Passion Becomes Her

by Shirlee Busbee

  The entrance of the two gentlemen brought Juliana back to the present with a start and Apollo woke and leaped to his feet and began to bark. Laughing, Mrs. Manley shushed the puppy and said to Asher, “You see what a wonderful little watch dog he is turning into?”

  Asher laughed. “Watch dog? I think lapdog is more like it.”

  “Well, yes, that, too,” Mrs. Manley admitted shamelessly as she resettled Apollo by her side. Apollo stared suspiciously at the two men for a second longer, but then put his nose between his paws and dozed, lulled by Mrs. Manley’s gentle strokes.

  Amusement curving his mouth, Asher walked to Juliana’s side and propped one hip on the padded arm of her chair. An arm resting possessively along the top of the tall, channel-back chair in which she sat, he glanced down at his bride and said, “Jack and I decided that we had left the three of you alone long enough. Did you enjoy your gossip?”

  Juliana wrinkled her nose at him. “Contrary to what you gentlemen may think, we ladies have other things to discuss besides gossip.”

  Asher laughed. “Well, you may aspire to a loftier plane but I enjoyed hearing all the latest on dits from London.” He rubbed his jaw. “Of course, it was far more interesting hearing of his exploits when he was in the military.” He looked at his grandmother. “He even crossed paths with Robert. Said he had the makings of a fine officer.”

  Juliana looked at Lord Thorne where he had taken a seat near Mrs. Sherbrook’s. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You did mention that you were in the Cavalry, I think, before you inherited your title.”

  Jack nodded. “Yes, I was. I sold out over a year ago.”

  There was a note in his voice that made Juliana ask, “Do you miss it?”

  “There’s not much I wouldn’t be willing to give up to be with Wellesley on the continent fighting Boney right now, I can tell you,” Lord Thorne admitted.

  “Which is absolute nonsense!” remarked his aunt. Shaking a finger at him, she said, “You are the head of your family and you have responsibilities that have first call on your time these days. You cannot go traipsing all over the world, risking life and limb and ignoring your estates.”

  “Yes, Aunt Barbara, you are perfectly correct and I am a careless jackanapes for thinking differently,” Jack said meekly, the dancing light in his green eyes at variance with his words.

  Barbara snorted, not taken in by his meek answer at all. “What is there about the male sex that they are always happiest when in the midst of some hazardous enterprise? Even my son, Marcus, who is normally the most reliable and cool-headed individual I know, was involved in something dangerous last year.” She shot Lord Thorne a challenging look. “And you’ll never convince me otherwise.”

  Lord Thorne appeared uncomfortable and murmured, “Ah, I think you are mistaken.”

  “Oh? And what about that dreadful smuggler who was murdered right in front of the stables at Sherbrook Hall? What about that? Are you going to tell me that there isn’t more to the story than just a tragic mishap?”

  “What would you have him say?” Asher asked sharply. “Would you be happier if your son told you that a murderous rogue had been lurking about with Lord knows what terrible intentions? Would that make you feel better? Safer?” Realizing everyone was staring at him, Asher forced a smiled and continued softly, “Perhaps, your son was merely trying to protect you. Perhaps, he didn’t wish you to be fearful and so made light of the event.”

  Mrs. Sherbrook paused, nodded thoughtfully and the conversation drifted onto general topics, in particular the coming house party at Kirkwood and Jack’s departure tomorrow for Thornewood, his country estate, leaving Mrs. Sherbrook to enjoy an extended visit with Mrs. Manley.

  Laughing, Mrs. Sherbrook indicated the silver-headed cane she used to walk with leaning against the sofa. “I was just miserable when I fell and hurt my ankle, but now I think of it as a stroke of good luck. With everyone insisting upon coddling me, there was no reason for my visit with my friend to be as fleeting as originally planned. I may have to hobble around, but that doesn’t prevent me from thoroughly enjoying myself.”

  “How long will you be staying?” Juliana asked, smiling.

  “Oh, probably not more than a week, although that depends upon when my son, Marcus, can wrest himself away from his wife’s side.” Glowing she added, “They are expecting my first grandchild soon.”

