With This Kiss Part 12

Colin frowned, trying to figure out what she meant.

"In the carriage, I mean. If I'd known you thought I was Lily, I would never have allowed you to touch me."

He had forgotten that she had said something about Lily. He adjusted Grace's curves into the crook of his arm, struggling to ignore the fact that her soft bottom had ignited an unruly and impolite pa.s.sion in his loins. "I did not think you were Lily."

"But when you entered the room, you expected Lily."

"I was confused by your perfume."

"I'm not wearing perfume." He realized that now, of course. She smelled like lemon verbena and tears.

It was confession time.

"Are you in love with McIngle?" he asked instead.

She leaned her head against his chest. "If you're hoping that he might still marry me, you are wrong."

"You insult me. I would never allow another man to marry a woman whom I . . ." Loved? "Deflowered," he finished.

Grace sighed. "I apologize; I didn't mean that as it sounded. I was not in love with John. He deserved more from his wife, so I broke off our betrothal. It is not my feelings which will prevent this marriage, but yours. For-for Lily."

She hesitated, then repeated: "I made love to you, but you made love to Lily."

"I made love to you," he said, longing to rip off the bandage and see her eyes. He dropped another kiss into her soft hair instead.

"What?"

"I thought I was dreaming of making love to you. But it was really happening." He grasped at the memory and it slid away from him, leaving tendrils of desire behind.

"You were?" she repeated, her tone dubious.

"Yes."

Eleven.

Grace was so bewildered that she didn't know what to think. She had fallen into utter despair, thinking that Colin made love to her while believing she was Lily. She was afraid to accept what he said now. In fact, she wasn't sure she did believe it.

Colin had such a strong sense of honor that if he learned he had deflowered a virgin, he would say whatever he had to in order to marry her.

She tipped back her head and looked at his face. It was a strong, almost harsh face that looked as if it had been carved by sea winds.

The truth was that they probably meant different things by "making love." If she could see his eyes, she would know for sure. She had learned to read his eyes.

"It's very sweet of you to say so," she said.

"Not particularly." He was running his hands up her arms, caressing her with a slow stroke that made her feel like a cat. She shook off the feeling.

"Colin, you have no love for me, other than sisterly affection. You never . . ." She paused trying to figure out how to put it. "You looked at Lily in a way that you had never looked at me. You danced with her. You wrote Lily a long letter. You hardly wrote me back, ever." The memory made her heart wince, and with a quick motion she pushed free and leapt to her feet.

"Grace!" He roared it, stretching out his hands like a great wounded beast.

"I don't want dishonesty between us," she said, holding her ground, looking down at him. He was too strong and bold to need pity, this wounded lion of hers. He would be out of the bandages and glaring fearlessly at life again in no time.

His arms fell. "Neither do I."

"Well, then. I am the kind of person who greatly dislikes confusion," she said, sitting down in a chair opposite him.

He nodded.

There was a bleak look in his face that she hated to see, but she forced herself to continue. "You felt a sort of desire for Lily that you have never felt for me, and I recognize that. All the world knows that she is exquisite. You must have been in love with her, given the length of the letter you wrote her."

He opened his mouth, but she said, fiercely, "No. Let me finish." Then she swallowed hard and said, "I have always loved you, as I'm sure you surmised from all those foolish letters I sent you. So marrying you . . . marrying you is everything I dreamed of since I was a girl. But I will not be party to the pretense that you feel the same. I couldn't bear that."

"Grace-"

"You can say whatever you wish," she said, interrupting. "But we both know the truth: your actions speak for themselves. If you had loved me, you would have searched me out when you were on leave. You would have answered my letters. You would have kissed me by the river, or any other time when we were together since I turned sixteen. You would have shown signs of desire, if not love."

She was starting to sound pitiful, so she rallied her voice and straightened her back again. "You never have, and I accepted that long ago. But now we are going to be married, and I think we might learn to love each other in a different way, over time. I'm willing to try, as long as you don't lie to me about it!"

"But, Grace-"

She couldn't bear to hear him say anything, not just then, so she sprang to her feet and cut him off. "Please, Colin, could we not speak of this again?"

"I will not make that promise," he said flatly.

"I'm humiliated enough by the fact I wrote you those letters. Here we are. Almost married. Please, can we start afresh? I believe you when you say you are not in love with Lily."

"Your sister is a silly widgeon," Colin said bluntly. He looked very angry. There were white dents next to his mouth. "I care for her, but I am not in love with her."

"Then I'm sure we will get along together as well as we can. Just-just don't lie to me, Colin. I can't bear it." She ignored his characterization of her sister: he certainly hadn't thought Lily was a silly widgeon when he was waltzing with her.

He seemed to be frozen, his knuckles white where he gripped the chair arms. "Am I not allowed to say that I love you?"

"I know that you love me," Grace said impatiently. "I love everyone in your family, too. Don't be obtuse, Colin. I just don't want you to pretend to love me that way, like lovers. The way you might have loved Lily, if things were different."

"I do not like being told what to do."

"I'm not telling you. I'm begging you." Then she changed her mind. "Yes, I am telling you! And I think I have the right to that command. I wrote you for years, Colin. For years. You wrote me back perhaps a line or two, whenever it was convenient. I have earned the right to demand this one thing."

She could almost see his jaw grinding, but he kept his mouth shut.

