‘Must you always be like this?’ she demanded.
Richard’s lips brushed her hair. ‘Like what?’
Deb looked up, her eyes stormy. ‘So careless and nonchalant and…Oh, you know what I mean! You pretend that nothing is of importance to you.’
‘Some things matter to me a great deal,’ Richard said, and again Deb heard the deeper feeling in his voice. He released her and his tone was cool and his own once more.
‘Did you intend to go paddling in the sea or merely to get your riding boots wet?’
Deb looked down. The incoming tide was swirling about her ankles and had already splashed her boots and darkened the hem of her dress with patches of water. She gave an exclamation. ‘Oh! I would love to take my boots off and run through the surf, but-’
‘But?’ Richard queried, his brows quizzically raised.
‘But it is like lying in the sand-quite inappropriate for a lady!’
So saying, Deb bent and unbuttoned the boots, throwing them carelessly up the beach and, with a whoop of sheer excitement, ran into the waves.
The chill shock of the water brought her up short as it swirled about her knees and she gasped aloud. ‘It is so cold!’
Richard was almost doubled up with laughter. ‘Of course it is. Why do you think I did not venture in?’
In reply, Deb scooped up a handful of water and threw it at him. It missed him, but he set off down the beach towards her threateningly and with a squeal Deb ran, splashing through the water, her hair tumbling down her back. The sun was warm on her face, but the water was numbingly cold and her stockinged feet sank into the sand, slowing her progress. In the end she collapsed on a sand dune, out of breath, her skirts soaking and her face flushed.
Richard was still laughing as he joined her. ‘You, Mrs Stratton, are the most complete hoyden!’
‘I was never like this until I met you,’ Deb said pertly, squinting against the sun. ‘You are a bad influence, Lord Richard.’
Richard put a hand down and pulled her negligently to her feet and into his arms. Deb could feel the sea water soaking through her dress and into the crisp linen of his shirt. Her body warmed as it took heat from his and their blood beat together.
‘You were always like this underneath the surface,’ Richard said softly. ‘I knew it as soon as I met you.’
Deb’s breath caught. ‘I was trying to be as cool and composed as Olivia-’
Richard’s voice held a betraying tenderness. ‘Please do not. You have too much life and vitality to repress it beneath convention.’
The sun dipped behind the trees and Deb shivered a little. Her dress was sticking to her damp legs and her toes were cold. Richard tried to release her hands.
‘We should go back,’ he said.
Deb hesitated, holding on to him when he would have turned away. ‘Must we?’
The breeze blew chill against her skin. Now that the sun was going down the air seemed much cooler. In an hour, it would be dark.
Richard looked at her. ‘You should change out of those damp clothes.’ His tone was completely neutral.
Deb knew what he was doing. He was giving her one last chance to change her mind and run away. After this, the die would be cast.
She tugged on his hand. ‘I do not wish to go back. We could send a message with the servants to tell Clarrie that I will return later this evening. I want to listen to the sea at sunset and watch the stars come out.’
Richard gave her a long, hard look and Deb trembled inside. All day there had been an edge of dangerous attraction between them. It had lain buried when they had been speaking of their past and when they had sat together in the bright sunlight. It had mingled with the pleasures of riding together and eating and drinking, and playing in the sea. It had deepened with the intimacy that had sprung up between them as they shared some of their secrets. It had flared into life when Richard had kissed her. But when the darkness came and she was out here with him in this wild and empty place, then…then that dangerous attraction would come to the fore and she would have no will to resist it, no desire but to have one night in heaven to end this perfect day.
Chapter Fifteen
T he servants had packed the remains of the picnic away and had received, blank-faced, Richard’s instructions to return to Mallow House and inform Clarissa Aintree that he would be escorting Mrs Stratton home later that evening. Richard had brought the horses across to where Deb was sitting by the sandy track that led away from the beach towards Kestrel Forest. He looked at her as he approached. She was watching the sun, bright red and round as a dinner plate, sink behind the pine trees and cast the last of its light across the rippling sea. Her hair was loose about her shoulders in a golden cascade. As Richard came up she turned to look at him.
