A Fine Passion

by Stephanie Laurens

  Her breasts, sumptuous, swollen, all flushed satin skin and pert, furled nipples, rose and fell before his face. His lips curved in his otherwise passion-locked face; dispensing with his now-redundant hold on her hips, he raised his hands to her breasts. Closed them around the lush mounds, kneaded, and heard her gasp.

  He set himself to pander to her heavily aroused senses, to drive her, to render her as mindless as he. She rose and fell on him unceasingly, taking him deep, caressing him with abandon. The long muscles in her thighs, well toned by years of riding, stood her in good stead; he was increasingly certain she would last longer than he.

  Not something he would allow. Rising, lifting his shoulders, he set his mouth to her breasts and heard her muted shriek. Remembered the screams he’d drawn from her the previous night, set himself to hear the same again.

  He ministered to her breasts while she rode him steadily, unswervingly to ecstasy. When the peak and the inevitable precipice loomed, when he felt his body gather inexorably beneath her, he freed one hand and sent it skating, pressing hard and possessively down the front of her body, sliding over her hip to close briefly about her bottom and squeeze, then to trace the line between thigh and hip forward and down to the damp curls between her thighs.

  The tight knot of flesh he sought stood erect and begging beneath its hood. He caressed it, felt the immediate rush of her response. Bending his head, he drew the peak of one breast deep, suckled strongly as he stroked and pressed, as she rose and fell harder, faster…

  She broke apart and took him with her. Head thrown back, her cry rose to the ceiling while he feasted on her breast, while her body closed in tight contractions around his, while he groaned and shuddered beneath her, and surrendered.

  To the power she’d evoked, to the power with which he’d replied.

  The moment of ecstasy, of infinite pleasure, held them locked in its bliss for an incalculable time…then left them, released them. Let them fall from the heavens into sweet oblivion.

  They collapsed, sated, in a jumble of limbs. She shifted, eased. He sank back, closed his arms about her; she rested her head on his chest. They lay still, aware, watchful, wondering, as the power slowly faded.

  Jack laid his cheek on her dark hair, felt it like silk against his stubbled jaw.

  Power was something they both understood. It was not a passive thing; it didn’t exist unless you wielded it.

  Now they had…they would again. That was simply their natures, a fascination they shared. Warrior-lord and warrior-queen. Well matched.

  The shadows slowly lengthened as the moon traversed the sky. He felt no urge to move; neither, it seemed, did she. Neither slept; the aftermath coursing their veins was not, this time, of physical exhaustion. What held them awake, quiet and watchful, was their predator’s sense of that power in the air.

  A power neither was yet sure they understood.

  He let his senses stretch, acutely aware of her, of the svelte body, the long, feminine limbs tangled with his. Of the heat cooling between them, of desire for the moment appeased. Given all he could feel, all he sensed, all he now knew, it was difficult to comprehend why she’d been as she was, unclaimed. Supremely conscious of her warm weight, of the satin skin dewed with passion pressed tightly, intimately, about him, it remained a mystery that his peers had been so blind.

  To him, she was sensual challenge personified, give and take demanded…

  He inwardly paused, then silently acknowledged that perhaps that was why, with her, no other had succeeded; they hadn’t been willing, hadn’t been strong enough to let her have her way. To let her come to them, to let her be as she truly was, all she truly was.

  A plausible, very likely accurate thesis, yet he couldn’t see in it any hint of how to make her pledge herself to him. Not just for a night, or a week, or a year, but forever.

  The peace of the night enveloped them; peace of a different sort cradled them. Eventually, she stirred. He helped her lift from him, shifted so she could slump by his side, still lying half over him, her head pillowed on his chest.

  Folding one arm behind his head, the other locking her against his side, he squinted down at her dark head. “Where did you learn all that?”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. She glanced fleetingly up at him, her lips lightly curving, then looked away. Gently, absentmindedly, she traced patterns on his chest. “The library at Rosewood, the family seat. The collection’s been there, being added to by succeeding generations, for centuries. Some of the volumes were highly informative, highly detailed.”

