Must Have Been The Moonlight Page 13

  When their hearts had quit racing, he pulled back to look into her face, his silver irises dark on hers. She sensed that she’d somehow throw him off balance, and that made her smile.

  “Are you mine today, my wild Irish rose,” his voice was rough, his gaze tender and searching, “or am I yours?”

  “Wild Irish rose?” She wrinkled her nose at him, that he would equate her to a flowering bramble. “I’m insulted.”

  “Don’t be.” He twisted her around and took her down to the bed, capturing her hands above her. Her hair fanned out around her like an inky cloud. “It was a compliment.”

  Then he proceeded to show her how much of a compliment it was, and what it was like to lie in the strong arms of Michael Fallon.

  Chapter 8

  Lying naked in the twisted bedcovers, Brianna opened her eyes and stretched. Sunlight filtered through the blinds. Her hand went to the pillow beside hers and she twisted around on her elbow. Her body ached, every inch bearing the mark of Major Fallon’s complete possession of her. He had outlasted her. She could barely move.

  A pitcher of water sloshed on the commode. A towel and rag had been laid out for her convenience. On the dresser, she saw a bottle of wine set beside a platter of fruit and cheese. Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to see that she was made comfortable when she awakened. Pulling the sheet to her chin, Brianna smiled at the play of light and water on the ceiling before finally sitting up.

  After washing, she opened the armoire and found a man’s robe. Brianna lifted a feminine slipper, turning it over in her hand. A chemise had been neatly folded into a drawer. Thrusting her arms into the robe, she then belted it at the waist. She grabbed the fruit platter and, tucking the flask beneath her arm, edged out of the bedroom, only to find the saloon also empty. Her clothes had been laid over the settee atop a British uniform. Brianna fingered the sun-warmed sleeve of the jacket and, bringing it to her nose, bent to look behind the blinds. A glimpse outside told her that the dahabeeyah had turned and was heading back toward Cairo. The sun was now on the other side of the river. She’d been asleep for a couple of hours.

  Major Fallon was sitting on deck when she found him. With his long legs stretched out in front of him and propped on the rail, he wore his uniform trousers tucked into his boots. A white military issue shirt stretched across the width of his shoulders as he dropped his gaze to the glass in his hands. All she could do was inhale the sight of him. She must have made some sound, because he turned in his chair, and Brianna felt that stirring essence of protectiveness when he looked at her.

  “Hello,” she said, remembering herself almost at once and setting the wine and platter of fruit on the table to share with him.

  A warm unfathomable smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Hello back to you, amîri.”

  For the first time in her life she was struck speechless by an attack of maidenly shyness. He had done things to her body that no Kama Sutra manual could ever have prepared her for. She’d been naive to think that her experience level would ever equal his—in anything.

  Brianna set her hands on the back of the chair that faced his across the table. “Who is sailing the boat?” Her gaze stretched across the length of white canvas unfurled to the breeze.

  “The crew is on the other side of the cabins.”

  The cabins blocked the view. Two walkways stretched the length of the houseboat. “Do they live on board year-round?”

  “When the dahabeeyah is in commission they do. Their quarters are below the foredeck.”

  “How often is this houseboat in commission?”

  He leaned with his elbows against the table, cradling his drink between his hands, and observed her with alacrity. “When I want it to be.” His eyes were smiling. “Halid lives on board when he’s in Cairo. There are two other cabins and a kitchen. At one time I’d wanted to sail all the way down to Aswan.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked out across the water, his expression nearly poignant. “After a while everything seems colorless.”

  She watched a bank of clouds drift over the distant spires outlined against the bright blue horizon. “I think to enjoy this country, this city, one must be at heart a painter.” She turned her head and smiled at him. “For there is color in everything if one looks hard enough.” Pulling aside the length of her robe, she sat.

  From the corner of her eye she saw his hand go to the tin of tobacco at his elbow. She promptly set her palm over his. “Is it necessary to keep temptation so close at hand?” She arched a brow. “I thought you were trying not to smoke that stuff.”

  He sat there for a moment, an imperturbable expression in his eyes. His gaze rubbing across the opening in her robe, his bedroom smile was slow, and Brianna flushed as she was reminded of every place that his mouth had touched her. “What do you suggest that I do?” he inquired of her. “With this temptation of mine?”

  “Throw it overboard.”

  “Now, there’s a thought.” He relaxed back in the chair. “But what would prevent me from acquiring more? Temptation is all around me.”

  “Then smoke.” She thrummed her nails, impudently surveying him as he’d done her. “But I don’t want to hear that you want to be free of your cravings.”

  His roguish mouth tilted. “Did you have an unhappy childhood? Is that why you’re so cruel?”

  “No.” She cut a slice of cheese and slipped it between her lips. “Though my mother died when I was young, I had a loving if not strict family. I suppose that comes from being the only girl and the youngest. Still, we are close.” She sawed off another slice of cheese. “You should see us when we play croquet. Our family tournaments are very lively. World domination is a serious objective at the Donally homestead.”

