Feeling the kiss of cool air against her breasts, she gasped, but in her mouth his tongue became more demanding, more possessive, until she responded in kind. She felt fire rushing through her wherever he touched her, and through places where no one had touched her in her life. The sensations overwhelmed her, and when he bared her breasts completely, she felt no embarrassment, only increasing passion. The touch of a finger on the tip of her left breast made her arch her back, demanding more.
Abandoning her mouth, Antony bent his lips to her breast, stirring new fires. Charley moaned. One hand drifted to her lap, his fingers gathering the material of her skirt, raising it higher and higher. Slipping beneath the skirt, his hand inched upward, then stopped. He raised his head. Cooler air caressed her wet nipple, making it tingle.
“What the devil have you got on?” he muttered.
“French drawers,” she said, realizing what he referred to from his impatient tug on the lacy garment. “I bought them in Paris.”
“They’re an infernal nuisance, and damnably in the way.”
Suddenly, she felt nervous and less confident about what they were doing.
“Antony?”
“What?” he shifted his gaze to see her face.
Passion warred with common sense, and she could think of nothing to say.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “You don’t look much like an angel now,” he said. “I doubt that they fly about with their breasts so enticingly displayed.”
She chuckled. “That’s a sacrilegious comment, if not a profane one, sir. If this were Spain you’d have to answer to the Inquisition for such impudence.”
“If we were in Spain, you’d have been hanged long ago for witchcraft.”
“I’m not a witch!”
“Are you not? You’ve cast a witch’s spell, I think.” As he bent his head, his intention clearly to begin again where he had left off, monkey chatter in the hall startled them both. Moving so quickly that her fist caught the point of his chin, Charley snatched the two bits of her gown together, tying the uppermost ribbon faster than she had thought possible, despite being dumped without ceremony onto the sofa seat.
Antony stood, then sat again immediately, taking time only to snatch up the book Charley had heaved at him earlier. He laid it open over his lap.
Charley stifled a giggle as the door opened and Letty came in with Jeremiah perched as usual on her shoulder.
“Hello,” she said, looking from one to the other.
“Hello, yourself,” Antony said. “Were you looking for one of us?”
She seemed to be examining them, and for an awkward moment, Charley wondered if she could possibly know what they had been doing. She dismissed the thought just before Letty’s gaze came to rest upon her breast. The child said, “I am not certain if this is the sort of thing one mentions or not, Cousin Charley, but your chemise ribbon is poking out between two of your bodice laces.”
Taking care to avoid Antony’s gaze, Charley looked down and said with commendable aplomb, “Good mercy, so it is! How very untidy!” She tucked the white silk ribbon back into its proper place, adding, “Before I wear this frock again, I shall have Kerra replace the ribbons on my shift with ones to match this gray satin. Then I shan’t worry about being embarrassed before company. I certainly hope,” she added, “that it hasn’t been poking out like that all afternoon. I should never be able to look Rockland or Mr. Gabriel in the eye again.”
“It wasn’t,” Letty said, eyeing her shrewdly. “I’d have observed it before if it were. It must have worked its way out while I was in the kitchen.”
“I’ll wager you did not come in here to assure yourself that my ribbons were in place,” Charley said, sensing repressed laughter in her companion and again taking good care not to look at him. “What did you want, darling?”
Letty glanced at Antony, then sighed and said, “I know curiosity is a vulgar habit, because Grandpapa Jervaulx has told me so times without number—nearly every time I ask him a question in fact. But I have observed that if one does not indulge in some curiosity, one frequently does not find out what one wants to know. The truth is that I heard you shouting. Then there was utter silence, so I wondered—”
“Yes?” Antony prompted.
“If there had been murder done.”
Both Antony and Charley burst out laughing, but their moment of intimacy was over. Charley tried to convince herself that she was relieved, but she knew she was deceiving herself. Antony had awakened a new curiosity, and as Letty had so kindly pointed out, curiosity, once stirred, rarely slept until knowledge had quenched it.
