The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (31 page)

“People are watching,” she exclaimed. “After the exhibit you just made of yourself—”

“She told me that you winkled it out of her. About Pyke’s debts and why she and the children are in my care.”

“Of course. As if I would truly believe Mrs. Pyke was your mistress!”

“But you kept up the pretense.”

“Why not? You recently lamented the fact that I had lost my sense of fun.”

Grabbing her hand, he hurried her through the small vestibule and into the gentlemen’s cloakroom.

“Whatever is the matter now?” she demanded.

“This is more the fun I had in mind.” He kicked the door shut behind him, and there in the dark, among the discarded greatcoats, Rafe kissed her, wrapping her in his arms, wanting to keep her in them forever. The need overflowed this evening, and it was too late for any attempt at good behavior. She pushed him back, whispering that they may have been seen, but he advanced again until they were both surrounded by coats, lost among them. Even when she cursed and struggled to get away, her slender arms in their long silk gloves seemed to be reaching for him. Her fingers made a pretense of slapping at him and ran teasingly along the broad slope of his shoulders. The warmth of her body, the soft curves undulating against his hard chest, only pulled him closer. And he ached for her.

Sweeping his hands down the sway of her spine, he reached her bottom and caressed it. She shivered. Her gasps tickled his cheek, then her rushed breath warmed his mouth, moistening his lips.

“Kiss me,” he demanded, needing her surrender in the darkness.

“No. How dare you compromise me yet again?”

“Kiss me,” he said again, his voice gruff, hard.

There was a small sound, like a mewl of despair. He knew the feeling.

At last came the kiss. An angry one, more complaint than submission. After a moment, as she began to withdraw from it, he deepened the kiss, made her give more, and he took it. She melted through the coats until she was against the wall. Her sweet perfume filled his senses, reminded him of the herb garden at his uncle’s house, where he’d arrived as a boy of ten. He could almost hear the bees droning amid the chalky mauve flowers. Coming there to live, he’d finally known happiness for the first time in his life, begun to think he might belong somewhere. It was the scent of coming home.

Her fingers slid down his chest to the buttons of his waistcoat, where they worked quickly. Ah, she was eager. His kisses moved to her chin, her cheek, her ear, the side of her neck. Here the perfume was even stronger, and he could imagine her seated at a dressing-table mirror, dabbing the scented oil on her pulse points, leaving little clues for him to follow. She was probably undressed while she sat there applying her perfume, he thought, the image foggy in his mind. Perhaps she wore stockings. Yes, just stockings. He pictured himself standing behind her, watching in her mirror as he reached around to cup her breasts and fondle them. A shudder of desire rippled through his body.

“Rafe.”

He licked her skin, let his tongue slip into the valley between her full breasts, where she was even warmer. Excitement lifted his cock, lengthened it.

“Rafe!” This time she spoke louder and pulled on his hair. “Rafe!”

Slightly annoyed, he looked up.

“There’s someone tapping at the door.”

Sure enough, as the blood stopped rushing quite so loudly through his ears, he heard the sound of a meek voice at the cloakroom door. “Mr. Rafe Hartley, sir. You’re needed at the farm, sir. Bessie’s calf-bed has come out. Young Will has been trying to get it back in, but it’s a right mess, sir.”

He set Mercy back on her feet and gathered his breath as best he could. “I’ll come at once,” he choked out.

In the darkness, he couldn’t see her features, but he could hear her unsteady breathing.

“I must go,” he muttered.

He kissed her quickly, just once more, while she stood limp against the wall. Then he left the cloakroom. As he followed the messenger boy down the stairs to the alley below, he made a hasty check of his clothes and discovered that Mercy had rebuttoned his waistcoat, putting the errant buttons back in their proper holes. Even in the dark, even in the heat of passion, she was anxious that everything be in order.

He mounted his horse and glanced upward at the glow of candles through the windows. Music still played, accompanied by the dancers’ merry stomping. He only hoped Mercy would not find anyone else to dance with. With any luck, he’d left her in a knee-weakened state. It was damned frustrating that he had to leave her at all.

And it was bloody inconvenient to be in love with one’s former wife.

Smiling haplessly, he steered his horse for home.

