by Deborah Hale
Thorn cast her a look that questioned whether he’d fallen into the clutches of a madwoman. “Then, why did that doctor call you my wife?”
“What else should I have told him?” Slowly, Felicity regained control of herself. “What should I have told anyone? This inn only had one suitable room free, and it was clear you’d need someone to take care of you through the night. I didn’t want to start a lot of scandalous talk that might get back to Bath.”
“You might have claimed to be my sister.”
His words jerked a mat out from under Felicity, throwing her more badly off balance than she’d been before.
“I—I suppose I might have,” she admitted. “I didn’t happen to think of it, that’s all.”
She wasn’t anybody’s sister, so she hadn’t thought of pretending to be. Besides, she couldn’t imagine herself related to Thorn Greenwood in that chaste way.
“Besides, what gives you the right to question what action I took in a moment of crisis?” Felicity pulled herself taller and thrust out her chin. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”
Her sudden shift from defense to attack seemed to catch Thorn off guard. “Well…obviously.”
“You’re alert, if not entirely reasonable.” Felicity would not retreat. “You have no hurts that a few days’ rest won’t cure. I’d say my servants and I did well by you. But do I get a word of thanks?”
At least Thorn had the manners to look chagrined.
Felicity supplied her own answer. “I do not. Instead you insist on courting further injury by proposing to ride all over town when you have barely regained consciousness. Then you question my innocent ruse of posing as your wife for one night.”
“I’m sorry.” Thorn pulled the coffee-soaked coverlet closer around his waist. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. The ‘wife’ business caught me by surprise, was all. As for the other, I only want to find my sister while I have the chance. Aren’t you just as anxious to recover your nephew and bring the young fool to his senses?”
“Of course, but…” But she found herself even more concerned with Thorn’s well-being.
Monumental idiocy when she would have to cut all ties with him. When this shared journey of theirs was meant to sever a potentially troublesome link.
“Of course.” Thorn held out his hand, and for one sweet, mad moment, Felicity thought he was inviting her to join him on the bed. “Now be a dutiful wife and fetch your poor injured husband his linen and breeches.”
It gave her a passing measure of vindictive satisfaction to inform him, “I wish I could, truly. But you pitched into the river, remember? Your clothes were sodden, and so cold I’m surprised you’ve warmed up yet. I shudder to think what state you might be in now if we hadn’t removed them as soon as we got you settled here.”
“We?” Thorn’s countenance took on a bilious cast.
“Ned and I,” Felicity replied. “While Mr. Hixon went for the doctor. Like most footmen, the lad’s had plenty of experience helping a gentleman undress who’s incapable of undressing himself.”
So had she, for that matter, though Felicity shrank from admitting it. Instead, she pointed toward the hearth, which Thorn probably couldn’t see from the bed. “Your clothes are drying before the fire, but they have a long way left to go. With luck they may be fit to put on by morning.”
“I don’t care if they’re wet.” Thorn thrust back the coverlet, then twisted about to lower his feet to the floor. “Bring them here.”
“I will not!” Felicity told herself it was the heat of the fire, not the sight of Thorn splendidly naked that made her blush like a simpering virgin bride. “You’d catch your death going off on a cool spring night in wet clothes.”
A fierce scowl overset Thorn’s usual look of affable composure. “Then I’ll get them myself.”
Felicity put herself between the mantel and the bed. “Take one step toward that hearth, and I’ll toss your clothes on the fire!”
“What’s gotten into you, woman?” A grimace of pain twisted Thorn’s features as he lurched to his feet. “You’re not my mother, for pity’s sake. You don’t even want to be my mistress anymore. So leave off trying to coddle me.”
He tried to take the threatened step, but the strength of his legs clearly failed to match the strength of his will. He staggered toward Felicity, who mustered all her strength to push him back onto the bed. At the last instant, his hand closed around her wrist and pulled her down on top of him.
The indignation she tried to summon, melted like summer hail on a sun-baked rock.
