Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) (21 page)

The footsteps stopped outside her door, and she saw the brass handle of the door wiggle slightly. But William had locked it. The footsteps continued, back to her father’s room. William turned to her. “Will he suspect?”

She shook her head. “He must have seen the light of the fire and known I was awake. But the door only locks from the inside, so he would know that I was in here.”

“Will he check the guest room for me?”

“I cannot imagine him opening the guest room door. And your fire is out?” William nodded. “I am certain he did not look. And now he has gone back to bed.” Grainne stretched like a cat and smiled. “I am all yours, my love.”

William sighed and dipped his mouth to hers again, cupping her breasts through the filmy fabric of her nightdress. Its lace trimming tickled at his fingers and he pulled it down again, letting her breasts pop free of the cloth, and with a groan he lowered his lips to their pinkness, feeling her shudder as his tongue played with them, so hard and so soft at the same time.
 

Grainne was lost, swimming in a sea of sensations. William’s fingers and lips and tongue seemed to be everywhere, and she was kissing him back as ardently as she could, although her limbs were weak and her state of mind somewhat less than lucid. This was love, she thought. All the contentment, and none of the fear. She loved William as she had never thought for a moment about Len.
 

He was her true match. And he had gone back to England and made certain all of his commitments there were honorably dissolved before he came back for her — he would never betray her as Len would have done.

She sat up suddenly.

William was nearly knocked backwards into the fire. “Grainne, what on earth —”

She shook her head. “I am sorry, my love. But… we must stop this tonight.”

He tried a wheedling smile. “Maidenly nerves, my dear?”

“I am betrothed to Edward Maxwell, William. That must be broken before we can go any further.” She sighed. “You made it clear that running away was not the answer, when you agreed with my father to put the horses away tonight. And you were right. Neither of us would feel right about running away like thieves in the night.”

William nodded. “But what if he does not agree to our marriage?”

“He will agree,” Grainne said certainly. “Just waking up to find us here, behaving like reasonable adults, will be a pleasant enough surprise for him. He is certain we cannot be trusted — let us prove to him otherwise.”

“You’re saying I should go back to my room.”

She sighed and pulled the sheet back around her. “After you kiss me good-night.”

Emer buttoned up Grainne in her most modest gown, a plain dark green with a collar so high it nearly touched her throat. The color gave her shadows beneath her eyes and took all the flush from her skin. “I look like a ghost who hasn’t slept well,” Grainne said disapprovingly, gazing into the mirror. “This is no way to greet my future husband for breakfast.”

“But it’s perfect for dissuading your lawful betrothed,” Emer said matter-of-factly, fussing with a hair pin. Emer was already replacing her broken dreams of Dublin with far loftier expectations of London.

“What! Is Maxwell here already?”

“Bustling about the parlor like a man possessed. He’s in no hurry to give you up.”

Grainne put her face in her hands. “Devil take that man! He shall appeal to father’s sense of honor and all will be lost. I shall have to run away after all.”

Emer shook her head. “You’re not thinking clearly, miss. Your father has spoiled you rotten for all these years… do you think a month or two in his bad graces is going to change a lifetime of granting you every wish or whim you ever had? Go downstairs and stand next to Maxwell looking like a dog’s dinner, and he’ll be so heart-broken when he thinks of the joy Archer brings to your face that he’ll have you married from the parlor before noon.”

“Archwood… and oh Emer, do you think that will work? I can’t help
but
look like a dog’s dinner when I’m next to that man, so it won’t be a difficult role to play.”

“I’m certain of it. Go downstairs and look tragic.”

***

Maxwell was, indeed, striding around the little parlor with more energy than William had ever seen in the man. His mutton-chops were trembling alarmingly on his long red jowls, and his watery eyes were positively snapping with anger.
 

“Do you think you can just stroll in here with some tale of being an earl’s son and upset all the plans and wishes of a neighborhood? Miss Spencer is one of our own! Mr. Spencer and I have been planning this marriage for some time, and let me tell you, sir, everyone in the county is celebrating our betrothal! I received a congratulatory message from Lord Kilreilly himself. The earl, if you please! How do you like that, sir?”

