“Yes, it was a little lie, but mostly to save face. No woman likes to be caught out sighing with longing for a man. It is embarrassing.”
“Why? You love him.”
“I do but that whole sighing and longing business is such a misery. I thought myself stronger than that.”
“Oh, you are. You still eat well.”
“Perhaps that is simply because I did not realize that sighing and longing after a man also required a touch of decorative starvation.” She smiled when he laughed.
“We are being followed you know.”
Olympia glanced back to see Lure and Dinner walking behind them. “I sometimes think that they are a little afraid that they will be left behind to fend for themselves again.”
“I have no doubt that that is exactly what it is.” Ilar peeked behind them and then grinned at her. “I also think that Lure believes you are his mother even though he gets his dinner from Dinner.” He giggled at his own joke.
“Very amusing,” she drawled but there was a hint of laughter in her tone. “I believe they also somehow know we are going into the garden and wish to come along.”
“True. They do not like to go out unless someone goes out with them. Life must have been very hard for them to be so averse to going outside. Dinner shall have to be put in the shed soon, though. I think she will come into heat in about a fortnight.”
Ilar knew too much about animals and their ways for her to question him. His love and understanding of them far outreached hers. It was one reason he never really argued about his long stay in the country. She knew he would like to see the city but also knew he had no inclination to live there.
She looked around the well-tended garden and suddenly thought of the one at Fieldgate. “I wonder if Brant has been able to clean up his gardens. They looked as if, once tended, they would be beautiful.”
“Did you wish to be the one to hire his staff?”
“No, although I might come to wish I had some say if I ever go to live there.”
“Not if, Mother. When.”
“You sound very certain of that.”
“I am.”
“Have you had some, well, feeling about it?” She really hoped he did not have a touch of foresight as well for he had enough to deal with as it was.
“No. But I have very good hearing and a carriage has just driven up to the door.”
Her heart skipped with both hope and fear. “It might not be him.”
“True, the carriage sound did not tell me so, but his voice calling for someone to tend the horses did.”
She stopped and stared at him. “I did not hear that.”
“You were thinking about his gardens and, as I said, I have very good hearing. I suspect he will join us here soon. Shall I be gooseberry?”
“Only if you wish your ears boxed.”
Ilar laughed with the confidence of a child who had never been struck. “I will go and visit with Agatha then.”
“You heard her, too?”
“I did. Very good hearing.”
Olympia watched her son leave, the two cats following him although Lure kept looking back as if he worried that she would stay and he would have no one to curl up with on the bed. Of course, if Brant was here for the reasons she prayed he was, Lure was going to find it a little too crowded in the bed from now on. She doubted Brant would want to share her with a cat.
The moment he stepped into the garden her heart began to race. Olympia told herself not to be silly, but that did not help. She needed him, needed him to belong wholly to her. As she watched him walk toward her, the hope that he was hers and only hers grew. There was a difference in his step, an ease that had not been there before.
Before she could even say hello, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Olympia sank into his embrace, as hungry for him as he was for her. When he broke off the kiss, he did not release her and she stared up into those beautiful eyes of his, eyes made all the more beautiful by the absence of shadows.
“You did it,” she whispered, pleased for him and worried about what it meant for her, for the future she prayed he was going to offer her again.
“I did.” He took her by the hand and led her to a bench, slipping his arm around her shoulders when they sat down. “I admit, I thought you were all talking nonsense. It made no sense to me. Clean my heart. What the devil did that mean, I kept asking. But then Orion gave me a little advice. I did what he suggested and it worked.”
“What did he suggest?”
“Relive it all. Look at it all and see that my guilt is misplaced. Toss away all the what-ifs for they are useless. It hurt like hell, to be blunt. But it worked. And then, I went to say a true and final farewell to Faith.” He smiled when she took his hand in hers and kissed the back of it.
“I understand that you loved her. I can accept that. Do not think you must never speak her name or the like.”
“I know. I did love her and I think we would have had a very good life together, but I did not love her as I do you. She was in my heart and will always hold a little corner of it for she was my first taste of love, but you are in my heart and soul. You are my perfect match. I would have been a good husband to Faith but I realized that life would not have been all it should have been if I had married her for she was so sweet, so ready to do whatever I said or wanted.” He started to smile as Olympia began to frown at him, and then kissed the tip of her nose. “You will make me live, Olympia. You will not allow me to settle. Life will be full and fun and vigorous with you. That is what I want. I want that life as much as I want to take my next breath. So, Lady Olympia Wherlocke, Baroness of Myrtledowns, will you marry me now?”
“Oh, yes.”
Instead of the kiss she expected, Olympia found her finger weighted down with a beautiful sapphire ring and Brant towing her back into the house. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to be married. You said you would marry me without hesitation and I mean to hold you to that. I also mean to make love to you until you cannot remember your own name and I will not do that here, in your son’s house, unless we are married.”
