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He’d made no secret of his sinful plans. At least he’d been honest with her. A grim voice at the back of her mind reminded her she hadn’t been honest with him. Not completely. Not about a discovery that would change his life forever. Her eyes faltered away from his as though he might read her guilty secrets in her face.
“Have you had breakfast?”
She frowned and rose, even if it meant standing far too close to him. Perching on the window seat left her feeling disagreeably like a sitting duck. “Mr. Merrick, the way to my heart isn’t through my stomach.”
He arched his black eyebrows. “My sights are set on parts of you other than your heart, Miss Forsythe.”
“Oh.” She wished desperately he wouldn’t keep stealing her capacity for speech. For pity’s sake, what was wrong with her? He couldn’t undermine twenty-four years of rectitude with a mere kiss on the hand.
His thumb rubbed casually over the back of her hand. Except nothing he did was casual. “Given what we’ll become to each other, surely we can dispense with formalities. My name is Jonas.”
“I suspect it’s to my advantage to preserve formalities.”
“And I’m convinced of the outcome whatever we call each other, bella.”
“Oh, very well,” she said irritably. She straightened and withdrew her hand, surprised he let her go. “You may call me Sidonie.”
Why not let her go? He had her exactly where he wanted. Within pouncing reach. “Excellent. The idea of whispering ‘Miss Forsythe’ into your ear as I slide inside you is just too arousing.”
She flushed at the graphic picture he painted. “You can’t say things like that.”
He smiled with an annoying edge of triumph and stepped nearer, towering above her. “So early in the game, and you cry forfeit, Sidonie.”
Temper came to her rescue. He might treat her ruin as an unimportant trifle, but she wasn’t nearly so easy with what occurred. “I suppose I’ll become accustomed to your vulgarity.”
His laugh curled around her resistance like ivy clinging to a crumbling stone tower. “I’m sure you will, at that.”
He strode toward the door and opened it with a flourish. “Shall we proceed to the dining room?” He surveyed her with unreadable eyes. “Then perhaps you and I can share a ride.”
She blushed furiously. “Mr. Merrick—”
His smile turned wicked. “Now who’s being vulgar? I need to check the property after the storm. I thought you might like some fresh air.”
She marched past into the hallway. Six days. Then she’d be free, never to see the wanton and irritating Jonas Merrick again.
Those six days promised torments to shame the devil.
When Sidonie rushed into the stableyard, Jonas was talking to a small, wizened man who held the reins of two high-bred horses, a cream Arab mare and a large bay gelding. Without interrupting his discussion, her nemesis sent her a faint smile. She’d taken longer changing than arranged but he betrayed no impatience. Yet again, she contemplated the contrast between the Merrick cousins. William loathed the smallest inconvenience and lashed out if anyone delayed or obstructed him.
The last lonely years, mainly spent running Barstowe Hall, hadn’t prepared her to defend herself from a dangerous roué. She supposed she must have had girlish dreams once of a fascinating man focusing his attention on her. She couldn’t remember them. Once she was old enough to understand the dynamic of the marital bond, her dreams had become more prosaic: an independent, useful life where decisions were hers and no man treated her as his property.
The groom dipped his head to acknowledge her and disappeared into the stables. Merrick studied her with a glint in his eye. Part sexual interest, part approval, part something she couldn’t altogether interpret. It was as though he asked a question and she said yes without knowing what she agreed to.
She shook off the disturbing sensation and lifted her chin. Her hands tightened on the elegant little crop.
“I see you found the riding habit,” he said neutrally.
“I see you’re prepared for all eventualities when ladies visit,” she responded with a tart edge. When she’d seen the stylish black habit laid across her bed—his bed, she supposed—she’d cringed. She told herself his liaisons were none of her business, but that niggle of resentment persisted.
A deepening of the faint lines around his eyes indicated amusement. “I’ve never brought a mistress here, if that worries you.”
“I’m not your mistress,” she snapped, annoyed that he immediately attributed her ill temper to jealousy.
“Yet.” He subjected her to a thorough inspection. “It fits.”
“It’s too tight. Mrs. Bevan had to shift the buttons. That’s why I’m late.”
“You’re more…generously endowed than your sister.”
She stared into his face and stupidly wondered whether he preferred a more slender woman. Compared to Roberta’s willowy proportions, she was a Valkyrie. “Roberta doesn’t ride,” she said, telling herself she didn’t care what this miscreant made of her appearance.
More hollow bravado. She was becoming quite expert in the art.
“I don’t know your sister well enough to be familiar with her amusements—apart from chasing the next hand of cards.”
“You judge her harshly.” She bit back the impulse to tell Merrick that her sister hadn’t always been the brittle, supercilious creature he knew. When they were children, Roberta’s affection had been Sidonie’s only refuge against their mother’s indifference and their father’s contempt.
