by Tessa Dare
“No!” Albert’s voice grew suddenly deep. He straightened and marched toward her where she sat on the ground. “Don’t you tell him anything about me. He’ll find me work, all right. In the poorhouse.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The ground beneath her was icy cold, and Lucy hugged her legs to her chest. “He isn’t like that, I swear. He’s very understanding.”
Albert scoffed. “I heard how understanding he was at that party of yours.”
“That was … different. Just allow me to speak with him. Let me help you.”
“Thanks, your highness, but I don’t need your help.”
Her hands clenched in frustration. What would it take to get through to this boy? She wasn’t just trying to be superior. She cared about him, the stubborn ingrate. “I will tell you what you need,” she said, her voice clipped. “You need to put your sister’s welfare before your own pride. You need to stop running about the woods at night, where who knows what peril could befall you. And you need to learn some propriety. In private, you can curse me however you wish, but to my face, you will address me as my lady!”
There was a shocked silence. And the majority of the shock was on Lucy’s side. Albert might have been wondering where that rant had come from, but she knew its precise source. She was echoing Jeremy, of all people. Was this how he felt, too? Concerned for her safety, desperate to help, but frustrated beyond measure when she refused to let him?
And how many times had she refused him?
Lucy’s heart squeezed. He truly cared for her. He always had. And all this time, she had been the stubborn ingrate.
Albert was still looming over her, his hands balled into fists at his sides, looking rather uncertain as to what came next. She tried to make her tone soft and soothing. Motherly. “Albert, listen …”
But what they heard next was anything but soft or soothing.
“Lucy, don’t move.” Jeremy’s voice thundered from somewhere unseen.
Followed by the unmistakable click of a gun being cocked.
“Get down!” Lucy cried, lunging forward.
A shot cracked through the dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Lucy tackled Albert about the knees. He fell to the ground, and in the same instant a shot whistled overhead.
She released his legs. “Run!” she whispered. “Run all the way home, and don’t stop for anything!”
Albert scrambled to his feet and dashed off into the trees. A few seconds later, Jeremy thundered by in breathless pursuit.
“Stop!” Lucy struggled to her feet and grabbed her husband by the arm. “He’s gone. You’ll never catch him.”
Jeremy pulled his arm away and swung his gun over his shoulder. “Oh, I’ll catch him all right.” He moved in the direction Albert had fled, and she grabbed his arm again.
“Wait! You can’t just leave me here alone.” She could play the helpless lady, if necessary. She hugged herself and shivered, only partly for effect.
Jeremy pulled to a halt, staring off into the woods with frustration. Then he turned back to her reluctantly. “No, I won’t leave you.” He fixed her with a fierce look. “Damn it, Lucy. What the devil were you thinking?”
“I saw him from a distance. I thought he was Aunt Matilda, so I—” she gasped. “Aunt Matilda!”
“She’s fine,” Jeremy said impatiently. “I found her in the entrance hall. She may be old and senile, but at least she knows better than to go wandering out in the woods at midnight, dressed in …” His eyes swept over her silk-clad curves with a possessive gaze that mingled anger and desire. “You have to stop behaving in such an imbecilic fashion. I can’t always be around to save you.”
Lucy felt pride, hot and rebellious, surging within her. He cares for me, she reminded herself. She just needed to calm him down, let him know she was all right. “Jeremy, I’m sorry I alarmed you. But I didn’t need saving.” She wrapped her dressing gown tight across her chest. Bloody hell, it was cold. “It wasn’t how it looked. I had the situation in hand.”
“In hand.” Jeremy let the gun slide from his shoulder and flung it to the ground. He stalked toward her with a strange expression, his eyes black as midnight. His breath came uneven and ragged, breaking up his words. “You had the situation in hand. Alone in the woods. In the dead of night. With a violent criminal.”
She swallowed. “He wasn’t a criminal. Not a violent one, at least.”
