Then, with a deep rumble in his chest, he turned her back to the tree trunk and all evidence of gentlemanly restraint vanished. With his mouth and hands he demanded. She submitted—enthusiastically. Their bodies came together taut and needy, the parting of greatcoat and cloak allowing for a fleeting satisfaction that left only frustration for greater contact. He kissed her deeply, breathlessly, his hands tangling in her hair and the slow, powerful rhythm of their bodies pressing together driving the ache inside her. She had only known his kiss a day, yet the flavor of his lips and the perfect cadence with which their mouths met and bodies hungered felt deliriously familiar. Her thighs parted to his urging and the meeting of her need to his forced a moan from her throat.
“Ravenna.” He whispered her name with urgency. “I wish to make love to you. I must make love to you. Properly.”
She clung to him, her breasts tender against his chest. “Properly?”
He kissed the joining of her lips, her jaw, the sensitive curve of her throat. She shivered upon the pleasure of his touch and ran her fingers into his hair, stretching her neck to allow him to continue kissing her and making her ache for him.
“Tonight,” he said.
She couldn’t get enough of his mouth on her skin, his hands on her waist, his hard, powerful body pressed to hers. “Why not now?”
“Because now,” he said, muffled behind her ear where his kisses made her tremble, “for all that I would have you here in an instant, you deserve better. And I must meet someone shortly. He will be at our meeting place in moments, damn him to Hades.” He kissed her lips and cupped her face in his palms. “I wish it were otherwise.” The certainty in his eyes rocked her.
“A moment ago you told me I should not be here.”
“A moment ago you were not in my arms and I still possessed a breath of self-restraint. But, good Lord, however much your lips entrance me”—he kissed her again—“I prefer them pink to blue. You are frozen and I am expected elsewhere. You must go. Immediately.” But he did not release her. Instead he tilted her head back and his gaze now traced her face as though searching. The severity she had seen before returned to his eyes. “Ravenna . . .”
“I don’t want your money or estates or whatever else despicably wealthy second sons have,” she said hastily.
A moment’s pause, then his voice came quietly: “What?”
“I wish to be clear.” She was trembling. “So there is no misunderstanding between us. I am not trying to entrap you into marriage.”
Anger flashed in his midnight eyes. “Aren’t you?”
“No! I hadn’t a thought of it.”
For a moment he seemed to seek something in her features again. Then abruptly he released her and swung away, his boots crunching in the snow as he started up the path. “Go, Ravenna. Rouse Father Denis from his prayer and with his escort return to the castle,” he threw over his shoulder. “Return to your tower,” he said in a lower voice.
“My bedchamber is not in the tower,” she called after him.
He only shook his head.
“Will you come to it?” she made herself say, the tangles of heat and longing never more confused. “To my bedchamber—my bed—tonight?”
He slowed, then, and turned partially to her, but his backward footsteps continued to move him away. “I will.”
Her heart beat hard enough to bruise her ribs. As though he knew it, a smile crossed his lips, full of confident dash. “Neither wild dogs nor tame would keep me from it.”
He reached his horse, climbed into the saddle with grace that made her peculiarly breathless, and disappeared between the trees. Feet sunk in snow and insides aching and unsteady, Ravenna felt like the hare left by the wolf with the promise that he would return later to finish his meal.
As instructed, she headed toward the hermit’s hut and an afternoon of waiting to prove that she could be a wolf too.
COLLAR HOT AND fists tight, Vitor was entirely prepared to pummel his elder brother’s face the moment Wesley appeared on the path before him. He knew Wesley would come in response to his note, and he knew what he would say. He only wished to hear it from his mouth before he made him suffer for it.
Now he had not only justification and motivation, he had frustrated anger that required an outlet. Wesley’s face would do. For beginners.
She was willing—indeed eager—to give him her body, but she neither anticipated nor apparently wished for anything from him beyond that. He had breached her virtue but not her faith. That she wanted him he did not doubt. That she was prepared to avail herself of his services then continue along her merry way seemed likewise clear. Unprecedented and astonishing, but clear.
He considered for a brief moment holding her off until she gave him what he wanted most, with as much fervor as she gave him her kisses. But that moment proved exceedingly brief. He couldn’t wait another night to have her. That he must wait even hours was a noxious burden whose blame he would gladly place at his brother’s feet.
The sooner he got to it, the better. Pressing his heels into Ashdod’s flanks, he urged him up the icy path.
“Vitor!” His brother’s shout came upon the snap of gunshot.
The walloping crack to the back of his head came an instant later.
EVENING FELL TO the sparkling glory of hundreds of candles throughout the castle. Monsieur Brazil had enjoined the footmen to illuminate the chandelier in the great hall. The cook, again with his retinue of assistants, prepared a feast for his master and guests. Everybody dressed in their finest: the younger gentlemen arrayed in starched cravats and coats of gorgeous colors; the older men garbed in elegant black satin knee breeches; and the ladies resplendent in gowns that showed off their arms, long gloves, superbly styled coiffures, and jewels glittering upon wrists, earlobes, necks, and in their hair. Ann came to Ravenna’s room an hour before dinner and presented her with a ball gown. Cut from watery blue silk and embroidered with delicate white lace and tiny mother-of-pearl beads, it was fit for a true lady.
“I spent the day removing ruffles and lace and I think it came out well, don’t you?” Ann said shyly. “I hope you will wear it tonight, even if you do not keep it afterward. Lord Vitor will enjoy seeing you in it, I think.”
Ravenna could think of nothing to say that would not send heat to her betraying cheeks. She accepted the gown with thanks, then accepted Ann’s assistance in dressing her hair as well.
A knock sounded upon her door. While her heart jumped, she knew that he would not come to her bedchamber door at this hour, no matter what promises he had made for later.
Ann opened the door. Garbed with sublime elegance, Sir Beverley and Petti bowed to her. Ann smiled and slipped away.
“You are both remarkably handsome,” Ravenna said. “I never knew you could clean up so well.”
“I might say the same to you,” Sir Beverley said, gesturing for Petti to take the chair before the fireplace. “But I am not a hoydenish girl who resisted learning manners since the day I was born, so I shan’t.”
She smiled, the joy of celebration and wicked anticipation for the night to come filling her up despite her certainty that the murderer had not been found. But one night could be enjoyed—one night in which she might be wanted.
Petti settled himself into the chair and perused her thoroughly. “Splendid, m’dear. You are a princess indeed.”