  Mrs. Manley glanced at Juliana and, a twinkle in her eyes, she murmured, “Well, I certainly hope that I shall soon hear that I have a grandchild in the offing.”

  Juliana blushed and looked down at her hands. It was possible, she thought giddily, that even now a child was growing within her. She wouldn’t know for a week or two yet, but, oh, she dearly hoped so.

  Eventually, Asher and Juliana prepared to leave. When Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Sherbrook started to rise to accompany them to the front of the house, Asher gently dissuaded them. “There is no need,” he told them. “I know my way out and you two look very comfortable where you are.”

  Asher brushed a kiss across her forehead and she touched him on the cheek. The movement woke Apollo and, finding someone bending over Mrs. Manley, he charged to his feet and broke into frenzied barking.

  Straightening, Asher smiled and shook his head. “Ungrateful cur! You owe your comfortable life to me and that is the thanks I get?”

  “He is very protective, isn’t he?” Mrs. Manley said proudly as she sought to convince Apollo that Asher meant her no harm.

  Laughing, Asher and Juliana took their leave of the others and walked out of the room. A moment later, they were in the curricle and driving away from Burnham.

  Asher and Juliana talked idly about the evening they’d just spent, but the conversation turned soon enough to the house party at Kirkwood and the arrival of the guests on Friday.

  “Thalia can hardly wait for Piers to arrive,” Juliana said with a laugh. “You’d think that it was months since she last laid eyes on him, instead of mere weeks.”

  “You wouldn’t pine if I was gone for weeks?”

  She dimpled and pinched his arm. “I don’t know that I’d pine precisely,” she teased, “but I’m certain that I would miss you…somewhat.”

  He took his eyes off the horses and looked at her. A distinctly carnal twist to his lips, he murmured, “I think I shall punish you for that…when we are home and abed.”

  Juliana’s nipples instantly peaked and there was a delicious flutter low in her belly. To distract herself, she said hastily, “At least Thalia is back in her usual looks and by now I’m sure that all trace of Piers’s bruises will have faded.”

  Asher looked at her again. “Bruises? What are you talking about?”

  She made a face. “With everything that has been going on, I’d completely forgotten about the terrible beating Piers suffered just before we left London.” When Asher’s brow lifted, she added, “A pair of footpads set upon him. They robbed him and thrashed him soundly in the bargain. His poor face! Though he dismissed it aside as nothing, I know it must have been most painful—he looked frightful. It was because of that, well, the bruises, that he did not escort us to the Ormsby ball that night.”

  “I see,” Asher said slowly, recalling vividly his own altercation with a pair of footpads hardly a week ago. He hadn’t forgotten the incident, nor that Ormsby had been behind the attack…. His lips twitched. He’d had other things on his mind the past few days, in particular the enchanting darling sitting beside him, but Juliana’s words reminded him, as if he needed reminding, he thought grimly, his grin fading, that Ormsby had hired someone to kill him. Not beat him, but kill him…Thinking about those moments he’d lain on the ground listening to his captors talk, he frowned. Hadn’t they mentioned beating up a member of the peerage in London for the nob? Something about a young lordling? And not very long ago?

  His jaw tightened and Asher stared ahead, barely aware of the jingle of the harness and the thud of the hooves of his horses on the road as the curricle rolled swiftly through
the night. Lord Caswell, the suitor favored and loved by Thalia, had suffered a terrible beating by a pair of men in London around a month ago…. What was the likelihood, he wondered sourly, that Lord Caswell’s beating and his own near murder had been the acts of two separate pairs of men? Each pair hired by a “nob”?

  Connecting the two events wasn’t so far-fetched—he’d heard the two men talking about their beating of a gentleman in London at the right time for it to be Caswell. Setting a pair of thugs on the winning rival for Thalia’s hand was just the sort of underhanded trick Ormsby would pull. And hiring them to murder him because he’d stolen Thalia’s letters…and the other letters wasn’t such a stretch of imagination.

  “What are you scowling about?” Juliana asked, jerking him from his thoughts.

  “The house party,” he replied mendaciously. “I wish the bloody thing was behind us.”