She was given barely enough time to fetch a pretty bonnet before he had her, her son, Agatha, Aunt Antigone, and Enid in the carriage with Pawl sitting up beside the driver. As they pulled out she glanced out the window to see her cousin Tessa and her whole family in their carriage waiting to pull in behind them. She looked at Brant.
“You were very confident.”
“Hopeful,” he said. “Very hopeful.”
The vicar was waiting for them and Olympia realized that she did not care if she had a fancy wedding. She was surrounded by people who cared about her, standing beside the man she loved more than life, and about to start on that future she had been dreaming about. It was, she decided, the perfect wedding. All she missed, but only briefly, was her brother to give her away. She just hoped Argus would not be too angry about missing that chance.
It was barely dark out when Brant pulled her free of her celebrating family and took her up to her bedchamber. She had been unable to fully hide her blushes for she knew they were all aware of what she was about to do and her confidence had wavered for just a moment. Reminding herself that she was now a legally married woman and Brant was her husband eased that surge of embarrassment.
“I have missed you,” he whispered as he began to undo her gown. “We did not share a bed often, and I always had to creep away before anyone could catch us together, yet I found my bed very empty at night.”
“As did I,” she admitted as she helped him out of his coat and began to undo his waistcoat. “I also missed you in the morning, missed seeing you across the table.”
“It pleases me that I was not alone in that.”
And then talk ceased as they both worked as quickly as possible to shed their clothes. Olympia knew the need she had to be flesh to flesh with him was shared. The moment the last of their clothing hit the floor he picked her up and placed her in bed. They both trembled fain
tly when their bodies finally touched, warm skin against warm skin.
“I have missed this as well,” he said as he kissed her throat, moving his hands over her body as if to renew his acquaintance with every curve and hollow.
“It may be wrong for a woman to do so, but so did I,” she whispered.
“Not wrong when it is me you missed.”
“Only you.”
“And only you for me, Olympia. Believe me. I know how many of our class act after marriage, but I will not. I will be faithful. I want no other.”
“Even when this fire between us dims?”
“Even then.”
And then he kissed her and Olympia gave herself over to the passion they shared. His every touch and kiss made the desire she felt for him grow until she clutched at him like a starving child clutched at a crust of bread. Olympia knew she would never need another, that no other could give her this.
She began to caress him wherever she could, delighting in the warmth of his skin, the strength she could feel beneath it. As he licked and nibbled at her breasts she slid her hand down and curled her fingers around his erection. The hard, silken feel of him in her hand, the way he groaned against her skin at her touch, only heightened her desire until she was almost squirming in her need to feel him inside her. She could not silence her mew of disappointment when he pulled her hand away but then purred with delight when he began to kiss his way down her body.
Olympia closed her eyes and arched into his kiss when he began to make love to her with his mouth. Every stroke of his tongue had her shaking with need, the ache inside of her growing stronger until her belly tightened to a point that was an odd mix of pleasure and pain. She grasped him by his upper arms and tugged on him, trying to pull him back into her arms.
“Now, Brant,” she gasped even as her starving body arched up in demand for more of his intimate kiss. “I want you inside me. I want to be one again.”
Brant groaned, unable to resist that plea. He kissed his way back up her body, lifted her legs until she wrapped them around his waist, and joined their bodies in one hard thrust. For a moment he remained still, savoring the tight heat of her and the fact that they were joined, that they were again one as she had asked. It was a joy to be with her in this way again, a joy increased by the knowledge that he could savor it whenever he wanted for the rest of his life.
“Brant,” Olympia said, trying to prompt him to move with her legs. “I need . . .”
“I know,” he said, and kissed her as he began to move his body.
It was not long before he could no longer move slowly, with measured strokes they could both savor. Need filled him until he could barely think straight but as he began to move with a greater greed, she met his every stroke with the same greed. He clung to the shreds of his control until he felt her body clench around his, heard her call his name as her pleasure crested, and then he sought his own.
Not sure how long he had been sprawled over Olympia’s limp form, Brant moved to the side and looked down at her. He grinned. She looked like a well-pleasured woman and he was man enough to find that extremely satisfying. When she slowly opened one eye to look at him, he kissed the tip of her nose.
“You are looking very cocky, my good husband,” she murmured.
“And you are looking very satisfied. My male vanity was pleased by that.”
She laughed. “So, now we are wed.”
“Yes, now we are wed. Marriage duly consummated.”
“Your duly was very well done, if I may say so.”
“You may. Are you about to start worrying about practical things?”
“I fear I might be.” She hummed softly with a lazy pleasure when he began to stroke her stomach. “I do have a baron for a son when all is said and done.”
“Your aunt says she is more than happy to care for the house, with Ilar coming to learn of the running of the place as he pleases. I have the feeling your cousin Tessa and her family are considering moving into the dower house so that they can help her.”
