by Mary Balogh
She appeared from beyond the screen and came around to the empty side of the bed. His mouth turned dry at the sight of her. His big regret was that this was a one-night-only encounter. He would need a month or more to explore all the delights of her body and slake his appetite for her.
“Don’t lie down,” he told her. “Kneel on the bed.”
She did so, facing him, and gazed inquiringly down at him. The fire had been reduced to mere glowing embers, but the two candles still flickered across the room.
“Let’s play,” he said, reaching out and touching her hand.
“Very well,” she said gravely.
He chuckled. “Little Miss Prim has already been done,” he said. “Exquisitely, I might add. I do promise you that I am not usually so ... frenzied in my mount. That was merely the effect your quiet compliance had on me. I had my way with you that time. It is your turn now. What would you like to do?”
She stared down at him for a long time. Even her stillness and her steady look could stir arousal in him.
“I do not know,” she said at last.
“Is your arsenal so vast, then?” He grinned at her. “I wish the night were a month long so that you could try the whole of it on me. Would a month be long enough, though? Make your choice. I am all yours. Your slave if you will. Have your way with me. Make love to me, Claire. Have sex with me.” He spread his arms and his legs on the bed.
She knelt there for a long time not moving. But her eyes were roaming over him, he saw, watching her, and her eyelids drooped over them. Once she licked her lips, the tip of her tongue moving slowly from one corner to the other.
She was very clever and clearly far more experienced than he had expected. He had anticipated that she would fall on him and subject him to any number of blatant, exquisite sex tortures to drive them both into a precoital frenzy. He had observed that her manner of dress was understated. But so was her behavior. He grew pleasantly warm under her slow gaze, tingling with anticipation.
And then she leaned over him and touched him with her fingertips, cool from the water with which she had just washed herself. She touched his forehead, sliding her fingers up through his hair. She feathered her fingers down over his face, running her forefinger down the hooked length of his nose—a family legacy that he shared with most of his brothers and sisters—and then very lightly over his lips, and set her palms on his shoulders while she lowered her head and kissed him on the mouth. Curtained by her red hair, he felt her tongue move across his lips, and when he opened his mouth she stretched her tongue inside. He resisted the desire to suck on it. His role was a passive one for some time to come—for a long time, he hoped. He did not know what she was about, but he was liking it very well so far. Perhaps she was doing to him what he had done to her—slowly seducing him. And succeeding. His toes curled with pleasure.
Her hands and her mouth—and her tongue and her teeth—moved slowly down his body, pausing whenever he gave the slightest indication of pleasure. The witch! As if she did not know very well every one of a man’s pleasure spots. She suckled his nipples, rubbing her tongue lightly over them as she did so until he almost reared up and ended her game before it had even approached the climax she must intend. He lay still, concentrating on his breathing.
She covered every inch of his body with her light, cool, erotic touch except for the part that had stirred into life again and stiffened into its full hard length well before she was finished. She skirted all around it, the tease. He was finding it more difficult to breathe quietly.
And then she did touch him there, taking him in her two cool hands, at first so lightly that he almost exploded, and then with more assurance, closing her hands about him, stroking him, rubbing her thumb over the sensitive tip.
“Does that feel good?” she asked him in a low, throaty voice that just about hurtled him over the edge.
“Too damned good,” he said.
She turned her head and smiled at him and kneeled upright and pushed her hair behind her shoulders with both hands. She stayed that way for a long time, looking down into his eyes.
“I do not want to do the rest of it alone,” she said.
Released from the rules of the game, he reached for her with both hands, closing them about her waist and lifting her over him, to straddle him. He held her there, smoothing his hands lightly over her shapely hips while she continued to kneel upright, her legs wide now.
“Come, then,” he said. “Put me inside and we will ride together. A good long ride this time, I promise. You like to rider‘
Her expression was strangely, arousingly grave. “I like to ride with you,” she said after a few moments of silence.
The witch! As if he were someone special to her. But her words had their desired effect.
She was a consummate tease. Or perhaps she knew that pauses could have as much erotic effect as movement. Several more seconds passed before she took him lightly in one hand, brought herself into position, removed her hand, and pressed firmly down until she was fully impaled on him. He watched and heard her draw a deep breath. With any lesser woman he might have suspected a deliberate intent to compliment him on his size. With her he suspected genuine pleasure.
She leaned over him then, supporting herself on her hands, curtaining him with her hair once more. She gazed into his eyes, and he spread his hands more firmly over her hips.
“Ride me, then,” he said. “I will be the obedient steed beneath you. I will ride to your rhythm and at your pace. You may set the destination and the distance before we arrive. Let it be a long distance.”
“A hundred miles,” she said.
“A thousand.”
“More.”
