“You are next, love?”
Meredith jumped and glanced up. “What?”
Barry motioned to her foot. “Your footwear, madam.”
“You want me to… to… disrobe?” She finished on a scandalized whisper, stealing a search around. Alas, only the occasional song of a morning bird and the soft cascade of the flowing stream served as their company.
Barry dropped his hands atop his knees and leaned forward. “Oh, well, I certainly wouldn’t mind if you were to do so,” he whispered.
She swatted him, the chastisement ruined by the faint tremble his words had elicited.
“But rather, I’d have you remove your boots so we might fish.”
Meredith sank back on her buttocks and glared up at him. “You’re funning me. You forget, Barry, I’ve fished before.”
“This is a different type of fishing, love.”
Her protestations immediately died, replaced by curiosity. “Indeed?”
“Fly-fishing will require us to wade out into the water.”
“In the water,” she said dumbly.
“That is generally what wading ‘out into the water’ refers to.”
And just like that, propriety took precedence over her earlier intrigue. “I… I cannot.” Not when her entire existence depended upon her being above reproach. As it was, being alone with Barry threatened all that.
He held a hand out, waving his palm. “Ah, but you’ve agreed to the terms, love.”
Staring at those long digits, Meredith warred with herself. Every last thing she knew about Barry Aberdeen as a boy, and even more terrifyingly as a grown rogue, said to quit the copse. To turn on her heel and return to the manor and sort through the whole matchmaking a gentleman who didn’t wish to be matchmade. Only, something held her there. Not the agreement she’d struck with his mother. Not the three thousand pounds. Or even the deal she’d agreed to with him.
But rather, it was the challenge in his eyes that compelled her. The one that said he didn’t believe for one moment that she intended to take part.
It was then that she knew that if he’d insisted they fly-fish in the buff, she would have stripped down to the state she’d been born in and demanded the rod. Holding his eyes, she lifted her chin mutinously and then shoved her skirts up a fraction and removed first one boot and then the next. Barefoot… and yet…
“Look away,” she ordered.
Surprisingly, he complied, presenting her with his back.
The moment he was faced away from her, Meredith shoved her skirts up and made quick work of rolling her stockings down.
The air slapped at her skin, cool and soothing, the bliss of that forgotten until now. She came to her feet. “Very well, Barry. On with your lesson.”
Barry turned and froze.
His gaze went not to her, but rather, her stockings neatly resting upon her boots, and then he looked at her toes.
Her bare toes. Meredith curled them into the soft earth.
He slowly lifted his eyes, and when they met hers, she was knocked back, the words she might have said ripped from her by the heat of his stare.
“Come with me,” he urged, his silken baritone surely the same as that affected by the Devil who’d led Eve to sin. Meredith at last understood the reason for that fall.
She quickened over to him, and then with the basket and rods in hand, he guided them over to the shore.
Barry set the items down and wandered into the water with one rod. “Your skirts, madam,” he called, as if he’d forgotten Meredith’s presence until that moment.
“What of them?”
“They’ll get wet. Hitch them…” Muttering something under his breath, he returned to the shore. Setting down the rod, he gathered Meredith’s hem.
“B-Barry,” she squeaked as he lifted the fabric, hiking it to her waist.
“Spread your legs,” he said, all business, and one would have believed he’d asked her for a report on the weather and not something so scandalous she’d have been ruined forevermore. But it was, however, that matter-of-fact ordering that had her complying.
In quick order, Barry had her skirts up around her waist, using the fabric itself to form a makeshift belt. “There, that should help some.” With that, he grabbed his rod and waded into the water.
Meredith hesitated. It had been so long since she’d done… anything at all improper. And there could be no doubting that fishing alone with a gentleman, bare of her boots and stockings, with her skirts up and her undergarments revealed, was anything but.
And yet, there was also… a thrill in being more than the staid, dull matchmaker the world had come to expect.
She stepped out into the water and promptly cursed. “Bloody hell,” she cried, dancing backward. “That is freezing.”
He wandered farther out as if he were in a warm spring. “You curse still,” he said, cheer in his tones. “That is encouraging.”
A blush would have burned her skin if it weren’t for her frozen feet. “You are mad,” she mumbled and forced her feet forward until she reached his side. “Now what?”
“Hush. Don’t go rushing it along. That’s hardly a way to enjoy yourself. Take the rod.” He held it over, and Meredith gripped the reed in her fingers.
“First, you’ll want to high-stick it,” he murmured. “Like so.” Moving into position behind her so that her back was pressed against his chest, Barry guided her arm up and through the movement.
Had she really believed the water cold? Her body’s temperature had climbed. It had thickened her blood, which now pumped slowly through her veins.
“Lift it slowly, a bit higher,” he counseled, his tone all business and wholly unaffected. How was he unaffected? “So that just your lead is showing.”
Her eyes slid closed.
I cannot fish. I cannot think of a trout. Not with him behind me…
Still, she had to say something. “Like so?” she asked, her voice shaking, that tremor having little to do with the cold and everything to do with the way the muscles of his belly and chest rippled as he moved.
