Slightly Wicked (3 page)

She was, she realized, still talking in that voice she had used at the roadside. And, incredibly, he believed her story. It was evident in his words and in the look in his eyes—amused, appreciative, knowing. Branwell, after he had first gone away to university and into the great wide world, had once told his sisters—in the absence of Papa—that London actresses almost always supplemented their income by being mistresses to the rich and titled. She was wading in dangerous waters, Judith thought. But it was for only three miles, for only an hour.

“I wish I could see you onstage,” Mr. Bedard said, and his arm tightened about her while the backs of his leather-gloved fingers raised her chin.

He kissed her. On the mouth.

It did not last long. He was, after all, riding a horse over treacherous roads with a passenger hampering both his own movements and those of his horse. He could ill afford the distraction of a lengthy embrace.

But it lasted long enough. Quite long enough for a woman who had never been kissed before. His lips were parted, and Judith felt the moist heat of his mouth against her own. Seconds, or perhaps only a fraction of one second, before her brain could register either shock or outrage, every part of her body reacted. Her lips sizzled with a sensation that spread beyond them, through her mouth, into her throat, and up behind her nostrils. There was a tightening in her breasts, and a powerful ache down through her stomach and her womb and along the insides of her thighs.

“Oh,” she said when it was over. But before she could express her indignation over such an insolent liberty, she remembered that she was Claire Campbell, famous provincial actress, and that actresses, even if not the mistresses of the rich and titled, were expected to know a thing or two about life. She looked into his eyes and smiled dreamily.

Why not?
she thought recklessly. Why not live out her fantasy for this short little spell to discover where it might lead? This first kiss, after all, would probably also be her last.

Mr. Bedard smiled back at her with lazy, mocking eyes.

“Oh, indeed,” he said.

CHAPTER II

W
hat the devil was he doing getting involved—
very
involved—in a kiss while with every step it took Bucephalus was in danger of skidding and breaking a leg and tossing its two riders to a bumpy, muddy landing? Rannulf mentally shook his head.

She was an actress who claimed to prefer acting worthy parts to being ogled in a fashionable theater. Yet she was displaying all that artfully disarranged hair, which—if his eyes did not deceive him—was her natural color, and showing no apparent reluctance to be pressing all those warm, voluptuous curves against his front. The flush of color in her cheeks was natural too. She had a way of partially lowering her dark-lashed eyelids over her remarkable eyes—they
were
green—in a look of pure invitation if ever he had seen one. And her voice still caressed him like a velvet-gloved hand.

He was playing the game, was he? Well,
of course
he was playing the game. Why else had he given her a false name? Why would he not, especially when it had offered itself so unexpectedly, at a time when he had been contemplating a chaste few weeks with his grandmother? He had lusty appetites and was not about to turn down an invitation such as she was clearly offering. But even so—kissing on horseback? On a dangerously muddy road?

Rannulf chuckled inwardly. This was the stuff of fantasy.
Delicious
fantasy.

“What is
your
destination?” she asked him. “Are you going home to a wife? Or a sweetheart?”

“To neither,” he said. “I am single and unattached.”

“I am glad to hear it,” she told him. “I would hate to think of your having to confess that kiss to someone.”

He grinned at her. “I am on my way to spend a few weeks with friends,” he said. “Are those buildings I see up ahead? Or do my eyes deceive me?”

She turned her head to look. “No,” she said. “I believe you are right.”

It was going to start raining again any second. It would be good to get off the muddy road and inside a building. It was certainly necessary to report the wrecked carriage as soon as possible so that help could be dispatched. Nevertheless, Rannulf felt some regret that the town was coming upon them so soon. However, all might not be lost. It was going to be impossible for either of them to journey on today, close though he was to his own destination.

“Within a few minutes, then,” he said, lowering his head until his mouth was close to her ear, “we should be safe at an inn and help will have been sent to those poor stranded passengers. You will be relaxing in one warm, dry room and I in another. Will you be glad?”

“Yes, of course,” she said in a brisk voice that was unlike the one she had been using so far in their acquaintance.