  He continued to observe her over his glass, as if she was a little touched in the head.

  Maybe she was, she decided, when she turned her attention to the fruit. She wasn’t like other women.

  Nor was she that different.

  “In my family, my brothers Ryan and Johnny held some legendary burping competitions. Those two were always the most misbehaved. Far worse than I’ve ever been accused. At least I have manners and, though I’m rebellious and generally an anarchist, those are faults that I have turned into virtues.”

  “Is there anything that you won’t or can’t do?”

  “I can’t pee standing up. I tried when I was five. It’s very messy.” Brianna bit her lower lip to muffle her laugh. “I suppose pee isn’t a proper word in the feminine vocabulary.”

  Shaking his head, he looked away and laughed. “I don’t suppose it is,” he offered in a voice rich and deep.

  “What about your family?”

  “Domination is achieved through manipulation and autocratic machinations.” He bent forward on his elbow. But this time his smile did not reach his eyes, and Brianna saw something of the dangerous man he was. “Our games are more serious than yours. And if anyone burped, my mother would have seen that we didn’t sit for a week. That didn’t mean we behaved, though. My brothers and I got into our share of trouble.”

  “Your brothers?”

  He studied the contents of his glass. “I’m the third of three sons.” Lifting his gaze, he grinned. His teeth were white against the beginnings of a shadow on his face. “Though if you ever knew my parents, you’d wonder how they managed that many. Virgin birth was a very plausible theory among us. We didn’t know there was any other way until well into our teens.”

  She laughed, and plopping a grape between her lips, stretched her hand across the table to play with his. “They can’t have been so bad as that. You turned out well.”

  “One of my older brothers died of typhoid when I was nineteen.” He looked at her hand, turning it over to trace her palm. “He was the reason I stayed in England longer than I should have.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Even aristocracy is not immune to common diseases that obliterat
e the ranks of the poor. As our own queen can attest.”

  Her voice hesitated. “Aristocracy?”

  He raised his gaze. “My family’s ducal title comes from a battle fought during the War of Roses. Somehow we’ve always managed to be on the right side of every monarchy crisis in the centuries since.” His thumb rubbed her wrist. “Two years ago when my grandfather died, the Ravenspur title went to my brother.”

  His brother was a duke? Brianna swallowed this news like a lump of salt. No wonder Alex felt camaraderie with him. They’d both practically grown up in the same circle of tyrants. “Did you ever know my sister-in-law?” she asked.

  “I met her once when we were children. Her father heads the Foreign Services office. Lord Ware is my superior.”

  Brianna’s gaze clung to his face. “Then you are probably aware that he’s a bastard, who practically destroyed my brother’s life.”

  Major Fallon sat back in the chair. “No.” His mouth tilted. “I must have been away from England for that part of the opera.”

  Dropping her gaze to her hands, now folded in her lap, she tightened her fingers. She’d sought to impress him, but feared she’d only managed to equate her life with a complete lack of breeding. She possessed a sudden need to defend her family to him. “My family isn’t a bunch of uncouth Irish bumpkins, Major. My brothers have worked very hard to reach the pinnacle of success they have in British society. Each of them is very accomplished.”

  But there was no censure in his eyes. Indeed, they were hooded. She could read nothing. “I don’t begrudge you your happy childhood,” he said. “Frankly, it’s refreshing.”

  “Fallon isn’t your real name. Or people would know who you are.”

  “The people whom I want to know the truth know who I am.”

  She realized that he’d wanted her to know. It had been no accident that he’d let the information slip. “What is your name?”

  A muscle worked in his jaw as he seemed to contemplate her question. “James Michael Fallon Aldbury.”

  “Aldbury!”

  Brianna knew that name. The Aldbury family was a British dynasty. She’d come across that name in more than one march on parliament.

  “No wonder you can afford this kind of luxury,” she said suddenly, inexplicably disappointed and defeated.

  “What I have here wasn’t bought with family riches, amîri.”

  “What would make someone like you leave your life and become a soldier? To risk your life the way you do?”

  “Now that is something I’m not willing to share.”

  Suddenly feeling out of her element, she started cleaning up the table. “You don’t look like a James.”

  “My name is Michael.”

  “And what do your other women call you? You must have one or two hidden around here. I found their clothes in your armoire.”

  Laughter lurked in his eyes. “Isn’t this the place in my confession where you’re supposed to fall into my lap and swear undying love?”

  He was mocking her. “If you want that kind of adoration, there is a flotilla of debutantes here in Cairo eager to catch a husband with your credentials. I liked you better when you were just a soldier.”

  He caught up to her in the saloon. “Why?” He spun her to face him.

  “Because I thought that I knew you.” She shook off his arm. “Because you’re the man who saved my life when I would have perished. The man who brought Christopher back to Lady Alexandra, who visits invalid men and takes his children to the market.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and felt the hot burn of tears in her eyes. “I respected who you were.”

  He tilted her chin. “And you don’t now?”

  “I don’t know what I think, Major. I don’t know how you can be everything good and still hate the way that you do.”

