What Price Love?

6

She gasped as she landed against him. He didn’t need to see her wide emerald eyes hazing to know she was instantly swamped with desire. As was he. Closing his arms, locking her against him, he bent his head and covered her lips-already parted on that evocative gasp.

He surged into her mouth, laid claim, then settled to plunder, to taste her, to provocatively taunt until she responded, until her fingers tangled in his hair, then gripped, until her lips firmed and her body tensed, until her tongue met his, all fire and passion.

Reminding himself that this time he was going to remain firmly in control-that it was imperative he do so, that there was a purpose behind the kiss, one beyond the welling, burgeoning, cascading pleasure-once she was fully engaged in the kiss, once he judged she’d lost any reservation she might have possessed over dallying with him in such a dangerous way, he mentally drew back sufficiently to gauge her state.

If he wanted answers, he would need to render her thoroughly witless, take her to that sensual point where experiencing the next touch, the next sensation was the only thing that mattered in life. She recognized the risks she courted with him, that he could indeed sweep her onto that plane of vulnerable, trembling need.

He prayed she didn’t realize the same risk applied to him.

Pris sensed his retreat; she read it as a caution, as a belated recognition that this much heat, this much passion, wasn’t wise.

Too late. Her fingers speared through his heavy locks; seduced by the silky texture, she held his head steady and pressed boldly nearer until his hard frame fully impinged against her curves. If he thought he could tease her-offer a mere glimpse of the plea sure she might have, and draw back and dangle more like a carrot before her-he could think again.

The tiny part of her mind still functioning knew that reacting so flagrantly was reckless. She didn’t care. His arms tightened about her and she delighted; his hands spread over her back, hesitated.

She kissed him voraciously, tempted, beckoned; he tried to hold aloof, then the dam broke, and he responded.

With heat. With a fiery response that curled her toes.

His palms hardened, pressed, then slid low, evocatively molding her hips to his.

Her abandoned senses exulted. Nearly swooned when he ruthlessly took command of the kiss, took command of her senses, and recklessly spun them both into the eye of a passion-wracked storm.

He held her there, for long moments let the sensual winds buffet her, rake her nerves, her mind, let them tempt and promise.

When he lifted his head just enough so he could speak, his breath a warm flame over her sensitized lips, she was clinging to him, clinging to the remnants of her wits, still whirling in the vortex of welling, swelling need.

“Did you find the string you were searching for?”

The words made no sense, connected with nothing in her mind. She blinked, then realized, remembered. “Ah…no.”

He kissed her again, waltzed her back into the waiting conflagration, until every nerve sizzled, until heat raced through her veins and pooled low. Until the world had disappeared behind a mist of desire, and only the two of them existed.

Lifting his head, he caught her lower lip between his teeth, gently tugged, then released it and murmured, “Is it your brother you’re protecting?”

This time, it took longer to gather her wits, longer to find the strength to think. She tried to frown, but her features seemed unresponsive. Her lashes fluttered as she battled to assemble the right words…no? Yes?

It was only because she couldn’t decide but had to think harder that she realized what he was doing. The effort required to snap her mind free of his sensual web left her weak; luckily, he was holding her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Her delivery lacked incisive strength but was enough to make him draw an exasperated breath.

She would have smiled, but he kissed her again. For one long moment she let him pull her, unresisting, back under the glorious wave, then she mentally jerked back. She drew her lips from his enough to whisper, “What’s in the confidential section of the register?”

His only answer was a curse; she was smiling broadly when he kissed her again. But she now had his mea sure, and her own; she refused to let him submerge her wits. Reluctantly, she pulled back again, but tried another avenue of attack and leaned heavily into him. Let her stomach cradle his erection and sinuously moved against him.

He sucked in a breath, closed his eyes. He looked like he was in pain.

Another form of persuasion. Artfully she caressed, slowly, she hoped seductively. “How do the confidential details stop the falsifying of winners-is it some sort of description?”

She made the words as soft as she could, let her voice slide into the low, sultry tones she knew from experience rattled the cages of men’s libidos. She’d never before used her body, her voice, to deliberately entice; she derived more feminine satisfaction than she’d thought possible when he answered, his tone a gravelly rumble, “Yes.” He paused; to her delight, he was struggling to think. “I can’t tell you more than that.”

