Once an Innocent (22 page)

As he pulled the horses to a stop in front of his own house, inspiration struck.
He
could do something for Naomi, something pleasurable and indulgent and — all right — more than a little bit indulgent for himself, as well.

Since Naomi had chosen an unmarried life, the least Jordan could do was help her on the path to a fulfilling, yet discreet, life of pleasure. He could give her some lessons in physical delights. Not too many lessons, of course — Jordan didn’t dally with virgins. He’d once teased Naomi about kissing lessons, but it really wasn’t a bad idea.

Not that she needed much help in the kissing department. The kiss they’d shared had been laced with her sweet, unschooled innocence, more intoxicating than the machinations of a practiced lover.

But there were other sensual indulgences he could help her experience without breaking his own rule. He’d wager she knew nothing yet of the sweet torture of teeth and tongue on an earlobe or how the lightest caress along the ribs sent a shiver down the spine … Thoroughly pleased with his imagination’s work, Jordan helped the ladies step from the carriage. He handed Naomi down last and held back while Kate and Clara mounted the steps to the door.

“Come with me,” he said, tugging her by the hand as he started across the lawn.

Naomi’s feet obeyed, her steps quick beside his long strides. “Where are we going?”

He forced himself to slow, surprised at his own eagerness. Having decided that some degree of love play between him and Naomi was permissible, his body thrummed with anticipation. Where
were
they going? Jordan hadn’t thought further than getting Naomi alone. “I want to talk to you about something … important,” he finished lamely.

As they rounded the east side of the house, Jordan scanned their surroundings as carefully as if he was scouting a battlefield. Rather than hunting defensible terrain, however, he searched for a secluded place to conduct his lesson.

On the far side of the walled east garden, he spotted the ideal spot: A small shed, which hugged the wall on one side and was not visible from the house. “There,” he said, nodding toward the structure.

The door creaked when he opened it. Jordan winced, even though no one in the house could possibly have heard. Naomi followed him through the entrance. The space under the door allowed a breeze to cool their ankles, while the still air about their heads smelled of soil and wood. Sunlight streamed through the one, dusty window, lighting motes in the air. Gardening implements — clippers, scythes, trowels, shovels and the like — neatly lined the walls on sturdy iron hooks driven into the wood.

Naomi looked around, then turned to him. “I don’t see your irksome primrose. The greenhouse is some distance from here, is it not?”

Jordan reached out, palm up. Naomi looked from his hand to his eyes. He gazed down at her with steady intensity.

She regarded him cautiously. Then her gloved fingers gently lighted on his palm. The delicate touch added another thread to the coil of wanting that had Jordan bound tight.

With one fluid movement, he drew her close and pulled open her bonnet ties. He nudged the hat off her head and hung it from an available hook.

Naomi frowned. “Jordan, what — ?”

He covered her lips with a finger. “To begin, find an out-of-the-way venue. Libraries are too easily stumbled into, yes?” he teased.

A line formed above her nose. Jordan massaged it away with a thumb. His fingers traced lightly over her brows, down the bridge of her nose, and over the bow of her lips. A soft sigh touched his fingertips.

At the small of his back, that coil of desire twisted its way up his spine. Heavy blood thudded through his veins. He must move slowly, he reminded himself, and then only so far. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.

Naomi’s features were soft, dazed. Her lids fluttered shut.

His hands shook with the force of his lust. Trembling fingers closed around her neck. He tilted her head to the side, exposing her ear and throat. His lips brushed the velvety petal of her earlobe. She inhaled sharply, pressing her soft torso more closely against his. Lightly, he nipped and flicked his tongue around the whorl of her ear, murmuring encouragement as he went.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he said when she moaned and her hands fell limp to her side. “Just feel me.”

He pressed kisses along her jaw to her chin, then her eager lips caught his, offering her sweet mouth to his exploration. Jordan’s tongue swept over hers and across the sensitive palate. Naomi suddenly went heavier, as though her knees had given a little. Jordan’s arms clamped tighter in response. He pressed her against the wall, eliminating every shred of space between them.

