Patricia Rice (18 page)

Shaken by the intensity of the musical joining they had
created, Merrick hastily stood and bowed as applause thundered. Never had he
shared the intensity of his love for music, but in Cassandra he had found a
soul mate. Judging from Cassandra’s dazed expression, she felt the same, and he
pressed her shaking fingers protectively against his arm as she dipped a
curtsy.

The carriage was brought around, the last farewells were
said, and they stepped out into the cool evening starlight without exchanging a
word. Merrick assisted her into the closed carriage. Cassandra reached for his
hand as he settled beside her.

“How do you play like that?” she whispered in wonderment, her
eyes wide in the lantern light as she gazed up at him.

“Shall I ask how you learned to sing like that? Even a
nightingale couldn’t hit some of those notes.”

“I have tried to play ‘Greensleeves’ on every instrument
imaginable,” she said. “It is one of the few tunes for which I know the notes.
I cannot make it sound the way I want it to except when I sing. You played it
better than I heard it in my head.”

Merrick remained silent. His mother deplored his useless
habit of wasting hours at the pianoforte. He could not explain to her that he
was happiest during those hours. The music challenged him, absorbed him, and
carried him to other worlds. The woman-child beside him tonight was telling him
she felt the same, or perhaps he was only imagining that in her simple words.

“You are welcome to try out our instrument anytime you like,
my lady,” he answered formally.

Cassandra shook her head, loosening a shower of curls. “I
could never make it sound like you did.” Hesitantly she asked, “Would you,
sometime, play more for me? I’m certain the musician tonight was very talented,
but I was not familiar with the music. Perhaps you could teach me more?”

He was asking for trouble to even consider it. To unleash
Cassandra’s willful spirit in his quiet household would be akin to opening the
gates to heaven and hell. Merrick squeezed her hand.

“You are welcome any evening. We will polish our duet, shall
we?”

He knew he was committing the unpardonable, but Merrick
never felt more satisfied than when she kissed his cheek.

“I will not take up gambling, I will not!” Cassandra
stomped her foot, threw her head haughtily, and glared at her servants. The
effect was spoiled by the fact that her gown was less elegant than their attire
and that she stood in the remains of a burned-out kitchen holding an iron
skillet over the fire.

“Not gambling, just a few friendly social games now that you
are appearing in society again. A few coins won here and there will tide us
over to the harvest.”

Since the work progressing in the fields was so slow as to
make the possibility of a harvest almost laughable, Jacob might as well have
said “until our ship comes in,” but Cassandra shook her head.

“Absolutely, uncategorically, no! We will starve before I
cheat friends.”

“We will starve undoubtedly,” Jacob intoned gloomily. “It is
just a matter of how soon. You have spent the bulk of your money on repairs to
this monstrosity. How were you planning to eat this summer?”

“We have a garden,” Cassandra pointed out. “It will grow in
due time, provided you and Lotta spend more time weeding it than complaining
about it.”

“My lady, we aren’t farmers.” Lotta interrupted their
argument with her protest. “Can you not write to Duncan or Rupert’s solicitor
and demand they provide you with funds for support? Surely there must be some
law that says they must provide for you.”

Cassandra’s expression grew even more mutinous. “Certainly,
they will provide me with a one-way ticket to France. I’ll return to gambling
before I return to them.” At the relieved look on her servants’ faces, she
hastily added, “And I never intend to return to gambling.”

As she set out later to meet Merrick for their evening music
lesson, Cassandra pondered the problem. She could not ask Jacob and Lotta to
starve with her, and their funds were running desperately low. She had not
meant to mend that hedgerow just yet, but when the deer had cropped nearly
their entire planting, she knew she had to do something. She had not realized
how expensive farming could be. She had thought it just a matter of clearing
some land and dropping some seed and watching it grow.

And now that they finally had a crop growing, the men were
murmuring about wagons to haul the grain to market and tools with which to
thresh it and any number of other impossibilities. If she did not have the
funds now, she was less likely to have them at the end of the summer.