‘I thought that we were to stay here for a while and watch the moon come up?’
Richard bent to adjust the Merlin’s girth, then straightened up.
‘I had a better idea,’ he said slowly, watching her face. He wanted to see her reaction to his words. ‘As you know, Justin has an old hunting lodge in the forest, barely more than a cottage. None of us has been there for an age and it is very probably damp, but there is a splendid view across the terrace to the sea.’
Deb’s face lit up and the tense feeling inside Richard eased slightly. He wanted her to be very certain of what she was doing. In the past, the women he had trysted with had been skilled seducers in their own right, bored wives looking for a little entertainment, professional courtesans whose amatory expertise was at least the equal of his own.
Deborah Stratton was different. Vivid, passionate, spontaneous, she was nevertheless an untried innocent in the ways of love and her vulnerability called up every protective instinct he had ever possessed.
It also sharpened his desire to a very fine edge and his possessive instincts to an almost intolerable level. He wanted to make her forget Neil Stratton forever. He wanted her experience of love to be with him and him only, he wanted to imprint himself on her in the most deep and masculine and primitive way possible.
He knew he had to keep a grip on his self-control or he would be completely lost.
He helped Deb up into the saddle, then swung up on to Merlin’s back and drew ahead along the track. The pine trees mingled with old oak and beech here and grew close to the sandy path. The forest was shadowed and still in the twilight. There was no sound now except for the soft clop of the horses’ hooves and the cawing of the rooks as they returned to roost.
The path wound slowly around the headland and the trees drew closer and the darkness deeper. There was a silence between them now, but it was not easy. Richard wondered if Deborah was about to turn tail and flee. He held Merlin back to fall in with her, dropping a hand over hers on the reins.
‘The house is up ahead, around this bend.’ He felt the tremor that went through her and stilled, holding his breath against the thought that she might take flight. He reminded himself that if she did so, that would be perfectly acceptable. The hunger within him would have to remain unslaked. It was imperative that he did nothing to frighten Deb away now or she would never trust him again.
‘Do you wish to continue?’ He kept his voice light and felt in response a very slight nod from her. Releasing her hand, he kept the horses close together, reassuring her with his presence beside her as they rounded the corner and came out from under the trees into a clearing on the edge of the forest.
He heard Deb catch her breath. Whilst they had been riding the sun had sunk below the horizon and the sky overhead had deepened to a sapphire blue, paling to turquoise where it met the sea. The first white pinpricks of the stars pierced the dark and down on the beach the sand gleamed and the drag of the surf was a muted roar, soothing in its repetition.
Deb rode forward slowly to the edge of the terrace. The house was behind them, closed and silent, waiting. It was tiny-one room and a scullery and closet below, and a tower room upstairs with huge windows facing east across the sea.
> ‘It is very beautiful.’ Deb’s voice was soft. She half-turned in the saddle to look at him. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, Richard.’
Richard dismounted and helped her down, holding her body close to his. Apart from one tiny tremor that he felt go through her, she made no move either towards him or away, but held herself steady as though barely breathing. He knew that she was trembling inside and it lit a passionate flame in him even as he felt a new wash of gentleness go through him. In the gathering darkness he could no longer see her features clearly, but her hair brushed his cheek and he caught the faint scent of honey and roses, the perfume that he always associated with Deborah. It was enough to turn his bones to water. He almost kissed her there and then, forgetting his vow to treat her gently and make love to her sweetly and slowly. He cleared his throat.
‘Sometimes the moon rises directly above the sea and lays a trail clear across the waters,’ he said. ‘On summer nights when we were boys we would sit here on the terrace, telling tales of pirate ships and sea monsters. I did not know then that I would come to love the sea so well-’
He broke off as he saw her smile. ‘You speak like a poet,’ she teased. Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Love by the light of the moon…’
Richard caught a sharp breath, took her hand, and drew her across the terrace to the door of the house. The sand crunched beneath their feet. The door swung open beneath Richard’s touch and then they were across the threshold with not a word spoken between them.
