The Rake Enraptured (16 page)

He set her down, and she was chagrined to see he had taken the time to set up a seat against the wall - of saddle, and horse blanket spread next to it on what passed for a floor - before coming after her in a revoltingly leisurely way. He urged her toward
s the saddle and she sat with a vengeful flounce, hoping she broke it. She saw him wince a little, but the thing held, precarious but better than sitting in the heady mix of dirt and manure that was making the air so thick.

"So this is your newest method
of seduction? I can't say I think much of it."

"It does leave something to be desired. If I had planned it better there would be a hunting lodge rented nearby, with obligingly invisible servants and nothing to worry about save how to lure you into some del
icious indiscretion. His teeth shone pale as he grinned at her. "Instead you are serenaded by the belly rumblings of beasts, and we must keep you clothed against the chill. Though of course there are those damp petticoats to think of. You are welcome to shed them and curl up against me."

She eyed him, letting her lip lift with scorn, though already the heat of exertion had fled and the arms he stretched out to her had unnatural appeal. He would be so warm-

No. She was made of sterner stuff than that.

"I wil
l never forgive you for this."

"Possibly not. It's a risk I have to take. If I don't do something then in the next moment you'll be married to that entirely virtuous, entirely tedious bore Kingsley."

"Mr Kingsley is not a bore. He is a hugely admirable man with a bounty of good qualities."

The grin faded from his face. "I find I do not like to hear you speak of him," he said a moment later, in a tone of quiet discovery. "Let us talk of something more pleasant."

"No, let us speak of Mr Kingsley. Mr Kingsley, who treats me with respect and consideration. Who places my wishes above his own. Who cares for my wellbeing-"

"I care for your damned wellbeing-"

"Oh, do you? Very well, I think, when you burn my ears with curses and pen me up with stinking cows in the cold-"

Immediately he flourished his arms spread wide in renewed welcome. "I am perfectly comfortable. This coat is particularly warm and I could wrap you up in it and make you very cozy.
Exceedingly
cozy."

"If you were any sort of gentleman you would remov
e it and hand it to me."

"I could do that," he said, giving the matter judicious consideration, "but y
ou are determined to believe I’m no gentleman, no matter what I do. Thus it hardly matters that I behave like one when you will ignore the evidence before you. No, better I keep my coat, and remind you I’m ready to share at any moment. Then we may both benefit."

"You are a pig, and certainly no gentleman of any sort."

"Oh Julia, sweet Julia," he said in quite a different tone, no longer jesting, "if you only knew how I long to hold you close in my arms, warm you and heat your blood and see if your lips would be as soft and lush under mine as they look, as I remember, then you would also know how careful I am for you, how gentle. It may not mean much to you, with your impossible standards of virtue, but I swear it's true."

His words - and the way he looked at her mouth as he said them - made her fall silent for a long moment as her heart beat faster, loud and thick in her ears. Such an intent expression, so fi
erce and so tender, as she had never thought to see on a man's face. Far less on his, handsome and noble as he still looked, with that face perversely carved as if to fit an angel and then mischievously applied to him. Naughty man. Awful to tempt her, to make her want something she should never, ever have.

"Let me go," she pleaded in a whisper.

"I can't, sweetheart. Not until you listen to me."

"I'm listening then. Say it, if you must."

"It is only this: You set me a task. I fulfilled it. You wanted me to be faithful to you, and I have been."

"Pardon? You . . . what?"

"I have been faithful."

"You have not . . . I thought you were joking. Are you saying you have taken no more lovers?"

"Not one."

"But that's absurd. I don't believe you."

"Believe it."

"Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because I love you, dammit." He took her icy hands from where she had them balled against her chest, chafed them then lifted them in his own cupped palms to blow on them, so close to his mouth she imagined she could feel the warmth of his lips against her half-numb skin. "I love you," he repeated more quietly. "Have you heard nothing I've said? I told you it would be a difficult task without you to sustain me in it, and so it was, but not as much as I had imagined. Habit was not stronger than my desire to be the man who could win you. Who will win you-"

"You can't-"

"I can. Don't keep saying that, damn it, Julia. Listen to me. Look at me. See me. I am not the man you think I am. I am someone else altogether. And I'm not going to harm you, or hurt you, or betray your trust-"

"You think abduction makes you more appealing-"

"Then be free," he roared, releasing her hands suddenly to stand over her, hunched against the low ceiling. "Go, then, if you trust me so little.  Go, if you'd rather run back to normality, to your sane, predictable life. Go!"

