Page 47 of Lyon on the Loose

She reached up with shaking fingers and brushed wet hair from his face.

“What about me? What if I don’t want you to go? Roland, I forgive you. I . . . love you.”

He recoiled as if she’d struck him. No, no, please, not again! Don’t let her bestow her love on someone incapable of returning it! But the words were out there now, and she couldn’t take them back. She must let them do their work.

And trust to hope.

He stared at her—eyes wide, lips parted, rain dripping from his lashes.

“Lissy . . .” His voice was raw. “You can’t say that. You can’t mean it.”

“But I do. From now on, every word I say is going to be the truth. I’m not going to try to deceive anyone, like I did poor Mama, and I will always say exactly what I mean.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m not worthy of you, my sweet.”

“Let me be the judge of that.” She touched his cheek.

He leaned into her palm, then pressed cold, damp lips against her skin. “You have reached into my chest and dragged my heart from my body. To say that I have fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with you would be an understatement, my brave, beautiful girl. Right now, hearing that you return my feelings, I’m finding it a struggle to behave honorably.”

“I understand. I share your struggle.” Her voice shook—not from cold but from the sheer force of the emotion battering her. Her lips parted in a breath she couldn’t quite catch.

Roland cupped her face between his hands. Rain threaded down his fingers, cool against her skin.

“We shouldn’t—” he breathed.

“But we’re going to. You do want to marry me, don’t you?”

“Of course, you little fool!” A groan escaped him. Then his mouth found hers.

His kiss was fierce, hungry, and unrestrained as he pulled her hard against him, his coat damp with rain, his body burning beneath it.

She clutched at his lapels, desperate to be closer, reckless with need.

“Lissy,” he gasped against her lips, “if we don’t stop—”

“I don’t want to stop.”

Her lips trailed to the corner of his mouth, the line of his jaw, the warm, rain-damp skin beneath his ear. How had she become so bold? She’d never felt this level of passion, of need, when Oscar kissed her. Compared to Roland, he was an empty husk of a man. She would let all memories of him float away like chaff in the wind.

“You don’t understand,” Roland rasped, gripping her waist to steady them both. “If we go any further, I won’t be able to let you go.”

“Have I not made myself clear? I don’t want you to let me go.”

“If only I could be confident that you meant it. The events of yesterday may have clouded your judgment.”

The rain thrummed on the yew canopy above, the world narrowing to the heat between their bodies, the taste of him on her tongue, and the trembling ache in her limbs.

She pulled away, then took his hand. “Come. Let me show you something.”

There was a moment of resistance, but then gallantry won out, and he allowed her to lead him out from their shelter and along the gravel path back to the conservatory. The warmth of the room drew steam from their clothes, and she quickly moved to the range and stoked it into a bright flame.

“Take off your coat,” she ordered, as she removed her own. Leaving it to dry on the back of an ornamental bench, she picked up her old drawing book from amongst the pile of art paraphernalia on the table and held it out to Roland. Then she stood back, flushing.

He raised his eyebrows. “Your sketches?”

“You haven’t seen all of them.” She gestured with her head, and he began flipping through the pages. Then his expression changed, and she knew he had found her recent portraits of him. There were several, some genuine studies, some imagined. But she hoped he would read into the pictures what she’d felt when she’d painted them—admiration, affection, possibly even infatuation. But her hand could never have sketched the curve of his cheek, the line of his jaw, the blue spark of his eyes so expertly without the love that blossomed in her heart.

He closed the book and handed it back to her. The missing spark had returned to his eyes—in truth, it had become a furnace, and she wilted under the heat of his gaze.