Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby)

by Annette Blair

  Ash rose to meet her ire. “She will keep her husband happy in the bedroom,” he ordered, throwing down his napkin, “beginning tonight.”

  “Hah! She bloody well will not!” Lark left the dining room and ran up the stairs to her bedchamber. There, she tried to lock her door against him, but the lock had gone missing. Then she went for her pistol, but the dresser drawer where she had left it came up empty.

  She stood on a chair, feeling along the high shelf in the wardrobe, thinking the maid must have moved it to a safer spot, when her bedroom door opened and Ash came in, closing it firmly behind him. He threw his dressing gown on the bed like a gauntlet, his lips firm. “You won’t find it,” he said.

  “Find what?”

  “The pistol. No, nor anything sharp or capable of drawing blood, for you do mean to beat me off, again, do you not?”

  Lark watched alarmed, as her husband began to unbutton his frockcoat, with more determination than she liked. “What are you doing?” she asked, afraid the weapon in his trousers might be deadlier than her missing pistol.

  Ash removed his coat with a look that said it should be obvious, appearing, for all the world, as if he were baiting her, she thought.

  “I am undressing as you can plainly see. We are, after all, husband and wife.” His eyes held a spark of wicked intent, a roguish look that Lark had liked a great deal too much in her growing up years.

  She raised her chin, so as not to show her fear. “If you do not leave, I will scream down the house.”

  “I thought you might. As to that, the staff knows we’re married and want to keep their jobs. None will interfere. They will ignore any and all outbursts from this bedchamber and will probably cheer, if they do hear.”

  The thought of Ashford Blackburne, the Earl of Blackburne, the man of her dreams, sleeping in her bed, wearing exactly what, she wondered, turned Lark’s knees to jelly. At first, she thought the weakness must be caused by fear, but if not, what did this inner trembling signify? ‘Twas a traitorous reaction, no doubt, and Lark found herself furious with Ash for causing it.

  “I dare not leave you after our dinner-table disagreement,” Ash said. “As I would not put it past you to bolt.”

  Larkin jumped from the chair she’d climbed upon, so as to pace. She’d never come up against anyone who made her feel so much anger, so much … warmth, so … alive. She regarded her husband now, standing there watching her, strong hands on pleasing hips, shirt unbuttoned to reveal his thatch of dark satin chest hair, his inexpressibles hugging a bounty of hard-hewn muscle. God help her, she liked the magnificence he presented.

  Before she anticipated him, he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. She used her hands to hold him at bay, startled anew by the feel of the hair on his chest, wishing she could test it by curling her fingers into it. Heat scorched her face at the notion and she tried to push herself away.

  Despite her best efforts, Ash pulled her closer, crushed her breasts against him, and even through the fabric of her dress, she felt the burn.

  With his arms around her, he unfastened the buttons down her back, breathed warmth against her temple, and grazed her brow with his lips. On purpose? Or by mistake?

  Lark brought her face the merest breadth closer to test him, and he did it again, lips against her brow, there but not, a whisper of affection—so much more than she had ever experienced, tears filled her eyes. Emotion rose in her, righteous and painful.

  She wanted more—she wanted none of it. She raised her foot, and he quick-stepped from harm’s way before she could crush him under her heel, but he did not let her go.

  Ash raised her chin with a finger, held it steady, against her will, and gazed into her eyes. She was afraid he saw too much, especially the moisture gathering there.

  In his own eyes, she read speculation, need. Did she really see so much? Did he “need” as much as she? She would feel better if he did.

  She tried to gather her wits, but his lips met hers of a sudden, soft at first, his cool and sculpted, hers never before touched by the lips of another. The satin of his moved gently across hers, once, twice, thrice, drawing awareness from the deepest recesses of her being.

  Parched, she felt, for the taste of him, greedy for more. Her first kiss. Sweet. Almost too sweet to bear.

  Despite her defiance, Lark responded to his silent plea, allowed herself to be swept into the kiss with abandon.

