Beyond Innocence (24 page)

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Florence
expected such acerbity from his brother, but not from him. Before she could ask what he
meant, he shook off whatever had troubled him. He took her hand and pressed a soft kiss to its palm.
Her toes did not curl in her boots, but that was because she was a sensible vicar's daughter, not a headstrong girl of seventeen. She and Freddie would be happy. That was all she needed to know.
Or so she told herself as the darkness inside her grew.

* * *

Nigel wasn't in
his office. Edward wanted to ask him about the history of some correspondence with
the mill, but Freddie must have needed his assistance. He
frowned,
annoyed that he'd have to put the matter off. Though it probably wasn't urgent, he'd wanted, needed actually, to bury
himself
in work.

He couldn't stop thinking of
Florence
. His feelings had escalated beyond control since their talk in the garden. He didn't know why he'd confessed those things about his father. Shock, he supposed, or
simply the presence of a sympathetic ear.

Her sympathetic ear.

He'd known she was sweet, but hearing her words—so simple and wise and kind—made his yearning
that much worse. He could still feel her small, warm hand against his cheek, the memory of that gentle touch as inflaming as a kiss. She was an ache in his bones, a fierce, impossible desire.

The devil whispered to his conscience. She cares for you, Edward. You could make her happy; could love her like no other man. Let Freddie fend for himself. Don't you deserve to be selfish just this once?

Disgusted by his own weakness, he stalked down the hall with a growl. A scullery maid jumped at the sound, nearly dropping the tray she was carrying to the servants'
midday
meal. He helped her steady it, which made her tremble all the more.

"I am not an ogre," he snapped.

"Of course not, my lord," she said, eyes showing white as she backed away.
"Not at all."

Blast, he thought, his fist thumping a doorframe. Nothing brought him ease. He could have taken
every woman between
Lancashire
and
London
. He could have humped a stone. He could have spilled
a river of seed and still come up for more.

The only woman he wanted was her.

He wanted to lock her in his rooms for a fortnight. Wanted to chain her to his bed and slide inside her from dusk till dawn. He wanted her heat, her touch, her gasp when she saw the rigid evidence of his
lust. He wanted her silky hair across his chest. He wanted her tender rose-red mouth. He wanted her
hips, her breasts. He wanted to wrap his hands around her knees and spread them wide.

He wanted to make her his.

He leaned straight-armed on the wall and hung his head, breathing hard, trying to pull himself together.
A line of boots sat inside the room where he'd stopped, clearly awaiting a polish. One of the pairs was smaller than the rest: soft gray kid with matching laces. Before he could stop himself he picked them up. The ankles were soft and supple against his palm. The leather was new yet, the stitching on the toe a series of fancy, twining curls. He ran the tip of his finger over the pattern, knowing the boot belonged to
Florence
. There wasn't a woman in the house who had a foot as neat. An image formed in his mind, as unstoppable as the tide, of
Florence
at the dressmaker's, standing barefoot in her chemise and drawers. She'd had such tiny white feet, such adorable toes. Kissable toes. Suckable toes.

The sound of his rumbling groan restored him to his senses. He dropped the boots like a pair of coals. What an arse he was, mooning over a woman's shoes. They'd be carting him off to Bedlam next.

He closed his eyes and clenched his hands. This had to stop. He needed her out of his mind before he
lost it. Just an hour, he prayed.
Just an hour without this torment.
His breath sighed from him as he slowly relaxed his fists. Samson might not know it, but he was about to save his master's life.

* * *

The stable was
generally clear at
midday
, while the servants took their meal. Edward was glad for that today. He could saddle Samson as quickly as any groom. Even if he couldn't have, a stretch of solitude was worth the inconvenience. His sex was heavy with longing, his skin a forest of prickling nerves. Mindless, he thought. I need a hard, mindless ride.

Samson whickered at his approach. Regrettably, the big black stallion was not alone. "Miss Vance,"
he said.

She turned and smiled—nervously, he thought. He wondered if his temper were that obvious and tried
to school his face. She swiped her hand down the outrageous breeches she liked to wear. He would
have asked why her maid let her-out in that state, except the poor old creature was so nearsighted she probably didn't know.

"Won't you call me Merry?" she said, more serious than was her wont. "I know I'd rather call you Edward."

Since he wasn't sure how to answer this question, he evaded it. "Are you going riding?"

If she was going riding, he wasn't. Edward liked Merry Vance. She was plucky and she amused him,
but he wasn't in the mood for her company now: a girl barely out of the schoolroom who didn't know better than to play with fire. Alas, she didn't know better now.

"I'd rather
be
ridden," she said, her voice husky, her freckles lost in a sea of pink. "Maybe you'd care
to help me out."

He was not as quick as he should have been. Her words didn't fit together until she stepped to him, wound her arms behind his neck, and pulled his head down for a kiss. His body responded without thought. He was primed for a woman, any woman. His mouth yielded to her pressure. His heart
thudded, his cock surged, and before he knew it his shirt was pulled out and pushed up and ten short
nails were raking through the hair on his chest.

