The Countess' Lucky Charm (13 page)

 
“I will not take no for an answer.”

Drat, it seemed he had read her mind. She frowned.

Daniel leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms overhead. “Besides, I’ve already mentioned to her that you would be teaching her.” The chair legs landed back on the ground with a solid thump.

“Oh, all right then,” Simone said, hoping her voice didn’t sound too cross. “When would you like us to start?”

“She’s waiting for you. In the garden plot.”

“It’ll give you something to do, Simone.” Temple’s voice was bland. “Mr Harmon and I have accounts to review.”

“Of course,” Simone said with as much grace as she could muster. It appeared the role of teacher had been thrust upon her, wanted or not. “If you would excuse me.”

The look she threw Temple as she left could have stopped a bear at thirty paces. He let loose the grin that he had stifled at her indignation and watched her march away, back rigid.

He couldn’t wait to discover how she made out.  

Chapter Eleven

Simone let her shoulders sag as soon as she was out of sight. Teach English? It hadn’t been quite what she had in mind when she had suggested to Temple that she could help. However, she welcomed the prospect of feminine chit chat. It reminded her of Mrs Featherstone and her time on board the
Annabelle
.

She found the garden plot easily enough and from within the roughly fenced area drifted a woman’s voice and a toddler’s babble.

“Hello?” She raised her voice.

“Hello!” Lisette Harmon popped up from behind the uneven timbers. Her welcoming smile put Simone at ease immediately. About her own height, Lisette was sturdily built, with silken black hair plaited in two and smooth skin the colour of burnt sugar. A serviceable apron well spotted with dirt covered her gaily striped cotton dress. “Mrs Wellington? Daniel told me you and your husband had arrived.” The woman’s voice was low, guttural, her words spoken with a lyrical accent that Simone recognized as French with a hint of something else. That must be the Cree influence Daniel had mentioned.

“Yes.” Out of habit, Simone curtsied. Temple had taught her—curtsey begat courtesy. “Mrs Harmon?”

“Please, call me Lisette. And this is Polly.” She held up a dark haired little girl perhaps fourteen or sixteen months old.

“Simone, then, please call me Simone.”

“I am so happy you are here. It can be lonely as we are only ten here in the fort.”

“You speak English. Your husband wanted me to teach you.”

“I do not need teaching, I need practice.”

“What have you planted?” Interested, Simone leaned over to look on the other side of the enclosure. She had never seen a garden before. To her, vegetables were found in market stalls.

“Potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions. It is the second year we try.” Lisette’s velvet brown eyes gazed at her appraisingly. “But you do not want to hear about my garden. Look, the sun is high. Go to the water and wash.”

Simone gaped at her. “How did you know?”

“It is in your face. The miles must be washed away. Go.” Lisette pointed to the lake. “You will find a good place. It is safe, the men work and the Indians are away today. We will talk later when we cook the food.”

Simone didn’t need to be told twice. With a hasty “thank you”, she twirled about and darted toward their little cabin. Ducking inside, she scrabbled through the packs until she found what she sought: a precious bar of rose scented soap. Temple had bought it for her in Montreal and sadly, she had not had the opportunity to use it. It was still in its wrapper, a square of coarse paper.

She picked her way down the little bluff, stopping to pluck a pink wild flower to tuck in her bodice. Following the direction Lisette had pointed, she continued along until a curve in the beach hid her from the fort.

The prospect of a bath was too tempting to allow for false modesty. A quick glance proved her to be alone and within seconds she had stripped off her clothing, leaving it in a little pile on the beach save her shift. That she could wash with her. If she wrung it out thoroughly, it would dry quickly in the hot summer sun.

 
Her inhibitions were stripped away with her clothes. Lifting her face to the sun, she raised her arms and inhaled deeply, once, twice, as if the unsullied air could wash her inside as the water would wash her skin outside. Picking up her shift and the soap, she waded thigh deep into the water.

“Oh, how lovely,” she sighed, tossing the shift aside to unwrap the soap. The paper stuck and she dunked it beneath the surface of the lake to loosen it, marvelling at the clear water that allowed her to see her hands perfectly. Her nails were chipped and dirty, the skin brown and weathered against the ivory of the soap bar. She caught sight of her face, mirrored on the water’s surface.

“You’re as brown as the Indians,” she murmured to her rippled reflection.

Oh my, her tan would fade, wouldn’t it? Ladies of quality had pale, pale skin. Perhaps plenty of lather would lighten her face.

She dunked the soap and rubbed it briskly between her hands, working up a handful of froth that she applied to her face. Eyes squished, she dunked beneath the water to rinse then worked up another handful of bubbles for her hair. Again she dunked below the surface of the water, placing the soap on the sandy bottom to free both hands to massage her scalp. She stood and lifted her face again to the sun, pulling her hair over one shoulder to wring it out. How blissful to be clean.

“Simone.”

She froze at the husky growl that crawled through the air.

Temple
.

Panic seared her. What was he doing here? She had thought him busy with Daniel. She sank down until her shoulders were covered then crossed her arms before turning around to look.

“If you please, my lord, I would like to finish bathing. Alone.” She made her voice frosty. Her words died in her throat when she caught his eyes.

They were ravenous eyes, avid, the eyes of a predator. And she was the prey.

“Simone.” Temple whispered her name again. Glorious in her nakedness, he had seen her worship the sun with arms outstretched. The sight of her, wet skin satin shiny and nipples pebbled with cold, snared his gaze, captivated him. She had become one with the wilderness, a pagan nymph.

He wanted her.

Now.

“I thought you were busy in the warehouse,” Simone said, dread limning her words. She cast a frantic glance toward her clothes before remembering she had brought her shift with her to be washed. Where was it? She tried to find it beneath the water, kicking out a foot first one way then the other.

