Dair Devil (54 page)

Silla, not seeing Grasby’s wink, sat up very tall. But before she could launch into another lecture, the object of their discussion came into view, crossing from the stables to the house.

D
RESSED
IN
A
riding frock and jockey boots, his shoulder-length hair wind-tussled, Dair had just ridden over from the big house. He was, as always, slightly disheveled, and had not bothered to shave, all the more handsome for the stubble to his face. This was Rory’s assessment, and her blue eyes lit up as he came lightly up the stone steps to join them. Her brother was of the same opinion, watching his sister’s skin glow pink at the sight of his best friend, and his wife sit forward and gaze up at him with limpid longing—she, too, wishing to be noticed by the Major. But Grasby held no malice, and just shook his head, not only on the effect the Major’s untidy masculinity had on the fairer sex, but also that the man himself seemed oblivious to his effect on females.

“I should warn you, two carriages are on their way from the big house,” Dair told them as he came to stand by Rory’s chair. He placed an ungloved hand gently on her shoulder and her fingers immediately found his and held on. “One full of children, the other full of their attendants. The Duchess has invited them for a picnic lunch. I was able to ride over here, but Cedric had no such luck. Roxton’s twins have taken a shine to Ced, so he was bundled into their carriage before I could save him.”

“Ha! I’ll wager you made no such effort to save him! Poor Ced,” Grasby replied without sympathy, as he scraped back his chair. “Serves him to rights for being about as tall as a shrub. Possibly mistaken for a brat himself. Come, wife! Best take you home. You need to rest, and we can’t have the baby exposed to mites with coughs and snotty noses, even if they are ducal mites.”

Lady Grasby showed no objection. In fact, she could not move fast enough to put distance between herself and the dower house. She was off down the terrace steps ahead of her husband, who stopped to have a last word with the couple.

“Not abandoning you. I’ll return as soon as I have Silla settled,” he confided. He held Rory’s gaze. “Perhaps we’ll get to have a proper chat about that matter we touched on yesterday…”

When Rory nodded, Grasby took his leave. But even with her brother out of earshot, and she alone with Dair, she did not elaborate on the cryptic sentence. Dair did not need to be told the subject matter to know something grave was weighing on Rory’s mind. Her thoughts should not have been clouded by anything more serious than her wedding gown and last-minute preparations for their impending nuptials.

He did not like to see her so solemn. And although he could not help her if he did not know what was the matter, he knew he could fix the immediate problem. Without warning, he scooped her up and ran with her across the lawn to the pirate ship tree house. Before she could stop gasping and squealing with laughter at the same time, he had hauled her over his shoulder as if she were nothing heavier than his frock coat. He then climbed the ladder up a three-hundred-year-old oak and into the magical world of a two-level tree house fashioned like the quarterdeck of a pirate ship.

Dair lifted Rory onto the boards, and she crawled away from the ladder and the long drop to the ground, to allow him space to hoist himself up to the safety of the wooden floor. Once secure, she sat up on her knees and took a peek over the side of the painted railing at the view.

“Oh! How delightful! You can see everything, from the terrace to the pavilion and across to the jetty. I wish I’d come up here sooner. Though this ship seems to have appeared from nowhere. It wasn’t here last summer. Perhaps it was sailed in on a cloud by a band of fairy pirates and got stuck? What do you think?”

“This is only my second time aboard. Kinross had it built for the Roxton brood, just after Easter. But I like your explanation better.” He joined her, crossed arms leaning lightly on the railing. “The boys will be here soon enough, and will head straight for the gangway to clamber aboard. This pirate ship is all they can talk about!”

He turned from the view and sat with his back up against the side of the ship, long booted legs sprawled out before him. When she joined him, sitting to face him, he took hold of her fingers and gently pressed his lips to the back of her hand. He smiled wistfully.

