Flirting with Ruin

by Marguerite Kaye

  No pretty speech, no flowery stream of complements, no fancy declaration could have had anything like the impact of his words. Rosalind jumped down from the gig. ‘I felt the same when I saw you. I feel the same now. I thought the same too, almost exactly. Life is too short to let it go by. I want you every bit as much. Just Fraser,’ she said, taking his hand and leading him into the woods.

  * * *

  The track through the trees led them to the edge of a small body of water. Too small to be called a lake, it was in the shape of a figure of eight, the banks mossy, the water obviously shallow, judging by the thick reeds that covered most of it. Above them, the autumn colours formed a canopy of russet, gold and brindled yellow. Below, the leaves that had fallen were darker shades of copper and brown, already softened by the damp, peaty soil underfoot. A hush hung over the place, their steps were muted, the light filtered through the trees was dappled. The place had a magical quality about it.

  ‘Did you know about this?’ Rosalind whispered, looking about her in awe.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘I think we must still be on Montague land. The Castonbury estate is extensive and we have not come so very far, but I have never been here before. What do you think that is?’ Rosalind nodded to the small wooden building that clung to the edge of the little lake.

  ‘Privacy,’ Fraser said, smiling. ‘It’s your last chance, Rosalind.’

  ‘Not my last, our second, and I think we have already both agreed not to let it go by.’

  He laughed at that, just as she had intended, but his laughter had an edge to it that told her he was not immune to the nerves fluttering in her stomach. A swift kiss reassured her, but as he led the way to the wooden structure that was not much more than a hut, Rosalind’s anxiety threatened to get the better of her.

  ‘It’s not much,’ Fraser said, throwing open the door, ‘but it’s dry and it’s clean.’

  It was a square space, lit by a skylight in the roof. A wooden chest revealed a thick rug, which Fraser threw onto the floor. There were several small stools, the type used by fishermen, stacked in a corner, along with a selection of angling rods. Was she really going through with this? Rosalind wondered. Because if she was not, now would be the time to tell him. Did he think her experienced? Did her lack of any real experience, save the vicarious kind, matter? The need to reclaim her life, fuelled by the infinite sadness of the young life lost forever from Castonbury, and flamed by desire for this man, looking quizzically down at her, had brought her here. But was she sure?

  ‘Is this really what you want?’

  Rosalind could not help but smile. ‘Can you read minds?’

  ‘I know my own.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I want you, but only if it’s what you want too. It’s important that you feel the same.’

  ‘I do. About both things.’

  ‘But?’

  She gave a little shrug, blushed a little, but forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘I’m not very experienced.’

  ‘Rosalind, do you care about my experience?’

  ‘I—I hadn’t thought about it.’

  ‘I want you. Just you. Don’t you understand?’

  She nodded. She put her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. ‘I do now,’ she said, and kissed him.

  This time their kisses followed a more defined path. They sank down together onto their knees, still kissing, but their hands roamed more, anxious for contact, to learn shapes and contours, anxious to please. Rosalind’s hat went first. Then Fraser’s coat. Then her pelisse. She had always thought that the removal of clothes was an awkward thing, but this was a delightful game. The buttons of a waistcoat. The buttons of her morning gown. A necktie. The laces of her corset. Why was it that an exposed throat against a white lawn shirt could be so alluring. She breathed in the scent of him as she kissed him there and licked over his pulse. Male skin, masculine skin, manly skin. So different. So foolish, her thoughts, but she didn’t care.

  He returned her caresses, licking down the column of her throat and making her arch back in pleasure. The curve of her breasts now, exposed by the loosening of her gown. His kisses gave her goose bumps. She tugged his shirt free from his pantaloons. There was the groove of a scar on his back. His stomach muscles rippled under the flat of her palms. He pulled her gown down, over her arms to her waist and then yanked his shirt over his head. Pressing her tight against him, her breasts flattened against the hardness of his chest, he kissed her mouth savagely but not brutally, and she liked it. It was as if he had turned up her internal temperature with that kiss. The rough hairs of his chest felt scratchy on her breast, and she liked that too. She scraped her nails down his back. He eased her down onto hers, and pulled her gown off.