“I was with the earl last night. Lord Kilreilly sends his compliments, and bids you consider seeking a wife in Dublin, Mr. Maxwell,” William said pleasantly. “But he will be attending Miss Spencer’s and mine marriage as an honored guest, or so he told me last night, when I was discussing my intent to declare for her.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Spencer broke in, his tone surprised. Clearly he had not realized that his master was so deeply invested in the matter of his daughter’s marriage.

“Indeed,” William confirmed with a little incline of the head. “Lord Kilreilly and my friend Mr. Peregrin Fawkes — you know, the next Marquess of Dewsbury, of course — are very well acquainted. Mr. Fawkes enjoys the hunting here, and Kilreilly finds him a gentleman of uncommon wit — and intelligence.
Any friend of Mr. Fawkes
, I believe he said.”

Spencer mulled this over. Maxwell turned a violent shade of vermillion. “All of you lords with your titles and your land and your fortunes, thinking that you can run the lives of ordinary people! I have land and income too, you know! And my aunt was married to a baron!”

“A baron,” William repeated. “How lucky for her.”

Maxwell looked as though he was about to have an apoplexy. “You
vile —”

“I am sure Mr. Archwood did not mean to be condescending,” Grainne said gently, entering the room. “He has not had much sleep of late, traveling back and forth between England and Ireland. Isn’t that right, sir?” She came up beside him and held out her hand. William took her fingers in his and placed his lips gently on her skin, his eyes never leaving hers. Her skin burned where he touched her, and she shivered with want.

He was so beautiful and noble, and he was hers. She gazed up at his blue eyes, and felt the very atmosphere of the room change to something crackling and mysterious.

Her father felt it too. And Mr. Maxwell. And Emer and Mrs. Kinney, peeping through the cracked door of the parlor.
 

Everyone stood very still and watched the two lovers in the room.

And then Maxwell shook his head. “Let me not stand in the way of what Lord Kilreilly has put together,” he snapped nastily. “I’ll ask for my hat. I’ll take your leave and do not invite me to the wedding.”

Mr. Spencer just nodded absently. He was thinking of his own late wife, and the way the air had smoldered between them when they met.
 

And Emer and Mrs. Kinney just smiled as they went to fetch Mr. Maxwell’s hat and coat. Of course Mr. Spencer could deny his daughter nothing. He had loved her mother too dearly for that.

***

“It was kind of the earl to offer the use of the Big House for the wedding, but I think I liked this much better.”
 

William smiled at Grainne. “Of course you did. The lads would not be having nearly such a fine time if they were trapped in the lord’s drawing room. And a fine day at last! I cannot fathom such luck, that it finally stopped raining.”

“It will rain again tomorrow,” Grainne said dolefully, but her eyes were bright as she surveyed the rows of trestle tables, dressed in billowing white damask. At a few, lads from the stable were still seated, drinking ale and laughing uproariously. It had long since stopped being her wedding breakfast and gone to being a rare holiday from the stables. They had forgotten about her, and she was going away… but Grainne did not mind the short memories of the lads. She had her favorite lad next to her now, and her favorite horse besides.

“We should be off, my love, if we are to make it to Dublin tonight.”

Grainne let William give her a leg-up in the saddle. For this, her ride away from her father’s house, she had conceded to ride sidesaddle. She fussed with the skirt of her navy-blue riding habit, hastily done up by the seamstress at the Big House in the latest fashion.
 

“That military look makes me want to declare war,” William told her. “The epaulets on the shoulders… really darling, you might want to consider wearing riding habits more often.”

“Only if you will take them off of me,” Grainne purred. She favored him with a sultry smile. “It’s so tight, and you know I dislike being restrained in anything.”

William swallowed.
 

“But of course, when we were in town, I shall have to dress like a lady,” she went on, sighing. “Tell me we won’t be in town very often.”

“I already told you that.” William swung into Bald Nick’s saddle. He smiled down at Tommy Boxton, who let go of the reins and stepped away.

“Tell me again,” Grainne said. “I am a country girl, as well you know.”

“Grainne, I am going to take you to my country house and never let you outside the gates of my park,” William announced. “There, is that better?”

