Reyn was right. She had to stop thinking. It did her no good. True, she was facing a moral dilemma, but her vacillation was doing nothing but confusing him. He probably thought she was one of those ninnies one found in romance books, a woman who thought the villain was the hero and the hero the villain.
She’d always been a straightforward sort of woman. Straitlaced too, but it was time to cut all the laces. She fumbled with the hem of her night rail, then drew it over her head. “I’m ready. If you’ll have me.”
Chapter 11
Reyn steadied himself on the chimneypiece. However he’d expected the evening to go, this wasn’t it. His throat dried. Maris Kelby sat up in his bed, a long loose braid covering her left breast. And what a breast it would be if it matched the right. Her clothes and his previous explorations had only hinted at what lay beneath. She was made lushly, slender yet sturdy, her shoulders broad. He could see her scrabbling up Italian mountainsides and digging, smiling under the scorching sun with each new discovery.
She was a goddess, or as close to one as pictured in all those rubbishy mythology books. A bit stern, just as she should be. Unyielding. Her innate confidence had been restored in the firelight. She wasn’t tripping over her words at this invitation—it was if she finally knew her own worth.
Reyn didn’t ask her if she was sure again, and he certainly didn’t want to ask her to leave. He couldn’t send her packing after she’d revealed herself to him in all her exquisite vulnerability.
It was pointless to be overly polite. Solicitous. All he wanted to do was pounce on her soft white body. To inhale the heady fragrance of roses and her sex. Sheath himself where he was meant to be.
For the time being. It wouldn’t do to get too attached to the Countess of Kelby. She was not for him, yet tonight she was his.
She looked at him with her wide brown eyes, really looked at him. Even in the dim light, she must see he was hard as the marble he leaned on.
It was better not to speak, to simply act, and it would not be difficult to demonstrate desire.
He was across the room in seconds. She shivered as he drew her underneath the blankets, warming her with his rough hands. The urge to touch her everywhere he could reach was strong. He lifted a breast to his mouth, savoring the sweetly ruffled nipple against his tongue. She gasped and dug her nails into his bad shoulder. It didn’t matter.
Reyn felt he was making the valuable discovery, uncovering Maris Kelby’s sensuality one nibble at a time. Her breast was heavy in his hand, smooth and soft as a pillow. He could lay his head upon it and contemplate the mysteries of life if he could bear to stop kissing her, which he couldn’t. She tasted of rose petals, not that he’d ever eaten one. He knew some flowers were edible—candied violets. Nasturtiums. Why was he thinking of eating flowers when he had this lovely woman to devour?
He could lick her secret hollow again and taste her honey. Would do so, but not when his cock ruled supreme. As he suckled, his hand snaked down her belly. Her breath hitched and she parted her thighs without his request. His fingers slid between her folds.
She wasn’t quite ready, despite her reassuring responsiveness. His thumb sought the little bud beneath her silky nether hair. Reyn wished she’d touch him as he touched her, but her hands gripped his shoulders as if she was afraid he’d get up and go away. No chance of that. He took a deep tug on her nipple as he circled pink flesh into her pubic bone, causing her to cry out in the quietest way.
His forefinger slipped into her tight channel and she clenched around it. By all that was holy, she would squeeze the life out of him and he’d die a happy man. He stroked until she writhed and twisted, heedless of her dignity.
Good. She wasn’t a countess now, just a woman. He gave one last pull to her breast, then nipped his way up her throat to her parted lips. Reyn was desperate to get inside her, but he wanted to be kissing her when he took the plunge, united from top to toe. For their first time, he wanted nothing fancy, as Maris would say, just the elemental. The simple. The beautifully basic.
She seemed to agree as she bucked up to him, her hands scrabbling on his back. His finger was coated with her slick wetness, so he added a second to ready her, all the while swirling her stiff swollen button. He knew to the second when she came apart for him, and he took advantage by replacing his fingers with his cock.
