Chapter 24
24
T he second day of riding was pure torture, not because of the latent effects of wine swimming in Harry’s head, and not because his thighs ached. Throughout the entire day, Charity had ridden without saying a word, her posture rigid, her eyes on the road, her smile lost somewhere at the inn during the wee hours of the night.
Yes, he’d heard her declaration of love, and damn him to Hell, he hadn’t responded. He’d pretended to be asleep while his heart took to flight. It was all Harry could do not to jump up from his pallet, gather the lady into his arms and remove that hideous riding habit while kissing every single inch of her flesh.
“ I ken I’m just being a silly woman and that you have no such feelings for me…”
How far off the mark could she be? What he couldn’t tell her was that he was entirely certain his feelings for her surpassed all sanity. He’d been consumed by rage when he’d seen those two louts abduct her from the tavern. He could have ripped them apart limb by limb, but instead he blindly rode after the bastards and shot at them, while doing everything he could think of to protect her identity.
Yet given the intensity of his feelings, Harry couldn’t recklessly declare his love to her. Not yet. Now that he knew she felt the same, he needed some time to think on how to maneuver around her family. He’d never forgive himself if he revealed the depth of his love, only to have Dunscaby and his kin act out against her—do something entirely horrible, like forcing an unwanted marriage to a sniveling, pimple-faced fool like Lord Percival. They might even send her away.
True, if Dunscaby called Harry out, he’d face the man no matter what, though he’d prefer a fist fight to a duel. Being shot wasn’t ideal either—it would not only turn Charity into a jilted lover, he’d leave his mother and sister in dire straits. He needed to come up with something and he must do so before they returned to London. How would he support Lady Charity MacGalloway, let alone a wife? Could he earn enough coin to lease back the manor? She did love it there. Would Dunscaby be amenable? Or would the duke still want to shoot him through the heart?
The second night was also spent in relative quiet, and when Harry awoke on the third morning, Her Ladyship had already gone to the stables and saddled her horse.
He found her there, picking the mare’s hooves, albeit wearing the same riding habit she’d been traveling in the past three days. He wondered if she ever wore the same clothing three days in a row as most people did. Harry had never seen her to do so. From what he’d seen of the members of the ton , and Charity among them, they changed two or three times a day.
“No trousers?” he asked with a bit of a chuckle.
She glanced up. “I only brought items that were absolutely necessary, like tooth powder and a clean shift.”
“Practical of you.”
“Thank you.” After dropping the mare’s hoof, she stepped away and brushed off her skirts. “I’m surprised you think anything I do is practical.”
He gathered the horse’s reins in his fist. “Why do you say that?”
“Let’s see—you’ve criticized me when I donned mourning to watch your fights. Then you happened to be the only person observant enough to bear witness to my awful faux pas when I tried to wear Andrew’s breeches and nearly ended up in the gutter of St. Giles.”
“I’ll admit those were not your best ideas, but I understand why you felt strongly enough to take such risks.”
She snatched the reins from his fist. “Oh really? Please enlighten me. I’d like to hear your take on my reasoning.”
“Well, you said when we first met that you wanted to form your own decision as to the barbarity of boxing, which I found commendable. I like it when a woman chooses to make her own decisions.”
“Though you don’t like it when said women are ladies and they attend your boxing matches.” As he opened his mouth to reply, she held up a finger and waggled it in front of his mouth. “Dunna even try to deny it. You told me yourself that ladies should remain at home and read about the fight in the Gazette .”
“Correct, especially women of quality.”
“Oh please, not that again.”
“Very well, but I will have to put it out there, for the record, that dressing as a newsboy and attending the London fight alone was far more dangerous and far riskier to your reputation than attending with Miss Satchwell and your footman.”
She dipped into an exaggerated curtsy. “Thank you, oh Isaac Newton, I am ever so gratified to have your critical assessment.”
“Do not patronize me.”
Sighing, Charity led the mare toward the mounting block. “Forgive me. I shouldna have been condescending. I have no idea what I would have done if you hadn’t come along and rescued me from those vile miscreants.”
Harry shoved his hand in his coat pocket, his fingers brushing the handkerchief she’d made. He pulled it out and held it in his palm.
Not saying a word, she smoothed her fingers over the fine linen. “You still have this?”
“I never leave home without it, though with your fine needlework, it is too precious to use.”
“Then I ought to make you seven more. That way you can keep one pristine, and then have a clean handkerchief for each day of the week.”
“I’d like that.” He closed his fingers over hers. “Can we call truce?”
She blushed and gave a little smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Good, we’ve one more night in an inn, and then we ought to reach Huntly Manor by midday on the morrow.”
Harry was ever so glad they’d agreed to a truce. The day had passed pleasantly, and the weather was cold, but the sun had shone with little breeze. They were nearly to the coast, where Harry knew of a small tavern that let rooms above. It was quiet and out of the way, with quick access to the road along the bluffs that led all the way down to Brixham.
“How much farther?” she asked, regarding him over her shoulder as she had opted to take the lead for a time.
