Ravished by the Rake Page 15

  ‘A fisherman’s hut, perhaps,’ Alistair said. ‘Here, come and lie down.’ He came across the room to help her to the rough cot and she saw him clearly for the first time. He was still wearing his evening breeches, but his shirt hung on in shreds and tatters, his stockings clinging to his calves. Dita looked down and found she only had her petticoats, much ripped, her stays and, under them, her chemise. Beneath that her questing fingers found a row of tiny globes. The necklace was safe.

  ‘And get those clothes off,’ Alistair added. ‘They’ll only make us colder. There are blankets. And, by St Anthony, the fire’s laid and there is wood.’

  Beyond modesty, Dita began to claw at the sodden fabric with shaking fingers. Alistair turned his back, knelt and set a candle to the fire. ‘You, too,’ she managed between chattering teeth as she furled a stiff and smelly blanket around herself. ‘If we pull this cot to the fire, we can both get in and share the heat.’

  Between them they dragged the rough-framed bed to the hearth. Alistair heaped the firewood close so he could reach out and throw it on, and then he stripped, the rags of his shirt disintegrating under his cold-clumsy fingers.

  Dita stared as he stood there in the firelight. ‘You are covered in marks.’

  He glanced down, unselfconscious in his nakedness. ‘The long boat hit me as we went in, I think. That’s probably the ribs.’ He prodded and winced. ‘The rest is rocks. There was a bad patch just after we were thrown out.’

  ‘Come to bed.’

  To her astonishment he managed a wicked grin. ‘I thought you would never ask, Dita.’

  ‘Idiot,’ she said and found she was near to tears. ‘Come and hold me.’

  He threw the other blanket over her and then slid in under it so her back was to the fire. Dita pulled open the blanket she was wrapped in and wriggled close until she was tight against his long, cold, damp body.

  ‘Mind you,’ he said, as he reached out to drag the covering over them, ‘this isn’t how I imagined our first time in a bed would be.’

  ‘We’ve been in a bed,’ she mumbled against his chest. Twice, if only he remembered.

  ‘Not naked and not in it.’ Alistair wrapped his arms around her tightly. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Your pearls. I had them made into a necklace in Cape Town and I’ve been wearing them ever since.’ She had put them under her clothes because she hadn’t wanted to give him the satisfaction of seeing how she prized his gift. That seemed so petty now.

  ‘Next to the skin?’

  ‘It improves the lustre,’ she said, daring him to comment.

  But all he said was, ‘Are you all right?’

  It was an insane question, she thought, then smiled. The hair on his chest tickled her lips as they curved. ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

  ‘So am I. Good being alive, isn’t it? Sleep now, I’ve got you safe.’

  He had kept her safe through that nightmare, her childhood terror made a thousand times worse, in darkness, in numbing cold. She pressed her lips to his skin in a kiss as she closed her eyes and tried to piece together her jumbled memories.

  She had been thrown out of the boat, Averil’s screams in her ears, and a hand had fastened around her wrist. She had known it was Alistair—those strong fingers, that implacable grip that did not loosen as they sank and then were thrown to the surface. How he had got her to shore she had no recollection. She must have passed out, but they could not have been in the water long or they would surely have died of the cold.

  ‘The others,’ she said, tensing in his arms. ‘Averil, the Chattertons, Mrs Bastable …’

  ‘We are safe, they may be too,’ he said, tucking her head more firmly under his chin. ‘And the other boats got clear of the rocks before that wave hit us. There are a lot of islands, it isn’t as though we went down in mid-ocean.’ His hand stroked down her back. ‘Sleep, Dita. There is nothing you can do about it now.’

  She slept and woke to find herself warm, with Alistair leaning over her on one elbow to toss another branch on the fire. There was a faint grey light in the room, coming through the thick salt-stained pane of glass in the window. The candles had gone out and the lamp burned pale in the dawn.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, looking down at her. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Alive,’ she said and smiled up into his stubble-darkened face. ‘You look a complete pirate.’

