Echoes in the Mist Read online

  Trenton pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her palm. “We’ll dine later.” His lips quirked. “Which brings me to another subject: Can you cook?”

  “As a matter of fact … yes.”

  “Good. Then Clara can extend her vacation … indefinitely.”

  Ariana’s insides melted. “As can Gilbert.”

  Trenton’s gaze smoldered. “Let’s begin our tour before I change my mind.”

  Spraystone was as exquisite as Broddington—and yet utterly different in its allure. Where Broddington was a wealth of manicured lawns and flourishing gardens, Spraystone was a secluded haven, lush with trees, scented with honeysuckle and yellow gorse, tucked away just before the steep drop of the Chalk Cliffs plunged into the Solent.

  Ariana drank it all in with an innocent abandon that enchanted Trenton, tugged insistently at some unknown place in his soul. The grounds, the birds, the flowers: All of this she opened her arms to, embraced, as one would a cherished friend.

  “Trenton, this isn’t a barn, it’s an estate for animals!” Amazed, Ariana stared at the enormous structure that housed Trenton’s livestock. “Why, you have enough room here for hundreds of sheep, six dozen pigs, scores of chickens, and an army of dogs and cats.”

  “And several dozen cows,” Trenton contributed.

  “Why? What do you do with all of them?”

  “Feed them well. And hopefully, as a result, obtain good-quality milk, dairy, wool …”

  “I know what livestock provide,” she interrupted. “But you live here alone. Do you offer all these products for trade?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “Is that one of your family businesses?”

  “No.”

  “Then …”

  “The sheared wool is sent to England, where it is woven into cloth. Then it is delivered, along with milk and eggs, to the farmers that live on Wight.”

  It took Ariana a minute to understand. “You mean you give these things to them?”

  Trenton’s brows arched. “Is that so astonishing? I have a great deal of money. Most of the farm laborers here are quite poor, their homes old and neglected. I can provide them with the assistance they need.”

  Pride swelled in Ariana’s chest. “You never told me this.”

  “You never asked.”

  “And I presume you restructure their homes as well?”

  “I do what I can.”

  She touched his arm. “What a wonderful man you are.”

  He stared down at her caressing fingers, his mouth thinning into a grim line. “I’m not a wonderful man, Ariana. I’m bitter and cold and unfeeling. As I’ve continually warned you, don’t envision me as some romantic hero.”

  “I don’t.” She stepped closer, conviction striking sudden and swift, born with all the impact of her earlier fear. “I see you as you are: a man with a great deal of pain locked up inside him … and a great deal of anger. I feel your rage, and I’m afraid. But I sense your goodness, and I’m renewed, for somehow I know it will triumph in the battle that tears you apart.”

  “I could be a murderer,” he reminded her harshly.

  The naked anguish in his tone obliterated her last vestige of doubt, “You could be.” She lay her hand against his jaw. “But you’re not.”

  Roughly, he pulled her to him. “Damn you, Ariana,” he muttered into the scented cloud of her hair. “Why do you make me want to be the man you believe I am?”

  She didn’t answer, only pressed her lips to the open expanse of his shirt.

  He shuddered, his arms tightening reflexively around her. Pinpoints of feeling, long ago numbed, sprang to life, leaving him raw, exposed … terrified.

  “Damn,” he hissed again, control evaporating in a heartbeat. He raised Ariana’s beautiful, flushed face to his, searching the trusting light in her eyes. “Misty angel … my exquisite, ethereal dreamer… why do you make me feel hope where none exists?”

  Her answer crystallized with a life of its own. “I love you,” she whispered.

  Trenton groaned, seizing her mouth with all the force of a drowning man. “My shelter from the storm,” he said gruffly against her lips. “Erase the darkness, if only for now. Surround me with your goodness, your faith. Love me, misty angel… love me.”

  He crushed her in his arms, taking her tongue, her breath, devouring her with a passion that sprang more from the soul than the body. He kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her neck, her throat, his body leaping painfully as Ariana pressed hungrily against him, eager and unafraid.

  “I’ve dreamed of making love to you here,” he breathed into her parted lips.

  “At Spraystone?” she managed, barely able to speak.

