“Good Lord,” she exclaimed.
“Something amiss, m’lady?” He waited with his knuckles resting on his hips.
“I very much doubt it. Everything seems to be in its place.”
“Then we may proceed?”
Mercy turned so he could struggle with her corset laces. “Hurry!” she demanded as she looked over her shoulder. Her gaze still traveled hungrily over his nakedness, absorbing every inch now on display before her. And growing.
It was his turn to chuckle. “Patience, Bossy-Drawers.”
Before she was entirely free of the corset, Mercy grabbed his hand and pulled him down onto the bed beside her.
“You’re eager, m’lady wife,” he whispered, grinning, moonlight shining on his teeth.
Eager was not quite the word for it. Yearning might have been more accurate. Wriggling out of the last bindings, she threw herself atop his supine form and felt his large hands close over her buttocks, his fingers spread, squeezing. The need inside her grew in leaps and bounds. Her core was overheated, and she was dripping with molten lust. His cock lay hard between them, ready to claim her maidenhead. “If we only have one night, best get on with it, country boy.”
“As you wish, m’lady,” he purred, reminding her of a tiger at the zoo. She felt the rumbling tremors through his body as he lay beneath her. He slid her up his chest until her breasts came level with his mouth. “But I don’t want to rush my prize.”
Mercy gasped as his lips closed around her nipple and a rush of white-hot desire flooded from that sensitive spot, down through her belly, to the apex of her thighs. She was still afire there from his previous attentions to that hidden core, and she suspected it would take no more than one thrust of his splendid organ to make those flames pulse high and wild again. With his hands on her bare bottom, his fingers digging into her skin, she was lost to the wickedest of unladylike needs. And she wasn’t sure she could wait to have every one of them fulfilled. Loose strands of hair already stuck to her neck as the heat of passion glazed her skin with a thin layer of perspiration. She was aglow with this craving for a man who was forbidden to her.
God help her, but she cared not for the consequences. It was very freeing to feel the care and concern slip through her fingers. Perhaps she should advise Miss Julia Gibson to indulge in the occasional mug of scrumpy.
Suddenly, she laughed again; it burst out of her.
Rafe’s lips left her nipple damp, swollen. “This amuses you?” He sounded bewildered. “Not quite the effect I hoped for.”
“No.” She shook her head violently, and more loosened locks dripped to her shoulders. “It’s just that…” How could she explain? At this moment of her undoing, she’d thought, most strangely, of Julia Gibson’s fearful face, covered in meringue, as the girl whimpered unhappily about a bride’s fate on her wedding night. If Miss Gibson saw her now, she would surely faint into her teacup. As would anyone who knew Mercy Danforthe, painfully prim and proper on the outside.
She pictured a series of Hogarth-type sketches detailing this amorous escapade. The Wanton’s Progress. Lady Mercy Danforthe, Careening Fearlessly Toward Her Ruination.
“Rafe! Rafe!”
That was not her voice.
He stilled, hands cupped around her bottom, his face nuzzling her breasts, the crest of his manhood pressing at her entrance.
“Rafe!” Outside, in the yard, his father knocked loudly at the front door.
Mercy’s laughter faded.
“Oh, tell him I’m not here,” she whispered as she sank down and her lips touched his rough, warm cheek. “Tell him I died. Anything.”
But she knew it was too late. Once again, fate intervened.
***
Rafe threw more coal on the smoldering, neglected fire, avoiding his father’s searching perusal for as long as possible. “She’ll be down momentarily. It seems she was fast asleep.”
“This could put Lady Mercy in a compromising position. Did you have no thought of her reputation?”
“But it was late,” he snapped, frustrated beyond measure. “I meant only to save her from riding back to Morecroft in the dark, in her state.”
“Her state?”
Rafe thought quickly. “She was unwell.” He finally looked at his father and saw concern. Those eyes—which Rafe had been told were very like his own—darkened to a navy blue.
