Waking Up With a Rake (8 page)

She might not have much experience with men, but she’d been around horses enough to know what that hardness meant. Olivia pulled back and, slack-jawed, stared up at him.

He smiled down at her, wickedness sparkling in his dark eyes.

She pushed against his chest and he released her. The low ache inside her thumped in disappointment, but she tamped down her body’s bewildering response.

“Yes, well, thank you very much for your assistance with Molly, my lord.”

“Rhys,” he corrected. “Now more than ever, you ought to call me that.”

“Now more than ever, I ought not.”

“Just because we shared a kiss?”

His tone implied it was a small thing. Perhaps for him it was, but for Olivia, the glory of his mouth on hers fairly stood the world on its head.

“If that kiss means so little to you, it should be easy for you to pretend it didn’t happen,” she said as she walked over to where Duncan had wandered head-down, munching on winter-brown grass.

“It’s hard to unring a bell. We kissed. It happened,” Rhys said. “And I didn’t say it didn’t mean anything. I simply meant in the grand scheme of things, a kiss is not of much moment. I won’t report it to the Duke of Clarence, if that’s what’s troubling you.”

The Duke of Clarence was the last thing on her mind.

“And in any case, if I did report it to the duke, he should be happy about it,” he said. “That kiss confirms your untouched state.”

She looked up sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Simply that you kiss like a virgin.”

“And well I should because I am.” Irritation scraped her spine. His kiss had been a revelation, a glimpse into an unexplored sensual world, dark with mystery and potent with promise. Her kiss evidently revealed how little she knew about that world.

“At least, thanks to you, I’m now a knowledgeable virgin.” She tried to corral her hair into some semblance of order, but without the pins that had escaped during her wild ride, it was a hopeless gesture. “I can recognize the kiss of a rake when I receive one.”

“I hope you’ll try not to find yourself in situations that lend themselves to another rake’s kiss. You can’t trust those sorts, you know.” He snorted as he mounted Duncan and leaned down to offer her his arm. “We should get you back to the house.”

“Riding double?”

“Duncan can handle the weight,” he assured her.

She didn’t doubt that. She was more concerned about being so close to Rhys Warrington. Just the thought of it had her belly turning cartwheels.

“If Mr. Thatcher arrives before we do, no doubt your family will be worried.”

Olivia sighed. Drat the man, he was right. Her mother would pitch a fit if she heard Molly had been returned to the stable injured and riderless before Olivia appeared. Beatrice Symon would never listen patiently to Mr. Thatcher’s explanation. She’d be certain that Olivia was bleeding in a ditch somewhere and it all could have been avoided if only she’d listened to her mother.

Olivia’s mother in hysterics was a sight to avoid at all costs.

She grasped Rhys’s forearm, stepped on his foot in the stirrup, and let him heft her onto the scupper behind him, both her legs draped sedately on one side of the horse. Her skirt was wide enough to accommodate riding astride, but after the strange ache she’d experienced when he kissed her, she didn’t think snuggling up to Lord Rhys’s backside with her legs spread was a wise course.

Since she couldn’t hug the horse with her knees, that meant she had to hug Rhys in order to stay on Duncan’s back. Gingerly, she slipped one arm around his lean waist.

He claimed her hand with his.

“Hold on.”

Rhys nudged his mount into a quick trot. Olivia was forced to wrap her other arm around him and cling tightly lest she be bounced off Duncan’s rear. After a few yards, Rhys slowed his mount to a sedate walk, but she was obliged to continue hugging him in case he kicked Duncan into a canter without warning.

“Now then, this isn’t completely unpleasant, is it?” he said.

Far from unpleasant. The faint sun had disappeared completely behind a growing cloud bank, but Rhys Warrington threw off as much heat as a roaring fire.

“You’re wide enough through the shoulders to provide an admirable windbreak, I’ll give you that,” she said.

“One of my proudest accomplishments,” he quipped. “I live to serve, milady.”

“You know full well that I’m simply Miss Symon. I’m no lady.”

“In all the ways that matter you are,” he said, his voice rumbling through his broad back and into her ear that was pressed against it. “You may as well get used to a title, you know. You’ll have to answer to Your Highness if you wed the royal duke.”

With her cheek resting on Rhys’s strong back and her arms around his waist, Olivia decided the prospect of an aging groom, royal or not, was more depressing than usual. When she kissed the Duke of Clarence for the first time, would he make her toes curl?

Somehow, she doubted it.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he said when they’d ridden in silence for several paces.

“They’re worth far more than that.” Embarrassment heated her cheeks. She couldn’t admit she’d been thinking about his kiss so soon after trying to convince him to pretend it didn’t happen.

When they reached the hedgerow, Rhys reined Duncan to a stop. He tossed a leg over the horse’s head and slid off to retrieve Olivia’s saddle from where it had been trampled into the wintry turf.

She took the opportunity to scoot forward and settle herself astride on Duncan’s saddle. By the time Rhys turned back with the sidesaddle in hand, Olivia had adjusted her skirts to make certain her ankles were modestly covered.

“My turn to handle the reins,” she said with deceptive sweetness. She suspected he disliked not being in control, but after her accident, the sooner she held the reins, the better. She’d be less likely to lose her nerve altogether.

His brows knit together. “Duncan can be a handful.”

So
can
I
danced on her tongue. After her abysmal showing as an equestrienne this morning, the boast died before it could pass her lips.

“Very well.” She held the reins out to him. “But let’s see how fast you go when you’re on the scupper for a change.”

He grinned, put a foot in the stirrup, and swung himself up behind her with her sidesaddle balanced on his left shoulder. He steadied it with his left hand and reached his right arm around her waist, cinching her close.

