“At one time I might even have said I was in love with him, but that was a long time ago. I’ve known for years I love Fitzwilliam in the same way I loved Jonathan. Not as a lover or as a husband, but as a brother, and a treasured friend.”
She could feel Logan’s gaze on her face, but still he didn’t speak. A brief silence fell, and Juliana gathered in a breath. She’d finish what she had to say, because the time had come to be brave enough to tell the truth. She wouldn’t turn coward now.
In the end, it was much easier to say it than she’d thought it would be.
The truth always was, wasn’t it?
“I never loved Fitzwilliam the way I love you, Logan. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I’ll always regret I didn’t have the courage to tell my father that before he died. I never meant to hurt you, and I—I’m sorry I did.”
Logan sucked in a breath, but Juliana didn’t wait for him to speak. She’d come this far, and her heart already felt lighter for it. “My father might have thought it a pity I never became a duchess. Maybe you think so, too—think it’s a pity we married, I mean. But I don’t, Logan. I don’t want anyone but you.”
Still, Logan didn’t say a word. Juliana waited, but when another few minutes passed in unbroken silence, she raised Grace’s hand to her lips, pressed a kiss to her palm, and rose from the chair.
She did look back—just once—before she left the room.
Logan sat motionless beside the bed, half-lost in the shadows.
Chapter Twenty-one
Juliana was sitting in front of her looking-glass when Logan entered her bedchamber. Her hair fell in a mass of golden waves over her shoulders, with long locks of it trailing down her back. Pins were scattered across the table. Juliana’s brush was in her hand, but she wasn’t using it. She was perfectly still, staring at her reflection in the glass as if she no longer recognized herself.
Did she know how beautiful she was? How strong? Did she know her father’s blindness to that strength didn’t make it any less true, or any less a part of her?
Does she know how much I love her?
Logan closed the bedchamber door quietly behind him. As he made his way slowly across the room toward her, he drew off his cravat, his coat, and his waistcoat and let them fall heedlessly to the floor.
He was nearly close enough to touch her when she raised her gaze from her reflection, and her green eyes met his. She didn’t say a word, but Logan saw her long, pale throat move in a swallow, saw the way her pulse fluttered wildly under that fine, soft skin.
He slid his suspenders over his shoulders, then tugged his shirt over his head. When he reached her at last his bare chest was heaving, as if he’d run miles—days—just to reach her.
She was watching his reflection in the mirror, her gaze following his every breath, his every move, but when he touched her at last—the softest touch only, his hands landing gently on her shoulders—she squeezed her eyes closed.
“No. Look at me, Juliana.” He slid his palms over her shoulders, settled them in the curves of her neck, and waited.
Her eyelids fluttered open, and then her green eyes were on him, burning him everywhere they touched. How had he ever thought he could leave her? What a fool he was, to imagine he’d survive a day without that gaze on him, warming him. He could as soon go without breath, without sunshine.
He gathered the thick mass of her hair in his hands and raised it to his lips. “Did you think I wouldn’t forgive you,bòcan?” He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair, hungry for her springtime scent. He inhaled deeply, until his head was swimming with the dizzying scent of crushed leaves and sun-warmed grass.
A soft sob tore from her throat. “I didn’t know if you…I wasn’t sure.”
Logan opened his eyes. He watched as long, silky stands of her hair floated through his fingers, then his gaze met hers in the glass. “Don’t you know, Juliana? I’d forgive you anything. All you need to do is ask me, and I’ll do anything for you.”
Another sob broke from her lips. Tears started in her eyes, but Logan caught them on his fingertips before they could fall. She’d cried so many tears this week. He knew she’d cry many more before she’d spent all her love, anger, and grief over her father.
But not tonight.
He slid his hands over her shoulders again, but this time his fingertips drifted beneath the neckline of her night rail. He eased the fragile material aside to stroke her throat and the tops of her breasts. Logan watched the two of them in the mirror, mesmerized by the sight of his big, rough hands against her fair skin. She was too fine for a man like him, but he was selfish—selfish and greedy—because she washis, and he couldn’t get enough of her.
Her breath caught as his hands slid lower, dipping under the thin linen of the night rail to stroke the tips of her breasts. They hardened instantly against his calloused fingers. He dragged his fingertips over them, circling and pinching gently until Juliana moaned, and her head fell back against his chest.
“Look at yourself, Ana.” Logan tugged gently on the muslin so it pulled tightly against her breasts. Her nipples were hard and flushed a deep pink from his caresses, and Logan groaned as he plucked at them, flicking his fingernail over the eager nubs. They strained against the white material, reaching for his teasing fingers. “Mo Dhia, you’re so beautiful, Juliana. Every inch of you.”
Just that simple caress had left him hard and aching for her. His cock pressed insistently against his falls, and he felt as if he’d die if he couldn’t see all of her, touch all of her. Every creamy inch of skin, every curve, every wet, tender fold. He lowered his hands to her thighs, grasped handfuls of the material and dragged it up over her hips. His lips found her ear. “Raise your arms for me,bhean.”
Her arms rose in the air and he tugged the flimsy night rail over her head. She was bare underneath. Logan stroked his palm over her belly, groaning with need when a spray of goosebumps rose to the surface of her skin in the wake of his touch. He reached lower, playfully circling her belly button, then lower still…
“Open your legs for me, Juliana.”