She blinked up at him, and did not move. "Go? Just like that? What profit then, from your odd fits and starts? First you snatch me away, then you bid me to run home. Can you not make
up your mind?"

He gave a strange, wild laugh. "Make up my mind? No, around you I can't. For you are impossible to satisfy, to please, and I find against all expectation that's all I want in the world and I can't do it. I am not used to failure, I assure y
ou. I am not used to my schemes going awry. But you? You foil me at every turn. The only thing I can make up my mind to is I will not stop loving you. For I have not. Not through six long, lonely months without you. Not through your insults, your determination to believe the very worst of me, your scorn and despite. You think me the greatest abomination-"

"Not the greatest," she murmured.

"You refuse me without hesitation, without consideration. I am less than nothing to you yet though it bewilders me to say it, all I want is one damned word of praise from you, one smile, one nod of your head as you say, 'Colin, yes.'"

His bright
eyes bored into her, and almost she said it. Almost she opened her mouth and said ‘Colin, yes,’ so fervent was his desire that she should, palpable in the air between them. Oh, it was a strong thing, a heady thing, to have a man such as him look at her that way, as if she was the sum of all womanhood, and every good thing in the world. She looked at his mouth, at the full curve of his lips, set firm in passion, a scowl on his face and wildness in his eyes. She looked at his mouth again.

Suddenly he stooped, arms bracketing her as he grasped the saddle on either side of her seat, his face less than an inch from her own so
she drew in a startled breath and leaned away. But not far away. Not far enough, and his eyes measured the distance then blazed at her in mingled hope and doubt.

"Julia?" he breathed, and when she did not move again he closed the distance between them slow
ly, so slowly, and she stopped breathing and waited, only waited.

When his lips touched hers, skin to tender skin, it seemed to her a draught more potent than anything she had drunk before, more scorching than liquor, an ache and a burn. Her hands fluttere
d then tangled in his cravat, pulling him close, and he was cradling her, sliding her into his lap even as he shifted to lean mostly against the wall, protecting her from the muck of their surroundings even as he devoured her mouth with an assurance that would have been masterful if not for the quiver behind it, the catch in his breathing.

"Julia," he muttered as his hands positioned her safely then skimmed up the column of her body, easing her rigidity, encouraging her to press close against him. He was so
hot, like a furnace to her chilled flesh and she burrowed in, eyes closed, seeking more of this craziness, this reckless abandonment of principle and good sense. Oh, he felt amazing. Firm and unyielding, except for that mouth that left her own for a brief moment to press fervent kisses to her cheekbones, her eyelids, then return to plunge into the depths of a kiss with her, like none she had ever had before. Wet and slick and infinitely more wicked than she remembered from those nights so long ago that she thought she had forgotten. Her body had not. It recognized him, wanted him, with an intensity that spiked inside her and made her squirm against him, wanting to feel more of him, to be closer, stretched out under him.

She moaned.

"Yes," he told her, his voice husky and strange. "I know. I know, my love. I want it too. I want you, all of you, as you've never given to another. I want your pleasure and your fire. I want you to blossom for me. And not here, not here though I'd take you anywhere but Julia," he cupped her face with his hot palms, so she had to look up into his blazing eyes less than an inch from her own, "I want to honor you and build you up, not drag you down here in the muck. So tell me yes. Tell me you believe me and you'll marry me and let me love you properly, as you should be loved, and for the rest of our lives. Tell me."

"I don't believe you," she said mechanically, and for the first time as she heard the words in her own ears she was not sure if she spoke the truth. "I don't-"

"Say yes, Julia."

"I-"

"Say yes." His hands were splayed around her rib cage, his thumbs underneath her breasts, and she was acutely conscious of the gentle sweep of them back and forth over her scant curves, dangerously close to her nipples in a touch that made her want to scream with frustration.

"I can't-"

"Say yes." He kissed her, hungry and compelling, and it made her quiver through and through and she was kissing him back, her tongue in his mouth, too bold to be her, too unseemly yet there it was and he growled with delight, a rough, dark sound that woke something animal in her. She wanted to claw at him and drag him down.

"Say yes," he urged again, a harsh whisper, and she thought he sounded on the edge of control, as if some madness was riding him as it was rid
ing her.

"Yes."

"What? Say it again."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Damn you!" she said, stealing his curse word. "Yes, then. You're a fool, and so am I, and I'll regret this-"

"Never," he swore, holding her so close she could barely breathe, crushed against his shoulder as he knelt and leaned against the wall of a cow byre. "You will never regret it." It was a fervent vow and she knew in this moment he meant it with every fiber of his being.

