After the Kiss

by Karen Ranney

  They kissed the entire way past Silbury Village. When he finally pulled back, she sank weakly against his chest.

  “A week,” he said, his voice deep, almost harsh.

  A week of him. Surely a week would be safe. A week to last her for the rest of her life. When that week was over, she would commence her plans.

  A voice filled her mind, one that sounded like her Gran’s. A stern tone, one that chided her. Margaret, do not be a foolish girl. But she was very much afraid that she was.

  “I want to love you again,” he murmured against her ear. Gently, he bit on the lobe. “Don’t you remember how it was with us?”

  Excitement rippled through her. How could she forget?

  “When it’s over will you let me go?” she asked on a sigh, eyes closed. Her cheek pressed against his chest; she heard the pounding of his heart beneath her ear.

  Unwise, Margaret. Foolish girl.

  “Yes,” he bit out, brushing his chin against her temple. “Kiss me.”

  A command. A decree. A summons.

  How could she deny him? Or herself?

  He pressed both hands on either side of her head, slanted his mouth over hers, inhaling her breath and her will. Her fingers gripped his wrists, then slipped behind his neck to hold him in place.

  Montraine. A name. Or an enchantment.

  Long moments later, his hands slid to her back. She fell forward, rested her cheek on the cradle of her arms. His breathing was as harsh as hers.

  “Just a kiss,” he said, sounding stunned.

  Should she be feeling so amused? Not simply that, but pleased that he felt as lost as she. Prideful that she could render him as needy.

  Now, that must truly be a sin.

  He made no pretense of subtlety as his hand slipped beneath her skirt, traveled up until he reached her stocking top. Above it, her skin was bare, and his fingers played there, stroking softly, intrusively upward until he found her, damp and swollen.

  “You’re ready for me,” he said, a note of surprise in his voice.

  She nodded against her folded arms. She felt as if the air was thick around her, that time itself slowed in its execution, each second having a full measure of beats. His fingers explored her intimately in a rhythm of arousal. His palm pressed against her, his thumb rotating slowly.

  “Now,” he said. “I have to be in you now.”

  “Yes,” she said, the word uttered through lips that felt oddly numb.

  She should be shocked at being loved in a carriage. Horrified at it. But all she could feel was that time was too slow, and he must end this. Now. Not in a bed, or on a floor. But in this moment. Later would be time enough to be horrified at her actions.

  A moment, a second, an eternity later, he freed himself, lifted her, spread her legs. She sank down on him, a gasp escaping her. Her body welcomed him, molded itself to him, an invasion of the senses as well as the body. She felt a flush travel from her toes to the top of her head, carrying with it an almost unbearable tingling sensation. Her breasts peaked almost painfully.

  She fumbled with his cravat, pulled the neckcloth off, baring his throat so that she could kiss him there. Touch her tongue to his skin, inhale his scent. Her face was buried against his neck, her eyes clenched shut. Her body urged her mind’s silence as he raised and lowered her.

  What was she doing? Now, please now. Paradoxical thoughts. Or cautions and wishes, entwined.

  Her face was hot, her lips heated against his skin. Even her breath was warm as if there was a furnace inside her. Molten coals.

  He leaned back against the carriage seat, spread out both arms until his hands braced against the walls. Her knees were on either side of him, her arms wound around his neck, her cheek pressed against his, eyes closed. He lifted one booted foot, then another to the other seat, deepening his penetration.

  The sensation was exquisite. Delight and an almost pained wonder. Her breath came harshly, her body urged completion, while her mind demanded that she end this. Be proper and wise and Margaret.

  He gripped her by her waist, raised, then slowly lowered her over him. Over and over until the sheer joy of the feeling was simply more than she could bear.

  Suddenly she was there. Not in a carriage all along the road. But in another place where her body splintered and shattered and the sound she made was close to a moan or a prayer. And his oaths, rough and heartfelt, accompanied her on the journey.

  Michael couldn’t believe he had done it. He had taken a woman in a carriage. He, Michael Hawthorne, irritatingly known as the Code Master, Earl of Montraine, had just swived a woman in a carriage.

  And done a remarkably good job at it.

  Margaret slumped against him, her breath short and fast. If her heartbeat was anything like his, it was a wonder they hadn’t both succumbed to apoplexy.

  He stared over her shoulder at the opposite side of the carriage as if witnessing the man he had become. How much of an idiot was he?

  Not a rhetorical question at all, he thought wryly. His hand pressed against her back, held her against him. He had lost his senses. Forgot where he was, who he was. A few kisses and he had been maddened. No. More than that. The fact that he could not quite describe what had come over him concerned him.

  Margaret sat up finally, brushed the tendrils of hair back from her face. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. It was just as well; he doubted he could meet hers. He helped her arrange herself, straighten her skirts, move back to the other seat. Their fingers met, then their gaze, and both separated quickly.

  She fascinated him, an interest normally reserved for the most complex of ciphers. Perhaps it was because she posed the most difficult puzzle he’d ever been given. She amused him; she irritated him; she disturbed him. This craving for her had translated into behavior he would never have ascribed to himself. One look at her and he was a randy goat.

