Thankfully, he saw a glimmer of a smile on those luscious lips of hers. “Is that a question?”
“Yes,” he growled. And then he couldn’t wait any longer: he gathered the delicious body of his almost-wife into his arms. He kissed her until she was trembling in his arms, until they were both near senseless, until her tongue was as bold as his. And then he slowly, slowly rolled onto his back, bringing her with him.
Annabel’s eyes popped open. She had direct contact with his groin now, and he wasn’t quite certain she understood the implications of what she was feeling. Not that his Annabel ever showed any particular signs of virginal innocence.
Sure enough, she obviously knew precisely what she was feeling. She was staring down at him with a little frown between her brows and he could practically see the objections racing through her mind.
“It’ll fit,” he said, pulling down her head for a kiss. “I promise. There’s no need to fear me, Annabel.” Then he slipped between her lips with all the hunger for her taste that he felt in his body, kissed her until she was clutching his hair and kissing him back, and until she’d cradled herself between his legs in a way that told him that they would be a marvelous fit for each other.
He pulled away from her mouth only when he found that his hands had stopped caressing her narrow back and had shaped themselves to the most beautifully round bottom he’d ever felt in his life.
So instead of continuing with that caress, which would surely lead to madness, he rolled her over, keeping one leg over hers, determined to gain control of himself before he touched her again. She was exquisite, this bride of his, even with her smoky eyes closed tight.
He dropped kisses on her eyes and the rosy tilt of her mouth, but she still didn’t open her eyes. “Don’t you want to know what a coney is, then?” he whispered in her ear, giving her a little bite.
She gasped, and opened her eyes. She was a great one for seeing the world blind, this lass of his. “You told me,” she said. “It’s a rabbit.” Her voice was all husky and low, and made Ewan’s groin throb so that he almost lost control again.
He took a deep breath. “Aren’t you a bit more curious about the origins of the phrase?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He slid his leg down the long smooth length of her legs, and surprised himself by wondering if he truly would be able to stop in time. Surely he would. He hadn’t practiced restraint for all these years to have it desert him when he most needed it. Slowly, reverently, he put a hand on her breast.
The warm curve of it made him almost moan aloud but he stayed rigid, instead watching Annabel, who, of course, had her eyes closed tight. He dared to rub a thumb across her nipple and her body instinctively arched up. Her hand flew to his wrist and she said, her voice shaking, “Ewan!” But she didn’t open her eyes, and he counted that as a welcome.
“Yes, love,” he whispered, keeping his hand—and his thumb—right where it was. Then he let himself kiss her again and desire exploded like fury between them. She was writhing under his hand now, making little squeaking sounds that inflamed his blood. Slowly, slowly, he ran his hand from her breast to her flat stomach, over a hip, down a long sleek leg and finally to the edge of her nightgown, bunched at her thighs.
Her eyes flew open. “What are you doing?” she cried, grabbing his wrist again.
It was time for another kiss. He kissed her until her eyes closed in helpless surrender, until she dropped her fierce grasp on his wrist and wound her arms around his neck. And then, before she could stop him, he ran his hand up the sweetness of soft skin at her inner thigh to…there.
She went rigid. “I thought we weren’t—” she said with a gasp.
“We aren’t,” he told her, at the same time he warned himself of the same thing. “We aren’t. This is just another kind of kiss, Annabel.”
But her eyes were open, and narrowed at him. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“You didn’t learn everything there is to learn in the village,” he said to her, trying to keep his voice even while his fingers were wandering over the softest tangle of hair he’d felt in his life, and his breath felt as it were exploding in his chest.
“I don’t think this is proper,” Annabel insisted. “We’re not—”
She squeaked, and Ewan covered her mouth with his. And in the middle of that fevered kiss, he touched her until her legs relaxed and she cried out against his lips again and again, finally hiding her head against his shoulder and twisting against him.
“But the kiss, Annabel,” he said, knowing that his control was growing weak. Another moment of this and he’d simply roll over and—“Our last kiss, and my gift…”
She mutely tried to pull his head down to hers.
“Nay,” he said gruffly, “that’s not it.”
And then quickly, before those beautiful eyes of hers could fly open and she could leap off the bed, he moved down.
Annabel was in a haze of heat and desire. Against her thigh she could feel Ewan’s—Ewan’s—and though he said things would fit, she had a nagging suspicion that they wouldn’t. But every time the suspicion grew firm in her mind, he would kiss her senseless again and she would forget her worries, lost in a haze of ecstasy.
At least he’d finally taken his hand off her breast, but—
“What are you doing?” she said, surprised by her own ragged voice.
He was lying between her legs and there she was, like a wanton, with her nightgown pulled up almost to her waist. “Stop that!” she cried, trying to sit up, but a huge muscled arm slid up her stomach and held her down. And his other hand…
He touched her there. She couldn’t help it; a whimper broke from her lips. But he could see her. He shouldn’t be in such a position. “Ewan!” she said, trying again for rationality, for decency, for—
She lost her train of thought. His fingers were—
That wasn’t his finger!
