by Lori Foster
“Elizabeth, I won’t have you falling off the bed. Now go to sleep.”
He withdrew from her, but now she worried that he’d touch her again. She lay wide awake, even after she heard his soft snore.
CHAPTER 4
John came awake before dawn and lay still in the gray darkness. The air was warm and humid, and he had remained uncovered through the night. Of course he was also kept warm by Elizabeth, who in her sleep persisted in cuddling up against him. Even now, she lay with her back pressed against his side.
He stared at the frilly canopy over the bed and sighed. At first he’d almost been angry. It had taken a long time for her to fall asleep, and her small movements kept him awake—along with the erection that had seemed to grow harder with her every sigh. When she’d finally slept, she’d rolled against him and snuggled in for the duration. Twice he’d pushed her gently away, especially when he could feel her pointed nipples in his back and when she threw her leg right over his groin.
But John was awake now, and she lay against him so provocatively, and hadn’t he promised he’d keep trying to seduce her? Carefully, he turned on his side and slid behind her, molding his thighs to hers, her buttocks cradling his erection. He was so hard, even a few thrusts like this would be enough.
But certainly not satisfying. He settled his arm around her waist, feeling the smoothness of the silk as he splayed his hand across her soft stomach. He hesitated, then slid his hand up her rib cage and cupped one generous breast. She stirred in her sleep, squirming her hips. Taking a ragged breath at the delicious assault, he buried his face in her hair.
He told himself to stop, that in the end he would be the frustrated one, but instead he caressed her nipples through her night rail, rubbing them to hard peaks between his fingers. She moaned softly, moving restlessly, and he rubbed his hips against hers from behind.
Pushing her hair out of the way, he nibbled her earlobe and let his fingers trail down her stomach between her closed thighs. As she shuddered and moaned again, he probed as deeply as the silk let him, rubbing against the curls over her woman’s mound, tickling at the nub that was the center of her passion.
Elizabeth came awake feeling afire, achy, and almost feverish. What was wrong with her? And then she felt John’s body behind her, his arms encircling her, his mouth kissing her ear, her cheek. One arm was beneath her, his fingers tormenting her breast, while he pulled up her night rail. Every inch of her skin felt alive with sensation as the silk slid against her, and she was frightened by how much she wanted his hand between her legs.
She knew she should stop him, but she was held immobile by the mounting flames that seemed to engulf her body. Her breath came in frantic gasps. When her night rail was finally bunched at her waist, he sank his fingers into her curls, rubbing and stroking until she cried out at the wondrous pleasure mounting in her.
Then he suddenly stopped, withdrawing his hands but not his body, leaving her lost, aching. She froze as he whispered in her ear.
“I am too much a gentleman to force you, but not so much as to suffer alone.”
He rolled away and got out of bed. Mortified, Elizabeth pulled the night rail down her thighs and sat up.
“You did that on purpose!” she whispered, pushing her hair out of her eyes to glare at him.
He kept his back to her as he pulled on his braies and hose, and she wondered if his codpiece could possibly cover what he now kept hidden from her.
“I told you from the beginning that I would try to seduce you.”
John faced her bare-chested and angry, and she was reluctantly impressed by how magnificent he looked.
“Since you spent all night pressing against me,” he continued, “I felt free to take some liberties.” He hesitated, and his voice became deeper, deadly to her self-control. “I could come back to bed. Are you asking me to?”
For a moment, she almost opened her arms to him, so desperate was she to find out what would end this dreadful ache. His brown eyes burned into her, and when they dropped down her body she could have gladly stripped off her night rail.
She was coming so easily under his control, she thought bitterly. He wasn’t the husband for her, and she didn’t want this marriage. Though he said he would not allow her to annul it, there might be other ways around him. Raising her chin, she gave him the haughtiest look she could muster.
“Thank you for the invitation, but I have to decline,” she said coolly.
His slow grin made her knees shaky as she stood.
“Suit yourself, my lady. I’ll be waiting. All you have to do is ask.”
She turned her back on him and wanted to cover her ears when he laughed.
After he’d gone, she wrote the letter she’d been composing in her mind since this horrible wedding disaster began. She didn’t want Lord Wyndham to think she was suddenly in love with another man, not after his lordship had been pursuing her so sweetly. She begged his forgiveness, writing that she was unhappy with both the marriage and the idea of living so far away in Yorkshire.
She reread it. Would Lord Wyndham understand that she had withheld her favors from John, that there might still be a chance for her and his lordship to be together?
For a moment, she felt guilty—until she remembered John’s promise to seduce her, to make her a wife in every way. Wasn’t that the same thing as forcing her?
Before she could change her mind, she sealed the letter with wax, then had her maid deliver it.
John was mildly surprised when Elizabeth’s parents did not argue with his plans to depart the day after the wedding. It was customary to spend a few days with the bride’s parents, and he might have relented had they asked him to stay—but they hadn’t. Elizabeth took the news with a pale, composed face.
