RHYS DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY Helen seemed especially vulnerable tonight, at the mercy of some private anxiety she wouldn’t explain. She always held something in reserve, an edge or two of her soul turned inward. The mystery of her, the hint of elusiveness, fascinated him. God help him, he had never wanted to be inside another human being the way he did her.
He carried her to the bed and deposited her on the mattress.
With a decisiveness that caught him off guard, Helen reached for the belt of his robe and untied it. The garment listed open, revealing his aroused body . . . and then her cool fingers settled on him. His mouth went dry, and his flesh throbbed viciously as she explored the shape and texture of his aroused flesh.
Shrugging out of his robe, he stood with his hands suspended in midair, not quite sure where to put them. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that Helen would do such a thing of her own accord. It inflamed him further to see how ladylike she was about it, her pretty hands touching him with the same lightness she used on her piano keys or to hold a porcelain teacup.
Noticing the way he jumped and caught his breath as she reached the head of his erection, Helen asked in an abashed voice, “It’s more sensitive here?”
Unable to muster a coherent word, Rhys nodded with a gruff sound.
Slowly she caressed the shaft with the flat of her palm. He saw the luminous blue glow of the moonstone ring, the symbol of his claim on her, as her fingers glided to the swaying weight of him below. She cupped him so gently, as if she were handling something dangerously volatile. Which she was. His body was nothing but a container brimming with lust, ready to explode. The primitive part of his brain took obscene satisfaction in the lurid sight of her, a fair-haired nymph, sweetly caressing his cock. The contrast of grace and crudeness appealed to him on the most primitive level.
Taking hold of him at the base, she made a delicate cuff of her fingers and slid them upward. Her thumb touched the exposed tip and made a mild circling stroke, and for a few seconds he couldn’t see past the shower of sparks over his vision. A heavy pulse began deep in his pelvis, warning that he was only seconds from climax. With a groan, he tried to push her hands away. “No more . . . no . . . sweetheart . . .”
But she only leaned closer, her breath flowing gently against him. She kissed him, her lips lingering on the moist tip. A shock of response nearly unmanned him. Panting, he pulled away and lowered to the bed on his stomach, feverishly willing the sensation to die down. His chest heaved as he pulled in huge draughts of air.
“Helen,” he muttered, gripping savage handfuls of the bedclothes. “My God, Helen.”
There were movements beside him, her slight weight depressing the mattress. “Did you like that?” she asked cautiously.
His sound of vigorous assent was buried in the sheets.
“Oh good.” She sounded relieved. In a moment, he felt her climbing over him. She had removed her nightgown, and was draping her naked body all along his, catlike. He tensed, smoldering at the enticing weight of her. Silky female skin . . . the curves of her breasts . . . the little fluff of curls teasing his backside . . .
“I talked with Kathleen,” she said, her breath causing the hair at his nape to prickle and lift. “She explained a few things about the marital relationship that she thought I should know.” As he flexed and shivered beneath her, she wriggled to conform more closely to the masculine terrain of his body.
“Helen. Hold still.”
She stopped moving at once. “Is it uncomfortable when I lie on you like this?”
“No, it’s just that I’m trying not to spend.”
“Oh.” Helen pressed her cheek against his nape. “Some men can more than once,” she said helpfully.
In spite of his raging arousal, Rhys found himself burying a grin against the mattress. “You’re so well-informed, cariad.”
“I want to learn everything a mistress would know, so that I can satisfy you.”
Carefully he rolled to his side, letting her slide off his back before he moved over her. His hands clasped her head, her silvery-gold hair spilling between his fingers.
“My own,” he said, “don’t ever worry about that. Everything about you is a delight to me.”
Her gaze turned wary. “I’m sure you’ll discover things you won’t like.”
“I hope so. If you had no flaws, mine would throw us off-balance.”
“I’ll balance yours,” she assured him with a touch of irony he’d never heard from her before.
“If by that you mean your shyness,” Rhys said, “you’ll learn to overcome it.” He nudged his hips against hers. “Just look at the progress you’ve made with me.”
Helen laughed, turning pink up to her hairline. One of her hands drew along his flank and slipped cautiously between their bodies. “What’s the word for this?” she asked, taking hold of him again. “What do you call it?”
“Your sister-in-law didn’t include that in her lecture?”
“She told me some of the English words,” Helen admitted, “but I want to know what it’s called in Welsh.”
“Is this how you mean to begin learning Welsh?” he asked in mock disapproval. “With profanity?”
“Yes.”
