MILES WAS AWAKENED BY KIT’S FOOT IN HIS RIBS AS THE boy painfully climbed over his father. “Be very quiet, Papa,” Kit whispered loudly and juicily in the vicinity of Miles’s ear. “Don’t wake Elizabeth.” With that he was over his father and running into the dim forest.
Miles watched his son and rubbed his bruised ribcage.
“Will you live?” Elizabeth asked laughingly from beside him.
He turned and their eyes met. Elizabeth’s hair was spread about her and her face was sleep softened. He’d not realized how stern a control she kept on herself. Cautiously, smiling slightly, he moved his hand from her shoulder to her cheek, gently caressed the outline of her jaw.
His breath held when she didn’t pull away. It was as if she were a wild animal he was trying to tame and he must move very slowly so as not to frighten her away.
Elizabeth watched Miles, felt his hand on her face with a sense of wonder. His eyes were liquid, his lips full and soft. She’d never allowed a man to touch her before and never wondered what it would be like to feel a man’s caress. But now she lay stretched out, facing Miles Montgomery, only inches separating their bodies, and she wondered what it would feel like to touch him. There was a dark growth of beard on his cheeks, emphasizing the sharp cut of them. A curl of dark hair touched his ear.
As if reading her thoughts, Miles lifted Elizabeth’s hand, placed it on his cheek. She let it rest there for a moment, her heart pounding. It was as if she were doing something forbidden. After a very long moment, she moved her hand to touch his hair. It was soft and clean and she wondered how it smelled.
Her eyes went back to Miles’s and she sensed that he was going to kiss her. Pull away, she thought, but she didn’t move.
Slowly, his eyes telling her she could refuse him, he drew near her and when his lips touched hers, she kept her eyes open. What a pleasant feeling, she thought.
He just touched her lips with his and held them there, not forcing her mouth open, not grabbing her and throwing his weight onto her as other men had done, but just the light, highly pleasant kiss.
He was the first to pull away and there was a light of such warmth in his eyes that she began to stiffen. Now would come the pouncing.
“Hush,” he soothed, his hand on her cheek. “No one is going to hurt you ever again, my Elizabeth.”
“Papa!” Kit yelled and the spell was broken.
“No doubt he’s spotted a unicorn this time,” Miles said under his breath as he reluctantly rose. His jest was rewarded by the hint of a smile from Elizabeth.
Rising, Elizabeth winced at an ache in her shoulder. She wasn’t used to sleeping on the ground.
Acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Miles began to knead Elizabeth’s shoulders. “What have you found now, Kit?” he called above her head.
“A path,” Kit yelled back. “Can I follow it?”
“Not until we get there. Better?” he asked Elizabeth, and when she nodded he kissed her neck and quickly began to gather their few belongings.
“Are you always so free with women?” she asked and there was curiosity in her voice. “When you visit someone’s house do you freely kiss all the women?”
Miles didn’t pause in burying the dead coals of last night’s fire. “I can be civilized, I assure you, and usually I limit my kissing to hands—at least in public.” He looked back at her, smiling, eyes sparkling. “But with you, my lovely Elizabeth, from our first…ah, meeting, nothing has been done in the usual manner. I can’t help but feel that you were a gift to me, a very precious gift, but, nonetheless, something that is mine to keep.”
Before she could answer—and, in truth, she was too stunned to answer—he caught her hand and began pulling her to where Kit glared at them impatiently. “Let’s go and see where this path takes us.”
Miles held her hand as Kit led them down the narrow, long-disused path. “What do you think of my son?”
Elizabeth smiled at the boy who was poking at a mushroom on the ground. As she watched, he straightened and began running ahead of them. “He’s very independent, intelligent and quite adult for his age. You must be very proud of him.”
Miles’s chest swelled visibly. “I have two more at home. Philip Stephen is as exotic-looking as his mother, with a temper that sets his nurse trembling, and he’s only a year old.”
“And your other boy? Bridget’s son?”
“James Raine is exactly opposite of Philip and the two of them are together constantly. I have a feeling it may always be that way. James gives Philip his toys when Philip demands them.” He chuckled. “The only thing James will share with no one is his nurse. He screams even if I touch her.”
“He must do a great deal of screaming,” Elizabeth said sarcastically.
“James is silent practically always,” Miles said, laughing. He leaned closer to her. “But then he does go to bed quite early.”
She pushed him away playfully.
“Papa,” Kit yelled, running to them. “Come and look. It’s part of a house but it burned down.”