  The touch of his tongue against her own, and the resultant budding of her breasts woke Lark to a fear that flowered into hot heaving waves of trepidation.

  She tried to escape, but he held her tight. She thought to kick him, but as if he read her, he positioned her legs between his and pinned her there. Even his hand held her head in place.

  Nowhere to go, save one. She sank her teeth into his lower lip.

  Ash cursed, pulled back, and with raw shock in his expression, he raised a hand to assess the damage. His fingers came away bloody. Blood filled his eyes as well.

  Instead of moving from harm’s way when he let her go, Lark raised a knee to make her point.

  Ash anticipated her move a mere seconds too late to completely eliminate himself as her target and received the brunt of her blow off-center. He gasped nonetheless and caught his breath. “You wretch,” he said but his words held an edge of new-dawning respect.

  Lark nodded in satisfaction. “My sister taught me that. Never thought I’d get to use it so much, though I always wanted to.” She laughed and threw herself on the bed.

  Ash raised a brow. “I do not find your resistance in the least amusing.”

  “I refuse to undress,” she said, “until you quit my bedchamber.”

  “Then you may damn well sleep in your dress, because I am sleeping beside you. I own this bedchamber.” Ash grabbed the towel beside the basin to wipe the blood from his lip, though he moved as if he might be bruised in that mysterious place.

  “Taming you is going to be a painful process for one of us,” he said as he sat on the edge of the bed and removed his shoes, “but I do not intend for it to be me.” He crawled beneath the covers, still wearing his trousers, and said nothing more, for which Larkin was grateful.

  After the fire died in the hearth and the bedchamber became dark and chilled, and Ash’s breathing evened to a snuffling snore, Lark rose to change into her night-rail before crawling back into her bed beside him.

  Her husband. Ash. Her Ash was sleeping beside her. Imagine that.

  Lark drifted in and out of consciousness after that. One minute she dreamed Ash was kissing her, the next he was carrying her to the bath and getting in with her, touching her, doing the delightful things she had dreamed of him doing, no pain or blood involved.

  Then, he was riding away in his carriage without her. “Come back Ash, don’t go, if you go to war, you’ll die and never come back. Don’t go.”

  She dreamed Ash brought her close, whispered words of comfort, his breath warm on her face. “Do not cry, Lark, everything will be all right, I will not go away again.”

  Lark moaned and sought his mouth, warm, soothing, as she’d always imagined. Threads of fire assaulted her in strange places, a new depth to the dream. She moved closer to him, seeking to cool the fire, tame the flames.

  Ash stroked her hip, her breast, butterfly touches with strange threads linking each sensation to every other, to parts of her body she could not name. Whirlpools of passion built to a frenzy, held her captive. Lark whimpered against his lips and her mind registered the sound.

  Her eyes flew open. No dream this, but a flesh and blood man … in her bed. Lark pushed him hard away, and sent him flying.

  Rising to her knees she looked down and saw Ash on the floor, bare-chested, at the least, and if not for the tangled bedclothes—well she simply did not want to know. He must have undressed while she slept. “I … I didn’t realize it was you,” she said.

  “Who the bloody devil did you think it was?”

  “A man.”

  “I am a ma
n.”

  “There’s always a drawback, have you noticed that?”

  Ash worked the first part of the following week on estate business, but he gave Lark a tour of the property on Friday, and a thorough tour they took. From buttery to dovecote, from empty wine cellar to the near-empty carriage shed and similarly barren stables.

  Then he lined up all five servants and presented her as his wife. Funny thing, he thought, Lark already knew their names, even their children’s names in two cases, as well as spouses and a sick sister.

  “I never know what to make of you,” he said as they walked away. “Who are you Larkin Rose Blackburne?”

  “I’m a clumsy girl who knows only how to be a boy and who doesn’t know how to dress or act in company, and I’ll tell you another thing, you got no bargain, because I can’t read neither.”

