by Sophia Nash
His neck hairs prickled. “Yes. Like many.” He cracked open a coddled egg in a swift motion.
“Why do you avoid telling me about your life?”
“Nothing interesting to relate, unless you want to discuss smithing and farming, that is.”
He could almost feel the wheels turning in her mind, and he stymied her efforts by changing the subject. “Where were you raised, Countess?”
“The Isle of Mann and a few seasons in London. Generations of my mother’s and father’s families lived on Mann. I was actually on my way there when the accident occurred.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“You’re heartier than you appear at first glance,” he murmured, quickly polishing off three more eggs before turning to the bread and cheese.
“I’m sorry?” Her spoon stopped in midair.
“Viking blood.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Wasn’t Mann raided and settled by Vikings? You certainly look like a blonde, blue-eyed norse-woman, albeit a petite one. Do you have any hidden desire to go raiding that I should know about, Lady Sheffield?”
Her eyes had widened with each word. And then she let out her breath. “Oh, for goodness sakes.”
“Your oaths show little variation.”
“Well, yours would too, if you were a lady.” The warmth in her eyes had returned, and his tension over her questions eased. Too soon.
“I’ve told you about my childhood. And yours?”
He stood up, his chair’s legs raking against the floorboards. “A little here and there.”
“So you spent part of your youth near here?”
She was never going to quit. “Yes, and as you know, in London and Virginia too.” Their plates clean, he removed everything from the table. She drifted to his side.
“What was it like there?”
“Virginia?”
“Yes.” Her voice was tentative and soft, obviously afraid of being cut off.
“It’s a land of much raw beauty. The life there is new, and uncertain. You can’t imagine how red and boggy the clay mud becomes during the March rains—especially in Georgetown, a drummed-up trade village. Makes the bogs here look tame,” he said, meeting her eyes. “But in Virginia, the woods and mountains go on forever and a day. The wild flowering trees of spring—especially the redbud—make up for the harsh winters, but the fine weather of fall does not make up for the hordes of summer mosquitoes.”
She was silent next to him. She’d finally learned how to move about the kitchen with ease. While he washed, she dried.
“Thank you,” she uttered.
“For what?”
“For describing it to me. I can see it perfectly.”
There was such gentle goodness to her, he longed to lean down and kiss her senseless, and remind her exactly how ungentlemanly he could be when provoked by her generous spirit and beauty.
“Well,” he said, seizing the chance to turn the conversation. “This is the first moment we’ve had with nothing to do but amuse ourselves. What shall it be, then? And no, Pearl is going to be looked after by Timmy tonight.”
“I would prefer to see to her myself. It’s no trouble, really.” She arranged the two cups in the cupboard and moved to the other dishes to dry.
“I’ll extract a promise from Timmy to watch over her as well as you have done. You know, you’ve such a rare gift with animals, I’ll have to give you horsemanship lessons next.”
Her expression froze and he grinned. “I can see you’re delighted by the prospect. But I’m certain you’d make a fine horsewoman.” He chucked her under her chin. “It’s your luck there’s too much snow to consider it. Hmmm. Let’s see. We could play cards. Wagering has always been a favored vice of mine.” He chuckled at her raised eyebrows. “But not my favorite.”
“You’re a gambler?” she asked, her voice strained.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart? All men, even gentlemen, enjoy a wager here or there. Indeed, it helped me gain my supper many a fortnight.”
“But it can also worsen your lot in life if you’re unlucky.”
“Well, one does what one has to do to survive.”
“I detest gambling.”
“And why is that, sweetheart?”
Her gaze rested on her hands as she continued to rub the last plate even though it was already dry. “My father won and lost our family’s wealth twice over. The first time I was young and we were on Mann. I remember the servants leaving and the bare spots in the rooms where furniture and paintings had once been. The second time, another foreign canal scheme…Well, I was nearly twenty and…and it’s a common-enough story.”
“And?” he encouraged.
“And I had just been paraded about London with a promised dowry in excess of thirty thousand pounds.”
“Is this when you married Sheffield?”
“No.” She halted and appeared to waver in her decision to tell him more. He refused to urge her to continue.
“Our townhouse in London and all items within were sold at auction along with the gowns, the horses, and the carriages. And now you are going to say that you feel certain I didn’t really care about the horses.”
“No, Countess. I would not say that.” He hated her wretched story. There had been too much sadness in his own life, and he preferred not to dwell on misery in any corner.
She had become silent, but then continued. “Before then, I’d been declared a vision and the catch of the season. I’d found it amusing to be compared to a fish. Yet after a while it had been hard not to feel like one when eight gentlemen tried to reel the fat dowry into their coffers,” she glanced at her hands. “I don’t know why I am telling you this. I need to write a few letters to my friends in Cornwall. They will be very worried.”
“Whatever you’d like, Countess.”
Her lovely blue eyes looked to his. “I am boring you.”
“You have yet to bore me.” Her expression told him everything she did not. “Go on.”
