“Yes, you’re right!” she snapped, her eyes clouding with hurt. “But not because of your connection to
him.
Because you
lied
about it, damn you! You promised never to do so, then turned around and did precisely that!”
He stood there stunned, his own anger ebbing as he tried to grasp the source of hers.
“I trusted you,” she went on, warming to her subject, “I told you things I’d never told any man. I asked you to do things that I would never—” She broke off, averting her wounded gaze from him. Her breath came in harsh gasps, and every one stamped an echo in his conscience.
She went on in a whisper. “All the while, you weren’t showing me the least bit of trust. You were keeping the truth from me, pretending not to know Crouch when you really did, pretending the situation wasn’t that dangerous, lying to me about why Crouch kidnapped Juliet—”
“I didn’t lie to you about that. I told you exactly why I think he did it.”
“But you assured me you’d told me everything, and that was all a lie.”
His gut twisted into a painful knot as he saw the look of betrayal on her face. Christ, he’d mistook everything. It wasn’t his past that bothered her, but the fact that he’d kept it from her.
What had he been thinking? Farnsworth had lied to her, her father had lied to her, and he and Griff had lied to her and her sisters last summer. Just when she’d started thinking that perhaps not all men lied to get what they wanted, just when she’d forgiven him for his part in Griff’s scheme, he’d gone and lied to her again.
What an idiot he was.
He reached out to grip her shoulders, and she flinched. She tried to wriggle free of his hands, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Listen to me, sweetheart, just listen,” he murmured. “I should’ve told you about Crouch—I see that now. I’m so sorry I didn’t.”
“Y-you sat there this morning pretending that Crouch had chosen Juliet simply because Griff is rich. Yet you must have known he’d chosen her because of his connection to both of you.”
“It’s probable, but—”
“How long have you known about his involvement?” she persisted. “Since we left London? Have you known from the beginning that your…former friend had my sister?”
“No! Bloody hell, is that what you’ve been thinking? That I kept it from you all this time?”
Her lower lip quivered. “I wasn’t sure. The day I went to your lodgings, you seemed determined not to help me. Then you changed your mind the next day, and I’ve always wondered why.”
“Only because I’d learned that Pryce really was a free
trader. I would never have taken you with me if I’d thought Crouch was mixed up in it. Never! I wouldn’t have risked it.” He softened his tone. “I found out about his involvement the same time you did, sweetheart—last night at the inn. You have to believe me.”
She glanced away, blinking back tears. “How? Every time I start to believe you, I find out how foolish I was. I thought you were being honest with me. I thought you were different from the others—”
“Please, lass, please understand—I couldn’t tell you.” He cupped her cheek, brushing tears away with his thumb. “I couldn’t bear to have you look at me with contempt in your eyes.”
The minute her gaze swung to his, fiery and furious, he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “
That
was why you lied to me? Because you thought knowing about you and Crouch would make me despise you?”
Her anger gave him pause. “The possibility did occur to me, yes.”
“Why, you…you…big…stubborn…ox!” She punctuated each word by poking a finger at his chest, tears coursing down her cheeks. “After last night, did you really think that could possibly make me stop wanting you?”
The words thundered in his ears, tilting his world on its axis. She wanted him. She was stone-cold sober, yet she wanted him—despite everything she’d learned about his past, and all her rules of propriety.
“Yes, I did,” he said in a husky whisper. “But now I know better.”
As if realizing how much she’d revealed, she paled. Wrenching free of him, she backed away. “I-I didn’t mean that the way it sounded—”
“Too late to take it back now, lass,” he said as he
stalked her. “You want me. You said it, and we both know bloody well you meant it. So I’ll be damned before I’ll let a few of my stupid lies stand in the way of you and me being together.”
She continued her retreat. “You shouldn’t have lied to me, Danny.”
“I know.” He caught her and hauled her into his arms.
Her chin quivered as she stared mutinously up at him. “You…you should have told me everything about Crouch this morning:”
“I know.” He bent his head toward hers. “And I’m sorry for it. Let me show you how sorry I am for it.”