When he returned to their home at midday after renting horses and a cart, hiring servants, and buying a coach for Elizabeth, he found a multitude of trunks holding her garments. Dismayed but not surprised, he had the servants load the cart as best they could, but the final two trunks would only fit inside the coach with his bride.
After a small dinner that John felt hardly suited a final farewell to the only daughter of the household, he stood outside near the coach and watched Elizabeth and her mother, who was dressed as if in mourning, descend the stairs.
“Did your father already say his good-byes?” John asked, reaching for Elizabeth’s hand at the final few steps.
She ignored his help. “He was called away to court,” she said, and he could tell she was making every effort to control her voice.
John made no effort at all to hide his angry scowl. Her father was certainly slapping her into place every chance he got. John was beginning to realize that Elizabeth would fare much better with his family—if she would let herself.
Elizabeth turned to her mother and hugged her hard, and though she whispered to keep her words from him, he had excellent hearing.
“Mother, don’t worry for me. John is not a cruel man. I swear that somehow I will make you proud of me.”
Though Lady Chelmsford continued to cry, she did not hold her daughter for long. John helped Elizabeth into the coach, and when she raised her eyes to his, he smiled encouragingly. She only stiffened and looked at the trunks piled on the opposite seat and at her feet.
“How am I supposed to be comfortable like this?” she demanded—not too loudly.
He shook his head, but he wasn’t surprised that she felt the need to rebuff his sympathy.
“Leave these trunks home, and you won’t have a problem,” he answered.
“I cannot do that! I need all these things, especially in the uncivilized north.”
“Uncivilized?” he echoed, and flashed her a grin. “We’ll see who is uncivilized.”
He shut the door before she could say another word. During the first few days of their journey, John tried to resurrect his sympathy for his new bride. It was dreadfully hot, and she had to wear all those garments and trap herself in the coach. Though he kept asking her
to ride her own horse at his side, she continually refused. A hired maidservant kept her company, and he soon pitied the girl.
The farther north they journeyed, the more morose he became. He couldn’t imagine introducing his spoiled bride to his family. He was angry at her and angry at himself for even following her into that garden. Though Elizabeth treated the servants decently and soon had the men falling over themselves to do her bidding, to John himself she was cold and remote.
At night when her pavilion was erected, she remained inside with her two maids, rather than sit with him near the fire. He never even got a chance to touch her hand, let alone attempt to seduce her. How was he to endure this marriage when he didn’t even get the satisfaction of sexual release?
In the last hour before dawn, something besides the heat woke Elizabeth. She lay still on her lumpy pallet, hoping it was just one of the maids snoring but knowing in a cold, chill way that it was not. She could no longer see the bright shadows of the fire on the walls of the pavilion, though she distinctly remembered John ordering the guards to keep a fire going at all times.
When she heard rustling out in their camp, she wondered if they were being invaded by wild animals—which John had assured her the fire would keep away. Why was she worrying? For a man who’d never been to the city, never been to court, John had proved himself more than capable of command. The farther from London they traveled, the larger and more expansive he seemed to grow while she felt small and lost.
Yet he was the first one she thought of now that she was frightened—not her father, not Lord Wyndham. The noises outside had grown louder, and she heard flesh striking flesh and a man’s moan. As she awoke her maids, she hushed their voices, whispering that they had to dress quickly.
There was a call of warning, and then the sounds of men yelling and fighting. As the maids cried, Elizabeth was trying not to. She was afraid to look outside and afraid to sit here unknowing. With shaking hands, she parted the canvas flap and peered out.
Men she didn’t know had invaded the camp—thieves? There were fistfights and swords clashing and men shouting. But soon she realized there were fewer and fewer men, that John’s guards were slipping away into the forest. What kind of men were they, to desert the lord who’d paid them with what little money he had?
She turned to look after the maids, only to find them gone, the pavilion torn where they’d taken a knife to it. For a moment she was tempted to join them, but she didn’t know anything about forests and wild animals. Her only safety was John, who was fighting for his life—and who’d put her in this terrible situation in the first place, she reminded herself.
But what if he died? What if she was left at the mercy of such barbarians?
When she looked back out, John was running toward the tent, and a feeling of relief brought tears to her eyes. He wasn’t dead.
For a strange moment, she noticed everything in the growing light of dawn—the surprised faces of the thieves, the blood that trickled from a cut at John’s temple. Then he grabbed her and shoved her behind him, brandishing his sword menacingly.
“Just take whatever goods you want,” he said to the thieves. “But hurry, because this is a well-traveled road, and someone is sure to come this way soon.”
Elizabeth felt her throat closing up, just when she might need to scream. The men looked at her contemplatively, as if she were a side of beef on market day. My God, did John think they might want her?
There was a tense moment of silence, and she was frozen with fear and anxiety, wondering what they would do. Her hands dug into John’s waist as she clung to him, pressing her face against his back.
“Leave ‘er,” said a tall, spare man, who seemed to be the leader. “Take everythin’ else.”