“She was not ill when she left Morecroft yesterday morning.” Although it wasn’t said, Rafe could almost hear the accusation: What have you done to her, boy?
“Must be something she ate,” he muttered.
Rafe glanced through his window and saw streaks of pale dawn breaking across the sky already. He’d lost track of time with dire consequences. “Why could you not have brought her back yourself?” his father demanded.
Because she’s my wife, and I want her to stay. But of course, he could say nothing. “Well?” His father’s booming, angry voice finally brought Mercy down to join them. She skipped down the stairs in her stockinged feet, feigning innocence, her gown refastened, her hairpins all in their place—or so it seemed at brief glance.
She greeted his father with a bold smile and a bold lie. “I was taken dreadfully ill, and I’m afraid I was forced to impose on Rafe’s hospitality. It came upon me quite suddenly, but it’s gone now.” She beamed, her face gleaming with confidence, far too healthy for a young woman recently seized by a mysterious, unnamed ailment.
But she was poised in the face of calamity; Rafe had to give her that much praise. A woman familiar with deception, perhaps. He jabbed at the fire with a poker and ashes fell to the hearth. Like pieces of his heart. Why did he put himself through the agony with her again, when he knew the outcome would be the same? She’d claim it was all his fault, and then she’d leave.
You are so far beneath me, she’d reminded him yesterday. She did not fit in his world, nor he in hers. Still, the churning heaviness of thwarted desire remained.
Why had she burst into laughter in bed? Was this hapless peasant’s lust for her ladyship so damned amusing?
“My wife was most distraught, Lady Mercy, when you did not return before dark,” his father said. “I’m sure Peter from Merryweather’s might have been dispatched to Morecroft with a message, as he is whenever a doctor is needed or there is some emergency.”
“Oh, please don’t blame Rafe, Mr. Hartley. I would not let him disturb anyone. It was my idea entirely.” She laughed lightly.
Rafe didn’t realize he was cracking his knuckles until his father looked at his hands and scowled. “We’d best make haste, Lady Mercy, and get you back to Morecroft before the more curious residents of the village are up and about. I should hate for anyone to see you in the same dress you wore yesterday.”
Rafe hadn’t thought of that. Of course, he wasn’t thinking of anything much beyond his base needs that night. He cast her a quick, sideways glance and saw her flush. Unfortunately, that bright orange gown couldn’t easily be forgotten. His thoughts traveled swiftly to the tavern and all the folk who’d seen her there with him.
His father spoke firmly. “My wife will be relieved to know you’re safe. I shouldn’t like her to worry longer than she has already.”
Looking slightly crestfallen, but bearing his father’s disdain bravely, Mercy slipped into her spencer and tied the ribbons of her bonnet under her chin. She whispered to Rafe, “My boots?”
If his father’s eyes were not boring holes in the back of his scalp, Rafe would have pretended he forgot where he put them. Then she’d have to stay a few more minutes. But their moment was gone. Other people intruded. He strode over to the dresser and, as if it was the most natural place in the world to keep shoes, reached up onto the top shelf, lifted down a flour jar, and took out her boots. He went through the motions mechanically. No one said a word.
Mercy quickly put them on, making no comment about the broken lace. There was a brief moment when her gaze caught on his, but he couldn’t read her thoughts. Suddenly she spied the
folded sheet of paper on his mantel, where he’d set it last night before he went upstairs. Now, before he could stop her, she reached for it. Although there was no address written on it, she assumed it was the letter they’d discussed.
“I’ll see this gets to Molly with the next post,” she told him softly. “I’m glad you wrote to her. I’m sure she’ll come back as soon as she reads this.”
He grabbed a corner of the folded note. “No. It’s not…”
She held fast to it, her thumb less than an inch from his. “We both know it’s for the best,” she whispered. “This cannot be.” Apparently she was resolved to bring Molly back to him, and their impassioned encounter on his bed was to be ignored, forgotten, labeled another regrettable mistake.
Glaring at her, he let go of the folded note. If that’s the way she wanted it, so be it. He’d tried to thaw her out before and ended up with frostbite, hadn’t he?
