Beyond Seduction (15 page)

Fresh from her parent's farm, the smell of hay still on her skin.

Coming to work at Northwick had been her grand adventure.

You 're a marvel, Nic,
she'd say as they lay together in the grove, her work-rough hand sliding down his shirtless chest.
I never knew a boy could be so nice.

Her kisses had tasted of fruit, sweet and sharp and far more experienced than his. The first time she pressed her tongue between his lips, he'd trembled as if the earth had shuddered on its axis, overwhelmed by wonder and gratitude and a lust as sharp as whetted steel. For months, they'd played at the preludes

of love: two strong, young bodies teasing each other hotter with a look, a kiss, a brush of skin on skin.

He remembered backing her against a tree one day and thinking he'd die if he'd didn't come.

Do you want me to touch you?
she'd whispered.
Do you want me to take you in my hand?

He'd spilled the minute she slipped her fingers inside his linens. She hadn't even had to rub him. Despite the violent bliss of his release, he'd wanted to weep with embarrassment.

Don't worry,
she'd cooed, kissing the shame away.
You'll learn to last and then I'll teach you what women like.

The gift she gave him had no price. A precious thing. A thing no man should ever dare to steal. Not ever.

She'd soaked the bed in blood, they'd said. Had to burn it when she was gone. Hard to imagine the creature who gave those life-affirming kisses could ever die.

Moaning, Nic rolled onto his belly. Bess had been his
Waterloo
. The beginning of his fall. But when he ground his face into the pillow, the kisses he imagined were not hers.

*  *  *

Nic's black fit.  As the maid called it, stretched to two days, then three. He slept the way other men drank, throwing himself into it as if he wished to drown. He had what meals he ate sent to his room,

so Merry had no chance to speak to him at the table. She wondered how a body could stand that much sleep, and began to look back on the boredom of posing with nostalgia. Desperate for distraction, she played checkers with the cook, helped the maid clean a gasolier, and evaded the butler's suggestion that she "stretch her legs" in the neighboring park. Merry's peers were more likely to frequent
Hyde Park

than Regent's, but it wouldn't be impossible for her to encounter someone she knew.

Even if she was climbing the walls, she couldn't risk being seen in
London
, not while her scheme

seemed so close to falling through.

"He is going to finish my painting, isn't he?" she asked Mrs. Choate from her perch on a counter in

the kitchen.

The cook was stirring a pot of soup on the iron range, her hair steamed to wispy curls, her motherly

face pink. '"Course he is. Always does. Like my gran used to say, with every gift comes a curse. To

my mind, these moods are the master's curse—never mind what Mr. Farnham says."

Merry rubbed her nose to hide her smile. The butler and Mrs. Choate had a more or less friendly

rivalry: the one never agreed with the other if he could help it.

"Your picture will be special," the cook predicted. "The pictures he gets his fits over always end up the best. 'Course, like as not, he'll be down in the dumps again once it's finished, but far be it from me to

tell an artist how to act."

"Maybe I'm not inspiring enough," she said, a worry that had been pricking her of late.

Mrs. Choate smiled at her through the steam. "Don't fret yourself over that. The master sees things

other people don't, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. If he says you're Lady Godiva, I reckon

you must be."

Merry's doubt expressed itself in a sigh.

"I think you're pretty," piped a voice from the scullery. It was the kitchen boy, who'd been in there scrubbing pots, so quiet they'd forgotten he was there.

"Well, bless me," said Mrs. Choate, laughing under her breath. "It speaks."

"Thank you," Merry called, but the boy might have sunk into the ground for all the response she got back.

Mrs. Choate rolled her eyes. "There's an odd duck," she murmured. "If freaks were fortunes, that one would own the world. Only thing he wants to talk about is Mr. Craven. Is he strict and do I think he's honest? Yesterday he asked old Max if he thought the horses liked the master!"

"Well, that is ... I mean, people say that is the measure of a man: how he treats his animals and his servants."

"But why should a kitchen boy want to take his employer's measure? You'd think he'd be more concerned with what he's paid."

Merry had no answer but she did have another question. "
Does
he have a scar?" she whispered, remembering the omnipresent scarf.

"Spots is my theory," said Mrs. Choate. "But he works like the dickens, I'll give him that."

Merry wished she could say the same. Whatever the cook assured her, it was beginning to look as if her scandalous naked painting would never see the light of day.

Of course, if Nic continued to struggle, maybe she should take that as a sign her ruination wasn't meant

to be. It wasn't too late to head it off. She could get herself to
Wales
; pretend she'd been with Isabel all along.

The prospect lured her. She could evade everything she dreaded: the embarrassment, the risk, her

father's wrath. Not to mention Nic, who surely posed the greatest threat of all.