  “In the barn.” He was already unbuttoning her gown, his fingers shaking violently. “With nothing surrounding us but the animals and flowers you adore. With nothing under you but hay. With nothing under me but you.” He lowered his head, opening his mouth over the hardened outline of her nipples, tugging at them through the confines of her chemise.

  Ariana cried out, her legs buckling beneath her. She clutched Trenton’s strong forearms for support, feeling the world tilt askew as he lowered her to their rough-soft mattress. Her nostrils filled with the powerful aroma of hay, and she lay mesmerized by the fires banking in her husband’s eyes, by the erotic images of what he intended.

  Trenton unfastened the final button of her chemise, baring her to the waist, arching her into his mouth. The pleasure of his demanding lips and tongue was so acute Ariana thought she might faint. She cried out, again and again, twisting frantically in his arms.

  When he released her, she was beyond modesty or thought. For the first time the aggressor, she dragged open his shirt, then stroked his flat male nipples with her thumbs. The already taut muscles of Trenton’s abdomen went rigid, a wordless hiss erupting from his chest.

  Ariana didn’t pause. Shocking herself, she boldly reached down to press her palm to the hard ridge of flesh that pulsed beneath her husband’s trousers.

  He caught her wrist. “I won’t get my clothes off in time,” he rasped.

  “I’ll get them off for you.” She unfastened his trousers, pulling them down his hips.

  Trenton shoved her inexperienced hands away long enough to shrug his shirt from his shoulders and drag his trousers down his legs. Kneeling over her, magnificently naked, he hauled her gown and undergarments off, following their path with his lips. He paused where her stockings began, nuzzling the bare skin of her thighs for an instant before he savagely tore all the impeding garments away. He lifted her feet to discard the crumpled material, wedging himself into the cradle of her thighs. Raising her legs over his shoulders, he sank his tongue into her sweetness, taking her with relentless, heated strokes, reveling in her cries of ecstasy. This time he didn’t pause at the height of sensation but took her over its shattering brink, holding her captive as she dissolved in his arms.

  Ariana felt the world disintegrate, then rematerialize, her body still quivering with unbearable aftershocks. Her lids lifted as Trenton came down beside her, his eyes blazing with unsated passion, unspoken emotion. He moved urgently, reaching forward to drag her into his arms.

  But Ariana acted more quickly.

  Scrambling to her knees, she leaned over him, her hair a wild tumble of copper fire against his skin. Every bit the seductress, she was shameless this time, raking her nails lightly through the dark hair curling on his chest, bending to tease his nipples as he had hers. She thrilled to the way they tightened beneath her touch, exhilarated in her husband’s groan of pleasure. Avidly, she explored every muscled plane of his body, the coiled force and rough textures. She ran her hands over his powerful thighs, then settled between them, lovingly caressing his painfully rigid erection with soft sweeps of her fingertips.

  Trenton went deadly still, his breathing suspended, as he endured the unendurable ecstasy of her touch. Grappling with his voracious hunger, he knew there could be no more exquisite a sensation than Ariana’s i
nnocent hands learning him, touching him, feather-light and gentle.

  He learned he was wrong.

  When she took him in her mouth, needing to give him the same blinding sensations he’d given her, Trenton nearly exploded. Certain he’d never last, he commanded her to stop, even as his fingers tangled in her hair, urged her closer.

  His climax was already upon him when he dragged her to her back, shoved her legs apart, and thrust wildly within her hot, clinging wetness. Like a man possessed, he poured blindly into her, the hard floor of the barn anchoring her to receive the endless flow of his seed.

  Fervently, Ariana arched, taking all of her husband’s scorching release, pulling him as deep as her body would allow. She absorbed the tremor that shook his powerful frame, the hot, revealing declarations that were wrenched from his soul and wrapped herself around him, melding their passion, their hunger, their tenderness.

  Her own climax shattered through her, unraveling in a series of shimmering convulsions that stole her breath, her heart—and made them even more completely his.

  “I love you.”

  She whispered the words again, not at the frenzied peak, but in the lulling aftermath, when Trenton would recognize their significance.

  He did.

