Willa considered, then shook her head. Histories required a bit of time to delve into, being on the dry side usually.
“A novel, perhaps?” He pulled one from a stack with hardly a glance. “This one is very popular. Poor governess falls in love with her employer. Most uplifting, I’m sure.”
Novels were terribly entertaining, it was true, although at the moment Willa felt rather as if she were living a novel of her own. She shook her head again.
“Do you have something …” She hesitated, not really sure what she was looking for.
“Yes?” His eyes were absolutely glittering with anticipation.
“Perhaps an instruction on …”
The man bobbed impatiently on his toes, hands clasped behind his back.
“… marriage?”
“Do you wish a book on marriage contract law? Rather heavy reading for a child your age.”
Torn between indignation and amusement, Willa shook her head once more. “No, sir. I am to be married and …”
“Yes, I saw you and your young man riding in. He looks well, although not as well as the last time I saw him. Bless me, I’ve forgotten his name. Pardon my memory, miss. It is not what it once was.”
“My husband is Nathaniel Stonewell.”
He shook his head. “Oh no. That doesn’t sound quite right.”
Willa blinked at him. “I assure you, it is entirely correct.”
“Of course. You must know, mustn’t you? Well, my congratulations on your happy nuptials. A blissful union, I hope?”
Suddenly Willa knew precisely what was required. “Well… do you have any references on …” Oh, what could she call it? “On the act?”
He blinked. “The act of wedding?”
“No.” Willa gave him a sunny smile. “The marital act.”
The little man was scandalized. “Oh no! No, no, no!”
He blushed and stuttered until Willa was forced to make apologies and say that she had merely been jesting.
Eventually, she left the store without the novel about the governess, no wiser on the subject of the marriage act than she had been when she had entered.
She didn’t see the man standing in the shadows who followed her with his gaze, watched her walk back to the horses, and then entered the bookshop with dark purpose in his eyes.
Nathaniel whiled away a few minutes in a dry goods shop while he waited for Willa. He purchased a bag of boiled sweets to reward young Lem but then ran out of things to occupy him. He looked around him. Sacks of flour stood in piles; barrels of corn and lamp oil hugged the corners. He had no use for any of it.
He left the merchant and walked slowly down the cobbled street. He could buy out the bookshop, but there would be no way to carry it all. Reardon had more than enough books and Reardon House in Mayfair a respectable library of its own.
Then a glimmer caught his eye. Sapphire silk and cream lace gleamed through a shadowy windowed storefront. It was a lady’s gown, as fine as anything he had ever seen his mother or Daphne wear.
For the first time, Nathaniel bothered to picture Willa in the drawing rooms of Reardon House. With her simple country muslin and her sturdy scuffed shoes Willa would be a mite underdressed.
Besides, wouldn’t she look fine in blue?
He entered the shop to the tinkle of a small silver bell that hung on the door. A harried-looking woman came out from behind a curtain, then stopped short when she saw him.
Her eyes went wide and for a moment he thought she must recognize him. Then he realized it was only the natural dismay of finding a dusty, road-soiled man in her pristine establishment.
“I’m here to purchase something,” he assured her.
She nodded and came forward warily. “What might I show you, sir?”
He gestured toward the blue dress, which hung on a figure by the window. “I’ll buy that one.”
“Yes, sir. That will be two pound sixpence.” She flipped open an appointment book on the counter. “When would your wife like to come for a fitting?”
“No need,” Nathaniel said. “I’ll simply take it—”
His glance at the dress included a view of the window and of the street. Outside the shop stood the Blowers, man and wife, who had spoken out most virulently against Nathaniel when the thrice-damned cartoon had been made public. Now it seemed they were on their way into the shop.
Damn. He turned back to the shopkeeper. “The dress. Now.” He threw three quid on the counter and turned to face the door just as it tinkled once more.
The woman blinked at him, then gasped, reaching one hand as if to pull her husband back. The man, a burly fellow with more money than political astuteness, began to color with insult when he recognized Nathaniel.
