The Lord Meets His Lady

by Gina Conkle

  His back arched. Every inch of his skin tingled.

  Being inside Genevieve was primal.

  This was what he came north for. For her. For a lifetime of happiness if she’d stay.

  Seated inside her body, he waited. He was losing what little control he had.

  “I can’t…be…smooth,” he huffed when her inner muscles gloved his cock. His fingertips dug into the sheets.

  “Don’t be.” Her breath came in starts and stops against his neck.

  She bit the sinew connecting his shoulder and neck, and he felt the mark all the way to his ass.

  Grinning, he pushed up higher. “If you’re playing that way.”

  He pushed in and out. He wanted to tease her…slow strokes at her entrance with artfully timed deep thrusts. But a second deep slide inside Genevieve, and he was lost. There’d be no practiced sex. This was elemental. Thirst after a long drought.

  In and out. Harder and faster. He set his hand behind her knee and pushed her knee up to her ribs. Genevieve was wide open to him. His thrusts were wild, imperfect. She pumped hard against him, her heavy breaths turning to cries and moans beneath him.

  Her eyes shut.

  “Look at me.” His voice was ragged. Sweat trickled down his back.

  Genevieve opened her lids halfway. The bed creaked violently. Skin slapped skin. Her breasts jostled in time to the slick honeyed sounds where their bodies joined. Dampness sheened her skin.

  “Marcus,” she cried, her arms falling wide.

  Hot, wet feminine muscles pulsed around him. Dark. Intense. Craving him. Genevieve clutched the sheets. Her face crumpled. The tendons on her neck stood out in full relief. A blush stole over her skin before easing…setting her free, her pleasure peaking with a tortured moan this time.

  He pushed once, twice. Every muscle in his body tightened before his seed released inside her. Quakes racked his body. A second wave rolled down his spine, and more seed spurted deep in her womb, taking sound reasoning with it.

  Lungs billowing, Marcus collapsed. Still inside Genevieve, he rolled sideways, holding her, tucking her close.

  Genevieve’s mouth pressed his collarbone, each breath fast and hot against him. “Please,” she whispered. “Tell me the story of Venus and Adonis.”

  Blankets and pillows bunched around them. Firelight danced across Genevieve’s pale skin, all bare save the one black stocking drooping at her knee and her shift still bunched around her waist. She curled closer for warmth.

  Their coupling had exhausted him, yet Marcus lay wide-eyed, his senses pulsing with life.

  He was made for her.

  Head on the pillow, he stared at the canopy above. Soft-skinned limbs twined with his, anchoring him to her, to Pallinsburn. He couldn’t leave if he tried.

  Did the humble miss from Tavistock Street know she’d won him for life?

  Genevieve’s cheek mashed his chest. “The story. Tell me what happens.”

  “Venus and Adonis? You are a lusty wench.”

  She scratched his ribs, her sleepy laughter prodding him.

  “Well, let me see. There is Adonis on his horse about to go hunting. Fair Venus is taken with him…” Marcus began, his smile fading.

  He’d give his version of the tale and let Genevieve fall asleep. She didn’t need to hear how the tragic love story ended.

  It could be their own.

  Thirty-three

  Bits of hay flew as his pitchfork speared fodder. The barn was his solace, a place to ruminate on the choices ahead, choices made difficult by the new paper crinkling in his pocket. Genevieve worked inside the cottage, flanked by the Dutton sisters. Outside, rain poured thickly. Any rider would have to slog through the storm and battle a laundress and charwoman to steal his wife away. And there was much mud—thick, boot-sucking mud. No one would get in or out of Pallinsburn without notice.

  Across the barn’s aisle, Samuel dumped oats into feed buckets, boring holes in Marcus’s back between each stall.

  Marcus speared more hay. “You want to know what I’ve decided.”

  “I do, but you seem different. You’re calm today.”

  Time to contemplate his options had given Marcus clarity. So had limb-loosening sex with his wife.

