He got a discreet elbow in his side from his lady. “Don’t be inhospitable, darling. She’s very welcome here.”
“I had no such intentions. I have very fond memories of the stab—”
He was interrupted by a less discreet elbow. “Pay no attention to him,” his wife said. “In fact, please forget that he ever spoke.”
The impression John got in that moment was not something he’d ever wanted to think about. Lord and Lady Northword, kissing in the stables? He shook his head to clear it of that image.
“Even if there is somewhere else closer, somewhere dry,” Lady Northword said, “you can be assured that I’ll be willing to say that she spent the night here. Nobody will dare gainsay me.”
Another drop landed on his head. The air was heavy with unspent rain. John nodded, but he scarcely heard their words. It was impossible to dwell on Mary’s reputation. She was out there alone—and soon it would be cold and wet.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you both, for everything.” He tipped his hat at them, retrieved his coat, and set off across the field.
Chapter Eleven
MARY WAS FREE.
Just two weeks ago, the thought of getting sacked had filled her with dread. But now, she could walk away from Sir Walter and not only remain standing, but feel that she’d had the better of him.
Months had passed while she told herself she wasn’t a lady any more, that she scarcely deserved common courtesy. And yet being a lady had not brought Lady Patsworth any real respect. A thousand rules of etiquette, drummed into her head—and in the end, it was her piano lessons that she’d drawn on.
She could remember Herr Rieger standing over her and scowling. Why did you stop playing?
Because I made a mistake.
Don’t stop. Never stop. They’ll never respect you if you stop and cry like a girl.
But—
He’d frowned at her and made a motion with his hand. Weep later. Play now.
Mary had pushed all her emotions away—grief, anger, guilt. But she’d not realized that she’d condemned herself to avoid the good ones, too. Pride. Happiness. Love. She deserved to experience those as well.
She’d stopped for too long. But now she was free, free to take a running start once again. The sharp smell of the oncoming storm only made her feel giddier.
Giddy was the least of the things that she felt. Relief, that things had not been so bad as they could have been. Pride, in a job well done. And a subtle sense of satisfaction—one that she would never have found if she’d stayed a genteel young lady all her life. She would have married John and disappeared into being his wife, putting all her own dreams away just to be with him.
Once, that had seemed worth the price.
But now, she was no sheltered lady who needed to be protected from the world. No; the big bad world needed protection from her. Bad things had happened to her, yes, but she had prevailed.
She felt daring with her victory. A bubble of laughter rose up in her.
On the horizon, summer thunder rumbled. It was dark enough that she could only tell there were clouds by the lack of stars. She’d left with scarcely a hand towel to her name. She should have been frightened. Instead, she felt recklessness rise up in her. She was free. She was free. She had bills folded in one skirt-pocket, a towel in the other, and her entire future ahead of her.
Nothing could stop her.
Mary knew it was an illusion, just as she knew that the heavy, humid heat that hung around her was about to give way to cold rain. Sixty pounds was no real security—just enough money to get her into trouble and not enough to buy her way out. But it wasn’t the money that made her heart sing. It was the proof she’d received: that she could trust to her own competence. That, ultimately, she had been the instrument of her own deliverance.
Tomorrow would be enough time for reality. When dawn came, she’d take stock of her resources, make decisions for the future.
But tonight…
Lightning sparked on the horizon, a great blinding tree of electricity stretching from the clouds to the skies. Mary held her breath at the wonder of it all and counted. Five, six, seven—on the count of eight, thunder growled around her. The very ground rumbled beneath her feet, and the air shivered with the power of the storm. Her hairs stood on edge.
Ladies did not run off into storms. But then, ladies didn’t sneak out of their windows and kiss gentlemen, no matter how handsome that gentleman was. She was damned glad not to be a lady any longer.
Tonight felt wild—a night that belonged to some other woman. Tonight, she would celebrate the rediscovery of herself. It seemed a night for dancing barefoot across the fields, or, perhaps, for making her way to the village a few miles distant for some good brandy.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating the stone wall along the road, half a mile in the distance. Sharp stones had been set at an angle in the mortar on top; they made a jagged row of teeth, stretching off into the distance. Darkness returned as swiftly as it had fled; then thunder rumbled. A droplet of water landed on her nose.
Rain was coming, and soon. If the lightning came any closer, it wouldn’t do to be standing out in the field. Luckily, she had a destination in mind, and one that was just beyond the curve of the hill.
“Mary!” someone called behind her. She turned around. The figure was still far behind her, but she recognized him.
John. Precisely the man she’d been hoping to find.
“Mary,” he said. “You’ve got to come in from this before the storm starts in earnest.”
It was a night for wildness, a night for celebration. It was a night for pagan acts, for leaving behind all that held her back. She didn’t just want John; she yearned for him with an ache that went all the way through to her heart.
He wasn’t just the man she loved, the one she’d once agreed to marry. He was everything that had been wrested from her—her innocence, her childhood, her foolish belief that so long as she was good that nothing bad could transpire. He was the only thing that joined the person she was now—this reckless, uncageable creature—with the quiet girl she had once been.