“A bit higher,” he murmured. Blessedly, he gave no indication that he was aware of the battle raging within her.
Meredith forced her eyes open. Made herself attend his lesson. All the while, wickedly wanting another more scandalous one.
“Having it elevated as you do here, you’ll then want to trace the undercurrent.” Barry steered her through those movements. “This will eliminate most of the drag and help represent the natural movement of the fly.” They remained that way, their bodies motionless against each other, arms aloft. Waiting.
Even when her limbs began to tire and tingle from the time they stood there, unmoving, she wanted it to go on forever. And she didn’t want to think about why. Or think about the fact that Barry was… Barry, her best friend’s younger brother and now the man she was playing matchmaker for. Now, he was simply a man who held her so easily and cared so much about her again being exhilarated by something other than her work.
Only… she chewed at her lower lip. That wasn’t quite right. Her work didn’t thrill her. It was functional and purposeful and even meaningful, but it wasn’t something that filled her with joy.
“What are you thinking about?” he whispered against her ear. This time, her arms did waver, for reasons that had nothing to do with fatigue and everything to do with the sough of his breath.
You.
“How wonderful this feels,” she said softly, offering him the truth in that.
Meredith felt the tug on the line, and the moment was shattered. “I’ve got one!”
“Easy,” he coaxed. “Patient.”
Together, they followed the trout as it hooked itself, and then they reeled him closer, all while he fought for his freedom.
Dropping to his haunches, Barry gently disentangled the hook from the creature’s mouth. How easily he handled the ensnared trout. In his palms, even this creature was malleable. Meredith fell to a knee beside him. “I’ve done
it,” she exclaimed with a breathless laugh.
“You always had a way with fish. You just lost your way.”
Lost your way.
“I’ve not really been lost,” she said softly. “We”—were cast out—“left.” Only, as that clarification slipped from her, she recognized the inherent lie in it, for neither statement proved mutually exclusive. Both held true: She’d been lost… and she’d left. Because they’d had to. Which had come first?
Barry’s piercing blue eyes moved over her face. “Why did you go?” he asked quietly, as if he’d plucked her very thoughts from her head.
And then it hit her. “You don’t know?” The startled exhalation slipped out before she could call it back. Only, why would he have? The boy who’d come upon her, weeping, in the stables had been just that, a boy. He’d never have been privy to his family’s decisions. Not then.
His body straightened. “Know what?” When she didn’t immediately respond, he repeated with greater insistence, “Know what?”
Meredith picked her way around in search of the right words. For the ease she knew with Barry, the truth remained: Meredith was an outsider, employed by his parents. And a servant to a duke did not go about casting aspersions upon that family. Even if that family was in the wrong.
“My father was getting on and needed to turn the role of man-of-affairs over to someone younger,” Meredith murmured, her gaze trained on the grey trout. “Your father provided a sizable pension.” She was unable to keep a trace of bitterness from creeping in. For what she’d needed most in those days had been support through the slow, agonizing death her father had suffered. The duke had seen long before Meredith all the ways in which her father’s mind had begun to fail.
“Not sizable enough to see you cared for,” Barry said tersely, and at the fury humming in his voice, she glanced over. He’d direct that outrage at his family?
“The care my father required was extensive. No one could have anticipated just how ill he’d fall.” Her throat worked. “He died not long after we left.”
“Meredith,” he said somberly. “I’m so…”
She shook her head, not wanting his apologies. Not now. None of that would erase those hellish moments her past.
“It is fine.” Now, it was. She’d put away her resentment and moved on with her life.
Until she’d been called back to this place and all those most-painful memories.
“My family should have been there, Meredith.”
Somewhere along the way, little Barry had grown up. He’d become a man who saw entirely too much.
Yes, they should have been. The fault, however, was not his. “You were there, Barry,” she softly reminded him. He’d been the lone friend in a moment when she’d needed one. When she’d thought of Barry and the rest of the Aberdeens, she’d wondered if he remembered their exchange.
His eyes darkened. “After that night.”
He had recalled it, then. And there was a spiraling warmth in her chest. She’d been alone for so long that something as simple as knowing he’d remembered her brought with it… peace. “You couldn’t always be there, though,” she reminded, her eyes locked on the fish he held, tender in that touch. “Emilia moved on with her life, and you…” Will one day marry and become a duke. “And you did the same. Either way, it is in the past, Barry.” She didn’t want her father’s dismissal or death or Patrin’s betrayal or any of those memories of her youth to intrude on this moment. Because they didn’t belong in it. Not when she was here, happy.
Barry released the trout, and the creature fell with a splash before weaving off, catching the stream, and disappearing. “Why did you do that?” she asked, this topic safer, less volatile than her reasons for having fled Berkshire.
He stared off at the rippling stream, his gaze locked on the direction the fish had taken. “Because as we’d caught him, I thought it unfair that he be captured.”
“Unfair?” She laughed softly. “That is the purpose of fishing, Barry,” she reminded, skimming her fingertips along the cold surface of the water, breaking a curtain. “To catch, cook, and eat.”
