Christmas Beau

Chapter 14

There was a chilly wind blowing so that even though the sky was clear and the sun shining, it was less pleasant outside than it had been for the past two days. She held the hood of her cloak together beneath her chin and clung to his arm.

She had thought that he must have changed his mind or that perhaps she had misunderstood all the time. Perhaps he really had just wanted to spend an afternoon with her. But she knew soon after they had left the house just where he was taking her. And she was not sure whether to be glad or sorry.

"You are cold?" he asked her, and he unlinked his arm from hers, set it about her shoulders, and drew her firmly against his side. They walked on through the snow. "Soon you will be warm."

It was a promise that made her knees feel weak. She rested her head against his shoulder since that seemed the most sensible place to set it.

"Max," she said at last when they had trudged through the snow for a while in silence, retracing their steps of a few days before, when they had come with the children to gather the greenery for decorating the house, "where are we going?" She was talking for the sake of talking.

"You know where," he said, stopping and turning her to face him. "You did understand me last night, Judith? You do not wish to go back?"

There was something. His voice was low. He was looking down at her lips. She could feel the warmth of him through his greatcoat. But there was something intangible. Her own conscience? Could she be quite so coolly doing what she was doing?

She shook her head and he brushed his lips briefly over hers before they walked on.

She had made no protest at all. Only the question whose answer she must have known. And only the slightly troubled look when he had given her the chance, even at mat late moment, to go back, to be free of him. He held her protectively against his side, feeling her slenderness through the thickness of their clothing.

But she had shaken her head and looked at him with such a look of-nakedness in her eyes that he almost wished that he could turn back himself or direct their steps somewhere else and pretend that all along his intention had only been to walk out with her. There had been desire in her eyes, as he had intended. And there had been that other in her eyes too-as he had also intended. Except that seeing it there he had been terrified. Terrified of his power over another human being. The same power as she had exerted over him eight years before.

To be used as cruelly.

"Max," she said, and her voice was breathless even though they had not been walking fast or into the teeth of the wind. They were turning to take the path through the trees that Rockford and the bigger boys had taken a few days before, the one he had taken that morning. "Are you going to make love to me?"

"What do you think?" he asked.

"I think you are." Her voice was shaking.

"Do you want to go back?" he asked.

"No."

He wanted to. He wanted to turn and run and run and never stop running.

She would not have been at all surprised if her legs had buckled under her. They felt not quite like her own legs, but like wooden ones she was unaccustomed to. There was something wrong about what was happening, something sordid, something calculated. Except that his arm was about her and her head was on his shoulder. And she loved him more than she had ever thought it possible to love. And she wanted to give him something to make up for what she had done to him all those years ago. She wanted to give him herself.

And it was good that the giving would come before his offer, she thought. It would be a free and unconditional gift. The cottage was in sight, a real cottage, though very small. Not the rude hut she had expected. It was in a little clearing by itself.

There was not a great deal of light inside the cottage. The two windows were very small, and the clearing was surrounded by trees. He lit a candle with the tinderbox on the mantel and set it on the small table. And then he stooped down to hold a light to the fire he had set that morning.

"Keep your cloak on," he said, straightening up and turning to her. She was standing quite still just inside the door. He watched her eyes stray to the newly made up bed in one corner of the room. She licked her lips. "This is a small room. It will be warm in here in no time at all."

"Yes," she said, and raised her eyes to his. They were full of that nakedness again. There were no defenses behind her eyes. She was totally at his mercy. And he was intending to show her none. "Max."

There was something about his eyes, something about the set of his jaw. Was he having second thoughts? Was he feeling that he had gone quite wrongly about this whole business of courtship? She was having no such misgivings. Since the door had closed behind them a couple of minutes before, she had put behind her all her doubts and all her guilt. She was where she wanted to be and with the man she wanted to be with and she would think no more. She reached up a hand and set it lightly against his cheek.