To his shame, he used no finesse, just seated himself in one brutish thrust. He paused, waiting for her objection. Instead, he felt her heels dig into the small of his back and press him closer. She wasn’t quiet, moaning into his mouth as he deepened his kiss, deepened their connection. Slow. Steady. Gliding in and out as though the morning would never come.
Until she begged, although not with any words, They still had not spoken one. She begged with her body. Those wretched fingernails of hers scored his back, but he’d bear her marks as another badge of battle. He’d won her, for now.
They climbed and crested together until Reyn couldn’t hold back another minute. He didn’t need to. She’d had her pleasure—still thrummed with it—and wanted his seed. It was blissful freedom to empty himself into her, to lose their delicate rhythm in his all-encompassing fierceness. He swallowed his victory and muffled her cries in their kiss, driving home.
Marking her.
She was his. At this moment. In this bed.
And it might not be enough.
Maris would not cry. She had got what she wanted. More, really, than she bargained for.
Much more.
Her skin was on fire, her heat beat wildly. Reynold Durant lay on top of her, his long nose buried between her throat and shoulder. She had no desire to throw him off despite the musky perspiration that clung to their bodies. His manhood was growing regrettably soft inside her, but she did not want him to move an inch.
So this was what all the fuss was about.
Maris was well-read, even if she’d lacked proper experience. She had never expected to find any satisfaction in this arrangement despite what the captain had promised.
She had been wrong.
Somehow her wanton response made the whole thing more difficult. How could she face Henry tomorrow—today—over the breakfast table? He would know what she’d done.
And how much she’d loved it. Every sticky, messy minute.
Maris had felt like she was flying, truly unfettered, for the first time in her life. The sensation was still not quite over. Her inner walls drummed a tattoo that echoed inside her whole body.
She had sought this before with David. She’d been nearing thirty and feeling a bit sorry for herself. Empty. Unwomanly. He had picked up on all her cues, even though she hadn’t meant to send them. He’d flattered, cajoled, teased. The affair had lasted only a few guilt-inducing weeks before Maris realized she was making the biggest possible mistake. She’d been so lucky that she’d not been caught like poor Jane.
Pregnant. Abandoned. David had refused to marry his cousin, not that Henry would have welcomed the connection.
David had never made her feel like this. In less than twenty-four hours, Reynold Durant had stepped into her orderly world and set it on end. The afternoon had been a revelation. The night was indescribable.
Maris wanted to begin the procedure all over again, and they’d not exchanged an intelligible word between them.
She waited to feel the guilt wash over her. It didn’t. How could she regret something that had made her feel so very wonderful? Alive?
She was wicked. And didn’t really mind.
She didn’t want to hurt Henry, though. He’d picked well for her. Too well. Reynold Durant was an amazing lover. Maris was sure that even if she didn’t have much to judge him against, he would top anyone’s list. No wonder Patsy Rumford had been so petulant.
With a final kiss on her collarbone, he raised his head. “May I speak now?”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” His careless words might bring her down to earth and ruin everything.
He nodded, unsmiling, and inched away, retrievi
ng the counterpane from the floor. They had been very energetic and the bed was disarranged accordingly. Maris was not cold, but lay motionless while he tucked the covers around her, though she was well past modesty. He flipped to his back and stared at the shadowy ceiling, still naked. His member had shrunk in its nest of ebony hair, although shrunk was a relative term. Maris believed him to be very well endowed even in repose. The fire lit the broad planes of his chest and the bronze of his skin. She remembered he had a ball in his shoulder, and was ashamed she had squeezed it so hard that she could see the half-moons her fingernails had left.
Maris turned her head away at his beauty. She’d have other chances to see him in daylight, to examine the silver and angry red scars that quilted his body. To think she had once hoped to keep her eyes closed. To pretend it wasn’t happening.
She was beset with an unfamiliar languor. It wouldn’t do to fall asleep. She should get up and dress. Go back to her empty bed. But when she tried to sit up, Reyn’s arm shot out to stop her.
