She didn’t realize she was crying until tears blurred her vision. She felt Jamie’s hand cup her cheek, felt his thumb wipe her tears away. She lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “H-how? Wh-where?”
“Rhuaidhri told me where to find the doctor in Baronstown. I bought it back from him the night we stayed at the White Stag.”
Brighid struggled to comprehend what Jamie had just said. He’d bought it back for her. While she’d been cursing his very existence, hating him, he’d been walking through the snowy streets of Baronstown in the dead of night in search of her brooch. “Oh, Jamie!” Jamie saw the warmth in her eyes, felt the pull of his own passion for her. “I showed it to a jeweler in London, a man who deals in antiques.”
“What did he say?”
He stood, stepped away from the table, eager to put distance between the two of them. “He said he’d never seen its like before. He said it dates back to the time of the first Norsemen in Ireland.”
“To the time when my ancestors still ruled the land.” He could hear the awe in her voice. He’d felt the same sense of wonder when the jeweler had shared this information with him. His Irish princess. No, not his. He felt the heat of her touch against his shoulder.
“Jamie?”
He knew he could not trust himself to be near her, not with his blood throbbing in his veins. Despite his better judgment, he turned to face her.
She gazed up at him through guileless eyes, one hand resting on the cloth of his shirt. “I don’t know how to thank you. What you have done for me—“ “It was the least I could do. I know how much the brooch means to you.”
She shook her head. Her hands moved to rest on his chest. “Not just the brooch, Jamie. Not just your thoughtful gifts. All of it. Were it not for you, were you like most other men, I—“ His heart hammered beneath her touch. He held a finger to her lips. “Shh, love. Don’t trouble yourself with such thoughts.”
She pressed closer, painfully near, her scent an assault on his senses. “I shall never be able to repay your kindness.” “But you already have.” He told himself to pull away from her even as he brushed a strand of ebony hair from her cheek. “Were it not for you, I’d have died that night.” “Were it not for me, you’d ne’er have been stabbed in the first place.” Her words were a whisper. “Were it not for you,
a Bhrighid
. . . “ He never finished.
With a whimper, she stood on tiptoe, pressed herself against him, offered him her lips.
It was an offer neither his mind nor his body could refuse. His lips took hers, the restraint he’d imposed on himself snapping to a single thread. He fought to keep the kiss gentle, to taste and not to devour. Her body soft and pliant, she met the teasing of his tongue with her own. In an instant he was near the edge, his cock hard and aching. The shocking heat of his need for her all but overrode his good sense.
He broke the kiss, gazed down into sapphire eyes that mirrored his torment. “Brighid, it wouldn’t be right. Push me further, and you’ll discover how very much I am like most other men.”
With that, he set her from him and disappeared in great strides up the stairs.
Brighid lay on her bed unable to read, unable to sleep, unable to do anything but think of Jamie. Tears streamed unheeded from the comers of her eyes down her temples. Beyond her door, the house was silent.
It wouldn’t be right.
Aye, it wouldn’t. The Church forbade it. England and Ireland frowned upon it. Her brothers would be tempted to kill Jamie for it. And y e t . . .
She ran her fingers over her lips, conjured the sensation of his kiss from her memory—sweet and scorching. She remembered other things as well—the wild pleasure she’d felt as Jamie had suckled her nipples through the silk of her gown, the heat of his touch between her thighs, the deep, empty sensation that made her yearn to have him inside her.
But she wanted more than memories. She wanted him.
It wouldn’t be right.
All of her life she’d tried to do what was right. She’d cared for her brothers and father. She’d cooked and cleaned and mended. She’d cared for them in times of sickness, feigned health when she herself was sick so as not to take them from their work. She’d prayed the Rosary, observed holy days, lived a chaste life. She had lived to make her father proud, to be the kind of daughter that would have made her mother happy had her mother lived. Never had she let her own desires interfere with her duties to her family. Such a thing had always been unthinkable.
But that was before she’d met Jamie Blakewell, before his handsome smile and intoxicating touch had made her feel alive and free and on fire. Before she’d met him, she hadn’t let herself dream. She hadn’t let herself want anything. A stolen hour with her book had seemed a luxury and had always been enough to keep her happy. But now . ..
She wanted him. She wanted him to make love to her, to teach her the secrets shared by men and women. She wanted him to fill the aching emptiness inside her. Was that so terrible? Could she not decide this one thing for herself, choose her own fate?
It wouldn’t be right.
Sure and it was a sin to lie with a man not your husband, and she had always intended to enter the marriage bed untouched. But she’d had no way of knowing she’d fall in love with a man she could never marry. She’d had no way of knowing that circumstances would render her sullied in the eyes of her countrymen, whether she actually slept with him or not.
She sat, wiped the tears from her cheeks.
What if she were to go to him? What if right now she were to walk down the hallway to his chamber and give her love to him? What if just for tonight she were to claim all the pleasure he could give her?
Would he think her brazen and shameful? Would he grow angry and perhaps cast her out of his room?
“Push me further, andyoull discover how very much I am like most other men.”
She stood, reached for her new hairbrush, drew it through her tangles with trembling hands. Could she do this?
She could. She must.
For amid her doubts and trepidation, she knew one thing for certain: The world might condemn her for loving Jamie Blakewell, but nothing in her life had ever felt so right.
Chapter Twenty-three
Brighid walked quickly, silently down the darkened hallway clad only in her shift, her heart racing. The polished wooden floor felt chilly against her bare feet. Sweet Mary, was she really doing this? Aye, she was. Right or wrong, she loved him. She needed him. She wanted to give him the gift that was hers alone to give, the gift that would forever mark her as his—and him as hers—no matter what happened tomorrow. She stopped before his door, hesitated, hardly able to breathe.
