“You aren’t going to get that look on your face every time I mention his name, are you?”
“I don’t know—what look is that?”
The muscles in her face seemed to shift and rearrange themselves. Her eyelids became heavy, her lips thinner, and he would have bet a pony her nose got longer, her delicate jaw suddenly squared.
Godric couldn’t help it, he laughed. “You’re remarkably good at that.”
Her face resumed its natural appearance in less than the blink of an eye and she put another berry in her mouth, chewing stolidly while fixing him with an unblinking glare.
Godric sighed. “No, I won’t give you that look whenever you mention your brother.” He hesitated and then said, “Whenever you mention Gabriel.” The name was like ashes in his mouth but he pushed past the juvenile urge to show it. “Nor will I demonstrate anything but respect for his wife, Drusilla, soon to be my sister-in-law.” He moved aside his unfinished plate and brushed his hands to clear any crumbs.
She held her empty glass toward him.
Godric frowned. “That does not seem like a wise idea.”
Her face took on the mulish expression he already knew presaged her digging in her heels.
“Very well,” he said, picking up the bottle and pouring. “Don’t get that look on your face,” he said, his words a mocking echo of hers.
To his surprise, she laughed. “What look?”
“No,” he said, setting down the bottle. “I’m not the aspiring thespian you are. I could not mimic your expression and do it justice. The only reason I said anything about the wine is because I can see you are not accustomed to drinking it.”
She took a deep gulp before setting down her glass. “I don’t usually drink wine,” she admitted, turning the glass round and round on the wooden table. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t had spirits plenty of times.”
Godric bit back a smile at her boastful tone. “Such as?”
She held up a hand and ticked off her fingers. “Brandy, Irish whiskey—”
“Who the devil would give a young girl hard spirits?”
“Nobody gave them to me. I took them.” She cut him a disarming grin. “I can tell you this because now my father won’t be able to punish me. But the inns in our part of Devon are no mystery to me.” She took a noisy slurp.
“You go drinking at your local inns.”
It was not a question, but she nodded.
“Why?”
“That’s where mills usually are—although sometimes they’re in barns and such.”
“Mills?”
She preened under his surprised glare and took another—too large—swig from her glass. One more mouthful would empty it. At this rate she would be under the table within the hour. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand and smirked at him, reveling in her unladylike behavior. Godric suspected she believed such actions made her appear daring, sophisticated, and devil-may-care. In truth, they made her appear even younger than her nineteen years.
And also adorable.
He flinched away from that unwanted thought and said, “Let me guess, my brother-in-law-to-be takes you to such places?”
“Yes, Gabe’s not stodgy like my father, grandfather, or my uncle Cian or . . . or”—her eyes raked him as if he were an untidy lawn—“like every other man—like you for example.”
“Well, if you count not taking a woman to a fight as stodgy behavior, then you are correct: I am extremely stodgy. Pugilism is not a proper activity for any woman—especially not for an impressionable girl.”
She growled—actually growled at him. “I’m not a girl, my lord. Nor am I any more impressionable than any man my age. And what is so bad about watching two men box one another? How can you say it’s improper?”
“It’s improper for females because it is a male activity.” He gave her the smirk he’d learned annoyed her. “Or have finishing schools suddenly put pugilism on their list of accomplishments? Perhaps somewhere between needlework and watercolors?” Godric gave a genuine laugh at that.
Her eyes glinted dangerously and he knew he should stop teasing her.
“All jesting aside,” he said, banning the smirk from his mouth. “Mills and the places they occur are simply not safe for young ladies like yourself—or even for unworldly or unprepared males.”
“I cannot believe that you truly believe that. You, who have been on the Continent and at war? I know there are many women—even women of my class—who follow the drum. Surely a country at war is far more dangerous than a country inn during a mill?”
Unbidden, Lucia flashed through his mind, her hands covered in the blood of their child. Godric snuffed all thoughts of her—of them—quicker than a candle.
“That is hardly an apt comparison; that was war, not play.” He could barely force the hard, angry words through his lips. “Nor is it play for innocent young ladies to carouse at inns and mills. Do you even know what kind of men frequent such functions?” He hoped to God she didn’t know about some of the behaviors he’d witnessed while attending his share of raucous country mills.
“I am no innocent young lady to be coddled and suffocated,” she retorted.
Godric gave an ugly laugh. “Oh, what are you then, pray?”
Her nostrils flared like a lathered horse. “I am a woman—a woman with experience and knowledge of the w-world.” He snorted at the ludicrous claim and she made a noise like an infuriated hen. “You are an odious pig who knows nothing about me!”
“I know you are the last female in Britain who should be allowed to roam untethered through inns and mills. I can just see you hopping into the ring if the urge struck you. I am astounded your bro—”
“Don’t.”
Godric’s temper flared at her tone, but he left the issue of her idiotic brother alone. For now. “You’d better husband your memories of such reckless behavior because I forbid you to jeopardize your safety merely on a whim.”
She put down her glass with a thump. “I can see how things will be already.”
“Good, then I shan’t have to explain to you how things shall be, shall I?”