Ah. He had mistaken the signs, had he? A mild flirtation on horseback was one thing, but anything further was not in her plans? He lifted his head and concentrated upon guiding his horse the final few yards to what looked like a sizable posting inn on the edge of a small town.

“No,” she said a few moments later, her voice low and throaty again. “No, I will not be glad.”

Ah.

I
t was warm and dry inside the inn, and for the first time in several hours Judith felt physically safe. But the inn was crowded. The yard outside had been bustling, and people were milling about inside, some of them at windows watching the sky, others clearly having decided to stop for the night.

She had a problem. She did not have enough money to pay for a room. But when she had mentioned that fact to Mr. Bedard, he had merely smiled that mocking smile at her and said nothing. Now he was standing at the reception desk speaking with the innkeeper while she stood a few feet away. Was it possible that he intended to pay for her room? Would she allow it? How would she ever pay him back?

She wished and wished that her brief, glorious adventure had not ended so soon. She wanted more. She would relive the past hour over and over in the coming days and weeks, she knew. She would relive that kiss perhaps forever. Poor forlorn spinster, she thought, giving herself a mental shake. But her spirits seemed to be flattened against the soles of her rather muddy half boots. She felt more depressed now than she had an hour ago, before he rode into her life.

He was a tall man and solidly built. His hair, she could see now that he had removed his hat, was indeed wavy. It was also thick and fair and almost touched his shoulders. If one mentally added a beard and a horned helmet, one could imagine him standing at the prow of a Viking ship directing an attack on a hapless Saxon village. With herself as a brave, defiant villager . . .

He turned away from the desk and closed the distance between them. He stood rather close to her and spoke low.

“A number of travelers have already taken refuge here,” he said. “And the passengers from the stagecoach are going to need rooms too. The inn will be overflowing tonight. There is, however, a smaller, quieter inn farther into the town, by the market green. It is used primarily on market days, but I have been assured that it is perfectly clean and comfortable. We could leave two rooms vacant here by removing there.”

There was a look in his eyes that was not exactly amusement and not exactly mockery. She could not interpret it though it sent shivers down to her very toes so that she found herself curling them involuntarily inside her half boots. She licked her lips.

“I have told you, Mr. Bedard,” she said, “that I do not have more than a few coins on me, having expected to journey straight through to York without stopping. I will remain here. I will sit in the dining room or in the window here until another stagecoach arrives to take me on my way.” Actually, she thought, she was probably not very far from Harewood Grange. They were in Leicestershire already, were they not?

His eyes smiled at her with that expression that was not quite mockery. “The innkeeper will have your portmanteau sent over as soon as it arrives,” he said. “The coach has a broken axle. The wait for another may be a long one, certainly an overnight one. You might as well wait in comfort.”

“But I cannot afford—” she began again.

He set one finger over her lips, startling her into silence.

“Ah, but I can,” he said. “I can afford the price of
one
room, at least.”

For a moment of utter stupidity she did not understand him. And then she did. She wondered that her face did not flame with such heat that she would set his finger on fire. She wondered that her knees did not buckle under her while she collapsed into a deep swoon. She wondered that she did not scream and slap his face with all the force of her outrage.

She did none of those things. Instead she hid behind the worldly mask of Claire Campbell while she felt the full force of temptation. She felt an almost overwhelming yearning to continue her adventure, her stolen dream. He was suggesting that they share a room at the other inn. He must surely intend too that they share a bed. He must intend that they have marital relations there—though
marital
was quite the wrong word, she supposed.

Today. Tonight. Within the next few hours.

She smiled Claire Campbell’s smile and was aware as she did so that no other answer was necessary. She was absolved of having to make any real decision or any verbal commitment. But nonetheless she
had
made a certain decision, otherwise Claire could not have smiled. Just once in her life she needed, she
desperately
needed, to do something gloriously outrageous and shocking and daring and . . . out of character.

She might never have another chance.

“I will go rescue my horse before he settles too comfortably into a stall,” he said, taking a step back from her, looking her over quickly from head to toe, and then turning in the direction of the outer door.

“Yes,” she agreed.

