At Your Pleasure

  No shame in that smile. No doubt. Only joy.

  The past lay open between them, emptied of secrets. With a trembling finger she traced the curve of his lips.

  He caught her hips in his hands and turned her onto her back, pinning her to the grass with his body. A sound escaped her, a breathy gasp he captured with his mouth as he rolled his hips against her. Then he slid down her body, pulling down her neckline and putting his mouth to her breast.

  A moan escaped her. That wild, reckless girl she had once been returned to her now, possessing her body, driving out every ounce of hard-won wisdom, every shred of painfully gained restraint. She remembered now how it should be: the ferocity of his attentions; his hands and lips and tongue, the way he used his entire body to seduce her, angling himself so his knee came against the softness between her thighs, coaxing her to ride him, to buck and flex beneath him as he suckled her.

  She made some noise and he lifted his head to look into her eyes. His shoulders blocked out the sun, but all around him the sky glowed lividly blue. For the space of a heartbeat, the intensity of his expression frightened her. He looked at her as though he would devour her—as though nothing she could say or do would sway him from the intention so clear in his hungry face.

  But then he took a long, audible breath, and lifted his hand to cup her cheek. His eyes followed his fingertips as they traced her brow, skating down to her cheekbone, pausing there. His lips parted as though to speak, but he did not; after a moment, he lowered his face to hers, and softly he kissed her.

  His weight shifted off her. He supported himself on one elbow as he sipped from her mouth. His hand slipped down her body. Cool air brushed over her calf, her knee . . .

  His hot palm stroked up her thigh. Higher and higher yet it stroked before retreating. She instinctively understood the tease, and it made her twist and grow desperate again. She tried to turn into him, but the combined pressures of his palm against her thigh and his lips against hers held her in place. Her grasping fingers quested down his body, over the bumping slope of his ribs, the hard muscle banding his waist. She broke free of his mouth to cover his throat in kisses, begging silently for his hand to find its destination. She licked the bare length of his throat and knew triumph when he hissed.

  His hand slipped up to cover her, pressing firmly over her most tender flesh, stroking. She turned her face into his throat, gasping as sensation built. Here was what she had forgotten: true desire. Unbearable, exquisite. No room for fear or conscience. Wanting, needing, to feel his mastery: be devoured, laid bare, filled, left no say in it. And yet at the same time hungering for more—hungering to wrap herself around him and hold him there forever; to sink her teeth into him and grip him when he cried out.

  Her release came without warning—a violent shuddering, a convulsion so painfully sweet that tears pricked her eyes. She sobbed out a breath. So long, so long it had been . . .

  As the pleasure ebbed, she forced her eyes open and looked upon a world that was shockingly unchanged.

  The birds, after another moment, resumed their song.

  She felt transparent, light-filled. Not fragile but newly alive. She had wagered so much for this feeling as a girl, and the courage it had taken to do so now seemed to return to her as well. She pushed herself up by her elbow and looked into his face.

  He watched her with a narrow, grim focus.

  As she frowned, his expression changed. He smiled, taking her face in his broad hand as he leaned down to kiss her.

  His kiss seemed somehow deliberate, like a tool of distraction. Her euphoria shifted, suddenly and jarringly, to unease. The leisurely play of his lips suggested that he was not done with her by any measure. He came over her, deepening the kiss, his weight settling again between her thighs, and her body responded even as her foreboding strengthened.

  There was an instrumental quality to the press of his hips against hers. He meant now to satisfy himself. And it would not be for David if she permitted him to do so.

  The realization lashed through her: this quickening within her was purely carnal, self-interested. She was no Queen Esther; she did not control this desire. Her thighs parted further to accommodate the weight of Adrian’s body, and the throb between her legs urged her to tilt her hips against him. The feel of him unraveled her inborn restraint.

  She would not be the seducer now, but the seduced. She would be the one softened by this. She would be the one destroyed.

  She ripped her mouth from his. “Wait,” she gasped. “I can’t.”

