by Merry Farmer
“Don’t you dare tell me you have to marry the poor woman anyhow, just because your father wanted it,” Marie rode over him, taking a hard step toward him. The intensity of her glower was enough to shock Christian right out of the certainties that he knew to be true. “I can account for your confused thinking because you are grieving, but if you persist in marrying the woman, knowing she’s in love with Lord Garvagh and you are in love with me, then you’re a bigger fool than I thought it was possible for you to be.”
He wanted to argue with her. He wanted to spout volumes about duty and honor, his father, family legacies, and so on. Except that he didn’t. He didn’t want to argue at all. He didn’t want to marry Lady Aoife, he wanted to marry Marie. He wanted it so badly that it made every fiber of his being burn.
With paradoxical coolness that he didn’t truly feel, he asked, “What am I supposed to do about it? The betrothal has already been made.”
“We aren’t living in some medieval society, where oaths are bound in blood and where wars are started because of broken engagements, Christian,” Marie told him, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “You are the most dramatic man I’ve ever met. Nudity, pranks, wallowing in sorrow.”
“I love you, Marie, but I’m not going to stand here and listen to you mock me like this,” Christian replied.
A sudden, wide grin split Marie’s face. Her eyes danced like leaves in the summer breeze and her cheeks went as pink as the sunrise. “You love me,” she said. It was a repetition of his own words, but it was a way of calling him out as well. “I knew it,” she went on, tilting her chin up haughtily. “I knew that underneath all that hurt your heart was still beating.”
She was still mocking him, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. The shell of grief and horror that had closed in around him after the accident began to crack and break away, letting the sunshine of the love he felt for her peek through.
It would have been so easy to give in to that love. The man he’d been a week ago would have thrown himself headlong into it. But he’d changed in the last week. He’d grown up, and he had to take responsibility for himself and others.
“Are you absolutely certain that Lady Aoife is in love with Lord Garvagh?” he asked seriously, stepping toward her. Only a few inches separated them, but he restrained himself from reaching for her.
“I am as certain of it as I can be,” she said, equally serious. “I tried to get her to confess this morning, but she wouldn’t let go of what I suppose is loyalty to you. Or perhaps to her brother, whose wish it is that you marry. Though heaven only knows why the man is so determined to see his sister wed.”
Christian frowned. “That’s not enough to make a decision this important. It’s not enough evidence to break an engagement.”
Marie let out a sigh of frustration that was almost comical in its intensity. “Are you still so stubborn that you’re demanding proof of Lady Aoife’s love?”
“Yes,” Christian answered with a shrug. On the one hand, he couldn’t, in good conscience, go against what his father and Lord Boleran had set up. On the other, seeing Marie aggravated and ready to tear into him lit a fire inside of him that he’d sorely missed. He wanted to feel again, desire again, and she was well on her way to granting that wish.
“Fine,” Marie huffed, either not seeing how she was affecting him or enjoying the game as much as he was beginning to. “We’ll prove that Lady Aoife and Lord Garvagh are in love and that everyone would be much happier if they were allowed to marry.”
“How?” Christian planted his hands on his hips, secretly hoping the gesture would draw Marie’s attention to his quickly-growing arousal.
“We’ll play a prank on them,” she said. “So to speak. We’ll find a way to get the two of them alone together and….” Her words faded as her gaze dropped to his groin. Her already pink cheeks grew redder, and her eyes sparkled with hunger. A naughty smile spread across her lips, and she bit one, as if contemplating how she could take a bite out of him.
Christian cleared his throat, his pulse kicking up.
Marie drew in a breath and forced her eyes to meet his. “Sorry. What was I saying?”
“Something about getting two lovers alone,” Christian said, grinning. Lord help him, he was actually grinning. For what felt like the first time in years.
Marie met that grin, fire flickering in her eyes. “That’s right. We get Lady Aoife and Lord Garvagh alone. In…in the springhouse.” Her expression brightened with an entirely different kind of mischief. She paced to one side. “We come up with a way to trap them in the springhouse. That way, they’ll be forced to confess their love for each other.”
“Forced,” Christian repeated with a mock serious nod. He loved watching the gears turn in Marie’s brain, loved watching her get carried away on the wings of a mad-capped scheme. It made him want to run away with her. It made him want to be happy.
“Once they confess their love, it should be easy for you to break the engagement,” she went on before stopping her pacing and her explanation with a gasp. “I know! Oh, Christian, it’s pure brilliance.”
“Yes, it is,” he said, admiring the light that seemed to surround her. He paused, then said, “What is?”
She strode toward him, closing the distance between them. “This is more than a way to unite Lady Aoife and Lord Garvagh in true love. This is a way to resolve your property dispute as well.”
For a moment Christian frowned. “It is?”
“Yes.” Marie clasped his arms, sending spears of fire through him that settled in his groin. “Don’t you see? You can offer Lord Garvagh Lady Aoife’s hand in marriage in exchange for the property rights your families have been disputing for so long.”
Christian arched one eyebrow doubtfully. “Now who’s being the medieval one? Brides are not bartered for land anymore.”
