“The thighs of your sister?”
His sister? Nick grunted, shook his head. Drank more wine. “I lied,” he confessed, while images of what those thighs might look like danced in his head.
“Eh?” His host wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“The girl is not my sister.”
Jervase laughed and leaned across the table. “I lied as well,” he said, and took another swallow of the wicked juice he called wine. “She is in my sister’s hayloft at this very moment.”
“Your sister’s!” Nick tried to stand up but banged his knee against the table. God’s teeth, they were drunk. “Hayloft?” The thought of India sleeping in a pile of hay struck him as unbearably funny, and he began to laugh. Jervase laughed, too, and soon Nick was gasping for breath. “Good God, it’s less than she deserves.”
“Beautiful girl,” Jervase slurred a little. “I plan to pay her a visit tonight.”
“You must take me there at once.” But then Jervase’s meaning sank in. “A visit?”
The man grinned. “She was not as encouraging as I might have hoped, but I feel confident I can convince her.”
“Do you.” The implication swam around in his brain, trying to settle somewhere. No doubt Lady India would welcome the encouragement. Had she not been trying to cast off her virtue from the moment he met her?
“But if you are already her lover...” Jervase trailed off, awaiting confirmation.
Nick grunted, imagining making the truth out of it—tonight, in Jervase’s sister’s hayloft.
“A quarrel, perhaps?” Jervase prompted.
“She’s damned quarrelsome.” Bloody damned quarrelsome. Perhaps he’d be better off letting her go. What was Taggart, anyhow, but a drafty old house with smoking chimneys and a leaking roof?
“That type is always fiery in bed.” Jervase drank more wine and grinned. “She will be very lonely and cold in that hayloft.”
“Indeed.” Nick imagined it with satisfaction, as the wine flowed heady and sweet across his tongue. He should forget Taggart, forget Lady India, forget her father’s money. Sod the whole bloody mess and stay here.
He took another swallow of wine. Perhaps he could learn to be a vintner.
Jervase leaned across the table with a gleam in his eye. “Viens—let us go find your young lover, oui?”
Nick banged his glass on the table. “Oui.”
* * *
SOMEONE WAS IN the barn.
India tensed inside the smelly old blanket and listened while straw poked through her gown and a thread of cool, damp air whispered through the cracks in the barn wall. It had to be midnight at the earliest. Moonlight glowed through the spaces between the boards, but it would be too dark to see more than a shadow. Still she sat frozen, not daring to peek down from the hayloft in case whoever it was glanced up at the same time, and in case that someone might be Nicholas Warre.
Which was nothing but paranoia, because he would never find her here. He would have to knock on every door in the valley.
Which, given his determination, he might well do.
There was a scuffle, a low voice, some laughter—light! She sucked in a breath, only to suppress a sneeze. There were more muffled voices, one male and one definitely female. It could not be Nicholas Warre. She relaxed a little and dared a quick peek over the edge—
Oh, God!
She snapped back and sucked in a lungful of dust. It was the farmer and...a woman who was most definitely not the wife.
Oh, God.
There was more laughter, more whispering, more...sounds. She shouldn’t look. She should absolutely, positively, definitely not look.
She looked.
The farmer and the woman were tangled in a mad kiss. Were they really going to... Here? In the barn? Dark curls tumbled over the woman’s shoulders, bathed in the glow of a candle sputtering inside a lantern. The farmer grabbed the woman around the waist, and she laughed as he yanked at her blouse and—
She needed to look away. Tried to look away. But the more she tried, the more she couldn’t tear her eyes from the scene while the farmer sank with the woman into a pile of hay.
Watching was shameful. Mortifying. But the scene below held her transfixed. There was a tangle of petticoats and trousers. A woman’s moan, and a pair of white buttocks bobbing between a pair of bent knees.
The groan and scrape of the barn door.
More light. Another lantern—
People!
The woman screamed. The farmer scrambled off her just as the wife and two men walked into the barn.