He took the hand in his and turned his head to kiss her palm. When he looked back to her, something had lifted behind his eyes and they smiled at each other.

"This is where I want to be," she whispered to him.

"Is it?" he asked. "It should not be, Judith. You should turn and run through that door and keep on running and not look back."

He was giving her her last chance. He begged her with his eyes to take it. He should reach behind her, he thought, and open the door and push her out and bar the door behind her. He turned his head to kiss her palm again.

"I am where I want to be," she said again, and her free hand was on his shoulder and she was his for the taking.

"Judith." He bent his head half toward her and stopped. Her eyes and her lips were smiling at him, but the eyes were growing dreamy.

He was afraid. She could see the uncertainty in his eyes, the pleading for something. Reassurance? Was he afraid of bringing ruin on her? Afraid that she would weep afterward and blame him?

"Max," she said, and she closed the distance between their lips until hers touched his. "I love you."

And then she gasped and clung to him with both hands as he made a sound that was more like a growl than anything else and wrapped her about with arms like iron bands and kissed her with an almost savage hunger.

He could not draw her close enough. He wanted her against him, inside his own body, part of him. He had wanted her for so long. Always. He had always wanted her. And he had always wanted to hear those words. Always. All his life. In her voice. Spoken to him. He wanted her. Now. Sooner than now.

There was heat against his back. He was shielding her from the warmth of the fire. He turned her in his arms, not taking his mouth from hers, fumbled with the strings of her hood, tore at the buttons of her cloak, threw it from her, gathered her against him again, and thrust his tongue into her mouth.

But he did not want her like this. He did not want to take her. He did not want to master her. He wanted to love her. He wanted her to love him. He had waited so long. So very long. His arms gentled. His mouth moved to brush her cheek, to kiss her below the ear.

"Judith," he said into her ear, "I have waited so long for this."

"Yes," she said, and her hands began to work at the buttons on his greatcoat and she was lifting it away from his shoulders and sliding it down his arms. It fell to the floor. “Are you warm enough?'' She was undoing the buttons of his coat.

"Am I warm enough!" He tightened his arms about her,

imprisoning her hands against his chest, and laughed down at her. "Have you ever asked a more foolish question in your life, Judith?"

She laughed back at him, the sound low and seductive and carefree. "Probably not," she said. "But you know what I meant."

"Let's take our time, shall we?" he asked her, brushing his lips across hers. "We have all afternoon. Let me kiss you silly before we undress each other. Will you?"

She laughed again. "Kiss me silly!" she said. "I like the sound of it. Let me kiss you silly too."

She did not need to. Just holding her like this, the heat from the fire warm on his arms about her, her face turned up to his, laughing, made him want to shout with joy. He wanted to pick her up and spin her about and about until they both collapsed from dizziness. But the room was very small. And as like as not they would collapse onto the fire.

He laughed down at her. "Proceed then," he said. "No quarter given or asked?"

"Never," she said, and she put her arms up about his neck and lifted her mouth for his kiss.

The tone of the afternoon had changed. The sexual tension, the total concentration on the physical deed that was to be performed between them, had been replaced by something else. Judith did not even try to put that something into words in her mind, but she felt it and responded to it. There was warmth, affection, love between them.

She smoothed her fingers through his hair as they kissed each other lightly, warmly, exploring almost lazily with lips and tongues and teeth and withdrew from each other occasionally just to smile and murmur words that they would never afterward remember. Passion was there, held in check tor the moment, to build to fierceness and even frenzy later, but for the time there was the warmth of love.

His hair, she discovered, was thick and soft to the touch. His lips, which she had always described to herself as thin, were warm and firm and very masculine. And his eyes- those steel-gray eyes with the heavy lids-held her enslaved. Bedroom eyes.

"Bedroom eyes," she murmured to him and watched those eyes soften into an amused smile.

"A between-the-sheets body," he said against her mouth, and they both chuckled before he deepened the kiss.

