‘Why do you say that? Especially since it’s far too late for me to go back now.’
‘Because I am a wolf, contrary to my protests otherwise.’ Merrick took a savage bite from a pear to illustrate his point.
Alixe took a more delicate bite of her food. ‘You may be a wolf, but you are not a ravenous wolf. You are in complete control of yourself and for that reason, I have nothing to fear from you.’
Merrick rolled to his side, propping himself up on one arm, his eyes alight with his special brand of mischief. ‘I have been coaxing women off the paths at Vauxhall since I was sixteen. Coaxing a well-bred lady into a churchyard is child’s play by comparison.’
He was teasing her, but there was a hard truth lurking around his humour. ‘Why do you think that is?’ she queried.
‘Women know what can happen in the dark shadows at Vauxhall. They’re warned about the possibilities. But well-bred virgins never believe anything untoward could happen in a churchyard.’ Merrick took another crisp bite of his pear and chuckled. ‘As if God pays more attention to what is happening in his churchyards than he does to the dim paths of Vauxhall.’
Really, he’d gone too far there. A scold was in order, but she barely got the words out before her own laughter bubbled up at the image his words created. ‘Merrick, you shouldn’t say things like that.’
‘No more than you should laugh about them and yet here we are doing both.’ Merrick finished off his pear and tossed the core towards the base of a tree trunk for the birds to find later.
‘Now, tell me about St Eanswythe in the hopes that we can redeem ourselves with a more suitable subject for our surroundings.’
The request took her by surprise. No one had ever asked her to tell them about St Eanswythe. She’d delivered a talk about the local saint to a few clubs and the historical society, but no one socially in the course of polite conversation had ever asked her about her favourite topic. She began tentatively at first, giving Merrick a chance to interrupt, to show any sign of uninterest. But no sign came. Instead, his blue eyes remained attentively fixed on her, his head nodding in attention.
‘She performed three miracles and won the king’s approval to establish the first convent in England,’ Alixe concluded.
‘You sound impressed with her,’ Merrick commented.
‘I am. She fought for what she wanted. She turned down marriage to a king.’
‘Ah, correction.’ Merrick wagged his finger, throwing his recently acquired knowledge back at her. ‘She offered the king a chance to win her. She wagered and she would have had to pay if she’d lost.’ He reached for another pear. ‘Not unlike yourself.’
‘I did not wager.’
Merrick shrugged a shoulder. ‘A slight discrepancy, I should think. Like her, you have also given up the complications of life for a simple one and, like her, you have devoted yourself to thwarting suitors for your hand.’
‘She did it on purpose,’ Alixe said to be contrary.
‘So have you,’ Merrick countered readily enough. ‘You’re pretty, you’re smart, you’re titled and you’re rich. You’ve merely taken pains to hide all that and make yourself difficult to obtain.’
Merrick inched closer to her on the blanket and reached out a hand to tug at her chignon, his hand softly sweeping the gentle curve of her jaw. ‘Do you think it worth the sacrifice, pretty one? The world of man is not as bad as you think.’
Alixe’s breath caught at the sound of his voice, low and personal in the quiet of the afternoon. Meg and Fillmore had taken themselves off a while ago to see if they could spot France from the cliff-walk promenade.
Her hair came loose with another tug and spilled down her back. ‘Would you die as your Eanswythe did? Without knowing the touch of a man? Without knowing the secret pleasures she was made for?’ His hand tangled gently in her hair, pressing her forwards to him, his mouth taking hers in a kiss. She thought fleetingly of their agreement, but those words seemed to provide inadequate protection at the present. Instead, she gave herself up to the kiss, a small moan escaping her. She was all heady compliance.
