The Bath Trilogy

by Amanda Scott

  He said smoothly, “Things are not altogether settled between us yet, so we have not said anything to anyone. You will understand, I’m sure, that we’ve no wish to set the tattlemongers to prating of our affairs any more than they do already.”

  “No, no, to be sure,” Charles agreed.

  Sybilla found herself being whisked up the stairs before she could say another word, and by the time they reached her bedchamber, several emotions were tumbling over one another in her mind. She was furious with the earl, grateful to him for not saying more to Charles, and not a little afraid of him in this seemingly unpredictable mood.

  Letting anger carry the day, she turned on him the moment she heard the door snap to. “How dare you tell him we are back together! And how dare you have the nerve to send your things to my bedchamber! Not that that, at least, cannot be remedied.” She whirled to pull the bell, but no sooner had she gripped its satin cord than she found her wrist clamped in a vise of iron.

  “Let it go,” he said grimly.

  “I won’t!”

  “Then pull it, and when the maidservant comes, I will send her away and tell her not to come back until I send for her. Do you think she will not obey me, Sybilla?”

  She released the cord but glared at him and said fiercely, “You are not going to sleep in my bed, Ramsbury, so you needn’t think it.”

  He smiled, but there was little humor in the expression. “Are you trying to delay the reckoning, my love?”

  A shiver raced up her spine, but she tried to ignore it as she demanded, “What reckoning? You’ll not dare to touch me in my brother’s house.” Even as she spoke the words, she knew they were untrue. There was a look about him that she had not seen before, a dangerous look, and when he stepped away from her, she knew he did so because he did not trust himself to stay near.

  His voice was low in his throat, but she heard him clearly. “You have an odd notion of what I will or won’t dare,” he said. “In view of your behavior today, you would do well to reconsider. Even had you not made difficulties for me by telling your simpleminded chambermaid that I had abducted you, I warned you how it would be if you forced me to follow you.”

  “But that was before we left Bath! I never thought … That … that had nothing to do with my leaving Nibley!”

  He looked at her.

  Another tremor of fear shot up her spine, and she straightened immediately, squaring her shoulders so that he might not know he had frightened her. Lifting her chin, she faced him defiantly and said, “So what will you do, my lord, beat me at last?”

  “I think not.” To her astonishment, his eyes began to twinkle. “Sometimes I wonder, you little vixen, if you wouldn’t welcome a heavier hand. You would know then what to expect, would you not? But this time I know a better punishment. My things, and I, will remain in this room.” He turned toward the window, leaving her to stare at him in speechless fury.

  When she found her voice at last, she said, “Ned, you can’t. You mustn’t. I-I won’t let you!”

  He turned. “I can, and you have naught to say about it. What? Do you think you can apply to the languid Charles? Or perhaps Clarissa will leap to your aid. Do you know, of the two of them, I’d much rather have Clarissa in my corner than Charles. She has an air of capability that he lacks, poor fellow. Never had a chance, did he, growing up as he did in the shadow of so masterful a sister, with a father who didn’t give a damn. I thought my father a rum touch, but Sir Mortimer tops him easily. At least mine took the time to introduce me to his clubs and see that I had the right education and met the right people.”

  “Charlie went to Eton and Cambridge, as you know very well,” she said tightly.

  “Yes, though he was at Cambridge for less than a year, as I recall, before he gave it up as a waste of time and money. He knows any number of the right people, too, I’ll be bound, but his greatest asset is his wife. People said it was a mistake for him to marry at eighteen, but in my opinion, it was the wisest thing he could have done.”

  “Clarissa is …” But there was nothing she could say about Clarissa that would not sound petty, if not downright rude, so she bit her tongue.

  Ramsbury smiled at her, but there was compassion in his eyes. “Clarissa is wise enough to let her husband think he is master in his home, even when he is not. Hers may be the guiding hand, but she—”

  “Oh, she is a paragon,” snapped Sybilla. “I suppose you are saying that you would prefer me to let you pretend to such nonsense, too, even when you know perfectly well that you are wrong about something and I am right.”

