Marrying Winterborne

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.”