Jo Goodman (29 page)

The lamp had extinguished itself before Mercedes eased out of Colin's light embrace. After he fell asleep she had turned toward him and rested on her side while she watched him, and remained like that for a long time, her attention caught by the unguarded boyishness that crept into his features while he slept. Gone was the narrow, enigmatic smile and the cynically arched brow. His jaw was relaxed, his lips slightly parted. A lock of yellow hair had fallen across his forehead. Twice she pushed it back and twice it slipped forward. In the end she let it lie there. His lashes fanned his cheeks and on close inspection she saw that the tips were darker, like the end of a golden brush dipped in black lacquer.

Mercedes cast a last look over her shoulder as she stood at the desk. Colin was still sleeping soundly. She picked up the draft he had drawn for her and hurried for the door. Upon waking there would be no hint of the youth she saw now. Not for the first time that night, she wondered how the child had become the man.

Except for a light dusting, the earl's room had not been touched since his disappearance. She found two valises at the bottom of his wardrobe and packed them quickly, distributing his clothing evenly between them. Rather than return to her own room to dress, Mercedes chose a pair of trousers, shirt, and jacket from among her uncle's things and slipped them on. Using a neckcloth as a belt, Mercedes was able to keep the trousers around her waist. She gave the jacket cuffs two turns to raise them to wrist level then she coiled her hair and stuffed it under one of his hats. No one would mistake her for the Earl of Weybourne, but from a distance at least, she thought she would pass as a man.

She carried a pair of his boots with her to the pantry, along with the valises. Her feet were too small to wear the things without clopping around on the hardwood floors like a horse in the paddock. Mercedes didn't put them on until she had selected bread, fruit, and cheese from the larder and packed it away. She had known at the outset that she was not going to bring him any liquor. As a rebellious gesture it was small, but it gave enormous satisfaction to thwart that request. When she packed his dueling pistols, she took another for herself. Primed and loaded, it was tucked into her trousers.

From abovestairs she heard the enormous hall clock chime the third hour of the morning. She hadn't known it was so late and realized that for some portion of the night she had slept in Colin's arms as he had slept in hers. Had he woken even once and watched her? Had her features been stamped with the same vulnerability as his? She could only hope it hadn't been so. The thought that it may have been otherwise did not bring her any pleasure. She needed to show Colin strength, not weakness.

Mercedes hefted the valises and headed for the rear door of the manor. Had she been able to ride, the trip to the abandoned cottage would have taken but ten minutes Hampered by the weight of the valises and the ill-fitting shoes, she was still walking at the end of thirty.

The cottage was deserted when she arrived. Even though her uncle had told her to expect it, Mercedes still peered into the deep shadows anticipating him to surprise her. She didn't waste time wondering if he would come while she was there. Folding the draft neatly into thirds, Mercedes left it lying on top of a loaf of bread in one of the valises.

Her feet were blistered by the time she reached the manor. She removed the boots as soon as she was in the door and stared down at herself in dismay. She would be hobbling around in her own shoes for days if she didn't care for herself.

Once in her bedchamber, Mercedes quickly removed her uncle's clothes and stuffed them into the bottom of her wardrobe. She dropped the pistol into one of the boots and put them away as well. It would be a simple enough thing to return them later. The bath that had been drawn for her was completely cool now but Mercedes stripped out of her shift and slipped into it anyway. It was not just her feet that hurt but also her inner thighs where the loose trousers had rubbed her tender flesh. And then there was the ache more deep inside her that the water could not soothe or heal, the ache that made her aware she had taken a man into her and that she could take one again.

One man.

Colin Thorne.

Mercedes leaned back against the lip of the tub and closed her eyes. It was only when she heard the click of the door that she realized she had neglected to lock it. The man who moments ago had filled her mind's eye was now filling the doorway.

"Washing all of my touch away?" he asked.

Wide-eyed, Mercedes shook her head. Although Colin's question had been delivered almost impersonally, anger simmered in his tone. She hunched forward in the tub, drawing her knees to her chest.

Colin came toward her, not bothering to shut the door. He knelt beside the tub and dipped one hand in the water. "You must have been anxious to bathe; this water's ice cold."

"Please," she said softly. "Just go."

Scooping a handful of water, Colin raised it to the level of Mercedes's bare shoulder. "It won't do any good, you know," he told her. "I'll want to touch you again." He tipped his hand and let the water slide out of the cup of his palm.

Mercedes shivered, reacting equally to the water and his words.

"Stand up," he said.

"The door's open. Someone could—"

"You and I are the only ones awake."

"At least turn back the lamp."

Colin got to his feet and went to the bedside table. When he had done as she asked he made his demand again. This time Mercedes stood. The only sound in the room was her shallow breathing and the intermittent splash as droplets fell back to the surface water. She made no move to step outside the tub, but stood there, not so much shivering any longer, but trembling.

Colin gave her his hand. He was surprised by her firm grasp. It was as though she needed his assistance to take the next step. When he held out Mercedes's nightshift, she merely raised her arms and allowed him to slip it over her head. It fell around her like a cloud but where it touched her damp flesh it clung like mist.

Lowering her arms, Mercedes swayed slightly on her bruised and blistered feet. Colin couldn't know that the movement toward him wasn't meant as an invitation, yet when he took it as such, Mercedes didn't correct him. She let herself be lifted off her feet and cradled against his chest. One of her arms even came up and slipped around his neck. She let her head fall against his shoulder as he carried her out of the bedchamber, and when they stood in the hallway it was Mercedes who closed the door to her room.

Colin carried her through two wings and the landing without breaking stride or straining his breath. Inside his room, he lowered her on the bed and followed with his own body.

His hands held her face still, his fingers buried in her thick hair. "Don't do that again," he whispered against her mouth.