  And all the time he murmured her name, told her how lovely she was, what she was doing to him, what she was making him feel. She was silent at first, afraid to speak lest she sound foolish, but gradually she joined in, telling him that she liked this, and that, and wanted more of that. He untied the ribbons at the neckline of her chemise, and pulled it down to reveal her breasts. For a breathless moment he stared down at her, his eyes dark, his cheeks flushed, his scar pale by comparison. Then he caught her nipple between his lips and sucked hard, making her cry out with pleasure.

  He worshipped her breasts, there was no other way to describe it, and she worshipped him for worshipping. There seemed to be no end to the pleasure he took in stroking, cupping, licking and suckling. She thought there could be no end to her pleasure either, but it was becoming unbearable. He had set up a path, from her nipples to her belly to her thighs, centring between them. Inside, deep inside her, she felt so tight and hot, so tense, so desperate for release, but she did not want her release to be alone.

  Pushing him onto his back, taking him by surprise enough to do so, Rosalind straddled him. Her hair was coming down, long curls of it bright on his skin. There was a round, jagged indent in his shoulder. A bullet wound, old. She kissed it, feeling its contours with her tongue. Another scar on his belly, white with age, the shape of a sickle. She kissed that. Her breasts brushed against his chest. The rough hair felt delightful on her hard, aching nipples. She moved, teasing them both, nipples on skin, excited by the way his belly clenched in response, but much more excited by the hard, solid length of him she could feel between her legs, through her chemise and his pantaloons.

  Determined to raise him to the same fever pitch as he had raised her, she kissed his nipples, sucked at them and licked. His hands clutched at her bottom, fingers sinking into the soft flesh of her thighs, pushing her hard up against his erection. She wriggled down his body, wrestling with the buttons of his falls as he kicked off his boots with some difficulty. Panting now, both of them, he helped her remove the last of his clothing. Still on top of him, she surveyed the result. Naked man beneath her. Sold. Muscled. Scarred. And potent.

  She touched him carefully, the length of him, the girth of him, weighting and caressing. Imagining. Watching his face to see the effect of her touch. Relishing it. He cupped her breasts as she cupped the potent heat of him. She leaned towards him to kiss him, hot mouth, different now, their thrusting tongues a definitive prelude as he rolled her onto her back, rucking her chemise up, lifting her legs up so that he could kneel between them, kissing her mouth, then swiftly moving down, pushing apart the legs of her drawers, and kissing her sex.

  Rosalind cried out. She knew of such kisses, had heard much discussion of such kisses in the low company she kept of late. Women lamented the lack. Men demanded reciprocity. But no one had ever described just how it felt. Hot. And incredibly intimate. And unbelievably arousing. She felt as if his mouth had found the centre of her, the tight, curled, pulsing centre of her, and his kiss, his delightfully circling tongue, was making that centre swell, take over her world, until she had no option but to surrender to it, to let it drag her up, over, and then explode, splinter and shatter.

  But even as she did, she was crying out for h
im, for more of him, clutching frantically at his shoulders, her mouth seeking his, her hands feverish on his skin, tugging and clutching and stroking, her nails digging into him, tearing at him, in her desperate need for them to meld, join. In the unstoppable, driving urge to have him inside her.

  He rolled onto his back and once again she was straddling him, but this time there were no layers of clothes to impede their joining. The tip of his shaft, then the length of him, slid into her as he supported her. She leaned forward to kiss him, and felt the frisson of friction as her movements made him move inside her. She needed no encouragement then to ride him, and he let her set the pace. Slipping and sliding, then pounding and pulsing. Holding him tight inside her, then letting him go. His thrusts, the slick, thick feel of his length picked up the echoes of her climax and sent her over the edge once more. She cried out wildly, leaning back, grinding down on him, then thrust hard, several more times, deliberately slow and hard, watching his face all the time, watching him unravelling, losing control underneath her, feeling him thicken inside her, feeling the first ripple of his own climax, just in time to roll from him as he came, his cries muffled by her mouth, her lips, kissing him hard, drinking in his pleasure, pouring forth her own.

