by Lucy Ashford
Standing there, in her wet shirt and breeches, she lifted her chin defiantly, though her heart sank to the bottom of her boots, which were already half-full of water. God’s teeth. What had she done wrong now? ‘Well, Marcus,’ she began with feigned cheer, ‘this is a surprise—’
Marcus leaned forwards, towering over her from the saddle of his big roan. He said, flatly, ‘Tassie. I think you’d better get inside, don’t you? And get changed—straight away.’
Will protested, ‘Sir. Sir, she was only tryin’ to help—’
It was Tassie who cut in swiftly. ‘It’s all right, Will. I don’t need you to defend me. Don’t you think, Marcus, that you ought to find out exactly what’s going on, before you start acting as if you owned us all?’ She swept back her wet curls as the rain poured down relentlessly.
‘It’s quite plain to me what’s going on,’ said Marcus. ‘And unfortunately your behaviour—careering around the countryside like a gypsy girl—doesn’t surprise me in the least.’ His expression was so hard, so grim, that Tassie, who hardly ever cried, felt an unbearable ache well up in her throat. She’d wanted so much to surprise him, with everything she’d done! But he was glaring down at her with narrow, disapproving eyes as if she was the stupidest creature on earth, and she wasn’t going to explain now how she’d actually gone out to save his precious godfather’s cows from being lost for good…
She swallowed hard, her eyes over-bright, and lifted her chin defiantly. ‘I’ll go in and get changed as soon as I’ve thanked Will properly for giving me a ride back.’
‘You’ll go inside this minute and make yourself decent, my girl!’
Will rode off quickly. She couldn’t blame him. Biting her lip, Tassie walked with as much dignity as she could muster into the house. Then she ran blindly up the stairs to her little room under the eaves, where she flung herself face down on the bed, heedless of her wet hair, her soaking clothes.
She hated Marcus Forrester. He was arrogant, and cruel, and stupid; she must have been mad to agree to all this. She lay there in the darkness and felt as if her heart would break.
She didn’t know how long she’d been up there when she heard all-too familiar footsteps coming unevenly yet purposefully up the wide oak staircase. Edward started to squawk wildly from his corner; she jumped to her feet to fling the cover over his cage just as the door swung open.
‘I expected you to be changed by now.’ Marcus stood there, his forbidding frame filling the doorway.
‘Oh, you did, did you?’ She put her hands on her hips defiantly. ‘Come in, then, Marcus, do, and I’ll get changed now! Why, you can tell me exactly what I should wear—since you seem to think you own me!’ In a fever of wild rebellion, she started to tug at the buttons of her shirt; she had undone just two of them by the time Marcus had covered the distance between them and grasped her wrists. She had quite forgotten how strong he was, how powerful. She struggled against him, feeling suddenly afraid.
He tightened his grip, saying in a voice that was harsh with emotion, ‘I sent you here to learn to be a lady. And I discover you riding pillion behind a farmhand. Whatever you wear for careering round the countryside, it shouldn’t be this. Do you really not know why? Do I really have to show you?’
Tassie gazed at him, stunned. She had never seen him look quite so angry, quite so dangerous; every feature seemed etched in granite, and his black hair, wet from the rain, seemed to emphasise his hard strength. Her pulse thumped heavily, warningly; her throat was suddenly dry. She shook herself free. ‘Since you make no secret of your—contempt for me, in whatever I do, then, yes, perhaps you’d better show me, Marcus. Feel free!’
He did. Before Tassie could even think of retreating, or crying out, he’d reached out with his strong hands to cup her breasts, gliding his palms flatly against the still-damp fabric of her shirt. Tassie gasped in shock as his heated touch sent flames through her whole body, and the crests of her nipples leapt traitorously in response. She froze, unable to move, unable to speak. He continued stroking devastatingly as he spoke, and it could have been the touch of the devil himself, so tumultuous were the sensations he aroused in her.
‘When Hal and I arrived just now,’ he gritted out, ‘and saw you riding astride, behind that farm boy, you could almost have been naked, Tassie, for all the covering that your damp clothing gave you. I am not paying you to put on such a wanton display for my godfather, his servants, my friends. Didn’t you see that Hal was speechless with embarrassment at the sight of you?’