After dinner that evening, expecting Antony to go out again, she retired to her dressing room and sat down at the dressing table to let Kerra take down her hair and brush it out. The task was half completed when Antony strolled in through the doorway from her bedchamber.
Charley nearly betrayed her shock before she saw him wink.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, hoping her voice sounded calmer than she felt. “I thought you were going out.”
“Not tonight, my dear, though I do have some matters of business to attend to before I can retire for the night. I did hope for a private word with you before then.”
She had relaxed, but these words brought tension flooding back. Keeping her poise with difficulty, she said, “You may go, Kerra. I’ll ring when I want you again.” When the maid had gone, she exclaimed, “Good mercy, I might have been half-dressed! What were you thinking?”
“I knew there had not been time for that,” he said, smiling.
Picking up the brush Kerra had set down, she said more sharply than she had intended, “And just how long does it take a lady to disrobe, Master Expert?”
“Sheathe your claws, my lioness. Rockland hit the mark there, I must say.”
“I hope you did not tell him so after I left the room.”
“You know I did not,” he said, reaching to stroke her hair. When her startled gaze met his in the looking glass, he said gently, “You hit the mark, too, you know, when you said we had better grow accustomed to touching each other if people are to accept our marriage as a normal one. By the same token, the servants must begin to observe that we are developing some intimacy between us. Hodson knows the truth, for there’s precious little I’ve kept from him over the years, and your woman may have guessed, but the rest of the servants must not, and they’ll soon know something’s amiss if we don’t exert ourselves to pull the wool over their eyes.”
“If you think I’m going to sleep in your bed to convince them, you’d best think again,” Charley said.
“That’s what I thought,” he replied. When she gasped, he chuckled and said, “Not that you should sleep there, that you had not intended me to think you would.”
She bit her lip, realizing no one could blame him if he had assumed from her behavior earlier that she wanted to share his bed. Even now she was not certain of her feelings about that, one way or another.
Leaning a shoulder against the wall, he folded his arms across his chest, watching her for a long moment before he said, “There is something I think you ought to know.”
“What?”
“I think that although your experience is limited, your curiosity is boundless. It occurred to me that since we are legally married, and since after the annulment you do not intend to marry again, you might come to believe a certain opportunity exists to explore and satisfy that curiosity.”
“Is that what you thought I ought to know?” she demanded, uncomfortably wondering if he could read her mind.
“What I thought you ought to know,” he said, “is that it is well nigh impossible to get a marriage annulled if it has been consummated.”
“Good mercy, would anyone dare to ask us if it had?”
“They would.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“Oh.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he straightened, saying, “In view of that, I think we shou
ld be grateful that Letty came in when she did.”
“We should, indeed,” she said, wondering why she did not feel grateful. The truth was that, yet again, her wayward emotions threatened to overcome her. She wanted to cry. When Antony left her a few minutes later, that is precisely what she did, though she could not have given a single reason for her tears.
When she had dried her eyes and washed her face, she got ready to retire without ringing for Kerra. Then, blowing out her candles, and climbing into bed, she lay there, staring up into the darkness. The plain and simple fact was that, other than marriage itself, no acceptable scheme existed whereby women could learn firsthand about the delights or terrors of the conjugal bed. She wondered briefly what her mother had thought about such things, but her eyes only pricked again. Not wanting to dwell on the past, she pushed the uncomfortable thoughts ruthlessly aside.
She had not changed her mind about wanting an annulment, certainly; although, had Sir Antony been the man he presently claimed to be, and in love with her, she might, admittedly, have a few second thoughts. That, she decided, was only being honest. He intrigued her more than any other man she had met, but he did not love her. He did not even make a pretense of doing so, for she was certainly wise enough to know the difference between sexual attraction and love.
