The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (32 page)

What he did with his tongue was undoubtedly not within the rules…but whose rules?

Suddenly he sat back again and unbuttoned his breeches, his face turned to hers. His breathing was loud, hoarse, and his lips shined with her dew. “Come astride me, wench,” he ground out as his manhood slid free, standing tall. Breathtaking in length and in breadth. Mercy had known what to expect; she studied as much as a girl could in these matters. But this was…shocking.

There was no going back. This was the point of no return, and he had readied her for it this time. No mistake, he’d gained experience in those years since their first wedding night.

***

He held her waist and lowered her steadily onto his tall shaft. She cried out just once as he settled her there and thrust into the soft, welcoming warmth of her tight furrow. Her head rested on his shoulder, and she groaned his name. He waited a moment, letting her adjust to the state of fullness. For him, the glorious sensation of this possession was the greatest he had ever known. She was his at last. Slowly, he lifted and lowered her again, his heartbeat hammering away, painful in its intensity. He wanted to pound home in her, but he must restrain himself. Somehow.

“Mercy,” he growled.

His wife.

He pulled her free of the corset, wrenching the last laces asunder, and then he suckled her breast through the thin chemise she still wore.

They had a few hours, she’d said. He kept reminding himself of that. No need to rush.

But the sweet friction of her body was more than his patience could stand. He would not last long. Not the first time.

With her pleading cries in his ear, he carried her up the stairs to his bed, her legs wrapped around his waist. Every step he took vibrated through the broad muscles of his thighs and into the woman he held connected to him by wanton pleasure and forbidden passion.

***

Carnal knowledge. What an odd phrase that was. Cold words for a heated act.

She’d imagined her deflowering many times, not in fear like Miss Julia Gibson, but out of curiosity. After her engagement to Grey, she’d pictured a grand four-poster bed with his family crest embroidered on the counterpane, and she saw herself sit upon it, waiting in fine lawn and lace with satin ribbons tied all the way up to her throat. Adolphus would probably wear a long nightgown and a bed cap. It was one of those things she knew about him without asking. Not that it was the sort of thing she could ask her fiancé. He would think it very strange if she showed interest in his night attire.

Although she’d eavesdropped on several of her brother’s sexual escapades, she expected nothing like that from Adolphus. For one thing, he had his health to consider, and too much exertion was out of the question. She expected the act itself to take no more than a few minutes. Adolphus was frugal with his time as well as his money, and he was not one for a great deal of unnecessary nonsense. All of this, Mercy had felt she could accommodate. But that was when she did not think herself capable of succumbing to lust, when she thought sex, for sensible, practical people like herself, was for procreation only. Recreational coupling was surely the domain of people like Carver.

Now she knew differently.

When Rafe took her to his bed that night, she thought the world outside that small farmhouse must have vanished completely, and everything she was so confident of before went with it. Time meant nothing. In his bed, there were no rules.

He kissed her from head to toe, lavished her with attention. Naked, they lay side by side, exploring each other, tireless, inexhaustible. It must be a dream, she thought, and wondered how they got there. She was seduced, a woman abandoning herself to passion, to fantasy. Until then, she never knew a man’s hard body could be comforting, soothing to lie against and touch. She’d never experienced hands that could be rough on the surface and yet gentle in the way they held her. She’d never felt a simple caress in one tiny area of her body that reverberated all over it, made her heart miss beats and then make a new rhythm. A symphony.

He paused occasionally to ask if she liked what he did. Couldn’t he tell? Then he would laugh as she dragged him to her for more—more kisses, more strokes, more licks of his clever tongue.

And in the supreme moment, when they were joined with his manhood inside her, she floated, crying out, and her fingers dug into the sweat-lined, flexing muscles of his back. The delicious sensations driving her body to a blissful peak were, she suspected, addictive. She needed that ultimate release—both his and hers—and yet when she felt it nearing and knew it could not be postponed another second, she wanted it never to end.