Social ignominy she could live down. Even a parent's fury would, in a decade or two, simmer back to its native affection. But to give one's innocence to a rake! Never mind hers was not a snowy innocence; the loss of one's virginity was still a matter of some moment. To give it to Nic—handsome, seductive, profligate Nic—seemed an invitation to despair. Three years had passed since her rejection by Edward Burbrooke, and she still cringed at the memory. She shuddered to think what Nic's rebuff would do.

Nic was so much more than Edward. He was heated oil and poppy smoke and damned nice when he

put his mind to it. Nic said the words she'd always longed to hear. So what if she didn't believe them.

He said them like they were true.

He was strange. She could not argue that. But Merry was strange herself. If she hadn't been, she would have married Ernest in a heartbeat. She wouldn't have been so drawn to risking everything she had. And for what? Adventure? Excitement? A taste of forbidden sins?

A sensible girl would have taken to her heels. A sensible girl would have said: to hell with independence, I'm scampering home where I'll be safe.

Sighing, Merry kicked the old oak cabinet with her heels. She knew she wasn't sensible. Never had

been. Never would be. The best she could manage was clever. Hopefully, when it came to Nic, she hadn't been too clever for her own good.

Six

Nic felt odd when he awoke.  As if his head were filled with pulsing cotton instead of brains. The effect was not of brandy but of sleep and he knew that, heavy though his limbs might be, his body had no

more slumber in it.

His refuge had kicked him out and barred the door behind him. He could lay here a few hours more

but he would not recapture the oblivion he craved.

Rather than try, he swung his legs to the side of the bed and sat up, his elbows on his knees, his palms scrubbing slowly at his face. He had eaten and bathed during his periods of wakefulness, but his hair

was nearly as bad a tangle as his model's.

He'd dreamed of kissing her, of her smooth, sleek limbs entwined with his. It had been a pleasant dream, sensual and slow, one whose memory buzzed along the surface of his skin. Perhaps she'd come into his room while he slept. He wasn't certain, but he thought he remembered someone light perched on the

edge of the bed. He'd thought she was really there, but when he opened his eyes—or believed he

opened them—he saw a ghost of himself as a boy, staring sadly toward the window as though he knew what tragedies lay ahead.

"You help other people," said his younger self, without turning his head. "Why won't you let them help you?"

"They deserve help," he responded, just as if the conversation made perfect sense.

The boy considered this. "Maybe you deserve help, too."

Everything faded after that, a dream lost in a dream. The encounter did not trouble him. Nothing much could when he was sleeping.

A soft tap brought his head out of his palms.

"Yes," he said, his voice croaking from disuse.

Mary peeped around the door. "You're up."

He quelled the sudden leaping of his heart. "Awake anyway."

She stepped in with a tray of coffee and fruit and toast. A flush crept over her freckles as she caught

sight of his sex lying lax and unguarded between his thighs. Her eyes darted away and then back. The return flattered him, brief though it was. Flattered his manhood, too, for as soon as her gaze fell on it, it abruptly spurted longer. There was a wake-up call, he thought. Mouth curling with his first smile in days, Nic pulled the sheet fully over his legs. He'd forgotten what an innocent she could be, though not such

an innocent that she'd shrieked.

Color recovering, she set the tray on the bedside table, then shifted both to his side. The ease with which she moved his furniture impressed him. What a little Amazon she was! With half an ear, he listened to

her babble about Mrs. Choate putting chocolate in his coffee to get back at Farnham for ordering her not to cook anything fancier than toast.

"Don't care," he rasped, "as long as it's strong."

She poured a cup and handed it to him, her funny little face puckered with concern. She watched with great attention while he drank. Some small corner of his soul, a corner he was in no state to examine closely, decided it liked her care. The sense of well-being that suffused him owed as much to her furrowed brow as to the drink.

"I dreamed of you," he said, "that you sat on the bed and held my hand."

He watched her eyes, but she betrayed no sign of embarrassment, as she might have if it were true.

Her brow puckered harder. "Would doing that have been wise?"

He laughed, this time at himself. His own snappishness had discouraged her from coddling him. "I'm

sorry I was rude to you," he said. "And sorry that you worried. I can be a slug, I'm afraid, but I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't scare me. Only hurt me a bit because I wished to help."

He looked away from her expression, which was suddenly too sincere for comfort. Best not to encourage that.

"You're helping now," he said, putting a bit of carnal honey into his voice. He patted the mattress beside him. "And you could help even more if you wanted."

Instead, she stalked to the door.

"Huh," she said, with a spark that pleased him. "I know you're feeling better if you're on about that again."

"I'll have you yet, Duchess."

"Better go back to sleep then," she retorted, "so you can have me in your dreams."

He smiled. In
her
dreams, he suspected, she was nearly his.

*  *  *

If Merry had been a mouse, Nic would have been the cat crouched in wait before her hole. They sat