by Lily Reynard
Finally, he arrived in Long Cranbourne. The main street of the village was deserted, and it was raining. Again. Still.
Kit spared the square with its church a cursory glance, remembering a sunnier day last spring, and a carriage surrounded by hopeful suitors.
Then he put his heels to his horse's side—the beast was trying to head for the nearby inn—and continued out to the large iron gates that marked the entrance to the Cranbourne estate.
Scarcely a half-hour later, Kit found himself sitting in front of the parlor fireplace. It had been lit and his damp clothes steamed slightly in the warmth.
The door opened, and he sprang up, his heart skipping a beat. But it was only Mall.
"Mr. Fitzgeorge," she said, in a distinctly unfriendly tone. "What do you want here?"
He thought about correcting Mall with his newly-acquired title of Sir Christopher, then decided to leave it as a surprise for Antonia. "To speak to your lady, of course."
"Milady," said Mall, firmly, "is not receiving visitors at present."
Kit sighed, and reached into his jacket. He had feared this might be the case, and spent a day or two laboring over a letter.
Unfolding a protective oilcloth wrapping, he offered the envelope to Mall. "Will you at least give her a letter from me?"
Mall took a hasty step backward, her hands behind her back, as if he were offering her a dish of poisoned sweetmeats.
"Mall, please." Kit was suddenly overcome with weariness.
His shoulder throbbed relentlessly from holding reins, and more than anything, he longed to crawl into a warm bed—Antonia's bed, whispered his heart—and sleep until the aches and pains of three days spent on horseback vanished.
Mall shook her head. "I won't have you sending her further down a path of ruin. Did you know, even here I've overheard men joking about wanting to become her bodyguard?"
Kit groaned silently. Damn Julian and his malicious verses! "It's a letter, Mall. Merely a letter."
Mall shook her head again, more vehemently this time. "Please leave now, Mr. Fitzgeorge. Before I'm forced to summon help."
He left then, though it took every ounce of willpower to walk back out into the freezing rain and remount his horse.
He made it as far as the inn before deciding to stay the night. Damned woman. If she's going to reject my suit, I deserve to hear it from her own lips. She owes me at least that much!
At least he had the consolation of a roof over his head, a decent dinner, and a roaring fire, he thought a few hours later, lingering in the low-ceilinged taproom, overcome with melancholy. Not all of his failed campaigns could boast as much.
But none of the contracts as a mercenary had meant so much as winning the hand of a single stubborn honorable woman.
What kind of soldier are you, to declare the war lost on the basis of a single battle? He had traveled too far and lost too much to be easily discouraged.
After all, he thought, there are more ways of breaching a castle's defenses than through the front gates.
* * *
Several hours later, Kit eyed the centuries-old ivy growing up the walls of Cranbourne House. This is going to be a problem.
The rain had finally subsided to a sullen drip, and faintly, he heard the church bell toll midnight. With a sigh, he threw back his cloak, set one booted foot to the thick, gnarled trunk of the ivy, and began climbing, stopping every few feet to curse silently at the renewed pain in his shoulder.
* * *
Antonia awoke to the sound of her bedroom window scraping open, and the muffled thump of someone climbing inside. Not again!
For long moments, she heard nothing more. Nevertheless, she slowly insinuated her hand under her pillow, seeking the familiar weight of her cudgel.
Another sound—a footstep.
But before she could draw breath to scream, a hand thrust though the bedcurtains, covered her mouth, and abruptly someone was sitting on the bed next to her.
She smelled damp wool and horse in the instant before Kit whispered, "Antonia. Don't scream. It's me."
Kit! Her heart gave a mighty leap of joy. Which was almost immediately followed by anger that he hadn't come to her like a gentleman would.
He released her, just as her seeking hand found the dagger under her pillow.
She began to draw it out, but he was quicker, grabbing her wrists and pinning her to the bed.
For an endless moment, she arched against him in a stalemate.
