by Julia London
She shot him a sidelong look. “Don’t tease me. I am perfectly serious.”
“So am I.”
She laughed. “Anything but gruesome gargoyles.”
“Wouldn’t one merely look in another direction?”
“Oh dear,” she said with a playful smile. “You really aren’t very practiced in this, are you?”
“It rather depends on the company.”
She folded her arms and studied him. “I wonder…if two people share a mutual distrust, what would they speak about were they inclined to converse?”
He looked at her, at her sparkling blue eyes. Of love, he thought. Of desire. Of how it aches to be away from you.
“I think I might sit on my divan here,” she said, gesturing to a space near the hearth, “while you sit on your divan there,” she added with a sly smile as she gestured to another invisible divan, “and I would inquire politely about your life. But I would not trust you to be completely forthright, and would have to be particularly artful to drag the least bit of useful information from you.”
“While looking at, or away, from the hawks?” he asked.
She smiled bewitchingly. “While looking at you, of course.”
Rhodrick glanced at the hearth, then at her. He was on dangerous ground, he knew. “Shall we try it?”
“Yes!” she said eagerly. “I shall go first. My dear Lord Radnor, you live in this huge castle all alone! Who is left of your family?”
“That is all you would know? I expected something far more personal or revealing, such as how large is my fortune, or where do I keep the key to my safe.”
“That would be impolite,” she responded with a coy smile. “I couldn’t possibly inquire after your fortune until much later in the conversation. Come then, my lord—I have it on good authority that you do have a family—at least a sister, is that not so?”
“It is,” he said with a smile. “My parents, as you have undoubtedly uncovered, are deceased. My sister, Lady Wilbarger, lives in Cardiff.”
She nodded and looked at him expectantly. “And?”
“And?”
“Do you ever see your sister?”
“Not often. Twice a year, perhaps.” Nell enjoyed her life in Cardiff and found Llanmair rather tiresome.
“Have you cousins? Aunts and uncles?”
“One aunt. Two cousins. And my cousin’s son, who is, of course, well known to you.”
“Is that all? No one else?”
He laughed. “I am fairly certain I have named them all.”
“Children?” she said, watching him carefully.
“No,” he responded, feeling the clench of his gut he always did when he thought of his infant daughter. “Now it is my turn. Where did you go today?”
Her smile widened. “For the third time, I went out to take the air. I tried to find the path along the top of the ridge on which you had led me once before, but I am hopeless with directions and was unable to find it.”
He didn’t believe her. Greer blinked, put a hand to her throat, and fidgeted with the amulet she wore.
No, he didn’t believe her. He did not believe she’d spent an entire day wandering about the forest. She would have eventually come upon a cottage or even Kendrick. And if she had, he couldn’t possibly imagine why she would not say so. The suspicion that her long absence today had something to do with Owen Percy continued to swim along the edge of his thoughts.
“My turn,” she said. “Mrs. Bowen tells me you allow Mr. and Mrs. Jernigan to live without rent.”
He would have to caution Mrs. Bowen from talking so freely. “Mrs. Jernigan is a respected healer and has been all her life. She and Mr. Jernigan were made homeless by an unfortunate investment,” he said.
“Yes, but you gave them a cottage on your estate and have allowed them to live freely for several years.”
“What of it?” he asked, embarrassed by what he considered a private matter. “They are elderly and well beyond the years of laboring for their bread. Their food and keep is hardly noted in the Llanmair accounts. Why anyone might find that particularly noteworthy, I cannot imagine.”
Greer smiled. “I found it noteworthy and extraordinarily kind. It would seem you’ve been hiding a propensity for kindness.”
“I assure you, I have not,” he said wryly, and gestured toward the lone settee in the room, where they both took a seat.
“I believe it is my turn,” he said, enjoying the feel of her small body so close to his. “Why haven’t you married?”
She made a sound of surprise.
“I am direct, Miss Fairchild. I should think a woman as appealing as you, out in high society, should have garnered an offer or two.”
She suddenly laughed. “I’ve had two offers, if you must know, but I did not have the sort of feelings I thought one should have for a gentleman if one is considering matrimony. Why do you ask?”
“Because I find it peculiar that a handsome woman who is kin to a powerful marquis would come all this way for a mere four thousand pounds.”
“That is not a trifling amount,” she reminded him.
“But for an unmarried debutante who makes her home in the bosom of Britain’s most elite society, I should think that amount too trifling for so much trouble. If you’d married, you would have done far better than four thousand pounds, I should think.”
With a devilish smile, she said, “Are you suggesting that I should marry for money, my lord?”
Rhodrick chuckled. “Come now, Miss Fairchild. Isn’t that the reason most high-society matches are arranged?”
“Was it the reason your marriage was arranged?”
“I beg your pardon,” he said playfully. “It is my turn.”
She groaned heavenward, then turned deep blue eyes to him. “Is it so inconceivable that a woman, unmarried and out, or married, or near death, for that matter, should want to pursue what is rightfully hers? Shouldn’t she want to live without relying on relatives she scarcely knows for her keep?”
“It is the way of the ton.”
“And what would you know of the ton?”