“When we retrenched, I was abruptly remeasured, came up short, and was declared a bit old. The ton’s new opinion was best expressed by the Countess of Home, who dismissed me as ordinary. This was worse than being a complete failure. I was packed back to Mann before my parents fled for yet another foreign city, in search of yet another grand scheme.”
“And how came you to marry the earl?”
“When my parents died a few years later, my cousin, the heir, arrived on Mann with his good friend, the Earl of Sheffield. And while many assumed I married him for avaricious reasons, for he was much older—”
“You did not do that. I’m certain of it.”
She bowed her head. “John Sheffey was one of the finest gentlemen I have ever had the honor to know,” she finished.
The countess knelt before the lamb and stroked its head. “We returned to London, but while my husband’s will was strong, his heart was not, and he succumbed to a fever shortly thereafter. Many whispered I was lucky to have secured a solid foundation of financial security locked behind the doors of London’s most venerable banking institutions—all in four short months.” Her glittering eyes met his. “They were right.”
“Sweetheart,” he shook his head. “You can try to convince me all you like that you were a conniving female on the hunt for a fortune, but unlike those fools in town, I’ll never believe it.”
“It’s a well known fact that fear of destitution breeds motivation. But I was indeed lucky—very lucky—to have been granted the happiness I found with Lord Sheffield.” She said it so quietly, he had to lean forward to catch it.
“I’d bet my last farthing that the earl would have given you his wealth twice over again just for the pleasure of being with you those few months.” He couldn’t stop the heat from entering his words.
When she didn’t reply, Michael leaned over and collected the lamb to return it to the barn. “Come, we’re finished here.”
Her attention fix
ed on the creature, she changed the subject. “If you don’t mind, I would very much like to write those notes.”
“Hmmm.” If he had cared less for her, he might have suggested something more to his liking. Something that would involve sheets of linen instead of sheets of pressed paper. “All right. I’ve a mind to glance at the books in the library after I return the lamb. Shall we?”
He gallantly offered his arm to her but she arose unaided. She clearly had no wish to continue what they had begun last night.
An hour later, Michael rather thought he might go mad. The silence of the library was broken only by an occasional snap from the fire, and the faint scratching of her quill on the paper he had found for her. Distraction, in the form of the delicate beauty before him, ruled his thoughts and his imagination. He tried yet again to concentrate on an excellent book describing the various types of sheep to be found in England and Scotland.
He’d always devoured books whenever he’d had access, which had been rare. Apparently, Sam had loved books too, given the overfilled bookcases. Michael imagined many comfortable yet solitary nights ahead, spent in this room.
The gloaming shrouded the view beyond the heavy drapes. Michael pressed his aching shoulders into the padded leather chair and tried to resist glancing at the woman before him, without success.
He studied her elegant profile as she applied words to the page. Her loveliness was boundless, her heart no less. And he wanted to pound to hell and back all those nobs in London who’d suggested she was a callous fortune hunter. Good God, she was everything innocent, everything fine, and everything a man could want, and so much more. And for him, she was everything he would dream of and everything he could never, ever hold on to.
He would go after Brown tomorrow.
She sanded the note and carefully cleaned her fingers with a cloth. He trained his attention on his book. The smoky scent of molten sealing wax curled in the air between them before he heard her chair push back from the small escritoire.
She held the missive before him silently, and he gazed at the extraordinarily beautiful script of the directions she had written. Of course she had taken as much care in forming the letters as she had making the delicate stitches in his clothes, feeding the lamb, and touching him last eve. He placed the letter on the side table next to him.
“The snow will have melted by half in the morning at any guess. I’ll take this to the village then and also make inquiries.” He rubbed the ache between his eyes. “You shall be on your way soon after.”
Unexpectedly, he heard the rustle of silk and he realized she was kneeling in front of him.
“I’ve been uncertain how to say something.” High color crested her cheekbones.
“Yes?”
“My injury is much improved, and—and I’m feeling much stronger. Must be the porridge, or the excellent care you’ve—”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he cut in.
There was a long pause before she continued. “Well—that is—I just thought I would assure you…” She stopped, the crackling of the pitched pine in the fireplace deafening in the silence.
Her eyes skittered away from his scrutiny, but she soldiered on. “Last night you said you didn’t like regrets and couldn’t offer any promises, and—and…”
“And?” he prodded.
“And I said I held no expectations.”
“Yes.”
“Well, do you think it would be very wrong—or truly sinful to…I mean to say, I’m a widow. I still revere the memory of my husband, and have mourned him. But do you think it would be disrespectful to…That is—if you would even still be inclined to—”
He cut off her stream of nonsense with his lips and drew her into his lap in one long motion. There was a rushing in his veins each time he touched her, making it very hard to think in an orderly fashion. He tried to regulate his thoughts before he was consumed by her.
“I think it would be safe to say I’m inclined,” he rasped out. “But, sweetheart, soon you will return to your world and I shall continue on here. Most would say it’s evil—say it’s wrong. But I want it.” He had to force himself not to clutch her arms in his urgency.
