Surrender to Me Page 8

  Turning, he unsaddled their mounts. He slapped Waya on the rump to let him wander, knowing he wouldn’t stray far and would return at once with a whistle. Hobbling off the little mare, he returned with his saddlebag slung over his shoulder and bedding tucked under his arm.

  Squatting beside her, he shook out a tarp and patted for her to sit. She obliged, watching him all the while with that steady, unflinching gaze. Dark, fathomless. Direct and frank, pulling him in.

  He handed her his water flask and moved off to hunt down kindling for a fire, grateful for a moment alone, for distance from that mesmerizing gaze.

  “It’s going to be a cold night,” he commented upon his return. He glanced up at her as he arranged the kindling, eyeing her navy gown, the wide skirts and tight bodice with buttons straight up to the throat. Dressed so modestly, it was a wonder she roused his interest. Standing, he brushed off his hands and searched through his leather saddlebag, pulling out a small bundle of oilcloth wrapped in twine.

  “Here.” Unfolding the paper, he offered her the jerky.

  She took the dried meat from him as if it might come alive and bite her. Turning it over in her hand, she asked in those proper accents that twisted his insides into knots, “What is it?”

  “Jerky.” At her blank look, he added, “Dried venison.”

  “Oh,” she murmured, lifting her gaze and watching him tear off a bite with his teeth. After a moment, she followed suit, her small perfect teeth gnawing daintily on the meat. Something curled in his gut at the simple sight. So basic, so elemental, that he immediately imagined that mouth on him, those pearl teeth grazing his flesh, nipping at his mouth, his neck, his chest.

  Clearing his throat, he shoved the image away, fighting it back down his suddenly tight throat. The woman had just lost her husband, and here he was imagining tossing her skirts over her head.

  “It’s just for tonight,” he assured her. Tomorrow he would leave her in Edinburgh and he would continue on his way to Balfurin. Although he could not say for certain whether he would receive any hospitality when he reached his destination. He did not even know if the man he sought still lived.

  “I’m tired,” she murmured on a sigh as she finished her jerky, the first comment she had volunteered in awhile.

  “Get some rest,” he encouraged, doubting she had slept much last night.

  Nodding, she snuggled down onto the tarp, pulling a blanket up to her shoulders. Several moments passed in which neither spoke. He looked away, deciding he needed time to get a grip on his attraction before he looked her way again.

  He assumed she slept until he heard her voice, strong and clear. “I don’t believe I’ve thanked you, Mr. Shaw.”

  His eyes met hers over the spitting fire. He broke a twig and tossed it into the writhing flames, noting the way the flames gilded her hair honey gold. “No, ma’am.”

  Her dark eyes clung to his for a long moment, glowing in the firelight like polished jet. “Thank you.”

  He gave a hard nod, unnerved by that dark mesmerizing gaze.

  He breathed with relief when her eyes drifted closed, shuttering the dark, compelling pools. Soon she slept, her chest rising and falling in slow, deep breaths beneath the wool blanket. Her stern features softened, and he realized she was younger than he first thought, not as old as himself, perhaps only five and twenty. Too young for someone to be so grave, so sad.

  He thought about the husband that had left her, the man that had wanted to marry another woman while still bound to her. An angry burn centered in his gut. He stirred the fire, watching as it chased shadows over her fair skin. She really was beautiful, mysterious and solemn…so haunted by propriety, constrained by the dictates of her proper British upbringing.

  She shouldn’t remind him of a blood-soaked battlefield. Or the woman buried there.

  She shouldn’t. And yet she did.

  She made him remember. Remember everything. All he sought to forget. San Jacinto. The violence of their surprise attack. The blood. The needless killing. They had the enemy whipped, but still they fought, still they had killed, cutting down so many. He remembered that massacre…and the woman that had been caught amid it all. Perhaps she had been a laundress, a camp follower. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

  He had shouted at her…at his fellow soldier charging her with a bayonet. Useless. She dropped, her dark-eyed gaze locking with his through the smoke-shrouded field.

