Chapter 6
“I s this someone’s home?” Jean-Luc looked about the small cottage.
It was damp and empty, but it once had been a warm place.
“Not at present. The last tenants were people who worked the land for my father,” she replied, as she stood dripping. “But they have gone now, and we have yet to let it out again. It is the perfect place for us to hide from the terrible rain.”
“Poor Zephyr,” Jean-Luc suddenly said, thinking of his cousin.
She blinked. “Zephyr?” she queried.
“My cousin,” he clarified. “He loathes the rain and the gray sky.”
“Then what is he doing living in England?” she asked.
Jean-Luc shrugged. “He’s English.”
“Oh dear,” she sympathized, pushing back the strands of her soaked hair. “It is the lot that so many of us must face.”
“And there is nowhere else anyone can go at present to escape the English winter without risking being swept up in wars,” he ground out.
“How disappointingly true,” she agreed. “I love our little island though, and I have no desire to leave it. Rain or no. We are insulated in so many ways. We may not always be,” she allowed. “The French might storm it one day, but I feel mostly safe for now, or at least I pretend that I am, and the weather is shockingly beautiful most of the time. It might not be perfect, like living near Naples or Greece,” she added, “but this is a wonderful place. And I am so very glad that it is mine.”
“I have been to all those places,” he began, wondering how he could make her understand that he did not think there was any perfect place. “And while they’re wonderful and the food is excellent, there is something special about England and this island and the people who live here.”
She beamed, despite the fact she looked half drowned in her sopping cloak and limp bonnet. “Very well put, sir. I could not agree with you more. Still, we are very, very wet, courtesy of this island.”
Her teeth chattered and her hands shook as she lifted them up to rub her arms under her cloak.
“I’m glad you have this little cottage,” he rushed. “Otherwise, I would have to worry about you freezing to death.”
“What a grim end! Death by rain. Surely that would be the most terrible epitaph,” she tried to jest, but she was beginning to shake too hard for the quip to fully land.
Her house and the duke’s house were quite a walk back, heading out into this rain was not a possibility.
They needed warmth. Quickly.
He crossed to the simple but adequate fireplace, hoping that not everything had been cleaned out by the prior tenants. After all, most of the furniture appeared to still be here.
He checked the large bin in front of the fire and was relieved to see errant sticks of wood. “Look! We are kissed by Madame Fortune. There’s a bit of wood left.”
He knelt down and stared at it.
“Do you know how to start a fire?” she asked.
“Do you?” he queried.
She grinned sheepishly. “Actually, no, I don’t.”
“Fortunately, I do,” he returned. “My hesitation was in looking for kindling and tinder. I have been doing such things for years.”
“Why?” she blurted, crossing up behind him and leaving a wet trail from her skirts and cloak. “Do French aristocrats learn to make their own fires?”
He snorted. “In general? No. But this is not my first adventure.”
“How interesting,” she drawled. “Let me watch you do it.”
He met her gaze and, in that instant, in this small room, he felt the spark of a different kind of fire. One that could warm too. It could burn if they weren’t careful.
“If you desire to watch me,” he growled, longing for her to let her eyes drink their fill of him, “do so.”
With that, he pulled out the wood, small pieces of kindling, and found a bit of tinder and flint. He struck the flint until a spark blossomed, much to her clear delight. She applauded with her soaked gloves as flames began to flicker in the stacked wood.
“You are very good at that,” she praised.
“I’ve had a great deal of practice in strange places,” he said as the fire took off and began to grow in earnest. He placed another stick of wood on the growing flames and then stood slowly. Now at his full height, he gazed down at her. “There was a short period of time when I traveled far and wide in an attempt to escape my demons. In a lot of those places, it was not easy to start a fire.”
She tilted her head back, her gaze searching his. “You have demons.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” he inquired.
“Not me,” she said.
“Of course not,” he replied at last, daring to reach up and stroke a lock of her hair back behind her ear.
“You needn’t sound as if it was a given that I have nothing to plague me,” she said with a smile as she, whether she realized it or not, leaned in towards him. “A girl like me could have demons.”
His lips twitched. “Of course,” he said, “but you have already told me about your life and I can tell how happy you are.”
She turned towards his hand, which lingered near her cheek. “It is true. I have a very gentle life and an easy one. There is nothing to complain of except for perhaps…”
He tugged at the ribbon of her bonnet. The wet fabric was difficult to pull loose, but she soon slipped it off her head.
“What?” he asked softly.
She shook her head, tugging her wet gloves off. “No, no, nothing.”
“You must tell me after starting like that.” He placed her bonnet on the mantel to dry. “Take off your cloak. It’s going to be terrible for you to leave it on,” he instructed as he pulled off his own soaking wet great coat and put it before the fire.
