Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)(43)

Perhaps she would say that the primary thing that held her back was the fear that once again, he would be the one to walk away.

She pulled her hand in his grasp. But his hand was as steadfast and gentle as a velvet manacle.

“You must see me as the most pitiful, ineffectual, cringing little rabbit.” She pulled again.

In response, he set his hand on her shoulder and turned her to the right. “Look straight ahead,” he suggested. “I think I may be seeing you for the first time.”

Kate looked across the room. The fire burned low. The cavernous maw of the fireplace was framed by a simple mantel. Above that hung a looking glass.

She could see their reflections in that expanse of silvered glass—Ned, tall and strong, vitality wafting off him. In the mirror it seemed as if he were barely touching her—his hand on her wrist, his arm lightly overlaying her shoulder. Two simple points of contact. The mirror could not show how his touch seared her skin.

She shuddered. Looking at the two of them framed in the mirror seemed even more intimate than their wedding night had been. She could feel the warmth of his body behind her. She could imagine him taking one step in, enfolding her in those strong arms of his. She could feel the warmth of his breath against the back of her neck. And yet there was nothing anonymous about his touch, because she could not escape his eyes in the looking glass.

They sparkled with deceptive friendliness.

“No,” he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t look at me. Look at yourself.”

Her hair was so light it was almost colorless. Her skin seemed wan; her dress fitted to her form, bound and corseted and drawn in on itself, as if she were so insubstantial that she needed whalebone to prop her up. She looked like a dainty, breakable lady.

“I’ve seen you before,” Ned said quietly. “But I think it’s high time I look again.” His hand came up; she could see it in the reflection, before the callus of his thumb swept alongside her face. “First, there’s the line of your jaw. A perfect curve, held high. It’s one triumphant, resolute sweep. This line—” his finger traced it back again, and the hairs on Kate’s arm stood up “—this line says you are a woman who will brook no nonsense. I believe I have discovered that before.”

Kate swallowed. In the mirror her neck contracted.

His hand slid down that smooth expanse of skin.

“Then there are your shoulders.” His thumb spread along her collarbone. “I have never seen them bowed by fear or drawn together in weariness. You carry your shoulders high, and no matter the weight that is set upon them, you do not falter.” His voice dropped.

As he spoke, his hand traveled down her spine. She could feel the heat of him through the layers of muslin and whalebone as that hand traversed the curve of her back. When he reached her waist, he slid his hand around her front to grasp her own. His fingers entwined with hers, briefly; then he turned her hand palm up, in his.

“I’ve heard,” he said dryly, “that fortune-tellers can see your future in the palm of your hand. What do you suppose I see in yours?”

Her hand was dwarfed by his, her fingers seeming wan next to his. The color of his hands made her think of long days aboard ship, of adventurous treks with strange beasts cavorting nearby and strong men with sharp cutlasses. She could feel the heat of him, as if all the sun absorbed in that golden brown skin were emanating from him now.

Next to him…

“I look small,” she said. And fragile. The kind of woman to be set to side, for fear that she would shatter. That was all anyone had even seen in her.

“I think you look delicate,” he corrected. “Delicate and indomitable, all at once. I see no tremor in your hands, Kate, no fear, no smallness of character.”

“But I—”

“And when I look into your eyes,” he said, “I think you are as implacable as an archangel.”

He closed his hand around hers; her fingers curled into a loose fist, cradled in his. “Your feelings,” he said, “are your own. And if you hold them tight to your chest, nobody need ever see beneath the surface.”

As he spoke, he leaned into her. His words brushed her skin in little puffs of breath.

“Nobody need see a thing. But I want to,” he breathed.

She turned her head to look up into his eyes. And that, assuredly, was a mistake, because if her stomach had been in knots before, the knot clenched into a tangle of Gordian proportions when she looked in his face. She could not have unraveled herself from his gaze, and when she tried—when she glanced away—her eyes alighted upon his lips. Strong and smooth, powerful and gentle.

It left her with the most curious fluttering feeling in her belly. Not that he was going to kiss her—but that he had already done so. Her lips already burned with the impression that his words had left on her. Her skin flamed with the possibility of his nearness. And no matter how practical she told herself to be, rational thought fled before his words.

When Kate parted her lips and stood on her tiptoes, turning in his embrace, it seemed she was merely bringing the words he had spoken to their physical conclusion.

She kissed him, not because she wanted to bring him to his knees, but because he had lifted her off hers. She tasted him, and he tasted of salt and man and the power that the right woman could wield in the right place. And he kissed her back, giving no quarter.