"Aye, she is fair, but I'll
warn you she's in a bit of a state tonight. Don't be surprised if she's harsh
with you."
"Harsh with me? Why?"
"Because she was worried
about you, fool." Cook chuckled and replaced the lid on the pot.
"She was?" Well, well.
Could she possibly be thinking of him as much as he was thinking of her?
But his thoughts bent toward the
carnal, not the emotional. The only reason he thought about Susanna was because
he wanted to bed her, and once he'd done that, he could focus better on his
job. There were too many distractions where she was concerned, and it was time
to put a stop to them. Once he scratched that particular itch, the other
thoughts that plagued him would go away.
He intended to scratch it
tonight.
"We were all worried,"
Bessie added. "Don't stay out so late next time without telling us."
"Yes, ma'am."
Cook grunted and pointed a wooden
spoon at him but then she broke into a smile. "Ah, you're the devil you
are, with those dimples and blue eyes. I swear you just have to twinkle them at
me and I'll believe everything you say. No wonder the girls in the village are
all a-flutter over you."
"They are? I hadn't
noticed."
"Course you haven't."
"Where were you today anyway?"
Bessie asked.
"I went for a walk," he
said.
"All afternoon and into the
dark?"
"I got lost."
Both women seemed to accept his
explanation, something for which he was grateful. He didn't like lying to them.
It was akin to lying to his mother and although he'd done it easily enough as a
young lad, after his father died, guilt stung his conscience every time he told
her he was going to practice archery out at Finsbury Fields when instead he visited
a girl or attended the theatre.
"I better go see if the
mistress needs help," Bessie said. "Will you be sleeping in her
parlor tonight, Mr. Holt?"
"No, he bloody well will
not," growled Hendricks from the doorway.
Cook and Bessie both looked to
Orlando. "I think that's up to the mistress to decide," he said,
slicing his mutton.
"I protest! The mistress...she..."
"Don't worry, Mr. Hendricks.
I didn't ravish her last night or the night before. What makes you think
tonight will be any different?" God, he hoped it would be different.
Another sleepless night with an aching groin and unwelcome thoughts about a
more permanent arrangement between himself and Susanna would be too much. He
put down his knife and regarded all three of the servants seriously. "I'm
exhausted," he said, quite honestly. "I haven't slept properly for
two nights. If you think me capable of doing much more than falling into a deep
sleep, you over-estimate my manliness."
Bessie's eyes widened, and Cook
let out a raucous laugh that made her whole body wobble. Only Hendricks
continued to scowl. "If you are so exhausted, what use are you sleeping in
her parlor? An intruder will walk right past you if what you say is true."
"Even in my deepest sleep,
I'm always alert to unusual sounds. It's a skill that has served me well on my
travels. I could not have survived without it."
Bessie covered a small squeal of horror
and bustled out of the kitchen. Hendricks said nothing but he too walked off.
Orlando exchanged a glance with Cook who shrugged, then he returned to his
supper. He was starving. Spying on Monk all afternoon without being seen was
tiring. The man was active, riding out with Lynden, walking around the gardens,
chatting to the other servants. Unfortunately Orlando had learned nothing from
his efforts. Monk was as much a mystery as ever.
***
Susanna didn't greet Orlando when
he entered her parlor carrying the spare mattress. She merely dismissed Bessie from
her bedchamber and closed the door on him. Much, much later, when the house was
quiet and her nerves were completely shredded, she went to the door separating
them.
She didn't open it. Instead, she
leaned her forehead against the solid oak and sighed. There was no point
opening it. No point in waking him and demanding he relieve her of the longing
that gnawed at her bones. No point starting something that she would regret.
She walked back to the window and
looked down. She could see the walled garden and her orange trees covered with
the canvases as well as the eastern approach to the house. Holt had returned
that way earlier in the evening. It had been dark and he carried neither torch nor
lamp, but she'd known he was there as surely as she knew he was still in her private
parlor now. She just knew.
