Undoing of a Lady (13 page)

Lizzie looked at him. “You want me to leave with you?”

Nat held her gaze. “You cannot stay here, Lizzie,” he said. “Not now. It is impossible for you to live at Fortune Hall whilst Tom is here behaving like this.”

Lizzie’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose so,” she said. “Damn him.” She looked up, an angry spark in her eyes. “I will go and stay with Alice and Miles until Tom drinks himself to death.”

“A charming solution,” Nat said, “but sadly, one that might take some time.” He shook his head. “Alice and Miles are too much in love to wish for a
permanent houseguest. You would be better off married to me.”

Lizzie was silent for a moment, but when she looked at him there was a spark of amusement in her green eyes that reminded him of the way things had once been between them before it all became so intolerably complicated.

“How neatly you have maneuvered me,” she said lightly, “until I can see I have no choice.” She sat up, out of his arms. “I don’t have a choice, do I, Nat?”

“No,” Nat said. “Not anymore. You owe me fifty thousand pounds,” he added, “and I know you always pay your debts.”

He saw her fingers pause in their fidgety pleating of the bedspread. She looked at him, head on one side. There was a different glint in her eyes now. She was surprised and a little taken aback. She had not been expecting this. Lizzie was accustomed to seeing the gentler side of him. Normally he kept the iron fist for his work and she saw the velvet glove. Not anymore.

“How so?” she said.

“I called off my marriage to Flora because of what happened between us,” Nat said. “I lost her fortune. So now I am claiming yours in its place.”

She chewed her lip. “I see. And what is in this arrangement for me?”

“You escape your brother,” Nat said, “and thwart his plans to steal your money.”

“So that you can steal it in his place?” She was cool, noncommittal.

“It’s the best offer you’ll get,” Nat said. “I’m tired of being nice about this, Lizzie.”

She gave him another sideways look from those slanted green eyes. He could see that his determination had intrigued her rather than repelled her. It excited her and appealed to the wilder side of her nature. Suddenly, violently, he wanted to kiss her. Tom’s orgy, whilst repellent in some respects, had, inevitably, aroused him and he did not resist the impulse. He took her by the shoulders, feeling the slippery slide of the swansdown wrap beneath his fingers and beneath that the slenderness of her. He laid his mouth against hers. She felt cool and sweet and her skin smelled of roses. Nat took a gentle handful of her hair and buried his face in it, inhaling the scent. It was soft, slipping in sleek threads through his fingers, catching against his lips like silken bonds. He raised his head and kissed her again and this time her lips parted against his and the hunger roared through him and he kissed her deeply, searchingly, desire leaping to further desire, and she reached for him and drew him down onto the bed beside her, her hands moving over him, encouraging him out of his clothes even as she kissed him with a feverish need.

“I want you,” she whispered and the robe slipped from her and Nat pressed his lips to the hollow at her
throat and to the freckles that dusted her shoulders. He pushed down her nightgown and saw that she had freckles scattered across the swell of her breasts as well and for some reason that excited him beyond measure as he lowered his head to lick and kiss them and she writhed beneath the caress of his mouth and tongue.

He had shed his jacket and now she was tugging at his shirt so that she could slide her hands beneath it and touch his naked skin. She was wild, insatiable, nipping and kissing him, running her fingers over him in blatant curiosity, her nightgown long gone, her alabaster-white skin stung pink with passion and the effect of his kisses. He was enormously aroused, even more so as Lizzie’s hand closed about his erection, as curious and questing as she had been in her exploration of the rest of his body.

“Not now. Not this time…” He knew if she touched him he would explode and he did not want that. Not this time. Later there would be time for her to learn and discover and for him to study every inch of her.

When they were married he would keep her in his bed until they were both sated.

The thought almost sent him straight over the edge.

He eased back a little and ran his hands down the length of her naked body, over the curve of her breasts and the gentle swell of her stomach and the glorious arch of her hips. She felt soft beneath his hands, delicate and yet with a core of strength that he knew would never break. He cupped her small
breasts, holding them up so that his lips and tongue could plunder and ravish them, and he heard her moan. His hands slid to her waist, then down again in greedy demand over her hips and thighs and he pushed her legs apart, readying her.