  He stilled above her. His thumb stroked her lower lip as he dipped his head to catch her gaze. “Explain to me why.”

  She took a long breath for strength, then squirmed out from under his touch.

  He made no move to stop her. Sitting back on his heels, he waited, watchful.

  To look at him, so handsome in the sunlight, full of an animal strength he would never use against her in these matters, hurt her very heart. She pushed a hand over her face. Reasons twisted in her throat, finding no good words to carry them. She could hardly confess that she feared her desire for him would twist her judgment and corrupt her resolve. That would be all but an invitation to him, who had no love for David.

  “This is unwise,” she said. “I need not say the reasons. I have spoken them before.”

  “Unwise, yes.” He paused. “But inevitable, I think.”

  Inevitable? She did not like that notion. This current between them had once seemed born of a perfect match between souls. That it had survived so many years’ separation might indicate that it was inborn: the product of the stars’ configuration at their respective births. But that did not make them hostage to its magnetism. “We are not animals,” she said. “We can govern our appetites.”

  For a moment longer he held her gaze, thoughts shifting behind his eyes that she could not decipher. And then, in a sudden shift of mood, he gave her a wicked, slanted smile. “And so too may we choose to indulge them.” He leaned forward to brush his lips over hers, retreating again too quickly for her to protest. “My lady’s appetites have been too long denied, and I fear it cannot be good for her health: allow me to satisfy them again.”

  A startled laugh escaped her. How unexpected, how strangely wonderful, to be the object of playful seduction. How long had it been since she had been wooed?

  But when he moved toward her, she made a retreat that was foiled by the interference of her skirts. “No,” she said. “Adrian—” His hand on her shoulder held her in place while his mouth stopped her protest. His aggressive kiss did not permit refusal; his tongue came deep inside her mouth as he pressed into her with his full weight.

  Ah, God, it would be so sweet to lie with him; to surrender her cares and worries and know only the pleasures of the flesh. But her conscience was awake now. Even as she kissed him, it insisted on calculations, and marshaled her fear to aid its cause.

  She turned her head aside, gasping. “Stop! You will not seduce me into betraying my brother!”

  “Your brother,” he said. His sharp bark of laughter brought her face around. Disbelief showed in the twist of his mouth. “This has naught to do with your brother, Nora. This is you and I here, and no one else.”

  She dug her hand into the cool grass, the soil still moist from recent rains. Had he truly lost track of the circumstances when he had laid her down here?

  If only for a moment, had he looked on her not as the sister of his enemy, not as a tool for the advancement of his aims, but simply as . . . a woman?

  A woman he desired.

  God above, but he was well worth desiring. Fashioned with the height and strength and fairness of an angel, with the devil’s talent resident in his lips and fingers, he could make a woman’s breath stop to look on him.

  She bit the inside of her cheek. Concentrate. She ripped up a handful of grass, scattering it. “Do not separate our causes. My brother and I are one and the same.”

  He laughed again, but it was an easier sound now. “By G
od, I say you are not. For I never tumbled your brother in the grass, and I think you will find he confirms it.”

  The urge to smile back at him amazed her. These were weighty matters; why did she suddenly feel so light?

  “Only two days ago you locked me in a room to interrogate me,” she pointed out. “Why should I trust your intentions?”

  “Because I give you my word,” he said. “On all I hold dear, I swear to you that my intentions here are in every way ignoble: they have nothing to do with the welfare of the kingdom or with the vows I swore in service to the king.” He rolled onto his knees and came closer to her, planting one hand by hers, leaning forward so their faces nearly touched. “Seducing you is its own reward,” he murmured.

  Her face burned. He looked at her as though she were Venus rising from the waves—as though she did, indeed, have the power to make a man forget country and kingdom. God save her; what woman could resist such a lure?

  But she caught herself even as she canted toward him. She was wise enough, at least, to know her weakness. It looked her in the eye now, blond and beautiful. “I cannot do this,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  A line appeared between his brows. He looked away, over her shoulder.