It was as though he didn’t hear her. He approached her slowly, step by deliberate step, until his chest grazed hers. She could taste desire on his breath. The blue of his eyes was swallowed by black, and a wild intensity radiated from him. A fierceness she’d only glimpsed before, he kept it so deeply buried. Now it seethed to the surface, exuded from him in potent waves, sweeping over her body. And her body roused to it. Craved it. Her skin came alive with exquisite awareness, every hair standing on end.
Lucy didn’t know how to calm him down.
She didn’t want to.
“Dressed in a few scraps of silk and lace.” He hooked a finger under the collar of her dressing gown and pulled, exposing one shoulder to the night. She felt his finger graze along her collarbone, press against the hollow of her throat, then trace the column of her neck to her chin, lifting her face to his. “But you didn’t need saving. You had the situation … in hand.”
“Yes,” she breathed. He moved forward again, his chest pushing against hers. Her back collided with the trunk of a tree.
He grabbed her wrist and wrenched her hand from its grip on her dressing gown. “In hand,” he repeated, interlacing his fingers with hers. He tightened his grip until the bones in her wrist ached. In one swift motion, he pulled her arm up over her head and pinned it to the tree with his own. Her dressing gown fell open to the waist. She gasped at the rush of cold night air that assailed her throat and drew her nipples to hard peaks against her nightgown.
With his free hand, he palmed one breast through the shivering silk. He drew his thumb over her nipple. She gasped again, this time with pleasure.
“You didn’t need saving,” he said, sliding his thumb over the silk in tiny, maddening circles. Waves of sensation flooded through her, heat rippling beneath the gooseflesh that covered her neck, her belly, her thighs. Lucy bit her lip and closed her eyes. “Look at me,” he growled. “Look at me, damn it.” He gave her nipple a sharp pinch. Her eyes flew open.
“You don’t need my money.” He tore at the strap of her nightgown until the fragile lace gave way. The silk slid down, baring one breast.
“You don’t need my gifts.” He covered her breast with his warm, heavy hand, teasing the taut peak of her nipple, rolling it under his thumb until a tiny cry escaped her throat. He pressed his body against hers, pinning her to the tree with his weight. The heat of his arousal pulsed against her belly.
“You don’t need my protection,” he said through gritted teeth. His hand shot to her thigh, gathering up fabric, hitching up the hem of her nightgown in impatient tugs. His eyes bored into her.
“Damn it, Lucy, you are going to need me. I will make you need me.” He lowered his head to her breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth.
Pleasure surged through her—hot, white light arcing through the darkness. His tongue flickered over the sensitive peak, making her writhe with a sweet, torturous ache. One of her hands remained pinned above her, but she reached for him with the other, digging her fingers into his neck.
His hand tightened around her hip, then snaked beneath the silk of her nightgown, pushing it up to her waist. He curled his hand under her thigh and lifted it, wrapping her leg over his hip. Icy cold rushed under the silk, over her thighs and between her legs. Then he pulled his hips back slightly, swept his hand over the crest of her thigh and plunged his fingers into the gap between them.
There was no more cold, only fire. Liquid heat coursing through her veins, churning in her belly and that space between her legs. He slid a finger into her. Then two. His touch was rough and artless, but s
he was slick and ready, and it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. His thumb found her most sensitive bit of flesh, and her mouth fell open in a startled cry. He clamped his mouth over hers, filling it with his tongue. Lifting her with his fingers and working her with his thumb until she nearly came apart.
And then it was gone. His hand was gone. His lips were gone. He leaned on her, pressing his chest to hers, all his weight bearing down on her aching breasts, and she writhed against him, desperate for more. She heard him gasping for breath against her ear, felt him fumbling with the buttons of his breeches. Then she felt him, hot and heavy and jerking with impatience against her thigh. She arched toward him instinctively, but he grabbed her hip, pushing her back down. His other hand tightened over hers, still holding her arm above her head.
“Tell me you need me.” His eyes held her, dark and fathomless as the midnight sky.
