"She needn't bother. I've discovered I like my women wildly undone, after all." With a hand cupping her chin, he raised her mouth to meet his.
* * * *
He wanted to devour her. Blood pumped through his body, hot and rapid. Her lips were warm, soft, not at all passive like the lips he remembered from his past, and she gave as good as she received, her hands on his upper arms, fingers gripping his sleeves, pinching the muscle beneath. Dimly he was aware of her leaning back against the wide trunk, the knuckles of his hand, caught between the tree and her head, scraping on the rough bark.
"In fact," he grumbled, "I shall forbid the maid from hiding your hair in that blasted net again."
Her dark eyes flared. "That was all you wanted? You cheated, just for a kiss?"
"This is my estate, and I do as I please here."
"But I would have demanded much more if I won."
"Would you indeed?" He stroked her cheek with his fingers, her skin like the finest silk. Wet silk, now, of course. "I'm intrigued to know what you wanted from me." Would she admit she was there to seduce him? Would she confess about the wager with her brother?
"Your staff already think I have bewitched you," she murmured, equivocating. "What will they think now, if we are seen?"
He ran a thumb along her lower lip. "They will know they were right."
"There is no such thing as witchcraft and magic. There is a practicable explanation for everything that happens in life, as my father says. We are the authors of our own fate. And you're a gentleman, sir. Surely you don't believe in magic." When she caught the tip of his thumb between her teeth, nipping the flesh, it sent a raw signal to his manhood and gripped him in a savage hunger to bite her back.
"I am in danger, Miss Deverell, of forgetting myself and my upbringing as a very proper English gentleman."
She released his thumb and her lips slid into a crooked, smug grin. "Thank goodness! I am greatly relieved to find that you are not perfect after all. I had hoped to uncover some dark and twisted habits while I was here at Greyledge."
"I'm afraid you won't find an awful lot of excitement with me. I'm quite a dull person. I believe in good, and righting a wrong. I'm fairly ordinary, really."
"Well, ordinary is a change for me." Raindrops hit her face as she looked up at him. He was amazed to count freckles on her nose, where he had never before noticed them. Darling little freckles that made her seem even younger suddenly. "I don't see much ordinary these days, and good boys usually run in the other direction at full speed. As you should have."
"Ah. But I'm not a boy."
"I see that. And I'm not a girl...anymore."
The need was overwhelming. He had to kiss her again, and she made no protest. He let his tongue battle with hers, taking and giving with equal vitality, wanting to leave his mark on her, not caring that she was "unsuitable" or that she had some devious motive in being there.
Sebastian Rockingham Hale wanted this woman and he always got what he wanted. No price was too high for him to pay, when the prize was worth having.
Her fingers crept up to his shoulders and then caressed his cheek above the tall collar of his greatcoat.
"You would have lost that card game, you know," she whispered, their lips barely parted.
"What card game?"
"And you wouldn't listen to me when I advised you on which card to play, so what choice did I have put to take your watch and make you chase me. Otherwise you would have lost."
He squinted down at her, amused now that he realized she referred to their first meeting, more than a dozen years ago. "How do you know I would have lost?"
"I just know," she replied with wide-eyed solemnity. "I am my father's daughter. Did you think yours was the first game I watched?"
"I see. And I thought you were merely a naughty little mischief maker and accomplished pickpocket."
"Exactly." She gripped his cravat and tugged him down a few more inches until she could slide the tip of her tongue across his lower lip. "People underestimate me. You too are so quick to judge a poor girl who only has the best of intentions at heart."
He laughed softly. "I suppose I was not the first man to whom you proposed either?"
She studied his lips. "No. But you were the last."
"I put you off the idea, did I?"
"You were very mean to me, giving me away like that when I hid under a table. You haven't changed. You're still chasing me to punish me."
"And thirteen years later, you're still naughty and a thief."
"I have stolen nothing from you!"
"You haven't? Surely you've had sufficient chance to rummage through my possessions and steal the family silver."
"I wouldn't want any of your shabby old bits and pieces."
"Well, that is a shame."
A sudden rumble of thunder overhead, brought him back to earth and common sense. In a storm, a tree was not the best place to take shelter.
"Come," he said. "We'll take the horses down to the gamekeeper's lodge there and wait until the thunder and lightning passes." He held out his hand.
"What about my hat? Stop! It's blowing away." She pointed to where the wind and rain took the small black riding hat and spun it into a cow pat.
"Leave it. I'll buy you another."
"Your manner is very offhand, sir! That is one of my best riding hats with a particularly—"
"I'll buy you ten of 'em, woman."
"Am I supposed to be impressed with your largesse, sir?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm not! I told you, money does not—"
"Spare me the righteous discourse, Miss Deverell. Only a woman who has never been without it would disdain money. And the day you give up your fine frocks, petticoats and French lace garters will be the day I'll believe you're not impressed by a man's fortune."
She was, briefly, silenced. As usual, it did not last. "How do you know my garters are French lace?"
Bemused, he shot her a quick glance as they hurried down the hill. "I have excellent reasoning powers, and a very good imagination."
