But in the meantime he was content to just look at her, since she looked very nice indeed, sitting amidst all the slanting rays of sunshine that spilled through the open stall doors, her long hair loose and soft-looking, shimmering down her back. It was good luck he’d managed to coordinate his homecoming with teatime. All of the grooms and stablehands were indoors, enjoying some of Cook’s famous seed cake. He and Maggie were alone in the stables, except for the horses, and a few birds that had built nests in the rafters, and twittered irritatedly at them for invading their privacy.
Maggie, for her part, was feeling more at ease. Jeremy had toned down the lusty glances to such a degree that she was beginning to think perhaps she’d been mistaken about them. After all, the Duke of Rawlings could have any woman in the world. Why would he want her? She was just the daughter of his solicitor, a knight who lived a few estates away. Her sister had happened to marry his uncle’s best friend, and her mother was very fond of his aunt, and so they’d been thrown together quite a bit as children, but that was all. Surely all of this marked friendliness of his was just for old time’s sake. He couldn’t possibly see her as anything else but an old friend. This reminder went a long way toward soothing her somewhat jumbled nerves.
“So,” she was saying, as he went about the business of unsaddling King, “Evers senior is still here at Rawlings Manor, while his son is at the town house in London, and his son, if I understand correctly, is attending some kind of butlery school, in hopes that his grandfather will retire someday soon, and he can take over the post. Only according to your aunt, Evers senior says he’ll retire when he’s dead, and he still insists upon doing all the decanting himself, even though his hands shake terribly whenever he picks up anything heavier than a fingerbowl.”
Jeremy, who’d removed his coat while he brushed out his horse, now thought he might as well take off his cravat, and he tried to do so casually, laying the simple piece of linen over the coat he’d thrown across the stall door.
“Really,” he said, bending down to give King’s forelocks a good rub.
“Yes. And your aunt’s maid Lucy had another baby girl, and that makes four, but she says she won’t be happy until she has a boy, though you’d think four girls would be enough, for God’s sake.”
“I see,” Jeremy said. He straightened, and threw the brush aside, fixing Maggie with a stare she couldn’t see, since the sun was full on her face, and his back was to the light.
“And Mrs. Praehurst is turning sixty-five next fall,” she went on, happily filling him in on the details of the private lives of his servants, “and your aunt and uncle are sending her on a trip to Italy, but Mrs. Praehurst hates Italians, and says that cuisine that depends so heavily on the tomato can’t be good for the digestion, so somebody ought to warn them—”
“Maggie,” Jeremy said. Something in his voice warned her that he wasn’t interrupting her because he had a question about his housekeeper’s attitude toward Mediterranean cooking. He had opened the stall door and then shut it again behind him, and now stood just a few feet away from the hay bale upon which she sat. She couldn’t read his expression at all, but she supposed, from the way his voice had sounded, that it wasn’t particularly composed.
“Ye-es?” she said slowly.
But when he stepped close enough for his shadow to fall over her face, she was able—though she had to crane her neck to do so—to see that he didn’t look nervous or upset at all. In fact, he looked downright teasing.
“You’ve told me everything about everybody remotely connected to Rawlings Manor,” he said, sitting down beside her on the hay bale, without so much as a by-your-leave. “But you haven’t said a word about yourself.”
Maggie, because he’d sat so close to her that their shoulders brushed—well, her shoulder brushed up against his upper arm—moved over a little, to give him more room. “Well, there isn’t much to tell,” she said dryly. “I’ve been at school.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. Was it her imagination, or had he moved closer the second she scooted away? “But what now?”
“Well,” she said, moving away again. “I don’t know. I wanted to study painting in Paris, but my father won’t let me.”
“Oh?” Did he have to sound so pleased about that? And how had she ended up on the very edge of the hay bale all of a sudden, with nowhere else to go but the floor?
