Rexanne Becnel (16 page)

He shifted on the bench seat beside her. “What do you know about Catherine?”

“I know that a man should always let his wife make the major decisions about how to run their household.”

“She’s not my wife, nor even my fiancée. You’ve been talking to Kerry, haven’t you?”

“He’s been talking to me. But he was only trying to do exactly what you say you’re doing. Reassuring me.” She said the words as if they tasted bad.

“Did it work?” he asked. “Did he reassure you?” They turned onto the road which led like a pale ribbon through the night, dipping into hollows of ground fog only to rise again, pointing the way south to Plummy Head.

Phoebe closed her eyes. “No.”

She heard him sigh. “What would reassure you, Phoebe? Would you tell me that?”

Tell him what? That she wanted to keep Helen with her? He must already know that. Should she tell him that she wanted to make sure Izzy and Leya had a good life, that she wanted to be there every day to make certain it was good day? He would only say what he was already saying: live at Farley Park and be with them every day.

If only it were that easy.

“I want my old life back,” she finally said. “The way it was before you came here. Before everything became so muddled.” She concentrated on the little agate button on her left glove. “Before I had to admit how truly vile my sister is,” she added.

“Life changes, Phoebe. And even when the change is for the better, it can still hurt.”

“But this change isn’t for the better. And I’m tired of it always hurting.” She let out a frustrated sound. “Just…Just drive,” she said, turning to stare out at the dark countryside.

Down the hill lay Swansford village, marked by the occasional light from an unshuttered window. Above them the sky was alive with stars, and the air smelled salty and damp. A night like any other—at least Phoebe tried to convince herself that it was. But when the chaise halted before her lonely little cottage—dark and probably cold—she knew this night was nothing like any other she’d known. Her life had taken an abrupt turn, an about-face, and from now on, everything would be new and different.

And frightening.

She climbed down from the vehicle before he could offer her a hand. He got down anyway.

“Good night. Thank you.” She started for the door.

“Phoebe?”

She stopped. She knew she shouldn’t. She should go inside—only three more steps. She should close the door, bar it, then climb up to her cold, lonely bedroom beneath the rafters, and resign herself to a life of spinsterhood. She could raise cats, lots of cats, and become an eccentric. The children of Swansford would point at her when she came to town, and she would laugh and they would whisper that she was crazy.

Frowning at that pathetic image, she stopped just short of the door. She didn’t want to become a lonely spinster raising cats for companionship. She wanted more from life. She wanted something for herself. So she hesitated, and though she should not, she turned around.

As if on cue, he stepped forward. He was a tall, dark shadow conjured up by the swirling mists and backlit by the moon. Dark, dangerous, and oh, so appealing.

Before she could even think it through she said, “I accept your offer.”

“You accept?”

Phoebe heard the surprise in his voice. He hadn’t expected her to give in so fast. That was because he didn’t understand how truly alone she now was. How lonely. “Yes,” she went on before she could back down. “I’ll come to live at Farley Park and take care of your children.”

With that soft, breathy concession James won what he’d wanted from her. At least he had what he’d told her he wanted. But just as fast, like a single breath upon the wind, he knew it wasn’t enough. With the moonlight illuminating her face, he could see every emotion she felt, every fear and every hurt. He’d bullied her into this. It was good for him; certainly it was good for his children for her to be a part of his household. But was it good for her?

He would make it good, he told himself. He would make her happy to be his lover. More than happy. Ecstatic.

Yet a part of him knew that as long as she lived in at Farley Park she would never have the freedom to build a life of her own. She would become a peripheral part of his life and his children’s lives. His lover. Their governess. No room for a husband and family of her own.

But maybe that would be enough, he reasoned. Why couldn’t it be? And it wasn’t as if she couldn’t have children of her own. His children.

He reached out to her, to take what he wanted. It was the habit of a lifetime. He came, he saw, he conquered—at least when it came to women. But he always made it worth their while, he told himself as he drew her nearer. Always.

“I’ll make you happy you agreed to this, Phoebe. I promise. Will you come back to Farley Park with me tonight?”

She shook her head. “Not tonight. But tomorrow…”

Tomorrow was a long way off. Too long. Having achieved what he wanted, James immediately wanted more. He wanted her.

