He stared at her for a very long moment. “Whatever you intend, I suggest you rethink it,” he said tersely.
“How do you know that I intend anything?” she asked sweetly. But shedidintend something. Before she left Askeaton and Ireland, she wished to experience all that she had thus far discovered in her captor’s powerful arms—and even more. The urgency he had awakened was simply too great to ignore or even resist.
“Because you are too clever and too stubborn to simply roll over upon my command,” he said slowly.
She hesitated. “Perhaps that was then—and this is now. Perhaps I await your command, Sir Devlin,” she murmured.
He leaned close. “Do not even think to tempt me again!”
“Why not?” she whispered back.
He seemed utterly taken aback. “Because I am far stronger than you, Virginia, and I suggest you never forget that.” He gave her a hard look and started toward his brother, who was listening raptly to them.
But Virginia was beginning to understand her captor. She smiled as sweetly as she had before at him. “I never said you weren’t,” she murmured.
He flinched but did not halt. Sean appeared very distressed now, and he finally followed his brother inside. Virginia began to grin. Oddly, she felt as if the tide were turning in her favor—somehow, it felt as if she had won that last encounter. And then she looked up into Fiona’s hostile black eyes.
CLEARLY THE “YELLOW ROOM”hadn’t been used in years. As Virginia stood in the doorway of a large bedroom where the walls were painted a soft, muted shade of gold, she watched Fiona angrily plump the pillows, dust billowing from them.
Virginia glanced around. This room was far more luxuriously appointed than her own bedroom at Sweet Briar or the two guest rooms there. The canopied bed in its center had gold velvet coverings and matching drapes were held back with gold tasseled cords, while a brown-and-gold Aubusson rug covered much of the scarred but polished oak floors. The ebony wood mantel over the fireplace was intricately carved, a lush chaise and ottoman adjacent to that, and several old portraits and landscapes adorned the walls. Virginia walked over to one window and actually cried out with delight. The view was stunning. Her eyes swept across the rolling fields of corn to an endless series of green pastures and hills and finally to the bare edge of the river itself. The ruins of an old and crumbling stone keep were just to her left.
Virginia gripped the sill. Ireland somehow called out to her the way that her home had, although the country was so very different. She wondered how she would feel if she were at Askeaton under other circumstances. She might never want to leave.
Fiona had stopped fussing with the bed. Virginia turned away from the window and found the other woman staring at her with open hostility. She was, Virginia thought, about twenty-five. “I should like some sandwiches and tea,” Virginia said as if she were Sarah Lewis and back at the Marmott School for Genteel Young Ladies.
Fiona stiffened. “Be right up.” But she didn’t move.
“And I’d like some roses from the gardens,” Virginia added, increasing her intonation, so she sounded more like a queen than a genteel young lady. “Oh! This gown. Do help me remove it. It needs pressing immediately. I’d like it back for supper, please.”
Fiona looked ready to scratch her eyes out. “Are you to be hiswife?” she asked with scalding anger.
Virginia started, then, indifferently, she shrugged.His wife.One day, Devlin O’Neill would settle down, take a wife, have children. Why did this notion mesmerize her? When that day dawned, she would be home at Sweet Briar, in fact, she might even be old and gray.
The confusion that had so recently begun and that seemed to crop up now whenever she thought about her captor swept over her with full force. She finally looked up. “Perhaps,” she managed to say lightly.
Fiona started, scowling.
“And you? Were you his mistress? I thought so at first—but he didn’t recognize you, so I am no longer sure.”
Fiona stalked forward.
Virginia held her ground, even though the other woman had a stone or more on her.
“He hasn’t been home in six years,” she hissed. “I was a child back then, I was only fifteen but I loved him and I gave him my maidenhead. I’m a woman now, and I know a trick or two I am certain he will enjoy! In fact, I cannot wait until tonight, my lady, I cannot wait to pleasure him in every way I can think of! By tomorrow he will not even know your name.”
Virginia stiffened, afraid the other woman might be right. But now she had to wonder what kind of man stayed away from his home for six long years?
And Virginia began to worry on another score. Devlin had been eighteen, she thought, when he and Fiona had carried on, and she hated the fact that he had been her first lover. Nostalgia might be attached to their affair.
“How old are you?” Fiona asked with scorn.
“I’m twenty,” Virginia lied.
Fiona rolled her eyes. “I’d wager you’re sixteen. Let me tell you something, my lady. He won’t ever look at you the way he looks at me. You’re too skinny! A man likes meat on the bones, a man likes this.” She cupped her heavy breasts and then she smiled, sighing and clearly thinking of Devlin fondling them instead.
Virginia turned her back on the housemaid. Her confidence, never high, vanished completely. Who was she fooling? If Devlin had a choice, he would seek out the older woman. She had no doubt.
She should be thrilled. She wasn’t. She was upset, distressed, bewildered and even hurt by the prospect.
