Page 16 of Courting Catherine
“Don’t you dare.” She meant it to come out as an order, but her voice shook.
His eyes came back to hers and held. “Afraid?”
The question was just the one to stiffen her spine. “Of course not. It’s just that I’d rather be kissed by a rabid skunk.”
She started to pull back, then found herself tight against him, eyes and mouth lined up, warm breath mingling. He hadn’t intended to kiss her—certainly not—until she’d thrown that last insult in his face.
“You never know when to quit, Catherine. It’s a flaw that’s going to get you in trouble, starting now.”
She hadn’t expected his mouth to be so hot, so hard, so hungry. She had thought the kiss would be sophisticated and bland. Easily resisted, easily forgotten. But she had been wrong. Dangerously wrong. Kissing him was like sliding into molten silver. Even as she gasped for air, he heightened the kiss, plunging his tongue deep, taunting, tormenting, teasing hers. She tried to shake her head but succeeded only in changing the angle. The hands that had reached for his shoulders in protest slid possessively around his neck.
He’d thought to teach her a lesson—about what he’d forgotten. But he learned. He learned that some women—this woman—could be strong and soft, frustrating and delightful, all at once. As the waves crashed far below, he felt himself battered by the unexpected. And the unwanted.
He thought, foolishly, that he could feel the starlight on her skin, taste the moondust on her lips. The groan he heard, vibrating low, was his own.
He lifted his head, shaking it, as if to clear the fog that had settled over his brain. He could see her eyes, staring up at his—dark, dazed.
“I beg your pardon.” Stunned by his action, he released her so quickly that she stumbled back even as her hands slid away from him. “That was completely inexcusable.”
She said nothing, could say nothing. Feelings, too many of them, clogged in her throat. Instead she made a helpless gesture with her hands that made him feel like a lower form of life.
“Catherine... believe me, I don’t make a habit of—” He had to stop and clear his dry throat. Lord, he wanted to do it again, he realized. He wanted to kiss the breath from her as she stood there, looking lost and helpless. And beautiful. “I’m terribly sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“I’d like you to leave me alone.” Never in her life had she been more moved. Or more devastated. He had just opened up a door to some secret world, then slammed it again in her face.
“All right.” He had to stop himself from reaching out to touch her hair. He started back down the path toward the house. When he looked back, she was still standing as he had left her, staring into the shadows, with moonlight showering her.
His name is Christian. I have found myself walking along the cliffs again and again, hoping for a few words with him. I tell myself it’s because of my fascination with art, not the artist. It could be true. It must be true.
I am a married woman and mother of three. And though Fergus is not the romantic husband of my girlish dreams, he is a good provider, and sometimes kind. Perhaps there is some part of me, some small defiant part that wishes I had not bent to my parents’ insistence that I make a good and proper marriage. But this is foolishness, for the deed has been done for more than four years.
It’s disloyal to compare Fergus with a man I hardly know. Yet here, in my private journal, I must be allowed this indulgence. While Fergus thinks only of business, the next deal or dollar, Christian speaks of dreams and images and poetry.
How my heart has yearned for just a little poetry.
While Fergus, with his cool and careless generosity, gave me the emeralds on the day of Ethan’s birth, Christian once offered me a wildflower. I have kept it, pressing it here between these pages. How much lovelier I would feel wearing it than those cold and heavy gems.
We have spoken of nothing intimate, nothing that could be considered improper. Yet I know it is. The way he looks at me, smiles, speaks, is gloriously improper. The way I look for him on these bright summer afternoons while my babies nap is not the action of a proper wife. The way my heart drums in my breast when I see him is disloyalty in itself.
Today I sat upon a rock and watched him wield his brush, bringing those pink and gray rocks, that blue, blue water to life on canvas. There was a boat gliding along, so free, so solitary. For a moment I pictured the two of us there, faces to the wind. I don’t understand why I have these thoughts, but while they remained with me, clear as crystal, I asked his name.
“Christian,” he said. “Christian Bradford. And you are Bianca.”
The way he said my name—as if it had never been said before. I will never forget it. I toyed with the wild grass that pushed itself through the cracks in the rocks. With my eyes cast down, I asked him why his wife never came to watch him work.
“I have no wife,” he told me. “And art is my only mistress.”
It was wrong for my heart to swell so at his words. Wrong of me to smile, yet I smiled. And he in return. If fate had dealt differently with me, if time and place could have been altered in some way, I could have loved him.
I think I would have had no choice but to love him.
As if we both knew this, we began to talk of inconsequential matters. But when I rose, knowing my time here was at an end for the day, he bent over and plucked up a tiny spike of golden heather and slipped it into my hair. For a moment, his fingers hovered over my cheek and his eyes were on mine. Then he stepped away and bid me good day.
Now I sit with the lamp low as I write, listening to Fergus’s voice rumble as he instructs his valet next door. He will not come to me tonight, and I find myself grateful. I have given him three children, two sons and a daughter. By providing him with an heir, I have done my duty, and he does not often find the need to come to my bed. I am, like the children, to exist to be well dressed and well mannered, and to be presented at the proper occasions—like a good claret—for his guests.
It is not much to ask, I suppose. It is a good life, one I should be content with. Perhaps I was content, until that day I first walked along the cliffs.
So tonight, I will sleep alone in my bed, and dream of a man who is not my husband.