  “Or speak properly, half the time, either, all of which we can fix—we will fix. I had concluded that you could not read when I was forced to read to you and saw how amazing you found the experience. I am determined to begin teaching you myself at this very moment.” He led her to the library, sat her on the settee, chose a book and sat beside her.

  Ten minutes into the impossible lesson, Lark rose in a huff and bolted.

  Ash went looking for the spoiled termagant to give her some lessons in proper deportment as well, not certain if he’d brought the book to teach her or beat her. If she had not chosen to wear that god-awful red dress of his great, great aunt Harriet’s today, he might never have noticed her nestled in a thick low fork of the flowering horse chestnut at the far reaches of the spinney.

  When he got there, Ash said nothing, but climbed up to scoot himself into the same spot and wrestle her onto his lap. Except for the small bite she gave his hand, he succeeded admirably, and ended up holding her in place with all the strength and frustration that had been gathering momentum over the past weeks. Not that she stopped trying to free herself; she fought him, calling him all manner of low creature, including ruddy-necked lecher and gaoler of women.

  Larkin stopped struggling when she realized her husband had her pinned, good and tight, with one of his big blasted hands spread in the center of her … or rather, at the bottom of her … front.

  As if that were not bad enough, some kind of pressure was building there, beneath his hand, a sizzling pressure she did not like one bit.

  He seemed almost to be working the heel of his hand against her with a lethargic rhythm. Despite her dislike of such treatment, there came from her body a strange answering pulse, as if she wanted what he was doing to continue, even perhaps beneath her clothes against her very warm skin, like an itch that wanted scratching.

  When she shifted her legs, Ash’s hand moved the slightest bit lower, and she bit her lip so as not to release her rising moan. What was he doing to her? Should she ask? Tell him to stop? Did she want him to stop? Sitting in a tree had never seemed so amazing.

  When he stopped, she waited, and when he failed to continue, she regarded him, and he opened his lips over hers.

  With a bright new yearning, she welcomed his kiss with a treacherous sound deep in her throat, but the pulsing of his body beneath her made her realize that something was happening that could make a man dangerous. She pulled from the kiss with a start. “I don’t like this.”

  “I can tell,” he said, and for the life of her, she could not pull from his gaze.

  “No more reading today,” she said.

  “One sentence,” he said. “Read this note I wrote for you to memorize. I’ll point to the words and say them and you may repeat them after me.”

  “I,” Ash said as he pointed to a letter.

  “I,” Lark repeated.

  “Am,” he said for her to repeat. “A,” he said, and she repeated, and then, “troublesome,” then, “brat.”

  Lark continued up to and including troublesome, because she had turned to look into his mesmerizing gray eyes again, and did not for the life of her know what she was saying, until the word brat touched her lips.

  She tried to break free of the spell his hand at her core still wove, with a screech of outrage,

  Ash didn’t think twice but took advantage of Lark’s open mouth to open his own over it. Still in full control of the small but dangerously writhing woman on his lap, he kissed his wife the way he’d been dreaming of doing, when he slept and had no control over his mind. And his body reacted as if it were taking over the fantasy.

  Larkin’s attempts to escape slowed as their kiss became mutual and seeking. She moved her bottom in such a way as to stoke his desire, almost as if she knew in her unconscious mind that she was bringing his arousal to dangerous proportions, though her kiss told a story of innocence and unmet passion.

  Ash became so aroused he cupped her breast, and that fast, he was sitting on his arse at the base of the tree.

  Lark landed beside him, both feet planted firmly on the ground, both hands as firm on her shapely hips. “I am not a troublesome brat, but you are the greatest rogue I have ever encountered.”

  “Why thank you, Lark.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A few nights later, before dinner, Ash took Lark for a romantic stroll through the avenue his mother used to call her ghostwalk. It was a shadowy quarter-mile arch of trained hemlock, a gothic cathedral formed by nature, from which they emerged upon the orchard, a breathtaking sight at dusk with blossoms lacing row after row of trees.

