The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

She looked up and his eyes seemed to cloud over. “I have been away for so long, and living such a different life. Among different women.”

“In Spain.”

He was silent for a long time before he answered, and she could see that he was aching to tell her something. But when he spoke he simply repeated her words. “In Spain,” he said.

As he said it, she realized what he was suppressing: he could travel in time. He had not been lost for three years in Spain. He had been lost in time. And for quite a bit longer than three years. That was why he looked older than he should. She looked at him with new knowledge. How old was he? Thirty? Thirty-five?

“Are women so very different from me . . . in Spain?”

Humor and regret combined in his expression. “It is a foreign country,” he said. “They do things differently there. I do things differently there.” He pressed his lips tightly together, opened them to speak, then closed them again. She was glad he didn’t tell her the truth; she wanted this moment to be uncomplicated by revelation. Instead, he clasped her fingers, pressing her hand to his cheek. “But now I am back. I am confronted with a beautiful woman whom I hold in the very highest esteem. She wishes to become my lover. And you should be impressed with my self-control,” he said, his voice getting a little rough.

“Self-control is the last thing I desire from you.” She put her other hand on his chest. “Shall I be plainer in my speech? If I do not have reservations, why should you?” She let her hand drift down until it rested on his stomach. “‘There is no penance due to innocence.’”

He released her hand and stroked her hair. She felt his stomach flex with every movement of his arm. “Far back in my memory,” he said, “almost as if it were a dream, I seem to recall something. Some rule of chivalry. Ah, yes. A gentleman must never take a young lady’s virtue.”

Julia leaned forward until she could whisper in his ear: “And that is all it was.” She pulled back and gazed into his eyes. “Just a dream.”

His eyes glinted. He pulled her face recklessly to his and kissed her mouth.

He toppled back against the cushions, dragging her with him, and she was tossed like a boat on a stormy sea, her hands thrusting into his hair as he kissed her. He pushed her sleeves from her shoulders and kissed her collarbone, and then his hands slid firmly down her back until they met the flare of her hips. “Glory,” he murmured in her ear, his touch growing lighter as he fanned his hands across her bottom. “Such loveliness . . .” He let his hands roam. She arched her back, gasping, and found that she was pressing her belly against the long muscle that was straining between his legs. He smiled dreamily into her face, his calm expression at odds with the urgency of his caresses. She could feel the muslin of her dress tickling up her calves; he was stroking it higher as his hands moved.

“Nicholas . . .” She heard herself breathe his name as her hem skimmed above her knees.

“Yes, my lovely girl . . .” He bit her shoulder gently.

“Do you remember how the poem ends?”

“Shhh . . .” He kissed her, pulling her dress higher still. “Let’s make our own poetry. . . .”

She couldn’t help it; she laughed.

His eyes widened. “You scoff at me in the middle of your maiden voyage?”

“Yes, but that was just such a ridiculous thing to say, Nick.” She felt his cock leap against her belly; he liked her teasing. “Do you not remember how the poem ends?”

“I am hardly in a position to recall rhyming couplets.”

She propped herself up on her hands, looking down at him. “He spends the whole poem begging her to undress, and then finally he says, ‘To teach thee, I am naked first.’”

That made him unfurl a smile like a banner. “What are you suggesting?” He took his arms from around her and laced his hands behind his head.

She lay against his chest and played again with his cravat. “I think that to teach me, you ought to be naked first.”

“You are a literalist.” His smile faded. “And I’m not a pretty sight. I’m slightly the worse for wear under these fine clothes.”

“I don’t mind.” She kissed his suddenly sad mouth. “I want to see you.”

“Very well. But first you must climb off me.”

Julia slipped from him, smoothed her dress down, and sat on the cushions with her knees tucked up under her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs.

Nick sat up and began untying his cravat. He glanced sideways at her. “You look like a little gargoyle,” he said.

Julia just blinked and watched. It was fascinating, observing how his fingers flew without the use of a mirror. He must have tied his cravat every morning and untied it every night, and yet she found it the most exotic thing. He finished, pulled the long cloth free and tossed it aside. The sight of his strong, bare neck, framed by the starched collar of his shirt, sent a thrill through her.

“Now boots,” he said, yanking awkwardly on one and then the other of his tall, black Hessians. “It’s rather undignified, this undressing part.” He tossed boots and stockings to one side.

Barefoot, he stood up. Julia hugged her knees more tightly to her chest. He looked ridiculous, in unmentionables that stopped at his bare calves, and a shirt and jacket but no cravat. She laughed.

“Yes, you see?” He gestured at his own body with a theatrical hand. “The rest of this absurd rig is still to come off. A jacket so tight I can’t get into or out of it on my own, a shirt that doesn’t even button all the way down, and trousers with two different fastening devices. While for your part, you can dress in what is basically a sheet. It’s unfair, I tell you. Now, will