"There is something I want to know," he said. "I want to know how you lost your virginity."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

LUCAS FULLY EXPECTED Christina to tell him to mind his own d.a.m.ned business. He had put a distance between them, withdrawing from her, telling her as clearly as though he had used the words that he did not want intimacy, that he could offer her nothing. Yet despite that, he did not want to let her go. He needed her; he felt an urgent desire to keep her with him, to delay her when he knew she should be gone, back to the castle, back to her family, back to a life in which she played no part.

He looked at her. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, a rich auburn-brown tousle in the firelight. She was so beautiful, her face serene in repose, her blue eyes so honest and her skin so creamy smooth he ached to touch her again. There was a scattering of freckles across her shoulders. He wanted to kiss them, to kiss her, to feel that lush mouth against his. His body tightened simply at the thought.

"I'm not sure that is an appropriate topic for discussion," Christina finally said.

She looked at him, then smiled, a smile that was part shy and part wanton, and the l.u.s.t kicked him hard, and at the same time he felt his heart twist with emotion. He cared about Christina. She was too special, too lovely, not to care about. It felt strange and unfamiliar to acknowledge his emotions; he was not sure how he felt about them, but he was not going to deny them. There was no point in self-deception. He wanted Christina and he needed her and he had not the first idea in h.e.l.l what he was going to do about it.

"You're right," Lucas said. He put out a hand and pulled her down beside him, pressing his lips to the sweet hollow of her throat. "It is perfectly appropriate to make love," he murmured against her skin, "but we simply must not talk about it."

She laughed but there was a hint of uncertainty in it. "Lucas..."

"Yes?" He traced the freckles on her shoulder with his tongue. He could not help himself. He needed to touch her.

"It isn't appropriate, is it?" She eased away from him, drawing her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. Suddenly she looked young and afraid and it made his heart turn over. "It isn't appropriate for us to make love."

"It feels right to me," Lucas said truthfully. On impulse he reached out and drew her back into the curve of his arm. It felt good to have her there. He felt good and whole and complete.

"It does to me, too." She looked puzzled. She reached up to kiss him, a little tentatively, a brush of the lips that had him wanting more. "I don't want this to end," she said. "I tried. Truly I did. I know you did, too. But..."

"Then don't think about it." He pulled her to him and kissed her for a third time, the rush of desire between them instantaneous as wildfire. Lucas knew he should tell her the truth about himself, now, immediately, before any more damage was done, but here, now, in the quiet of the Round House with the wash of the sea against the rocks below and Christina in his arms, he felt the first peace he had known since Peter's death. Later, he thought as he lost himself in the kiss. Later he would tell her everything, explain everything.

"I used to think that I was wanton for desiring such things," she said softly, her hand sliding beneath his shirt to find the warm skin beneath, "but now I can only believe that something that feels so right cannot be wrong." She frowned slightly. "I wonder if it is always as good as that? Somehow I doubt it can be."

"No," Lucas said truthfully. "It isn't." He smiled at her seriousness. "It's seldom as good as that."

She laughed. "I thought you did not make a practice of this?"

"I never said I had always lived as a monk," Lucas said mildly. "When I was young I too was curious and hot-blooded."

"And now that you are older," Christina teased, "matters are quite different."

Lucas tangled a hand in her hair, savoring the soft satin of it as it slid between his fingers. Tilting her head up, he kissed her again, running his tongue over her lower lip, sliding it inside her mouth. He deepened the kiss, feeling a shock of pure need that cut as fiercely as a knife blade. She tasted sweet and hot and he could think of nothing but how much he wanted her.

"Oh." Her voice was little more than a sigh. "I know I should not do this again, but it feels so very good...."

Lucas swallowed hard. Her open enjoyment made him feel as though he could conquer the world. "I am glad," he said. "Glad that you liked it." His voice was a little rough. The fire felt hot.

She traced lazy patterns over his chest even as they kissed. Her hand slid lower, over the flat planes of his stomach, and he felt a quiver of response. She nipped gently at his throat, his shoulder, the hollow beneath his ear, and he shut his eyes and let the sensations flow through him, without thought now, simply feeling. It was exhilarating to abandon himself to seduction. She was flicking her tongue over his chest now, tasting him, exploring his body with an innocent sort of boldness and pleasure that was intensely arousing. He reached for her, but she slid down his body, frustrating his attempts to hold her, shedding his clothes as she went. The slight clumsiness of it only served to make his heart ache all the more and stoke his arousal higher at the same time. Her lips and tongue danced across his stomach and brushed his thigh with inquisitive enjoyment, and he groaned and tried to roll her beneath him, but she turned the tables and straddled him, sliding back up his body, rubbing sinuously against him.