A bewildering sense of completeness stole over her as the fleet skip of her heart tangled with the strong, swift beat of Thorn’s until it became one thrilling, intricate rhythm. The fear that had chilled Felicity from the moment she’d watched her servants drag Thorn ashore began to thaw at last—warmed by the sensation of his vital, solid body beneath her.
One part even more solid and vital than the rest.
The undeniable evidence of his desire held Felicity to Thorn when discretion urged her to pull away.
Perhaps she had been going about this all wrong. Instead of trying to force Thorn to remain in bed, might she fare better by enticing him to stay?
Slowly she raised her gaze to meet his, and her hand to brush against his side whiskers.
“Would you like me to be your mistress again, for one more night?” Her question came out in a husky whisper. Not only to tempt him, but because she feared her voice might break if she spoke any louder.
After all that had happened between them, what if Thorn refused her?
Had Felicity truly spoken the words Thorn thought he’d heard, or were his addled wits playing a cruel joke on him?
Even if she had made the offer and meant it, could he afford to risk his sister’s future happiness to gratify his own transient desire?
“Of course I want you,” he answered gruffly. “That much is obvious, isn’t it? What I can’t understand is why you’re willing all of a sudden to let Ivy and your nephew get away when they’re within our grasp.”
A flicker of guilt shadowed the fiery intensity of her gaze. “I’m not willing to let them get away. But neither am I willing to risk your health simply to keep my nephew from making a foolish mistake.”
Felicity did care about him as something more than an instrument to gratify her desires. Curiously, the notion heightened Thorn’s physical longing for her. Would it be so wrong to put his own needs ahead of his duty to others…just this once?
After a moment’s thought, the subtle ridges of concentration disappeared from Felicity’s brow. Her eyes sparkled like distant patches of dew-kissed clover at sunrise.
“What if I bid my servants to check the inns around town?” She spoke in such an eager rush, Thorn could scarcely grasp her words. “Once they locate my nephew and your sister, one of them can keep watch through the night, then fetch Oliver and Ivy here as soon as they stir in the morning.”
Her plan tempted Thorn almost as much as the luxurious curves of her flesh beneath the flimsy layers of her muslin gown, or the passionate promise of her lips.
Felicity’s glittering eyes challenged him. “If I do that, will you behave like the sensible fellow you are and stay here in bed?”
With the delicious warm weight of her on top of him, Thorn Greenwood had never felt less sensible in his life. “Here in bed…with you?”
“With me.”
He angled his lips to engage hers, so his kiss might answer for him. As their lips touched, a strange energy surged through him—dark and rich as the coffee she’d offered him, with a bitter edge that only enhanced its potency. Thorn could not decide whether it truly soothed his pain or only made him cease to mind it.
Either way, he was grateful.
“You drive a hard bargain, Lady Lyte,” he whispered before he began to suckle on her lush lower lip.
She gave no answer save for a sharp intake of breath, released as a lingering sigh.
Thorn sensed a shif
t in the connection between them. Though Lady Lyte had invited him to become her lover, until tonight he had approached her more as a servant or a supplicant making an offering of pleasure in hope of winning favor.
For this one last tryst, he would taste the heady elixir of mastery.
After one final deep draft from Felicity’s sweet mouth, he reminded her, “Hadn’t you better go despatch your driver and footman before they take to their beds for the night?”
“Ah…yes. Yes, of course.”
She sounded almost as befuddled as he’d felt on first regaining consciousness. When Felicity pulled herself away from him with obvious reluctance and gained her feet, her legs appeared more than a trifle unsteady as she stepped toward the hearth.
“What are you doing?” Thorn asked.
She plucked his breeches from their drying place and waved them at him. “Taking these with me to ensure that you don’t steal away while I’m gone.”
Crawling back under the coffee-spattered coverlet, Thorn gave a rueful chuckle. “Is my word as a gentleman not good enough for you anymore, Lady Lyte?”