Rhys smiled and kissed her. “Mind you, most Welsh love-talk sounds like a farming manual. The word for a man’s part is goesyn. Stalk.”
She repeated the syllables, her fingers gripping and stroking him with maddening gentleness.
“When the man thrusts inside the woman,” he said, breathing with increasing difficulty, “the word is dyrnu. To thresh.” He began to kiss his way down her body, savoring her warm skin with its faint dusting of talcum. After blowing lightly against the protective curls of her sex, he murmured, “This is a ffwrch. A furrow to be plowed.” He leaned close enough for her to feel the tip of his tongue as he drew it along the innocently closed seam. Her thighs trembled on either side of him. “And the word for this”—he paused to search deeper, finding the shy bud still hidden beneath its hood—“is chrib, a bit of honeycomb.” He delved again, tickling the little peak to wakefulness until it was hot and distinct against the tip of his tongue.
Slowly he continued to lick and tease her, while she squirmed beneath him. He was lost in her, aware of nothing outside this room, this bed. How finely made she was, her skin pearly, the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet as soft as a kitten’s paws. She was sensitive everywhere, her toes spreading reflexively as he kissed the arch of her foot, her leg jerking when his tongue slipped behind her knee.
Rising back over her, he braced his weight carefully, settling his shaft against that exquisite channel and letting her feel what he was about to give her. She looked disoriented, flushed, a pulse visible in her neck.
“Do you want me, Helen?”
“Yes. Yes.”
Afraid of hurting her by thrusting too hard, he pinned her writhing hips and whispered that she had to keep still, he needed to enter her slowly. Her flesh was wet but tight, refusing to yield easily. She locked her arms around his neck, gasping, making soft noises as he pushed up inside her, working in short thrusts, sliding deeper each time. He kissed her lips, her throat. His brain flooded with thoughts of the other time they’d been together and how he’d caused her pain, and how much he wanted it to be good for her now.
After he had slid forward the last inch, he paused to stare down at her in wonder. Her skin was misted and gleaming, her eyes shimmering. She was like something wrought of myth and make-believe, some lovely lost angel who had fallen into his arms. He sank deeper into the tender cradle of her hips and thighs, luxuriating in the feel of her trembling body beneath his, the air settling like cool silk against his sweating back. His mouth skimmed over the slope of her breast, his ears thrilling to her low-throated moan. Playing with her breasts, he shaped the firm curves with his hands, lifting them as he teased and nibbled at the peaks.
“When I push against you, cariad,” he said huskily, sliding a hand beneath her bottom, “lift your hips like this.” He pulled her up into his slow thrust. Taking his time, he drew back and drove forward again, and she hitched against him in a bashful movement that sent a rush of white fire through him. He fought to find his breath. “Aye, just like that—my good girl, my—Ah, God, you’ll kill me—”
He felt Helen bracing her feet for leverage, rolling her hips upward as he sank into her. It seemed as if they were doing something other than fucking, this was so new, so unbelievably raw and sweet. He’d never been so hard, so wild with need. He could feel pleasure leaking from him as he rode her steadily, the crisis racing forward with irresistible momentum.
But he didn’t want it to end yet. Gritting his teeth, he managed to stop. She whimpered, writhing beneath him.
“Wait,” Rhys said.
“I can’t—”
“I want you to.”
“Oh please—”
“Now in a minute.” He weighted her so that she couldn’t move.
“That means never,” she protested, and he laughed unsteadily.
When his desire was back under control, he began again, building the rhythm gradually, while the voltage of lightning gathered in his spine. He stopped every few minutes, holding himself deep inside her, letting his desire subside until he could continue thrusting. Her moans became louder, her movements more demanding. He saw the moment when she lost control, her eyes closing, her face deeply flushed.
Hooking his arms beneath her knees, he pushed her legs back, her hips up until her feet dangled and swayed, and he entered her more deeply. She was fully open to him now, her body working him, clamping sweetly. Sharp cries pushed between her clenched teeth, and he bent to seal his mouth over hers, forcing it open, licking at the sounds she made. She shuddered as her climax began, and that was all he could endure, the lightning releasing and shooting to the top of his skull. He pumped into her, yielding every drop of his essence as she pulled it from him in endless shocks.
Dazed by the force of his release, he let down her legs and hung over her, panting. Her arms tightened around his midriff, compelling him to lower over her until they were flattened together like the pages of a book. He wanted to stay that way, fused and clasped and caressed inside her, for the rest of his days. Instead, using the last flicker of his strength, he collapsed to his side and slid free of her.