“It is the least I can do to help.” She closed the small square of paper in her gloved hand, pulled the half veil of lace over her eyes, and swept out. When she passed through his door, it felt colder and darker in the house, as if the fire had gone out. He heard the coachman opening the carriage door and then her muted thanks as she stepped up.
Poised with one hand on the door, his father spoke softly, discreetly. “I trust you have not forgotten you are a gentleman’s son.”
Rafe wanted to remind his father of a certain other illicit coupling between classes that once took place and resulted not only in his birth, but his mother’s young death. His father was certainly not without sin. Instead, he replied, “She remains intact.”
This response, although forthright and direct, clearly did not wholly satisfy his father, but there was no time to continue the conversation beyond a few more terse words. “Lady Mercy has a fiancé. You knew this, I assume?”
A cold draft blew in through the door his father held ajar, and Rafe’s shoulders stiffened against the chill. “She didn’t mention it.” Damned Brat.
Slowly his father nodded and then replaced his hat. “Now you know. Perhaps you should follow Molly to London and persuade her to return with you.”
“I don’t know about that,” Rafe replied. He shook his head, hands on his hips. “I have my pride to consider. You’re always telling me I’m a Hartley and should act like one. Would a Hartley charge after a woman who left him at the altar?”
Lines deepened in his father’s brow. “There are a great many things a Hartley would not do, but that doesn’t appear to trouble you unduly. Still, you wrote to Miss Robbins at least. That is a start.”
Two seconds later, Rafe was alone again.
But he had not written to Molly. Last night he wasn’t thinking of Molly Robbins at all, because he understood now that what she did on their wedding day was merely something he had not possessed the courage to do himself.
No, there was another woman on his mind. Another wife.
She thought him so far beneath her, yet on that bed upstairs there was no inequality. For once, they were on the same plane.
Now she’d left again. She had a fiancé, which she conveniently forgot to mention, and she had a full life, many worlds removed from his, carefully run by those rules of which she was so fond. Rules he would never follow.
Damn her then, he thought crossly. Let her think that note was for Molly. Let her send it.
He was the lady’s fool, making her laugh. Falling for her again the moment she let down one inch of her guard.
Later, when he went upstairs, he discovered she’d left her corset behind. Must have been unable to tie the laces herself, of course. He lifted it to his face and inhaled her scent. Ah, he could lie with it crushed beneath him; he could imagine it was her; he could treat it in an ungentlemanly way and get some relief.
At least he had a part of her, he mused. But, as he soon found, that was worse than having nothing. Expending his excess vigor on whalebone and linen was like trying to scratch an itch with a feather.
Chapter 10
Mr. James Hartley escorted her back to Morecroft in his carriage, and a groom drove the curricle behind. They were almost clear of the village and in safer territory when they passed Mrs. Flick, the most notorious gossip in Sydney Dovedale, out for one of her notorious “early morning constitutionals,” which was really just an excuse for her to spy on the comings and goings of her neighbors. The old lady hobbled onto the verge as they passed rapidly along the lane. She stared hard through her spectacles at the flying carriage, and there was no doubt she observed the little curricle following along in their wake.
“Well, that’s put a cat among the pigeons,” Rafe’s father exclaimed under a rush of terse breath. “The world’s oldest surviving gossip will soon get her teeth—or rather her gums—into this item of news.” He smirked coldly through the window on his side of the carriage. Although his face was turned away from her, Mercy caught the steely chill of his expression reflected in the glass.
“You mustn’t blame Rafe, Mr. Hartley.”
“Mustn’t I?”
“No. It was entirely my doing.” Father and son clearly had a strained relationship, and she would hate to be the cause of any further problem. Someone ought to step in and put the two obstinate men to rights. They had already missed out on many years they might have known together. Would they let their pride—for they were really far more similar in character than either believed—get in the way of a future relationship? “Your son is really a good man, sir. He is a little wild and rebellious, but he means no harm, and he is trying to settle down. I…I believe he is.”
