Guilty Series (110 page)

“Ian? Do you have plans this afternoon? I hoped you might give me a tour of the estate.”

“Of course. One o'clock?”

“Oh, that will be just right!” she cried. “Then we can take a picnic.”

The idea of a picnic had never occurred to him. Sitting on the ground to eat had never been something he particularly favored, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd gone on a picnic. But he looked at the pleasure shining in Lucia's face at the idea, and he found himself saying, “A picnic it is. You'll prepare something, Mrs. Richards?”

“Yes, sir,” Richards said, sounding astonished.

“Very good.” With that, he bowed and departed for his study to meet with Coverly. He had a lot of estate business still to do, and if he was going to while away his afternoon on something frivolous like a picnic, he'd better get to it.

 

“It is larger than I imagined it.” At the edge of the south gardens, Lucia stopped and turned around to study the four-story structure of the house.

Ian paused beside her and set down the laden picnic basket. “Plumfield was built in 1690. The two wings were added by my grandfather. Which is fortunate, because he also added several water closets. And there is a plunge bath, too, just for the master chambers. It's across from our suite of rooms and down a private staircase.”

“Yes, I saw the bath when Atherton showed me over the house this morning. It is enormous.” She paused. “Big enough for two.”

Wild, erotic images of the two of them in that bathtub flashed across his mind, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

She didn't seem to notice. “I like the brick on the outside of the house,” she said, and gave a nod of approval. “And the stone accents are nice. It is a very English house, is it not?”

He forced erotic fantasies aside before what he felt became obvious. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“The grounds are very English, too,” she went on, glancing around. “At home, and in France as well, it is all formal knot gardens and potagers. Your English gardens are different. More natural. All these lawns. And the flowers and herbs and shrubs are all mixed up together. There are not quite so many fountains here, but more lakes and ponds, and”—she paused to point at the sunken ditch near their feet—“little streams like this.”

“Ha-ha,” he corrected.

She looked at him, puzzlement puckering her forehead. “Did I say something to make you laugh?”

He did laugh then. “No, no. These ditches are called ha-has. They are there to keep the deer and cattle out of the gardens.”

“We have deer and cattle?”

“Yes, of course. Plumfield is four thousand acres. Orchards, tenant farms, some park and woodland, too, of course. And cattle.” He pointed to the distance. “Dylan's estate, Nightingale's Gate, is ten miles south of us. On the sea.”

“So near? That is wonderful. We can see them often, then, can't we?”

“Any time you like. It's an hour's drive at most.”

That seemed to please her. She smiled at him, and he wondered what it was about her smile that always made him feel so topsy-turvy that he wasn't ever quite sure if he was on his heels or his head. That thought had barely gone through his mind when suddenly there were tears sliding down her face, mingling with the smile and confirming that with Lucia as his wife, everything in his world was going to be topsy-turvy, upside down, and inside out from now on, especially him. “Why are you crying, in heaven's name?” he demanded. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” Lucia wiped her fingers across her cheeks. “Ian, I cry all the time,” she reminded him with a sniff. “You should know that by now.”

Yes, he probably should. “Well, I wish you wouldn't,” he said, and jerked a handkerchief out of his pocket. “I really hate it when you start getting all weepy.”

“I know you do.” She took his handkerchief and dabbed at her face. “But I can't help it. I look around me, and I see our house and our gardens, and I am happy. That is why I am crying.”

He gave her a dubious glance. “You're crying because you're happy?”

“Si.”

“Is it the brick or the boxwood that has inspired all this joy?”

She shook her head and gestured to their surroundings. “How can I explain? All my life I have been shuttled from place to place. Schools, convents, the houses of relatives, Cesare's palace, Mamma's house, your brother's house, Tremore Hall.” Her hand curled in a fist around his handkerchief, and she pressed it to her heart. “But here, I look around, and I know I am home.”

Tightness squeezed his chest, and he looked away, staring out over the fruit orchards in the valley below them, feeling deuced awkward, and yet, strangely pleased. “I'm glad you like it.”