“Ah, for you and I, perhaps?” he agreed, glancing over with a grin. “But he didn’t want that fate.”
“There would have been good to his having… been caught,” she reminded him gently.
“Being devoured by people who didn’t give a thought to where he came from or anything more than the sustenance he provides.” Barry held her gaze. “His freedom should belong to him, Meredith, and no one else should decide his fate. Certainly not you.” He paused. “Or I.” He added those two words almost as an afterthought.
Meredith’s heart stilled in her chest for several moments, and then it resumed a slow, painful thud as Barry’s meaning became clear…
He spoke of himself.
“This is why you brought me, then,” she said quietly, hating herself because she’d enjoyed these moments with him when all along he’d intended only to teach her a lesson related to her assignment here.
“Not at all.” He spoke with such a quick assurance that there could be no doubting the veracity of that reply. He grinned. “It just occurred to me as we caught him.” He stood and stretched a hand out.
Meredith placed her palm in his, allowing him to help her to her feet.
Except, as she stood there with her fingers in his, she could not draw them back. Nor did she want to. Nor did he. He folded his palm over hers, and her breath quickened.
I should pull my hand back. I should step away.
There were a million things she should do, and yet, as he drew her closer, giving her time to pull away, there was only one thing she wanted.
He covered her mouth with his. Heat shot through her, and Meredith leaned into his chest as she met his kiss. His lips moved over hers, and there was nothing hasty or sloppy about his hard lips on hers. This was nothing at all like the only kisses she’d known. This was the embrace she’d dreamed of as a girl, and then as a woman, and had come to believe was the stuff of pretend. Only it wasn’t. It was real. Barry was real.
Moaning, she let the rod slip from her fingers and gripped the front of his lawn shirt, pulling herself closer. Wanting this embrace to continue on even as a yearning, almost painful in its ferocity, stirred low in her belly. Their kiss took on an increasing desperation as he slanted his mouth over hers. Again and again, and then she parted her lips, allowing him entry.
Barry swept his tongue inside. The bold lash of that hot flesh against hers, steel and heat, a brand that marked, would leave her marked forever from the sear of it.
She tangled her tongue with his. With their mouths, they swirled and danced a primitive waltz as old as time.
Groaning, Barry slid his hands over her exploratively, running them down her waist, the curve of her hips. And then he filled his hands with her buttocks, sinking his fingertips into the flesh, and she cried out, her breathless exclamation of desire sending a flurry of blackbirds from their perches, screeching noisily.
Rasping for breath, Meredith jerked herself from Barry’s arms. The blood bounded in her ears, muffling the sound of the stream and the cries of the birds overhead. And the only stabilizing part of this moment was the like confusion reflected in Barry’s dazed eyes.
Barry, the rogue who’d given her yet another lesson.
Choking on embarrassment, Meredith spun and stalked off. At some point during her embrace with Barry, Meredith’s skirts had tumbled about her ankles, and they dragged heavily as she marched from the water.
“Meredith,” Barry called after her hoarsely. The splash of water as he trod after her marked his quick path.
She damned the cumbersome garments that slowed her.
“Meredith,” he repeated with more insistence.
She made herself stop. Unable to look at him. Not wanting to see that this had been another one of his games. A rogue’s game… just like his fishing tutorial.
His knuckles brushed her chin, and she resisted, but he forced her g
aze to his. “I… this wasn’t…” He scraped a hand through his golden curls. “I didn’t mean to kiss you.”
Meredith couldn’t help it—she winced.
“That isn’t what I meant,” he finished lamely. “I’m… usually better at this…”
“Rogue’s business?”
“Yes.” His brows shot up, and a flush stained his cheeks. “No.” His color deepened. “That isn’t what I meant. Bloody hell… I’m butchering this. I want you to know that I didn’t bring you here to seduce you, but rather to show you a good time.”
Meredith flinched again. “Well, consider yourself successful, then,” she clipped out, and with all the grace she could muster, she strode out of the stream, over to her garments. Gathering up her things, she fled.
Fearing he’d follow her.
Fearing that she wanted him to.
And fearing the disappointment that swept through her when he did not.
Chapter 9
Through dinner and after, Meredith resumed the role she’d so perfectly affected as the starchy matchmaker: reserved, measured, distantly polite.
In fact, Barry might as well have imagined the woman who’d come undone in his arms at the stream.
Nay, there could be no doubting that moment had been real. At the stream, their bodies had layered against each other’s… She’d been breathless, first from the thrill of fishing and then from the embrace they’d shared.
Though that wasn’t altogether true.
His gaze found her, lingering in the corner of the parlor. At some point since the party had adjourned to the parlor, she’d plastered herself to the wall, having managed the impossible feat of making herself an extension of the silk wallpaper. Failing to realize that, with the curve of her hips and the natural pout of her lips, she attempted an impossible feat.
From the moment he’d wrapped his arms about Meredith and guided her through the motions of fly-fishing, he’d felt the undercurrents of her desire, greater than the movement of the stream they’d stood within. The shaky timbre to her voice as she’d spoken. The way she’d leaned against him.
A Matchmaker for a Marquess Page 10