“Nay, my sweet. You cannot move, and you are
mine to torment.” He gave her a look of mock warning before
lowering his mouth to her waiting breast. She moaned and he felt
her fingers thread their way into his hair when he started to tease
and suckle.
This afternoon they had not had time for
discovering of each other’s bodies. Their lovemaking had been
passionate, powerful, and direct. It had not been a time for
seduction and exploration. But Nicholas was determined to give her
just that now.
He let his mouth trail to the other breast
where he feasted until her breaths became ragged. He slid still
lower, and his lips kissed their way down her soft, smooth stomach.
His fingers were deliberately slow as they undid her breeches and
began pushing it over her hips.
“Nicholas…”
Jane’s hands reached for him as he moved
down on the cot and removed her boots and stockings and peeled the
breeches from her legs.
“Come to me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I
need you now.”
“Yes…and I need you.”
Her naked limbs were a glimpse of eternal
beauty glowing before his eyes. They were unmatched in art. Not
Michelangelo or Botticelli or Titian—or any of the modern masters,
either—had ever captured the curve of this foot where it bowed
gently from toe to heel. He lifted it and placed his lips there. He
slipped his fingers over the tapered lines of the ankle to the
softly muscled calf and the perfect machinery of this knee. He
kissed the dimpled skin and smiled at the little panting sounds of
her breathing. With her foot now resting in his lap, his hands
caressed with the lightest touch the firm flesh of her thigh until
they reached the apex of their journey, that tantalizing triangle
of hair and the moist folds beneath.
He saw her breathing heavily, her breasts
rising and falling with no discernible regularity. But her dark
eyes were watching every move he made.
“Nicholas…I never…I…”
This was the response he’d been waiting for,
so he pressed his mouth to her moist flesh. He heard her moan as he
entered and stroked her with fingers and lips and tongue, suckling
the very center of her womanhood until he knew she had entered a
paradise of bliss.
When she cried out softly, clutching at the
cot as her body arched and shuddered, he knew that no artistic joy
could ever rival the natural joys that lovers share.
Slowly, he relented in his ministrations as
her waves of ecstasy subsided—for the moment.
“Nicholas,” she whispered, reaching for
him.
He sat up just out of her reach and
discarded his shirt. “Not yet, my love.”
Her eyes were smoky pools of ebony as she
watched him stand and remove the rest of his clothes. When he
tossed his breeches aside, her gaze narrowed as it fell upon his
erect manhood.
A soft blush colored her cheeks and spread
down her neck and breasts. “Is it possible that you…and I…”
“Let me show you the possibilities.”
Moving back between her legs, he pressed her
down against the cot and kissed her as the head of his staff
entered the slick folds. She drew a sharp breath as he drove into
her, and he silenced her cries with his mouth.
Passion that he’d never known overwhelmed
him when the spasms of her tight sheath closed around him. When her
hands clutched at his buttocks, he felt her drawing him even
deeper, demanding that he drive into her again and again, filling
her sweet depths with his own pulsating flesh. Together, they found
the rhythm of the dance, and together they rose to what he was sure
must be the very heights of Elysium.
When her release came, it came with the
sweet abandon of the innocent, triggering a matching explosion in
his head and in his loins. He muffled his cries against her throat
as he continued to drive into her, pouring his seed into her body.
As he came, she wrapped her legs around his hips and kept him
locked in her arms and in her body.
A long time passed before either could speak
or even catch their ragged breaths.
“How long can we stay up here without being
discovered?” he managed to ask finally. He lifted his head and
looked into her beautiful flushed face.
“A long, long time. Months probably. No one
ever comes up here, but me.”
“Good.” With their bodies still joined, he
felt himself hardening again inside of her. He rolled Jane on the
cot, until she was on top. He took hold of her buttocks and drew
her tightly against him, eliciting a surprised gasp. He gazed at
her full breasts pressed against him—the cascading ringlets of hair
framing her smiling face. He was once again fully erect.
