A shy blush colored her cheeks, but her gaze remained clear and steady.
Her breasts…
Dear God, his Angel’s breasts were a work of art. As smooth as alabaster, not too small or too large, but would, he knew instinctively, be a perfect fit for his palms. They were tipped with deep rose nipples that engorged even as he licked his lips in greedy anticipation.
Her waist was so tiny, Zachary was sure his two hands could span it easily, flaring out to curvaceous hips currently hidden by her drawers.
Her legs were slender in white stockings held up by white garters adorned with red rosebuds.
His gaze returned to her face. “You are breathtakingly lovely.”
Her lips tilted in a mischievous smile. “I am also extremely self-conscious standing here in only my drawers and stockings when you are still fully dressed.”
“But I am to remain fully dressed, as you did yesterday.” He lifted her in his arms again and carried her over to the bed. “This is for you, Angel. All for you,” he murmured as he placed her carefully down on top of the bedcovers before lowering himself beside her, leaning on one elbow as he bent his head and parted his lips to take possession of one of her erect nipples.
Rissa drew her breath in sharply, her back arching as the heat of Zachary’s mouth engulfed her nipple. Her fingers immediately grasped the brocade cover beneath her.
Her lids fluttered closed, the sensations overwhelming as Zachary suckled and lightly bit her engorged flesh, first one nipple and then the other, his fingers pulling and squeezing whichever nipple was neglected by his mouth, even for a short time.
Those sensations grew and grew inside her, the dampness between her thighs moistening her drawers as her hips began to move restlessly on the bed. She wanted, wanted…
Again, Rissa knew the mechanics of a man placing his mouth there, but she had not known of the longing, the need she felt to have Zachary’s mouth there.
“Please,” she groaned when she could not bear to wait any longer. “Please, Zachary!” She gazed at him with tormented eyes when he raised his head to look at her. “I need— Dear God, I need you to kiss me here!” She grasped his wrist to move his hand down between her thighs, knowing he would be able to feel the heat of her desire accompanied by the wetness of her arousal. “Please,” she choked.
“Are you sure, Angel?” Zachary cradled one of her cheeks in his hand. “Be very sure.”
“I am sure,” she gasped. “Please. I need you down there.”
He knelt beside her as he unfastened her drawers and slowly lowered them down her hips and thighs, and finally down her legs, before discarding them onto the carpeted floor.
The damp curls between her thighs were as dark as those upon her head, her virgin cleft fully visible to him between silky thighs. But he wanted more, needed to see all of her. To touch and caress all of her.
“Part your legs for me,” he encouraged softly, drawing in a deep breath as she did not hesitate to do as he asked. His angel was so brave. More so than he, Zachary recognized, because she did not waver or shy from stating and taking what she wanted. From allowing him to take what he wanted.
He moved to kneel between her parted thighs, pushing them farther apart and bending her legs at the knees so that her feet rested flat on the bed. This allowed him a clear view of the red nubbin of her clitoris peeping out between her curls, the swollen and wet lips between her thighs, and the delicate pink rosette farther back. All laid out for him to satisfy his Angel’s desire and sate his own lust, much like a beautiful and tempting feast.
He glanced up at her with heated eyes. “Tell me to stop if I do anything you do not like or it makes you uncomfortable.” He almost laughed as the murderous expression that appeared on Rissa’s face told him she was going to do him bodily harm if he did not stop talking and get on with it. He almost laughed, because he did not wish to in any way spoil this moment for his Angel.
Her erect clitoris pulsed against his tongue as he licked the length of it, causing her to gasp. Then to gasp again when he sucked that nubbin into his mouth to lick and nibble that tiny bud as he moved one of his hands between her thighs to stroke the wetness along the length of her swollen nether lips.
“Zachary!” Rissa cried out at the overwhelming pleasure, her head thrashing back and forth on the pillow beneath her as she recognized this was still not enough, that she needed more to release the tide of emotion building inside her. Deeper and higher, until it felt as if a dam were ready to burst inside her.