With horses, after all, there was no question of love. A stallion had only to catch a whiff of a mare in season to plunge into rut. Men were no different. She had frequently observed, during the various London Seasons in which she had taken part, that men required little more than slight encouragement from any passable female to fling themselves at her. Moreover, it was well known that men took their pleasures wherever they chanced to find them. She had presented an opportunity for Sir Antony, and he had very nearly taken advantage of it. That was all there was to the matter.
Having sorted this all out to her complete satisfaction, she settled back on her pillows and waited for sleep to overtake her. Long into the night she lay, pretending she was not listening with all her might for movement in the bedchamber next door.
When Kerra wakened her the following morning, she had no idea how long she had lain awake before dozing off. She knew only that she had not slept long enough.
“Go away,” she muttered, turning over. “I don’t want to get up for hours yet.”
With an unusually sympathetic note in her voice, Kerra said, “I beg your pardon, my lady, for I know the master kept you awake much later than usual, but you did say as how you was intending to ride into Lostwithiel this morning.”
“Aggh,” Charley moaned, burying her head under the pillow.
Chapter Sixteen
NOT UNTIL HALF AN hour later, while Kerra was straightening the short train of Charley’s riding habit, did Charley realize exactly in what manner the maid thought she had spent the night. Her sense of humor stirred, for she knew that by not ringing for Kerra to return, she had led her to believe Sir Antony had stayed all night.
Charley wondered if she ought to tell him, and if the news would make him laugh. Had she seen him at once, she might have mentioned it, but he was not in the breakfast room when she entered.
Deliciously enticing odors wafted from dishes set out on the sideboard, and as she examined their contents, a maid entered to see if she required anything more.
“Just tea, please,” Charley said, helping herself to some sliced ham, and eggs scrambled with onions and mushrooms. No sooner had she sat down and begun to eat than Letty bounced in, dressed for riding, with Sebastian at her heels.
The child went at once to fill her plate at the sideboard, saying over her shoulder, “Do we leave immediately after breakfast, Cousin Charley?”
“Letty, darling, did you think you were to go with me? I don’t think that would be a good idea this time.”
“But I want to see Jenifry! I liked her. I want to know that she is safe.”
“I’ll tell you as quickly as I know for myself that she is,” Charley said.
“But you let me go with you before.”
“That is not quite true. You followed without permission.”
“But you let me go.”
An unfamiliar, plaintive note had entered Letty’s voice, and Charley heard it with some dismay. Was this what her influence had achieved? Neither Daintry nor Gideon would thank her if the well-mannered child they had sent to England with her returned to them a spoiled and whining brat. She was about to utter a sharp reproof when Sir Antony entered the room. She said calmly instead, “I did let you go with me last time, darling, but in truth, I ought not to have done so. Indeed, were it not for Mr. Gabriel promising to provide me with a properly authoritative escort to deal with Michael Peryllys, I should hesitate to go, myself.”
“Or I to allow it,” Antony said, entering the room. “You won’t go alone, as it is.”
“But—”
“I am going with you,” he added, smiling. “That is why I stayed up till all hours. I had a letter to write, but Hodson will see it off, so I am at your disposal for the day.”
Letty carried her plate to the table, tossing a scrap of ham to Sebastian as she took her seat. Happily, she said, “That is wonderful news, sir. Now I can go, too.”
“No,” Antony said, as he examined the offerings on the sideboard.
“But I want to see Jenifry again.”
Her tone was wheedling but more acceptable than before, Charley noted thankfully. Although tempted to enter the conversation, she held her tongue, certain that Antony would prevail.
He said, “When we know what is going on in Lostwithiel, I will see what we can do about your seeing Jenifry again, but today you will not go with us. And before you say anything more, Letitia, let me add that although I have respect for the general excellence of your manners, your tone when you spoke to your cousin a moment ago was quite unacceptable. I shall not refine upon the point, however, because I am certain that I will never hear it again.”
