“Wake us the moment my carriage is repaired! It is vital that we be on the road again the second it is possible,” Baxter said, then guided his wife as they followed a chambermaid up the narrow dark steps to their room.
The room was small and simple, with a bed about half the size their bed at Brockwith had been. Emily gazed at it with wide eyes and then at Baxter.
“You may have the bed, my love, and I will take the floor,” he said, gallantly indicating the narrow bed.
The first hint of a mischievous smile glinted in her eyes, through the moisture still there from her tears.
“Nonsense, Baxter. You, husband, are forty-two, not twenty-two, and should not sleep on the cold hard floor. We will share the bed as we did for many years.”
He gazed down at her sardonically. “Thank you for reminding me of my advanced and decrepit age, my love. I am not a dainty fellow, though, and you are no sylph-like being. If we share that bed we will both be very aware that we are man and woman.”
She smiled shyly. “I have always rather liked being reminded that you are a man. Not that I need to be reminded when just the sight of you . . .” She broke off, rather breathless. “I am sure we can muddle through the night.” She sobered and sighed. “Oh, Baxter, I need you beside me tonight because I am sure I will not sleep for thinking of poor May.”
Gently he folded her in his arms. “We will do the best we can and be off after her the minute it is possible, but we cannot ride a carriage horse down a dark road when we do not know the way. If anything has happened to your young friend, I will kill the bastard who has done it. I promise you that, though I know it to be poor consolation.”
• • •
The bed was very narrow, but Emily realized that there was room enough that he did not have to hold her. He did that for her comfort. At first all she could think about was Grishelda, or rather May, as she preferred. But then the strong arms around her intruded on her consciousness, and she sighed, turning onto her side and wriggling until she was as close to him as she could get, his lean body cupped around hers. His breath was warm in her ear, his lips so close she could move just an inch and they would be touching her.
An ache deep in her breast throbbed, but not purely for her young friend, who was suffering such fear this very night. The pain was for the unrequited love she bore her husband. She wanted him back—needed him—but what did he feel for her? She ached with indecision. He had called her “love” as they raced to follow Grishelda, but was that just habit? Or did he have a huge, painful void in his heart as she did in hers? She sighed, tremblingly close to tears that she had thought were cried out years before.
• • •
Emily awoke with a start, her heart pounding with fear; she almost cried out. Where was she? What . . .
The awareness of Baxter’s arm around her calmed her, and memory returned. May; oh, poor May! Where was she? What was happening to her? A silver blaze of moonlight touched her face, bathing the plain room in a surreal gilding. She shifted, a little uncomfortable. Something hard was pressed into her bottom. Something or . . . actually, it was Baxter!
A flush of desire spread through Emily. Making love with her husband the week before had awakened her long-suppressed carnal appetite, and with his arousal pressed so firmly to her bottom her hunger pulsed in waves of heat through her. So close! He was so close and she wanted him so badly. Her unfulfilled hunger for him coursed through her, emptying her brain of any other thoughts. Carefully she rolled over until she was facing him. He had worn just his shirt to bed, open at the neck, and she stared at him in the stream of moonlight thinking that never had his face been so dear to her as it was this moment.
She reached out and touched his cheek and brushed back the silver wing of hair. She traced the deep groove from his nose to the corner of his mouth, then traced his chin and down his throat to his chest. He moved and murmured as she undid the rest of the buttons of his shirt and slid her hand down between them, to his flat, taut stomach muscles just starting to soften with age. She closed her eyes, glorying in the feel of him, muscle and sinew, her handsome, masculine husband.
She opened her eyes and was impaled by his coal black glare glinting in the moonlight, his mouth set in cruel, angry lines.
“I suppose you want another sample to compare by,” he growled.
He lowered his mouth to kiss her, hard and without mercy. She could feel his puzzling anger, the lashing force of his fury, but as he took her in his arms and let his hands stray down her body, touching her skin, pushing her shift up and caressing her naked flesh, she felt his gentleness. Angry he might be, but his touch was not.
The world had shrunk to their bed, to that stream of moonlight and to his hands touching and stroking until she thought she would go mad with desire. She felt his bewildering anger but surrendered to the delirious joy of being caressed by the man she loved more than life itself. She whispered his name over and over, the word becoming a part of her ecstasy, a part of the waves of pleasure he could always bring her.
She abandoned herself to the joy, the tremulous sweetness, as they clung to each other in the small bed, bringing each other love and rapture.
• • •
Baxter thought himself delirious. She welcomed him with loving passion, her sweet surrender filling his body with ecstasy and his mind and heart with confusion. He slowed his ardent lovemaking, pulling back from the point of no return. He would not take his wife like this, fast and hard as if her needs did not matter, nor would he abuse her with his pain and anger. He opened his eyes and gazed down at her, the dark spill of hair across the white pillow, the pale perfect skin glowing in the moonlight.