She leapt up and Godric followed as closely as her shadow. “You are going to be a tyrant—like—like Bluebeard or—or some other ogreish husband.”
Godric knew that now would be a bad time to laugh. Instead he fixed her with a calm, level gaze while she fidgeted, angry and frightened and ill at ease in her own skin. “You needn’t worry about locked rooms with all the bodies of my other wives, Eva. I’ve not lived at Cross Hall for almost two decades, and my parents would have taken issue with a room full of dead women.”
She stamped her foot, clearly unaware of how young it made her look. “You know what I mean. You will hem and hedge and control me until I am nothing but a colorless, simpering—” She stopped, her eyes wide and angry. Her jaw worked and her lips were parted but no words came out. Instead, she stared in mute misery, her breaths coming in shallow, sharp bursts. “I knew it would be the same—I knew marriage would be no different. I am always to be subject to another’s will, like some—some slave.”
Godric felt an odd tightening in the region of his heart—a powerful, and surprising, combination of sympathy, empathy, and raw lust. And not a little alcohol. She was so very young and untried by life, yet she had brought herself to a place from which there was no return. She would, without a doubt, become his wife. His wife. The picture those words evoked was not the woman in front of him, and he flinched away from the ghostly image of Lucia that was never too far from his mind.
“This marriage means I will only trade one master for another.”
Godric’s head whipped up at her mournful words and he closed the distance between them in two long strides, as if he could outrun his own relentless thoughts.
She had to crane her head back to look up at him, her eyes burning and her cheeks flushed. His hand moved of its own volition and cupped the sweet curve of her jaw, his body thrilling at the warm and unspeakable smoothness of her skin
.
“I don’t wish to be your master, Eva,” he said, not entirely telling the truth: her body, he decided, was something he wished to master very much indeed. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, mesmerized by the deep blue of her eyes.
Her lids fluttered at his soft caress and the slightest tremor rippled through her body.
“Shhh,” Godric murmured, lowering his head and sliding his hand beneath her heavy mink-colored hair, cradling her fragile neck. He dropped a light kiss on her lips, which were even softer than he’d imagined. Her eyes had gone black and he recognized desire when he saw it.
Do it; take her. She will be your wife.
Godric started at the word wife, Lucia’s dark brown eyes and sweet smile coasting across his vision. His hand slid limply from behind her neck and he took a step back, her body swaying toward him.
“If you are finished eating, you should get to sleep,” he said gruffly. “We’ll be leaving at first light.”
She blinked up at him as she had earlier, when he’d woken her. But this time, when her eyes widened, the expression in them wasn’t confused or sleepy, but hurt.
Her perfect features shifted into a mask of loathing. “I hate you.”
Ah, so they were back to that.
Good. It was better that she hated him; there was less chance of his bending her over the table and fucking them both to ecstasy if she wanted to brain him with a poker.
Godric forced himself to give her a superior smile of amusement—the sort of expression guaranteed to turn any residual desire she might feel for him into detestation. “So you’ve said, sweetheart. Why don’t you do your hating in your own room, so that I might get some sleep?”
For a moment he thought she would snatch up the nearest weapon—a plate, a butter knife, even a wine goblet, and attack him. Instead she drew herself up with the dignity of a duchess and dropped an icy curtsy.
“Good evening, my lord. I wish you pleasant dreams.” She exited the room with a back as stiff as a plank, only spoiling her cold exit when she slammed the door hard enough to knock a piece of damp plaster off the stained wall beside it.
Godric inhaled until his lungs felt as if they might explode and then held the breath for a long moment before noisily expelling it.
Well done, my lord. Weren’t you the one who said just this morning that you’d prefer not to fight and scuffle every day?
“Oh, get stuffed,” he muttered to himself, filling his still half-full glass of wine until the liquid touched the brim.
It was going to be a long bloody night.
* * *
It was full dark when Eva woke up, and she had no idea where she was—at Exham? In London? Her eyes flickered to the small window covered with thin, ragged curtains; no, this was somewhere else. This was—
Godric.
It all flooded back to her: abducting him, arguing with him, and then, tonight, throwing herself at him.
Ugh. Eva shuddered at the memory of earlier this evening. She reached toward the nightstand for her pocket watch, which Godric, no, Visel, had allowed her to keep when he’d taken the rest of her things. She checked the time: amazingly, she’d been asleep for only a few hours and it was not yet two.
Eva sat up, which was when she noticed the soft candlelight flickering beyond the cracked door. He must have opened the door because she’d slammed it shut upon leaving him. Something about the thought of him spying on her as she slept gave her a tight feeling in her stomach. She pushed back the blankets and winced as her feet hit the cool, clammy wooden floor. The fire in the grate was glowing hotly, so he must have come in to stoke the fire.
That was considerate of him.
Eva’s eyebrows slammed together at the unwanted thought. Godric Fleming was a toad without a considerate bone in his body. If he opened the door, he’d have his own reasons for doing so. Besides, she hadn’t asked him to take care of such things—she could take care of herself; she refused to be grateful. Especially to such a bossy, superior, odious—
She ground her teeth together to stop the buildup of anger inside her. She really needed to gain control of her emotions or he would continue to prod and poke and manipulate her as easily as a child.