  He shook his head. “I would never be so foolish as to expect you to keep silent, Syb. I doubt you would know how.” He moved toward her again, coming to stand directly in front of her. “You ought not to despise Clarissa, you know. You ought to thank her for taking one worry from your shoulders. She means you no harm, love. She wants only to protect what’s hers.”

  She knew suddenly that he was right, that her resentment of Clarissa was unwarranted, but the knowledge did nothing to assuage her desire to snap his head off. Her eyes flashed, and her chin came up, but when she encountered his steady gaze and saw not anger or mockery but understanding, she swallowed her words and turned away, wondering what on earth had brought the sudden lump in her throat.

  She went still when his hand cupped her chin and he turned her head back toward him. His gentle touch sent shock waves through her, and when his other hand moved to her shoulder to turn her the rest of the way, what little resistance she had left crumbled. She gazed up at him, vaguely aware of a burning sensation in her eyes. Her heart begin to thump.

  He did not move for a long moment, letting the electricity build between them before he lowered his lips to hers. His kiss was light, gentle, but nonetheless possessive. However, when she responded, pressing toward him and parting her lips invitingly, he raised his head, and his eyes began to twinkle again. “I believe you’ve missed me after all,” he said.

  Sybilla gasped and stepped away from him. “You think too highly of your prowess with women, sir. I promise you, a mere kiss changes nothing between us, so do not think it. Rather, set your energies to finding another bedchamber for yourself.”

  His expression did not alter. “No, Sybilla. I will spend the night here with you. Oh, I’ll not force you to anything you do not want,” he added when her mouth tightened, “but I’ll not be sent away, either. You would do well to make up your mind to that and put a good face on it with your relatives. You may ring for a chambermaid now, so that you can change to a proper gown.”

  The casual way he gave his permission made her teeth grate together, but she had a strong notion that if she argued with him, he would simply offer to maid her himself. That, she knew, she did not want. It really was unfair, she thought, that after nearly sixteen months of scarcely seeing each other, he could still stir her senses so easily with no more than a touch of his hand upon her shoulder. And one light kiss.

  Repressing all thought of that kiss, she moved to pull the bell, hoping he would have the goodness to leave her alone with her maid. It was not fashionable for a man to share his wife’s bedchamber when visiting unless the house they visited was quite small, which Westerleigh Hall most assuredly was not. She glanced at him uncertainly when the maid entered, but Ramsbury only smiled back and retired to a chair near the window, picking up a book from the nearby table and opening it in his lap.

  Stilling a sigh, Sybilla gave her orders to the maid and washed her face and hands while the young woman unpacked a green crepe gown from her portmanteau and helped her change. When she was ready, they went downstairs to find their host and hostess awaiting them in a charmingly appointed drawing room.

  Clarissa appeared to be in good spirits and greeted them both warmly. “How pretty that gown is, Sybilla! Green is always your best color, you know. Charles tells me you will not be able to stay longer than the night. How disappointing, but of course neither of you would wish to catch the children’s ailment!”
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  There was really nothing more to be said on the subject after that, particularly with Ramsbury agreeing at once that nothing could be worse than for him to take ill and find himself laid low in Bath for a week or more. The conversation at dinner proceeded along conventional lines, and the meal and the evening that followed were both over too soon to suit Sybilla, but when Ramsbury declared at last that they should allow their host and hostess to retire, she could think of no way to prolong matters.

  Upstairs in the candlelit bedchamber, she moved to ring for the maid, half-expecting the earl to stop her, but he did not. Instead he retired to the chair near the window with a branch of candles and his book until she was ready. Twenty minutes later, when she asked the maid to stir up the fire, he said calmly, “I’ll attend to that. You may go, girl.”

