by Merry Farmer
“I am.” Marie nodded. “Though it would be more accurate these days to say I’m the sister of an earl, since dear Papa passed many years ago.”
“The details are irrelevant,” Christian said, doing his best to appear completely at ease as his erection pressed into the sand. “Aren’t you too well-born and proper to have the sort of knowledge that would prompt you to know why I’m not getting up?”
Marie laughed aloud. “You have been away too long.” She shifted to lean forward, splaying across the sand in a similar pose to the one he was stuck in, her face coming within inches of his. “Don’t you know that the Wicked O’Shea Sisters are the scourge of County Antrim?”
“Yes, well, I had heard you lot were a bit unruly,” Christian said in as off-hand a manner as he could manage.
“Unruly hardly begins to describe it,” Marie said, lowering her voice.
It suddenly occurred to Christian that sand did not mix well with a raging erection. He feigned utter composure, though, determined to ignore the irritation that wasn’t helping his body settle. “If this is how you comport yourself with men you’ve only just met, I’m astounded that your brother hasn’t locked all of you away in a convent.”
“We’re not Catholic,” Marie said, her voice more and more of a purr as she inched closer to him. She might not have had his cock to stare at anymore, but that didn’t stop her from gazing hungrily at his lips.
Which did nothing at all for his chances of standing up anytime soon. “If not a convent, then an asylum,” he said, matching her sultry tone. God, but he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do more than that, if he were honest. And he wasn’t the sort to go around debauching aristocratic ladies on beaches. He’d caroused his way through university, enjoyed himself thoroughly in Europe, but it took coming home to Ireland for him to feel truly in over his head in matters of desire.
“My dear brother would have to catch me before he could put me in an asylum,” Marie went on, her lips only a breath away from his. “And poor Fergus has just made the fatal error of giving me the means to peddle away from him whenever I want.” Her eyes flashed as they met his. “What kind of mischief do you suppose I might get into with that sort of freedom?” she asked.
“I cannot imagine,” Christian said, pulsing with lust and feeling startlingly on the back foot for a change.
“Fortunately,” Marie went on, her breath tickling his lips and his heart pounding, “I have never been the sort to have a hard time deciding on things. I tend to know what I want the moment I see it.”
“Oh?” Blast him, but his voice shook on the single-syllable word.
“And I’ve seen it, Christian Darrow,” she continued, arching one amorous eyebrow, her full lips forming a wicked grin. “I’ve seen it all.”
He started to laugh, but she stopped the sound by leaning toward him and kissing him soundly. She kissed him. Not that he wouldn’t have kissed her just as hard himself, if he’d had the jump on her. He wasn’t about to let her have the upper hand for long, though. Regardless of his state of arousal, he pushed himself up until he could reach for her and drag her into his arms. It was pure and utter madness. They’d barely met, but since when had formalities or time stood in the way of the absolute pleasure of kissing a woman who was game?
And Marie was most certainly ready for it. She slid her sandy arms over his shoulders and sighed deep in her throat as he devoured her mouth with giddy pleasure. It was wrong, mad, and the single most exciting thing he’d ever done. But most of all, kissing Marie, parting her lips so that his tongue could dance against hers, filled him with joy like nothing ever had before. One taste and he had the wild feeling that he would never be able to get enough of her. Not even if—
“Good God in heaven above, what is the meaning of this?”
The booming shout came from closer to the road. The spell that had been cast over Christian and Marie seemed to evaporate with a snap as the imposing form of Lady Coyle glared down at them.
“L-lady Coyle,” Christian stammered. He started to shift then realized there was no possible way he could untangle himself from Marie and her conveniently concealing skirts without causing them all a great deal more embarrassment than they were already suffering under.
“Oh, dear,” Marie gulped.
She started to move as well. She stood carefully, holding her skirts out to the sides as an effective curtain that allowed Christian to stand up as well. If only he wasn’t half as upstanding as he obviously was. Although that situation was well on its way to deflating.