After all, nothing was final. She would not really go through with the whole scheme. When the time came, she would simply excuse herself and explain to him that he had misunderstood, that she was not that kind of woman. She would sleep on the floor or on a chair or
somewhere
he was not. He was a gentleman. He would not force her. She was merely extending her adventure by agreeing to go with him. She would not be doing anything irreversibly depraved.

Oh, yes, you will be,
a small voice inside her head told her, unbidden.
Oh, yes, you will be, my girl.
It spoke in the brisk tones of Judith Law at her most sensible.

T
he Rum and Puncheon was a small market inn. It was empty of guests though the taproom was crowded enough. Mr. and Mrs. Bedard were received with jovial hospitality and given the best room in the inn, a square, clean chamber that soon had a fire crackling in the hearth, a welcome buffer against the rain that was pattering against the windows, and a pitcher of hot water steaming on the washstand behind the screen. They would be served their dinner, they were assured, in the small dining parlor that adjoined their bedchamber. They would be cozy and private there, the innkeeper’s wife informed them, beaming at them as if she fully believed them to be a married couple.

Claire Campbell pushed back the hood of her cloak when they were alone together in their room and stood looking out the window. Rannulf tossed his cloak and hat onto a chair and looked at her. Her hair had lost even more of its pins and was looking considerably disheveled. Her green cloak was dark with damp at the shoulders, slightly muddied at the hem. His intention had been to tumble her into bed as soon as they arrived so that they might slake the first rush of their appetite. But the time did not feel right. He was a lusty man but not one of unbridled passions. Sex, after all, was an art as well as a necessary physical function. The art of sex needed atmosphere.

All evening and all night stretched before them. There was no hurry.

“You will wish to freshen up,” he said. “I will have a pint of ale in the taproom and come back up when dinner is ready. I’ll have a pot of tea sent up to you.”

She turned to him. “That would be kind of you,” she said.

He almost changed his mind. The color was high in her cheeks again, and her eyelids were slightly drooped in invitation. Her hair was rumpled, as though she had just risen from bed. He wanted to put her back there, himself on top of her and between her thighs and deep inside her.

Instead he made her a mocking bow and raised one eyebrow.

“Kind?” he said. “Now kindness is something I am not often accused of, ma’am.”

He spent all of an hour in the taproom, drinking his ale while a group of townsmen included him hospitably in their circle and asked his opinion of the weather and his observations on the state of the roads while puffing on their pipes and drinking deep from their tankards and agreeing sagely with one another that now they were going to pay for all the hot summer weather they had been enjoying for the past several weeks.

He went up to the private dining parlor when the landlady informed him that the food was about to be carried up. Claire was there, standing in the doorway between the two rooms, watching a maid set the table and then bring in the food and set it down.

“It is steak-and-kidney pie,” the girl said with a smile and a curtsy before she left the room and closed the door behind her. “The best for ten miles around, I do declare. Enjoy it. Ring when you want me to remove the dishes.”

“We will. Thank you,” Claire said.

Rannulf had been almost afraid to look at her until they were alone together. He had had only glimpses of the muslin dress beneath her cloak. Now he could see that it was a simply styled garment, unexpectedly modest for a woman of her profession. But she had been traveling by stage. She had probably needed to wear something that would not attract too much attention. The dress did nothing to hide the glories of the body beneath it, though. She was not slender even though her long limbs gave that initial impression. She was lusciously curved, her waist small, her hips flaring invitingly. Her breasts, full and firm, were every man’s dream come true.

She had not dressed her hair up. She had brushed it back from her face, and it fell in shining ripples over her shoulders and halfway down her back. It was a glorious, almost shocking shade of red with gold highlights that glinted in the late daylight. Her long, oval face had lost its flush of color and was as pale and delicate as porcelain. Her eyes looked startlingly green. And—yes, by Jove—there was something unexpected about the face, something that drew her down into the realm of mortality. He closed the distance between them and ran a finger lightly over her nose, from one cheek to the other.

“Freckles,” he said. The merest dusting of them.

Some of the color returned to her cheeks. “They were the bane of my childhood,” she said. “And alas, they have never completely disappeared.”

“They are charming,” he said. He had always admired goddesses. He had never bedded one. He liked his women made of flesh and blood. He had almost feared when he first came into the room that Claire Campbell was a goddess.