And then he felt her pause and go very still.

The hesitation in her, the fear he suddenly sensed, cut through his arousal like a knife. He drew back. She lay spread beneath him, tumbled and abandoned, her body utterly open to him in the pale flare of the candlelight. Her limbs were pale golden in the light except for where the touch of his mouth had nipped her skin to pink. The soft hair at the juncture of her thighs was even more defiantly red than the cloud of auburn that swathed her shoulders. She lay completely, strikingly still, not even pressing her thighs together to hide the petals of her sex that were so blatantly, temptingly exposed to him. Nat swallowed hard and forced his gaze to her face. The dizzy, unfocused, sensual look had fled from her eyes leaving something that looked like apprehension and alarm.

Understanding swept through him and with it a deep tenderness. The last time—
her first time
—had been fierce and mindless and intense. They had both been lost in the experience at the time but now, perhaps, Lizzie was afraid remembering the mutual violence and greed of their encounter. She had no comparisons to make, no experience on which to
draw. He had to make it good for her and show her that making love was not always like that.

“Lizzie.” He gathered her to him, feeling the slick heat and the smoothness of her body, trying to ignore the arousing effect of her nipples pressing against his chest and the hot, sweet nakedness of her in his arms. He stroked her hair. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I didn’t think last time, but now I will be gentle, I swear it. I won’t hurt you.”

He felt her shiver a little but he kept up the rhythmic, soothing stroke of her hair and after a few moments he felt her body shift a little and relax against his; a change came over her, the tension seemed to flow out of her leaving her feeling warm and soft and acquiescent. He drew back to look at her face and saw that her eyes were closed now. Her head rested against his shoulder and her hair spilled over his chest. Her lips were parted and her breath was coming a little more quickly now. Nat kissed her gently and felt her response with a kick through the blood that rearoused him in one second flat. He laid her back against the pillows and feathered kisses over her face and neck, working his way down her body with a light, teasing touch that soon had her squirming restlessly on the covers and reaching for him again. He evaded her. He wanted her to be so dazed with desire this time that she was aware of nothing but their mutual need. He swirled his tongue in her belly button and pressed a stealthy kiss in the
sweet curve of her hip and another against her inner thigh. Her legs fell apart again irresistibly to the slide of his fingers and the glide of his lips. He could smell her scent and it almost drove him wild with longing but he held himself back, using his tongue on her very core, stroking, caressing, thrusting, blowing softly on her damp flesh, teasing her with tantalizing promise as he led her to the very edge of pleasure and then drew back. He watched her reactions, saw her entire body start to glow and burn up with sensual heat as he drove her closer and closer, then he sucked on her, gentle, harder, alternating the sensations as she hung helplessly at his mercy, as her hips twitched and she desperately searched for the surcease he kept just beyond her grasp. Her hands came down to pull his hair and force his tongue deep inside her and her hips arched and she gave a scream of pure, keening pleasure and fell sharp and fast into her climax.

After that there was no restraining her. She grabbed his shoulders, scored his back with her fingernails and dug her fingers into his buttocks as she pulled him inside her. He could feel the pulse of her climax still shaking her body and it almost destroyed his resolve but still he fought for control. He obliged her with a couple of inches and no more, and she swore at him in so unmaidenly a fashion that he would have laughed had he not been so desperate himself. He moved into her with infinite slowness and unhurried strokes until her silken walls gripped

him even tighter and he knew that she was going to climax again and then he, too, was lost in a maelstrom of sensation as the pleasure crashed through him and everything was swept away.

L
IZZIE LAY AWAKE IN
Nat’s arms, her eyes open wide, her gaze following the shift and dance of the shadows on the wall. The house was silent. Tom’s cronies must finally have drunk themselves into oblivion.