So he kissed her. Logic had nothing to do with it, nor kindness, nor anything but his own selfish need to possess her. He kissed her as he’d wanted to kiss her for days. Ever since that night…

He deepened the kiss and felt first accusation, then acceptance on her lips. He felt the pliancy of her body against his harder one, and the feminine strength of her that wanted to fight him, but instead relented. He reveled in her inner struggle, for it was like a storm from the sea striking the immutable shore. Violent. Magnificent.

They moved backward, her arched in his arms, him set on his course: to have this maddeningly delicious woman beneath him once more. Not on a settee this time, not hasty and secret. But slow and noisy.

His tongue probed within her mouth just as his erection wanted to probe her hot feminine core. Deep, rhythmic, hungry. When they came up against the door, he ground his loins against her belly.

“Damn you, Phoebe. You’ve been driving me mad.” He was like a green lad, uncontrollable in his lust; like a stud horse denied too long. But not anymore.

Not anymore.

He found the door handle, turned it, and felt it give behind her. At last. At last—

“Wait!” Phoebe twisted her face away from his and one of her hands caught the door frame. “Wait. We can’t do this.”

“We can. And we will,” Lord Farley said, staring down at her. “We both want to.”

Yes. They did.
Yet even so, Phoebe knew she shouldn’t want to. “No.” She caught the edge of the painted door frame and hung on by the frantic tips of her fingers. But her objection was a dust mote on a windy day, there, then swept away when his clever lips moved to the shell of her ear, down to the lobe, then farther, to the exquisitely sensitive skin on the side of her neck.

“Yes.” He bit the word into the hollow of her throat and slid it along her collarbone. “Yes.” His palm smoothed along her arm to her hand, replacing the door in her grasp. Palm to palm, fingers entwined.

She dissolved beneath him, sandstone battered by the relentless sea. His will was greater, his skills undeniable.

But in the end it was her own passion that most undermined her. Her own perverse yearnings. For this man roused something inside her that no man ever had. That sweet, forbidden spice of lust.

“Yes,” he murmured, and this time he lifted her off her feet and swept her into his arms as if she were the spoils of war and he some pirate plunderer.

She heard the door slam, kicked shut. He found the stairs and managed to climb the narrow passage without bumping her into a wall. Then they were in her bedroom, on the bed with her held captive between cool, creaking mattress and warm, throbbing male.

For one moment only, Phoebe thought of her mother. Emilean Churchill would die to know lust exploded like this within her meticulously managed household. But as fast as the thought came, it fled. He drove it out of her mind.

“First this,” he said, rolling half off her onto his side and unfastening the clasp of her cloak at the same time. He shoved the heavy garment off her shoulders. “Then this.” He began to unlace her bodice. But the whole time he kept his eyes locked with hers.

Had he looked away she might have found the strength to stop this madness. But he never looked away, not even to blink.

Her breaths came shallow and fast as the lacings gave ground to his clever fingers. “If we do this,” she said, “I cannot come…come to live at Farley Park.”

“Yes you can. You will.” He folded back her bodice to expose her chemise.

She shook her head. “It would be too difficult, too complicated.”

“No it wouldn’t.” With one simple tug her skirt strings came undone.

“What about…” What about Lady Catherine? she tried to ask. But he bent over and kissed her breast, kissed the very tip, right through the often-washed linen, and her objections turned into a groan.

After that she objected to nothing. He slid her skirt off and she helped by lifting her hips. He pushed her chemise up and she shifted to make it easier, to make it faster.

Then she lay back, embarrassed but too curious not to watch him remove his own clothing. Frock coat, waistcoat, shirt.

Ah, lust!

How glorious when the steamy heat in her belly flowed out to all her limbs, swamping her senses with desire. He kicked off his boots, peeled off his breeches, then stood tall and proud in the erratic shadows of the moonlit room. He looked so purely masculine that Phoebe wanted to cry.

He was here for her. Only her.

He returned to the bed, a powerful ghost lover intent on her pleasure. Hers. When had anyone ever cared about pleasing her? Never. Not once in her entire life had someone made any effort to please her. How could she protest it now, and why would she?

So with open arms and open heart she accepted him, relishing this moment of union and relegating everything else to some other part of her life.

Ah, sweet lust!

He came over her again, hot and hard and demanding.

But she was bolder than before, and she banished fear and shame. She pushed him back to the side and rolled on top of him, and kissed him with her whole being: mouth and breasts and belly and hands.

It was a heady feeling to be in charge, to be on top. She moved down, sliding on him and reveling in the coarse abrasion of his chest hair on her smoother skin, the solid flex of his muscles, and the ready prod of his erection.