“It's beautiful. How could I not like it?” Giving one final sniff, she folded up his handkerchief and put it in her pocket. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, stood up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his mouth. “I am home,” she said, and kissed his chin. Then his jaw. “Thank you, husband. Thank you.”

“Lucia.” He cast an uncomfortable glance past her toward the gardeners working nearby. He reached for her wrists. “People can see us.”

She ignored that and kissed him again. “Are you embarrassed?”

“No.” His hands closed over her wrists, but he liked the feel of her arms around his neck more than he minded being watched, and any thought of pulling her hands down went out of his head.

She kissed him again. “Is it that you are shy?”

He liked it when she kissed him, too. He caressed the insides of her wrists with his thumbs. “No, I am not shy,” he corrected. “I am discreet.
I am…” He paused, then said, “I have never been a demonstrative person.”

“If you kiss me back just once,” she teased against his mouth, “I'll stop.”

That made him smile. “So that's the plan, is it?” he murmured, his body starting to burn. “Get a man all worked up, then stop. Why am I not surprised?”

Her expression became serious. Her hands slid into his hair, and it didn't even occur to him to object. “Are you?” she asked.

He frowned at the question, trying to think, finding it a bit difficult at this moment. “Am I what?”

She pressed her body against his, and even trying to think went to the wall. “Are you all worked up, Ian?” she whispered.

“God, yes.” The thick heaviness of lust was fast overtaking him. “And you know it, too, I suspect.”

He tightened his grip on her wrists and stepped back, pulling her with him until they were behind the tall boxwood hedge of the maze. Shielded from curious gazes, he let go of her wrists, cupped her face, and kissed her. It was a long, lush kiss that made him ache and brought back memories of that night in the carriage and her body beneath his. At this moment, he didn't care what it had cost him to have her, and he didn't care what part she might have played in his downfall. He tasted his wife's mouth and began to think that doing the gentlemanly thing
last night and leaving her alone to rest after their long trip had been truly stupid. He lowered one hand to caress the side of her neck.

She broke the kiss and pulled out of his grasp before he could collect his wits enough to prevent it. When he tried to grab her, she darted away, laughing, and stepped back around the hedge where they could be seen. “I promised I'd stop,” she reminded him as she turned and started down the hill. “I always keep my promises.”

“You are driving me mad,” he said as he picked up the picnic basket to follow her.

She paused and flashed him that gorgeous smile over one shoulder. “I hope so, Englishman. I certainly hope so.” Laughing, she turned away, caught up her skirts in her hands, and began running down the hill.

The sight brought him to a halt. His mind flashed back to the first time he had ever seen her, and how he'd imagined her this way, running through knee-high grass, laughing, with her hair flying behind her. He'd never been a fanciful man, but even then, in that first moment, he'd sensed that his fate was intertwined with hers. For so long, he'd thought his feelings for her to be just an overpowering physical desire, but now, at this moment, he understood that it was something deeper. Something that compelled him to turn toward her again and again, when reason and good sense had always told him to turn away.

“Ian, what are you still doing up there?”

Her voice, breathless and laughing, brought him out of his reverie. “Hmm? What?”

“What are you doing? You are standing on the side of that hill as if frozen in place.”

He wasn't frozen. Not anymore. Not since he'd met her. He stared at the woman who was smiling up at him in the bright autumn afternoon, the rays of the sun glinting on the silver comb in her hair.

Luce,
he thought, the Italian word for light. And she was. That was what always drew him to her, kept him turning toward her again and again, the way a plant in a window insisted on turning toward the sun. He needed her, needed her so much he'd been willing to throw away everything else that had ever mattered to him. That was a frightening thing, for never in his whole life had he needed anyone.

“Ian, are you all right? You have the strangest look on your face.”

He started down the hill and forced himself to say something. “I was thinking of the first time I ever saw you.”

She glanced about her, then back at him. “You mean that day in Mamma's drawing room?”

“Yes.”

She gave him a dubious look, as if he wasn't quite right in the head. “Sometimes, Englishman, I do not understand you. I love you, but I do not always understand you.”