He could, if he would. She slid her hands from his nape to his shoulders, was about to run her palms down his chest when he glanced down.

“That’s the ugliest shawl I’ve ever seen.” With a tug, he unraveled the knot between her breasts.

Before she could catch the screening silk, it slithered over and off her shoulders and fell to the floor.

Leaving her-the real her-revealed, clad in her deep green silk gown with its daringly abbreviated bodice. It was a perfectly acceptable gown, yet her breath tangled in her throat; her nerves stretched. She glanced up, and her lungs seized.

He was looking at her-at her breasts mounding above the low, straight edge of her bodice, at the expanse of fine white skin now exposed-and there was heat in his eyes. His gaze caressed like flames, touching, brushing-threatening to consume.

Before she could do the sensible thing and step away, he raised both hands and, almost reverently, closed them about her breasts.

Sensation, sharp, indescribably shocking, lanced through her.

Her knees buckled.

He swept one arm around her, gathered her to him, held her against him, supported as his other hand eased, then caressed, fingers firm and seeking through the silk. Her pent-up breath hissed out, a sharp exhalation in the warm, earthy dark.

Forcing up her suddenly heavy lids, she looked into his face. Watched some expression move across the angular planes; in the weak light it was impossible to decipher it.

Easier to follow were his physical reactions, the tightening of the steely muscles that banded her back, the thin slash of his lips as they fractionally parted. His eyes as they tracked his fingers, as his gaze devoured and rising heat licked along her spine.

Even easier to sense was his fascination. With her body, with the firm flesh his palm sculpted, with the nipple his knowing fingers found and, to the sound of her desperate gasp, teased to furled attention.

With the delicate skin above her neckline that the pads of his fingers skimmed…

Then he bent his head and found her lips again, whirled her back into the spinning vortex of desire, into the conflagration that so temptingly threatened to consume her senses-just as long as she surrendered and let go of her wits.

Let him sweep them away and command her.

She wouldn’t-knew that she couldn’t, that she didn’t dare. That she couldn’t risk it.

The kiss evolved into a battle of wills, of wits, a flagrant duel of the senses. He pressed; she countered, fighting to keep her mind from the seductive play of his hand at her breast, from the evocative thrust of his hips against hers when, denied, he let his other hand slide down her back, over her hips to her bottom, to grip then knead provocatively, then to mold her hips to his.

He was devilish, experienced-unused to being denied. He had more weapons in his arsenal than she’d dreamed of, yet even while she realized he hadn’t been anywhere as near losing control as he’d let her believe, she also sensed, and his reluctance to engage those more potent weapons he possessed confirmed, that he was walking as fine a line as she-the line between conquest and surrender, not to himself, or to her, but to passion.

She pressed her hands up, framed his face, clung as she kissed him, as she met the next thrust of his tongue and with reckless abandon drew him deep.

His control shook, wavered.

Abruptly she discovered she’d waltzed them to the edge of a sexual precipice, and they were suddenly teetering on the brink.

She didn’t have strength enough left to haul them back.

Neither, it seemed, did he.

His hands, on her body, firmed, his grip suddenly more demanding.

“Yes, Mildred-I do assure you it’s quite purple around the edges of the petals.”

Lady Kershaw’s haughty tones achieved what neither of them could. Jerked back to sanity, they both froze. Both rediscovered their reins and pulled back. Quietly, barely moving, they broke the kiss, hesitated for a moment, their breaths mingling, then they carefully lifted their heads and looked around.

“It’s this way-right at the back near the windows.”

Neither of them moved. They were in an aisle off the central walkway bisecting the conservatory. The brisk tap-tap of heels and a swish of skirts heralded Lady Kershaw and at least one other lady.

Pris held her breath, felt his hands tighten about her waist, tensing as if to whisk her behind him, but the ladies-Lady Kershaw and Mrs. Elcott-engaged in a heated argument about a particular bloom, swept past the open end of the aisle without noticing them.

She glanced at Caxton-Dillon. They were surely on first-name terms now. He caught her eye, held a finger across his lips.

Then he bent and retrieved her shawl.

