Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(100)

“I wasn’t planning to get this close to the fire—” she began.

“To hell with your plans! I look around the first moment I have to rest, and I find you lit up like a candelabrum!”

Rosalie opened her mouth to answer and found herself being shaken again. Unfortunately it seemed that Rand planned to continue the pattern for a considerably long time, and she threw her arms around his neck to make him stop.

“Why? Why did you disobey me again?” he demanded, and she cut through the haze of his rage with a few soft words.

“Because I love you,” Rand froze, staring at her as if he did not trust his ears. His grip loosened as his fingers became lax with surprise. “You . . .”he began to repeat, and the hard edge of anger fled from his expression. It was almost more than one man could bear, to be afraid for her and infuriated with her at the same time, and then to be overcome with a wave of love so intense that he could not speak. Suddenly his mouth was on hers, his hand framing the side of her face and pressing her head against his shoulder. She parted her lips, accepting the plundering of his tongue, the blood surging fast and hot through her veins in response. It seemed that he kissed her for hours, and when he lifted his head she felt as though she was floating.

“I’m still going to thrash you,” he whispered, his lips brushing against hers as he spoke. Everything around them—the fire, the crowd, the smoke—was forgotten in the wonder of momentous discovery.

“I love you,” Rosalie repeated, discovering with delight that her statement elicited a new surge of warmth to gentle his expression.

His mouth twitched wryly as he contemplated her small face. “You think you’ve found a magic phrase to calm my temper,” Rand said huskily. “I’ll admit, it does much to soothe the ire . . . but I intend to keep my word, and you won’t escape completely free for having ignored my wishes.”

“I was afraid that something might happen to you,” she said in a small, apologetic voice. “When I saw the roof of that cottage collapse I thought that you might have been inside. I wanted to die.”

He understood exactly how she felt, more than anyone else could. His fingers played lightly at the nape of her neck, tranquilizing the tightened nerves there. As Rosalie allowed her head to rest against his shoulder, Rand murmured in a soothing tone, “I know, sweet. But have you stopped to think that all of that, including the damage done to your gown, would have been avoided had you listened to me before? Tonight you’ve aged me another ten years, fleur, and at this rate I don’t have much longer to last.”

“Please take me home,” she whispered, drifting in the warm pleasure she derived from the sensitive touch of his hands. “I want to make love with you.”

Rand’s mouth curved in a reluctant smile, his eyes gleaming with tiny golden lights. “God. You have a hell of a way of ending a lecture, my love.”

Rosalie sat in front of the fireplace in her bedchamber, staring absently into its vivid depths as she curled her feet more tightly underneath her silk-clad form. She held a lacquered brush in her hand and drew it through her newly washed hair, brushing over and over again until the warm length of it formed a lustrous curtain around her shoulders and back. The wavering light and the rhythmic motion of the hairbrush served to calm her overwrought nerves, for it had been a trying night. After riding home alongside Rand and Guillaume, she had been subjected to an impassioned lecture from Madame Aivin and reproachful glances from Mireille. A steaming bath had followed, as well as a thorough scrubbing to rid her hair and skin of soot and smoke.

There had been no word of good night from Rand, an optimistic sign, for Rosalie guessed that when all of the residents of the château retired he might come to her room. Wistfully she tilted her head and brushed the sable waves over one shoulder, preparing to braid them into a thick skein.

“Leave it loose.”

The soft request came from the doorway, and Rosalie turned to face the visitor as the door closed with a quiet sound. Rand stood there in a wine silk robe, leaning back against the portal as he regarded her steadily. His hair was damp and freshly cropped, the singed ends shorn off to reveal a shine of pure amber. A log in the fireplace crumbled with a rustling sound, giving off a brief flash of white-gold light that played over his face and eyes with a peculiar luminescence. Rosalie caught her breath as she stared at him, knowing that something was different about him but unable to identify it. For an instant he seemed like a sleek, handsome stranger, and she was motionless as his hazel gaze swept over her. Then he smiled slowly, and she flew to him with an incoherent sound, suffused with love for him. Rand enveloped her in his arms, smiling against her hair as she stood on her toes to accommodate his height.

“I assumed you’d be asleep,” he said in a muffled tone, lacing his fingers in the silky curtain of hair that provided a constant temptation to him.

“I’m not tired at all.”

“I’m so glad to hear it,” he replied, his smile tinged with wryness as he lowered his head to kiss her.

His mouth slanted passionately over hers, and the next thing Rosalie was aware of was that she was lying by him on the bed with no memory of how they had gotten there. He made no move yet to undress her, but his hands wandered over her with unhidden curiosity and more than a touch of possessiveness. “I love you,” he whispered, and Rosalie flushed with the surge of joy that his words elicited.