The English Aristocrat's Bride Read online

  “Come home with me, now. I want to make love to you, Fiona.”

  Make love to you. As though the shaft of an arrow had pierced her heart, Karyn went utterly still in the man’s arms. Although, she thought distantly, nothing could have stopped the air heaving in her lungs, the pulse throbbing in her ears. Or the pangs of desire, unrelieved, that ached in her belly.

  In a kiss that seemed to have gone on forever, she’d traveled to a place she’d never been before. She, Karyn Marshall.

  Not Fiona Talbot.

  “I know you want me,” the man whispered, running his finger down her cheek and tracing the soft curve of her lips until she gave another of those unquenchable shudders of response. “You want me as much as I want you.”

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  Sandra Field

  THE ENGLISH ARISTOCRAT’S BRIDE

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  HER sister lived in this house. The sister she had never met, whose existence she’d discovered a scant four weeks ago.

  Karyn Marshall stepped deeper into the shadows of the trees. Should anyone glance out of one of the tall windows set in mellow, rose-pink brick, she was safely hidden from view. Skulking like a common thief, she thought with a shiver. Watching and waiting.

  It wasn’t just a house. It was a mansion. Wisteria drooped its delicate blooms all the way up to the second story; there were stables to one side and a four-car garage with a cobbled driveway. Every detail was perfect, yet served only to increase her unease.

  She was afraid. Far too afraid to announce her presence.

  Her twin sister and only sibling, Fiona Talbot, lived in this house, whose name was Willowbend. For Fiona, Willowbend was home, along with a luxury beyond Karyn’s imagining. Karyn glanced down at her plain linen slacks and tailored shirt, clothes she’d thought would be entirely adequate for this meeting. An evening dress would have been more appropriate; not that she owned one.

  She’d given away all her dresses after Steve had died.

  Karyn shrank back against the tree trunk as a woman in a glowing red gown suddenly appeared in one of the windows. An older woman; even at this distance, Karyn could discern the twinkle of diamonds encircling her throat. Was this Clarissa Talbot, Fiona’s adoptive mother? The woman turned her head to speak to someone in the room, then disappeared. A moment later, a uniformed butler drew long curtains across the window.

  A butler. Karyn bit back a quiver of hysterical laughter. This was an English country mansion. Of course they’d have a butler.

  Why, oh, why, hadn’t she written first, to tell the family of her existence? That way, she’d have been an expected guest who could have walked confidently up the driveway and knocked on the front door.

  She hadn’t written because she’d worried that the Talbots would tell her to stay away. To leave the past where it belonged, buried and forgotten.

  If only she wasn’t so desperate to meet her unknown twin, to assuage some of the terrible loneliness of the last few months…

  Behind Karyn, something rustled in the undergrowth. She whirled, her heart leaping like a startled rabbit’s, every nerve on edge. A twig snapped. She strained her eyes, trying to penetrate the dense tangle of shrubs and trees, and to her dismay saw a darker shadow climbing the little slope that led up to the garden. Coming her way.

  A man. Whistling softly under his breath, finding his way through the gloomy woods with the ease of familiarity.

  Her eyes flicked around her. She could have tried to hide, ducking behind the nearest oak tree and hoping for the best. But her raincoat was light beige, as were her trousers, and the odds of remaining unseen far too small. So she stood her ground, lifting her chin. She might look like a thief. But there was no need to behave like one.

  The man was only a few feet away from her. He was tall, with hair black as night; dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, he moved with a feline grace that added one more layer to her fear. She’d read about poachers who prowled the woods after dark. Was he one of them? A lawbreaker? She should have hidden. Or run. While she had the chance.

  Then, suddenly, the man saw her. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes, dark as his hair, trained on her face. “Fiona,” he said softly, “what are you doing out here?”

  Karyn’s breath had lodged in her throat; she couldn’t have said a word to save her soul. At the inn where she was staying in the village of Droverton, the landlord on his first sight of her had called her “Miss Fiona,” and his initial disbelief had been all too obvious when she’d said she was Karyn Marshall, a tourist from eastern Canada. He’d looked, she remembered quite clearly, downright suspicious; and hadn’t behaved with any of the friendliness she’d expected to find in a little village inn.

  Now the man who’d appeared out of the woods was con-firming what the landlord’s behavior had suggested: she and Fiona must be identical twins. Must look so very much alike that one of them could be mistaken for the other.

  The man had stepped a little closer. He was well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and long-legged, making Karyn feel both feminine and fragile in a way she didn’t care for. Although his face was shadowed, she could see that it was strongly hewn, handsome and full of character. Character? Much too wishywashy a word, she thought breathlessly. How about ruthlessness? Power? Charisma? Cemented together with a compellingly male dose of sexiness. It took all her pride not to step back, and all her willpower to keep her eyes from fastening on the carved sensuality of his mouth.

  Think, Karyn. Think.

  Her throat might have closed as though a hand was clamped tight around it. But she didn’t have to shut her brain off as well. The man had called her Fiona, not Miss Fiona. So he knew her sister well. Perhaps, just perhaps, he’d be her way into Willowbend.