  Inhaling shakily, he raised up on his elbows, confronting his wife’s declaration head-on. “Our bodies make magic together,” he admitted, stunned to hear even that revelation from his own lips. “But love? What is love, misty angel? Perhaps you can tell me.” He pressed his loins to hers, his flesh still fully imbedded in hers. “Is this love? This explosion of pleasure you bring me, this insatiable need to make you mine … is that love? Or is love something more? … A fierce commitment that renders you vulnerable, that only results in pain? I don’t know, Ariana. What is love?”

  Ariana responded to the anguish in his eyes. “Love is wanting to be with someone, to share his life. It’s wanting to heal his suffering, to understand his past, to join herself to him … and not only with her body,” she returned, her gaze soft and candid.

  “I’m not sure I’m capable of an emotion that vast.”

  “I am sure.”

  For a long moment he was silent, studying her flushed face from beneath hooded lids. “And trust, misty angel?” he asked hoarsely. “Is not trust part of love as well?”

  Ariana drew a slow, trembling breath, aware of the crucial nature of this never-before-broached question. “Yes, trust is most definitely part of love.”

  “Is it? Well then, do you trust me?” Cynicism darkened his expression.

  “Most times … yes.”

  “Most times.” Trenton fought the jolt of disappointment that claimed him. Well, what the hell had he expected?

  “Trenton, please, don’t pull away.” Ariana tightened her arms about his back. “I want to trust you completely, but I don’t know how. You insist on closing me off … from your life, your past and all your grim secrets … even though those secrets involve my sister’s death. What am I to think?”

  “But you love me, remember? If trust is an integral part of love, shouldn’t one automatically imply the other?”

  “That’s not fair,” Ariana whispered.

  “Life’s not fair, misty angel.” Trenton pressed his forehead to hers, another layer of his implacable, self-protective wall crumbling. “Give me time.”

  Ariana knew how much that request cost him, and her heart swelled with joy and compassion. “All that you need.” She breathed the words against his skin, feeling more a wife than she had in all their hours of lovemaking combined. “And Trenton?”

  “What?”

  “I can’t promise I’ll never fear you, or even occasionally doubt you. But I can promise I won’t stop loving you.”

  Trenton raised his head. “You have no reason to trust me, Ariana, nor to believe in my innocence. You’ve been a Caldwell for eighteen years, and a wife for three days. I don’t expect a forced marriage to a virtual stranger to hold up against a lifetime of your brother’s teachings.”

  A tiny smile touched Ariana’s lips. “Give me time.”

  Tenderness softened the anguished lines about Trenton’s eyes.

  “All that you need.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  THE FOLLOWING DAY ARIANA lost her heart again—this time to the Isle of Wight.

  Strolling through the village of Bembridge, climbing the cliffs overlooking the Solent, and running along the crystalline waters nearing Osborne Bay—this time having abandoned not only all her petticoats, but her stockings and slippers as well—Ariana’s passion for Wight was immediate and overwhelming.

  “Is the whole island like this?” She wriggled her toes in the sand.

  Trenton felt as if he were discovering his home all over again. “No, actually, the southern half of the Isle is completely different, though just as beautiful. Rather than being quaint and picturesque, the south is much more dramatic, filled with deep ravines and sharp, jutting rocks. I’ll take you there later this week and you can see which you prefer.”

  “Can we walk farther along this stretch of beach?”

  “A bit, yes.” He shielded his eyes, peering into the distance. “Osborne House is just a mile or so from here.”

  “Oh.” Ariana looked crestfallen. “Then we’d best head back.”

  “Why?”

  “Trenton, even I know that the Queen’s grounds are not open to the public.”

  This, at least, he knew he could give her. “Would you feel better if I were to tell you that Victoria would have no objections to our strolling the grounds of Osborne?”

  Ariana’s eyes opened like saucers. “Truly?”

  “Truly. The Queen and my family have been friends for many years.”

  “That’s right; how could I forget? Her Majesty issued the edict for our marriage.”

  Trenton looked quickly at Ariana, searching her face for bitterness or regret. He found none. “Yes, she did. But not merely as a gesture of friendship.” He wasn’t certain why, but suddenly he needed to give Ariana some portion of truth. “The day following the Covington ball, Princess Beatrice suffered a boating mishap in Osborne Bay. I happened to hear her calls for help.”