His breathing was unsteady. He could not control it, nor the urgency with which he pulled her head down to his, tangling his hand in her hair as her mouth came down on his. Her body slid over his, and down, sheathing him, so hot and so tight that he would have shouted aloud had she not been kissing him. He gasped, arching up into her and tempted beyond endurance.

He rolled her over so at last he could take her as he wanted, plunging into her, filled by the taste of her, driving them both on until there was nothing but the whirl of sensation and desire. But suddenly he did not want this impatience, this greed. He wanted to bank down the pa.s.sion that blazed between them and give them time. His hands slowed. He moved with a leisurely pleasure that had her murmuring broken pleas for satisfaction. There was tenderness with a sharp edge of desire and gentleness that still aroused. He explored her the way he had always wanted to do, learning each curve and contour of her body, each dip and hollow. She moved with him and against him, and for the first time in his life he allowed himself to surrender completely to the need he had for a woman, this woman, body and soul. He felt her body shatter with pleasure and she arched beneath him, crying out his name. Still he moved with the same deliberate control, feeling her quicken again, her body sheened golden in the firelight, her skin flushed with pa.s.sion. He kissed her and felt her body grasp him, and this time he allowed himself to fall, too, into the shuddering relief of fulfillment. He had known that taking her again would make no difference to his hunger for her. If anything it was more acute each time he touched her. He pulled her close, resting his cheek against hers, breathing hard.

He did not know how long it was before he stirred again. He felt no need to move, no need to think. He had drawn the blankets over them and they were lying entwined in the warmth and light of the fire, and he would have been happy to stay like that forever. The sense of peace inside him had strengthened. So had the sense of belonging, as though he was bound fast to this woman and never wanted to let her go. It should have frightened him, yet it did not. It felt entirely right.

When he opened his eyes, hers were already open and she was looking at him.

"You asked me a question," she said. Her palm was flat against his chest. "Do you want to know the answer?" She was hesitating, blushing. She did not meet his gaze. All he could see was the downward curve of her lashes against her cheek.

"Yes." He shifted her more comfortably into the crook of his arm. He remembered that he had wanted to know how she had lost her virginity because he was certain that it was connected in some way to the one thing that she had never talked about, the one thing she pushed away-her mother's death, her broken betrothal and the sacrifice of her future for her family and her clan.

"It's true that I have had a lover before." The look she gave him was sweet and shamefaced, full of defiance, exactly like the innocent virgin she was not. "But you knew that from the first, didn't you?"

"I guessed," Lucas said. He pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Christina's blush had deepened. "No one expects virginity in a man. But in the unmarried daughter of a duke..." She let the sentence fade away.

"Society has double standards," Lucas said, "as well as unreasonable expectations of women." He shrugged. "Half of the human race joins without the blessing of marriage. No one knows that better than I. Women have needs and desires the same as men do."

She tilted up her head so that her blue gaze scanned his face thoughtfully. "That is a very enlightened att.i.tude," she said drily. "Especially for a man."

"I don't judge," Lucas said. He spread his hands. "How could I? I am a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, the child of an unmarried mother. And-" he smiled, wanting her to understand, wanting her to know he meant what he said "-it does not make you any less special, Christina. It does not make you any less you. All our experiences make us the people we are. And you are very lovely."

Her eyes lit up like stars and he felt a huge thump of emotion literally knock the breath out of him. h.e.l.l. He was losing his detachment, losing himself in his feelings for her, and he was not sure he even minded.

"Thank you," she said simply. "You said you had guessed," she added. "How did you know I had had a lover?"

"From your kiss, I think," Lucas said. "You responded like a woman who had been kissed before."

"Kissing is one thing." She sounded rueful. "Any number of debutantes will steal a kiss from a beau. Making love is another matter. That is the line over which we are not supposed to step."

"But you did?" Lucas asked.

