A boy from the stables rounded the house. He positioned himself out of hearing of their little group. He just stood there, looking nervous.
“What is it, boy? Why is it taking so long with the horses?”
“I was told by the others to tell you that the two were all set to go when the late request for the third came down. She is almost saddled now, and all will be here shortly.”
“We do not need a third. See, he already has one, and there are only two of us. There must have been a misunderstanding.”
“The lady called for the third, milord. Just a bit ago.”
Lance sent the boy off. His brothers’ jaws shifted as they tried not to smirk.
“She is not coming, of course,” he said, in response to those burgeoning grins.
“Of course not,” Gareth said, then chuckled.
“Damn it, I won’t have it.”
“Don’t get all ducal with us. We were invited,” Ives said.
“I will not need to get ducal. I will explain she is not coming, and that will be that.”
“Of course,” Gareth said again, nodding sagely. “Perhaps you want to waylay her inside, and explain that to her there?”
“Why?”
Ives shook his head in disbelief. “Hell, you are green. Explain it to him, Gareth.”
Gareth clamped his hand on Lance’s shoulder. “It could be in your interest not to annoy her by issuing commands in front of us, especially ones she is not likely to welcome. Women are not happy when involved in a scene, even if the audience is composed of friends.”
“Especially in front of friends,” Ives said.
“What shit.” Lance turned to the door. “Marianne is not willful like your wife, Ives, nor queen of all she surveys like yours, Gareth. She is reasonable and accommodating. However, I will explain it to her inside, and be out forthwith after we reach a fast and right understanding.”
He entered the reception hall just as Marianne descended the stairs, wearing one of the new riding habits her mother had soaked out of Radley. A handsome sapphire color, with military embellishments, it complemented both her form and her color. The former quality captivated him, and as she came down that staircase the habit dropped away in his mind, until she reached the last step naked.
She pulled on her gloves, then grasped her riding crop. “I am ready. We should be off. You said that poachers usually do their work in the early morning, and it is almost nine o’clock.”
“You are not coming.”
“Of course I am. I will not hold you back. I can ride with the best of you.”
“You ride splendidly, but you are still not coming.”
She looked up at him with a rebellious glint in her eyes. “It was my idea. I want to be there. I need to hear what he says, especially if I am right.”
So much for accommodating. “You knew I would not permit it. If you thought I would, you would have asked me, or mentioned it before this. Last night, when I confided our plan, for example.”
“I was preoccupied last night with other things, or have you forgotten already?”
As if he ever would. Her mention of it raised memories, none of which strengthened his spine.
He sliced his hand, to indicate finality. “I forbid it. He will be armed. It could be dangerous. We will be riding cross-country and through forests and brush. It is no place for you.”
She stepped closer. Very close. Close enough that the servants in the reception hall and adjoining spaces disappeared with a shuffle of quick steps.
She looked up at him with those doe eyes pleading. And seducing. “I very much want to do this. It is unfair of you to try to deny me. I will stay well back, and not put myself in danger. He may be armed, but I doubt he has ever turned his musket on a person, from how you have described him.”
He liked that “try to deny me” part. Even in petitioning the lord, she let it be known that she might lead an uprising. Hell, he was glad he wasn’t outside. Ives would be howling with laughter by now.
“No.” He tried to sound firm, but it did not sound like he succeeded. His cock had risen to salute her, and that affected his voice.
She pouted. “Are you sure?”
“Ah—yes.”
She slid her hand under his coat and gave him a very different look. “Very, very sure?”
A good part of his mind wondered how late poachers poach, and whether he might tell Gareth and Ives to wait a half hour while he dragged her upstairs.
Whatever her gaze saw in his eyes, it was not his victory. She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss on his lips and her breasts on his body. “I knew you would be reasonable.”
She turned, and strode to the door.
She was already halfway down the steps by the time he reached the portico. Gareth and Ives stood like sentries on either side of the steps and she marched down between them. Then both turned their eyes on him.
Marianne accepted the groom’s help in mounting Calliope. Lance joined his brothers.
“She will stay far behind,” he said.
“Oh, good.” Ives did nothing to subdue his sardonic inflection. “I am glad you reached that right understanding with her.”
“Stone probably has never used his firearm on a person. Only game and fowl,” Lance added.
“True. True,” Gareth said.
“She rides very well too. She should not hold us back at all.” Lance decided it would be a good time to lead them to the horses.
Ives mounted. Gareth did too. Marianne paced her horse over. They waited.
He looked at his horse. And the saddle. Gritting his teeth, he swung himself up, then lowered himself, very carefully. They turned their horses and began walking them away. He fell in.
There were, he decided, few worse ways to start a day than riding in a saddle with an erection. He looked forward to exacting a suitable revenge, but thinking about that now would only make it worse.
* * *
Mr. Stone saw them while he was still two hundred yards away. He turned and ran deeper into the woods.