Unwilling to call for help, she was at his mercy—and not at all certain that it was mercy she wanted from him. She couldn't see his face, a shadow against shadows in the unlighted room, but his harsh whisper held an erotic intensity that told her everything. "Antonia."
Without releasing his grip on her wrists, he bent to kiss her, a slow, hard, intoxicating kiss.
She gasped, then yielded utterly, kissing him back with all the passion accumulated during their long separation, struggling against the hold on her wrists that kept her from embracing him fully.
He chuckled against her mouth, then drew back just far enough to murmur, "If I release you, will you promise not to stab me? My shoulder is killing me."
The last of her anger dissipated as she laughed at the ridiculousness of his words, and he released his hold.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to leave his hand on her hip as she pushed herself up to a sitting position against her pillows and lit a candle.
"Kit," she asked, breathlessly. "What on earth are you doing here?"
Mall awoke with a start and scrabbled frantically under her pillow for the cudgel.
"Wait, Mall," said Antonia and Kit, simultaneously.
"I was but trying to deliver a letter." Kit sighed. "I called upon you earlier today, but your maid is a fierce guardian and sent me away."
Antonia turned to look at Mall, anger kindling in her veins. "Mall, is this true? Did you turn away Mr. Fitzgeorge and fail to inform me of it?"
Mall's gaze slid away. Staring down at the coverlet, she muttered, "I was but trying to save you from more trouble, milady."
"And so, you treated me as a child—or a wanton. Leave us now."
"But, milady—" Mall began to protest.
"I am in no danger. Go."
Her cheeks scarlet, Mall slid awkwardly out of the large bed, and made her way out. The heavy door slammed shut behind her.
"Awakening every person in this house from cellar to attic, no doubt," said Antonia, with a laugh.
Kit pulled out a folded packet of paper from his shirt, and handed it to her.
"You really did have a letter?" Taken by surprise, she blinked. "I thought you'd come to ravish me."
He gave her a slow smile that made her squirm.
"Well, I could also ravish you, if you like. In fact—" His hand slid up her ribcage, "I would very much like to."
She stopped his hand. "That depends on what your letter says."
He sat back, all teasing gone from his expression.
"Shall I light another candle?" he asked, reaching for her bedside candelabra.
She forced her attention from his stubbled face, thinking him the handsomest man she had ever seen, and read the letter, spreading the pages over her knees.
"Sir Christopher Fitzgeorge?" she asked. "And Lionel didn't write me a word of it! You've had an eventful winter, or so it seems."
"I wanted to be worthy of you."
Her cheeks heated at that, but she said nothing more until she had come to the end of his letter.
"Complete autonomy over my entire present income? A marriage portion of all my existing lands? You would really give up the worldly benefits of marriage?"
"I would be willing to give up much more to live as your husband." He shrugged, then wincing a little, rubbed his shoulder. "I'm the most famous fencing master in England, and becoming a wealthy man in my own right, Antonia."
"It's going to be a terrible scandal if we wed, Kit," she said, laying her hand against his ch
eek. He turned and kissed her palm. "I've spent weeks thinking about it. You'll be called a fortune-hunter, and worse."
"And what of you?" he asked, quietly.
She chuckled, and traced the line of his brow. "Oh, my reputation's been thoroughly ruined, and I'll never recover it."
His eyes widened, and she saw guilt in their depths. She added, "It's taken me a long time to realize that. But now I am free to decide what I want."
"And what do you want?" he asked huskily.
"You," she said. "I want you, Kit." She chuckled. "At least I won't have to worry about your schemes to abduct me if we're safely wed."
His smile flared in the candlelight. Her hand was still stroking his face. He caught it, then reached over, and grasped her other hand as well.
"I assure you that ravishment is still a threat, however," he said, pressing her back against her pillows.
She tested his grip, wriggling deliciously against him. "Oh, la, Sir Christopher! Must I beg for mercy?"
