“Just relax,” he whispered, and guided her in slow circles around the room.
“What will happen if the House of Lords decides to charge you?” she asked, unable to set the investigation aside for long.
“A warrant for my arrest will be issued. They may try to put me in Newgate until the trial, but the Duke will use his influence to see that doesn’t happen.”
“And if he doesn’t succeed?”
“He will.”
“But if he doesn’t?” she persisted.
“Life will not be comfortable.”
It would be more than uncomfortable, she knew. The prison itself could be a death sentence. Not only because of the harsh living conditions, the lice and fleas spreading typhus, but because someone like Bear could easily get to Alec inside. Kendra shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked, misinterpreting.
“No.” But she allowed him to gather her closer against his warmth as they spun around the room to phantom music.
It suddenly occurred to Kendra that she could lose him. She’d accepted that if she found a way back to her own timeline, she would be leaving him. But now she realized that she could be stranded in this era and still lose him to death or disease or prison.
Their dance slowed. Their bodies pressed together, swaying as though moved by a gentle breeze. Kendra dropped her head to his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, strong and sure, against her ear. How had this man come to matter so much?
“I don’t think this is the waltz,” she whispered.
He hesitated, and his arms tightened around her. “I should go.”
Kendra lifted her eyes to meet his gaze, recognizing the blaze of desire she saw there because it matched her own. It would be a mistake to become more involved with him, she knew. She couldn’t just abandon hope of returning to her own timeline. Maybe there were a few slivers of her life that could fit in this era, but she still didn’t belong. She’d never be comfortable here, with this rigid class system and the restrictions on women. And if she tried to fit in, how long would that last? If she gave up searching for a way to return to her own era, how long before she began to resent him?
She didn’t realize that she hadn’t responded, hadn’t even moved, until Alec dropped his arms from around her and stepped back. His gaze traveled over her for one heart-stopping moment, then he offered her a faint smile. “Don’t forget to blow out the candles when you leave.”
“Alec . . .” she whispered.
But he was already gone.
Alec stacked his hands behind his head and stared, unseeing, at the coffered ceiling. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, leaving Kendra standing in the study, looking soft and rumpled and, to his mind at least, ready to be ravished. Yet he sensed a rare vulnerability in her, and couldn’t in good conscience take advantage of that.
He thought he understood her a little better now, after she’d shared the details of her upbringing. He’d dismissed her revelation about her parents’ arrangements; it was her disclosure about her relationship with her parents that had struck a chord inside of him, and given him new insight. She’d been put on a preordained path, much like his with his family. Her parents had expected her to honor it, much as he was expected to honor his lineage. And she’d essentially been abandoned. He understood that terrible desolation. His parents hadn’t walked away from him—his mother had died and his father had then married a woman who thoroughly detested him. His stepmother had hidden it while his father was alive, but once he’d followed his first wife to the grave not many years later, Alec’s stepmother had essentially ignored his existence, leaving him in school and pouring all her attention on her son, Alec’s half brother, Gabriel.
That had been disastrous, but he hadn’t known it at the time. He’d only known the same sense of abandonment that Kendra had felt. They may have been from different times, but they had more in common than Kendra knew. It would be up to him to convince her.
He’d just decided that when his door opened and closed quietly. He sat up and silently cursed that he’d let the fire go out, leaving the room in almost total darkness. But he didn’t need to see her face to know who it was. He could sense the uniqueness that was Kendra, and smell the faint lavender scent of her as she drew near.
“Alec?”
“Yes?” His heart was in his throat, damn near strangling him. He was surprised that he managed to say anything.
“I’ve been thinking . . . there may be no tomorrow. There’s only now. Today.”
He heard her breathing, light but quick, as she advanced. It occurred to him that she might have as much trouble seeing in the dark as he was. But then she was there. He felt the feather mattress sink under her weight, and her hands, soft and smooth, reach out to touch him.
“I want to enjoy this moment,” she breathed. “Here. Now. With you.”
“Kendra.” He summoned the strength to reach out and grab her shoulders, to hold her still. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
She hesitated. “Do you want me?”
“God, yes.”
“Good.” She lifted the blankets and crawled in beside him. “Then I’ll take advantage of you.”
Alec cradled her in his arms, his fingers sliding through the heavy silken strands of her hair. “I shall get a special license and we can be married immediately.”
The hand that had been stroking his chest paused. “No.”
He said nothing for a moment. Then he expelled a sigh. He’d known this would be her response. Any other woman in the world—in his world—would be terrified that marriage would not be offered. But not Kendra Donovan.
Almost of its own volition, his hand caressed the satin skin of her shoulder, feeling the puckered scar she carried there, like the others she carried in other places on her body. They were a reminder that this woman was not ordinary. She was both the most foolish and the most brave woman he’d ever met.
“Would it be so very awful to be married to me?” he finally asked.
She shifted in his arms. Despite their intimacy, it was still so dark that it was impossible to see her expression. Still, he sensed her eyes on his. “You know that’s not what this is about.”
“You may never return home, Kendra. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life here as a spinster, with no husband or children of your own?”
“An ape leader?” She sounded amused.
“Yes.” The word came out more harshly than he’d intended. But damn, the woman was frustrating. Deliberately, he slid his hand down to her flat stomach. “You could be carrying my child at this moment.”
She was silent. He thought she was considering the possibility, but there was something in the quality of the silence that made him tense.