Stretching languorously beneath the bedclothes, he reached for her, only to find her side of the bed empty and cool to the touch, bereft of all signs of her, save the lingering scent of bergamot and citrus. He threw back the counterpane to make certain he had not imagined losing himself inside Bridget’s body. The rusty splotches of her virgin blood were there, as much proof as he required.
Thank Christ.
It was real, and he had made his choice.
She was his, and he was not letting her go. There would be no annulment. There would be no turning her over to the Home Office. She was his wife, and he had planted his cock and his seed inside her to solidify that claim.
His actions ought to fill him with a deep sense of shame, for he loved his brother and he loved the League, and his duty to the Crown had always come first, without a single regret on Leo’s part. And the shame was there, undeniable, salt poured into a festering wound. But it also filled him with an equally deep sense of satisfaction, for he cared about Bridget O’Malley in ways that terrified him more than facing a hundred Fenian bombs about to detonate did.
For the first time in all his years in service to the Crown, Leo faced a conundrum.
A rather unusual and troubling conundrum.
He wanted Bridget in his life, at his side, as his wife, more than he wanted to run the League. If he could not have her and the League both—and his formidable sense of honor said he could not—then he would need to give up the League. His mouth went dry at the thought.
But then the door to the bathing chamber opened, and the soft sound of bare feet padding toward him on carpet reached his ears the moment before Bridget appeared, black hair wet and trailing down her back, clad once more in her chemise. Even in the dim light, the dampness of her skin rendered her chemise transparent. He could clearly see the fullness of her breasts, the dark-pink peaks of her nipples, the mound between her legs.
Her eyes went wide as a furious blush stained her cheeks. “Oh! Leo. I… You are awake.”
He thought of how responsive she had been, how she had given him exactly what he needed—a combination of stubborn defiance and delicious submission—and how she had been wild and unashamed in her sensuality. The image of her cupping her breasts and pinching her nipples as he licked her pearl made him hard all over again. He stifled a groan, shifting beneath the blankets to alleviate his discomfort.
“I am very much awake,” he said wryly. This woman was made for him, and she was his Achilles’ heel. They had much to discuss, for he knew she remained distrustful toward him, and she had not divulged everything she knew to him. He would need to change that.
“I had a bath,” she said softly. “You needed your rest, and I didn’t wish to wake you.”
He noted how she hovered awkwardly on the periphery of the chamber. “Come here, Bridget.”
He had not been certain, knowing her as he did, if she would accept his command or if she would show him her stubborn side. To his surprise, she listened, crossing the chamber and not stopping until she reached his bedside. She smelled of his soap and shampoo, and his scent upon her made his cockstand even harder.
“We can still have the marriage annulled,” she said on a rush.
He caught her hand and tugged her gently, forcing her to join him on the bed. With his free hand, he swept a few stray wet tendrils of hair from her face. “I meant what I said. You are mine now. There will be no annulment.”
Her gaze searched his, her expression troubled. He leaned forward and kissed the furrow between her brows to make it smooth. A raw, unprecedented surge of tenderness hit him as he looked at her. With her hair wet, her face pale, clad in only a thin scrap of linen, she was more vulnerable than he had ever seen her before. Not even when she had been injured had she been so open to him.
But she was still troubled. “It was a moment of weakness for both of us, I suspect. You need not fear I will expect you to bind yourself to me forever because of one mistake.”
“It was not a mistake.” He caressed her silken cheek, the contact of her skin beneath his sending a fresh tug of desire to his groin. For this woman, he was weak. From the moment he had first laid eyes on her, it had been that way, and nothing—not discovering the truth, not her mad antics on behalf of her cause—nothing changed that. “I want you as my wife. Our situation is a complicated one, I will grant you, but if you are honest with me, I can formulate a plan of battle. I can see we both make it through this unscathed.”
It was not precisely what he meant to say, and as soon as the words left him and she stiffened beneath his touch, he knew it had been the wrong choice. “Did you bed me so I would tell you everything you want to know?”
“No.”Damn it, was that all she thought of him? Why would she give her body to a man she did not trust? He caught her chin in a gentle yet demanding grip when she would have looked away. “I bedded you because I have been half mad with wanting you from the first time I saw you. I want to help you, Bridget. Icanhelp you. But you need to trust me.”
“Trust you,” she repeated. “How can I? You are the man who threatened to take me to jail, who told me he would break me.Namhaid, you are my enemy.”
Bridget O’Malley was like a wild creature, ready to take flight or claw her way to the death if she must. He wanted to protect her. To soothe and console her. To wrap her in his arms and let her know she would never need to fight alone again, that he would fight for her now. That they could fight together, for each other.
He did the only thing he could think of doing then, lowering his mouth to claim hers. The kiss began chastely, but she opened beneath him, moaning, and his tongue sank inside to tangle with hers. Chaste was not a word that existed between Bridget and Leo. She was his, and the sooner she admitted it, the sooner she resigned herself to that fact, the better for the both of them. Thus far, they had been attacking their mutual problem as opposites. But if they worked together, they would be stronger, the outcome far better.
And he needed that outcome the same way he needed her. He had not experienced such an overwhelming need for a woman before her, aside from Jane, and even that had been a mere flickering candle compared to the raging inferno he felt for Bridget. She had changed him.
He tore his mouth from hers when everything in him screamed to deepen the kiss. “I am not your enemy, Bridget. I am your husband. I mean those words more than I have meant any others I have ever spoken.”
She stared at him, her lips swollen with his kisses, bright eyes solemn. “You are a duke, Leo. I am the illegitimate daughter of a Dublin tavern wench. I believe in Irish Home Rule, and you are determined to do everything in your power to stop it. Even if I were to trust you, I do not see how we can overlook such vast differences.”
She was not wrong about the obstacles facing them, but being himself, he had already begun weighing all their options in the days before he had taken ill. It was what he did—he planned, studied, strategized, researched, worked to get to the heart of a problem and pluck it out by its root. None of the barriers were insurmountable. There was a way around everything if one was daring and creative enough to do it.
“Look at me, Bridget O’Malley Carlisle,” he commanded, refusing to allow her eyes to stray from his. “I am a duke, but you are my duchess. I do not care who or what you were before we wed. And even if I did, I am the son of a woman who has never cared for another person in her entire life. How is it my right to judge anyone else? She bore me out of duty, and when I was a child, she hurt me in spite and with a selfish need to garner attention for herself. I come from a poisoned union. I too believe in Irish Home Rule, and the only thing I am attempting to stop is the subversive campaign of violence being waged by those who mistakenly think killing innocents is the means by which they will obtain their goals.”
