Waking Up With a Rake (27 page)

But at least at his father’s Scottish holding they’d be surrounded by loyal servants and miles of rugged countryside dotted with crofters who owed their living to the distant Lord Warrington. It would undoubtedly be safer for Olivia there than this cottage in the middle of nowhere.

Now that he’d had time to consider it, Rhys wasn’t so sure the attacks on her at Barrowdell happened because someone wanted her match with the Duke of Clarence to go away. Those thorns seemed like a message, and a more personal method of dispatch than a political assassin would use.

He rose, leaving the rest of his sausages untouched. There was nothing wrong with the hearty country fare. The thought of someone targeting Olivia made him lose his appetite. The sooner he had her firmly ensconced behind the gray granite stones of Braebrooke Cairn, the better.

“Gather up your things,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

“Just like that?”

“What do you want? A trumpet fanfare?” Couldn’t she see that he was just trying to spare her, both from his family’s vitriol and a killer’s further attempts on her life?

“What I want,” she said, her eyes blazing, “is a husband who isn’t an insufferable tyrant.”

“Too bad. What you’re stuck with is me. I’ll be back with the coach and driver in a quarter-hour.” He strode to the door. “Don’t make me wait.”

After he closed the door behind him, he heard the unmistakable crash of crockery on the heavy oak. No doubt Mr. MacDermot would add that to their bill.

Across the short distance between the cottage and the forge, Mr. MacDermot called out to him. “Mornin’, lad. I see yer lass has a temper. But dinna think ye suffer alone. Ye bear the pangs that have afflicted all men. No matter who a man weds, he wakes to find himself marrit to someone else.”

Rhys wondered how he found himself married at all.

Oh, that’s right
, he thought with a scowl.
Absinthe
.

***

Olivia stared out the coach window as they bumped along on the winter-rough road. It wasn’t quite cold enough for the muddy ruts to freeze, so the conveyance’s wheels were occasionally sucked into gelatinous goo. Fortunately the team of horses managed to keep their momentum going, though each time they slowed, she expected to be ordered out to lighten the load while the pair of bays struggled up increasingly steep grades.

The Scottish countryside was stark and misted with cold rain that occasionally found its way in around the isinglass. The moist breath of winter made her hunker beneath her woolen cloak and bury her hands deeper in her fur muff.

Still, she might have found the coach trip pleasing, because she always enjoyed seeing new places. But for the fact that she had to share the small coach with her new lord and master, Rhys Warrington.

Or at least that’s what he seemed to think he was.

She sneaked a glance at him, but he seemed content to sleep away the journey.
Drat
the
man.
This was supposed to be their honeymoon. How could he begin their tenuous marriage first by bullying her and then by ignoring her?

“Checking for holes?” she asked in a loud voice.

He jerked awake and sat upright. “What?” Her new husband rubbed his hand over his damnably handsome face. “Holes in what?”

“Your eyelids, of course. You’ve had them closed for so long I assumed you’d discovered a flaw which required closer study.”

He grimaced at her and then looked out the window. “Time goes by faster when a man sleeps.”

“I find time has wings when I’m having fun,” Olivia said, then muttered under her breath, “which accounts for why this trip feels so interminable.”

“Sorry. I don’t recall pledging to keep you entertained,” Rhys said. “But I did promise to protect you, and that’s what I’m doing.”

He was certainly protecting her from meeting his family. She couldn’t imagine a time or place when she’d be ashamed to have Rhys on her arm. He evidently couldn’t say the same about her, and the sting made it hard to draw a deep breath. Why didn’t he want to bring her into the Warrington fold?

Another gust of cold wet, air slipped into the carriage, and she shivered.

“You’re cold,” he said.

“How observant you are.”

He moved over from the opposite squab to sit beside her and draped a long arm over the seat back behind her. “Come. I’ll warm you.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” He scooted closer so his muscular thigh pressed against hers. “Your lips are turning blue.”

Even through her cloak and the layers of her traveling gown, chemise, and stockings, she could feel the heat of him. “My lips are none of your concern.”

“Yes, they are.” He cupped her chin and turned her head so she had to face him. “All of you is my concern.”

What about her heart? Didn’t he care that he’d hurt her? Did he even know?

He leaned toward her and closed the gap between their mouths, stopping just shy of her lips. He didn’t shut his eyes, didn’t turn his head so their noses wouldn’t bump. He merely peered down at her like a sleek tomcat by a mouse hole.

“If you meant to kiss me, you’ve miscalculated the distance,” she said without moving so much as an eyelash.

“You called me a tyrant this morning. I’m just trying to show you I’m not.” He leaned back with a sigh and stared up at the coach ceiling. “I meant to give you opportunity to accept my kiss by meeting me partway.”

A sob tore from her throat. “If you’re too ashamed of our marriage to introduce me to your family, why would you want to kiss me?”

His face jerked toward her, and she read surprise on his features. “That’s what you think?” He palmed her cheek. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m very proud to have you as my wife.”

A little candle of hope flickered inside her. Then he dropped his hand and the flame guttered.

“I may as well confess to you now that you have nothing to be proud of in your choice of husbands. I’m in disgrace, Olivia. My family doesn’t want to see me.”

“Why?”

In halting sentences, he told her of the less than honorable end to his military career and the disastrous battle near a small French hamlet called Maubeuge.

“There were even whispers of treason in connection with the defeat. I was suspected of espionage, along with two of my friends,” he said dully.

