Surrender to Me (The Derrings #4)(40)

Nodding, Griffin rose to return upstairs, understanding at once he and Astrid wouldn’t be permitted to depart any time soon. At least as far as the laird was concerned. He, however, had other plans. And they did not include sitting around this place for an indefinite amount of time regaling the old Scotsman with tales of snakes and Indians.

The laird’s voice stopped him. “A word of advice while you’re here.” Griffin slowed and looked over his shoulder. “Best keep an eye on that woman of yours. She’s got a cold manner about her that gives many a man a notion. You needn’t worry further about Lachlan, but there are others in the clan. A man likes to imagine he can be the one to light a fire in a woman with such a chilly way about her.”

Unbidden, the image of Astrid wild and frenzied beneath him flashed through his mind.

“Yes, I understand your meaning,” he returned, thinking that was the first thing he had noticed about her. That damnable aloofness, those obsidian eyes that the light never quite reached. Damn fool that he was, he had wanted to see the light flare in those eyes—had wanted to put it there.

“I’d keep her close.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He waved a broad hand in the air. “You have only my hospitality during your stay here.”

“Thank you.” Griffin turned and strode from the great hall. Marching up the stone steps, he hoped to find Astrid asleep when he entered the chamber. Cowardly, he supposed, but he had no wish to see her now with the light banked in her gaze.

The heavy wood door didn’t make a sound as he eased it open. He paused in the threshold, assessing the still form lying on the huge four-post bed.

He approached slowly, circling the bed, dipping his head to get a better look at her. Asleep, she looked every bit an angel, countenance relaxed, her lashes smudges of coal on her milky cheeks. The firelight cast entrancing shadows over her creamy shoulders, smooth and elegant as polished marble above the fur counterpane.

His gut tightened and he knew he had never beheld a woman like her. Fire and ice. Elegance and dignity. Even bedraggled and travel weary, she pulled at something deep inside him. He could not imagine her in his world. Life on the frontier would change her. Break her. Like it did so many women. Robbing them of their youth and putting them in the ground too soon. With a curse, he shook his head. Why was he even thinking such thoughts? It wasn’t as if he would be taking her home with him. Nor would she consider going with him. Even if he asked. And he would not.

He reached out to touch her face, then stopped. Dropping his hand, he removed his clothes, pausing when he noticed the tray on the table, the dishes shattered, the food, still mostly uneaten, in chaos amid the shards.

He glanced back at her, wondering if she had dropped the tray or thrown it. Dropped, he decided. The frigid duchess would not have succumbed to temper and shattered the dishes. And why should she have lost her temper anyway? She had announced that they would never make love again—had called what happened between them wrong. A mistake.

He slid in bed beside her, careful not to make a sound, heedful that he should not come in contact with one luscious inch of her.

A quick glance beneath the fur revealed she had donned her nightgown. He quickly lowered the fur, staring instead at the flowing mass of hair fanned out over the pillow, golden silk, a huge improvement from the tightly drawn bun that made her features look pinched.

He let his fingers stroke the loose strands against the pillow, confident that such a light touch would not wake her. He smiled ruefully. What happened to his penchant for dark-haired beauties?

His mind drifted to Adelaide, the girl he had always counted on marrying. At least one day. His own parents had expected as much. And he had never discouraged them from the notion. Nor had he encouraged it. Adelaide’s father, a neighbor, held the same expectations. A union between them would benefit both families, eventually merging their properties. And Adelaide was a nice girl. If uninspiring.

But now, lying in the dark, he could only dimly recall her face as he stared at the woman asleep next to him.

In truth, it all seemed so faint in his mind. Hazy. Adelaide. Texas. The life he left behind. The longer away, the less certain he was of where he belonged.

This journey was intended to give him answers, to fill the void his mother’s deathbed confession had left in him. To forget the way his father had looked at him, so full of disappointment and shame in his only son.

Only the closer he came to discovering those answers, to finding the truth eluding him…the more adrift he felt.

Sighing, he closed his eyes against the sight of Astrid, flinging his arm above his head, hand tugging idly on his hair.

Still, he could only see one face in his mind—the face of the woman next to him. The pinpoints of light glinting brightly in the dark of her eyes when she surrendered and let the fire take her.

Chapter 15
Astrid stretched upon waking, her muscles pliant and relaxed as warmed milk. Smiling softly, she drew her arms high above her head and released a tiny mewl-like moan.

“Sleep well?”

Eyes flying open, she pulled her arms down, memories of the night before—and who she had spent it with—flooding over her. The warmth evaporated from her body as she recalled how the night had ended. The harsh words. The venom of his gaze.

Her eyes sought Griffin, finding him sitting beside her, thankfully dressed.

He fixed his eyes coldly on her, the passionate lover gone, his eyes chips of blue frost, looking at her as if they had shared nothing. Nothing special. Nothing intimate. As if their bodies had not so thoroughly loved each other only hours before.