Bride Enchanted by Edith Layton Page B

he were dropping the words slowly into her consciousness.
    She quivered at his touch on her ear, and he took his hand away. She thought she saw a gleam of mockery in his eyes. She frowned. In that second’s time, the gleam was gone, replaced with killing sympathy.
    â€œBut now,” she said, “if we change the date, people will think the worst.”
    â€œAnd if we don’t, the worst will be,” he said. “If by that, you mean they’ll think we’ve conceived a child. Because given time, it will become inevitable. The bond between us is that intense, the pull that strong. Do you doubt it?”
    She said nothing.
    He sat back and studied her expression. “So then, I think, my love, I really do believe that the best thing would be for me to leave you for a while. Just until time catches up with desire. As I said, I’ve hardly any family left, and those I do have are too feeble to travel far. I think I’d best go to see them, and then to see some more of the world. I could do that, carefully, I promise, because I don’t want to be captured and made a prisoner of war. I can follow the sun and sail to the South Seas, or the Caribbean, or I could visit the new world, and yet still return in time for our scheduled wedding. Otherwise, I tell you, my Eve, with all my best intentions, and all my control and good will, I will not be able to keep my hands off you. My hands,” he added, “my lips, and other more to the point attributes.”
    She drew herself up. “I am not a slave to my desires. I can resist your irresistible…attributes, you know.”
    â€œCan you?” he asked softly.
    She looked down at her lap. She’d have sworn she could. But just before, in his arms, in his hands, drinking in his breath from his lips, feeling the warmth and power of the man, she’d been a heartbeat from giving him everything, with joy and delight. She couldn’t deny it.
    â€œAnd it will be a long, cold winter,” he added. “Ihate the cold. I’ll write, of course. I’ll think of you. I’ll travel abroad, wherever war is not. Then I’ll return to you with the birds in the spring.”
    â€œNo!” she said.
    â€œNo?” he asked quizzically.
    He might travel into danger, Eve thought. The Continent was dangerous even with Napoleon pent on his stony island. There were pirates and storms on the seas, and unimaginable dangers even on the sunny shores of other lands. He might find risk to himself. He could discover trouble, or an old lover, or someone new, someone more to his taste, in his travels. She had the feeling that if he left he mightn’t be back. She knew that if he didn’t return she’d never wed because no one would ever suit her as he did, ever again. Worse, she thought he knew it.
    â€œYou’re taunting me,” she said.
    One thin dark eyebrow rose. He looked at her with new respect. “So I am,” he murmured.
    â€œWorse,” she said with more spirit, “you’re threatening me.”
    He put his head to the side as a smile quirked his lips. “Excellent, Eve. I am.”
    â€œAnd you expect me to put up with it?” she asked, caught between anger and laughter.
    â€œNo,” he said. “That’s why I said it. But you know very well what I expect, Eve. Few otherwomen would. That’s only one of the reasons I want you so. And so…?”
    â€œYou want me to tell you here and now that I’ll marry you immediately? This decision will be for the rest of my life.”
    â€œSo it is,” he agreed.
    â€œThere are still so many things I don’t know,” she said anxiously.
    He gazed at her curiously.
    â€œLittle things, but important ones. What do you do?” she blurted. “Oh, I don’t mean for a livelihood. Gentlemen don’t work, I know that. But how do you pass the time? I know you don’t frequent London clubs, because you