Julia London - [Scandalous 02] (24 page)

Lizzie dropped her head back at the moment of fulfillment, digging her fingers into his shoulder and stifling the cry on her tongue by biting her lip. But her body reverberated, contracting tightly around him, and with a
strangled sob of his own, unfathomable ecstasy, Jack let go with a powerful thrust.

She collapsed against him, her body heavy after her passion had been spent, her moist face in the crook of his neck, her breath hot and ragged.

Jack wrapped his arms around her and slowly eased back. He was drained. He believed his heart had erupted along with his body; he felt extraordinarily tender toward her. For a man who generally took nothing from a woman but pleasure, that was almost inconceivable to him.

Her breathing began to slow and soften; Jack curled one corkscrew lock of hair around his finger.

“What have we done?” Lizzie whispered.

He had no acceptable answer for that, other than that it had been stunning.

She suddenly propped her chin on his chest and looked up at him with eyes still warm with the glow of lovemaking. “I think I’ve lost my fool mind, aye?”

“If you have, it has gone the way of mine,” he said, stroking her cheek.

“What are we to do now? Go on as if nothing has happened between us?”

“Go on,” he said, aware of how incredibly alive he was feeling, how impossibly tender his heart. “But without forgetting this moment.” He really had no idea what he was saying. He could not look in her blue eyes and recall them in the throes of passion and imagine walking away from them.

No, no,
he could not think of that now. He could not play a boyish game of imagining it could be any other way, because he knew it could not. In reality, they were on two different ships and there was an entire ocean between them.

Jack turned his head slightly, so that he wasn’t looking into her eyes, and stroked her back. He could not think of more than the immediate future, an incredible, startlingly clear thought in and of itself. Making love had taken the fog from his brain and Jack realized what he must have known all along: he would speak to the king on Lizzie’s behalf. Only he could do it, and there was no other answer.

It hardly mattered that he was sacrificing himself to do it. Incredible though it seemed, for the first time in his adult life, he had come to care about someone else’s happiness more than his own. He had…he had fallen in love.

It was a remarkable moment of awareness, one that shook him to his core.

Jack suddenly maneuvered to his knees.

When he did, Lizzie slid from his lap and onto her back. She still felt as if she were dreaming as he bent over her. He was frowning down at her, his gray eyes shining with a deep and distant light, his brow wrinkled in thought. His fingers trailed down her abdomen like a whisper of a summer breeze on her skin. The sensation made her feel drowsy and confused; she shifted slightly, but he put both hands to her rib cage and murmured, “Lizzie…listen to me, lass.”

“Mmm,”
she said softly.

“I know how to put your predicament to rights. I will put this all to rights,” he said low as he traced a line down her belly.

Her heart fluttered wildly with the promise in that statement. She caught his hand as the other drifted to her thigh. “How?” It was the only word she could manage; her body was drifting down another sensual path.

“It will require that we go to London,” he murmured
as his gaze slipped to her breasts and his hand methodically moved from her thigh to her ankle and slowly up again.

“I canna go to London,” she said with a seductive smile. “You are mad as an old hen even to suggest it.”

His hand brushed over the spring of curls, to the hollow of her abdomen. “I am mad, there is not doubt of it. We are to London,” he said, and paused to kiss the peak of her breast.

“Who is ‘we’?” she asked breathlessly.

He smiled a little and kissed the peak of her other breast. “You. Me,” he said, pausing once more to kiss the plane of her abdomen, “and bloody Gordon.” He moved his mouth over the juncture of her thighs again.

“That’s ridiculous,” Lizzie sighed while he slipped his hand between her legs, heating flesh that was still inflamed. “The three of us will up and hie ourselves to London, then? As if we are merry friends?”

A slow, lazy smile curved his mouth, and Jack easily straddled her. He pressed his hand to her cheek and neck and shook his head. “I donna tease you, Lizzie. I am quite earnest in this. We will go to London and I will speak to the king on your behalf.”

She blinked. Then laughed. “What, and see yourself hang?”

But instead of laughing as she expected, Jack dropped his gaze so that she could not see the truth in his eyes. He tilted her head back and kissed the hollow of her throat.