  * * *

  They lay panting, damp, hot, on the musty blanket on the wooden floor of the hut, spent and sated. Rosalind gazed in wonder at Fraser, at the marks she had added to his body, at the slick of sweat, at his heaving chest, his still-tumescent manhood. She felt glorious. Full of life. Inflamed with life. She felt utterly and completely satisfied, though pretty certain that within a very short time she would be ready for more. She couldn’t help smiling. Catching Fraser’s gaze, she saw her joy and pleasure reflected on his face. He laughed, a deep, skin-bumping laugh, and pulled her to him. Her hair was a curtain over them. There was no need for her to ask if she had pleased him, any more than he needed to ask the same of her. Something wonderful had happened. They just knew.

  But later they did talk, and she finally answered the questions he had asked what seemed like a lifetime ago when they had set out in the gig. She told him it all, right up to the frustration she felt with her life, the need for change, the desire to have a life, though she had no idea what she meant.

  ‘Any more than I do,’ Fraser said. He had pulled his coat over her back, but his hands were stroking her rhythmically beneath it, up from the swell of her derriere along the line of her spine and back down. The tails of his coat were tickling the backs of her knees. Her breasts were crushed against his chest. Their legs were entangled. She couldn’t tell, lying here, which parts were his and which hers. No, that was not wholly true. There were some parts that were unequivocally his. They were skin and flesh and blood and sweat mingled. Even the scent of them was different. A new scent, salty and musky. Sex.

  ‘What will you do, now that you have left the army?’ she asked.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Do you wish to settle down?’

  ‘That’s one of the things I’m certain I don’t want to do. It’s not for lack of funds, mind. I’ve not enough to buy an estate like Castonbury, but I dare say I could afford something along the lines of that Dower House of theirs if I wanted to. I don’t though. I’ve seen a fair bit more of the world than most, but it’s a big world, and life is short.’

  Rosalind sighed enviously. ‘I would love to travel.’

  ‘Why don’t you? You’ve the money, you said.’

  ‘It is different for a woman, Fraser, don’t tease me. It would be dangerous, for a start. And yes, before you ask, I do like the idea of danger, but not the sort that would actually cause me physical harm.’

  ‘What sort do you mean?’

  Rosalind chewed on her lip, a frown drawing her brows together. ‘I suppose I mean the thrill of the unknown. I want to wake up each day and wonder what it will bring. I want the chance to pit my wits against others. I want — oh, I know it sounds silly, but I want my life to be exciting. Unpredictable. I want to take chances.’

  ‘You took a chance on me today. Do you regret it?’

  She laughed, a full-throated laugh that startled her, for it had a sultry quality about it she hadn’t known she possessed. ‘Not only do I not regret it, Major Lennox, but I am quite willing to take another chance on you, right now.’

  ‘And if, Lady Rosalind, I am not willing?’

  He was looking at her as if he was quite prepared to devour her, and it was really quite a heady experience. ‘I think,’ Rosalind said, throwing off his coat and pushing herself upright, stretching her arms above her head, arching her back and enjoying the effect of all this on Fraser, ‘that I can persuade you.’

  ‘You are very confident of your abilities, my lady.’ He held the weight of her breasts in his hands, running his thumbs over her nipples in the most tantalising of caresses.

  She shifted down his body, pushing his legs apart so that she could kneel between them just as he had done to her. Her vicariously debauched life was proving useful after all, for she knew exactly what she was going to do. ‘Major Lennox,’ she said, wrapping her hand around his thickening shaft, ‘I have cause to be.’

  She flicked her thumb over the sensitive tip of him. He bucked under her. She bent over him, her hair trailing over his thighs.

  ‘Rosalind.’ His voice was quite hoarse. She looked up, still holding him, and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘You have every cause to be,’ Fraser said hoarsely.

  She laughed, her newly discovered throaty laugh. And then she set about proving, with mouth and lips and tongue, that he was quite right.