She took it, bunched it in one hand as he pointed farther down the aisle. Taking her hand, he drew her with him; she tiptoed so her heels didn’t clack on the tiles.

He turned right at the end of the aisle, into another that followed the outer glass wall back toward the house. Before they reached the front of the room, the glass changed to brick. He halted by a door in the wall. Easing it open, he looked through, then stepped out, whisking her with him, then turned and shut the door.

They were in a small foyer connecting an external door with the corridor to the ballroom; Pris told herself she was glad the door hadn’t led into some other private room.

Her pulse was still racing, her skin still warm. Far safer to retreat, regardless of the compulsion of her traitorous desires.

Shaking out her shawl, she draped it over her shoulders and tied the ends once more between her breasts, concealing her dashingly dramatic bodice.

Glancing up, she surprised a disgusted look on Dillon Caxton’s face.

Meeting her gaze, he held it for a moment, then shook his head. “Never mind.”

He waved her back into the corridor. Without another word, they returned to the ballroom.

Just before they stepped across the threshold, he closed his hand about her elbow and halted her.

Brows rising, she looked back and up at him.

He trapped her gaze, quietly said, “Tell me why you need to know, and I’ll answer every question you have.”

She held his gaze for a corresponding moment, then equally quietly replied, “I’ll think about it.”

Facing forward, she stepped into the ballroom.

On her bay mare, crossing the Heath in the wispy fog of early morning, Pris skirted veiled riders from various strings out exercising in the chill. Disguised again as a lad, hat low, head down, her muffler about her chin, she cantered steadily toward the area favored by the Cromarty string.

The Heath, she’d learned, was the property of the Jockey Club and made available to the stables with race horses registered to run at the Newmarket track. While watchers were discouraged from viewing any trials, the early-morning gallops were another matter; she glimpsed the odd figure cloaked in mist studying the horses as they were put through their paces.

She rode on, praying that Rus would take advantage of the cover of the filmy fog to spy on Harkness and Lord Cromarty’s horses.

Her problems were compounding. When Dillon Caxton had offered to answer every question if she told him why she needed to know, while she’d known he’d been referring to the register, for one instant, she’d wished he’d been speaking of other things. Things of a more private nature.

“The last thing I need is to grow infatuated with a damned Englishman, especially one who’s more handsome than I am.”

Especially given he harbored the clear aim of interrogating her under the influence of passion.

People got others drunk in order to question them. He’d tried to make her drunk on desire, intoxicated with sensual plea sure. The bastard. He’d added significantly to her worries. She had no idea why she was so susceptible to his “persuasion”; his dramatic, overtly sensual good looks should have inured her to his charm-mere attractiveness invariably bored her. Instead…

She was increasingly anxious that if he sought to more definitely tempt her, she wouldn’t be able to resist, to hold against him, or her own too-impulsive desires.

The next time…

Her nerves tightened. The longer she remained in Newmarket, the longer she took to locate Rus, made a “next time” increasingly inevitable. Then Caxton would press her further, and further, until she stopped resisting his questions. And him.

She wasn’t so inexperienced she didn’t know that the lust he wielded to fog her mind was perfectly real.

Her senses skittered, whether in fevered anticipation or anticipated fright, she didn’t like to think. Muttering another curse, she shut her mind to such unproductive thoughts and peered ahead. She was nearing the right spot.

Through drifting mists, she detected the outline of another string exercising, the thud of hooves reverberating oddly through the damp air. Breathy snorts mingled with instructions and quick replies, distorted by the fog; reining in a sufficient distance away not to draw attention, she tuned her ears to the chatter, instantly distinguishing the soft burr of her mother tongue.

Instead of easing, her nerves coiled tighter. Lifting the mare’s reins, she soundlessly urged the horse into a slow walk, traveling a wide circle around the area where Cromarty’s horses trotted and galloped.

She rode slowly to avoid detection, the clop of the mare’s hooves submerged beneath the race horses’ relentless pounding. The fog was both an aid and a disadvantage; at one point when it thinned she realized she’d ventured too close to the parading horses. Keeping her head down, she adjusted her route to arc around a large copse.

Rounding it, she looked ahead.

On the far side of the copse, wreathed in fog, a lone figure sat ahorse. Black hair, good seat. He was staring intently into the copse-perhaps through the copse at the horses?