She tiptoed toward the door, which was open enough for her to make out that he wasn’t in his bed. He was sitting in the same chair he’d occupied earlier, but he’d shifted it slightly until it almost faced her, as if he might have been watching the door, although he was not doing so right now.
No, he was most certainly not watching her right now.
Eva swallowed so noisily she was astounded he didn’t hear it—but it was clear that his current thoughts were elsewhere. His head was tipped against the back of the chair, allowing her an uninterrupted view of the powerful column of his throat and the broad V of golden, muscular chest that was exposed by the open neck of his shirt.
That alone would have been enough to make her bones turn to water, but then there was his hand. A hand that was stroking softly over the front of his buckskins.
Eva pivoted sharply away from the door and sagged against the wall, fighting to catch her breath. She knew what he was doing because she’d done the same thing to herself time and again. Oh, not exactly the same thing, of course, but it was the same, really—only their bodies were different. Eva swallowed convulsively, her heart pounding like war drums in her chest. What he was doing was private. Perhaps the most private thing a person could do. To watch him would be wrong—despicable.
It would also be delicious.
She bit her lip at the hard throb between her thighs, pushed her hair off her face so that none of it would interrupt her view, and turned back to the cracked door.
The view had become even more entrancing while she’d been wasting precious moments dithering. Now he was lazily rubbing his chest with the hand not busy on his breeches. His movements were smooth and sensual, his fingers splayed as he stroked in large circles, slipping beneath the edge of the fine linen, pushing it open to expose a small, dark pink nipple.
Eva had to swallow almost constantly to keep from drooling. Of course she knew men had nipples, but she’d never really given any thought to that fact before.
The tips of his fingers brushed the small disc of flesh and he gave a low groan, his body tensing and his hips arching off the chair.
Eva didn’t know which shocked her more, his body’s reaction to the slight touch, or hers. Her own breasts had tightened in response, seeming heavier, the soft cotton of her nightgown feeling like rough burlap against the hard points of her nipples.
Each stroke of his hand and his body’s concomitant response made the part between her thighs—her sex, Mia had unabashedly called it—swell and ache.
Her eyes had been so riveted to his chest and her own body’s response that she’d failed to notice he’d flicked open his fall.
Dear Lord.
Her chest froze as he lifted his hips and nudged the supple buckskin down just far enough to expose—
Steam clouded her vision as she saw his erect male organ. It emerged from the bunched-up linen like some sort of sleek, dangerous sea monster emerging from beneath the waves.
Eva breathed through her mouth, as if she couldn’t get enough air through her nose, as his hand—that beautiful masculine hand she’d been admiring—slid around the thick, ruddy shaft and gave it a firm stroke.
A hiss of pleasure broke from his clenched teeth and his hips thrust up, his expression almost one of pain as he held himself still, arched, and impossibly erect.
The edges of Eva’s vision blackened, reminding her to breathe, and her eyes burned, reminding her to blink.
He made a guttural noise somewhere between a grunt and a sigh and then lowered his hips back to the chair, his hand sweeping back up the silken shaft until he reached the top, which was glistening with moisture. He casually rolled his palm over the fat, bell-shaped crown before stroking back down to his root.
The gesture was the most erotic sight Eva had ever seen
. She distantly realized that her thighs were sticky. When she clenched the muscles in her legs, her eyes crossed at the sensations that cascaded outward from her sex. She grabbed her mound over her nightdress and squeezed hard, as if that might stop the unraveling sensation that had begun inside her. But it only made it worse.
So did the way his hand moved over his organ, with confident strokes that were all the more arousing for their businesslike efficiency. Godric was supremely comfortable in his skin and his actions proved it. He took pleasure from his body like a man who knew what he wanted and how he wanted it.
Eva prayed for it to go on forever: the thrusting, the flexing of his muscles that occurred with each stroke, the mottling of his skin, the roughness of his breathing, and especially the fascinating transformation taking place in his breeding organ. His shaft seemed to have become thicker, longer, and the flared crown glistened wetly beneath the flickering light cast by two candles.
He began to grunt with each thrust, louder and louder, his motions jerky and the muscles in his forearms bulging beneath the skin. And then, suddenly, he froze, hips thrust, buttocks tight, his organ—his cock—moving even though Godric’s hand was motionless. The shaft convulsed as he ejaculated, which was what her stepmother had called it: ejaculation. The word was dirty and mysterious, but the actual act was so much more erotic.
His body shuddered and the jerks became less intense, the small geyser erupting more weakly with each wave that rocked his body, until Godric’s hips sank down in the chair and his head began to lift.
Eva squeaked and launched herself across the room, tripping on the hem of her too long nightgown and landing headfirst in the musty-smelling bedding. She flipped onto her side, her face away from the door, and focused every particle of her being on breathing in and out, slowly, and evenly.
There were slight sounds of movement from the other room and then a shadow appeared in the shaft of pale light that shone against the wall in front of her: a man-shaped shadow. He seemed to stay there for a hundred years, but it was probably only a few seconds. Only when he moved away did she realize she’d been holding her breath and expelled it slowly from between pursed lips.
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