  Chapter Five

  At Rosalind’s insistence, Fraser dropped her at the gates to Castonbury Park before returning himself to the Rothermere Arms in the village. They did not discuss what happened next, but nor did Fraser make any plans to leave.

  Walking slowly up the sweep of the drive to the big house, Rosalind’s mind was curiously blank, floating like her body in the aftermath of her first truly satisfying experience of lovemaking. She did not want to think, nor to analyse nor to discuss what had happened. Kate was too distracted to notice that she was being palmed off with a half truth when Rosalind said that she had spent the afternoon outdoors enjoying the countryside, but by the next morning over breakfast, when the two friends were again alone, it was a different matter.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘You were.’ Kate’s shrewd gaze met Rosalind’s across the breakfast table. ‘You look as if something particularly pleasant has happened to you. What were you up to yesterday?’

  ‘I told you, I was enjoying the fresh air.’

  ‘Alone?’

  Rosalind wished her friend were not so sharp. She tried not to blush, but she could feel the telltale heat spreading across her cheeks.

  ‘You were with him, weren’t you?’ Kate said.

  ‘You knew I was, for you saw us leaving,’ Rosalind replied. She was flustered and realised too late that Kate had not actually made the connection between Major Lennox and her harvest moon mystery man. But Kate had certainly made the link now, for she dropped her coffee cup with a clatter into the delicate china saucer.

  ‘It was Major Lennox? Rosalind! My God.’ Kate burst into a peel of laughter. ‘Did you know? Before he walked into the drawing room yesterday, I mean?’

  ‘No. It was a—a shock.’

  ‘I’ll wager it was. I can’t believe I didn’t notice.’

  ‘You naturally had other things on your mind.’

  ‘Yes. He told us a very consoling story, didn’t he? Oh, don’t look like that. Of course I knew it was a story, but I confess, Rosalind, I’m glad he did. Even though I knew that at the very least he had glossed over some of the facts, it helped. In time I may even come to believe it was the truth. Phaedra already does. And Smithers, my father’s valet, says that His Grace slept with the medal under his pillow.’

  ‘Fraser did not mean to deceive y
ou, Kate.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, I know that. He seems like a very nice man. Is he?’

  She had known him less than two days, but Rosalind had no hesitation in answering. ‘He is,’ she said with conviction, ‘very nice.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘I think I must return to London. I have intruded on your family’s grief long enough.’

  ‘You plan a fresh start?’

  ‘Whatever that means. A change, certainly.’

  Kate stared down into her empty cup, running her index finger round the rim. ‘There will be a fresh start here at Castonbury Park of sorts, soon enough. Father is not fit to look after the estate, and though he has a sound enough manager, William Everett does not own the land. Jamie is—is dead and Giles is now the heir to the dukedom, whether he likes it or not. He must come back from London and take up the reins before his heritage falls to rack and ruin.’

  ‘I did see Giles, a few weeks ago in London. If you’ll pardon my speaking bluntly, Kate, it is he who has gone to rack and ruin. If you can persuade him to come here…’

  ‘It is not a question of persuasion, but one of duty. And it is our father who must see to that,’ Kate said brusquely. ‘You have not answered my question, Rosalind. Does Major Lennox feature in your future plans?’

  ‘You are as tenacious as a terrier.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Rosalind laughed. ‘The truth? I would like him to, but I have no idea what to do about it. Do you have any advice?’

  ‘The truth?’ Kate pushed back her chair and got to her feet. ‘Don’t be like me, Rosalind. Circumstances, combined with my own very ill judgement, have tied me to a life here doing my family’s bidding. You have the means to escape and no ties to keep you. You can have a life of adventure, excitement, passion, if you wish it, or you can lock yourself away from the world and enjoy a life of solitude. Whatever you do, do it on your own terms. That is true freedom. Now, I must go and see how my aunt. She has agreed that we can put off some of our blacks for greys, and that means we must stop off at Ripley and Hall, the cloth merchants in the village, before visiting the seamstress in Buxton.’ Kate surprised her by giving her a quick hug. ‘Today is a fresh start for all of us, it seems.’