“So what will you do instead?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said, glancing down at the floor. It wasn’t that she was nervous, exactly, because he was sitting so close; it was just that she couldn’t figure out why he was doing it. The floor looked preferable, she thought, to his lap, which was where she was going to end up if he moved much closer. Maybe if she kept on talking, she could keep him distracted. “I suppose I’ll just have to go to London, you know, for my coming out—”
“Oh, your coming out,” Jeremy echoed. He lifted an arm and draped it across her shoulders. Maggie stared at his hand as it dangled off to her left, and saw, with some alarm, that there were black hairs, not unlike the ones at the opening of his shirt, all over his arm where it jutted out from the shirt cuff he’d rolled up. There was something so distinctly masculine about the coarseness of those hairs that Maggie felt a spurt of anxiety simply by looking at them.
“And are you looking forward to coming out, Mags?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” Maggie replied. She turned her head until she was looking into his eyes, which wasn’t difficult, since his face hung just inches from hers. But that turned out to be something of a mistake, since his eyes still seemed to have a strange sort of effect on her—only now, instead of her heart flipping over, gooseflesh sprung up on her bare arms, even though she was sitting in direct sunlight and was actually feeling quite warm. “The whole thing seems rather stupid to me,” she managed to say. Her tongue had gone curiously dead again. “I hate parties, and I don’t like to dance—” She saw his gaze drop. “Jeremy,” she said, a spurt of anxiety once again shooting through her. “Why are you staring at my mouth?”
He smiled, and the hand that had been hanging over her left shouder curled around it, enfolding her in a sort of half-embrace. “Because I’m going to kiss you, Mags,” he said, in a voice so soft it was a caress in itself. “Don’t you want me to?”
Now Maggie’s heart began some strenuous activity, turning over sickeningly inside her chest. “Not particularly,” she said, quickly leaning back—right into his waiting arm. Realizing she’d been caught as surely as a rabbit in a snare, she flung up both hands defensively, forgetting all about her missing button. “No—”
But it was too late. This wasn’t the Jeremy of five years earlier, whom she’d been able to bully at will. This was the new Jeremy, a full-grown man, a good deal bigger and stronger than she was, and who didn’t seem the least bit concerned about how she felt in the matter. Even as she protested, he lowered his mouth over hers … .
And then she could only wonder what all her fussing had been about. Because while it was strange—exceedingly strange—to be kissed by Jeremy, it was also actually quite pleasant.
Maggie had never been kissed by a man before. She’d never been held in a man’s arms, or even stood near enough to a man to know that everything about them—everything—was different. They didn’t feel the way women did—there was no hint of softness about them. They were hard all over. Every place Maggie laid her hands, she felt only hard muscle constricting. Even their skin wasn’t soft—Maggie felt the abrasion of Jeremy’s day-old growth of beard against her mouth. His whiskers were as sharp as nettles. And men didn’t even smell the way women did. Jeremy smelled of leather and horse and, faintly, of tobacco, all scents that, had they clung to Maggie, she’d have taken great pains to scrub away. But somehow, they seemed right coming from a man. Everything seemed right: The arm that he slid around her waist to pull her closer to him seemed right. The lips he moved over hers, in dozens of small, eager kisses, seemed right. Even the slow, seductive explora
tion of the inside of her mouth that his tongue embarked upon … even that seemed right.
What didn’t seem right, however, was the way these things were making Maggie feel. She ought, she knew, to be wildly angry with Jeremy for being so forward. She ought, she was certain, to be trying to push him away. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t summon up an ounce of indignation, because the moment he’d started kissing her, a delicious lethargy stole over her. With his body pressing hers back until she was supported only by his strong arms, and his mouth moving so hungrily over hers, she suddenly felt like the fragile, dainty kind of girl she’d always wanted to be. The kind of girl who really did need smelling salts, who wasn’t too tall for a man to lift easily and carry up a staircase … .
