Cory freed himself sufficiently to find the fastenings of her chemise, but the saturated material failed to co-operate.
‘Tear it,’ Rachel said. Then, when he stared, she set her hands to the material and simply pulled it apart. It separated with a ripping sound and Rachel wriggled out of it. Her shoulders were pink and stung with cold. Before Cory’s fascinated gaze she dropped the scrap of material over the side of the bed to lie discarded on the floor. If he had not seen the shaking of her fingers, Cory would have thought her completely composed as she half-sat, half-lay before him in her nakedness.
It was just like his most fevered imaginings, only more so. Her breasts were big, but they were high and round with small, pink nipples already tight from cold. Her stomach was flat and her legs long and lissom. Cory’s body felt so rigid that he thought he must explode there and then. He reached instinctively for her, saw the tiniest hint of anxiety in her face, and remembered in a rush that she was a virgin.
He forced himself to patience, wrapping his arms about her and holding her close. He ran his fingers very lightly over the skin of her back and upper arms, feeling her shiver under his touch. He brushed his hands over the rounded softness of her buttocks and the sweet curve of her breasts, sucking her nipples and licking the pulse at the base of her throat. He heard her make a small mewing sound of pleasure. Rachel’s eyes were closed now, her head thrown back, her eyelashes dark against the pink-staining of her cheeks, and her breath coming in little gasps. Cory lowered his head to her breast, and slid his hand gently up the silken softness of Rachel’s inner thigh. She moaned and her legs parted for him, and he touched her tentatively, feeling her body tense against his fingers. She opened her eyes. They were drowned with passion and they smiled at him.
‘Are you not going to take off your trousers?’ she asked.
It was agony to leave her even for a moment, but Cory followed her example, ripping the pantaloons and casting them aside on the floor before pressing the full, hard length of his naked body against hers.
She shifted her body to accommodate his, soft and willing, and Cory brought his lips back to hers, kissing her deeply, possessively.
‘I love you, Rachel…’ It was true. He felt a huge exultation sweep through him. Rachel was here in his arms, just as she was always meant to be, and she was his, only his, now and always.
Rachel made a little sound of pure pleasure and pulled him to her, and Cory grasped her hips, easing himself gently inside her. She was hot and tight, and within a few seconds he had forgotten all about gentleness, and had caught her fiercely to him thrusting powerfully, until he was swiftly overcome. Through the explosion of rapture he felt like groaning. This was not what he had intended for Rachel, this callow selfishness. He had been overwhelmed by his need for her and the frustration of abstinence. And now Rachel would be severely disappointed.
He could see by the small frown on her face that she was dissatisfied. He rolled away from her and propped himself on an elbow, kissing her brow, stroking the soft skin of her shoulder.
‘Sweetheart, I am so sorry…I could not help myself…’
Rachel smiled uncertainly. ‘Was it my fault?’
Cory’s heart swelled with tenderness. ‘Of course not. Only for being so utterly desirable. In fact, it was my fault. I have wanted you for so long. You see now what I have been trying to tell you all along—my rake’s reputation is completely unjustified.’
He rained tiny kisses along the curve of her shoulder and down over her breast. Rachel wriggled.
‘I do not believe you can be so bad,’ she said, ‘for I was starting to enjoy myself. I think it might have been rather pleasant had it gone on longer.’
Cory smiled. ‘I am glad that you think so, for we have not finished, Rae. In fact, we have only just begun.’
He saw Rachel’s eyes widen with shy curiosity. In the slumberous depths Cory could see a passion that had barely diminished. He slid both hands possessively over her breasts and heard her gasp.
‘Cory…’
He bent his head to one rosy crest, nipping it between his teeth. Rachel squeaked. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Cory kissed her, thrusting his tongue deep whilst his fingers moved back to the secret place between her legs. She was slick and wet and he felt her tremble helplessly, her thighs falling apart to allow his fingers entry. And then she was writhing with pleasure beneath his hands and he was filled with the most triumphant tenderness as he eased her shuddering body to ecstasy.