He had withdrawn all the pins from her hair, slowly, one at a time, dropping them carelessly to the floor about her. She shook her hair when he had pulled free the last one and he ran his fingers through it-full-bodied silky hair the color of ripe corn.

His hands explored her lightly, unhurriedly, through the wool of her dress. Breasts as full and as firm as they looked, hard-tipped for him, a small waist, shapely hips, flat stomach, firm buttocks. And warm, all warm and delicious and inviting from the proximity of the fire.

He could not remember a time when he had felt happier.

"Judith," he murmured to her, lifting his head to look down into dreamy eyes and at a mouth that looked thoroughly kissed.

"Max."

"Profound conversation," he said, rubbing his nose across hers.

"Yes."

"I think the room is warm enough," he said, and he found the buttons at the back of her dress and began to undo them.

"Yes."

Her eyes wandered over his face as he continued his task and then drew the dress over her shoulders and down her arms with the straps of her chemise. She closed her eyes when he had her naked to the waist and held her a little away from him so that he could look at her. He lowered his head to kiss one shoulder and one breast.

Beautiful. More than beautiful. Need began to burn in him.

He slid his fingers down inside all her clothing so that his palms were flat against her back, and he lowered it all over hips and buttocks until it fell to her feet. And she kicked free of the clinging fabrics and boots and stockings.

She marveled at the fact that she was not for a moment embarrassed even though there was a bright fire behind her

and a candle burning on the table and daylight peering in at the windows, and even though he was looking at her and touching her and kissing her. And even though he was fully clothed. She had always been embarrassed with Andrew when he had raised her nightgown, even when she had still loved him. But the thought of her husband did not form itself fully in her mind.

She was undressing him. He stood still and watched her, her eyes lowered to the task of undoing buttons. He had never had a woman undress him before. It was a far more erotic experience than having a valet do it. The thought made him smile. She looked up and saw it.

"Are you trying to put my valet out of a job?" he asked.

She smiled and shook her head and he kissed her deeply, tasting the heat of her mouth with his tongue, allowing passion to build in him.

"Coward," he whispered to her. She had stopped with the removal of his coat and waistcoat. He reached up and removed his neckcloth and undid the top button of his shirt. But her hands pushed his aside and continued the task.

Dark hair curled on his chest, and it was a well-muscled chest despite his lean physique. She leaned forward, her face against his chest, her eyes closed, and breathed in the smell of him. Cologne, sweat, pure maleness. A throbbing low in her womb was threatening the steadiness of her legs again.

Her feet were cold, bare against the packed earth of the floor. She raised the left one to warm against the right.

"Cold feet?" he asked.

She lifted her head and smiled fully at him. "Yes and no," she said. "Mainly no." And she watched the laughter gather in his eyes again as he leaned down and swung her up into his arms.

The bed was soft and comfortable against her back. Surprisingly so. He had put a down-filled cover beneath the sheet, she realized. She watched him pull his shirt free of his waistband and remove it entirely. And she watched as he pulled off his Hessian boots and undid the buttons at his waist.

He watched her the whole time, watching him, unashamed, uncovered, waiting for him. He watched her glance at him as he removed his pantaloons, and swallow.

The bed had never been meant to hold two. But soon enough they would take up no more space than one. He lay carefully on his side beside her, propped on one elbow.

"Feet warmer?" he asked her.

She set one against his leg. It was cold.

"I have a cold woman in bed with me?" he asked, lowering his head, pecking at her lips.

"No," she said. "The woman is warm enough from the ankles up."

"Is she?"

"Yes." There was a catch in her voice. He deepened the kiss. And he feathered one hand over her breast, his thumb circling the tip before touching it, brushing over it. He felt her draw in breath.

The slow languorous time of love was past. The heat of passion was back, but with it an intimacy that went beyond the mere physical. She could feel it in his hands, in his mouth, his body. And it was with the love at the core of her, not just with her hands and her mouth, that she touched him.

