by Nicole Byrd
And it made the ache inside her leap, the fire grow. She tried to pull off the thin nightgown and found that John’s hands were helping tug the cloth over her head, freeing her breasts at last and leaving them ready for his hands to clasp and stroke while she moaned with the desire every touch only seemed to inflame. He caressed her breasts, rubbing her nipples gently, and instead of satisfying her need, it merely augmented it. She pulled him toward her, and again their lips met, hungrily, almost painfully, so intense was the touch.
“Come to me,” she whispered against his mouth. “Come, my love.”
And he laid himself over her, slipped easily inside her, her depths liquid with the urgency of her need, and she felt the breadth and length of him with surprised delight.
This was nothing like—no, she could think of nothing but John, and how wonderfully they fit together, as if they were the first man and woman ever made, with no greater purpose than this union, this glorious sensation of him inside her, moving with a firm rhythm that sent ripples of delight through her whole body.
She was the ocean who enveloped him, and she was the one who was drowning in sensation, sinking into joy.
“Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Yes, yes.”
And he lifted himself and pushed harder, harder, and every motion was tinged with pleasure so intense that she uttered small inarticulate sounds low in her throat. She moved against him, with him, lifting her hips so he could push himself even deeper, and again, the pleasure only seemed to grow.
There were no words for it, no terms she could frame in her mind; only her body ruled, now, only the feelings, the sensations that rushed over her again and again.
And when he surged deeper, with a hoarse sound of released passion, when she knew that he had spent himself inside her, she felt tears suddenly form in her eyes.
It had been so good. How could she bear for this magical interlude to end?
For a few moments they lay entangled together on the settee, which was not broad enough to hold them, but did, though John’s legs and hers hung over the side. Because their bodies were moist with a light sheen of sweat, and her hair was damp against her face, she thought he would not notice the idiotic tears. Yet he did.
“Marianne, my dearest, did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, not trusting her voice.
“Then if you regret this joining, if I have rushed you into something rash and dishonorable—oh, God, I will hate myself for it,” he told her, his voice almost breaking.
This forced her to speak, despite the tremor in her own voice. “Oh, no, my darling,” she told him, stroking the clean lines of his jaw, the slight cleft in his chin. “Oh, no. It was a miracle. I think I brushed the threshold of heaven itself. I just—I can hardly bear that it has ended.”
His expression cleared, and he leaned down to kiss her gently, kiss the damp tear tracks on her cheeks. He smiled. “Then,” he told her, “we will simply do it again.”
And before she could grasp his meaning, he had lifted her into his lap and begun to stroke her still sensitive breasts until she gasped with the intensity of her response.
“And this time, I will not be so hasty,” he promised.
That was hasty? Marianne smiled back at him, suddenly aware that, brief marriage or not, there was much of this lovemaking business she did not know. And what a delight her education was going to be!
“This time,” he told her, with a new timbre of happiness shading his deep voice, “this time, we must make sure to push you past the threshold and through the golden gates.”
So he caressed her bare breasts until she shivered, and when he put his lips around the rosy nipples, she gasped aloud. The quivers of feeling reverberated through her body, and the only thing better was when he left one breast to kiss and fondle the other, his tongue touching her nipple and making her tremble with delight.
Then, he ran his hands over her arms, down her thighs and ankles and lightly rubbed her feet. She had never dreamed that her feet could be a sensitive area. It was a delicious sensation as he massaged her toes, and sole, and arch, careful not to tickle. She gazed at him in wonder. “How do you know so much?”
“As you have noted, I have an extensive library.” He grinned at her, looking as free as a boy, as wise as a man. “And I have had weeks to dream of this, to think just what I would like to do to you.”
“Weeks?” She swallowed hard as his sure touch moved up, again, up her shin, up her thigh, stroking the inside of it gently, with tantalizing slowness.
“Weeks,” he assured her.
Now his hand moved onto the curly mass of dark hair above her thighs, and she trembled. He rubbed the curls gently for a moment, and then—when she was ready to jump with impatience, his fingers slipped inside.
Marianne made a small inarticulate sound. The pleasure was almost too much to bear. She moved against him while his hand stroked and curved and thrilled her, sending waves of heat that radiated through her, over and over. He went on till she could not sit still and moved toward him, wanting—not to end the wonderful sensations but to replace them with something even better.
She could play this game, too, even if she was just now learning the rules. She touched his chest, kissed its hard layers of muscle, kissed the old scars, kissed his flat nipples, touching them lightly with her tongue. She was gratified to hear him inhale deeply, although all the while he moved his hand inside her with delicious, easy strokes. So she ran her own hand down, down his groin. He tensed, and when she circled him with her hand, stroked the cause of so much pleasure, he moaned deep in his throat.
Marianne almost laughed out loud. She, too, could give pleasure. So for a few long minutes she caressed him as he stroked her, until she said, gasping, “Now, John, now, please.”
So he pulled her onto his lap, and she settled onto him, delighted at the new posture and the amazing sensations it evoked. She was already so heady with desire that his thrusting sent her beyond speech. She knew that small sounds of pleasure came from someone’s throat, but she hardly seemed to know who uttered the cries.
