by Louise Allen
The cobbles were uneven under her thin slippers and she picked her way carefully by starlight into the barn. At first she thought it was empty of life, filled only by the looming shapes of the coaches and gigs drawn in there under shelter for the night. Then she saw the lines of light round an inner door and made for that.
The door opened silently onto another space, a threshing floor, she guessed, seeing the flat circle of stone-slabbed flooring at its centre and the wooden bins set around the sides to take the wheat after it had been threshed. There would be outer doors to let in the necessary breeze, but those were closed now, making an arena for the man who moved at its centre, lit by two lanterns.
Jared was stripped to the waist now, barefooted as he exercised with the rapier, lunging and thrusting, parrying an unseen opponent, repeating the same move over and over again. He had his eyes closed, Guin saw, as she moved to lean against one of the grain bins.
Did he know she was there? She had been very quiet, although she was quite prepared to credit Jared with almost supernatural powers of awareness. He turned and the lamplight caught his back, shining with sweat that highlighted the strapping of muscles, a few old scars. He bent to lay down the rapier, dropped to the floor and began to raise and lower himself at full stretch, poised on fingertips and toes.
Guin’s own muscles shrieked in sympathy at the first lift, but he kept going like a machine until, after about twenty – watching mesmerised she had lost count – he stilled, rolled head over heels, rose into a crouch and then did a back-spring, scooping up the rapier as he landed.
As he straightened up she let out a breath she had not realised she had been holding and Jared spun round, weapon raised. When he saw who it was he lowered the point. ‘What is wrong?’
‘Nothing. I saw you cross the yard from my window and was curious. I could not sleep.’
‘You should be resting. Curiosity is dangerous.’
‘Surely not.’ Neither of them moved, only the reflected lamplight on the rivulets of sweat trickling down Jared’s bare chest flickered in time with his breathing. ‘What is the danger here?’
‘Us.’ He walked towards her, past her, and for an aching second she thought he was leaving. Then the bar that closed the door dropped into place with a dull thud that seemed no heavier than the beat of her heart and he came back to stand in front of her. ‘You seem to think I am made of stone, Guinevere.’
‘No, of muscle and sinew and bone. And blood.’ She reached out one finger and drew the nail lightly down his chest from the notch at the base of his throat, over his sternum, watching the red line the pressure left. His nipples tightened and she caught her breath. ‘You say you are not made of stone? I did not come to spy – but I could not take my eyes from you.’
‘You are in mourning, Guin.’ His voice was steady, so was his breathing. Only the heavy eyelids and those tense brown nubs betrayed him. She did not dare let her gaze drift any lower.
‘For a dear, elderly man I loved like a grandfather. Not a true husband, not a lover.’
‘And you are in shock and too tired to rest as you should.’ But he stretched out his arm and laid the rapier on the grain bin. And he had barred the door.
‘I am very much awake now. As are you. And – ’
Jared moved, caught her round the waist, lifted her onto the edge of the wooden lid. Legs dangling, Guin caught her balance with her hands behind her as he leaned in, his lips hot and hard on hers. Then Jared tossed up her skirts and fell to his knees between her legs, his head pushing between her thighs until she opened them with a gasp and his mouth found her in a deep, intimate kiss.
‘Jared.’
His only answer was to reach up one hand and place it firmly on the tangle of curls still damp from her bath, newly damp with arousal, holding her in place. Through a rising tide of shocked sensation she was aware that he must be unfastening the falls of his breeches with his other hand. Is he going to… No. Her last coherent thought was the realisation that Jared was taking care of them both.
His tongue pressed though her folds, lapping, teasing and then, to her shock, penetrating, firm and insistent, his spread hand holding her still as she tried to buck against his mouth.
Francis had never done this. He had never, Guin realised through the horrified delight, done anything for her pleasure, only his. But Jared appeared to know exactly what would reduce her to quivering, squirming, mindless ecstasy and he was doing it ruthlessly. She reached for his head, her fingers frustrated by his hair, drawn tightly back into its queue. She wanted to run her fingers into it, hold onto it, a lifeline in this maelstrom he had thrown her into.
He must have realised what she wanted. Jared reached up and tugged free the leather lace securing the braid and she burrowed in, freeing the thick locks. The sensation of that wild, unbound hair over her bare skin triggered something deep inside, freed the thing that had been tightening, knotting within her. There was a cry and she realised it was her, then everything unravelled, pleasure lanced through her as between her spread thighs she felt Jared’s shoulders tense, shudder… then the world fell away.
Guin came back to herself to find Jared on his feet stuffing a handkerchief into his pocket with one hand and reaching for her with the other.
‘Guinevere? Are you all right?’ He batted down her tumbled skirts and drew her to her feet, keeping hold as her knees gave way and she sagged against him.
‘I think so,’ she said, her mouth against the bare skin of his shoulder, her senses spinning with the heat of him, the taste of salt, the caress of his unbound hair against her face, the scent of their loving and the after-waves of pleasure. ‘I have never… I had no idea.’
‘I shocked you.’ Jared eased her down onto a seat of some kind and it took a definite effort of will to release her hold on him. ‘Your first husband – ’ He broke off abruptly and crossed the threshing floor to retrieve his shirt.