A soft knock on the door made her
jump. She hesitated a moment then answered it. Orlando stood there holding a
candle, a sleepy smile curling his lips.
"You should be asleep,"
she said and winced at her pathetic attempt at light conversation.
"You disturbed me." His
voice sounded rough.
"I was very quiet. I
couldn't possibly have woken you."
"I didn't say I was asleep,
just that you disturbed me."
Go back to bed, Mr. Holt.
It's what she ought to have
said. She opened the door wider.
He didn't move, and she stopped
breathing. She must have read him wrong. He never wanted their flirtations to
go this far. It was all a terrible, humiliating mistake.
But then he crossed the
threshold. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes," she whispered. "Are
you?"
There was that smile again.
Sensual. Wicked. "That's not usually a question I'm asked at moments like this."
He held the candle up to her face and brushed his thumb across her lower lip.
"I'm sure, Susanna."
Her name was a whisper of silk, a
breath of air. She wanted to hear him say it again while he was inside her, but
she managed to stop herself from grasping him by his shirt and dragging him to
the bed. Just.
With a hand to his chest, she
gently pushed. He straightened and frowned, confused. His gaze faltered, and
she thought she'd ruined everything and he would storm out of her bedchamber.
Or worse, out of Stoneleigh. A heavy weight pressed down on her at the thought
and that alarmed her even more.
"Would you rather I called
you, m'lady?"
Just like that, the tension
between them burst like a bubble. She smiled, relieved. "Hearing you say
my name was a bit of a shock, I'll admit."
"You're not going to tell me
I get above myself, are you?"
"I should. Because you
are."
"It won't change anything."
He held the candle up to her face, illuminating his own at the same time. He no
longer smiled, and his eyes were as inky as a moonlit night. "It won't
change what I want to do to you in that bed," he murmured. "Or out of
it, if you prefer."
She drew in a shuddering breath.
"Anywhere. Everywhere." Her gaze focused on the triangle of bare skin
revealed by his partially unlaced shirt. She wanted to lick him there. "But
you need to know something first." It was an effort to talk, but she
managed to reign in her galloping desire.
"There's nothing you can
tell me that would persuade me to step back into your parlor and close the door.
Unless it's 'no.'"
"It's not that." She thought
she saw desire flicker in his eyes, but it could have been the reflection of
the flame. "What happens here, tonight, stays in this room. You tell no
one, and our arrangement remains the same."
He bent his head and kissed the
spot just beneath her ear. Her blood throbbed in response.
"As you wish," Orlando
murmured. Through the haze clouding his mind, he was aware of one clear
thought: relief. Bedding Susanna was what he needed to do, right now, this
moment. To hell with ignoring the desire between them—it had done nothing to alleviate
the ache in his groin. The only way he could get her out of his every thought
was to tumble her tonight. After that he could walk away or kill her if
necessary. No regrets. No ties. No unnecessary emotions. It was the only way.
He set the candle down on a table
and crossed the floor to the fire. He put on two more logs then, without further
ado, picked her up bodily. She wrapped her slender arms around his neck and
kissed him brutally. Her mouth was hungry, and he matched that hunger with his
own. He'd never wanted to bed a woman as much as he wanted to ravish Susanna.
Without breaking the kiss, he set
her down on the bed. She ran her hands through his hair, scrunching it in her
fingers, making sure he didn't move.
He wasn't going anywhere.
She broke the kiss and fumbled
with the laces on his shirt. In frustration, she tore it a little as she
dragged it off his shoulders.
"Perfect," she
murmured. Her teeth nipped his left shoulder and her lips followed it with
light kisses. "I've been wanting to do that for days."
He chuckled. "Since we're
playing out our fantasies..." He stretched alongside her and unlaced her nightshift.
The sight of the deep V between her breasts made his mouth go dry and his pulse
jump. He teased aside the cotton to reveal one plump nipple, ripe and ready. He
closed his mouth over it and groaned as the taste of her orange-scented water
and another aroma that was all Susanna teased his tongue.