“You want to make love again?”
“Actually, I was hoping for a tour of this
magnificent gallery of art. But, of course, I shall need little
enticements between the works, to keep my attention and sustain my
self-esteem. I am very limited in my talents, you know.”
“I fear I cannot agree on that score at the
moment,” she said, raising an eyebrow and then smiling. “But what
kind of enticement did you have in mind, sir?”
He let his gaze travel around the large
space. “Let me see…after we have finished with this cot, we would
need to make love with you on my lap in that chair. And perhaps
once against the wall…and once again with you facing the wall. We
definitely need to try the strength of your worktable. And then
that beam certainly has an interesting angle to it, I should
say…”
Laughing, she pounded her fist lightly on
his chest. “You are not planning to take advantage of a poor artist
now, are you?”
“Of course I am.” He pulled her knees until
she was upright and straddling him. Lifting her bottom, he lowered
her again, driving deep inside of her. “Indeed, I am planning to
make love to you many times, in many ways, until you beg me to
stop. And then I shall set a condition for stopping…temporarily…and
you shall be forced to agree.”
“What…what is the condition?” she asked
vaguely, rotating her hips slowly on top of him.
“That you marry me, Jane.”
***
The dawn had barely broken in the eastern
sky when Jane cast a last wistful eye over her work area and
started down the steps. She had sent Nicholas away about an hour
ago, after convincing him that she would definitely make an
appearance downstairs in a couple of hours.
It had taken longer than she’d expected to
put her attic workplace back in order, she thought, fighting back a
smile.
Marry me, Jane
.
Marry me,
Jane
.
Her smile disappeared. Like some liturgical
chant, Nicholas’s words kept repeating over and over in her head.
She had avoided answering him, but she could not prevent the
warming power of it over her heart and her mind. Even to allow
herself to dream of spending the rest of her life with him was far
beyond anything she’d ever allowed herself to hope.
She loved him. She knew that. And indeed,
she had found the most passionate and fulfilling moments of her
life in his arms. This, she had thought, would be the extent of it.
It was all she could have hoped for. A moment and a memory.
But to
marry
him…
Jane still had a smile on her face when she
opened the door of her bedchamber and stepped into the
half-darkness of the room.
“Late night for you. Or should I say ‘early
morning.’”
Startled, Jane turned around and found Clara
sitting on her bed. The young woman’s back was against the
headboard, her face hidden in the shadows. Her slippered feet were
stretched out on the undisturbed bedclothes.
“Early would be correct,” Jane answered
brightly. She had an impulse to run over and hug her sister, but
fought it. This foolish giddiness was a sensation so new, but she
didn’t want to frighten anyone. “Good morning, Clara! Why are you
up so early?”
Without waiting for an answer, she laid out
underclothes and a dress. The water in the basin was cold, but she
didn’t care. She dipped a washcloth in it, and started to
undress.
“I have been up all night.”
“Are you feeling unwell?” Jane asked over
her shoulder, thankful for the darkness of the room for it occurred
to her that her fair skin might show the marks of Nicholas’s
attentions.
“You might say that.”
“Then why are you here? You should have
stayed in bed. I shall go and ask Fey to bring up…”
“
Nothing
that Fey could bring up
would make me feel better.” Clara’s feet swung over the bed and
made contact with the floor.
Jane heard the touch of sadness and temper
in Clara’s voice, and she paused in her washing and wrapped herself
in a linen wrap.
“What is wrong?” she asked softly, moving
toward the younger woman.
“
You
are what is wrong.”
Jane came to an abrupt stop. “I…?”
“Yes…you and your thoughtlessness.” Clara
stood up. “You and your lack of consideration for anyone else in
this family.”
Jane bristled at the charge. “What is Sir
Thomas is accusing me of now?”
“This is not about Father.” Clara moved out
of the shadows. The tear stains and swollen eyelids were a shock to
Jane. “And this is not about Mother. This is about me, Jane—your
only sister—the one in this family that you have always claimed you
cared for.”