James Hartley scowled at her floury boots. Nothing about her person was perhaps more suspect this morning than the state of her boots. She might have got away with her bold bluster, but there was really no excuse for Rafe putting her boots in the flour jar other than to hide them and keep them out of her reach. Explaining why he thought that necessary would require a confession she was not prepared to give. Even as a woman with a measure of independence, it would not be easy to admit she’d imbibed too much cider and become so wayward and insensible that Rafe Hartley took those extreme measures for her safety.
Mercy fiddled with the buttons on her gloves. Oh dear, she’d really made a mess of things, and that was not like her at all. Now she was on the verge of becoming a drunk and a harlot. “I meant to put everything straight,” she mumbled.
“That boy cannot stay away from trouble. I would have thought, at his age—”
“But it was my idea not to send anyone to Morecroft, Mr. Hartley. I thought if I could rest a moment I’d feel much improved and then be capable of returning in the curricle. But I fell asleep. I suppose Rafe didn’t want to wake me.”
Yes, it was a reasonable excuse, but it still did not explain the boots in the flour jar.
Thanks to his seductive qualities and a certain weakness in her own character, she was a few silk petticoats removed from a gin-shop hussy.
On their return, Mrs. Hartley was very solicitous for her health after yesterday’s sudden “illness.” The ancient Lady Ursula insisted it was something in the air.
“Spring is a dreadful season for spores, my dear,” she explained as they sat down to breakfast. “The less one goes out and allows oneself to be bombarded by them, the better, and sunlight is very bad for the complexion.”
“I fear you are right, Lady Ursula. I am quite freckled enough already.”
“I shall lend you Dr. Swithun’s Elixir. You will find it quite beneficial.” The old lady glared at her grandson’s wife. “Although some creatures in this house stubbornly refuse to recognize the benefits.”
“The best thing for a complexion,” Mrs. Hartley assured Mercy with a knowing smile, “is love. I daresay you’re missing your viscount.”
Mercy quietly nibbled her toast, but she had no appetite and merely went through the motions. She could think only of her secret former husband eating his breakfast alone at the farmhouse. By now they could have been lovers. They could
have been eating breakfast together beside his fire.
Not once had she thought about a nightgown, she realized. Neither had she thought of the betrayal they committed—to Molly and Viscount Grey. She had not cared about anything except being in his arms.
***
Seated at the dressing table in her room, Mercy still felt his kisses on the pulse at the side of her neck, sometimes fluttering like butterfly wings, other times more insistent. Again she remembered the sweet friction of his rough cheek against her soft skin, the unique sensation of his tongue lapping over her nipple. And savage, unfulfilled lust—until then something she’d assumed to be entirely the province of men—burned through her like a flaming arrowhead. Nothing could extinguish it.
Mercy touched her cheek and found it quite warm, although she was not blushing despite the winding path of her thoughts.
It was so very wrong to let these ideas cut their way through her mind like a scythe through wheat. She should be on her way back to London by now, awaiting Grey’s return, making her wedding plans. Instead, she sat there, daydreaming in her chemise and drawers.
If only Rafe could be kept like a special trinket in a secret treasure box. She shook her head, amused, imagining his face if she ever suggested he submit to being a kept man.
Solemn again, Mercy rested her elbows on the dresser and thoughtfully traced her lips with her warm fingertips. It was almost a pity, she mused, that his father came when he did. By now she would have known what it was like to be a complete woman. Rafe was eager to make her one. His desire was rough, primitive even. He wanted to claim her, like a prize of war. Why? To get his vengeance on her brother, perhaps? To get his vengeance on her?
You owe me, he’d said.
A quick shiver lapped over her skin, as if a draft found its way into her bedchamber. Her nipples hardened under her lacy chemise when she thought of his rough hands on her body, caressing her so intimately, taking what he wanted and giving at the same time. Pleasure of a kind she’d never known.
Sydney Dovedale [3] Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal Page 12