“What, then?”
“There are ways.”
She gave a little laugh. “You think that, in seven years, I have not considered every possible avenue? Who will risk themselves to take in a woman who has deserted her marriage vows? Who will stand up to an aristocratic father coming to fetch his runaway daughter? And even if they might, who would take such a risk on nothing but the word of the daughter of the Wastrearl?”
“Let me help you.”
She was silent then. She’d never wanted to trust someone as much as she wanted to trust this man—this man who reeked of strength and power and safety. It had all seemed so simple in the kitchen. But now, faced with him, could she do it? Could she place her faith in him? Could she place their future in his hands?
His blue eyes glittered with something she did not quite understand as he thrust both hands through his hair and turned away from her, his frustration sending him stalking several feet away before he spoke again. “You are the most infuriating female I have ever met.” He turned back to her, and his words came fast and furious. “You take pride in the fact that you’ve done this alone, don’t you? It’s your house. They’re your girls. It’s you who have saved them. This is your work.
“You should be proud of it, Isabel—Lord knows you should be. But you are intelligent enough to know when you are in over your head. You’ve got nothing to protect you from whatever is outside these walls. I’m offering you help. Protection.”
Isabel was at the edge of a precipice, a monumental change that would alter everything. She looked up into his blue eyes—eyes that promised everything she dreamed of, safety for her girls, support for James, security for the house.
He was a good man. She believed that.
But relinquishing her hold on the house—trusting him with everything—it would not be easy. Her doubts came on a whisper. “I don’t know …”
He sighed. “I think you should go. The sooner you do, the sooner your damned collection will be valued and the sooner I shall be out of your life.”
He turned away, dismissing her.
She didn’t want to leave him.
“You don’t understand. These are my girls.”
He exhaled a harsh breath. “Nothing about that would change if you let me help you.”
“I have nothing else!”
There. The words were out. And then she could not stop them.
“This is all I have ever had! All I have ever been! If I need you to help me keep it intact … what does that make me? What do I become, then? ”
“It’s not true.” He moved toward her, his words hypnotic. Taking her face in his hands, he flooded her with heat, with need. “I know what it is to think yourself alone in the world, Isabel. It is rarely the case.”
She hated feeling alone.
And she had been alone for so very long.
She closed her eyes against the thought, unwilling to show him her sadness.
Her weakness.
Yet, when he spoke again, she could not stop herself from meeting his firm gaze. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never met anyone—man or woman—with such strength. Such courage. You are not alone. You will never be alone.”
She didn’t know who moved first—which one of them closed the distance between them. All she knew was that when he was kissing her, she didn’t feel alone at all.
She gave herself up to the feeling.
For a long moment, he was still, his lips soft and settled against hers, underscoring his presence, his strength, his control. She reveled in those things at first, until his nearness—his scent, his heat, his size—overwhelmed her, and she thought she would go mad if he did not move.
And then he did.
His warm hands tilted her face up to his, to better align their mouths, and his lips played across hers, demanding that she meet him in kind. And she did. He took everything she offered, stroking, sucking, loving her mouth with a relentless kiss that stole her sense of balance. That stole her sense altogether. She grasped his arms, reveling in their size and their strength, and she turned herself over to him, sighing into his mouth and matching him stroke for stroke, caress for caress.
When he finally pulled back and met her heavy-lidded gaze, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips before he lifted her into his arms. She gasped at the movement, and he stole her open mouth for another quick, intoxicating kiss before he spoke, his voice a dark promise. “Shall I show you how very far from alone you are? ”
What a marvelous thing for him to say. “Yes,” she whispered, the words barely sound. “Please.”
He moved then, carrying her on a winding course through the statuary, until they reached the far end of the room, where a wide, low bench sat beneath an enormous rose window. He sat, then, and settled her into his lap, running his hands up to her hair, deliberately scattering the hairpins, bringing her hair down around them. She watched him as he took in the mass of auburn curls, closed her eyes as he ran his hands through it in long, magnificent strokes. She tilted her head back, leaning into his caresses. The movement bared her neck to his gaze, and with a low groan, he bent over her, settling his lips to her skin, sending rivers of pleasure through her with the soft strokes of his tongue. She gasped at the wicked scrape of his teeth over the delicate spot where her neck and shoulder met, felt the way his lips curved in a private smile at the sound, then softened against her pulse and sucked at the spot until she thought she might die from the pleasure of it.
She cried out, wrapping herself around him, eager to touch him, to kiss him, wherever she could. Her lips met the corner of his eye and, without thinking, she touched her tongue to the rough-smooth line of his scar. The caress turned him wild, and all at once, his hands were loosening the ties of her bodice, freeing more skin as he dropped hurried, wet kisses across the slope of her. He ran his tongue along the edge of the fabric in a trail of fire, pulling it low and spilling her br**sts into his waiting hands.