"What?" Her lips brushed his.

"Leave me." The answer was not freely given, but rather torn from him so the sound of it rasped in his throat. Then, regretting what he could not control, his mouth came down hard over hers.

As a kiss it began as more punishment than pleasure. His lips ground against hers, taking her breath. His tongue forced its way past the ridge of her teeth and speared her mouth. Even though Mercedes didn't fight him, his hands tightened on her face and kept her captive.

She was the one who changed the tenor of the engagement. Her mouth softened. Her fingers slid around his neck and threaded through silky strands of his flaxen hair. The tips of her nails stroked him then lightly scored his naked back along the length of his spine. At the waistband of his trousers they dipped inside and circled his waist.

It was Colin's sharp intake of air that finally broke the kiss. His breathing was harsh and it sounded loud in the still room. The pressure in his fingertips eased and he released Mercedes's face, tangling his fingers in her spill of dark hair instead. There was too little light in the bedchamber now for Colin to make out her features, but he could not feel anything but supplication in her slender form.

"Mercedes?"

It was the tentative way he said her name, the way he asked the question without using any other words that Mercedes ; responded to. Likewise, with a single word, she was able to give him everything he wanted. "Yes."

Mercedes was not so emboldened that she could help Colin off with his trousers, but she sat up on her knees and raised her shift to the level of her hips before he caught it and took it the rest of the way. Both articles of clothing were allowed to slip unnoticed over the side of the bed.

She came in his arms then and her breasts, with their swollen and excited peaks, were flattened against his chest. Between them, flush to her flat belly, was the hard length of his shaft. He cupped her bottom, raising her so she could feel him even more intimately against her. Her thighs straddled him while her arms wound around his shoulders. Colin lowered her back to the bed, his mouth on hers as he entered her.

He swallowed her small moan, then as he began to move inside, her hum of pleasure. He kissed her neck, the curve of her shoulder. His lips grazed her breasts and his tongue flicked her nipple. She was supple in his arms, pliable, moving with him, rising and falling to counter each plunge of his hips. He was inside her but she was under his skin. He had no words to tell her or himself that she had become necessary to him. He had only this: his mouth on her skin and the hard thrust of his body.

Mercedes sipped the air as she was rocked back by the joining of their bodies. Her head was thrown back, her throat exposed in a slender arc. Her palms slid along Colin's shoulders. Muscles bunched beneath her fingers. The rise of heat between her thighs was intense as he moved against her. Sometimes he would touch her in just a certain right way and she would feel tiny bursts of heat skim the surface of her skin. The moment would pass, then come again, stronger the next time but still elusive.

It was only at the very end that pleasure became flesh and sinew deep. Mercedes felt the tug on her tendons as she was stretched taut by the steady thrust of Colin's body. Her fingers curled against his arms. Her belly rippled when the force of tension snapped. She felt herself contracting all around him.

Colin felt it, too. It was all he needed to allow himself his own release. The shudder that had begun in her was absorbed by him. He arched, pushing himself deeply into her one final time before he came.

Moments later, with the raw sensations of pleasure still lingering, Colin withdrew and moved to one side. He raised the sheet to cover them, and this time Mercedes required no direction or urging to stay cradled in the curve of his body. "I'll wake you before first light," he said.

He fell asleep with one hand on her hip.

Mercedes was sitting at the breakfast table the next time he spoke to her. She wasn't alone. Britton and Brendan and Sylvia were there. Only Chloe was later to rise than he was. Colin helped himself to a soft-boiled egg, fresh bread, and several tomato slices at the sideboard before he sat down. "Good morning," he said. It was a greeting to everyone but his eyes alighted last and longest on Mercedes.

It was not Mercedes who answered, but Britton. "G'morning, Captain," he said happily. He sopped up some more gooey yellow from his egg with a finger of bread, then popped it into his mouth. He didn't wait to swallow before he spoke again. "You almost left it to too late." At best this announcement was garbled. Under Mercedes's stern eye he gulped.

Brendan didn't wait for his brother to clear his throat. "What he means," he explained with an air of importance, "is that if you'd come down any later, we'd all have been gone."

"Oh?" Colin tapped the eggshell with the side of his spoon.

The subsequent, satisfying crack punctuated his question. He saw Mercedes start at the sound, but she remained silent and seemingly uninterested in anything save her plate.

Sylvia turned her bright smile on Colin. "Mercedes says we're all to accompany Chloe to Glen Eden. Remember? Chloe's going to stay with Mr. Fredrick's aunt for a few weeks." When she wasn't able to raise a response from Colin she prompted, "Chloe's intended? The vicar?"

"Yes," he said finally, slowly. "I remember. I didn't realize that today was the day." That at least explained Chloe's absence from the table. She was no doubt in her room selecting clothes and supervising their packing. That meant that he was indeed the last one up this morning. "I didn't know it would be an excursion for all of you." This time he looked so intently in Mercedes's direction that no one else dared to answer.

It was the lengthening silence that made her look up. She met his implacable dark eyes squarely and offered with no defensiveness or guile, "I thought the twins would enjoy the ride and Sylvia wants to see that her sister is safely settled. Ben has already prepared the carriage and Henry will drive us. We're to leave after breakfast. As Britton attempted to tell you, you almost left it to too late."

"Then I'm invited on this trip?" he asked.

"Of course," Britton and Brendan chimed together.

"Oh, yes," said Sylvia.

"As you wish," was Mercedes’s quiet reply. She bent her head and applied herself to her breakfast.

Cool civility marked Mercedes's demeanor throughout the day. Otherwise Colin found her unchanged. From time to time he would catch a glimpse of her profile as he rode along beside the carriage. She was a remarkably lovely woman even when she was gravely thoughtful, but when one of the others made her smile, she was radiant.