“Don’t go yet.”
She shook him away and climbed out of the bed. To her horror, his fluid gushed down her thigh. Did he notice? Would it matter? Maybe she should have lain in place, waiting for a miracle to occur.
“I-I must. Thank you, Cap—Reyn.”
He shut his eyes. “Think nothing of it.”
Most unlikely. What they had done was all she could think about.
In a few hours, they might do it again.
Maris buttoned up her nightgown and put on her robe. At some point, she’d kicked off her slippers and had trouble finding them on the dark rug. The Countess of Kelby couldn’t wander about Kelby Hall barefoot, but she was too proud to disturb Reyn and ask him to help her find them. He looked peaceful, his lashes black crescents against his cheekbones. He couldn’t have fallen asleep yet, could he?
It was tempting to bend over and kiss him to find out. However, they’d kissed enough for one day, and she really wanted to get back to her rooms, barefoot or not. She slipped out the bedroom door into his sitting room. Before she blew out the blaze of candles still burning, she tidied herself in front of a mirror between the windows. Her lips were stained as if she’d eaten raspberries, and her braid had come unraveled. Anyone seeing her would suspect what she’d been up to.
So she daren’t risk being seen. She poked her head out the captain’s door like a faithless wife at a naughty house party and listened. The hallway was empty . . . as it should be. No one but Reynold Durant was occupying that wing of the house.
Kelby Hall’s nighttime silence was almost a noise of its own, and Maris’s rapid heartbeat added to it. She flew down the stairs and breathed a deep sigh of relief when she reached her suite and shut herself in.
Her own sitting room and bedroom beyond were in darkness. She was meant to seem retired for the evening and had sent Betsy off to bed hours ago. Maris sat in front of her fitful fire and brushed out her hair again, unsnarling the knots Reyn’s busy fingers had woven. The other tangles in her life would not be so easily dealt with.
Reynold Durant. Reyn. He wasn’t a complicated man, yet he was going to complicate everything.
She couldn’t let the flutter he caused inside her consume her. They had other things to do besides fornicate.
What a harsh word. What they had just done did not warrant such biblical opprobrium. While she might have sinned, she’d never felt better in her life.
How absurd. She was thirty-four years old, a very grown woman, allowing a few minutes of physical release to overtake her good sense. Her lack of experience was a true handicap. Perhaps when one was bedded regularly, one got used to feeling such euphoria. It didn’t last very long, did it?
She’d tasted a bite of the apple. She wanted more.
She hit herself on her muddled head with the hairbrush. “Enough, Maris,” she muttered. “He was right. I think too much.”
She would have to set some ground rules while they worked together, for their other project needed attention, too. Was it best to couple quickly at first, then uncrate antiquities, or work and then play? However was she going to concentrate with the captain at her elbow, radiating masculinity and mischief?
She was much too tired to think straight, never mind think too much. The morning ahead would unfold as it was meant to . . . by decree of the pagan gods or Reynold Durant’s tantalizing kisses. Maris tossed the hairbrush aside and crawled into her feather bed and prayed for sleep and forgiveness, not necessarily in that order.
Chapter 12
It was Reyn’s birthday, not that he celebrated such things anymore. He was nine and twenty on that frosty December day, an age he never thought he’d live to.
He’d already gotten his gift in its early hours. He expected to get at least another one, so he’d taken care shaving and dressing before he made his way upstairs to his new “office.” It was just past nine, yet Lady Kelby was not present to order him about. A fire had already been laid and started by unseen hands, taking the chill from the room. Maris had promised they would be undisturbed up there and he hoped Kelby Hall’s staff could restrain themselves from seeing to his every need.
He’d never encountered more solicitous servants in his life, from his dismissed volunteer valet—Reyn could dress himself, thank you very much—to the footman and housemaid who’d brought him so enormous a breakfast it took two of them to deliver it.
