“If ye mean Dysart, he ain’t me dad, either.”
Good Lord, Adrian was the last person to discuss such a personal matter with the boy, especially when he wasn’t familiar with the circumstances. Not only that, he didn’t have time to get into it. All he wanted was a fresh horse so he could go back for Lady Caroline. “If he was married to your mum when you were born, that makes him your dad.”
“That ain’t what Sadie told me.”
“Get down off that horse. This is no place to talk about such personal details.” Not when Gem’s expression betrayed an avid interest in the topic. Apparently even the stable boys were not above a good gossip.
Gus heaved a great sigh, as if Adrian had just requested he bring in the oat harvest grain by grain, but he let himself slide to the ground. Gem took both horses in hand and led them into the stables.
Adrian set a hand on Gus’s shoulder and gave him a gentle push toward the house. In a low voice, Adrian added, “You ought to be thankful to have a man willing to step in as your dad, no matter the true circumstances that brought you into this world. Some of us have not been so fortunate.”
Gus gaped. “Ye? Yer saying—”
“I was born on the wrong side of the blanket, aye. What would you have done growing up without a dad?”
“I’d have one less person to tell me what to do.”
They’d come a safe distance from the stable yard, so Adrian crouched until he was on Gus’s level. “He only tells you what to do because he cares enough to see you grow up with your feet set on the proper path. I’d’ve been grateful if a good man like Dysart had taken me in. You’ve no call to be chasing after scoundrels and cheats like Pendleton.”
Gus lowered his brows and hardened his jaw, the very portrait of bullheadedness.
Adrian suppressed a sigh and stood. “You think about it, and you may come to see I’m right. Now, where is Sadie? Wasn’t she supposed to be watching you?”
Gus shrugged off the contact. “I gave her the slip.”
As though in answer to Adrian’s question, however, a figure came running up the path from the manor. “There you are!” Red stained Sadie’s cheeks, and her bosom bounced with her efforts. “Don’t ye ever go disappearin’ like that again. Ye had me that worried.”
“Do you see what happens when you sneak off?” Adrian asked the boy. “You upset other people.” By gum, he sounded like someone’s maiden aunt, but he was hardly in a position where he could impose true disciplinary measures on Gus. “I’d like you to apologize to Sadie and then go straight to your bedchamber.”
Gus’s sly half smile told Adrian all he needed to know. The boy didn’t take his orders any more seriously than Adrian himself would have at the same age. “Yer pardon, Sadie. I won’t do it again.”
Sadie nodded and reached for the boy’s arm.
“Wait,” Adrian intervened. “I want a word with you.” He turned a telling look on Gus. “Alone.”
Adrian watched Gus until he disappeared through the back door to the manor. Whatever mischief the boy was planning next, at least it would take place inside. He hoped.
“What did ye need me for?” In an instant, Sadie’s demeanor had changed. She still carried an edge, but her anxiety had turned to something far more knowing. The corners of her mouth tilted in a feline smile.
Adrian stepped back to set a respectable distance between them. “What have you been telling him? He’s got it in his head that Marcus Pendleton is his father.”
She pursed her lips in a calculated display of feminine pique. “He is. Ye put them side by side, anyone would see the resemblance. Whoever the man is, I don’t think it’s right t’ keep a boy away from his true dad.”
Lord, where was this coming from? But then Adrian put it together. Sadie’s life had taken a downturn when her mother had introduced an utter scoundrel into their home. “Not all stepfathers are bad,” Adrian ventured.
“I ain’t got a stepfather. Me mum never married Fletcher.”
“Now you’re just arguing over words. Pendleton is a cheat. Gus has a perfectly decent man to raise him. At any rate, I did not bring you into the house to meddle in affairs that do not concern you.”
Sadie tossed her head. “It’s not like I’ll be in the house much longer.”
“Yes, you brought that up this morning. But you’re not helping yourself talking about real fathers and such in front of an impressionable boy. How could you even know Gus is old enough to understand…”
That feline smile returned. “Understand what?”