"Oh," she gasped, pushing back to admire the skin she'd bared. "I knew you'd be like this: too, too
perfect for words."

Her head swooped in, catching one of his nipples between her teeth. He yelped. He meant to push her off, but
her hands had snaked round his back and were scratching ms spine in a manner that made his knees much weaker than he wished. Waves of heat rolled through his body. She •aas squirming against him like a cat. Her little breasts were soft and bare beneath her cotton shirt. Her nipples were sharp. Her thighs—well, he didn't want to think about her thighs. Those breeches didn't hide the half of what they should.

"Merry," he warned, wondering precisely where it was safe to grab her.
"Merry, stop."

"I know I'm not pretty," she said between dangerously descending bites, "or experienced like your
usual women, but oh—" Her knees hit the ground as her mouth sucked the skin of his belly.
"I'm willing, Edward. Willing to do anything you please."

Her words were whiskey poured on flame. He gasped as her hands found his balls. Where on earth did
a girl as young as Merry learn to be so bold? With a muttered curse, he pulled her wrists away. "I said stop, Merry, and I meant it."

Her expression was priceless: part anger, part two-year-old's pout. Any other day, he would have chuckled inside to see it. But she was also hurt, and he knew too well what it was to want what you
could not have.

"You like me," she said, stubborn to the last. "I know you do."

"I like you very much, but that doesn't mean I want to sleep with you."

"You want to a little." Hands still trapped, she leaned forward far enough to nudge his erection with
her chin.

He rasped out a laugh and moved his hips from harm's way. "Yes, I want you, but you're too young
and too well born to be playing this sort of game."

"It's because I'm plain," she huffed. "You're disgusted by the thought of seeing me naked."

"Oh, Lord." Rolling his eyes, he lifted her to her feet. "You're a perfectly nice-looking girl and I'm sure any number of men,
myself
included, would in many circumstances be delighted to see you without
your clothes. However, I've no intention of paying the price for that delight." He held up his hand when she started to speak, no doubt about to swear no one would know, but her. "Save that privilege for a
man who loves you, Merry. To him you'll be beautiful. And with him what you're proposing to do will
be beautiful, too."

She made a sound of disgust much truer to her age than her recent actions. "You sound like my father."

"Good," he said. "I'd much prefer that's how you thought of me."

Her hands were planted on her hips and her gaze traveled over him from neck to groin. It was an ogle whose frankness Imogene would have struggled to match. To his amazement, Edward flushed.

"I could never," she declared, "think of you as my father."

He had to laugh then. Merry Vance wouldn't be a handful; she'd be a plague.

* * *

Florence
collapsed against
the outer wall of the stable with Nitwit's apple clutched to her heart.

She'd peered in the window to make sure the place was empty. She preferred giving the mare her
treats alone, with no witnesses to the silly things she said or the kisses she dropped on her nose. The mare, too, seemed to behave better without an audience, as if she were ashamed to admit she'd grown
to like her awkward rider.

She hadn't expected to see Merry and Edward embracing, much less in that fashion! Merry had been
on her knees, her arms pushing up Edward's shirt, her mouth nuzzling his belly.

His bare belly.

Muscles had rippled like cobbles at his stomach. Smooth and powerful, they'd tensed as Merry circled
his navel with her tongue. A line of ink-black hair rose from the curving indentation,
then
spread outward over his chest. More muscle swelled there: broad and sun-browned with fans of tendon at the side.

And he had nipples.
Florence
had never thought about men having nipples. Who could have guessed they'd be so fascinating? They were small and coppery and the tips poked through that cloud of hair in tiny rose-kissed peaks. She pressed the apple to her throat, the tips of her own breasts tightening until they ached. She curled her tongue over her lip. She wanted to kiss his nipples. She wanted to rub her
face in his hair. She wanted to run her hands up the long, hard curve of his thighs and cup his secret
flesh.

He'd been aroused. His organ had swelled into the space between Merry's chin and neck, distorting the cloth of his trousers just as it had that night at the ball. The light from the stall window had limned the arcing shape. The end was round, ridged at the bottom. Big, she thought, with a deep, hot shudder.
Big
as a summer pippin.
Perhaps it hurt to have one's body part grow so large. His expression might have been pained. His eyes had been closed, his face taut with the longing Merry stirred.

Florence
's nails pierced the skin of Nitwit's treat.
The longing Merry stirred.

It was true, then. He did want the duke's daughter.
Florence
hadn't been special. That night in the
Vances' conservatory, when he'd kissed her and changed her life, she'd merely been convenient.

Merry served as easily as she.

Her eyes burned but she did not cry. She pushed away from the stable and walked in stiff, measured steps towards the distant grove. When she'd gotten far enough not to be seen, she ran. When she'd disappeared deep enough into the trees, she stopped. She braced her hands on her knees and panted,
her bodice soaked with sweat, her head swimming with exertion.