  He grinned. ‘You sound like one. Your voice is as hoarse as mine feels. I’ll have a look round in a minute, see if there is anything to drink. Then I’ll go and find if there is anyone living on this island. I don’t know which one it is.’

  Instinctively her arms tightened around him. ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘It won’t be for long—they are all small, I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘I’ll come, too.’

  ‘You need to rest, Dita.’ He looked down at her as she lay back against the lumpy pillow. ‘You’ve got a lion’s heart, but not its strength.’

  ‘I can manage. Alistair—I don’t want to be alone.’

  ‘Dita—oh lord, don’t cry, sweetheart, not now we’re safe.’ He bent over her, his amber eyes soft with a concern she had never seen before, not in the adult man.

  ‘I’m not.’ She swallowed, looked up, lost herself in his gaze.

  ‘No? What’s this?’ He bent and kissed the corner of her eye. ‘Salt.’

  ‘We’re both salty,’ she murmured and, as he moved, she lifted her head and kissed his mouth. ‘You see?’

  Alistair went still, his eyes watchful. ‘Dita?’ There was a wealth of meaning in that question and he did not have to explain any of it to her. She was warm now, and her blood ran hot and she was alive and she wanted him—because she was alive and because he had given her that gift. Against her body she felt him stir into arousal.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh, yes, Alistair.’

  He rolled, pinned her under him and she ignored the protests from battered, bruised muscles and wriggled until her hips cradled him and the wonderful hot threatening promise of his erection pressed intimately against her.

  Alistair took his weight on his elbows, which rocked his hips tighter into hers, and she gasped at the pleasure of it. ‘You are so lovely,’ he murmured. ‘You look like a mermaid, washed up at my feet.’

  She almost protested. She was sticky with salt, her hair a tangled, still-damp, mess. She knew how she looked every day, scrubbed from the bath with no artifice of hairdressing or jewellery or the subtle use of cosmetics. The lack of balance in her face, her long nose, her wide mouth—he would see all that with complete clarity. But he appeared sincere; he appeared to see her, at this moment, as lovely and she could not protest, not when the man she loved was about to make her his.

  ‘What is it?’ She must have gasped. ‘Did I hurt you? Am I too heavy?’

  ‘No. No.’ Dita stared up at the face above her, the man she had known virtually all her life. Her friend, the man she had thought she simply lusted after. I love him? Oh my God, I love him. And he would make love to her now and this time it would be perfect, because it was Alistair. He would heal that long-ago nightmare.

  He smiled, that wicked smile that had drawn her after him for all those years of her childhood, driving away the other, so-familiar, expression from his boyhood, that of concern for her. He’s saved me from every scrape I have got myself into—except Stephen. And when he led me into trouble, he got me out of that to, except that once. He could have ravished me on the ship, but he didn’t …

  Alistair began to kiss her throat, one hand sliding between their bodies, intent, she knew, on weaving sensual delight that would make her mindless, blissful, until she was his. He is practiced, he won’t hurt me, she thought as the first shiver of apprehension mixed with the pleasure. It had been a long time.

  He will realise I am not a virgin, but then, he thinks that I slept with Stephen. Thank goodness she had fought Stephen off, thank goodness the man she loved had been the only one. She stiffened at the memory of Stephen’s groping hands
.

  ‘Dita? Don’t worry, I won’t risk a child.’

  Alistair’s lips closed around her right nipple and she gasped as he sucked, her mind wiped blank for one exquisite moment. Then she fought through the sensation. It was important, because she loved him, that he did not believe that she had given herself to Stephen

  ‘I need to tell you something.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, now, Alistair. You know that I am not a virgin.’

  He lifted his head from her breast, intense, serious, his eyes dark and heavy with arousal. ‘I know. The scandal—that character you eloped with.’

  ‘Stephen Doyle. I never slept with him.’

  Alistair sat up and she tried to see his expression in the gloom.

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t you say so and put a stop to all the gossip?’

  ‘I suppose because I was too proud to explain that after an hour alone in the chaise I realised that I had been completely deceived in him. I spent two nights fending him off with the cutlery, but no one but my family would have believed me and I would have lost my dignity along with my reputation.’

