Gentlemen Prefer Mischief (20 page)

By the time the gentlemen returned, she was ready to plead a headache, and she left the party for her room. But that had been hours ago, and now it was almost one o’clock. She supposed she was the only one in the manor besides the odd servant who was still awake.

Well, there was one other person who was very likely still awake.

What she was really wanting now was her knitting. She foolishly hadn’t brought any yarn with her, and she missed the way knitting calmed her thoughts and kept her fingers busy while something soft and woolly formed. Instead she twisted the end of her long braid in her fingers as she watched the woods and tried not to think of Hal waiting for her.

But that was near impossible. Part of her was thrilled that he’d asked to court her, that he’d dared her to come to him tonight. But the more she thought about it, the less she could believe that he truly wanted to marry her. There was some design in his attentions, and there was no mystery as to what it was: desire. She felt it, too.

She gazed out into the pitchy darkness. She wanted extremely to go to his room. She ached to touch him again, to touch him
more
.

But just as much, she needed to respect herself, and going to a rendezvous with Hal, possibly surrendering her virginity to him—how could she even think of it? It was madness.

Still, she thought of that silly thing he’d said, that he wanted to “uncover the fragile flower of her softness.” She didn’t want to be a hard, closed-off woman. She didn’t want to end up a shrew. Could what was between them open something good within her?

Her eyes, almost unfocused while her tormented thoughts dueled together, now became aware of something in the dark outside the window—a speck of light among the dense line of trees.

She gasped as she realized what it had to be: Nate!

Concern swept over her. True, the light was small, the woods covered a long swath, and he was digging in an area far from where he’d been before. It was possible no one would notice. Obviously Nate was gambling on this, and on Hal being too busy with guests to watch for him.

A large assumption.

She knew exactly where Hal must be right now, unless he’d seen the light already: in his room, waiting for her. And if he hadn’t seen the light yet, he might still glimpse it at any moment.

She considered the choice before her, a choice that might allow her to do something to keep Hal from watching for Nate. And going to Hal was something she wanted desperately to do.

She slipped out of her room and moved down the silent corridor to the wing that held his rooms.

And then she was standing outside his chamber door.

Hal waited in his room while telling himself he wasn’t waiting, that he was going over the estate account book and it didn’t matter to him whether Lily came or not. She was just a woman, and blah blah blah his mind went as he ran through figures.

The third time he had to pause to determine what seventeen and six made he pushed the account ledger away, pulled a book off the small shelf by his bed, and went to sit by the window. It was a book he’d been given at the Spanish monastery where he’d stayed for those few days during the war, on the subject of solitude and its value in life. He supposed the abbot would have smiled to think of how tormented Hal currently was; the abbot was much taken with the value of suffering in forging a soul. Hal felt in no way improved.

He knew he was placing a lot of weight on whether she came tonight. Knew that, while he might be able to make her want him, he couldn’t make her
choose
him. If she came tonight, it wouldn’t be because she was overtaken with lust in the moment or simply curious. It would take far more for Lily, who thought and planned and chose carefully, to come to him. If she came tonight, it would be because she needed him.

***

Lily knocked very softly on Hal’s door.

“Come,” said a quiet voice from the other side, and she slipped into his bedchamber.

He was sitting in a chair by the window; apparently he’d been reading. She realized that she’d never imagined him simply sitting and doing something so quiet as reading, and perversely, the stillness of the scene startled her.

“Well,” he said. “Lily. Lock the door.”

She did.

He put down his book and unfolded himself from the chair, long legs unbending as he stood, the sight making her extra aware of how different his body was from hers—longer, taller, stronger, male. He was at his ease; he wore no coat and his shirt, tucked into tight-fitting dark breeches, was loose at the collar, the cravat having been hung over the back of his chair. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. The candlelight gleamed in the semi-darkness, making his hair shine dark gold.

Behind him and on the other side of his bed stood two tall windows that gave onto the same view that hers did. With the heat of the day still warming the room, the windows had been left open and the curtains, too, doubtless to let in a breeze. If he turned and looked, he would see Nate’s light. She couldn’t let him turn and focus his attention there. And she knew, returning his gaze as his eyes settled on her warmly, that she didn’t want to.

“Hal,” she said back, naming him as he’d just named her, a choosing of each other.

They stood like that for perhaps half a minute, looking at each other, weighing, it felt like. Getting accustomed to this choice of being there together.

His room was grand; it was, after all, a viscount’s room. She’d been in here before, when she was taking back her journal, but it had been so dark that she’d perceived almost none of it. Now the light of two candelabra illuminated his substantial bed with its wide mattress and dark drapes. It dominated the room and spoke of the weight of the viscountcy. She’d never before thought of a bed as imposing, but this one was.

