by Jane Ashford
Sebastian’s heart swelled at the idea. He almost wished something would attack them, so that he could save her. Something not too dangerous and easily staved off, he amended quickly.
“You’re like an ancient knight errant,” said Georgina.
“A…what?” Sebastian looked down at her. It felt so natural to have her head resting on his shoulder. And at the same time so new and exciting. “Are you taking up your father’s line now?”
“Maybe you were Lancelot in a past life,” Georgina teased. “Or, no, not Lancelot. You’re nothing like him. Gawain, perhaps. Brave and strong and noble and wise.” Although a bit less nobility would be welcome, considering the way she felt right now. Anyway, these were fictional characters.
Sebastian frowned. “Wise? Me?”
“Terribly wise.”
“You must be thinking of someone else. I’m a bit thick, really. It’s you who…”
His self-deprecating puzzlement was so endearing that she kissed him.
For a startled instant, he was still. And then he was kissing her back in his thorough, intoxicating way. The one that seemed to melt her bones and set her on fire at the same time. Her body came alive, eagerly demanding more.
Georgina’s hands slid up his shirtfront to twine around his neck and pull him closer. His free arm came round to hold her. Their kisses meandered from tender to blazing and back again until she ached with longing. His hand slipped along the line of her body, annoyingly blocked by the heavy cloth of her riding habit.
Georgina sank back onto the pile of bracken, pulling him down at her side. His leg slid between hers as if it had always belonged there. Twinges of pain from her injury were distant annoyances, overwhelmed by rising desire. She slipped her hands under his loosened shirttail and ran her fingers over the muscles shifting in his back.
Sebastian rose on one elbow, panting. He made as if to draw away. “Georgina. I can’t hold back if we keep on like this.”
She tugged him close again. “I don’t want you to hold back.”
The mixture of hope and caution on his face was almost funny. “Are you sure? Because…”
“Completely sure.” As a mark of her certainty, she began to unbutton the bodice of her riding habit. Clumsy with haste and the enticement of his smoldering gaze, she needed several agonizing moments to get free of it.
Sebastian simply pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his broad chest and arms sculpted by years of hard exercise.
Georgina unfastened the waist of her skirt and slithered out of it, kicking off her remaining boot in the process. Sebastian spread his discarded coat over the pile of bracken and pulled off his boots and breeches, pausing now and then to look at her as if checking for permission.
Georgina reached for him, reveling in the feel of skin to skin, pressing herself close. And then underthings were untangled and flung aside, leaving them totally exposed to each other in the flickering firelight. “How beautiful you are,” she said.
“Me? You’re the beautiful one,” he replied. And then he moved with the grace of a tiger and the care of a man handling something infinitely precious, pulling her down onto the coat, skimming her sides with his fingertips. They lingered on her breast and teased as he kissed her even more urgently. Desire flashed along her nerves, utterly compelling.
Georgina tried to copy the sureness of his touches, but in the next instant, his fingers began a tantalizing progress up her inner thigh, caressing, pausing until she gave a murmur of protest, then slipping closer to the center of desire. When he at last reached it, in the midst of a melting kiss, she lost all sense of anything but his touch. She didn’t know what she would have done if he’d stopped. But he didn’t. He didn’t tease any more. He answered the longing that carried her to the edge of taut endurance, and then broke like a cresting wave and swept her away.
Then he was above her, and inside her, and it hurt a little, but she was so loose and languorous that it wasn’t much. The possessive delight she felt as she held him while he cried out in release was far greater. She’d never felt so close to anyone in her life as when he relaxed in her arms.
Together, their breath and pulses gradually slowed. Sebastian turned on his side, pulling her back close against his chest. He reached over to the jumble of discarded clothing and pulled the wide skirts of her riding habit over them like a coverlet.
Georgina felt incredibly cozy with the fire before her and Sebastian’s warm body curled behind. Lost, outdoors, in a bramble-filled crevice, she was more content than she’d ever been in her life.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I am quite wonderful.” He gave a little hum of approval, or perhaps pride. It made her smile. “And I’m absolutely going to love being married to you,” she added.
“That’s funny. I was thinking the same thing.”
His breath stirred the curls near her ear. It tickled. “That I would love being married to you?” she asked.
“No,” said Sebastian quickly. “The opposite.”
“That I am not going to love being married to you?” Georgina teased.
“No! That I would, to you.” He sounded frustrated.
“So, the same with shifting the pronouns, you mean?”
He didn’t think he meant that, because he didn’t understand it. But he was all too used to the slippery unreliability of words. “That I am the luckiest man in the world,” he replied. He was on firm ground there.
“Oh, Sebastian,” She turned in his embrace and kissed him with all her heart. And all else faded and was forgotten as they held each other close.
Seven
Georgina woke the next morning with a sensation of soft warmth at her back and cold, damp air on her face. She opened her eyes and saw the ashes of their fire, the small pool beyond, and the wall of the gully rising upward in dim green light. She was still lying under the skirt of her riding habit. For a young lady who had spent the night on the ground, naked and shelterless, she felt well. Better than well. She felt fine. Splendid, really.