“About a mile, two at most.”
She picked up her reins. “Shall we race?”
Harry clicked in his heels just as laughter pealed from her throat and she darted ahead. “Come on, boy, let’s catch her!” he hollered, demanding more speed.
He shifted his weight over the horse’s withers and his mount began to close the distance. But when they rounded the corner, he quickly pulled on his reins. “Charity, stop!” he shouted, just as a buck and three does dashed out of the scrub, straight into Her Ladyship’s path.
“Argh!” she cried, moving her hands forward on the reins and tugging.
Thrashing his head from side to side, her horse reared.
“No!” Harry bellowed, too far away and helpless to do anything but watch as Charity was unseated and sailed backward. Her cry seemed to hang in the air as time slowed until she landed in a puddle of mud followed by an enormous splash and a bone-crunching thud.
“Ow,” she whimpered, muddy water dripping all about her as she sat up, cradling her arm against her body.
“God no,” Harry growled, dismounting and dashing to her side. He dropped to his knees in the mud. “Are you injured?”
She curled forward, her body shaking. “Everything hurts.”
“Take a moment and catch your breath.” He removed his coat and placed it over her shoulders. “You are cradling your arm. May I have a look?”
Charity glanced downward and pushed up her sleeve. “Oh dear.”
As he followed her gaze, Harry’s throat thickened. Such gently uttered words to express concern for a very ugly knot expanding on her wrist. “We must have that seen to at once.” He offered his hand. “Can you stand?”
“Let us give it a try,” she said, wrapping her fingers around his palm and allowing him to pull her to her feet.
“How is that? Does anything hurt?” he asked.
She took a couple of steps. “I think I’ll survive.”
Covered with mud and soaking wet, Charity closed her eyes and reveled in Harry’s warmth as he urged his horse into a canter. The jostling made her wrist hurt, but she’d take any amount of pain if it meant being close to this man.
As soon as they arrived at the little tavern, Harry tightened his grip around her, swept his leg over the horse’s withers and carefully slid to the ground while cradling her in his arms. “How are you feeling? Is there anything hurting besides your wrist?”
To be honest, her backside felt as if it had met with a bullwhip, but she wasn’t about to complain. “The wrist is what hurts most. I ought to be able to walk on my own two feet.”
“You’re not walking. You’ve just been thrown from a horse. Lord knows the injuries you’ve sustained,” he said, pushing inside and addressing a woman wiping tables. “Madam, my wife has fallen from her mount and is injured,” he said with utmost urgency. “We need a room, a hot bath, and a raging fire in the hearth. Once all that has been taken care of, we’ll also require hot food, wine, and plenty of brandy.”
“Straightaway, sir.”
Charity didn’t correct the matron, though Harry’s proper address was “my lord,” and he ought to be referred to thus, regardless that the pair of them looked like weary travelers.
“Send a lad for the doctor,” he added.
The woman motioned to a boy sitting beside the hearth, turning a spit laden with chickens. “Is there anything else you’ll be needing, sir?”
“If you would be so kind to show us to a room, I would be much obliged.”
The matron reached in her apron and pulled out a ring of keys. “Please follow me.”
Upstairs they were led to a chamber that was relatively small, with a narrow bed. “I’m afraid this is the only room we have at the moment. I’ll send up a maid to tend the fire straightaway.”
Harry set Charity on the bed. “How long will it be afore the doctor arrives?”
“Not long,” said a man from the corridor, carrying a black leather bag. “Fortunately, I live in the house next door.”
Harry beckoned the man inside. “Thank you for coming so quickly. A herd of deer dashed in front of us and my wife was thrown from her mount. I fear she has injured her wrist.”
While the doctor conducted his examination, Charity couldn’t help but notice how worried Harry looked as he watched from across the small chamber. During that time, a maid came in and started a fire. She was followed by a line of servants toting a copper tub and buckets of steaming water.
Charity’s stomach growled as she looked to the doctor, who hadn’t said much aside from a “hmm” now and again. “Is my wrist broken?”
“Since you are able to move it somewhat, I think it is merely a bad sprain. Nonetheless, you won’t be able to use it for at least a fortnight. And by the way you are having difficulty sitting still, I’ll wager you have badly bruised your coccyx.” The doctor pulled a pillow from the foot of the bed and urged her to sit on it. “You’d best use a cushion until the pain subsides. And there will be no more horseback riding.”
“No more?” she asked. “But we’ve another half-day’s journey ahead of us.”
“If you must travel, I recommend a coach.”
“What if she rode double with me at a slow walk?” asked Harry.
The man looked him up and down. “As long as your wife is comfortable and doesn’t need her left hand to negotiate reins, I’ll allow it. A mug of willow bark tea before you set out ought to help with the pain.”
Warmth spread throughout Charity’s insides with the doctor’s use of the word “wife.” If only they truly were husband and wife, she’d be the happiest woman in all of Britain. She stole a glance at His Lordship. The hazel in his eyes had again turned dark, and for an instant their gazes locked with a frisson of awareness.