“We’ve not had a moment alone since your grandfather toasted to our future happiness, have we? We’re forever surrounded by a hive of activity, and I suspect it won’t let up until we can run away together after we’re married. I know I’ve been kept occupied going over settlements, estate documents, and discovering precisely what mess my father left for the old Duke and then Roxton to clean up, after he ran off to Barbados! But what about you? Lady Grasby looks to have recovered from her dead faint at our announcement…”

“Oh, but we must feel for her position,” Rory said with smile that mirrored his own. “She is finally breeding, which is such badly wanted news by the family. And what do we do, but spoil her moment in the sunshine by announcing our engagement to be married. She should still be basking in all the attention. As it is, her baby has become secondary to our wedding. So I do have sympathy for her. Though, I could do without her good advice on being a bride, of which I’ve had a milk pail full.” Her smile was impish. “The only topic she has
not
broached is the wedding night, and I am certain her restraint is only due to my brother’s presence. Poor Harvel would faint from mortification if he ever suspected she would dare try to give me advice about
that
.”

“I can’t imagine what she could possibly confide in you,” he commented with a chuckle.

She misconstrued his meaning and blushed.

“I’m certain I still have much to learn—”

“I meant her advice, Delight.”

“Oh! I see…”

He moved closer to lift her chin so she had to look in his eyes.

“What is it? You have not been yourself since yesterday. Have you had second thoughts about—”

“—marrying you?
Never
!”

“—giving yourself to me on the island. Perhaps you would have preferred to wait until our wedding night?”

“Oh no!” She was emphatic. “How could you think that? It is a day I will never forget.” Her smile was bashful. “I’m sure every girl dreams her first time will be just as glorious as mine. And you made it so for me.”

“Thank you. That means the world to me.
You
mean the world to me.”

“As you do to me…”

She shifted to lean in to kiss him gently. First the stubbled underside of his chin, then his throat, on up over his square jaw, across to his cheek, then the bridge of his strong nose, and finally his wide brow. Teasingly, she avoided his mouth. She punctuated these light butterfly kisses with conversation that was just as playful.

“If Silla does try and give me advice, I shall tell her politely that I do not need her wifely wisdom, because I cannot wait to make love,
again
. But this time, with my
husband
. She will fall into another dead faint, but that can’t be helped, because I will not lie. In fact, it is most distressing you are staying at the big house and I am here. From my bedroom window I can see Swan Island and it is a constant reminder of our time together alone. And then I have the most wicked remembrances of us making love. Of you on your back on the floor of the temple, looking up at me astride you, and I lie amongst the pillows of my bed, alone, unable to sleep for wanting you. If you were staying here, you could row me over there at night, no one in the house the wiser, and we could—”

He caught her face between his hands and kissed her passionately, no longer able to withstand the torture of her barely-there kisses, her banter, and the sweet delicious vanilla scent of her skin. The memories of them making love in the temple, of her straddling him, enjoying him, her straw-blonde waist-length hair falling about her shoulders, and then the imagery she conjured up of her lying in her bed alone amongst a mountain of white pillows, naked and wanting him, was all too much. It sent him beyond reason. He had to make love to her, taste her, fill her, there and then. He no longer cared they were trespassing in a children’s tree house and that those children were due to storm the ladder at any moment. He was sure there was time enough.

But as much as Rory returned his kisses and wanted him to make love to her, she was not so lost in the moment that she was unaware of their surroundings and the potential for a scandalous predicament. So she was the one who broke their fervent kissing. The instant she did, he stopped.

He stared at her, short of breath and wondering what he had done, but it only took a few seconds before he came to a sense of his surroundings. He was not only acutely embarrassed for allowing himself to be caught up in the moment in such a place, but it would now require some time for him to return his heated body to its resting equilibrium. To this end he thought it wise to put a little distance between them and he sat back against the wall of the ship. Pulling his windswept hair back off his face, he turned his thoughts to the account books for Fitzstuart Hall, the vast income that had been accruing over the years from his father’s sugar plantations, and the unexpectedly welcome news he was now, on the eve of his marriage, exceedingly wealthy. He had to salute his father for having the foresight to withhold his inheritance until marriage, and Rory for giving his life direction and joy.