Eventually, as he lay spent beside her, his arm over her body, his breath blowing softly against her cheek, she forced herself back to reality.

“I must go,” she whispered, although she did not know why it felt necessary to be so quiet. They were, after all, alone in his house.

“Stay.”

But she slid off the bed and pulled on her chemise. Her skin smoldered from the lingering fire of his touch and, as the fine linen drifted down over her moonlit body, she felt the sigh of every pore and tiny hair. It was as if her body had slumbered, she mused, until Rafe woke it.

“I’ll take you back,” he murmured as he sat up and scratched his rumpled head.

Mercy swept her hair over one shoulder. It was dry now, but she had no idea how many hours had passed since she rode here in the rain. “We can’t risk being seen together so early.”

“But we’ll announce our engagement this morning.” He laughed drowsily. “May as well get the shock over with.”

She froze and stared at him.
Engagement?
Had she missed something?

“My father will lecture me, I’m sure, but my stepmother will be delighted.”

Mercy did not know what to say. She had gone to his bed with no intention of marriage, which made her a rotten little strumpet. Clearly they were at cross-purposes. The last thing she wanted was one of their arguments to spoil this moment of content between them, but she would have to set him straight at once with the truth.

“I am not going to marry you, Rafe.” Again she saw a tall, overgrown hedge looming, her horse racing for it. This night she’d soared into the unknown. It was as if she had to do it, to learn what was beyond, to prove to herself that she was strong enough to keep control of her horse. That the same tragedy that befell her mama would not befall her.

Somehow she survived unbroken. But it was not a risk she could afford again. Once had to be enough. Her curiosity should be satisfied now, should it not? Last night she needed to be close to him. This morning, that same closeness began to terrify her.

“What?”

“I can’t marry you.”

While he was still digesting this statement, his mouth hanging open, Mercy took advantage of her chance and hurried out of the bedchamber. She rushed down the stairs to find the remainder of her scattered clothes. Keeping busy was one way to take her mind off troubled thoughts and dangerous doubts.

“Of all the rotten trickery, woman! You certainly are going to marry me,” he shouted as he thumped down the stairs after her, completely naked and thoroughly distracting.

She was pulling on her stockings, balanced on one foot. “Do be sensible. This was very nice indeed, but it is only sport.” She paused a moment and swapped feet to pull up the second stocking. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have explained, but I thought you understood what I wanted when I came here.” As she fussed over the wrinkles in her stockings, she prayed he wouldn’t see her fingers tremble.

He stood before her, knuckles on his hips, feet apart. “What
you
wanted?” His eyes were dark, confused.

“What we
both
wanted,” she corrected. “Is this not satisfying?”

His anger mounted visibly in the movement of his chest, the tension in his shoulders. “I told you I wanted a wife.”

“And I told you, many times, that we are not suited.”

“What about this?”

“We cannot stay in bed forever. Sooner or later we have to go out into the world. And what will people say of us?” She stood straighter. “They will say you married me for my fortune, and that I married you to recover from scandal.”

“Who cares what other people think?” he exclaimed, eyes ablaze. Suddenly he came toward her and gripped her by the arms. “For once in your life, Mercy, step out of that wretched cage in which you live. I may not be as rich as your viscount, but I have savings now, and they will grow. We can build a life here together. Take a chance.”

This close and this naked he was a potent temptation, but she forced herself to face him bravely, calmly. “I have done so. To be here with you I took a great chance with my reputation.” She’d wanted to prove her bravery to him, she realized. It was important, very important that he not think her a coward. “Last night can never happen again. I hoped we might get it out of our blood once and for all after five years of waiting.”

He shook his head and drew her into his arms. She went limply, afraid of the tears she felt pricking her eyelids. For a moment, she allowed her brow to rest in the curve of his shoulder. He smelled of wood smoke, fresh grass, sun-warmed leather, and male sweat. So many scents detectable on his warm skin. Even a hint of her own fragrance. Good. She had left her mark upon him.

