Which was both a blow to his pride, and a sudden, jolting disappointment-more, a threat. A threat to what he now wanted, nay, needed his life to be-a threat to his dreams for the future.

Yet he couldn’t fault her-she’d always stated that in her view their liaison would inevitably end. She’d expected it to end in Plymouth. Instead, he’d all but kidnapped her, and now…

His eyes locked with hers, he dragged in a slow breath, filling his lungs, fighting to clear his head while he grappled with how to forge a way forward. Her description of a mistress sitting and waiting in a house in Glenluce… the vision had rocked him, pricked him on the raw as nothing else could have. The thought that he would ever subject her to that…

That had been his mother’s life. It would never be Linnet’s. Not while he breathed.

Forcing his fingers to uncurl, his jaw to ease, he slowly lifted his hands and gently closed them about her arms, simply held her and looked into her eyes. “You’re irritated, annoyed-and you’ve already countered any argument I might make that you ought to have guessed what my intentions were, any righteous assertion that as a gentleman I’d never have slept with you-continued to make love to you-if my intentions hadn’t been honorable-”

Eyes sparking, she opened her mouth-

“No-it’s your turn to listen.”

Reluctantly, all but smoldering, she subsided.

“You countered those arguments before I made them because you’ve already thought back and realized that, all along, I could have been intending marriage-you just assumed I wasn’t.” He held her gaze. “But I was. As God is my witness, I never thought of making you my mistress-I don’t want you as that. I want you in my bed, but I also want to have breakfast with you, to spend my days, my time, with you. I want to dine with you, to follow you on your rounds and check the doors after you, and follow you up the stairs to your bed.

“I want that as my life, my future. I told you I wanted to share my life with you, but I didn’t say anything about marriage because the fact that I might die, or be too seriously wounded to have a life to share, precludes that. You saw what I’m facing-the cult is determined to kill me and seize the scroll-holder. Until we reach the end of this, I can’t-in the traditional, honorable way can’t-make any formal offer for your hand.”

He dragged in another breath. “But I can tell you this- you are the woman I want to share the rest of my life with, whether you consent to marry me or not. I won’t willingly let you go, and while, as you’re so relentless in telling me, I can’t force you to stay with me, I can, and will, do everything I can to change your mind.”

Still holding her gaze, he drew her to him, slid his hands slowly around the silky comforter in which she was wrapped. Quietly stated, “I want you as my wife, to have and to hold, and never release from the day we exchange our vows.”

She blinked up at him. Watched as he bent his head to hers, but didn’t pull back, away.

He sensed in her gaze, in the uncertainty of her stance-her uncharacteristic indecision over whether to sink against him or hold rigid in his arms-that she was caught in emotional turmoil, too.

Unexpected turmoil. Matters between them were not proceeding as, apparently, either of them had thought.

The realization lent a grim edge to his voice as, letting his lips cruise her temple, he murmured, “I want you. I want a life with you, a traditional, time-honored married life with you-and I would prefer not to settle for anything less.” He paused, his breath fanning her cheek, then added, “I’ve been a soldier, a commander, all my adult life, and I’m going to fight for you. And win. I will push to win. Because, for me, there’s no other choice.” He bent the last inch and his lips brushed hers. “You are my future, the only future I want.”

He kissed her, pressed his lips to hers and caressed. Gathered her closer, inexpressibly relieved when she permitted it-more, when she came. When she sank slowly against him and let him settle her there, her hips to his thighs, her taut belly cradling his arousal.

Arousing him even more.

He wanted her with a power, a force, a raw need that ripped at him. A need their discussion, her miscomprehension of his intentions, had only whipped to more raging heights.

But this wasn’t a battle that could be won with force and might, not with power. Only with persuasion.

So he set himself to persuade, to hold all the power, the force and raw might of his need in check-let her see it, sense it, know it was there, but that it was, for her, held at bay.

Held back so he could show her, demonstrate and reveal how real and vital, how vibrant and deep, was his ardor. His passion, his desire, his fathomless need of her, something that welled from his heart, not just his loins, that lived in his soul, not just his mind.