“I have never been so outraged in all my life,” Lady Coyle raged at the two of them, face splotched red. “I thought that I had seen the very nadir of behavior from you O’Shea girls, but this?” Lady Coyle squeaked.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lady Coyle,” Marie said, laughing nervously. “It was a joke that got a bit out of hand, you see.”
“A joke?” That made Lady Coyle squeal even louder. “You think this sort of gross impropriety is a joke?”
“It was only meant as a jest,” Christian said, backing Marie up and scrambling for a way to make the situation better.
He came up blank. Worse still, Lady Coyle’s outrage only seemed to grow as she stared at the awkward pair he and Marie made.
“That is it,” Lady Coyle hissed. “Lady Marie, come here at once. Although I have only just come from there, I am taking you back to your brother at once.” She held out her hand and snapped her fingers for Marie to get moving.
“Um, er….” Marie hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at Christian’s sand-covered body.
“At once,” Lady Coyle shouted. “We will avert our eyes so that Mr. Darrow may make himself presentable.”
“I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Christian muttered against Marie’s ear.
Marie snorted into laughter, but that only enraged Lady Coyle.
“Lady Marie, if you do not get away from that man and accompany me back to your brother’s house this instant, I will make certain that not a single respectable house in all of Ireland will accept you, not a single person will claim to know you, and your brother will be forced to send you to the very darkest asylum in Peru.”
“You see?” Christian murmured. “I told you it would be an asylum.”
“Ssh,” Marie hushed him, clearly having a hard time suppressing a giggle. “I’m coming, Lady Coyle. And I am ready to accept whatever punishment you and Fergus see fit to dole out.” She stepped away from Christian, starting toward her bicycle. A few yards away, she glanced over her shoulder, giving Christian’s sandy body a once-over. “It was worth it,” she said with the most wicked grin Christian had ever seen.
Lady Coyle fussed, Marie fetched her bicycle, and the two of them walked off as Christian dashed out into the sea again to wash the sand off his body. His mind reeled from the wild turn his morning had taken. He let the cold water do its work, shriveling his balls almost as effectively as Lady Coyle had. He wouldn’t be able to get Marie out of his blood any time soon, though. One kiss, and he was gone. Suddenly, he was bloody glad he’d come home after all his adventures.
Chapter 3
“Never, in all my days, have I ever so much as heard of anything as wicked and shameful as what you’ve done,” Fergus shouted at Marie the next morning. “And in broad daylight, by the side of the main road as well. It’s unconscionable. It’s reckless. It’s….”
Fergus dissolved into red-faced trembling, apparently unable to find a word bad enough to hurl at Marie.
Henrietta had to rest a hand on his shoulder to settle him. “Calm yourself, darling,” she spoke softly. “Linus is in England, and the nearest physician would take hours to get here. I won’t have you giving yourself apoplexy over a foolish girl.”
Marie sank into herself at the steadily-delivered scolding from Henrietta. All the shouting and gesticulating that Fergus could summon up wasn’t half as devastating as the quiet barb and disapproving look from Lady Henrietta. Marie grasped her hands
in front of her, peeking to the side, where her three sisters stood, watching her have her head ripped off for her indiscretions with Christian the day before.
“It’s not as though anything actually happened,” she defended herself with as much backbone as she dared, which wasn’t much.
Fergus, who was trying to breathe evenly, nearly leapt out of his wheelchair. “Not as though anything happened?” For a moment, Marie was afraid his good eye would pop right out of its socket. “You were seen canoodling with Lord Kilrea’s son on the beach, and the son in question was naked.”
Marie flinched as he shouted the last part of the accusation so loudly she feared he would damage his voice. She wanted to grin and smirk over her memory of Christian’s glorious form. The man had nothing to be ashamed of, and indeed, she wasn’t ashamed of a single thing. In spite of every rule of propriety that had ever been thrown in her face and her brother’s rage over the whole thing, she rather admired Christian for his fearlessness. And for his stunning form.