He would rather have slept longer than deal with people and porridge. He wondered if Maris had been able to fall asleep. He’d lain in bed for hours after she left, replaying their encounter in his mind until he’d been forced to take himself in hand again and spend against the sheets.
The night had gone better than he’d dared to hope. Once Maris had talked herself into the thing, she had been beyond responsive. Beyond compare in Reyn’s checkered experience. Yet there had been an innocence, which made Reyn wonder about her history.
At some point she and her husband must have had a real marriage. She had not been a virgin, thank God. Reyn was sure he’d know such a thing. Maris had been tight, but not untried. She’d gloved him with a surprising intensity that almost blew his head off. As a member of the Reining Monarchs, he’d not gone so long without a woman that the usual carnal act should affect him so.
But it had.
He shook his head over the neatly sharpened quills lined up on the penholder. If he was not careful, he’d wind up under the spell of a happily married woman, and then where would he be? He was here for a job, not to have a case of calf-love for Maris Kelby.
Where on earth was the word love coming from, modified by calf or not? They did not really know each other, and he couldn’t imagine a woman more ill-suited to him. She was far too proper, too contained, too shy when she wasn’t being bossy. Especially when her heels dug into his back to guide him to her will.
Altogether she was formidable. A countess who helped her husband write books had nothing in common with an ex-soldier who couldn’t even read them.
He left the worktable and walked to the window. The formal garden was far below, its regimented hedges separating each garden room. Two smocked men were digging up a plant past its prime, which marred the estate’s unnatural perfection, their breaths little puffs of white air. Reyn found the obelisk where he’d kissed the countess and realized they’d need to be careful if they were outside in daylight. Any servant quartered in the attics had a perfect view of the garden and the glistening lake beyond. The little rowboat bobbed against the shore as a brisk wind skimmed the surface of the lake. It looked to be a clear day, and he was sorry he would not be going out in it.
He tensed as he heard a squeak on the stairs, and turned toward the doorway. Maris’s footsteps were inaudible as she walked through the first attic room and pushed the door open. Her instant blush told him she had not expected to see him there so early.
“Good morning, Lady Kelby.” His voice sounded measured, belying the sudden constriction of his throat.
“Good morning,
Captain Durant. I didn’t think you’d be up here quite yet.”
They were back to Lady Kelby and Captain Durant. Perhaps that was better. They wouldn’t slip into intimacy in front of anyone.
“Early bird, worm, and all that. I haven’t started on anything. I wasn’t sure what you’d want to do first.”
From the looks of her, it would be business. She wore a dark brown dress covered over with a pinafore, just the sort of attire one would wear to muck around in dusty attics. Her hair was hidden beneath a plain linen cap. If Reyn didn’t know she was a countess, he’d take her for a superior housemaid. She certainly was not a silk-clad seductress come to deliver another birthday present.
“I trust you’ve had breakfast,” she said, moving to the fireplace. Her shadowed brown eyes focused on a space just to the right of his left ear, not the rug at her feet where they’d begun their affair.
So she hadn’t slept much either. “Indeed. I couldn’t do it justice. I’m used to simpler fare, you know.”
“Tell them what you like, and you shall have it. The staff has been instructed to cater to your wishes.”
“You’re too generous, Lady Kelby.”
“You are our guest, Captain.”
“I am your employee. I don’t want to forget my place.” Bought and paid for, fed like a pig destined for slaughter. A full stomach wouldn’t make death any sweeter. No matter how much he was indulged, he’d never be at ease.
Maris twisted her fingers nervously.
Is she recalling where they had been and what they had done just hours ago? Reyn shook his head. Best to stop thinking of that. He grabbed a box from a stack and thumped it on the table. “Shall we begin with this? It’s number twelve.”
“Shouldn’t we begin with one?”
“That box was too heavy for me to bring here by myself. It will have to be opened in the room it sits in, or transported on that cart you mentioned. How will we go about this, Lady Kelby?”
She frowned. “I suppose the best way is to unpack each crate, number, and describe the contents, then put everything back except for what might interest Henry.”
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