Chapter Twenty-One

A nthony lifted Cecilia out of his carriage and carried her up the steps to his house. She relaxed into his arms and closed her eyes. The butler who opened the door gaped in shock at the sight of the bloody woman in his master's arms and struggled for words.

"Fill my bath, and bring hot towels and clean bandages," Anthony ordered.

"Yes, my lord," the butler stammered.

Anthony carried her up the stairs and laid her gently on the bed. He removed her boots, her breeches, unbuttoned her waistcoat, pulled her shirt over her head. She watched him disrobe her, a peculiar look in her amber eyes. When she lay naked except for the cloth wrapped around her chest and left thigh, she pulled him to her and locked her lips with his. The satiny warmth of her skin melted through his clothes, scorching him wherever she touched him. He broke the kiss and forced himself to take a deep breath, willing his passion to cool. She smiled up at him, the strange incomprehensible emotion still haunting her gaze, and traced the line of his jaw with her forefinger. Anthony lay down in the bed beside her and pulled her into his embrace, clutching her as close to his chest as the thin layers of his clothing and her bandages would allow.

"Cecilia," he whispered, just to hear himself say her name. The syllables were honey on his tongue, sweet and satisfying. He tried to place what he was feeling, examining his limited experience of emotions. There was something there that he could not name. It tightened his chest and prevented him from speaking. He tried to call it lust. Relief. Joy. Need. It would not respond to any of these names. He inhaled the scent of her sweat, salty and earthy and female. The feeling in his chest reacted with a contented stirring.

"What do we do now?" she asked softly.

The sounds of maids and footmen bustling to and from the bathroom just beyond his bedroom door had died down.

He knew that the "now" she meant was not the immediate "now," but he did not have a satisfactory answer for her, and his lips were unfit for any use other than kissing at the moment, so he carried her into the bathroom and helped her into the tub. She eased into the hot water and slowly unwrapped the bindings from around her chest. The tight fabric left red grooves in the skin of her breasts. Unable to merely sit by and watch her, Anthony stripped and sat down behind her in the bath, enfolding her tired body in his. He pulled the ribbon from her hair and separated the strands of her braid. She leaned back against his bare chest and sighed. He cupped a handful of water and splashed it over her left breast, washing the dried blood into the bathwater. Then he took her left hand in his and cleaned the cuts on her palm. She reached back and stroked his cheek.

He wrapped one arm around her chest and let the other glide leisurely down to her sex. She purred in satisfaction and shifted her hips against his hand. His fingers hovered over her hesitantly, unsure what he wanted from her or what she wanted from him. Watching her chest rise and fall with slow, heavy breaths, he almost hoped she had fallen asleep, that he could have a moment alone with his thoughts. She stirred against him and rested her hands on his knees.

"Thank you," she whispered. He looked down at her face, at the single tear making its way down her cheek.

"Don't cry." He wasn't sure if it was what he was supposed to say, but his mind couldn't form his other thoughts into words. Her weight against his chest, the warm expanse of her ribs as she drew breath, rendered him helpless again. Her hair, stirred by the movements of their arms in the water, brushed against him, tickling his collarbone. Breathing in time with her, he memorized each heightened sensation. A muscle in her back shifted against his pectorals. Thank God , he almost said aloud; this is real . This is not a fantasy. She was flesh and blood against his flesh and blood, as human as he. Not a statue. Not a corpse.

"I'm not crying," she said softly. "George is. He knows he is well and truly laid to rest now."

"And what about you?"

She paused for a moment, thinking. "I shall receive a letter in a few weeks informing me that George has given his life in battle. By Christmas, the Dukedom will pass to my father's second cousin."

"And will you be taken care of?"

"For the past few years, I, well George, has been completing all the necessary paperwork for all the ducal properties and funds, excepting the title and what is entailed, of course, to pass to Lady Cecilia Warenne at the event of George Warenne's death. I will be more than taken care of. I will be one of the richest women in England."

"Ah." His heart sank. So she did not need him. Doubtless she was now wealthier than he. He could make no offer to protect her financially. Considering she was a strong and stubborn female, he need not make an offer to protect her physically either. She would refuse it. There was nothing to tie her to him. She had gotten what she needed from him, and now the only way he could persuade her to stay by his side was to make love to her until she wanted no one else but him. And considering the way she'd chosen to give away her virginity, considering everything about her, that was unlikely to happen.

But, damn it all, he had not yet gotten what he needed from her. She had promised him what he needed in exchange for his help, and he could not shake off the feeling that she had not given him what he needed at all. She had given him her confidence, her secrets, her body. It was not enough. The unnamed feeling in his chest pushed him to say something, but his mouth, confused, would not open.

"And I should go home, soon. As soon as I am well," she continued. "Mother has continued the ruse of my confinement quite expertly. I would have been found out much sooner if not for her. I owe her much more than I can possibly give her, and she is all I have left." She leaned her head back against his shoulder and looked up into his eyes. She moved his hands up to cup her breasts. "I believe I owe you something as well," she whispered.

Anthony started to say, "You owe me nothing," but his body disagreed. He stood and lifted her out of the tub and carried her to the bedroom. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed his throat and the careless growth of golden stubble he had been too nervous to shave off that morning. He placed her on the bed and insinuated himself between her legs, pressing his chest into her breasts, anxious to feel her heat and softness, the beat of her heart against his. She arched her back up to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. He ground his erection against her thigh, the wet fabric of her bandage chafing his groin. Moaning, she rocked her hips up against him, positioning the tip of his member against her wet opening.

No. Too soon. She had to want him more.

He edged back, raking his fingernails over her breasts, down her abdomen, trailing a line of impatient kisses down her belly as his hair dripped pearls of bath water onto her skin. His tongue found the pink bud in the cleft of her legs and laved it, slowly at first, teasingly, then more urgently as she gripped his hair between her fingers and bucked her hips up against him. Make her want more. She tasted of aching hunger, or perhaps that was only what he felt but he couldn't be sure. He buried his face in her sex, the strange tight feeling in his chest snaking around his heart, spurring him on. She cried out and dragged his head up to meet hers, claiming his lips, still wet with her arousal. As her tongue sought his, a wave of weakness wracked his body as he struggled to maintain control. He fell to his elbows over her, his arms unable to hold him up.

"Anthony," she said breathlessly into his mouth. "I need you inside of me."

The feeling in his chest recoiled, her words touching on his own selfishness. Need. He thought he'd felt it from the moment he'd laid eyes on her. He needed her. It was a possessive, despotic word. It demanded. And he could demand nothing from Cecilia; he simply could not. With her, all he could do was beg, take what she gave and nothing more. He… loved her too much.

What? No.

He did not feel love. He never had. He believed in pleasure in the place of love. Her words came back to him. I did manage to confuse love and carnal pleasure rather badly . And now she was confusing them again, with him. No, that was him. He was confusing them. The room spun. He couldn't think.

He found himself sliding off the bed, walking towards his dressing room. "I have to go," his voice said, and surely those were another man's words, not his.

"Anthony?" she asked, puzzled. "What did I say?"

He closed the door behind himself and shut her out.