Unlacing Lady Thea

by Louise Allen

  ‘Polly has gone to bed. She was tired and I told her I would not want her until the morning.’

  ‘You are trembling.’ Rhys’s big hands cupped her shoulders.

  ‘Just shivering. The evening air...’

  ‘Then the sooner we are in bed the better.’

  He sounds so calm, so in control. But of course, she told herself, Rhys has done this many times. It was not as reassuring as it ought to have been. He has never done it with me before.

  His fingers, healed now, had regained their usual dexterity. The fastenings of her gown seemed to melt away. He was always good with knots and fishing lines and... The fabric whispered down and pooled at her feet, and fleeting memories of childhood went with it.

  ‘Turn around,’ Rhys murmured.

  It should have been easier when she could not see him, but his breath raised the hairs on the exposed skin of her nape and she could hear his breathing almost, but not quite, controlled. That slight betraying catch gave her an unexpected feeling of power and the last lingering fear that he was pretending desire in order to save her humiliation fled.

  ‘Ah.’ The bliss of loosened stay laces, the sense of freedom as her corset joined the gown on the floor. Her petticoat followed it, leaving her in chemise, stockings and a blush. ‘I find I am shy,’ Thea confessed.

  ‘And I find I am somewhat overdressed,’ Rhys murmured in her ear.

  She had though he would kiss her, touch her, but only his breath stroked her skin. Thea turned. ‘Should I undress you?’

  ‘Don’t you want to?’ There was amusement in his eyes, but not mockery.

  ‘I told you, I am shy.’ She had never been shy with Rhys before. Once she could tell him anything, make a fool of herself in his company, call for his help when she was stuck in a tree or shriek with horror when they had been paddling in the lake and leeches had attached themselves to her legs. And Rhys always kept her confidences, never laughed at her. He would rescue her from trees and remove the leeches. Now she felt as though she had never known him at all.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He dragged his shirt over his head and sat on the edge of the bed to dispose of shoes and stockings. ‘At least you have encountered a naked man before.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Anthony just unfastened his falls and pushed me onto the chaise.’ It had almost been exciting at first and then...not.

  Rhys stopped with his hands on the fastenings of his evening breeches. ‘The man is a clod. Shall I put out the candles?’

  Thea shook her head. If this was going to be the only time she made love, then she wanted to see everything, know everything. And she was prepared; she had felt Rhys’s aroused body pressed against her in the chaise on the ship.

  Rhys pulled off his breeches and stood there, a faintly quizzical expression on his face as she stared. It seemed she’d had no idea quite what to expect after all.

  Oh, my goodness. Thea said the first thing that came into her head. ‘I think you look magnificent.’ Quite unable to feel shy, afraid or even apprehensive, she reached out her right hand.

  Rhys gasped as her grip closed around his erection. ‘Thea! Hell’s teeth, you are as curious and bold as a cage full of monkeys, you wicked girl.’ He wasn’t angry; she could tell by the way he hardened still more against her fingers and by the trace of laugher in his voice. ‘Let go for a moment and I will take off your chemise and do my share of admiring.’

  ‘My stockings,’ she mumbled as the fine lawn was whisked over her head.

  ‘Leave them. They are very arousing.’ Rhys sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her close between his parted thighs before she could realise just how exposed she was or wonder how stockings could be arousing. He held her still with one hand behind her waist and bent to kiss her breast.

  The hairs on his legs were strangely stimulating against her bare skin, his lips were warm and sure on the curve of her breast and she moaned softly. So gentle. And then he took the nipple in his mouth, sucked, nipped lightly with his teeth and Thea almost jumped out of her skin. She caught his head in her hands and held him close, panting with the shock of the sensation that tugged a response from her womb, her thighs, deeply, intimately...

  When Rhys lifted his head she thought she would sink to the floor if it were not for the pressure of his legs and his hand holding her.

  He looked up, his eyes dark. ‘You are so lovely, Thea. So sweet and so innocent, despite what that oaf did. If I am going to stop, I have to do it now.’

  ‘You cannot stop now,’ she gasped.

  ‘I can. Barely. I should.’

  ‘Sooner or later I will find a man to make love to me, because I am not going to live and die a spinster and not know how it should be. And I would very much rather it was you, Rhys.’