He held her possessively close, feeling the echoes of pleasure subside through her body. After a moment she gave a tiny yawn.
‘I was right. That was very nice.’
Cory smiled against her hair. ‘I am so glad you think so,’ he said.
Rachel turned her head and kissed him sleepily.
‘Is that the end, then?’
‘No,’ Cory said. ‘Now we sleep. And later…’ he smiled ‘…later there’s more.’
Chapter Twenty
When Rachel awoke it was full dark outside and she was alone. The sound of rain drummed on the roof and the curtains were not drawn, leaving the window a pale grey square of dark. The wind shrieked and thunder echoed away on the horizon.
She put out a hand. The bed was still warm and there was an indentation where Cory’s body had lain. She rolled over and pressed her face to the pillow. It smelled of him and her heart filled with love and a curious kind of pride. Her body ached faintly but felt replete and her mind drowsy. She knew that soon she would have to start thinking again, but for now she was content to drift.
She wondered where Cory had gone. The answer came almost immediately. There was a sound from below and Rachel tensed, reality flooding back. Had the servants returned? Or her parents? She squinted at the clock. Eight o’clock! They should all have returned long since.
Then she heard whistling and realised that Cory was down in the kitchen. She relaxed back against the covers. He was fetching food. He really was a hero.
Rachel got up and went across the window. She paused for a moment, staring out into the dark in amazement. The landscape was awash, the whole of Midwinter Royal land cut off like an island. The river had flooded the burial ground and only the tops of the barrows were visible. It would take a boat to reach them now.
There was a step in the doorway behind her.
‘Very nice,’ Cory said, and Rachel realised with a sudden surprise that she was still naked. She did not appear to have been paying a great deal of attention to her clothes recently, for they were scattered across the floor. She whisked into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.
‘Please do not do that on my account,’ Cory said pleasantly. ‘You looked quite delightful as you were.’
He was wearing Rachel’s dressing robe and was carrying a tray laden with food, which he placed on the end of the bed. He took the candle from it and put it on the night stand. Suddenly the room seemed smaller and more intimate, a haven against the outside world once again.
‘I see that we are cut off,’ Rachel said.
Cory nodded. ‘The river has burst its banks and surrounded the house.’
‘So no one can get in?’
Cory’s silver gaze was quizzical on her. ‘No.’
‘And you cannot get out?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Good,’ Rachel said.
Cory’s gaze turned thoughtful. ‘Rachel…’ he began.
Rachel’s heart gave a lurch. She held up a hand.
‘Cory, please do not say anything. Not yet. I do not want to spoil anything.’
Cory sighed. ‘Rachel, we shall have to talk soon…’
‘Soon, yes,’ Rachel said. ‘But not now. This is too soon.’ She hesitated. ‘This is so special. It is time out of time. And just at the moment I do not want to have to think too much.’
She reached for the food and sank her teeth into the bread. It tasted good. Cory sighed again. ‘I do not like the sound of that,’ he said.
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Rachel reached for the cheese. The sheet slipped a little. She watched Cory’s gaze go to her breasts and felt a little shiver go through her. Her mouth dried and suddenly she did not feel so hungry any more. Cory was visibly holding himself in check and the sight of his struggle for control was immensely exciting. She brushed the crumbs off the sheet, aware that he was watching her every move.
‘Perhaps I should put some clothes on,’ she said.
‘That would be pointless,’ Cory said, ‘since I would only have to remove them again.’
He lifted the heavy fall of her hair off her shoulder and started to kiss the back of her neck. Rachel almost choked on the bread as shivers of delightful pleasure ran along her skin. His hands came round to cup her breasts and the sheet fell to her waist. Rachel sighed, a long, wavering sigh of surrender. There was no escaping the feeling that this was where she belonged, here in the circle of his arms, safe, protected and true. She watched as Cory carefully moved the tray off the bed before discarding his robe and coming back to settle his naked body against hers. In the candlelight he was as glorious as she remembered from the time by the river. His skin was a lucent gold, firm, hard and well muscled. She rubbed her lips exploratively against the paler soft skin by his collarbone and felt the ripple of his stomach muscles against her spread fingers. He turned his head and claimed her lips in a deep and demanding kiss.