This last was a fact he had only recently discovered about himself.
* * * *
After leaving the horses in the adjoining barn, they entered the small, cozy lodge to beg sanctuary from the gruff gamekeeper. He was just boiling water in a kettle over the fire.
"You're in time for a cup of tea, my lord...and my lady."
"Oh, I'm not a lady. I'm Raven Deverell," she greeted him cheerily.
Hale hid a smile at the other man's startled expression. "We will be glad of the tea, Wilson. Thank you."
The sky had grown very dark now, the heavy clouds bursting open to drench the estate in hard, driving rain. Every so often a flash of lightning quivered overhead, followed by that violent rumbling that made the stone floor tremble under their feet.
Raven stood at the old, mullioned window, the shadow of lead strips in the glass quilting her face. "I was never afraid of thunderstorms, even as a child. I always thought them breathtakingly beautiful," she said.
He walked over to join her. "Of course. It is only fitting."
"What do you mean?"
How could he explain that her looks suited the drama of a wild summer storm and that one sight of her shook his heartbeat out of its steady rhythm just as roughly and abruptly as the clatter of thunder vibrated through the ground beneath him? He was no artist, no poet with a gift for pretty words. But he was practical. "You should stand by the fire and dry off."
"Aye," Wilson exclaimed, hurrying to move a chair closer to the heat. "You sit down, my lady, and dry yer feet."
Perhaps it was the gamekeeper's urging that won out, for Hale was sure she would never do anything he suggested without a quarrel first, but after a moment she left the window and took the offered chair. "That is kind of you, Mr. Wilson."
Watching his gamekeeper pour the tea, listening to Raven chat to the man in a friendly, open fashion— charming him too no doubt— he thought of what had just
occurred under the oak.
She was dangerously close to winning that wager with her brother.
Did it matter?
Let her put all her powers of seduction to the task. It would not exactly be a hardship for him, would it?
She might think she could win, but in bed he would conquer her.
However...what if this feeling was more than that? More than lust and the need to win? What if he found he needed more?
She was looking at him, he realized.
"Your lordship, I said my mother and Mary will wonder what has become of us."
"But you cannot go out again in this," Wilson assured her, and she sneezed then, making him even more concerned and certain. "I'll put a drop o' whiskey in the tea, my lady."
"I'm not sure his lordship will approve," she replied, with a sly glance at Hale.
"It'll keep a cold at bay," the gamekeeper insisted. "His lordship won't want you getting sick, now will 'e? There's been too much o' that." The old man's face crumpled then with sadness, and he turned away quickly to find his bottle of whiskey behind some old books on a shelf.
Raven looked down at the fire, falling silent.
The gamekeeper's comment had, of course, alluded to Hale's wife and child— the fever that took them both after it had swept the village and left many other casualties there too in the space of a few terrible months ten years ago.
But that was in the past. Today he faced the future, as he had not done with clear eyes and hope in his heart for a decade.
How odd that this woman should bring thoughts of the future to his mind.
Hale felt the ring on his little finger. "I daresay we can approve a touch of whiskey this once. But only a little, mind you, Wilson. It will be strong for Miss Deverell."
At once she was bright again. She seemed relieved that he responded in a jovial manner. "You do underestimate me, sir," she exclaimed. "I have six brothers and things would come to a pretty pass if I had not learned to keep up with them."
Wilson chuckled. "Well now, your lordship, I reckon that was a challenge."
"Yes, I'm sure it was. Miss Deverell is excessively fond of wagers."
* * * *
It was comfortable and warm in that lodge, and Raven felt no desire to leave it, so when she mentioned her mother and Mary wondering at their absence, she really only said it to see what Hale would do. Evidently he was in no great haste to go back either, for he'd looked at her as if he barely heard what she said. And now he too drew up a chair by the fire, stretching his legs out to rest the heels of his muddied boots on the fender.
The sound of rain against the roof was almost a lullaby, she mused. So different to the dreariness of London rain, which only made the streets filthier and kept her trapped with her mother.
Here the company that sheltered with her was very different, and the rain had a purpose, for it could be seen doing its work in the fields, watering the crops and filling the troughs in the yard. She did not resent the rain today, but welcomed it.
The splash of whiskey in her tea made her limbs quite relaxed, but even without that she would have felt at her ease. The gamekeeper reminded her of the genial, rough-edged handyman, Jameson, who lived at her father's castle in Cornwall and who taught her to fish when she was very small.
Her mother had performed many a bout of hysterics over Jameson taking little Raven out in a rowboat or putting her atop a large plow-horse, but the child herself would proudly declare that she was never afraid. She was, of course, sometimes fearful. But eventually she found that if she said she was not scared often enough and firmly enough, it came true. Never had she been the sort to give in and show a weakness.
She had never wanted to let the gentle giant Jameson down, any more than she wanted to disappoint her father. The Greyledge gamekeeper had the same honest, unfussy way about him and it made her feel at home.
Hale did not drink any tea. Instead, he fiddled incessantly with the ring on his little finger and seemed distracted. Had he really only wanted a kiss from her as his prize for winning the race? He'd brought her all this way for that? Perhaps he only wanted to get his revenge for the time she and Matty Bourne won against his horse. She supposed she ought to be relieved if that was all he wanted.