“Well-bred ladies do not converse with naked gentlemen on beaches,” Fergus shouted on. “I don’t know where you got it in your head to behave so wickedly. You shouldn’t even know about such things. The sight of a man’s body should make you faint in terror at the very least.”
Marie let out a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes. “Really, Fergus. This is not the Middle Ages. We’re almost in the twentieth century. Women are not ignorant ninnies anymore who need table legs covered for fear of—”
“You are my sister, and you have a level of respectability to maintain because of it,” Fergus silenced her.
“But, Fergus—” Marie snapped her mouth shut and lowered her head slightly when it looked as though her brother might regain every bit of his power of movement through sheer willpower for the express purpose of lunging at her to wring her neck.
“How could you possibly think in a thousand years that even one moment of what you did yesterday was anything close to appropriate?” Fergus went on. One of Marie’s sisters made a sound, and Fergus jerked to glare at them. “And don’t think the rest of you are safe from the same sort of censure.” He pointed at each of them in turn. “You’re all as bad as the next. I should have heeded the letters Lady Coyle has been sending me for years and come home to dispose of you all much sooner.”
Marie had the uncomfortable feeling that by “dispose” her brother meant in shallow, unmarked graves and not through matrimony.
“Mr. Darrow was bathing in the ocean.” Marie tried one last effort to diffuse the situation. “He was the one who stood up and walked toward me on the beach.”
“And you should have turned and fled,” Fergus roared, not even slightly appeased, “not fallen into conversation with the man while all his bits were hanging.”
It took a supreme effort of will for Marie not to snort at the remembered image of those hanging bits. Or the dark thatch of curls that surrounded them, or the firm plane of Christian’s stomach, his strong muscles, or his sun-kissed skin glittering with saltwater as he—
“So help me God, Marie, if that smirk is an indication of you remembering what you saw, I will lock you away in the tiniest broom closet this castle has and keep you there until you’re old and shriveled,” Fergus growled.
“I was not imagining anything,” Marie lied, her face heating.
“I don’t believe you for a moment,” Fergus said. “I knew you were a saucy strumpet, but I had no idea you would go this far to fling the laws of man and of nature out the window.”
“I did no such thing,” Marie argued with sudden force. She planted her fists on her hips and took a step toward her brother. “I was polite to Mr. Darrow, and yes, we had a bit of fun that some people would see as inappropriate. But it’s not as though I stripped my own clothes off and flung myself at him.” Though she had to admit that patting his bum while pretending he was a seklie might have crossed a line or two. It was such a nice bum, though—firm and warm and the perfect handful. She wouldn’t have minded exploring much more of Christian’s exquisite body. For scientific purposes, of course.
Fergus wasn’t amused by her argument. “You’re only lucky that his cousin, John, back in England is a close friend of mine. Otherwise, I would challenge the lecherous blackguard to pistols at dawn.”
“Fergus.” Marie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “No one duels anymore, and even if they did, you’re in no—” She stopped herself short at the flash of hurt in her brother’s eyes. The attack had happened years ago, but no one in the family had truly talked about it since then. A lump formed in Marie’s throat at the sudden knowledge of what her brother had lost and how much it still hurt him.
She cleared her throat and went on while Fergus was still stung. “I like Mr. Darrow. He’s jolly and free. I could see right away that he’s a man who knows how to have fun. That’s all we did. We had fun pretending to some old woman passing by that he was a selkie that had washed up on the shore.”
Fergus glared at her, still red with fury.
“Yes, it was childish,” Marie went on. “But what is life if we cannot embrace simple, childish joys now and then?”
“You are not a child,” Fergus growled.
“No, I’m not. But I’m still capable of joy. We all are, but those rules of society that you seem so intent to embrace would have us all turn into grey automatons the moment we leave the schoolroom. Why is it so very wrong for me to live a life that makes me smile and laugh? And who deemed it inappropriate for me to converse with a man who clearly has no qualms about nudity?”
