Bobbi Smith - Captive Pride

“I do,” he answered grimly. “You’re forcing me to choose, Noah, and there can be only one choice.”

“I didn’t mean that you would have to give up Faith permanently,” he argued.

“I don’t have the control over my emotions that you do. I can’t turn them off and on at will. I love her. She deserves my protection, and I intend to give it to her. If it means sacrificing everything else in my life to be with her…then I’ll do it.”

Noah was stunned. Matt loved Faith so much that he was willing to give up everything for her. Everything.

CC glimmered unbidden into his thoughts, and he compared what he felt for her to what Matt professed to feel for Faith. The result was total confusion, and he got a grip on his own runaway thoughts only by telling himself that his relationship with CC was far different from what Matt and Faith shared. There was no future for CC and him. Attracted as she might be to him physically, she hated him now just as much as she had in the beginning. She didn’t love him. No words of love had ever been spoken between them. What they’d shared had been lust.

Matt took Noah’s silence to mean that there was no need for further discussion between them, that he was willing to make the break for the sake of the shipment and the profit to be made.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see to packing my things.”

“Matt…” Noah started to protest, but it was too late. Matt had already gone from the room. Noah followed him and knocked loudly on his door. “Matt! We need to talk more about this.”

The door was pulled almost violently open and Matt stood there, tall and proud before him. “There’s nothing more to say, Noah. Not really. You have your priorities, and I have mine. I will be very careful from now on, and I will make certain that my activities are never connected to yours.”

“Where will you go? What are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do?” Matt smiled faintly. “I’m going to marry Faith and live happily ever after. You might do well to ask yourself the same questions.”

“What do you mean? I know what I’m about.”

“Are you still so sure, Noah? Are you still so positive that your future is in England?”

“Of course!” he replied a bit too quickly.

“What about CC?”

“What about her?”

Matt shrugged, suddenly weary of trying to convince Noah to see things more clearly. “I’d better finish my packing. I’ll be in touch, and if you should need to get a message to me, leave word at Faith’s.”

With that Matt slowly closed the door, and Noah stood silently in the hall, lost deep in his thoughts.

CC nimbly climbed the tree’s supportive branches and with amazing agility levered herself into her bedroom through the unlocked window. As quickly as she could, she stripped off her disguise and hid it in the armoire before donning her dressing gown and sitting down at the dressing table to brush out her tangled locks.

She had thought that she would be calmer by the time she reached home, but even after stopping long enough to report back to Ryan, her emotions were still reeling from her contact with Noah. Though the memory of what had almost happened between them sent chills of excitement up her spine, she thanked heaven that Matthew had shown up when he had. If they hadn’t been interrupted, they no doubt would have made love, and CC knew that she could never let that happen again.

Drained by the strain of the night, she didn’t even bother to put on a gown, but curled up on the bed just as she was. Sighing, she hugged a pillow near and pulled the counterpane over her for warmth. Gradually she grew warm and the tension eased from her. In that last half-awake, half-asleep moment when her defenses were totally down just before sleep claimed her, CC whispered his name with the softness of a sigh. “Noah.”

Noah was awake. Try as he might, sleep would not come, and so he stood now at the window in the concealing darkness of his room, staring out at the star-studded night sky. The evening had been a total disaster. His unexpected encounter with CC, the discovery that they were being watched, and his subsequent fight with Matthew had left his nerves raw and on edge.

Noah bitterly resented Matt’s timing in walking in when he had, for he had been on fire with the need to make love to CC again. She was gone now, perhaps this time for good. Even though he knew that his desire for her had not lessened, his body still burned with passion for her and he was helpless to do anything about it. He could not go to her and seek her out, for he felt without a doubt that she would refuse his advances. With the heat of his loins throbbing in an almost painful reminder of the sweetness of her body curved so perfectly to his, he made his way back to the bed and lay down, trying to turn his thoughts to other things…to Matthew…

Matthew. A lurching emptiness filled him at the memory of his brother’s steely determination. He knew it had been pushing to ask him to stay away from Faith and the rebels for a time, but wasn’t the ultimate success of their venture worth the sacrifice? Even as Noah thought the question, he knew what Matt’s answer to it would be. There was no sacrifice too great for love. None.

Miserably, Noah closed his eyes and rested a forearm across his brow as he gave a low, defeated laugh. He had thought love was his purpose in restoring the Kincade name. He had grown up being tutored in the importance of family history and family traditions. He had been indoctrinated with the importance of carrying on the Kincade name, of maintaining the many estates and houses and, above all, of doing nothing that would detract from the honor of the Kincade family. He had been taught that his pride in being a Kincade went before all else.

His entire life until just recently had been directed by those teachings. Then the changes had come-first with his father’s death and then the discovery of his father’s betrayal of all that Noah had been told was important. The losses had been so vast that they had raped the Kincade fortunes and rendered the heirs near paupers. Noah, trapped by the cruel twist of fate that had stripped him of everything else, was left with only his pride intact. It was that pride that drove him on, relentlessly, to reclaim all that had been lost.

Still, as he lay alone in the silent blackness of his rented chamber, Noah could not help but wonder at the price he was going to have to pay to achieve the goal he had set for himself. His pride had already cost him Matthew, and he wondered if the final end would be worth it. He might very well restore the Kincade name, honor, and riches, but when he finally did, would anyone care?

The thought echoed hollowly through him, and he muttered a curse into the darkness. It had to be worth it. Just because his father had been weak didn’t mean that he was. He would not deviate from the course he’d set for himself. He would do what he set out to do. He would concentrate on business and rebuild it all. But even as he vowed to himself again to continue, his fervor was gone; instead, suddenly, it all seemed an uphill battle with little real reward at the end.

Troubled, Noah sighed deeply, seeking sleep but knowing that his thoughts were too confused to court real rest this night. When at long last sleep finally did come, he dreamed of England and Kincade Hall in the frigid, barren, lonely months of winter.

Matt swung down from the carriage as it drew to a stop before Faith’s house. Though he had just left her a short time before, he felt a driving need to see her again. His encounter with Noah had left him feeling jaded and slightly embittered, and he needed the warm, healing sweetness that only Faith could provide.