  She might succeed, after all, in meeting her twin this very evening; and if she had to use this black-haired man to do so, she would.

  Rafe Holden had been thinking about Fiona as he wended his way through the trees. He’d hoped to make it to Willowbend in time for dinner that evening; but his flight from Athens had been delayed, and he’d phoned Clarissa to tell her not to expect him.

  Then, breaking into his thoughts as he climbed the slope, something had alerted him to another presence in the woods. When he glanced up, he saw Fiona immediately; she was standing against the oak tree that the pair of them had often climbed as children. He, seven years older and always the leader; and always protective of his little blond, blue-eyed neighbor.

  “Fiona,” he said, “what are you doing out here?”

  As he waited for her to answer, his feet sank gently into the rich humus of last autumn’s leaves, new ferns brushing his knees. His gaze sharpened and he stepped a little closer. She looked frightened. More than frightened, as though something had knocked her right off balance, striking her dumb. If Clarissa had been at her again, there’d be hell to pay. He’d see to that.

  He closed the distance between them in three swift strides and took her in his arms. Her body was taut. Her scent was new,
more complex and more sensuous than he was used to. He liked it. Liked it very much. Her hair was different, too. Astonishingly different. For as long as he could remember, Fiona had obeyed her mother’s strictures to let her hair grow all the way down her back; she often wore it pulled away from her face in a long braid. Virginal, he’d occasionally thought. Untouched. Just as Clarissa wanted Fiona to be.

  But now her hair was cut short, feathered to her face in soft curls that made her look like another woman. A more sophisticated woman; and again that word sensuous came to Rafe’s mind. Her decision to lop off her braid intrigued him, and he was certainly into encouraging any rebellions on her part. He said, bending his head to kiss her cheek, “I like the haircut—what made you do it? I bet that got your mother’s goat.”

  He liked holding Fiona. It was like coming home to all that was familiar, to the friendship they’d shared for years, their bonds of a shared history and a deep love of the landscape where they’d both grown up. He rubbed his cheek gently against the softness of her hair, wanting only to soothe her. Clarissa Talbot on the warpath was a force to be reckoned with.

  Then, to his astonishment, her head shifted and almost inadvertently his mouth found hers. Her lips were cool, their touch tentative; her slender frame, in a raincoat he’d never seen before, felt as rigid as the ghastly Greek nymphs Douglas Talbot had stationed throughout the azalea garden. Against her mouth, he whispered, “It’s okay…you can relax now. I’m here, and I’m on your side.”

  One of his hands was cupping her nape. Wisps of blond hair, soft and silky, teased his fingers. She made a tiny sound in her throat, and almost insensibly her mouth softened under his. There were layers upon layers to her scent, each of them encouraging him to explore further.

  Which was something he’d never thought of doing before. Certainly never felt driven to do. For wasn’t Fiona his oldest friend? Only once in his life had he known the fire and recklessness of a passion that had swept him off his feet, and the results had devastated him in a way he’d never forgotten, and had no wish to repeat. For him, Fiona’s strongest attraction was how she represented all the comforts of familiarity: the ease, the lack of demand and the total trust.

  He could live without passion. Once burned, twice shy. Or, more accurately in his case, once burned, permanently shy.

  By now her body had softened, too, her shoulder under his palm fractionally less tight. Still with infinite care, Rafe drew her closer, sliding his hand under her coat to find her shoulder and knead it gently through the folds of her shirt. She even felt different, he thought in an unquenchable shaft of excitement. All of a sudden he didn’t want the feel of fabric; he wanted her skin to his. Heat to heat.

  His kiss deepened, the pressure of his mouth seeking more from her. In a sunburst of shocked delight he realized she was giving him exactly what he was asking, opening to him, yielding. Her hands were pressed to his chest, their warmth penetrating his pores. Slowly, as though she were savoring every moment, her palms slid upward to encircle the back of his neck, where her fingers buried themselves in his hair. He was the one who should have got a haircut, Rafe thought dimly. He’d planned to, but the meetings at his new hotel had taken longer than he’d expected.

  Then he stopped thinking altogether as he felt the first, swift dart of her tongue to his. Instantly he met her, feeding on the wet, slick heat of her mouth, enticed by its sweetness. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her toward him, her pliancy like a flame in his arms, her startled gasp of pleasure potent as the roar of a waterfall on the fells. How could he possibly have guessed that so much ardor was hidden under her delicacy, beneath that air she wore of remoteness and untouchability?

  She’d never shown it to him before.

  His groin had hardened with fierce intent; he shifted away from her, afraid she would withdraw from fear or shyness. However, in a fierce mingling of gratitude and sheer lust, he felt her press her hips into his, as though she, too, craved to do away with the barriers of clothing and civilized restraint. Yearned to belong to him in the most primitive of ways.

  Desperate to touch her, Rafe tugged her shirt from her waistband and thrust his hand under it. Her skin was like the finest silk, her ribs impossibly fragile. When he found the swell of her breast, firm and warm under the sheerest of lace, its tip was hard as a small stone. She moaned again as he teased her nipple; all the while his tongue played with hers, their lips locked together in a searing commitment to give each other pleasure.