  He didn’t feel the lassitude he normally did following lovemaking. But then, he had never engaged in the act in a traveling carriage. He wondered if his coachman knew what had transpired.

  He was going to keep his hands off her, he vowed. Ration himself. He would see her only once a day. Become used to her the way he’d learned to drink brandy. A sip here and there before imbibing the entire snifter.

  The next time would occur in the bed. A nice, soft bed with clean sheets. He would impress her with his skill. He closed his eyes. Bloody hell. He’d taken her once on the floor and once in a carriage. At this point, she probably didn’t think he possessed any skill at all.

  “Are we going to London?” she asked. Her attention had been directed to the scenery for the last quarter hour. There was nothing much to see other than a flattened landscape and a few verdant hills. However, it seemed to serve as a fascinating diversion for her. Somewhere to rest her gaze other than in his direction.

  He nodded, studying her as if his memory had somehow faded in the weeks since he’d seen her. Her cheeks bloomed with the faintest shade of pink as if striving to match her lips. Her auburn hair gleamed with highlights and her eyes were green today. Not a bright hue, but a subdued one.

  What was it about her that fascinated him? Her perfume? He didn’t think she wore any. The way she wore her hair? Today it was loose, curling down and over her shoulders. Even now it seemed to entice him to spear his hands through it, find all the separate gold and red colors.

  When he’d seen her stop along the path and pluck a flower, he’d found himself enchanted all over again. The sun had touched her hair as if it had found the one thing of beauty and delicacy there in that poor place.

  What kind of woman made him smile, feel an overpowering lust, then made him wish to guard her in the next breath?

  Had he shamed her? It had not been his intent. But then, he’d not known he would become a rutting beast with a kiss. Perhaps if he did not kiss her the next time, he might retain a little sense.

  A week with Margaret was perhaps too much. It would be wiser to return her to her cottage in a day or so. Or three.
Very well, a week. But only that.

  After this week, he would concentrate on the Cyrillic cipher. What time was left would be devoted to his mathematical engine. Perhaps if he buried himself in the problems associated with gears and levers and metal tolerances, he would become himself once more.

  She sat in the corner of the carriage and clasped her hands together so that he would not see that she trembled. Arousal or its aftermath?

  He had felt her shatter in his arms, her internal muscles clenching him so tight that the pleasure had been intense. Mindless. Yet they sat together now as if such abandon had embarrassed them.

  Twice now they had reacted the same way. Perhaps she was not unlike him, unused to being lost so completely in pleasure.

  He moved, restless. He was not a man, however intense his study of puzzles and codes and ciphers, who was familiar with self-reflection. He knew who he was, what his duties were, what his responsibilities were. They defined him. They did not allow for any doubt or self-questioning.

  Yet every time he was with her he found himself doing exactly that. Becoming someone else, acting in a manner that was unlike himself.

  He had no experience whatsoever in postcoital moments in a carriage. Although he doubted that he should be feeling so damn smug.

  Chapter 15

  A woman who would know her body

  must first know her mind.

  The Journals of Augustin X

  When the carriage stopped and they alighted from it, she looked about her, recognized his house. They mounted the stairs together, neither speaking. The door opened and Smytheton appeared, perfectly attired despite the lateness of the hour.

  Margaret smiled at him. He seemed taken aback at the gesture. He nodded in return, frowned at Michael.

  “Get to bed, Smytheton. It’s late.”

  “My lord, if I may be of service?”

  “Only if you retire for the night,” Michael said.

  Smytheton looked at him disapprovingly. Margaret wondered if Smytheton was aware of what had transpired in the carriage. Was that why Michael was being chided with a glance? They stared at each other, majordomo and earl. Smytheton finally bowed slightly, left the foyer, and went to his room, his lone candle lighting the way.

  Margaret stood silent as Michael lit a branch of candles, walked beside him up the steps. At the second floor, they followed a corridor to a set of double doors.

  Margaret had the strange thought that it was a gate through which she must pass. What lay on the other side?

  Any protest against his abduction of her had been adequately silenced by her behavior in the carriage. She had been wild for him.

  The room was furnished with a large armoire, two candlestands, and a set of wooden steps that led up to a wide bed draped in an ivory counterpane. A fireplace dominated one wall, its elaborately chiseled mantel of marble a subtle indication of wealth.

  She moved to the end of the bed, curved her hand around one of the thickly carved mahogany posts, turned, and glanced to where he still stood. Even after traveling so long he barely looked mussed. Wrinkles would cringe before Michael Hawthorne.

  Should she be in awe of him? An indication of his power, perhaps, that the thought entered her mind. Or a sign of her stubbornness that she refused to be quelled by him. It was, after all, not the man she had to fear. But the way he could make her feel. Her own nature was at fault, not his.

  “I was wrong again,” he said. “I thought you lovely in the sunlight. But candlelight suits you more.”

  A compliment, to bridge the silence between them. She offered him a comment in return. Perhaps conversation might ease the memory of their abandon.

  “My Gran used to say that beauty was overrated. That what counted was a person’s character, not his appearance. But then, she was old when I was born, and her beauty had long since faded.”

  “Did she raise you?” he asked.