  “You mean I don’t seem like a man who could lose what little he has left in the world.”

  The letter, folded safely in his breast pocket. News that changed everything. The message inside should be the answer to all his problems. The more distractions thrown his way, the more he gained precision of what he wanted and who he wanted. The dilemma was in how to make his wishes unfold.

  “Atal wants to make it a three-horse race tomorrow and a bay filly of his.” Samuel squinted at the morning downpour beyond the barn doors. “It’d be dangerous with the mud.”

  Marcus rolled the hay cart to the next stall. Horse heads poked over the stall, snickering at his coming. At the end of the row, Khan’s charcoal muzzle dipped over his private stall. The pampered steed deserved his accommodations. He was royalty, offspring of the Godolphin Arabian. The racehorse was also a dear friend. Marcus had been there when Khan was born, and the only one to train and ride him. And when Marcus needed extra coin, Khan delivered a steady stream of wins at casual country races.

  The sure-footed gelding was at the edge of his prime. Marcus had stopped racing Khan for fear of injuries. He couldn’t let anything happen to his friend.

  “If it’s like this all day and through the night, we ought to postpone…that is, if you’re planning to race Khan.”

  Marcus drove the pitchfork into the ground and dug the letter from his pocket. “You need to read this.”

  Samuel closed the distance in three strides. Handing over the letter was easy. Marcus owed his friend this…full knowledge of the options ahead. The reading was cursory with the juicy morsel of news near the top of the letter.

  “When did you get this?” Samuel asked.

  “Early this morning when Peter Dutton brought his sisters.”

  “And?” Samuel shook the letter. “What are you going to do?”

  Horses snorted. A few stomped the ground, restless from being denied their chance to run in the pasture. The heavy storm brought disruptions on all sides. The race tomorrow didn’t have to happen. He could cry off…the mud and all. None would gainsay him, but it wouldn’t stop the Wolf.

  He took back the missive and scanned his brother’s hastily scrawled words.

  Dear Marcus,

  Your presence has been severely missed.

  He snorted. His third reading, and he couldn’t get over the feeling North was laying it on thick.

  You’re scoffing as you read this, I’m sure, but I was wrong.

  Smirking, he pictured his brother’s woeful grimace as he wrote the letter.

  The marchioness misses you, and so do I. It’s true. We want you back at Northampton. There’s been a development in the bride hunt. We found a bride for you. Do you recall talking with Miss Phoebe Rutherford at the Carruthers’ musicale? Her father, Mr. James Rutherford, owns three textile mills in Manchester and…

  He stopped reading and folded the letter. A development indeed. He was shocked at North’s expectation that he be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of family need. That was the heir’s job. Not his. Did he recall Miss Phoebe Rutherford? Glossy black hair and light-blue eyes alight with mischief. He recalled her and their stolen moments behind a strategic topiary. She’d rubbed against him like a cat in heat, letting slip how she’d wanted a garden walk with the infamous Lord Marcus Bowles to experience his expert kisses.

  The arrangement North requested wouldn’t happen. His heart was already taken by an inappropriate woman who favored russet-red skirts.

  “Well,” Samuel prompted. “Are you going to pursue Miss Rutherford?”

  “I’m a married man. That barrier
aside, I thought you were against a man using a woman to solve his financial problems.”

  Samuel had the decency to look away. “I was,” he admitted. “This offer would make things easier all around. Believe me, I’m sorely tempted to drag you back to Northampton.” His chest expanded with a deep breath. “But I wouldn’t be your friend if I did.”

  “No?”

  “It’d save our venture, spare you and Khan a dangerous race—”

  “Which thrills Khan.”

  “And you wouldn’t have to put him up as collateral for a loan, but it would break the heart of a certain housekeeper, who I’m certain was never your housekeeper to begin with.”

  “Because I love her,” he said, leaning against the post where his wife had announced he’d delivered a nice, impersonal kiss—unlike Miss Rutherford who had wanted to experience his kisses. Genevieve didn’t want an experience. She wanted him.

