Passion and Pride (A Historical Romance) (11 page)

His head tilted back and he groaned with pleasure.

Then he leaned down and kissed her. His wet skin felt cool to the touch, but his firm, thick rod pressed like a hot iron against her belly.

Then he reached down, put one arm under her arse and the other around her lower back, and hoisted her into the air.

She did not quite understand until he whispered in her ear, “Put your legs around me.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist – and then she understood as he lowered her, slowly, upon his upright staff.

It took a second of fumbling, but she angled her hips and was rewarded with a burst of pleasure as the head slipped between her throbbing lips.

She cried out. This time his entry was faster, and ecstasy racked her as she sank down upon the full length of him in a matter of seconds.

He began to thrust his pelvis slowly back and forth while lifting her up and down with his arms. She moaned, and could barely hold onto his neck or keep her legs around him. The pleasure of that massive thickness inside her, filling her over and over, was so great that it weakened her limbs – yet she hung on for dear life.

The water lapped at her thighs and legs, caressing them sensually, as Evan’s mouth found hers and kissed her hard and long.

At one point he lowered both her and himself under water, and she gasped again – from the shock of the cool water against her skin, or the bliss radiating from her thighs, she could not say.

He supported her with his strong hands and tilted her back, and sucked at her nipples as he continued to thrust. She could contain herself no longer, and began to cry out in exquisite anguish.

This time her climax came sooner than his. Waves of pleasure crashed through her body even more intensely than before, and she felt as though her limbs might turn to jelly. When the sensations abated – though they still ebbed and flowed with his every thrust inside her – she looked up into Evan’s face and watched with awe the mixed look of suffering and delight that played across his features. As he came to his fullest joy, he cried out as though he had been stabbed, and then he sank down to her mouth and drank deeply of her kisses.

They stayed like that, with him inside her, until his granite hardness turned back to flesh  and he gradually slipped out of her body. Still they kissed, and bathed each other in the pond, until he whispered in her ear that it was time to go.

They walked out of the water, hand in hand, naked as the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden. They dried the water from each other’s bodies, and finally she stood dressed in her servant’s clothes and he in his trousers, boots, and shirt.

“I can take you back to the house,” he offered.

“I had better walk. If you would, wait here until I’m back inside. Just to be safe.”

“I thought you didn’t care about your reputation,” he teased.

“Not caring is one thing. Being foolish is quite another,” she harrumphed.

She took his hand and stared into his eyes, wanting to never leave this tiny oasis.

He caressed her cheek. “Why so sad?”

“Because it’s over.”

And I fear I shall not have this again,
she thought silently.

He smiled and kissed her. “Just for now.”

Her heart leaped in her chest. “Promise me you’ll see me again.”

“As though you need a promise!”

She cocked one eyebrow and said only half in jest, “I fear your quarrelsome honor will rear its ugly head again and deprive me of a thousand pleasures.”

He grinned.

“Promise!” she demanded.

“I promise.”

“Tonight.”

He arched his eyebrows and smiled. “Don’t you have to rest?”

“Promise me!”

He thought for a second. “Do you know the second story bedrooms in the eastern wing?”

The east wing – through which she had escaped to come to the pond – was largely deserted. The manor was large enough to house three generations and a dozen children, yet there were only an old man, his two adult sons, and a small company of servants to fill all the rooms.

“Of course.”

“Meet me at the very end of the hall at ten o’clock?”

“I will be there,” she said breathlessly.

He leaned down once more and kissed her, long, slow, and passionately. Her insides turned to syrup, and her legs felt as though they might buckle.

When he finally pulled his lips away, she stood up on her tiptoes, stole one last quick kiss, and then ran up the hills and over the grass, happy as sunshine, lighter than air.

Every time she looked back at him, he was standing in the same spot watching her – and her heart skipped a beat every time.

The one thing Evan did before returning to the house was to ride into the village on the outskirts of his father’s land. He was aware of how disheveled his appearance was, but he had to warn the farmers and townspeople of the two villains who had attacked Marian.

He spoke with the vicar who presided over the parish and asked him to warn his flock, and then talked briefly with the local tavern owner, an amiable fellow named Parker.

“Is the young lady a’right, m’lord?” the man asked.

“Yes, thank you. One was bald and childlike, though full-grown, and the other had a long, unpleasant face, much like a rat. Do you know of anyone hereabouts who matches that description?”

Parker shook his head. “Can’t say that I do. Must be passin’ through.”

“Tell the men of the village, five pounds to anyone who sends word to Blakestone, day or night, that leads to their capture.”

“Will do, m’lord.” The tavern owner grinned. “Though you might not find the bastards alive when you get here. The farmers here about, they have a rather nasty way of dealin’ with scoundrels like the ones you’re describin’.”

“As long as the local women and girls are kept safe, I don’t care how they’re dealt with. Please spread the word.”

“By the end of the week, I’ll have seen every local feller twice over, I guarantee you that, and every single one of ‘em’ll know.”

Evan thanked him, said his goodbyes, and rode back to Blakewood, greatly anticipating ten o’clock that evening.

Back at the house, Marian tucked her wet hair up into her bonnet and climbed in through the same first-floor window she had exited. She went swiftly through the various rooms, listening for her name being called or some indication that she was a wanted criminal, but heard nothing. After satisfying herself that she had escaped undetected, she went back to work with an irrepressible smile on her face.

The hours dragged by, but she survived them by recalling Evan’s kisses, the taste of which still lingered on her lips. As she moved she felt the contented soreness between her thighs, and eagerly awaited ten o’clock.

Dinner with the other servants was a dull, spiritless affair – even so more than usual, owing to the summer heat – but she could hardly contain her excitement. A few of them looked at her strangely as she fidgeted in nervous anticipation, but none spoke to her any more than usual.