“Perfect,” Grainne agreed. “The sooner, the better!” And she touched her heels to Gretna, sending the gray mare down the road with a clatter of hooves.

William stayed behind a moment, watching his bride go galloping down the country lane. He waited. “There goes her hat,” he said finally. He grinned down at Tommy and Seamus, and the other lads from the stableyard. “Boys, it has been a pleasure.”

“Good luck to you,” Tommy said. “You’ll need it with that one.”

William nodded. “I don’t doubt it,” he agreed, and then sent Bald Nick racing after his wife.

They had not ridden ten miles when the skies opened up and it began to pour down rain.
 

“Oh, this wretched country!” William hunched his shoulders against the onslaught. “It was clear and sunny not ten minutes ago!”
 

“It does not rain in England?” Grainne managed to be amused despite her own discomfort. “Indeed, I shall enjoy it there more than I had ever suspected.” She kicked Gretna forward at a canter. “Come, love, there is a barn just ahead. We can take shelter there.”

Grainne cantered easily in the side-saddle she so despised, and William hung back a little, holding Bald Nick’s head tight, so that he could watch her dip and sway with every stride. The plume on her little military cap fluttered in the cold wind, despite the rain, and he found himself hoping there was a nice store of straw in that ramshackle barn ahead, and no interfering farmer to stop him from going about his business as a lawfully wedded man.

Grainne rode right into the barn and disappeared. He noticed, as he let Bald Nick follow, that the cottage nearby had fallen into disrepair. No one would be living here, then. William smiled.

Inside, Grainne was slipping from the saddle without waiting for him, one of her usual tricks. Dismounting from a sidesaddle without help was not the easiest of tasks, but Grainne would probably rather have fallen to the ground than waited for a man’s help. Her bull-headed determination to do everything herself was one of his favorite things about her, he decided, watching her slip the bit from Gretna’s mouth and loosen the mare’s girth. Even through the prim cloth of the riding habit, he could see her biceps bulge as she pulled up on the girth to pop the buckle loose. His wife was a formidable woman.
 

He jumped down from his own horse, looking around at their little shelter all the while. It might be a bit tumble-down, but it was a sound barn, with a pile of old hay in one corner and a few corncribs in the other. The door had fallen from its hinges, but the barn was still private enough. He could bed them down in the hay, he thought with a smile, and not have to worry about travelers seeing them from the road. The roads were deserted, anyway. He supposed all the rest of Ireland knew that a cold winter rain would follow two hours of sunshine. He pulled some of the hay aside for Gretna and Nick, and found a shank to tie across the doorway to keep the horses inside. Then he looked at Grainne.

She was already pulling a blanket out of one of the saddlebags. He watched her shake out its folds and lay it down on the hay.
 

“It’s cold in here,” he said.

She smiled at him. She opened up the larger bag on Nick’s saddle and pulled out a heavier blanket.
 

“Oh, very well then,” William laughed, as if he had been coerced, and in two steps he had crossed the dirt floor of the little barn and was snatching his giggling wife up for a long, deep kiss.

***

It
was
cold, Grainne thought a few moments later, divested of hat and spencer and gloves and scarf and anything that might have kept her warm save William’s heat above her and the woolen blanket above them both. But William’s heat was building, quickly proving to be more than enough. And her own was not far behind.
 

He had wrenched off his own coat and shirt with a furious speed that had surprised her, and the feeling of skin on skin was the most exquisite sensation imaginable. She lay pressed between the soft blanket beneath her, shifting on its bed of straw, and the hard heat of him above her, and with his lips alternating between her breast and her throat and her lips, with her fingers stroking at his back and scratching at his shoulders, she thought a barn was quite as good as a Dublin inn for a marriage consummation.

“Grainne,” he ground out, lips against her white neck.
“Grainne.”
 

That was all he said, but she knew what he meant. She let him push her thighs open, welcomed him as he slipped his fingers inside of her. She could feel her own heat, his fingers slippery within her, and she thought she would scream, and then he did
something
and then she did scream, arching upwards, as the rain pelted on the barn roof, drowning out her cries, and he covered her mouth with his and his fingers were gone and then something else was there, hard and hot and soft and thrilling, and she nearly jumped out from under him when he pressed inside of her.