“The, er, mechanics of the situation.” At Gus’s age, Adrian would have known enough, but he’d come of age on a manor similar to Sherrington, where no one thought to hide life’s baser truths from the tenants’ progeny. He’d seen his share of farm animals rutting. Gus, on the other hand, had spent a good part of his life in London, from what Adrian could gather.
Sadie edged closer, her gaze trained on the falls of his breeches. “He’ll learn what his prick is for soon enough.”
Before he could dodge out of her reach, she pounced. Her arms encircled his neck, and she stood on tiptoe to cover his mouth with hers.
—
Caro didn’t think this day could get any worse—until she rode into the stable yard. The scene before her seemed to suck the very air from the vicinity, or perhaps that was merely the weight that had settled on her chest. The sensation magnified until it threatened to crush ribs, lungs, and heart.
It shouldn’t hurt this much.
Oh, but it did, more than she ever thought it could—but then, she’d never expected to come across Sadie and Mr. Crosby kissing.
He shouldn’t kiss anyone but me.
She pushed aside that thought, along with an impulse to dig her heels into Boudicca’s flanks and charge the couple. In the end, Sadie was a far more appropriate choice for Mr. Crosby. Caro would just have to learn to accept that inconvenient fact.
Damn it all.
Chin in the air, she focused on the entrance to the stables—nowhere else—and nudged Boudicca into a dignified walk.
Don’t look. Don’t look.
She repeated the words to herself until she’d passed beneath the lintel into cooler air. The fresh scent of hay filled her lungs. Though Mr. Crosby called after her, she refused to acknowledge him. As she dismounted in front of Boudicca’s roomy box, she waved Gem away.
“I’ll see to her.” Caro’s voice sounded remarkably collected for someone who’d found it difficult to breathe mere moments before.
She unlatched the stall door and led Boudicca inside, where she could take her time removing saddle and bridle. She could inspect each hoof for stones and while away the afternoon brushing her mare’s coat to a high gloss. By the time she finished, the stable yard would be deserted. Only then might she consider going back to the house.
Or perhaps she’d wait here until nightfall.
You’re being stupid. Doubtless, but only Boudicca stood in witness to her stupidity, and the mare was not about to repeat her actions to anyone.
With a sigh, she lifted the saddle skirts and unbuckled the girth. A soft snick sounded behind her.
Please be Gem. Please be Gem. “I told you I didn’t need any help.”
A pair of damnably familiar hands reached for Boudicca’s headstall. “I still thought I’d offer.”
Blast. The voice was just as well known.
“Should I rephrase? I don’t want any help.” Snappish of her, but she was beyond courtesy.
“Do you want an explanation?”
She pulled the saddle from Boudicca’s back, hugging it despite its weight. If she was about to have the wind knocked out of her again, she might as well have an anchor—or something solid to shove into his gut. “What makes you think you owe me one? Why should I concern myself if you’ve taken up with a servant girl?”
“I haven’t taken up with her.”
She swung to confront that lie head-on—a mistake, for he wore an expression of grave
earnestness that suited him quite well. Too well. “Funny, the two of you looked quite cozy just now. But that’s none of my affair. When you brought Sadie into the house, I should have guessed something like this might happen. Just be discreet about it, would you? It wouldn’t do if the other servants think standards have dropped.”
A harsh, guttural noise rolled up from his throat. Good Lord, he’d just growled at her like a wild animal. The primal nature of that sound cut straight through her anger to settle deep in her belly. “She threw herself at me.”
In spite of the danger he presented—or perhaps because of it—Caro forged ahead. “You didn’t seem to be fighting her off. And we both know you can resist a woman when you want to.”
And he hadn’t resisted.
Had he?
“Did you look?”
“Yes.” No. Not beyond the initial shock of seeing another girl’s lips pressed to his. But before she’d torn her gaze away, that image was all she’d been able to concentrate on.
