by Julie Kenner
The feel of her legs bared to the cool air was deliciously erotic. His hands, hot on her naked thighs, set off fireworks in her that shot sparks along forgotten sensory paths. Her nerves were awakening, her muscles warming with memory, her nipples and sex tingling to awareness. Her skin was aching for touch. Closer, she needed to be closer. She pressed against him, meeting his kiss, offering—demanding—more.
Reading her desire, he cupped the backs of her thighs and lifted her, holding her to him as he thrust his body against hers. She felt the ridge of his arousal against her and, with a soul-deep sigh, parted her legs.
He moved again, this time pressing more tightly, arching with uncanny precision. Vibrations from that bone-melting contact spread outward along her nerves, causing her to tilt her pelvis to a better fit. His next movement sent shudders of pleasure through them both. He knew exactly how to move his sex across hers to produce those intense, heart-stopping sensations.
“Again,” she breathed against his lips. When he thrust against her, she said on a groan, “Again.”
Each stroke built her excitation higher and soon she felt a quickening rush building in her. Again…again…she shuddered with pleasure…almost…almost…almost…
Release broke over her like an avalanche. She stiffened and gasped as the boundaries of her senses dissolved, her arms clamped fiercely around his ribs, and her muscles seized. For a long, scintillating moment she was unable to breathe, move or respond further. Then as aftershocks of pleasure shook her, she wrenched the rear of his shirt out of his trousers and ran her hands up his bare back, savoring the lean bands of muscle she found.
Something banged into the door beside them; the sound was like a rifle shot in the charged air around them. Holding her breath, she looked up into his dusky features and need-darkened eyes, then around them at the room they’d invaded. It looked familiar, but there was no sign of luggage and many of the sleeping rooms were similarly shaped and furnished. The knob rattled impatiently and there was a metallic scraping at the lock—at which he jolted aside to block the door with a shoulder and left her sliding down the wall like soggy wallpaper.
“Miz?” A knock sounded on the door. “You there, Miz Mariah? That’s odd. I thought I left it open.”
Mercy. Mariah frantically smoothed her rumpled skirts and rushed across the room to the mirror over the washstand, where she tidied her hair and stared in shock at her kiss-swollen lips. Jack’s reflection in the mirror showed him red-faced and grim, with his hand on the doorknob. With a glance at her, he stepped back to admit Mercy bearing a mischievous smile and a dented box of chocolates.
“Lookit, miz, at what I found while I wus comin’ back from the necessary.” She held up the box, pried open one corner, and inhaled the heady aroma of the confections. “Jus’ laying in the hall, it was.”
“There it is.” Mariah had hastily poured a basin of cool water and splashed her face. Now she turned with a towel in her hand, dabbing her damp, rosy cheeks. “We bought those earlier and I—I must have dropped them in my hurry to—get to the room.”
Mercy caught Mariah’s sidelong glance and the unmistakable sound of a shoe connecting with a piece of furniture. She hitched around to find Jack stalking toward the door. She glanced with exaggerated innocence from her mistress to their escort, then attacked the ribbons on the candy box.
“Well, then. It were a good thing I come along when I did.”
BLAST MERCY for having the worst timing in all of humanity. Or bless her for having the best. Mariah watched the door close behind Jack and found herself torn between a tantalizing satisfaction and a sizzling hunger for more. Her knees were weak and her sex smoldered with a viscous, slow-burning heat that she had thought she’d never feel again.
Her overwhelming reaction to Jack St. Lawrence, she told herself, had to be part sexual drought-relief and part reaction to having her marital hopes dashed just when they were starting to rise.
The tenderness in Bickering’s eyes, the husky reverence in his voice as he spoke of his bride had generated a longing in her. And that dangerous yearning had roused a fear that her vulnerability to Jack St. Lawrence might not be as simple as mere lust.
She had experienced enough lust in her life—as both recipient and initiator—to know that it had never generated this intensely personal sort of pleasure, this level of emotion in her. She wanted to be with Jack physically, to experience her whole repertoire of delights with him, but she also wanted to tease him and watch the way he flushed in response, and to make him smile the way he had yesterday.
By the next morning, when she saw him pause in the doorway of the hotel restaurant, she knew that she was in trouble. Her heart began to pound as he crossed the room with that long, potent stride, immaculately groomed but hollow-eyed, clearly suffering the aftermath of an evening ill spent. If only she could have ill-spent it with him.
It was all she could do to keep from pulling him down for a blistering kiss. She pressed her lips against her teacup instead.
Now in the coach, on the way to her next matrimonial prospect, she couldn’t keep her eyes off his long legs and struggled to avoid looking at the tantalizing bulge in his trousers. It was going to be a very, very long ride.
IT WAS indeed a good thing the old woman had returned to the room when she did, Jack had thought as he stalked out of the room, out of the hotel and into the nearest pub, where he sat in a darkened corner and consumed three enormous belts of Scotch in succession. He thought the same thing the next morning in the hotel breakfast room when his heart beat a regimental quick-time at the sight of Mariah Eller’s nubile lips pressed against a china cup. And he thought it yet again when he was forced to accompany her and her old servant on a tour of female haberdasheries, and she insisted on having his opinion of the scent applied to a pair of black twenty-button gloves.