She stared at him for a long moment. “It’s true,” she replied.
She pulled off her cloak, and he took it from her. It was a soaking mass of wool, and he laid it out before the fire next to his own coat.
He let his gaze wander over her. Parts of her were dry. Others…not at all. “Your hem is a lost cause.”
She arched a brow. “Well, I’m not taking off my gown.”
“I didn’t say you should,” he began, though he would have loved to see her in naught but her chemise… And then without even that. “But if you would like to, I can turn about and face the other way.”
She frowned. “Perhaps I can just squeeze it out a bit. Turn yourself around.”
He did as he was instructed, and he heard her shimmying about. He found himself being most drawn to the movements in a way he had not been in a long time.
He had been a most amorous youth, but over the years, he had grown more distant from such things. He’d let the excitement of his younger days go as the weight of the world had pressed upon him. He had not been interested in conquering young ladies and their bedchambers. Life had seemed too fraught for that. He knew some people chose to spend their life in one affair after the other because life was fraught. But, no, he was in search of some sort of meaning, and he wasn’t certain he would ever find it, but he didn’t think it was in the petticoats of a young woman.
Still, he was curious about what exactly she was doing. It certainly didn’t sound graceful. Somehow, he resisted the temptation to glance over his shoulder.
This could not have been what her mother had had in mind when she’d suggested this outing. He grimaced at the thought of Mrs. Cheverton, who seemed such a good sort. “Your mother is going to murder me.”
“She will only murder you if you ruin me for everyone to see.”
He choked on a laugh. “What? You mean in public?”
She groaned. “There are plays where such things have occurred, but hopefully you will not suddenly jump upon me in the village square.”
“I think I can control myself, but only just,” he teased.
“I had no idea I had such powers over you,” she returned, amused.
But perhaps she did because moment by moment he was growing ever more heated by her presence and the sounds she was producing by adjusting certain elements of her clothes.
She let out a shivering sound. “It’s deuced cold.”
“It certainly is,” he agreed.
There was a long pause and then she began in a surprisingly vulnerable tone, “I have a strange request, but only if you think you can control yourself. In the face of my obvious beauty,” she drawled, clearly determined to make light of her feelings.
“I am grateful that I am coming to finally understand English humor so well,” he ventured. “I assume you are being humorous.”
“I am, to a degree. . .”
“What is the request?” he asked, hoping to put her at ease and eliminate whatever discomfort she felt.
She cleared her throat. “Do you think you could hold me? I’m shivering away and I can’t stop.”
“Hold you?” he repeated, his insides tightening with anticipation, desire, and a certain dread.
How could this be happening? How could a chit of an English miss be having such a thorough effect upon him, the Comte de Gastyne?
“Yes,” she teased again. “But if you can’t control yourself—”
“Do I look like an uncontrolled fellow?”
“No, you don’t. Which is why I ask, but if you know something that I don’t, stay over there.”
He did not stay over there. He crossed to her. “Am I allowed to look or must I keep my eyes closed? After all, I might poke your eye out in the attempt to warm you.”
“You may open them,” she said with less humor now and a hint of something else.
He stepped towards her and pulled her against him, trying to keep his eyes averted.
She had taken her gown off to wring the skirts. He could tell as much from how she felt when he pulled her into his embrace, for his hands met skin and the thin fabric of her chemise and her stays.
Control… He had promised her he could control himself. He could. Mon Dieu, he could. Truly. But the feel of her delicious body against his sans so many clothes… Was he not a man? And a Frenchman to boot?
Still, he was a gentleman. Or so he kept repeating to himself as he felt her soft curves pressing into his body.
“How did you manage to keep so dry?” she gasped.
“My great coat is excellent. My tailors are French and superb. It is not just a handsome thing. It is quite functional too. The weave is very tight.”
“How exceptionally rude that your French coat is better than my English cloak in the rain.”
“Do not be too upset. The English do far better things, like how they govern their people.”
“I suppose,” she allowed. “Dratted teeth.”
They were indeed still clacking together, so he began to rub his hands along her back and arms, all whilst keeping her angled to the fire. “I will keep you warm, Nimue.”
“I’m already in your arms, and I am still cold.”
And so he whipped off his frock coat and tucked it about her, then pulled her even tighter to him.
She let out a soft note of shock. “You are very strong.”
“Ah, you’ve noticed my superior French physique,” he said playfully, hoping to distract her.
“I think anyone would notice just by looking at you. They don’t need to be squeezed.”
“Am I squeezing you too tight?”
“No, you’re squeezing me perfectly,” she said, tucking her head against his chest. “This is excellent. I think my teeth are starting to slow down. They would’ve been able to be part of a military drum retreat keeping beat like that.”
