Jane Feather - Valentine

They seemed to have forgotten her presence, but she was glad to be forgotten. Unlike Edward, she didn't notice how little Sylvester said of his own experiences. All she could think was how little she knew of the man who was her husband and how little he was prepared to reveal. He'd given her only the skeleton of a barren childhood that she assumed was responsible for the barriers he'd erected around himself. Was the packless peddler the accomplice of someone who wished to hurt him, someone the earl had wronged in the past? He'd wronged her, after all; why shouldn't he have harmed someone else?

Theo put down her coffee cup and suddenly pushed back her chair. "If you'll excuse me, I have some things to do. Edward, will you and your parents dine with us tomorrow? I'll ask Mama and the girls, and we can have a family dinner just like the old days."

"Rosie's bound to insist I reveal my fascinating scars," Edward said with a mock groan.

"Just box her ears," Theo responded with a grin. "You always used to."

"She's rather less of a scrubby brat now," he observed, chuckling. "I'll check with my mother, but I'm certain she'll be delighted."

"I'll see you tomorrow, then." She moved to the door as both men rose politely.

"Theo?"

"Stoneridge?" She paused, her hand on the latch.

"There are a few matters I'd like to discuss. Would you join me in the library in half an hour?"

She hesitated, wanting to say that she had another appointment. But what good would that do? "If you wish it, sir."

"I do." He resumed his seat as the door closed on her departure.

"Forgive me, my lord, but…" Edward stopped, flushing slightly.

"No, please continue," Sylvester said, taking a deep draft of ale, leaning back in his chair, his eyes sharp as they rested on his visitor's face, his body as taut as a bowstring as he waited.

"It's none of my affair," Edward said awkwardly. "Forget I spoke."

"So far you haven't," Sylvester pointed out. "Spit it out, man."

"Theo seems unhappy," Edward said in a rush. "I know her very well."

"Better than I do, I'm sure," his host agreed evenly, no sign of his relief showing on his face. He could deflect questions about Theo, but he had nothing to say about Vimiera.

"No… no, I'm sure not," Edward stammered, his face on fire.

"Not in the same way, perhaps," Sylvester said in the same tone.

Edward's color deepened, and he buried his nose in his tankard. "Forgive me. As I said, it's none of my affair."

"No, it's not," Sylvester agreed. "However, you're right, she is unhappy at the moment. But content you, my friend, I don't intend that state of affairs to last. May I carve you another slice of sirloin?"

"Thank you, no. I should be going." Edward pushed back his chair, feeling as if he'd been gently but firmly rebuked by a senior officer for a minor faux pas.

Sylvester accompanied him to the front door. "I trust we'll meet tomorrow evening," he said, smiling with no trace of the hauteur of a minute before. "My compliments to Sir Charles and Lady Fairfax."

Sylvester watched his guest out of sight, then turned back to the house, a slight frown between his brows. Edward Fairfax had shown no sign of having heard of the scandal of Vimiera. But sooner or later he might hear of it from some friend at Horseguards.

The scandal would dog him to his dying day. The bleak recognition seemed harder to accept now than ever before. He went into the library and stood staring into the empty grate. Was he going to live in terror that his wife would hear of it? Hiding out in the sleepy Dorsetshire countryside, shaking and shivering every time some visitor from London crossed his path?

The sound of the door opening brought his head up. Theo stood in the doorway.

"What happened to you yesterday?" she asked without preamble.

"It's an old wound, that's all. It acts up occasionally."

"How?"

He dismissed the question with a brief gesture. "I get a headache, Theo. There's no need to discuss it further, there are more important matters to address."

She was not satisfied, but it seemed it was all she was going to get. Again she reflected that there was so much about his life he refused to discuss.

But what did it matter? Why should she care what happened to him? Or what had happened to him in the past? Her face was set, the expression in her eyes that of someone who didn't know whether she was hunter or hunted.

"Lock the door," Sylvester instructed.

"Lock it? Why?"

"Because I don't wish to be disturbed. You may leave the key in the lock, however. I don't intend to keep you in here against your will."

"That makes a change," she said with heavy sarcasm, turning the key and stepping away from the door.

Stoneridge was leaning against the big mahogany table in the center of the room, his legs crossed at the ankles, his hands resting on the edge of the table. His eyes were quiet and assessing as they rested on her tense face.

Poor little girl, he caught himself thinking. The compassionate reflection startled him, he was so used to feeling he had to meet her as a combatant, never giving an inch, even when they were in charity with one another. But she was so very young and vulnerable in her uncertainty and her hurt. Somehow he must lead them through this thorny thicket, ignoring her barbs, treating them as the desperate defenses they were.

"Come here, Theo," he said, holding out his hands.

She made no move, merely stood in the middle of the room, her arms crossed over her breast. She had on one of the holland smocks she wore when she went racketing around the estate on her gypsy pursuits, her bare feet thrust into open sandals, her hair in two thick plaits hanging over her shoulders.

He pushed himself away from the table and seized her hands, pulling them away from her breast as he drew her toward him.

He cupped her chin, turning up her face, and a quiver ran through the slender frame, an instinctive response to a gesture that always preceded his lips on hers. He ran his flat thumb over her lips in another familiar gesture, and he saw the light change in her eyes.