‘Don’t move,’ he ordered.
Rachel lay with her eyes wide open and her nerves tightened to fever pitch as he slid down her trembling body and began kissing her all over, the arch of her foot, the soft fold behind her knee, the outer curve of her thigh. Her breathing came more rapidly still as he shifted his body to trail kisses along the soft skin of her inner thigh. She arched in frustration as he pressed his mouth in sweet, hot kisses against her belly, moving up to caress her swelling breasts.
Rachel turned her head languorously on the pillow. A huge flash of lightning illuminated the room, dimming the candles. By its fierce light she could see Cory poised over her, his face dark with emotion. He cupped her breast and flicked the nipple lightly with his tongue. The thunder made the house shudder. Rachel’s senses reeled. She was coming quite undone. All her inhibitions and reserve and restraints were being swept away, destroyed, shattered under the onslaught of Cory’s love for her.
Cory smiled down into her eyes and bent to kiss her passionately, sliding inside her with exquisite gentleness. Rachel reached blindly for him, squirming restlessly and begging for release from the delicious friction of his body against hers. As the sensations grew she felt herself arch like a bow and fall quickly, violently into utter bliss, her eyes opening wide in ecstasy and disbelief, her fingers clutching at his shoulders. The white lightning burned behind her eyes and the thunder crashed in her ears and the pleasure consumed them both, sweeping them up and binding them one to the other, merging past and present, the shadow of their childhood selves and the people they had become.
Later, much later, they lay in each other’s arms in the dark and Rachel raised a subject that had been at the back of her mind.
‘Did you see them?’ she asked.
‘The casks of brandy?’ Cory said with a smile. ‘Yes, I saw.’ He turned her slightly so that her body fitted even more snugly into the curve of his shoulder.
‘That was what Maskelyne was trying to tell us with his maps and his plans,’ Rachel said with a muffled laugh. ‘It was nothing to do with the treasure or even to do with the spy. It was about a lost cache of smuggled brandy!’
‘Jeffrey always did like a drink,’ Cory said, smoothing the hair away from her face so that he could trace the line of her cheek. ‘And some people would consider a lost cache of brandy treasure indeed.’
Rachel burrowed closer to Cory’s warmth.
‘So now that you know that it is there,’ she said, ‘will you go to dig for it?’
She felt Cory move slightly and settle more comfortably, his body wrapped around hers.
‘I doubt it. The entire burial site is flooded and when the waters subside the damage will be tremendous.’
‘And what about the real treasure?’ Rachel asked.
In the dark she felt Cory’s cheek rub against hers as he smiled. ‘You know I am superstitious. The Midwinter Treasure does not wish to be found. If—and when—it comes to light, it will find its own way.’
Rachel turned her head and kissed his bare shoulder. ‘I admire you for that,’ she said softly. ‘So many are blinded by greed and will take all they can.’
‘I have all that I want here in my arms,’ Cory said. He kissed her. ‘Go to sleep, Rachel, for in the morning we must talk.’
In the morning, everything was different. This time Rachel woke to grey skies and rain that had lost its fierceness but still fell in miserable lines from the dark sky. Cory had gone to find some of Sir Arthur’s clothes for there was no possible way that his own could ever be made respectable again. Rachel felt in much the same case. She dressed and tidied her room with mechanical movements, part of her shocked at what had happened the night before, part of her accepting. What had happened with Cory had been the most exquisite, the most deep and blissful experience of her life and she would never forget it. She loved him so much. Yet fundamentally she was very afraid that nothing had changed.
‘And now we talk,’ Cory said, when he joined her in the drawing room. He gestured to the sofa beside her. ‘May I?’