“Mercy, my love,” he whispered against her loose curls, “I know you have always felt alone. I know you have taken care of yourself. But I wish you would learn to trust in another soul to do that. If only sometimes.”

She sniffed. “I suppose by another soul you mean yourself?”

“Yes.”

Hands to his firm shoulders, she pushed him back a few inches. “You? The man who was ready to marry another woman not so long ago? The man who charms every woman he meets? The man who firmly refuses to follow any rules? The man who has
just
decided to settle down after many years of wreaking havoc? I should trust you?”

A slow smile broke across his lips. “Yes.”

“The man for whom a lady’s engagement to another gentleman means nothing?”

“If I might remind you,” he muttered wryly, “it was you who came here last night. You asked me to make love to you.”

She faltered at that. “I suppose I did.”

“You
suppose
?”

Irritably, she turned away and sought her corset and gown. “I cannot stand about arguing with you. Help me dress.”

“Please.”

“What?”

“Help me dress,
please.
” He rocked on his heels, arms folded over his chest. Mercy wished he’d put some damn clothes on himself.

“Very well, then.
Please.
”

“Better.”

She turned her back while he laced her corset, pulling on the laces with undue strength until she was quite without breath to speak.

“I’ll teach you some manners after all, eh?” he muttered.

Stunned by the suggestion that she was the one who lacked manners, Mercy recovered speech enough to respond, “You want me to marry you and conform to your world, Rafe Hartley, yet you would never do the same for me. You speak of the cage in which I live, yet yours is no less confined.”

He had no response to that, because it was perfectly true.

Once she was dressed, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she paused to look at him again. Still naked and apparently not in the least troubled by it, he stared back at her. There was only one word for that expression, she mused. Cocky. And scheming. Well, that was two words.

He had picked her lock. Why would he not look pleased with himself?

Rafe scratched his cheek, and she heard the rasp of fingers over stubble. “I’m disinclined to be used just for your pleasure and then tossed aside.”

“And you got no pleasure from it?” she demanded.

His lip curled upward at the corner. “I did.”

Mercy felt her face grow hot. He was not making it easy for her. But why would he? “Then you will be satisfied. As I must.”

“Why must we?”

“Because I prefer the gate. I tried the hedge.” She faltered. “I tried…”

When she thought of her mother, she remembered mostly her bright hair and her laughter. Hard gusts of it that almost bent her double. Her mother was a fearless woman. When she took that hedge, it wasn’t because the horse ran away with her; it was because she wanted to take it. She’d wanted to feel the wind pulling on her hair as if she was flying.

Oh, she liked taking the hedge too. Mercy was more like her reckless mother than she cared to realize. But the consequences…

Rafe unfolded his arms, one hand casually stroking his manhood which, although it stood now at half-mast, was still a magnificent creature of fine proportions. “Next time you need your fields plowed, let me know.”

“Rafe Hartley, I shall never—”

“And when you’re ready to marry me, we’ll discuss further nights like the one we just shared. When you’re ready to marry me.”

At this stubborn repetition of something she’d already assured him would never happen, a tight spurt of annoyance ripped out of her. “I am not going to marry you.”

“You’ll never get another kiss from me, wench, until you say yes, admit you love me, and put an end to my suffering once and for all.”

“Pass me your shotgun, and I’ll end it for you.”

“Ha! That’s one thing o’ mine you’ll never get your wicked pixie hands on.”

A moment passed. And then another. They faced each other, two old adversaries, squaring off their territories.

But the steel had gone out of her sword. She sighed. “I see we cannot have a civil conversation, even now.”

“I’m not civilized, am I, according to you, Frosty-Drawers?”

Mercy left his farm that morning in a foul temper, but she had other matters to put in order, and for now she’d have to set this problem aside and return to address it later. With a fresh mind and when her heart was not so disastrously unsettled. On a passionate whim, she’d done the unthinkable with Rafe Hartley and given up some of her precious control. Now, in the cool light of a new day, the unthinkable must be thought about. She reined in her mental horse and likewise her racing pulse.