by Tracy Sumner
But this day, this moment, she would touch him as a healer. Not a lover, not even as a friend.
When Humphrey had woken her in a mild panic—unusual enough an occurrence to bring life to her own—he’d demanded she direct her focus toward Julian in one way and one way only. Part of her ‘growing up process,’ he issued beneath his breath in the event she’d misconstrued his meaning.
She was to separate what had happened in the lodge, in Ashcroft’s townhouse, the way Julian had consumed her in both settings with devout fervor, from what she was set to do in a bedchamber located a floor beneath hers, one Julian rarely used from the look of it. No unfinished canvases, no spattered rags, not even the pungent suggestion of turpentine and paint. Just ancestral paintings and random relics that had likely come with the house. The viscount owned this room, the artist the lodge.
She preferred the lodge. She preferred the artist.
Oh, Julian, she thought when she reached the massive tester bed. He was as pale as the creamy counterpane they’d laid him upon, his skin flushed, his hair an absolute snarl about his head. His aura alternated between restorative indigo and a blinding cherry hinting at extreme unrest. She placed the back of her hand against his brow—no fever—then snatched it away.
A healer must heal. And only heal.
Avoiding letting her gaze travel the length of his body, she glanced over her shoulder to find that Humphrey and Minnie had retreated to the hallway, thankfully taking their apprehension with them. If Julian knew how many people depended upon him, how many loved him, maybe he would take better care.
Or maybe it would only add to his burden.
With a whistle-sigh, she perched on the edge of the mattress, took his hand in both of hers and closed her eyes. The initial rush of emotion sent the air from her lungs in a burst. The images were so disparate, she couldn’t credit them. Shadowy, vague, engulfing. Each a split-second review before another crowded in and knocked that one aside. She stepped into none, held herself from delving too deeply. A skill she had recently mastered, one she called skimming. A way to heal without leaving her shattered. She couldn’t follow the plan Julian had developed to grow the League, participate fully as she wanted to if she didn’t learn to manage the process.
To control the process.
Julian’s hand flexed, his fingers tightening around hers. “Piper…stop,” he whispered with what sounded like the last of his strength. “It’s starting to hurt.”
She blinked to find his gaze fixed on her, a drowsy, adorable—though she would never admit this—expression on his face. His cheeks were glowing with a healthy color.
She frowned. “Hurt?”
“Feels wonderful, like a warm bath. Cleansing. Then…too much.” He swallowed, his lids drifting low. “Like being tickled.”
Tickled?
A wry smile that let her know he was going to recover twisted his lips. “Forget I said that.”
“So, you like being tickled?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Shall I add this to my list of items?”
“List?”
“For our night.”
He linked his fingers with hers, but his eyes remained closed, so he missed the scorching blush that hit her face as she imagined his naked body and what she would like to do to it.
“There’s a festival in the village. In two nights.”
And?
“Go with me,” he murmured, his voice on the buttery fringe of sleep.
She waited for him to say more…but moments later, he was lost to the world.
Crossing to the lone window in his room, she blindly searched the night sky. She was stunned. For the first time in memory, Julian had asked her to accompany him to an event. Nothing to do with the League. An invitation apart from the night she’d secured by twisting the proverbial arm behind his back.
He wanted to be with her. There had been a sincere timbre to his words, a tone he was too exhausted to hide.
Wrapping her arms around her body, she swallowed past the sting of tears and reminded herself of Julian’s words: one night, then you must let me go.
Heavens, how was she going to follow through on her promise?
Chapter 15
Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced.
~John Keats
Piper suppressed a sigh and glanced at the hulking, straight-from-the-rookery types on either side of her. Finn lagged just behind, his demeanor as vigilant as she’d ever seen it. His dreams were troubling him.
