A Matchmaker for a Marquess

by Christi Caldwell

  “Agatha, I’ve need of you.”

  They glanced off to the young lady now stalking toward them. At some point, Barry’s pall-mall partner had quit the courts.

  Agatha sighed. “She is not one for the sun. If you’ll excuse me?” Giving Meredith a regretful look, the other woman hurried to join her sister.

  Meredith watched an exchange that was all too familiar.

  No matter what the Duchess of Gayle expected of either the ladies she’d hand-picked for Barry or Meredith’s task, Meredith would never see Barry wed such a woman.

  From the field, more laughter met her ears.

  Barry had been joined by another partner.

  Nay, even if Barry didn’t make a match with Lady Ivy, there was a whole number of options here, as specially invited guests of the duchess, no less.

  This time, unlike before, Meredith couldn’t make herself suffer through any more of the flirting between the duchess’s young, glowing guests and the future Duke of Gayle.

  Turning on her heel, she left.

  Chapter 13

  She was late.

  It was the first instance in a week that Meredith had failed to arrive at the agreed-upon morning meeting.

  Barry consulted his timepiece for the tenth time. Twenty-six minutes after six o’clock. He tucked the watch back inside his jacket and resumed his search of the terrace above for some hint of her.

  Nay, not only was she late this morn, she’d also failed to appear for their evening appointment.

  Meredith Durant remained elusive. Just as she had since their game of pall-mall. That agonizingly seductive match in which she’d been so endearingly competitive, thrilling in the game, smiling in a way that met her eyes and erased the wary, somber creature who’d first arrived.

  Once again, he reached inside his jacket for his timepiece…

  He felt her before he heard her.

  Barry looked up.

  His heart knocked around in his chest at the sight of her. The chignon had returned to its painful-looking, tightened state. Her features were set in an equally severe expression.

  And he could not have hungered for her any more than he did in that moment.

  The women he’d kept company with were content to live lives of leisure. They didn’t rise early. They didn’t sweat or laugh exuberantly over games of pall-mall. The world was there for their pleasures, but they were measured in how they claimed them. And they’d certainly never take on work, even if their own survival depended upon it… as Meredith’s had.

  “Hullo,” he called up.

  Meredith bowed her head. “My lord,” she returned. Clasping the rail, she started her descent.

  Ah, she saw this as a working meeting, then. It was a detail he’d come to note about her in their time together. She’d been able to carefully delineate the moments when they found pleasure from the moments when she so diligently saw to the task his mother had foisted upon her.

  As soon as Meredith reached his side, Barry proffered his elbow.

  “I cannot take your arm.”

  He wagged it. “Of course you can.”

  She ignored that offering. That had always been Meredith. As stubborn as the English sun.

  With a sigh, he let his arm fall. “Very well. On we go.” Barry started forward.

  Meredith easily matched his strides. “What activity do you have planned for the morn?”

  He’d have to be as deaf as Lady Jersey to fail to hear that slight timbre of anticipation in her voice. This was how he preferred her. This was how she should be. Lively. Eager for life. Barry glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Excited, love?”

  “I might be… curious.”

  He snorted. “Indeed.”

  She wrinkled her nose, and he bit back a grin.

  “Do you intend to tell me or not?”

  “Or not…” He stretched the pause on.

  Meredith punched him in the arm, and he winced. “God, you are ruthless,” he muttered, rubbing the aggrieved flesh.

  She directed her gaze forward.

  “Very well,” he said. “Riding. We’re going riding.” Because a woman who’d loved to ride, and who’d been as glorious at it as Meredith Durant, deserved to do so again.

  Barry had walked five paces, reaching the quiet stable yard where the head stable master waited with the reins of two mounts: his and Meredith’s beloved mare, Gabby. He glanced at Meredith to assess her reaction to again seeing her horse.

  All the color had leached from her cheeks, leaving her skin ashen.

