Page 31 of Betrothal Between Enemies

He reached for her then, taking her hand. ‘It’s all right to be scared, Iz. Goodness knows I didn’t expect to feel this way.’

She bristled at that, as if they were young again and he’d challenged her to a dare. ‘I’m not scared, Alistair. I am being honest.’

‘Shh.’ He pressed a finger to her lips. ‘I think it’s time for dessert.’ He would not win his argument with words. Far better to wage this battle with kisses. She wasn’t opposed to him, to changing the plan, she was just frightened to do it. He had to convince her otherwise, just as soon as he figured out what the new plan was. For the first time, he had something, someone, to fight for.

Chapter Seventeen

Ismay fought with her pillow, punching it into different shapes in pursuit of the oblivion of sleep and failing. Her mind was a formidable enemy tonight. By rights, she ought to be exhausted after having made love three times at the springs and spending the day out of doors. But the fighter in her was apparently indefatigable; that warrior had fought Alistair earlier just as she was fighting sleep now. Even when Alistair had offered her heart’s desire—to stay, to extend the engagement—her warrior-self had battled every inch of that concession.

Her warrior-self had been quick to remind her that her heart needed protecting, that what she wanted wasn’t always good for her. Hadn’t her past proved that? She’d thought she could have a future with Edward Ashford. She’d misjudged him. She hadn’t always been opposed to love or marriage or family, but those things seemed to be opposed to her, set at odds with the other things she wanted, and so she was required to be at odds with it.

She gave the pillow another futile punch. Alistair was an enormous threat to her self-determination. Not in the usual way. He would never ask her to give anything up. She would simply do it of her own accord in order to spare him any embarrassment, any censure that might hurt him or the business they both cared for. In that way, she’d be the author of her own demise with no one else to blame.

There was a light rattle at her balcony doors. A shadow entered the room. Alistair! Bare-chested in the moonlight. ‘What are you doing here?’ It came out as surprise, not a scold.

‘Are you going to ask that every time I visit your room? I would think you’d know by now. To see you, of course.’ Alistair softly shut the doors behind him.

She tugged at her nightgown, suddenly and irrationally self-conscious. They’d been stark naked with each other for the better part of the afternoon on a public but deserted beach. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

‘I couldn’t sleep, and I thought perhaps you couldn’t either.’ Alistair sat on the edge of the bed as she turned up the lamp. ‘Did I wake you?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’ She drew back the covers. ‘Come lie down next to me.’ Maybe that would help. What a horrible discovery that would be, though, to only be able to sleep if he was beside her. It was not a sustainable cure for insomnia. He would leave, despite their moment of weakness on the beach today when they’d breached the topic of what if.

He stretched out beside her, and she immediately felt her body ease. ‘Was my father hard on you?’ she asked, fitting herself into the curve of his arm, resting her head in the space where shoulder met chest.

‘He was not pleased with our late return.’ Alistair chuckled. ‘Even when we are not trying to be scandalous, it seems that we are. It comes quite naturally to us.’ They’d caught the last ferry back to the mainland, wanting to eke out every moment of time in their little Eden. They’d arrived home too late for dinner. In hindsight, they should have planned more carefully and caught the four o’clock ferry instead. But that would have cut their afternoon short. It would have meant the last session of lovemaking—the one that had been long, sweet and filled with tender kisses—would have been sacrificed. She’d liked that one best—the lingering exploration of one another’s bodies, the steady warmth of his hands on her, the reverence with which his cock had entered her. Absolutely delicious.

At home, Alistair had borne the brunt of her parents’ worry and displeasure while she had gone upstairs to escape scrutiny. She would not pass close inspection—her thick hair still damp and tangled despite their best efforts to comb through it with their fingers.

Now, she felt Alistair’s fingers trail up her arm. ‘I did remind your father that you are twenty-eight and a woman full-grown who knows her own mind. You ought not need be treated like a débutante with constant chaperonage, especially as you were with your fiancé the whole time, and certainly my escort was enough to satisfy concern.’ She could feel Alistair grinning in the dark.

‘How did those arguments work?’ She smiled against his chest, her fingers drawing shapes on his skin.

‘Moderately well,’ he confessed. ‘One would have hoped they worked better, but fathers are protective by nature, and our ruse has been successful in creating scepticism about the quality of my escort.’ She could hear him sigh. That particular consequence weighed on him, and yet he bore it for the both of them. ‘He could not argue with me without injuring his own position.’ His fingers stopped their caresses. ‘I do not think I fooled him about today. He knows we went swimming.’

‘Just swimming, though. Not the, erm, other?’ She lifted her head, watching his face.

‘Just swimming, Iz. But that’s enough, isn’t it? People don’t swim in their clothes by choice, and our clothes were dry.’ There were other hints, too. The mussed hair and the sand that couldn’t quite be obliterated. Those could be explained only so much by wind on the ferry and the necessary consequence of walking on beaches. ‘But if your parents think they might want to end the engagement, they won’t say anything. It would undermine their case if they accused me of compromising you and then didn’t allow me to marry you. They’d not be able to explain that convincingly.’

‘Hoisted with their own petard. I love that expression.’ She laughed and snuggled closer, breathing him in. ‘You smell like the beach.’

He buried his nose in the top of her head. ‘So do you. You still have sand in your hair.’

‘I had sand other places, too. When I washed, there was grit at the bottom of the basin by the time I was done.’ Even though they had washed carefully in the cove one last time, hands on each other’s bodies. Those moments, too, had been an intimate luxury, bathing with one another. She felt as if she could still feel his hands in her hair, gently washing away the sand. ‘I’m not sorry, though,’ she whispered defiantly, listening to his heart beat beneath her ear.

‘Neither am I, Iz. Not for today. I just don’t want us to be sorry in the future.’ It was said gently, kindly. ‘We have to be careful.’ Was he talking about a baby?

‘I don’t think it’s likely there’s any chance of a child from today.’ She was bold, but that did not make such an intimate discussion any easier. In some ways, talking about a baby was more intimate than the act itself. She struggled to find the words. ‘It’s not the right time of the month for one, and the water would certainly have acted as reinforcement against any chance.’ They’d been in and out of the water so often, surely any seed had been washed away.

‘I meant that of course, Iz.’ He was back to stroking her arm. ‘But I also meant careful in the keeping up of appearances. We are to be wild and love-struck but not to the point of people perceiving you’ve been compromised in any way. They can disapprove and mutter up until then, but if they suspect I’ve compromised you, the tune of their muttering will change, and the social pressure will not allow your parents to cry off,’ he warned.

She traced a circle around the areola of his nipple, feeling the skin pebble under the caress of her fingertip. His body’s response delighted her even if his words did not. Still, it meant he must be considering her arguments from the beach if he was concerned with keeping their options open. How ironic that the ruse had become reality. When it had started they had not liked each other, and now they had to be careful not to like each other too much. ‘Shall we keep a secret life, then?’ she murmured. ‘One just for us in private. A game within a game.’

‘What is between us, Iz, what happens in private, is not a game, not to me.’

‘Not to me either.’ She moved her hand lower, splaying her palm over the centre of his manhood, feeling the heat and hardness of it. ‘Not to your phallus either, it seems.’ She looked up at him. ‘If you still smell like the beach, I wonder if you taste like the beach?’

She did not wait for a response. She tossed a leg over, straddling him, leaning forward to lick at his nipple. ‘Yes, you’re a bit salty here.’ She licked at his skin as she moved lower down his torso, conducting her study. ‘And here as well.’