She let her hands roam over him, touching leanness and hardness and muscle. And warmth and dampness and desire. She explored him and touched him as she had never dreamed of touching Andrew. And she wanted him. She wanted him with a fierce ache. She wanted him at the core of her. She wanted to give and receive everything. All that there was.

"Max."

It was an ache that he was building to an almost unbearable tension. He was touching her where she had never been touched with a hand, with fingers, stroking, parting, feathering, tickling. Pushing inside. Deeper inside. She felt her muscles clench around him.

"Max."

"I want to be there," he said. His voice was low against her ear.

"Yes."

"Do you want me, Judith?"

Foolish words. Her body and her voice were crying out for him. "Yes."

"There?"

"Yes."

"Here?"

His weight was on her, his blessed weight, bearing her down into the softness of the bed, and her thighs were being opened against the hardness of his legs, and he was there, pressing where his fingers had been, holding, waiting.

"Yes."

He was watching her, her eyes tightly closed, her face tense. Beautiful. And he savored the moment. The moment for which he had waited all his life. This was not something he would do in quick frenzy. He was going to love her as he had dreamed countless times of doing it. In a moment he would be inside her and she would be his. And he would be hers. She opened her eyes.

"Like this," he said. "Like this, Judith." And he held her eyes with his as he entered her, feeling himself gradually sheathed in heat and moistness and contracting muscles.

"Yes," she said. Her voice was almost a sob.

He had to lower his head and close his eyes for a moment so that he would not lose control.

It had always been a purely physical thing. Not quite unpleasant except toward the end when she disliked and despised Andrew. But not quite pleasant either. Something a little embarrassing, a little distasteful. A duty. Something she had always wanted to be over and done with quickly. She had never, even in the early days of her marriage, really enjoyed the sexual act.

There could be nothing more physical than what was happening to her now. An act performed slowly and in nakedness. Heat. Depth. Wetness. The sound of wetness. A slow deep rhythm.

And yet there could be nothing more beautiful on this earth. His body. Hers. Himself. Herself. Their love meeting and entwining and expressing itself inside her. Both of them inside her, exchanging love, exchanging selves in the slow rhythm of the early stages of the love act. One body. The phrase suddenly made perfect sense to her.

"Max?"

''Mmm.'' He lowered his head to hers, kissed her warmly.

"Max, it hurts."

"Does it?" He continued to kiss her, felt her hips move against his, felt the stirrings of climax in her, and speeded his rhythm.

He could not wait much longer. He wanted the closeness, the intimacy, never to end. He wanted never to let her go, never to allow her to be free of him. But the physical act must end. It was time for the ultimate giving and receiving. He wanted to feel her final surrender, the final opening to him, the final pushing beyond the barrier of her tension. And he wanted to give himself, his seed, his future to his woman.

And she was coming to him, lifting to him, tensing against him, whimpering, and then opening and stilling with the wonder and shock of her surrender, and shuddering and reaching for him and crying out his name.

And his seed sprang in her and he held her to him, feeling all his strength, all his tension drain out of him and into the woman he had loved all his life, for all eternity. He heard the sound of her name.

When she woke up, she was lying on her side pressed warmly against him, her head on his shoulder, his arm about her, the blankets up around them both. She could not remember ever feeling quite so comfortable.

The room was warm, the fire crackling in the hearth. He had got up some time after their first loving and built it up again before returning to the bed to love her again.

She could not see the room because she had her back to it. But she could picture it in her mind, small and snug. An idyllic cottage in the woods. She wished they could spend the rest of their lives there, and smiled at the thought. The two of them and Rupert and Kate all together in the one-roomed cottage for the rest of their lives. And perhaps… well, she had made the calculations last night. She had known

even before leaving the house with him that this was quite the most dangerous part of her month. And he had loved her twice.