  She bit her lip against the urge to speak further. The best thing now was to put distance between them. She began to scoot backward, but just as quickly, he grabbed her arm.

  “Wait,” he said, still looking over her head.

  “Loose me. I am resolved.”

  Suddenly he was on his feet, dragging her up as well, while his free hand went to the place where, of a custom, he wore his sword.

  That single movement made her blood turn to ice. She wheeled to look in the direction that had caught his attention, but he did not allow her leisure; swearing, he pulled her toward the trees, lifting her bodily when she stumbled.

  His intensity infected her; fear thumped through her blood as he drew her into the shadows of the grove. Behind the shelter of a broad trunk, he paused to withdraw a blade from his boot. The dagger was plain but well kept, the tip wickedly curved. “Run, if I instruct you,” he said in a low voice.

  “But—”

  “Listen,” he said.

  And she heard it.

  She turned with him to look south.

  A party of riders was coming over the crest of the hill, making haste toward Hodderby.

  They carried the Colville colors.

  “No,” she whispered.

  David.

  12

  I imagine I gave you a good start,” said Cosmo Colville cheerfully as he took the seat opposite Nora in the parlor. From the cup in his hand came the strong reek of port. “Never dreamed my letter would go awry. I’d written you of my visit a fortnight ago.”

  “The surprise was a happy one.” Nora kept her eyes on the needle as she drew it through the embroidery hoop on her lap. No doubt his appearance had cost her ten years of her life; those minutes she’d stood trembling in the wood, certain she was about to witness bloodshed, unable yet to make out the face of the man leading the riders, had seemed to last for centuries. She had entertained a vivid, nightmarish vision of David riding down on Adrian, sword drawn.

  Worse, with the number of riders on the horizon, and Adrian unarmed, her fear had not been for David.

  God! What madness possessed her? Why had she thought it safe to lie down with him? How had she forgotten the danger of his caresses? It went far beyond the question of conceiving a bastard. Passion was a thief that could steal away her heart. She had surrendered it to him once and paid a terrible price for it. Was she such a fool that she would court that punishment again?

  It had not been David riding down that hill. But one day very soon, it would be. If she were fortunate, Lord Rivenham once again would meet this sight without so much as a blade to defend himself.

  “You are quiet,” Cosmo remarked. “No doubt it has been difficult, entertaining the king’s men.”

  It was far too easy. Adrian’s company was like music, and she had not the strength to close her ears.

  “Not so difficult,” she said. “But there is no joy like the company of one’s blood.” Her loyalties were decided for her. Why could she not hew to them gladly? Did she wish her brother dead?

  No?

  Then cease to play the jezebel!

  Cosmo showed her a gleaming smile as he lifted his glass to her. “Very sweetly put, cousin.”

  She forced an answering smile. It puzzled her that Adrian had welcomed her cousin with all appearance of goodwill. Cosmo’s three men-at-arms—a small number, admittedly—now gamed in the great hall with Adrian’s soldiers, as friendly as natural confederates. It made no sense that Adrian had allowed this . . . unless he knew there was naught to fear from Cosmo’s men. Yet why should he think so? Cosmo’s loyalties ought—she had believed them—to lie with David.

  “You come from London,” she said casually, spearing the cambric once more. She was no great hand with embroidery, but it proved a useful occupation when one’s nerves might otherwise cause one’s hands to shake. “How fare our friends in town?” And are your friends the same as ours? she added silently. Had Cosmo only come to call on his cousin? Or—she had no choice but to consider it—had he come to give intelligence to the Earl of Rivenham?

  “Town is miserable,” said Cosmo. “Rain and more rain, until even the shit melts and runs like water.” He took a long draft of his drink. When he lowered his cup, his pleasant expression evinced no sign of the turmoil that surely must attend a man who conspired against his family.

  But Cosmo had always been difficult to read. Now in his mid-forties, he retained the youthful air of insouciance, the lightness of spirit, that had endeared him to her as a child. Although her first cousin, he had always seemed to her more of an uncle—the kind of favored elder who appeared, once in a rare while, to play tricks with a coin, or deliver a doll fresh from France.