  He remembered her. Remembered the plea he had failed to answer in those dark eyes. Liquid dark eyes. Black as sin. So like Astrid’s.

  And he remembered his father never looked at him the same way after the war. Aware of that day’s butchery, Donald Shaw never disguised his shame in him.

  With his father’s death, Griffin finally felt free to put that behind him. Or at least try. He hoped to learn the truth, to solve his mother’s deathbed ramblings and perhaps find his place in the world…to obtain a measure of redemption for himself. To discover if he was perhaps more than the man his father had judged him to be. A better man than even he believed himself.

  His prickly duchess rolled onto her side with a soft sigh. He studied the fine arch of her brows, several shades darker than her fair hair. Her lashes, dark smudges of coal, fanned her cheeks while she slept. His fingers itched to trace their inky lushness.

  He gave himself a hard mental shake, reminding himself that he liked women with blue eyes. Blue eyes full of mirth. Never dark eyes. Never.

  He liked women with humor, who knew how to laugh and smile. Not somber females with ghosts shadowing their eyes and diffidence in the curve of their mouth. That would make her too much like him.

  She was beneath the bed again. Blood crawled toward her on all sides. Bertram’s blood. Dark and thick as grease, it slid up her fingers, rolling over her hands and wrists, up her arms. She parted her lips to scream, but then the blood was in her mouth, choking her, drowning her…shaking her.

  Hard hands gripped her, jarring her very teeth.

  “Wake up. Duchess, wake up!”

  Astrid blinked, a scream lodged deep in her chest as she focused on the face above her. The fire’s glow licked at the shadowed features staring down at her, concern etched in the hard lines.

  “You’re safe now,” he murmured, brushing a lock of hair from her forehead. She flinched at the touch, and he hesitated, his hand hovering over her face, his palm wide, his fingers long and blunt-tipped, both elegant and masculine.

  “You’re safe,” he repeated, lowering his hand back down with infinite slowness, as if she were a skittish animal he must reassure. The tips of his fingers brushed her forehead, tenderly, gently.

  Her eyes locked with his, drowning in the pale blue of his stare. Tearing her gaze away, she looked around her, noticing for the first time that they shared the tarp and blanket. Some time during the night he had joined her. The air caught in her chest. A space no more than an inch separated their bodies. Her lungs tightened.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, tugging at the blanket that cocooned both of them, drawing it to her neck.

  His dark brows drew together over his eyes. “Waking you from a bad dream.”

  “No.” She shook her head and arched her spine to increase the space between the two of them. “What are you doing here? With me?”

  “I thought that obvious.” He blue eyes gleamed down darkly at her. “Sleeping. At least I was until you screamed in my ear.”

  “You cannot sleep with me,” she protested, wincing at the squeak in her voice. Clutching the blanket to her chest, she sat up.

  “We only have one tarp. And with the weather as it is, I thought it sensible to take what warmth we could from each other. I don’t relish the feel of cold ground beneath me.”

  Sensible. Her lips compressed. Glaring at him in suspicion, she wondered why he had not mentioned the specifics of their sleeping arrangements before she fell asleep. Before he crept beside her like a thief in the night.

  As though he read her mind, an
angry glint entered his eyes. “You needn’t look at me as if I’ve sullied you. I was sound asleep with no designs on your person until you woke me.”

  Astrid continued to glare at him, fingers tightening on the blanket as if he would rip it from her.

  “Jesus, lady,” he snarled, lying back down on the bedroll. “You really hold a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”

  She watched him as he settled onto his side, his back to her, suspicion still centered tightly within her chest.

  “I’m going back to sleep, Duchess,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Do whatever you like.”

  She stared at the rigid line of his broad back for several moments, suddenly feeling the fool. Could he not simply be as he presented himself? Honest and considerate. He’d had plenty of opportunities to molest her. Instead he had only aided her.