  Biting her lower lip, Sybilla said nothing until the maid had gone, and by then she had decided there was nothing to be gained by pointing out, yet again, that she did not appreciate his issuing orders that were rightly hers to issue. For a long moment there was silence in the room, while she avoided looking at him, but at last she turned on the dressing chair to find him smiling warmly at her.

  “I like that nightdress,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She stood up and moved to the bed, the soft folds of creamy silk molding her full breasts and rounded hips and swirling about her slender legs. “If you are going to poke up that fire, I wish you will do so. ’Tis still chilly in this room.” She paused, looking at the bed, which seemed to have grown smaller, then swallowed and said tightly, “I do wish you would sleep somewhere else, Ned.”

  “Your wishes must generally be paramount with me, my love, but not tonight.” He got up from the chair and went to stir up the fire, taking a log from the basket to put atop the low-burning wood on the grate. Looking back at her over his shoulder, he smiled. “You aren’t afraid of me, I hope.”

  “No.” But her mouth was dry, and as she watched him get to his feet again and brush off the knees of his buff-colored pantaloons, she realized that her palms were damp. “No, Ned,” she said again, as much to reassure herself as for any other purpose, “I am not afraid of you.”

  But when she had slipped beneath the covers, she lay there stiffly, every nerve taut within her as she watched him move about the room. When he took off his shirt and threw it across the back of a chair, the light from fire and candles set golden lights playing upon the rippling muscles of his aims and broad back. When he turned toward her and began to remove his breeches, Sybilla shut her eyes.

  A few moments later, when she felt the bed give beneath his weight, she scooted to the very edge and held her breath, but although he moved around for some moments more, he did not touch her. She heard him punching the pillow into acceptable shape before, at last, he settled down and was silent.

  Opening her eyes, she glanced obliquely at the dark shape of him, outlined by the glow of firelight beyond, and saw that he had turned to his side, away from her. Instead of feeling relieved at such considerate behavior, however, she experienced a surge of resentment. Clearly, by insisting upon sharing her bed, he meant only to demonstrate the power he held over her. He was not interested in anything else.

  Biting her lip, she stared up at the dark ceiling, willing herself to keep silent, to relax, even to sleep, but when he murmured gently, “Goodnight, Sybilla,” it was all she could do to keep from punching him as hard as he had punched his pillow.

  The sound of deep, still familiar, steady breathing followed soon afterward, and she knew he was asleep. But sleep for her was elusive. She lay there, long into the night, long after the crackle of the fire had diminished to an occasional snap from dying embers and then gone silent. Though the room had grown cold, she had no wish to stir from the bed to put another log on the grate, for she did not want to waken him. At long last, chilly and exhausted, she slipped into restless slumber.

  Before she had truly wakened, she realized she was no longer chilled. Warmth glowed through her body, and she let herself bask in the feeling for several luxurious minutes before she recognized the source and became aware of the rise and fall of his broad, bare chest beneath her cheek. She was lying on her stomach, partially across him, her breasts crushed between their bodies. One of his solid, muscular arms was wrapped around her.

  Silently, slowly, she tried to slip free without waking him, but the moment she stirred, his arm tightened.

  “Don’t move, sweetheart,” he murmured sleepily. “ ’Tis pleasant as it is.”

  She sighed and relaxed. It was pleasant. And it was comfortable. At least it was comfortable until his hand began to move gently against her back, between her shoulder blades at first and then to her shoulder and along the line of her shoulder to her neck. One finger brushed her earlobe, and she trembled, feeling a rush of varying sensations all the way to her toes.

  “Don’t, Ned,” she breathed huskily.

  “Don’t?” The teasing finger tickled her ear. “Are you sure, Syb?” The finger moved lightly along the line of her jaw to the tip of her chin. “Look at me,” he murmured.

  Her resistance was slight at best. There was pressure from the finger on her chin, insistent pressure, but she knew that if she truly resisted, he would not force her. She told herself firmly that she must resist, but her body would not obey her. It felt about as resistant as warm taffy. And while her head moved with a will of its own in response to the light touch of his finger, her breath grew ragged in anticipation of his kiss.