‘Francis never did that. He only ever, you know…’ She realised that she did not have the vocabulary for it. ‘And I never felt like that.’ Now she was blushing, she could feel it, although why talking about it should make her colour-up when a moment ago this man had been kissing her like that and she had surrendered to it shamelessly, she could not think.
Jared said something, his voice muffled as he pulled the shirt on over his head. Guin thought it was, ‘Selfish bastard,’ but she could not be certain. He shook his head as the shirt settled around his body, the glossy brown waves freed from the tight braid lay on his shoulders and Guin’s mouth dried. Long hair on a man was wildly unfashionable, but it suited him perfectly, she thought. The wild mane escaping from its rigorous binding was like the man himself, letting go his fierce self-control for a moment of passion.
He rubbed his hand across his chin, winced. ‘I apologise for the stubble.’ Then he bent to pick up his boots and pull them on. He even does that beautifully, Guin thought, watching Jared balance on first one foot, then the other.
‘We should get back.’ He held out his hand to help her up from the milking stool she was sitting on. ‘Walk behind me and stay close.’
He unbarred the door, checked outside, then led the way through the barn, across the yard, in through the back door and up the stairs. Guin found the key and handed it to him without a word, not sure what to say, wanting to touch him, even though he did not seem to want to touch her any more.
The delicious heat of desire was cooling into something very like dismay. Had she ruined the fragile relationship between them? Probably Jared despised her now for wantonly throwing herself at him for the second time. But he could have walked away. He could have stopped at a kiss on the lips, she told herself. He had a made a choice as much as she had.
He opened the bedchamber door for her, went inside, which made her catch her breath, then stepped out again after a rapid scan of the room. ‘I will see you at breakfast, Guinevere. Remember to lock the door.’
Would he kiss her? Apparently not. Jared held the door for her, th
en closed it as soon as she was through. She secured it and heard him move away from the other side. Her bed was wide and empty and soft. Cold.
‘What is the danger here?’ she had asked.
‘Us,’ Jared had answered.
Just what have you done? Jared’s conscience enquired acidly as he pulled off his boots again and set rapier and knife within reach. He left the door onto the parlour open. He could see Guinevere’s door from the bed, hear anything that happened. The instinct to lie across the threshold was a complete over-reaction.
He stripped naked and sponged himself down in the cold water from the ewer, grateful for the shock of the chill on overheated skin. He scrubbed away the sweat of exercise and the musk of their loving and winced at the rasp of stubble on his face. It had not occurred to him to shave before he began to exercise. Yet Guinevere had not complained, nor had she shrunk from him, even though it was obvious that such intimacies were new to her.
That selfish pig of a husband had clearly thought nothing of her pleasure, only his own. Had she even experienced an orgasm before? The warmth of the thought that he might have given her the first lasted only as long as it took him to get himself dry. He had no business making love to her. Leaving aside the fact that he was in no position to offer anything to a lady of breeding beside an affaire, Guinevere was not the kind of sophisticated, worldly widow who would flit happily from one short-lived liaison to another.
Jared pulled on his breeches again and lay down on top of the blankets, made himself relax. He could still smell the glorious scent of aroused woman. His hair, he supposed. In the morning he would stick his head under the pump in the yard, scrub it clean, braid his hair penitentially tight to remind himself that this was his first independent commission and he had already broken one of the major rules he had set himself – do not get emotionally involved with clients.
Guinevere seemed to like his hair loose… but not as much as he liked the thought of hers unbound, tumbling about her shoulders. Stop it, he snarled at his own imagination. Just… stop it.
‘What are you staring at, Faith?’
She had been standing at the window, Guin’s hairbrush in hand, for almost a minute.
‘Oh, I do beg your pardon, my lady. But look.’
Guin drew her dressing robe closed and went to the window. Jared. Of course, it had to be Jared. Not content with turning her sleep into a torrid succession of dreams he was now bending under the yard pump, stripped to the waist – again – while a stable boy laboured away sending the water sluicing over his head.
‘My goodness, now that’s what I call a proper man,’ Faith said. ‘Those muscles – you think he’s not got many, he’s so slim and so quick, but when he’s got his clothes off… I wonder what he’d look like if he took off his – ’
‘Faith!’
‘Sorry, my lady. But he’s a big man, for all that slenderness.’ She didn’t look remotely apologetic, nor did she stop looking. But then neither did Guin as Jared signalled to the boy to cease pumping and stepped away, straightening up and throwing back his head so the streaming wet hair fell down to his shoulders.
‘The green walking dress,’ Guin said decisively, turning back to the bed.
‘Not the mourning black that we put out last night, my lady?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, you are quite right, my lady. I can’t have checked it over properly yesterday,’ Faith said as she picked up the discarded gown. ‘Look, there’s dust on the skirt and the back is quite rumpled. I’m sorry, shall I find the other black walking dress?’
‘I do not think there is any need. Lord Northam would not be the slightest bit offended at the thought of me wearing colours.’
Augustus had expressed decided views on many things and Pretty women decked out like crows being a lot of nonsensical hypocrisy was one of them.