She rode him slowly at first, feeling him, adjusting her position in the saddle, tightening her inner muscles about him to create just the right angle. And then she rode more steadily, her rhythm less shallow, more assured. He had never encountered such apparently artless expertise in any other woman. She might well spoil him for all others, he thought, reading her pace, matching it, thrusting into her descent, withdrawing to her ascent, rocking and twisting to keep her steady and increase her pleasure, his hands spread over her hips. She was hot and invitingly wet. Soon he could hear the erotic sucking sounds of their ride—and their labored breathing. She knew just how to make use of her inner muscles, exciting him, drawing him closer to climax without catapulting him over too soon.
He waited for her. He waited a long time—he could wait forever if necessary. It was a slow, exquisite game she had chosen to play, and he could play it all night stroke for stroke with her. But she straightened up eventually, all her weight on her knees and lower legs, her eyes closed, her fingertips touching his stomach. He watched her and understood that she was close to the edge, had been for some time, but could not find her way over. Unlike many other women, she would not feign release as a compliment to him or as an excuse to be finished with him.
He took one hand from her hip, moved it down between them, slid one finger down until he found the spot, and rubbed it lightly.
Her head went back, her hair falling in a golden red cloud down behind her, tensed in every muscle, and cried out. He grasped her hips firmly and drove up into her once, twice, with powerful strokes and growled out his own release.
“At least a couple of thousand miles,” he said when she raised her head again and gazed down at him as if for the moment she did not know quite where she was.
“Yes,” she said, and he took hold of her, turned with her, and set her down on the bed beside him. He bent his head and kissed her warmly, deeply.
“Thank you,” he said. “You are magnificent.”
“So are you,” she said. “Thank you, Ralph.”
He grinned at her. He liked the sound of his name on her lips.
“I think,” he said, “that you have earned a sleep.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But not for long.”
“Not?”
“I want to play more,” she said.
Had he not been so exhausted, he might have had another erection there and then. Instead he chuckled.
“Now on that score,” he said, “I am always ready to oblige, ma’am. Well, almost always. But first we must sleep or there will be nothing to play with.”
She laughed softly and he gathered her into his arms, pulled the bedcovers up over them, and went immediately to sleep with a smile on his lips. The last thing he noticed was that the rain was still hammering against the window.
Chapter IV
Rain was pelting against the window. It had not stopped all night. Travel would surely be impossible this morning. Perhaps there would be a little more time after all.
Judith did not open her eyes. She was lying half on her back, half on her side on the bed, a warm arm beneath her neck, its partner draped heavily across her waist. Her legs were all tangled up with two others. He was breathing deeply, still asleep. He smelled of cologne and sweat and man. It was a curiously pleasant smell.
She really had been inebriated last night, else surely she would never have come even close to doing what she had done. This morning she was sober with a slight headache as an aftermath of drinking more than she ought. This morning she could understand the enormity of what she had done. It was not just that she was now a fallen woman—that did not matter one iota to her in light of her imminent fate as a dependent relative and fading spinster. It was more that she now knew what was going to be missing from all the rest of her life. Last night she had thought that the memories would be enough. This morning she was not so sure.
And this morning she had thought of something else too—oh, she really must have been very drunk. She might have been got with child during any one of last night’s four separate encounters. There was panic in the thought, which she tried to quell by concentrating on her breathing. Well, she would know soon enough. Her courses were due within the next few days. If nothing happened ...
She would think of that later.
It had been a glorious night indeed. His belief that she was an actress and an experienced courtesan had spurred her on into role-playing as nothing ever had before. Those four glasses of wine had helped too, no doubt. She could hardly believe the things she had done, the things he had done to her, the things they had done together, the sheer fun of it all. And the exquisite sensual delights.
She had never suspected that Judith Law was capable of overcoming a lifetime of strict moral training to become a wanton. She listened to the rain and willed it not to stop. Not yet.
Ralph sighed against her ear and then stretched lazily without untwining himself from her.
“Mmm,” he said. “I am delighted to discover that all that was not just a delectable dream.”
“Good morning.” She turned her face to him and then flushed at the absurd formality of her words.
“Good indeed.” He regarded her with lazy blue eyes. “Is that rain I hear against the glass?”
“I daresay,” she said, “no coach will dare attempt travel on the open highway while it continues. Will you risk your horse’s safety or your own?”
“Neither.” His eyes smiled. “I suppose that means we are stranded here for today and probably tonight again, Claire. Can you imagine a more dreadful fate?”
“If I tried very hard I might,” she said and watched the smile spread to his lips.
“We are going to be killed by boredom,” he said. “However are we going to fill in the time?”
“We will have to set our minds to the problem,” she told him, her voice deliberately grave. “Perhaps together we will find a solution.”
“If nothing else occurs to us,” he said with a sigh, “we will have no choice but to remain in bed and while away the weary hours here until the rain stops and the roads begin to dry.”
“How very boring,” she said.
His eyes held hers. “Boring,” he said, his voice pitched low. “Yes, indeed.”
She understood his meaning suddenly, flushed, and then laughed. “The pun was unintentional,” she told him.
“What pun?”