“You!” He pulled away from his wife’s restraint and stalked to Nathaniel. “You’re going back to London, aren’t you?”
Nathaniel lifted a brow. “I am.”
The man scowled fiercely. “You’ve no right to stain the very air there. If you had any taste, you would take your bloody self off to hide in the country!”
Nathaniel folded his arms and leaned one hip onto the counter. “But I would miss you so.”
The fellow, who truly had no imagination whatsoever, could only huff wordlessly.
The shopkeeper was busy stripping the figure of the silk gown while watching them all out of the corner of her eye. Nathaniel didn’t bother listening to what else the fellow said, blustering idiot that he was, but only counted the seconds until the shopkeeper pressed the paper-wrapped parcel into his hand.
He took it and strode from the shop with a curt bow to Mr. Blowhard’s wife, ignoring the shopkeeper’s outstretched hand that held his change.
He wasn’t fast enough. Mr. Blowhard came barreling out of the shop behind him. “How dare you offend my wife with your presence, you traitor!” The man’s bellow was absolutely bullish. His words echoed down the cobbled street. “Lord Treason! Traitor!”
Up ahead, Nathaniel could see where Willa stood with Lem and the mounts. As he drew closer, walking fast, he could see the alarm growing in her wide blue eyes. “Mount up,” he urged when he came close enough. He dug into his pocket for Lem’s sweets, but the boy was backing away, his gaze going behind Nathaniel.
“You? You’re that Lord Treason bloke?” The little boy had betrayal in his eyes. It made Nathaniel feel sick to his stomach, guilty even when he had done nothing to be guilty for. Lem looked at his offering with disdain. “I don’t want nothin’ from the likes of you!”
Nathaniel dropped the bag in the mud. “Of course you don’t.” He reached for Blunt’s saddle and mounted swiftly. Turning the gelding, he looked behind him at the gathering crowd.
“I think it is time to leave,” he said tightly.
“Yes, Nathaniel.” Willa sounded frightened.
“Simply ride through them, wildflower. They’ll move out of our way.”
Blunt and the mare stepped forward as one, walking slowly but inexorably through the gathered townsfolk. Words and glares were thrown at them, but one by one the people of Wakefield stepped back from the progress of the horses. Then, when Nathaniel and Willa were in the thick of the crowd—
Splat! A handful of mud landed on the mare’s white rump, startling the horse and leaving a black smear across the white hide and Willa’s skirts.
“Ride!” Nathaniel urged, but the crowd pressed too closely now. The mare began to dance and rear. Nathaniel feared Willa would fall into the angry crowd. He grabbed the mare’s reins.
A blob of mud struck him square in the back. Nathaniel turned to see pure hatred glaring from the eyes of little Lem. “Traitor!” the boy hissed.
That’s when the mud began to fly in earnest. Black grime spattered them from all directions. Willa ducked and cried out in disgust and fear. Nathaniel clenched his jaw, swept Willa off the panicking mare with one arm to sit before him on Blunt, and kicked the giant gelding into a run, crowd or no crowd.
Blunt neighed and reared and th
e crowd fell back. Nathaniel kept one arm around Willa and one fist wrapped around the reins of the nearly wild mare and rode with his thighs clamped tight.
It did not take long to leave Wakefield behind them. At last, Nathaniel allowed Blunt to slow to an easy canter. The gelding, who had never lost control, now galloped calmly down the road as if they were on a Sunday ride. The mare, who was perhaps not the brightest horse Nathaniel had ever known, still startled with wild eyes. Nathaniel held her reins tightly. He wouldn’t want to make the rest of the journey with only one horse.
Willa was still pressed to his chest, her face hidden. He could feel her midriff shaking as if with sobs.
“I’m sorry you had to experience that,” he murmured into her muddy hair. “It’s over now. Please don’t cry.”
She hit her fist against his chest lightly. “I’m not crying,” she said. She lifted her head. Her face was red and her eyes were bright, but it was true. She was not crying. She was furious. “Oh, that insufferable town!”
