The Savage Heart by Diana Palmer Page B

that is.”
    â€œThey do, and you are,” he countered. “We both lost control. It’s nothing to cry about.”
    â€œI led you… I encouraged you—” She stopped, too embarrassed to finish the sentence.
    â€œYes, I know,” he mused wickedly. “I’ll strut for a week.”
    She shivered. “It was wrong!”
    â€œIt doesn’t feel wrong,” he replied. His hand smoothed her disheveled hair, and he noticed that somewhere in the tempestuous heat of the past few minutes, her hat had been dislodged, pins and all. “We’ll find your hat in a minute,” he said, “when my legs stop trembling.”
    â€œOh, are they?” she asked impulsively. “So are mine.”
    He laughed again, his misgivings gone in the delight of the moment. “Tess, have you never felt a man’s mouth before?”
    â€œWell, no,” she confessed. “And certainly not…not like that!”
    Her embarrassment made him feel protective. “Like what?”
    She hid her face against his chest. “You know.”
    His hand soothed her nape. His lips brushed her temple. “Oh, for the wild, free days,” he whispered huskily, “whenwe could have lain together in the tall grass by the river and learned each other by touch and taste with no household of strangers to barge in on us!”
    She found a glimmer of humor in the frustration in his voice and laughed. “Snakes would have slithered over us, and we’d have been eaten alive by mosquitoes.”
    He chuckled, too. “I suppose so.” He touched her ear-lobe. “Feel less shaky now?”
    â€œA little.”
    He released her, bending to pick up her hat. “I can’t see the pins in the dark. How many had you?”
    â€œOnly one, with a pearl on the end. Oh, dear, Father gave it to me for my birthday last year. I hope it isn’t lost.”
    He was still feeling around the floor. “Aha.”
    He produced it and placed it in her hand, along with the hat. “You’d better try and get that back on, or we’ll become the focus of some lively gossip when we go inside.”
    She felt for her bun, and then placed the hat, spearing through it with the hatpin. “I’ll bet I look flushed.”
    â€œI should hope so,” he said haughtily.
    She hit at his sleeve. “Masher.”
    â€œGood God, you’re delicious to make love to,” he said in spite of himself.
    â€œNever do that again,” she said primly. “You aren’t going to lead me into a life of sin.”
    â€œI wouldn’t dream of it,” he said with mock solemnity.
    She moved into the light, nervous about how she must look. She turned. “How bad?” she asked worriedly.
    He moved closer. He was as grim and severe as always,except for his eyes. “You’ve been crying,” he said suddenly. “And before I ever touched you. Why?”
    She sighed raggedly. “Because Marsh Bailey committed suicide today.”
    â€œTess!”
    â€œHe had a bottle of opium. The doctor said it was an overdose, that he was an addict and his amputation would leave him unable to afford his habit.” She wiped at another tear with the handkerchief crumpled and stuffed in her skirt pocket. “Oh, bother, I can’t help feeling that I helped bring it about, Matt. I let him depend on me…and he came to think he loved me…and asked me to marry him. This very afternoon, he asked. And I turned him down, of course. I don’t really feel it was my fault exactly, Matt, but oh—”
    He hugged her tight. “I’m sorry, so sorry,” he said as he pushed her to arm’s length. “I wouldn’t have been angry if I’d known. I thought you were staying out deliberately to spite me. I was half out of my mind, thinking about all the dire things that could have happened to you, alone in the city, especially after the close