She sat up, wrapping one of the blankets around her, and placed some more twigs on the fire. She did it neatly, without fuss. Lucas realized that he liked that in her, that lack of fuss. It was just one of the many things he found so appealing about her.

"I was betrothed," she said with the same matter-of-fact honesty she always gave him. "I was young, curious..." Her shoulders lifted in a sort of humorous half shrug as though she was deploring the impatience of her girlish self. "We were soon to wed so I thought it could do no harm."

Lucas was thinking of his mother. She had been young, too, and pa.s.sionate, careless of the consequences of her actions. She had loved his father; she had told him so. It was just a pity she had trusted him.

"Did you love him?" he asked.

Regret shadowed Christina's gaze, and it was so vivid it made his heart miss a beat. "Yes," she said simply. "I loved him with all my heart, with everything that was in me. I was young and I had nothing to compare it with, nothing to prepare me." She broke off. "He was handsome, and young, and I found him very pleasing." The firelight illuminated her smile. It was a little secret smile that made Lucas's heart pound with jealousy. "And I wanted to know what s.e.x was like." She traced a pattern on the rock with her fingers and avoided his eyes. "I was in love with l.u.s.t as well as with him," she said after a moment. "We met as often as we could. My mama was sick and she was a lax chaperone. I regret that I took advantage of her sickness to do as I pleased, but I imagined that I would soon be wed." She hesitated. "I thought nothing could happen to alter that. I did not realize how easily life can change, in an instant, everything-" she snapped her fingers "-blown away."

"What happened?" Lucas asked.

She shifted and her gaze slid away from his. For the first time he had the sense of something painful that she was holding back.

"My father broke my betrothal," Christina said. Her voice was colorless now. "My mother died and he decided he needed me to help care for the younger children. They had nursemaids and governesses and tutors but it was not enough. They needed the love of a mother."

"Which you provided." Lucas could feel his anger catch and burn. "Why could he not provide the love you all needed?" he demanded. "Why not remarry if he wanted a wife and mother?"

Christina made a slight gesture. "Papa was not really capable-"

"Of loving anyone other than himself?" Lucas said.

"I was going to say capable of coping," Christina said. "He never could care for himself, or for anyone else."

"So he took your dream of marriage and broke that instead." Lucas's fury was so intense he had to make a conscious effort to keep his voice quiet. "And your betrothed?" he said. "What did he do?"

"He didn't fight for me, if that is what you mean." Again her tone was dry and he liked her for that tartness, that refusal to show self-pity. "He told me I had to abide by my father's wishes, and then he went to London and married an heiress with sixty thousand pounds. It was then I recognized that I had wasted my love on a man who did not deserve it."

"He was a worthless scoundrel," Lucas said.

He wanted to find her spineless fiance and kick his teeth in. He wanted to punch the coward who had been happy to take Christina MacMorlan's virginity but who, when it came to the point, was not man enough to claim her for his own.

Claim her...

His body tightened with a blinding wave of possessiveness and l.u.s.t.

Christina MacMorlan was his to claim now, and he would not let her go. She was his in every way that mattered.

It felt as though she had wrapped herself about his heart.

The thought was terrifying, and yet at the same time, instinctively, in the very depths of his soul, he knew it was right, inescapable, destiny.

"I am sorry," he said.

She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. "I was unprepared, I suppose," she said. "These things. .h.i.t you harder when you have no experience to help soften the blow. When I loved I never held anything back. It was a mistake."

"No," Lucas said. "Your only mistake was to trust a man who was not worthy of you."

He allowed his gaze to drift over her, over the slope of her bare shoulders and the curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the soft folds of the blanket. He wanted her, not only in the physical sense but also in a far more complex way. For the first time in years he felt fear, fear that he would lose something so infinitely precious, so important to him, that the loss of it would push him as close to breaking as he had ever been. And he sensed in that he and Christina were alike.

Christina caught his glance and a little frown touched her eyes.

"Lucas?"

He moved closer to her, took her hand in his. "Both of those were appalling betrayals," he said carefully. "Your father breaking your betrothal, your worthless fiance failing to stand up to him... They must both have hurt you a great deal."

She shrugged, but he sensed the tension in her now, wound tight, as though she knew he was not going to let this go this time. "I was disappointed in them," she said expressionlessly. "McGill was weak and my father was selfish. You have said so all along-" a faint smile curved her lips "-and I know that you are right. But..." She stopped.