“Jack,” she said as his hands began to move on her again, slowly caressing and gliding and moving her to feel the burn of wanting him all over again.
“Jack,”
she tried again, but it was no use. She was lost the moment his mouth claimed hers.

He made love to her with great deliberation, touching
every part of her with his hands and mouth, stroking and tasting her skin, his lips and tongue everywhere, in places and ways that she was certain would sentence her directly to hell, but Lizzie didn’t care. It was madness, but it was divine.

When he entered her again, and began to move her toward ethereal fulfillment once more, he whispered her name over and over as he found his.

It wasn’t until later—much later—when she heard the deep and steady breath of his sleep that she forced herself to return to earth, to the reality of her life. She’d only added to her troubles tonight. She’d only confused her thinking even more, and in giving herself to him so completely, she would be marked forever by a man she could not have. But no matter what, she would have this night to remember and cling to all her days.

Nevertheless, she would not go to London and Jack would not hang.

T
he morning after that extraordinary night, Lizzie found she was not able to think clearly. Charlotte asked her where Fingal and Tavish had gone off to, and Lizzie thought of those frantic moments in Jack’s arms. Mrs. Kincade said they were low on flour, and she fought the despair and disappointment that she could not be with him always.

Later, Mr. Kincade found her milking a cow that had already been milked and told her Charlotte had summoned her to the drawing room. When Lizzie entered, still wearing her milking apron, her eyes saw only Jack.

He was standing tall and handsome and his eyes—
his eyes, eyes that had hovered over her, watching her, going so dark with desire when she’d found her release
—avoided her gaze as he calmly set forth his plan.

They—Mr. Gordon, Lizzie, and Jack—would travel to London, where Jack would seek the king’s audience and ask His Majesty to set aside the handfasting and bless the engagement of Lizzie and Mr. Gordon. Once he had that, Jack would request that the king confirm the decree that left Thorntree and its slate to Lizzie and Charlotte.

It all seemed so simple when he said it, and Charlotte
had almost levitated from her chair with joy. “There, you see, Lizzie? He’s proved himself quite useful after all!”

“Has he?” Lizzie demanded crossly. “And how will we go with bounty hunters on every road?”

“We’ll go north,” Mr. Gordon said. “Over the hills. I know how to do it.”

“Then do you agree, milord,” she said, her eyes on Jack, “to hang?”

“Lizzie!” Charlotte cried.

“That is precisely what he proposes, Charlotte! He will hand himself to the king on our behalf, and he will hang!”

“I will no’ hang,” Jack said dismissively.

“What makes you so certain of it?” Lizzie cried.

Jack looked directly at her. There was a smile on his lips but a dangerously dark look in his eye. “Why, Miss Lizzie Beal,” he said with a mocking bow, “you’ll have me believe you esteem me after all.” And he laughed in that damnably insouciant, supercilious, charming way he had.

“Donna flatter yourself,” she’d said, her anger rising—at what, precisely, she wasn’t certain, “but I’ll no’ have your neck on my conscience.” And with that, she whirled about, striding from the room.

She did not see Mr. Gordon’s sharp gaze. She didn’t see it until he came looking for her. He found her in the kitchen hacking carrots to bits. He sent Mrs. Kincade on a fool’s errand, turned around, then stared at Lizzie until she put her knife down.

“What is the matter with you, then?” he demanded. “He offers us a plausible path out of this debacle, and you flatly refuse it and insult him as well?”

Lizzie had hardly spared him a glance as she gathered
her carrots and put them in a bowl. “Honestly, Mr. Gordon, you canna expect me to…to pick up and be off to London!” she insisted, waving her hand in the direction of London.

Mr. Gordon surprised her by suddenly advancing on her. Lizzie let out a sound of surprise and moved back, butting up against the table. He caught her by the shoulders and said, “
Gavin.
Say my name, Lizzie.”

“Pardon?” she asked, confused.

“
Gavin,
” he said again. “Say
Gavin,
Lizzie, no’ Mr. Gordon. You call him Jack, yet you rarely speak my name at all and refer to me as Mr. Gordon. Why is that?”

His sudden interest in what she called him flustered her. “What do you mean? It is out of respect.” She could see he did not accept that explanation. “Gavin, then,” she said, and tried to move away, but he held her tight.

