The Secret Pearl(124)

She lifted her head and looked into his face. She wiped away one of his tears with one finger. “I am not asking anything in return,” she said. “I just want to give you something, Adam. A free gift. My love. Not a burden, but a gift. To take with you when you go, even though we will never see each other again.”

He framed her face with his hands and gazed down into it. “I so very nearly did not recognize you,” he said. “You were so wretchedly thin, Fleur, and pale. Your lips were dry and cracked, your hair dull and lifeless. But I did know you for all that. I think I would still be in London searching for you if you had not gone to that agency. But it’s too late, love. Six years too late.”

He lowered his head to kiss her, and heat flared instantly. He lifted his head.

“I have only tonight to offer you,” he said. “Tomorrow I will be taking you home and continuing on my way to my own home.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Only tonight, Fleur.”

“Yes.”

“We will make it enough.”

“Yes.”

“We will make it last for all eternity.”

“And even beyond that,” she said.

“Fleur,” he said. “My beloved. It was the love of my life I recognized outside the Drury Lane Theater. You know that, don’t you?” His lips were against hers.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

“I love you. You must know that I have loved you from the first moment I saw you standing in the shadows.”

“Yes.” She opened her mouth beneath his, touched his lips with her tongue. “Adam. Love me. Take away my fears.”

He kissed her deeply, reaching into the heat of her mouth with his tongue, molding her body to his with his hands, waiting for it to surrender fully against his own.

“Are you still afraid?” he asked against her lips.

“Mortally.” She kept her eyes closed. “Of the stages that follow this. But I want it all with you, Adam. I want your hands on me, and your body. I want you in me.”

He kissed her again and felt her with his hands—the full, firm breasts already hard-tipped beneath her dress, the small waist and shapely hips, the softly rounded buttocks.

“Fleur.” He whispered her name into her mouth. He wanted her with a fierce pain.

“Keep touching me,” she whispered. “Give me courage. Your hands are so warm and so strong. Give me courage.”

He bent and swung her up into his arms and carried her through the open door into her bedchamber. He set her down on the bed.

And she knew that she was committed, that she could not go back, though she knew equally that he would have stopped at any moment she said the word. She loved him more than life and she wanted more than anything else at that moment for the memory of an ugly coupling to be erased and replaced with a memory of love.

But she was afraid. Mortally afraid. She was afraid of the intense burning look in his dark eyes. She was afraid of his hawkish features and slashing scar. She was afraid of his hands, which covered her breasts and felt their tips with his thumbs and which moved first behind her head to remove the pins from her hair and then behind her back to undo the buttons of her dress. And she was afraid of his body, still hidden beneath his clothing.

“We can make this enough,” he said, looking down into her face, his hands stilling at her back. “We can make this much loving enough, Fleur. I will merely hold you for a few minutes longer to give myself the courage to let you go.”

“No,” she said. “I want all of it, Adam. I want all of you. I want to give you all of me.”

He slid the dress off her shoulders, down her arms, down over her hips and her legs. She watched his eyes as her chemise and her undergarments and stockings followed. And she remembered standing naked before him, her clothes in a neat pile on the floor beside her.

“Make me forget,” she said. “Adam, make me forget.” She reached up her arms to him.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, leaning over her to bury his face in her hair. “The most beautiful woman in the world.” One hand stroked over a breast. A warm, long-fingered hand.

She reached up to undo the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt.

And he was afraid. She was so very beautiful. He wanted to be perfect for her. He raised himself to a sitting position again.

“I will close the door,” he said. The light from two branches of candles was shining through the doorway and slanting across the bed.

“No,” she said, reaching for him.

“Fleur,” he said, looking down into her eyes, troubled. “I don’t want you to see me again. I am very ugly.”

“No.” She caught him by the arms, pulled him down to her. “I want to see you. I must see you. Please, Adam. I will be afraid in the darkness.”