  He frowned. “I’m sorry, I thought to surprise…”

  Only, Meredith’s slightly unfocused eyes were directed just beyond Gabby to the stable master holding the reins.

  “Patrin,” Barry said quietly, “that is all.”

  When the expert stable master made no move to follow his directives, Barry looked over.

  The servant’s features were stamped in surprise. And something more… pain.

  Barry’s gaze went from Patrin to Meredith and back to the servant.

  Gathering her skirts, Meredith bolted.

  And Barry knew. Born of an intuitiveness that came from knowing Meredith as he did.

  Patrin was the one.

  The knowledge hit him like a kick to the chest.

  Barry remained frozen for a moment and then hurried to hand the reins off to Patrin before taking off after Meredith. “Meredith,” he called, his heart thundering.

  He’d forgotten how damned quick she was.

  Like summer lightning, she streaked across the graveled paths and had already put sizable distance between them and continued running.

  Barry stretched his legs, lengthening his strides. All the while, his gaze remained fixed on her figure.

  Meredith stumbled through the arbor leading to the rose garden.

  Skidding to a halt a moment later, Barry did a sweep of the insulated grounds… and found her.

  She stood alongside the watering fountain. “I didn’t think I’d see him again,” she said quietly, confirming everything Barry suspected.

  But he didn’t know what to make of Meredith’s admission.

  Had she wanted to see Patrin Scott again? Did she love him even now?

  That latter question had the same effect as a dull blade being dragged around his chest.

  It is not about you. It is only about her.

  She hugged her arms to her chest. “I knew he was going to return.” Meredith angled her head back slightly, meeting Barry’s gaze. He searched, trying to read anything in those brown depths. “He’d written as much,” she explained.

  Barry balled his hands into tight fists at his sides. The other man had broken it off with her in a damned note.

  “I just didn’t imagine he’d be here still,” she murmured.

  “Do you love him?” The question slipped out. He needed the answer.

  Meredith didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I loved the time we had,” she said, her gaze distant and contemplative. “I loved the thrill of being in love.” She flashed a wry smile. “I didn’t love anything that came after it.” Her smile fell. “And I learned early on that I loved the idea of being in love. But seeing him? It reminded me of the greatest mistake I’ve made, Barry. What a fool I was.”

  Barry eyed her for a moment.

  Then, fishing his gardening shears from his pocket, he snipped a nearby bloom. “Do you know all the varieties of roses, Meredith?”

  *

  At the abrupt shift away from talk of Patrin, Meredith shook her head. “Do I…?”

  “There are the China roses. They have more than one hundred petals. A bit of a look of a cabbage to them.” He held the flower up. “Is there not?”

  Meredith nodded slowly. “I…”

  “Then, there are the mosses.” He wandered several paces and carefully snipped another bud. Barry evaluated the petals for a moment. “Now, this is a peculiar one. They, in fact, get their name because, well, they are very mosslike in appearan
ce. The stem, calyx, and sepals…” He ran his fingers over each of part of the flower, highlighting those structures for her. “They all have a sticky, glandular structure. Gives them the look”—he guided the flower under her nose—“and smell, of moss.”

  Meredith inhaled, and the slight puff of air that she exhaled stirred the purple petals.

  “Do you smell it?” he murmured.

  She nodded. “A woodsy scent.”

  “So very different, and yet, as intoxicating as the sweet smell of the prior rose, isn’t it?”

  This moment with Barry held her fully ensnared. In ways Patrin never had. She knew that now.

  Barry, however, proved almost clinical in his methodical lesson. He gathered another bud. “There’s also the Portland rose, named after the Duchess of Portland. They’re bright red and bloom every six weeks through the summer and autumn.” He slid the rose into her fingers so he could collect another. “The bourbon is a newer one. Not very long ago, it was formed by crossing an autumn damask and the Old Blush China rose and has traits of both that make it unique.” Barry continued on with his lesson, plucking a white flower from the back of a porcelain vase and turning it over in his hands. “Now, this… this has long been for me the most fascinating of all the flowers.”

