The Runaway Countess (24 page)

Standing on tiptoe, she tangled her tongue with his, tugged his hair, breathed in his scent, reveled in the harsh unevenness of his breath. She shifted her hips until she cradled his hard erection in the juncture between her thighs.

Letting her do as she wished, he roamed his hands over her, caressing and molding her flesh—her buttocks and back, her breasts and bare arms. He followed her lead and opened his mouth deeper, inviting her, letting her taste him, consume him.

More. She would take more. She pressed against him, pushed against him, raked her nails over the hard muscle of his chest. Wild, she felt wild, fierce, a wounded animal lashing out and seeking some kind of twisted comfort, some kind of release from her sharp-clawed trap. The musk of his skin filled her senses and she took his lower lip into her mouth, sucked on it, bit it again. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him growl.

His hands found her breasts, found her nipples, rubbed and teased. Shivers snaked up her spine and a jagged cry, almost pained, tore from her throat. Passion bordering on anger coursed through her. So much sensation. So much need.

She ground her hips against his, wanting to relieve the hot throb between her thighs. Not enough. It was not enough.

Trent bent his knees and lifted her off the floor, pressed his hard erection against the wanting, writhing, aching center of her being. She clung to the muscles of his upper arms. He ground against her, a kind of circular madness, and again. He grunted once. Full, deep, disarming, intimidating in its masculine rawness.

She dropped her head to his shoulder and let loose a sound that was muffled by his coat. Fear. It was fear. Of him, of herself. Of this compulsion between them. She wriggled her hips out of his hands and found the floor with her feet.

A harsh exhale rippled through his tall frame and she felt the muscles of his arms tense and soften at intervals. He held his forehead against hers, his sharp gasps of breath mingling with hers. After a time, he lifted his hand, smoothed her hair, rubbed her back.

Then he cradled her face and kissed her, achingly sweet.

The warmth echoed through the empty chasm of her chest, loosened the hold of her anger and fear, unthreaded her compulsion. His thumbs stroked her jaw, easing the tension there. Something like a sob escaped from her throat and she melted, let him hold her. Tears burned at the back of her eyes with his gentle kisses, his whispered words of nonsense.

She raised both her hands to his chest, tucked her arms between their bodies like a child. He wound his arms around her, pulled her close so that her cheek pressed against his heart, and held her.

Held her.

“It will get better, I promise,” his voice rumbled into her chest. “I do not like this any more than you do.”

I don’t know what I am doing anymore
, she wanted to say
. I am tired of the fight, the worry, the grief.

A tear escaped, bled into the dark fabric of his coat.

He tightened his arms around her.

“Today was hard for everyone.” His voice stirred her hair. “I know it is a kind heart that propels you, Mazie. I know there is sorrow beneath your tenacity.”

She pressed her eyes closed. He was her enemy and yet his embrace was paradise, Eden before the fall. He wrapped her in his strength, his voice soothing, his touch unwinding the tension within her. It made her feel unguarded, naked in her vulnerability. Here, comfort was lush, abundant, without duplicity.

He stroked her back, his fingers brushing over coiled muscle. “Tell me where he is.”

Leaning into him, she savored the feel of his warm arms and pretended for one heartbeat longer that she never needed leave his embrace.

Then, with a silent lament of sorrow, she stood back and re-shouldered the worries of her life. “I do not know where the Midnight Rider is.” She looked at him when she said it so he could read the truth in her eyes.

He stared back at her, his eyes half-hooded and still ablaze with passion. God, she wanted to kiss him again.

She receded another step, her hands wrapped around her as if she needed to physically hold herself together. Shame. She burned with it. The kiss was supposed to make her feel better, in control. But it had had the opposite effect.

She felt worse, infinitely worse. For now she could not gather up the blunt edges of her understanding and pretend ignorance. She had eaten of the apple. She knew.

Knew that she was becoming vulnerable to Trent in a way wholly unsuitable to her happiness. Knew she was developing an emotional attachment to him. Even as she stood there, she craved the warm comfort of his arms.

“I am not some terrible monster, Mazie.” His gaze dipped to her lips then searched her face. “You can trust me with the truth. Let me help you. You cannot go on like this much longer.”

Did he see something in her? Some inclination that her emotions were softening toward him? Was her stupidity so obvious? “I am telling you the truth. I don’t know where he is.” She flung her words at him, wishing they were enough. Wishing he would let her go.

“Let me help you.” He reached toward her.

“No!” She backed away. “Don’t touch me.” She couldn’t think when he touched her. “Please, just leave.”

Cold emotion slashed his face. “We will talk about this again and again until it is over. You do understand.”

She lifted her chin, forced herself to hold his stare.

He waited until it was clear she would not respond. Then he turned and grabbed his wig and robe from the chair, glanced at her only when he reached the doorway. He opened his mouth, then shook his head and walked out the door.

Trent did not show for dinner that night. Mazie retired to bed early, exhausted by the barrage of her thoughts. She slept little and awoke when the early morning light fell into her room. From her window she watched the orange fan of sunrise flame across the sky, followed by ripples of red clouds.

As she often did, she wondered where Roane was. When she was younger she would leave little notes for him in the woods of Rodsley Manor. Her entire world had centered around that thousand acres. The groundskeeper had discovered one of her letters and brought it to her father, who had demanded she stop trying to find Roane. She was better off without him, her father had said. Couldn’t she be an obedient daughter this once?

She had never understood her father when it came to Roane.