But that wasn’t all she felt. No, there was something entirely different going on beneath her underthings. Because while the rest of her body felt languorous and lovely, there was a distinct tightening sensation between her legs, and a sudden rush of moisture for which there was no conceivable explanation, except that, as Maggie had always feared would happen, her carnal inclinations had completely taken over. Something was certainly making her feel as purry as a cat in heat, and there was no denying the fact that as insistently as Jeremy was pressing his body against hers, she was pressing right back, to the point where certain parts of her actually ached because she longed for him to touch them … .
But when his free hand, which had been caressing the smooth bare skin of her upper arm as they kissed, dipped into the place where her bodice gaped open to fondle one of her heavy round breasts, she stiffened with surprise. That, she knew immediately, was not right. Not because it didn’t feel good—she didn’t think she’d ever felt anything quite as nice as his callused fingers moving almost worshipfully over her bare skin—but because it felt too good, so good, in fact, that Maggie had a pretty good idea that she might not be able to stop him at all if she didn’t stop him just then.
“Jerry,” she breathed, when his lips moved from hers to burn a path of kisses down the side of her throat.
“Mmmm.” The fingers he’d slipped beneath the bodice of her dress found the lace edging to her camisole, and slid beneath it to glide across her satiny skin. Maggie inhaled sharply.
“Jerry,” she said again, more urgently this time. “Stop—”
“Why?” He sounded genuinely curious, but he didn’t pause in his exploration of her breast. Discovering a hardened nipple, he flattened his palm against it, and gently began to squeeze with his fingers, while pushing with his palm. This caused a sound to leave Maggie’s throat, a sound that, more than ever, reminded her of a cat in heat, as she arched her back instinctively against his fingers. She could feel the gusset of her drawers growing even slicker with moisture.
“Jeremy!” This time, there was no breathiness to her voice.
Jeremy’s voice in reply, however, was as lethargic as if he were drunk.
“What is it, Mags?” he asked, right before he pressed his lips to the top of the swollen curve of her breast.
Maggie’s hands went to his hair as she tried to prevent his head from dipping lower. She was surprised by how silky the ink-black curls felt against her fingers. “Jeremy,” she said. It was almost causing her physical pain to fight against the impulse to fling herself at him. “You’ve got to stop … .”
“I can’t,” he replied, into the cleft between her breasts. He was already raining kisses closer and closer to the nipple he’d palmed. “Oh, God, Maggie. When did all this happen?”
She blinked down at his dark head. “When did all what happen?” she asked confusedly.
“All this,” he said wonderingly, and moved his hand from one breast to the other, leaving the nipple he’d been massaging stiffly erect in the open air. Before Maggie had a chance to cover herself, however, Jeremy’s mouth performed that service for her, his lips closing over the hardened peak. A wave of heat coursed through her, and again a sound escaped Maggie, a helpless mew of desire.
This was awful, much worse than she’d orginally thought! Now she not only did not want him to stop, she had a physical need for him to continue … and yet what was going to happen if he did continue? If she was practically writhing beneath him when all he’d done was touch her nipple with his tongue, what was going to happen, God forbid, if he should lift up her skirts and …
No. Maggie’s heart was pounding so hard, she could feel every beat in her temples. No, the thought of that was much, much too frightening. The thought of this man, who for all intents and purposes she hardly knew, disrobing in front of her—the thought of him touching her even more intimately than he was now—the thought of how she’d react to both the sight of his nakedness and those touches—was simply too much for Maggie. He’d accused her of being afraid: Damned right she was afraid. More afraid than she’d ever been in her whole life. More alive than she’d ever been in her whole life … and because of that, afraid.
Fear won out over desire. And with the fear came the indignation, at last. How dare he? How dare he? He might be used to rolling about in the hay whenever the fancy seized him, but he was a man. Not just a man, but a duke. He could rut on whomever he pleased and never have a thought for the consequences.
She, on the other hand, had never even been kissed before today. How dare he try to take advantage of her inexperience, of her relative naivete about the ways of the world?
Having channeled the sexual feelings he’d stirred up within her into a fine, solid rage, Maggie hefted twin handfuls of Jeremy’s hair and tried with all her might to strain his head away. “Get … off … me,” she hissed between gritted teeth.