"We'll just start over," she said, waving her arm even though he couldn't see her. "We can earn each other's love, the way people do who don't have our sort of past."

"You want me to woo you?"

He needn't sound so horrified.

"Of course not," Grace said, her voice a bit hurt, despite her bravado. "I know I'm not . . . I'm not the woman you planned to woo. There's no need to coddle me."

"You deserve to be wooed!"

"Yes, well, I've had that experience. John wooed me for almost a year."

His scowl was truly ferocious now.

Grace was swept by an overwhelming sense of panic. This wasn't going the way she hoped. She didn't want Colin to think about how pitiful she was. The last thing she wanted to do was remind him of her pathetic infatuation with him.

Obviously the last thing he wanted was to woo her, a woman he'd- A thought struck her. He made love to her under the influence of laudanum. What if he didn't desire her without it? When she sat in his lap, he soothed her as if she were a little girl again, distressed by a bruised knee.

It was a stark contrast to the way he acted in the carriage.

She hadn't thought the question of marriage through properly. She couldn't bear a life of this humiliation. It was impossible. Her heart would break.

She simply couldn't do it.

The very thought of making love to him when he could actually see her, when he knew who she was, made her ill. Given the way he said she deserved to be wooed, he might even try to do that, to say sugary things that would never echo the delirious joy she saw in his face when he danced with Lily.

No.

She must have been mad to contemplate it.

"I have changed my mind," she stated, moving toward the door. He turned his head, following the sound of her slippers. "We will not marry. I'm sorry about the fuss I've caused."

He folded his arms over his chest. "Fuss?" His jaw set. "Why will we not marry?"

She might as well say it all. "You made love to me under the influence of laudanum," she pointed out, proud that her voice was steady. "I would much dislike to have to drug my husband before we could produce any children. I have changed my mind."

"You cannot change your mind. We have consummated our relations.h.i.+p, if not our marriage."

"We don't have a relations.h.i.+p! We never had one, except in my imagination. You needn't worry about me. I have to go," she cried, turning. "I just-I have to go."

And she fled, out the door and up the stairs, even though she heard him shout her name. He had the bellow of a sea captain who could be heard over hurricanes and squalls, but she didn't stop.

The inn's best bedchamber was at the top of the stairs. She slammed through the door as if the Furies were at her back, and looked about wildly. Her heart was thudding in her throat. She couldn't take the shame. No woman should have to bear this measure of humiliation.

Why had she admitted to loving him? She could have kept it to herself rather than voicing it.

Tears were coursing down her cheeks and she impatiently dashed them away, grabbing up her travel bag only to remember that it still contained her ripped garments. She flung them to the side, realizing she didn't even have another chemise until her trunk arrived tomorrow. All she had was her water paints and sketchbook.

That was enough. She was leaving . . . going somewhere. Anywhere.

If she were a more resolute type of woman, she would throw herself in a rus.h.i.+ng river, the way heroines always did in two-penny plays.

No. She would never do such a thing for a man. Not even for Colin. Not for anyone.

But she would run away. She would go to a different inn and be alone for a day or two. Think. Try to decide what she wanted to do. She could send a groom to her family and they would rescue her.

She threw open the door of her bedchamber.

PART THREE.

One.

Colin stood in the corridor, leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. All his male beauty struck her like a blow in the face, and she cried, recklessly, "You can't stop me!"

His hands shot out and unerringly caught her shoulders. "Yes, I can."

She began to wiggle, and realized how stupid that was. "Colin, I must beg you to allow me to leave. I need some time alone. I have to think, to decide what to do next. If you would simply forget the events of the day, I would-"

"I would surmise this is your bedchamber?" he asked, cutting her off. Then he let go of her right shoulder and pushed the door open behind her.

She stumbled backward, dropping her traveling bag. "Let go of me!" At least she didn't feel like crying any longer. Instead, she found herself contemplating how hard she would have to shove a blind man in order to make an escape over his fallen body.

One glance at Colin's wide shoulders, and this idea fell by the wayside.

"Lead me to the bed," he said grimly, kicking the door shut and stepping forward again.

"I will not!"

He pushed, and she stepped back again. "If we're going to stumble into the chamber pot, you might want to warn me," he said, without a glimmer of humor in his voice.

There was something wild about Colin that she had never seen in the disciplined young officer who paid visits to her parents. He hadn't shaved that morning, and his face was dark with stubble.

Even blindfolded, the set of his jaw expressed raw determination. He looked like a pirate, a man who would take what he wanted without regard for the consequences.

"No," she cried, trying to sound authoritative. Despite herself, her knees went weak at the sight of him. He looked like a hunter focused on his prey. She was stupid, stupid, to think that was attractive.

He crowded her again and she stepped backward once more, retreating before him until her knees struck the back of the large bed.

"Stop it!" Grace shouted, even as he picked her up and placed her on her back. "You have no right to try to do-whatever it is you are doing."

She twisted toward the far side of the bed, and for a moment she was escaping, but then he surged forward, pulled her back, and pinned her down. He was looming over her on his hands and knees, his hair falling over the bandage, his features so beautiful that her hand rose in the air toward his cheek before she s.n.a.t.c.hed it back.

"Why have you changed your mind about marrying me?" he demanded.

"It is a lady's prerogative. This misadventure is over." She could feel a sob rising in her chest. How could she have allowed this to happen? His mouth . . . he was beautiful. He belonged with Lily, not with a quiet wallflower like herself.