That did burst inside her as one of Zachary’s fingers breached the slick wetness of her channel at the same time as he bit down on the erect nubbin Sophia had called the clitoris.
Nothing had prepared Rissa for this, none of Sophia’s lessons on the subject, none of the desires that had been raging through Rissa since the moment she met Zachary.
The release was all-consuming, seeming never-ending.
Became never-ending, as climax after climax possessed every part of her body, from her head to her toes.
Time and time again, until Rissa felt sure she would faint from the depth of pleasure.
“One more time, Angel,” Zachary encouraged gruffly as she attempted to push him away. “For me. Come for me now, Angel. Just for me.” His lips possessed her pussy lips as his tongue delved and speared deep into her channel.
The dampness of his fingers caressed the tight rosette of her bottom, not entering, but stroking that sensitive flesh until the depth of Rissa’s previous climaxes were totally obliterated by the release of so much pleasure black spots danced in front of her eyes before she was enfolded into total blackness.
Her head was resting on Zachary’s shoulder when she regained her senses, her body lying alongside the length of his as his fingers lightly played with her hair.
Dear Lord, had she literally fainted with pleasure?
If so, how embarrassing.
The air in the room was ripe with the aroma of her release, and no doubt Zachary’s hands, mouth, and clothes held the same heady perfume.
What must Zachary think of her now—
“Zachary thinks you are the most sensuous and beautiful woman it has ever been his pleasure to behold and to hold,” he assured gruffly, telling Rissa that she must have spoken those last words, at least, out loud.
She kept her face buried against his shoulder. “Really?”
“Really.” His hand moved, and he placed a finger beneath her chin to lift her face so that he might look at her. “It gives me enormous satisfaction to know I gave you such pleasure.”
His words were so sincere, his expression equally so, that Rissa did not doubt for a moment he spoke only the truth. “Do women usually faint dead away in your arms after—well, after?”
He smiled. “You are the first.” The smile faded. “But it is bad etiquette to ask questions about a lover’s past while the two of you are still in bed together.”
“Oh.” She frowned slightly. “Have there been many other—” She was silenced by Zachary placing a finger against her lips.
“We will not discuss the past, Angel,” he instructed firmly. “For me, there is only you. I cannot remember, nor do I ever wish to remember, there being anyone else but you.”
Rissa felt warmed by his words, even if she knew he was also deflecting from answering her question.
But of course there had been many other women for Zachary. He was aged one and thirty, not an inexperienced eighteen as she was. She would be having words with Sophia, though, because the reality of lovemaking was so much more pleasurable than she could ever have guessed or known. She would not talk to Sophia just yet, of course, because her father obviously had no intention of leaving Sophia’s side for some time, or that of his newborn son, and it was not a subject to be discussed in front of him. But Rissa had no doubt Clara would listen avidly to—
Dear God, Clara!
The fact that Lord Catchpole had written Rissa a letter did not bode well for her friend’s health. But ins
tead of reading the letter as soon as it arrived, Rissa had instead eagerly accompanied Zachary up the stairs when he said he wished to make love to her.
“What is it?” Zachary tensed as his Angel struggled to be free of his arms before sitting up on the side of the bed and then standing. “Angel, what is wrong?” He frowned as she quickly began to pull on her clothes, once again hiding all that naked beauty from him.
She shot him an impatient glance as she straightened from putting on her slippers. “Lord Catchpole’s letter arrived several hours ago, and I did not even show him the courtesy of reading it. Something must be wrong, or why would he even write me a letter rather than Clara doing so?” she muttered as she pinned up her hair.
Zachary felt slightly disgruntled as he swung his legs to the side of the bed and rose to his feet. This was certainly not how he had envisaged their lovemaking ending.