She would never remember quite how it progressed from there. Had she drawn him down to her, or had he pressed her back on to the blanket? Somehow she was beneath him, her hips moving in rhythm against his, his sex heavy against her thigh where trousers met skirts and neither of them thinking much beyond the moment. His hand was at her breast, tracing teasing circles through the cloth. She arched against him, intuitively looking for release from the frantic heat pulsing through her, knowing he possessed the answer, the ability to assuage her. Her hands were at his shoulders, kneading the muscles beneath his shirt, wanting to do more. Then her fingers were working his buttons, pushing the halves of his shirt back, finding the muscled expanse of bare skin underneath. Her palms skimmed the planes of his chest, her thumbs running over his nipples much as he’d done for her. He groaned his delight, his hips pressing harder against hers in response. His mouth was devouring her now, his hands shoving up her skirts so that she would be bare to him and it was still not enough. She was hungry, so very hungry for this, for his touch.
She was aware of his hand at her most private place, of his hand unerringly parting her damp curls and stroking the secret nub until the sensations he ignited drowned out any thought of reality, of recognition over what they were doing. Then he took her beyond all thought where she bucked hard against his hand and he lay beside her, crooning soft words of encouragement until she gave herself over entirely to the pleasures that swamped her.
She was a long time recovering. Alixe wanted nothing more than to lay beneath the maples in a well-sated stupor for ever. Merrick seemed content to lay there, too, propped on an elbow, looking down at her face, an idle hand stroking back an errant strand of hair.
‘What was that?’ Alixe said, her voice coming out slightly hoarse.
Merrick smiled. ‘The pleasures of the world of man, my dear. Did you like it?’
‘You know I did.’ It was an embarrassing admission. From what she’d been told, a lady didn’t like such things.
‘You should. There’s nothing wrong with liking it. You were made for it, I was made for it,’ Merrick said softly.
‘Is this what happens to virgins in churchyards?’ Alixe quipped, her wits coming back to her as the haze of sated desire receded.
Merrick chuckled. ‘Yes, except your Eanswythe.’
A wave of sadness and reality swept over Alixe. She turned to face Merrick, acutely aware they lay side by side in such close proximity. It would be entirely shocking if anyone found them this way. ‘Is that why you did it? To show me what she missed?’
Alixe didn’t want it to be the truth, that this most incredible experience, most intimate experience, had been another of his lessons.
‘No, pretty one, it’s not.’
Chapter Twelve
Merrick cut through the water, cleaving it with powerful strokes in the hopes that if he swam hard enough, long enough, he could exorcise the heat she raised in his body, the turmoil she raised in his mind. Alixe Burke had become dangerous to his sense of well-being.
He had not meant for things to progress as they had that afternoon. He had not risen in the morning with any thought of showing Alixe pleasure on a picnic blanket beneath a summer sky. Merrick flipped on to his back and began a long, methodical stroke that took him across the lake. If it had been an instructive interlude or a love-game of the type he played with his myriad women, he would have a proper perspective for understanding what had transpired—the generating of physical pleasure. But that had not been what had happened.
She had roused to him with a natural passion devoid of coy artifice. Those sherry eyes of hers had widened in awe and amazement, her untutored hips had sought release against his with no concept of what they were asking of him; the artlessness of her wanting had been a heady aphrodisiac to his jaded sense of sexual conquest. And it had fired him beyond reason, driven him to answer the calls of her body in ways s
he wanted, but could not imagine without him.
His body remembered every moment of her pleasure, of her body arching into his, her hips bucking against his hand. Even now, hours later, the memory of it was burned into his body, the simple recalling of it enough to bring to life a hard-suppressed erection. He had told her the truth. Touching her had nothing to do with lessons. He had touched her because he’d wanted to, because he was enchanted with her storytelling. Her face had come alive as she’d spun her tales of Eanswythe. He could have lain on the blanket and listened to her all afternoon. His London cronies would have laughed to see the sophisticated Merrick St Magnus captivated by the simple tales of country saints. For that matter, they would have laughed to see him with hammer in hand building fair booths.
But it had seemed right. He’d spun a fantasy for himself today with Alixe at the centre of it. It had been a lovely escape to imagine himself a country squire working with his neighbours, casting a glance every now and then to where his pretty wife chatted with other women. It was a perfect image, free of the entanglements of his debauched ways. The man in his fantasy didn’t wager on how many women he could bed in a year. The man in his fantasy needed only one woman and had the ability to remain constant. That man would not grow bored in the country as Merrick most certainly would.
