“You would give up everything to be with me, Pen. I can’t ask that of you.”
“I gave it all up before.” His voice was rough and low, scraping against her chest. “I lived here with you as a nobody.”
“That was a lie.” Despair clutched at her throat. “Because I didn’t tell you who you were. It was selfish and dishonest, and I—I kept you from where you belonged.”
She thought of Penrydd, that lovely little castle in its field of lush green. She’d barter her soul to belong there with him, raising their children in spacious rooms, entertaining their friends with hunts and musical evenings. But that place had been barred to her from birth, even before choice and circumstance made it impossible for her to be worthy of him.
“Then come with me as my not-viscountess.” He muttered the words against her throat, kissing a line from her ear down her neck. “I made you an offer months ago, didn’t I? It stands. It will always stand.” His clever hand worked at her breast, knowing how to bring her desire to thrumming life with a stroke or two.
“I’m needed here.” She couldn’t just hare off in pursuit of her own pleasures and leave everyone here to shoulder on without her. Her income sustained them, paltry as it was.
Her fingers stilled on Pen’s back. She’d forgotten about the mines. She could arrange for a stipend for St. Sefin’s. She could repair and expand the place, take in even more people. The project might sustain her when Pen left. It would give her a reason to keep breathing.
“Ineed you.” He rolled his hips against her and with a little moan she bent a knee so his growing erection slid between her legs.
She let her head fall back, helpless to resist him, but knowing that even when the night ended and they must part again, her answer must be the same. She had been exonerated from her trial. She might indeed be an heiress. But she had seen the disdain in Lydia’s eyes, knew what barriers would confront her, them, if she were so foolish as to give in to love and passion. Her answer must always be the same.
“Look at the sky,” she whispered. “What do you English call that? The silver wheel.” She pointed to the river snaking its way across the spangled expanse.
“The Milky Way? We learned this in school. Thevia lactea, so called because one Greek god or another tore a child from Hera’s breast, and the droplets spattered into the sky.” He dropped his mouth over her naked breast, tonguing the nipple.
Gwen shook her head, even as little fires arrowed through her veins. “We call it Caer Wydion, the castle of Gwydion, an ancient hero known for his strength and cleverness.”
Pen moved from the moistened tip of one breast to the other, licking and nuzzling. “I thought Gwydion was a pig stealer and the father of his sister’s child.”
She sighed and tugged the blanket over his back, enclosing them both. “He was a powerful warrior and knew magic. He made a woman once out of nothing but flowers.”
“You taste like a flower.” He tugged a nipple between his teeth. “I don’t see your point, besides these two.”
She cradled his head in her hand, sifting her fingers through his hair.
“Two different stories,” she said. “Two different worlds. Two different pasts. They can never come together.”
“We’ve come together. Several times.” He reached between them and led his cock to the slit of her body, the slick, firm cap nosing against her entrance. She was ready for him, hungry again. She would always be hungry for him. It was her curse.
She cupped her hand around his and guided him inside and he obeyed, sinking his length into her. He dropped her forehead to hers, breathing heavily, holding himself taut as she accepted his swelling fullness, the ache and its relief together. She could never have enough of him. She could never have him inside her long enough, deep enough, to quell the demand. She would always want more. If she could pull him inside her and keep him there, she would.
Leaving him what? Her?
“I will always want you, Pen,” she whispered, rocking against him, grief in her voice.
He moved against her in leisurely strokes, watching her eyes, and she knew he would try every angle, every variety of pressure, until he brought them both to bliss and beyond.
“Then at least we have this,” he muttered.
“Yes.” She had him for now, this man who made her feel as if she were knit of flowers and stars. This astonishing man with his clever mind and gentle hands, his determined spirit, his fierce and battered heart. She braced her feet to take him inside her more deeply, loving how his breath hitched in pleasure, wishing she could hold and please him always. Desire reached from her belly, clenching around her heart, a candle now burning bright that would be wasted and empty when he left.
“At least we have this.”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
“It’s just tea, Gwen,” Anne Sutton said. “My brother and Mr. Vaughn won’t be there. Lady Vaughn wants to entertain the Dowager Viscountess and Lady Penrydd while they are in the area, and to make her apologies to you.” Anne pouted. “Please come.”
She was wearing the frilly muslin dress she’d worn on her first visit to St. Sefin’s, but the dark circles beneath made her eyes look haunted and she smoothed her fingers over the ribbon at her waist in a nervous gesture. Gwen sighed.
“It’s late for tea.” She’d have to travel to Greenfield in the company of the ladies Penrydd, who had not warmed to her after Pen’s startling announcement in the chapter house the day before. She’d be back far too late to help with the evening meal, leaving Dovey and Widow Jones to see to everything, and then what was she to feed two picky, overbred English viscountesses? “Does she want me to harp, then?”
“Just you. Come, Gwen. The others are already in the carriage.” Anne paused, fingers fluttering at her throat. “Lady Vaughn feels terrible for what her son put you through. As do I.”
