When the Earl Met His Match

by Stacy Reid

  Phoebe sucked in a harsh breath, surprised at her instinctive rejection of that idea.

  The soft crunch of footfall had her looking away from his patrician profile and toward the cliffs’ ledge. It was then she noted the dozens of footmen and maidservants about, working diligently. She frowned when she observed it was their drawings with which they fiddled.

  “Hugh, I…” Phoebe smiled and took the note he held out to her.

  They are following my instructions to build sky lanterns with our drawings.

  “Sky lanterns!”

  He signed, “Yes,” and with a motion of his hand encouraged her to read the rest of his words.

  A sky lantern works like a hot air balloon. They will artfully arrange our papers over a small wire construction. There are also tiny tallow candles inside to create fire. The fire will create hot air, which is lighter than the cold air outside the lantern, and it will cause them to rise into the sky. It is good luck to release sky lanterns. For many cultures, releasing them to the heavens is symbolic of letting worries, pain, and fear float away. Writing dreams and releasing them to the heavens might also assist with them coming true.

  “It sounds so beautiful,” she whispered, a tender ache darting through her heart. And he had done this for her. “How did you learn about this?”

  She caught a glint of mischief in his blue eyes and something else she couldn’t decipher. He mockingly scratched the back of his ears, and as if by magic, his fingers flicked, and a note was there for her. Her husband was proving to be courteous, charming, with a delightful sense of humor.

  There was a time I was searching for something. I ended up traveling for almost three years. One of the places I visited was China and I witnessed a lantern of the sky festival. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve experienced, and I wanted to share a bit of it with you.

  What were you searching for? she wanted to ask, but an excited shout went up, and she turned to see that the servants were lighting the bottom of each lantern.

  “Are you certain they will lift to the sky?”

  He pointed to a note, and she reached for it.

  I should be much astonished if they did not.

  Hugh stood, came over, and gently drew her to her feet. With a warm, reassuring touch at her back, he guided her toward the edge of the cliff. The sky had grown darker, and though it was barely past noon, it appeared as if dusk would soon fall. Phoebe inhaled. “I can smell the rain on the wind.”

  Strolling side by side, they went toward the edge of the cliff. Phoebe’s breath caught at the beauty of the land and the sea below her. Rolling verdant grass covered the hilly incline leading down to the shores. To the left, tall juniper and willow trees rose toward the skyline and the sea itself. White frothy waves rumbled in the water to crash against rocks before retreating once more. The roar of the sea beckoned to her, and she stepped a bit closer, feeling quite safe with Hugh by her side.

  He pointed, and she lifted her gaze up. Dozens of lanterns slowly rose to the sky, spreading out toward the sea. She had done over sixty small drawings, those that included her family and the hopes she had for them all, and many had included her Viscount and his family. The fire which helped them to rise flickered inside, and the lanterns bobbed in the sky with the wind. The sheer beauty of the moment stole her breath, and Phoebe felt as if each fear she had expressed was truly being swept away. It was impossible to tear her gaze away from the lanterns as they crowded the sky in a stunning display.

  A gust of wind swept down the treetops and pushed at her. With a laughing gasp, she clutched at her bonnet. The wind was so strong, it nearly swept her off her feet, and the cold air stung her face. “I think…I think it best I go back lest the wind grab me up.”

  She stepped back and encountered a wall of muscles. His heat enveloped her, his frame protecting her from the strong wind. Phoebe’s heart became a beating mess. She turned her head to the side and then tilted her face up to look at him. He was staring out at the sea.

  “Out here is so very beautiful,” she murmured. You are beautiful.

  He turned his face slightly, and her lips dragged against his skin and went perilously close to his mouth. He had a clean, masculine scent that was so rousingly pleasant that she wanted to press closer.

  “Thank you for today,” she murmured huskily. “I will treasure the memory.”

