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‘I go where I like, I see what I like.’ There was a flash of white teeth as he smiled. ‘You have more passion than he deserves.’
‘You…Peeping Tom!’ Nell tried to recall how clear the glass had been in the window, feeling the blush flood from her toes to her hairline.
The dark man reached out and twitched the pistol from her lax grasp before she could react. ‘I do not need to watch others in order to get my pleasure,’ he observed calmly, checking the weapon and handing it back. ‘Is your lord’s weapon equally lacking in shot?’
Nell snatched it before their fingers could touch, wondering whether the snow was actually melting around her feet. ‘I will be at the folly.’
‘Of course you will,’ he said, with a flash of those very white teeth. ‘Kay zhala i suv shay zhala wi o thav.’
‘What does that mean?’ Nell demanded. And what language had it been? But he had vanished back into the shadows, leaving only his footprints on the edge of the wood to show he had been there.
She walked back to the house, shivering a little with reaction and, she had to admit to herself, a little from the impact of Salterton’s personality at close quarters.
He was dangerous to life and limb, she knew that. He was also dangerous to women; she was in love with Marcus, and yet something sensual and primal in that amused, lilting voice and the movement of the fit, sensuous body called to her.
By the time she had returned the pistol and was peeling off scarves and gloves in the hall, her cheeks were pink with confusion, cold and guilt and her pulse was hammering.
‘Nell?’
‘Ah!’ She dropped her gloves and spun round. ‘Marcus. Oh, Marcus.’ And then she was in his arms in the middle of the mercifully empty Great Hall, clinging as she might to a rescuer.
Oh, yes, this was who she wanted; this was the man she loved and desired. The dark man wove spells with his voice, but the magic vanished at the touch of reality. And Marcus was the reality and would be, she knew now, for the whole of her life.
‘Nell? What is wrong?’ His hand cupped her cheek, his eyes were dark as he looked down at her, and the warmth she saw in his expression was both sensual and gentle.
‘I missed you,’ she said without thinking, then realized it was the truth. ‘I went out for a walk alone, and I missed you.’
‘Why on earth did you go alone? It isn’t safe out there, Nell.’
With a sickening swoop in her stomach, she realized she was going to have to lie to him. She had been angry because he had not trusted her and now, when he gave that trust, she was going to betray it. But if she told him, they would set a trap and someone was going to get hurt—and it could be Marcus.
‘I needed to go out.’ Not a lie, she consoled herself. ‘I was in sight of the house all the time.’ But her conscience could not be quiet.
‘The man has a rifle.’ Marcus pulled her tight to his body. ‘I dare not risk losing you, Nell.’
But you will, and I will lose you. She clung without speaking, feeling the strength of him seep into her bones, sinking into the embrace. Safe and loved, all she had ever wanted, all she must give up.
‘Marcus,’ she said into the folds of his neckcloth, inhaling the scent of warm man and clean linen, a faint touch of cologne, a trace of wood smoke. ‘Marcus.’
‘Mmm?’ he murmured into her hair.
‘Will you come to my room tonight?’
‘Why?’
She tipped her head back so she could look up at him and managed to smile at the expression on his face. Desire, affection, love, purely masculine bafflement.
‘Because, just once, I want to know what it is to be loved by a man. I want to be with you. Just once.’
‘Nell.’ He set her back from him as though his touch would influence her. ‘I should say no.’ She held his gaze, her own steady until he smiled. ‘But I cannot. Are you sure?’
‘I have never been more sure of anything in my life,’ she said, feeling the calm certainty flood through her. ‘At midnight.’
Chapter Eighteen
As the clocks began to chime, Marcus stood outside Nell’s chamber door, his palms flat on the panels, trying to think with his head, not his heart.
He loved her. She did not love him and perhaps what had happened to her had convinced her that she never could love. Her belief in her parents’ happy marriage had been shaken by the discovery of her father’s infidelity. Her first experience of sex had been ugly, brutal and forced. And he had thrown his declaration at her in anger, mired in mistrust.