Her eyes were closed, but her expression was one of profound tenderness. He freed one hand from under her bottom and undid the silk ties of her shift, pulling the fabric away and exposing her loveliness to the light. Swallowing hard at the sight of her flushed with his lovemaking, her rosy, soft lips slightly open as she whispered his name, he began to really make love to her.
“Emily,” he whispered. The moon had moved on its nightly arc, and her face was now in darkness.
“Baxter.” His name was a sigh on her lips, a soft whisper of satisfaction.
They lay together for a while afterward, just holding each other. She made no move to push him away or off of her.
“Am I too heavy, my love?”
“Baxter, when did I ever want you to leave me after making love? We fell asleep like this many times.”
• • •
Emily stretched and yawned as dawn’s light filtered through the homely white curtains. She turned over and stared at Baxter, willing him to awaken. He opened one dark eye and glared at her. She laughed and touched his mouth, then leaned over and kissed him. “We must talk, Baxter,” she said.
“No words now. Only love,” he said, moving sensuously.
Every thought fled from her mind and she joined him in languorous lovemaking as the bed creaked and groaned beneath them. Every inch of her body was inflamed and sensitive, his wild, intense lovemaking and virile power intoxicating her as it always did.
“Say you want me,” he grunted, kissing her throat and her throbbing pulse at the base of her neck.
“I want you!”
“Louder!”
“I want you!” Her cry echoed against the thin walls.
“Better, but still not loud enough. Say it very loud indeed, my love, if you want me.”
His vigorous ardor was almost more than she could take. It had been so long since she had made love and every inch of her body was aware that her husband was a very demanding lover. But she wanted him. A wave of longing swept over her and she no longer could, nor did she want to, restrain herself. “I want you! Oh, Baxter, I love you. I love you,” she cried out, eyes closed.
He stilled.
What had she done?
“Say that again.”
She opened her eyes and gazed down at him in the dim light of very early morning.
/> “I love you,” she said, softly, ardently. “I have always loved you and I always will love you.”
“That’s what I thought you said,” he muttered softly, running his hands down her back, touching her until she shivered.
He stared up into her eyes as he spoke, and she felt pierced by his searing gaze. His eyes questioned her, asking something of her that she didn’t understand.
Guiltily, she was aware that they were wasting time; she should have been up at first light and finding out what they could about where Grishelda was taken. But the landlord had said he would tell them the moment the carriage was there and repaired.
At that moment someone pounded on the door.
“Yes?” Baxter cried out.
His carriage driver, on the other side of the closed door, babbled that the carriage was just then fixed. A wheel had been cracked in the accident but the wheelwright had worked through the night and they could leave any time now.
“Okay, Jarvis, we’ll be down in a minute,” he said. “Just one more minute.”
With a last lingering kiss to savor the sweetness of their love after an unforgettable night, she raised herself on one elbow and gazed down into her husband’s black piercing eyes. “And now it is time to find poor May.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dempster, no more a captain than he was really named Dempster, was sorely disappointed. His stupid cohort, a man with the appropriate name of Lug, had botched the whole thing. He was only to have used a drop of the knockout stuff on the kerchief they held to Lady Grishelda’s nose but instead his mistress’s daughter had slept all of the journey away and was still sawing logs when it was almost morning! He looked into the room and she was still asleep. Confound the wench!
He was to have had his bit of fun by now. It hadn’t been his idea to break in that prudish little miss, but Saunders didn’t want to have to deal with a squeamish virgin, and he couldn’t blame the old codger. All he wanted was a wife young enough to guarantee him an heir. Didn’t even seem to mind if the kid wasn’t his own, s’long as it was born once the vows were spoke.
He would take great pleasure in mastering Lady Grishelda after the disdainful way she had always treated him, like he wasn’t good enough to lick her boots, but it wouldn’t be any fun if she was still sleeping. He wanted her awake and aware of what was about to happen to her. He wanted her to squirm underneath him and fight him every step of the way. He wanted to see the cold light of fear in her eyes. It had been a long while since he had had a virgin, or anything close to it, and he planned on enjoying this one.
But not until she was awake. He clumped out, slamming the door after him.
• • •
May snuck a peek at the room. She had not been asleep the whole time, but she would feign it as long as she could. It had taken a supreme effort of will when Dempster came in and roughly turned her over, to still pretend she was unconscious. At first she had just wanted to buy enough time for the headache and lingering lassitude of the drug to wear off. Now she planned to wait until her captors, or at least one of them, had left the house so she could make her getaway.
She had no idea where she was. She had not dared to get up and look out the window; Dempster and his cohort were downstairs and would likely hear the floorboards squeak or something. It was still dark, though, with just a sputtering tallow candle lighting up the tiny room where she was captive, and it seemed to her that she had a better chance of evading recapture if she could get outside in the dark.
She heard a door slam downstairs and outside someone started whistling, the sound getting fainter and fainter. One of them must have left. It was now or never.
She slipped from the bed, glad of the unfettered movement her simple white costume afforded her. She started to cross the room but to her horror the door opened at that minute and Dempster, in his stocking feet, entered.