“We saw you walk toward the beach. Daniel thought I should watch over you. ” Temple left the shelter of the woods and started across the beach. His footsteps crunched on the gravel, an ominous sound that alarmed her even more than the look in his eyes.

“Go away. Please.” Her whispered words mingled with the soughing breeze high in the trees.

“No.” He ignored her plea, taking a step closer before slowly, deliberately, beginning to remove his clothes.

“Please, my lord. Mr Wellington. Temple.” She made her voice stern. “Please leave me.” Again, she searched for her shift. It wouldn’t provide much protection against him but it was better than nothing.

“I want you,” Temple said, stripping off his trousers. “I want you as I’ve never wanted another.” As he spoke the words, he realized it was the truth. Simone, the street urchin, the unknown one, had become an integral part of him. He wanted, nay, needed to make love to her, needed to surrender to the ache of stifled desire. He knew from prior experience that women derived as much pleasure from the sexual act as men and he would show her, now, in this very moment. There may indeed be consequences but he would deal with them in time.

“No, please.” Simone started to shiver, whether from cold or his presence, she couldn’t say. She forgot about the shift, just stared at him, mesmerized by the expanse of rippling skin that grew with each piece of clothing removed.

“Simone. My love.” Naked, Temple stood at the water’s edge, sensibilities swayed by the savage surroundings. His erect penis pounded with a life blood of its own, a life blood he could no longer ignore. He waded toward his quarry.

Simone was not so easily intimidated. Fury leant an edge to her tongue.

“I beg you, my lord, please reconsider,” she snapped, shifting away. “If you think calling me your love is going to win me, you can think again.”

“Oh, Simone,” he sighed, shaking his head. “How can you think you can escape?” He was now waist deep, only a step or two away from her.

“By appealing to you as a gentleman.”

“I think not.” Temple lunged forward with a splash and grabbed her wrist. “Furthermore, it’s high time I disabuse you of the notion that I am a gentleman.” He exerted just enough pressure to pull her closer, a relentless force she couldn’t fight. “Come to me, Simone. Let me show you the pleasure to be had between a man and a woman.” His last words were whispered, his dark eyes earnest.

“Don’t,” she pleaded. “You’ll ruin me.” She leaned away in an effort to resist, digging her feet into the sandy bottom, slapping the water with her free hand. Her attempt to escape him came to naught for his hold on her was steely. Another tug and her body glided into his.

“I’ll not ruin you against your will.” With a growl, he pulled her up to hold her tight against him, tipping her head back with one rough hand to look down at her. “Command me to stop and I shall.”

Her skin where it touched his burned while the rest of her was cool, soothed by the water. Of a sudden, Simone knew she could not resist him, could not resist the heady sensations prickling her insides.

Wicked, so very wicked, to be naked. But right, so very right to be with him.

Aye, she would lose her virginity today but she would lose it willingly and not dwell on the outcome. Yet.

She trembled and her hands crept up to rest on his shoulders. They were alone in the wilds and Temple had become as savage and untamed as the country around them.

Helpless with surrender, she looked into his dark and brooding eyes. As he continued to hold her captive in his gaze, her arms, of their own volition, wound about his neck and she raised her mouth to his. His lips swooped down on hers. They were hot too, as hot as the rest of him. She drew in a deep shuddering sigh and yielded.

Temple
savoured the feel of her in his arms, savoured the craving she aroused in him that he knew would soon be assuaged. He wooed her with his lips, willing her to accept him, to want him as much as he wanted her.

He tore his lips away to lose himself in her remarkable sapphire eyes, eyes as limitless as the soaring skies above them, eyes of time without end.

She made as if to pull her arms away from his neck. “No, don’t,” he murmured, sliding his hands over her shoulders and down her back. “Don’t let go of me.”

Grabbing her legs, he wrapped them about his hips. It was exquisite torture, knowing the cleft he sought was right there, a prize ripe for the taking. “Feel me, Simone, feel how much I want you.” He cupped her buttocks in his hands and moved her up and down against him, making ripples in the water that fanned out around them.

“Oh,” Simone gasped. Sensations tumbled through her like dice in a cup, rattling and slamming against her ribcage. Desire. Trepidation. Desire. Hesitation. Desire. Desire as she had never before desired in her life.

She reached up to his head, to wind her fingers in his hair and pull his lips back to hers. Beneath her mouth, she felt him moan, a rumble that coursed through her, filling her with exultation. She had power over him, the age-old power of a woman over a man.

Beneath her thighs, she could feel his muscles flex and release as he manoeuvred them through the water, back toward the beach. Water cascaded from them like the fountain of desire they were as he stepped free of the lake.

She clung to him, ankles hooked behind his taut bum, arms clasped around his neck. Each step he took rubbed her mound against the velvet steel of him. Her breasts flattened against his chest as he leaned over to pick up his shirt, a delightful sensation twining with the pleasure boiling between her thighs.

“A bower for a lady,” he breathed as he tossed his shirt to the ground in a semblance of a blanket.

Effortlessly, he lowered himself to his knees, clasping her tight with one sinewy arm and leaning forward onto the other one. “Drop your legs,” he commanded and wrapped his arms around her to kiss her again, playful kisses that nipped her collarbone, tugging kisses that pulled at her ear lobes, fairy kisses that trailed up and down her neck.

“Temple,” she moaned, squirming against him, searching for surcease against the feelings that pummelled her. “More, I want more,” she pleaded, digging her nails into his back before sliding her hands down to his flanks to grasp the strength there.

“Aye, Simone, and you shall have it. Now.” And he plunged deep into her slick flesh, holding still for an instant before finding a timeless rhythm she instinctively knew.