Captive Of Sin Part 24

"Good night," she whispered, her shoulders drooping.

He didn't answer. Slowly, reluctantly, as if her feet were blocks of stone, she turned toward the door she'd left ajar.

One step. Two.

She didn't want to leave him. She never wanted to leave him.

She was almost at the door when she heard a m.u.f.fled sound behind her. An unfamiliar sound although she immediately identified what it was.

Stifling a horrified cry, she turned. He pressed gloved hands to his eyes, and his broad, straight shoulders heaved as he struggled for air.

Hands that itched to comfort him curled into fists at her sides. She longed to succor the man she loved with the warmth of her body. But that was impossible. Touching her body had driven him to this extreme.

She darted across to him, and, as she had last night, she knelt on the floor beside him. Unfamiliar discomfort stabbed her as she curled her legs under her.

In painful suspense, she waited for him to send her away. He was a proud man. He'd hate to know she witnessed this.

But he didn't speak.

Perhaps he wasn't even aware of her presence. It was torture to listen to him struggle against his weeping. He hardly made a sound. Only the thick, uneven rasp of breath betrayed his agony.

The iron control that had sustained him through Rangapindhi and beyond disintegrated. How blind she'd been not to realize the universe of pain he contained. She should have known. She wasn't stupid. She claimed to love him. He'd told her about India. She'd seen what his ordeal cost his gallant spirit.

But only now did she truly understand the devastation that haunted him. His inhuman strength had delayed this moment too long. So when he finally broke, it was like a mountain cracked before her eyes.

From the first, she'd cherished a childish, flawless image of him. In this shadowy room, that image crumbled to dust. Gideon Trevithick wasn't Galahad or Lancelot or Percival. He wasn't an invincible guardian angel who appeared from nowhere to rescue her. He wasn't indestructible and powerful and immune from weakness.

Helpless, hurting, guilty, she listened to the sound of his heart breaking. This man who battled so hard to dam his tears was all too human. He could shatter and fall and fail. He was fragile flesh and blood, and he'd suffered more than any mortal should.

Wrapping her arms around her raised knees, she stared sightlessly at the fire, the only light in the dark room. This wordless vigil was all she could offer. She was guiltily aware that what they'd done had initiated this excruciating outpouring. Her penance was listening to him struggle to smother his sorrow as if it were shameful or unwarranted. She wanted to beg him to stop resisting, to give in, to let the horrors of his Indian years finally receive their due.

He'd fought so long and so hard, and still he fought. His valiant heart wouldn't surrender.

Slowly, the worst of his grief pa.s.sed. Or at least the outward signs. His breath emerged more normally and not in broken, choked gasps.

After a long time, he spoke in a constricted voice. "This isn't fair on you."

She didn't look at him but continued to rest her cheek on her upraised knees. Weariness and sorrow weighed endlessly on her. "I can bear it."

They didn't speak again. She thought after a while he might have slept, exhausted by his travails. She didn't. Instead, she gazed dry-eyed at the dying fire.

Charis had loved Gideon Trevithick from the moment she'd first seen him. She'd loved his strength, his honor, his intelligence, his beauty. She still did.

But he'd been right to decry that love as a dazzled girl's emotion. It was a hothouse plant, green and lush but unable to withstand cold winds from the real world.

The last hour had changed that forever. The last hour had changed her forever.

The love she felt for Gideon now was more durable than stone.

Fifteen.

The afternoon wind off the sea was so icy, even Gideon noticed its biting power. Unusual for this time of year, according to the porter at the hotel, who wished him and Charis well when they left on their walk.

Gideon wasn't sure appearing in public was a good idea. Someone might recognize him. After the last days, he couldn't bear fending off another crowd as he had in Portsmouth. More, there was a small but significant risk of word reaching Felix and Hubert that he and Charis were on Jersey.

But Gideon couldn't bear being confined in their rooms any longer. The acrid memories of last night's pain and disappointment weighted the air. Worse, that clumsy bedding had left a brooding sensual awareness in its wake. Living in close quarters with Charis and knowing he couldn't touch her, would never touch her again, was slowly driving him out of his mind.

As the day progressed, he'd watched his own strain increasingly reflected in his wife's pale face. The tension between them had stretched and stretched until it became intolerable. He'd heard her sigh of relief when he suggested going out.

Thankfully, it appeared the cold kept most people inside. The few hardy souls on the promenade paid Gideon and Charis no heed as they strolled along the seafront.

So far it had proven a mostly silent walk. As it had proven a mostly silent day.

h.e.l.l, what could he say after last night's emotional storms? His gut clenched with humiliation at his behavior, both during and after their bleak coupling. How could he bear to revisit the black ocean of anguish? Or perhaps even more harrowing, how could he discuss his inept use of her body?

The silence was heavy as lead with what remained studiously unspoken.

Charis turned into the wind and paused to look across the gray rolling waves. The stiff breeze s.n.a.t.c.hed at her bonnet, and she raised one gloved hand to hold it firm.

At least she was dressed suitably. He'd called in a modiste that morning and ordered a wardrobe for his bride. The charming yellow ensemble Charis wore had been hurriedly altered to fit. Other garments would arrive over the next week.

It was the only time Charis had smiled all day, when she saw the designs for her dresses.

Gideon came up beside her as she leaned on the stone parapet. Beneath the bonnet's brim, her expression was pensive. Her lush, pink mouth drooped at the corners.

Ah, that soft mouth...

The continual low hum of desire made his head swim. Self-disgust followed fast.

Good G.o.d, he was a satyr of the vilest kind. After what he'd done last night, how could he think of touching her?