Rissa had been more responsive than any woman he had ever known before. That she had fainted, literally from an abundance of pleasure, was the greatest compliment any woman might pay their lover. Instead of them enjoying that afterglow, touching and talking softly together and discussing their feelings for each other, Rissa was now preparing to leave his bedchamber as if a wild dog were snapping at her heels.
He strolled over to join her. “I am sure it can be nothing of import; otherwise, Catchpole would have indicated the letter was urgent.”
“And how might he have done that?” Rissa turned her back on him so that he might refasten the pearl buttons of her gown.
“By writing ‘Urgent’ on the front of the letter,” Zachary suggested dryly.
Rissa turned her head to glare at him. “Obviously, not everyone is as melodramatic as you. Besides, the onus was on me, not him, to read the letter as soon as I received it.”
“I think you are making far too much of it—” He broke off, holding up his hands in surrender as Rissa whipped about to face him, her eyes shooting darts of anger. “Instead of arguing about it, might I suggest we go down and read the letter that is no doubt only another, more formal apology from Catchpole for your having suffered such discomfort while a guest in his home?”
That Zachary was probably correct did not mollify Rissa in the slightest. She should not have behaved in such a selfish manner as to ignore a letter from Clara’s father.
Once they were downstairs, it took several minutes to locate Lord Catchpole’s letter. Hunter had cleared the used plates and cups from the breakfast room, and the letter along with them, explaining, when asked, that he had not wished to leave Rissa’s private letter unattended.
Rissa grabbed the missive the moment Hunter presented it to her, quickly breaking the seal to unfold and read the words written inside.
“What is it?” Zachary demanded the instant he saw the color drain from Rissa’s cheeks.
She crumpled the letter in her clenched hand as she looked up at him with shadowed eyes. “Lord Catchpole writes that Clara left her aunt’s home in the carriage yesterday morning with the intention of visiting me, but that neither she nor her maid and the groom driving the carriage returned yesterday afternoon as expected. He enquires whether Clara has been invited to stay for a visit, and if so, does she need to have some of her clothes sent here.”
Zachary easily recalled the red-haired Clara Catchpole from her brief stay at Harrogate Park. She was a pretty, lighthearted sort of girl, with endearing freckles across her nose and cheeks.
As she had left her aunt’s home and had not arrived at Weston Park anytime yesterday, Zachary realized that young lady was also missing.
He instantly wondered if Royston could have had anything to do with Clara Catchpole’s disappearance.
He could see by the dismay on Rissa’s face that she was wondering the same thing as they both no doubt recalled Royston’s guarantee yesterday that they would be “the ones wishing to see him again.”
Was Clara now in the that madman’s possession?
Chapter 12
“Who is that man talking to my father?” Rissa was unable to place the very large gentleman who stood a good half a head taller than any of the other men in the stable yard.
Possibly aged in his late thirties, the man wore his hair loose and so unfashionably long, it rested on his shoulders. His clothing was comprised of heavy dark work trousers stretched tautly over thighs as wide as tree trunks, and a billowy white shirt fitted to the muscular width of his shoulders, with a leather waistcoat worn over it despite every other gentleman present wearing a tailored riding jacket.
Zachary glanced at the other man. “That is Ezra Stone. He owns and runs a stable and stud toward Kidderminster way. I bought Zeus from him three years ago.”
The other man was also responsible, Zachary decided not to add—despite her outer appearance of calm, Rissa was disturbed enough already without his adding to it—for finding the Catchpoles’ abandoned carriage. Stone had also located the bodies of the coachman and Clara Catchpole’s maid nearby, both of them shot dead through the heart.
With that same pistol Royston had aimed at Zachary and his Angel yesterday?
Zachary and the Duke of Weston both believed it to be the case; hence, at least a dozen gentlemen of the gentry living in the area were now gathered together in the stable yard at Weston Park. Clara’s father and Rissa’s were amongst them as they discussed and settled upon a plan for the best way to comb the area for the missing Clara.