  ‘That, my sweet, is blackmail.’

  Thea bit her lip. He sounded so serious. Was she goading him to act against his honour? She would never do that to Rhys. ‘I am sorry, it was, was it not? Rhys, you aren’t being a rake or a seducer. I am not a virgin. I want this and I understand what we are doing.’

  ‘And the consequences? If I do not prevent you becoming pregnant?’

  ‘It will not happen.’ He would keep her safe, she had total trust in him, just as she had under that diligence. She placed her hands flat on his chest and leaned in to kiss him, as if that would explain just how deep her trust was.

  With a groan Rhys lay back and pulled her with him, rolling until she was beneath him. His face was buried in the angle of her neck, his heart beat over hers and her legs had opened of their own accord to cradle him intimately against the heat at the core of her. It was a kind of perfection, a moment of stillness, poised on the brink of the blissful abyss.

  Thea closed her eyes and let herself absorb every sensation. Rhys’s hair smelled faintly of woodsmoke and somewhere he must have brushed against a flowering bush, for a fragrance clung to the cropped curls. His skin was soft and smooth in some places, firm and roughened with hair in others. The weight of him was dominating, and yet he held himself in such control that it was not at all frightening. At the junction of her thighs she could feel the shape of him, beating with a pulse of its own, heating her flesh, moving as it strained against his will, wanting to thrust.

  ‘Ah, Thea.’ He lifted himself on his elbows and she opened her eyes to look up into his. ‘I never—’

  ‘My lord, are you awake?’ A piercing whisper, the rap of knuckles on the door. Polly?

  They froze, staring at each other, desire fled. ‘What do you want?’ Rhys snarled. ‘What hour is this to be hammering on doors, for goodness’ sake?’

  ‘It is one o’clock, my lord. I’m sorry, but I got up to go to the necessary and peeped into Lady Althea’s room and she isn’t in her bed and it’s not been slept in. Where can she be?’

  ‘Blast the woman, she’ll start a hue and cry,’ Rhys whispered, then raised his voice. ‘Perhaps she went into the garden for some air and slipped and hurt herself, or fell asleep. Go down and look, Polly, and be quiet about it, don’t make a fuss. I’ll dress and come and help.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. But I’ve told Mr Hodge and the landlady, I was that worried—and Mr Benton woke up, too.’

  ‘Go! And don’t wake anyone else,’ Rhys ordered. He rolled off the bed and reached for his breeches. ‘Confound the wench, she’s started a hue and cry. Get dressed, Thea, hurry. The garden slopes up past this window. I’ll lower you down—go and find a bench to pretend to fall asleep on.’

  It was as though someone had doused her in icy water. The heat of Rhys’s body had gone, the enchantment of that perfect sensual moment fled and in their place was the sordid possibility of being discovered in a man’s room by a search party.

  She whipped her hair into a braid as Rhys tied her corset strings. ‘Try to tie it as it was or Polly will notice,’ she urged. He tossed her gown over her head and fastened it in urgent silence. ‘Find the hairpins, hide them,’ she whispered as she thrust her feet into her slippers.

&
nbsp; The window had a low sill. She sat on it and swung her legs over, straining to hear. There was the sound of movement and people talking lower down, near the entrance to the inn. Rhys took her wrists and swung her down to the path some six feet below the window, just as he had in those long-ago days when they went scrambling over walls to pick illicit apples. ‘Take care!’

  Thea crept up through the tangled garden that clad the slope, onto a terrace that, in daylight, commanded a view of the river. There had been a wide bench, she remembered, and groped towards it in the starlight. When she bumped against the cool stone she lay down and tried to arrange herself in a convincing pose for sleep. She realised she was panting and focused on taking deep, sleepy breaths.

  ‘Lady Althea! Thea!’ Giles, coming closer...

  When she heard footsteps on the gravel she sat up, stretched her arms and gasped with what she hoped was realistic alarm for someone waking up, confused, in the dark. ‘Giles! Where are you? What time is it? Oh, my goodness, I must have fallen asleep.’

  He came out onto the terrace, his face eerily underlit by the lantern in his hand. ‘Past one,’ he said as he went down on one knee by the bench. ‘Are you all right, Thea? We thought you might have fallen and hurt yourself.’