He was too far away; she couldn’t judge his height and build, yet…

In the instant her heart lifted in hope, the man turned his head and saw her.

Horror speared icelike through her veins.

The man cursed, lifted one arm.

Swallowing a yelp, she ducked, simultaneously clapping her heels to the mare’s flanks. A ball whistled over her head, whining eerily through the fog; a split second later, the report of the pistol crashed over her.

Spooked by the sound, by her fear and her urging, the mare shot off, streaking across the green, parallel to the copse.

Past the man, but separated by sufficient distance for Pris to see him as nothing more than a blurred shape through the billowing fog. A blurred shape drawing forth another saddle pistol.

Her heart in her mouth, she swung the mare around the copse, forcing the man, cursing again, to wheel his horse before he could follow.

She headed straight for the exercising string, the horses trotting and galloping disrupted as, having heard the shot, the stable lads reined in.

Pressing low, clinging to the mare’s neck, the black mane whipping her cheeks, Pris streaked through the milling horses-straight through and on across the Heath.

The man on his heavier horse thundered after her.

Harkness. He looked like the very devil and had a temper to match.

Pris felt her heart rising into her throat; swallowing, she rode with hands and knees, urging the little mare to fly.

The mare was nimble and had a good turn of speed. It had been years since Pris had ridden so fast, so recklessly, so desperately, but as the minutes elapsed she sensed the heavier horse falling behind. Easing the pace, she rose up and risked a quick glance back.

Harkness was still there, doggedly coming on. The heavier horse would outstay her mare, and the Heath was immense.

Facing forward, Pris held the mare one notch back from her previous headlong pace and forced her mind to function, to ignore her clamoring fear.

She couldn’t outrun Harkness; she would have to lose him.

Somewhere in a landscape that was open grassland with no stand of trees large enough to hide her.

The map in the lending library took shape in her mind. She recalled the wooded estate bordering the Heath to the southeast-dense woodland, not paddocks. Hillgate End, Caxton’s home.

It was the closest cover in which she might lose Harkness. Allowing him to catch up with her was out of the question.

The gallant mare responded as she veered southeast and picked up the pace. She eased the horse into a fluid gallop; quick glances behind showed Harkness closer, but he was once again falling behind.

She could almost hear his curses.

Facing forward, her own lungs tight, she urged the mare on.

Sooner than she’d expected, a line of trees rose before her. She headed for them, then swung along the line, searching for a bridle path.

A dip in the land, an area of worn turf, pointed to the entrance she sought. Her eyes locked on the spot.

She was fifty yards from it when a horse man appeared coming out of the woods, blocking the opening.

Pris recognized him instantly.

In the same instant he recognized her.

Her heart leapt again; cursing, she swerved away from the trees, swinging the mare back out onto the Heath.

The new direction took her closer to Harkness. She inwardly swore; she no longer had breath to spare for words. Desperately urging the mare on, she wondered how much longer her game little mount could last.

The thunder of hooves coming up hard on her right reminded her she had another pursuer.

One glance at him, at the black he once again had under him, and all thought of eluding him fled. Her brothers would have described the black as a good ’un, a sleek Thoroughbred, elegant and powerful, relentless and remorseless.

Much like his rider.

If he caught her and they stopped, would Harkness risk a shot? Worse, would he brazenly approach and accuse her-

She didn’t get a chance to evaluate her options; the black drew level, then, ridden to an inch, surged ahead and headed the mare…toward Harkness.

Panic rose; Pris swore and reined in hard, bringing the mare, heaving and snorting, to a plunging halt.

Under exquisite control, the black slowed and circled her.

Pris glanced at Harkness, but he was temporarily hidden by a dip.

Dillon halted Solomon parallel to the mare, a foot apart. He frowned at Priscilla-Pris-not at all liking what he saw.

Her mare was one step from blown, and so was she. She was desperately sucking in air, her breasts rising and falling beneath the thin hacking jacket that was part of her disguise. Her eyes were wide, slightly wild; as he watched, her hair tumbled from beneath her hat and cascaded in a tangle of heavy curls down her back.

Fear hung like an aura about her, and that he didn’t like at all.