  “I take it you were an avid student.” He had to fight to remain still under her trailing fingers.

  “I was interested…intrigued. And I have an excellent memory, at least for pictures.” She shifted against him, sliding around so she could lift her head and look into his face, as her hand drifted lower. “If you must know, I’ve been waiting for years to put into practice all I learned.”

  Her voice was beyond sultry; it purred, low and soft in his ears, slunk around him like an artful cat, rubbing her power over him.

  He held her dark, blatantly challenging gaze while his mind raced. “In that case”—he swallowed and repitched his voice to a more normal level—“perhaps you’d like to try…” Leaning close, he whispered in her ear.

  Then he lay back and looked at her, giving her back raised brows, and a challenge of his own.

  For a long moment, she held his gaze, then she smiled, slowly. “Why not?”

  He grinned, and reached for her as she rose and came eagerly into his arms.

  The next morning, Jack awoke with a familiar urgency riding him. It was the same sense of time ticking by, defined and limited, that he always felt when going into a mission; there were things he had to do first, arrangements to set in train, or the need to act would come and find him unprepared.

  In this case, he had to get all he needed from James before Clarice decided to embark on her rescue precipitously, alone.

  He headed down to breakfast, plans revolving in his head. Clarice was right; James did need to be rescued, they did need to act. Exactly how, however…that he’d yet to define.

  In the breakfast parlor, Percy was tucking into ham and eggs. Jack waved and went straight to the sideboard. Thanks to Clarice, his appetite had definitely improved; his plate piled high with samples of everything Cook had sent to tempt him, he took his seat at the head of the table.

  After dinner last night, he’d warned Percy that he would have to go to London for a few weeks; they’d agreed that, in the few days before he left, he would introduce Percy to the locals and show him around the estate, enough to be able to hand Percy and his induction into the vagaries of estate management into Griggs’s able hands. Griggs might be old, but he knew all there was to know about estate management.

  “So.” Percy pushed away his empty plate and eyed Jack hopefully. “Where do we start?”

  Jack chewed and considered. Reaching for his coffee cup, he took a long swallow. “There are some nonestate matters I need to get organized first, but you can help with those.”

  Percy’s eagerness didn’t dim. Jack had realized his young relative was the sort who preferred any activity to none; Clarice should approve.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Young Anthony upstairs.” He’d introduced the two yesterday evening. They were of an age; Percy had commiserated with Anthony over being confined to bed and had offered to play chess through the evening. Looking in on his way to the folly, Jack had found them both engrossed. “I want a list of his relatives likely to be in London, or within half a day’s reach, how each is connected to James, and those most likely to lend James their aid. In addition, names and directions of any others Anthony thinks might be of use.”

  Percy nodded; he’d heard the gist of the problem facing James. “Anything else?”

  It struck Jack that it was a pleasant change to have someone simply accept and not argue. “No, that’s it.” He pushed back his
chair. “I have a letter to write, then I’m going to the rectory to get James started on another list. I’ll be back before luncheon.” He joined Percy; side by side they walked out into the hall. “If you have time before I get back, try to memorize the layout of the fields and cottages to the east. I’ll take you out that way this afternoon, introduce you to the tenants, let you get a feel for the lie of the land that way.”

  “Umm…” Percy looked at him with wide eyes.

  Jack grinned. “You can take the gig. There are lanes we can follow.”

  Percy didn’t try to hide his relief. “Good.” He glanced up the stairs. “I’ll go and beard Anthony.”

  Jack parted from him with a nod. He went to the library, sat at his desk, and dashed off a letter to the one man he’d expected never to need to write to again. Sealing the letter, he went looking for Howlett; leaving the missive with him for urgent dispatch to London, he looked in on Griggs, checked there was no urgent business awaiting his attention, talked over Griggs’s opinion of Percy—surprisingly positive; it seemed Percy had a head for figures—then he headed down the drive and cut through the hedge, taking the shortest route to the rectory.