To her utter astonishment, Jeremy lifted his head, looked her right in the eye, and said, unsteadily, “Oh, no. You had your fun while we were growing up. It’s my turn now, Mags.” Then he lunged once more for her lips.
Maggie didn’t have to think twice. She reacted as instinctively as she had before, when she’d let her mouth fall open beneath his. Only this time, her action was fueled by anger, not passion. Releasing the handfuls of hair she held, Maggie drew back her right fist and sent it, with all the force she could muster, in the direction of his nose, which, he’d explained to her once, five years or so before, was the ideal place to strike a man, since nasal cartilage was very fine, and breaking it wouldn’t cause undue bruising to the knuckles.
Unfortunately, due to the constrictive embrace in which he held her, she misaimed, and nearly lacerated her fist on his teeth. Nevertheless, the blow had the desired effect: His grip on her loosened at once, and Maggie leapt to her feet, dancing out of his reach and waving her sore knuckles in the air.
“What the—” Jeremy reached up to dab at his throbbing mouth. When he brought his hand down again, he saw a drop of blood on it from where her fist had driven his upper lip into his teeth. The blow hadn’t hurt—much—but it had certainly surprised him quite a bit. He lifted his incredulous gaze to her face. “Maggie!” he cried, perfectly astonished. “What did you do that for?”
Maggie, wondering if she hadn’t dislocated one of her fingers, said testily, “I told you to let me go.” She glared down at her already swelling knuckles. What was she going to do now? She’d broken her hand on the Duke of Rawlings’s teeth. How was she going to explain that to her mother?
“Yes, but …” Jeremy gazed down at the blood on his own knuckles, his expression still one of utter disbelief. “You hit me, Mags.”
She shot him an aggravated glance from where she stood in a puddle of bright sunlight. “Oh, what?” she demanded, managing to sound more saucy than she actually felt. “You think just because you’re a duke, you can get away with mauling anyone you choose? Well, think again, you conceited git. I told you to stop, and I meant it.” She noticed the trickle of blood at the side of his mouth with no small satisfaction. Her heart had finally begun to beat at something like its normal pace, and she was relieved to find that the mysterious yearnings which he’d stirred up inside of her had receded—at least for the moment
.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Mags,” Jeremy pointed out gently. He had, Maggie saw, a strange expression on his face, one she’d never seen him wear before in all the years she had known him. What she didn’t know was that this was an expression no one had ever seen the Duke of Rawlings wear before: This was the first time Jeremy had ever had occasion to wear it. This was the first time, after all, he’d ever been rebuffed by a woman.
“I know,” Maggie said, her anger still hot as a fire iron, “precisely what you were trying to do. And you had just better think twice about ever trying it again, Jeremy Rawlings, or I promise you, you’ll get more of the same.”
Jeremy could not quite believe what he was hearing. Here was the finest piece of womanhood he’d seen in a good long while—never mind that she happened to be someone he’d known for nearly half his life—and she wouldn’t have him. Nothing like this had ever occurred in the whole of Jeremy’s long and inarguably varied sexual experience. No woman had ever rejected him before. Never. It simply had never happened.
He didn’t know what to think. It couldn’t possibly be because she wasn’t attracted to him. There’d been desire in her kiss. He couldn’t have mistaken that. So why had she stopped him?
Well, there was the fact that she’d been brought up, he supposed, to believe that one had to be married, or at least engaged, before one allowed a man to do the kinds of things Jeremy had been doing to her quite without the benefit of matrimony. But that hadn’t stopped any number of young society misses from quite happily allowing him to do those things last season, when he’d been in London. Why had it stopped Maggie?
He looked at her as she stood in the sunlight, a hectic flush on her cheeks, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she attempted to catch her breath—further proof that she was not indifferent toward him. He admired the way the gap in the bodice of her dress widened each time she inhaled … .
Portrait of My Heart Page 5