She paced in her room nervously until a quarter to ten. Then she stole out, careful to avoid the worst of the creaking boards in the floor, and made her way to the east wing.

She waited by the window and wrung her hands. She was sure that she had waited far past the time – he was a quarter hour late, or more – when a dark figure appeared down the hallway.

“Hello?” he whispered.

“It’s me,” she whispered back, and he walked down the hall and into her arms, savagely kissing her as though she were something to be devoured.

“You’re late,” she rebuked him when their lips parted.

“It’s two minutes past!” he chuckled.

“It felt like two eons to me,” she sighed.

“Then I shall make you happy twice over to make up for it,” he whispered as he pulled her into the nearest bedroom.

They lay on the feather bed, naked and sweating, after a long and frenzied bout. The moonlight through the window lit the room in a silver glow.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said as they lay in each other’s arms.

“Ask away.”

“You… you did not bleed when we first made love.”

She looked back at him but did not answer.

“And you seem somewhat experienced for a virgin,” he continued.

“Perhaps that is because I am not a virgin.”

That had been the answer he was expecting, but it still filled him with jealousy – an emotion he was not accustomed to at all.

She misinterpreted the expression on his face and backed away. “What, are you angry?”

“No,” he said, though he supposed that now he thought about it, perhaps he was.

“Is there something wrong with me now?” she said with irritation. “Am I damaged in your eyes?”

He did not answer for a few seconds.

When he did, he decided to say what most mattered to him. “I wanted to be your first. I wanted you all to myself.”

Her features softened, and she put her hand to his face. “Are you jealous?”

He hesitated again, then decided to be honest. “Yes.”

She laughed and kissed him. “You have nothing to be jealous of.”

“Who was he?”

“A boy down the road. No one special.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I’m telling the truth,” she protested. “Growing up, my father worked for Mr. Powell, who loved books more than anything, and had a vast library. He knew of my thirst for reading, and so he let me read anything and everything that I wanted.”

“What does this have to do with you and the boy down the road?”

She slapped him playfully on the arm. “Shush, I am getting to that. Anyway, I read everything Mr. Powell had in his library… and he had some rather scandalous words, at least for a thirteen-year-old child. Perhaps even a twenty-six-year-old man, seeing as when I mentioned some of them to Lord Pemberly the other evening, you seemed quite shocked.”

Evan’s eyes widened. “You read
Les bijoux indiscrets
at thirteen years of age?!”

“When did you read it?”

“That’s different,” Evan said grumpily. “I was a boy.”

“How old.”

“Fifteen or sixteen, I don’t remember which.”

“Hypocrite,” she said, and lightly bit him.

“Ow! So… you were saying…?”

“So I received a rather all-encompassing education in the forbidden arts at an early age. Of course, it only made partial sense since it was… all theory, you might say.”

“You lacked a practical education.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t understand something, though.”

“What?”

“Weren’t your parents trying to find you a husband?”

Marian shrugged. “Not really. My father made enough to get by, but not enough that my mother could stay home and be idle. She took in sewing to help make ends meet. At any rate, I had no dowry, so there was that impediment… and I was rather limited in choice to men of my father’s station, or slightly above it.”

“You are a very beautiful woman.”

She smiled, a tad shyly. “Thank you.”

“I would think you would have attracted a great deal of interest, dowry or no.”

“Well, as a bit of a bookworm, I was rarely out and about. And since we were not well-off, there were no lovely dances or balls. And my mother forbade me to go to any of the common folks’ dances where men drank and ‘sin occurred,’ as she put it.”

“Little did she know…”

Marian kicked him lightly. “At any rate, yes, I received several proposals.”

Evan looked at her in shock. “And you turned them down?”

“Obviously, or I would not be here with you.”

“Why, if I may be so bold?”

“They were all either boring, or ugly, or old, or a combination of the three.”

“Do not mistake me, I am so very glad you did reject the proposals of these boring, ugly, old men… but were you not concerned about your future?”

“I looked to my mother as an example. While I know she cared greatly for my father, theirs was largely a marriage of convenience. I noticed her frustration, her sadness at there not being
more
to life, and I saw a warning there of what I might become if I married for security rather than for love.”

Did you also look in the street and see those who married for love, or did not marry at all, and found themselves starving or without a home?
Evan thought, but held his tongue.

“Besides, I always dreamed that I would find a stuffy, overly honorable gentleman who would finally seduce me by a pond…” she said dreamily.

“Very funny.”

“…and who would introduce my work to a publisher of questionable character…”

“Well, that much is true.”

“…whereupon I would be launched into literary renown and make my own way in the world, using my pen to earn my living.”

“Seriously?”

“The last part was true.”

Evan found her statement fascinating, if thoroughly unrealistic.

“So, your… conventional gentlemen callers were found unworthy, but apparently there was one who met your standards.”

“For the practical portion of my education, yes.”

“Is that what the fashionable young ladies are calling it these days?” he asked, and was rewarded with another kick for his trouble.

“There was a boy down the road named Tom who worked for the baker. He wasn’t bad looking – ”

Evan felt the pangs of jealousy again.

“ – and he would talk to me when I went to market for my mother. One time he gave me a kiss in the alley, then ran away.”

“Tom, you scoundrel,” Evan growled.

“I seem to have a problem with men who kiss me and then run away,” she teased.

“Madam, you wound me to the quick.”

She rolled her eyes, then continued. “So, after years and years of reading of the splendors of love, I decided on my twentieth birthday to do something about it. Tom was still down the street and working for the baker, so I lured him into the alley and asked him if there was someplace private we could go. I believe I stunned the poor boy with my forwardness – ”

“You
do
have that effect on men, it’s true.”

She bit him harder this time, and he laughed as he yelped in pain.