‘Of course.’ Rachel shifted slightly to give him space to sit down. It felt odd, almost familiar and somehow radically different. It was still Cory sitting beside her, but a different Cory—someone she knew inside out in some ways and in others was only beginning to know. But what she did know was that he was not going to like what she had to say to him.
‘I asked you to marry me a few days ago,’ Cory said, ‘and you refused. Now will you marry me, Rachel?’
Rachel looked at him—at the expectation in his face and the tension she could see just below the surface. It was so similar to his previous proposal and yet so different. Now she knew that she loved him with every fibre of her being and would always love him. Now he had told her he loved her too. He had made love to her with passion and tenderness and taken her heart and soul for his own. And now she had to let him go.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I fear I must refuse you again.’
She felt Cory go very still and held her breath, waiting for the explosion of temper. Instead he took her hand in his.
‘Must you, Rae?’ His tone was very quiet. ‘Please tell me why.’
His gentleness brought a lump to Rachel’s throat. His voice had been even, but one quick glance at his face told her that she was hurting him and that in the course of the conversation she would inevitably hurt him more. It felt wretched. She knew him so well and cared for him so much that the pain was her own and yet she knew her resolve could not waver. Not if they were to avoid a lifetime of misery.
‘I cannot allow what has happened between us to weigh with me,’ she said miserably. ‘When I refused you before, Cory, it was because we did not want the same things from our lives.’ She put a quick hand out to stifle his protests. ‘I know now that I love you and you love me. But the things that we want are utterly incompatible. That has not changed.’
There was a silence.
‘You say that you love me,’ Cory said dully.
The lump in Rachel’s throat intensified. ‘Yes, of course I do. You know it. I love you with my whole heart. But that does not alter our situation.’ She hurried on. ‘From the first you have known that I wanted nothing more than a settled home. That has not changed.’ Her gaze searched his face desperately. ‘But you…Travelling and exploration are your very life. And a wife must adapt to her husband’s style of living. I understand that. I would not ask you to give it up! Which is why I must give you up.’
‘You could travel with me,’ Cory said. ‘I would like nothing more—’
The first tear rolled down Rachel’s chee
k and splashed on to her skirts. ‘Cory, I cannot! How soon would it be before you came to resent me, knowing that I travelled with you under duress? I hate the very thing that you love! I need a home of my own!’
‘You would have Newlyn.’ Cory had gone a little white now, as though he could see the futility of his arguments, but did not want to accept it. ‘I understand how important it is to you to have a home, Rachel, and I know that we could make matters work.’
A second tear splashed beside the first. ‘I could not bear it,’ Rachel said, her voice cracking. ‘To sit at home in that great barn of a place with a brood of children, waiting for you to come back or not knowing where you were or when I would see you again.’ She shook her head. ‘Better to suffer the pain of separation now, than to suffer it constantly throughout our life together.’
Cory ran an agitated hand over his hair. ‘Rachel, I understand what you are saying, but I cannot give up my travels or my excavations! It is my life’s work! Not even for you—’ He broke off and gathered her into his arms, pressing his lips against her hair. ‘I love you so much. I want you with me…’
Rachel wriggled free of his embrace. ‘Please do not make this any more difficult. Cory. You know it cannot be.’
Cory was shaking his head. His mouth had set in obstinate lines. ‘You cannot simply dismiss what has happened between us and pretend that nothing has changed.’
‘I do not,’ Rachel said. ‘But we may carry on as before. No one need know.’
Cory got to his feet. ‘No one need know? I know! And you know! Do you think you will ever forget?’
‘I doubt it,’ Rachel said, with a watery smile that wobbled a little. ‘But I can school myself not to think of you all the time.’
‘Not if I am always there before you, reminding you of what could have been!’ For a moment Cory looked furious. ‘You cannot deny the passion between us, Rachel. You cannot simply put it away and pretend that it does not exist—that it has never existed!’ He made a noise of disgust. ‘I suppose that you have not relinquished your dream of finding a prudent man with whom to settle down? What kind of a pale, cold existence would that be compared with what we could have together?’
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