This time he moved slowly at first, with more control and less frenzied passion than the first time, but every movement inside her induced waves of sensation, of pleasure, of delight. She was enveloped in the joy, she was part of him, body and soul, seeing in his rapt expression the same intensities of feeling and emotion as she enjoyed. She moved her hips against his, and still he rose and fell, and she gripped him with her innermost self and moved with him, and they were surrounded by joy unfolding in layer after layer, like a rose unfurling to the morning sun. And all the while the deepest most intense pleasure still lay ahead, while she floated and spun like a dust mote in a golden beam of sunlight, and her body taught her pleasure she had never known, until at last they reached the core, the heart of ecstasy itself.
And this time, this time, she soared with him, peaked with a height of sensation that stopped her throat and drenched her soul with surprise and awe and exquisite delight. John held her tightly, and she felt his spasm, felt her own body arch and tighten and her cry ring out, and then he kissed her again, once, twice, and at last they lay still.
She rested her head against his chest, and John wrapped his arms about her. She could not speak. It was enough to lay her head against him and feel his chest rise and fall as his heart slowed from its tumultuous beat. She marveled at what they had shared.
She hadn’t known it could be like this. She felt weak with the aftermath of love, warm with contentment, delightfully languid. She could happily remain here, nestled in his arms forever.
No, she thought drowsily, that would mean they could not do it again. And she certainly intended to love this man many more times.
For the rest of her life, she hoped.
After what seemed like hours of contented silence, John brought her hand to his lips and kissed it with a gentleness made even more poignant by her awareness of the latent strength in his grip.
“I feel I have been rebor
n,” he told her. “If I can make you happy, if we can be so good together—perhaps, after all, I am not such a beast as I had feared.”
The light in his eyes lifted her heart. “Never,” she said simply. “You never were. You belong in the sunlight, dearest, not the shadows.”
John thought this newfound joy might shatter him; it was almost too much to contain. He tightened his grip, and they lay sprawled together, and it did not matter that the settee pressed too hard against his back, or that his healing arm ached a little from too much exertion. He had the best, most wonderful prize he’d never dared to imagine, and he would not release her until his body went numb from lack of movement.
Only, as he drifted into a light sleep, did he remember, with a piercing pain, that she still had to leave on the morrow . . .
Sixteen
Marianne woke early the next morning. Even before her eyes opened, she found she was smiling. Why did she feel this unaccustomed joy? As she stretched, feeling pleasantly sore in ways she had not experienced for years, memory rushed back. With it came a rush of elation. How wonderful it had been—the stolen hours of lovemaking! But her first emotion was followed quickly by a wave of guilt.
If she was wrong about Louisa, about her lack of feelings for John, how would she ever face her?
And they still had to leave.
The pain of that thought was almost too much to bear.
Marianne sat up abruptly. Glancing at the pale light seeping past the draperies at her window, she realized that it was early yet, but she knew she could not go back to sleep. Sighing, Marianne rang for her maid and went to wash in the tepid water left over in her ewer.
Later, when she had sipped a cup of tea, eaten some toast, dressed, and her hair had been pulled back into its usual loose knot, she asked Hackett, trying to keep her voice even, “Is Miss Louisa up yet?”
“I don’t believe so, ma’am,” the dresser answered. “Her maid is still abed with a toothache, but Miss Louisa hasn’t rung for another maid to help her dress.”
Marianne nodded. Very well. Best to get it over with. They would get on the road, and later, she would have a heart-to-heart talk with her ward. Summoning her resolve, she went to Louisa’s bedchamber across the hall and knocked on the door.
When she heard no sound, she knocked again. Still nothing.
Was Louisa sleeping so soundly? Marianne reached for the doorknob. When she opened the door, she was shocked to see that the bed was empty. Was the girl in her dressing room?
But a quick inspection revealed the room and anteroom were both unoccupied. Where was Louisa?
Then Marianne saw the folded sheets of paper on the mantelpiece. Taking quick strides to snatch up the missive, she saw her own name on the outside. Marianne felt as if her heart skipped a beat.
“Oh, dear lord,” she muttered beneath her breath. Did Louisa know—could she have possibly known—about last night?
“Hackett!” she called, hearing the alarm in her own voice. When her maid looked into the room, Marianne said, “Summon Lord Gillingham, at once!”
The servant disappeared. Taking a deep breath, Marianne picked up the sheet and began to read.
“Dearest Aunt Marianne,” the letter said in sprawling script that revealed the writer’s agitation, “I hope you will not hate me. I have tried, really, I have, but as much as I honor and esteem Lord Gillingham, I find I cannot marry him. He is a most worthy and kind man, and I appreciate all he has done to protect me. I do not wish to disappoint him or make him feel slighted, but I find I cannot feel for him what I had hoped.
“I know I have done badly to accept his suit and then reject him, but I can’t become his wife, and I don’t know how to tell him. And I don’t want to go to France, if you please. I am going back to London and from there on to Bath, so that I can talk to my uncle and make him understand. I tried to write it all out in a letter, but it’s too hard to explain. Please forgive me and tell Lord Gillingham that I am sincerely sorry to have caused him hurt.”
