We are all wrong for each other.
Silently, Wolfe held Jessica’s frail weight and cursed himself and her for the unholy tangle she had made of their lives; and beneath it all, he cursed the desire for her that gripped him even now, his body responding to the feel and scent of the girl he must not take, for then their marriage would be as real and final as death.
When Jessica’s eyes opened, the world swung dizzily around her, and the center of that world was a nightmare with dark eyes glowering fiercely down at her. With a stifled sound, she wrenched away. Wolfe’s hand came down hard across her mouth as he held her close. The ease with which he overcame her struggles would have panicked Jessica, had not her eyes finally focused enough for her to recognize Wolfe. Her struggles stilled instantly, for she knew Wolfe would never hurt her.
«Finished?» Wolfe asked.
Jessica nodded, for his hand gave her no way to speak.
«Good. We’ve heard quite enough of your screams of late.»
«She never screamed when I was around,» Rafe said evenly.
Wolfe gave the other man a look that would have frozen lightning.
Rafegave the look right back.
«She’s a good hand at bandages, too,» Rafe added, opening his jacket enough to reveal his arm.
For the first time, Wolfe realized thatRafe had been wounded. Then Wolfe noticed that the bandage was made from an ice-blue silk that was the exact shade of Jessica’s eyes, which at the moment were quite icy indeed. He lifted his hand from her mouth.
«Thank you, my lord,» Jessica said in a voice as cold as her eyes.
«I’m not a lord.»
«And I’m not a screamingninnyhammer.»
«Could have fooled me.»
«It is no great trick to fool a man who is deaf, dumb, and blind.»
Rafehid his laughter behind a cough. «How is your head, ma’am?»
«Still attached.» Jessica closed her eyes for a moment. «As is my tongue.»
She looked up at Wolfe and remembered all her vows to be sweet, gentle, witty, and companionable. A wave of fatigue swept over her like another dark sea. It was very lonely being married to a man who looked at her with such unforgiving eyes.
«I’m sorry,» Jessica said unhappily, her voice too low for anyone but Wolfe to hear. «I’ve done nothing but displease you. I wish we could go back to the days when you would run through a violent storm to find me. But we can’t, can we? I’m sorry for that, too.»
«We can end it, my Lady Jessica. Just say the word.»
«Never, my lord bastard,» she said softly, remembering the horror of having Lord Gore’s teeth and hands raking her naked flesh. «Never.»
Unable to bear Wolfe’s eyes any longer, Jessica looked away. She had no more energy to fight him or the pain slicing through her temples with each jerk of the stage. Darkness tugged at her, a darkness it took all her strength to hold at bay. Yet it wasn’t the blow to her head that drained her, it was the need to stave off the terrifying blackness of her unremembered dreams.
Somewhere deep inside her, a child screamed terror into the wind…and was answered by a greater terror, memories condensing where none had been before.
«Jessica?»
There was no answer.
At first Wolfe thought she had fainted again. Then he saw that her eyes were open, fixed on something only she could see.
Something terrible.
A chill touched Wolfe’s spine as he realized how deep Jessica’s fear must have been during the attack. Despite his vow to wear her down until she agreed to an annulment, he couldn’t help but ease her closer to his body, cradling her, protecting her because at that moment she was too defenseless to protect herself.
«Jessi,» Wolfe said very softly against her ear, «let me go. Don’t make me hurt you any more.»
Although he was certain she heard, she didn’t answer him in any way.
«Is that what you want?» he asked roughly. «No quarter asked and none given?»
Jessica neither moved nor spoke. It was as though nothing had been said between them.
«So be it,» Wolfe said, his voice bleak. «No quarter asked and none given.
4
The Rocky Mountains rose steeply beyond Wolfe’s home. Their icy peaks were swathed in clouds, their broad shoulders streaked by the changing season, and their feet firmly rooted in the plains Jessica had learned to love while on safari with Lord Stewart. She had never been to Wolfe’s home, for Lord Stewart had preferred to hunt in Wyoming Territory. Even so, she hadn’t expected Wolfe’s house to be large, for she knew that most Americans couldn’t afford such splendor as Lord Stewart’s country mansions.
However, Jessica hadn’t understood what living in a small house meant in terms of day-to-day intimacy. Wolfe had. He had been anticipating her dismay with real pleasure, assuming that it would bring him a quick victory in the battle for annulment.
«Your house is quite handsome, but…» Jessica’s voice died.
«Yes?» Wolfe prompted, knowing very well what was bothering Jessica.
«There is only one bedroom.»
His black eyebrows lifted in silent, sardonic amusement. «Are you certain?»
«Quite,» Jessica said, slipping back into the clipped accents she had worked so hard to shed. «And there is only one bed in that room.»
He nodded.
Smiling, forcing her voice to be teasing, Jessica asked, «Are you going to make your bed in the willows with the birds?»
«Why would I do that? The bed is large enough for two.»
«Wolfe, I’m serious.»
«So am I. I’m not an aristocrat, your ladyship. I’m an untitled bastard. In America we have a quaint custom among the lower classes — husbands and wives share the same bed.»
Jessica’s heart began to beat frantically. She clasped her hands together to hide their trembling and smiled coaxingly.
«Surely you’re joking.»
He laughed and said distinctly, «No, I am not.»
«You must be,» Jessica said, her voice light despite the pleading in her eyes. «No woman would suffer a man every night.»
«Noaristocrat, surely,» Wolfe retorted. «But a Western woman would. Ask Willow Black. She and Caleb share the same bed night after night after night, and both of them spend their days looking like they’ve swallowed the sun.»
The naked longing in Wolfe’s voice irritated Jessica so much that she forgot her fear of sharing not only a bedroom with Wolfe, but a bed as well.
«Willow again,» Jessica said, concealing her annoyance beneath a sigh. «What a paragon she must be.»
«Yes.»
«Where do Western women who aren’t paragons sleep?» Jessica asked mildly. «In the stable?»
«Only if they don’t spook the horses.»
«No stable for me, then.» She took off her hat and shook down her half-unraveled braids. «The horses will take one look at my hair and think the hay is on fire.»
Unwillingly, Wolfe’s expression softened. In the days since the attack on the stagecoach, it had become nearly impossible to be with Jessica and not enjoy her company. She had been unfailingly cheerful, agreeable, charming, and witty. With one exception, she had enlivened the long stage ride for everyone.
The exception was the powerful blond stranger who had given them only one name: Rafe.
Wolfe andRafe had tacitly realized they would tangle if they both stayed caged up with a laughing young woman dancing between them. Without a word spoken on the subject, Rafe had spent the remainder of the ride with the driver. At the second stage stop, Rafe had bought a horse and saddle from a homesick Easterner and ridden off toward the setting sun after expressing his appreciation of Jessica’s nursing once again.
Rafehad been much too appreciative of Jessica, as far as Wolfe was concerned. Watching Jessica’s glance follow the soft-spokenRafe until he vanished into the incandescent eye of the sun had rankled Wolfe deeply. He couldn’t help wondering if Jessica would have stared atRafe in fright as she had at Wolfe when she awakened on the stage and found herself in his arms.