“Ewan!” she choked, but he didn’t answer, and his hand was holding her down—well, it was caressing her breast—and there was nothing to do but close her eyes tight and sink into a velvet darkness that had nothing in it but his tongue and the flames licking around her body, sending her arching helplessly against him, trying to cry his name but managing only cries, her voice cut into ribbons by the sweetness of his kiss.
This—this—but she couldn’t remember what it was called. She couldn’t remember her own name. Every sensation in her body was focused on the decadent, rough touch of his mouth.
“I can’t—I can’t—” she managed…and then she shuddered, twisting up against him, bursting into a spasm more intense than she had ever felt before, an all-consuming, raging explosion that had her gasping and crying out, and then falling back, limp, to the bed.
Twenty
Two days later they were trundling along the road in the early afternoon. Annabel had succumbed to a haze of boredom and weariness, and when Ewan decided to ride, she curled up on the seat and fell fast asleep. What woke her was the sensation that the carriage was listing steeply to the left. She blinked, trying to decide whether the box was actually sloping to the side, and then, before she could brace herself, a violent lurch threw her against the wall, followed by shrieking, scraping noises as the carriage slid down some sort of embarkment. The last sound as the carriage settled was the violent snap of a thick piece of wood giving way.
Annabel landed with a hard bang against the carriage door, which was now serving as the floor. In the sudden stillness, she heard shouts and whinnies. With the instinct of someone raised in the stables, she held her breath and listened for the sound of horses screaming. But no. They were frightened and angry, but not in pain.
Then Ewan shouted above the clamor: “Annabel! Annabel, can you hear me? Are you hurt?” There was a clear strain of panic in his voice.
“Ewan!” she called out. She was on her knees, since the seats now stretched vertically into the air. “I’m merely shaken.” Her bonnet was squashed over one ear, so she p
ulled it off and put it to the side. “What about the horses?”
“Jakes managed to cut them free just before the carriage slid. So all we have to do is get you out.” And then, very close to the carriage wall, “Don’t worry, I’m right here.”
“I’m not worried,” Annabel called back. To be honest, she was tired of traveling in the carriage. Now she would be able to stretch her legs while they mended the vehicle.
“We have to turn over the carriage,” Ewan said. She could still hear an echo of fear in his voice and it gave her a queer pang of pleasure. “It might take me a few minutes to decide how to do it best. I don’t want to jostle you too much in the process, and there’s some water in this ditch that might make it difficult to brace ourselves.”
Annabel had just discovered that herself, since water had started seeping through the doorframe on which she was kneeling. She scrambled up and leaned against the side of the carriage.
“How much water?” she asked with a credible show of calmness. It was pouring in now, swelling around the door and creeping muddily toward her slippers. She reached over and grabbed her squashed bonnet before it was inundated.
“Not enough to drown you. Wet to your ankles at the most.”
Annabel scowled. The window was above her, but she could certainly fit through it.
“Ewan!” she called. “Does the carriage window open?”
“You couldn’t fit through a window,” he said, before shouting something unintelligible up the slope at his men.
“Yes, I could,” Annabel shouted back, a bit indignantly. The water was at her toes now and it was cold as ice and filthy. “But I can’t reach high enough.”
“Wait a moment!” The coach shuddered with Ewan’s weight and a moment later his face appeared in the muddy glass above her. “Hello!” he said, grinning. “Your hair’s a mess.”
She made a face at him and pointed at the black water lapping at her slippers. She saw him look down and frown, and then he said, “Turn around.”
She turned about and hid her face against the coach seat, but no flying glass struck her. Instead she heard the splintering, screaming sound of wood being torn from its moorings. When she turned about again, sunshine was pouring down. Ewan had ripped the entire window frame from the carriage and lifted it into the air. There was a crash as it landed in the ditch. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ll just brace myself….” And then he reappeared, lying down and leaning half through the window with his arms stretched out to her.
“Come on, darling,” he said, “easy as pulling a babe from its crib, I’m thinking.”
“I’m glad you find this amusing,” Annabel said, but she reached up to him. His large hands closed on her hands and then with a powerful, smooth movement, he pulled so hard that she literally flew upward, and his hands closed again on her waist. Then with a grunt he pulled her through the window and sat her down, skirts hanging into the coach’s cavity.
Annabel just stared at him. She had to remind herself to close her gaping mouth. “How in the world did you do that?”
“ ’Twas no trouble at all to lift a featherweight such as yourself.”
Annabel had never wasted any tears over the fact that she had a lush, rounded figure. She’d always liked it, and frankly, men showed every sign of liking it as well. But she was no slender, fragile waif who could be wafted through the air on a breeze.
At some point Ewan had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were bulging with muscle, and his shoulders appeared likely to rip through the thin linen of his shirt. Annabel swallowed, thinking of Ewan without his shirt at their picnic. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Where do you get all these muscles?” she asked.
“Lifting damsels in distress.” He grinned at her, and there was a slight lurch as he leaped off the carriage and landed with a splash in the ditch.
Then he held up his arms. “Jump!”