Somehow Tassie pulled herself away from him, her fists clenched, her cheeks burning. ‘My own horse cast a shoe. And how was I to know it was going to rain?’ she breathed. ‘Confound it, you blame the weather on me now, Marcus?’
She was pressing herself back against the wall, but there was no help there. His expression was hard, implacable; he advanced on her once more, circling his hands round her tiny waist, pulling her relentlessly towards him; and she realised, most dangerous of all, that her will to escape seemed to be vanishing fast.
‘Very well,’ he was saying, in a quiet voice that was even more punishing than his biting anger. ‘The rain was not your fault. But other things are. Your breeches, charming though they may be, leave very little to a man’s imagination. Your feminine figure, your slender limbs, are all too clearly outlined.’ His strong hands were sliding down her hips, cupping her buttocks, pulling her remorselessly closer. ‘There are women in Vere Street, I believe, who charge their rich clients a great deal of money to see them dressed in such a fashion…’
Tassie, almost beside herself at his touch, at the sweet ache of longing that assailed her whole body, pushed frantically and uselessly at his solid shoulders. ‘Then perhaps I should seek my fortune in that way, and forget the mad, stupid bargain I have made with you, Marcus! Though I would not reckon much to my success in Vere Street, seeing how you’ve told me I am scrawny, and not to the taste of any gentleman of fashion!’
Marcus’s grey eyes darkened almost to blackness. While one hand still clasped her hips, he used the other to cup her chin, to tilt her face towards him; and Tassie wanted to cry out in despair as his long, lean finger touched her cheek. Oh, he tormented her. He humiliated her and scorned her at every turn. Yet in his presence she wanted something, something she couldn’t put into words, so very badly that she felt sick with longing.
And Marcus, too, gazing down at her expressive, passionate face, was overwhelmed, just as he had been when he’d seen her clinging behind the young farmhand on his sturdy cob with all her lovely hair curling about her cheeks, and her proud young breasts with their dusky areolae clearly visible beneath her soaking shirt, and Hal at his side breathing huskily, ‘By God, Marcus, she’s a beauty. A real beauty…’
Marcus had been harsh with her, he knew, but it was because his own male passions were raging unchecked, and the tightening at his loins told its own story. It maddened him that she still feigned not to know the effect she was having on men all around her, even as her sweet breasts thrust against his palms. He cursed inwardly as she continued to gaze up at him, her face so dazed, so expectant. Now was the time to leave, but instead his hands tightened round her waist as he grated out at last, ‘Perhaps I was ill advised, minx, to tell you that you were not to my taste. Perhaps I will have to teach you yet another lesson…’
He bent to kiss her, meeting no resistance except, perhaps, a little tremor of shock. Her mouth was sweetly delectable as his tongue explored her parted lips, gently at first, then more strongly, thrusting and probing at the warm, velvety recess of her mouth. He heard her give a little sigh; she seemed to sway involuntarily against him, and then he forgot to think as he caught her in his arms, crushing her exquisitely feminine body against his own hard strength, deepening his kiss.
Tassie was fighting a losing battle against the tide of sensation that engulfed her. She’d felt shock, at first, when his tongue intruded into her mouth, and stiffened in resistance; but then its warm masculine strength, slid
ing so insistently between her lips, began to beguile her, and seduce her with its honeyed caresses. She wanted more, indefinably more; and a low insistent throbbing, a half-pleasurable, half-painful ache had set up at her loins, where the tightness of her breeches caressed her most secret parts. In truth, she felt as if her legs would no longer hold her. Desperately she clung to Marcus, her mouth lifted like an open flower for his kiss. She could feel the iron strength of his shoulder muscles beneath her fingertips; his shirt was no barrier at all; her breasts were pressed against his chest, and she could feel her nipples tingling and hardening anew, in a way that sent pleasurable yet shocking sparks of delight arrowing down to her abdomen. At the same time she heard him give a low, possessive growl deep in his throat, and before she realised what was happening his hand had slipped inside her open shirt and he was caressing one aching breast, enfolding its soft ripeness and gently rolling the nipple between finger and thumb so that dark passion started to shiver with increasing hunger through her trembling body.