  He’d left his cane at the house so he could use the excuse of needing her arm on uneven ground, and wondered what justification he could give in a week’s time, two weeks? Perhaps he’d pretend she hurt him more than she thought with that pistol shot.

  Then again, his agility would surely show in bed—providing he ever managed more than sleeping with her—and the pretense would be over.

  He’d decided to get her a little drunk that night, because he was damned well going to consummate this bloody marriage. A good stiff drink, or three, just might help her to relax, maybe enough for him to tell her the whole sordid story of his grandfather’s ultimatum.

  Christmas was only eight months away, after all, and though he need only get her with child by then, Ash knew that the process sometimes took more than one try. He intended on trying often, of course, but damnation, he needed to begin as he meant to go on, did he not?

  After their walk, he gave her claret before dinner, champagne with dinner, and port afterwards. Later, he poured her a brandy in the library over a game of cards, after which, they retired to opposite chairs in front of the fire. He refilled her glass twice more before she relaxed enough to initiate a conversation.

  “I was glad you survived the war,” she said out of nowhere. “I prayed you would.”

  Ash sat forward, a little muzzy from the drink. “You did not know me before the war, did you?”

  She laughed. “We met when I was eleven.”

  “Refresh my memory.”

  “I was running, fell, and you picked me up, there at the Picked Barrel. You wiped my tears, dabbed at the blood on my skinned knuckles, and kissed them, all three, then you said I was a brave little lady.”

  Ash was certain he’d picked up any number of fallen children over the years, calling them either brave ladies or soldiers. “I must have been all of twenty-one, and that was you?” he said, as if he did remember. He wished he did. She must not have dressed like a boy then, if he’d recognized her as female. “You’ve been at the Pickled Barrel all these years?”

  Lark nodded, head high, tears filling her eyes. “I was born there.”

  Did she weep because she realized he didn’t remember, Ash wondered, or had life been that insupportable at the pub?

  “I always thought you were different, better, more honest,” she said in a sleepy voice, her words unguarded and dangerously earnest, Ash thought.

  “Honest, I might agree, for I pride myself on it, and I have the utmost respect for honesty in others, but better? I think not. I know not. Better than who?”


  “The other men who came to the pub.”

  “I am not, believe me.”

  “You are better in every way. Better than one most of all.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one who hurt my sister and gave her a babe.”

  Good grief. How hurt? Had her sister been brutalized by some man? “What happened to her?”

  “I saw naught but blood, and before a few months passed, she was fat with a baby. My father threw her out, but I found a family in the country for her to live with.”

  Bloody hell, no wonder she had been afraid when he approached her on their wedding night, no wonder when she awoke with a “man” in her bed. “How old were you at the time.”

  “Fifteen; my sister was sixteen.”

  Worse and worse, and then he understood. “Was that when you stopped dressing like a girl?”

  “My sister said if I looked like a boy, most of Da’s customers would leave me alone.”

  Most, but not all. “And did they?”

  She placed her brandy on the table, rose, wavered and lost her balance. Ash lunged and caught her before she hit the floor and pulled her onto his lap.

  She curled right into him as if he would keep her safe.

  Ash had never been more shocked or awakened by anything. His body took to trembling, accepting her presence with all the enthusiasm called for in a husband. No question of holding up his responsibility, if consummation were called for at this moment, except that it most assuredly was not.

  He had realized some time ago, of course, that he could perform with her. And tonight, well, if she were curling into him that meant he’d got her too drunk for a gentleman to take advantage. Damnation.

  No matter, her story would have stopped him dead anyway. Then again, she might not have told it without the drink. He was a cad. She needed time. This new wife of his was skittish as a purebred filly and with good reason.

  Her sweet-smelling hair and delicate features only made her appear the more fragile. Did she understand the significance of his fast-beating heart beneath her hand? It mattered not, for she needed comforting for her sister’s agony, and for her own resulting anguish, perhaps for the first time.