Annabel couldn’t help smiling. If that were any normal Englishman standing below her—a normal gentleman of any nationality—she would be afraid that her weight, hurtling off the top of a carriage, would drop him to the ground like a stone. But Ewan…
She pulled her legs out of the destroyed carriage window and stood up. From here she could see miles of dark emerald forest with just a few birds erupting from its depths like flying fish skimming an ocean. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of fir trees, deep, loamy earth and spring.
“Annabel!” Ewan called.
She looked down. He was standing in water, after all. So without a moment’s trepidation, she launched herself from the downed carriage, coming home to his arms with all the security and the pleasure of a child leaping from the second stair.
His arms closed around her and for a moment she felt nothing but the heat of his body. He smelled of soap, and clean sweat, and linens dried in the sun. Dimly she could hear Ewan’s men cheering her recovery. But he was tipping up her chin and looking down at her with those sea-green eyes. “Ask me a question, lass,” he said. “We’re out of kisses.”
“Do you want to put me down now?”
“The answer is no,” he said, covering her mouth with his own. His lips were as hard and as powerful as his body. He looked like a great, innocent farm laborer but he kissed like a sinful lord, a rake who knew her heart’s darkest secrets, desires of which she’d known nothing until his kisses awakened them.
Finally he drew back and she blinked at him, realizing it was a good thing he was still holding her up; her legs had turned liquid and she was trembling all over.
He wasn’t smiling. She liked that.
“My lord,” Mac called from the road. “The man we sent ahead has returned and says there’s a small hamlet three miles down the road. Perhaps you may wish to go there while we work with the carriage. The slower vehicles can’t be more than an hour behind us and I’ll send them on to you directly.”
Ewan held out his hand. Annabel took it and he pulled her up the slope to the road. She glanced back to see their sleek, fine carriage scratched and broken, lying on its side like a bird shot down in midflight.
“Annabel and I will take one of the horses and ride to the village,” Ewan was saying. “Send the other carriages to pick us up, and we’ll continue until we find an inn for the night.”
She shook her head at him, and he said, “We don’t have a sidesaddle, Annabel; you’ll have to ride before me.”
“Those horses aren’t strong enough for the both of us. We’ll take two horses, and I can do quite well without a sidesaddle.”
Ewan’s eyebrow shot up but he only said, “Excellent,” and turned back to Mac.
Annabel listened until she heard him making plans to bring several men to the village with them. Then she put a hand on his sleeve. “The men should go before us,” she said.
He looked rather confused but accepted her comment without question. Annabel stood and thought about that for a moment; it was a rare blessing to find a man who would accept a word of advice without querying it. Certainly her father had never seen the point of such a thing.
A few minutes later four outriders set off for the village at a good clip, directed to bring back more men and some sort of farm cart in case the carriage wasn’t immediately usable.
Annabel turned to the horses milling about the edge of the road, cropping grass with their blunt teeth. She walked among them, stopping to pat a rough dapple coat and scratch the ears of a twitchy job horse. Finally she found a red-brown gelding with a black mane and large, soft eyes. She held out her hand and he politely stopped eating grass and blew air into her palm with his velvety nose.
“What’s your name, beauty?” she crooned at him, but he just lipped her fingers and shook his bridle. “I’ll call you Ginger, then,” she said. “Ginger was my very first horse and you have a similar look about you.”
He accepted a gift of grass with courteous attention.
Ewan threw a saddle on Ginger and turned to her. “May I give you
a hand up?”
“No, thank you,” Annabel said. Outriders and groomsmen were milling about the road, waiting to figure out precisely how Mac wanted to retrieve the carriage. Mac was prowling around and around the vehicle, splashing in the mud while he decided what would cause the frame the least damage. “I’ll just walk this sweet gentleman for a moment,” Annabel said.
Ginger liked walking and blew in her ear in a companionable sort of way. A second later Ewan caught up with her, his horse on a long rein. The sun felt warm on Annabel’s face. Its rays were catching Ewan’s hair and made it look as if prisms of ruby light were caught in its strands.
Slowly they drew away from the shouts of the men working on the coach, and then the road turned a corner. Annabel glanced back and saw that they were thoroughly out of sight.
“Will you give me a hand now?” she asked.
She swung up into the saddle and rearranged her skirts with some care. After a moment she realized that Ewan was still standing at her horse’s shoulder as if he were frozen. She cocked an eyebrow.
“Lovely stockings,” he said calmly enough, but there was a flare in his eyes.
Annabel looked down at her lacy, woolen stockings. They gleamed snowy white in the shadowy light, all the way from her slender ankles to just above her knees. “You can see why I didn’t wish to mount this horse in front of your men,” she said, grinning at Ewan.
He didn’t say anything immediately, just curled his hand around her ankle. “You have beautiful legs.” His voice had a deep, almost hoarse note.
Annabel grinned at him and hitched her skirts a little higher. His eyes wandered over her thighs, closely gripping the horse’s back, and he got such a strange expression on his face that she raised an eyebrow.
“Is there some problem, Ewan?”
“I may not be able to mount a saddle myself,” he said, and his voice was definitely hoarse now.
“Try,” she said impudently. With a slight movement of her knee she prompted Ginger to start walking down the road.
“You didn’t tell me you could ride!” Ewan called after her.