey.”
“I didn’t always have so much.” Once he’d had nothing at all. “Why didn’t you unlock the door when you found the key?”
She sighed, stretched like a cat that had just woken up in the sun. “Because it was something you wanted to hold secret, and I thought a mistress should respect your privacy.”
A mistress. Always that was between them. That she was here not by choice.
“Your wound is red.”
“I suspect it’ll be angry for a few days. I’m barely aware of it.”
“Only because you’ve suffered worse. I might have had a similar life if you hadn’t taken me in.”
He hadn’t taken her in. He’d offered her sanctuary, but at an incredible cost. He hadn’t considered it then, hadn’t thought of anything beyond his own wants and needs. When had he become such a selfish bastard, thinking only about himself? He was not the sort of man into which his father would have shaped him had he remained alive, had he been able to assert his influence. Sebastian and Rafe were closer to the lords that they all should have been. Of course they were older, had their father in their lives for more years. Still, he could not help but believe that his father would be disappointed in him.
She rose up on an elbow. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Thought you were sleeping.”
“Before I drifted off to sleep. What if I didn’t hold you, but just touched you? I dream about it all the time, you know? Stroking my hands over your shoulders and your back.”
He slammed his eyes closed and growled, “Eve, don’t.”
“You must think about it as well. Just light touches, as though we were waltzing.”
He swallowed hard, before he opened his eyes. “I’ll hurt you.”
“No, you won’t. I trust you.”
“You’re a fool.” Rolling from the bed, he was light-headed. He took a moment to regain his balance before walking to the window and gazing out. He should go to the bedchamber with the stripped bed, where he slept with no danger of getting tangled in sheets or blankets. He didn’t cry out in there, but he was loath to leave her.
He heard the hushed padding of her bare feet, didn’t look down when he sensed her presence beside him.
“Why are you so certain?” she asked softly.
He didn’t want to travel this path. It was as ghastly as listening to a boy die in the mines. But she needed to understand, even if it put her at risk of leaving him. His darker secret, the one that ate at his soul.
“I’d not been long in London. I scavenged for food, sought shelter wherever I could find it, usually in an alleyway, beside rubbish, in a dark corner. One night, I woke up to find a man holding me down, tearing at my clothes . . . he told me to stop fighting, that it wouldn’t be so bad if I’d stop struggling.”
“Oh my dear God.”
He couldn’t look at her, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. “I don’t remember how I got away from him, but I did. Before he got my clothes off, before he did what he intended to do. I don’t remember beating on him, but I did. I beat on him until I killed him, until he would never again touch another boy.”
He felt her fingers, trembling, touch his hand, wrap around it, squeeze. “I’m glad,” she rasped.
He jerked his head around then to look at her. Tears were in her eyes, tears that he’d wanted to shed that night, tears he’d wanted to shed when the boy had died in the tunnel with him, but he’d feared that if he gave them their freedom they’d never stop, that they would confirm that he was weak, that they would serve as further evidence that his brothers had been right to leave him behind.
“I’m glad,” she repeated. “I’m glad you killed him. He was the worst sort, to hurt a child.”
“You don’t understand, not completely. All I saw was red. I don’t remember doing what I did, but I know I did it because no one else was about. He was holding me, and I was suffocating again, and I did what I had to do in order to get him away from me.”
“And you’ve been afraid of letting anyone hold you ever since?”
“Because I know what I’m capable of. If I lose control—”
“You won’t with me.”
“Eve—”
“You won’t with me,” she repeated with conviction. “You won’t with me.”
He should tell her the remainder of it, but she gave him hope, and it had been so terribly long since he’d embraced true hope. Perhaps with her it would be different. He felt something when he was with her, something he’d never felt with another, as though he’d found a part of himself that had been missing, as though all that he could be was possible.
Very, very slowly, she moved her hand toward his bare chest.
His mind shouted, “No! No! No!”
But his body was separate from it, holding still, waiting, waiting. She held his gaze, challenging him to trust her while at the same time issuing promises that she wouldn’t hurt him. He wasn’t afraid of pain. He’d suffered through enough to know that when it ended, he’d remain. What she didn’t know was that she had the power to destroy him.