  She nestled her head against his shoulder. “Only a few more days and we can hide away from the world.”

  “I sincerely hope you are right, but don’t forget—Mrs. Sherbrook’s son, Marcus, will be coming to pick her up and grandmother will insist we come and meet him.” Another joy I have to look forward to, Asher mused wryly. Meeting Jack and Mrs. Sherbrook had presented no real problem, except taking up time he would have preferred to spend alone with his bride, but Marcus…

  “Oh, pooh, that shouldn’t be such an ordeal,” said Juliana airily. “I’m sure that Marcus Sherbrook will prove to be every bit as charming as Lord Thorne.”

  Asher cocked a brow. “You think Lord Thorne charming, do you?”

  She smiled demurely. “Yes, but not quite as charming as my husband.”

  “And when we arrive home, I shall show you just how very charming I can be,” he murmured huskily, explicit promise in his gaze.

  He wasn’t, Juliana decided, as he pulled her into his arms the moment the door to their bedroom shut behind them, the least bit charming. What he was, she thought dreamily, when he ruthlessly stripped her gown from her body and tossed her naked onto their bed, was irresistible. His clothes joined hers on the floor and he slid next to her on the bed, his body warm and muscular against hers.

  The light from the filling moon shone through the windows and glided over them with a silvery glow. Propping himself up by one elbow, Asher gazed down into her face. “Do you know,” he said huskily, “that I have been waiting all evening to have you thus—naked and in my arms?”

  She smiled mistily up at him, her arms closing around his neck. His mouth came down on hers hungry and searching, his tongue a fiery blade, seeking and finding an answering hunger from her. Sighing her pleasure, she arched up when his fingers found her breasts and began to knead and toy with the warm, heavy globes.

  Her hands began their own exploration, sliding down his back to hard buttocks and upward again, reveling in the play of muscles as her fingers traveled slowly over him. Intoxicating heat spilled through her veins and sweet tension curled and coiled in her loins when her lower body grazed his, her breath catching as she felt the size of his bulging staff between them.

  Groaning at the teasing brush of her body against his, his head dropped and he scraped his teeth against her nipples, smiling fiercely when she shuddered and her fingers slid into his hair and urged his mouth closer. Pleasing both of them, with teeth and tongue he lavished great attention on those hard little nubs of flesh, Juliana’s soft, excited murmurs exciting him.

  She was silk and fire in his arms, her body, long and lush and for him, perfectly fashioned. He ached for her; ached for that moment when their bodies were one, when he discovered again that powerful pleasure he had found only with her. His wife. His lover. Her generous response to his kisses and caresses sent his head spinning, his heart pounding, and unleashed a primeval passion.

  Clasping her hips, he held her still as his lips and tongue slid slowly down her body, across the flat belly down to the nest of curls at the junction of her thighs. She moaned and stiffened when he buried his head between her legs and his lips caressed and brushed against the satiny heart of her hidden beneath the sable thatch.

  “Oh, Asher,” she cried, gripped by feverish agitation, “I don’t think…”

  Asher’s head lifted and looking up at her, he said thickly, “Then don’t think, my sweet. Just feel.” He bent his head and spreading her, pressed a blunt, deeply intimate kiss upon the delicate flesh he had exposed.

  Feelings, wild, nakedly carnal feelings she had never experienced shot through her at the first thrust of his tongue between her legs, and she gasped. It was wicked and wanton, what he was doing to her, yet she was powerless to stop him. Each flick of his tongue took her higher and higher and pleasure, pleasure never dreamed of streamed through her. Never stopping the rhythmic exploration of his tongue, he slowly pushed in one and then two fingers deep inside her and Juliana was swamped by waves of erotic sensation.

  The blood thudding in his ears, his member swollen and tight, Asher fought against the goading demands of his own body. Her scent, the hot, musky taste of her and the shifting of her body, the muffled sounds of pleasure she gave, were driving him mad and his fingers plunged quicker, deeper within her.