After a while, Helen left the bed wordlessly, returning with a cloth she had dampened at the washstand in the corner. As she began to wipe it gently over his groin, he rolled to his back and linked his hands behind his head, enjoying the sight of her performing the intimate service for him.
“No one has ever given me such pleasure, cariad.”
She paused to send him a sideways smile. After finishing her ministrations, she set aside the cloth, turned down the lamp, and climbed back into bed. He pulled the covers over them both and settled her in the crook of his shoulder.
Helen snuggled against him. “Have you been with many women?” she dared to ask.
Rhys slid his hand over the supple line of her back, considering his answer. How much was a man supposed to tell his wife—future wife—about the women he’d known before her?
“Does it matter?” he countered.
“No. But I’m curious about how many mistresses you’ve had.”
“The store has always been my most demanding mistress.”
She pressed her lips against his shoulder. “You must hate being away from it.”
“Not half as much as I hate being away from you.”
Her kiss spread into a smile. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“If you mean the traditional arrangement—setting a woman up in her own house, paying her bills—I’ve had only one mistress. It lasted a year.” After a pause, he said frankly, “It’s an odd bargain to make, it is. Paying for a woman’s company out of bed as well as in it.”
“Why did you do it?”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “Other men of my position kept mistresses. A business associate introduced her to me after her previous arrangement had ended. She needed a new protector, and I found her attractive.”
“Did you come to care for her?”
Rhys wasn’t accustomed to reflecting on his past, or discussing his feelings about it. He couldn’t fathom what good could come of airing his weaknesses to her. But faced with her questioning silence, he continued reluctantly. “I never knew if her affection was real, or if it was included on the bill of sale. I don’t think she knew, either.”
“Did you want her to feel affection for you?”
He shook his head at once. Her hand smoothed over his chest and stomach, and the moment was so peaceful that he found himself telling her more than he’d intended. “I’ve had lovers, from time to time. Women who didn’t want to be kept, and sometimes liked a bit o’ rough.”
“A bit of rough?” Helen repeated quizzically.
“A lower-class sort,” he explained. “A rowdy in bed.”
Her hand paused on his chest. “But you’re gentle.”
Rhys was torn between amusement and shame as his mind recollected some of the more lurid episodes of his past. “I’m glad you think so, cariad.”
“And you’re not lower-class.” She began to trace invisible patterns on his torso again.
“The devil knows I’m not from the upper,” he said wryly. “‘Codfish aristocracy’ is what they call us. Men who’ve made a fortune in business, but are common-born.”
“Why codfish?”
“It used to refer to the rich merchants who settled the American colonies and made their money in the cod trade. Now it means any successful businessman.”
“Nouveau riche is another term,” Helen said. “It’s never used as a compliment, of course. But it should be. Being self-made is something to be admired.” As she felt his soundless chuckle, she insisted, “It is.”
Rhys turned his head to kiss her. “You’ve no need to flatter my vanity.”
“I’m not flattering you. I think you’re remarkable.”
Whether she really felt that way, or was merely playing the role of loyal spouse, her words smoothed over the rough-hewn, ragged places of his soul like some healing balm. God, he needed this, had always needed it. Her sleek young body pressed against his as she drew her hands over him tentatively. He lay still and let her explore him, satisfying her curiosity.
“Was there ever a woman you thought of marrying?” she asked.
Rhys hesitated, unwilling to have his past probed and exposed. But she was underneath his armor now. “There was a girl I fancied,” he admitted.
“What was her name?”
“Peggy Gilmore. Her father was a furniture-maker who supplied my store.” His mind sifted through unwanted memories, pulling out ghostly images, words, shades of feeling. “A pretty girl with green eyes. I didn’t court her—it never went that far.”
“Why not?”
“I knew that a good friend of mine, Ioan, was in love with her.”
Helen draped herself along his side, a slender leg hitching over one of his. “That’s a Welsh name, isn’t it?”
“Aye. Ioan’s family, the Crewes, lived on High Street, not far from my father’s shop. They made and sold fishing tackle. There was a giant stuffed salmon in the window.” He smiled slightly, remembering his fascination with the shop’s displays of taxidermied fish and reptiles. “Mr. Crewe talked my parents into letting me take penmanship lessons with Ioan two afternoons a week. He convinced them that it would help their business to have someone who could write a good legible hand. Years later, when I began to expand my store, I hired Ioan as the merchandise controller. A fine, honest man, he was, good as gold. I couldn’t blame Peggy for preferring him to me—I’d never have loved her the way he did.”
“Did they marry? Does he still work at the store?”