Nat was asleep. Lizzie turned slightly in order to look at him and felt him shift and draw her closer against his body. The sight of him defenseless in sleep made her heart feel hollow with love and tenderness. He held her gently and the solid warmth of his body against hers should have comforted her but oddly it only made her feel more alone. The tears pricked her eyes.

Once could have been considered a mistake, Lizzie thought. Twice was not so easy to explain away. She must at least be honest with herself and admit that she had made love with Nat because she had wanted him. In her grief over Sir Montague’s death and all the memories it had unlocked for her, she had turned to Nat utterly as a means to block out the pain of the present and the uncertainty of the future. But then, in the moment when he had been about to take her, she had not been able to deceive herself any longer. She had remembered that Nat did not love her and she had drawn back, suddenly
acutely aware that if she gave herself to him again, with all the love that was in her, it would only make her feel more cheated and hollow that he did not love her in return.

Nat had misunderstood, of course. He had assumed that she was nervous because the only previous time that they had made love it had been wild and elemental and violent in its feral intensity. He had thought that she was fearful of being hurt. It was an understandable mistake to make—it was gentle and generous of him—and she had not corrected him, for what could she say?

I am fearful because I know you do not love me as I love you and I am afraid that if I respond to you with everything in my heart you will see my love and see me in all my terrifying vulnerability….

She could not bear to expose that to him. Far easier to expose her body physically than to strip her feelings naked and tell Nat the truth. So she had pretended that she was scared and she had allowed him to lull her with his kisses and caresses, she had closed her mind and simply allowed her body to feel, and it had been magical and deeply pleasurable and yet at the end, even as her body ached with satisfaction, she was left feeling empty and wanting to cry. She did not want to feel so sad, so distant from Nat, but even as she sought the warmth of his body she felt her soul move further from him.

She would marry Nat now, of course. He had
spelled the matter out to her in brutal detail. He needed her money and in return he would give her protection against Tom’s vicious, dangerous ways, the threat that Tom had demonstrated so clearly tonight. Oddly this bargain, with no emotion on either side, was more comfortable to her than any arguments about pregnancy or honor or reputation. It was a business arrangement now, pure and simple. Or—Lizzie looked down at their naked, entwined bodies—not so pure, perhaps. It was a business arrangement with insatiable lust as the sweetener, if only until they tired of one another.

Just for a moment she panicked because she knew in her heart of hearts that this was not what she wanted from Nat. She thought about escaping, about running away from Nat and the agreement they had tacitly made. She eased a little way out of his grip, putting her thoughts into action before they were even properly formed. Running away was a habit with her, after all. But then Nat’s hand snaked out and clamped about her wrist and she saw in the moonlight that his eyes were wide and steady and fixed on her face.

“Running from me again?” His tone was pleasant but brooked no argument. “You have made your bed, Lizzie, and now you must lie in it with me.”

As he spoke he was drawing her beneath him, pinning her with his body above and against hers, and Lizzie felt her bewitched and traitorous senses start to spin even before his lips came down on hers with

renewed need and painful desire. He was hard for her again and the knowledge filled her with a wicked sense of power. She did not need to think about the things Nat could
not
give her. She knew now how much he wanted her and how much it tormented him. That would have to be enough. She could feel the edge of desperation in his touch—it seemed that as such a restrained and controlled man he could not quite believe what she could do to him. When he slid into her he groaned aloud and devoured her as though his very life was in her hands. Lizzie let the delicious sensations of mutual ravishment fill her and take her but as Nat came, racked by spasm after spasm, she held him and thought again,
It is enough
.

It would have to be enough.

July—2 weeks later

F
LORA WAS OUT OF BREATH
as she approached High Top Farm. She was nervous and she also felt hot and flustered, for the night was humid and the air itself seemed too thick to breathe. The last shreds of twilight were fading from the night sky and no moon or stars showed. Away on the horizon there was a flicker of lightning.