Infernal female. He’d barely got out of the shop before his John Thomas grew into a full-blown Jonathan Thomasville.
After shopping, she insisted on accompanying him to Barclays Bank to pay off her mortgage. By the time they climbed into the carriage and started for Grantham, he was feeling surly and put upon and irritated by his own impulses. He was stuck with her, couldn’t keep his eyes off her and wanted nothing more than to snatch her up and carry her off and—And what kind of woman responded the way she did to a man’s touch? She was sexually incendiary; she practically exploded in his damned arms!
It was a good thing that he hadn’t had time yesterday to do more than ravish her up against a wall. Again. Lord knew what sort of conflagration might occur if he ever managed to get horizontal with her.
Marry her off, man, and be done with it, his pragmatic side demanded. Then get on with finding your “advantageous” bride. Forget connection and pedigree…just go for money. Lots of it. So the family will leave you alone.
An odd burning sensation made him reach up covertly to massage his chest above his heart. The special marriage license in his coat pocket rustled as his hand brushed it. He jerked away with alarm. It was like carrying a live snake in his damned pocket.
8
“WE SHOULD arrive in Grantham early in the afternoon,” Jack announced as the carriage rocked along to the sound of the dozing Mercy’s adenoidal distress. “We’ll find an inn with a public room for you to rest while I inquire and make arrangements with the local vicar.”
“A bit premature, I think, to involve the clergy,” she responded.
“Not at all,” he countered. “What are the odds of two of your prospects being married off?”
“At the risk of repeating myself, there are more things to be considered than just eligibility. I have certain standards that must be—”
He gave a snort. “The gravy-on-the-vest test.”
“Well, you can tell a lot about a man from his eating habits.” Her eyes narrowed, daring him to meet them. He knew better than to accept that challenge. “You for instance.”
“Me?” Part of him went rigid with indignation, part of
him just went rigid. Eating habits. He huffed dismissively and crossed his legs, trying to ignore the fact that his ears and his John Thomas were both itching for more.
“This morning you ate as if a wolf pack were waiting at your elbow to snatch it away.” She tilted her head to study him. “You don’t happen to have a raft of brothers at home, do you?”
“If you consider four a ‘raft,’ then I believe they qualify.”
“I take it you are not the eldest,” she said, her regard sharpening as it slid over him. “Nor the youngest.”
“I am the third of five sons, all still very much alive and well. Not that that means a thing. Except that St. Lawrences come from hardy stock.”
Her insightful smile said it meant more to her.
“Stuck in the middle,” she mused. “Never the first, never the last. Always being pushed somewhere by someone. That explains it.”
“Explains what, exactly?” He hated the way she openly analyzed things and drew conclusions that too often were dead-on.
“Your eating habits. Hurry, hurry, hurry. You don’t take time to savor.” Her gaze softened. “Have you ever slowly bitten into the yielding flesh of a warm, freshly picked peach…letting the tart flavor burst on your tongue and then turn into a sweetness that bathes your mouth and lingers for minutes afterward?” Her fingertips trailed over her chin and down her neck, carrying his gaze with them. “Ever allowed the juice to pool around your tongue and trickle lazily down your throat? Ever felt its liquid sunshine spreading warmth and vitality all through you?”
He had to clear his constricted throat.
“Food is food,” he declared, sensing he was never going to look at a peach the same way again. “Not a damned religious experience.”
“Some very wise men would disagree with that statement. All experiences, it has been said, have a spiritual component.”
“Well, I can think of a few things that would challenge that notion.” He pulled a sour face. “Your cook’s tripe-and-turnip sandwich, for one.”
She burst into laughter so clear and genuine that it was almost musical. Mercy started awake and sat up blinking. The gape on the old girl’s face added to the moment and he gave in to a wry chuckle himself.
“I’ll concede your point on Aggie’s tripe-and-turnips, but on the greater truth I remain firm,” she said, grinning. “But taking time to enjoy the small pleasures—food and drink, music, color, symmetry, texture—contributes to a sense of balance, and thus to a long, healthy life.” Her mirth muted to a warmth that clutched at something in his chest. “What do you enjoy, Jack St. Lawrence? Besides kissing.”
“R-Really, Mrs. Eller—” He glanced from her to Mercy, horrified by the interest on the old woman’s face.
“Naught to be squeamish about.” Mercy grinned, showing missing teeth. “Ain’t a man under eighty don’t like layin’ one on a handsome lass.”
Only somewhat reassured that Mercy’s statement had not implied knowledge of his behavior with her mistress, he tugged on his vest and shifted bum cheeks on the seat.
“Horses. I have a great interest in horses, and the mechanicals that replace them…locomotives and steam-powered carriages.” He glanced at her defensively, as if expecting her to laugh. When she didn’t, he found himself wanting to continue. “I am also interested in the engineering of electrical inventions like the telephone, the telegraph and streetlamps.”
“So, you’re a man who likes to understand the inner workings of things,” she mused.
“I suppose that could be said.”