  There were voices farther down, the sound of bodies crashing through the undergrowth. ‘I am perfectly all right. How many people are searching? What a fuss—it was only that I was hot...’

  ‘Polly is convinced you have been snatched by bloodthirsty revolutionaries or a gang of ruffians bent on kidnap and ransom. Lord Palgrave suggested we search the gardens first.’ He twisted round. ‘Here he is.’

  ‘Idiotic woman,’ Rhys said, as he strode onto the terrace with Polly and what looked like half the inn’s staff on his heels. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold one day with this obsession with fresh air. Why the blazes didn’t you tell anyone you were out here?’

  He sounded thoroughly irritable and was probably not having to act in the slightest. If he felt anything like her, Rhys was aching with frustrated desire.

  ‘I didn’t mean to stay and fall asleep,’ she protested. ‘I went out after Polly left me because I couldn’t drop off.’ That was all technically true, at least, even if it barely touched the real facts in passing.

  ‘You are frozen.’ Rhys hauled her to her feet, despite a murmur of protest from Giles. He pulled off his coat and slung it around her shoulders. ‘How the hell I let you persuade me to bring you along on this journey, I’ll never know.’

  Whatever else the onlookers were imagining, Thea doubted they envisaged any kind of romantic tryst. Rhys sounded like a man with a delinquent younger sister.

  ‘And don’t start crying,’ he snapped.

  Thea took her cue and flung herself sobbing into Polly’s arms. The more fuss she made, the less likely the maid would notice anything untoward about the way she was dressed. Goodness knew what Rhys had done with her corset strings.

  ‘Don’t shout at me,’ she pleaded from behind the large handkerchief that Giles had pressed into her hands.

  ‘I’ll get rid of the staff,’ he said. ‘This is turning into a circus.’ He herded them before him, leaving Thea, Polly and Rhys on the terrace.

  ‘Go and get warm bricks for your mistress’s bed,’ Rhys ordered. He prised Thea’s arms from around the maid’s neck and marched her towards the steps down to the front of the inn. ‘Hurry up, girl.’

  ‘Hell’s teeth, that was a near miss,’ Rhys said as Polly ran off to obey. He tipped Thea’s face up and studied it in the light of the lantern he held. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You know I don’t cry.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant,’ Rhys murmured as they walked down the steps.

  ‘I feel... I haven’t the words for it, but it isn’t comfortable.’ Her skin was sensitive, she was unnaturally aware of Rhys’s hand on her bare arm, her breasts ached and an insistent pulse beat intimately. She wanted to tear off all her clothes, all his clothes, and wrap herself around him.

  ‘No,’ he agreed sombrely. ‘I think we scraped through without anyone suspecting, but my nerves may never be the same again. That is not the experience I wanted you to have, Thea, my sweet.’

  ‘I know. And you had better stay angry with me tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll try.’ He stopped and pulled her into the shadow of the log store. ‘This will probably only make things worse for both of us, but I can’t leave you without at least a kiss.’

  He was right, it would only make the aching longing worse, but how could she resist? Thea went into his arms and his mouth moved over hers, tender and yet a little rough from frustrated desire. She opened to him and his tongue took possession, its rhythms mimicking the act they had been denied, his hands holding her as though he would never let her go.

  It could only have lasted a bare minute. Sixty precious seconds for the kiss she had waited all her life for. Thea stroked the back of her hand down Rhys’s cheek. ‘I wish...’

  ‘This is where I start shouting at you again,’ he said as he caught her fingers in his and kissed the tips before pulling her towards the front door. ‘Come on, Thea! If you catch a cold and we are held up here for days, I am not going to be at all pleased.’

  * * *

  The next day Rhys managed to inflict his bad mood on her, their servants and the inn staff until he flung himself into the saddle and cantered off ahead of their little cavalcade.

  ‘Phew.’ Giles collapsed back into his corner of the chaise. ‘Is Denham’s temper always that bad?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Thea confessed. ‘I have never seen him lose it like that before.’ She pondered a moment. ‘At least, not since he got into fights when he was a lad, and that was usually because someone was being bullied, or was cruel to animals or something.’ She suspected that it went against the grain for Rhys to shout at servants, but it was probably all part of the act.

