Jo Beverley - [Malloren] (9 page)

R
osamunde awoke, sticky and aching in odd places, still half under his big body. She wondered if she and Digby had been doing it entirely wrong all along. Certainly she’d never felt the changes this man had made in her. Perhaps, even, people were supposed to do it from behind like animals. Animals, after all, rarely seemed to have trouble conceiving.

Books. Diana had said she had books. Rosamunde decided her education had been sadly lacking and she needed to read those books.

Shifting slightly, tenderly—in more ways than one—she looked at her lovely lover. Brushing a tendril of hair off his forehead, she found it damp with sweat, but his face seemed relaxed, perhaps slightly smiling. Surely he’d found pleasure and satisfaction in paying his debt so generously. She knew men didn’t care much about whom they did this with, but still, it warmed her to think that her body had pleased and satisfied him.

He had given her so much, and she wasn’t at this moment thinking about the child she so desperately needed.

Remembering the extraordinary sensations, she felt her body stir, greedy for more. Stroking down her own belly, she tried to soothe it, like a restless creature that could not have what it demanded.

And it could not.

This was an idyll, a moment out of time. Soon her lover would be gone, and to do her duty, she must become once more the placid, comfortable wife of an older man who could not, or would not, do these things.

No one must ever imagine her to be capable of this wanton wickedness.

He’d said she could do it for herself. Tentatively, she slid her hand between her legs, wondering if that was true. As she stroked her slick and sensitive flesh, she thought perhaps it was. Even so, she doubted it would be even nearly the same.

Stroking herself, she looked again at her lover. Her secret lover. If only a woman could set up the equivalent of a mistress.

Smiling wryly at such a ridiculous thought, she removed her hand and fought her wicked urges. She must keep her thoughts on Wenscote. That was all that mattered. Resting her hand on her belly, low down where her womb lay, she prayed that a child was starting there.

“Sore?” His lids rose heavily, sleepy and sated.

“Not really.” She said it to reassure him, but then realized how it sounded.

“More?”

She laughed because it clearly was a joke, but she also made sure to roll away and out of bed, for she was tender enough and drained enough to not relish another bout.

At the moment.

Stop that, Rosa. It’s done now
.

Over
.

Forever.

She tugged her shift down decently, then glanced at him. Shift or not, there wasn’t a bit of her he did not know.

Except her face.

How strange, bizarre, she must look to him.

He was on his side, head propped up on his hand, looking as if there was nothing strange about her at all. “Do you want me to leave now? I could stay until tomorrow….”

She paused in tying the laces at her neckline. Was that more generosity, or had he liked it enough to want more for himself? That idea wrapped around her like a thick blanket, comforting and tempting her. It had nothing to do with saving Wenscote. It was simple delight at maybe being desired.

“Have you remembered more of yourself then?” she asked, finishing the neat bow.

“Vigorous exercise seems to be doing the trick.” With a wicked twinkle, he added, “A little more might complete the process.”

She shook her head at him, but couldn’t help mirroring his smile. She hoped it showed in her eyes at least. “So you’re not being missed at the moment?”

“I don’t think so. I manage estates for a nobleman, and I was visiting a couple of places in the Vale of York. We’re not in the vale, are we?”

“No.” Should she even consider letting him stay? It was dangerous. It was tempting….

“I thought not. I was staying in an inn, The Gimmer’s Horn near Northallerton. That’s the last I can recall, so I suppose that must have been where I got drunk.”

“That must be thirty miles away. You have no idea how you came to be near here?”

“None. Perhaps a bit more vigorous exercise … ?”

“Oh, stop it!” She laughed, and threw a cushion at him, sweetly astonished by her joy in his teasing.

And tempted. So very much. He could stay. They could—

Wicked.

Dangerous.

“No one would miss you?” she asked, shaking out her petticoat and stepping into it, trying hard to be practical.

He sat up cross-legged, the blue cushion held to cover his genitals. “I have some people waiting for me in Thirsk, but they won’t worry for a while.”

He could stay. She was weak to even think about it, but this would be their only chance. Once he left, it would be forever.