Aylesbury led the chase. Marianne brought up the rear, as she had promised. Mr. Stone was too smart to stay on the rough path. He darted into the undergrowth when they had gained half the distance.
To her surprise, Aylesbury did not pursue their quarry. Instead he gestured for them to follow him, and galloped harder. In the blur that followed, it seemed to Marianne that the path took a circuitous route through the trees.
They jumped three fallen trunks and one broad stream. Low-lying branches snapped at her. She tucked herself low over Calliope’s neck and hoped for the best. A branch caught her new hat. She glanced back to see its sapphire brim dangling above the path.
Suddenly the forest broke away and they were on a field. A lane wound a short distance beyond. Aylesbury raised his hand, and led them along the edge of the woods, then stopped.
Marianne cocked her head, and listened. She heard sounds, like an animal approached through the woods, still at some distance, but coming closer. She paced up beside Aylesbury.
“Is that him?”
“I hope so. If not, we will be doing this again in a few days.” He leveled a forbidding look at her. “Without you.”
“How did you guess he would come this way?”
“I played in these woods for years. I know them better than he, and he knows them very well. The direction he took aims at that lane there, which is not on my property.”
Of course. Mr. Stone believed them to be after him for his poaching. He would want to get off the duke’s lands as fast as he could.
The sounds came closer. Then a body thrashed its way free of the undergrowth and darted across the field.
They gave chase. Mr. Stone looked back, horrified to see them closing on him. He almost reached the lane before they caught up. Ives and Gareth circled
him so he could run no farther.
Aylesbury looked down on the poacher. Marianne noted Mr. Stone appeared to be little more than a youth. He could not be older than twenty.
He hung his straw-haired head, dejected. In one hand he held his musket. From the other hung two hares.
Aylesbury dismounted and walked over to him. He took the musket, and threw it to Gareth. “Bold of you to come back here, Stone, after being caught so recently.”
Mr. Stone gazed at the ground, looking miserable.
“Did Radley promise to let you off again should you go up before him, if you did him that favor he wanted?”
Stone looked up, shocked. He glanced back at the others, with desperation in his eyes. Then he sank to the ground, crossed his arms over his knees, and cried.
* * *
“I cannot believe that you let him keep the hares,” Ives said. They were almost back at the house before anyone spoke. Ives had looked fit to burst the whole way, and now he finally did. “He admits that he was prepared to lie and say he saw you poisoning the food, and you give him his stolen game.”
“What was I going to do with it? I can only eat so much rabbit stew.”
“That is not the point. He steals with impunity, and you let him. Encourage him. Then you learn he was willing to name you as a murderer, falsely, and you reward him. Society cannot thrive with such generosity, Lance. The rule of law is suborned by how you overlook too much.”
“I think it was a nice gesture,” Marianne said with emotion. Mr. Stone’s story of being tempted and coerced by her uncle had left her close to tears. “And Mr. Stone showed great remorse, not that you can blame a man for accepting a way out of being transported, or worse. It was a devil’s bargain, and not of his making.”
Lance reached over to pat her hand. She saw the best in people. The truth was that while Jeremiah Stone poached to feed his family, he was by nature a thief. Since she wanted to sympathize, he would not explain that, however.
She looked disheveled from their chase and flushed from the cold. Locks of hair fell about her face. One epaulet on her habit hung, ripped loose by a branch. She had lost her pert little hat.
He thought she appeared beautiful and fresh.
Ives looked to heaven in his exasperation over their inability to see the bigger picture.
“He told us what I wanted to know,” Lance said, before the lawyer started in again with his lessons. “It is safe to say that with three witnesses to his confession, he will not try to do it now, no matter what. Nor would he have, once Radley saw the error of his ways.”
“At least you know now,” Gareth said. “You will not have to wonder who the witness was, and whether he might come forward with his tale.”
He did know, thanks to Marianne. If she had not overheard that argument with Langreth while she had her nose to the shop window that day, if she had not remembered what she heard about Mr. Stone’s trial, and her uncle’s unusual magnanimity, if she had not looked at all of it this way, then that, as was her mind’s method of working, he might never have known.
As for Radley’s use of Mr. Stone—that would be handled later. He could not excuse it because of what Radley thought Lance had done to Nora. He knew Marianne did not think so either.
They handed over their horses at the portico. Lance led the way inside. “It is early, but I say this calls for celebratory cheer.”
He aimed toward the library. Marianne aimed to the stairs.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Above.”
“The hell you are. If you ride with the devils, you can drink with them.” He held out his hand. After a small hesitation, she came and took it.
Ives threw himself onto a sofa in the library. Gareth leaned against a table. Marianne sat on a wooden chair.
“Nothing for me,” she said. “I do not care for ratafia.”
Lance carried over a glass. “It isn’t ratafia. I would not insult you with that today.”
She peered into it. “What is it?”
“Whiskey. The best Scotland can make.” He handed glasses to his brothers too.
Marianne kept peering into her glass. “I have always been curious about its taste and fascination to men. I suppose a bit won’t hurt.”