Leaning down, he caught her earlobe between his teeth. "It's not mercy you'll be begging for, my lady."
"Antonia," she gasped, just before his mouth descended on hers. "Call me Antonia."
* * *
Kit was down to his shirt and braies when she pulled him back into her bed.
He wanted to take her there and then, and from the way she was arching against him, she wanted it, too. But he also longed to savor the long-untasted delight of making love to her.
He finished undressing her with deliberate slowness, pausing to kiss and caress every inch of her soft, perfumed flesh. Finally, she lay naked before him, flushed with desire, her eyes heavy-lidded and languid.
She started to pull up his long shirt, but he caught her wrists, and held them.
"Not yet," he said. "I want to drive you mad with desire, first."
"I'm already mad with desire," she said.
He felt a pleasant shock in his loins at her words, but schooled himself.
He grinned down at her. "Then I want to make you beg to be taken."
He heard her breath catch, and realized that she was as excited by the prospect as he.
Still holding her wrists in one hand, he pushed her back down onto the bed. He ran a deliberate finger down the soft valley of her cleavage, then circled one exposed breast with feather-light strokes, hovering over but not quite touching the soft tip.
She gasped and tried to arch up to meet his fingers. His Adam's arsenal was throbbing urgently, demanding release, but he mastered it with an effort of will.
It wasn't time for that yet. And wouldn't be for a while.
Deliberately, he brushed his fingers across the velvet-soft skin of her areola. She gasped again, and the tip of her breast hardened almost immediately. He began rubbing his fingertips against her nipple, keeping his touch deliberately light, and she squirmed beneath him. The curve of her hip was nestled against his loins, and her movements were exquisite torture.
He kissed her neck and throat while still caressing her breast, and felt her pulse hammering beneath his lips. She was beginning to pant.
"Please," she whispered, rubbing herself against the painfully hard evidence of his desire.
"Not yet," he murmured, though every nerve in his own body screamed to take her.
She gave a small, frustrated huff. He grinned down at her, then moved his free hand to her other breast, and repeated his teasing attentions.
She cried out when he finally lowered his mouth to her breasts, and ravished them with tongue and teeth. When he had finished with them, he began to make his leisurely way down across her soft stomach and sweetly rounded belly.
Finally, he reached the curls between her legs. He parted her thighs, and, using his mouth and fingers, did his best to keep her hovering on the brink of the little death. His efforts were rewarded with gasps and whimpers at first, then she started pleading.
"Not yet." It was getting harder to speak coherently, his senses filled by her sweet musk.
She was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration and nearly incoherent by the time he rose to his knees, and pulled his shirt over his head.
"Now," he said, and slid himself into her with exquisite, excruciating slowness.
She cried out triumphantly, wrapping her legs around his waist, and he felt her nails dig into his back with delicious sensation.
God, but she felt good, slick and trembling and clinging to him!
Kit began to thrust hard and fast, at last yielding to the demands of his own body, and felt her convulse beneath him.
He muffled her cries with a kiss as she trembled and shook, and continued racing towards his own finish as her petit-mort crested, receded, and crested again.
Then he felt his own release beginning, and died in a cataclysmic flood of pleasure.
It was utter fulfillment to doze in her arms, and to awaken some time later, still nestled against her.
"Dear me," Antonia murmured, stroking his chest. "How did I manage to survive all this time without you? You have quite ruined me, Sir Christopher."
"Never!" With an effort, Kit managed to raise himself up on one elbow, and capture her hand. "Would you believe I actually intended to ask your hand in under, er, more formal circumstances? When we were having a cup of tea. In your parlor."
He gestured vaguely at the heaped bedclothes and scattered clothes that surrounded them, and she giggled. Then he turned serious.
"I cannot bear the prospect of ever being parted from you again, my dearest Antonia. But you will be sacrificing much to become mere Lady Fitzgeorge, the wife of a humble knight and fencing-master."
