This was all entirely wrong. She should have stayed home. She should have listened to Helen yesterday and just stayed home. She should have waited patiently, obediently, dutifully for the duke to arrive, for his proposal and subsequent marriage ceremony when she would make vows to love and obey a man she didn’t know.
That’s what she should have done.
Only she hadn’t.
She, like the imbecile she was, decided to look for an adventure. And look where it got her—on a secluded path on the border of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, pressed up against the entirely wrong man.
Or the entirely right man?
Entirely right in an entirely wrong way?
Semantics.
It didn’t matter. Either way she was doomed now. There was her papa she would have to answer to. And her mama. And then Lord Brighton, because there was definitely no way that all that had transpired between her and his stable hand would not reach his ears.
Something must have happened to her head when she hit it yesterday, because it certainly wasn’t working properly.
What in her right mind would possess her to go off with a practical stranger into the woods? And kiss him no less?
It was absolutely absurd. There was no other way to explain it, she had gone and lost her mind. It had fallen out of her head and there was no hope for it to return. It was gone, and she was screwed.
Ladies didn’t say such things, but right now, that’s what she was. Screwed.
And, as if the universe needed to remind her just how brainless she was, she moved to break from Robert’s embrace, setting pressure back on her injured ankle, instantly regretting it.
“Ow!” she cried out again, attempting to reach for the ankle in question.
“Rose, what is wrong?” Robert’s concern showed in his tightened lips, his furrowed brows, and those blue eyes that seemed to melt just a little.
She looked up at him, nearly a full foot taller than she. Her cheeks flushed at the feel of his hands on her, of his entire body being pushed against hers. Her borrowed clothes were thin as it was and were still soaked all the way through causing her to feel as though she were standing there naked pressed up against him.
It had been different in the river—they had been close, pushed together, but there was the illusion that they were not entirely together. There was the water in between them.
But now…
Oh, how could she hold onto her resolve when he was so near, so strong, so willing to help her?
And then she knew.
It was him.
He was what was making her stupid.
Well, okay, she was the one who’d lied down on that path the day before, which was, admittedly, pretty careless, but everything that happened since then was his fault.
Rose couldn’t think in Robert’s presence, unless they were thoughts about him or his eyes or his lips or his hair which was wet and matted to his forehead.
Her breath quickened, her chest rising and falling nearly as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.
Men. They either infuriated you so much that you couldn’t speak. Or they looked at you like that.
She couldn’t resist that look. He looked like a Greek god, all lean muscles and chiseled features. He was magnificent. And he had his eyes on her. Those beautiful, blue, liquid eyes that were always trying to see more than she would allow. They were always searching for something she didn’t want him to find. That would only make it harder.
“I turned my ankle. Ow. It hurts.” A shuddering breath expelled from between her clenched teeth.
The sound of her voice astonished even her. She had been composed for her entire life—she’d had to be. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had cried or showed any real emotion without executing some semblance of restraint. If ever there was a time for such displays, surely the tears would have come last night when she was exhausted and overwhelmed with emotion. And yet, now, here, with this man, she was on the verge of sobbing most unattractively.
Robert was unraveling her carefully wrapped emotions with expert skill. And the worst part of it was, she feared it was too late to rein them back in.
She had been hurt far worse before, suffered more than a turned ankle. And yet, this hurt most of all.
It wasn’t merely the ankle the pain stemmed from. It was him, in her heart.
“Here, sit,” he said, lowering her onto a large rock along the side of the trail, half hidden in a thicket of bushes. “Let me take a look.”
Before Rose could raise a protest, Robert was lifting her skirts clear up to her knees and she was gasping in horror, though she made no move to restore them, instead, leaning back on her hands to afford him better access and herself some form of stability.
She knew she should stop him, that his touch was dangerous to her, that it would destroy her, but, oh, she was shocked by his touch and, well… by him.
“Which foot is it, love?” he asked, looking up at her now from his knees at her feet. And what a glorious sight and what a glorious sound!
She knew it was a pet name he probably used upon all women. Rose could imagine it made all the females in the village feel the same way she felt in that moment—pulse quickening, mind racing and simultaneously going blank, temperature rising, breath stuttering.
He didn’t need to use the word, though. His presence alone was enough to make her swoon. With his dashing good looks he could be duller than a stone and still be seen as a worthy companion to many. He needn’t do anything more than smile to win the hearts of even the finest ladies in the land. Even the most snobbish of women would not be able to ignore his handsome features.
Rose would not be able to ignore them.
And yet, on top of that perfect masculine beauty, he had the charm of a dozen men—more.
Lord, she was to marry his master. She could not be having such thoughts! She should not be in his presence at all. He was to be one of her servants. This was a man that would saddle her horses, prepare her carriages.
How would she manage it? She was already finding herself liking him more and more with each passing second. Soon she wouldn’t be able to control the emotions and they would spin out of her control.