Flora shivered. Only the direst necessity could have prompted her to come out alone at night, especially on a night like this when there was something strange and elemental in the air. She had been to High Top three times since the day of her canceled wedding a month ago. On the first occasion she had hidden from sight and had watched Lowell working in the fields. He had glanced in her direction on more than one occasion and she had had a lowering feeling that he knew she was there, but he had not broken off his work to come over and speak with her. On the second occasion they had had a short conversation
and she had pretended that she was passing during a walk on the hills. She had known that Lowell had not believed her even though he had not challenged her and she had blushed extremely red.

On the third occasion he had told her bluntly not to call again.

Flora paused by the five-barred gate that led into the farmyard. Lights showed in the kitchen. She had seen the interior of the farmhouse on her last visit, when Lowell had drawn her aside from the curious eyes of his farmhands and had then proceeded to tell her in no uncertain terms that she was not welcome at High Top. The kitchen had been exactly as she would have imagined it; neat, clean, functional and lacking the feminine touch. She had longed to pick a posy of summer wildflowers to soften the bare acreage of the wooden table. She had felt strange when she had realized that she had never been in a kitchen before. At home it was the realm of the servants and her mother had never permitted her to visit there.

The gate opened silently to her touch for it was well oiled. She would expect that from Lowell Lister for he kept his farm running smoothly and efficiently. Flora found that she was tiptoeing toward the door, trying to avoid making any sound, and that struck her as amusing for in a moment she would knock—assuming that her hands did not shake too much—and would alert Lowell to the fact that she was there, and then she
would have to explain…The nervousness pressed on her chest again, making her catch her breath.

He would think her mad.

He would think her desperate, which she was.

Several dogs barked loudly inside the house and suddenly the door was thrown wide and they streaked out into the yard, circling and barking aggressively. Flora gave a little scream. She did not like dogs. They frightened her.

“Meg, Rowan, here to me!” Lowell’s sharp command subdued them and they slunk back to his side with a wary eye still on the interloper. For that was what she was, Flora thought. She did not belong here.

“Miss Minchin?” There was incredulity in Lowell’s voice as he held up the lantern and the light fell on her face and pooled around her. “What the devil are you doing here at this hour?” His tone quickened. “Has there been an accident? Is something wrong?”

“No,” Flora’s teeth were chattering. “I needed to see you.”

Lowell looked exasperated. “Miss Minchin…Flora, this is ridiculous. I told you last time. You must not come here.”

“Well, I
am
here,” Flora said, with more bravado than she was feeling, “and I am not going until you hear me out.”

They stared at one another for a long moment whilst the dogs circled and growled and then Lowell gave a frustrated sigh and stood aside to permit her
to precede him into the house. He did not invite her to sit down. The dogs slunk off back to their box.

Flora wrapped her arms about her as she stood in the neat little kitchen. There were the remnants of a meal of bread and cheese on the table and a pitcher of ale. She wondered how much Lowell had drunk. Not enough to make him receptive to her suggestions, she thought. He looked all too sober, standing there with a mixture of anger and resignation in his eyes, running one hand impatiently over his tawny fair hair as he waited for her to speak.

“I know what you are thinking,” she said suddenly. “You think that I am here because I have developed a
tendre
for you and now I am following you around in a most embarrassing way.”

“Haven’t you?” Lowell said abruptly. “Aren’t you? Just because I was foolish enough to take pity on you that morning of your wedding.” He sounded savagely annoyed with himself.

Pity.
Flora felt shaken, naive, but she was not going to waver now.

“That is neither here nor there,” she said. “What I am here for is to make you a proposal. I need someone to marry me and I want it to be you.”

She was aware that the words had come out all wrong, but it was difficult for her to keep calm under the scrutiny of Lowell’s cool blue gaze. He is going to refuse me, she thought, and the panic welled up in her throat.

“Why?” Lowell said after a moment. He paced across the kitchen, his boots sounding loud on the red tiled floor. He shot her a look. “Are you pregnant?”

“No, of course not.” Flora could feel her whole body blushing. She knew perfectly well how such a situation might occur; she had simply not done it herself. “I haven’t…I don’t…I’ve never…”

“I didn’t think so,” Lowell said. There was a half smile on his lips that made Flora think that he, on the other hand might have a great deal of experience.