  She nodded. “My parents died of influenza when I was just a child, and she was my only relative.” She sat on the end of the bed, her hand still curved around the post.

  “An only child, then. I might have bequeathed you my sisters. I wished often enough to be rid of them.”

  She smoothed her left hand over the counterpane.

  “How many siblings do you have?” she asked.

  “Three sisters. No brothers, and a mother.”

  He leaned against the door, indolent, effortlessly handsome. She should not be so transfixed by the sight of him.

  “What would you read?” he asked.

  At her questioning look, he continued. “Earlier,” he said. “When you asked if I would send you a box of books to while away your time. What would you choose?”

  “Something about Rome,” she said. It was evident he had not expected her answer. Had he thought she wished to read only novels? “Or India,” she said. “One of the Journals takes place there, and it seems an altogether exotic locale.”

  She had thought, once, that it might be a wondrous thing to see the world. To feel the sea wind on her cheek, and spy mountains that scraped the sky. Or travel a river filled with white-flecked eddies. Perhaps stand, awestruck, at the base of a waterfall and witness the rainbow in the mist.

  Other people had seen such things, and written about them with words that had speared her heart. Each sentence had driven inside to the deepest part of her and tied itself to her longing, made her wish to be more than herself.

  But her world had narrowed, her wishes and wants more elemental. When would the drought end? Who would buy the Journals? How would she protect her child? The world was, somehow, not as important as that last question.

  “I’ll show you my library, then,” he said. “Perhaps you can find a volume there to please you.”

  She smiled. They were so utterly polite. Hours earlier they had clawed at each other. She felt her cheeks warm.

  “I can arrange for a bath, if you like,” he said. A surprising offer.

  She had never wished to live among the nobility. She could not remember having a single thought of envy for their large houses and their well-sprung carriages. But at the moment, the thought of a bath was almost enough to make her wish herself a duchess. It was a luxury in her small cottage, one she granted herself as often as she could. But it meant endless trips to the well and hours heating the water.

  She nodded. “I would like that,” she said.

  He left the room then. It felt as if the air changed, became less charged. Her imagination.

  She leaned against the post, closed her eyes. Perhaps it would have been better for her to choose sleep instead. An effect of her condition, perhaps, that she was tired so often.

  But she stood, walked around the room, found herself in front of the armoire. She pressed her hand against the door, wondered what she would find inside if she was so ill mannered to invade his privacy. His shirts, perhaps, carefully folded? A selection of cravats, perfectly shined boots?

  What was she doing here? She was indulging in a whim. A reverie. A sorcerer’s dream. She was his apprentice in this flight of fancy.

  It would be wiser to be gone from here. She could go to her friends, the Plodgetts. She would borrow the coach fare from Samuel. He and Maude would talk to her of commonplace things. The three of them would recall days in which she was wise and solemn and had her wits about her.

  Her eyes closed, she breathed in the scent in this room. Something that smelled of herbs and woods. And Montraine.

  A tap on the door and it opened. She whirled, feeling awkward that he’d caught her acting besotted in front of his wardrobe.

  “It seems that today is the maid’s half-day off,” he said, smiling slightly. “I believe, however, that we can manage.”

  He led her out of the room and down the stairs, through the foyer and a series of corridors until they reached the kitchen.

  The room was a cheery place. A well-scrubbed wooden plank table stretched the length of the space. Cupboards and shelves painted white lined the walls and
were filled with cooking implements. The windowsill was laden with red pots of green herbs. There, in front of a newly fueled fire, sat a copper bath half filled with water.

  A large, black cauldron of water sat simmering in the corner of the kitchen fire. Michael poured the boiling water into a smaller bucket, then into the bath.

  “Can I help?” she asked, standing there with hands clasped before her.

  “Do you doubt my ability, Margaret?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “You seem quite competent at the task.”

  He grinned, an expression that she’d not seen before. A bit of boyishness peeping out from beneath the role of earl.

  “The truth of the matter is that I’d prefer not to wake Smytheton again,” he confessed. “Besides, I’m not incompetent.”

  “Is it customary to have such a forbidding butler?”

  “It’s not customary to have Smytheton at all,” he said wryly. “Most major domos work their way up from the ranks, beginning at the post of footman. Smytheton has only been in my employ these last seven years. He served with Wellington. With distinction, I understand. I could not turn him away when he applied for the post. But I never knew that he would hold me in such disdain.” He poured another bucket of boiling water into the tub.

  “Does he truly?”

  Glancing over at her, he smiled. “I have the feeling at times that he has taken on the role of father protector.”

  “He does not approve of my being here,” she said. She had not missed the look the butler had given Michael the first time she’d come to his home. Nor on this occasion.

  “It suits him to feel superior. I regularly perform in ways that give him that opportunity.”

  “Have you done this before?”

  “Prepared a bath?”

  She smiled. “No, brought a woman here.”

  He straightened. “No,” he said simply, and returned to the fire.

  The silence was not uncomfortable, but it seemed filled with comments better left unsaid.

  She looked around the kitchen. The ceiling was decorated with cherubs in the corners. Small, impudent, smiling, they seemed to look down at them in inquisitiveness.