His hard ridge pressed into her soft belly while he made love to her mouth, recreating with his tongue the motions he wished he could do with the rest of his body. Jordan grabbed her hips and ground against her.

She broke away, gasping. At once he dipped to her neck, giving the tender flesh there the same treatment he’d given her mouth. Her hands went to his shoulders, where fingers clenched into his flesh.

He released her just long enough to work the buttons on her pelisse. Then he pushed the blue garment down her arms, and tugged the neck of her gown to bare more of her neck. When he closed over the place where neck and shoulder meet, she cried out softly. Raw need tore through Jordan in response.

“What are you doing?” she asked, panting between words. “Jordan?”

At the sound of his name, he raised his head. Her delectable lips were red and swollen from his kisses. Her previously neat hair had fallen in several places, setting loose a few curls to drape down her damp temples and cheeks. Her hazel eyes were twin pools of trust and longing.

Suddenly, a fierce protective impulse arose, every bit as strong as his lust. He took her face in his hands.

“There’s so much you deserve.” His voice came out raspy, his throat choked with unfulfilled desire and emotion. “Any man lucky enough to touch you should worship you forever. Never let anyone close to you who is not worthy, Naomi.”

Her gaze clouded. She shook her head; damp copper curls clung to her neck.
“Any
man? What man? I don’t understand.”

A sharp crack sounded not far from the shed.
Gunfire.
The thought had barely registered before another shot sounded. A split second later, the window shattered. Pain tore through Jordan, and then he hit the floor.

Naomi’s eyes flew wide in shock as something slammed into her. Not quite a second ago, there had been two sharp cracks outside. The glass broke and then —

Her head swam as she tried to make sense of what happened. Jordan would know, but when she opened her mouth to ask, an unfamiliar croak came out. Dimly, she became aware of twin pains blooming in her chest and across the back of her head.

Air. I need air.
But struggle as they might, her lungs would draw no breath. It felt as though a boulder pressed on her ribs.
I’ve been shot,
she thought.
Oh, God, I’m dying
.

Vaguely, she wondered what prayers one should offer up at the moment of mortal expiration, but intense regret swept away all concern for her soul. If she died now, she would never see her family again. Never meet Isabelle and Marshall’s baby. Even they were granted only an instant of sorrow before their images were supplanted in her mind by the face she wished she could see one last time.

Jordan. Jordan. Jordan.

His name thumped through her in time with the painful beats of her heart. She should have told him that she loved him while there was time. But the last thing he’d said to her had been something about her being with other men, as though kissing her was just an afternoon’s entertainment. Another pain — immaterial but just as sharp as the ache in her skull — lanced through her middle.

All at once, the boulder on her chest was gone. In its absence, she felt weightless, unbound. Ribs creaked as her lungs abruptly inflated. She wheezed and coughed.

“Are you all right?” Jordan’s voice was urgent, afraid.

Her eyes opened. His face swam above hers as her vision cleared. Concern etched deep lines between his eyes. The beautiful, intense blue eyes she’d feared she would never see again. Giddy with the sudden rush of oxygen, she reached for his cheek. His scar pressed into her palm.

“There were shots, and the window … ” Her eyes flicked to where a single, wicked shard clung in the otherwise vacant frame. “You knocked me to the floor. You protected me,” she realized. “The only threat to my life was you, you great ox. You nearly suffocated me.” For good measure, she poked his shoulder.

A strangled sound gargled in his throat, and his hand clamped on to his shoulder. His mouth pinched, his lips tinged white around the edges.

“Oh, God!” Naomi cried, scooting out from under him and pushing up to her knees.
“You’re
shot!”

“I’m not shot,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Not much, anyway. Only grazed.”

She pulled at his wrist. “Let me see.”

A ragged tear marred the navy blue material, the edges darkened by seeping blood. Before she could more closely inspect the wound, Jordan waved her back. “Be quiet,” he hissed.

Naomi plopped onto her bottom. Her head still hurt from its impact with the hard floor, but the pain was forgotten when she recalled the gunshots that had precipitated all this. Who had shot at them?