“I—” Her voice failed. She couldn’t think how to speak, couldn’t remember how to make her mouth form words. Speech had no meaning. Her lips’ sole purpose was to kiss; her tongue existed to lick and suck. She burrowed her face into his neck and ran her tongue along his throat. He inhaled with a sharp hiss and pressed his thumb deeper into the flesh of her hip.
“Tell me you need me,” he insisted. He teased her with his shaft, brushing against her, and when he pulled away, a strangled sob wrenched from her throat.
“Jeremy,” she cried. “Please.”
“Tell me.”
“I need you.” God, did she need him. She was nothing but a quivering mass of desire and longing and need. “I need y—”
He crushed his mouth to hers, cutting off her words, cutting off her air. He released her arm and grasped her hips with both hands, lifting her up. In one quick, desperate thrust, he sheathed himself inside her, filling her. Filling that aching void of need. She dug her fingernails into his neck and held on tight. He withdrew an inch, tilted her hips, and thrust into her again, burying himself to the hilt.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
This was where they belonged. Together, in the dark. In firelit rooms and shadowed gardens and deep, black ebony wardrobes. Fighting themselves, fighting each other. Fighting to get closer. Fighting to become one.
He braced his head against her shoulder, grasping her hips to thrust deeper still. Harder, faster. Again, again, again. Until the delicious tension threading through her pulled tight and snapped, releasing her into the darkness.
Then he pulled her back to earth with a tortured groan and a final, anchoring thrust. The power of his release racked through them both, and they quivered together in its aftermath. His fingers bore into the flesh of her hips, and his weight crushed against her breasts, and his shoulders heaved as he fought for breath.
“Damn it, Lucy,” he said, his voice muffled against her shoulder. “Tell me you need me.” He turned his head and laid his cheek against her breast. “Tell me you need me, because God knows I can’t live without you. I’ll kill the man who tries to take you away, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you leave.”
His hands slid up from her hips to wrap around her waist, laying claim to her, squeezing her to him until she owed him the very air she breathed. “I won’t let you go.”
She cradled his head where it lay against her heart. “Don’t,” she whispered, twining her fingers into his hair. “Don’t ever let me go.”
He didn’t let her go.
Somehow, once his ragged breathing and his pounding heartbeat had slowed to a normal rhythm, Jeremy gathered the edges of her dressing gown and pushed the sleeves back up over her shoulders. Without letting go, he pulled her nightgown back over her waist and let it fall below her knees. Holding her against the tree with his body, his shrugged off his coat. Then he gathered her trembling form into his arms and wrapped the coat around her like a blanket. Without letting go.
He hefted her quivering body with one arm and reached down with the other to pick up his gun. He slung the weapon over one shoulder, tucked her head against his other, and silently struck a path through the woods.
He was drained physically and weak at heart, and the house was too far away. He carried her toward the low gurgle of the stream. Toward the hermitage. He covered the ground at a steady pace, pausing only occasionally to rebalance her weight in his arms. He cupped her shoulder in one hand and her thigh in the other, and somehow her hand had worked under his shirt to rest flat against his chest. Right over his heart.
He looked down at her face, cradled against his chest. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes resting against the pale curve of her cheek. In the moonlight, her skin glowed white and pure, and her lips were an ashen pink. Chestnut curls cascaded over his shoulder, and if he bent his head a fraction and inhaled deeply, he could catch the scent of pears wafting from her hair.
She was beautiful. God, how he loved her.
And he had never hated himself more.
Self-loathing weighed his every step, sucking his boots down into the mud. Pulling him down into the earth, to sink through the layers of rock and fire and fall straight down to Hell where he belonged. He’d come back from London pledging to care for her, protect her. If only she’d give him one more chance, he’d never drive her to tears again. All those noble sentiments, and what had he done? He’d pushed her up against a tree and savaged her like the brute he was.
Lucy needed protection, all right. She needed protection from him.
They reached the hermitage. Jeremy kicked in the door, splintering the wooden latch inside.