Breakfast was awkward, not because anything was said, not because Jared betrayed by so much as a glance that anything had happened last night, but because he appeared to be completely untouched by it. Guin had armoured herself against smouldering looks, fleeting touches, murmured words and having to deal with none of them left her feeling decidedly unsophisticated and naive. That kind of encounter was obviously nothing special to Mr Hunt.
Guin decided on bright conversation. ‘Have you stayed at the Bell before?’ she asked when they were settled in the carriage once more. ‘You seemed to know your way around very well yesterday.’
Jared turned his head from his silent contemplation of the high wooden palisade surrounding the Norman Cross prisoner of war camp to the right of the road. ‘I was in Stilton some years ago.’ He turned back to the view.
‘Excuse me, my lady, but might I ride up with the driver for a while?’ Faith said abruptly. ‘Only it is such a lovely fresh day and I’m feeling a little queasy.’
‘You are? I’m sorry to hear that, Faith. Pull the check string at once.’ She did not look unwell, but she wasn’t someone who ever complained, so Guin took it seriously.
The coach came to a halt and Faith hopped down before Jared had a chance to open the door for her. ‘Thank you, my lady.’
‘Strange, I do hope she isn’t sickening for anything,’ Guin said as the coach started off again.
‘Only an attack of tact, don’t you think?’ Jared glanced across at her. ‘She thinks I will answer your questions more readily if she isn’t here.’
‘Oh. How… I did not mean to pry, I am sorry.’
‘No matter.’ Jared gave a half-shouldered shrug. ‘The Bell was where I met Monsieur Jacques Favel, my swordmaster. I came across him practicing on that thrashing floor eleven years ago.’
‘You were apprenticed to him?’
‘Nothing as formal as that. I had left home. I had, I think, three shillings left in my pocket and I was sleeping in the hayloft over the road at the Angel when I saw him get down from his carriage with his rapier at his side. I guessed what he was and that evening I went across, my own rapier at my hip, spent some of my precious money on a half pint of ale and watched and listened and, eventually he came down, went across the yard as I did last night and I followed.
‘He heard me come in and let me see that he had. He beckoned me onto the floor, challenged me to draw and had me disarmed and at the point of his sword within a minute. He was being generous, I think.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘He asked me what I was doing. He had eyes like a hawk and a brain to match. It took him no time at all to work out what I was. My clothes were good, if travel-stained, my accent was educated, I’d had the sort of training in fencing that any gentleman’s son receives but there I was, hiding the fact that I was hungry and tired and terrified, in an inn on the Great North Road.
‘He asked me what I was running from and I told him. He asked what I was running to and I had to confess I had no idea. He made me fence again, pushed me until I was angry and then stopped. Told me that he could see something in me, that although I was angry I only became more controlled, more focused. He could do something with that.’ Again, that one-shouldered shrug. ‘And he did.’
‘Will you tell me what you were running from?’ she asked.
‘No. He was the only person I have ever told.’
‘Had you done something wrong?’ Guin persisted.
‘No. Upon my honour.’ The word seemed to cause him some bitter amusement, to judge by the twist of his lips which Guin did not mistake for a moment for a smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Jared had been on the Great North Road, so had he been heading north from London or south? His accent was that of any educated English gentleman, but just occasionally she thought she caught the faintest hint of a flat northern vowel. And there had been something in his voice when he had said that he was going to Allerton, almost as though he was gritting his teeth and making himself go.
‘Are you from Yorkshire?’ Guin asked abruptly.
‘I do not discuss my past.’ The shutters were down with a ven
geance, the man was looking at her as though she was an opponent at the end of his rapier.
‘You just have,’ she pointed out.
‘I had little choice, I think.’
Oh, so it is all my fault, is it? ‘So you can be intimate with me in a barn one night but not in a carriage the next morning?’
‘You wish to be intimate, my lady? I can certainly oblige you.’ There was heat in his gaze, but no softness in the mouth that had –
‘No, I do not. That was… that was a mistake. I was appreciating your tact in not mentioning it, but I see you were merely saving it up to put me out of countenance when it suited you. I meant that, surely, you can confide in me?’
‘Why? I value my privacy and I refused to confide, as you put it, in your late husband, who remains my employer. Which you are not.’
‘As a friend, I had thought.’ Embarrassment was giving way to an anger that was curiously sustaining. Guin tugged at the check string and the carriage slowed and stopped. ‘Obviously I was mistaken. As I am sure that Faith has recovered from her attack of tactful queasiness perhaps you would like to take her place, Mr Hunt. You may scan the scenery better for familiar landmarks from up there.’
If she had hoped to provoke an answering show of temper in Jared she was disappointed. He opened the carriage door, jumped down, helped Faith from her perch and closed the door on her with perfect civility.
‘My lady?’
‘There are times, Faith, when I think that the entire male sex has been put on this earth to infuriate women.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ It did not help at all that her mouth twitched in a hastily-suppressed smile.
‘I apologise,’ Guin said in York at the last change before they arrived at Allerton Grange. ‘I hope you were not too uncomfortable outside.’