“I don’t believe it,” she said staunchly. Rhys Warrington might have been a rake and a wastrel, but he was no traitor.

He smiled sadly at her. “Thank you for that. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is a cloud on my name, a stain I haven’t been able to scrub clean no matter what I try.”

“If you’re in such disgrace, how did you ever come to be the Duke of Clarence’s representative to me?”

“God knows.” A wall rose up behind his dark eyes and he heaved a sigh. “Actually, the devil may have had more to do with it than the Deity.”

Did he regret the odd turn of fate that threw them together? “It’s how you met me.”

“For which I’m grateful, but I doubt you should be,” he said. “I’m blacklisted by the ton, which hasn’t troubled me much. I was always more at home with the demimonde. But I’m a pariah, Olivia. I haven’t been received in my family’s home since I returned from France.”

Olivia bit her lower lip. Her father may have bundled her off to marry in haste, but she knew he’d welcome her back with open arms. Her mother, too. Once she got over the scandal of an elopement, Beatrice Symon would probably find ways to romanticize the tale of her daughter and the young lord fleeing to the Highlands together. Her family was odd in many ways, but she knew they loved her and would never reject her.

Everything she’d really learned about life until she met Rhys had come from her parents. She might have chafed against some of her mother’s strictures and wished for her father to be home more often, but they still taught her that the world was a safe place and she could count on their support.

Rhys had been taught that the ones who should have trusted him didn’t.

“So you see why I don’t want to present you to my family,” Rhys said. “I can’t be sure of our welcome, and I would not subject you to that.”

She palmed his cheek and turned his head so he had to face her. She felt his pain as if it were her own and realized suddenly why he’d become a libertine. If no one else cared about him, why should he care about himself? His family’s rejection had sent him on a self-destructive downward spiral. She pulled his head down so their lips were an inch or so apart.

“I want you to be sure of your welcome with me.”

He closed the distance between their mouths and claimed hers in a warm, sure kiss.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her over onto his lap. She melted into his embrace, giving herself over to the gentle assault of his tongue.

It was a potent reminder of how wonderfully they’d fit together in other ways. He was hard as iron where her hip pressed up against him.

“I believe you told me once that it’s possible for man to have carnal knowledge of a woman in a moving coach…” she said with a sly smile.

Chapter 25

Rhys’s mouth on hers was a revelation. Now tender, now demanding, inviting her to do the same to him. Her heart hammered so hard, she wasn’t the least cold any longer. She suddenly realized his hand was under her cloak, and it heated her to fever pitch.

While his kisses distracted her, he’d unbuttoned the top three buttons on her traveling ensemble. He teased his fingertips over her skin, grazing the lacy edge of her chemise peeping above her corset. Her nipples ached at his hand’s nearness. He kissed his way along her jaw and down her throat.

His finger slipped under the lace and brushed her nipple, softly at first, then with a more determined thrumming. Longing shot to her core. Her breath hissed in over her teeth.

Desire flared white-hot when he kissed the hollow between her breasts. With his teeth, he caught the ribbon that held her chemise closed and tugged it loose. He nuzzled the linen aside to bare her nipples above her stays. He closed his lips over one and sucked.

The creaking wheels and jostling coach faded around her.

All that mattered was the pounding need. She was hollow with longing.

He took her hand and guided it inside his jacket, down the front of his waistcoat.

He
wants
me
to
touch
him.

She undid his waistcoat as a thrill of power shot through her. His warmth radiated through the fine lawn fabric of his shirt. The image of Rhys naked and ready rose in her mind. His chest was rock hard beneath her palm.

She slid her hand down to discover another part of him was too.

When she stroked him, wishing the woolen trousers didn’t separate her hand from his hot maleness, Rhys stopped nipping at her breasts and raised his head.

“Aren’t you the little minx?”

“Disappointed?”

His gaze sizzled into hers. “Never. What say I lift your skirts and swive you senseless?”

She nodded, too shocked to answer.

Swive.

The deliciously decadent sound of it shivered over her. Oh, yes, being swived senseless was just what she needed.

He slipped a hand under her hem and ran his palm up her leg. Her thin cotton stockings and pantalets were no shield against the shivers that trailed his touch. When he reached mid-thigh and found bare flesh, she gasped at the nearness of his fingers to her throbbing core.

“I didn’t promise to obey you in our wedding vows,” she said with a hitched breath, “but I’ll do whatever you say right now if you promise not to stop.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” His hand moved up to where her pantalets left her crotch bared. He covered her mound with his hand, holding her hot, moist center. A fingertip invaded her soft folds.

She closed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from moaning. Then she realized no one but Rhys was likely to hear her over the pounding of hoofbeats and clatter of the coach. She let her delight slip out of her throat in helpless little sounds.

“That’s it,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble in her ear.

She ought to bridle herself. She ought to be the proper English wife. She ought to insist they wait for a bed and the modesty of nighttime coupling. Hadn’t Mrs. Noddlingham advised that real ladies were merely supposed to tolerate their husbands’ marital attention?

“One must think of the children that may come as a result. Think of the coming week’s menu to distract one’s self from the unseemly invasion. Think that it will be over all the quicker if one closes one’s eyes and lies quite still,”
the worthy Noddlingham advised.

But when Rhys’s fingers moved with exquisite slowness over her secret parts, all she could do was moan like a wanton. She didn’t want it to be over quickly. She welcomed the invasion, and if children were on their horizon, they were the farthest thing from her mind at the moment.