She chased away the nip of fear and marched forward, a circle of torches, their glow a stain against the darkening sky, acting as her beacon. The village celebrated on the grounds of an abandoned chapel sitting atop the highest hill in the shire, whispered to be the birthplace of true love. The surroundings were what poets envisioned, and she wasn’t going to let her true love and his overly protective protestations ruin this night. Julian’s note telling her he’d meet her as he had to help prepare for the festival, was tucked in her corset, pressed quite inappropriately against her wildly beating heart.
After her return from London, erotic imaginings had begun to plague her dreams, nothing so melancholy as Finn’s. She woke with sheets twisted about her ankles, skin damp, lungs churning. She wanted to unleash her passion in a fury, knock Julian from his feet with the force of it. No matter their conclusion, no one could take her delicious memories from her. Julian’s lips grazing her nipple, finger delving, eyes locked on her as she glided over the precipice.
She returned welcoming smiles as she made her way into the boisterous crowd, vastly disparate from the leering ones in Ashcroft’s ballroom. A feast of cakes, pies, cheese, and bread covered a long table placed before the highest chapel wall. Barrels of ale, bottles of brandy and scotch kept company on the other. A trio of musicians sheltered beneath a towering oak played with abandon, to the delight of those dancing in a style Piper imagined best described by Jane Austen. Nothing so refined as a waltz in this delightful setting beneath the trees. No one was waiting for scandal and ruin, waiting for her to make a horrendous mistake.
Piper turned in a languid circle, the auras of the townsfolk transcendent, more beautiful than she ever recalled them being.
Then she saw him, and her heart melted, a soft cascade of emotion flowing through her.
Julian was settled on his knee next to an ale barrel, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbow, a waistcoat of the somber variety he favored clinging to his chest. He held a mallet in one hand and with the other, gestured for the barrel to be positioned on its side. Looking over his shoulder, not in her direction, he called out to someone standing at the edge of the forest. Simon stepped shyly into the circle of men. Her breath caught at the boy’s expression: equal parts hope and resistance. Julian beckoned him near, his smile tipping at the edges. Not until he extended the mallet, a peace offering, did Simon move close enough to take it.
“Give it a couple of good whacks,” Julian coaxed, pointing to a spot on the barrel where a tap hung loosely. A sluggish but steady flow of ale dribbled to the ground, releasing the sweet scent of yeast. “To seat the tap, you see.”
Simon pressed his lips together and dropped to a squat, his behind dusting the ground. He looked quite stylish tonight, in summer woolen trousers and jacket Julian must have had fitted for him. Twigs and dirt covered his clothing as if he’d rolled on the ground like Henry, but they were a vast improvement over the filthy rags he’d arrived in.
“Like this?” the boy asked and gave a mock jab with the mallet, soft enough to smash a butterfly.
Julian’s teeth dug into his bottom lip to hold back a laugh. “Imagine someone trying to steal your last halfpenny. Right out of your pocket. Give it as hard a blow as that.”
Simon nodded in all seriousness, adjusting his slim fingers around the mallet. “You wanna move yur hand, sir? I would meself.”
Julian shook his head. “No, I trust you.”
The astonished look on Simon’s face rocked her where she stood. What
would have happened if Julian had not found the boy? An example of the League’s work, its purpose, sat perched on his grubby knees before her.
“Hey-ho, then,” Simon said and swung with all his might, missing Julian’s fingers by the merest measure. The tap jammed in the hole, slowing the drip to a modest trickle.
“Another strike to the halfpenny thief,” Julian instructed and this time, withdrew his hand before the blow came. “The barrel can take it.”
The group was turning the barrel upright, the tap in excellent placement, when Julian saw her. He rose to a stand, towering over the men surrounding him and stepped through a circle of torchlight, shadows striking his cheek and diving in the neck of the shirt held together by an impossibly loose cravat. Amber highlights streaked his hair, much like the ones shooting from the firepit to the stars.
She marveled at the wonderous contrast of him. Rough-hewn in one light, wholly elegant in another, like his divergent past. Part boy of the streets, part titled gentleman. An honorable man with an extraordinary gift he loathed but accepted. How he managed the varied facets of his life with such care, she couldn’t fathom. She’d never been able to blend her conflicting halves into a capable whole, not once in her entire life.