It was Jervase, and...
Nicholas Warre!
India scrambled backward into the hay. Below, a huge commotion erupted between the farmer’s wife, the farmer and the woman. Great shrieks filled the barn, punctuated by the farmer’s shouts. Oh, God. Oh, God. If she was quiet enough, they might forget she was here.
But they must have already told Nicholas Warre where she was, or else why would they have brought him to the barn?
Quietly, desperately she tried to cover herself with hay. Every handful seemed to rustle more loudly than the last. Quickly! Quickly!
There was a creak. And another. The ladder!
Oh, God! She dove headfirst into the pile—dust, vermin, lice, come what may—but it was too late.
“You never cease to fascinate me, Lady India.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
INDIA SAT UP with hay clinging to every part of her. Nicholas Warre stood on the ladder, peering into the loft.
She eyed the ladder and wondered if she could manage to give it a shove.
His mouth was a grim line as he climbed the rest of the way into the loft. Below, the commotion faded as the combatants moved outside the barn—guests apparently forgotten. She watched Nicholas Warre come toward her and knew that after this there would be no escaping him again, unless—
“Oh, Mr. Warre—Nicholas—I am so overwhelmed with happiness at the sight of you I feel compelled to call you Nicholas—what a relief that you’ve found me!” She threw her arms around him. “No sooner did you leave me behind than the maid came in with a load of firewood, which she spilled on the hearth and of course I tried to help her but couldn’t, and so she saw the ribbons, and before I knew what was happening she had untied me. I was so afraid you would be angry that I didn’t dare stay, and she practically dragged me down the servants’ staircase and out the door, but I did want to stay, Mr. Warre. I wanted to stay very much.”
“As I very much wanted you to stay.” His arms came around her, too, strong and holding her fast against him, flush against his chest on her knees in the straw.
And everything she’d felt at the inn came crashing back.
For a heartbeat the relief she claimed to feel became much too real. She swallowed, acutely aware of every single place their bodies touched.
Seduction. Seduction. That was the goal. Escape had failed, and now she was right back where she’d been when they first arrived at the inn.
And just as it had at the inn, her body came alive beneath hands that roamed over her back, warm breath that feathered her skin as he nuzzled the hair at her temple. “If circumstances had not prevented it,” she breathed, “I would certainly have been in the room when you returned. To continue our becoming better acquainted.” Her senses filled with his scent—the hint of his cologne, the warm muskiness that was purely him. And...wine. He smelled very strongly of wine. “But the maid’s cousin just happened to be passing at that very moment in his hay wagon—”
“Jervase?”
He knew about Jervase? “Yes, that was his name. And once upon the seat there was no convincing him to let me down again.”
“Don’t suppose there would be.”
Only now did she realize his speech was a bit slow. She pulled back and tried to look at him in the dark. “Mr. Warre, are you intoxicated?”
There was just enough light to see a flash of white teeth. “Your friend Jervase makes an exceedingly poten
t wine. Also has a damned loose tongue.”
She swallowed. “Does he?”
“Don’t suppose it was I you expected here tonight, was it.”
“I didn’t dare expect it, after what happened.” His lips roaming over her face and neck felt like heaven. “But I hoped.” Right now, she almost believed it.
Nicholas didn’t. He laughed. “I rather think you were hoping for a vintner’s touch tonight.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said quickly. “How could you imagine such a thing, when you’ve already seen how I long for you?” She dared to brush her lips across his jaw, found his skin warm and rough, and oh—it was true. She did long for him. “As I know you long for me,” she added huskily.
Yes—she could begin again where she’d left off at the inn.
His soft, deep laughter rumbled against her. “Oh, Lady India, whatever it is you imagine I might wish to do to you, you haven’t even a fraction of the picture.”
“Then paint it for me, Nicholas,” she breathed.
“It would shock you.”
It wouldn’t, thanks to Frannie, but, “All the better.”