A dark feeling came over Rhys, as it always did when he thought about Ioan. He regretted having mentioned him, or Peggy—he didn’t want to let the past intrude on his time with Helen. “Let’s talk no more of it, cariad—it’s not a pretty story, and the telling of it brings out the worst in me.”
But Helen was intent on prying the information from him. “Did you have a falling-out?”
Rhys was irritably silent, responding with a single shake of his head. He thought Helen would retreat then. But he felt her lips press against his cheek, while one of her hands slid into his hair and lay lightly against his skull. The silent consolation, so unexpected, undermined him completely.
Baffled by his inability to withhold anything from her, he let out a sigh. “Ioan’s been dead these four years past.”
Helen was still and quiet as she absorbed the information. After a moment she kissed him again, this time on his chest. Over his heart. Damn it, he thought, realizing that he was going to tell her everything. He couldn’t put any distance between them when she did something like that.
“He and Peggy married,” he said. “They were happy for a while. They were well matched, and Ioan had made a fortune with his private shares in the store. Anything Peggy wanted, he provided.” Rhys paused before admitting ruefully, “Except his time. Ioan worked the same hours he always had, staying late at the store each night. He left her alone for too long. I should have put a stop to that. I should have told him to go home and pay attention to his wife.”
“Surely that wasn’t your place.”
“As his friend, I could have said it.” He felt Helen’s head settle on his chest. “It won’t be an issue in our marriage,” he muttered. “I won’t keep bachelor’s hours.”
“Our house is next to the store. If you work too late, I’ll simply come and fetch you.”
Helen’s pragmatic reply nearly made him smile.
“You’ll have no trouble tempting me from my work,” he said, playing with her hair as it streamed over his chest in pale ribbons.
Gently Helen prompted, “Peggy became discontent?”
“Aye, she needed more companionship than Ioan provided. She went to social events without him, and eventually fell prey to the attentions of a man who charmed and seduced her.” Rhys hesitated, conscious of the same choking tightness that had invaded his throat the other spare handful of times he’d related the story. He forced himself to go on, laying out the events as if setting up a game of solitaire. “She came to Ioan, shamed and weeping, and told him that she was with child, and it wasn’t his. He forgave her, and said he’d stand by her. The fault was his, he said, because he’d made her lonely. He promised to claim the babe as his own, and love it as a true father.”
“How honorable of him,” Helen said softly.
“Ioan was a better man than I could ever be. He devoted himself to Peggy. He was with her every possible moment during her confinement, from the quickening until the labor began. But it went wrong. The labor lasted two days, and the pains became so bad that they gave Peggy chloroform. She reacted badly—they’d given it to her too fast—she was dead in five minutes. When he was told, Ioan collapsed from shock and grief. I had to carry him to his room.”
Rhys shook his head, hating the memory of his own helplessness, his overwhelming need to fix everything and make it all right, the way he’d slammed repeatedly into the fact that he couldn’t. “He went mad with despair,” he continued. “For the next few days he saw visions, talked to people who weren’t there. He asked when Peggy’s labor would be finished, as if the clock had stopped in that moment and couldn’t be started again.” His lips curved with a humorless smile. “Ioan was the friend I always talked to when there was a problem I couldn’t solve, when I needed to mull something over. I began to wonder if I’d gone a bit mad myself: More than once I caught myself thinking, ‘By God, I need to talk to Ioan about this, so we can figure out what to do.’ Except that he was the problem. He was a broken man. I brought doctors to him. A priest. Friends and relations, anyone who might reach through to him.” He paused and swallowed. “A week after Peggy’s death, Ioan hanged himself.”
“Oh my dear . . .” he heard Helen whisper.
They were both silent for a long time.
“Ioan was like a brother,” Rhys eventually said. “I’ve waited for the memory to fade. For time to make it better. But so far it hasn’t. All I can do is shut it away, and not think of it.”
“I understand,” Helen said, as if she truly did. Her palm moved in a gentle circle on his chest. “Did the baby die?”
“No, it survived. A girl. Peggy’s family didn’t want it, in light of its origins, so they sent it to the natural father.”
“You don’t know what became of her?”
“I don’t give a damn,” he said bitterly. “She’s Albion Vance’s daughter.”
A STRANGE, NUMB feeling invaded Helen, as if her soul had just been jarred loose from her body. She lay still against him, her thoughts whirling like moths in the darkness. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before that her mother probably wasn’t the only woman that Vance had seduced and abandoned?
Poor unwanted infant—she was four now—what had Vance done with her? Had he taken her in?
Somehow Helen didn’t think so.
No wonder Rhys hated him.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“For what? You’ve nothing to do with it.”