“No, sir,” Letty said in a small voice. Although she did not hang her head, meeting his gaze directly, her manner was subdued.
Antony ladled oatmeal into a bowl and brought it to the table just as the maid returned with Charley’s tea. He said, “I’ll have some coffee, Daisy, please.” As she poured it for him, he said more cheerfully to Letty, “Perhaps you would like to ride to Tuscombe Park today to pay your respects to your grandmama and Lady Ophelia.”
Letty wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. Beside her chair, the dog thumped its tail in hopeful anticipation of more food. Dropping another morsel of ham, she said, “May I really ride all that distance alone, sir?”
“Not all alone, for you will have your groom. You must promise faithfully to obey him without question, too. Will you do that?”
“Yes, of course. You sound like Papa,” she added with her customary twinkle.
“Excellent,” Antony said, flicking a speaking look at Charley as he added, “You may be just as bored at Tuscombe Park as you would be here, of course.”
Letty chuckled. “Perhaps I will,” she said, “but I’ll enjoy the ride over and back very much. I can take Sebastian, but I expect I’d better not take Jeremiah.”
“Not unless you are prepared to leave him in the stable when you get there.”
“He doesn’t like that. I’ll just leave him here and play with him a bit more than usual when I get back, to make up for abandoning him.”
“That’s a good notion, darling,” Charley interjected. “Just take care to play with him outside when you do. When he enjoyed himself at Tuscombe Park House, if you recall, he ran up the curtains. Mrs. Medrose said later that he had damaged some of the fringe. It won’t do to let him destroy things here in Cousin Melissa’s house.”
“Mrs. Medrose fixed the fringe,” Letty said.
“So she did,” Charley agreed. “Very well then, enjoy your day and we’ll tell you all about ours when we get back.”
“We’ll return by way of Tuscombe Park, and meet you there,” Antony said, shooting Charl
ey another speaking look. “It is time we paid our respects, too.”
They finished their breakfast quickly, and as Charley accompanied Antony to the stables a short time afterward, she found herself looking forward to the ride even more than she had before. Until Antony had declared his intention to go with her, she had looked ahead to the moment she would force Michael Peryllys to produce Jenifry. Now, like Letty, she looked forward more to the ride itself, and their return, than to the confrontation at Angelique’s.
They all left the stable yard together, Charley riding between Letty and Antony, their grooms trailing behind. The scent of the sea was strong, and the sunlight crisply brilliant where it spilled across the landscape from the east, painting white and golden highlights on the eastern sides of trees and shrubs along their way. Black-headed gulls wheeled above them, crying plaintively, and in the distance, over St. Merryn’s Bay, a kitti-wake banked wildly and cut a white-fringed wave with its wing tip. The air was crisp, with a light but sharp breeze that penetrated Charley’s habit coat, but after they had ridden for a while, she felt warmer and found the nip in the air invigorating.
Since Letty and Jeb were to take the cliff-top path, while Charley, Antony, and their grooms would follow the route Charley had taken on her previous trip, the two groups parted when they reached the main road. Content to walk the horses for a time, Charley and Antony rode without speaking, enjoying the soft morning air.
They had two hours of riding ahead of them, but before long Charley leaned forward and lightly spurred Dancer, urging the gelding to a trot, then to a canter. To her delight, Antony rode with her as if he had anticipated the impulse. When she drew rein again ten minutes later to allow their grooms to catch up, she was laughing. “I never intended to gallop,” she said. “It just felt so good that I wanted to go faster and faster.”
“Our horses can stand it,” he said with a smile that sent a surge of warmth through her. He was not riding Annabelle today but one of her bay hunters instead.
“Indeed they can,” she said, fondly patting Shadow Dancer’s neck. The black roan was not even breathing hard, though she had pushed it to its fastest pace. “Both of them are good for a twenty-mile point. On a road like this, I daresay they could easily run for an hour or two.”
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