***

It was, she supposed, a farmer’s lot. Always there was some catastrophe with which to deal. She never had anything more trying to worry about than a wine stain on a crinoline.

Mercy waited a while before she exited the cloakroom, listening at the door first to be sure there was no one near. But if the messenger had been told to find Rafe in the cloakroom, someone must have seen them go in. It was a sobering thought. Once again, she’d flirted with scandal by letting him take her in there. Letting him kiss her that way. She had no excuse for it. Not a solitary glass of punch had passed her lips tonight.

She crossed the empty vestibule and reentered the ballroom. A few faces turned to observe her, and she thought she heard an odd snicker or two among them. Several fans fluttered a little too fast, and more than one gentleman cast her a knowing smirk.

This was very bad. She had forgotten herself with him again. This time in public.

Chin high, she walked to where Mrs. Hartley stood waving to her. Mercy’s heart was throbbing, butterflies beating their wings in her belly, but even with that madness inside, when she caught her reflection in a mirrored panel, a calm, composed face looked back at her. No blush of guilt, just a sultry twinkle in her eyes that might reveal—to an observant soul—mischief afoot.

It was suddenly very dull without Rafe, as if some of the candles were snuffed, she thought, one hand slyly checking her curls and the little flowers nestled among them. He hadn’t even stayed for half the ball, yet he’d made quite a stir, and now his loss was felt. It was his wicked charm, of course. That carefree manner that stopped at no boundary.

May he not ride home too incautiously, too hastily. Oh, what if he was thrown from his horse and lay injured on the dark road? What if he was set upon by robbers in the night? He could be dead already or minutes from it.

There she was again already, letting her imagination ornament a few facts into wild fiction, as Edward Hobbs would say.

Rafe could look after himself.

He couldn’t, though, could he? That was just the problem. What was she going to do about him? About them?

This sneaking about would not do. It was a sure way to court scandal.

But she wanted him. Every pore on her skin, every hair on her head, yearned for his touch. Mercy could no longer pretend that her concern for him was merely that of one old friend for another. In his case, she was not the detached observer she’d intended to be. She was entangled, ensnared too deeply to find her way out.

She looked around for Mrs. Pyke and saw her sleeping in a chair under a sconce, a half-eaten slice of cake in her lap. There, a short distance away, was Mrs. Kenton, conversing with her weepy sister at the punch bowl. They both looked over at Mercy, and she knew, at once, they’d seen her go with Rafe into the cloakroom. It felt as if the entire room spun, and the floor cleared around her. Whispers of scandal floated in the air along with the dustbeams stirred by the dancers’ feet.

She took a breath. And then another. Their next encounter, she decided in that instant, would be on her terms. No more hide-and-seek. No more games of chance. She, Mercy Danforthe, must take control of the situation before it got even further out of her hands.

Mr. James Hartley suddenly materialized at her side and courteously offered his services for the next dance. She took his hand, sincerely expressing her gratitude and feeling as if she would forever be in his debt.

“Mayhap, Lady Mercy, it is time you left Morecroft,” he said, his tone kindly but firm.

She nodded her agreement, but what she had in mind was probably not what he expected.

It took a while to get the cow settled again, the calf-bed back. When it was done, he went back to the house, stripped off his soiled clothes, and washed his chest and shoulders. He pulled on some clean clothes and sat by the fire a while, thinking about Mercy, trying not to imagine her dancing at the ball without him. Once again, they’d left the matter between them undone. He wondered if it would ever be finished, if they would ever find a way to bridge the weir.

He stirred up the fire as he felt a sudden brisk chill. But then he heard the door hinges, and he knew it must have blown open. He turned.

His mind was surely playing tricks.

A woman stood in the open doorway. A woman in an evening gown and long white silk gloves. She was shivering in the cold. “I know we don’t belong together,” she said simply. “And I know we should never have kissed, should never have thought of each other this way. But I want to make love to you. I want us to have the wedding night we never had. This is our chance, and we should make the most of it. We have a few hours until dawn. Will it be enough?”

***

She waited, watching him, hoping she hadn’t just made a fool of herself.

Rafe stood with a poker in his hand, as if he might need to defend himself, she mused. “What made you change your mind, Brat?” he demanded, hoarse.