  He smiled, and it had the oddest effect on Phoebe, like the way she had felt after she danced several dances at a ball, invigorated and terribly breathless. “I…perhaps it is best I return inside.” For she wanted him to kiss her more than anything. The desire confounded her, for she had never felt this way before…ever.

  His beautiful blue eyes darkened, and Phoebe could see the jerk of a pulse at his throat. Her belly went hot, and her knees weak at the quick revelation of raw desire on his face before his expression shuttered.

  An undeniable longing filled her body, and a strange, darting heat pooled low in her stomach. His lashes lowered, and when his eyes met hers again, all the heat had been replaced with coolness. She wanted that brief flash of hunger she had seen in his gaze to return…and stay. And she wanted to ask him so many things.

  She turned in his arms to fully face him. The last several days she’d often wondered what lingered beneath her husband’s indifferent facade, and now she knew, there existed a charmer who had the power to steal the breath from her body. How she wished they could speak unfettered, and her heart ached with the limitations that had been set to his entire life. Did he make no sound at all? Did he know the joy of laughter?

  She touched the softness of his mouth with a single finger. “Have you been silent since birth?”

  His eyes darkened, and he nodded.

  Her heart ached for him. “I am sorry for it,” she said gently. I would have loved to know your voice.

  He shook his head as if to say no sorrow, and in his gaze, she spied no hurt or regret. Then he bit the tip of her finger that still lingered near his mouth. With a light laugh, she lowered her hand. “Teach me your language. Caroline has been showing me, but I would like for you to take over.”

  The wind whipped at her bonnet and the skirts of her gown as they stared at each other. Some of her hair had blown loose, whipping the strands in her face. She held still when he reached out and pushed those stray ringlets of hair behind her ear. His head lowered a mere fraction, and breathing was nearly impossible as Phoebe waited for his kiss. How could he have such a powerful effect on her?

  When he seemed as if he would pull away, she tipped slightly onto her toes and pressed her lips to his. It is happening again, she thought dazedly as languid heat rushed through her entire body.

  She had thought passion was something warm…easy…something with a hint of sweetness. This raw pulse of hunger felt frightening, as if it had the power to consume all her senses.

  He clasped her shoulder, bringing her even closer to him, as much as her stomach would allow. He kissed her longer, deeper…lovingly. A hitch went through Phoebe’s heart at her fanciful longings. Her heart fluttered like wild birds in her chest, then her thoughts were drowned under a tide of pleasure as she parted her lips to his coaxing. His mouth moved over hers, fiercer, ravishing, passionate, and with a muffled moan she twined her hands around his neck and kissed him back with all the burning passion in her heart.

  Phoebe wasn’t certain for how long they kissed, but finally they parted. His eyes glittered fiercely, and for a moment she thought he would bear her down on the grass and ravish her. With fingers that trembled slightly, he cupped her cheeks and pressed a kiss to her forehead. And then the bridge of her nose, and then the corner of her mouth. By the time he reached her lips, Phoebe was giggling, a sound he captured with his lips, and for long moments, they kissed endlessly.

  This time when they broke apart, he laced their hands together and held her in the cage of his arms. A motion
beside him had her looking up to see a footman handing him a blanket. Waves of heat crept up her cheeks to know their embrace might have been witnessed by their staff. Then she grinned, unable to contain the pleasure warming her heart.

  He eased from her and wrapped the thick blanket around her shoulders. Immediately, she was snug. They stood in silence watching the lanterns bobbing in the sky for a long time. Even when the fire burned out and they slowly came down, they watched as the footmen combed the sands and grass collecting the papers and the wires.

  Unexpectedly, she yawned, and to Phoebe’s astonishment, he lifted her into his arms as if she weighed the same as a feather. Her lids dropped, and the exhaustion that settled on her shoulders felt difficult to fight. Instead of struggling against the sleep, she lowered her head to his shoulder and allowed herself to drift away peacefully into slumber with lightness and hope in her heart.