There were practical matters that needed attention. Richard remembered where to find candles and there were the makings of a fire in the grate, but once he had seen to Deborah’s immediate comfort he had to go out to attend to the horses and stable them at the back. He hesitated in the doorway, looking back at her. In the candlelight she looked so pale he thought that she might faint. Her face was all eyes and she watched him with the apprehensive intensity of a mouse watching the cat. Richard’s heart smote him. All the casual confidence with which he normally approached his conquests died away and he felt as untried as a green boy.
‘I will fetch some water from the well,’ he said. ‘Are you hungry or thirsty? I do not suppose that there is any food, but there may be a bottle of brandy hidden away somewhere. Are you cold? There are blankets upstairs and the closet is by the scullery.’
The paucity of what he was offering her suddenly struck him. Oh, hell, what a stupid idea this had been! A mouldering house hidden away in the forest with no fine sheets nor champagne, no food, nor the soft scent of flowers, or warmth, nor comfort…He clenched his fists in an agony of self-reproach, within an inch of taking her hand and dragging her back to civilisation and handing her over to Mrs Aintree, never to touch her again.
And then she smiled at him, very sweetly. ‘Richard,’ she said, ‘go and stable the horses.’
He was as quick as he could be, to the general disgust of Beauty and Merlin who objected to the cavalier manner in which he thrust them into the stalls and removed their tack without rubbing them down. Fortunately Justin had kept a small supply of hay at the lodge for those occasions on which he and his brothers chose to ride into the forest. Richard left the horses munching crossly and hastened back to the house, closing the door and, after a moment’s hesitation, shooting the bolt home.
The room was empty and Deborah was nowhere to be seen. The door to the scullery was closed. Panic clutched at him. Surely she could not have run away when his back was turned? Had she locked herself in the latrine? What a damnable thought. Was she so nervous that she could not face him, let alone go through with this one night of passion, the idea of which was even now turning to ashes in his mouth? Had she run away into the forest alone and in the dark? It was the sort of impulsive act that he could quite easily imagine Deborah doing, only to regret her actions later. His hand hovered over the latch and then he heard a sound from above. He let his breath out on a huge, shaky sigh of relief. Thank God she was safe. Much more of this and he would be incapable of blowing out a candle, never mind making love to Deborah. He felt exhausted.
‘Richard, come and see!’ Deb’s voice floated down the stairs, an edge of pleasure and excitement clearly audible in her voice.
The tight anxiety in Richard’s chest eased and he took the stairs two at a time, reaching the door of the tower room and stopping dead on the threshold.
In the time that he had been away, Deb had managed to light a fire in the grate and it glowed with a heart of warmth. Two candles burned on the wooden table by the door, casting their flickering shadow over a bed piled high with cushions and blankets. There was a faint fragrance of lavender in the air.
‘I found the linen in the Armada chest,’ Deb said, gesturing towards the bed. ‘Everything has been stored properly and is quite dry…’ Her voice faltered and Richard saw the flash of anxiety in her eyes and smiled at her. Even now she could not be coy about why they were there. She would not hide behind pretence or bashful words. He loved her for it. In fact, he could not imagine ever loving her more…
She was standing by one of the long windows and he reached her side in two strides, wrapping his arms about her and pulling her back against him. His chin rested on the top of her head. He could feel the tension in her now, the tiny trembles that racked her body. She turned slightly so that they were looking out to sea, where the moon, three-quarters full and hard as silver, was climbing from beyond the long line of the horizon. For a moment there was no sound but the wash of the waves and the humming of the breeze about the eaves. A ship slipped across the edge of the bay, the moonlight reflecting briefly on its sails.
‘A privateer?’ Deb said. She turned her head and slanted a look up at him. ‘Should you not go and raise the alarm?’
