'Talk to Peter," she said in her firmest voice. "He could use some cheering since that opera dancer threw him over. Besides which, he's developed a bit of sense lately. It wouldn't hurt for him to practice it on you."
Ernest smiled. "I shall keep that in mind," he said with a touch of his old resilience.
It wasn't a cure, she thought later as she punched a stubborn pillow beneath her head. It was, however,
a sign they'd both stepped onto the long road back.
* * *
Merry had finally dropped off to sleep when a muffled clatter startled her from her doze. Someone was
in the sitting room, apparently breaking in. Could Althorp have decided to take a new revenge? Heart in her throat, she rolled out of bed and grabbed a poker from the fireplace, then crept silently to the door. She was just drawing breath to scream when she recognized the figure stumbling up from the broken flowerpots.
Heat flashed between her legs, a searing wave that spread quickly up her breasts. Their tips hardened
so swiftly she couldn't restrain a blush.
Absence seemed to have made more than her heart grow fonder.
"Nic!" she gasped as he brushed the remains of a begonia from his thigh.
With a rueful laugh, he helped her light a lamp. "This isn't how I intended to make my reappearance."
He was dressed like a working man in baggy trousers and a sacklike coat. Despite his damp and rumpled state, he looked twice as elegant as any person of her acquaintance.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice husky from more than sleep. "And what happened to your nose?"
He touched the sticking plaster that wrapped the bridge. "Present from your father, who—once he'd vented his displeasure—gave me leave to call on you tomorrow. I, however, discovered I couldn't wait." Before she could ask him what that meant, he kissed her, hard and quick at first, then slanting his mouth to sink hungrily in. After a moment, he broke for air. "Oh, I missed you," he said. "I can't even tell you how much." Again he kissed her and again he cut the foray short. "Tell me you forgive me for not returning sooner."
"Well, since I didn't expect you back at all, I—"
He silenced her with a deep, seductive penetration of his tongue.
"Since I—" she tried again, then lost her train of thought. His fingers had spread around her bottom to
lift her against the startling bulge of his erection. Heat alone seemed to have dried the cloth that stretched across it. By contrast, the cover of her nightdress did little to hide her dampness from him.
With a smoky growl, he rotated his hips into the thin foulard. "Missed me, too, I see."
"Yes, but—"
"Sh. Tell me later." His lips opened on her throat and her head dropped back without her will. She couldn't have spoken if she wanted. All she could do was cling. "I know you had to leave me," he said, the words a heated whisper near her ear. "You couldn't have stayed, not the way I was. Not to mention your family must have been mad with worry. Just try to understand I couldn't come back until I was
sure I had something to offer."
"What?" she said, breathless and shivering. "What are you offering?"
His next kiss was the sweetest yet, deep but soft, his lips gentling, his hands gentling, his body folding around her like a blanket of love and care. Long before she'd had enough, he released her with a deep, sighing moan that shot straight from her ear to the pulsing tissues between her thighs. Cradling her face
in his hands, he gazed at her with concern. "Tell me this first, love. How are you getting on?"
She laughed with what remained of her breath. "Better than I was when I thought a marauder was breaking in."
"I mean, has it been very bad for you?"
"Because I came home a fallen woman?" She smoothed his wet hair back with her fingers, the feel of
the silky strands a restorative to her soul. He was here and, for now, everything was well. "I won't
deny having shed a few self-pitying tears, but there have been bright spots as well as dark. Isabel has
been a rock and Ernest, bless him, actually proposed again."
"Tell me you didn't say yes."
His horror warmed her woman's pride. "Of course I didn't. How could I? Ernest deserves better than a woman who cannot love him with all her heart." Colored by the memory of the talk they'd shared in Evelyn's parlor, this declaration was possibly a bit too passionate. Nic was peering at her, his eyes
narrow, as if he wanted to be loved with all her heart. She lowered her chin to hide her budding smile, then looked at him through her lashes. "I should warn you that in visiting me you risk your own reputation. I don't know if you've heard, but I'm a terrible influence on everyone I meet."
Nic grinned. "I could have told people that. But you're serious. Oh, Merry, tell me everything."
Suddenly able to see the humor in her predicament, she explained about Althorp's ambitions for Ernest and the lengths to which her mother had gone in order to satisfy his blackmail. Unlike her, Nic was not amused.
"Good Lord," he said. "Your own mother. You must have been devastated."
"Not as much as you might think. I always knew she didn't care for me very deeply. Awful as it sounds, discovering what she'd done freed me not to care for her. Papa has rallied the family round, united front and all, but I have to admit I'm rather enjoying how much my disgrace has embarrassed Mother. Her so-called friends are a bunch of cats. They're reveling in the chance to revenge themselves on her for
all the times she lorded it over them. Childish of me, I suppose, but there it is."
"Surely you want to see her punished more than that?"
She pulled up her shoulders in a shrug. "Maybe being who she is is punishment enough. She was fighting to protect things I don't think truly matter. In the process, she lost much of her family's trust. And, to be fair, when I ran away that day at Tatling's, I was just as cowardly. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced
she's changed in any lasting way. Perhaps she's incapable. So we smooth out the surface and go on. I can't regret what's happened. If she hadn't done what she did, I'd never have turned to you. I'd have missed out on memories I'll always treasure."