“Are you going to come closer, Lily? This must be your choice.”

She cleared her throat, gathered her courage. “I have to know something first, a practical thing.”

His lips quirked. “By all means.”

“Do you have these things called…” She blushed furiously but pushed onward because it was one thing to try something for one night, no matter how much she wanted to, and it was another to do something that could change her whole life. “French letters?”

“Ah. You are well informed.”

“By Eloise, actually.”

His eyebrows went up.

“Eavesdropping.”

A rueful smile tugged the edge of his mouth. “I foresee another conversation. But yes, I have them.”

So there was not that practical issue to stop her. He stood with his arms at his sides as she moved closer to him, his posture straight, his confident bearing reflecting something of the military man he’d been. His eyes never left her.

“What were you reading?” she said as she came to stand near him.

“Something the Spanish monks gave me. I think they saw me as a good subject for conversion to their ways.”

“I don’t suppose they’d be pleased to see what you are up to tonight. Or me.”

She was trembling. The realization of what she’d come here to do was bearing down on her.

He spread his arms open, the vulnerable, paler insides of his arms and his palms facing her. The sight made her heart lurch, a deep, willful pulling that drew her toward him.

“And this is why,” he said, “we are not going to think about monks right now. No man wants to think about other men when he is with the woman he admires.”

She stepped into his arms.

“And never doubt it, Lily. I admire you extremely.” He lifted a hand to brush ever so lightly over her hair, which was still pinned up, and she saw that it was shaking a little. It touched her deeply, that he might feel vulnerable with her, even if it was only a vulnerability to desire. Wonder stole over her. She wanted this.

He leaned down and kissed her cheekbone ever so lightly. Then her cheek, her earlobe, and the tip of her chin. His slow kisses made her feel worshipped, though his gentle lingering was making her desperate for him to kiss her mouth.

And then he did.

His lips brushed hers, and there was that crippling tenderness again that simply undid her. How did he come by it, this masculine, arrogant, stunning man?

Her eyes were still open, while his had closed, and as his kiss stirred her passion into flame and his tongue stroked moist heat into her mouth, she gazed at his fair eyelids with their thick lashes and the neat line of one eyebrow that was in view. So real, so human, so present to her now. So lovable it tugged her heart. His breath whished softly against her cheek while his mouth worked upon her desire.

He broke the kiss and pressed his lips just beneath her ear, making her shiver with excitement.

“Stop thinking, Lily. I can feel you thinking.”

Her lips curled up. Along with the sexual thrill of his touch, something was bubbling up in the region of her heart, making her giddy. “One of us ought to.”

“Not now. Not tonight. Tonight is for feeling.”

“I
am
feeling,” she whispered and let her hands run down the long, taut line of his back, covered only in the loose cloth of his shirt. “And you feel remarkable.”

He laughed, a husky sound, and buried his face in her neck. The bristle that had formed on his cheeks and chin abraded her skin exquisitely, and a moan pressed at the back of her throat.

“Only you, Lily,” he said and sucked gently, making the moan release, a hitching, helpless sound she ought to have regretted but didn’t, “would use a word like ‘remarkable’ in the midst of lovemaking.”

“Hush,” she said and hugged him tight against her, his erection pressing hard into her. “I feel
you
.”

He growled and canted his hips so that he pressed harder against her, and dragged his lips down from her collarbone and across her bosom, pushing the neck of her nightgown wider. He tugged sharply at its fine cloth, so that it ripped open. With a dark chuckle he held it wide and let it slide down her body, leaving her naked to his eyes.

“Ah,” he breathed, letting his eyes run over her. “So beautiful. As perfectly formed as the flower you are named for. If
I
had a journal, I might sketch you and keep you as an image of perfection to gaze upon. If I didn’t want to touch you more.”

The cool night breeze lifted the curtains behind him and passed over her body, touching skin no breeze had ever touched before, giving her goose bumps on her bare belly and arms, which were growing warmer every moment under his heated, greedy gaze. She felt unaccountably taller than she had before, and more at ease than she could have imagined, standing naked in a room with a man.

He set his hands on either side of her hips. His palms, large and warm, skimmed upward, tracing her curves as he looked into her eyes. He was still dressed, and standing there naked as if for his use, she knew the desire to surrender to him. He pushed his hands up under her breasts, pushed her breasts up, too, so that they pressed together in all their fullness. Then he bent his golden head and put his mouth against them. The scratchy beginnings of his whiskers abraded the delicate skin. She closed her eyes with pleasure.

The fire he’d started licked down through her breasts and up the insides of her legs and deep inside her. He moved his head to nuzzle her earlobe, tugged it inside his mouth, and drew a whimper from her with gentle suction.