“Very well,” he murmured against her ear. “I want to taste you.” Instantly she recalled their kiss aboard the ship. “I want to kiss your breasts until your nipples are hard little peaks between my lips.” She inhaled sharply. “How are you enjoying the shock so far?”
His words touched her like hands—like lips—and her nipples puckered and ached inside her stays exactly the way they had when he’d touched her at the dressmaker’s. She could hardly breathe. “Forgive me, Nicholas—was that the shocking part?”
There was more drunken laughter. “And then I want to lay you back and part your thighs—” she thought of the farmer’s lover “—and taste your quim.” His words seemed to explode between her legs. He planted kisses against the side of her neck, and her body caught fire. “I want to explore every delicious little crevice,” he said, and she felt his tongue against her skin. “I want to flick my tongue across your tiny—” flick “—little bud of pleasure—” flick “—and drive you mad with it until you cry out my name, and then savor the inside of your body while you climax.”
Climax? Frannie hadn’t said anything about a climax. Or...buds of pleasure. Or tongues, or tasting, or—
He pushed her back into the straw and practically collapsed on top of her, drawing her skirts up, reaching beneath them. His hand brushed the inside of her thigh, sending a torrent of sensation straight to the juncture above.
It was working...the seduction.
“Is that all?” she managed.
“God, no.” He nuzzled her neck and—oh—his fingers found her intimate flesh, and there was a pleasure so sharp she cried out with it. He caressed her with tiny circles that had her gasping, straining her legs apart as if they had a mind of their own, clinging to his shoulders as if she might drown otherwise. “I’ve yet to describe the best part.” He stilled. Pulled back a little. “But perhaps you don’t want to hear.”
Between her legs she was slick, wet, pulsing, throbbing with his touch. She could barely breathe, could scarcely let herself think about where he was touching. “By all means,” she panted. “Describe it.”
A low groan escaped his lips against her neck. She strained against his hand, wanting—needing—something.
“Very well.” His fingers left her then to trail maddeningly along the insides of her thighs once more, while the place he’d been touching—her bud of pleasure?—screamed with need. “I want you to ride me, Lady India. Astride. Straddling my hips, with your bare breasts falling in my face, and my cock spearing up inside you.”
An image of what he described raged to life in her mind. Now his fingers returned, but to a new place, and suddenly she felt him breaching her, pushing his finger inside her, a little at first, then a little more, penetrating her farther. Deeper.
He raised himself onto one elbow, hovering over her. Let his lips linger against hers, barely touching. “Like this,” he whispered, and slid his finger completely home. It seemed to fill her, and she strained against the sensation, wanting...more.
“Like that,” she echoed, nearly out of her mind with some incomprehensible need.
“Only not like this,” he said against her lips, and drew his finger out. Slowly. Then pushed it back inside again, deeply. “More like this.” Out again, then in. “And this.” Out. “And this.” In.
“Nicholas.” His name escaped her on a wild gasp. Her mind was slipping, spiraling, emptying of everything but the pleasure he was stoking between her legs. She strained her hips, pushing to meet his touch while she clung to him and inside her something was building...
Keening...
“Perhaps I ought to do it right now,” he said.
Tightening... “Yes.”
“Right here.”
Constricting... “Yes— Oh!”
Exploding.
Pure pleasure careened through her body in gripping waves. She cried out, and he covered her mouth with his kiss, driving his fingers deep inside her while she pulsed and throbbed around them and her whole body shuddered and tightened and sang.
And she couldn’t think at all, except that now she would give him her virtue, and she wanted to more than ever because there was something inside her that still needed—
“But I shan’t.” He made a noise that sounded like frustration. “Because I’ve decided I don’t want you after all.”
He didn’t— “But I want you.” Oh, God—what was she saying? She squirmed and tried pulling him closer, helpless to think of anything except, Please, please touch me again.