  ‘Are you well this morning?’ Giles regarded her, frowning. ‘You do not look as though you slept well.’ She grimaced and he hastened to apologise. ‘I am sorry. I realise that a gentleman never notices that a lady is looking anything other than ravishing.’

  ‘You are quite correct. I hardly slept a wink.’ She had wrapped herself tightly around a bolster and tried to imagine it was Rhys and his arms held her, but it had done nothing to calm the ache of longing or the shock of their near discovery.

  ‘It is doubtless my fault that you could not sleep in the first place,’ Giles said penitently. ‘If I had not made that gauche declaration, you would probably have dropped off to sleep easily and none of this would have happened.’

  Thea snatched gratefully at the offered explanation for her behaviour. ‘I confess, I felt very badly about refusing you, but please do not think I found your proposal gauche, simply unexpected.’

  ‘And unwelcome.’

  ‘Never that,’ she protested. ‘What lady would not be flattered and charmed by a proposal from a gentleman such as yourself? But we would not suit, you know.’

  ‘I would have said we would suit very well,’ Giles observed. ‘I suspect the problem is more that you know another gentleman who would suit you even better. One who has already secured your heart.’

  It was not fair to lie to him and the knowledge that she loved another man must surely be a salve to his pride. ‘Yes,’ Thea agreed. ‘There is someone.’

  ‘And he does not feel the same way?’

  She nodded.

  ‘A man who has known you so long that he fails to see you as you are now, I suspect,’ Giles continued. ‘Someone who has hurt you by the way he has changed, perhaps. He does not understand your need to be loved, so he tried to arrange a suitable marriage for you. His temper is not as you remember it, either—’

  ‘Stop!’ Thea regarded him with something like horror running through her. ‘You think... You suspect I am in love with Rhys?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘I mention no name and I would never do so. Nor w
ould I give anyone the slightest hint that is what I conjecture,’ Giles said calmly.

  ‘Thank you.’ Thea turned from him and stared out of the window, struggling to find some composure. If Giles was so clear-sighted, who else might suspect her feelings? Please, not Rhys, she prayed. She thought she had convinced him that what she felt was simple desire. What would he do if he believed her to be in love with him? Shun her company? Insist she marry him out of duty after last night? Tell Godmama? He would be kind, of course, and pitying. That would be worst of all.

  ‘Has he...has he asked you whether you have made me a declaration?’

  ‘No, we have hardly had a chance for private speech.’ Giles leaned across and patted her hand. ‘He may be in such a temper because he thinks you might have accepted me. It sounds irrational, but if, having done what he thought was best for you, he then discovered he was jealous, it reveals he has deeper feelings for you than you suspect.’

  He sounded so pleased to have discovered a possibility for hope that it hurt to disabuse him of the notion. ‘I told him last night,’ Thea said baldly. ‘I am sure he will have recovered his temper by luncheon. He is...fond of me, of course, and feels responsible. That is all.’

  ‘If you do not mind me mentioning it, I find it strange that, given your shared interest in social reform, he is so reluctant to discuss it.’

  ‘Rhys? Social reform? He has no interest in that, I am sure. Certainly, he is no High Tory and, despite his spending so much time in town, I believe he is an excellent landlord, but beyond that—’

  ‘You do not know how important he is to the reformers’ cause? Why, Lord Palgrave always supports every vote and speaks with passion and clarity of all those subjects you and I have discussed.’ Thea simply goggled at him. ‘And beyond that, he is the man that the party leaders send to, shall we say, persuade the doubters and the troublemakers. He has, I understand, the knack of getting his own way. They call him Hermes.’

  ‘The messenger of the gods?’ Yes, Rhys would be very good at persuasion and, when that did not work, even better at domination. And he had discouraged Giles from discussing it with him in her presence. Thea frowned. She recalled Rhys’s jeering remarks when she confessed she had not thought through her plans for charitable works. She had skimmed over the Parliamentary reports in the papers too often, or she would have seen his name. It made her ashamed to think she had dismissed him as simply a pleasure-loving aristocrat. She should have known the adult Rhys would care as much for the underdog as the boy ever had.