"Husband? I don't know if you realize this, but being kidnapped by a gang of mercenaries severely curtailed my husband hunt."
"You could go to America. Marry a rich man there."
"I don't want to go to America."
"I read your letters, Anna."
She stiffened. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I read the one from the railroader's daughter writing about her brother." The brother had planned to ask Llorente for Annalía's hand. "I've heard of their name before. They have more money than the queen. You could go there - "
"Aleix already turned down his suit."
"Did he, then?" he said, his voice deadened. Why should that surprise him? Court had obviously lost his mind during those moments when he'd thought, What if I just keep her? Lost his mind thinking she might come to want him for more. "Still, there are options, but only if you're...intact."
"Would you demand that of me?" She rolled over on her stomach and propped her chin on her hand. "If you were to be my husband?"
I'd take you any way I could get you, he thought again. "I doona consider those kinds of things."
"Why?"
"Because I never plan to marry."
"Did a woman hurt you?"
"No."
"I don't believe you. Why else wouldn't you want a woman to have all your own?"
"No woman's hurt me."
"So the issue is that you don't want one woman. You want your harem."
If she only knew.... After tonight, she'd ruined him. Her hands brushing her ni**les as he took her with his mouth. Inward shake. "Why settle for one when you can have many?"
"It isn't as if men stop having other women after marriage."
With you as his wife, this one would.
"But it's been repeatedly explained to me that though a man might require others, he has the need to possess one woman to call his own, the need to protect her and any children they have. It must be so, because both marriages and affairs go on. If you ignore that need, you'll miss out on so much, MacCarrick," she said softly but with conviction. She curled up next to his side again and laid her arm over his chest. His eyes briefly closed with pleasure.
"Enough of this talk." Perhaps before he let her go, he would explain to her that not all men were like that. That she should expect better.
Let her go.
Let passionate, brave, beautiful Anna go. She'd come along as punishment, no doubt. For all his sins. She was his perfect torment.
"So after you reunite me with my brother, you will just leave me behind like all the others."
He didn't hesitate. "Aye."
"Then I thank you for not ruining me further. Because I will have a family and children."
Barely hiding his exasperation, he asked, "Then why had you no' married earlier?"
"I won't tell you - you'll think I'm silly."
"Tell me." When she didn't answer, he squeezed her to him.
She sighed. "I was waiting for someone...for someone I could love. I know you probably think it's a fanciful notion, but I've seen it."
Court had too. His parents had been mad for each other. "Then you could marry where you chose to?"
She nodded against his chest. "In the beginning, yes, but I couldn't find anyone, so the choice was taken from me. After Pascal, I understand how vulnerable I am as long as I'm unwed."
He'd avoided asking her about her future because he'd known he wouldn't like her answer, but now he said, "What will happen to you once your brother retrieves you?"
She yawned, then murmured in a drowsy voice, "He'll take me to Castile and get the family to find a husband for me who'll overlook the scandal. I suppose it won't be so bad." She ran her smooth thigh over his legs, relaxing against him, her body warming for sleep. "MacCarrick," she whispered, drifting, "if I'd known husbands touch like you do, I'd have been much more eager to wed."
Court, the blackheart, the mercenary who'd sell his sister for a pound, just took a direct hit to the chest.
Chapter Twenty-four
When Court woke Anna early the next morning, she was slow to rouse, but when she did, she smiled shyly at him. He didn't even bother questioning why his chest reacted to the sight of it. "How do you feel?"
She sat up and gave him a surprised look, as if she'd woken in a foreign but more comfortable body. "I feel wonderful." She didn't seem embarrassed by her nudity, though the blanket bundled in her lap covered some, as did her hair falling over one breast. Which left one uncovered -
When she put her hands above her head to stretch, he ran his palm over the back of his neck, and grated, "Mind the arm, lass." If she were his, he'd always be there to see her stretch in the morning. And he'd make sure each night that she had no clothes on to conceal her.
"Oh, I'd forgotten about it completely."
He gave her a tight nod. "I'll leave you to dress. We'll go on the crossing soon."
Before he could escape, she asked in a small voice, "Why are you...different?"
Because he'd realized in the long hours of the night that she could never be his. Even if he didn't have a five-hundred-year-old curse shadowing him and even if he could somehow convince a fine woman like her to want to stay with him, Court could never have her. And now he cared about her enough that he refused to ruin her. "Because things will no' be the same between us once we reach England. We canna be together as we were last night."
"Then I want to stay here," she said, surprising him.
"No, you know we canna do that."
When she began to reply, he said, "Here. I almost forgot." He dug into his pocket. "I have your choker." He'd finally figured out the secret behind the choker, and held it with the length dropping down and swinging in front of her, hoping this would startle some sense into her about him.
He'd recognized it wasn't merely a piece of jewelry - it was a talisman that had been her mother's. Her mother wasn't buried with her father, but alone in Paris, away from Andorra and from her family in Castile. She'd somehow been disowned by both. By the way Annalía had acted after the grotto, he suspected he knew why.
She wore it so she wouldn't be like her mother.
To his bewilderment, her gaze flickered over it without interest, then returned, intent only on his face. "I don't want it. It doesn't fit any longer."
When she wouldn't accept it, he stuffed it into his pocket, then strode from the room. He shut the door and leaned back against it, thinking that once he got to London, his brothers would see that this woman had him twisted inside. They'd wonder how, if Court cared about her at all, he could let it get this far.
He wondered, too. How could he explain that as things developed between him and Anna, he hadn't felt that he was taking more than he ought?
He had felt that finally - finally - the pieces were falling into place.
Even the exciting steamer ferry trip across the channel did nothing to break up the tension between Annalía and MacCarrick.
He hadn't spoken to her in anything but one-word answers, except when he'd asked if she was seasick. She'd glanced around and seen that most everyone else was, but when she answered no, he appeared bothered, which hurt her feelings.
She scarcely cared that he was surly to her because she had much to think on. She wanted to memorize every instant of the night before because she never, never wanted to forget even the tiniest detail.
Before MacCarrick she'd gone about her life completely ignorant of the staggering pleasure a man can give a woman. She caught him scowling at her from the ship's railing and bit her lip. And the pleasure a woman could give a man. She'd seen it....
He'd always been in control, yet she'd wrested it from him with naught but her fingers, and made him yell and thrash with pleasure with every muscle in that huge body going rigid.
Just remembering made her br**sts grow fuller and more sensitive, and simply looking at his talented fingers gripping the railing...She frowned. They'd tightened so much around the wood they'd gone white. She glanced up, caught him studying her as she'd been staring at his hands. She parted her lips, and a breath shuddered out. He turned sharply away.
This wouldn't do. She couldn't keep thinking of the night before without longing...without lusting. There. She could admit it. Annalía Llorente lusted for a ruthless Highland mercenary.
Yet she felt tied to him, too, bound to him by what they shared. Last night, she'd acted blasé about his leaving her behind, but to tell the truth, she hated the thought. She'd actually entertained the idea of keeping the Highlander. Did that mean she loved him? She couldn't say, but she knew she couldn't stand the idea of being away from him.