She pulled impatiently at the open collar of his shirt and worked it loose and pushed it down his arms urgently, over the hard curves and density of his arms with their light furring of hairs. He shrugged out of it roughly, his eyes on hers as if daring her to do her worst. She put her hand against the front of his trousers. His shirt lay upside-down, spilling from his waistband. His eyes stayed on her, waiting, as she unfastened his trousers and pushed them wider. When he sprang free of them, she sucked in her breath.

“Shocked now?”

She
was
shocked, or actually, startled. She’d never seen this most male part. And the way it was now… rather like a thick, jutting dagger.

“It’s just not having seen such a thing before. I… shall doubtless become accustomed in a moment.”

“Doubtless,” he said in a husky voice tinged with amusement.

To pay him back for his teasing—and she instinctively knew it would—she reached out and encircled his erection and squeezed gently, a way of meeting the assertiveness of this part of him that was so hard. And hot—she hadn’t expected the burning heat. He groaned, moved his hips, and pressed himself into her grip. She loved this power she felt over him.

He kicked aside the trousers pooled at his feet and pulled her against him. Slipping his hands under her bottom, he picked her up and carried her across the room. At no time did he turn toward the windows and their open curtains, though only the tiniest corner of her mind still registered concern about whether he might glance outside.

He deposited her at the edge of his desk, and her naked bottom came to rest atop a pile of papers that were cool from the freshness of the early autumn night.

“Hal,” she gasped. She was
sitting
on his papers—papers he might read later.

“Shh.” He put a finger to her lips. “Let me love you.”

Love?
She grasped at the word, probing it, but thought fell away as he eased her legs apart and propped them open, one at the edge of the desk chair, the other on the front of an open drawer. And then he slid has hands along the insides of her thighs and showed her what he meant by loving her: physical affection, his slow, sensual stroking
there
, among the delicate, hidden, neglected little folds between her legs.

“Oh…” she murmured, hardly knowing what she said, and his finger dipped and stroked and paused over that so recently discovered place that felt so incredibly good. Her arms went out behind her to prop herself up and keep from collapsing.

“Oh what, Lily?” he said low, slowing down his stroke so that he drew out the pleasure and the wanting.
Oh
, but she wanted.

He leaned in and kissed her neck. “Is that ‘Oh, my Lord Roxham’?” he chuckled darkly. “Because I would be your lord in this, Lily.”

“Yes,” she whispered, limp with need.

He bent his head and captured her nipple with his mouth. She moaned and shamelessly urged him closer with her bent knees, and he took his hand away and tugged roughly on one of the desk’s small side drawers.

She murmured nonsense, wanting him to bring his hand back, to come closer with his muscular, tall body. And then he was fumbling with something, pulling something onto himself, and she knew it was a French letter.

He moved in close to her and dipped his hips, and she felt him at her opening. She pressed urgently against him. He pushed into her slowly. A tight, uncomfortable pinching inside her. This was the end of her maidenhead. She read in his eyes that he knew it, that he was waiting for some sign from her.

“I… think you won’t fit.”

His chuckle was almost a moan. “I’ll fit. Be patient.” He pushed a little more, and she knew from the nearly overwhelming feeling of stretching that he was all the way inside her now. The candlelight picked out a trickle of perspiration as it slid down his temple. In his slow, patient entry, she had come to accommodate him, and it felt much better.

He looked into her eyes and smiled a slow, gloating smile that dragged a grunt of laughter from her. She gave no thought at that moment to how he’d acquired such wonderful bedroom arts. She just wanted him and what they were doing together. She wrapped her arms around his ribs and drew him closer, pressing him harder at the place where they were joined.

He uttered a soft curse and began to stroke inside her, slowly at first, and then with a rhythm that filled her and made the dangling handles on the desk drawers rattle. Their skin was slick, their breathing labored as everything grew more urgent. The tightness built in her feverishly, a headlong rush that was as wild and adventurous as thundering across a midnight moor on a galloping, untamed horse.

And then the wondrous surge of pleasure hurtled her free of the ride. There was that peace again, even deeper this time, that joyful, holy falling into nothingness. There was no voice of judgment within her, no cares or plans or shoulds, just sweet, airy peace.

Coming back to herself, wanting only for him to find what she just had, she hugged him against her as he continued to thrust. She wished she could always be with him like this: intimate, inseparable.

He grunted against her, grinding his teeth, panting, every bit of him focusing on the peak he was climbing. He pushed harder into her until they could get no closer, and with a growl he stiffened, then sagged against her, spent and heaving. Despite the almost violence of the last moments, she felt serenity enfold them both.