“We have more in common than you might imagine. What else do you like? Clearly, you’re a devotee of hunting and the ‘manly’ sports.”
He studied her for a moment, seeing a genuine curiosity in her face, and was struck by a desire to tell her the truth.
“Not really. I confess to a love of the craftsmanship of a well-made gun, but I’ve never been fond of the bloody mess they make. Not overly pleased by what hounds do to foxes, either.”
“And yet, you ride with the prince and hunt with him.”
“Family tradition.” He glanced out the window to avoid the probing of her gaze. “My elder brothers hunted with the prince. Each was tasked with the prince’s well-being and served his interests. Now it’s my turn.”
“And your elder brothers, where are they now?” she asked.
“Settled in advantageous marriages on handsome estates.” A perverse impulse made him add, “Which is where I should be soon, providing—”
He halted, horrified. He was barking mad to have revealed so much. And madder still to reveal that what he truly hunted in the prince’s company was advancement via marriage.
“Providing you can find a suitably ‘advantageous’ bride?” she finished for him with an alarming spark in her eyes.
“A proper bride,” he corrected. Proper, of course, meaning one who was noble or wealthy enough to add to the family prestige. It was his duty.
She studied him for what seemed an age.
“Well, it seems we’re both in the market for matrimony,” she said.
“We are?” Mercy, watching between them, turned to stare open-mouthed at her. “Yer gettin’ married, miz? Whatever for?”
Disarmed by Mercy’s blunt question and expectation of an answer, Mariah scrambled to hold on to some semblance of authority.
“There are certain…practical considerations…that require forging a new…partnership.” She lifted her chin with a censuring look, but nothing short of a brickbat could have prevented the old girl’s response.
“Well, why don’t ye just go to one o’ them bankers, like before?” Mercy shook her head. “Ye don’t have to go an’ get—”
“Mercy!” Mariah’s face reddened as she drew her line in the sand. “There are a few things in my life that are not open for discussion with you.”
Mercy scowled and scratched beneath the bonnet ribbons under her chin. Then she managed to put one and one together.
“So, ye’re husband huntin’? That’s what’s got us traipsin’ all over?”
Mariah sighed tautly. “I am interviewing prospects.” Then as the old girl drew breath to speak, Mariah deflated her with a glare. “And, no, I do not need advice, thank you.”
Mercy turned to the window, her chin jutting at a stubborn angle. The way Mariah stole glances at her pouting servant made Jack reflect on what sort of woman kept old servants on past usefulness and indulged their cheek.
One who was bright enough to recognize the paradoxes of humanity. One who was complicated enough herself to know that the truth lay well beneath the surface of things. One whose vibrant, unselfconscious laughter could light up a coach. An inn. A life.
To combat the hollow, hungry feeling spreading in his chest, he leaned back into the corner of the carriage and propped his hat over his face.
Don’t think about how she makes you want to hear that laughter again. Don’t think about how chocolaty she tasted and how firm and full she felt in your hands. Or about garters…silk stockings…sleek thighs…breasts spilling over a lacy corset…whatever you do, don’t think about the way she responded when she parted her legs and fitted herself against your swollen John—DAMN IT!
He groaned silently.
He was in big trouble.
THE CARRIAGE made good time on unseasonably dry and stable roads, so they arrived at the town of Grantham in time to pause for a bolstering bit of tea while Jack made inquiries as to Clapford’s location.
“The house is not far down the Cambridge Road,” he said with forced good humor as he escorted the women to the coach. “I have a good feeling about this one. Half an hour and your search will be over.”
After he handed Mercy up the steps and turned to assist Mariah, she paused for a moment and lowered her voice.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “To make the most of my opportunities, I think I should see all three of my remaining prospects before deciding.” At such close range it was impossible not t
o notice his color drain.
“The devil, you will. That could take days, weeks.” He looked alarmed, then accusing. “You promised to marry within a fortnight.”
“If I find the right man,” she said, having the unsettling thought that the moment she married, his job with her was finished. As was her cherished independence, she told herself, forcing thoughts of him aside.
“Clapford is the right man. He’s rich. Or soon will be.”
“That’s your criterion for a mate,” she said pointedly, “not mine.”
He reddened, but shook off the barb.
“It’s a sight more rational than the number of gravy stains on a weskit.” He waved her up the carriage steps with a sweaty hand. “Trust me. You’ll be a baroness-in-waiting by nightfall.”
And if I’m not? she asked with her eyes.
His whole body flushed hot when she brushed against him on the way up the step and he felt that damned special license crinkle again.
9
CLAPFORD HOUSE proved to be a sizeable, plain-brick country house sitting on a knoll totally devoid of trees. The grass of what must at one time have been a proud lawn had gone to seed, and clumps of scrub growth and tall weeds grew randomly about the place. The singular feature of the house’s approach was a large garden pond that had a vine-wrapped fountain at the center. Knee-deep in the pond were a man in rubber boots and three bare-legged boys with reddened hands full of weeds and muck.
As the coach drew near, Jack lowered the window and they heard the man barking orders as he pointed and sloshed about in the water.
“It’s October,” Mariah said, shivering at the chilled air coming through the window. “What are they doing in the pond at this time of year?”