  “Does she know?”

  “I haven’t found the right time.”

  “Right time? You fool. There is no such thing.”

  “When did you become an expert on matters of the heart?”

  “This isn’t about me. That woman could slip away, and you’d lose her forever.” Samuel leaned against the stall. “You know what else I think? Your housekeeper wants your happiness, and she wouldn’t hesitate to take drastic measures to make sure you get what you want. Such as that letter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yesterday. You said she chased after Lord Barnard…to spare us any more trouble.”

  Marcus held up the letter. “I still wouldn’t be free to marry a wealthy woman.”

  “Pffft! If Barnard truly has the king’s ear, your problems are solved. He can take care of all legalities and make your Coldstream elopement disappear quickly and quietly on the grounds a woman duped you. The stagecoach records alone are damning. Proof she traveled under a false name.”

  Was Samuel goading him?

  Marcus made his way to Khan’s stall. “I couldn’t let that happen. Genevieve’s suffered enough from the maneuverings of men.” He petted Khan’s nose. “If or when she wants to leave, the burden of this will fall on me.”

  “And the letter?”

  “I’ll write North and tell him I must decline on the grounds I’m already a married man. It’s time I faced what I want on all facets.”

  Samuel’s manly grunt of acknowledgment was his answer as he toed the stall’s bottom slat.

  Marcus stuffed the letter in his pocket. “It doesn’t change our struggles.”

  “There’s nothing bad about having struggles, Marcus. It’s what you do with them that defines you.”

  Samuel moseyed back to his morning task of scooping oats for hungry horses. The side of the barn Samuel worked brimmed with the second needy herd. Already coats were thicker, eyes clearer, the cloud of misery lifted. There was satisfaction in having had a hand in those changes.

  Marcus pulled an apple slice from his pocket and offered it to Khan. “You and I, my friend, are close to facing our defining moment.”

  Thirty-four

  Hours later…

  Genevieve stroked the narrow indent behind Khan’s ear. She had to get away and have a moment alone. The barn was the best place. Rubbing the favored spot lulled the horse, turning him pliant as clay.

  “You’re a sweet one.”

  Coffee-dark eyes like hers stared at her from under long lashes. Fresh hay sweetened the air. Not a single cobweb clung to the rafters. Her husband’s meticulous care for the steed, the barn, and all the other horses was better than what most men gave their wives. Her fingers halted midstroke. Was that what she wanted from him? Meticulous care? Or love?

  She wanted her husband to be happy too. But there were two Marcuses. There was Marcus the newly converted rustic, and there was Marcus the second son of a noble name. It was hard to believe he was one and the same. He wore the role of woodsman, horseman, and businessman well. She could say he was happier here than in London.

  So was she.

  She dug inside her apron pocket and searched Khan’s intelligent eyes. “If you could talk, I’m sure you’d give me words of wisdom.” Out came an apple slice, the fruit offered on her palm. “Smuggled goods.”

  Fuzzy lips nipped her hand. Beyond the barn door, wheels sloshed through mud.

  “Till our next meeting.”

  Genevieve picked up her basket of eggs. She’d flitted through her day, loose-limbed and happy. She’d awakened in Marcus’s bed at dawn with one thing on her mind—to woo her husband. Surely a fine meal was one way to win a man’s heart. A ham turned on the meat hastener. Food was one weapon. Sex was another. The actresses of the Golden Goose insisted on the merits of bed-shattering sex.

  The basket swung gently from her fingertips as she exited the barn. Good food and good sex it was. At the right moment, she’d lay her heart at his feet. Tonight. On the purple settee after they finished reading Venus and Adonis.

  Peter Dutton waved as he reined his cart before the cottage door. Mud sucked her pattens. Wind swirled, stirring her cloak as she picked her way around mud puddles.

  “Good evening, Mr. Dutton.”

  “And to you, miss.” His cheeks flamed red. “Er, I should say, Lady Bowles.”

  “News travels fast.”

