Anthony raised himself up on his elbows, and his hands caressed her hair, the side of her face. “Nerissa, you were marvellous, and I think – I know you are about to be marvellous again. Ready?”
“Ready?” She said wildly. “Ready for – oh!”
The rhythm, that marvellous rhythm with his fingers that she had stopped had started again, but this time with something ten times their width and strength. They were both so close that it took just a few beats of driving himself into her that Nerissa cried out.
“Anthony, Anthony, Anthony!”
Just as his name had caused their first kiss, it overwhelmed him into a frenzy, and he poured himself out into her as she rocked wildly, experiencing the same wonder and engulfing pleasure.
Anthony could barely draw breath, panting and glorifying in their incredible lovemaking, Nerissa burrowed into his arms and panting herself onto his chest.
Well, he did it. It was difficult not to congratulate himself, Anthony thought, but he did so completely silently. It was not easy, making an offer to be his mistress to a beautiful woman, and the only time that he managed it successfully before was to a woman with no other family members.
Miss Nerissa Fairchild had a father, had a home that she could have gone back to if she had wanted. But instead, she had chosen to claim his protection instead, and claim the pleasure that she knew he could give her.
He could almost laugh. He now had exactly what he wanted: the chance to have Nerissa with him, to have her around him whenever he wanted, to taste her flesh whenever the fancy took him.
Who else could claim such a thing with such a beauty?
She snuggled closer to him, and he felt her breasts pushed up against him. It was almost enough to make him stiffen again, but he knew better than to try it for a second time in one night. She had been innocent; she would need time to heal, time to recover.
Anthony glanced down at the masses of golden hair that were now covering his chest, and something more than desire stirred in him. Yes, he could glorify in her body, but it was more than that. He adored her mind, her ability to tell a story, the passion and loyalty that she has for those she loves.
Engaging, attractive, beautiful…he had never considered a woman to possess everything to keep him happy, and yet here she was.
Nerissa stirred slightly, and he tightened his arm around her. Now that he had her, the idea of losing her was a repellent one. But then if the knowledge of this, of their lovemaking, ever got out to the great and the good of Port Royal…
Well, it would certainly put an end to their understanding. It would almost kill her father.
Anthony sighed and felt a warm breeze blow over them, their naked bodies still cooling from the heat of their love. He could almost fall in love with Nerissa. Perhaps one day, eventually, he would. Perhaps he would choose to marry her, to make her the next Countess of Stratham.
“What are you thinking?” Nerissa asked softly, her eyes still closed and a smile dancing across her lips.
He swallowed, and knew he would have to lie. “My mind was dwelling on the series of catastrophes that have brought us together.”
Her lips curled into a broad smile. “Mmm?”
“Mmmm,” Anthony said, squeezing her to him for a moment. “And I hated them at the time, do not misunderstand me, but now…”
His eyes fell across her delightful bottom, uncovered and pressed against his hip. He felt the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest, remembered the way she looked at him as he brought her to the climax of all tortuous pleasure.
And then his mind moved further back in his memory and saw the dying glints of sunlight on her golden hair, the smile she wore whenever she spoke his name, her bravery in the ocean, her interest in him on the boat, her fierceness in the courthouse.
“Now I would never want to change them,” he said finally. “Because they all led me to you.”
She sighed happily and nestled up against him, and her breathing slowed as she drifted into sleep.
But Anthony could not sleep. As he gazed up at the stars now glittering in the midnight black sky, he realised that what he had just said, though intended as a pretty lie to distract from his real thoughts, was actually perfectly true.
7
Anthony’s backside hurt. His shoulder hurt too, now he came to think about it in the muggy haze that everyone experienced as they moved from sleep to wakefulness.
Eyes still shut and body unmoving, he sighed. Another day meant another challenge to make back his family’s fortune. Would it never end?
The discomfort in his back was growing now that he was more awake, and Anthony shifted slightly to improve it – and felt grass, rather than linen underneath him. It was then that the realisation that he was completely naked made its way into his consciousness.
A slight crack in his eyelids told him that he was out in the open air – near trees, by the looks of things. How on earth had he managed to get here?
Closing his eyes again and revelling in the warmth against his body, he cast his mind back to try and connect the dots. There was a boat. Not the boat that brought him here, to Port Royal, that had sunk miles from the coastline. No, it was a different one. A smaller one. There were fewer people on it, and only one of them that he was in any way interested in.
There had been a storm. It was all rushing back to him now, pouring into his memory as though a door had been opened. A storm, and a person who he cared about; a storm and danger, and a woman he needed to keep safe.
Nerissa. Nerissa Fairchild.
Anthony opened his eyes to find Nerissa still curled up against him, keeping him warm with her gentle breathing. One of her diamond earrings was missing.
He smiled. It was astonishing, really, the instant joy that a person could bring you, just by their mere presence. Nerissa had not spoken, not noticed that he was awake, had not even awoken herself. And yet just by being with him, he could feel the happiness flow into him.