“Then why suggest it?” she snapped, pride overcoming her embarrassment. She turned away from him. This was all going wrong already. She might have known it would never work. She did not even know why she had thought to propose marriage to him. She barely knew Lowell Lister and now it seemed that pity had been his overriding emotion toward her. She clenched her fists tightly at her side, wanting to leave—preferably through a large hole in the floor that could just open up and swallow her—but Lowell was between her and the door.

“So if you are not pregnant, Flora—” Lowell’s drawl seemed to have become even more pronounced, sending hot shivers along her skin “—then why would you urgently require a husband?”

“Because in six weeks’ time I will lose half of my dowry to Tom Fortune,” Flora said, glaring at him, “and since I am to lose control of my money one way
or the other I would rather it be to a man I chose rather than to a blackguard like that.”

Lowell inclined his head. “Sound logic.”

“Thank you,” Flora said huffily.

“So any man would do?” Lowell pursued.

Flora could see another trap yawning. Her temper tightened. “No, of course not! I chose you.” She shot him another look. “Do you need me to flatter you and say why?”

Again that half smile twitched at Lowell’s lips. “I think I do,” he said, “for believe me, you would make the worst farmer’s wife in the world, Flora.” He looked at her and under his appraising glance Flora felt her body prickle with mortification.

“How do you know I would be bad at it?” she challenged. “I haven’t tried yet.”

“You are completely unaccustomed to living under straitened circumstances,” Lowell said. “You have no idea how to work.”

“Circumstances would not be straitened if we had my fifty thousand pounds,” Flora said. “Neither of us would need to work.”

“I don’t want to play at farming like a gentleman,” Lowell said, the contempt dripping from his voice. “I need to work hard, Flora. I want to.” He came close to her and she could smell the summer scent of cut grass on him, mingled with something else more primal that seemed to cause a hollow ache in her stomach.

“You’re a lady,” Lowell went on. “You know
nothing of rising at five in the morning, winter as well as summer, to light the fires and clean the house and milk the cows and make the cheese. You know
nothing
of working in the fields until your bones ache or riding to market to sell the fresh produce or of plucking a chicken for the pot.” He turned away. “You are no use to me as a wife, Flora.”

“Very well, then,” Flora said. “I am not going to beg.” She certainly was not going to stay to hear any more. She had evidently made a grave miscalculation in thinking that Lowell would want to marry her for her money if for nothing else. No one she knew had ever turned down a fortune of fifty thousand pounds. It was extraordinary.

She walked toward the door, but when she got there she stopped and turned back. Lowell was watching her, his face quite expressionless, his jaw set hard.

“You asked why I chose you,” Flora said. “I chose you because I thought you were lonely.” She gestured toward the box where the dogs lay curled around each other now, snoring peacefully. “What self-respecting farmer allows his working dogs to sleep in the house?” she said. “You must need the company.” She put her hand on the latch, preparing to leave.

“They are a damn sight less trouble than taking a lady to wife,” Lowell said.

Flora turned back and looked at him. He sighed, and ran a hand over his hair again, then pushed a chair out from the table with his foot. Flora accepted
the unspoken invitation to sit and Lowell poured her a beaker of ale, taking the seat next to her. After a moment she tried the ale. It tasted vile. She almost spat it out.

“I don’t make fruit juices,” Lowell said, “elderflower and blackcurrant and the like. My mother did.” He looked at Flora. “Perhaps she could give you some hints. Or perhaps not.” He sighed. “She has just taken the journey you want to do in reverse. She’s a lady now, thanks to my sister’s money and her grand marriage. She would never in a thousand years understand why a lady would want to be a farmer’s wife.”

“I’m not a lady,” Flora said. “My father made his money in trade and my grandfather was a walking-stick maker. Ladies look down on me.”

Lowell laughed. “Now that I do understand.” He sobered. “Even so, you have never had to work for a living.”

“It’s true that I have never had to work,” Flora said, “but I am willing to try.” Her heart was pounding, absolutely thundering in her ears, at the thought that Lowell might even be considering her proposition. It made her wonder whether she had assumed he would reject her and so she had never really been prepared for the shock of his acceptance.