On her way to the door, Felicity peeped around one of the stout carved posts at the foot of the bed. “I suspect underneath all that stiff honor and gentlemanly virtue, you may have a spark of roguery in you, Mr. Greenwood.”
She wagged one slender forefinger at him. “I don’t intend to take any chances that you won’t be here when I return.”
Thorn laid a hand over his fast-beating heart. “I swear to you, I shan’t stir farther than to get myself a sandwich.”
“You had better eat.” Felicity tried to maintain an expression of innocent concern, but a flicker of mischief danced in her eyes. “To keep up…your strength.”
“You had better be on your way.” Thorn narrowed his eyes in a mocking pretence of menace completely at odds with his character. “Before I pull you back into bed and say to blazes with my sister and your nephew.”
Felicity shook her head and chuckled at his impudence as she headed for the door.
He didn’t mean it, of course—about letting Ivy and Oliver go to blazes—though part of him wished he could take such a cavalier approach to his responsibilities.
“Don’t stay away any longer than you have to, Felicity.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “Not a moment longer. I promise.”
Felicity dashed up the back stairs after ordering her servants to track down Ivy and Oliver.
Part of her haste was born of eagerness. The image of Thorn waiting naked for her back in the room quickened her steps. He had surprised her with his playful banter, and she could scarcely contain her anticipation of what other delightful surprises this night might hold in store.
Something else hastened her, as well, though Felicity was loathe to admit it, even to herself. Doubts nipped at her heels like a brace of those horrid little dogs with their incessant high-pitched barking that some dowagers of her acquaintance kept for pets.
Resuming her affair with Thorn would make it that much more difficult to break with him later…for both of them. Of the two, much to her astonishment, Felicity found herself more concerned on Thorn’s account than on her own. After all, she would have their child to rear and love.
What would Thorn have?
“Mrs. Greenwood, ma’am?” a young woman’s voice sounded behind Felicity.
For a moment, she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to realize she’d been addressed by a name she could never hope to bear.
The voice spoke again. “Do you or your husband require anything else, ma’am?”
Her husband. The word sent a contrary mixture of feelings brewing in Felicity’s heart. All the bitterness and betrayal that were the barren legacy of her marriage swirled like a raw Cornish wind around her fragile new sprout of trust and affection for Thorn.
She glanced back to see the servant girl who’d delivered the tray of coffee and sandwiches to their room earlier. “We have everything we require, thank you.”
“Do the gentleman’s clothes need laundered, ma’am?”
Following the maid’s gaze, Felicity realized she was still holding Thorn’s breeches!
“Ah…no…thank you.” She hoped her sputtering and the guilty blush that burned in her cheeks would not provoke the girl’s suspicion. “I noticed…a button…hanging by a single thread. So I took it down to our footman to sew back on. He was apprenticed to a tailor before he went into service, so he’s very clever with a needle.”
What was one more falsehood on top of the tottering tower of deception she’d already piled up? Felicity asked herself when her conscience gave a bothersome twinge. If she kept at it, she might almost equal the number of lies she’d been told in her lifetime.
“Very good, ma’am.” The girl’s bland countenance betrayed no doubt that all was as it should be with Mr. and Mrs. Greenwood. “If you need anything else, just ring. I hope you pass a pleasant night here, ma’am.”
The heat of Felicity’s blush intensified. “I’m certain we shall.”
That much was true, at least.
In case the maid’s gaze might follow her, Felicity forced her steps to a sedate pace as she proceeded down the corridor back to their room. Letting herself in, she quickly shut the door behind her, slamming it in the faces of those pestering little doubts.
The room was darker than when she’d left it, bathed only in the rosy flickering glow of the fire.
“When I told you to hurry back, I didn’t mean you should exhaust yourself running all over the place.” Thorn’s deep, mellow voice reached out from the bed like a strong but gentle arm pulling her into an embrace.
