Religious? She and her sisters had gone to church every week of their lives, but she would never call herself more than observant. She had hardly exchanged more than a word or two with their priest in the past few years; their father had said that he was a dagger-cheap beggar, and left the church before the organ quieted. Which meant the priest had made the mistake of asking her father to tithe part of his income.
Once they moved to England, Rafe rarely made it out of bed in time to join them on Sundays, and although Griselda had her own little pearl-encrusted prayer book, when she returned she talked of friends she’d seen, and never of the sermon.
Ewan drank again. “My revelation seems to have halted the conversation,” he observed. “You’re looking at me as if I’d grown an extra head. I shall count myself as having earned another kiss; after all, you asked me the question.”
Annabel tried to figure out what to say. Of course there was nothing wrong with being religious. She knew that perfectly respectable men often went into the church and became archbishops. But that was because they were second sons. And of course she knew that laborers often practiced a kind of superstitious piety. It was an excellent thing for a child to believe in heaven, and she’d found it quite helpful when her mother died. But since then…
“I take it that you would not describe yourself as religious,” Ewan said.
“No,” Annabel said, “although of course I have no concern with the fact that you are—I mean, I’m glad that—” But she got tangled in her sentence, and couldn’t think what else to say.
“So do you think I answered you honestly?” he asked, rolling over so that he was quite close to her.
“What? I suppose,” she said, still flustered.
“Since I was the one answering the question, I can tell you that I did. Answer honestly.” He looked at her expectantly.
“Oh,” she murmured, “a kiss. Well.” And she leaned forward and pressed a small kiss on his mouth. The kind of thing you’d give to a man who has kept his childish beliefs intact.
Then she pulled away, but he followed her. “An English kiss was not in order,” he growled, and suddenly she found herself tipping backward and there she was, like a floundering fish on the riverbank, and this great Scotsman looming over her.
But there was a look in his eyes that made Annabel forget all about the question of churches and priests and belief in general.
“You owe me a kiss, Miss Annabel Essex,” he said to her, his breath warming her cheek. “Two, if my counting is correct.” The very nearness of him was making her heart thump in her chest. Yet at the same time, she felt a lazy peace creep over her, the feeling of calm that she always had when she was near him.
He was braced on his elbows now, and leaning over her. Then his head descended and Annabel closed her eyes, blotting out the faint blue of the sky, and the sheen of his hair, and simply allowing her world to become his lips, and the touch of his hand on her cheek. His mouth was warm and persuasive, shaping her lips slowly, patiently, asking a silent question until she opened her mouth and welcomed him.
“You like to keep me out, don’t you?” he whispered in a husky murmur.
She couldn’t help smiling with the pure glee of it. “Only for a time, so that—”
But she gasped. His mouth had locked on hers, and her cry was unheard. His kiss was scorching in its possession, arrogant in his dominion…and all she could do was tremble, and then run her hands into his hair and kiss him back.
It was an eternity later, when her whole body felt ablaze, that he wrenched himself away and said in a growl, “We’ve one kiss left.”
Annabel smiled at him, laced her arm even tighter around his neck and arched up to meet his mouth. “Then come back to me,” she breathed.
This time her mouth met his openly, with a wild sweetness that made both their breathing ragged within seconds. She heard a little breathy moan and knew it was hers. She couldn’t feel the hard curves and ridges of his body, so she tried to pull him down to her.
But he laughed at that, though the sound caught in his throat, and said, “Nay, not on a kiss.”
But then one of his big hands suddenly touched her waist, and she shook with the pure pleasure of it. His mouth came away from hers, but she didn’t open her eyes. Because if she opened her eyes, he would take away his hand, and it was inching higher and higher…
For a moment, a blissful moment, a large hand cupped her breast and she instinctively arched into it, a cry torn from her throat. A thumb rubbed across her nipple. Annabel had never felt such a thing, as if that small motion scorched her whole body. He did it again, and her eyes flew open, seeking his face. He was leaning over her, his jaw hard, and then just as their eyes met he rubbed across her again and she cried out, pulled his head to hers and pulled him down to her in the process. So then there they were, his lips ravaging hers, and his hand trapped between them.
And then Ewan wrenched his mouth from hers and rolled away. She heard his ragged breathing over the thumping in her ears.
Finally she opened her eyes and stared at the bleached sky. She wasn’t sure what to do. She’d behaved like a wanton. And wouldn’t he be horrified, a man of God as he was? “That kiss is over,” she said finally.
A feeling of shame was creeping over her. She knew well enough what she’d been wanting. She’d wanted him to pull down her bodice and touch her naked breast with his hand. And if she hadn’t been so embarrassed, she would have asked him to do it. Shameful. She bit her lip and wished she never had to open her eyes again. Wished she could just pretend that this all never happened.
“I think,” he said, and his voice sounded almost normal, “that we should pretend that never happened.”
He agreed with her! Annabel felt a flash of acute shame, and then shook it away. What was done was done.
She sat up, avoiding his eyes, and fussed with her hair. Then she saw her wineglass and reached for it, appalled to find that her hands were shaking. She drank the whole glass and it helped, some. Its faint flowery bitterness was cool on her throat. But she couldn’t meet his eyes.
He poured her another glass of wine. “You’d best eat something before drinking more wine,” he said, sounding amused again.
It was rather tiresome, how he always sounded amused, Annabel decided. Finally, she looked over at him. Naturally, he looked as calm as if nothing had happened. She was beginning to think that nothing rattled Ewan’s calm. She cast around in her mind for a nice, innocuous question to ask, one that would show that she too was utterly unconcerned about—about that.
“How many days would you estimate are left on our journey?” she asked, and then realized her mistake the moment he laughed.
Her cheeks stained scarlet, but Ewan only said, “Eight.”
She nodded and ate a cucumber sandwich.
“Now I’m afraid to ask you any questions,” he said conversationally.
“Go ahead,” she said. “I won’t answer with honesty, and then there’s no call for alarm.”
“Very well, then,” he said. “Did you like my kiss, Annabel?” The very sound of his lazy voice sent tingles down her spine. It was maddening.
“I think that you are improving. Lord Simon Guthrie was strong competition, but you are quite good as well.”