  Meredith studied his bent head. “Why that one?” she asked, wanting to know everything there was about Barry Aberdeen, willing to admit that fascination came not from her work as a matchmaker, but from who Barry was as a man.

  “Many botanists believe the rugosa is the oldest of the roses. Unlike the other flowers before you, the rugosa is quite hardy. It doesn’t require much attention. And even with that, it blooms frequently. It’s also very rare.” He held the flower out, and she took it with her free hand. “In fact, there are few of its kind in England. And some have prickles.”

  Meredith adjusted the stems still damp from the dew, organizing them so they were easier to hold. “Prickles?” She lowered her nose to breathe in that eclectic blend of scents when Barry spoke, freezing her.

  “The world tends to think of them as thorns.” With greater care, Barry eased another flower from its bush. She reached for it, but he made no attempt to hand this one over.

  “The truth is there’s more than thirty genera of roses that do not have prickles. And it would be deuced unfair to believe they’re all the same and that they all might hurt you.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest as his meaning became clear. And she fell in love with him all over again.

  “Barry,” she whispered, and stepping close, she leaned up and kissed him.

  His body tensed. “What was that for?” he whispered.

  “Because there is no one like you,” she said simply. Because he made her smile and her heart melt and her belly flutter and she loved him.

  Barry’s gaze worked over her face, and then he took her in his arms.

  There was nothing tender or gentle about their coming together.

  He guided her down, and she went with him, the cloud-studded summer-blue sky overhead a canvas behind him.

  Looping her arms about his neck, she clung tight and kissed him.

  Barry licked at her lips. Tracing the seam. Teasing and tormenting until she moaned incoherently from the desire that pulsed sharply between her legs. At the feel of him in her arms. At the honey taste of him. So sweet and intoxicating that she whimpered. Barry swept inside, fiercely taking her mouth. Laying claim to it, and she wanted him to take it. To own it.

  And he did.

  His tongue lashed boldly, possessively against hers, just as he brought the neckline of her dress down and exposed her skin to the soft summer air.

  He closed his lips around one swollen peak. Meredith stiffened. And then she hissed through her teeth. He suckled that oversensitized tip until she was bucking against him. Needing more. Needing to be closer to him and the gift he held out.

  “Do you like that, Meredith?” he whispered, his breath as ragged as her own.

  “Barry,” she pleaded.

  “Yes, love. Tell me.” He teased his thumb around her areola. “Show me.”

  And she did. Twining her fingers in his long, silken strands, she guided him down to the previously neglected tip.

  Her eyes slid closed as he worshipped that bud.

  And then he palmed her through her garments. Meredith’s eyes went flying open.

  Her breath came in hard, fast pants as he teased her center.

  She bit her lip, those ministrations maddening for what they offered and worse for what they prevented. “I need to feel you.” She struggled to get air into her lungs. “I need to feel us together, Barry.”

  Passion had turned his blue irises a shade that was nearly black. He got to work divesting her of her garments. First, he rolled her stockings down, kissing each swath of exposed skin that he left bare to his worshipful gaze and the hot summer sun.

  Closing her eyes, Meredith draped a forearm over them to shield them from the bright early morn’s rays.

  “You are beauty personified, Meredith Durant. Your skin the silk of a rose in bloom.” His words, whispered in a silken baritone, cascaded over her. There was a poetry to his touch and in his words, and it compelled her to open her eyes.

  Leaning over her as he now was, he blocked the light of the sun, and instead, it hung like a halo about him.

  With a hand that shook, she brushed at the sweaty lock that had tumbled over his brow. How she loved him.

  She suspected she always had.

  Not taking her eyes from his, Meredith reached her hands up between them and loosened the buttons of his jacket. Once the soft wool article fell agape, she shoved it from his shoulders.

  His throat muscles moved.