When he reached her, eyes the color of a dawn mist swept her from head to toe, and she confessed to complete and utter fascination.
“You flaunt the saddest chignons I’ve ever seen,” he said and brushed a loose tendril from her cheek. She must have flinched, because he pulled back, then moved in again to tuck the stray piece behind her ear. “The wonderful news is, we’re surrounded by farmers and craftsmen, a tailor, a butcher, a cobbler.” His gaze was warm, intimate, delighted. “You can be who you want here, that’s the magic. The lord and lady disappear in the fog. Julian and Piper step out of it.”
All that stood between them was shimmering, implicit awareness. His aura shifted, pale to dazzling as he watched her watch him.
Her heart squeezed. The examination aroused him as much as it aroused her.
He nodded to her guards, an unspoken command to stay behind. “Come,” he said huskily and offered his arm as if they were set to stroll through Hyde Park. She slipped her hand through the crook between warm body and bent elbow, never once considering anything but agreement.
Brushing his finger along her kidskin glove, he paused when he met bare skin. Halting, he raised her hands and with efficient jerks, tugged the gloves off and tossed them over his shoulder as he led her away from the circle of light, music, people. “Julian,” she whispered, unsure of his mood, watching her gloves land in a neat twist at the gnarled base of a tree.
He drew her along a pebbled path leading away from the chapel, through a thicket of nettle-leaved bellflower so dense it obscured the night, and into a clearing surrounded by dogwoods and azaleas. The music of the festivities lingered, but to her, they had entered another world entirely.
One Julian had created.
Until her last breath, she would remember this night as the most romantic of her life. Although it was a simple setting, a simple picture, one he could have easily sketched. A blanket spread over the grass, his coat lying to one side. A broad band of moonlight coloring the ground an ethereal, misty silver.
She turned to him, words taken by the gesture.
He shrugged, looking away as if embarrassed. Julian embarrassed. “I want to be, Piper. With you. Us. I don’t care where, I don’t care what. Just this night, let there be an us.”
Feelings piled in on one another like carriages on Bond Street during the height of the season. Us. Julian thought of her, of them, as us. A fount of affection welled, shooting from her fingertips and the ends of her hair. She imagined her aura, a brilliant burst the exact shade of a sapphire.
Going to his knee on the blanket, he gazed up at her, his expression so transparent, so open, she marveled he had ever hidden anything from her. The dimple she loved so well dinted his cheek with his smile. “You’re pleased?”
Nodding, she made a vague motion toward his horse, tied to a tree just outside the clearing. Silence would have to do. Her heart had not released her to speak just yet.
“When you’re ready, we can be at the lodge in ten minutes.” He made a graceful loop with his hand, indicating something in the near distance. “There’s a back trail. Rarely used, faster than going through the village.”
“My…my bay?”
He shook his head, his gaze catching hers then skipping away. His hand flexed on air at his side. “Though I may lose my mind, for this ride, I think you’ll fit quite nicely on my lap.”
“Ready?” She laughed, imagining another ride she would like to take. “Julian, I’m ready now.”
“Of course, you are,” he whispered, the words so soft they were almost beyond her hearing. Grasping her hand, he tugged her down beside him. She went to her knees, then her bottom in an inelegant tumble. Her shawl landed in a puddle beside her. “But maybe I’m not, my love,” he added and helped her arrange her skirts in a modest circle about her.
“Am I going to have to convince you?” she asked, creating a list in her mind of ways to do just that. Starting with the removal of his sadly-folded cravat, her lips moving to the enticing hollow beneath, then lower, and lower still. She closed her eyes to the image; that or follow through.
Frustrated and vastly awakened, her sigh ripped through the night.