She laughed again.
“However,” he said, drawing his arm from beneath her head and rolling away from her to sit up on the side of the bed, “the boring part of the day is going to have to be delayed. I am for my breakfast. I could eat an ox. Are you hungry?”
She was. Very. She wished she had more money. He had paid for the room and their dinner and was presumably prepared to do the same tonight. She could not expect him to continue footing the bill for her all day long.
“A cup of tea will do for me,” she said.
He got out of bed and turned to look down at her, stretching as he did so, apparently quite unself-conscious about his nakedness. But then, why would he be? He was splendidly formed. She could not stop herself from feasting her eyes on him.
“That is not very flattering,” he said, looking down at her with his rather mocking smile. “Good sex is supposed to make one ravenous. But all you want is a cup of tea?”
That word—sex—had never been spoken aloud at the rectory or in any company of which she had been a part. It was a word she had always skirted around even in her thoughts, choosing euphemisms instead. He spoke the word as if it were part of his everyday vocabulary—as it probably was.
“It was good.” She sat up, careful to keep the blankets over her bosom and beneath her arms, and clasped her knees. “You know that.”
He looked closely at her for a few moments. “How empty is your purse?” he asked her.
She could feel herself flushing again. “I did not expect to have to stop on the road, you see,” she explained. “I brought only what I thought I would need for a nonstop journey. There is always the danger of highwaymen.”
“How can an actress of your caliber be out of work for three months?” he asked her.
“Oh, I was not out of work,” she assured him. “I took time off deliberately because I was—because I was tired of being constantly from home. I do that occasionally. And I do have money. I just do not have it with me.”
“Where is home?” he asked her.
Their eyes clashed.
“Somewhere,” she said. “It is private. My own retreat. I never tell anyone where it is.”
“Let me guess,” he said. “You are a proud, independent woman, who does not allow any man to protect and support you.”
“That is right,” she said. If only it were true.
“This occasion will have to be something of an exception, then,” he told her. “I will not offer to pay you for your services. I believe our desire for each other and our pleasure in satisfying that desire have been mutual. But I will pay your keep for as long as we are here. You do not have to starve yourself on tea and water.”
“Can you afford it?” she asked him.
“I have always believed,” he said, “that any highwayman who chose to attack me would have to be soft in the head and that if he was not, he certainly would be by the time I had finished with him. I do not travel with an empty purse. I can afford to buy you breakfast and all your other meals too for as long as we remain here.”
“Thank you.” She could not suggest that she pay him back at some future date. She would never have enough money.
“Now,” he said, “tell me that I was good enough last night to make you hungry this morning.”
“Ravenous.” She smiled at him. “You were very good, as you know full well.”
“Aha,” he said, leaning a little closer, “another human trait. You have a dimple beside the right corner of your mouth.”
That sobered her. The triumvirate of childhood plagues— a freckled carrottop with a dimple.
“It is utterly charming,” he said. “I am going to wash and dress and go downstairs, Claire. You can follow me down when you are ready. We might as well eat in the public dining room this morning and see something of the world. It is going to be a long day.”
Judith hoped it would be an eternity long. She hugge
d her knees tightly as he disappeared behind the screen.
It struck Rannulf that fate had dealt him a pretty fair hand. Normally being stranded at a small town inn by inclement weather would have been the stuff of nightmares. Under any other circumstances he would have been chafing at the bit and scheming to find a way to get himself and his horse safely to his grandmother’s despite the danger. He realized that he was no farther than twenty miles from Grandmaison Park.
But these were not other circumstances, and it helped to know that his grandmother did not even realize that he was on his way, though she always expected him to come promptly when summoned. He could delay his arrival for a week or more if he wished without every constable in the land being called out to search for him.
When she appeared in the downstairs dining room, Claire Campbell was dressed in a pale green cotton dress, even simpler than yesterday’s muslin. She had brushed her hair back severely over the crown of her head and braided and coiled it at the back of her neck. He had become accustomed to the way she understated her charms. This was an actress with class, he decided, rising and bowing to her.
They ate a hearty breakfast at a leisurely pace, conversing about inconsequentials until the innkeeper brought them more toast and stayed to discuss the farming situation and the blessing the rain would be after weeks of hot, dry weather. Then his wife brought freshly boiled water to heat up their tea and stayed to talk about the nasty weather and all the extra work it gave the women, who had to be constantly scrubbing their floors because their men and children would insist upon going outside in the rain, even when they did not have to, and traipsing all the wet and all the mud across clean floors no matter how often one scolded them or chased them with a broom. Indeed, she said, chasing them only made the matter worse, because then they would flee farther into the building than out of it, and even if they did run out, eventually they came back in and the whole business started again.
Claire laughed and commiserated.
Before many minutes had passed, the innkeeper and his wife had pulled up two chairs, the wife had poured herself a cup of tea while the innkeeper had fetched himself a tankard of ale, and they settled in for a lengthy chat.