She turned and started across the meadow. He remained where he was and watched her walk
away, with her skirts in her hand and the sun on her hair.

“I love you, too,” he said, but only after she was too far away to hear. “I always have.”

T
hey had their picnic on a stretch of green turf beside the millpond, partaking of cold ham, cheese, bread, and fruit from the basket Mrs. Richards had packed. Lucia studied her husband as they ate, smiling as she thought of how he'd pulled her behind that hedge so the gardeners wouldn't see him kiss her. He really was adorable. So proper on the surface, and so fiery underneath. She intended to spend the entire day stoking that fire inside him until both of them were burning hot.

Now was a perfect time to start.

“It's a lovely day,” she commented, “but it's so warm.” With that, she leaned forward on the blanket and slipped off her shoes. She hitched up
the hem of her skirt just enough to give him a view of her calves. She removed the garters at her knees and began to peel off her stockings. She did it slowly, allowing him a long, lingering look before she tugged her skirts back down and tossed her stockings aside. She stretched out her legs, leaving only her bare feet showing, and leaned back on her arms with a contented sigh. Then, she looked into his eyes and saw that look she loved.

“You are staring at me,” she said.

“Wasn't that the idea?” His voice was wry.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I like it when you look at me. Shall I tell you why?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on, “When I first met you, I thought you were haughty and proper, even cold. But then I realized something about you.”

“What's that?”

She crossed her ankles, and her bare foot brushed his hip. She felt his body tense.

“I can almost never tell by your face what you are thinking, but sometimes when you look at me, there is something in your eyes, something hot that makes me catch my breath. Even when you are very angry with me—and you have an anger most powerful, husband—even then, I know you want me. You are looking at me that way now.” Her words and his eyes were starting to have an effect on her, for she was beginning to feel a warmth that had nothing to do with the weather.

“Lucia.” He moved toward her and rose on his knees. He leaned over her, resting his weight on his arms. He bent his head to kiss her.

“Ian, don't.” She pressed her fingers to his mouth. “You mustn't.”

“Why not?”

She smiled and glanced past him. “Because we are not alone.”

Ian turned to look over his shoulder and saw two little girls sitting on the bridge over the stream about eighty yards away. The pair were watching them, heads together, and it was clear they were the topic of the children's discussion. He returned his gaze to her. “Lucia, you did that on purpose!”

“You deserve it,” she answered at once, slid out from beneath him, and got to her feet. “No bride should spend her wedding night alone. Today, I am taking my revenge.”

She walked away, but of course, she didn't get the last word. “Enjoy your revenge now,” he muttered behind her. “Because tonight, I intend to take mine.”

 

After their picnic, Ian showed her some of the estate. He thought that made him safe from her tantalizing form of revenge since they were surrounded by people for the remainder of the day, but he should have known better. When he took her to the mill where the soaps were made, she commented oh-so-innocently how pretty a bowl of the pale green soaps would be on the travertine tiles of the plunge bath.

At the cider house, where the apples and pears were fermented, the way she slowly licked sticky
drops of cider off her lips and her fingers was such a sin, she'd have given a Methodist minister a heart attack.

He took her to one of the farms and gave her an extremely dry lecture about how tenant farming worked, but of course, it didn't help him keep his thoughts away from ravishing her. Oh, no. For when Mrs. Trent, the farmer's wife, offered her a glass of buttermilk, Lucia just had to mention that buttermilk lotion was the most excellent way for a woman to keep her skin soft and white.

After a tour of the stables and kennels, they returned to the house, but even then he wasn't safe. She made the mere eating of dinner so sensual, that afterward, Ian was forced to use that plunge bath for a dunk in cold water.

It was a good thing he did. An entire afternoon of her provocative comments and quick kisses had left him aching for her just as badly as she'd intended. Though she might have enjoyed bedeviling him all day, tonight he would make her pay for it.

