Burning Up

know.” She bit her lip. “I might.”
    “For what? For him?”
    Could she give up the sea for Jack?
    She admired him: his quiet strength, his bone-deep sense of responsibility, his constant heart. She liked him.
    But more, she liked the person she became when she was with him. Someone softer, more open, more aware of others’ emotions, more capable of feeling.
    Less alone.
    The children of the sea were alive to sensation. With Jack, she felt another part of her stir to life, like a long-dead limb responding to the pricks and tingles of returning circulation.
    She sought a way to put her feelings into words, searched for an answer that would satisfy her brother. That would satisfy them both.
    “For Jack, yes.” The words came slowly, dragged from the depths of her consciousness, from the bottom of her heart. “And perhaps for . . . love?”
    Morgan’s face closed. “We are finfolk. What do we know of love?”
    You love me , she thought.
    The realization struck like a fishhook into her heart, barbed and unexpected. They never spoke of their bond. It was not their way. But if she turned her back on Morgan and the sea, he might never recover. Would never forgive.
    She swallowed past the ache in her throat. “Enough to know how precious love is,” she said quietly. “And how rare.”
    “Love does not last, Morwenna.” Her brother’s gaze met hers, golden and implacable. “Nothing lasts forever but the sea.”
     
    T he sea shone as smooth as glass. Sunlight poured like honey over the green and gold hills as Jack handed Morwenna into the pony cart and walked around the horse’s head.
    She twisted on the seat to regard the basket packed behind her. “A picnic?” Her voice rose with pleasure.
    Jack climbed up. Stiffly, because of his leg. “You said I should enjoy life more,” he reminded her.
    “And I am delighted you listened,” she responded promptly. “But didn’t you eat off the ground often enough as a soldier?”
    He loved the way she laughed at him with her eyes. He picked up the ribbons, clicking his tongue at the pony. “Cook never prepared a basket for me in the Peninsula.”
    “Champagne and sweetmeats?”
    “Meat pies and lemonade.” He grinned. “I’m a man of basic appetites.”
    He had a simple soldier’s desires. For a home, a wife, children. And after years of wandering, he was finally on the road to achieving them all.
    These past few weeks with Morwenna he’d felt more at home, more at peace, than ever before in his life. Last night across the dining table at Arden, she had glowed in the light of the candles, her silver gold hair arranged in tousled curls. Like she belonged there, mistress of his heart and of his house. The servants all liked her. The villagers liked her.
    And he . . .
    He’d wanted to lay her down among the silver and china, between the puddings and the gravy, and lick her all over. He’d burned to take her upstairs to the master bedroom with its big, curtained bed and touch her, take her, own her.
    Of course he’d done none of those things.
    Sloat and the servants had been around to keep his lust in check. Whatever circumstances had driven her from her brother’s home and protection, she was a lady. He would not show her less than respect in front of his dependents.
    Now, sitting in the open carriage with her hands folded demurely in her lap, she gave him the slumberous look he loved. “If you wished to satisfy your basic appetites, we could have stayed at the cottage. I have two chairs now,” she informed him smugly. “ And a bed.”
    His blood heated even as he laughed. She might be a lady, but he was still very much a man. He was urgently, painfully aware that he could have her back at her cottage and naked in under five minutes.
    But he wanted more from her than civilized dinners or stolen rendezvous.
    He turned the cart down the narrow track that meandered to the cove and the boat he had waiting. He was sensitive to every shift of her body on the narrow bench, of her thigh warm beside his. Beneath his tailored coat, he was sweating, his body as hard as the brake handle.
    But he would not be distracted again. Every time in the past few weeks he had tried to broach the subject of marriage, Morwenna had turned the conversation aside, diverting him with a look, a touch, a whispered invitation.
    Not that he had been that difficult to distract, Jack admitted ruefully.
    He had planned this outing with all the care of a general plotting battle