“I know, but my guess is that Lord Garvagh will be so grateful to you for releasing Lady Aoife from her engagement that he’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Will you give me whatever I want?” he asked. The question surprised him, and for a moment, they both blinked in shock.
Then Marie let out a breath and shifted her arms to rest over his shoulders. “Oh, yes, Christian. I will give you whatever you want and then some.”
She surged into him, slanting her mouth over his. Every reasonable voice within him said he should push her off, cast her aside, and go about life the way a serious, stoic gentleman in the midst of an incalculable loss should. For a change, he didn’t listen to a single one of those voices. He wanted Marie wrapped around him. He wanted her under him. He wanted to be inside of her. He wanted her in his life forever.
He kissed her back, not caring about anything else but the sweet taste of her mouth and the way her tongue tangled with his when he thrust his into her. She accepted him with a moan of longing that sizzled through his blood and had him hard in seconds. Her fingers combed through his hair as he fumbled for the fastenings of her skirts and whatever other parts of her he could reach to undress her as quickly as possible.
“I love you, Marie,” he said between desperate kisses. “I love you more than I know.”
He wasn’t sure if his words made sense. What did make sense was the way her skin felt against his as they worked together to remove her clothes and move to his bed.
“You can make fun of me for enjoying nudity as much as you want,” he panted as he unclasped her corset while she fumbled awkwardly to unlace her boots—two actions he wouldn’t have thought were possible at the same time. “But you must admit, it’s a damned sight more convenient than all these clothes.”
“I’ll never wear clothes again,” Marie vowed as they tangled and flopped their way through undressing her.
It was madness—so much that he found himself laughing as one of her boots got stuck in his bedcovers before she could remove it and as her chemise ripped when he tried to pull it over her head. Undressing was chaos, but they managed to accomplish enough of it to s
lide their bodies together with absolute bliss.
“Oh, God, this feels so good,” she sighed as he stroked his hands along her sides and nibbled at her neck.
“So good,” he echoed, grinding his erection against her hip.
He wanted to touch her everywhere at once. He wanted every part of his body in contact with every part of hers. He cupped one of her breasts and brought his mouth down to suckle her nipple, eliciting sounds from her that had his balls drawn up tight with expectation. She tasted of salt and wonder, and the way she wriggled under him as he teased her to greater heights of pleasure was better than anything he’d ever experienced before. He switched to her other breast, rolling her abandoned nipple between his fingers and thumb as he suckled the other, then pinched lightly.
Her response was electric. She cried out wordlessly, arching into him. He didn’t know how he was going to hold out long enough not to embarrass himself with his lack of control. Her response to the way he kissed across the flat of her stomach and explored between her legs left him hot and throbbing.
“Christian,” she panted his name as he pushed her thighs apart and kissed the inside of first one, then the other. “That’s…that’s…ohh!”
He drew a deep cry out of her as he explored her with his lips and tongue. She was so eager for him that he had to grip her thighs tightly and hold them apart so that he could tease her clitoris with his tongue. Something told him that she liked the way he handled her forcefully as much as she enjoyed what his lips and tongue were doing. That something resolved into a deep gasp and a cry as her body convulsed in orgasm at his touch.
It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever experienced, and he wanted to experience all of it. He repositioned himself as fast as he could, thrusting into her with a satisfied cry, then holding himself within her for a moment. The sensation of her inner muscles squeezing and milking him was too much to resist. He moved decisively within her, feeling his control shatter with lightning speed. All he wanted to do was be one with her, now and always. All his heart longed for was to spill himself inside of her and to feel whole again.
He came with a thunderous jolt of pleasure, his whole focus narrowing into the pleasure that coursed through them both as he emptied himself inside of her. It was magical beyond telling, filling him with life and joy. The feelings were so wildly perfect that as soon as the bliss of orgasm began to subside, he lost every last ounce of energy he’d been holding onto and collapsed half on top of her.
“I love you so,” she panted, embracing him with her arms and legs and sighing in contentment. “You are mine, and don’t you ever forget it.”
“I won’t,” he promised hazily, already feeling the weight of sleep descend on him.
And there was another shade of guilt he hadn’t yet experienced. He was a cad for falling asleep minutes after coming inside of her. But for the first time in days, his heart and soul felt light. For the first time, he felt safe, as though everything would be all right after all. It wasn’t an insult to her that he drifted off quickly, it was the greatest compliment he could possibly give.
Chapter 11
Marie had won. She knew it as certainly as she knew she loved the sound of Christian’s deep, sated breathing as he slumbered after making love to her. She knew it like she knew that, come what may, the two of them would be together for the rest of their lives and all of eternity beyond. She could feel that the spell of grief that had trapped Christian in its web was breaking and that he would soon be thinking like himself again.
She also knew that there was still work to be done.
She woke Christian briefly, deep into the night, whispering to him that she had to return home before anyone suspected anything, but to have Lord Garvagh in place by the springhouse early the next afternoon. Christian was still so exhausted that all he did was hum and nod and let her kiss him soundly—then kiss him again when that kiss proved to not be enough—then tiptoed back to his window and climbed down to where her bicycle was waiting. She’d let Christian’s servants discover the ladder against the window the next morning and think what they would. Perhaps a new hint of scandal would be just the thing she needed to push Christian over the edge into chasing his own matrimonial desires instead of sticking to his father’s ridiculous idea of a match.