She meant something to him. He wasn’t exactly sure what, but he knew she mattered. That’s why he had been devastated that she’d seen his madman’s cell. That’s why he refused her touch. He could hurt her and when he did, she would leave. She was strong enough that she would survive without him. He didn’t want to survive without her.
Terrifying thoughts that sent a shiver through him just before her hand came to rest above his pounding heart. He could feel the pad of each finger, the warmth of her palm. If he were a kinder man, a gentler man, he might have wept. He had yearned for so very long to be touched, stroked, held.
His baser instincts allowed him to bed her, but beyond that he dared not risk hurting her.
So slowly that he was barely aware of the movement, she glided her hand up his chest, over his shoulder, down his arm.
“Tell me if the pressure is unsettling,” she whispered in a low voice, similar to the one he used when calming his horse.
Unsettling it should have been. He should have tossed her back by now. That’s what had happened the first time he’d been with a woman. She had held him, and he had shoved her off. He hadn’t hit her as he had the man in the alley, but he’d been trembling as though someone had thrown him into an icy river. She had told him he belonged in Bedlam. He’d been sixteen and he’d believed her. He’d not let a woman hold him since.
Eve’s other hand came to rest on his chest and she took it on a similar journey as the first, along the other side. Wherever she touched, he felt as though he was being set ablaze, but not with fire. With passion. It felt so good, so good.
Touch all of me. All of me.
Her hands traveled back up his arms, over his shoulders, down his chest. “I don’t think I’d ever get enough of this.”
Leaning in, she pressed her mouth to the center of his chest. It was his undoing.
“Eve.” The guttural sound was that of a man dying, and he was. He plowed his fingers through her hair, tilted up her face, and took her mouth as though he owned it, as though he were the only one who would ever experience the taste of her. It drove him mad to think of anyone else ever knowing her as he had.
Her hands traveled along his neck, up into his hair, over his scalp, and back down. Always open, always nonthreatening, never closing around him. Long smooth strokes. No holding, no squeezing, no restraining.
Liberating. How had he ever survived without this? How had he ever thought it was enough to touch her, and not let her stroke him?
Her hands glided over his back, over his buttocks. He growled low, as he began gathering up the hem of her nightdress. She broke off the kiss, unbuttoned the garment, shrugged out of it. It shimmered along her body and pooled on the floor. She stepped over it and came in close, pressing her body against his, her breasts flattened against his chest. He groaned, while she released a throaty sigh.
“Yes,” she breathed. “I’ve wanted this so badly.”
He circled his arms around her. It had never occurred to him that he was denying her pleasures, that she would want to touch him, caress him. He thought if she didn’t know what was lacking in their coupling, she wouldn’t miss it. He held her, just held her, while she held him.
Marveled at the wonder of it. So much skin against skin. Silk to satin. Velvety warmth. If not for the wound in his side, he would have picked her up and carried her to the bed. Instead, he took her hand and led her to it.
She lay on her back and he covered her.
Not like before, raised on his arms, allowing himself to touch her only for what was required for the act to reach completion. With a sultry smile, she tiptoed her fingers along his back and over his shoulders. Skin on skin, more than he’d ever experienced. It was intoxicating, addicting. With her, he experienced no sense of suffocating.
“Press harder,” he commanded.
She did, and he felt the indentations along his skin where her fingers traveled. He arched his back, curled it forward. It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough until he was buried inside her, until her velvety heat was surrounding him. He’d probably rip his stitches, but he didn’t care. He was lost in the sensations she created, lost in her. The blue of her eyes, the blond of her hair, her bodily fragrance mingled with rose perfume.
A wicked gleam came into her eyes and she lifted her head slightly, pressing her lips to his throat. Hot moisture dewed along his skin. “Ah, Evie.”
She pushed on his shoulder, nudged him. “Off,” she ordered.
He rose up. “Am I’m too heavy?”
“No.” She smiled. “I want you on your back.”
Then she was raining kisses over him as though he were covered in confection that she needed to gobble up. His hand became tangled in her hair. He was desperate for the connection, to be touching her as her tongue swirled along skin that had never known the caress of a woman. Had she required the connection as well? Had what they shared been less because he had denied her this?