“If you’d really looked, you’d have seen I pushed her off.”
Though she hardly wanted to revisit it, she let the scene scroll through her brain. Now she saw what she had missed the first time—the hands on Sadie’s shoulders stiff, rather than inviting, his entire stance attempting to edge away. Sadie’s softness had masked that small indicator on first impression.
“Oh.” Her teeth dug into her lower lip.
He stepped closer, reaching to take the saddle from her. Numbly, she let him, and he placed it over the low wall of the box. His fingers curled about her upper arms. “Still, you’re hurt.”
“Of course I’m bloody hurt.” She could not keep the wobble from her voice. “When I caught up to Pendleton, he laughed in my face. He was never going to put in a word with Sir Bellingham. I’ve finally got that notion stuffed into my head. And then I came home to find Sadie climbing you like you were a tree.”
“If I’d known what you were about to walk in on, I’d have put more distance between us.” His fingertips brushed the backs of her arms. Up, down, the motion soothing. “She’s quite desperate, I think. She believes you’re about to send her back to Fletcher.”
“I know. She mentioned something to me. I told her I’d find her another position in the house, only I’ve been too distracted to see to it. Would you believe I found her digging for buried treasure just yesterday?” Was it only yesterday? Goodness, yes, though so many things had happened since, she felt as if a sennight or more had passed.
“She mentioned something about you having her treasure map.”
“Not so much a treasure map as hiding places. Apparently Lucas Barrows made a habit of stashing his gleanings from the estate in holes scattered about the woods. Sadie’s been digging in various spots on the off chance he left something behind.”
His hands stilled on her, his fingers tightening. “That would be thievery.”
“Which is why I took her map. I’ve got it in my bedchamber. If anything’s been left, we can restore it to the manor. But don’t you see? I took that means of escape from Sadie. She’s resorted to throwing herself at you in hopes you’d save her the way Barrows promised to.”
“Just what did he promise?” His hands resumed their path up and down her arms, the movement at once soothing and enthralling.
Before long, Caro would forget he’d ever infuriated her. “She told me the whole story. He told her he’d marry her and take her when he left.”
“And she’s just young enough to have believed that.”
“At least we caught Barrows before worse happened. She might have found herself with child by a criminal.”
“The lass needs saving from herself, that’s certain.” His hands came to a halt on either side of her neck, fingers splayed in a frame about her jaw. “But I don’t wish to talk about her anymore.”
“No?” She ought to step back from the circle of his embrace. She ought to see to her mare after such a long ride. But she couldn’t summon the will to move.
“I want you to be clear on one point.” He eased closer. “There’s only one woman I want, and her name isn’t Sadie.”
Before Caro could formulate a reply, he closed the gap between them.
—
Such a foolish declaration ought to see Adrian in Bedlam. Nowt could come of it. He knew it; Lady Caroline knew it. And yet he’d blurted it out like a fourteen-year-old lad besotted with the dairymaid. Faced with Lady Caroline’s hurt, he hadn’t been able to stop himself any more than he could stop himself from kissing her now.
Pliant lips moved beneath his in sweet response. Her lithe form molded to him, and he tightened his embrace. For as long as this moment out of time might last, he would clasp it to his heart the way he was holding Lady Caroline—firmly and with all the strength he could muster.
Her fingers curled into his lapels, grasping just as hard. Just as desperately, as if she, too, were afraid to let go.
I can’t let go.
Not now and possibly not ever.
He tipped her head back and traced her lower lip with his tongue. She opened for him, and he took what she offered, a dance of sorts, the only one they might enjoy together, but not the one his body demanded.
For when he’d said he wanted her, he’d meant it in the deepest, most carnal sense possible. Adrian and Caro, he and she, man and woman, stripped of everything—clothes and titles and standing, joined together, her body yielding to his, gripping the hard, hot length of him in a wet embrace that wouldn’t end until they both lay panting and sated.
The image tore a groan from his throat and sent his palm skating down her back, below the dip of her waist, to cup her arse. He thrust the ridge of his cock into her belly.