Though, she feared, they seemed to already be spinning.
How could she live so near to Robert and not be able have him?
Worse, what if he recognized her?
Would he recognize her? Or was she just one in a long line of girls whom he had charmed and flirted with?
Rose felt as though she’d come full circle with her thoughts, but she couldn’t stop the spinning.
Of course Robert would remember her—if for no other reason than that she stole his master’s horse. That was memorable enough. But maybe, just maybe, once she was cinched into her corsets, her hair intricately piled on top of her head, decked out in jewels, lips rouged, he would not recognize her. She hardly recognized herself without all of her adornments, and men were far less observant.
She hated how insecure thinking of Robert made her. Rose had never felt insecure. Never. Everything in her life had order, a purpose. Everything she had ever done had a deliberate reason. Her life had a plan—she was merely crossing off the pre-marked days on the calendar she’d been handed.
This, her adventure, was not part of the plan. For years she had lived by the blueprint her parents had made for her life. She hadn’t exactly liked it, but it was her duty. Her duty to protect her sisters, her duty to marry Lord Brighton, her duty to suffer her parents’ abuse. It wasn’t the life she would have chosen, but it was her life and she was content with that. But when had that toleration turned to outright contempt?
And why was she just recently recognizing that it existed?
Had it always been there, simmering just below the surface and she just hadn’t noticed? Or hadn’t she wanted to notice?
Had she been lying to herself for the entirety of her life?
As Rose’s thoughts deepened, she felt her expression chan
ge from somber to morose. And that would not do.
This wasn’t supposed to be difficult.
Not the unidentified emotion that was ripping through her. That definitely was difficult—to feel and to understand—and probably a whole host of other adjectives could be used to describe it as well.
Her adventure. Her adventure was not supposed to be difficult. It was supposed to be simple. She was supposed to clear her head, feel a bit of freedom, be normal for once, and then return to her life.
And instead, she found this. And it just… It just didn’t make sense to her. She wasn’t used to feeling this way. She wasn’t supposed to be praying that Robert wouldn’t recognize her while, simultaneously, hoping that he would. She shouldn’t know him at all. He should be a complete stranger because they never should have met.
But they had, and those confusing emotions that she was not willing to interpret were spinning her wildly.
However, one thing was certain as she forced herself still—figuratively and literally—in the middle of the madness whirling inside of her. This wasn’t right. And as much as she wanted Robert to recognize her, the devastation that would wreak havoc if he did, was too much.
If he recognized her, it would ruin everything.
She would just have to pray that he didn’t.
Even so, she would have to be careful, stay clear of the stables. For a while at least. Just in case. Until she could be sure that Robert had forgotten her.
That’s what she would do, she decided. If Robert didn’t see her, he couldn’t remember this, remember her. She would simply stay away from the stables when she came to live here.
Stay. Away.
The thought set her somewhat at ease—if not naively.
“This one,” she answered him, indicating to her left foot.
Robert worked slowly at the buttons to her boots, finding difficulty in that the water had caused the leather fasteners to swell. But eventually all the buttons were unfastened and he was sliding the boot gently away, revealing her stockinged foot.
She felt much like Cinderella, she supposed—like a princess with her Prince Charming kneeling before her. Only, instead of slipping her into a beautiful glass slipper, he was slipping her out of a ruined leather boot.
Not to mention that he was no prince; she no pauper.
“Where does it hurt?” he asked, taking her foot gingerly into his hands, one of his large thumbs finding the inside of her ankle and swirling the tender flesh there, as though he had known her answer before she had spoken.
“M-My ankle,” she choked as his fingers slid down the length of her foot to her toes, then back up to her ankle, continuing the gentle massage.
He lifted her foot to his mouth, blowing cool air on the spot where her ankle ached. Rose bit back the impulse to run her fingers through his hair as he did so.
The sensation was incredible. She sighed at the relief his touch brought, and nearly forgot who she was.
Nearly.
“How does it feel now?” Robert asked, his lips grazing over the skin of her stockinged foot.
She sighed again as his fingers once more began to work the flesh, massaging circles up and down. “So good,” she sighed, the massage making her feel almost as though she had swallowed down a glass—or two—of champagne in rapid succession.
The noise that resonated from his throat at her response sounded, much to her amazement, like a growl.
“Did you just growl?” Rose asked impulsively, biting her tongue as his crisp blue stare lifted up to meet hers and she found herself lost once again.
She was stranded in those eyes as though she were in the middle of the ocean.
The middle of the ocean—where people drowned.
Was there any chance that those eyes would not linger with her for all of time? Would not haunt her every dream?
“I did, indeed,” he said, growling again and flashing her a devious grin.
Rose smiled at that, wide and honest. A real, true smile. A smile that was so wide and held for so long that it made her cheeks ache immensely, but was also worth the pain.
“How very peculiar,” she said, her eyes not leaving his.