As she held him, as he rocked her and shuddered and rained kisses on her neck, she closed her eyes and felt a hot tear slide down her cheek.

I'm sorry, Maman
, she thought.
I tried. I failed. I'm sorry.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

The ride back to the house was very odd. She had no idea of the direction but he rode unhesitatingly as if he knew the ground well, his horse plowing through the drifted snow, the crunch and creak of its steps loud in the stillness of the oncoming dusk. The wind had died and though snow still fell it was a soft thing now. His coat was wrapped around her and she leaned back bonelessly against, him, surrendering dignity for heat.

What did dignity matter? She had abandoned it, along with pride and wisdom. She wanted him to
o much, and she would have him, whatever that meant. Whatever would come, would come. She was tired of fighting him, of fighting herself, of the long months that she could now admit had been very empty and lonely despite the people around her, the Carstairs' warm welcome and Mr Kingsley's companionship. Foolish heart, to find life empty without such a man. Foolish heart to lock him up inside of it and refuse to forget him, to welcome him so gladly when he reappeared and told her everything she wanted to hear and was afraid to believe.

No, this was not a good choice, and she dreaded the future and what it would bring, but still her mind was made up. She gripped his arm where it encircled her body, a solid bar, and he squeezed her a little closer, his face dro
pping for a moment into the curve of her neck so she felt the touch even through her hood. She shivered, though not from cold. Yes, it was very odd, to let a man hold her like this, seated so intimately on his thighs. He rocked against her with the motion of the horse and the subtle friction of it drove her mad, despite the layers of his clothes and hers between them. She tried not to think of him, naked beneath all that cloth. She would have that body to use for her pleasure. She would be his, and he hers, no matter how briefly.

Madness.

It was as if - now she had let herself acknowledge the way she felt about him - a floodgate had opened within her. How had she managed to shut off her perception of him? How had she not seen the compelling curve of his fingers, so capable on the reins? Felt the breadth of his chest, wide as a wall and as solid. If she turned her head to look at him now he would kiss her, she was sure. He had already done it as he took her up in front of him, an unsmiling stamp of possession that left them both breathing hard with nothing to say beyond the promise she saw in his eyes: he would finish what he started. She would be his.

She did not protest the unspoken vow. She wanted it too, though she wished she did not. If only she was st
ronger, better, firmer in her resolve.

But it had been as much as she could do, those months ago, to hold him off. She had exhausted her own resources. Now, when he came for her, she was not strong enough.

Insanity, but she would have him. Regret was for another day. Not now, not yet, though she felt the edge of fear at the pain yet to come.

He guided the horse without hesitation, at ease in the landscape of unfamiliar whiteness. She did not recognize the landmarks, but when they came around a copse of haw
thorn the house was suddenly in sight, far away on the slope of the hill, the same slope where the children had played only yesterday when he first arrived.

Only yesterday. And she had thought herself so strong-minded to resist him for whole weeks those mo
nths ago. So wise. Sad and lonely, but wise and no doubt happier than she would have been . . .

Lonely, was how she had been. Even in the midst of the noisy Carstairs family, busy and boisterous, she had been lonely. She had
missed him, thought of him too often. His steady gaze, the way he teased at her with laughing eyes and then turned suddenly serious, his stare direct and heated. His arm around her now was a wonder, a reassuring comfort that also made her heart beat harder, her blood a thick-pulsing rhythm in her own ears to accompany the quiet creak of hooves compressing snow.

She could not feel the cold anymore. He banished it.

Tingles went up the back of her neck and she shuddered. Immediately his arm tightened again, and his breath was hot on her cheek as he bent his head close.

"Are you still cold, sweetheart?" he said softly, and his voice was very deep.

"No. No, I- Not at all. No."

His lips came to rest on her temple, tilting her head a little, not quite comfortably
, yet she did not move away. So close. So scandalously close, his lips on her skin, his big body all around hers.

Once - a very long time ago - she had sat in his lap with his naked
chest against her and stayed there too long, been foolish and bewitched by a moment.

They would marry and then she could do that again. See his bare
chest. Touch it, unclothe him, possess him.

The greatest possession of all: another human being. And such a one as he.

She shifted her hand so it rested on his, over her ribs, over her heart, his thumb nudging upward to press into the small softness of her breast in a subtle savoring.

Julia Preston, to be the wife of Colin
Holbrook. Terrifying. Thrilling.

"I know so little of what to do." The confession startled her. She ha
d not meant to say it.

"When we return to the house?"