He shrugged. “She was a means to an end.”
Sidonie’s lips tightened. “That puts me in my place.”
He skimmed the back of his gloved hand under her chin. “You’re in a different category altogether, bella.”
The caress—if such fleeting contact justified the name—lasted a mere second but she felt it to her toes. This absurd physical awareness heightened rather than ebbed with familiarity. “Yes, I’ve agreed not to fight you,” she said with a bitter edge.
“The day’s too fine to quarrel,” he said lightly. “Let me help you into the saddle. Kismet grows restless.”
When he grabbed her around the waist, she waited for his hands to linger, to stray, but he merely tossed her into the sidesaddle with breathtaking ease. The beautiful horse sidled then settled at a reassuring word from Jonas. He had a way with females, Sidonie thought with another spike of resentment. Strange to remember Roberta describing him as so hideously ugly that he gave her nightmares. She tried to imagine what Merrick would look like without scars, but they seemed as much part of him as that sensually knowing mouth.
He stepped close enough to catch Kismet’s bridle. “Still now while I adjust your stirrups.”
He brushed her black skirts aside. She waited in quivering expectation for him to touch her legs but his hands were sure as they tightened the leathers. Something about the sheer competence of those strong gloved hands made her stomach jump. From Kismet’s back, she had a fine view of his wild gypsy hair. It was pitch black and untidy and another indication that he insisted on the world taking him on his terms.
He shifted away and glanced up. “Are you cold?”
How she wished she could hide her reactions. “No.”
She waited for some comment about her trembling, but he merely turned to collect his beaver hat from the bench behind him. Smoothly he rose into the bay’s saddle and her heart slammed with admiration at his effortless strength.
Believe me, tesoro, I’ll touch you over and over again, in ways you haven’t even imagined a man can touch you.
She smothered the memory of Merrick’s daunting promise and frantically sought some neutral topic of conversation as they trotted away from the castle. Difficult when every time she looked at him, she remembered him kissing her, touching her skin.
“Why do you tease me in Italian? I would have thought you’d speak—” Then she recalled that the world accounted his mother little better than a whore. The subject of Consuela Alvarez was likely off limits.
He arched a satirical eyebrow as if guessing her quandary. “You imagine I speak fluent Spanish?”
“Don’t you?”
“My mother died when I was two. I don’t remember her.”
“Oh.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
An uncomfortable silence fell. They crossed a wide green field, the cliffs to their left. The waves crashed upon the rocks below. Gulls on the wind cried like lost souls. Behind her, the bulk of Castle Craven squatted dark on the horizon. Even in sunshine, it looked a dour place.
The silence extended, became increasingly awkward. The horses’ hooves landed dully on the thick grass. She was casting around wildly for something to talk about—the weather seemed too banal but a remark about the bright day hovered on her lips—before he finally spoke. “After I failed to make a success of Eton, my father took me to Venice to live.”
Something in his tone indicated a complicated story behind the laconic accounting. There was so much she didn’t understand, so much she wanted to know. Her feverish curiosity disturbed her. Merrick was a stranger. It would be easier if he remained so.
He went on when she didn’t respond. “We rarely returned to England.”
She could imagine why. She was too young to remember the original scandal of Lord Hillbrook and his imposter viscountess, but vicious gossip had persisted over the years. So much of the story remained mysterious, like how Jonas had earned the marks on his face. Sidonie was familiar with the basic facts. It was common knowledge that all his life Jonas’s father, Anthony Merrick, protested the validity of his marriage. After his death, the Hillbrook title fell to William, Jonas’s cousin. William, who married Roberta Forsythe for her dowry soon after inheriting.
Anthony Merrick had achieved posthumous revenge of a sort. He’d been one of the richest men in England and aside from Barstowe Hall in Wiltshire and Merrick House in London, none of that fortune was entailed. Upon Anthony’s death nine years ago, Jonas Merrick had inherited vast wealth. William Merrick was left with two tumbledown houses, deliberately neglected by his uncle, and no funds to support the dignity of the Hillbrook title.
Since then, Jonas’s fortune had grown exponentially. He was clever, determined, innovative, and ruthless. His wealth ensured grudging social acceptance, despite his illegitimacy. William careered from one financial disaster to another, until now he verged on bankruptcy. With every failure, his loathing for Jonas built to mania. So many times, Sidonie had heard William curse his cousin. His attacks upon Roberta became especially vicious after Jonas had bested William in some way. A reminder, if she’d needed one, of what was at stake here at Castle Craven.
Merrick veered toward the headland. Sidonie followed him down a gentle slope toward the wide sweep of beach. Despite the warm day, the waves were a gray tumult, thundering against the shore with malevolent force. Suddenly needing the release of speed, she urged Kismet to a gallop. For a sweet interval, there was only rushing, briny air and pounding hooves upon smooth sand. She heard Merrick behind her but didn’t look back. For this moment, she needed the fantasy that she could outrun trouble.