The two of them and Rupert and Kate and a black-haired baby. She smiled again at the absurdity of her own thoughts and tipped her head to look up at him. He was awake and gazing back at her, his face quite serious.

"What are you thinking?" She raised a hand and laid the backs of her fingers against his jaw.

He shook his head slightly.

"I was thinking about our living here in this cottage for the rest of our lives," she said. "Silly, is it not?"

"Yes," he said.

"How long have we slept?" sheasked. "It is still daylight outside, but we will have to be going back soon, won't we?"

"Yes," he said.

"Mmm." She sighed. "I wish we did not have to. Don't you?"

"We have to," he said. He was still not smiling.

"Max." She rubbed her face against his chest, kissed him there, and tipped her head back again. "I love you."

He looked back at her and said nothing.

She rested her fingertips against his cheek and gazed into his eyes. There was something there, something far back in them. "What is it?"

"I am embarrassed," he said.

"Embarrassed?" She laughed, but he did not smile. She sobered again.

"I thought you understood," he said. "You did understand, did you not, Judith? That this is just a Christmas flirtation?"

Her hand stilled against his cheek. She frowned slightly. "No," she said. "No, Max. Don't do this. It is not funny. Don't look at me like that."

"It was understood from the start, was it not?" he said. "You are a widow and young and it is Christmas. I thought… but perhaps I did not make myself clear."

"Max." She withdrew her hand from his cheek and pounded the edge of her fist once against his chest. "Don't be silly. Do you think to frighten me only so that you can laugh at me? Do you think to make me doubt what this has been? Don't be silly. And don't spoil it. Tell me you love me. Tell me."

He set the back of one hand over his eyes. "Judith," he said. "I am so sorry. I had no idea that your feelings were involved. I had no idea. I thought you felt as I did."

She lay very still, looking into his face, though his eyes were still covered by the back of his hand. And it was as if a giant hand had lifted the cottage up and off its foundations and they had been exposed to all the chill of a winter's day and the cutting force of the wind. She felt cold to the very heart.

And she knew-she had known from his first word though she had fought against the knowledge-that he was not teasing, that he would not the next moment reach out to pull her to him and laugh away her fears. She knew that she had been right about him from the start. She knew that she had been made his victim, that she had made herself his victim.

For it was not a Christmas flirtation. And it was certainly not Christmas love. It was vengeance from hell and had nothing to do with Christmas at all. She understood it all at last in a blinding flash.

He had not changed. He had never changed. And she had been right about him eight years before. He was cold to the very core. She had shamed him publicly and she had had to be punished. She had been punished.

She got up quietly from the bed and dressed silently and quickly. She found as many hairpins as she could on the floor and pinned up her hair without benefit of mirror or comb. She drew on her boots and her cloak and pulled up the hood over her head. She tightened the strings beneath her chin.

And she left the cottage without once glancing at the bed. She closed the door quietly behind her and began the long trudge back to the house through the snow.

He lay still, his hand over his eyes, until he heard the door close behind her.

He had had no idea as he had lain awake, holding her to him, waiting in dread for the moment when she would stir and look up at him, exactly what he would say to her when the moment for talking came. He had had no idea which side of his warring nature would finally win.

He had listened to himself almost as if he were standing beside the bed observing himself. Observing both of them. ''I love you,'' she had said, and the words had come straight from the depths of her being. Her body pressed to his had uttered the same words. And her eyes had told him the truth of them. She loved him.

Triumph. Total victory beyond his best expectations. Revenge complete. She would suffer from rejection and humiliation as he had suffered. She would suffer from unrequited love as he had suffered. She would suffer from an uncontrollable hatred as he had suffered.

She would know darkness. Darkness that fought and fought against the light and threatened always to put it out.

He turned his head sharply and looked at the candle on the table. It was out although it had not completely burned down. A single candle snuffed. The fire was dying down and dusk was beginning to settle beyond the windows.

He set both hands over his face. After a few minutes he rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face and hands in the pillows.