Nic was silent then, his fingers fanning the skin beneath the ruffled sleeves of her thin silk gown. As absent as it was, the caress sent tingles down her arms. She'd forgotten how much he could make her want him.
"I took Cristopher back to Northwick," he said. "We spent the summer learning how to run the estate. Actually, that was for me more than for Cris, but my mother bullied him, too, when she got the chance." He pulled a breath into his lungs and raised his eyes. "I've taken back the title, Merry. I told your father this afternoon. He gave me leave to court you."
Emotions washed through her: awe, happiness, followed by a sobering twinge of doubt. If guilt were his only motivation, she didn't want this gift. She put up her chin. "I won't be another responsibility."
His expression softened. "You're not a responsibility. You're a blessing. I changed because I wanted to
be worthy of you, but if you refuse me, I won't go back to what I was. I'm ready for this, love. I want
to give you what I've learned to be."
"You truly want to marry me?"
She could not keep the disbelief from creeping into her tone. He smiled, the understanding in his eyes threatening to make her cry. He pressed his hand over his heart. "I'd be deeply honored if you'd marry me. I love you, Merry, and I admire you. If you agree to have me, I'll spend my life showing you how much."
"I want to run a stud," she blurted out.
A smile tugged the corners of his mouth. "So long as you mean with horses, I have no objection."
"I don't believe a woman should sit at home looking pretty. At least, not a woman like me."
"Have you noticed I'm not objecting?"
She bit her upper lip, then laid her palm across the hand he'd pressed to his heart. His skin was warm,
his fingers long and hard. She remembered how they could pluck and soothe and feather like angels' wings. Did she dare believe they could also support her dreams?
Burning with too many wants to name, she leaned toward him, letting her breasts brush the rain-dampened linen of his coat. Color washed his cheeks as he felt the subtle rasp of her hardened nipples, their darkening visible even in the lamplight. Beneath their hands, his chest began to rise and fall.
"Why don't you show me how much you admire me now?" she said.
He moaned deep in his chest, then tore off his coat and pulled her to him. "Oh, God, Merry." He kissed her hair, her cheek, the pulsing hollow of her throat. "Oh, God, will I show you!"
They fought to remove his clothes, jousting over buttons and peeling chilly, sodden cloth from warm, hair-roughened skin. Her hands were as greedy as his kiss, skimming over chest and belly, gripping knotted shoulders and squeezing his clenched behind. The hair that led silkily from his navel was an
arrow whose compulsion she obeyed. Down to his abdomen, into the cloud of curls. Combing through them, she found the base of his rigidly swollen sex. His kiss broke on a gasp.
She smiled up at him, fey and bold. Up she drew her fingers, inch by inch, vein by vein, then down
again to wrap him firmly in her hold. She tightened her grip just to feel his flesh resist. He was magnificent: hot and thick, a pulsing, animal thing. Wrapping one finger beneath the rim, she tugged him gently into the air. His shaft seemed to stretch to match her pull. When she swept her thumb across the slippery crown, he jerked as if she'd struck him.
"Do you like that?" she crooned. Her second hand found the fullness of his balls. Carefully, her eyes never leaving his, she compressed them between her fingers and her palm. His breath hissed like a kettle left too long on the fire.
Teasing him was simply too entertaining. She started to sink to her knees to tease him more, but he caught her beneath the arms and pulled her up.
"Bed," he panted, "quick!"
Hardly waiting for her to point, he scooped her up and carried her to her room, peeling off her nightdress as soon as he set her down. He knelt then, his mouth pulling strongly at her breasts, his hands painting beauty into her skin. Her limbs began to tremble as if he'd drugged her. If he had, he'd used a substance that magnified her sensations. She felt every expulsion of ragged breath, every flicker of lash and tongue. When he twisted the tip of her second breast between two knuckles, the resulting spear of feeling was so intense, she had to speak.
"Nic," she whispered, "my legs won't hold me."
He chuckled and lifted her onto the tangled covers of her bed. Climbing up himself, he stretched his muscled length against her side. His erection burned its shape into her hip while his hands poured fire
over her curves.
"Let's see," he said, "if I remember how to do this."
Two agile fingers slid between her curls, parting silky, lust-oiled folds. Their pads dipped inside her, teasing, tickling, before finally curling in.
She pressed a fist to her mouth to mute her tortured groan. Centuries seemed to have passed since he'd touched her, millennia of aching need. Her spine arched strongly as he stroked, deeply, slowly, bowing her body off the bed.
"Yes," he said, beginning to shift lower, "I think my memory is coming back."
She felt his smile as he nuzzled her trembling flesh, then his teeth in a teasing nip. He laved her with
the tip of his tongue, then settled in to suck the swollen bud. Any worry for his injury was forgotten as feeling rolled through her in rich, intoxicating waves. With one broad hand beneath her bottom, he tilted her hips to press her close.