* * *
He held himself very still, as if he were convinced that she might change her mind, and her heart melted.
She reached up kissed him, a long, slow, lingering kiss. "I would be honored to be your wife, and to spend my days in your bed and at your board."
They exchanged a tender kiss with one another before Antonia sat up. "We will have to inform my nephew, the earl, of our plans," she said. "He will not be best pleased, I think."
"If necessary, I shall fight a duel for your hand," said Kit, grinning.
Epilogue
She [the Countess of Sutherland] has lost by it [the marriage] much of the repute she had gained by keeping herself a widow. It was then believed that wit and discretion were to be reconciled in her person that have so seldom been persuaded to meet in anyone else. But we are all human. — Dorothy Osborne, The Osborne Letters (ca. 1652)
April, 1667
The Earl of Thornsby's murder trial lasted three weeks.
As was his right, he was tried by a jury of his peers—the entire House of Lords.
Because there were no courtrooms in the burned-out city large enough to hold proceedings on this scale, the great medieval expanse of Westminster Hall had been hastily refurbished to serve as a venue.
Antonia made her first public appearance since the fire, and tried to ignore the hundreds of avid eyes fastened on her every move as she was sworn in by the prosecution.
News of her betrothal to Kit had preceded her arrival in London, and everywhere she went, curious eyes and whispers followed.
She was once again the most notorious woman in London, but this time, she did not allow it to overly concern her. She was happier than she had ever been in her life. Let people think what they would.
Over the next hour, she told her story to a rapt audience of peers and spectators, then withdrew, shaky but relieved the ordeal was over.
When she returned to the courtroom, it was to take her place at Kit's side among the hundreds of spectators.
As she seated herself on one of the wooden benches, Kit discreetly took her hand, his action concealed by her skirts and a soft shawl around her shoulders.
She heard ripples of whispers, and defiantly lifted their joined hands to place them in plain sight.
Kit was her betrothed. There was nothing shameful about their relationship.
The Earl
of Cranbourne had been visibly disappointed when they told him of their betrothal, but whatever his private feelings, he had quickly moved to show his public approval of the match.
His acceptance, coupled with the Duke of Selborough's public congratulations at a Whitehall banquet last week, had ensured that the rest of Antonia's peers were at least outwardly-approving of her remarriage.
Antonia's testimony was followed by those of numerous witnesses, including Mall and Kit. Then, finally, the peers withdrew to deliberate.
The verdict against the Earl of Thornsby was announced at five o'clock in the afternoon.
Outside Westminster Hall, the afternoon was gray and rainy.
Inside the crowded hall, branches of candles had been lit, and the air was thick and humid with the scents of perfume, wool, perspiration, hot tallow, and freshly planed wood.
The talking and shuffling from the crowded spectators' benches ceased abruptly as the peers of the House of Lords filed into the hall, returning from their deliberations.
"We have reached a verdict, my lord," announced the Duke of Selborough, as the most senior peer.
Antonia remembered him as being gray-haired but vigorous on the day of the fire. She was shocked at his appearance when the trial started.
Selborough had lost a great deal of weight since September, and his complexion had a grayish, unhealthy pallor.
The Lord High Steward, in charge of the trial, rose to face the assembled peers. The courtroom became utterly silent as, according to custom, the verdicts were given in strict order of rank beginning with the most junior peer, Lord Leinster.
Each lord in turn stood, placed his hand over his breast, and answered the Lord High Steward's question: "Whether my Lord Thornsby be guilty of the murder of Lord Chelmsford, whereof he stands indicted, or not guilty?"
"Guilty, upon mine honor," replied each peer in turn, until a weary-looking Selborough finished the unanimous conviction with a ringing, "Guilty, upon mine honor!"
By custom, Thornsby was not in the courtroom to hear the verdict against him; the news would be conveyed to him shortly at his cell in the Tower.