"No!" she exclaimed, trying to turn her head aside. "I won't let you confuse things."

He ignored her protest, bending his head to take her mouth with his, his free hand running down her back, lingering on the curve of her hips. He pressed her against the rising heat in his loins and felt her breath quicken against his mouth.

"Don't do this… I don't want this." It was a low-voiced plea as she tried to pull away from him.

He held her steady, saying with soft assertion, "I know that you do."

And she did. Despite everything, she did want this. She told herself she loathed him, and yet it was as it always was. She was reveling in his strength holding her, in the heat and the power of his body, the scent of his skin, a mixture of earth and sun overlaying the lingering tang of soap from his morning's shave.

And deep down inside a part of her cried out for him to make her understand, to show her how to make sense of this misery and her dreadful confusion. She didn't want to loathe him, she wanted to feel warm and loving and to open herself to the warmth and love she had sensed in him. She wanted to believe again in that warmth and sensitivity, believe again that there was something essential in her self that he responded to.

But her hurt was still powerful, and she ignored the tiny voice, trying to withstand the insidious creeping arousal that would sweep all protest, all outrage, all rational thought from her mind and her soul. "You promised," she said. "You promised you wouldn't take advantage of this."

"I promised you a partnership," he said, drawing up her skirt so that his hands were on the bare skin of her thighs. His eyes held hers, piercing the midnight-blue depths as if they would see the secrets of her soul. "I want you as you want me, Theo."

She was about to sink into the warm liquid world of desire, to acknowledge the truth of what he said, to throw caution to the four winds and yield to this pulsing excitement; and then it hit her anew – what he'd done to her, what he'd taken from her.

"No!" She swung one leg sideways, catching him behind the knees as she brought both hands up and pushed against his chest. Sylvester felt himself toppling backward, but he had a fistful of her skirt in one hand and he yanked hard as he fell. The skirt tore, but he managed to hook the back of her calf with the crook of his elbow, and she overbalanced, landing on top of him on the carpet.

"Goddamned gypsy!" he exclaimed, but his eyes were smoky with passion.

He wrapped both arms around her, securing her arms at her back as he rolled over until she was pinned beneath him, lying on her hands. He scissored her legs with his own, and then, satisfied that she was immobilized, kissed her, driving deep into the sweet moistness of her mouth. For a second she resisted, her body tensing as if she thought she could throw him off, and then she yielded, her mouth opening beneath his plunging tongue, as her soul ceased to be a battlefield and desire reigned supreme.

Her ripped skirt was caught up beneath her, and her bare legs moved urgently against his. He slipped his hands between their bodies, raising himself slightly so he could grasp the waistband of her drawers. The flimsy material tore as he yanked downward, and Theo gasped against his mouth and bit his lip. He tasted blood and for a second raised his head. Her eyes were open, wild now with passion, and she was in a world far from this one. Her tongue ran over her own lips, licking away a bead of his blood.

"What a savage little animal you are," he said roughly, his eyes glittering with satisfaction, his swift fingers deft on the fastening of his britches. Her hands were still pinned beneath her, her legs still caught between his so that only her head was free to move, but he could read only an ungovernable excitement in her eyes and the set of her mouth as he pushed a hand beneath her buttocks. A fingernail rasped against the rich damask-soft curve as he lifted her on his palm to meet the thrust of his turgid flesh.

And when he was deep within her and she was watching his face, losing herself in his eyes as he was buried in her body, he began to speak softly.

"I'm not going to apologize, Theo. I'm not responsible for your grandfather's plots, but he knew perfectly well that Stoneridge and the title are nothing without the estate. And he wanted his son's blood to inherit his estate. If it had been divided among the four of you, it would have been almost impossible to administer. An estate can't have four owners and still prosper. This was his way of resolving all those conflicts. I'm no better and no worse than the next man, Theo, and I promise you that no man worth his salt would have turned his back on such an opportunity."

He ran his flat palm over her face in an all-encompassing caress that was also an assertion of possession. "Particularly when the prize was a wonderful, passionate gypsy."

His words punctured Theo's world of self-absorbed arousal as they'd been intended to, but she was too far up her mountain, too close to the peak, for them to send her all the way back to the bottom and the cold, clear lake of reality.

He watched her expression, the faint protest forming in her eyes, and he began to move, stroking gently within her, stoking the fires of passion again, feeling her tighten around him, the deep translucent glow appearing on her skin as her pleasure built.

"This is what's important," he said. "It's been like this between us, Theo, from the first moment. I felt it even before I knew who you were. Even when you were resisting me, you felt this, didn't you?"

She closed her eyes as if to hide her responses from him, and he chuckled softly. "False pride, gypsy. There's nothing wrong with admitting it. Tell me, Theo. You felt this, didn't you?"

Her tongue touched her lips, and her head moved in slight but definite affirmative.

"Open your eyes, love," he insisted, withdrawing to the edge of her body, holding himself there, watching the mobile features beneath him. Her eyes shot open and were filled with the surprised wonder that always flooded her, as if every time the sensations were unique.

Slowly, very slowly, he sheathed himself within her again. Her loins leaped against his thighs and her internal muscles rippled around his flesh. He stopped her mouth with his own, stifling the cry of joy that had no place emerging from the sunny library on a Wednesday morning.