That thought made him smile. Yes, she was going to get a dose of what she'd been dishing out, and he was going to love every minute of it. He intended to make sure she loved it, too. Ian tightened the sash of his dressing gown, opened the door, and entered her room.

She was seated at her dressing table. Nan Jones, the maid he'd sent to do for her, stood behind her, brushing her hair. Both of them turned as he came in and closed the door behind him.

Jones immediately bobbed a curtsy, then looked at Lucia. She nodded, and Jones put down the brush. She left the room, smothering a giggle as she went out the door.

Ian moved to stand behind his wife. She smiled at him in the mirror and picked up her hairbrush. She leaned sideways and began to brush the hair on the right side of her face. He leaned down and kissed the left side of her neck above her cream-colored dressing robe.

The brush faltered for only a moment, then she resumed her task.
Tease,
he thought, laughing to himself. She didn't know what she was in for. Tilting his head, he tasted her skin with his tongue and felt her shiver. “Cold?” he asked.

“No.”

“You're shivering.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” Smiling, he lifted his head and his eyes met hers in the mirror. His hands reached for the thin strip of brown-satin ribbon at her throat. He untied it. His fingers slipped inside and began to caress her skin just above her collarbone.

She stirred on her seat, and the hairbrush hit the floor with a thud. She arched her neck to give him better access, and he trailed kisses along the side of her throat. “Like that, do you?”

Her breathing quickened, and her hand lifted to touch his hair. “Yes,” she answered.

He straightened. His hands curled around her arms, urging her to her feet. When she was standing, he kicked the seat out of the way and turned
her around. “You have been toying with me all day,” he murmured. “Now it's my turn to toy with you.”

His mouth came down on hers before she could reply, and as always, her lips parted freely beneath his, telling him how much she loved his kiss. He slid his hands into her hair and deepened it, reveling in the taste of her and the feel of her.

Already, with just one kiss, he was fully aroused, but he had no intention of losing his control. Not this time. He tore his lips from hers and pressed brief kisses over her face as he banked the fires inside himself. But when he put his hands on her waist, the fires flared up again, for there were no corsets, no petticoats to get in his way. Just two loose layers of ivory silk between his hands and her soft skin. His hands moved up and down her torso, from her ribs to her waist down to the flare of her hips and back again.

“Do you want me to put out the light?” he asked, hoping she'd say no.

“Remember the night we played chess?” She looked up at him, tilting her head to one side, black hair spilling across her shoulder. “That night, I wondered what you looked like under your clothes.”

That stunned him rather, but he merely raised an eyebrow, and a smile curved one side of his mouth. “Indeed? I was thinking the same thing about you at the time.”

She reached up and began to unbutton his
shirt. “Why don't we both satisfy our curiosity and leave the light on?”

“Hear, hear.” He untied the sash of his dressing gown and pulled it off. Then he unbuttoned his cuffs and pulled off his shirt. It joined his dressing gown on the floor at their feet.

He moved to begin unfastening the ties of her night robe, but she stopped him. “Wait,” she said, her hands flattening against his bare chest. “Let me look at you first.”

That wasn't quite in keeping with his plans, but it was a temptation he couldn't resist. He let his hands fall. She began to caress him in slow circles, her hands gliding over his pectoral muscles, along his shoulders, down his arms, and over his abdomen.

As she touched him, she began pressing kisses over his chest. At first, they were light, her lips touching him like the brush of butterfly wings. But then, the kisses became lush explorations as she tasted his skin with her tongue. Under this slow assault, his body shuddered with pure pleasure. He tilted his head back with a groan. The seducer had become the seduced. He closed his eyes, suffering the delightful torture as long as he could.

He tangled his hands in her hair and tilted her head up, stopping her. “That's enough,” he said and kissed her. “I told you, it's my turn tonight.”

He slid his hands to the front of her robe. He grasped the ends of the second bow and untied it. Then the third. Then the fourth. He pulled
bows apart one by one, slowly working his way down her body to her thighs. When all the bows were undone, he hooked his thumbs beneath the edges of her robe and pulled the garment off her shoulders. It fell to the floor behind her in a heap.