  From a long way away, he was aware of her tearing at his shirt; then felt the dizzying heat of her fingers flat against his chest, tangled in his body hair. His heart was pounding like a farrier’s hammer; his own nipples hardened to her touch. He nibbled at her lower lip, his teeth scraping her tongue, his emotions churning as she trembled in his embrace in mute and total surrender. Could he die of such ecstasy?

  He wanted her here. Now. On the ground, against the tree, he didn’t care. Had he ever felt such explosive desire, such hot, fierce hunger?

  But he couldn’t take her here. Not Fiona. Not in sight of Willowbend. His breath sobbing in his chest, Rafe said urgently, “Come home with me now, to Stoneriggs. I want to make love to you, Fiona.” His voice warmed with laughter. “In a bed. Not on the ground under the oak trees—you deserve better than that.”

  Make love to you. As though the shaft of an arrow had pierced her to the heart, Karyn went utterly still in the man’s arms. Although, she thought distantly, nothing could have stopped the air heaving in her lungs, the pulse throbbing in her ears. Or the pangs of desire, unrelieved, that ached in her belly.

  In a kiss that seemed to have gone on forever, she’d traveled to a place she’d never been before. She, Karyn Marshall.

  Not Fiona Talbot.

  “I know you want me,” the man whispered, running his fingers down her cheek and tracing the soft curve of her lips until she gave another of those unquenchable shudders of response. “You want me as much as I want you.”

  Distraught, horrified, Karyn struggled to get her breath under control, to find her voice amid the turmoil in her body. What had happened to her? How could she have let a simple kiss go this far without blurting out who she was?

  But before she could even find the words, let alone speak them, a chorus of excited barking split the silence of the woods. From the undergrowth a pack of dogs burst into the open and hurled themselves joyously on the man who was still clasping her in his arms. Their weight threw him sideways. Seeing her chance, Karyn yanked herself free. Obeying instinct, she whirled and raced for the woods.

  “Get down, Sandy! Randall, down! For God’s sake, when are my parents ever going to teach you any manners? Charlotte, off!”

  If Karyn had learned one thing during that devastating kiss, it was that this man took what he wanted: he wouldn’t be delayed for long. She ran for her life, tumbling down the slope and leaping over a stream that roiled between rocks slippery with moss. The woods were thicker now, and the sun had set. Seeking the shadows, jumping over fallen trunks, she ran on, deeper and deeper into the trees. She was headed in the general direction of the village, that much she knew, and for which she was pitifully grateful.

  “Fiona! Fiona, come back.”

  His voice was fainter, masked by the leaves, the rattle of the stream and the barking dogs. Desperately Karyn increased her pace, until her ribs hurt and her chest was starved for air. Branches lashed her coat, her hands warding them from her face. Would the dogs follow her? Lead him to her?

  Then what?

  It was her nightmare all over again, she thought with sudden, sickening clarity: the nightmare that had recurred with ominous regularity ever since her husband Steve’s death. In it she was running for her life through the darkness…

  All too abruptly, the woods thinned and with a whimper of fear she burst into an open field. A stone wall loomed ahead of her, curving around to the left; sheep were huddled like small boulders on the other side.

  The road to the vill
age, she remembered, ran alongside this field. If she could cross the road, she could follow the woods on the far side until she came to the cluster of houses. Once she was at the inn, she’d be safe.

  Safe from what? A nightmare? Or from the man in the woods?

  He hadn’t exactly attacked her. She’d been the one who’d gone on the attack. Who’d laced her tongue with his in open invitation and pushed her hips against his.

  With a moan of despair Karyn scrambled toward the nearest wall which, she now saw, edged the woods all the way back toward Willowbend. A metal gate was inset where the wall met the field. The harsh whine of hinges scraping her nerves, she unlatched the gate, swung it open and eased through, carefully shutting it behind her. The sheep paid her no attention whatsoever.

  The road was empty, its grassy verges fragrant with wild-flowers. Her lungs still fighting for air, she crossed it as quickly as she could, easing into the shrubbery on the other side and scurrying toward the lights of the village. The man who’d kissed her had come through the woods; at least he didn’t have a car in which to pursue her.

  She’d kissed him with a seductive intimacy that Steve, even in the early days of courtship, had never elicited from her. Yet she didn’t even know the man’s name.

  What difference? She didn’t need to know his name. She just had to make sure she never saw him again.

  She’d reached the first house, stone like so many of the houses here, its tiny front garden jammed with a riot of delphiniums, foxgloves, daisies and poppies. After drawing her coat tighter around her, Karyn pulled her headscarf from her pocket to cover her hair and as much of her face as she could.

  The sidewalk, to her great relief, was empty: to have been mistaken for Fiona for the third time that day would have been more than she could bear. To her greater relief, the dour landlord of the inn was nowhere in sight when she pushed open the door; the wood-paneled counter with its tarnished collection of horse brasses was deserted, although she could hear the echo of laughter from the pub. She sneaked up the stairs, unlocked her door and slipped into her room. Quickly she snubbed the latch. Then she leaned back on the panels, letting out her breath in a shuddering sigh.