Something inside him splintered as well. Something painfully close to his heart.
The air inside the cottage was close and thick. He couldn’t breathe. A desperate panic seized him, the urge to turn and run. He’d avoided this place for twenty-one years, and he’d meant to never visit it again. But now … now he had Lucy in his arms, and she had no one else. He would face this, for her.
Moonlight filtered in through the open door behind him, slowly illuminating the small room. It looked just as he remembered. A row of lead soldiers keeping watch above the mantel. The fishing tackle strewn across the small table. Two pairs of small, muddied boots by the door. Frozen in the past, all of it. Only a thick layer of dust evidenced the passage of time.
Jeremy carried Lucy in and laid her down on the rug before the hearth, slipping her hand out from under his shirt. She was asleep.
His chest constricted with anguish. Every struggling breath felt like a sob. The stale air was thick with loss and love—these two inexorably connected forces that it seemed, for him, would never divide. He was doomed to lose whomever he loved, and he was doomed to do it here.
But there was plenty of time to mourn tomorrow. The next day. The lifetime after that. Right now, his wife was cold. He pushed thoughts aside, setting his body to mechanical tasks. Focusing on simple goals. Light. Warmth.
After closing the door as best he could, he heaped her with furs and placed a folded blanket under her head. He stacked the fireplace with tinder and wood. Once the draw of smoke from a single lit branch assured him the chimney was clear, he added the burning twig to the rest of the kindling. The fire caught quickly, snapping and sparking and filling the room with sweet, smoky warmth and an amber glow. He knelt beside her, watching her chest rise and fall with every breath. Drawing a grateful breath of his own when the color returned to her cheeks and her lips. He reached out to caress her cheek, and she stirred, nuzzling into his touch. Cupping her face in his palm, he brushed his thumb across her lower lip.
He would hold this moment forever. Hold her face in his hand, her lips grazing his thumb in a secret kiss. When she woke up, it would be over. She would gather up her hounds and her cat and her senile aunt and leave, taking everything good in his life along with her.
She stirred again, shifting under the blankets. Her eyes fluttered open.
“Jeremy?” His name flowed from her lips slow and thick and sweet, like honey. It wouldn’t last, he told himself. She’d be cursing him soon.
“Don’t move.” He pulled his hand away from her face. “Just rest.”
She slid one arm out from under the blankets and rubbed her eyes with her fist. She might as well have driven her fist straight into his gut. Red, angry bruises blossomed along the skin of her wrist. Bruises from where he’d grabbed her arm and pinned it to the tree. Bile churned in his stomach. He’d hurt her, and not just there. He had to see.
He lifted the blankets gently, casting them to the side. She made a small sound, but he placed a finger on her lips.
“Let me look at you,” he said, drawing aside the edges of her dressing gown. She nodded drowsily.
The red silk nightgown clung to her body in tatters. Jeremy tore the remaining strap of lace and drew the fabric aside. He steeled his jaw, swallowed hard, and forced himself to take a good, long look at what he’d done.
There were little marks on her neck and shoulder, where he’d kissed and sucked and bitten her flesh. Between her legs she was swollen and red, where he’d wedged himself and rutted like a beast.
“Turn over,” he choked.
She obeyed in silence, and he forced his gaze to wander her body from the feet up, noting every scrape and scratch the tree bark had wrought on her perfect, golden skin. The marks were sparse on her calves and the backs of her thighs, but her back was a crosshatch of red streaks. He followed the curve of her spine up.
And then he saw it, and his breath caught in his chest.
A round, angry welt on her shoulder blade. A deep-red circle of raised, swollen flesh. This was no scratch. This was nothing he had done. He traced the wound with his fingertip, and Lucy winced.
“He did this to you.”
She nodded.
Jeremy stood up. He picked up his coat and shrugged into it before looking about for his gun.
“What are you doing?” she asked, rolling onto her side and propping herself up on one elbow. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to kill him.” Where had he put his damn gun? “I’m going to find that bastard and shoot him dead.”
