Bending Tyme

by Maria-Claire Payne

  Before Logan had time to torment her further, Esme used her unrestrained arm to elbow him in the solar plexus. She heard him gasp for breath as he doubled over, his grip on her loosening just enough—before he recovered from her sharp elbow, she brought her right boot heel down on his instep. Struggling to maintain his balance, searing pain evident in his face, Logan released her arm. Esme pivoted, one open palm cracking his nose while her left knee caught him square in the testicles. Logan fell to his knees, blood spurting from his nose, instinctively clutching his groin.

  Esme turned her back to him, the shocked faces of the serving women allowing her some small measure of satisfaction. “Solar-plexus, instep, nose, groin—all you need to do is ‘SING’ if some fool makes unwanted advances.”

  Logan shot out one leg, the sweep kick she had used to bring Lord Jameson down the evening before now doing the same to her. Logan learnt fast. She fell back against him, finding herself in his arms as he prevented her from hitting the floor.

  “Never turn your back on your opponent while he still draws breath,” Logan added, his sardonic tone at odds with his bloody nose. He pulled her to her feet, dismissing the servants’ tittering as they went off to regale the rest of the staff with this latest episode between the lord of the manor and his erstwhile lady.

  “Lord Davenport met his match in this one,” Betsy commented, her voice loud, sending the servants into peals of laughter that echoed back down the long hallway.

  Logan scowled at the sound. “I do not recall such entertainment scheduled on the cards for this day, Miss Tyme.” He headed towards the winding staircase, Esme trailing after him.

  “I had to do something.” Esme turned her face up to him. “Thank you for sending Lord Jameson away with just a flesh wound.”

  Logan grimaced. “He is no gentleman. Now all know him for the drunken coward he is—”

  “—And your honour remains intact,” Esme finished. She sighed. “You need a doctor to look at your nose.”

  Logan stopped outside his bedroom door, one eyebrow raised. “Yes.”

  Esme blushed, realising he sought some privacy to nurse the wounds she had inflicted.

  Logan hesitated before he slipped into the quiet of his bedchamber. “Does honour hold so little value in your world?”

  “Well, in some circles, this maybe would have been settled via something we call a drive-by…” Esme’s voice trailed off. She knew Logan was in no mood for her cryptic references to events meaning nothing to him.

  “I…may I go for a ride? I understand women sometimes ride in breeches? I’d fall off a side-saddle.”

  Esme watched as Logan smiled, the smile turning into a grimace as obvious pain crossed his handsome features. “One hour,” he said and, sending Esme to explore the library while he readied himself, he called for his valet to fetch the surgeon.

  Byron sauntered into Logan’s room as the surgeon departed. “God’s teeth, I saw no injury to yourself!” Byron watched the swelling and bruises rising under Logan’s aquamarine eyes.

  “Esme, not Lord Jameson. I am assured no bones are broken, but I believe only because she pulled her punch,” Logan said, his tone rueful. He smiled in spite of the shooting pain his nose caused him, recalling Esme’s woebegone tone when he had left her—so out of character for the woman who had brought him to his knees.

  Logan shook his head. “She is a wonder.”

  Byron laughed. “Ah, yes, my man hinted at some impropriety with our time-traveller in the ballroom this morning. He failed to note the willing subject of her lesson in defence was you.” Bryon touched Logan’s face, laughing harder. “I see she displays herself to advantage. What next?”

  Logan picked up his riding crop, swatting Byron’s hand away. “We ride.” Catching Byron’s sharp look at his words, Logan flushed.

  Byron burst into laughter again.

  Logan flicked the whip at him. “Say naught else, or I will meet you with arms in the morning, day after next.”

  Byron laughed all the harder, Logan pretending to ignore him as the two men descended the stairs and headed outside, where Logan called for their mounts.

  Jeremy arrived from the stables for a second time that day, eyes downcast.

  Logan reached for his horse’s reins. “How does the young stallion train?”

  “Another day and he’ll be fit to ride, sir.” Jeremy kept his eyes averted.