Her intelligence and cleverness, her ingenuity to find the cherries, the look of blazing determination when she had started to remove her shoes on the Sea Scout – she was unlike any other woman in the world.
“I…I want you to continue doing that but…but with your mouth. With your lips, with your tongue, Anthony. It is…it is what I want.”
A broader smile spread across his face at the memory of it, of the abandon in their passion.
There must have been a change in his breathing – faster, no doubt – because Nerissa stirred in his arms and tilted her head back slightly to look up at him.
“Good morning,” she said sleepily.
Anthony grinned back at her. “Well, good of you to join me in this fine day.”
She chuckled, and he felt the gentle shudder of her body against his, and he grew taut. Not now, he told himself. Her body needed time to recover, even if his own wanted to delve into hers again already.
“How did you sleep?”
Her innocent question, softly spoken, made Anthony think. This was, he realised, the first time that he had slept through an entire night without waking up in a panic since the news of the family bankruptcy had reached him. Four long months of never getting enough sleep, never at rest, never at peace.
Over. Nerissa had cured him.
“I slept marvellously,” he said with frank honesty. “Far better than I have in a long time. And you?”
Nerissa closed her eyes and tightened her grip around him as a peaceful smile graced her lips. “I had pleasant dreams. Dreams about our life together.”
And pleasant they must have been, thought Anthony, to give her such a glow. The idea of Nerissa having naughty dreams about their time together, about the lovemaking that they would make, his mistress losing herself in fantasies for the future, was enough to stiffen his body, and not his resolve.
“Really?” He said in a voice that was almost a growl. “Tell me more. I would love to know the details of what you long for.”
Nerissa smiled, and sh
e brought her gaze to meet his own before she spoke. “You will have to wait and see.”
Before he could protest that he needed to know, and his body was already protesting before his mouth could catch up, Nerissa had left him. Rising up to her feet and stretching, Anthony revelled in her body, the sight of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the softness that he had plunged himself into just a few hours before.
After dropping her hands to her side, Nerissa looked at him and saw his barely hidden hunger.
“There will be plenty of time for you to look,” she said laughing, her hair moving slightly across her chest. “Years to look. Years and years. The rest of our lives.”
Anthony propped himself up on his elbows to look at her, but was frankly amazed: not just at her body, which was enough to get any man excited, but at how easily she had slipped into the idea of being his mistress.
She was not nobility, that was clear enough from her parentage. Her father was in trade, for God’s sake. But still, she had been raised as a gentlewoman, with all the trappings and rules that society gave such a young lady.
Surely she had never grown up hoping to become someone’s mistress? But here she was, happily accepting of her fate, and it gave him more joy than he had expected.
“We should start our journey back to Port Royal,” he said hastily, realising that he had been staring at her in an almost puppy dog way for the last minute. “There is no knowing how long the walk could be, and the sooner that we make a start, the sooner that we can arrive. After all, I…I would not want your father to worry.”
Leaping to his feet, he started to pick up his clothes and dress, following Nerissa’s lead.
She beamed at him, her gown just about back onto her body. “I cannot wait to tell my father about us.”
Anthony choked. “Wh-what?”
“About us,” Nerissa repeated with a smile. “As soon as we return to Port Royal, that is the first thing that I will tell him.”
He stared at her, absolutely agog with astonishment. “Y-You intend to…you intend to tell your father. About us?”
She was mad! A woman would never typically want anyone to know that she was a mistress to a man, no one – and the idea of revealing such a fact to her father, if he was still living, was absolutely repellent!
And yet there Nerissa Fairchild stood, her gown in tatters at the bottom, her hair completely undone and falling down her shoulders like a wanton, and the smears of cherries across her face, neck, hands, and breasts – anywhere, that is, where he, Count Anthony of Stratham, had kissed her.
Had she no shame?
But she was laughing, and there was still an innocence in that laugh that he could not decipher. “Well I will hardly be able to keep it a secret, will I?”
Anthony stared at her as she walked over to the stream to refresh herself. No, he supposed not. Port Royal was a small town, and if the news of his court case against Mr Fairchild was anything to go by, everyone in it would know about Nerissa’s…relationship with him within a day.
He swallowed. She had seemed eager to come under his protection last night and he had not questioned it, but this!
“I am ready to start walking, if you are?”
Anthony jumped. Nerissa had returned from the stream without his noticing, and she was looking at him with startlingly opened eyes. There was no malice there, no cunning. He had never seen someone so naïve in appearance who had unleashed such passion when it came to lovemaking.
“I-I am,” he managed.
Twenty minutes after they had started their path back to the town, Nerissa started to chatter about the future.
“And of course, I shall need to update my gowns if I am to return to London,” she said, brushing her fingers down her gown with a smile. “Certainly this one! Will we have time, do you think, to attend many balls?”