  Ramsbury said nothing further, though he paused before he kissed her, a pause so long that Sybilla found herself pressing closer to him, her lips parting softly in invitation. Still, he watched her, gauging her mood, her willingness; but when at last his lips claimed hers, there was nothing tentative about the gesture. It was as though the careful restraint he had imposed upon himself had evaporated without a trace.

  Sybilla responded instantly and with a passion as abandoned as his own. Moments later, when he turned, raising himself onto his elbow so that he could look down at her, she gazed up at him, waiting breathlessly to see what he would do next. And when his free hand touched her breast, tenderly at first, caressingly, and then more firmly, masterfully, she continued to gaze into his eyes, willing him to kiss her again.

  Instead, he continued his exploration of her body, moving his hand teasingly over her nightdress, then pushing the covers aside so that it could move lower, unimpeded. Her senses were concentrated upon the movement of his hand.

  When he began to gather the material of her long gown into his fingers, moving the silk upward until his fingers touched bare flesh, her breath caught in a sobbing gasp in her throat. And when his lips came down upon hers, crushing them against her teeth, no longer gentle at all, but demanding, possessing her, her body leapt to his, straining against his teasing fingers. She scarcely noticed when he moved away from her enough to push her gown up over her breasts, but when he stopped kissing her, she moaned in protest.

  He slipped the gown over her head and pulled it free of her arms, pausing again to look at her.

  “How beautiful you are, love. Are you cold?”

  “No!” She reached for him, pulling his head down again, demanding more kisses, arching against him, and moving her hands over his body in all the ways she remembered would stir him most. Together they strove to reach peaks they had nearly forgotten existed, and when he entered her, she cried out her pleasure, making him smile briefly before his own passion overcame him and his powerful body leapt of its own accord into its primordial effort to conquer hers.

  Afterward, satiated, energies drained, they lay back against their pillows in limp repletion. Even when Ned slipped his arm beneath her and drew her head to his shoulder, Sybilla remained silent, still lost in the wondrous feelings he had stirred within her. Not until he gently kissed her temple did she respond. Then, with a deep sigh, she said, “I’d forgotten.”

  “We mustn’t,” he murmured.

  “No.” But even as she sa
id the single word, she found herself wondering what on earth she had done.

  She kept her thoughts to herself, however, and the rest of the morning passed quickly, with only two small arguments between them, the first when Ramsbury announced that she would leave her phaeton behind until one of Charles’s servants could drive it to Bath for her, and the second when he discovered that she had slipped up to the nursery to reassure herself that her nieces were being properly looked after. Since there was already a light snow falling, she could scarcely demand either that they take the phaeton themselves or that someone follow them with it at once. And since Clarissa interrupted them before she could do more than react indignantly to his tight-lipped condemnation of what he called her foolishness in exposing herself to the children, she came off second best in both encounters.

  They made their farewells to Charles and Clarissa at last, and were on the road by ten o’clock. Jem drove them as far as Mangotwood in the ancient, dilapidated coach that had carried Ramsbury from Nibley, but in Mangotwood the earl arranged for the coach to be returned to Nibley and hired a proper post-chaise and four to carry them all the rest of the way.

  The old coach had been poorly sprung and had smelled, even in the cold air, and its seats were threadbare. Nevertheless, Sybilla had preferred its spacious interior to that of the small chaise he hired, although the second vehicle moved a good deal faster behind a team guided by a pair of elderly postilions in yellow oilskins, with Jem clinging to the footman’s perch behind. They changed horses in Bristol and, once on the Bath Road, with skies clearing, they made very good time.

  Ramsbury had been in an excellent mood from the outset and paid little heed to Sybilla’s bouts of silence. When he spoke to her directly, she responded but did nothing more to encourage conversation, and once they were on the Bath Road, she leaned her head against the squabs and shut her eyes.

  He said, “Tired, love?”