  There was no warrior-queen at the washing line today. With a grin at the thought, Jack climbed the steps to the rectory porch, circled around to the side door, and so through the hall to James’s study. He knocked, heard James call, as always distractedly, “Come.”

  Opening the door, Jack went in, to find a harassed-looking James seated behind his desk with Clarice standing over him.

  Her arms were folded—rarely, he was coming to learn, a good sign. He resisted the urge to check if her toe was tapping.

  He smiled, charmingly. “Good morning.” He made the greeting general. Clarice accorded him a regal nod and looked back at James.

  James had looked up, incipient relief on his face; it faded as he looked at Jack. “Ah…good morning, my boy.” James looked down at the sheet of paper on his blotter. “I suppose you’re here to demand information, too.”

  Clarice’s lips thinned. “I explained, James. We need to know all you can tell us before we go to London.”

  James looked at Jack.

  Who shrugged. “She’s right.”

  “But”—James’s tone turned querulous—“I really don’t see the need—”

  “This is serious, James.”

  Jack looked at Clarice; she looked at him. They’d spoken in unison, with very similar inflections, hers a touch more impatient.

  Looking back at James, Jack continued, “We can’t not act, James. You can’t expect it of us.”

  That made James think; after a moment, he grimaced, then waved his pen at the sheet before him. “Clarice said you’d need as much detail as I can recall…”

  Clarice reached around James and twitched a fresh sheet of paper free. “I think it would be best if Jack listed all the information he needs.” She laid the sheet on the desk opposite James, along with a pen she filched from a rack by James’s hand. “Then you can do your best to assemble the goods.”

  Under her forceful gaze, Jack drew up a chair and sat before the blank sheet. He picked up the pen, tested the nib. “This might take a while.”

  Over the tip of the nib, he met Clarice’s eyes. She was never a restful female; at present, the energy pouring from her—as if she was impatient to attack an as-yet-unsighted enemy—while in one sense reassuring, was otherwise distracting. He sympathized with James; he’d never be able to focus his thoughts if she remained in the room in her present state.

  If she remained in the room at all.

  She met his eyes, clearly heard his suggestion. Considered it, then asked, “How’s Anthony?”

  “Better and steadily improving.” Jack dipped his nib in the inkwell, then looked again at her. “He’s getting restless over being confined to his bed.”

  “Hmm.” Lowering her arms, she walked around the desk. “I’ll call on him this afternoon.”

  “That might be wise.” Jack bent over the paper. “I’ll be out this afternoon, and I’ll have Percy with me. Anthony would probably appreciate the company.”

  James looked up. “I’ll go, too. Must do all I can, given it was me he came to speak with—”

  “The best way you can repay his bravery and all he’s suffered in bringing Teddy’s message to you is to compile all the information Jack is about to request from you.”

  Clarice hadn’t raised her voice, yet there was a note in it that brooked no argument. Jack shut his lips against the urge to soften her words; in this case, she was absolutely right, and he knew James more than well enough to know he would seize any opportunity to drag his heels over the business.

  There was stubborn—James’s rather weak brand—and stubborn, Clarice’s battle hardness. The latter might not be comfortable; it was, in this instance, necessary.

  James sighed; a touch of grimness about his mouth, he nodded. “Very well.” He glanced across the desk. “What do you need?”

  Jack told him; once James had started making a list of all his journeys over the past decade, Jack settled to write down the other questions regarding James’s work he wanted answered.

  Clarice paced, slowly, behind him, watching them both; occasionally she drew near and read his list over his shoulder. Jack simply bided his time.

  So did James. When Macimber put his head around the door and summoned Clarice to deal with some household matter, James waited only until the door had shut, cutting off Clarice’s final narrow-eyed glance, to lay down his pen and appeal to Jack. “My boy, you have to help me. I really do not wish Clarice to go to London on my behalf.”