Jane opened her mouth to ask more questions,
but immediately shut it as a sickening feeling gripped her
middle.
“What do you have against me?” Fresh tears
rolled down Clara’s cheeks as she came within a step. “Why is it
that you…are so set against seeing me happy?”
“I…I do not…”
“It is jealousy, is it not?” Clara attacked
before Jane had a chance to find her words. “You have managed to
ruin your own life. Now you cannot accept the fact that I might
have a chance…a chance to get away from the disgrace you brought
upon our family. You are jealous of me ever being happy.”
“That is not true.”
“You are lying,” the younger woman snapped.
“Why else would you intentionally keep him away from me? Sir
Nicholas came to Ireland for
me
! He wanted
me
! But
you could not stop yourself from hurting me. You had to take the
happiness that should have been
mine
.”
“
You
were the one who pushed him
away.” Jane was able to find her voice as the arguments roiled
inside her. “You…you were the one who forced me to come with
you…and then pushed him at me.”
“So it was right for you took advantage of
my shyness? You could not let him be…or give me time to…to find
myself. To become accustomed to him. It was right for you to take
him away to Ballyclough yesterday…and the day before that. Do not
deny any of it, Jane. I am no fool. I know he was with you that
day, as well.”
The thought ripping through Jane’s mind at
that instant was that Clara didn’t know about last night. She had
no way of knowing the two of them had been making love all night
only two floors above where they now stood.
“What do you hope to accomplish by any of
this, Jane?” The younger sister seethed. “Do you believe you are
good enough to become his wife? Are you so selfish that you will
not hesitate to bring shame to another family’s honor? And what
about your dear Shanavests? How will you manage to keep him while
you are riding about the countryside until dawn…like this… with
groups of ruffians and marauders and
traitors
?”
Tears sprang to Jane’s eyes. She sat heavily
on the edge of a chair. She tried to swallow the painful knot in
her throat and speak.
“But there was no marriage proposal. I…I was
told that he…did not ask…for…”
“He did not ask…
yet
!” Clara snapped.
“But given the time, he would…he still will…if you
let
him
be.”
Jane turned her face away as tears slid down
her cheeks. She felt Clara’s hand on her knee as the younger woman
crouched beside her.
“I have never asked anything of you, Jane,
but I ask you this. Please do not ruin this chance for me.” Her
voice was no more than a soft whisper. “If you ever loved me as a
sister…if you care even a little for me…then please give me a
chance to win his affection.” Clara clutched Jane’s hand. “I need
this chance. I need him to take me away from this place…from this
godforsaken land. I promise to make him happy, Jane. I will be as
good for him as he is for me.”
Jane turned around and looked into her
sister’s face through a sheen of tears. “I cannot tell him whom to
marry…or whom to love. That is not the kind of man he is.”
“Then go away, Jane. Leave Woodfield House
and stay with one of the dozens of friends you have around here.
Let
me
convince him.” Clara squeezed Jane’s hand hard.
“Please.”
The doors of the study were closed and
locked. On direct orders from Sir Thomas, the arrival of their
visitor was not announced to the mistress of the house or to anyone
else. This meeting was highly private.
The message delivered to Sir Robert Musgrave
not long after dawn had explained Sir Thomas’s genuine interest and
willingness to help in whatever way he could to arrest the leaders
of the local rebel faction. In addition, the former magistrate had
hinted at methods and even informants that he was willing to share
in order to guarantee success.
By mid-morning, Musgrave was at Woodfield
House, and whatever differences of opinion the two men had harbored
before meant nothing now. They were both keen on achieving the same
results.
Sir Thomas listened intently to the new
developments in Buttevant. And he was careful not to show any signs
of surprise when the magistrate informed him that Jane and Sir
Nicholas were the ones who had relocated the papist widow’s
children. He was also told about the baronet coming back after the
mother.