Nicole Jordan - The Passion

He raised a hand to touch her cheek with the lightest of pressures. "Are you awake?"

Stirring, she tilted her face to gaze up at him. "Yes," she murmured, her blue eyes slumberous and sensual.

Tenderly he brushed back the cloud of hair from her flushed face. She was so hauntingly beautiful… He wanted her again, more powerfully than before, a craving that went beyond the physical.

Still, he couldn't simply blurt out his feelings. He doubted Aurora would believe any sudden confessions of love – indeed, he had difficulty believing it himself. His uncertainty left him feeling uncommonly vulnerable.

He couldn't tell her yet. He would have to bide his time, would have to show her how deeply he felt, with more than mere words.

"There is something I need to discuss with you," he said finally, struggling to keep his tone casual. "I am considering whether or not to leave London."

He felt her body tense. "What do you mean, leave?"

"I thought I would go to the country for a time. You're right. After encountering so many people who recognize me, the risk of discovery is too great. Clune has offered me the use of his house in Berkshire." Nicholas paused, taking a deep breath. "I want you to come with me, Aurora."

She sat up slowly, clutching the blanket to her breasts. "Come with you?" she repeated faintly.

"Yes. I want us to be together."

The troubled look was back in her eyes as she gazed down at him. "We are together now."

"Not the way we should be. As things are now, I'm relegated to acting the thief, stealing a few private moments alone with you, having to skulk around to enjoy any intimacy with my wife. I want to be able to kiss you without worrying about creating a scandal. To hold you and make love to you and wake up with you in my arms."

"Nicholas… we have been over this before. I don't want to be your wife."

He held her gaze steadily. "You cannot deny that you want me, not after the passion we just shared."

The distress in her eyes was evident. "That doesn't change anything. We are still completely wrong for each other."

"How can you be so sure? We have never truly put the question to the test. Our marriage was never given a fair chance to succeed. I want that chance, Aurora. And you owe it to yourself if not to me."

When she made no reply, he went on in a low voice. "We have very little time left. I cannot stay in England much longer. But before I leave, I have to be certain that we are not right for each other. We should prove it to ourselves, one way or the other."

"What… are you proposing?"

"Come to Berkshire with me – as my wife." He reached up to brush her bare arm with his thumb. "Give me a fortnight. Two weeks to persuade you that we belong together. At the end of that time, if you still want to sever our marriage and the solemn vows we took, I will agree. I'll leave England and take myself out of your life forever."

She stared at him. "Forever?"

"Yes," he agreed softly. "I'll return to America without you. You will never have to see me again. You can live your life here, independently, just as you wish."

Aurora raised a hand to her forehead, rubbing it distractedly. "I cannot leave London just now. What about Harry? What of Raven?"

He couldn't condemn her fierce streak of loyalty. Aurora was passionately dedicated to the people she cared for; it was one of the things he loved about her.

"Raven will do well enough on her own," Nicholas answered truthfully. "And I will deal with Harry. After his hazardous encounter tonight, I doubt he'll be eager to strike out on his own again. And I intend to make very certain he realizes that a seafaring life is not the glamorous adventure he's dreamed of. I wouldn't be surprised if he decides very soon to return home to his mama."

"I cannot leave him here, Nicholas."

"I promise that won't be necessary. What other objections do you have?"

She had a great number of objections, Aurora thought. The chief of which was Nicholas himself. He was a risk beyond anything she'd ever imagined. He threatened everything she had ever known of safety or sense. The emotions he created in her were intense and terrifying, as was his fierce, consuming passion…

But if she refused to go with him? She would be letting her fear rule her. She would be acting the coward, just as he'd accused her of doing. She didn't want to live her life in fear.

Worse, if he remained in London and was discovered, he would be arrested and hanged. Sweet heaven, she couldn't bear it if he were to die. At least away from London he would be safer…

Did she dare agree to what he was asking of her? Did she have any choice?

She stared back at him, caught in the spell of his intense gaze. Two weeks. A handful of days, alone with Nicholas. They would be lovers. It would be paradise; it would be torment.

Could she possibly manage to keep her emotional defenses intact for so long? Two weeks would seem an eternity. And the enforced intimacy would only bring her greater agony when they had to part.

But if she could endure it, he would leave England and return to America for good. Aurora swallowed the sudden ache in her throat. Wasn't that what she desperately wanted? To be free of Nicholas and his overwhelming passion?

She forced away the sharp feeling of desolation that thought engendered. She wanted desperately for him to go, before he tore her heart to shreds…

"Will you give me that chance, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice soft as velvet. "Will you come with me?"

"Yes," Aurora whispered, gazing down at Nicholas. "I will come."

There was such fire in his eyes that her heart stopped. Unable to bear that look, Aurora shut her own eyes, hoping with all her might that she was not making a dreadful mistake.

He drew from me my heart's most intimate secrets .

"How much longer till we arrive?" Harry asked for the third time, twisting in his seat to look out the coach window at the Sussex countryside.

Aurora couldn't help but smile at the boy's eagerness to be home. They had been traveling only a few hours since leaving London early that morning, but Harry could scarcely contain his impatience. "Not long."

"You will speak to Mama, will you not, Rory? You won't let her scold?"

"Yes, of course. I promised I would. But I don't think you need worry. She will be too relieved to have you safely home to do much scolding."

Just then Harry spied Nicholas, who rode beside the carriage. "I wish I could have ridden like Mr. Deverill, instead of being shut up in this carriage."

"You said your ribs were still too tender to endure such a long ride on horseback, remember?"

The boy shuddered, as if recalling his ordeal – a reaction that Aurora noted with silent gratification. After his beating on the quay, Harry had sworn faithfully never to run away again, displaying a sincerity she thought was genuine. And much to her vast relief, two days of sweat and blisters and aching muscles had convinced him that he would not enjoy the hard life of a seaman.

Those two days seemed an eternity to Aurora, but she had promised Nicholas she wouldn't interfere with his harsh methods. And just as Nicholas predicted, Harry had abandoned his dream of joining the merchant marine, although not happily.

When she gently reminded him that upon reaching his majority, he would be wealthy enough to buy a fleet of his own ships, he had brightened considerably and decided that he would, after all, prefer to spend the intervening years in Sussex with his mama – that he missed her greatly and perhaps her smothering was not really so unendurable.

Aurora was taking the boy home now, while Nicholas provided escort. She, too, wished she could have ridden on the beautiful summer day and avoided the warmth and dust inside the carriage. But not only did she need to keep Harry company, she knew it was wiser to maintain the discreet pretense of Nicholas as a family friend and not advertise their actual plan. Upon delivering Harry to his mama, they would start back toward London but detour to Berkshire, where they would spend a fortnight together, as Aurora had agreed.

Until now she had managed to quell her reservations, but as they moved deeper into the East Sussex countryside of her childhood, she was glad to have Harry's chatter to distract her from her misgivings and from her feelings of sadness. This was the first time in nearly a year that she had been home. After Geoffrey's death, she had preferred to live in London, for there it was easier to avoid the painful reminders of her loss. She'd distanced herself even farther when she sailed for the Caribbean with her cousin and his wife.

How her life had changed since then, Aurora reflected pensively. She had been wed and widowed and then unwidowed… She had become fully a woman, learning carnal knowledge at the hands of an expert lover who was the very opposite of the gentleman she had admired and cared for so much of her life.

This journey home roused sad memories of Geoffrey, and other ones as well.

Aurora stirred uncomfortably. She had tried not to think about her father or the darker feelings he engendered. The March and Eversley estates were close, merely a few miles apart, but she had no reason even to call on the duke, since he had washed his hands of her and banished her from his property.