  “Am I scandalizing you, Barry?” she whispered. Untying his cravat and pulling the white scrap free, she tossed it to the ground beside them, forgotten.

  “Entrancing me,” he croaked as she tugged his lawn shirttails free of his trousers. “Be-bewitching me.” She drew the garment overhead and added it to the pile beside them. “Captivating me. But—” Air hissed between his teeth on what might have been a prayer or a curse as she slid her palms over the hard wall of the muscles of his chest.

  Meredith pressed her lips against one of his flat nipples. “You were saying?” she breathed against his chest, and the faint whorl of curls upon it stirred.

  “I-I’ve no idea,” he groaned, and then his eyes flew open. “But you’re not scandalizing me,” he rasped out. “I recall now.”

  Meredith expected some part of her should be appalled at her own boldness, and yet, it had been the man whose arms she lay in now who’d opened her eyes to the walls she’d erected and the need to be free of those constraints. She’d not forgive herself if she left Berkshire without having known Barry in her arms.

  And mayhap it was wanton and wrong, but it felt only right.

  With jerky movements, Barry wrestled out of his trousers and kicked them aside until he was naked before her.

  She drew back so she might see him as she’d longed to, taking in the solid muscle-hewn frame, from his taut shoulders and defined biceps, to the flat muscles of his belly. He was… perfection. “You are so beautiful,” she said softly.

  Desire sparked in his eyes, and they moved in harmony, Meredith lifting her arms up for him just as he came down over her.

  Barry lowered his head to her right breast and flicked his tongue over the tip.

  Moaning, she stroked a palm over his cheek and let herself feel.

  Then he threaded his fingers through her growing wetness and teased her with slow, agonizing strokes. She lifted her hips up, urging him with her body. It had never been like this.

  There’d been a thrill of excitement, but not this all-consuming hunger.

  Meredith’s body shook. Biting her lip hard, she lifted her hips up, arching into his touch.

  He slipped another finger inside, and she cried out.

  Barry swallowed that sound of desire with his mou
th, taking her lips in a frantic joining. Lashing his tongue against hers. And then he eased some of the franticness of that kiss. He stroked more slowly, in a deliberate rhythm, and matched that with the skilled fingers that explored her center, destroying the little that had remained of clear thought. He reduced her to a puddle of heightened nerves and feeling.

  His eyes slid closed. “Meredith, I want to go slow. I—”

  She let her legs splay, and he immediately slid into position, bringing himself to rest against her. “I want you, Barry.”

  It was all he needed. He plunged himself deep, burying his length inside her damp channel.

  She cried out in beautiful bliss, the sound splintering across the early morn sky, sending birds into noisy flight.

  Barry began to move, thrusting inside her, and she rocked her hips, matching his pace.

  Sweat beaded his brow, and all the muscles of his face remained taut and pained. And that evidence of his desire sent further heat low into her belly.

  Their pace grew increasingly frenzied. Only, she wanted this moment to go on forever, and yet, the sharp ache building at her core begged for surcease.

  “Barry,” she moaned imploringly.

  He thrust frantically, and she felt herself climbing. In ways her body never had before. In ways she’d not believed possible, and then her entire body jerked. Crying out once more, she went tumbling over the edge of passion, exploding in a flash of color like the Vauxhall fireworks. That went on forever. That she wanted to go on forever. And then her body went limp.

  A guttural groan resonated in Barry’s chest, and he withdrew, spilling himself in warm rivulets upon her belly before he collapsed atop her.

  They lay there. Their breaths came together in fast, shaky spurts as they clung to each other.

  A dreamy smile hovered on her lips as she wrapped her arms about his waist. “I never knew it could be like that.”

  He drew back, and she went cold at the slight separation. “I never did either, Meredith,” he said with a somberness that brought her eyes open.

  She didn’t want the spell to break. She wanted the illusion. She wanted the illusion of a future with him and this garden they’d transformed into Eden to remain a place where make-believe won out.