Linnet sensed the difference, his intent. Felt it in the heavy thud of his heart beneath the palm she placed, braced, on his chest. Sensed it in the way his lips moved on hers, enticing, beguiling, not seizing, not taking.

Knew it in the strength, masculine and demanding, yet tonight not commanding, that closed around her, surrounding her, but gently.

All but reverently.

And yet the passion built, the heat and the flames, until her own need rose. Until their lips turned greedy, hungry and needy, until their bodies yearned.

He released her and shrugged out of his shirt. She dealt with the buttons at his waist, then, as he stepped back to strip off his breeches, she dropped the counterpane, quickly flicked the ties at her throat free.

Naked, he gripped the nightgown, with quiveringly restrained care drew it off over her head.

Then he flung it away, reached for her, and she went into his arms.

Caught her breath as he lifted her, wound her legs about his waist, her arms about his neck and gasped, head back, as, slowly, he filled her.

Filled her until she was full and complete.

Held her in his arms while they both, for that magical instant, savored.

Then he tipped his head up and his lips found hers, and he kissed her and she kissed him back and clung as he moved her on him.

As he lifted her, drew her down, thrust in.

Their bodies strained to race, to plunge and plunder, yet he held them back. Even though the drumbeat of their mutual desire had escalated, even though, steady and relentless, it pushed them on, he still took his time, held their rhythm to a rigidly reined cadence, and showed her.

More.

Lavished feeling and sensation and delicious delight on her, on her body. Fed her whirling mind with another type of joy, communicated by his hands as they held her securely, by his body as he used it in myriad ways to please and pleasure her.

And she couldn’t fight this-couldn’t resist his lure. Couldn’t pretend she didn’t see, didn’t know, didn’t understand what he was doing, what he wanted her to see.

What he wanted her to want.

Him. Like this. For the rest of her life.

She could have told him she did, that that very need was a barb buried deep in her heart, in her soul. But she didn’t.

Head back, breathing labored, she shook free of all thought, gave herself up to the moment, and rode on through a landscape colored by sensation. He found her, snared her, pushed her up, quick and hard, to the peak of jagged desire, and she shattered in bright incandescence.

Even as, tumbling her back on the bed, he followed her down, then came inside her, hard and fast, deep and powerful, again, she couldn’t find the words, couldn’t grasp the essential meaning of what she should say.

What she could say, could tell him.

Instead, she let all inhibitions fall, joined with him and let him drive them on into a landscape richer, more vibrant, more brilliant, more intense-let all she felt free to well through her and meet all the passion, the desire, the need he let her see.

In that moment she accepted what lay between them-what he felt, what she felt, what together they had somehow created.

This was real.

Powerful, intense.

That reality was etched on his face as, head rising, he groaned as his body clenched, then shuddered with release.

She went with him, let the potent pleasure have her, shatter her, clung as together they flew…

They drifted back to earth, locked in each other’s arms.

As he slumped, wracked and spent, upon her, as her arms closed around him and held him close, as her body welcomed his weight, his warmth, savored that incredible moment of closeness, she acknowledged this was right, that this was truth, that above all, this was their reality.

For tonight, knowing that, recognizing that, was enough.

Tomorrow, in the harsh light of a winter’s day, she would weigh, assess.

She would have to adjust.

Because this, and he, would never leave her. That much, she now understood.

Late at night

Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk

“So where do we really stand?”

In the bedroom Alex had chosen as theirs in the temporarily empty house tucked into the arches of the old abbey ruins into which they’d moved that day, Daniel watched his lover pace.

They’d just parted from Roderick, who had reported that, with heavy snow now blanketing the region, the boy-thief Roderick’s man Larkins had inserted into Delborough’s household-now quartered at Somersham Place with the Cynsters-would have to wait for the drifts to decrease before delivering the scroll-holder to Larkins at nearby Ely Cathedral.

“Why so agitated?” Daniel bent to warm his hands at the fire. The house was still cold. Their people had been in residence for less than a day, not enough time for the fires to dispel the winter chill. “Delborough’s not going anywhere in this snow, and Larkins seems to have set up a reasonable scheme to get his hands on the colonel’s scroll-holder. We’ll just have to wait and see on that front. There’s nothing you or I can do to improve matters.”