She replied with a matching groan
of her own and an arch of her back. "Yesssss," she murmured. "Orlando..."
God, but it was good to hear his
name from her lips. She gripped his shoulders and hung on as if anchoring
herself to him. He liked that. Liked it a lot.
He switched his attention to her
other nipple, cupping her breast to push it up and out, into his mouth where he
could lavish it with all the attention the morsel deserved. He rolled on top of
her and hovered, careful not to crush her. Beneath him, she drew up her legs.
He leaned away, breaking the
contact and she whimpered. "Come back," she said.
"I want to look at you
first." The logs on the fire had caught, throwing more light into the
bedchamber. She was everything he'd known she would be under the manly
gardening clothes. Slender limbed, soft, round breasts topped with fat nipples,
an elegant neck and the face of a goddess. Worthy of a master painter. And all
his.
For tonight.
A blush crept up her throat and
she drew the edges of her nightshift together. He stayed her hand with his own.
"Don't. You're beautiful."
She winced. With pain? Disappointment?
Hell
. What had he said? Women liked to hear they looked beautiful. He
should know, he'd told enough of them in just such a moment. None had looked as
extraordinary as Susanna, though, and none had reacted like her.
Fear squeezed his insides. Fear
that she would end this before it had begun. So he kissed her again. It wasn't
as hungry, but it was just as urgent. Her long fingers pushed his hair off his
face and kept his mouth right where he wanted it to be. On hers.
She hadn't changed her mind.
Thank God.
But the kiss wasn't enough. He
needed to see the rest of her, needed to feel her naked body sliding against
his. He broke the kiss and stood, pulling her off the bed with him. Wordlessly,
he undressed and reached for her to help her out of the nightshift, but she put
a hand against his chest.
"My turn," she said,
her voice throaty. She stepped back, crossed her arms and her gaze stroked him
from head to toe and back up again, lingering on his cock. It jutted out, hard
and pulsing for her touch.
She licked her lips and his mind
fled. He went to her, but again she held up her hand.
He groaned. "Are you trying
to torture me?"
With a devilish smile playing on
her lips, she circled her finger in the air. He turned. Her hands on his
shoulders stopped him when his back was to her. Slowly and somewhat painfully
for his waiting cock, she traced his spine with her fingertip all the way to
his arse. Both hands cupped his cheeks, and her thumbs stroked the curves of
muscle slowly, deliberately, as if she were studying him and was fascinated by
what she saw.
"Can I turn around?" he
rasped.
"No."
"You really are torturing
me."
Her fingers slipped down and he
parted his legs so that she could toy with his balls. He bit down on his lip
against the jolt spiking through him, centering on his groin. He tasted blood
and didn't care. He could feel nothing except her fingers on his heavy sacks.
Along his shaft. Up to the tip of his cock.
Everything in him tightened, like
a trap poised to spring. A long, loud groan filled the room as he held the tide
back.
Not yet. Not yet.
He reached up and grabbed the bed's tester to
stop himself stumbling forward, to give himself something solid to hold in a
room spinning out of control.
"Stop..." But he didn't
want to stop and she knew that, the vixen. Her thumb circled the head of his
cock, slick with his own juices, and he wanted to beg for release.
Then suddenly her hands were
gone. His head fell forward and, unbalanced, he gripped the tester harder. "Susanna...?"
he muttered. He couldn't form the question, his tongue wouldn't work.
The rustle of cotton behind him
gave him all the answer he needed. Before he could turn, she wrapped her arms
around him and leaned into his back. Her luscious, lovely breasts pressed
against him. No way was he going to have her naked in his presence and not look
at her.
He turned in her arms, and his
cock throbbed at the sight of her. If he'd been capable of thinking and
speaking, he might have said something poetic about her loveliness but he
wasn't and he didn't know if she wanted to hear it anyway.