A brief moment indeed.
She reached the debris-strewn end of the beach and reined Kismet to a quivering stop. She turned in the saddle to watch Merrick’s thundering approach. The big bay reared to a halt behind her. Merrick’s easy control over the highly strung horse shivered awareness through her. Those skillful hands that calmed a restless horse would soon touch her body.
As he leaned to pat the horse’s satiny neck, he glanced up at her. A light in his silvery eyes indicated he divined the tenor of her thoughts. Of course he did.
“Feeling better?” That slight twist of his lips cut straight to her heart.
She blinked. Her heart? No, no, no. Her heart wasn’t involved. She veered close enough to disaster bartering her body.
He saw her perturbation. “What’s wrong?”
She bit her lip and chose dangerous honesty. “I keep forgetting you mean to destroy me.”
If she hadn’t watched so carefully, she might have missed the troubled frown that darkened his eyes. It struck her that, if Merrick could read her, she was learning to read him. This encroaching intimacy leached resistance, but she didn’t know how to fight it.
“Nothing quite so drastic, surely,” he said mildly. “This gothic setting plays with your imagination.”
The gelding edged closer until Merrick’s leg bumped hers. He reached to curl his hand behind her neck, tangling his fingers in the strands of hair loosened in her reckless gallop. Heat tightened her skin.
Oh, Lord …
Nervousness crashed through her like a landslide. That cursed promise to allow him access was a mistake, but it was too late to renege.
“Merrick…” She stiffened without drawing away.
“Jonas.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Jonas, then. Let me go.”
Holding her with gentle implacability, he loomed nearer. His answer was a whisper upon her tingling lips. “Oh, no, Sidonie. Never ask me to let you go. Not yet. Not before we’ve discovered paradise.”
“Stop it.” Her heart thumped so hard she thought it must burst.
“I would if I could.”
She tensed against his grip. “Balderdash. You’re just playing with me.”
“Most definitely, tesoro. But your dilemma is your own fault. You’re so irresistible and I find myself unable to…resist.”
“Command your willpower, Mr. Merrick. Defeat this weakness.”
“I try, dear lady. I try.”
“I’ll bite you,” she said savagely, although she didn’t move.
“I’ll bite you too before I’m done.” His gaze sharpened upon her lips, making her heart hammer a panicked warning. “Eat you like a ripe peach, all juice and sweetness. And lick my lips afterward.”
She knew enough to recognize he meant sin. More than kissing, that was certain. For a rogue like him, kissing must be small beer indeed. “You’re…you’re frightening me, Mr. Merrick.”
Although fear was only part of what she felt. License had never lured her. She’d never imagined she’d give her body to a man. But something about Merrick charged her blood with inchoate longing, despite what she knew of him and what he intended for her.
“Seize your courage, Miss Forsythe.” He mocked her formality. Even she felt idiotic calling him Mr. Merrick when he was about to kiss her. Ruthlessness hardened his jaw. “No more preliminary skirmishes, Sidonie. Let’s start the games. To the victor the spoils.”
Chapter Five (#ulink_421057b9-5fe1-561c-9a5c-308c64639810)
Sidonie braced to revisit last night’s chaste kiss. There was the same inescapable intimacy. The same reluctant delight. The same suspense, as if revelation hovered just out of reach. That had been disturbing enough. But this was…more.
The kiss was an unmistakable invitation. To what? She was too inexperienced to know. What she did know was that the slightest signal of cooperation would bring her more trouble than she could handle. As she had last night, she remained unmoving under his lips, hoping lack of encouragement would deter him.
A futile hope.
He took his time so that she moved through resistance to overwhelming awareness of physical details. The sleek texture of his lips. The soft flexing of his hand on the back of her neck. The mad race of her heart. The heat pooling in the base of her belly. This unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation lured her to sink into the kiss. Disturbed, she edged away. Kismet whickered and shifted under her.
“Shh,” Merrick said softly.
“Are you talking to me or the horse?” She loathed the betraying huskiness in her voice.
He laughed softly. “What do you think?”
“I think you should stop.” Her hands tightened on the reins, although she was careful not to unsettle her mount again.
“Not yet,” he said mildly, even as the excitement glittering in his eyes set the blood rushing through her veins.
She gave a long-suffering sigh. “Get it over with, then.”
His eyes sparked with the humor that rapidly became irresistible, curse him. “No need to beg, tesoro.”
The grip on her neck tightened, although she’d immediately recognized the futility of running. She’d made promises to him and he still held Roberta’s vowels. Kissing her stretched the boundaries of their agreement, but she’d known he plotted blatant seduction when he offered the bargain.