“Lady Coyle informed us that the two of you were kissing,” Henrietta said, one eyebrow arched as if to call Marie out for her insolence.
Marie winced, her face so hot it felt sunburned. “Yes, well, it was an incidental kiss.”
“An incidental kiss?” Shannon asked off to the side.
Marie peeked at her, suddenly wary that the women she’d been counting on to be her staunchest allies might turn against her as well.
“We were caught up in the moment,” she said. “But don’t you worry. Mr. Darrow was lying prone on the sand at the time, and so was I. There was no embrace and hardly any touching.”
Except their lips. And Marie wasn’t sure she would ever be able to forget the glorious embrace of their lips and tongues. Christian had tasted of salt and excitement. Even with his arms around her only a bit, she’d felt enveloped by him. She wasn’t naïve enough to think her feelings were anything other than lust and an awakening of the flesh. But then again, she hadn’t felt anything close to the stirrings Christian had given her when she’d stolen a kiss from one of the pub owners they’d sold beer to, or that handsome farmer who had offered her a nosegay in exchange for a kiss, or the footman her father had summarily dismissed after catching the two of them snogging when she was fourteen.
She shook her head to clear away the thoughts. “It was just a kiss,” she said. “It was fun and enjoyable, just as life should be.” She nodded as if to emphasize her point.
“If it’s kissing and enjoyment you want, then you’re in luck,” Fergus said with a scowl that sent a chill down Marie’s back. “The reason we didn’t have this little talk yesterday afternoon is because I was making arrangements, based on Lady Coyle’s advice.”
“Arrangements?” Marie’s voice shook at the thought.
Fergus broke into a grin that made him look downright piratical with his eyepatch. “Congratulations, dear sister,” he said. “You’re engaged to be married.”
“I’m—how—what?” Marie gawped at him.
“I settled the deal yesterday,” Fergus said. “Before word of any of this could get out. You want to play the siren? Well, go ahead. I’m sure your new husband will be glad of it. And with any luck, you’ll be with child by the end of the summer, and you’ll have a wee babe to calm you down by this time next year.”
“Fergus, that’s—” Marie shook with rage, balling her hands into fists at her sides. “That is the cruelest, most und
erhanded, most vile, heartless, wicked—” Marie ran out of words strong enough to spit at her brother. Her eyes stung with anger at being bartered away like so much baggage. “I will never forgive you for—”
“Fetch your hat and meet me outside,” Fergus cut her off. “We’re paying a call to Kilrea Manor.”
Marie’s mouth hung open, but her words stopped in her throat. Kilrea Manor? Christian’s home? Fergus couldn’t possibly have engaged her to Christian himself that quickly, could he?
But it made sense. Christian was the one she’d committed the impropriety with. It only made sense that their families would want the two of them married off as quickly as possible after that sort of a scene. And if she were honest with herself, after seeing what she stood to gain as Christian’s wife—all of it—she had to admit there were worse things that could have happened.
“This isn’t fair,” she said all the same, rocking back and pretending she was still angry when, in fact, her heart was racing for another reason. “This absolutely isn’t fair.”
“Neither is life,” Fergus said, still looking like the Devil himself. “Go get your things.”
Marie tilted her chin up with a sniff and stomped out of the room, but the moment she was in the hall, she broke into a run, grinning from ear to ear.
“You, sir, are a complete disgrace,” Christian’s father snapped, his face contorted in a grimace that proved the intensity of his words. “Have you no respect for this family or our good name?”
Christian let out an impatient breath as he watched his father pace the length of his study in front of him. “I have a great deal of respect for this family,” he argued. “But I also know my place in it.” A place his father had made sure he knew from the time he was a boy. An inferior place.
His father wheeled around at the end of the room and glared at him with wide eyes. “Your place in it?” He turned an incredulous look to Christian’s older brother, Miles, who stood by the side of their father’s huge, mahogany desk with a smug look. “Do you hear this?”