Anthony raised an eyebrow as they walked around some knotty tree roots which would hurt their feet. Had any mistresses of the nobility of England and Ireland ever attended Almack’s, in his memory? He could not recall any.
“We could certainly go to one ball,” he said cautiously. “If you would like to.”
But Nerissa did not seem to heed the hesitancy in his tone. “I suppose we may not have time, if we are to travel around the world, seeing new countries, new societies. I would also like to spend some time getting to know Olivia, your sister, you know, and if it came down to a choice I would much rather give up time in London.”
This he could not permit to pass without comment. In a voice that was sterner than he had intended, Anthony said, “No. No, for now I would prefer it if you did not meet Olivia.”
The very thought of it! Anthony grew hot with a heat that had nothing to do with the Jamaican sun at the very thought of his mistress and his sister becoming acquainted. To have them on speaking terms – the idea that Olivia would even know about that side of his life!
To his relief, Nerissa was nodding, but her words did not quite resonate with Anthony’s feelings.
“You are right,” she said graciously. “Olivia is still probably upset about the Duke of Ainsworth. It would be unfeeling, I think, almost callous, to show her how happy we are.”
And with that, she strode ahead with a smile.
Nerissa smiled up at the sunshine. She had never noticed how beautiful the countryside around Port Royal was, until today. The walk from their clearing – and she considered it their clearing, and always would now – could have taken years, and it would have felt like mere footsteps.
She was going to marry Anthony. She was going to marry him, and love him, and become the Countess of Stratham, which was a rather bizarre thought.
It was so all-consuming as an idea that she almost tripped onto the road before she noticed that they had found it.
“Careful!” Anthony reached forward and caught her before she fell.
Nerissa smiled. To think that she would always have this fine man to catch her whenever she fell; it was too much. She did not deserve to be so happy.
“Look,” he said, pointing.
She followed his finger and saw a battered sign that had been nailed onto a tree trunk on the other side of the road.
Port Royal, 2 miles
A strange fluttering of nerves started in her stomach, and Nerissa placed a hand on it to calm herself down. She wanted to tell her father everything, of course – but it was to be a difficult conversation. How did you break it to your father that you were to marry the man that, just a few days before, had taken him to court and attempted to take all of their money from them?
Anthony seemed to notice her reticence. “Are you quite well, Nerissa?”
A smile curled across her face, but it was a wry one as they started down the road. “It is just…I am unsure exactly how I will go about broaching the subject of…of us. With my father.”
“You do not have to tell him if you do not want to,” he replied, quicker than she would have expected.
The trees were starting to thin now, and after a few minutes of silence Anthony added, “It would only pain him.”
Something twisted in her heart, and Nerissa sighed. He was right; it would only pain her father, and yet she did not want to lie to him. He could hardly be invited to their wedding and not know!
“I would much rather tell him,” she said finally, slipping her hand into Anthony’s. “Otherwise he could hear it from someone else.”
She could feel the shudder in Anthony’s body at the thought of her words. “You make an excellent point. If anyone is going to tell him, it had best be you.”
For a moment, Nerissa stared up at him, confused. It seemed unlikely that they would be able to hide their marriage from her father for any sort of time at all, but then she remembered something that her mother had once told her.
“Men do not like getting married,” she had said with a knowing smile, “but they love being married. ‘Tis the idea of matrimony that they detest, but the comforts of marriage that they seek.”
Even if a man truly loved his wife, the moment up to the wedding day itself was often fraught with difficulties, Nerissa thought and remembered her letters from Adena Garland as she was forced to endure matchmaking from her parents.
That must be it. Anthony obviously wanted to be with her; he was holding her hand right now as tightly as he could. He was just nervous.
Nerissa had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she had not noticed that they had arrived at the end of Port Royal’s main street.
Anthony dropped her hand. “Are you ready to return to civilisation?”
She sighed. Every step into civilisation would mean a step away from that magical evening last night, when she had given herself away to him but gained so much more.
“I suppose so,” she sighed.
They continued to walk side by side, and Nerissa could not help but notice the strange stares that they received from others as they walked.
The first few times, she stared back, but after the sixth person to whisper to their companion as they passed them, she found her cheeks colouring with embarrassment.
Anthony chuckled. “We must look awful, Nerissa, after our ocean catastrophe and then unplanned stay in the forest overnight!”
They arrived at the place where Anthony had quartered himself before she knew it, and Nerissa felt a pang at the thought that they were going to be separated already.
He already had his hand on the door when he paused, and turned to her. “You know,” he said in a quiet murmur, “‘tis the middle of the day. My quarters will be empty, and rather lonely without you. Why do you not join me for an hour? I am sure we can find…something to do.”
Nerissa felt her heartbeat quicken. He was close, very close, whispering in her ear, and all the wonderful sensations of the night before were rushing back to her. It was so tempting, the idea of going upstairs with him and losing herself in their love.
“I…I cannot,” she breathed. “I must tell my father…he must know that I am safe.”
Ravishing Regencies- The Complete Series Page 58