Jordan rose smoothly and pressed to the wall beside the window. He leaned just enough to peek outside. He whistled, a sound like a nightingale. The tension evident in his neck made Naomi uneasy. After several seconds, a nightingale answered. In the distance, a crow called.

Signals
, she realized with a start. She pressed her hands against her suddenly churning stomach. Something was very wrong.

Jordan pulled back from the window and crouch-walked to the door, carefully avoiding the shattered glass. He flattened against that wall, then his right hand vanished inside his coat and reemerged holding a small pistol. Casually, he checked the priming.

Naomi gaped at the firearm. “Why do you have that?” she demanded.

“Hush!” he rasped.

His left arm pressed tight against his side, recalling her to his injury. Other than the way he held that side of his body slightly hunched, he gave no indication of discomfort. She remembered how he’d reacted when she’d touched him, and wondered what it cost him now to put his hurts out of mind and remain on guard.

Another bird call sounded from just outside the shed. Instinctively, Naomi curled tight against a pile of burlap tarps in the far corner. With the flat of his hand, Jordan eased the door open a crack. It swung open farther as a man stepped in — Mr. Price.

“M’lord.” He nodded. “I had one of ’em right in my sights, sir.” He huffed in frustration. “Saw ’im laying on the rise behind the kitchen garden, watching the house through a spyglass. I don’ know what tipped him off, but ’e turned and looked right at me and — ”

Jordan made a sharp sound, startling Mr. Price into silence.

The man’s gaze took in the shed’s interior, and he spotted her in the corner. His mouth worked silently, full lips opening and shutting, like a fish. “Then, ah, the uh, the grouse … flew away.”

Jordan shoved the man outside and followed him through the door. From her corner, Naomi heard their voices murmuring back and forth. She picked nervously at her skirt as she ineffectually attempted to make out the conversation. Conjecture followed speculation as she tried to decipher what Mr. Price had said.

Facts: Someone had been spying on the house. Mr. Price and that unnamed someone exchanged gunfire, and one of those shots had demolished the shed window. There were likely multiple “someones” lurking around. Naomi based this conclusion on Mr. Price’s words, “one of ’em.” Finally — and perhaps most alarming — Naomi had heard Jordan, Mr. Price, and perhaps someone else signal to one another with bird calls.

Normal men engaged in normal hunting did not behave this way.

Ergo, Naomi was not engaged in a normal, country party. There had been small hints here and there that something was odd — the way each male guest had brought a lone female companion. There were no families, no children. Except for Kate, of course, and Jordan had been surprised and angered by her appearance. And there were other things …

She squeezed her eyes and pressed fingers to temples, as though to force greater efficiency from her brain. Naomi felt she knew almost
what
was happening, but not
why
. Aunt Janine would be able to make sense of this, she thought. Putting their heads together, perhaps she and her relative could solve this puzzle.

The door swung open and Jordan strode across the small space. He took her hand and hauled her to her feet. “Let’s get you back to the house now.”

Her mind still in a whirl, Naomi took several faltering steps.

Behind her, Jordan cleared his throat. She turned to see her forgotten bonnet dangling from his finger. “Rule number two,” he said as he replaced it on her head and tied a bow as neat as her maid’s, “never return looking disheveled. It gives people cause to gossip.”

“Just what are these rules you’re going on about?” she asked as she buttoned her pelisse.

“Quiet now.”

He raised a finger to his lips and held her elbow tightly as he led her from the shed. His own hat had been abandoned in the shed’s wreckage, she noted with annoyance. Black curls now softened the hard plane of his forehead.

Rather than take her to the front entrance, Jordan hustled Naomi through the east garden and up a flight of limestone stairs to the balustraded terrace off the parlor. This time of day, the formal room stood empty. The ladies would be in sitting rooms or their own chambers. She reached for the French door, but he snatched her hands before she could open it.

“Rule number three,” he said in a low, urgent tone, “you must never,
never
let on in public that anything has happened. Do you understand me, Naomi?
Nothing happened
.”

His words were a slap across the cheek. Would he, to her face, deny what had passed between them? An echo of the pain she felt in the shed reverberated through her, the knowledge that he had only kissed her as a diversion.