“We cannot have such a thing,” he murmured, lowering his cheek to her damp hair. He drank in the feel of her pressed against him. It was heaven. Shockingly, the best thing he’d known in a long time, and he’d known many good things in the last years, even with his own sorrows. But he liked having her against him best.
“I say,” she said after she began to relax against him, “this seems like a most interesting position for the two of us to be in, given that we just met.”
“Life is very odd,” he concurred.
She snuggled closer. “I’m glad you agree.”
“I think the rain must have wanted us to be together,” he said.
She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “I’m sorry?”
How did he explain this sentiment? He wasn’t sure. Especially since it was one that he didn’t always agree with.
“The dowager duchess, the Duke of Westleigh’s mother, insists that the universe likes to make things happen.”
She looked astonished. “My mother would say something similar too. She believes in fate and ghosts and all sorts of things.”
He swung his gaze about with mock fear before he winked. “Do you think this place is haunted?”
She grinned. “It is not. But if we were put here together on purpose, what could it be for? To stand next to each other, warming each other up from the rain?” She shook her head. “No, I don’t think that can be it. There has to be more. Much more.”
She bit her lower lip, contemplating his mouth. “You are good at kissing, aren’t you?”
“Excusez-moi?” he asked, his brain going a bit blank and reverting to his native tongue as he did very rarely these days.
She cleared her throat. “You are French, as you keep reminding me.”
“It’s true. I’m French, and I did say that the French know all about love.”
“You told me that you had no interest in love.”
“That is correct.”
She sighed. “I don’t wish to marry. There’s too much one has to give up of themselves and…I quite like myself as I am. But I wouldn’t mind a kiss. I don’t wish to know so little of the world.”
“You said you’d kissed the vicar’s son,” he reminded her, beginning to feel very conflicted. His body began to ache for her. And his mind? His mind was coming up with all the reasons why giving her exactly what she required was an excellent idea.
Her nose wrinkled. “He wasn’t very good at it. So, the truth is I am still quite ignorant of the world.”
“If you know nothing about the world, I’m not the person who should acquaint you with it.”
“I actually think you are the perfect person,” she countered.
He snorted again, though the last thing he felt like doing was dismissing her. He wanted to kiss her until she had lost her wits entirely. “And what?” he challenged. “You’re going to take me out like a book on kissing from a lending library and practice upon me?”
She nodded, her cheeks now a stunningly seductive shade of pink that matched her parted lips. “Something like that. You articulate it very well. And then, when we are done, I shall put you back on the shelf.”
He let out a strangled noise. “I see.”
“No one has to know about this.”
“Secrets are very dangerous things,” he said.
“Only if they are meant to hurt someone,” she returned.
He groaned. “Ma chérie, this is not at all how I planned to spend my day.”
“Not even a thought of kissing me?” she asked, her eyes widening.
“Not one,” he lied. “Are you suggesting that you have thoughts of kissing me?”
“Oh, yes,” she said without hesitation. “If I’m honest, I started having them last night. It was most frustrating and strangely awakening. My body has never felt like that before.” Then she frowned. “That’s not quite accurate. Oh no. Actually, I had my first thought of your kiss not long after I met you, especially since you looked like such a brooding fellow.”
“I do not look like a brooding fellow,” he growled, his cock growing hard and his hunger for her now blazing through him like the fire warming the room.
“You do,” she insisted. “You look like you’re straight out of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s books.”
A muscle tightened in his jaw, and he considered the sort of passion that could occur in those books and what he actually wanted to do with the young woman in his arms.
A kiss was only the start. For he could kiss her again and again. And her mouth wasn’t even the first place he could begin the foray.
He lifted his hand to cup her jaw and he traced his thumb along her cheek. “If I look like someone straight out of Mrs. Radcliffe’s books, surely you should run the other way?”
“I would if I was going to have to marry you, but I don’t have to marry you, and you don’t have to marry me. So a kiss could be a nice thing for the both of us, don’t you think?”
A nice thing for both of them. It could unleash a storm as powerful as the one outside. Did he wish to be swept up in such a thing? Or could they simply enjoy each other? Take refuge with each other? She gave him something he had not known in so long that he was reticent to let it go.
He truly loved how he felt with her. As if spring was around the corner, and the darkness could be left behind.
She cleared her throat, her hopeful gaze shining now with doubt. “You are starting to make me feel rather embarrassed.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m having to persuade you and that doesn’t do anything for a lady’s sense of confidence. You did make it sound as if you found me quite attractive.”
“You are quite attractive,” he growled. “But this is a terrible position. My cousin, the duke—”
“Your cousin, the duke, is not in this room,” she pointed out softly. “I have asked you to kiss me. Not him.”
“You’d better not. He’s married.”