Richard smiled. ‘I should, but I shall not.’
There was a pause. ‘I found the brandy,’ Deb said. She turned in his arms so that she was facing him. Her cheeks were a little flushed. ‘I thought perhaps that it might be a good idea.’
‘We won’t need it,’ Richard said. He looked down at her, scanning her face as though trying to memorise her, feature by feature. There was a silence. After a moment, a tiny hint of frown touched her brow.
‘Richard? Are we going to make love or not?’
He stared down into her face for one long moment more whilst the fierce desire returned like the cut of a whip to rage through his body. Then he smiled at her, his slow, wicked smile. ‘Yes, Deborah,’ he said, ‘we are.’
Deb was terrified. She wished that she had taken several large swigs from the brandy bottle before Richard had come back. She wished that she had ridden away when he had given her the chance. She wished that she had never advertised for a fiancé in the first place, let alone entertained the ridiculous idea of asking Richard Kestrel to teach her about love.
Except that it was too late now. Except that she ached for his touch and wanted him with a desperation that knew no bounds. She always had, ever since she had first met him. The knowledge shocked and excited her in equal measure. There seemed no room for shame, no matter that she knew it was morally wrong. And now she was about to get what she wanted.
Be careful what you wish for…
The words of warning that Mrs Aintree had imparted to her as a child echoed in her head and almost raised a feverish laugh within her, except that Richard was kissing her now and all other sensations died swiftly under the devastating power of his touch. His mouth was warm and strong against her lips, caressing her, tantalising her. His hands slid down to clasp her waist and draw her closer against his body, so close that she could feel his hardness pressed against her. Again the shock and the helpless arousal flooded through her, turning her limbs weak with longing. She clutched at his shoulders, pulling him tight against her. Her nipples stiffened and peaked against the relentless pressure of his body and a tingling sensation of delight filled her abdomen.
His tongue curled lazily, sensuously against hers, and Deborah felt as though she was melting in the heat, slivers of w
hite-hot desire licking through her blood.
Richard pressed her back against the wall, using his hips to hold her body still. She could feel how aroused he was and the shock roared through her again, her senses swimming. She felt his fingers once more at the buttons of her riding habit. He was shaking almost as much as she; the buttons slipped between his fingers. The knowledge that she could do this to him sent a heady feminine satisfaction through her and she slid her hand inside his shirt, revelling in the gasp he gave as her hand touched his naked chest.
The fastenings on her gown eased and Deb arched against his hands, obeying an instinct as deep as time. His fingers skimmed her nipple, cupped her breast, and then the bodice of the riding habit fell away, leaving her in her chemise and skirts.
‘You wear no stays…’
Deb opened her eyes. For a moment the candlelight seemed very bright, hurting her eyes. Richard was staring at her as though she was the most exquisite thing that he had ever seen and it was oddly humbling. His hands were resting gently on her bare shoulders amidst the tangle of her blonde hair, and his eyes were devouring the curves of her breasts where they rose above the edge of her shift.
Deb cleared her throat. ‘I seldom do, and never with a riding habit. I find tight underwear too constricting.’
Richard gave a muffled groan, as though the thought was too much for him. ‘Oh, Deborah-’
His agony shot her though with all the stunning power of a lightning bolt. Suddenly, feverishly, she reached for him, undoing the buttons of his shirt in haphazard fashion, running her hands with glorious triumph over his bare shoulders, pressing her lips to the warm skin of his chest.
Richard’s response was instantaneous. He picked her up and tossed her on the bed, where she lay amidst the tumble of lavender-scented blankets and cushions, slightly winded and wholly aroused. The bed was soft against her back and she sank into its depths, borne down a second later by the weight of Richard’s body against hers. Deb struggled to right herself but was held still; Richard was deliberately kneeling on her skirts, keeping her flat on her back whilst he caressed her breasts through the thin cotton of her bodice, then eased it aside so that she was naked to the waist.
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