Gareth raised his glass. “A few more details, and it is over.”
Ives raised his. “To the life you once knew, Lance, and will now have again.”
They took long swallows of the spirits. Before he joined them, Lance raised his glass to Marianne as well.
Marianne watched, then gamely took a gulp of her own. For a two count she remained serene. Then the whiskey’s effects hit her. Her eyes widened. Her face turned red. She coughed hard, then inhaled like she wanted to blow out a flame.
Hand to her mouth, she stood. “I will leave you now, so you can discuss those details while you celebrate,” she said. “I dare not stay for more such cheer. It might kill me.”
Lance walked with her to the door. There she leaned close. “Promise you will come to me tonight,” she whispered. Then she was gone.
* * *
Celebrate they did. Marianne did not go down to dinner, but had it brought to her. Laughter came to her from below at times. The brothers were enjoying Aylesbury’s freedom from the prison in which he had been confined for almost a year.
She saw the difference in him as soon as Jeremiah Stone finished his story. She loved the man she knew already, but she suspected the real Lancelot Hemingford would dazzle her silly. Even on the ride back, the fullness of his spirit, now released in all its self-assured, arrogant independence, almost overwhelmed her.
His aura stretched as they rode, and assumed a stance that dared anyone to interfere with him, or object to his behavior, or deny him his due. The man on the horse next to hers transformed into a man she had only met on occasion before, and then mostly during the passion they shared.
It had all been in him all along, however, only obscured by shadows and at times lost in darkness. This Lancelot had been the source of her excitement. Her soul had known him all along. She had always thrilled to the wicked possibilities he offered without saying a word.
She expected the brothers also sorted out the details. How to confront her uncle would be high on the list. Demands on the coroner would be second. She suspected that would all be settled within the next few days. She would have to tell Mama to let her know as soon as a verdict came from Mr. Peterson.
As night fell, she did some arranging in her dressing room, then sent Katy away. She sat at her writing desk and penned a few letters. She sealed them, but did not prepare them for posting. Instead she tucked them into the table’s drawer.
Then, with her heart so full of emotion she could barely breathe, she waited for her lover to come to her.
* * *
Lance entered Marianne’s chambers in high spirits. What waited for him there changed his mood. Thoughts of the day’s victory, of his life’s return to normal, flew from his mind when he saw her.
She lay on the bed, already naked. She had built up the fire so she might stay warm, and its amber glow moved over her skin as the flames danced. Her copper hair flowed on the pillows. Her breasts showed she was already aroused.
She rose on one arm, creating an erotic, sinuous line from her shoulders to her toes. “Oh, good. You are already undressed. I did not want to have to wait,” she said.
His blood was already high from the day’s events. Her words only sent it higher. He went to the bed.
“Are you drunk?” she asked.
“Not even half so.”
“That is good too. I did not want you drunk.”
He cast off his robe. “You have a list of what you did not want, it seems. Is there another one of what you do want?”
She kneeled and faced him. Her arms encircled his neck. “Yes. I want everything.�
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“Everything could take a long time.”
“It is fortunate that there are long nights in winter, then.”
She kissed his chest, slowly and carefully. Her hands glossed his body with soft caresses. He reached to embrace her, but she angled away.
“No. Let me—” She kissed his lips, then used her tongue aggressively. “I want to do this.” She tugged gently on his hand, inviting him onto the bed. She pressed his shoulders until he lay down, then straddled him and lowered her head to kiss again.
His hunger rebelled against the passive role she put him in. The earnest, sweet pleasure she gave lured him to compliance. She kissed him and touched him as if she savored the feel of him. Of everything. His body accepted the luxury of her ministration. His consciousness focused on each warmth and titillation she created.
Her own arousal showed. She expressed its steady rise with her mouth and hands. Soon she required more of him. She leaned forward, positioning her breasts near his mouth. He teased her with his tongue and mouth. Soon she was moaning, and rocking gently so her vulva tantalized his cock.
She rocked back on her heels so his cock nestled in her damp warmth. With her expression transformed beautifully by pleasure, she caressed his body, then leaned forward, lower now, to kiss his chest and torso.
She shifted ever lower, now straddling his thighs so she could caress and kiss his erection. Undone now, beyond sense or thought or any awareness except the erotic vision of her hand and mouth, insane from anticipation and urges too wild to control, he waited with a command and a plea for more yelling in his head.
She flipped her body so her back faced him as she sought better purchase. Her mouth enclosed him. He closed his eyes and submitted to her torture, glad that in her everything she had started with this. He gritted his teeth and rode the pleasure higher and higher, forcing some control so it would last.
She did not end it that way, nor did he care. With quick moves she swung and faced him, and lowered herself so her tight passage replaced her mouth. She took her pleasure then, with moves subtle or hard, fast or slow as she chose. He watched what it did to her until neither of them could wait any longer. Grabbing her hips he held her firmly, and released the ferocity she had incited in his body and soul.
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