Felicity bolted the door behind her for good measure. Then she returned Thorn’s still-damp breeches to the hearthside, stirring up the coals and tossing another large stick of wood onto the fire.
“You didn’t eat any of the sandwiches.” She nodded toward the breakfast table.
What was it about Thorn Greenwood that inspired her to take care of him in the way a woman who employed a small army of servants had no need to do?
“I thought it would be more enjoyable to share them. Besides, my hands are a trifle shaky. Would you think me a great sook if I asked you to feed me one?” A rare hint of levity bubbled beneath Thorn’s words.
“A very great sook,” she teased, selecting two triangles of bread and ham from the plate. “Just like I was, sitting on your knee in the carriage last night, blubbering my eyes out. I don’t see why we can’t indulge one another now and again.”
She kicked off her slippers and climbed onto the bed, holding one sandwich out to him while she took a bite from the other.
Thorn gave an approving nod. “A very enlightened attitude, my dear.”
He held her in a gaze as warm as the glowing coals in the hearth, peppered with provocative golden sparks. As Thorn took a bite of the sandwich she offered him, his lower lip brushed against Felicity’s finger, sending a delicious ripple of sensation up her arm, all the way to her throat and down her breasts.
She barely managed to swallow what was in her mouth without choking. “They make very good sandwiches, here, don’t they?”
The bread was fresh and soft, the ham flavorful and generously cut, enlivened by the piquant tang of mustard. But the zest of Thorn’s company and the prospect of a night unlike any they had shared before, made the most toothsome condiment of all.
“Mmm.” Thorn nodded as he swallowed his own bite. “The best I’ve ever tasted.”
He snapped the remainder of the sandwich out of her hand, gnashing his teeth to make her squeal and laugh.
“You must be very hungry.” Felicity fetched two more sandwiches off the plate.
When she settled beside him on the bed, Thorn leaned closer. But instead of nibbling on a sandwich, as Felicity expected, he nuzzled her neck. Every particle of sensation in her entire body seemed to cluster on that small patch of skin over which his lips hovered.
They began a sweet lingerin
g climb upward. First his tongue glided, hot and wet, over the sensitive flesh, then his lips created a moist seal with her skin for a slow, easy suckle. Just when Felicity felt her bones begin to melt, Thorn ventured the lightest possible touch with the sharp edge of his teeth, setting her deliciously ashiver.
When he finally reached her ear, he whispered a single word.
“Ravenous.”
Felicity had to swallow twice before she could coax any words out of her arid throat. “So am I.”
Suddenly remembering the two sandwiches in her hand, she glanced down to find them squeezed to an unappetizing pulp.
What did it matter? She tossed them onto the floor. They were not what she hungered for. She doubted Thorn would miss them, either.
Forsaking self-control just as readily as she had dropped the sandwiches, she wrapped her arms around his neck and sought his lips.
They collided with almost savage urgency, as Thorn’s hands found their way to her hair and began to pluck out the pins that held it in a sleek coil high on her head. True to his word, his hands did tremble. But that did not seem to hinder him.
Felicity’s hair tumbled free, down her back and over her shoulders. Her body yearned to be equally at liberty. Equally available to Thorn’s eager hands and lips.
He must have sensed what she wanted, for his fingers fumbled with the row of tiny buttons down the back of her gown while he continued to kiss her. His tongue coaxed her lips farther apart, then tasted her with a power and authority he had never before demonstrated.
With every touch, every taste, every mingled breath, Thorn Greenwood made her want him with a fervor that frightened and roused her in almost equal measure. A ravenous hunger built within her, to consume every crumb of pleasure he could grant her. And be consumed by it in turn.
And yet…
“Must we go so fast?” she pleaded in a breathless murmur as Thorn tugged the short sleeves of her un-buttoned gown off her shoulders and began to kiss his way down her neck, where he had earlier kissed his way up. “There’s no need to rush when we have the whole night ahead of us.”