“No!” Panic flared in her eyes, the panic of a woman who was afraid to trust her own instincts. “I’m not going to let you…get away with lying to me, blast it!”
“That’s your pride talking, not your heart.” He caught her chin, held it still. “Well, lass, I think it’s time you tell your pride to stubble it.”
He didn’t give her time to think, to argue, to protest. He just kissed her the way he’d been wanting to all day, seeking solace from her soft, sweet lips. And though she balked at first, she didn’t balk long. With a little moan of acquiescence, she threw her arms about his neck and opened her mouth to him.
Yes,
he thought,
yes, sweetheart.
Suddenly she tore her lips from his to whisper, “A pox on you, Danny! You’re such a devious rascal.”
He scattered kisses over her cheeks. “If I am, it’s only because I want you so badly I’d do anything to have you.”
“You mean, lie and deceive me,” she grumbled even as she arched her body against him. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am thoroughly, heartily ashamed.” His voice
thrummed low. “Let me show you the full extent of my remorse.”
“Now see here—”
Silencing her with his mouth, he kissed her more boldly this time, thrusting his tongue deeply, intimately into her mouth, giving her full warning of what he wanted from her. He kissed her like a man kissed the woman he intended to seduce.
Because that was exactly what he intended. If he didn’t make Helena his this very moment, he feared he’d never have a chance with her again. And he very badly wanted a chance with her—any chance.
If he waited to make love to her until he was sure of her, she’d spend every minute hardening her heart against him. She’d invent a thousand nonsensical rules for why she shouldn’t allow him in.
Well, he wouldn’t let her. It was time to shatter her rules once and for all. Time to make room for him in her heart. And if that meant making love to her in a goddamned barn on a bed of hay, then that’s what he’d do. Because he refused to lose her.
And when we arose from the green mossy bank
Through the meadow we wandered away
I had plowed my true love on the green mossy bank
And I plucked her a handful of may.
“Queen of the May,”
anonymous ballad
I
t’s not fair,
Helena thought as Daniel’s mouth plundered hers, intense and needy.
Why must he be the one who does this to me? Why can’t I push him away?
Because she wanted him, wanted this. She hated that she did, but it changed nothing. From the minute he’d explained why he’d lied, she’d begun weakening. How could any woman resist a man who’d lied to keep her from despising him?
Yet he’d promised not to. He’d promised! She wrenched her mouth from his. “You cannot simply kiss me into submission, Daniel. It will not work.” Actually, it was already working, but she didn’t
want
it to work.
“It’s not submission I want from you, sweetheart. It’s your fire and your need that I want.” He looked as starved for her as she felt for him. His hot gaze drifted over her, hinting at all the delights he had to offer.
“You had my ‘fire’ and my ‘need’ last night, and you didn’t appreciate it.”
She whirled away from him, but not swiftly enough. He caught her from behind, wrapping his brawny arm about her waist. When he tugged her against his massive body, remembered pleasure swamped her, draining her will to resist.
“That’s not true, y’know,” he rasped. Nuzzling her damp hair aside, he brushed her ear with his lips. “I appreciated it far too much or I wouldn’t have lied to you today trying to hold on to it. It was stupid—I admit it. And it didn’t even work. It only made you despise me.” He kissed her ear sweetly. Too sweetly.
She stifled a groan. “I-I don’t despise you.”
“Don’t you? At the very least, you’re extremely vexed.”
Vexed? That sounded vaguely familiar. Then he tugged on her earlobe with his teeth, sending a wanton shiver dancing along her spine and driving all rational thought clear out of her head. “I am not.”
“Not what?” He ran the tip of his tongue around the outside of her ear, and delicious feeling flooded her, mocking her feeble resistance.
“Extremely vexed.”
His free hand slid around her to cup her breast, and his voice rumbled seductively. “If you’re not vexed, then prove it.”
Now she remembered why this exchange seemed so familiar, yet the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Prove it? How?”
“Let me make love to you.”