  Clearly, it went beyond her power to trust another soul. But was it any surprise? The most important people in her life—her mother, her father, Bertram—had failed her in some way. And when her turn had come, she had failed Portia.

  Not liking the realization that she trusted so little, that she was so jaded she imagined everyone disingenuous, that she herself was not to be trusted, she settled back down. Positioning herself on her side, she tucked her cheek on her forearm, the heat from his body radiating toward her.

  She held herself motionless, listening to rhythmic sounds of the night, the steady fall of his breath, deciding that she had overreacted.

  “Astrid,” she whispered, a peace offering of sorts.

  Moments passed and she assumed he had not heard her until he spoke. “What?”

  “Astrid. My name is Astrid.” Not Duchess. An empty title that meant nothing. Had brought her nothing. That rang with mockery when he said it.

  “Good night, Astrid,” he murmured at last, the rich rumble of his voice softening her name, making it sound almost pretty when she had always thought it rather harsh. Whenever her father had said her name it sounded like an epithet on his lips.

  Sighing, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax, letting her back brush against his…and telling herself she took no pleasure in the hard length of him so near her, touching her.

  That the warmth of another—a man—was not something she missed. Something she never had before.

  Something she now craved.

  Chapter 10

  An arctic cold arrived around dawn. With a shiver and several groggy blinks, Astrid lifted her head and assessed the mist-shrouded surroundings.

  She and Griffin no longer slept with their backs to each other but, in this early morning cold, sought warmth and cocooned together. Her upper body was pressed against his, breasts cushioned on the warm wall of his chest.

  Cheeks flaming, she attempted to slide her leg out from between his but found it wedged tightly between rock-hard thighs.

  His voice purred in her ear. “If you wanted on top, you only had to ask.”

  Her gaze collided with his heavy-lidded blue stare. Heat scored her cheeks. Her hair had come loose in the night and she blew at the blond strands falling in her face.

  Pressing her hands on either side of him, she pushed herself up, opening her mouth to reprimand him, well accustomed to putting gentlemen in their place.

  His hand came up, seizing her by the back of her head and dragging her down to him, smothering her words with the hot press of his mouth.

  His lips claimed hers, warm and soft, a tender caress that seemed at odds with such a rough man.

  He angled his head, taking more, trailing the warm tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips in a quest for entrance. She gasped and he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, gliding it against hers in a sinuous dance like nothing she had ever experienced.

  A lick of heat twisted in her stomach, thrilling in its strangeness. Frightening.

  She relaxed against him, melting into his hard length, her blood simmering, liquefying her bones.

  He tasted good, so good, like the way he smelled. Of wind and woods and man. For an insensible moment, her hands curled into his shirt, pulling him closer, mashing her breasts into his chest.

  He growled against her mouth, rolling her beneath him, settling himself between her thighs. Even with her skirts bunched between them, she felt the hard ridge of him, prodding and insistent against her belly. He shifted lower, rubbing against her groin, the very center of her—a place that throbbed with desperate intensity, a burgeoning ache that demanded satisfaction and made her squirm in need.

  Her fingers clenched the warm wall of his chest, clawing and twisting the fabric of his shirt. Her hips rose, thrusting against the delicious hardness of him.

  His lips lifted from hers on a hiss of air, just long enough for him to grit a single word against her mouth. “Duchess.”

  His lips fell back on hers, ravenous, his tongue delving past her lips…still, that feverish utterance struck like an arrow to her heart, reminding her of who she was. Who he was. Only one day widowed and she was rolling around on the ground with a man she barely knew? Without dignity. Without pride. No better than her mother. Easy pickings for some silver-tongued devil’s misuse.

  She shoved him off her, disentangling herself from the solid strength of his arms. Scrambling back, she put distance between them. Hugging her knees to her chest, she glared at him in the light of dawn.

  He rolled onto his side, watching her with a lazy, seductive gaze that fired her blood…and indignation.

