The truth had dawned. The key was to Flick’s side door-the one beside the stairs at the end of the wing.
He’d been shocked, especially when Horatia had seen his comprehension and smiled. They were shameless, the lot of them, but…
It was his turn to smile shamelessly-at Pris. “I’ll see you later.”
With a nod, he turned to the front door.
“What…? Wait!”
Glancing around, confirming they were alone, Pris started after him, reaching to catch his sleeve. “What do you mean-later?”
He halted, and looked at her. “Later to night.”
She frowned at him. “Later to night where?”
His brows rose; his eyes smiled-laughed-down at her, but there was an intentness behind the expression that had been growing sharper with each hour that passed. “In your room. In your bed.”
Shocked speechless, she simply stared at him. She finally managed to get her tongue to work. “No.”
Lifting her hand from his sleeve, he kissed her fingertips and released them. “Yes.” Turning, he walked to the door; hand on the latch, he looked back. “And don’t bother to lock your door.”
With a nod, he let himself out, leaving her staring at the closing door. When it snapped shut, she shook her head-shook her wits into place, shook her resistance back to life.
“No.” She narrowed her eyes at the door. “No, no, no.”
Swinging on her heel, she marched up the stairs and headed off to barricade her door.
She was not going to allow him to “persuade” her into marriage.
Standing to one side of the closed and definitely locked window in her bedchamber, Pris looked out at the dark night and wished he wasn’t so determinedly honorable, that he’d accepted her refusal, heaved a sigh of relief, and let her go. That would have been so much easier.
Regardless, his determination was only making her even more adamant, even more sure of her mind, heart, and soul. It was love-wild, reckless, passionate, and unbounded-or nothing. Love was the only bond she would accept.
It was the only one he should accept, too.
They were who they were. One way or another, he was going to have to face that fact.
She glanced at her door. It was closed; she’d tried to lock it only to discover that while it had a lock, the lock sported no key. She could hardly go and ask Flick for it, especially not at that hour, and even then, what excuse could she give?
Looking out once again at the garden below, poorly lit by the waning moon, she drew the shawl she’d thrown over her nightgown tighter and wondered how long she might have to wait…wondered where he was. She’d heard Rus come in a little while ago. Had Dillon brought him home? Was he down there, cloaked in the shadows, shifting as the bushes threshed in the stiffening wind?
A storm was rolling in, heavy clouds swelling, darkening the sky. The wind shrieked and rushed around the eaves. She smiled. She liked storms. She glanced down again. Did he?
Pressing closer to the glass, she peered out and down.
The footfall behind her was so soft, she almost missed hearing it.
Whirling, disbelief swamped her when she saw Dillon prowling halfway across the room.
He halted at the foot of the bed, shrugged out of his coat, tossed it onto a nearby chair, then calmly sat on the end of the bed, and glanced at her. “What are you doing over there? Did you imagine some Romeo and Juliet encounter?”
Eyes narrowing, she folded her arms, and walked closer. “Far from it. I wasn’t going to open the window.”
Dillon’s fleeting smile as he shrugged out of his waistcoat was quite genuine. Looking down, he reached for his boots. “How farsighted of Flick,” he murmured.
“What?”
Glancing up, he saw confusion and rapid calculation in Pris’s eyes. “Nothing.” Setting aside one boot, he reached for the other, but kept his gaze on her. He was closer to the door than she. Even though she didn’t glance that way, he sensed her tensing. “Trust me-you won’t make it.”
She looked at him and glared. Then she threw her hands in the air and turned away. “This is ridiculous! I am not going to change my mind and marry you simply because you and society deem I should. This”-pacing before him, she gestured, including the bed behind him-“won’t work.”
He lowered his second boot to the floor.
She dragged in a breath. Folding her arms, eyes spitting green fire, she halted before him, her fine nightgown whispering about her legs. “Why don’t you just ask me again, and then I can refuse you, and then you can leave-”
Pris swallowed a shriek as he grabbed her, as his hands clamped about her waist and he lifted her, tossed her-suddenly she was lying on her back in the middle of her bed, and he was leaning over her.
“No.”
She stared up into his shadowed face. She’d left a single candle burning on the nightstand, but it was screened by his shoulders, leaving his face unlit-mysteriously male, impossible to read. She frowned direfully up at him, valiantly ignoring her thudding heart, her already racing pulse. “No what?”
His concentration shifted to the tiny buttons closing the front of her nightgown. “No, I won’t ask you to marry me again-not yet. Not until you won’t refuse me.”
The words were even, his tone matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing some business strategy as he steadily slipped buttons free. “And as for leaving you…” He’d unbuttoned the gown to her navel; raising a hand to her shoulder, he pushed the material aside, baring one breast. He studied it; his features set. “That’s not going to happen.”
Bending his head, he took the furled nipple between his lips-and she forgot how to breathe. His tongue knowingly swirled, and she gasped and arched beneath him.
Beneath his hard frame, her body came alive, responding to his nearness, to the wicked temptation he was, to the illicit desires he so consummately stirred.
Her own wild desires; she knew that any second they would rise to his call-to his touch, his nearness-and sweep her senses away, leaving her wits struggling to cope, to control…something uncontrollable. She couldn’t-shouldn’t-let that happen.
Lids at half-mast, she focused on him, and was caught. By the expression on his face as he drew her nightgown down to her waist, baring her other breast, then reverently caressed both ivory mounds with fingertips that burned. His gaze was pure flame; his intent concentration had only one name. Devotion. Selfless worship beyond question.
Her voice shook, weak and breathless as she forced herself to plead, “Just ask me again.”
His dark gaze flicked up to her eyes, then returned to his obsession. Sexually pleasing her, pleasuring her. “No.” After a moment, he added, as she gasped and closed her eyes, as she felt him draw her nightgown farther down until it pulled taut across her hips. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
Fair? His hand splayed across her naked stomach, then pressed, and slid lower…
“Fair to whom?” She forced open her lids, forced herself to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at her face. He was watching his hand as he slid it beneath the band her nightgown had formed, as his fingers reached for and found her curls, stroked, gently played, then pressed on.
And found her, already swollen and wet for him, heated and welcoming as he stroked, lightly caressed, then he shifted his hand, boldly pressing her thighs wide, and slid one finger into her.
Then and only then did he look at her face.
He stroked, watching her, and evenly replied, “Fair to us. Me and you.” He reached farther; she shuddered and closed her eyes.