  Chapter Nine

  Phoebe’s feet were propped on Hugh’s lap. Her red bonnet discarded onto the blankets, and his hands were beneath the dress of his wife. They had been married now for a little over a month, and for the last few weeks, in the mornings after breaking their fast, they would walk together to this peaceful secluded meadow surrounded by the woodlands of his estate. The grass here was lush and thick, the flowers pleasantly scented, and a small waterfall gushed from the hills to settle into a brook, which babbled gently in the background.

  His wife reclined like a pasha on several blankets and a mound of cushions that he had especially made up for her daily. In between her and the large willow tree trunk she rested against was about six large, fluffy cushions, and beside her Wolf sprawled on his side. The sun peeked through the canopy of trees, splashing a warm golden glow over her rosy cheeks.

  “This is so wonderful,” she muttered, biting into an apple and ruffling Wolf’s hair with her other hand. “It is so astonishing that it was you whom I ended up marrying. It feels fated…don’t you think?”

  How whimsical you are, he thought but did not respond, not wanting to dim the bright light of joy that had seemed to sparkle in her eyes. He could have pointed out that since she was in this part of Scotland at the time he’d been ill, there was some logical probability that she would have been the one to find Wolf. That probability also extended to her replying to his letter, since Caroline had advertised his need for a wife in the London papers. Probabilities were infinite, and this situation had simply been like that. Yet Hugh could not dismiss how frightfully surreal it felt that after weeks of corresponding through letters, with his fascination growing, he’d married her.

  Are we, though…were we fated to meet? He was not a man given to whimsy, so his hands remained silent.

  Her stomach had gotten much larger in the month since they had married, and she moved much slower as she shuffled about the castle. He’d often found himself hovering in the background, silently watching her, and to Hugh’s amusement whenever he finally turned away, he saw his father watching him with a scowl.

  The doctor had called upon her a few days ago with a midwife, and Hugh had asked questions about her swollen feet. The advice had been to do a deep massage on the area and his wife would surely feel relief. He smiled to recall how she had blushed the first day he had taken her feet into his lap and rubbed them.

  Today, though…this was the first morning he had removed her stockings. With a deft flick of his fingers, he loosened the garter holding the stocking up. Her breath hitched, and she gripped the blankets tightly when his fingers brushed the back of her knees and hooked into the edge of the silken stocking.

  That tell-tale sign of arousal had the front of his trousers going tight. Her body shuddered slightly, the lace at her throat parted, and he saw the soft shadows above the mound of her breast. Sweet Christ.

  Why was he so aware of her?

  Hugh swallowed, and it wasn’t by design that he slid the stocking off her foot so slowly…so sensually, it was as if he couldn’t help it. Bloody hell! What made it more torturous was that the red day dress billowed over his hands, denying his eyes the sight of the loveliness of her skin. He kept his eyes on her face and rolled down the stocking past her ankle then tugged it off her foot. He glanced down. She wiggled her toes, and a sigh escaped her lips. The ankle was more swollen than usual, and he took his time, sinking his fingers into her tissue, massaging and rubbing.

  She lifted her fingers and signed, “This feels…” When she could not form the word she wished, she grinned and said, “Divine. This feels divine.”

  When she smiled, she seemed to light up something unfathomable inside him, she was so beautiful.

  “Let me show you,” he released her ankle and signed.

  He shifted up close to her on the blanket then clenched both hands in a fist before him, lifting up the index finger on each hand and pushing them up as if to the sky, but careful to stop at his shoulders.

  She repeated the motion and said, “Divine.”

  He nodded. She was a very quick study, and she was adept at learning his language at a rate which even seemed to impress Hugh’s father. Often times Hugh would see him watching them with the blackest of scowls, which had appeared to fade lately to reluctant admiration. The old earl evidently admired her ardent honesty in learning to communicate with him better. Even his siblings had taken years to learn his language, and they mostly communicated with writing. Her willingness to learn, as she told him, so they could speak more often had the strangest effect on his heart whenever he thought of it. To Hugh’s mind, it felt like his heart trembled and an odd sensation would assail his senses. He had no notion what it was, but he did not like that which he could not control, so he ignored it stalwartly.

