Garden of Lies(34)

Slater was grimly amused. “I think he knows how I feel about the matter. He is not interested in having a personal conversation about Fever Island.”

“Why not?”

“I think it is very likely that he suspects that I know what really became of the Jeweled Bird.”

“What are you talking about? It was stolen.”

“I was in the business of searching for lost and stolen artifacts, remember?”

A small shock of understanding struck her. “Good heavens. Yes, of course. You must have heard about the theft at the time.”

“It was a sensation throughout the world of collectors and museums. A number of clients offered to pay me handsomely to find it. But I went looking for it on my own.”

“You found it, didn’t you?”

There was a short silence.

“I know what happened to it,” Slater admitted.

“According to the press, the Jeweled Bird has become a legend. They say it is the source of the animosity between you and Lord Torrence.”

Slater watched her very steadily. “I don’t give a damn about the Jeweled Bird.”

She studied him for a moment. He was telling her the truth, she decided.

“Yes, I can see that the fate of the Bird doesn’t matter to you,” she said. “Your experience on the island is more important to you than the treasure.”

“My time at the monastery changed me, Ursula.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Slater?”

He walked slowly, deliberately toward her and came to a halt in front of her, inches away.

“I’m trying to tell you that meeting you changed me yet again. I do not feel as if I am watching you from offstage. When I am close to you as I am now, I feel you in every fiber of my being.”

She was speechless. Her mouth opened but she could not find words.

“There is something I must ask you,” he continued.

She went very still, half afraid that he would ask her for the truth about her past. The thrilling heat of the moment was instantly transmuted into an icy dread. She could not imagine that he had guessed her secret but she had to acknowledge that someone—the blackmailer—certainly had. There was no knowing now who else might be aware of her past.

“The question I must ask you has been keeping me awake nights ever since I met you,” Slater said.

She braced herself. “What is it?”

“You wear deep mourning. But I have been told that your husband died a few years ago. Do you think it will be possible to move past your state of grief and find it within yourself to form an attachment to another man?”

She was so stunned that for a moment she could only stare at him in shocked silence. Something dark and haunted moved in his eyes, drawing her out of her trance.

“Good heavens, Slater, I’m not locked in deep mourning,” she said, the words sharpened with relief. “Quite the opposite. I was married for less than two years. By the time my husband broke his neck falling down a staircase at a brothel, he had destroyed any love that I had once felt for him. I know I should be ashamed to admit it but frankly, even after discovering that he had gambled away every penny we possessed, I was relieved to have him out of my life. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes,” he said. “I believe it does.”

She could see the heat in his eyes. It robbed her of breath. Her pulse skittered and she was oddly shaky. She raised her gloved fingertips to touch the edge of his mouth.

He framed her face with his powerful hands and drew her closer.

His mouth closed over hers and everything she thought she knew of passion went out the window.

Matty’s words of warning floated through her mind. “They say he practices exotic sexual rites upon unsuspecting females.”

Evidently not all of the legends about Slater Roxton were false.





FIFTEEN




Her mouth was incredibly warm, soft and sensual. It was the stuff of a lonely man’s dreams. He was half afraid that he would awake to discover that he was hallucinating. But her response acted like a catalyst, ripping him out of the remote dimension from where he watched the world. It plunged him into the hot storms of passion.

He heard a harsh, reverberating groan and realized with a sense of shock that it came from somewhere deep inside him. Kissing Ursula was like opening a door in a maze, like walking out of a dark place into the sunlight. He was alive. He was free. Sensations cascaded through him so quickly and so intensely that he could hardly catch his breath. His blood roared in his veins.

He released her face and slid his hands down her elegant, tightly laced rib cage to the gentle curve of her hip. Layers of fabric and the stiff stays of the gown’s bodice kept him from the intimate contact he longed for but he was nevertheless thrilled just to know that he was so close, just to know that he was touching her, holding her at last—thrilled to know that she seemed to want him.

He was afraid of pushing too far, too fast but when she put her hands around his neck he got a little light-headed.

The next thing he knew she was up against a bookcase and he had one booted foot between her legs. The ankle-length skirts and petticoats of her dress rode up over his knee.

He caged her there, his hands planted on either side of her head, and wrenched his mouth away from hers with an effort. She gripped his shoulders as though afraid she might collapse beneath the onslaught. He found the sweet, silken skin of her throat. Her womanly scent aroused his senses and tightened every muscle. He was so hard he ached.