“Must have been the jealousy, country boy,” she replied wryly. “Watching you dance with Mrs. Pyke.”

Finally he put the poker back on its hook. “Shut the door. ’Tis damn cold out.”

“I know. I rode all the way here in your stepmother’s curricle. No coat.” She held out her arms and walked toward him. “I must be mad.”

Rafe raised his fingers to her hair and began slowly removing the little flowers. “Jealous, eh?”

“Yes. Jealousy and lust.” She knew he wanted to hear her admit that she had faults.

He kissed her eyelids and then the tip of her cold nose. “I daresay everyone saw the lust in your eyes tonight, madam. It was quite blatant.”

“Perhaps.” She felt her heart skipping and dancing like a spring lamb. Perfectly ridiculous, and yet she couldn’t stop it. “But here I am now.”

He sighed.
“Women!”

She tugged on his shirt and pulled it up over his head.
“Men!”
Mercy ran her hands slowly up his chest and examined the smooth planes, admiring the gleam of firelight across those gentle hills and valleys. “You are too beautiful, Rafe Hartley. So exquisitely created.”

His eyes shone down at her, wickedly amused. “To you, I’m just a peacock-feather muff, my lady.”

“Take me upstairs then, and I’ll try you on.”

He took a step back. “No,” he said. “Right here. By the fire.” He fell back onto the settle. “Undress. My lady.”

Her rambling heartbeat echoed in her ears, but faded in and out. Rafe Hartley sat before her, arms tucked behind his head, thighs spread, eyes narrowed.

“I want you naked before me,” he said.

She rather got the impression that, despite his claim of never planning anything, he’d pictured this moment for some time. The only thing not relaxed about his pose was the item between his legs, plainly to be seen jerking against his breeches and stretched almost to his navel.

Too late for shyness or an attack of nerves, she decided. Time for the Danforthe courage to be put to its greatest test.

She reached behind her neck for the little hooks at the nape of his stepmother’s gown. Slowly, she began to shed her layers. All the way to her corset, chemise, and stockings.

At that point he instructed her to raise each foot to his thigh, and then he made much of removing the silk stockings for her while his rough fingertips stroked her calves.

“Turn” he growled.

“Why?”

“Turn.”

Grumbling under her breath, she turned until her back was to him, and then his hands raised her chemise over her bottom. Warm air kissed her buttocks, and so did he. Then he spanked her. Hard. Just one cheek, but it smarted. She glared over her shoulder.

“That’s for making me wait five years,” he said, grinning.

She looked away again, wondering if he meant to spank her some more. She quite liked it but would never ask, and certainly would never admit it. The sting of his palm still heated her right cheek. But no more came.

She heard his knuckles cracking.

“I’ll need your help with the corset laces,” she said, beginning to enjoy the undressing far more than she expected. When she’d first set off in the curricle tonight, she had her mind set only on the moment of consummation, but now she saw there was more to this. Seduction, she thought suddenly. It had all been his up until that point. Now it was her turn.

She lowered herself to the edge of his seat and perched her bottom on the wood between his spread knees. “Undo me.”

“Are you sure, my lady?”

Mercy frowned. “Yes. Make haste.”

Several moments passed with nothing but the crackling fire to fill the silence. Then he hitched forward, and she felt his fingers on the laces. He was savoring her, she realized. Savoring the moment of her submission.

Well, as he said, she had made him wait five years.

His fingers tugged on her corset laces, much slower than before, each one slipping through his grip almost gracefully. She felt his breath on the nape of her neck and then the damp stripe left by a slow lap of his hot tongue. “Stand before me.”

“But my corset—”

“Stand and face me.”

She was still half-laced, but she obeyed his command. A curious first for her to obey any man, but she did. She wanted what he had to offer, and she couldn’t risk one of their arguments now, not with her need at fever pitch.

While perched on the edge of the settle, he lifted her chemise until she was revealed to him, his face level with her naked womanhood, and then his tongue found her pearl again. His hands reached for her bottom, gripping her hard, fingers splayed as he pulled her against his mouth. A startled gasp flew out of her, and she held his head to steady her swaying body. Somehow her semiundressed state made it even more wicked, her half-unlaced bodice curled from her waist, the straps of her short chemise dripping from her shoulders.