His hands guided her to slide farther down his hard, mysterious body, so she continued her trail of curious kisses. She discovered his small, male nipples and flat stomach, his ripple of muscles and ribs, and concave navel. Then his arousal reared hot and hard between her breasts and for a moment she hesitated.

“Kiss me,” he growled, hoarse and hungry. Needy.

He needed her to kiss him there just as, despite her initial shock, she’d needed that most intimate kiss from him. So she slid down farther still, pressing kisses along that strange, smooth skin. He jerked in response, not just his arousal, but his entire self.

It gave her an incredible feeling of power, and added a new facet to lust:
she
was driving
him
mad with lust. The knowledge fired her own need higher still.

She went to kiss it again, but with an indecipherable oath he grabbed her arms and dragged her up until they were once more face to face. Then clasping her head between his hands, he kissed her, a kiss so deep and possessive she felt ravished to her very soul.

“Phoebe.” He groaned her name when they broke apart, gasping for breath.

“James,” she whispered, loving the feel of his name upon her lips.

He responded with a hand at her knee, a shifting of his hips. Then he was there, poised to deliver her from this agony of trembling need, of crushing desire. Of endless, forever love.

No, she caught herself. She meant lust.

Not love, but lust.

Yet when he came into her, a long, slow stroke that filled her heart as fully as it did her womb, the unbidden truth vibrated through her. It was as real as this house, as solid as the granite jut of land that formed Plummy Head. She loved James Lindford.

The crushing knowledge left her gasping for breath, and tears seeped from between her eyelashes. She loved him and nothing in his past could change that. Not Louise, not Lady Catherine. The future was theirs to make into whatever they needed, and if they tried, they could make it wonderful.

But it was the present that filled her with joy. It was him in her arms now, the heated stroke of him—pulling away, pushing back inside her—that the whole of her being focused upon.

Oh, the joy of lust and love and hot, slick friction!

He moved faster. He thrust deeper, an erotic empalement. Yet she didn’t feel vanquished. If anything she felt victorious. On and on. Higher, hotter. Lust, love. Dominance, submission.

Searing heat, painful joy. Then it came, that wonderful, violent collision that shook her to her core, that wrecked them together, that fused them into one.

“Phoebe!” He shouted her name as he spent himself within her. Her answer was to clench him deep, to hold him and drain him and keep part of him forever with her.

James. Her James.

She would never give him up. Never.

He didn’t leave her bed until very late.

Actually, it was very early if the truth be told, with the edges of dawn flirting along the dark horizon of the sea. But he didn’t go before loving her again, slower, but no less intense. The initial desperation of need became instead a dance of discovery, a quest for perfection.

It felt as if it were the first time for them again, as if she’d never participated in this primal act of joining before. But at the same time, she knew now what she wanted and what he wanted. It was a dream that made no sense, segueing from one delicious moment to the next, with logic completely unimportant.

The little webs between her fingers were not supposed to be erotic spots, but they were. She should not desire the lick of his tongue beneath the curve of her buttocks, but she did.

He should not groan and buck when she smoothed the long strands of her hair over him and wrapped his throbbing penis in the tangled webs. But he did and he punished her—rewarded her—by pinning her immobile beneath him, not allowing her even to twitch as he brought them to screaming completion.

In the aftermath there was only the harsh sound of their gasping breaths and the soughing of the insistent night winds beneath the eaves of the house.

“If I had my way,” he murmured into the sweaty darkness, “I would make you my captive, Phoebe. I would keep you hidden away for my pleasure only.” His hand moved along her rib cage, up to the curve of her breasts. One of his fingers circled her nipple, bringing it to renewed awareness.

Her eyes closed in helpless surrender. Would this need for him never cease? This lust? Certainly her love would not.

“And every night,” he continued, “I would come to you.” He plucked at the aroused nub. “And every morning.” He bent over and took the taut nipple between his teeth, teasing it with his lips and tongue until she whimpered for relief.

His hand slid down her belly toward the place that ached still for him, and she thrust eagerly up to his touch. One finger only he used, the merest touch of nail-tip over the fiery spot beneath her curls. Meanwhile his tongue flicked agonizingly over her breasts.

She reached for him, wanting a stronger touch. But he caught her hands and forced them over her head. “Hold tight to the bedstead,” he ordered. “Do it or I’ll leave.”

She did it. She didn’t really believe he’d go, but she did what he ordered anyway.