"That too, but also-" she seized confidence and plunged on, "- in marriage. To be a wife, I mean."

"You think I know how to be a husband? We'll muddle it out together. You can teach me and I'll teach yo
u. Only keep talking to me and I'm sure we'll decipher it. Many duller wits than ourselves manage the task."

"Thank you," she said dryly, and he laughed.

"You know I think you capable of all things."

"Do you?"

"Superbly."

"Well. I hate to disillusion you
but I'm very ignorant and thus likely incapable when it comes to-" she took a deep breath, "your area of expertise."

"Ah." She thought she detected a note of amusement in his dark-caramel voice. After a pause he went on, "After sufficient years I'm sure we
'll improve your seat to the point where you can keep up with me. Horse riding is merely a matter of practice and some degree of sympathy with the animal-"

"Not riding, dolt."

"Oh, then it is the social arts you wish to develop. It's true we will labor against your own natural inclinations as we improve your skills there, but again, with perseverance, I am sure you will triumph."

"I beg your pardon?" she said after a long moment, her voice more wintry than the countryside.

"Assuredly. You will have to retire the lecturing tone and that certain martial glint in your eye I have seen from time to time, but with the application of docility and ladylike charm you are sure to please."

"Sure to please?"

"Sure to please universally, I should say. For of course you have always pleased me."

"Are you serious?"

"Only trust in me and I shall teach you all you need to know."

"Are you truly suggesting that I do not know how to go on in society-" she felt the unmistakable quake of laughter move his
chest, and she elbowed him as hard as she could. "Wretch. Here I am attempting to be serious with you and you mock me."

"How could I not?" His tone turned tender. "As if you require skill or knowledge of what shall be most private between us. As if I would pref
er you as knowing as I. You've said clearly enough what you think of such double standards so I shan't elaborate, but precious creature, don't suppose for a second I want you anything but innocent. Those lessons I shall be honored to teach."

"I shall blund
er it," she warned him fiercely.

"Never," he swore, as if such a thing was impossible.

"Well," she said, somewhat mollified, and relaxed back against him. "I suppose I'll have to let you lead the way in that."

"Can you truly manage such a concession?"

"Subservience does not come naturally to me-"

"You don't say," he murmured, and again she felt that betraying quake.

"You should not laugh."

"I'm sure you
’re right. Try not to think of it as subservience. Merely shared leadership."

"That is a better term
.”

"I
think so. You can be most capable in all other areas, and we shall make the most of my knowledge in this one."

"You are so scandalous," she sighed, thinking how odd it was to have such a conversation. She could not begin to imagine talking so with Mr Kings
ley. "Poor Mr Kingsley."

She felt him stiffen, though his tone was calm as he said: "Why do you say that?"

"The expectations I have roused in him."

"He must extinguish them." He sounded uncompromising, and she could not resist the urge to turn and see if
she could catch the expression on his face as he spoke like that. He looked down at her, and for once his hooded eyes seemed forbidding to her, and even dangerous.

"Of course. I only hope it will not grieve him. He is such a good man."

"Such compassion. Why is your heart so soft in his case, and so brutal in mine?"

"I- Oh. It is only that . . . I cannot imagine you caring as he . . . Er-"

"Do you think I offer my heart lightly? Do you think I am not capable of deep emotion? You must imagine me a shallow creature."

He was very cool, and sudden fear crept through her.

"Of- of course not. Only that a man such as you would not- That is, you are so far distant from- I cannot explain it." How could she say underneath everything they said or promised was her conviction he mistook his own feelings. It was a mystery to her that she could inspire true passion in him. With enough time he would discover her as she really was and realize his folly, or more likely he would prove inconstant by nature-

Oh, who could say, but
theirs was hardly a connection for the ages. How could it be, between a sparrow like her and a bird of paradise such as he? Mr Kingsley was a much more fitting mate for her. But she did not want to tell him so. She did not want to awaken him to his own mistake. She wanted him to keep making the mistake, just long enough for her to snatch at him in a mad glory of brief possession.

Oh, she was a fool.

Even more a fool for introducing this sour note with her thoughtless tongue. She who was usually so careful was all too often unguarded in his presence. She must monitor her own words with much more vigilance.

"I'm sorry. I was being stupid. Pray forget I said anything."

"Certainly," he said after a moment, with all civility, but the lightheartedness was gone from him.

She could not think how to bring it
back, that sense of joy and dawning possibility. Again she cursed her own stupidity, and wished she had been silent. She did not try to speak again, as the dark stone bulk of the house grew ever larger before them.