  Logan smiled, realising the young man was avoiding meeting his direct gaze – and the sight of his swollen face. Logan sighed, not sure how to respond to a servant who would rather face seventy-plus stone of horse attached to angry hooves rather than be audience to the effects of the latest display of discourtesy by Lord Davenport’s…unusual guest. Logan sighed again.

  Taking his seat astride his horse, Logan looked about. “Where is Miss Tyme’s mount?”

  The groomsman pulled at the lock of hair falling over one eye, obviously nervous. “Miss Tyme asked me to deliver a message, Lord Davenport—‘I can ride alone’.” He stepped back.

  Logan clenched his jaw. “Which way?”

  “West, sir.”

  At this news, Byron turned around, leaving this ride to his friend to manage solo.

  Logan watched Byron walk back into the house, shaking his head.

  “Yes, I know,” Logan shouted after his friend as he turned his horse around. “I met my match in this one…”

  Logan rode hard, scanning the horizon for a sign Esme had passed this way, eventually spying her horse grazing some distance off the path. He feared the horse had unseated her—even his well-trained, beautiful hunters on occasion unhorsed inexperienced riders. Logan scanned the ground as he closed in on her mount, worried.

  “Esme!” His baritone echoed, rolling back to him.

  Esme popped up from a field of lavender.

  Had she just waved at him? Logan felt his jaw clench in spite of his efforts not to.

  Logan dismounted, reaching Esme in three long strides.

  “I knew you’d find me.”

  “Why do you persist in these children’s games?”

  Esme sprawled out, Logan watching her inhale the heady scent of the lavender field. “I needed some fresh air.” She patted the ground next to her. “When did you last take ten minutes to enjoy all of this beauty around you, Logan? Hunting defenceless creatures does not count.”

  Nonplussed, Logan sank down beside her. “When did you last spend ten minutes at peace yourself, Miss Tyme?”

  “Touché. How about, for the next ten minutes, we’re just Esme and Logan, a couple of people enjoying a beautiful day?”

  The sun warmed their skin, the fragrance of the lavender filling the air, mingling with the scent of Logan’s cologne.

  Logan watched her face for a few minutes, bemused. Yes, there is much beauty here, he thought. He stretched out to his full length, his fingers brushing hers. Neither moved, letting their hands rest together on the warm earth.

  The sound of approaching horses interrupted their shared reverie. Logan rose to his feet, desiring nothing more than to stay but a while longer—yet he also wanted to leave Esme in peace, thinking she was asleep after the crowded events of the past twenty-four hours. He raised her fingers to his lips, catching himself off-guard with the impulsive action, then mounted his horse and rode out to meet the small group before they stumbled across Esme.

  Logan glanced back as Esme sat up, watching her lift her fingers to her face, inhaling the scent of him where his mouth had lingered on her skin. He turned his attention back to the intruding riders, unsettled by the emotions Esme stirred in him.

  When Logan stopped by Esme’s room to escort her to supper, Betsy made excuses on her behalf, fooling no one.

  Byron refrained from his usual sardonic wit and Logan’s jaw set, no distraction across the long evening improving his foul mood.

  Esme remained in her room, alone, the floodgates bursting. Betsy, at a loss in the face of Esme’s tears, left her to her solitude, checking in with
hesitant knocks as the evening shadows lengthened.

  Byron looked out of his window at the ground below. He started to leave his chamber in search of his host, but changed his mind and called instead for fresh writing materials.

  Byron applied pen to paper. “She stands in the beauty of the moonlight,” he muttered, then shook his head and scratched though the line.

  His door flew open, Logan’s frame filling the entryway. “She vexes me.”

  Byron nodded his head. “She walks in moonlight,” he said, tapping the quill he favoured, ink staining his fingertips.

  “She bewitches and bewilders me.” Logan tossed another log on the fire.

  “You act as if your head is up your arse in her presence.” Byron stood up, moving back towards the window, watching the thunder clouds gather, obscuring the moonlight. “She walks in beauty…”

  “What distracts you so?”

  Byron pointed.