And she had, after all, wanted to celebrate.
He caught up to her. He was carrying a shawl, which he dumped unceremoniously over her shoulders—as if he hadn’t realized how hot it was.
“Mary,” he repeated. “Thank God I found you. You’ve no idea how worried I have been these last ten minutes.”
Lightning flashed again, searing all sight of him from her eyes. She waited for the reverberation of thunder. Another solitary raindrop found her cheek, then another. Then the thunder came, booming around them.
“Worry?” she asked. “Why were you worried? I’ve never been better.”
Mary let the shawl slip down her shoulders.
“Come,” he said, “we’ve got to get you back to Northword Hill.”
But it was too late. The fall of droplets had become a light patter around them.
“No, John,” she said, and it felt as if her voice came from very far away.
She had stopped hoping to be granted her heart’s desire. She was going to start taking it now.
“No?” He picked up the edge of the shawl, looped it around her elbows, and wiped the raindrops from her face.
“No,” she said quietly, raising her hand to his jaw. “I have been looking forward to this part of the evening for the past week. I didn’t get tossed out of my employer’s house with nowhere to go but your arms just so that I could return chastely to the viscount’s home. You’re taking me to bed.”
Lightning slashed down, illuminating his silhouette. He seemed so still—looking at her as if he’d no notion what to say in response. And then the rain truly began, pelting into them. He grabbed her hand—too tight, too close—and together, they ran to Oak Cottage.
BY THE TIME JOHN brought Mary back to Oak Cottage, she was soaked through. He could feel her trembling all the way through the shawl he’d put around her. But despite her shive
rs, there was something about her that heated him more than any of their kisses.
It wasn’t just the way she removed the soaking-wet shawl, or how she turned to him and undid the buttons of his coat. It wasn’t just the physical thrill of seeing her bodice cling to her skin. After she took off his hat and set it on a hook, she found a clean, dry cloth and wiped the droplets from his face—slowly, tenderly. Their breaths made little white puffs of air in the entry.
“You know,” she said, her voice low, “I’m never going to get dry with my wet things on.”
He swallowed. She turned her back to him. Her gown laced from her neck down to the base of her spine, ending just below the swell of her petticoats. From that angle, she presented a most appealing picture.
“I need your help to remove them,” she continued.
She was right. He held his breath and undid her laces. The rain had hardened the strings to tight knots, and his fingers fumbled against her back—again and again until he loosened her laces enough for her to take the fabric off.
As she moved to do so, he turned away. “I’ll make a fire.”
It was cold, but not so cold that they needed a regular blaze. Instead, he made a small coal-fire in the grate, just enough to cast a little red illumination in the room.
But Mary hadn’t wrapped herself in one of the towels that he’d brought in. “John,” she said, crooking a finger at him.
He swallowed. “Yes?”
“I’m soaked through. All the way to my drawers.”
That brought to mind white linen clasping soft thighs. He groaned and leaned against the wall as she undid the buttons holding her petticoat in place.
“I—I’ll go in the other room,” he offered halfheartedly.
“Don’t you dare. I’ll need you for my corset laces.”
She let her petticoat fall to the floor. “Here,” she said, lifting her hair and turning to him. If it had been a trial to undo her gown, unlacing her corset was torture. The fire cast scant light; he could only find her laces by feel. First, the smoothness of her shoulders—then the stiffened fabric of her corset. He found her corset laces and followed them down to where they’d been tied in a secure bow. These laces, slightly drier, didn’t stick; he managed to undo the knots fairly easily. But then he peeled the fabric from her body. What little light there was in the room seemed to fall on her breasts, wet and peaked under her shift.
“Christ.” He couldn’t look away. Not from her. Not from this. His own wet clothing seemed suddenly too hot.
She took the edge of her shift in her hands.
John took a step back. “God, Mary. It’s like you’re—”
“Like I’m trying to seduce you?” she said, her voice rich as cream.
“Trying to torment me.”
“Oh, no,” she said, her voice cool. “I have no wish to torment you.” She lifted her shift above her knees, high enough to pull her drawers down. All that creamy white fabric, fresh from her legs. His mouth went dry. He wanted her—wanted her so badly he could hardly speak. And then she pulled her shift over her head. His brain simply ceased to function, to do anything except to desire. He wanted to taste, to touch, to smell. He wanted to take, to possess. He wanted her so much his fists clenched with the effort of standing still.
The darkness only seemed to make her more alluring—to show the silhouette of her nearly naked form in flashes, enough to taunt him with her proximity and yet whisper that if he wanted to know all of her, he’d have to discover her curves not with his eyes but with his hands.
He fought for rationality.
“There’s no need to rush this. I can wait—” He swallowed as she sidled up to him “—a little.” A very little.
“Are you saying that you don’t want to do this?”
He took her hand and guided it to his crotch, setting her palm against the wet fabric—and his hard member underneath. “I want this.”