“Actually, with this saddle in tow, I’m rather shorthanded. It appears you do need to keep the reins,” he said, his breath warm in her ear. “But bear in mind, if I tumble off, I’m likely to take you with me, so no jumping this time.”

“Being unhorsed once a day is more than enough.” Her voice caught, thinking of poor Molly. As soon as Olivia explained to her mother that there had been an accident, but that she was fine, she intended to spend the rest of the day seeing that Molly had hot mash and a gentle rubdown and all the care she required to mend.

They rode in silence, and after only a few paces, Olivia decided it hadn’t been a very good idea to change places with Rhys after all. His chest expanded and contracted against her spine. His strong thighs were tight around her hips. And his arm at her waist felt strangely proprietary. Even on a dance floor, she’d never been so physically close to a man.

Every fiber of her body was on high alert. She was acutely aware of his deep breathing, even if his warm breath hadn’t been washing over her nape. His splay-fingered hand touched the slightly ticklish spot at the base of her ribs, but she didn’t feel at all like laughing. That odd fluttery feeling was back, threatening to swamp her chest.

A cold wind soughed over the rolling hills. The clouds that had been gathering began to spit rain at them, stinging needles of it with a hint of ice thrown in for good measure.

“I think we might chance a bit more speed,” Rhys suggested. “Unless you prefer a drenching.”

She squeezed the gelding with her thighs, and he answered with a brisk trot that quickly smoothed into an even, rocking canter.

Olivia loved to ride, loved the speed, the freedom, the thrill of power that controlling such a large animal gave her. Having a large man at her back only intensified the experience. She and Rhys moved as one, settling into the rolling rhythm of Duncan’s gait.

The effect was decidedly…unvirginal.

She was relieved when they pulled into the stable just as the rain turned to snow. Rhys dismounted and then helped her down, holding her longer than necessary before allowing the tips of her boots to touch the hard-packed stable floor. She moved away from him quickly and stood at the open doorway.

“Poor Molly,” she said, looking out at the gathering whiteness.

“You there, boy,” Rhys called to the stable lad who was mucking out stalls. “Have you a cart that will hold Miss Symon’s mare? She’s been injured and needs to be brought in without having to walk through this weather.”

“Right-o, guv.”

He told the boy where he might find Mr. Thatcher and the two horses he was leading back. When Rhys promised him a crown if he managed to bring the mare back safely in less than half an hour, the lad fairly flew to the other part of the stable where the draft horses were kept.

“A crown?” It touched Olivia that Rhys seemed as concerned for Molly as she was. “For a man who lives by the turn of a card, you’re liberal with your gratuities.”

“I’ve been winning of late. Why not spread the good fortune around?”

“And what do you do when you lose, my lord?”

“I buck up and bear it.” He propped one booted foot on a stall slat and looked out the stable door at the white flurries. “But I don’t lose often. And what happened to calling me Rhys?”

“We’re close enough to the house that it’s time I stop addressing you so familiarly.” Olivia hugged her arms around herself against the wet cold that drafted in the open door. “Count upon it. You’ll lose our wager.”

“That’s yet to be seen.”

“No, it’s not. The wager hangs upon a willful act. I have purposed in my heart not to call you by your Christian name in public. Therefore, you’ll lose,” she said. “You’re a sporting man. Lay odds on which of us has more self-control. The virgin or the rake?”

His dark-eyed gaze swept over her, sending a delicious tingle across her skin. “You might be surprised to learn how much self-control I’m exercising at this very moment.”

“Oh really?” She knew it was dangerous to bait him like this, but the same reckless part of her that rode astride when she could and took jumps when she shouldn’t plowed ahead. “That must be difficult for you. I can’t imagine you have much practice with restraint.”

“I don’t, but my current quandary is your fault.” He ran a hand over his dark hair, dusting away a few snowflakes, and Olivia’s palm itched to do the same just to learn what those thick locks felt like. She’d never much thought about a man’s hair before, but Lord Rhys had such a glorious head of it. “You see, I’ve been thinking about something you said earlier.”

His words jerked her back from her musings over the man’s hair. “What’s that?”

One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “That our kiss had made you a knowledgeable virgin.”

Olivia’s chest tightened. Whether it was because of his words or the way his dark hair fell forward and obscured one eye, giving him the disreputable aspect of pirate king, she couldn’t be certain. Either way, she didn’t trust herself to speak.

“The idea that you’re a knowledgeable virgin, that’s not true, you know,” he said. “Your sensual education is still woefully thin. We’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible between a man and a woman.”

He came and stood next to her, close but not touching. Olivia felt pulled toward him like a daisy to the sun, but she didn’t give in to the attraction. The snow fell heavier now, in large fluffy flakes that attached itself to the grass and trees and sucked up all sound in its heavy whiteness.

Then Rhys’s seductive voice broke the silence. “What would you say if I were to tell you there is much more for you to discover?”

She swallowed hard. “Undoubtedly, there is. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. Innocence and ignorance don’t always go hand in hand.”

“Yet they are frequently seen in close company. Few virgins are well-versed in the sensual arts.”

“That’s to be expected.”

“I would have thought you to be the sort who abhors any gap in her education,” he said, his voice a rumbling purr. “I could teach you, you know. There’s so much delight to be had. And through it all, it’s possible for you to remain technically pure—”

“But not morally pure.”

He shrugged. “Semantics.”

“Reality,” she countered, squaring her shoulders. “When two people share a part of themselves in the manner you’re suggesting, it’s impossible to get that part back. Or do you really believe we can so separate our bodies from our minds and hearts?”

He was silent for the space of several heartbeats. Then he turned and cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. Olivia hoped he thought the way she trembled was due to the cold, but it wasn’t. Her insides were jumping about like a spring lamb loosed in the meadow for the first time.