“What the devil are you about?”

Her eyes, until then staring past his shoulder, shifted to his face. She swallowed. “Nothing.”

When he looked his irritation, she drew in a breath, held it as if seeking strength, then amended, “I was out riding. Just”-she waved-“riding.”

“Do you always ride as if the devil himself were after you?”

She lifted her hat, wiped her damp brow with her sleeve. “I…the mare needed a run. She likes to run.”

A withering retort burned his tongue, then he saw…his blood turned to ice in his veins.

Reaching out, he plucked the hat from her fingers.

Pris looked up, lips thinning; reaction and more coursed through her as she reached out and tried to grab her hat back.

He anticipated her move and easily avoided her, leaning away, the black shifting back a step.

Dillon didn’t look at her, but stared at her hat.

She frowned. “What…?”

He raised the hat brim to his face and sniffed.

Then his gaze lifted and fixed on her face.

Pris’s lungs seized. She couldn’t breathe. The look on his face, stark, the classically perfect planes stripped bare of even the thinnest veneer of social glamor, the veil of civilization wrenched aside to reveal…something that hungered, that hunted, that trapped and devoured and possessed.

Something that burned in his dark, dark eyes, something primal and ruthless and haunting.

That look was focused entirely on her.

Slowly, without letting her free of his gaze, he lifted her hat, and tilted it so the brim was visible.

She dragged in a breath and glanced-at the deep scallop punched through the edge of the hat’s brim, the partial hole ringed by a rusty burn.

Fear congealed in her veins. He touched the hat’s crown with one long finger, drawing her gaze in fascinated horror to the nick in the hat’s crown.

Shock shivered through her. Harkness’s shot hadn’t gone all that wide…

Her world was suddenly edged in black.

She heard Dillon swear, felt him press the black closer, sensed him near.

The distant thud of hooves reached them. She blinked; they both looked.

The morning sun had burned off the mists; Harkness was clearly visible as he crested a rise a hundred yards away.

He saw them and pulled up, wheeling his mount in the same movement. With a glare Pris felt even across the distance, he rode back the way he’d come, immediately disappearing from sight.

Eyes narrowed, Dillon turned to her. “Who was he?”

Steely menace colored his tone.

She looked down. “I don’t know.”

The word he uttered was very far from polite.

After a fraught moment, he said, the words clipped and tight, “He shot at you. Why?”

The question had her looking up, realizing. “I…ah, don’t know.”

Harkness had mistaken her for Rus. He’d been waiting-following precisely the same logic she had.

From the look on Dillon’s face he knew she knew the answers to both his questions. Turning her head, she stared after Harkness.

Had he realized his mistake? Her hair hadn’t fallen until she’d stopped; Harkness wouldn’t have seen it, and from a distance, on horse back, dressed as she was, it wouldn’t be easy to distinguish her from Rus.

And Harkness wouldn’t be expecting her to be there, for there to be someone about he could mistake for her striking brother.

Yet if he’d thought she was Rus…Pris looked at Dillon. She knew Harkness’s reputation; the man was bad and bold. Why had he so readily turned tail rather than come after Rus?

Dillon had been facing away from Harkness. Her gaze slid to Dillon’s horse. The black was an exceptional specimen, tall, with long, elegant lines, and totally, completely black. “Do you often ride him?”

Dillon’s eyes remained on her face. “Yes.”

“So he’s known about the town?”

He didn’t answer, but after a moment said, “Are you saying that man recognized me because of Solomon?”

That was the only explanation for Harkness’s abrupt retreat. She shrugged, leaned over, and grasped her hat, twitching to retrieve it.

Fingers instinctively tightening, Dillon held it for a moment, then let her tug it free. Through eyes still narrow, he watched her tuck up her hair, then cram the hat over it. The result was wobbly, but apparently satisfied, she gathered her reins, then looked at him, and inclined her head.

“Good day, Mr. Caxton.”

He snorted. “Dillon. And I’ll escort you home.”

Her chin rose; she glanced sharply at him as he brought Solomon alongside the drooping mare. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Nevertheless.” He couldn’t stop himself from grimly adding, “You’ve had enough adventures for one day.”

She looked ahead and made no reply.