“I’m just . . . sorry.”
She felt him take a tight-banded breath, and her numbness was swept away in a wave of compassion and tenderness. She wanted badly to comfort him, for the pain of the past and the hurt yet to be inflicted.
The fire had sunk down to red coals in their beds of ash, throwing off a thin buttered glow. Most of the heat in the room came from the big masculine form beside her. She moved along his body, feeling her way with lips and hands. He was still, clearly curious about what she intended. The drum-tight surface of his stomach contracted as she drew her mouth across it. Reaching his groin, she breathed in the intimate scent of him, musk and a hint of sharpness that reminded her of whittled birch, and sweetness, like a hot summer meadow. She heard his low exclamation as she touched the hard length of him, gripping until it swelled thickly against her fingers.
Rhys gasped out a few words, beseeching and urgent. Helen didn’t think he realized that he was speaking in his native language, which of course she hadn’t a hope of understanding. But he sounded so violently appreciative that she bent to kiss him as she’d done before. His hips jerked reflexively, and he grunted as if he were in pain. Helen hesitated. His shaking hand came to her head and smoothed over her hair in what seemed to be a mixture of pleading and benediction. She dared to wrap her lips around him, tasting salt as she pulled back slowly. He tensed like a man strung on a torture rack, groaning as she repeated the caress.
In the next moment, he had rolled Helen onto her side, fitting their bodies together like a pair of spoons. One of his muscled arms hooked beneath her top knee, lifting it high, and Helen tensed in surprise as she felt him entering her. He kissed the side of her neck and murmured in Welsh, words like audible caresses. His mouth found the vulnerable spot low behind her ear, where he knew she was especially sensitive. She relaxed helplessly against him as he centered himself and rocked firmly upward, the angle teasing a new place inside her. After adjusting her top leg to rest on his, he slid a hand between her thighs.
Moaning, she abandoned herself to the rhythm he set, his strength all around her, the vital force of him sinking deep. His hips lunged with increasing power, driving the sensations to a higher pitch, until pleasure seemed to come from every direction. A scalding flush came over her, followed by a stronger one. She turned her mouth against the hard arm beneath her neck, biting into the dense muscle, trying to muffle her cries. His scorching breath struck her neck in rapid gusts, and she felt the graze of his teeth and the scrape of his bristle on the tender skin. Twisting, convulsing, she forced her hips down on his, taking his full length, and he poured into her with a ragged groan, holding deep and fast.
They were both still, relaxing slowly. When Helen could finally move, she eased her top leg down. She was limp and heavy, replete with satisfaction. Deep within her belly, where Rhys still pressed, she felt an insistent pulse, and she couldn’t tell whether it came from him or her.
His hand coasted gently over her body, caressing her hip and waist. Helen quivered as he bit gently at her earlobe. He had drawn his legs up behind hers, the hair on his limbs pleasantly coarse against her skin.
“You forgot to speak in English,” she said after a moment, her voice languid. “During.”
His lips toyed with the rim of her ear. “I was so wild for you, I couldn’t have told you my own name.”
“You don’t think anyone heard us, do you?”
“I think it was no accident that I was given a room far away from the family.”
“Perhaps they were afraid you would snore,” she said lightly, and paused. “Do you snore?”
“I don’t think so. You’ll have to tell me.”
Helen snuggled deeper into his embrace. Sighing, she said, “I can’t be found here in the morning when the maid comes to light the grate. I should go back to my room.”
“No, stay.” His arms tightened. “I’ll wake you early. I never sleep past dawn.”
“Never? Why not?”
Rhys smiled lazily against her neck. “It’s what comes of being raised a grocer’s son. My day started at first light, delivering baskets of orders to families around the neighborhood. If I was fast enough, I could stop for a five-minute game of marbles with friends before going back to the shop.” He chuckled. “Whenever my mam heard marbles clicking in my pocket, she took them and gave me a clout to the side of the head. There was no time for play, she would say, with so much work to be done. So I took to wrapping them in a handkerchief to keep them quiet.”
Helen pictured him as a gangly boy, hurrying through his morning chores with a cache of forbidden marbles in his pocket. A bloom of emotion expanded in her chest, an electrifying happiness that almost bordered on pain.
She loved him. She loved the boy he had been, and the man he was now. She loved the look and smell and feel of him, the brusque charm of his accent, the touchy pride and determined will that had taken him so far in life, and the thousand other qualities that made him so extraordinary. Turning in his arms, she pressed herself as tightly to him as she could, and gradually surrendered to an uneasy sleep.