“It’s just a kiss, Jean-Luc. Nothing terrible can happen from a simple kiss.”
The logic of all of it was gone with her words, the parting of her lips, and the way he could see her perfect pink tongue as she spoke.
He wanted to give in.
Despite her protestations, her mother was going to kill him. Her father was going to kill him, and he was a dishonorable cad, but he was going to enjoy this very, very much.
And so was she. He’d make sure of that.
Every part of her tingled with awareness of Jean-Luc’s powerful presence.
Her skin, her limbs, her muscles—they all ached for him. Her lips parted, and she longed to feel his mouth upon her own.
He leaned down, pulling her more tightly into his arms. Without holding back, without a second thought, something overtook him, and he seized her in a fervent kiss.
His mouth caressed hers as if the entire fate of the world rested upon this kiss. His hands stole across her back, making it seem as if he could unite them with touch alone.
Every part of this was better than anything she could’ve ever dreamed, and she certainly had never dreamed anything like this would come to her. Not in reality.
She’d always assumed that she would have to lie awake at night and fantasize about such an encounter, but now it was happening here in this small cottage, hidden away from the rain.
She was shivering now, but not with cold. She was shivering with her desire for him. He’d given in to her invitation, and she was so thrilled that her lips parted ever so slightly.
That was all he needed to touch her tongue with his own. She was startled and surprised by the daring of it. Instinctively, she touched his tongue with hers in return, and then their kiss became altogether something else. Something primal. Something that could not be controlled.
They teased each other hungrily. Each kiss grew more and more tantalizing. She held onto him more fiercely.
There was something mesmerizing about the way he teased her to life. This kiss was an awakening through fire, and how she loved walking across its coals.
His hand came up to cup her bottom. He pulled her upward, and she felt his hard sex press into her body. He let out a hiss as if he loved that feeling, and he pulled her even harder against him.
Yes, that had to be his sex. And it was meant to go inside her. She wasn’t ignorant. She understood several things, and yet she was still awed. He ran his hand down her leg, took her chemise in his hold, and then began dragging it up her leg. She loved the feel of his hand, caressing, pulling, pressing up her limb. Then, much to her shock, his hand teased at the juncture her thighs.
This was all so much more than she ever could’ve imagined!
He pulled back. “Is it too much?” he asked. “Too fast? Too soon?” He spoke in broken starts, as if his brain could not form full sentences.
She stared up at him, witnessing his care and concern, despite the desire flickering in his eyes.
It was quite a lot. It was happening fast. They had never even kissed before.
She shook her head. “This is how I wish it, Jean-Luc. I want it too fast. I want it too soon.”
Because the truth was that she had no idea if they would ever be allowed to do this again, if they would ever be able to meet like this in the future, and she couldn’t throw this one chance away.
No, she was going to take it.
She was going to let herself feel all of it.
“I’m going to please you now,” he growled.
He did not wait another moment. His hand caressed her hips, her soft belly, her rib cage. Then he cupped her breast with his hand, massaging it. “You are perfection,” he whispered against her lips. “You are more than perfect.”
“How can anyone be more than perfect?” she teased.
“I don’t know,” he replied, his accent growing thicker, “but you are that thing beyond perfection.”
And then he began whispering in French against her neck. She had no idea what he was saying, but she loved the words. They invoked something in her that began at the place between her thighs and spun through her blood, making her long only for him.
His hand traveled back down and slipped again between her legs. “I want to give you this. I want to make you feel like the world is yours.”
Nimue bit down on her lower lip.
How could she explain that in his arms, she already felt as if the world belonged to her? To them?
But as he stroked his fingers against her, she held still, then tensed.
He tsked. “No, you must surrender to me.”
Of course, she must. But how did one do that exactly?
He seemed to know, for his fingertips teased into her curls, then slid into her slick folds.
At that, the wickedly sensual feelings that shot through her caused her to drop her head back. Staring up at the ceiling, she held onto him, doing as he instructed, allowing herself to be conquered by him. Yet in the conquering, she felt incredibly powerful because this was only happening because of her boldness, because of her wish to do it.
She had prompted him to this intimacy.
Jean-Luc’s strong fingers found a spot that she had only ever touched upon rare occasions, and he seemed to know exactly what he was doing as he caused her sensations to rise higher and higher. Her body tensed and she coiled at his attentions.
How she loved the feel of his fingers working over her, and then his thumb pressed down on the soft flesh.
It was almost too much, and she let out a soft note of need.
Eager to ease her plight, he teased his middle finger against her opening, and then his forefinger joined it.
A shocked gasp traveled past her lips as those fingers thrust inside her, rocking back and forth.
Suddenly, she was pitched forward into a place she had only ever imagined and now knew was vibrantly, fully true.