  Even now that she was a woman, and encouraged by her brother to see him in a more husbandly light, she felt the child’s urge to look to him for wonders and tricks. It unsettled her all the more, then, to see his regard rest upon her now with the narrow, speculative flavor of a man considering a potential bedmate.

  She broke the look to examine her needlepoint. He was not unattractive; his strong build, his lean waist and deep blue eyes, would capture any number of women’s hearts. She wished he would look to them, then, and reserve for her only a platonic affection.

  I will not marry this man, David.

  Her grip tightened around the needle. How would she defend her refusal? How would she explain that David’s own persecutor had charmed her flesh into rebellion?

  Ah, God, his touch set her alight. If she concentrated, it seemed that she could still feel the pleasure rolling through her like honey . . .

  “I would fain have brought a present,” Cosmo said. “It leaves me loath to break our tradition. But I fear my time in the capital was too brief to allow for such pleasures.”

  I am no longer a child in want of presents, she thought, but did not say. It too plainly invited a saucy rebuttal. “What business had you there, if I may ask?”

  “Why, what but commerce,” he said, brushing a slim hand over the pigeon’s wing curls of his periwig. “And, of course, a host of tedious politicking. Our new king hails from a coal-rich region; he wished to hear of our mines in the north, and what methods we may suggest for Hanover’s. But forgive me; such details are too cloddish for a lady.”

  Delicately she tested his allegiances. “Is our new king’s main concern for Hanover, then? One might wish he cared foremost for the improvement of England.”

  “One might wish,” Cosmo agreed, settling back into the leather easy chair. He had changed costume since his arrival, and sported a rich suit of yellow satin fringed with brown lace. It was uncommonly luxurious for him. She imagined that he had worn this same suit when treating with the king.

  She did not like that he had chosen it for his
first supper in her house. It bespoke some intention to impress her.

  “You agree, then?” she asked. “You believe his loyalties remain in Hanover?”

  His teeth flashed again, though she would not have called it a smile: it looked too much like a dog’s baring of fangs. “My dear coz, what would you have of me? Shall I read the mind of our king? I can tell you that he showed a great interest in my holdings, and that his offer of friendship, if I do not flatter myself, seemed heartfelt. Now, instruct me on Rivenham’s presence here. He says quite plainly that he waits for my cousin’s appearance. Has David aught to fear from him?”

  Her needle fell still. She stared at the lopsided violet flower that was all she had to show for this long, miserable hour. Did Cosmo truly not know David’s business? Or was his show of ignorance designed to ferret out whether she was privy to David’s activities, in which case, he might then speak openly?

  “I should think,” she said carefully, “that there must always be cause for concern where a king has taken interest.”

  “Ah. Yes.” He set his cup down on the small table beside his chair. “And not just the king but the king’s man.” Nodding at his own words, he rotated the cup, causing it to scrape. No doubt he intended to strike a thoughtful appearance, it never occurring to him, or indeed to any man, that what they scraped, a woman would have to polish later. “I have heard the Earl of Rivenham likened to nightshade,” he said. “He never visits a place without laying roots that poison the host.”

  His glance seemed sly somehow. She sat straighter. Cosmo did not know what had passed six years ago. Her father and brother never would have told him. Whence this look, then? “Lord Rivenham’s presence alarms you?”

  “Alarm?” Cosmo blinked. “Perhaps the wrong choice of words, coz. Lord Rivenham’s presence commands my . . . respect, better say. There are those who dislike having to answer to a turncoat papist—great men, who had the power to ensure that Rivenham’s fate matched your father’s. But they underestimated him, you see. He did not waste his time kissing her majesty’s skirts, as did your lord father. Instead he played the suitor between Anne and her cousin George. Now, as the new king dotes on him, he prospers. Yet his enemies never diminish. I will respect such a man, undoubtedly . . . but not love him, I think. And indeed, Rivenham is far better at inspiring hatred. I assure you, his enemies still nurse their grudges most keenly.”