Without warning, her entire body surged against him. Her teeth struck his with a crack.
“Oh!” She covered her mouth with a hand. “Are you all right?”
He touched a forefinger to his gums and inspected the result. No blood. “It seems I’ll survive.”
She stepped closer. “Let me see.”
He stood still to let her examine the damage. “Interesting technique.”
“It wasn’t me.” She rubbed her thumb along his lower lip, sending a jolt of renewed desire straight to his groin. “Boudicca shoved me.”
As if the mare understood, she poked her bony face over Caro’s shoulder, upper lip curled and teeth bared in a horselaugh.
Adrian eyed the animal. “Do you think we’ve scandalized her?”
“If we have, she can’t realize we’ve witnessed far more wanton behavior from her.”
Caro dipped her head. The smile tugging at the corners of her mouth lent her an air of maidenly shyness. That unexpected expression on such a bold woman cut like a knife stroke into his heart, and the ground seemed to shift beneath his boots. If he had any money to wager, he’d lay good odds she, too, felt like she was standing in quicksand.
“Perhaps she’d like us to find somewhere more private.” Good Lord, why was he encouraging this? His conscience nudged at him to call a halt here and now, but the passion coursing through his veins burned away his reason. “Somewhere out of time—that is, if you do not fear for your reputation.”
He couldn’t present the situation any more plainly than that.
“I’ve no reputation left to lose, not the way Snowley sent everyone off when they were here at my invitation. Not after the spectacle I gave the ladies. Until today, I’ve always managed to maintain the illusion of propriety when I rode. The ladies never saw me riding astride. I’ll never live that down.”
Another woman of her standing might have made such an admission in a devastated tone. Not Caro. While she didn’t sound exactly proud, she hardly sounded despondent, either. But perhaps this was the means of escape she’d been craving.
He might have known she’d choose him. Since his arrival here, she’d done nothing but act on her attraction to him. His conscience made one final jab. “None of that makes what’s about to happen appropriate.”<
br />
Her shy demeanor evaporated in an instant. “It is if I say it is.”
“Because you’re a duke’s daughter.”
“No. Because I’m Caro, and you’re Adrian, and we both want this.”
Chapter 24
The moment Adrian mentioned somewhere out of time, Caro recognized the echo of her own words the day they’d discovered the folly. The day they’d taken shelter from a rainstorm and peeled off a few more layers of formality between them.
God willing, its half-timbered walls and diamond-paned windows would once again bear witness to such. Or more. Please let it be more.
Whatever was about to transpire between her and Adrian, Caro meant to push him to the limits of his passion. He’d begun to unravel in the stables. Here, she intended to tug at each ragged thread until he came apart—until he showed her how to come apart utterly. Completely. Definitively. She wanted to know how it felt to have every last drop of pleasure wrung from her, until she lay limp and boneless and sated. Fulfilled. The mere thought sent the blood rushing close to the surface, unrestrained and wild as a spring freshet.
They’d separated at the stables with the agreement to meet here later, and once again, he’d thought of everything. Somehow he’d wheedled a simple picnic from the irascible cook—just the thing, since neither of them had eaten a proper meal today. The contents of the basket lay spread before the hearth—bread, cheese, sliced roast, plums, blackberries, raspberries, along with a decanter of rich claret.
She watched him beneath the fringe of her lashes as he tipped wine into her glass, aware of the smallest ripple of movement. As soon as they’d replaced one hunger with another, those fingers would be on her body, mapping uncharted regions of her skin.
She plucked the goblet from the floor, and sipped at it, lounging on her side, languid as a cat. “This feels rather decadent, reclining to eat. I believe the Romans did such things.”
Those long fingers she wanted on her body tore a piece off a loaf of freshly baked bread, and he stretched out facing her, less than an arm’s length away. Heat radiated across the space between them. “I wouldn’t know about the Romans’ eating habits. What education I received was more practical.”
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