He drew her to him with his other hand, more fiercely this time, cupping her slender hips and deliberately pulling them against his loins. She gasped as she felt the virile hardness there, shocked by the blatant evidence of his arousal, shocked yet swept along even further on a heightening plateau of desire. As his kiss deepened, her tongue twined with his with an intimacy that swept fire through her veins, at the same time flooding her with a deliciously pleasurable languor. She arched herself against him, nestling yet closer into his embrace, wanting to be nowhere else on earth…
‘Ah, little temptress,’ she heard him murmur, his voice husky with passion. ‘Whoever taught you to kiss like that? What other delectable tricks do you know, I wonder?’
Tricks. Bait, to lure his enemy Corbridge. Feeling sick, Tassie pushed him away with a force that startled them both. ‘You think—you think that I have been taught?’ she breathed. ‘At least, Marcus, I have learnt one thing today. I thought perhaps you were different from other men, but now I know that you are just the same as all the rest of your kind!’
He was controlling himself with a visible effort. His breathing was still ragged, and dangerous sparks burned in his eyes. ‘You have a low opinion of men.’
‘Indeed,’ she replied bitterly. ‘Men are always ruled by their physical passions—doesn’t every woman on earth know that?’
Marcus caught his breath. He knew, of course, that the girl had lived wild. But the thought of another man kissing those sweet lips, tasting her yielding softness, set a blazing anger burning deep within him.
He stepped back from her and said, in a voice he forced to be cold, ‘Never fear, Tassie. I will not touch you again. But now, perhaps, you see why you shouldn’t dress as you do.’
Oh, thought Tassie blindly, he was blaming her, blaming her for all of it. And why should he not? Hadn’t she melted in his arms, and let his burning kisses scorch her very soul? Didn’t she still wish, even now, with the sparks of their passion still smouldering, that he would pull her into his arms, and kiss away her tears?
She found her voice with a huge effort. ‘Oh, yes? So ‘tis all my fault? Perhaps you shouldn’t look at me like that!’
He said sharply, ‘It would be hard for a man not to look at you when you are half-naked, woman, as you surely know. Garb yourself in some decent attire, before I’m forced to take you in hand and beat you for your disobedience as I would an impudent stable boy!’
Tassie faced up to him scornfully. ‘So that’s your fancy, is it, Marcus? I’ve heard the rich gents pay handsomely for that in Vere Street as well.’
‘Put your clothes on,’ he repeated flatly. ‘And do something about that hoydenish hair of yours, will you? Then we’ll try to forget that this ever happened.’
He went out, banging the door behind him. Tassie went blindly over to the window, hugging her arms over her breasts, biting her lip as she gazed out at the driving rain sweeping across the night-enfolded valley. Out there in the darkness lay Lornings Hall, Roderick’s silent, empty, lovely home. Lornings was all that Marcus thought about; he wanted Lornings for himself, and, of course, for Philippa.
She turned back to face her little room, and this time the tears rolled hotly. She’d known he was dangerous, known from the moment she first set eyes on him in the Angel. He stirred something deep within her that she was totally unequipped to deal with; just how ill-equipped, she’d only now learned. He could have bedded her just then; just like that farmhand she’d seen making love in the barn to the dairymaid he’d later called a slut. Love was the wrong word for a foolish, almost brutish act, she used to think, but when Marcus had held her, and kissed her, the sensations he aroused in her had been strangely, compellingly wonderful…
Little temptress…The worst of it was that he’d assumed she’d done that kind of thing often. She was deeply, bitterly hurt by his assumption. It was what he wanted to believe of her, she supposed. It made him feel happier about treating her as he had.
Oh, what fools men were. What a fool she was. Tassie scrubbed the threatening tears fiercely from her eyes with the back of her hand. She’d keep her side of the bargain, and play her part to perfection in winning back the letter that promised Sir Roderick’s estate to Sebastian. Then she’d take her fifty guineas, and she’d walk out of his arrogant life, to begin a new life, her own life, and never see him again…
Edward was grumbling again under his cover. At least it had protected him from Marcus. She wished she could protect herself as easily. Her stupid tears began to roll hotly again as Marcus’s last stinging comment rang viciously in her ears. ‘Do something about that hoydenish hair of yours…’
She pulled her sharp little knife out of her boot and carefully fingered its gleaming edge.
