“If you leave in a carriage, I’ll be in the carriage that follows,” he vowed, his voice low and intent. “And when you reach home, if your father bars the door, I’ll climb up to your bedchamber. It’s got nothing to do with the marital bed, Edie. You are all there is for me. From the moment I entered that ballroom and saw you, I knew that.”
He took her hands and turned her palms to his lips. “I can’t live without you. You’re my lodestone and my North Star.” Very gently, he placed a kiss on first one and then the other of her palms.
Edie felt as if the tornado that was Gowan was whirling around her, imprisoning her in the still heart of his storm. What woman could resist? She fumbled for all the things he’d said that had broken her heart, and couldn’t remember them . . . except for one.
Her eyes fell before his as she searched for a way to put the unsayable. “Don’t,” he whispered, and his hands were on her back, pulling her close. “Don’t push me away.”
“It must be said.”
His voice was infinitely tender. “What, mo chrìdh?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be what you wish in bed,” she said, telling him the truth of it. “Maybe if I’m drunk. But I really . . . I don’t want to drink too much wine. I was sick after you left, and I felt dreadful the next day, and I can’t play if I feel like that.”
“I’ve come to understand that my attitude toward liquor is bollixed up,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her. “When you were tipsy . . . it turned me a bit mad because of memories of my mother.”
It felt so good to be in Gowan’s arms. When Edie had looked down and seen him climbing the tower, her heart had stopped. The very thought made her move closer to him, her arms circling his waist, her cheek to his shoulder, nuzzling close. With his arms around her, it felt as if the world had settled back into place. “I dislike drinking to excess, and if that’s the only way I can enjoy our bed . . . I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
“If you don’t want to bed me ever again, I accept it,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “It hurt, and I failed to give you pleasure. The only thing I couldn’t accept is if you left me.”
In this moment he probably believed what he was saying, but he was wrong. Edie knew her Scotsman. Gowan would spend the rest of his life trying to give her pleasure in bed. She thought about that, and felt her lips curve. It wasn’t something many women would complain about.
And she was keenly aware that she was pressing against a sleek, strong, unclothed male body. He didn’t indicate in the least that certain parts of him were rigid, but Edie could feel him through the towel.
Her hands tightened around his waist. Still, she stood frozen, afraid to make a move, to promise something that she couldn’t fulfill. He would expect her to have that paroxysm of pleasure. The very idea made tension rise in her chest.
“Shhhh,” he whispered, his big hand rubbing gentle circles on her back. “We don’t have to do anything, Edie. We probably shouldn’t. My wrist is injured.”
“It’s not only your wrist. You have cracked ribs, too.”
“They don’t hurt much. Bardolph sent word that you were leaving me. I had to come.” He tipped her chin up so their eyes met. “I would climb the tower again, Edie. In a heartbeat.”
A feeling of peace settled over her. Gowan was alive, not dead in a ditch or broken at the base of the tower. What would she have done if he’d fallen? The thought was so terrifying that her heart hiccupped and she turned her lips to his neck.
“Edie, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a little strangled.
“Do you remember that last time we went to bed, and you said that it was about me?”
He nodded.
“And then, later, you said that I lay there like a pancake—but to be fair, Gowan, you told me to lie there.”
His throat worked. “I should shoot myself for that comment. My father told me that about women. I was so angry that I turned into him for a moment.” His eyes went pitch black with remorse.
“I don’t want you to focus on me. I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not I achieve a petit mort.”
“What would you like?”
“I would like to explore you. And I don’t want you to even touch me, not like that. Just for tonight?” she asked. “Please? It’s so much pressure.”
“I never wished you to feel anything but pleasure.” Stern lines bracketed his mouth.
“So let me decide what we will do? Just so this once I needn’t worry about succeeding?”
He cupped her face. “There’s no success or failure between us, Edie. I would love you if we never went to bed together again.”
Her smile wavered. “And if I’m never able to succeed in bed? You won’t . . .”
He shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “It’s not a question of success or failure. Love does not measure such things, except in kindness: and I was the failure in that respect.”
“No, you weren’t,” she breathed. “I love you.”
The joy that flared in his eyes was so sensual that she caught his head in her hands and brought his lips to hers. When they broke apart, her breathing was tremulous and she could see his chest rising and falling rapidly.
“I should bathe first,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll go to the castle and—”
“You smell like rain, and leather, and a bit like sweat,” she stated, giving him a sultry, lazy look. “I like it. Better than I like almond soap. You smell . . . male. It makes me want to lick you. All over.”
A curse escaped his lips but he managed to stop himself from lunging at her. Joy was like a scorching brand through him. He wanted to howl at the heavens, fall on his knees, throw himself on—
No.
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“If there’s any licking to be done,” Edie said, “I’ll do it. No touching me that way until tomorrow evening.”
A look of near agony passed through Gowan’s eyes. “I am not to touch you all night and day?”
“Not unless I give you leave.”
He lowered those long eyelashes of his, but she thought she caught a flash of satisfaction.
“And I shall not permit it,” she stated. “I promise to try again tomorrow night. I do promise, Gowan. But for the moment, I just want to put that away.”
“As you wish,” he said, faint reluctance underlying his words.
Still, she had no worries about whether she could trust him to keep his word. He might lose his temper again someday—and she still had to make it clear to him just how unwelcome that would be—but he would never be unfaithful, and he would never be untrue.
With a smile happier than she’d ever seen, he said, “Do with me what you will.”
Edie felt a pulse of excitement. It was like the dreams she had, in which Gowan wasn’t making love to her, but she was making love to him instead. Now he stood very still, with his hands on his hips and a smile teasing the corners of his lips. Smooth shoulders, one marked by a dark blue bruise, led to a heavy plate of muscle that crossed his chest, punctuated by small, flat nipples. Just below it the white cotton bandage wrapped tightly around his ribs. Below, stomach muscles marched down in regiment. A thin line of hair ran down the center of his stomach and disappeared under the towel. And everywhere there were scratches and bruises.