  Helplessly, Juliana’s grip tightened on his hair and her hips rose up to meet his marauding mouth, reaching, begging for relief from the ever-tightening coil of increasingly urgent demands of her body. Stretched taut, she teetered at the velvet edge and then with a soft, astonished shriek she tumbled over.

  With savage satisfaction, Asher felt her release and, pressing one last, lingering kiss into the sable curls, he slowly slid upward. Lying beside her, in the moonlight, he stared down into her face.

  Her eyes were wide and dilated, her expression one of dazed wonder. Gently, he brushed a lock of dark hair away from her face. She blinked and, turning her head, looked at him. She swallowed. “I never…” Words failed her. How could she explain the exquisite sensations that had racked her body, small tremors still quaking through her?

  Asher smiled. “But you will again, because I don’t think I can deny myself that particular pleasure.”

  Her eyes got very big. “Oh.” Her hand trailed down his body, stopping when she reached that upstanding, impudent member between them. “You didn’t…”

  “No, I didn’t, but I intend to,” he said roughly, his mouth coming down on hers.

  To her great delight and no little surprise, the touch of his lips on hers, the caress of his downward-seeking hand, stirred her senses once more and this time, this time when he slid between her thighs and buried himself within her, they found that sweet oblivion together.

  Chapter 17

  The alfresco dinner held in the gardens at Kirkwood Friday night garnered many flattering comments and the announcement Sunday evening by Mr. Kirkwood of the engagement of his youngest daughter to the Earl of Caswell was met with happy acclaim—although no surprise. The announcement had been expected for weeks and only the Kirkwoods knew precisely why it had been delayed.

  Watching Piers and Thalia as they stood in the middle of the small, flower-bestrewn ballroom at the rear of the house, Juliana thought that they made a beautiful couple. Caswell’s dark handsomeness was a perfect foil for Thalia’s blond loveliness and there were many misty eyed sighs from the ladies present at the romantic picture they made. The tender way Piers bent his head toward Thalia and the glow that illuminated Thalia’s face when she looked at him left no one in doubt that this was indeed a love match.

  The house was overflowing with guests on Sunday night, not only those staying at the house, but everyone of consequence in the neighborhood including Mrs. Manley and her dear friend, Mrs. Sherbrook, who had been invited for the lavish buffet that had preceded the announcement. There was of course, one notable exception: the Marquis of Ormsby was nowhere to be seen in the throng of the elegant crowd.

  Squire Ripley, glancing around the room shortly after the engagement was announced, commented to the circle around him, “Odd not to see Ormsby here.”


  The circle included Asher, John, the colonel and the vicar, and for a moment Asher’s and the vicar’s eyes met. The vicar didn’t know the full story, but he had been present at the unpleasant scene between Ormsby and Asher at the Kirkwood home and drew his own conclusions. He’d also noted the cavalier way in which the marquis had treated Mr. Kirkwood that same evening, so Ormsby’s absence didn’t surprise him.

  Staring down into his crystal cup of champagne punch, Asher replied to the squire’s comment by saying, “I believe that he cried off—he’d made other plans out of the area for tonight and they could not be changed.”

  “Ah, that explains,” said Ripley, nodding his head.

  Colonel Denning bent a penetrating look at Asher. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that Ormsby wasn’t out of the area—and that the marquis had not been invited to Kirkwood for tonight’s announcement—or to any of the festivities associated with the house party. Ormsby had nearly snapped his head off only last night, when Denning had made mention of attending the Kirkwood affair, and because he was meeting with Ormsby later tonight at Rosevale for deep play, he knew damn well that the marquis was not out of the area.

  Denning had been surprised that Ormsby wasn’t here tonight, but since he wasn’t a man who exhibited much interest in his fellow man—except as it pertained to himself—he brushed it from his mind. But now that he thought of it, it was queer. Ormsby was the leading landowner in the area and with his title and wealth there was no denying he was a man of great consequence. That Kirkwood had snubbed him was most interesting.

  His gaze narrowed and he studied Asher’s face. He’d wager a handful of yellow boys that his stepson knew exactly why Ormsby wasn’t here tonight…. But was the reason for Ormsby’s absence tonight, he wondered, something he could use to his advantage?