Nathaniel couldn’t help it. He wrapped his arm tightly about her and laughed his relief into her filthy hair.
The road was wide and well traveled here, and there still might be some pursuit, so Nathaniel pressed Blunt through a gap in the hedgerow to look for a likely spot to hide out. They found a river not far away where they might clean up and a sheltered bit of wood, likely kept for the master’s pheasant shooting. No one would be hunting this late in the day, and as soon as they had removed the mud they would get out straightaway.
For now, it was sheltered, quiet, and, above all, safe.
Nathaniel was washing the horses in the river. The bend downstream was shallow enough to encourage them to roll once they’d been unsaddled. Willa was scraping the worst of the grime off the tack with handfuls of grass. She tried the same method on her skirts, but there was little hope her gown could be saved. Then she put the bridles and saddles out in the watery sunlight, hoping the remaining smears would dry enough to brush off later.
She wiped her hands on her ruined skirts and turned to her own toilette. She wasn’t as filthy as Nathaniel, for he’d taken the worst of it when he pulled her before him. She washed her face, hands, and arms in the river. Her hair did well enough with a dunking and a quick braiding. She would change her gown after she helped Nathaniel with the horses.
She dug Blunt’s currycomb from Nathaniel’s bag and started downstream. Watching her feet on the damp slope, Willa didn’t look up until she reached the river’s edge.
When she did, her heart stopped beating, the breath left her lungs, and her mouth went dry. She saw the horses grazing beyond the bank with the pearly sunlight gleaming from their drying coats—and she saw Nathaniel.
He was beautiful.
He knelt in the shallows only a few yards away. With his back to her and her arrival masked by the chuckling water, he was entirely oblivious to her gaze.
He was also entirely wet.
And entirely naked.
The water was only to midthigh and there weren’t enough bubbles in the world to cover the broad expanse of naked man that rose from the river.
Willa couldn’t breathe. Her knees went weak at the sight of the sudsy water streaming down his broad back into the crease of his powerful buttocks. She had never seen anything so unbearably delicious in her life.
His back rippled with muscle as he soaped his hair, the cloudy afternoon light doing nothing to dim the sleek shine of soap and water on his male perfection.
Nathaniel bent to duck his head in the water and Willa could not control the moan that escaped her at the view.
Instantly Nathaniel whirled, one fist pulled back in instinctive defense while his other hand frantically wiped soap from his eyes.
Damn, he should have known they were too vulnerable here. He hadn’t been thinking with the mind of a spy but had let thoughts of Willa’s sumptuous thighs distract him.
His vision cleared and he saw her. The impulse to fight eased, only to be replaced by another equally ancient instinct.
It was her eyes. They were wide and hungry, with a shining ache in them that he knew from his own soul. She wanted him. He could see it in the way her chest swelled with heavy breaths and by the sheen of perspiration gilding her face and neck.
His own need rose in response to her hungry gaze, and he saw her gaze drop and her eyes widen in surprise. Then slowly, her gaze traveled back up him. Nathaniel stood for her perusal.
He was the most magnificent creature she had ever seen. She knew that the thrumming within her was because of his male attraction, but the ache in her heart was from his sheer lonely perfection.
He could have her. The thought ran through Nathaniel’s mind like the animal it was. He could take her now, on the bank with their legs tangling in the stream edge and her hair spread across the moss. She would accept him hard and fast, he could see it in her eyes, and he could make her enjoy it.
They would be wild creatures, naked and rutting, smeared with mud and bits of grass. He could empty himself in her, here in the daylight, in the dappled green shade that smelled of peat and lust.
He was going to take her; Willa could see it in his eyes. Her knees shook from mingled desire and despair. He would plant himself within her, give her his seed and his lust, if nothing else.
But he would be hers, such as he was, and God help her if at this moment it seemed like enough. She wanted Nathaniel to show her, to feed and foster and answer the ache growing within her by the moment.