Sebastian moved, and the welcome heat departed. She turned and found him gathering scattered clothing, preparing to dress. She watched him shamelessly as he put on yesterday’s garments, rather the worse for a night on the damp earth.
“I’ll make up the fire,” he said without meeting her gaze. He sat and pulled on his boots. “Won’t be a moment.”
She watched him push through the vegetation at the far end of their refuge. When he’d disappeared into the undergrowth, she made discreet use of the space behind a bush that they’d designated for such purposes. She was back under the makeshift coverlet when he returned with a great armful of dry branches. He went about rekindling the fire with the same calm skill he’d shown the previous evening.
“There. You’ll soon be warmer,” he said when the flame caught.
Georgina examined the handsome lines of his face, admired his powerful forearms and the muscles moving under his rolled shirtsleeves. She felt no urge to leave her rustic bed. Indeed, she was wondering how to ask him to rejoin her in it when he spoke again.
“There’s a great mass of deadfall just beyond the growth there,” he said, pointing. “I’m pretty sure I could climb it.”
The slight emphasis he put on the I told Georgina that the ascent wouldn’t be easy. She flexed her injured leg. A lance of pain shot through it, making her gasp. She didn’t think she could make a hard climb with this injury.
“I could go for help,” he added. His tone was oddly diffident.
“We don’t know where we are,” Georgina objected. “And you don’t know the country. It could take days for you to find someone on foot.” She didn’t want to wait that long alone in this desolate place. Its character would be entirely different without him.
“Or we could be close to a farm or cottage,” he replied.
She couldn’t dispu
te it.
“I thought of lighting a signal fire, but I’m worried about how this gully might funnel the smoke. It could swirl around in this opening and choke us.”
“We won’t do that then,” Georgina said. It was a frightening prospect.
“No. I could climb to the top and see what’s up there. Come back down if there’s no sign of people.”
It was a sensible plan, but she didn’t like it at all. “Do we have to go right away?” As the words escaped her, Georgina realized that she didn’t want their idyll to end just yet. Soon, yes. They couldn’t live this way for any length of time. But she wanted him to herself for a little longer.
At last he looked into her eyes. Georgina thought she saw doubt there, and yearning. “The food we have won’t last beyond this morning.”
“I don’t care,” she replied. “Not yet.” The last two words emerged as a plea more than an assurance. She held out her hand. He took it.
When she tugged him closer, green eyes warm with invitation, Sebastian released the scruples that had been plaguing him. He’d been afraid she might regret the step they’d taken. He didn’t. But he wasn’t a gently reared young lady who’d just spent her first night sleeping rough. That had been his second thought when he awoke—the first being to repeat the glorious lovemaking of the previous evening, with embellishments. Cursing second thoughts, he’d suppressed his arousal and seen to her comfort.
She pulled on his hand. “Come back to our…woodland bower.”
He thrilled to see her in this wild place, where he knew what to do and was well able to do it. In a drawing room, with words flying about like showers of pebbles, he often had to hide how much he felt at a loss. Here, he was confident.
Her golden hair curled about her face, tousled. There must be hairpins scattered through the bracken, he thought. Her bare arm and shoulders emerged from the wrinkled folds of her riding habit like pale porcelain. Her fingers pressed his. Her lips parted.
He wouldn’t have thought he could get riding boots off that quickly. He tore a button off his shirt. It followed the rest of his clothes into a heap as he joined her under the improvised cover once again.
“You hands are cold,” Georgina said.
“Sorry.” He started to draw them away.
She grasped his wrists and placed his hands between their bodies as she pressed close. “We’ll soon warm them,” she said, a laugh in her voice.
Indeed, the touch of her skin sent a flush of heat through him. He stared into her fathomless green eyes for the few seconds he could manage before he had to kiss her. Then their lips met, and rational thought departed.
She was right about his hands. The chill was gone in moments. He sent them wandering over her body, seeking the gasps and hums of pleasure that so gratified and enflamed him. He was sliding teasing fingertips along the soft skin of her inner thigh when she surprised him.
“Do you like to be touched there?” she murmured.
He groaned as she traced a delicious line up his member.
“Is that a yes?” She continued the caress. “Or a no?” She took her hand away.
“Yes!”
“Does it feel as good as when you touch me?”
“I expect so,” he gasped.
He reciprocated her attentions, and they roamed together in the place beyond words, where Sebastian felt utterly at home. He knew the world of sighs and murmurs, bold intimacies, subtle caresses, sensation that crackled through your body like a lightning strike. His veins pulsed with exultation as well as release when she clutched him close and called his name as they reached the summit together.
They spent that day mainly in each other’s arms, lazy and roused, passionate and sated, kept warm by the fire and their lovemaking. They drank water from the pool and felt no ill effects. They talked of childhood adventures in the country and thoughts for their future life. They closed their minds to demands from the outer world and the concerns of people there.