  “Say my name, Brianna. Is it so hard to call me something other than major?”

  She turned her chin. Your name is too intimate she’d wanted to tell him, when he captured her chin and pulled her face around.

  Yet, it was more than that, she realized.

  It was the only line she’d drawn to separate the reality from the fantasy. From thinking that her relationship with Michael Fallon could ever be more than what it was when she’d had her own dreams to pursue, a whole world to conquer—when falling in love with anyone else in this lifetime would be, by and far, the biggest mistake she could make.

  “Can’t we go back an hour to the way we were?” she quietly beseeched, her arms creeping up to enclose his neck. “We’ve digressed from our affair. Don’t you think?”

  “I’m easy, amîri.” His thumb slid with tantalizing slowness across her bottom lip. “What man would turn down a roll with you?”

  The stunned quickness of her breath came out in a gasp.

  But he did turn her down.

  Shrugging into his uniform, he turned to face her as he settled his hands over the brass buttons that ran up the front of the jacket. “Halid will be waiting when the dahabeeyah docks.”

  To Brianna’s mortification, hot tears welled up. “I’ve never known you to behave so insufferably rude, Major Fallon.”

  “Am I?” He laughed, his gaze dipping to touch the fullness of her mouth before rising to encompass her eyes. “The truth about me would probably astonish you, Brianna.”

  Clutching her robe in bewildered disbelief, she flinched when the door shut behind him. Later, she stood alone on the deck when the dahabeeyah docked. Brianna watched as Major Fallon disembarked. He looked so at ease in his place of authority, as if he did this on a regular basis. After saying something brief to Halid, who held their horses in tow on the dock, Major Fallon returned to her with such lazy good humor, she could hardly believe that he was the same relentless predator who had stalked his way into her heart.

  But in the end, it was Halid who took her home.

  Chapter 9

  “You had a visitor from the consulate while you were gone, effendi.”

  Michael took the bundle of correspondence from his secretary. “Did he leave his name?” “No, effendi.” The secretary’s eyes were large, and Michael always had a feeling that the man was terrified of him. “Only that it was important that he find you.”

  “It must not be too important if he chose not to leave his name.”

  Annoyed by the cryptic silence of the visitor, Michael walked past the desk into his office. Late afternoon sunlight bore down on the room filled with cabinets and two dead plants, creating a lifeless menagerie.

  As was his habit before he settled down to work, he thumbed through the pile of missives and social invitations, separating anything important before dropping everything else into the garbage receptacle.

  He was in a thunderous mood.

  Swinging around in his chair, he looked out the window over the vast tree-lined parkway that encircled the ministry offices. Puddles of water darkened portions of the quiet stone walk where the gardeners worked. He disliked the closed confines of the office. He didn’t know how Captain Pritchards had stood the monotony of tea parties and endless meetings. He felt stifled by his life here—by the impotence of conducting a massive investigation that was leading nowhere.

  Footsteps sounded from down the long tiled corridor. When the steps finally registered, Michael turned, realizing he’d left the door to his office open. Donally stood in the outer office doorway, having halted abruptly upon seeing him. He was dressed as if he’d just come from the consulate function. Faintly amused by the black look on the man’s face, Michael suspected Donally wasn’t expecting to see him in his office.

  He stepped into the room and closed the door, his eyes hard. “I take it that you’ve returned my sister to the house. Safe and sound?”

  Michael recognized an adversary in the dark Irishman, and in truth he possessed no desire to alienate one of his only allies, but he’d let the man’s implied warning be hanged when it came to Brianna. “I took her to visit Colonel Baker and his family.” He bent forward and lit the l
amp on his desk. Donally watched his every movement. “We were there most of the morning. Halid took her home, and I came directly here.”

  Michael didn’t account for the four hours in between, nor would he defend his actions for taking her away that morning. Brianna knew her mind far better than the ordinary citizen. Hell, she knew his mind. Had honed in on his weakness, smiled her smile, and he’d been as lost as any other male idiot in Cairo. It was illogical that a perverse surge of possessiveness had chased away the need for caution when it came to his reactions toward her. Illogical and annoying as hell that he wanted Brianna with a ruthless singularity of mind that he had not felt in years. Yet, another instinct held the surge in check.

  Caution.

  The need to understand what had happened to him this afternoon. Because he knew something had.

  Donally leaned against the door and gave him a mild look. “If you haven’t noticed by now, my sister is an impulsive romantic.”

  “And it’s your job to protect her from me.”

  “Does she need protection from you?”

  Michael sought to check his irritation, and sat back in his chair. He possessed the uneasy feeling that he’d just slid into an ambush.

  “My sister has a natural capacity to enjoy life that is contagious to those she touches,” Donally said. “Perhaps you’ve noticed.”

  In frigid silence, Michael considered where the conversation was heading.

  “She weeps at the sight of abandoned kittens and volunteers her time at the mission. She’s fought for women’s property rights, divorce law reform, and the right for children to be educated rather than put to work. She has the courage to go to jail for her convictions, and has been brought up once already on charges under Disraeli’s indecency laws.