  Logan squinted out into the night, sheets of rain falling now, lightning bolts illuminating the woman lifting her face to the sky.

  Byron tapped his quill on the windowpane. “I wonder, does your Esme pray for a lightning bolt to strike and transport her back from whence she came?”

  “The hell you say, man,” Logan cursed. Clad only in the linen drawers he wore before he had barrelled into Byron’s chamber, Logan bounded down the staircase and flung open the front doors.

  Byron watched from his window.

  Esme welcomed the cool air lifting her chemise in its breezy caress, her face turned to the moonlight. Storm clouds rolled across the darkening sky, the quick release of their moisture catching her by surprise. She laughed, revelling in the chaotic weather swirling around her, the rain mingling with her tears.

  Lightning crackled and thunder rumbled. Esme counted the seconds between the two, the lightning close enough to strike her, yet still she stood in the downpour, reluctant to return under Logan’s roof.

  A third bolt lit up the silhouette of the man striding towards her.

  Esme lifted her chin.

  Logan shouted at her, but Esme shrugged. It was impossible to make out his words over the din of wind and rain. He caught her arm, bending his head close to her ear.

  “Do you wish to catch your death?” His mouth so close to her ear distracted her.

  Esme lifted her chin higher. “Afraid of a little rain, Lord Davenport?”

  “Damn your obstinacy, woman.” Logan reached out to drag her towards the house, but Esme twisted, slipping from his arms. She stumbled, the grass and mud and slashing rain creating an unsteady surface. Logan lunged to catch her, losing his own footing as well, the pair tumbling to the ground. Logan rolled to break their fall and Esme found herself back in his arms. Again.

  “You insufferable man!” Esme yelled, the rush of adrenaline at the next lightning strike fuelling the heat in her veins at the sight of him, the thin material of their saturated undergarments serving to titillate her further. She pushed herself away from him with one hand—yet her other lingered, one finger travelling down the fine trail of hair tapering from the width of his chest down his muscled torso.

  Logan caught her hand. Esme jerked away, confused, pushing at him as he rose to his knees, pulling her up after him.

  “Do you persist in your schemes to destroy my reputation for sport or for spite?” Logan asked, his eyes mirroring her confusion.

  “I just wanted to take a walk! How am I supposed to know how fast these storms come up?” she yelled back.

  “A lady does not wander about her host’s grounds without proper escort, Miss Tyme—and for certain not in her underwear in the dead of night.”

  Esme felt Logan’s gaze sweeping over her, moving down her body, lingering where the fine linen clung to her curves. Esme folded her arms across her chest, covering her nipples, hard and erect in the cold wet, from his hungry gaze. Remembering his hands on her breasts distracted her…as did her hand on his belly right now…

  Esme dropped her arms, standing defiant against the onslaught of wind and rain and the unrelenting heat of his aquamarine stare. Logan clenched his teeth.

  Esme’s chin lifted. “Even…even if you were my highest-paying client and on speed-dial in my cell phone, I’d…I’d cancel your contracts and block all your calls and your instant messages and your stupid texts. No, I’d do better than just block you—I’d delete you, Logan Joseph Davenport. So there!”

  Logan looked perplexed, a familiar sight since her appearance. Then she saw that perfect jaw-line clench again in a second gesture, fast becoming all too familiar. Esme watched him fight to control himself, wondering what he planned to do next. Her eyes widened when he leant forward, bringing his mouth down on hers—this, in spite of the passionate coupling they had shared, their first kiss.

  The jolt of current running between them left Esme wondering if the lightning had found its target. Breathless, she looked into Logan’s eyes when he lifted his mouth from hers, his need as raw as her own. They tumbled back to the ground, Esme undoing the string holding his drawers in place, Logan pushing the thin material of her chemise out of his way. Esme caught her breath, feeling his strength as he moved to slide the hard length of his shaft into her. Ignoring her throbbing pussy, Esme kicked out at him, her lust tempered by her anger, not forgetting her recent tears, unwilling to relinquish control quite so quickly and easily to the lord of the manor.