“That was my fault,” Rory apologized, feeling awkward. “I should not have enticed you with my vulgar and silly—”

“It was not vulgar,” he interrupted, coming out of his abstraction, physical frustration making him sound harsh. “And never silly. We should always be playful with each other. But you were right to stop me. This is not the place. Now, won’t you tell me what it is that has been bothering you? Perhaps that will be enough to pour cold water on my ardor?” He chuckled. “Unless, that is, you do have some cold water to hand!?”

Rory frowned. “Cold water…?” When he looked away, a ready flush to his face, dawning wonder opened wide her blue eyes. She sighed her understanding. “It is so different for men, is it not? We females can more easily hide our frustrations so no one need know, but for men—Is it painful if you do not find release?”

Acute embarrassment mixed with the studiousness of her enquiry made him burst out laughing.

“Oh, Delight. I do love you so! Yes. In a way it is painful. But more uncomfortable than anything else, and quite embarrassing if not dealt with. He tends to have a mind of his own, and never more than when he sees you! So. If you don’t mind. I’d like not to keep him center stage. Is there something bothering you that we should discuss before our wedding?” He chuffed her under the chin. “We must share our worries as well as our blessings. It’s the only way a marriage will work.”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, you are right. I am in a bit of a quandary.” She again scrambled to sit before him, layers of her petticoats tucked up under her knees, closing the gap he had put between them. “Grasby was to help me find a solution so that I need not bother you with it. You have been so caught up in business affairs, and I know how much you hate being indoors, that you do not need any more aggravation—”

“Rory, let me stop you there. Firstly, I will never be caught up in anything, be it business, or anything else, that you should ever feel you cannot interrupt me. Secondly, you will never aggravate me. Thirdly, I understand you have been used to going to Grasby for assistance and guidance, he is your brother after all. But I hope now we are engaged and soon will be married, you would be comfortable enough to come to me first.” He smiled crookedly. “That sounded as if I am envious of Grasby, didn’t it? To own a truth, I am, a little. Mary—my sister—would never think to come to me for advice. I guess she is two years older than me, and was married off while I was still at Harrow… Let me guess your quandary… You are worried about your grandfather and how we shall all go on from here, now your allegiance is to me—”

Rory interrupted him.

“How did—”

“Because I know you. And because I don’t want you to be troubled, Shrewsbury and I have called a truce. I respect the fact he loves you very much and only wants what is best for you. He has come to the realization that he and I share that common goal. I also know you are concerned about the Royal visit to your grandfather’s pinery taking place four days after we are married, when we should be enjoying the start of our honeymoon. I assume you have been wondering how best to tell me?”

Rory’s blue eyes grew round

“How did—”

It was his turn to interrupt, and with a smug smile. But he couldn’t keep up the pretense of oracle for long, and shook his head at her look of wonderment.

“Also your grandfather. We were discussing settlements and the like with Roxton and two dreary men of business, and I must have been fidgeting in my chair. Believe me, Delight, three hours stuck in a library surrounded by wall-to-wall books almost undid me! I was ready to throw myself through a closed window, climb the bookcases, anything to get myself into fresh air! Shrewsbury knows me well. So he called me away for a stroll on the terrace, to have a cheroot, while the Duke dealt with an interruption from his surveyor. Your grandfather graciously asked my permission for you to attend the presentation of the Talbot Pineapple to their Majesties. After all, it was you who cultivated it…”

He let the sentence hang, waiting for her reaction, and to add something to the discussion, but when Rory remained mute, waiting for him to continue, he threw up a hand and then pulled her to him.

“Good God, Rory. What did you think I would say? No? After all your months and months of hard work growing the jolly thing! Other than Portland’s gardener Speechly, who else is the foremost cultivator in the kingdom of such a majestic fruit? No one but you. I know how much this pineapple means to you, and to your grandfather who watched you put your heart and soul into his pinery. The second time I met you, you dropped a gardening treatise at my feet—”