  “Gossip more like it. The Red Swan’s full of the news.” He laughed. “There’s also talk of a big horse race tomorrow at the castle. Which reminds me.” He pulled a letter bearing the Atal seal from his pocket. “If you’d be so kind as to give this to his lordship.”

  “A busy day for you.” She tucked the post in her egg basket.

  “It’s nothing.”

  She hesitated. “You’ve been very kind to me, Mr. Dutton. Your friendliness, welcoming me to the village and all. Thank you.”

  Grinning sheepishly, he doffed his hat. “You’re welcome. And if I may, marriage agrees with you, ma’am.”

  “Kind words, sir.” She winked at him and hooked the egg basket on her elbow. “I’ll get your sisters.”

  Skirling wind whistled at her back. She stepped inside…a horse race. Was Lord Bowles racing Khan and using him as surety? He’d spent the morning with the horses before riding off to the village, returning drenched to the bone a few hours later to change his clothes and hunch over more correspondence, sometimes in his chamber, sometimes in the kitchen.

  She toed off her pattens, drawn to voices abovestairs. Marcus? Friendly and charming by the lilt of his voice. Too friendly. His deeper voice was followed by a familiar giggle.

  Ruby?

  Her grip on the basket tightened. Her husband’s voice dipped to plush notes. He didn’t simply say words when flirting; his voice caressed them.

  She rushed to the kitchen and braced herself against the pine cabinet…all the better to get out of earshot of the feminine laughter. Staring at the floor, she faced harsh facts. She had no hold on Lord Bowles. Few even knew they were married. How silly she was, roasting the ham, the spindle jack’s tick an embarrassing noise. She pretended to be part of this…the cottage, her husband…her girlish notions of love.

  Lily walked out of the scullery, empty buckets in both hands. “You’re out of starch, ma’am.”

  Ma’am. An honorific for the woman of the house. A fictional title. What went on here was no different than a bad play. She’d fallen deep for her own false tale.

  Dressing in a courtesan’s trumped-up finery to meet Baron Atal…

  Painting the mural to please Lord Bowles…

  Tending the garden and the horses with him…

  Her face crumpled.

  Head cocked, Lily set the buckets by the cistern. “Ma’am? Are you ill?”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  The maid’s eyes rounded.

  “I’m sorry, Lily.” Righting herself
, Genevieve set the basket on the table. “I’m no woman of quality. The sooner I remember where I belong, the better.”

  “You’d make a fine lady if given the chance, ma’am.”

  “Humph. Better that I remember who I am.” She removed her cloak and draped it across the bench. “Your brother’s here.”

  Keeping busy, she gathered blank papers and set them down beside an inkpot. Unfolded letters scattered the surface. Lord Bowles would eat and tend his correspondence in quiet. The sooner she shut herself away in her room, the better. One letter caught her eye. The foolscap lay open for all to see with damning words stabbing her heart.

  We found a bride for you.

  The sentence burned itself on her brain. Lily chattered on, but Genevieve didn’t hear her. The letter…it came from the Marquis of Northampton, her husband’s brother. Of course his family would want to arrange a suitable bride. A woman with pretty gowns and pretty manners and a family of good social standing. Certainly not someone like her.

  Her hand covered her mouth. Was this the reason for his ride to the village? To post a letter to Miss Phoebe Rutherford?

  “…and we finished the polishing and dusting.” Lily peered at her. “Are you sure you’re well, ma’am?”

  “Fine. I’m fine. You’ll be here tomorrow?”

  “Yes, bright and early.” The maid wandered into the scullery, untying her apron. “I’ll get Ruby. She’s upstairs…not sure what she’s doing.”

  Genevieve’s vision narrowed on the kitchen doorway. “Oh, I have a good idea. Let me tell her your brother is here.”

  She padded quietly up the stairs to the hallway. In the master chamber, Marcus stood by his bed, sifting through papers strewn across the counterpane for lack of a desk. No daylight showed between Ruby’s skirts and her husband’s breeches.