  “Don’t think that my gratitude runs this far,” she hissed, rubbing the back of her hand over her mouth as if she could wipe clean the burning imprint of his kiss.

  He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes turning hard, the gleam of desire fading. “Gratitude?” he echoed.

  “Yes. Accepting your assistance does not grant you free use of me.”

  “I don’t recall forcing you to crawl atop me.”

  “It was unintentional, I assure you—not an invitation!”

  “And when we kissed? I heard no protests. Far from it.” One of his dark brows winged high. “You certainly did not hesitate to rub yourself against me.”

  Heat flooded her face. “I did not!”

  He laughed cruelly. “The sweetest whore never responded so readily.”

  “Oh!” She lurched forward, swinging a fist at his face.

  He caught her hand and hauled her against him. “Enough,” he growled, squeezing the breath from her. “Your virtue is safe with me. I don’t make it a habit to force myself on unwilling women.” His lips twisted. “One word of advice, though…if you are unwilling, you best learn a little restraint. Otherwise, you may find yourself on your back and getting more than you bargained for.” His hand splayed wide on her waist, fingers digging through her garments, searing into her flesh. “Understand?”

  She nodded fiercely.

  Chuckling, he released her. Astrid dropped back on the tarp, glaring at him as he rose to his feet and strode from the clearing.

  She trembled with fury. Restraint, indeed. As if she needed lessons on restraint. Her whole life had been about restraint. More than the likes of him would ever know. She was not about to change now.

  They broke camp quickly. The sun breaking over the horizon did little to chase off the chill, and she burrowed into her cloak as they advanced through trees and gorse thickening all around them, encroaching on their trail and slowing their progress.

  When they finally stopped at a sun-dappled glen late that afternoon, she eagerly slid off her mount, not waiting for his assistance, unwilling to risk him putting his hands on her.

  A brook burbled nearby. She followed him, ducking under low hanging branches, heeding his warnings of the rocky ground as he led their mounts ahead of them through the heavy undergrowth.

  At the brook, she lowered herself to the ground. Succumbing to mad impulse, she stripped off her boots and stockings. With a covert glance at him, she dipped her aching feet in the frigid water, hissing at the first contact.
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  He grimaced over the back of his mount at her. “You’re braver than I.”

  She shrugged. “Doubtful. I can’t even swim. This is as bold as I get.” Frowning, she thought back to her youth, to a day when she was seven. “My mother loved to swim. She tried to teach me. Once.”

  She shook her head, resisting the memory of her mother’s face, tight with frustration that her daughter did not share her spirit of adventure, that despite all her efforts Astrid had turned out as dull and remote as her husband.

  “Once?” he inquired.

  “I didn’t take to the water as she hoped.” Rubbing her chin, she shook off the memory. Looking up, she found him watching her with a thoughtful expression on his face, almost pitying.

  Shrugging, she added, “I did not inherit my mother’s adventurous streak.”

  “I don’t know about that. Not many ladies that would hare off to Scotland to bring their errant husbands to heel.”

  Shrugging again, she clawed a small pile of pebbles into a mound on the ground beside her with focused concentration. “I wouldn’t call it a sense of adventure. Obligation perhaps.” She tossed a pebble into the dark waters before her. “I had to stop him from ruining another woman’s life.”

  Tossing another pebble, she watched it plop into the water before shooting him a glance.

  He squatted beside her. Plucking a pebble from her little pile, he hurled it, and she watched it splash in the brook with more force than her efforts.

  She brought her knees to her chest, propping her chin and taking care to cover her toes beneath the hem of her skirt, mindful that she not reveal even an inch of flesh. She dared not. Not after his wholly unfair remark about her needing to learn a little restraint. Her. It was too absurd to believe.

  Glancing sideways, she studied his hands as he selected another pebble. They were broad with a sprinkling of hair, the veins running beneath the tanned surface manly and intriguing. She remembered the feel of those callused palms on her. Their texture had been erotic, rough and arousing against her skin.