He’d expected her eyes to widen in shock. But she didn’t leap back. Instead, she grew very still for a moment, not moving, as if she were just understanding what she had discovered. Then she traced her fingers gently down the length of him. He let out a hiss. Another stroke. Then another.
He set his hand over hers. “Mary,” he said, with the last ounce of decency that he possessed, “I don’t want you to do this because you believe you owe it to me for the role I played. I never want that.”
She tipped her head down, and her wet hair tickled his chest. Then she drew her hand from under his, running it up, up, past the seam of his trousers. She hooked his shirt with one finger and then pulled the fabric over his head.
“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” she said when she’d pulled the sleeves away from his wrists. “If we waited until we were married, you’d own the right to use my body. Now, I can say no.”
She ran her hand down his bare chest, brushing his nipple. He gasped.
“And I can say yes,” she whispered. “Not as a trade, not in compensation. Not because you deserve me.”
“Why, then?”
“Because I deserve you.” Her hand slid to the waistband of his trousers, and she gave a little laugh. “But you’re going to have to help me from here, because I’m not sure what to do next.”
“This,” he said, and took her face in his hands and kissed her. He’d learned her mouth, her taste, over the last days. But he hadn’t learned the feel of her skin, clammy at first against his, and then warming gradually. Her nipples were hard buds. Her hips pressed against the wet fabric of his trousers. He ran his hand down her body, cupping her breast.
She let out a sigh. “It’s almost as if…”
“As if I loved you?” he whispered.
She nodded; he could feel her head move against his chest.
“There’s a reason for that.” His arms came around her, drawing her in. Pulling her close to his heart. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her neck, and for a few moments they swayed together in tandem.
“How can you be so warm,” she asked, “when you’re still in your wet clothing?”
“Blood flow.” Indeed. His blood was flowing with great vigor. He should go to the other room before his blood left him unable to do the right thing.
Instead, he ran his hands back up her ribs, chasing the remainder of the chill from her skin. He could scarcely see her in the dark, so he discovered her with his fingers—the arc of one hip, the swell of a breast. And she busied herself with him—first undoing his trousers and then sliding them down. Her hands brushed his thighs, then slid up to touch his hard cock. Her fingers were tentative, so light that he gasped to keep from laughing.
“So warm,” she repeated.
“Let me make you warmer.”
He leaned down and caught the nub of her nipple between his lips. She heated soon enough under his inspection, her pebbled skin smoothing but her nipple staying hard to his touch. She let out a breath and arched against him.
“Blood flow,” he repeated. “I think you could use more of it.”
He’d wanted to taste her for so long. She smelled of sugar and citrus, but she tasted of cool rain and woman. He started with little nibbles at her breast. Then he licked his way to the hollow of her throat. A few kisses there, and she threw her head back and relaxed into his embrace.
He wasn’t sure when, in the midst of her caresses and his exploration, they made their way to the bedchamber, or when he set her down on his covers. He wasn’t even sure at what point she spread herself naked before him.
But he did vaguely recognize the moment when they passed from mere naked caresses into the act of intimacy: when he spread her legs, fell to the floor in front of her, and set his mouth on her sex. She tasted as good as he’d always imagined—sweet and sensual all at once. He parted her folds with his hands and took her more fully, exploring every bit of her, listening to the ebb and flow of her breath as he did.
The rhythm of her breathing altered as he touched her between her legs. And when it did, he licked where his fi
ngers played, again and again, tasting her until her fists clenched in his hair and her hips arched into his face.
He could taste her pleasure, could feel the waves of her orgasm building up, waiting to break through.
“Yes,” she said in a high drawn-out cry. “John—don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He took her over the crest until her pleas lost all coherence, until they became cries of pleasure. It was the sweetest of sounds—that, and the slow return of rhythm to her breathing after.
She set her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” she said, and by the way she pulled at him, he knew she wasn’t referring to what he might do with his tongue. “Don’t stop.”
There was nothing she could have asked him at that moment that he would have denied her. He slid on top of her. Her body was slicked with sweat, still shaking with pleasure. She shifted beneath him. He was so far into want that he was almost beyond thought. He pushed inside.
Tight. So tight. So good. And slick from the work he’d done already—she was beyond ready. She tensed only momentarily at his intrusion.
He stopped. “Does it hurt?”
“Only a little. But it also feels so, so right.”
“And this?” He gave an experimental thrust.
“Yes,” she said. “Again.”
“As you command.” He kissed her throat and then thrust again.
“Yes,” she whispered.
More encouragement than that he did not need. He let loose all his pent-up desire. The complexities of reality dissolved around them. He fit right where he was. Nothing mattered but that she was there, and she was his.
Her legs locked around him, drawing him in. And he took—took it all, the warmth of her body, the pleasure she gave him, the entirety of Mary beneath him.
“Christ,” he swore. She was his. She was his. And then, with his crisis upon him, he knew the truth. No. He was hers. He came hard, feeling it from head to toe, every last thrust overwhelming him.
Their hands were joined. Their breathing rose and fell together. For a moment, they were one.