  Logan’s eyes widened in surprise and he hesitated just for a moment, his own anger at her absolute refusal to see reason, to bend to his will, mounting fast. Esme rolled away from him, scrambling for a foothold in the wet grass, but he moved faster, catching her right ankle, pulling her back into his arms, pinning her under his weight.

  “Let me go!” she yelled, the sound lost in the wind. Her nails left bloody trails across his back before he shifted his weight to catch her hands between them.

  He bent his mouth close to her ear. “Kiss me,” he whispered.

  “I hate you!” Esme yelled, turning her face away into the mud.

  Logan held her hands fast in one large palm, the other forcing her to look at him.

  “I hate you too,” he murmured into her ear.

  His lips just touching her own, Logan pressed his advantage until she succumbed to his weight. He crushed her mouth with his own, backing off when Esme bit his lower lip, reaching down instead to rub one long finger over her clit. Esme cried out, coming as soon as he slipped his fingers inside her. She laced her own fingers through his dark curls now, her tongue seeking his, that electric arc between them putting the lightning to shame.

  Esme scrambled to her knees, pushing Logan down onto his back. He offered no resistance, closing his eyes against the pelting rain as Esme wrapped her hand around the length of his cock, running her fingers over the sensitive head, feeling him harden further still when she slid her hand up and down the length of his shaft, the rain keeping her motions fluid, his cock slick. Esme watched Logan’s eyes open, then widen when she slipped one finger into his ass, then she wriggled down his body and his eyes grew dark again when she took his length into her mouth and down her throat. He groaned out loud when her lips reached his balls, the sound of his ecstasy lost in the gale around them.

  Logan reached down, pulling Esme up close against his chest, his mouth crashing down on hers again, his tongue invading her mouth where his cock had just been. Impatient, his need urgent now, Logan rolled Esme onto her back, her gasp at the shock of the cold, muddy ground kissing her heated skin lost when his mouth crashed down on her own. He lifted her hips up out of the wet grass, pulling her legs over his shoulders, sliding just the head of his cock, then all his length, into her throbbing pussy. She came again when he exploded in her, his hot cum mixing with the cool rain and the heat of her own juices.

  Logan pulled his drawers up and the remnants of her chemise down, a hopeless attempt to preserve a semblance of modesty. He lifted her in his arms, the rain a gentle sprinkle now, the storm spent.

  Not a so
ul roamed the halls, the servants keeping their distance as the filthy lord and his equally filthy lady passed through on their way to Logan’s bedchamber.

  Logan wrapped Esme in a towel and washed first, quickly, silent again. Then he lowered Esme into the steaming bath, washing the mud from the length of her hair. He lifted her from the dirty water into a second, fresh, tub, climbing in behind her, the close confines spooning him up against her.

  Esme soaked in the warm steam, his arms wrapped around her, lulled by the strong beat of his heart.

  Remaining silent, Logan stood up when the water cooled, lifting Esme from the bath to towel her dry. Esme shivered in the chill night air from the open windows of his room; Logan pulled back the blankets on his bed, sliding in beside her.

  Esme rolled onto her right side, watching the rise and fall of Logan’s chest, reaching out one hand to explore the different textures—his firm skin, the fine mat of hair spreading down his torso—pausing to caress one nipple then the other, her teeth-marks evident around the sensitive nubs.

  Logan caught her hand in his, rolling over to face her and share her pillow.

  “From whence—or when—you came to me matters not.” Logan cupped her chin in his right hand, his left caressing her breasts, his eyes shining in the softness of the candles burning nearby. “Here you are.”

  Esme drifted off to sleep in the warmth of his bed, the last sight before she closed her eyes the brilliant aquamarine of his, looking at her with something she never had experienced with any other man—love.

  Chapter Four

  Esme woke alone, stretching her aching muscles. She smiled at the light bruises around her right ankle and her wrists, Logan’s fingerprints evident on her thighs, love-bites trailing across her breasts.

  All those layers might prove useful today.

  Esme walked down to the library, wondering what entertainment occupied Logan’s guests—the entire house was silent. Confused, Esme headed towards the kitchen, seeking out Betsy.