It was the merest whisper, yet it thundered along every nerve like a siren’s lyric, shattering her defenses, stealing around her heart. She fought to block its seductive song. “You can’t make me forget that you lied to me merely by…making love to me.”
“P’raps not. But I can show you how sorry I am for it.” He brushed her nipple with a light caress that she felt even through the layers of muslin and linen. “Let me make amends by giving you pleasure.” His hand was hot where it stroked her breast, deftly, cleverly.
Tempting her to all manner of wickedness. “You are…very naughty, Danny,” she said, trying for sternness and disapproval and instead speaking his nickname in a throaty whisper.
“Compliments upon compliments.” Both hands were kneading her breasts now with sweet, silken caresses that made her ache and yearn. “Though I’ve come to learn you can be naughty yourself when you wish. Show me your naughtiness, lass. I know you want to.”
As he played with her breasts and branded her neck with kisses, her very bones melted. Lord, he was right—she wanted to be every bit as naughty as that woman under the lamp in London being fondled by her companion. She loved how he rubbed her breasts until they tingled and hardened.
“Daniel…” she whispered, grabbing for one of his hands. But she merely succeeded in pressing it more firmly to her breast.
He groaned. “That’s good, lass. Show me what you
want from me, what you need. Show me how to make amends.”
Horrified that she was
helping
him touch her, she dropped her hand, but he did not drop his. His hands were like waves lapping rock, wearing her down, smoothing her out, softening her rough edges. Already the place between her thighs grew as damp and warm as it had last night, craving more of his touch, his scandalous touch. His arousal thickened against her bottom, and his breath came hard and fast against her ear.
One hand left her breast to unbutton her gown. In seconds, he had it open and was sliding it off her shoulders. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he divested her of gown and petticoats, then resumed fondling her breasts. With only her chemise separating his flesh from hers, she felt every caress of his large, warm hands with an acute intensity near pain.
She’d thought that her memories of last night’s pleasures had been heightened by the drink, but now she knew better. If anything, tonight it was more vivid, more pleasurable. More irresistible.
“Ah, sweetheart,” he murmured, “I could hold you like this for hours. I love to touch you. You have a body made for touching.”
A thrill shot through her that she fought to temper. “You’re such a flatterer. And as Mrs. N says, ‘The Well-bred Young Lady must ignore flatterers.’”
“It’s not flattery, it’s the truth.” He nipped her ear. “Isn’t it time you replaced the old harridan’s rules with ones better suited to your new status?”
“My new status?” she echoed, then gasped as one of his hands slipped down to stroke her belly, then lower to the juncture between her legs.
“Yes.” He cupped her there through the thin linen of her chemise. “As a Naughty Lady. And the first rule is that a Naughty Lady enjoys a man’s compliments.”
“Does she?” She could hardly think while he touched her so intimately, one hand rubbing between her legs and the other thumbing her nipple deliciously. “She sounds very…naive.”
“Second rule,” he said thickly, “is that a Naughty Lady doesn’t question the rules.”
She arched an eyebrow. “That sounds like Mrs. N.”
“Ah, but the rules of pleasure are very different.” He dragged up her chemise just enough so he could slide his fingers into the slit between her drawers.
Merciful heavens, it was sweet feeling him flesh to flesh—his callused and hard, hers soft, wet, and yielding. He rubbed a sensitive nub, and she nearly jumped. Instinctively, she undulated against that magical finger, only half conscious of what she was doing.
“You like that, do you, lass?” When she said nothing, hardly capable of speech, he added, “Rule three: A Naughty Lady tells her lover how to pleasure her.”
Her lover.
Yes, he was going to be her lover. And she wanted to let him.
“So tell me, sweetheart,” he murmured devilishly, “is this what you want? Does this make you feel more kindly toward me?” His finger delved inside her, centering all her rampant urges at that one aching spot. “Does it please you to have me touch you here? Shall I go on?”
He paused his motion as if waiting for her answer, and she cried, “Yes, go on!” Only when his finger plunged deep did she realize she was gripping his forearm to urge him on. But heavens, it felt so very good!