Merrick met her at the stile, as had become his custom. She
had insisted he was not to waste his valuable time coming to fetch her every
evening, but he was unwilling to allow her to wander through the forested park
unaccompanied. So they had silently compromised on this arrangement.

Cassandra was still amazed that they managed to get along so
well. She was ever conscious of their differences. He dressed in sartorial splendor,
never raised his voice, gave orders with a quiet authority that sent people
scurrying. She couldn’t manage the two miserable servants she possessed without
screaming arguments. He was half a score years senior to her with a world of
experience and sophistication she could never attain.

Yet they came together over their music in complete accord.

Tonight, however, there seemed to be a change in plans.
Beside Merrick waited two beautifully groomed thoroughbreds patiently champing
at the grass along the fence. Cassandra cast the earl’s impassive features a
glance askance. “Do you have company?”

“Not with me.” Merrick studied Cass’s upturned face. These
last weeks had drained some of the sunshine from her smile. The radiance was
still there when they worked with the music, but whenever he encountered her
elsewhere, he couldn’t help but remark the change.

His field hands had reported the various disasters that had
struck her crops. He could afford to replant when the rain rotted his fields or
the sun scorched them, but neither she nor her tenants could have continuing
funds for such uncertainties. He often wondered if that were the only source of
her unsmiling expression, but he couldn’t inquire into her personal life.

“My mother has some cronies of hers up at the house playing
whist. It was such a nice evening, I thought you might enjoy a ride rather than
their exalted company.”

Cassandra grinned as she stroked the nose of the little bay
mare. “She has finally found a way to drive us out of the house. Your mother is
a clever woman.”

“She is also manipulative, overbearing, and bored. We can go
up to the music room if you prefer, but I remember you once wished to have a
horse. I thought a little exercise might be beneficial. You have looked a
trifle peaked lately.”

“Thank you, my lord, just the words a lady likes to hear.” At
his wince, Cassandra added, “But you are right, of course. I have been out of
sorts and a ride is just what I would like.”

It was curious how easily she could hurt him. Merrick never
had been known as a ladies’ man, and over these last weeks Cass had come to
understand why. Despite his wealth and title, he possessed little self-assurance.

She had concluded that he was shy around women, but not with
her. That puzzled her until she remembered her own extreme forwardness. She had
never given the poor man a chance to be shy, and he had responded by treating
her as a friend. Their shared interest in music had reinforced the bond.

The sun was well above the horizon when they set out.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as it had this past week, but no rain ever came
of it. Cassandra glanced anxiously to the sky, hoping this time to find a cloud
to water her wilting crops, but only a purple haze in the distance gave any
promise.

Merrick offered consolingly, “It will rain before week’s
end. MacGregor’s aching bones never lie. One of these days you will have to
consider irrigating that field. You have quite an adequate stream nearby.”

Cassandra nodded and adjusted the skirt of her gown over the
sidesaddle. Had she known they would be riding, she could have worn her habit,
but the heat would be excruciating in that wool.

“You are terribly silent tonight, Cass. Have I offended you?
Or would you have preferred to go to the music room?”

Cassandra summoned a bright smile and urged her mare to a
canter. “This is what I want to do. Race you to the crossroad?”

Before Merrick could agree or disagree, she dug her heels in
and her mount sprinted off.

They raced through the gathering gloom of the trees and into
the sunset light of the road. A wind dancing through the treetops dipped to
tear at their hair, and Cassandra’s curls began to tumble down her back.

The crossroad loomed ahead, and Merrick kicked his mount to
greater speed, crossing the finish line a nose ahead and cantering toward the
beckoning banks of a stream below. He heard Cassandra’s laughter and the
hoofbeats of the other horse as he led the way through the shrubbery. He hadn’t
heard her laughter in days, and it warmed him to know he had produced it.