"But that was not what hurt you the most," Lucas said.

She stiffened. It felt as though he had suddenly come up against the most forbidding barrier of all, utterly solid, impossible to breach, a deep, terrible grief that she would never allow herself to release.

"Christina?" he said.

She turned toward him and he was shocked to see the fierce glitter of tears in her eyes. She looked angry and forlorn at the same time, a furious angel, and a heartbroken child.

"None of it would have happened if she had not left me," she said. The words burst from her. "I loved her. I needed her! I was only eighteen."

"Your mother," Lucas said. He felt a huge rush of sorrow and compa.s.sion for the girl she had been. "You needed your mother."

"I never thought things would change." The glitter in Christina's eyes intensified. A big teardrop splashed onto the rock by her hand. "I was happy. I thought I knew what the future would be and then, in an instant-" her voice faltered "-I wasn't safe anymore," she said. "Everything had gone."

"Sweetheart," Lucas said. He gathered her into his arms. He could feel her trembling, little sobs that racked her whole body.

"You tried to take her place," he said. "You have been caring for people ever since." He drew her closer, stroking her hair gently as her tears dampened his chest. "Hush, it's all right." He kissed her wet cheeks and she clung to him as though he was the only safe thing in a stormy world. "You're safe now. Everything will be all right."

She burrowed closer still. "I was so frightened," she whispered. "There was no one to help me. Papa, McGill..."

"They failed you," Lucas said. He brushed the damp hair away from her hot cheeks. "I'm sorry for that," he said. "I'm sorry that they let you down when you most needed them."

She shook her head but she held on to him all the more tightly.

"Christina," he said, knowing he meant it, "I'll never leave you. I swear it."

She went very still. "Lucas..." She sounded shaken, and when she looked up her gaze was wary. "But-"

"There are no buts," Lucas said, "no reservations." He kissed her. "Marry me," he said. He had meant to wait to ask her but he could not. He knew he should give her time but suddenly it felt as though he did not have any. He wanted to tell her everything, to lay the whole truth before her and at the same time rea.s.sure her that he would always be there for her.

She was quiet, and for one terrible moment Lucas thought that she was about to refuse him, and the world felt a very empty place indeed.

She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest again. "Lucas, are you sure?" She still sounded uncertain.

"Yes," Lucas said. "Very sure. I want you. I want to marry you." Urgency possessed him with the need to tell her the truth. "Listen, Christina," he said. "There are things I need to explain-"

She pressed her fingers to his lips. "In a moment." She hesitated. "It will be difficult for you." Her tone had changed. She sounded brisk and practical. "You do realize that? People will talk. There will be slights and sneers. Society will demean you at every turn. You have already endured the stigma of being a fatherless b.a.s.t.a.r.d." She looked wretched all of a sudden. "I cannot ask you to become an outcast again for my sake."

She was still thinking of him. With a rush of understanding Lucas realized that she was antic.i.p.ating a huge scandal, people calling him a fortune hunter and ripping his character to shreds with their malice. She had not even considered what they might say about her because she was so considerate of his feelings. Protectiveness stole his breath.

"You are the sweetest and most generous woman there is," he said. "But if I had to walk barefoot through h.e.l.l, I would still want to marry you. It would still be worth every step."

"Thank you," she whispered. "Then I will be honored to be your wife."

They sat there for a while clasped in each other's arms, and then Christina got to her feet. Lucas felt a sense of loss, a feeling that he was not complete without her.

"I really must go," she said. "We will talk about this tomorrow. I need to go to the whisky still this evening." She was hunting for her clothes, dressing haphazardly. She sounded brisk, efficient. Lucas was aware of a very strong urge not to let her go, as though this moment between them could never be recaptured. He felt a sense of dread, formless but powerful, in the pit of his stomach.

"Christina," he said, suddenly urgent, "please promise me that you will give up the whisky smuggling."

He saw the faint light shimmer on the expression in her eyes, the astonishment that he should broach this here, now. Urgency grabbed him, drowning out all the other things he was going to say.

"One day," he said, "it will be you Eyre is coming to arrest, not one of the other members of the gang. Get out before it is too late."

She touched his cheek. "I will," she said. "This is the last batch of peat-reek. I promise."