The last words were smudged from haste and the—no doubt—strong emotion that had made Louisa’s hand shake. It was hard to read the ending, something about “don’t worry” and “all for the best.”
Marianne felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach. How had her niece rushed out into deadly peril, all because she could not tell them her misgivings face-to-face? Marianne wasn’t sure if she most wanted to hug Louisa or shake her!
Then she heard a knock at the door and looked up to see John gazing at her through the doorway.
“What is it?”
She hesitated, not sure how he would react to this abrupt ending of the engagement. Of course, he had not wanted to marry Louisa, either, but still—
Something in her face must have warned him because he held out his hand. She thought of trying to soften the message, but his expression was imperious and his eyes grim. Biting her lip, she allowed him to take the letter and scan it quickly.
Silence stretched as he leaned against the mantel.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “I was concerned about how to break the news to her that I did not wish us to wed . . .”
“John—” Marianne began.
He waved aside her concern. “Never mind. I have news, too, and it is not good. One of my gardeners has found the marks of a ladder in the dirt outside the stone wall, near the orchard.”
“What?”
“And a trail where it has been dragged through the grass—I was just about to investigate.”
Marianne stared at him, knowing her eyes had widened. “Louisa! She may have walked out straight into the killer’s arms. We must find her, John, at once!”
“Indeed,” he agreed. He turned and strode toward the staircase, and she ran after him.
On the ground floor several of the male servants waited. John had already sent out a summons, it seemed. He gave them brisk orders masking his inner unease with his usual air of command.
Marianne found her own anxiety harder to hide, but she tried to compose herself. Falling into hysterics would hardly help Louisa.
“I will look for any tracks,” he told Marianne as the servants hurried to do his bidding. “I’m sending servants out to the western and eastern edges of the estate, and one will check the guardhouse at the end of the front lane. I have not yet questioned the gatekeeper, but—”
“I will do that!” Marianne said quickly, relieved to have something useful to do.
“Go with the footman,” he told her. “I do not wish you to be alone.”
She nodded and, with the youngest of the manservants hurrying to keep up, she ran out the front doors and hastened down the long driveway.
At the end, after the last curve of the lane, the small stone gatehouse came into view. The man who kept the gate was an ancient, retired servant, gray of head and hard-of-hearing, which was why the marquess always knocked very hard on the outer gate when he needed the gates opened or had the coachman blow his horn.
As usual, the gate was closed. They rapped smartly on the cottage door, and when the old man hobbled to open it, he gazed at them in surprise.
“Have you seen anything of Miss Crookshank?” Marianne demanded without preamble.
The man stared. “Eh?”
“The fair-haired young lady who is the marquess’s guest,” she added, speaking slowly and clearly. “Have you seen her?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man answered at last. He seemed to need time to get his words from his somewhat befuddled brain down to his thin-lipped mouth. “Went out for a walk she did, early this morning. Asked me real nice, like, to open the gate for her.”
As simple as that. Marianne drew a deep breath. Where could Louisa have been headed? She would hardly expect to walk back to London.
“Does the London coach travel this road?” she asked the gatekeeper, who peered at her, blinking, and did not answer.
Frustrated, she turned to the footman, who was more knowledgeable.
“No, ma’am. The n
earest the coach comes to his lordship’s estate is through the next village; it’s a good five mile up the road to Little Brookside.”
Marianne made a decision. “Go back to the house and send word to Lord Gillingham about what we have learned; then get a chaise and driver with all speed. We must go to the village to see if there is any sign of Miss Crookshank. I will wait here for you to return with the carriage.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The footman turned and hastened back up the driveway; it would take him a few minutes to retrace their steps and order a vehicle made ready, but it would be faster than trying to get to the village on foot. Marianne paced up and down, trying to think.
“Would you open the gate for me, please,” she directed the gatekeeper. The old man shuffled forward and unlatched the iron gates, pulling them open.
As she glanced about, she noticed for the first time a faint trail, barely discernable among the trees across the road. She looked around for the elderly gatekeeper, who had taken a seat on the front step of his cottage and was stoking a pipe.
“Is that a pathway?” she asked.
“Yes ’m,” he agreed.
“Where does it lead?” she said, exasperated. The man was as forthcoming as an oyster determined not to yield its pearl.
“Shortcut to the village,” he explained, puffing on his pipe.
She stared at him. “The same village—Little Brookside? It’s shorter this way than by the road?”
He nodded.
“How far is it on foot?”
“ ’Bout two mile,” he said. “If’n you wade the brook.”
“I don’t suppose Miss Crookshank asked about the path?”
“Yes ’m, she did that,” he agreed, his voice placid.
Marianne bit back a shriek of exasperation. “Why didn’t you say so?”
He looked surprised at the question. “You didn’t ask.”
“Listen to me carefully,” she said, curling her hands into fists so that she would not shake him like a willful child. “When the footman returns, tell him I have taken the path in case I can catch up with Miss Crookshank. Tell the footman to take the carriage and go on to the village in case Miss Crookshank is already there. He must watch for the London coach, if it has not already passed through.”