By sheer force of luck, Marie was able to return home and sneak up to her bedroom in the wee hours of the night without anyone spotting her. She tried to sleep once she was home free, but her mind wouldn’t let her. It turned over her plans to force Lady Aoife and Lord Garvagh together, and once she was certain her plot was fool-proof, it buzzed on with ideas for how she and Christian could be married as soon as possible, in spite of the strictures of mourning that Christian was obligated to observe for his father and brother. When she finally did fall asleep as the first rays of dawn were peeking over the horizon, it was with a smile on her face.
“Did you enjoy your lie-in?” Shannon asked late the next morning, a knowing grin pulling at her mouth, when Marie joined her sisters in their family parlor.
“I did,” Marie answered with a happy sigh.
“I’m sure she especially enjoyed the lying part,” Colleen added with a smirk, stabbing a needle into the embroidery she was working on.
Marie didn’t even try to pretend her sisters had the wrong way of things. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said after striding across the room to pluck a scone from the tea tray sitting on a table between Shannon and Chloe. “I have a very important call to make.”
“Let me venture a guess,” Shannon said. “Are you about to grace Lord Kilrea with your company?” She arched one eyebrow.
“I’d wager she already did that and more last night,” Colleen muttered.
Marie’s sisters exchanged looks that dissolved into mischievous giggles.
“For your information,” Marie said, biting into her scone, then chewing to heighten the expectation of the moment. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was or how good the scone would be, but she went on regardless with, “I am paying a call on Lady Aoife.”
“How curious,” Shannon said, looking as though she genuinely meant it. She darted a look to Colleen, then said, “Be sure to pay your respects to her brother on Colleen’s behalf while you’re there.”
“You will not!” Colleen snapped, face flushing.
“If you do, tell me everything about how Lord Boleran looked when you gave him Colleen’s regards,” Chloe said, stars in her eyes.
“You will do no such thing,” Colleen nearly shouted.
“I doubt I’ll have time to see Lord Boleran at all,” Marie said, finishing her scone as she strode across the room to the door. “Although I have it on good authority someone will need to pay a call on him later today to explain why his sister’s engagement has been called off.” She flickered her eyebrows cunningly.
Shannon sat straighter with an impish glint in her eyes. “Good heavens, you aren’t thinking of running off with Lady Aoife yourself, are you?”
Marie laughed at her sister’s teasing and headed out to the hall. If she had her way, Lord Garvagh would do the running off with Lady Aoife before the afternoon was over.
It took no time at all for her to fetch her bicycle from the stables and to ride the handful of miles to Boleran Hall. By the time she reached the grand and modern estate, it was lunchtime. The day was unusually sunny and bright, and as it had the added advantage of being balmy, Marie wasn’t surprised at all to find Lady Aoife taking her luncheon outside on a lovely patio that stood in the middle of a well-tended rose garden. The sky was a vibrant blue, the grass around the garden was vivid in its shades of green, and the roses burst forth in every color from red to coral to yellow, sending the most delicious scents into the air. The only colorless, drab thing in the picture was Lady Aoife herself.
“Lady Marie, this is a surprise,” Lady Aoife said, rising uneasily from her luncheon table and adjusting her black skirts so that not a wrinkle showed. “Have you…have you come to dine with me?
” The poor woman looked genuinely flabbergasted and disturbed by Marie’s presence. Though that might have had something to do with the letter that lay open on the table beside her plate. She snatched it up and folded it hastily, tucking it into the waistband of her skirt.
“I’ve not come to dine,” Marie said, feigning an air of urgency that was part of her plan. That act faltered for a moment as she glanced across the deliciously pink ham and herb-sprinkled vegetables on Lady Aoife’s plate. Her stomach growled, but there was no time to stop and eat. She took a step toward Lady Aoife, reaching for her hands. “Lady Aoife, my dear friend. I need you to come with me at once.”
“Come with you?” Lady Aoife blinked rapidly, her face coloring. “Is something the matter? Is it…is it Lady Kilrea?”
Marie had planned to use a different excuse—one involving a puppy in need of help—but if Lady Aoife wanted to write her own script for the prank, then Marie would go along with it.
“Yes,” she said. “You must come with me to Kilrea Manor at once.”
“Of course.” Lady Aoife stepped away from her lunch, following Marie quickly and willingly as they crossed through the rose garden to the side of the house where Marie had left her bicycle. “Has she expired?” Lady Aoife asked, her voice high and tight. “Or has she recovered?”
“There’s no time to lose,” Marie said, hurrying on.
“Should I prepare myself? How is Lord Kilrea faring?” Lady Aoife wrung her hands, looking genuinely distressed.
Marie frowned over the woman’s concern. It was ridiculous for her to think she was the only one who had a right to worry about Christian, but she allowed herself that bit of ridiculousness. Christian was hers, and soon the world would know it. “You’ll see,” she said.
“Should I have a carriage brought around? Should I inform my brother that things have taken a turn?”