“I would know as much or more than you, I assure you,” he said. “In the years you were running about meadows in a little girl’s frock trying to catch butterflies, I attended every Parliamentary session with the hope of doing some good for Wales. I spent four Seasons there, and in the course of two of them, helped to present my sister to society. I think I am well aware of a woman’s desires.”
Greer snorted. “And I think you do not understand women at all.”
That made Rhodrick laugh. He couldn’t help it—he laughed deeply, and at Greer’s look of surprise, he said, “I beg your pardon, but I would never be so bold as to own that I did.”
“Well. If you did know a woman’s mind, sir, you would understand that she desires to care for herself and in a more tangible way than society and the law will allow. It is abominable that women are left without the ability to inherit or own property unless it falls to them by some twist of fate and the appropriate alignment of deaths in their family.”
He realized she was quite serious. “Perhaps if you tell me your trouble, I can help.”
“I am merely speaking on behalf of womankind, oppressed by men for centuries,” she said dramatically, and glanced down. “Women are treated like these flowers,” she said, pointing to the fabric of the settee. “Like tiny little flowers, quite delicate and cultivated to be kept in tiny little vases instead of in the wild, where they would grow to withstand the forces of nature.”
Rhodrick looked at the fabric where she pointed. Damn him if he could make out any flowers in the fabric.
“Do you see how delicate they are?”
He stared harder. When he looked up, Greer was staring at him.
“You don’t see them, do you? You don’t see the small white flowers against this beige fabric.”
He looked helplessly into her clear blue eyes, which gazed at him suspiciously. “You cannot discern the colors,�
�� she said. “Of course not, for why would a man call a red salon red when it is clearly peach?”
She had him there. “All right,” he said, and pushed a hand through his hair. “I have an…affliction,” he said, biting out the words. “When it comes to certain hues, I have a devil of a time telling them apart.”
“Which hues?” she asked, her expression curious.
“Red and green, primarily. They seem to take on whatever color they are near. Colors in general seem faded, so it is quite difficult at times to tell one from another.”
“What colors can you see?”
He looked at Greer, at her shimmering blue eyes, her ink black hair, and the blush of her skin. “Blue,” he said quietly, feeling the fire inside him ignite. “I can see the deepest colors of blue.”
Her lips parted.
“And black,” he said, reaching up to touch the hair at her temple. “I can see the blackest night and the shine of the blackest hair.” He lowered his gaze to her lips, soft and full and moist. “I can see the darkness of your lips against the cream of your skin,” he muttered, and moved his hand to her face, his broad palm cupping the line of her jaw, his thumb caressing her bottom lip. “But I think I’d never seen real color until you. And now…now I can see every color of the rainbow in you and I wonder why the entire world of gentlemen has not seen it.”
Greer drew a shallow breath. Her gaze followed a path from the top of his head to his brow, and down the scar to his lips, his chin, and the shadow of the beard he could never seem to tame. And then to his eyes again, to his ailing eyes that could see very little color in the world except for Greer.
But Greer—he’d seen her from almost the moment he’d laid eyes on her, standing so defiantly on the road. He had no hope that his desire would ever be returned in the same depth and breadth that he’d come to feel it, but he could not help the desire he felt and was weary of trying to curb it.
When she lifted her slender, bandaged hand and wrapped it around his wrist, he expected her to pull his hand away from her, but she did not.
She gripped his wrist with amazing strength, almost as if she feared he would disappear, and leaned into him, her eyes fluttering shut as she pressed his palm against her cheek.
He put his arm around her and drew her to him and closed his eyes, touching his mouth to her hair, breathing in the rosy scent of her perfume as his hand found her neck and collarbone. “Forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “I can no longer pretend that I don’t desire you completely.”
He felt the release of her breath warm on his skin as she pressed her face into his neck. With her lips and the tip of her tongue, she touched him, tasting him. That small touch sent a deep shiver through him, and he tightened his grip on her as he lifted her face to his, splayed his fingers across her cheek, and looked into her eyes.
“Nor can I,” she said softly.
The small promise in her voice forged hope in him. He could not remember ever having felt carnal desire so strongly or urgently. He could not recall a moment of ever having wanted to be inside a woman so desperately as this. “Greer,” he said roughly, “I cannot lie—I want you.” He cupped her face and lifted it to kiss her. “I don’t know what to make of you, I don’t know what to believe. But you have bewitched me so completely that I cannot bear to be near you and not touch you. I want to love you.”
Greer responded by putting her arms around his neck and kissing him with surprising strength.
He made a guttural sound of desire as he swept her into his arms and fell back, pulling her on top of him. “Stop me,” he said hoarsely. “Tell me no, or else I shall ravish you, I—”
She stopped him from speaking with another kiss.
Rhodrick kissed her madly then, leaving scarcely an inch of bare skin untouched. He caressed her body, her neck and the curve of her shoulder, and the swell of her bosom above the bodice of her gown. He moved his hands down her back, her hips, and her legs. Her body was divine, soft and curved in all the right places.
Rhodrick moved abruptly, turning them around so that she was on her back beneath him.