Satisfied, he resumed those faint, tormenting caresses, so feather-light that she had to fight for the completion they promised. Every part of her struggled for that point of carnal saturation until even the trickle of sweat down her side was arousing, even the slide of her foot upon the soft, rumpled bed linens.

Each stroke became fainter still, each movement briefer and more tantalizing, until Phoebe was reaching deep within herself for the release she so urgently sought.

When at last it came, it was an explosion, arching her up from the bed, convulsing every bit of her from toes to nose to fingertips. It thundered through her body, caught on a tidal flood of fire and ecstasy. Then it left her, as if for dead.

“Dream of me,” he said as he bent over her inert form and kissed her good-bye. “Dream of me waking and sleeping, Phoebe. And know that this is just the beginning for us.”

Then he left, a herald of the dawn, if the warming light in her room was any indication. And a herald of a new dawn in her life as well.

She loved him.

“I love you,” she called, a hoarse whisper in the sex-saturated air of her little room.

But he was already gone and she was too depleted to move. Too depleted, yet also too filled with emotions. Love, lust, happiness. Exhaustion.

She rolled over, feeling muscles she didn’t know she possessed. But it felt so good. So good…She pulled the sheet and blanket over her—she’d never slept naked before.

But then, there was a first time for everything.

A distant rapping awakened Phoebe, followed by a shout from far, far away.

“Phoebe. Phoebe girl! Where are you?”

Mrs. Leake!

Phoebe shot out of bed, fueled by instinctive guilt. Mrs. Leake was here; that meant she must know!

“Aren’t you awake yet?” The woman’s voice came from inside the house now. “Have you taken ill?”

“I’m…I’m fine,” Phoebe managed to call out.
And I’m naked.
Dear God! “Don’t come up,” she squeaked. “I’ll be right down.”

Like a madwoman Phoebe searched for her chemise and skirt and bodice. Her bedroom looked like a storm had torn through it with clothes and bedding and even the woven carpet thrown every which way. She frowned as she tugged her clothes on. Anyone who caught sight of it would know exactly what had gone on in here last night.

When she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she was appalled at the sight. Puffy lips, sleep-deprived eyes, and knotted hair.

Anyone looking at her would have to know what she’d done last night. Done, then done again. Then done one more time still.

She paused, breathless and momentarily weakened by the impossible memory of last night. It had been so wonderful. So perfect. She hated that Mrs. Leake’s presence made it seem tawdry.

“Land’s sake,” the woman called up the stairwell to her. “I’ve never heard the like, sleeping past ten o’clock. Are you well?”

“I’m fine. I’m…I’m coming.” Phoebe slipped into clogs and wrapped her hair in a work turban. Then she closed the bedroom door and descended on shaky legs to the main floor. “I wasn’t expecting callers today,” she said when she came into the kitchen.

Her unsubtle rebuke flowed right off Mrs. Leake’s back. The woman had already made herself at home, stirring up the embers and adding kindling to the firebox. “I was worried about you, child. All alone here.” She looked up and squinted. “You don’t look particularly well. Are you sure you’re feeling quite yourself?”

Actually, no.
Phoebe’s legs were quivering, the muscles weak from last night’s exertions, so she sat down hard in a chair.

“You’ve been grieving, haven’t you? That’s what’s making you ill.” Mrs. Leake pressed a hand to her forehead. “No fever. So I’m right. You’re grieving over our Helen.”

Phoebe braced an elbow on the table and rested her forehead on her hand. The awful truth was that during the long night of lovemaking with James, she hadn’t once thought of Helen. Now, although she felt guilty for misleading Mrs. Leake, she could hardly correct the woman’s misconception. So she let the woman bustle about, boiling water, fixing tea, and feeding the cat.

“Your goats will need attention shortly.”

“Yes. I know.”

“I take it you’re not going up to the Park today.”

Phoebe shook her head. “Not today.” But perhaps she’d have a visitor later…

She lifted her head and rubbed her bleary eyes. “I wonder if you could help me, Mrs. Leake.”

“Why, that’s precisely why I’m here, child. To help you.”

“I need to hire a maid, someone who’ll mind the house and tend the stock while I’m otherwise occupied.”

“So he’s paying you well enough that you can hire help yourself.” The woman pursed her lips, weighing the matter in her mind. “I suppose that’s good. As for finding someone, well, that shouldn’t be too difficult, what with jobs being so scarce around these parts.”