He growled once more before he bowed down to kiss her foot, then looked up, his eyes capturing hers as he blew hot air upon the cool moisture his lips left behind, the heat of him going through her stockings and skin, and threading up into her heart.
Lord, what was she doing?
Her heart felt like it was going to burst inside her chest. As though it had expanded to ten times its size and was ready to explode. She felt like she was going mad.
He was holding her foot, kissing it, and she liked it—in fact, she wanted more. So much more. She wanted those lips on her mouth again. On her everywhere. Though, truth be told, she did not fully understand in that moment where everywhere meant. She just wanted.
She wanted like she had never wanted anything before.
His hand slid up to her ankle once more and she gasped at his touch, at the gentleness and the intimacy in it.
It felt so incredibly good.
But it couldn’t feel good.
One tiny sliver of her brain held on to reality.
She was to marry his master, she reminded herself for what must have been the twelfth time that day. And whether she could avoid the stables or not, she could not avoid Robert forever. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him, period. Their meeting was inevitable. In fact, if she allowed herself to slide down the slippery slope her thoughts seemed to be taking her in, she would quickly be falling in love with this man and she would likely seek him out freely, unable to keep herself away. Unable to contain the emotion, ignore it.
She wouldn’t allow that to happen, for she was simply not going to allow herself to fall in love with him. With anyone. Because if one cannot love one’s husband then they certainly cannot love the stable hand.
“Robert,” Rose said, meaning to finish the sentence by telling him how they must return to the village, how she must return home. She did not finish the sentence, however, as her parted lips were being caught up by his.
And just like that, her entire world lifted as though she was being carried away on clouds.
At first she was shocked, nervous. It was only her second kiss after all and she had nearly drowned the last time their lips had met.
Here, there was no chance of drowning in water, but she felt entirely as though she could drown in the passion that took over her body, mind and soul. Robert’s steady insistence soon had her forgetting her nerves, had her lips matching his rhythm, parting for him, letting his tongue dart inside.
All thoughts ceased except for one—the feeling of it.
Glorious was not near enough of a descriptor. Everything burned and ached with such incredible pleasure. It was pain and passion, intermixed in a dizzying combination that was driving her incoherently mad. And once the initial shock of her desire wore off, she found herself no longer wanting, but needing, more.
Rose threw her arms around Robert’s neck, pulling him closer to her, hands clasped in his soft, brown waves, pulling, straining.
“Robert,” she said again, as he trailed kisses along her jaw, down the column of her neck, toward the high neckline of her borrowed dress. This time his name was a benediction, not the beginning of a sentence, once started, and then discarded.
“Robert,” she breathed as one of his hands moved over the thin fabric of Helen’s sodden dress. She strained against the touch, arching into it, desperate to be closer.
She wanted to stop him, she knew that she should, but her body needed him, ached for him in a way she did not understand. Her mind said no, that what she was doing was wrong, but her body said yes, and her body was winning the fight.
It was minutes later that the kiss was broken. Abruptly.
Robert, apparently held onto a bit more control—to her dismay, and relief.
He didn’t just pull away from the embrace, he practically ran away, jumping to his fe
et and backing up as far as the width of the path would allow. “I apologize, ma’am, for my advances.” His hands were closed into fists at his sides, his jaw was set, his tone formal, but his eyes still yearned for her. She could see it in them, almost as though they were willing her to rise and jump into his arms—into his kiss—once again.
Rose couldn’t look into those eyes any longer. They were destroying her sanity.
She felt suddenly quite foolish. This was all wrong. She was to marry someone else. This would not do at all. She needed to end this.
And yet…
In the course of a couple moments spent with this man, he had become the very air she breathed. No matter how many times she reminded herself that Robert was not for her, that she could not fall in love, she found herself giving in more and more.
How could this possibly be? She hardly knew him, knew basically nothing about him. He was a stable hand—from a completely different world than hers. How could he become everything to her in such little time?
Perhaps it was that his life was nothing like hers that formed the attraction. He was carefree. He didn’t have to worry about arranged marriages or familial responsibilities. Robert’s biggest responsibility was his job in the stables. There couldn’t be much to that, Rose suspected. He had more freedom than she could ever dream of having. He was the perfect balance to the shackles that chained her.
Opposites attract, right? she thought, pitifully.
Robert ran a hand over his face, trying, and failing, to wipe away his battling emotions. “I am sorry,” he said on a strained sigh, and she could tell, by his graveled tone and the pain in his face and eyes, that he truly was. But it was not the kiss he was sorry for, she suspected. It was for something else.
She just hadn’t a clue as to what that was.
“Forgive me?” he asked, and just by looking into his eyes she knew that he was speaking of more than just the kiss.
She would have laid everything out for him right there on that rock on that path that led back to the village. She would have done so willingly and would have enjoyed every second of it, she was sure. And he would have, too.
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