“I want it too,” she said very quietly.
“Well then.” The enormity of it crashed in on him. It had been one thing to find himself in her arms in the middle of the night in bed. But here and now they were fully dressed, caught in the lengthening shadows of the library.
He refused to let her out of his sight to precede him above stairs to undress and wait for him. It would give her too much time to change her mind. And he was overly selfish to allow for the possibility. There had been just too many times in his life when the promise of happiness had been snatched from his fingertips.
And so he dared her to avoid his eyes as he unbuttoned her gown and drew it from her. Her mended shift was so fine it was almost translucent. The shadows of the small rosy peaks beneath caused his fingers to tremble. God, he wanted her too much. Touching her last night and the feel of her hesitant, soft hands had only served to inflame him like no other.
Those same hands were grasping his coarse shirt, and he leaned forward to urge her to pull it over his head before leaning back in the large chair.
Firelight danced across her lovely face, her light eyes grown darker, like the stormy winter skies in Virginia. He reached for one end of the delicate bow gathering the front of her shift and tugged at it, taking care not to touch that which lay below. Without a word, he lowered the material and the bandage and with relief found the cut dry and healing.
“Satisfied?” she murmured shyly.
“Relieved,” he returned.
Letting the last of his fears slip into the evening, he grasped her tighter and rose from the chair only to gently, ever so gently, place her on the thick carpeting in front of the fire.
“Aren’t we going above?” she choked out.
“No. Won’t waste a moment.” He tossed the large pillows of the settee to the floor in between the economical movements needed to divest himself of his clothes to join her.
And then he was lost. Lost in the sensation of touching her, stroking the silk softness of her.
Kissing her was like diving into a pool of sun-warmed water and coming up gasping. She was the element he couldn’t describe but knew without a doubt was vital, and the shock of that knowledge made him hold her tighter to him, desperate to imprint her form on his, knowing all the while the futility of the effort.
He couldn’t stop kissing her, her lips, her throat, her breasts—and then his lips followed the fast-beating pulse down to the curve of her hip and the hollow of her soft abdomen. She was like a decadent dessert, all spun sugar and temptation immortal.
As he inched lower still, her voice became a satiny ribbon, knotting his mind, that grew tighter until he became conscious of her words.
“Oh, please wait…Wait! What are you doing?” Her voice was reedy, confused; her hands unsteady on his shoulders.
“Kissing you,” he murmured. His lips trailed near her navel, and he inhaled the marvelous mysterious scent of her, so different from his own. “You’re not going to ask me to stop, are you?”
There was uncertainty in her expression, maybe even fear. He leaned on one forearm and stroked his other palm down her too slender side to behind her knee.
“No,” she said on an exhale. “It’s just that I’m alone up here, and I’m not sure what I should be doing.”
“Oh sweetheart,” he said, easing back up to her face to kiss her forehead.
“And…well, I was beginning to form the idea that you were going to…”
“Going to do what?”
“Nothing—nothing. Forget I said anything.”
“Really?”
She nodded slightly.
“I hope it wasn’t anything wicked,” he said, hiding a smile while he dipped down to taste the tips of her exquisite breasts. A shuddering sigh escaped her lips. He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips
. “Because I daresay I’ll have more than enough to atone for before dawn.” He rose up and looked down into her dazed eyes. “You did propose a night of sin, did you not?”
“But I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“And I plan to make the most of it.” He was sure she was going to argue, but then, inexplicably, her eyes became a deeper, softer blue, and she uttered but one word…one magical word.
“Please…”
He closed the gap between them, his hot flesh molding to her cooler body. He took care to envelope her within his arms until he had chased all her fears away to replace them with yearning.
He dragged his fingers to the traces of angel hair at the apex of her body, which tempted him in the low light. Marveling at the fine texture, he stroked her restlessly. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing with effort; her hands tentatively tunneled through his hair. Michael urged her thighs apart and delved deeper.
And then, there was nothing that could have stopped him from doing something he’d never desired before. He couldn’t explain this starved feeling she engendered within him.
With a groan, he edged his heavy body down hers and before she could say a word against it, he lowered his head and stole a taste of her. And then, just as surely as instinct engulfs a Virginia mountain lion after the first sampling of his own kill, the male hunger in him roared to life, making him deaf to every single last one of her choked protestations.
His shoulders bunched and strained to get closer until, without thought he curled an arm under each of her limbs and tilted her to suit him. The slow and thorough tempo of his ministrations rhymed with the beat of his arousal, leaving him maddened with a stark need to cover her, hold her, possess her. God, it had never been like this. Never would be like this again. He roared with need and prowled back up her delicate form.
“Hold on to me,” he groaned, his desire radiating from every pore of his body. “No. Tighter.”
He grasped his length and sweeping between her plush folds, he became all raw instinct as blood pounded in his veins and roared through his head.
His arousal felt like an anvil, hot and unforgiving, and she was so trusting and soft beneath him. The animal in him had robbed him of his power of speech and he would not be denied any longer.