“What have you done to me, sir?” Greer asked on a wistful sigh as he kissed her throat and her bosom. “How have you persuaded me to ignore all propriety?” She closed her eyes as her hands wandered over his body, caressing his shoulders, his arms, and inside his coat, to his waist and rib cage.
He was driven to a point of unconscionable passion in which he no longer cared for propriety—he cared for nothing but making love to her. “It was never my intention,” he said against her skin as every stroke of her hands sent him a little closer to the edge of losing control, every breath she sighed feeding the desire in him. “But it is my body’s strongest hunger.”
The desire to feel her, touch her, taste her, and oh God, to be inside of her, resurrected the life in him. Not the breath he drew, but the life. As his hands and mouth covered her body, she gripped his head, drawing him up, then lifting up to kiss him and fill him with her breath and her tongue.
“I’ve gone mad, I fear,” she said breathlessly.
“Then so have I,” he assured her, and kissed her so hungrily that in the back of his mind, he feared he would scare her—yet Greer did not stop him. She moaned deep in her throat and pressed against his aching erection as he dragged his mouth to the fleshy mounds of her breasts.
He slipped his hands behind her back, fumbling with the buttons of her gown until he had unfastened them and could free her breasts from the fabric. He took each peak into his mouth, sucking them, devouring them.
She ran her fingers through his hair and arched her back, pressing against his mouth.
Rhodrick could not name the moment when they had gone from despising one another to feeling a desire unlike any he’d ever known. The gentleman in him—the prince in him—demanded that he cease at once before he compromised a young woman’s virtue completely beyond repair.
But the man in him knew he wouldn’t stop until she asked him to, and even then, he might beg her to reconsider with his hands and his mouth.
At the moment, she seemed to be nearing the point of no return herself, if the little ohs and groans were any indication. He abruptly pulled up and looked into her eyes. They were as deep as a well, the look of them seductive, bewitching.
“What is wrong?” she asked innocently.
His gaze still on hers, he stood up, strode to the door of the green room and closed it, turning the key in the lock.
When he turned back, Greer had come up on her elbows, watching him, her hair beginning to slip from its coif, her gown pushed down, revealing her breasts.
He did not hesitate; he strode back to her, pulled her to her feet. He held her gaze, let his hands slide down her arms, touched his fingers to hers, then touched her hips. He did not speak; he couldn’t seem to find his tongue, and privately, he feared what he might say.
But Greer, brave Greer—with her gaze locked on his, she hesitantly reached up and pushed her gown off her shoulder. “I suppose this should come off, shouldn’t it?”
He swallowed. “Allow me,” he said, and caught her hand and pushed it down before lifting his hands to her shoulders and pulling her gown and chemise down. “You are entirely too beautiful,” he said as he slowly pulled the clothing farther down, past her waist. “And entirely too bewitching for words,” he added, and squatted down, pulling the gown and chemise down her legs as he pressed his lips to her belly.
Greer gasped; she placed her hands on his head for support as he drew a line with his mouth from her belly, down her drawers, to the apex of her thighs. Above him, she swayed, and he glanced up as he put his hands on her drawers and slowly pulled them down over her hips.
“Ah God,” he breathed. He openly admired her naked body, greedily taking every bit of her in, from her beautifully flushed face to her swollen breasts to the soft flat of her belly and the springy tuft of black hair at the top of her legs. He was melting inside, the fire had melted him, and he shook his head with
wonder that this beautiful woman could, by any measure, seem to desire him as he desired her.
“You are beautiful,” he breathed. “You are as beautiful as I knew you’d be.” He rose to his full height, quickly shrugged out of his coat, and as he worked the buttons of his waistcoat, she undid the knot of his neckcloth. He tossed the coat and waistcoat aside, as well as his neckcloth. Greer pulled his shirt from his trousers, and he pulled it over his head, tossing it aside, too.
Her eyes filled with wonder as she put her hands flat against his chest, sliding them down to the belt at his trousers, then up, over his nipples, to his shoulders and arms. He feared she would find him repulsive and he quickly unfastened his belt, then gathered her in his arms, burying his face in her neck, and pulled her down to the settee again.
“Don’t move. Let me love you,” he said, and kissed her reverently, aware that he’d never know a moment as pure as this again, and he would not squander it. He pulled her onto his lap—she was as light as a feather, her bones small beneath his hands. The warmth of her body seeped into his skin, filling him up, pushing at him again until he thought he could not bear it another moment.
They twisted around, so that Greer was lying beneath him, and he moved his hand down her body, to the softest place of her. “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh my.”
He followed his hand with his mouth, down her chin, to her breasts, and down farther, to her belly, to the crook of her elbow, and inside her wrist, to the side of her hip, and then around, to join his hand.
Greer gasped at his hot breath and drew one leg up. His senses filled with the scent and the taste of her as he moved lower still. When his tongue slipped between the folds of her sex, she cried out, her voice strangled, and her body jerked. But Rhodrick caught her hips, held her still so that he could have her at his leisure. He was deliberately slow, reveling in it, exhilarated by the quickening beat of his heart as she bucked against him. And when he closed his lips around the tiny bud, Greer sobbed with pleasure.