Such long-ago memories. She tried to turn her thoughts to the lilting refrain of birdsong, but she could not ignore the scrape of Trent’s words in her heart.

Did you ever consider that these people you are so desperate to help may be better off without your assistance?

She had made things worse for Roane those many years ago when she had tried to interfere with her father. Roane had never asked her to promote his wish to join the cavalry, but she’d done it anyway. And all she’d accomplished was setting her papa’s mind against his own son and losing her brother in the process. Of course, time and fate had brought Roane and her back together, but Roane had never seen his father again. He had never made amends before the man’s death.

Alice bustled in and Mazie stood away from the window, grateful for the distraction from her memories.

“What gown shall you wear today, my lady?”

Alice opened the wardrobe and Mazie fingered Lady Catherine’s gowns. And they were Cat’s gowns, for though the silk and muslin dresses had been gifted to her, Mazie did not pretend she would have need of them once she was gone.

She did not know what her day would bring. What struggle or new worry. But she did know one thingshe wanted to take Trent’s breath away. Take his control away. Anything to make him feel a shadow of what she did.

She chose a tight-fitting day gown that showed off her curves while covering her skin. Made of soft, almost silken apricot-colored muslin, the dress reminded her of a Mozart Andante where the sensuality was hidden behind obedience to classical form. Its power was in its pretense to innocence.

Her hair pulled back in looping braids, she made her way down the wide marble staircase, pride straightening her spine.

She would be civil to Trent, but she would not remember his embrace, the tender way he held her. He had proven himself to be a demanding lord who lived by the rules, no matter the situation at hand. No matter who got hurt in the process.

He had sent a hungry mother and her children to gaol.

When she reached the front hall a footman directed her through the drawing room, out the oversized doors to the south terrace. She stepped down onto the flagstone and was confronted by the loveliness of the morning, abundant with the lush perfection of summer. The azure-blue sky stretched in all directions, crisp and brilliant, marked by a few billowing, bleach-white clouds. Birdsong trilled from the thickly leafed branches and an array of roses nodded and bowed their weighty heads.

Trent and Cat sat at a table laid in elegant shades of white. White linen, white roses mixed with calla lilies, white porcelain and chairs covered in white damask. Cat was reading
The Post
, and Trent, ever industrious, was reading through a toppling pile of papers at his elbow. He was still dressed in his riding clothes, or perhaps he was planning to ride out after breakfast. Mazie stifled a moment’s surprise that two such proper people should breakfast outside.

“Good morning.” She managed a poor excuse for a curtsey.

“There you are, my dear. And doesn’t that dress look delicious on you.” Cat smiled.

Trent stood and greeted her with an unintelligible mutter, his eyes barely flicking off his papers. Good, he would play it distant and cold. There was no reason for them to greet each other with anything more than polite formality.

So why then was she agitated by his aloofness? Like she wanted to yell at him until he looked up?

And why in the world did she notice the shine in his dark hair and the soft curl of his upper lip? She sat down with a huff.

Cat must have noticed something, for she said, “Please, don’t mind my brother. Apparently his secretary delivered some important files this morning, and I was instructed not to be a nuisance. Parliament just cannot continue without him.” Cat pursed her lips at him, but he did not glance up to notice. “Ever the grand host.”

What was Cat saying? Trent heard his name mentioned but could not recall the context. His body rang with alarm.

Temptation herself sat at his table.

He kept his eyes glued to the paper in front of him, not even moving when sweat beaded on his forehead. Mazie was like nectar and he the bee, unable to resist her sweet enticement.

The gown she wore was sin and redemption in one swath of cloth. The color brought out the luxuriant shine of her hair and the lush fullness of her lips, gave her skin the soft pink tint of apple blossoms. One glance and his cock stirred, the erection he had fought all night returned, the long hours of self-criticism forgotten in an instant.

He simply would not look at her.

His papers. He would focus there. But the words might as well have been written in an unknown language for all the sense they made.

Mazie was his prisoner, a lady, and the most inappropriate subject of his lust, he told himself again.

But perhaps right and wrong weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, he rationalized. Perhaps it would be best to take her and be done with it, slake the thirst in his blood.

Perhaps the dark road was the best choice.

He exhaled, tired of the war that had waged since he’d escaped Mazie’s room by the skin of his teeth yesterday. Somehow, he had come to his senses in the midst of all that wildness, had recognized her desperation for what it was. Sorrow and fear and the need for escape.

And attraction. There was that too, in spades.

The files. He tried to shake off his preoccupation and concentrate on the paper before him, indeed, written in the King’s own English. The inflammatory, insolent nature of the missive should calm his ardor, if he could manage to read it fully. Written by a former tenant, the missive made all kinds of accusations against Harrington.

It was quite disheartening, to be truthful.

“A caller for you, my lord.”

He looked up, and damn if his eyes did not seek out Mazie in the process. “Who is it?”

“Mr. Vale, sir.”

“I will meet him in my study.” He started to rise then sat back down. “On second thought, bring him to me.”

Unable to resist the temptation any longer, Trent finally settled his gaze on Mazie.

Chapter Thirteen

“Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is good company along the way.” George Savile

The butler hurried away and Trent finally turned to her. It was a brief glance, but powerful, full of heat and challenge, and made Mazie’s toes curl in her slippers. There was a wealth of emotion underneath all his cool indifference.

He wanted to test her, did he? Watch her reaction to whatever Mr. Vale had to say? Well, Trent would be greatly disappointed if he thought she would compromise Roane’s safety in any way.

Even if they had found Roane she would