But his kisses caused little sparks of fire inside. She felt like a keg of gunpowder about to explode.
"Oh, my lord, I almost forgot to say...but Mrs. Deakins was so thankful for the basket you sent over. She said the young 'uns loved that honey."
"Good. Please assure her that if she needs anything while her husband recovers she need only ask."
"Aye, my lord, I shall. She says the physician you brought over from Oxford to set his leg has done a wonderful job."
"Doctor Braithwaite is very knowledgeable and although his ideas are quite modern and not always accepted, I believe his methods are the way of the future. I am hoping we can persuade him to stay in the village."
"Yes, my lord. And Sammy Perkins appreciated the piglets. It perked him right up. And he knows how fond you are of the little 'uns."
This time Hale merely bowed his head in acknowledgement, appearing almost embarrassed.
"Piglets?" Raven prompted mischievously.
"That's right, my lady. Perkins lost his favorite ol' sow this spring and was fair bereft without 'er, but his lordship sent over a whole litter of the jolly little beggars from 'is own farm."
Perhaps she should have expected to hear these examples of his generosity and thoughtfulness. As the Earl of Southerton he had responsibilities to the people of his estate and the local community. But she knew it did not always follow that the squire of the county fulfilled his duties honorably.
Hale was one of the decent few, it seemed.
Perhaps even her father would like him a little, despite the title which made him one of those "hidebound stuck-ups".
"So you are fond of pigs, your lordship?" she asked coyly.
He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, fussing with the cuffs of his coat. "I think they are vastly underestimated creatures and extremely intelligent."
"Aye." Wilson leaned over the hearth to tell her, "His Lordship cuddles the little runts and sings to 'em, when he thinks no one's lookin'."
"Yes, thank you, Wilson!" He folded his arms over his chest and scowled. "That was once. Only once! And it was a matter of great urgency, for the health of the animal, which was in need of warmth and oxygen."
"Oh, o' course, your lordship! It were only the once, out o' necessity." Wilson glanced over at Raven again and mouthed, "All the time."
She smothered a chuckle and quickly sipped her tea.
When she looked over at her host now, she felt the glow of admiration in her heart. How could she ever have thought his face grim? Oh dear, she'd made quite a mess of his cravat under the oak tree. But the ravished look quite suited him. She should do it more often.
He changed the subject now, talking to Wilson of fishing and the trout that stocked the Greyledge lake.
She waited to catch his eye and when she did, Raven smiled, but he simply looked confused as if he still couldn't tell her genuine smile from a false one.
Chapter Seventeen
When the rain finally eased he suggested taking her back to the house, but she was keen to see more of the village and since he seldom met such an enthusiastic sight-seer, he was pleased to take her. It had to be said that he was in no haste to go back either.
They rode along the damp lane as the sun came out and shone down on all the puddles. Hale felt remarkably light-hearted now and his tongue flowed with more ease than usual as he pointed out the various cottages and farms along their route, telling her about each occupant and how long their families had resided there. He knew, of course, the age of every tree and had stories to share of having climbed each one when he was a boy, sometimes hiding up there until it grew dark, so that he could imagine he sat among the stars. These were memories he had shared with no one before.
He spoke tentatively,
but she never once looked bored or feigned one of those yawns he'd seen her use when her mother rambled too long. Indeed, she was interested by everything he showed her and if he paused his stories she had questions to keep him talking.
Hale could not remember ever having shared this much time with a young lady and not feeling the deep urge to leave her side for "a business matter that requires tending".
But having Raven beside him, as he tipped his hat to passing carts and carriages, was a strangely pleasing sensation. He saw the wonder in people's faces, and then their shy smiles returning hers, which were given frequently and with considerable allure now.
Business matters to tend? What business? She was his business today.
They rode around the village common, stopped at the smithy to water the horses, and then she wanted to visit the little Norman church. He might have made some comment about the oddity of seeing a Deverell in church, but held his tongue and let her walk ahead of him down the aisle so he could watch the curling snake of hair that meandered down her back.
"Churches are so peaceful," she said, turning to look over her shoulder. "Do you not think?"
He walked slowly forward, holding his hat behind his back with both hands. "Yes. They are."
"Ransom thinks they are cold, damp, grim places. But I rather like them. The quiet helps me think when something troubles me." She pointed up at the wall. "That's your family crest. I recognize it, since it's everywhere inside your house. Making certain everybody knows the Almighty Hales own it. As if that might be forgotten."
"The gate below that carving on the wall there leads to the Hale family crypt."
"Oh." She turned unusually pale. "Does it? I... wasn't thinking. I'm sorry." Now she looked crestfallen.
"There's nothing to be sorry about."
"But I sounded disrespectful," she whispered, "about Hales."
"I can assure you I'm accustomed to it by now." He gave her a solemn look. "And they're all dead so they didn't hear it."
"Even so..." She glanced over at the locked gate in the wall, her fingers smoothing over the buttons of her riding habit. "I ought to think before I say things."
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