Julian laughed, a rare sound, magical and earnest. He closed in, and she caught his scent and the heat of his body before he touched her. Cupping her jaw, he tilted her face into the moonlight. In his handsome visage, she saw the young man she had loved from the first moment she saw him stepping from her grandfather’s carriage. “Go easy on me, Yank. I beg of you,” he whispered, his breath flowing over her cheek and into the neck of the simple day dress—one easily removed—she’d chosen for the outing.
She slid her fingers into the hair brushing his crisp collar and with a gentle tug, brought him to her. “Closer.”
With a low growl of agreement, he captured her mouth in a display rough in urgency, stunning in perfection. Sensation swept her as he worshiped her before diving in, blatant seduction she could not deny.
Had no plans to deny.
The sound of the festival faded as Julian uttered fervent entreaties in her ear. Her thoughts scattered until she was nothing but a roaring heartbeat, flushed skin, staggered breaths. Responding, she arched into him, her pulse convening between her thighs in a molten rush. Her nipples peaked beneath her stays, imprisonment when she wanted release. She shifted her hips, seeking, a low moan bursting forth. He answered her demand, pressing her into the blanket, his body moving over hers, their sculpture molding into one. He slowly tugged her skirt to her waist, allowing one brief second of refreshing relief before the long, hard length of him settled, and she reheated, head to toe.
“You taste like home,” he said, his breath racing into her ear like a wave. She gasped as he nipped her earlobe, peppering her skin with goosebumps. “Like golden fields shimmering in the summer sun.” He trailed tender kisses along her throat, halting at the laced-edged neck of her dress. “Exquisite, as far as the eye can see.”
She skated her hand over each bump of his spine, to his lean hip, where she guided his movement against her. Her need was boundless, and she didn’t care if he knew it. Tugging his shirt from his trousers, she met bare skin with a beholden sigh. Linen, cotton, and silk, neatly stitched seams, ties, and buttons were all that kept their bodies apart.
“Here, now,” she urged, their rhythm caught between cool earth and dark sky, a rhythm as old as time. His hard length nestled between her welcoming folds, their bodies surging. Undoing strings, he opened her bodice, and she anticipated the arrival of his mouth with an excruciating surge of heat and cognizance. He nipped the side of her breast, and she moaned with approval. “Leave your mark on me, Jules.”
He lowered his brow to her shoulder, his breath a rapid shot across her inflamed nipple. Edging to his elbo
ws, he palmed the blanket, sending his hips in a tighter fit against hers, pinning her to the ground in the most delicious way imaginable. “Not here, Yank, not here.”
“Why?”
“Ah, Piper, you unman me.” His hair, lustrous and thick, tumbled in his face, the tips brushing his hollowed cheeks. “I feel a boy, completely without aptitude.” His thumb swept her bottom lip and held for the briefest second. “I brought you here because I want to know you. More than…” With a harsh breath, he rolled to his back, his arm going over his eyes. His other hand found hers, fingers linking. “I’m trying to live my entire life in one day. I want to slow down. Record every heartbeat, every touch, every sigh.”
His poetic words were not surprising, though she was surprised he shared them. Julian was the most compassionate person she’d ever known. Even when he’d hurt her, she understood his motives were honorable though, at times, thoughtless.
“Jules, you know me better than anyone,” she said and squeezed his fingers, uncertain when she’d experienced the wondrously simple gift of holding his hand. Unwise to feel such possession over something so basic. “Because I’ve never held anything back when I’m sure I should have. From the first moment, standing on the drive outside my grandfather’s manor, such a conflicted expression on your face…I’ve never been able to deny you.”
His thumb traced a soft circle on her palm. “Then, I guess I want you to know me.”
My, this night was presenting one astonishment after another.
Her heart soared. He was here, with her, not merely a fantasy born of loneliness and grief. Her gaze traveled over his lean stomach, his narrow hips, and lower, where his arousal made an impressive display beneath his trouser close. His aura flickered around him like a golden halo. Lifting her free hand, she trailed a finger along his chest, drifting over each waistcoat button, a leisurely glide to desire.