Before now, he had never felt adored, worshipped . . . worthy. He had kept so much of himself frozen, behind stone walls, impenetrable. With each stroke of her tongue, each sweep of her hand, she was loosening the stones, she was warming the frigid center of his being.
And it hurt. God help him, it hurt to know that he had gone so long without this. That he had denied himself ultimate pleasure. Lower she went, lower and lower, her hair spread out over his chest like gossamer. So faint as to barely be there, but for a man who had not known another’s caress in years, it might as well be a woolen blanket, he was so aware of it.
His senses were coming alive as they never had before. Pleasure began rippling through him. It didn’t matter where she touched, it was everywhere.
Lower still, she went.
“Evie,” he rasped.
She lifted her sweet face and gave him the softest of smiles, and yet in her eyes he saw the determination. He wouldn’t deter her from her goal. “I’ve wondered what you taste like.”
Then she bent her head and wrapped her velvet mouth around him, and he nearly wept from the pleasure of it. His hand tightened its hold on her hair while his other hand fisted in the sheets. He groaned low, a beast being set free.
All this time, he’d thought he was acquiring pleasure, but it was nothing like this. To be receiving so grand a gift. He’d always thought it was enough to simply give. But now he understood that the taking was also a form of giving. She may have been innocent in her ministrations, perhaps even unskilled, but having never known anything else, he was convinced that her enthusiasm was more than he would ever find elsewhere. She spoiled him with her endeavors. She brought him more acceptance than he’d ever known.
He wanted her more than it was wise to want, but he had ceased to care about wisdom. He was like a man addicted to games of chance. Life was filled with more disappointments than successes, more bad cards than good, but when fate smiled, nothing else mattered but that one moment of victory.
He felt vulnerable, exposed, but it heightened the adventure, the moments with her.
“Evie.” He urged her up and onto her back. Kissing her, he thought he tasted himself on her tongue. He was humbled by how much she wanted to do for him, how much she desired him. Deepening the kiss, he wedged himself between her thighs, surprised to find her so moist, so ready.
Rising up, he plunged into her and then sank down until his chest flattened her breasts. Her arms came around to rest lightly on his back. He should have been sweating by now, trembling, feeling the familiar tightness in his chest, but all he felt was her. He began rocking against her. Her legs came up, pressed against his hips. He should have objected, but it felt so marvelous to be enclosed within the cocoon of her warmth.
He quickened his pace. Never before had the pleasure been so intense. Never before had it encompassed all of him. She was riding the crest with him, her cries echoing around him, her body spasming beneath his. He could feel her muscles undulating. Never before had he been so close to someone physically. He thought a shadow could not slip between them.
As she arched against him, her arms tightened around him, and the force of his release ripped through him. If he wasn’t lying on the bed, it would have dropped him to his knees.
Resting on his elbows to keep from crushing her, he turned his head and pressed a kiss to the underside of her ear.
“I knew it could be like this,” she whispered softly.
Her words stung his pride. “Did you not enjoy it before?” She’d certainly given the impression that she was quite pleased with his performance.
“It’s always lovely. You make it so. But it’s also lonely, as though we’re each drawing pleasure in our own little worlds. This time it was as though we shared the same world. I liked being able to touch you, to feel your muscles bunching and straining with your efforts. I liked thinking that perhaps you found some joy in my touch.”
“Joy? Evie, you damned near killed me.”
He felt her jerk beneath him and lifted himself back up so he could look into her eyes. “That’s a good thing. It’s never—” Dear God, he couldn’t believe he was actually talking about this. The next thing he knew, he’d start wearing skirts. He combed her hair behind her ear. “It’s never been as fulfilling for me. I found it lonely as well.”
He wished he hadn’t admitted that, but he seemed unable to keep from telling her anything.
“Your wound?”
“The stitches held.” Although how they had managed to do that under the circumstances, he hadn’t a clue. He rolled off her and onto his back—and damned if he didn’t miss the nearness of her.
She snuggled against his side and placed her hand on his chest. “I won’t hold you, but feel free to hold me.”
He brought his arm down and around her. He held her there. Eventually, he heard her soft snoring and stared at the canopy. There was a tightness in his chest. He feared it was the stone wall around his heart crumbling.
Without it, how the hell would he protect himself?