“Oho! Awake at last,” he said, rubbing his hands together with a greedy grin.
He was a coarsely handsome man, strong and rugged, but with bad teeth and a foul odor about him. May always wondered how her mother could stand to be intimate with such a coarse, smelly man. A throb of fear pulsed through her at the lascivious look of anticipation she saw on his broad face, an expression that looked even more evil for the faint flickering candlelight.
“I’m thirsty,” she stuttered, her voice hoarse from a mixture of fear and the effects of the drug.
He moved relentlessly toward her. “Are you? Perhaps if you go along with what I want I’ll let you have a swallow of wine.”
May backed away and eyed the doorway. But Dempster kept himself between her and the closed door. She would only have one chance to get away from him, and it had better be a good one.
“What do you want of me?” She would stall. If she could only find some weapon in the barren room. She cast her eyes around wildly but there was nothing.
Dempster was relentless and moved still, even as he spoke. “I want to give you a little bit of fun before you settle down in the traces. Saunders intends to keep you busy at least until you give him an heir, but he’s a wizened up old sausage, ain’t he? You might as well enjoy your first time—and maybe your second and third time if I’ve a mind—with a younger man what can pleasure you.”
He took off his jacket and tossed it on the floor, then began to undo his shirt. May shivered all over in fear and yelped when she felt the bed behind her legs and could back up no further. Dempster, his thick-lipped mouth half open, undid the fall of his breeches and grabbed her arm. “’Ere, girly, feel what you’re gonna enjoy soon.”
He took her wrist in his wrenching grip, forced her hand down his pants and laid it against him. Terror overwhelmed her when she felt him, large and hard against her hand. Instinctively she grabbed, squeezed and yanked with all her might, digging her nails in and pulling as hard as she could. Then she raised her knee quickly, stumbling a little but managing to get him somewhere between the legs. He cried out and crumbled to his knees.
May darted around him and raced to the door, flung it open and dashed down the steps. She glanced wildly around herself in the dimness of the small room. Which of the three doors was the way out?
Just at that moment her question was answered in a most unexpected way.
A door burst open and a man, holding a huge, thick sword, leaped through it. “Die, villain!” he shouted.
May screamed. It was Etienne Marchant! He was in on this, too? She moved to run around him but he put out one hand and grabbed her wrist.
“Let go of me or I’ll, I’ll—”
“But I am ’ere to rescue you, mademoiselle!” He smiled broadly and bowed with a flourish.
“Then get on with it!” she cried, relief flooding her.
“But it appears I am too late. It looks that you have rescued yourself, mademoiselle,” he said, glancing around questioningly.
“He’s upstairs,” May answered his unasked question curtly. He seemed to be almost enjoying himself, as if this were all some huge joke.
“Then the least I can do is offer you my mount to return to town.”
A scraping sound from upstairs startled May. She gasped and looked up. Dempster! He was coming after her.
“Where is his partner?” she asked the young Frenchman, panicked.
“He is, shall we say, in the arms of Morpheus?” Etienne grinned.
“Then let’s get out of here,” May said. She rushed past him and out the door he had burst through. “Where are we?” she said, glancing around at the dark wooded area that surrounded them on three sides. In the awakening light of dawn, she could see the figure of a man lying in the grass a few yards away. “Is he . . . ?”
“Caught with his pants down, one might say.” Etienne laughed. “No, my lady, he is not dead, but he will wake up with a very sore head. I did want to even the odds just a little before I entered for my rescue. I had not counted on the intrepid nature of English women. I had thought that, like a proper French miss, you would need rescu
e.”
“I still need to get out of here,” she said through gritted teeth, pointedly looking around for his mount.
Etienne whistled through his teeth and a coal black stallion erupted from the misty shadows at a trot, came up behind him and nuzzled his shoulder. “Your mount, my lady.”
“But how will you get back to town?” May asked, eyeing the stallion with some trepidation. Cassiopeia, her own little mare at home, was a much different horse from this big male.
“I will be riding with you, of course.”
“With . . . ? I don’t think so, monsieur.”
“No? Then I will go to the nearest town, secure a carriage and come back for you in a few hours. Of a certainty you will not ride Théron alone.”
“But—”
The door of the cottage opened just then and Dempster stumbled out with pistol in his hand. He was bent over and raised his arm shakily. “You bitch! I’ll show ya what women are made for!”
Etienne leaped up on his mount and leaned over, offering his arm to May. She paused only a moment, then took it and felt herself swept up in front of Etienne. Expertly he wheeled Théron around and they galloped off, the sound of a pistol shot causing the horse to snort and put on a burst of speed.
• • •
“This is becoming very uncomfortable,” May complained. Morning had come; birds chirped and sang in the hedgerow. The thick morning mist had burned off to the promise of a glorious spring day.
“Mille pardons, mademoiselle. In the haste of the night while you were being forcibly abducted I did not think to go to my host’s home, rouse my groom, and ’ave him hitch my carriage, so to provide you with more comfortable passage.”
Married to a Rogue Page 19