His body was so very beautiful, his smile even more so, and he was so … sweet. An inadequate word for such a man, but what else described the honeyed warmth he’d created in her? It ran through her veins, loosening places she’d never known to be so stiff, so cold.

He suddenly smiled as if he knew and tossed the cushion back at her, revealing surely the beginning of another erection. “More?”

Rosamunde put the cushion on its chair and hastily tied her petticoat strings at her waist, trying to tie something tight in herself. “You couldn’t have walked from Northallerton to here,” she said, trying to keep things to the practical.

“Well, I could, but I don’t think I did. What date is it?”

“August eighteenth.”

“I remember going to bed on the sixteenth. So I must have ridden here yesterday on horseback or in a coach. I’m not sure I should leave until I remember all of it. Perhaps I have a dread enemy.”

Despite his light tone, something struck an alarm. “Do you?”

A sudden stillness in his features echoed her, but then he shrugged. “Not as far as I know. Aren’t you going to help me jog my memory?”

“Be serious!”

“I am. Though serious isn’t quite the right word.” He touched himself. “Firm perhaps. Come back to bed.”

His frank boldness was making her blush, but stirring fire inside as well. “I can’t.” There were a hundred reasons, but she seized the easiest. “It’s too risky.”

“Ah. I suppose your reputation requires that you are not seen in my room very much. Later then?” He managed to make it plaintive, like a
child begging for a treat, but there was nothing at all childish about the light in his eye.

He was dangerous. She should get his clothes, lend him some money, then arrange for someone to drive him to Thirsk. She should.

She tried to moisten her dry mouth and finally succeeded. “If you’re sure you can stay …”

“I’m sure I should regain all my memories before leaving.” Despite his hand still resting lightly on his erection, he spoke seriously, and indeed, if there had been foul play, he was right. “So,” he asked. “When?”

A laugh escaped, a half-exasperated one. How could sin be so carefree? “Not till the night. And even then—”

“When darkness falls,” he interrupted firmly, shifting and arranging a swirl of sheet for decency.

She put her hands on her hips. “Oh, so suddenly it’s for
you
to decide, is it?”

“If I don’t, you’ll dither away our time together.”

“This is wrong,” she said weakly, his very ease and confidence threatening her. Surely sin should be all spines and cold, hard edges.

“That’s for you to decide. I’ll leave now if you want. Don’t worry about my safety. If I made an enemy who dumped me in the dales, I doubt he’s hovering to finish the job he assumed the rain and cold did for him.”

So, it was her choice. She remembered with shock that once this had been her demand. Payment. A cold, hard bargain in the night. She tried to return to that place, that safe place, but soft warmth cradled her. “It probably is wrong,” she said, meeting his eyes, “but I don’t care.”

He smiled again, a delighted smile that even seemed to chase away sin. “I’m pleased.” After that simple, stunning affirmation, he added, “But if you want much more excitement, my dearest lady, you’d better feed me.”

Dropped back to everyday concerns, she grabbed her gown and hurried into it. “Of course. You must be famished. What?”

“Anything sustaining. Come here and I’ll help you.”

She was struggling to fasten her corset and the hooks down the back of her gown. She needed help, but was that all he would do?

On trembling legs, she went to perch on the edge of the bed, back to him. She expected—half hoped for—attack, but instead just felt his fingers deftly attending to the clothes he had so recently loosened. He tightened her corset laces, and knotted them. Then he fastened the ten hooks up her back, brushing aside her hair at the nape to do the last two.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Of course.”

No shame. No repentance. It should make her think of sin, but instead it made her think, almost tearfully, of marriage. Of the sort of marriage that perhaps some people had, where shattering lovemaking could be followed by conversation and commonplace kindness.

When he finished, she began to rise, but he cinched her waist with his hands.

Ah. Attack.

“I must go and find you that sustaining food,” she said, heart beginning to race. Moments ago she’d felt satiated. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

“Gracious hostess. But there’s no need to serve me. I could come down to the kitchens.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“In a towel?”

“I could wear the sheet as a toga.”

“Don’t be silly.” She pulled against his hold, but he had her trapped.

He put his lips against the side of her neck and whispered, “Why do you keep locking the door?”