Merrick floated on his back, his body exhausted, his mind still restless. It was an escape, nothing more. London waited and with it his regular life, his social rounds, his endless search for wagers and women that would keep his pockets lined. And his father waited. Reality waited. Alixe Burke would see him for what he was behind the clothes and easy words. In London there would be no hiding from the rumours. Even if he did nothing outrageous for the next six weeks of the Season, there were rumours enough from his past to convince her most thoroughly of his unsuitability.
That would be for the best. He’d not been the only one caught up in his little fantasy today. He’d caught her watching him in the same manner he’d been watching her. For all her protestations, Alixe was not immune to him. He’d initiated her into the pleasures of physical intimacy. That would count for something with a woman like Alixe Burke.
Merrick snorted up at the dusking sky. It was laughable really, the idea of he and Alixe together. Rakes didn’t marry good women who wanted to rebuild churches and translate old documents. And yet Merrick could not dismiss the idea that Alixe would be a perfect lover, that hard-to-find mix between untutored honesty and a curiosity in her own sensuality that overrode any annoying pretence towards modesty and embarrassment. He had no use for any woman who was too shy to admit to her own longings.
Merrick gave up on the pond. The heat of the afternoon had faded to the pleasant warmth of a summer evening. He would be missed and Lady Folkestone had entertainments planned for the evening—an alfresco dinner on the lawn and fireworks. Merrick towelled himself dry with his shirt and reached for the clean change of clothes he’d stopped by the house to get before setting out. He thrust his hand through the sleeve, tugging at the shoulder, and stopped, the sleeve coming off in his hand. What the hell …?
Merrick slid the ruined shirt off his body and studied the seams. They’d been ripped out so that only the basting remained. No wonder the sleeve had torn so effortlessly. He’d have to speak to Fillmore. He’d also have to walk home shirtless. Not that he cared. The evening was warm and he knew enough back paths to avoid encountering anyone.
He reached for his trousers and pulled them on. He bent to collect his boots and heard an ominous rip. Merrick straightened and laughed into the evening sky. It wasn’t Fillmore he needed to speak with. It was an amber-eyed minx who’d wanted a little bit of revenge for his having stolen her clothes.
The west lawn looked like a fairyland with coloured lanterns strung from poles and candles under glass shields lighting the tables. Around Alixe, guests exclaimed over the summer magic her mother had created for the alfresco dinner. The meal would be the talk of London when the guests returned to town in a few days. But Alixe had little time to appreciate the summer splendour. Her eyes were busily quartering the guests for any sign of Merrick. He’d returned her to the house and abruptly left again. To her knowledge he had not returned yet. When she’d asked Fillmore where he might be, Fillmore had merely said he’d taken a change of clothes and left for a swim.
Now she was worried. And she was feeling a little bit guilty. What if he had picked up the clothes she had altered that morning? She had meant for him to discover her little prank in the privacy of his room. If he’d taken those clothes to a swimming hole … The image of a naked Merrick striding through the forest like a primordial god, tattered clothes in hand, brought a hot flush to her cheeks. He would act as if it didn’t matter, as if roaming around in his ‘altogether’ was a perfectly natural experience. She had not meant to embarrass him, just to show him that she would not submit easily.
It seemed a poor prank after what had happened that afternoon. The simple pleasures of the outing had become complicated in the wake of what had occurred on the picnic blanket. He said he hadn’t done it to teach her a lesson and she had found comfort in those words as long as she didn’t examine them too closely.
If it hadn’t been a lesson, what had it been? She knew without doubt that she was harbouring a perilous fascination with him. The interest she held in his life, the attraction she felt, the frantic wildness he raised in her when he touched her could no longer be explained away as general curiosity. There had been suitors before, but none with whom she’d felt this level of allure. None of them had inclined her to even a kiss, let alone risk the temptations he’d presented her with today.