  “You rescued her?”

  “It was nothing dramatic. Nevertheless, Victoria was exceeding grateful. She insisted on granting my most fervent wish. I sought but one thing: vengeance against your family for ruining my life. Thus, the edict.” He waited.

  “Then I owe the Queen my thanks, for without her unwanted interference you and I would never have wed.” Ariana gave him a brief, dazzling smile.

  A knot of emotion coiled in Trenton’s chest. He opened his mouth to reply but never got the chance.

  “Trenton, listen!” Ariana pressed her finger to her lips, cocking her head intently to one side.

  “To what? All I hear is a—”

  “It’s a cuckoo! Come!” She seized his arm, urging him to follow her. “Quickly!” Raising her skirts, she sprinted up the beach, away from the bird’s noisy call, until she finally collapsed onto the sand about a quarter of a mile farther north.

  “What was all that about?” Trenton easily reached his wife’s side and dropped down beside her.

  “Didn’t you hear the cuckoo?”

  “Of course I did. How could anyone miss that persistent screech?”

  “He was repeating himself for a reason: That’s his way of offering us good fortune.”

  “Now I am truly at sea.” Trenton absently smoothed the layers of wet sand from Ariana’s gown.

  “Has no one ever told you that legend?” She sounded amazed, her tone sympathetic, as if Trenton had been denied something incredibly significant. “Whenever you hear the cuckoo’s call, you begin to run, counting each call that follows, until you can no longer hear him. Whatever number you’ve reached will be the number of years added to your life.” Ariana stared up the sky. “The summer is nearly gone. … I very seldom see a cuckoo about. This one obviously visited for t
he sole purpose of bringing us additional time to enjoy all this splendor!”

  Trenton stretched his legs in front of him. “A true miracle,” he commented dryly. “So tell me, misty angel, how many total years have been added to your life, given that this is probably the fiftieth cuckoo you’ve discovered?”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  He turned, caught by the disappointment in her voice. “It isn’t you, Ariana. I believe in very little.”

  “I know,” she said sadly. “What I don’t understand is why your cynicism is so ingrained. Your life is rich with blessings. Surely you haven’t always been consumed with anger?”

  “No … not always.” Shadows cloaked his face, resounded in his voice.

  “Dustin is a wonderful brother,” Ariana persisted, ignoring the warning tremor that shivered up her spine. “Surely he must bring you some measure of joy?”

  “Dustin has been my lifeline these past years. He’s not only the finest of brothers, but the very best of friends.”

  “You’re fortunate. Most people would give anything for such a loving relationship.”

  The wistfulness in her tone obliterated Trenton’s customary reticence, replacing it with the unexpected need to comfort. “Theresa seems as devoted to you as if she were your mother.”

  A fond smile touched Ariana’s lips at the mention of Theresa’s name. “She is. I’m terribly grateful for her. … She gives me not only love, but a sense of balance.” Ariana tossed Trenton an impish look. “You probably haven’t noticed, but I have a tendency to lose touch with reality.”

  “Really? How surprising,” Trenton returned her teasing. “And when is that? When you are pursuing birds?”

  “Or pursuing whatever fantasy calls out to me.” She wrapped her arms about her knees. “Sometimes dreams are infinitely preferable to reality.”

  Instantly, he sobered. “Has your life been so very difficult?”

  “Oh, no. Never difficult. I was permitted to live as I pleased, with little or no demands placed on me.” Ariana scooped up a handful of sand, sifting it slowly as she spoke, remembering a childhood as fleeting as the grains that passed between her fingers. “I suppose I always wanted something that was distinctly mine, something that gave me a sense of identity. Once Mama and Papa died, it was as if I were floating. Baxter and Vanessa were already grown, their paths in life clear. Baxter was the brilliant businessman, destined to manage the Caldwell assets. Vanessa was an unequivocal beauty, the epitome of social grace and charm. And I? I was neither, not brilliant nor beautiful. Even as a child I possessed no outstanding quality to set me above or apart. In short, I was average. It was up to me to find my own niche. So when I got older, I did. I discovered nature. I’ve never been sorry.”