Her shoulders tensed despite that soft warmth. “You’re a stranger. You could do anything.”

He laughed softly. “You haven’t seen everything I can do. Yet.” His tongue teased her, and his thumbs made tiny, unignorable circles on her back. “Sweet Lady Mystery, am I perhaps your prisoner?”

She jumped. “No! I … I just don’t want you wandering the house.”

“Really? Do you know what I think?”

“What?” It escaped as a half-choked whisper.

Thumbs playing gently, shiveringly, he said, “I think I’m your love-slave. Captured on the wild moors to serve your wanton pleasure.”

The resonance with her own thoughts, with reality, shocked Rosamunde into really trying to pull away.

He kept her close, an arm tight around her waist. “Call it indentured servitude, then. Is not that the truth? I owe you a debt, and you require payment in service.”

“But you’ve—”

“Paid part of it. I bind myself to your service.” He turned her, lowering her breathless to the bed. “Until dawn tomorrow, I am yours. Command me, mistress. What do you want in the secret hours of the night?”

“Nothing!”

“Liar,” he whispered, shifting more heavily onto her.

She sucked in air. “I want to go and find you food.”

“Parts of you look very tasty.”

“Nourishing food!”

“Mistress commands that I don’t lose my strength?”

“No, I—”

“Mistress thinks I am too thin?”

Half laughing, Rosamunde pushed at his chest. “Stop it! You’re being ridiculous.
You
said you were hungry.”

“I will starve if it be your will.”

His warm eyes met hers, urging her to join in the game. Could men and women play games?

“Do you wish me to starve?” he asked.

She tried to wriggle sideways. “No, of course not.”

He stopped her. “I am grateful for your mercy, mistress. So, when I have my strength back, what will you want of me?”

“Nothing.” It was still a lie.

He knew it. A sparkle in his eyes said that, but he lowered his lids and managed to look downcast. “Alas. I have failed to give pleasure. Bring back the razor, mistress, and I will put an end to my miserable existence.”

“Never. From now on, you grow a beard.”

“Then it will have to be hanging. I will hang myself with the sheets.”

“Then I will take away all the sheets.”

Shining eyes met hers. “Ah-ha! You
do
want me naked!”

“No!” Laughing, Rosamunde tried again to squirm free of his body and his nonsense. “As your mistress, I command you to live. There!” It was only as she triumphantly exclaimed this, that she realized he’d lured her into his games.

She stared up at him, seeing that this, too, was part of his payment, his generous payment. How long had it been since she’d enjoyed such a lighthearted, playful moment?

Falling happily into the spirit of it, she wriggled out from under him and off the bed, and victorious, he let her go. “I know what you are, sir!” she declared.

“You’re a traveling mountebank, and your friends at Thirsk are your theater company!”

“Alas,” he said, sitting up again, hand on heart—or more devastatingly, on his gorgeous muscled chest. “I am a mere amateur. In acting, that it.”

“And in lovemaking, sirrah, I suppose you are a
professional
?”

He laughed aloud. “No, mistress mine. In that, too, I am an amateur. But not
mere
.”

An amateur. One who did things for love, not money.

He didn’t mean it that way, but it broke the spell. There was no question of love here. It was for payment, payment for his life. And she was not here for amusement, to be carried back to childish ways, but for a desperately needed child. What’s more, she must never trust such a smooth-tongued rascal. Oh, he was good-natured and charming, but he was undoubtedly a rascal. He could be a highwayman, or a dissolute gamester, or the sort of man who slipped from place to place, breaking hearts and escaping creditors.

“What food do you want?” she asked, ruthlessly dragging matters back to the prosaic. She sidled around to find her shoes and put them on.

He placed his hands together and bowed over them. “Whatever my mistress desires.”

She deliberately listed the food she liked least. “Pease pudding? Eel? Tongue?”

He peeped up mischievously. “Tongue. I like tongue.”

Rosamunde blushed down to her toes. Oh, why could he do this to her?

“However,” he continued, “I will pass on the eels. Oh, and speaking of ’
eels
—not the local delicacy made of cow’s feet, I beg you.”