“Do you.” His lips brushed hers as he spoke, but his hand had left her. The flesh between her thighs ached, yearned.... But he was pulling her skirts back down. “Thing is, Lady India...I’ve decided you’re a damned sight more trouble than you’re worth.” He pushed himself to his knees between her legs. “No doubt you’ll find this welcome news.”
“Welcome—”
“Fifty thousand isn’t nearly enough compensation for the likes of you, even if I could do every bloody thing I wanted to you and then some.” He stood up, and this time his laughter was a little sharper. “A hundred fifty wouldn’t be enough.”
“What are you saying?” She scrambled upright in the straw.
“You may be on your way, free from my interference.” He bowed to her. “It’s been a pleasure.”
Free from his—
Right after he’d—
He climbed onto the ladder, and she scrambled forward. “You’re leaving?”
“Farewell, Lady India,” he called, already halfway down. “And safe travels.”
* * *
FAREWELL?
Safe travels?
India watched him leave the barn, too dizzy with sensations to do more than stare as his shadowed form disappeared out the doors below. Her body hummed. Inside, low and deep, fulfillment and need mingled hotly together. Sensitive flesh sizzled and pulsed, as if the only part of her that lived was the part between her legs.
The part that he’d touched.
Stroked.
Penetrated—just like Frannie had described.
What did that mean? Had she just—
Good God. Had she just given him her virtue? Surely not. Frannie had very clearly described that a man was supposed to have his cock—
Spearing up inside you.
The words—Nicholas’s words—sliced through her, deep and trenchant and piercing, bringing fresh waves of yearning. She shifted restlessly in the straw, listening. Anticipating.
He would return at any moment. He couldn’t possibly have been serious about setting her free. It was some kind of trick.
Wasn’t it?
Long minutes passed, and then even longer minutes. She hugged her knees in the dark, with his scent on her skin and his scandalous words whispering through her mind and his touch racing through her blood. She was supposed to be glad he’d left. She was glad. W
ith any luck, he wouldn’t return. But...
She flopped back into the straw. Whatever it is you imagine I might wish to do to you, you haven’t even a fraction of the picture.
Hearing him say he wanted her was an intoxication all its own. She wanted to feel that again. Feel him again—feel him holding her. Touching her. Wanting her. In the secrecy of the darkened hayloft, she let herself whisper his name and savor the feel of it on her lips.
Nicholas.
Imagining she might be able to distract him with seduction was one thing—feeling him touch her with such a wicked and lustful passion was something entirely different. She saw his face in her mind, let herself get a little drunk on his handsomeness and the memory of his hard body pressed against her.
Her blood hummed with the heady feeling of being desired. She found herself hoping that he would return.
That he would do all the things he spoke of, and she would give him her virtue and it would be the most passionate, breathless thing she ever experienced, and then it would be too late to escape him and she would return to England with him, to Taggart, which would turn out to be a beautiful, old house with quiet rooms overlooking the trees, maybe with a gazebo tucked beneath their branches where sunlight would stream through on clear days, just like the one where she used to take refuge during the summer weeks at Auntie Phil’s. And Nicholas would be too busy to care if she spent her afternoons curled up on its seat watching birds chase each other through the treetops, and there would be no expectations to fulfill and no tasks to bungle and no books to read.
And she could live the way she wanted to without having to run away. Without scrapping about the world, worrying what would become of her, knowing the only alternative was a life of confinement and shame.
More long minutes passed, and then certainly an hour had gone by and there was no sign of him—or anyone. Her body cooled. She curled up in the straw, tired but unable to doze off. Another hour surely passed, and then another. Overhead, shadowy wooden trusses speared toward the roof. An occasional rustle drifted up from the animals below, but nothing more.
The heady sensations gave way to scratchy straw and damp drafts sneaking through the barn’s walls. And I want to taste you gave way to Fifty thousand isn’t nearly enough compensation for the likes of you.
A Wedding by Dawn Page 12