  With a small smile, he resumed his rub, coasting his palms and fingers from the sole of her foot, up to her ankle and her shin, then down the same path, over and over.

  “Ahhh,” she said in one of her exaggerated sighs of bliss.

  The feel of her soft skin against the tip of his fingers was an endless source of delight. How curious it all was, his growing enchantment with the girl before him. No…not a girl, his wife, a woman in her own right. Hugh gently massaged Phoebe’s foot, clenching his teeth, ruthlessly commanding his body not to respond to the moans of arousal she emitted. A lovely flush spread from her cheeks to her throat, and her lashes fluttered their relief.

  Is this how you will look when I finally make love with you? How lovely…free and unrestrained she appeared. To his astonishment, her fingers released the blanket, formed a fist, which thumped the spot beside her. “How odiously frustrating!”

  They both froze at that outburst, and their gazes collided. In the golden depth of her eyes, just for a minute, he saw the wild, passionate creature he knew existed inside her. Her lashes lowered briefly, and when she lifted her eyes to him once again, her expression was suitably dignified—and mortified. “Forgive me, my lord. I…my outburst was unbecoming.”

  There was the creature who tried to be so very demure and proper. In their daily interactions, at odd times he would glimpse a flash of fire, of defiance or an irrepressible nature, before she would bury it under cool civility and propriety. Hugh realized he did not like the acting.

  “I liked your outburst.”

  Her eyes widened a fraction, and he did not like how unsure she seemed in the moment.

  “I hardly believe you did,” she said dryly. And even in that expression of flat sarcasm he caught a peek at her true character, and he liked it.

  He reached for a piece of paper from the small pile, grabbed the quill, and wrote. I do. Please…never believe that you must hide yourself from me. I daresay if we are to be friends, we should endeavour to be honest with each other, especially in our reactions. When we are alone, the appearance of gentility is not required. Please, Phoebe, be yourself with me.

  Her head was lowered, and she took her time reading his note. A long time. Though she had yet to lift h
er regard to his, he saw the hint of smile curve her lush lips, and her fingers tightened on the paper ever so slightly.

  Those large golden eyes finally lifted to him, and in her gaze, there was a sparkle that had not been there before. “I must warn you; you’ll be shocked!”

  She watched carefully as he signed. “My sensibilities and nerves will survive.”

  Phoebe chuckled, the sound rich and throaty. “Well, if you are most certain, my lord.”

  Then she lifted her hand to her chin, untied the bonnet, and removed it from her head. After carelessly dropping it onto the blanket, she attacked her hair, which had been caught in an updo of waves and curls, and withdrew several pins.

  It perplexed him how his heart raced. A riotous tumble of hair came down her shoulders to spread over the mound of her belly. Her cheeks were rounder and flushed becomingly, and she smiled. An escaping curl tumbled over her forehead, and she pursed her lips and blew at it.

  The silliness of that action pulled a smile from him. Befuddlingly, he was…enchanted.

  “I have been wanting to do that. I am very much obliged to you, my lord.”

  A rumble sounded in the distance, and she glanced up at the thick canopy above their heads. “I do hope it does not rain today! I daresay the favorite part of my day is coming here. I feel I do not wish to return to the castle but to lie here under this thick canopy of trees and stare at the sky, and then maybe sleep!”

  She wrinkled her nose, and humor lit in her expressive eyes. His lady often remarked with some amusement how much she loved to sleep now when before she had enjoyed waking up at the crack of dawn so as not to miss the day passing by.

  He tapped her legs, and she lowered her gaze to his.

  Her eyes darkened with anticipation for the kisses that inevitably came every time they saw each other. He bit the inside of his lips, not liking how quickly his body responded to her sensuality or how she made his heart quiver. Liar. You like it.