With a cry, she retreated into the tent, trying to save some of her belongings, desperately pulling on her farthingale to hold up her skirts. John grabbed her as the tent was invaded and thrust her out into the trees.
“Do something!” she pleaded, looking over her shoulder. “They’re taking my things!”
“I did do something—I saved you from them. And they’re taking my things, too,” he added dryly, pulling her deeper into the dense foliage, “including the horses and cart and coach.”
“But surely the servants will return for us.”
“They’re London-bred, Elizabeth, and they didn’t fancy Yorkshire, let alone being robbed in the wilderness. I think we’ve seen the last of them.”
Soon they were alone in the dappled sunrise, shaded by the encroaching Sherwood Forest.
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“We’re going to walk, of course.”
“To the next town? Will we find horses there?”
“We’ve no money to buy them. Unless …”
He suddenly leaned toward her and snatched at her hair. She gave a wild cry and batted him away, knowing she was overreacting but unable to stop herself.
“Easy, my lady,” he murmured, not even angry, which made her feel worse. “You have a jeweled hairpin which we can trade for supplies.”
“Supplies! But it is a gift from my father. Surely it is worth—”
“I’d be grateful if it were worth a pair of horses and enough food.”
“But—”
“Elizabeth.” His voice lowered in warning.
She studied him in silence, seeing the bruises that had begun to darken his cheekbone and the blood that was drying on his face. He had done his best to protect her—and it had worked. She could have been the prize to a band of thieves.
Suddenly dizzy, she staggered toward the meandering brook they’d followed. She cupped water and brought it to her mouth, then splashed her hot face. She glanced over as John knelt beside her and did the same. When she realized that he was trying to wash away blood, she felt a moment of shame. Should a wife help with such things when there were no physicians about? He had been trying to save her, after all.
“You’re missing a spot,” she said. “Let me.”
He sat quietly while she dipped the edge of one of her underskirts in the water and dabbed at the blood on the side of his face.
“This will need sewing by a physician.”
He shrugged. “It will heal by itself—and then I’ll have another scar to show you.”
Elizabeth blushed at the memory of his naked body and the fine mapping of scars he’d displayed so proudly, as if it were an honor to be so disfigured. She suddenly realized how close together they were, that she practically knelt in his lap.
On their four days of journeying, she’d managed to keep people between them. But now they were alone, impoverished, unprotected. She should feel frightened—ex—cept that their solitude called to her, that his face, even wounded, was so hard and masculine and … exciting. Barely holding back a groan of mortification, she quickly turned away from him.
It didn’t take long for John to find a farmer more than willing to accept Elizabeth’s bauble in exchange for two plain but sturdy horses and a few days’ worth of supplies. Her court finery, seldom seen so far north, drew plenty of stares as they traveled. And beneath her gown, she still wore that ridiculous farthingale to flare her skirts wide at her waist. She clung to it as her only possession left, even though she had to hold down her skirts as she sat sidesaddle on the horse. He breathed a sigh of relief that at least she was a decent horsewoman.
That night, he led her off the main road into a clearing in the forest, and she remained on her horse as he dismounted. Twilight settled about them in a lush, warm haze as he gazed up into her beautiful face, and for a moment, he thought he was a lucky man.
But then she opened her mouth.
“I cannot stay here,” she said firmly, looking down her perfect nose at him. “That village we passed would have been—”
“Stop this, Elizabeth.” John sighed as he pulled off the saddle and shared a long-suffering look with the horse. “We have no money to pay for lodging. Asking for shelter in the village would on
ly get us a smelly mound of hay in a dilapidated barn. At least now we’re under the stars—and alone.”
He touched her knee and she pulled away from him.
He laughed. “Allow me to help you down.”
“I can—”
Hauling her off the horse, he set her on her feet. She staggered and would have fallen but for his grip on her arms.
“Elizabeth?”
With a pained expression, she limped away from him. “I am merely stiff.”
He watched her hobble about the clearing, wondering when she had last ridden a horse. At least she wasn’t complaining—yet.
“I’m going into the forest to look for firewood,” he said. “I would appreciate your help.”
“Firewood? I wouldn’t know what to look for.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and watched her. “Pieces of dry wood on the ground.”
Even by the setting sun he could see her blush. “I’ve never … done anything like that.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he murmured, his gaze dropping down her body.
“I’ll wait here,” she quickly replied.
Feeling vaguely disappointed—but not surprised—John turned and stepped between the trees. He hadn’t gone far before he heard her voice.
“Wait! John, wait!”
She caught up with him, her wide skirts scraping between two trees. For a moment, he thought she was trying to be helpful.
“I—I didn’t want to be alone,” she said, making no pretense of looking for wood.
He tried not to be disappointed in his wife, but it was a feeling that was constantly with him. He forced her to carry half the wood he found, regardless of the fact that it dirtied her sleeves, as she so quickly informed him.
Using the flint and steel he carried in a pouch at his waist, he started a small fire, then spread a blanket for Elizabeth to sit on. She squinted down at it, uncertainly smoothing her skirts, which hung bell-shaped from her waist.
