“Are you?” he asked. “Because you ran away tonight.”
She drew back as though he’d slapped her, but she had to understand why he couldn’t have her, why they couldn’t live the dream they both so desperately wanted.
“I did not flee because of their words,” she said at last. “I fled because you said nothing. I could endure anything if you only wanted me, if only I were yours. But tonight it has been made it abundantly clear I don’t belong here… I don’t belong anywhere. Perhaps I should’ve stayed in Yorkshire and become Harry’s mistress.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Do not say such things. You do belong here. You belong with me.”
Thunder rumbled above them, charged with an energy that passed from the clouds directly into Darius’s soul.
She lifted her chin, her lovely hazel eyes darkened. “Prove it,” Meredith challenged. That fire in her eyes he had come to adore had momentarily returned. She was brave. He was the coward. She’d drawn a line between them, and only he could cross it now.
If he did, there would be no going back. No more denying anything anymore, not his heart or his body.
The rain began to drench them and right then he felt anything was possible, even his own happiness.
He slid his hands to her waist, jerking her against him before he captured her mouth. He tasted the rain with her tears, and she sobbed once against his lips before kissing him back.
Lord, let me have this moment of heaven with her.
Darius didn’t care that he was soaked, but he did care that she was. He pulled away to bend and scoop her up in his arms. She curled her arms around his neck and gazed at him.
“We’re going back inside?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“No.”
“Is ‘no’ your favorite word this evening, Your Grace?” Meredith said peevishly.
Darius laughed. “No. We are going somewhere private so I can do wicked things to you and so you will start calling me Darius again.”
“Do wicked things to me?” Her voice was so sweet, so innocent, which was the exact opposite of his thoughts.
“Yes.”
“Finally a yes,” she said and cuddled closer to him as he carried her off.
Darius smiled. “That is my favorite word.”
12
Meredith held onto Darius’s neck, more aware of his heat than the cold rain that soaked through her ball gown. She gazed up at his face as he carried her in his arms like a damsel from some gothic novel. His wet, dark hair curled at the ends, dripping onto his soaked shoulders. Everything from his straight nose and full lips to his square jaw were perfection, but right now she didn’t see that. She saw him, the very real man with dark eyelashes heavy with glistening raindrops and a faint scar just under his chin. She wanted to kiss that scar, ask him how he had gotten it, press her lips to that bit of pale pink skin and ease his pains, even those that had begun to fade with time.
She did not ask him where they were going, nor did she try to argue that she was more than capable of walking. If he wished to carry her, she wasn’t about to object.
A gazebo emerged at the long line of hedgerows in the distance, and Meredith wondered how Darius knew about it. They were, after all, in someone else’s gardens. Had he taken another woman here at some other past ball? She shrugged that thought away. If he had, she didn’t want to know.
The gazebo was dry inside, with two chairs and a settee made of wicker. Darius sat down upon the settee and settled her on his lap.
“Are we going to talk?” Meredith asked, disturbing the pleasant sound of the rain on the roof. She’d always liked the rain, the feel, smell, and sound of it. It was soothing.
Darius tightened his arms around her. “No.”
“There’s that word again.” Meredith reached up to trail her fingertips over his jaw, tracing his beautiful lips. “I thought your favorite word was yes?” He kissed her gloved fingertips, causing a wave of languid heat to roll through her, far stronger than the chill of her wet clothes. He tenderly slid her gloves off her arms and laid them aside.
“It is…and it will be yours as well once I am done with you,” Darius nipped the pad of her fingertips and leaned over, nuzzling her neck. She hugged him tight, relishing the feel of his lips against her throat.
His hands moved to the back of her gown, slowly it unlacing , letting the bright blue silk drape down from her shoulders.
She slid free of the capped short sleeves and Darius’s gaze lowered from her face to her breasts, which swelled against the stays she wore. She waited, her heart racing as he unlaced the stays next. She removed them slowly, letting them drop to the floor.