  ‘Dignity? But if you were still a virgin—’ She saw the memory of her words come back to him. ‘Who was it, then?’

  ‘You.’ She had not meant to blurt it out, but the word simply escaped.

  ‘What? Don’t be ridiculous, Dita. When, for heaven’s sake? I would have remembered.’

  ‘Not if you were drunk and angry and very upset about something else,’ she said and watched his face change as he realised when she must mean.

  ‘Are you saying that the night before I left home I took your virginity? And I don’t remember it? Don’t be ridiculous, Dita. You were a child—I wouldn’t have done such a thing.’ He sounded furious. Dita watched as he flung himself off the crude bed and went to light the lantern, her stomach a tight knot of hurt misery.

  ‘I was sixteen,’ she said flatly. ‘I found you in the rose garden in the base of the ruined tower. I had never seen you like that—drunk and upset and so angry. You were almost incoherent and I couldn’t make any sense of what you were saying. I didn’t want any of the servants to see you like that, so I helped you inside and up the back stairs to your room.

  ‘And then I pushed you inside and you turned around and—Alistair, you looked so unhappy, I kissed you. I just meant to comfort you, like I would if you had fallen off your horse or something. But I missed your cheek and found your mouth and then something happened. It didn’t feel like comforting a friend any more. You were not the same. I was not the same. I didn’t understand, but you seemed to and you pulled me inside and closed the door.’

  ‘And ravished you? Is that what you are saying?’ He stood there, naked, fists clenched, his body very visibly losing all interest in what they had been doing a minute before.

  ‘No, of course not. I wanted it, too. I didn’t really understand, but I wanted you.’ She thought back to the excitement and the apprehension and the sheer delight of his caresses. There had been pain, but there had been the joy of being in his arms and realising that she was a woman and she loved him and he must love her, too. ‘I don’t think you knew who I was, not at first. Afterwards you just stared at me and said … something. So I left.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  Dita bit her lip. The words had haunted her for years; now she had to repeat them to the man who had used them on her like weapons. ‘You said, “Of all the bloody stupid things to do. You. I must be mad. Get out.” There were other things, I don’t recall very well—I had my hands over my ears by then. You were so angry with me and the next day you had gone.’

  ‘Oh dear God. I don’t remember,’ he said, his face pale in the lamp light. ‘Dita, I swear I don’t remember. I kept having dreams, but they were so confused I didn’t believe them. I just thought they were fantasies. Hell, I might have got you with child.’

  ‘Fortunately not,’ she said with as much calm as she could muster. ‘That never occurred to me until years later. I was very innocent, you see.’

  ‘Innocent! You don’t need to tell me that,’ he said bitterly. ‘You might have told me all this before I made love to you on board,’ he said. ‘Damn it, all that held me back was my fear of getting you with child. Now I know I should never have laid a finger on you at all.’

  She stared at him. ‘But you thought I had slept with Stephen. Why would this make any difference?’

  ‘Because it makes you my responsibility. Don’t you see that?’

  ‘No, I do not. It was eight years ago, Alistair. And you were drunk.’

  ‘That makes it worse. Why didn’t you tell me straight away?’ He paced the small hut, ignoring his nakedness.

  ‘In Calcutta? What would you suggest I should have said? Good evening, Lord Lyndon. Don’t you recall the last time we met? You were kicking me out of your bedchamber after taking my virginity?’

  ‘No! I mean before we made love.’

  ‘I did not want to talk about it. I wanted, not to forget it exactly, but to put it behind me. And then it got rather out of hand,’ she admitted. ‘I was not expecting to feel like that: so overwhelmed. I hadn’t got much experience, even now, remember?’

  ‘Don’t rub it in,’ he said with a bitter laugh, as he turned away to pick up his breeches. ‘Thanks to me, you have now.’ He hauled the damp, clinging fabric over his hips, picked up the remnants of his shirt and tossed it away again. ‘Get dressed, you are shivering.’

  She was, Dita realised, and not just from cold. Why was he so angry with her? Was this her fault, too?