Across the valley in the village of Hockton the local inn was all astir, for a little earlier a traveller had arrived, a slender, immaculately clad London gent with powdered hair, who cursed the bad roads, and the food at the inn, and said he and his servant would stay for the night only because there was nowhere else within miles. As twilight fell this traveller, from the window of his bedroom, gazed across the rainswept landscape at the distant outline of Lornings Hall, magnificent as ever. Then there was a knock at his door, and in came his servant, Silas Jenkins, whom the underworld of London knew as a locksmith, famed for his skill and his discretion. He carried his workman’s bag; his fingers bore traces of oil, and specks of rust. ‘All done, me lord,’ he intoned softly. ‘And there’s some other news. There’s travellin’ folk come recently to these parts. And everyone knows travellin’ folk to be thieves…’
Lord Sebastian Corbridge allowed a cold smile to lighten his features. ‘Really, Silas? That is convenient indeed,’ he breathed.
Chapter Nine
After his argument with Tassie, Marcus had stormed downstairs in a turmoil of fury and scarcely restrained arousal, cursing himself bitterly for sending the girl here. He joined his godfather and Hal, who were seated at the big dining table ready to begin their evening meal. Savoury scents wafted enticingly from the joint of sizzling mutton that Sir Roderick was starting to carve; Peg was bringing in a dish of golden roast potatoes and a jug of gravy, but Marcus hardly noticed them. It was some moments before he started to listen properly to the conversation around him.
‘She’s a real treasure, that girl,’ Sir Roderick was saying to Hal as he passed him a thick slice of meat. ‘Yes, from the minute she arrived, she’s been cheerful, helpful, polite. The only trouble is that when she leaves, Peg’s going to demand a girl to replace her!’ He chuckled.
‘She’s a treasure indeed, sir,’ echoed Peg, beaming as she lowered a bowl of buttered parsnips to the table. ‘And she’s proved a proper little helper to my brother Dick Daniels at the farm, and to young Will, his son as well.’
‘That’s true enough,’ nodded Jacob sagely as he set down a decanter of claret. ‘Farmer Daniels says she knows everything as well as his Will, who was brought up to the life! She helps with the mi
lkin’, and the feedin’, and even helped stable the beasts the other night when Will was out with the sheep.’
Marcus, astonished, gazed at Hal, who looked back, his fair eyebrows faintly raised in echoing surprise.
‘Tassie?’ Marcus was saying incredulously. ‘Tassie knows about milking, and livestock?’
‘Indeed, sir!’ responded Jacob. ‘Why, only an hour before you arrived, Major Forrester, she went a-dashing off at full tilt, not even bothering to cover her pretty head against the rain, to help Will bring in some heifers that had broken loose—just as well, because otherwise we’d have lost ‘em for good, I’m thinking.’
Marcus, his plate heaped with succulent mutton, suddenly realised he’d lost his appetite completely. ‘Heifers ?’ And then Sir Roderick joined in.
‘Yes, Marcus, I suppose I shouldn’t have let her go, really; but Tassie was so anxious to help. She’s an excellent rider, so I wasn’t worried about her, though it was unfortunate that her palfrey cast a shoe…I was glad, though,’ he added quickly, ‘that you sent her upstairs straight away to get changed out of those wet things. So often, she has no thought for herself.’
Marcus was allowing Peg to pile potatoes on to his plate without even seeing them. As Peg moved on, Hal took the opportunity to lean quickly over to Marcus and whisper, ‘Weren’t too hard on her, were you, dear fellow? For galloping round the countryside, looking like a rather delectable country maid?’
‘Yes,’ replied Marcus rather bitterly, ‘yes, I’m afraid I was.’
Just then Peg mused, ‘Now, I’m wonderin’ where our Tassie is. It’s not like her to miss her food, especially when she peeled all those potatoes herself.’