Under the silk peignoir, she wore a matching nightgown, and through the fabric of that garment, he could see the round, full shape of her breasts. He brushed his fingertips lightly over them. She inhaled a sharp breath, and her nipples hardened. The sight of them jutting out against the pale silk and the feel of them against his fingertips almost sent his lust careening out of control, but he wasn't going to give in to his own desires. Not yet. This time was not going to be like last time.

She lifted her hands, held his wrists in her grip, stilled his caress. “Ian, I didn't arrange for Lady Sarah to see us.”

“I know.” He tilted his head and kissed her.

“How do you know?”

“I told you, I always know when you're lying. You open your eyes very wide and tell your lie, then you bite your lip.”

She stared at him. “I do not do any such thing.”

He kissed her nose. “Yes, you do. It gives you away every time.”

“Someday, Englishman,” she murmured, “I'll have the upper hand with you.”

“Like hell you will. Now where were we?” He
opened his hands over her breasts and made a sound of appreciation at the luscious full shape of them. “Ah, yes.”

“Ian, I have to tell you something.”

It appeared they were going to have a conversation. He stilled his hands, striving to keep himself in check. “Yes, Lucia?”

She pressed her hands over his just as she had done in the conservatory. “This was why I did what I did,” she whispered. “I looked at those men at the ball, and I thought of that night in the carriage when you touched me, and I knew I could never let any of them touch me.” She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, pressing his hands to her breasts. “Only you.”

God, she was beautiful. He felt that tightening in his chest again, pushing air from his lungs, squeezing his heart. He drew a profound, shaky breath and bent his head. He opened his mouth over her nipple and suckled her ever so gently through the silk of her nightgown. She gasped and arched into him. Her hands lowered to curl over the edge of the dressing table on either side of her hips.

As he suckled one of her nipples through her gown, he brought his free hand up to toy with the other, his teasing as slow and provocative as his own tightly leashed desire would allow. She began to gasp and shiver, and he played with her, relishing the way she moved and the soft, agitated sounds of excitement she made. This
was revenge for all the times she'd driven him mad, and it was sweet. So sweet.

It was also very short. He could feel his control slipping, and he knew that soon it would be gone. His hands slid to her hips. Bunching silk in his fists, he began pulling her nightgown up. The move met with unexpected resistance. He felt her tense.

“Lucia, I want to see you. I want to look at you.” He lifted his head, kissed her mouth. “Lift your arms.”

When she did, he pulled the gown up over her head and tossed it aside. Cool air rushed over her naked body, and she gave a nervous laugh. “I'm not sure I want the lamp on after all.”

“I do,” he said, and took a step back to gaze his fill.

She couldn't look at him. Instead, she stared at a shadowy corner beyond his shoulder. How odd, she thought, to be nervous now. Perhaps it was because of the merciless teasing she'd endured as a girl, but having him stare at her unclothed body made her long to cover herself up. Instead, she clenched the edge of the dressing table even more tightly in her fingers. “I'm very big,” she blurted out, and his low chuckle made her realize just how inane that comment was.

“Yes,” he agreed. “In all the right places.” He cupped her naked breasts, shaping them in his palms. “You are so lovely,” he murmured,
caressing her. “Even more lovely than you've been in my imagination.”

She stared at his face as he looked at her and touched her, and she realized in wonder that he had done this very thing many times in his mind. With that understanding, all the nervous tension went out of her, leaving nothing but her love and desire for him. When he opened his mouth over her nipple again, as he had done through her nightgown moments ago, the sensations that shot through her body were even more delicious than before.

He suckled her more strongly this time, tearing soft little moans from her throat. Raw heat was radiating throughout her body, and she couldn't stop herself from writhing against him in desperate need. “Touch me,” she moaned. “Touch me like you did in the carriage.”

He shook his head in refusal and sank to his knees. His hands grasped her hips, and then, before her dazed senses could figure out his intent, he leaned in and kissed her, his lips pressing to the curls that covered her secret place. The pleasure was so exquisite, her whole body jolted in response.