“No, no mere
Gavin, then.
No, Lizzie. Donna pretend there is no cause for my concern.”

Lizzie’s heart began to pound guiltily.

“I’ve been quite honest, have I no’?” he demanded. “I want to marry you, but frankly, I am no’ certain you want to marry me.”

“That is no’ true. You know I do,” she said warily, even though a voice inside her shouted
no, no, no.
She’d betrayed him horribly, she’d betrayed her own heart. What was she to do now? Try and fill her heart with a love she did not have?

“Then
say
it. Say aye,
Gavin,
I want you above all others.”

“Aye, Gavin,” she said. “I want to marry you above all others.” Her lips were moving, but Lizzie’s heart was breaking. How could she be so wretchedly confused?

“Do you, indeed? Because we canna marry until this business with your bloody handfasting is done, aye?”

“Aye, aye,” she said disagreeably, wanting to be anywhere but here now. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t
think.
She stared at the carrots over Gavin’s shoulder.

“
A chiall,
Lizzie! We must do as Lambourne suggests, do you no’ understand it? If you intend to be my wife, then we must do as he suggests, and if you donna agree to it, then we shall never be with one another, and I will believe that is what you prefer! Do me the honor of telling me truthfully—have you come to love him?”

Lizzie sputtered guiltily at that suggestion. “
Gavin!
No, no, of course no’! Love
him
?” she cried, shaking her head and catching Gavin’s arms, which, she noticed madly, were not as thick as Jack’s. “Can you honestly believe I’d come to love a…
rake
? A wanted man? A scoundrel?”
Oh, but she had come to love him, had come to love him deeply.
“Of course no’! How can you question me like this?”

“Because I must know,” he said firmly. “He is a charmer, aye, and it seems to me you’ve been charmed—”

“
Mi Diah!
I’ve no’ been charmed!” she cried, and tried to wrench free of his grasp, but he held her tightly, forcing her to look at him.

“Then you want to marry me yet?” he insisted. “For God knows I want to marry you, Lizzie. I’ve been entirely too fond of you since the day we met. I’ve stood by you through this scandal and I will stand by you forever—but I will no’ stand to be made a fool of.”

Her heart warned her,
pleaded
with her not to lie, but Lizzie could not look at the man who had pledged himself to her, who had ignored the worst of scandals and promised to be with her yet and say otherwise. She could not ignore the fact that whatever she might feel for
Jack—raw, unshaped feelings so strong they made her slightly ill—Gavin was her future. Gavin was the one who would be steadfast and keep her and Charlotte safe. Gavin would be at her side, in Scotland. He’d be steadfast and true.

And while Jack stirred her blood like no man ever had, he would never—
never
—remain at Thorntree or want a provincial lass in London. He wanted to leave so badly he was willing to sacrifice his freedom, if not his life. How could she hope that he’d suddenly change his perspective on life and settle for a bucolic existence far from the glamour of the king’s court?

“Lizzie?” Gavin asked, looking a bit alarmed.

“Aye, Gavin,” she said softly, and forced her smile. “I’ll say it again. I want nothing more than to marry you.”

He stared hard at her for a long moment, but a slow smile finally appeared on his lips. He kissed her. It was not the tender kiss he’d shown her days ago, but one that clearly conveyed his hunger for her. When he lifted his head, he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “You must face what is true, Lizzie. You canna mistake this opportunity: if we are to be together, and no’ beholden to Carson Beal in any way, we must do as the earl suggests.”

“But what of Charlotte?” Lizzie had protested. “I canna go off and leave her!”

“Newton has said he’ll stay on to keep an eye on things.”

“Newton!”

“And Mr. and Mrs. Kincade are here.”

“Aye, and what about me? I am to travel to London with two gentlemen?”

“Lizzie—
leannan
—you are handfasted to the earl. It
is perfectly acceptable. And think of it, lass,” he said, his eyes beginning to gleam. “It is
London.
It is a chance we might never have again, aye?”

She looked into Gavin’s brown eyes and saw genuine affection for her, as well as his eagerness to see the brightest city in the world. Lizzie did the only she could do after all Gavin had done for her. She nodded.