She could do this.
She grasped the handle, pushed the door open, crossed the threshold.
He stood gazing into the fire, one outstretched arm against the marble mantelpiece. His body was bare save for a white linen towel wrapped round his hips. His hair was wet and hung in thick, wavy ropes to just below his shoulders. His skin gleamed with moisture in the firelight. Behind him sat a copper tub half-f of water. The scent of pine soap lingered in the air.
The sight of him, rippling muscle and wet skin, caused tendrils of heat to snake through her belly. He didn’t bother to look up. “You can set the bottle on the table.”
On the table near the fire sat an empty brandy decanter and a glass. He’d been drinking.
She closed the door behind her, unsure what to say, what to do. She looked for her voice, found only a whisper. “Jamie?”
His head snapped in her direction, shock and what could only be displeasure written on his face. “What are
you
doing here?”
She felt the heat of his gaze as it raked over her, shivered.
"I—“
“You should be in your own room.” He turned fully to face her, the broad expanse of his chest and the muscles of his abdomen cast half in shadow, half in golden firelight. He looked like some pagan god or a great mythic warrior, his masculine sensuality enough to make her legs unsteady.
She realized she was trembling, fisted her hands in the linen of her shift. “I couldn’t sleep. Jamie, I—“ “Go.” His face was a stone mask.
She closed her eyes, swallowed. “No.”
“You’ll go back to your room if I have to carry you there.” He took a step toward her, and she sensed the tension in his body, every muscle taut, ready to spring. “No.” She glanced out of the comer of her eye at his enormous bed, stepped sideways toward it. “I want you, Jamie.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” His voice was strained.
She took another step sideways toward the bed, her gaze locked with his in a battle of wills. “Aye, I do. I am not a child.” She felt her right leg bump up against the bed, sat on the edge.
“No, Brighid.” But regardless of the words that passed his lips, she could see in his eyes the battle that raged within him.
“Push me further, and you’ll discover how very much I am like most other men.”
Amazed at her own daring, she stretched sideways across the coverlet, did her best to look seductive, her gaze never leaving his.
She heard his growl, saw the exact moment when his control broke.
In three strides he reached the bed, and in one fluid motion, he dragged her toward him by her ankle, lifted her, and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Jamie, no!” His rejection of her stung, but the indignity of being carried in such a manner infuriated her. “Put me down!”
But he didn’t listen. He strode angrily to the door, threw it open, and in a blink he was carrying her back down the hallway toward her room.
“Stop this!”
Jamie ignored her protests, the pounding of her small fists on his back. He didn’t know which urge was more powerful at the moment—the urge to toss her onto her back on the floor, spread her legs, and take what she had just offered him or the urge to throttle her. He’d spent the better part of the evening trying to rein in his hammering need for her, only to have her sneak into his bedroom and reawaken a hundred unwanted feelings. It was difficult enough for a man to resist a beautiful woman, doubly so if he loved her and wanted for all the world to claim her. Jamie was trying so hard to do what was best for both of them—and she was doing her best to make certain he failed.
“A amadain cruthanta!”
She was cursing him in Gaelic now. Good. He preferred her anger to the alluring sweetness that had been on her face when he’d looked up to find her standing in his room. If she hated him, it would be so much easier to let her go.
“A phutaigh raithnl!”
He reached the door to her room, threw it open, and tossed her unceremoniously onto her bed. In a flash, she was on her feet, and she would have slapped him across the face had he not caught her wrist. She glared up at him, reminding him of a hissing kitten.
“I am a woman, not a sack of potatoes!” “I can see that.” He could see it all too clearly. That was the problem. Despite his best intentions, his gaze was drawn to the contours of her body beneath the white linen of her shift. Her delicate curves, the pert outline of her nipples, the dark curls of her sex were all too apparent, even in the half-light of the fire. Pure physical need raged through him, shot straight to his groin.
He heard her breath catch in her throat, knew she felt the heat of his perusal. Eyes wide with emotion, her dark hair a wild tangle around her shoulders, her skin satin in the firelight, she was utterly, irresistibly feminine.
Take her.
Jamie felt the call of the brandy in his blood, tried to ignore it. Gathering the last ounce of will he possessed, he turned, strode toward the door.
“Jamie, please!”
It was the catch in her voice that stopped him. He turned to face her, felt as if someone had knocked the air from his lungs. His heart stopped. She stood completely naked. Utterly vulnerable.
A virgin seductress.
Tears coursed down her cheeks, the white linen of her shift pooled around her feet. Her skin glowed ivory in the firelight, her soft curves enhanced by the play of shadow on her skin. Trembling, she met his gaze, her eyes full of uncertainty.
“Brighid.”
“Don’t walk away from me, Jamie. Please!” She seemed to struggle to speak each word. “All I want is tonight—one night out of a lifetime! Is that so much to ask?” Some primitive male part of him urged him to end the talking and give her—and himself—what they both so desperately needed. He closed the distance between them in two slow strides. “Brighid, I—“ She crossed her arms protectively over her breasts, and her gaze fell to the floor. “I-I know I’m no more than an Irish peasant, and a Catholic at that, b-but I thought you at least felt desire for me.”
If she had yelled at him or played the coquette, he might have been able to walk away. But he could not bear her tears or the sense of shame he sensed welling up inside her. He knew without asking this had taken all her courage. He knew she had never offered herself to a man before, and she never would again. That she should choose him . . .