Olympia blinked. “And thus all is settled. Am I the only one who has not been making arrangements as I waited for you?”
He laughed and began to nibble her ear. “Did you doubt that I would come for you?”
“Occasionally, yes. I will admit that I also occasionally thought I ought to do something in preparation for the future I was planning on but then got the oddest ideas about how that might curse it.” She grinned when he laughed again.
“We are blessed, my love. Truly blessed. And it is not odd that you had doubts. I knew you, knew you were ready to begin our new life together, and knew that I was the one who was holding it up. Considering what I needed to fix, you need not feel guilty about the occasional doubt.”
What she had intended to reply to that was quickly lost as he began to make love to her again. Olympia allowed him his way for a little while and then had her own way. She pushed him onto his back and began to kiss her way down his body, renewing her acquaintance with the smooth, hard strength of him. The taste of him, even the scent of his arousal only added to her desire to drive him wild with need for her. She made love to him with her mouth, taking him deep inside and savoring his somewhat incoherent words of encouragement.
Brant fought to hang on to his control, to keep his desire in check as Olympia drove him insane with her mouth. He knew he was within a heartbeat of losing the last of that control when she gently used her teeth on him and he grabbed her under her arms, pulling her back up his body. The slide of her soft flesh against his made him groan, and he quickly centered over his groin.
“Take me inside, love.”
The smile she gave him as she slowly took him into her body had him nearly bellowing with delight. And then she began to ride him. Before he lost the last of his senses, he watched her, with her head thrown back, her breasts bouncing, and pleasure clear to read on her face and thought it the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. And then he fell into the abyss, hearing her cry out his name and feeling her joining him in that fall even as he sank beneath the waves of desire only she could toss him into.
A nudge woke Olympia and she lifted her head from Brant’s shoulder, touching her mouth to make certain she had not gracelessly drooled all over him. “What?”
“Fieldgate,” he answered, smiling as she fussed with her hair and struggled to wake up. They had spent two days and nights at Myrtledowns and most of it making love anywhere they could find a spot alone and for most of the night when they went to bed. It was no wonder she was tired.
Olympia looked out the window as they pulled up in front of the doors. It was a lovely house and she knew she would like living in it. There was only one thing she had tried very hard not to think about much. Her gift might prove a veritable curse considering how her loving husband had behaved before she had dragged him away from the house. As he helped her out of the carriage and led her to the door, she swore she would not allow any visions, any knowledge of his past that she might inadvertently catch sight of, destroy what they had found together.
She stepped into the front hall and a very elegant young man in butler finery was right there to take her things. Olympia glanced back at Ilar who studied the new butler for a moment and then smiled as he too handed the man his things. She hoped all the new hires met with the same approval as this morning, her last doubt about whether or not she carried Brant’s child had faded as she had emptied her belly into a bucket. It was only sheer luck that he had not been there to see it.
As they walked to the drawing room, she began to notice something different about the house. When she had been here before there almost had been an air of sadness to the place, and the hint of what Brant had been up to during his plunge into debauchery had been everywhere as well. It was gone. She sniffed the air, certain there was a scent that had not been there before and one she should recognize. It was not until they entered the drawing room that she knew something had changed, she was just not sure what.
Olympia look
ed at Brant and saw that he was tense despite his smile and casual conversation with Agatha and Ilar. He waved her toward a chair but there was such an odd look on his face that she was reluctant to sit in it. Cautiously, recalling what she had seen the last time she had touched something in his home, she sat down. Nothing.
Then it hit her. That was what she sensed was different about the house. There was nothing. No sadness. No anything. It was as if the house had been built just yesterday and nothing had ever happened in it yet.
“Brant, it is gone,” she said, looking at her husband and watching him relax and smile. “How is it all gone? It is as if nothing has ever happened here.”
“A clean slate,” he said.
“Exactly but how is that possible?”
“I wrote to your brother and told him I needed the house cleaned of the stain of my actions of the past few years. He sent one Lady Honey Vaughn and a veritable army of other women and they cleaned my house.”
It took her a moment to place Lady Honey Vaughn and then she stared at Brant. “You had all the energies cleansed. Everything.”
“Everything. It took three days,” he added and looked embarrassed by that.
“I am not surprised,” she said and met his frown with a grin even as she stood up. She recalled how he had looked as he had asked her to sit in the chair and, even though she had sensed and seen nothing, she knew he had feared she would. “I would like that chair to be gone soon, however.” She winked at him when he blushed. “I saw nothing, sensed nothing, except for your wariness as you asked me to sit in it.”
“Understood.” Brant went to the door, called for a footman, and immediately had the chair taken up into the attic. “Better?” he asked as he returned to her side.
“Just try to hide your expressions when I sit somewhere or you may find that you need to replace more than you had planned to.”
If He's Tempted Page 27