With shaking hands, Willa began to unbutton the bodice of her dress without ever taking her gaze from his. He didn’t look in her eyes but followed the course of the open front of her gown as it grew.
Nathaniel began to walk toward her, wading through the water with a slow, implacable stride, his thick erection jutting mightily before him.
Her hands began to shake too much to handle the fastenings and she dropped them uselessly to her sides. The time was now, and she wasn’t ready.
This wasn’t what she wanted. And yet it was. The female beast within her wanted it and wanted it now. Wanted something untamed and unloving and undeniable.
The female heart wept warning, but the heat and rush of her animal blood drowned it almost beyond hearing.
Her breath coming so hard it almost sobbed, Willa closed her eyes and waited for him to overwhelm her. He stopped before her, so large she could sense him blocking the light from behind her eyelids.
She quivered in response and felt a first startling burst of pleasure between her thighs. God help her, Nathaniel hadn’t even touched her yet.
He stepped closer, so close that she felt cold water drip from him onto the tops of her breasts. The drops should have hissed on her hot flesh, but they only rolled to meet one another and trickle down between her breasts.
She was hot. Hot and throbbing and aching and unbearably frightened, all at the same time.
Willa stood before Nathaniel like a pagan sacrifice, her breasts bared and her eyes shut tight, helplessly offering herself to his worst bestial impulses.
And he had them. Oh, he wanted to do terrible wicked pleasurable things to this simple country girl, this wildflower plucked from the side of the road. He could teach her such dark and sinful deeds and make her beg for more.
Slowly, Nathaniel reached out and took the shoulders of her opened gown in each hand. He could bare her in one horrific rip, tear her clothes from her sweetly offered body, and splay her on the ground for his consumption.
His aching lust pounded through him, driving him to do just that, to own and possess this ripe, willing female, and to the devil with the consequences. His hands fisted in the fabric of her gown, tugging it tight and pulling her toward him.
She swayed forward unresisting and let her head fall back, baring her throat in an ancient instinctive gesture of submission.
Nathaniel could taste her already, taste how salty and sweet she would be, the salt of her skin and the sweetness of her virginal untouched nipples in his m
outh….
Nathaniel pulled the neckline of Willa’s gown together once more, then placed her hands upon it to hold it closed.
She opened her eyes and blinked at him, her gaze thoroughly confused. Nathaniel put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her. Pointing her back upriver toward their belongings, he gave her a little push.
“I’ll join you in a moment. I need to dress.” And somehow he must cool his throbbing arousal.
As Willa stumbled out of sight, Nathaniel picked up the bucket and dumped gallon after gallon of freezing river water over his head.
10
Willa splashed her face with cold river water again and again, until the heat and blush receded and she could think again. She knelt on a large flat stone that jutted out into the water, the sort of stone that women of old would have beat their washing on. Willa only wanted to knock her own skull against the granite.
She had changed into her last clean gown, her best, for the arrival in London. Her hair was neatly rebraided, quite primly even. She was tidy, buttoned up, looking as ladylike as was possible in these conditions.
It didn’t help. She wanted to do wicked, wonderful things. She wanted to strip off her clothing and be naked in the water with Nathaniel. She wanted leaves in her hair and moss beneath her buttocks and Nathaniel between her thighs. She wanted—
She plunged her hands into the chill water again, bringing up another handful of water to her face.
It would have been wrong to make love with Nathaniel on the riverbank, shocking and wrong, and she was never going to forget his magnificent form striding toward her through the shallows—
She bent to splash more cold water.
There was a motion out of the corner of her eye, and Willa sighed. Just when she was nearly calmed down.
“Nathaniel, I—”
It wasn’t Nathaniel. On the bank of the river stood a man with a ruined face.
One side of that face was startlingly handsome, with chiseled features beneath several weeks’ growth of beard. His eyes were flashing blue, ringed by long lashes that Willa would have envied at any other time. One side of his face was perfect.
Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 01] Page 10