Sometime in the afternoon, it occurred to Sebastian that this was their honeymoon, much more than the journey planned for after the wedding. Here in this rustic nook, sharing their first solitude, they were more wholly together than they might ever be again. And how some of his brothers would laugh at him for thinking so. He could see Robert’s satirical expression, Alan’s amused disbelief. So he said nothing aloud, for fear Georgina might think the idea foolish, too.
At nightfall, they slept interlaced. But when light began to filter down from the ceiling of leaves on the second morning, Sebastian faced grim necessity. Their food supplies were gone; they had only the water from the spring. And Georgina’s family must be frantic by this time. “I have to try to get out today,” he said as they huddled close against the early chill.
“I know.”
They gazed at each other across a few inches, silently acknowledging sadness at the end of their idyll and a readiness to be back in civilization.
Both emotions turned out to be premature. Sebastian didn’t make it up the deadfall. When he attempted the climb, a log slipped under his weight, and the whole crisscrossed mass collapsed under him. If he hadn’t been able to catch a protruding tree root as he fell, he might well have been killed. As it was, he sustained a stunning blow to his upper arm and only just managed to keep his grip as the mass of branches tumbled to the bottom of the gully. He scrabbled about with his feet until he found a bit of support in the wall, and then hung for a while gasping in pain. He’d never had a closer shave off a battlefield. His heart was pounding so hard he felt dizzy.
Georgina’s anxious calls revived him. “I’m all right,” he shouted back, willing it to be true. When he could move, he slid carefully down the earthen wall, leaning there a little longer after his boots touched the ground. Making his way back to their refuge, he collapsed by the fire.
“Are you all right?” Georgina asked, throwing her arms around him as if to verify his presence. “What happened? There was such a noise. I was terrified.”
“The deadfall gave way,” he answered. “Fell. I have to rest.” He decided that lying down was a good idea.
“Where are you hurt?”
“Arm.” He raised it an inch or so and let it drop.
Georgina gently pushed up his shirtsleeve and found a great bruise already forming on his bicep.
“It’s not broken,” Sebastian said. “I can move it.” He flexed his arm. “Ow.”
“Do not move it,” she commanded.
“We’re a pair,” he said. “With your leg and my arm, I don’t see how we’ll ever get out of this hole.”
“My leg is better. You will rest, and then we will try.”
On the third morning, they did so. After the painful process of working Georgina’s boot over her injured leg, Sebastian held her with his good arm and helped her navigate the treacherous, muddy floor of the ravine. The crash of the deadfall had left an opening just large enough to duck through, which they did with great care so as not to dislodge the pile any further.
Progress was agonizingly slow through the thick growth. After a while, Sebastian moved ahead to force an opening in the vines and branches. Georgina then limped through behind him. They had to spend a further night below ground level, very uncomfortable with no fire possible and no inclination to lie down in the mud.
It was afternoon when they at last came to a place where they could struggle out of the gully. Sebastian half carried, half supported Georgina up a lesser slope, stopping every few feet to untangle the brambles that caught at her skirts.
At last they emerged, exhausted, in a woods where huge trees blocked the light. There was much less undergrowth, and it was comparatively easy to walk away from the crevice that had imprisoned them for so long. “Do you recognize this place?” Sebastian asked.
Georgina shook her head. “It just looks like a forest.” She sank down to sit on the ground. “We
’re covered with mud,” she observed. She would not cry, she told herself fiercely. It was just that she was so sore and tired. And dirty. And thirsty. Very thirsty. And hungry. All joy had gone out of this venture during the last day of forcing herself through wet, prickly, unyielding vegetation. Her leg ached. So did her head. She saw that Sebastian was examining her anxiously, and tried to give him a smile. It was another challenge not to complain.
“I’ll find the way,” he said. He walked back toward the gully and checked the angle of the sunlight piercing the leaf canopy. Holding up his good arm, he sighted along it. “I think the gully runs northwest. There were some twists and turns, but that seems to be the general direction.”
“I expect we’re in Wales then. The waterfall is near the border.”
He nodded. “Since there’s no one about, I think the best thing is to walk back along it. We follow the ravine to where we went in, where they’ll be searching for us. There may be people closer, but we can’t know.”
“Right.” Georgina struggled back to her feet. She took a step and suppressed a wince. Her leg was better, but it still hurt when she put weight on it. Well, at least the pain distracted her from her grimy clothes, stinging scratches, and dry mouth.
“I’ll carry you.”
“No, you won’t. It’s much too far. I can walk.”
“Georgina.”
“I can walk if you help me,” she amended.
And so they started out, with Sebastian’s uninjured arm once more around her waist, taking most of her weight, keeping the declivity that marked the ravine on their right.
They couldn’t go very fast. On top of their hurts, riding boots were not comfortable for long hikes. And it soon became hard to see just where the gully was. The ground leveled, and the undergrowth thickened until they could scarcely see beyond the next tree. When another evening began to close in, they were still surrounded by woods. And lost.