All had been chaos once Rissa had informed her father of Clara’s disappearance and then the arrival of Ezra Stone to inform the duke of what he had found in the woodland only two miles away from Weston Park.
Had Royston known of the Catchpoles’ whereabouts all along, and he had merely been waiting his chance to kidnap Rissa’s best friend?
It seemed a logical conclusion to make when Zachary and the Spencer family were so thoroughly guarded at Weston Park.
Rissa gave an indelicate sniff, her eyes red and puffy from the tears she had cried once she realized what had happened to her friend. “I cannot believe Royston shot and killed the coach driver and Maria.”
“You knew Clara’s maid personally?”
She nodded. “She and my own maid were close friends. Were…” She began to sob again in earnest.
Zachary immediately took her into his arms, brows raised in challenge as he could see over Rissa’s head that the duke was frowning across at their public display. “I do not believe you should be out here, Angel,” Zachary told her soothingly. “You would do far better to spend the day with Sophia and your new brother.”
Her eyes flashed a dark gray as she looked at him. “Do not talk down to me!”
“That was not my intention.”
She gave a snort. “Clara is my friend, and it is my family who is responsible for having brought this misery upon her and her parents. Not once, but twice. First by the burning down of their home and now Clara’s disappearance.”
Catchpole had been grim-faced when he arrived an hour ago, having been sent for by the duke. He looked to be a man who had suffered one blow too many. Bricks and mortar could be replaced but the Catchpoles obviously adored their daughter and only child.
“I should have killed the bastard a year ago when I finally learned the truth about him,” Zachary rasped.
Rissa’s eyes widened. “Then you would have been hanged for doing so.”
“But he would not have been able to take the three lives that we know of.” Zachary did not say it, but they were both aware Royston was capable of disposing of Clara Catchpole’s life too. That, if he had not already done so, he could still kill Clara before they were able to find her.
“I wonder why he did not kill our two guards yesterday.”
Zachary shrugged. “Probably because firing the two shots necessary would have made too much noise and alerted us to his presence. Tying and gagging the men was preferable given the circumstance of our close proximity. He is completely mad, but I doubt even he wished for the blood and gore involved in slitting
their throats.”
“We have settled on the areas to be searched and who will search them,” the duke informed them briskly as he joined the two of them. “You will be with me, Harrogate.”
There was an edge to the older man’s tone that warned their ride together would not be made in silence. That the duke had some things he wished to say on the subject of Zachary’s noticeable, and public, closeness to his daughter.
Zachary had several things he wished to say on that subject himself.
“It really is for the best you remain here with me, darling.” Sophia attempted to soothe Rissa’s disgruntled mood as she sat beside the window of Sophia’s private parlor, looking down to where the gentlemen were preparing to ride out of the stable in groups of two and three.
Rissa noted her father and Zachary looked comfortable and experienced on their mounts, but Ezra Stone, seated on a monstrous horse as black as night, was unmistakably the best horseman. He seemed to be at one with his mount as he leaned low over the horse’s mane and urged it forward at a gallop, quickly leaving his companions far behind him.
She rose impatiently to her feet. “I shall go mad being forced to just sit here waiting for news.”
“Cuddle David instead.” Sophia strolled over and held the sleeping baby out to for Rissa to take.
The older woman had refused to remain abed a moment longer once she learned of Clara’s disappearance. Much to her husband’s disapproval. But Sophia, like Rissa, was very fond of the ex-pupil of her school, and to remain inactive in bed any longer was unacceptable to her.
Rissa felt some of her tension drain away as she held David in her arms. He was such a sweet and unfussy baby, making only the smallest of wails when he needed feeding, and preferring to sleep the rest of the time.
“Holding a baby in your arms suits you,” Sophia observed fondly. “Perhaps you will be setting up a nursery of your own in a year or two.”
Rissa felt the blush in her cheeks as she looked at her stepmother’s too-innocent expression. “Did you have anyone particular in mind to be the baby’s father?”
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