Lowell took her hand and turned it over, his work-roughened fingers abrasive against the softness of her palm. “I can see that you’ve never worked,” he said as his fingers traced gentle circles over her skin.

Flora had a sudden overwhelming image of what his hands would feel like on the rest of her soft, pampered body and almost fainted. She took a gulp of ale to steady herself. It tasted slightly less vile this time.

“Is there someone else that you would rather wed?” she blurted out. “Lizzie Scarlet used to flirt with you, though she is married now. Today,” she added, in some surprise, for she had only just remembered that Lady Elizabeth and Nat Waterhouse had wed that very morning in the private chapel at Scarlet Park.

“Lizzie flirted with everyone,” Lowell said. “It meant nothing.” His tight expression eased a little. “I thought that might have been why you came to find me tonight,” he added. He glanced at her with his blue, blue eyes and Flora felt the cool shivers ripple over her skin again. Outside there was a sudden flash of lightning, livid against the hills. The crockery on the dresser rattled at the crash of thunder and the dogs woke up and barked until Lowell hushed them.

“Why…? What?” Flora had jumped, too, at the cacophony of noise. She felt confused. “What did you think I came here for?”

“For consolation,” Lowell said. He was still holding her hand. “Because Nat Waterhouse is married.”

“Oh,” Flora said, looking at their linked hands. “No.”

“Just no?” Lowell sounded amused. His thumb was rubbing gently over Flora’s palm in distracting strokes.

“I…um…” Flora blinked. A hot, heavy feeling
was beating through her blood. “I like Lord Waterhouse,” she said, “but I didn’t choose to marry him the way I chose you.”

There was a moment’s stillness broken by another huge crash of thunder and a sudden engulfing downpour of rain, hammering on the roof of the farmhouse. Flora met Lowell’s eyes and saw that the amusement was still there, but behind it was something bright and intense and breathtaking. Flora found she was shaking. She withdrew her hand from Lowell’s rather quickly and took refuge in the beaker of ale.

“I am glad,” Lowell said. “It made me angry to think that you only sought me out for comfort.”

“I told you,” Flora said, “I want to marry you so that I don’t have to give Tom Fortune half my fifty thousand pounds.”

“Oh, yes.” Lowell was smiling. He stretched, muscles rippling, hands behind his head. “I remember.”

For some reason the panic that had filled Flora earlier now came back with a vengeance and she jumped to her feet. “I must go,” she said. “It is late and my parents think me abed and I cannot afford to be seen out alone at night.”

“You cannot go yet,” Lowell said. “You will be soaked before you go five paces. Wait until the rain stops,” he added, “and I will escort you back.”

“You can’t,” Flora said. “If someone saw us together—”

Lowell stood up. He was so close to her, his
presence so strong and powerful, that Flora tried to take a step back and bumped into the dresser.

“You are not walking back on your own at night,” he said. He cupped her face between his hands. There was an expression in his eyes of tenderness and exasperation and it made Flora go weak at the knees.

“You could marry anyone you wanted,” Lowell whispered. “You are beautiful and rich and sweet and brave…” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Why me, Flora?”

Flora braced herself against the dresser and looked up into his face. No more prevarication, she thought, no more pride, no more excuses.

“When you found me that day,” she said, “the day I canceled my wedding, I felt as though I had been given a second chance. Up until then I had not really lived. Oh, I had gone to balls and parties and gone shopping and paid visits and given the servants orders and done a hundred and one things that
ladies
—” she emphasized the word “—of my age and class have done before me, but I had not done a single thing that had made me glad to be alive.” She swallowed hard. “I do not wish to sound ungrateful,” she said. “The possession of money is an enormous blessing, but I do not wish to live off my fortune forever, doing something and nothing, sitting in my drawing room, entertaining my friends and wondering when my life is going to start until I have the vapors out of sheer frustration.” She looked at
Lowell. His eyes were moving over her face as though he was committing her to heart.