He dismounted and turned to help Cassandra down. Merrick
knew his error as soon as his hands touched her waist, but it was much too late
by then. His fingers were already sliding her from the saddle, her breasts were
brushing against his chest, and her face had turned expectantly toward him, her
lips parted with promise and her eyes bright with joy.

Cassandra slid into his embrace so gladly that Merrick
wondered how he had kept away this long. Or why. Her mouth was warm and eager
and as willing as he remembered in all his joyous dreams. She embraced him with
enchantment. All the old uncertainties disappeared, and there was only the
music of her mouth against his.

Wyatt pulled her closer, fitting her willowy height against
him. The wind caught at her skirts, whipping them around their legs. He could
feel her thighs pressed against his, her hips rubbing where he needed her most.
It seemed incredible that she did not pull away in terror. Instead she wrapped
her arms around his shoulders and parted her lips and fell fully into his
embrace.

Their breaths mingled with sweet heat. Merrick gathered her
silken curls in both fists and drank deeply of the heady wine offered. He
couldn’t get enough, and he lifted her from the ground to have her closer.

Cassandra dreamed she had died and gone to heaven. Nothing
could equal the rapture of Wyatt’s kiss. She felt his need, knew his desire,
and they matched the churning excitement of her own. Maybe this time he would
teach her where kisses led. She felt as if she would die if he did not. There
was more, she knew it with age-old instincts, and she cried out her joy as his
kisses strayed to her ear and throat. Her breasts pressed eagerly against her
bodice, awaiting his touch.

When he stroked her there, Cassandra sighed happily and felt
the molten heat rise through her middle. She wanted to shed all her clothing
and give him free rein to touch where he willed. Surely then she would know the
relief her body sought in his embrace.

Merrick returned his kiss to her lips while he fumbled with
the various fastenings of her bodice. She could feel the heat of his hand as he
gained the entrance he sought, and then the barrier was gone. He located the
sensitive peak of her breast, and she moaned with pleasure.

Wyatt peeled her bodice down, freeing both her breasts to
his explorations. His hands splayed across the swelling ache he had created,
and still it was not enough. Cassandra clung to his mouth when he would pull
away, and she wrapped her fingers in his hair to prevent any parting.

Wyatt’s lips reassuringly brushed hers, burning tiny trails
to the corners, then heartbreakingly moving onward. Cassandra threw her head
back in joy when she realized his destination and allowed him to lift her to
his kiss.

Fire, swift and searing, swept through her from where Wyatt’s
mouth closed over her breast. The tingling in her lower parts became something
stronger, headier, more demanding as she surged against him. She wanted nothing
more than to give him all he asked.

It no longer mattered that the man loving her was the Earl
of Merrick, a man of stature and importance in the community and society. It no
longer mattered that she was married to a brutal rake who had nearly killed a
friend. All that mattered was that they were together, at last.

A crack of thunder broke overhead, startling their horses
into anxious whinnies. A fat raindrop splattered across Cassandra’s breast,
running downward until Wyatt caught it with his tongue. She shivered, and the
hot, hard points of her breasts pressed against his palm. The thunder caused
Wyatt to bank the fires with tender strokes and pull her bodice together again.

“That is not why I brought you out here,” he murmured.

“It doesn’t matter, Wyatt,” Cassandra whispered, catching
his hand and holding it against her breast. “Don’t stop now.”

“Not here, my love. Not ever, perhaps. Come, let’s get you
dressed and back to the house before you are drowned.”

His will was strong, but his flesh was weak. It took a long
time to find all the hooks and ties and fasten them properly between each kiss.
They were both weak with desire before she was respectable again.

Azure eyes gazed uncertainly, expectantly up to him as Wyatt
straightened but continued to hold her against the telltale signs of his
arousal. He didn’t know what to say or do. Had she been unmarried, he would be
obliged to offer for her, and would have done so gladly, even if it would be
the single most insane thing he had ever done. He had no illusions about what
life would be like with a tempest like Cassandra. She had already made life at
home a living hell simply by existing.