Turning, she caught his stare. From the color that invaded her pale cheeks, she guessed the heated direction of his thoughts.

She must despise him. She ought to despise him. He'd hurt her, then broken down and cried for the first time since his release from the Nawab's dungeons.

Her eyes darkened to green with some emotion he couldn't name. Although before last night's debacle, he might have called it interest. Her lips parted on a soundless sigh.

He jerked back as if she reached for him. But her yellow-gloved hands remained safely on the seawall.

His heart thudded like a drum. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. To his surprise, she laughed softly. Surprise and chagrin.

That low musical sound slid along his veins like honey and made him want what he could never have. He should be inured to frustration, but somehow the d.a.m.ned torture never ended.

"You look almost bashful." Her husky voice bubbled with warmth.

"Good G.o.d, Charis..." He struggled to express his shock. "You can't find our predicament amusing."

Her lips turned down. "I'd rather laugh than cry." She turned away and gazed across the choppy water. "You can see what everyone thinks when they look at us. That waiter this morning leered."

"We're newlyweds," he said somberly. "If your stepbrothers inquire, I want people to say we acted like any couple."

"Then perhaps you should touch me," she said softly but implacably. She still stared over the restless iron gray sea.

Silence fell. While the waves rolled and the gulls cried and traffic clattered along the street behind them.

"Charis..."

She turned and the humor had fled. "You touched me last night."

He clenched his gloved hands by his sides. Clearly his sweet young wife was in the mood to torment him. "I didn't think you'd want to talk about what happened," he said in a tight voice. Christ, he didn't.

"Why would you think that?"

Because I hurt you. Because I made a tragic mess of something that should be wondrous. Because I can't stop thinking how it felt to be inside you.

"Because it's done."

An inadequate, cowardly answer. He knew it. So, blast her, did she.

"You're crossing a line through the subject of our...marital relations, never to revisit it?" Color still marked her high cheekbones. She wasn't as easy with this discussion as she wanted to appear.

"Don't you think that's best?"

She arched her elegant light brown eyebrows, a few shades darker than the bright glory of her hair under the neat chip bonnet. "No negotiation?"

He released a heavy sigh. "Revisiting last night should be as painful for you as it is for me."

She straightened from the wall and sent him a direct look. "You...you did what you had to."

"There was no joy." If only someone would approach so she'd abandon this conversation. But the promenade around them remained empty.

"Practice makes perfect," she said staunchly.

Every brave word gashed at him. "Not in this case."

He longed to tell her he'd give up his hope of heaven to change desolate reality. He longed to tell her she was more beautiful than the dawn. He longed to tell her he died of desire for her.

What good was any of that when, if he touched her, he'd only hurt her?

Her jaw set in a stubborn line. "I don't accept that."

"You have to." Why couldn't she see there was no hope? After how he'd botched things last night, she should shrink from him as if he had the plague.

"The Westons are fighters, Gideon," she said firmly. Her throat moved as she swallowed, another indication that beneath her determination, she was nervous. "I want a husband in my bed. I intend to do anything I can to achieve that end. Anything. I know you want me. I'll use it against you if I can."

Oh, dear Lord in heaven. He supposed he should admire her honesty in admitting her strategy, but all he could think of was the lacerating misery awaiting both of them. "We made a bargain..."

She shook her head. "No, you set ultimatums."

"You agreed." He couldn't keep a hint of temper from showing. It was difficult enough fighting for his own equilibrium without having to fight her as well.

"Yes, I did. Then." When she looked down, gold-tipped lashes fanned the hectic pink of her cheeks.

Need, primitive, uncontrollable, gnawed at him. How much easier this would be if she wasn't so beautiful.

Or would it?

He'd liked her from the start. His longing wasn't rooted in her appearance, spectacular as that was. He wanted her because of her pure, unquenchable spirit.

His voice roughened with urgency. He admired her courage, but she was tragically mistaken in what she wanted. "Charis, I beg of you, don't push this. I know what I ask seems cruel. But crueler by far to keep you clinging to futile hope. You'll end up destroying us both."

The fugitive color fled as quickly as it had arisen, and the eyes she raised were dull with misery. "It could save us too."

Regretfully he shook his head. "This isn't a fairy story, my wife."

Her lips flattened in displeasure. "No, it's a story where you consign me to another man's bed. Is that what you want?"

The prospect of her sharing last night's intimacies with another lover made him burn, like someone brushed his skin with naked flame. The idea of anyone but him touching her, hearing her sigh-G.o.d, pressing into that tight sheath-hurled him to the verge of murder.

"Yes."

"Liar."

She cast him a scornful look, turned, and marched back toward the hotel, her boots clicking on the cobblestones. Helplessly Gideon stared after her. Unless he was very much mistaken, his wife had just declared war.

When he was younger, before Rangapindhi, he'd occasionally imagined taking a bride. The idea had seemed simple, inevitable, uncomplicated.

Hopelessly naive.

He bit back a curse. He'd known when he came up with this plan to save her, it meant suffering. He'd known it required will and sacrifice.

But until his wife threatened to seduce him, he had no idea what h.e.l.l awaited.

She was yards away, walking with a natural self-confidence that attracted more than one admiring glance from the few men braving the cold.

Impudent dogs.

Biting down his rage with her, with himself, with the whole d.a.m.ned world, he strode after her. His eyes never wavered from the saucy sway of her hips.

She didn't look at him when he caught up. For the sake of appearances, he grabbed her arm. Even through his glove and her merino sleeve, he felt the tingling warmth of her skin. The ineffable life force that had set his desire afire when he held her last night.