He’d much rather she’d ripped up at him. He was tempted to say something to prick her Irish temper; the knowledge he wanted an excuse to rail at her-to release the gnawing, clamorous need to react, to act and seize and wield a right some part of him had already decided was his-held him back.

He’d never felt such a reaction before, had never been even vaguely susceptible to its like. Why she-who aroused so many emotions in him, and all so easily-should likewise trigger such a powerful, almost violent response simply by being reckless, by being in danger, by doing things-reckless things-that put her in danger…

The roiling tide rose, welling at his thoughts. He cut them off, slammed a door on his urges-primitive, he knew, and unlikely, in this instance, to be met with anything but haughty and contemptuous dismissal.

Jaw clenched, he glanced at her, riding easily by his side.

After a moment, he looked ahead. Trust-hers-that’s what he was after. Time enough once he’d learned her secrets to introduce her to this other side of him that she and only she evoked.

Provoked.

Riding silently beside him, Pris was very aware of his leashed temper; it rubbed against hers like a hand ruffling fur the wrong way. There was heat there, too, lurking behind the anger, using it as a screen. It tempted her to engage, to let her temper flare and clash with his, but she was simply too weary, too exhausted, to risk such a foolhardy, reckless, and wild act just now.

No matter how tempted.

It was like riding beside a tiger, but…

Harkness had shot at her thinking she was Rus, and he’d been aiming to kill. The realization slid through her, solidifying and growing colder, more icy and sharp with every passing mile.

The mare plodded on. Dillon held his black to a walk; the horse was beautifully schooled. Despite wanting to run, he obliged, and like a gentleman paced neatly alongside the weary mare. Almost protectively.

Very like his master.

The understanding intensified the coldness spreading inside her. She couldn’t afford to lean on Dillon Caxton, not now, not yet, perhaps not ever. She didn’t know if she could trust him. The events of the morning had brought Rus’s plight even more forcefully home. Her twin was in very deep trouble.

The cold had seeped to her bones, to her marrow. She was shivering inside, but fought to hide it. She hunched her shoulders, her arms tight against her body.

From beside her came a muffled curse. Dillon shifted in his saddle; before she could summon the energy to glance his way, warmth fell around her shoulders, then engulfed her.

She stiffened, lifted her head even as her fingers greedily gripped and held the heat to her, the coat about her.

“For God’s sake, don’t argue!”

She shot him a severe glance.

He returned it with interest. “Disobliging female that you are.”

Her lips twitched. Looking ahead, she kept the coat close, savored its warmth, his body heat trapped in the silk lining. Without looking his way, she inclined her head. Stiffly said, “Thank you.”

The horses walked on. The icy chill inside her thawed.

By unspoken accord, they’d taken a route circling the town; no need for any ladies or gentlemen out early to see her. By the time they neared the Carisbrook house and reined in fifty yards from the stable, she felt warmed through, restored to her customary health, her usual decisive temper.

Shrugging out of the coat, she handed it back. “Thank you.”

He responded with a dark look. Taking the coat, he slung it about his shoulders and shrugged into it. She forced herself to look away from the enthralling sight of the muscles of his chest flexing beneath the fine lawn of his shirt.

He should come with a warning tattooed on his forehead.

He settled into his saddle and reached for his reins. She looked at him, calmly met his gaze. “I’ll bid you a good day, Mr…” Briefly, she smiled. “Dillon.”

He didn’t smile in return; large, lean, and relaxed in his saddle, he held her eyes with a steady gaze she found a touch unsettling. After a moment, he asked, his voice low, a hint of the sexual seeping through, “When are you going to tell me the truth?”

She didn’t look away from that dark stare, heavy with unspoken implications. After a pause she allowed to grow fraught, she lightly raised her brows. “When are you going to tell me what I want to know?”

A minute ticked past as they eyed each other, an acknowledgment they still stood on opposing sides of a fence.

“Priscilla, you are playing a very dangerous game.”

The words were low, precise, uttered with little inflection; they still set something inside her quivering.

Her temper stirred; haughty willfulness infused her as she lightly arched her brows, then, gathering her reins, she turned the mare and started her for the stables-glancing back at the last to say with sultry deliberation, “Until next time…Dillon.”