  ‘Pass me my clothes, then,’ she said, suddenly shy of her nudity. He gave them to her and she wriggled into the camisole and then the petticoats. They had fared better than Alistair’s breeches; their thin cotton had dried in the warmth from the fire, although the salt made them feel unpleasant against her skin. The corset was still damp and she tossed it aside with a grimace of distaste.

  ‘We must get married as soon as possible. It is fortunate your parents are down in Devon and not in London; we can organise something quietly.’

  ‘Marry you?’ She sat there in her damp undergarments and shivered at the tone of his voice. ‘Why?’

  He did not love her, for if he did, surely he would have said so. And when he had made love to her not one word of love or tenderness had passed his lips, only desire.

  ‘I told you. I as good as raped you and that makes you my responsibility.’ This was not what she needed to hear in his voice.

  ‘So I must be yours because of one drunken incident eight years ago?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Alistair turned and began to rummage around the shelves and dark corners of the hut while she dressed. ‘There’s nothing to drink, but I’ve found a knife.’ He took a blanket and cut a slit in the middle, then dropped it over her head. ‘That’s better than trying to walk with it wrapped round you,’ he said, doing the same for himself. He opened the door. ‘Come on.’

  In the full daylight she could see his face clearly. Unshaven, bruised, grim. And, no doubt, he could see her very clearly, too, as she stood up. Did he realise that she was not shivering, but shaking with anger?

  ‘I will not marry you,’ she stated flatly. ‘I cannot believe you would insult me by offering it.’

  ‘Insult?’ He stopped in the doorway, every muscle tense.

  ‘Yes. I would not marry you, Alistair Lyndon, if you went down on your knees and begged me.’

  ‘You will have no choice. I will tell your father what happened.’

  ‘And I will say that you got a blow on the head in the shipwreck and are having delusions. They know the truth about Stephen, but they also know that no one else believes I did not sleep with him. I will tell them you are being gallant as an old friend, but that I do not want to marry you. They are going to believe me—what woman in her right mind would turn down Lord Lyndon, after all?’

  ‘So when you made love with me on the ship, when you returned my kisses—what was that?
’

  ‘Desire and a curiosity to see if there was any difference in the way you make love sober and with some experience.’ That was not the truth, of course. She must have been in love with him for weeks. But it was not her feelings that were at issue here. ‘You don’t think I was in love with you, do you? No, of course not—you’d have avoided me like the plague.’

  He could have had no idea how she felt about him, she supposed, seeing his mouth tighten into a hard line and his head come up. But then, neither had she, until a short while ago.

  ‘And do I make love better sober?’ Alistair made himself drawl, made himself sound cynical and blasé when all he wanted was to shout and rage and shake her until her teeth rattled. How could she have kept that from him? Everything he believed about himself seemed to crumble. He had been capable of behaving like that and had not even remembered it.

  By any objective standards Dita looked ghastly—pale, bruised, serious, her hair hanging in tangled, sticky clumps—but her dignity and her anger shone through. He would have been happier, he realised, if she had been weeping. That did not make him feel any better about himself either.

  ‘Oh, considerably. It was very nice the first time, but this was better,’ she said. ‘I haven’t any grounds for comparison, you understand, but the sobriety would have helped. And, of course, no doubt your technique has improved with age and experience.’

  ‘You little cat.’

  ‘Meow,’ she said bitterly as she got to her feet with none of her usual grace. For a moment he glimpsed the ungainly child as she adjusted the grey blanket.

  He hardened his heart. Dita, who valued love and emotion in marriage, had rejected him. Foolish, headstrong, romantic idiot of a woman. Did she think he wanted to be leg-shackled to a passionate, troublesome, headstrong female? A narrow escape, he told himself, feeling sick. But it wasn’t. She had thrown his honour back in his face.

  ‘Ready?’ He made his voice as brisk as he could with his throat rasped raw by salt water and emotion. ‘We will discuss this later.’ She shot him a mutinous look. ‘Now the sun is up I can at least tell which direction we’re facing. Last night I couldn’t make head nor tail of the stars—I have been away from northern Europe too long, I suppose.’