Those temptations went beyond the intimacy of what he’d done for her, although that had been exquisite and extraordinary in the sense that nothing had prepared her for the possibilities of such pleasure. She was still awash with the sensations. But there had been other temptations, too. He had listened to her tell the tales of Eanswythe with a sincerity that could not be faulted.
Today, she had been the centre of his attentions, not just during the stories, but throughout the entire afternoon. He’d built those booths for her, helped with the historical society for her. She could not recall the last time anyone had been so entirely devoted to her and she hadn’t even asked. The greatest temptation of all was to fall for the fantasy he’d created: a fantasy where she wasn’t being carted off and paraded on the marriage mart, a fantasy where he was not the greatest lover of women in all of London and had likely pleasured countless women the way he’d pleasured her. In this fantasy, he was hers alone.
And for all that, she’d ripped the seams on his clothes so that they wouldn’t hold when he put them on. She wished she hadn’t.
Couples were pairing up at the round dinner tables set out across the lawn. The house party had been a success. Several matches would come of these two weeks. Alixe’s gaze darted through the groupings, searching for Jamie. She was feeling distinctly de trop without a partner. She had not realised how implicitly she’d come to rely on Merrick’s presence at her side throughout the week. If he was absent, walking around naked out there in the summer night, she had only herself to blame.
Gentle hands skimmed her bare shoulders and a familiar scent enveloped her. ‘Missing me yet?’ came Merrick’s voice at her ear.
‘Please tell me you’re wearing clothes,’ Alixe whispered back.
Merrick’s warm chuckle was all the reassurance she needed, bringing with it a sense that rightness had been restored to her world. ‘I am, no thanks to you, minx.’ It was a playful reproach. He was not angry.
‘I am sorry.’
‘Don’t be, I rather enjoyed the joke.’ He leaned in, the delightful smell of his cologne wrapping around her. ‘You could have enjoyed it, too, if you’d been there. I did have to walk back half-naked.’
‘I am sorry, truly.’
‘To have missed it? Of course you are. Most would be.’ His voice was a naughty whisper against her neck. ‘But you are a
lready familiar with my altogether, so perhaps you feel the loss more keenly.’
Alixe laughed. ‘If I had a fan, I’d smack you for that.’
Merrick made a small bow and pulled something from his inner pocket. ‘But you do.’
He presented her with a small ivory-boned fan done in lace on the points and the fabric of the body painted with delicate multi-coloured flowers. ‘Oh, there are even sequins sewn on the petals,’ Alixe exclaimed over the little details, delighting in how the sequins caught the play of the candlelight. ‘Merrick, it’s lovely. It might be quite the loveliest thing anyone has ever given me.’ She looped the ribbon strap about her wrist and let it dangle experimentally. ‘Thank you.’
‘I am glad you like it. Now, shall we find a table?’
Merrick’s hand was warm at the small of her back and she could feel the fantasy rushing back. ‘I see Ashe and Mrs Whitely over there. We could join them and seal everyone’s suspicions.’
It would be the smart thing to do. Her mother had most adroitly allowed her guests to sit where they’d like. It allowed the gentlemen to declare their preferences most subtly, a very fitting gesture as the party came to a close.
Merrick guided her through the maze of tables, his hand a constant light pressure at her back. She was well aware of people watching them. She was sure many had seen him give her the fan and many more were watching to see if he’d ‘declare’ himself the way others had tonight with their seating preference.
Merrick held out the chair for her and helped her arrange her skirts before sitting beside her. Riordan and Jamie joined them, Jamie bringing over a distant cousin who’d come for a few days to take in the ball before going on to London.
They made a merry group. Wine flowed freely, but carefully, and the gentlemen indulged them by telling stories from their college days that Alixe was certain were heavily edited for public consumption. This was a side of Merrick rarely seen, although she had glimpsed it on brief occasions, a Merrick who was at ease the way he’d been earlier today. This was not the cynical Merrick with his jaded innuendos, nor was it the Merrick whose proper behaviour was almost so perfect among society it seemed to subtly mock that same society.
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