  Why? was the first word that popped into Jack’s mind, but he hesitated…instead felt compelled to make James see something he was clearly missing. “It’s not that simple, James. For a start, Clarice is under no man’s thumb. If she decides to go to London, neither I nor you can prevent her doing so—indeed, I doubt if hell or high water would suffice.”

  James grimaced. “I suppose persuading her is the only real option.”

  Jack met his gaze. “My powers of persuasion are considerable, but they’re not that good.”

  James frowned.

  Jack paused, and chose his words with care. “I’m not sure, in this, that she’s wrong. With you confined here, someone from your family does need to alert the other members, more definitively than by letter, to explain to them what the situation is, and regardless of her past, Clarice is the late marquess’s daughter, the current marquess’s sister. The family will listen to her.”

  “Perhaps.” James looked unconvinced, strangely uncertain.

  Puzzled, Jack raised his brows.

  James sighed unhappily. “Very well, I concede they’ll most likely listen to her, because she’ll make them. She’ll engineer an audience, and get her point across, but at what cost to her?”

  Jack blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know.” James closed his eyes, then opened them. “Clarice isn’t spoken of within the family. She was cast off by her father, disowned, or as near to it as his sons would allow.”

  Jack frowned. “So you intimated, but I didn’t imagine—”

  “No, why would you?” James shook his head, concern in his eyes. “I didn’t explain as clearly, as completely, as I might have. Melton, her father, wasn’t the only one in the family who was furious with Clarice and, as they saw it, her intransigence. Her aunts, Melton’s sisters, and even Edith’s family were horrified. In holding to her refusal to marry Emsworth, in the eyes of the family, Clarice stepped far beyond the pale.”

  Jack held James’s gaze, read his eyes. “Are you saying that she might not even be acknowledged by the family, that they might still, seven years later, treat her as an outcast?”

  “Yes.” James nodded very definitely. “The Altwoods aren’t renowned for their forgiving natures. I greatly fear that, regardless of what she allows to show, their…rejection hurt Clarice deeply. Returning to the fold to plead my
case will unquestionably exacerbate long-buried wounds. Worse, certain members of the family might take advantage of having her at their mercy, in the sense of having her in a position of begging for their help for me, to…”

  In imagining what vindictiveness his and her family might visit on Clarice, James was out of his depth; that showed in his confused, distressed expression as he searched for words. “Well,” he eventually admitted, “I don’t know what they might take it into their hard heads to do, but whatever.” James fixed Jack with a for him belligerent and decisive look. “I don’t want Clarice placed in such a situation on my account.”

  A minute ticked past, then Jack exhaled. “I see.”

  “Indeed.” James leaned across the desk. “So will you help me, dear boy, in dissuading her from going to London?”

  Jack held James’s gaze, read his sincerity. Knew the matter wasn’t as simple as James had painted it. But…he grimaced. “The best I can promise is to think about it, along with every other option.”

  James smiled. “Good, good.”

  His immediate relaxing made Jack inwardly smile, fondly, if cynically. Having explained his problem and handed it to Jack to resolve, with his customary single-mindedness James turned back to the task on his desk. He dipped his pen in the inkwell, then frowned at the sheet on his blotter. “I’d better get on with these lists, then, heh? Don’t want to delay you, and they’ll take a few days as it is.”

  Jack finished his list and left it with James to fulfill. He departed the rectory without encountering Clarice; he considered, but didn’t seek her out. Opting to take the longer route home, he sank his hands in his breeches’ pockets and ambled down the drive, and did what he’d promised James he would.

  He thought about dissuading Clarice from going to London.

  Unlike James, he could see some distinct pros as well as the obvious, now he’d heard the full story of Clarice’s past, cons.

  There was no denying that once in London, she would command the family’s immediate attention. More, they would accept that she would not let them stand aside and not support James; if they wanted her to leave them in peace, they would have to act in James’s defence. Not having to convince people of one’s steely and unbending nature was an advantage he appreciated.