But the moment passed all too soon when Harry offered to see the doctor out.
Once alone, Charity stood and paced. Walking wasn’t easy. Her backside ached. She stopped and sighed as the steam coming off the bath caught her eye. If only her wrist wasn’t swollen and Georgette was nearby, but now she’d never be able to remove layer upon layer of garments without help.
When he returned, she was standing in the middle of the room, clutching her injured wrist against her waist. “Are you well?” he asked. In his hands were an enormous sponge and a bar of soap. “I thought you would be resting.”
“I was just wondering—” Her gaze drifted to the bath and then to her mud-soaked riding habit. “The water looks so inviting, but I canna manage my laces with two hands, let alone one.”
“Thought about that.” He held up the sponge. “First of all, this is for you to sit upon, given your tender coccyx. I shall help you if you’ll allow me to do so. I promise to keep my eyes averted.”
Charity’s stomach flipped backward, then forward, then performed a complete somersault. True, they were posing as husband and wife, but to allow him to remove her garments was simply not done.
Simply not done.
It seemed she had partaken in a number of things which were taboo for women of her station, yet she had gone ahead and attended a boxing match—more than one. She had taken boxing lessons alone with this man in the arbor. She had kissed him in there as well. He had rescued her from the hands of miscreants, and had been so careful to ensure no one had been the wiser. If she couldn’t trust Harry Mansfield, she could trust no one.
“Verra well, since you promised to avert your eyes.”
Harry made quick work of untying her laces. She eyed him over her shoulder while she trembled, though this bout of shivers had not been caused by the cold. “I would have never guessed a man with hands as large as yours could have such nimble fingers.”
“I’ve helped me ma a time or two.”
After two days of being all but suffocated by her stays, it was bliss to take in a deep breath and release it. “Turn your back whilst I slip into the water.”
“As you wish.”
Now unbound, all it took was a little shimmy of her shoulders to make the riding habit and stays whoosh to the floor. Charity quickly untied her garters and pulled off her stockings. Wearing only her shift, she hesitated for a moment. Harry had not once tried to peek over his shoulder, but stood stoically, his back broad and ever so powerful-looking. Though now an earl, the years of laboring as a butcher and the training he’d done to become a boxer had made his body hard and virile.
When he’d removed his shirt in the boxing ring, she hadn’t seen a bit of fat. The man was sculpted from pure muscle and bone. Every time she was in his arms, he imparted brute strength. Charity wasn’t terribly petite, yet he’d lifted her with one arm as if she were as light as a lamb.
Releasing a sigh, she slipped her shift over her head and dropped into the warm water, sitting on the large sponge, and drawing her knees up under her chin. “This feels marvelous.”
“May I turn around now?”
“Aye.”
Harry turned his head first, the fringe of his dark hair brushing the top of his neckcloth. His tongue slipped to the corner of his mouth as he faced her and held up the cake of soap. “The matron gave this to me—said she’d just made a batch scented with lavender and honey.”
“I love lavender,” she said, taking the bar and drawing it to her nose. “Mm. Nearly scrumptious enough to eat.”
Incredibly aware of his presence, Charity ran the soap over her shoulder.
“Shall I turn away?” he asked, his voice deeper than usual.
God save her, having his eyes upon her made her blood thrum with a fire more intense than she’d ever experienced before. “Nay,” she whispered, holding up the cake, yet unable to ask him to help her, as if doing so crossed some unspoken line.
He took her cue, dousing a cloth and taking the soap, his fingertips brushing hers, making gooseflesh rise across her skin.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
Charity shook her head, out of the corner of her eye watching him lather the cloth. She arched as he swirled the soap over her back, downward, upward, then around to her front, stopping at her arm.
Without uttering a sound, she unfolded her arms and bared her breasts to him.
Harry’s eyes grew more intense, the hazel taking on a whisky hue. Ever so slowly, he moved the cloth lower, and lower, until he encircled her breast. “You are exquisite.”
On a sigh, Charity turned her head just enough to capture his mouth. Their lips joined, and with the pressure of his mouth sealed over hers, he urged her to tip her head back, cradling it in his palm, while the hand with the cloth slowly cleaned the second breast.
Sweet urgency gripped her as she tasted him, encouraging him to go deeper, their tongues swirling in an erotic dance. Harry moved the cloth downward over her belly, stopping above her nether parts, but Charity didn’t want him to stop.
As she sighed into his mouth with a hungry swipe of her tongue, he inched downward, far too slowly, yet the driving intensity between her legs was potent enough to send her into an abyss of madness. Finally, his fingers were there, the cloth gone, his rough pad brushing over the tiny pearl and making her entire body smolder.
“Allow me to pleasure you, my lady,” he whispered, his voice rough and filled with the same longing thrumming deep inside her.
Charity’s knees opened a bit wider. “Please.”
The stubble on his chin lightly grazed her skin as he nuzzled into her neck with kisses, his finger swirling in the same rhythm as his tongue.
When his mouth moved downward, so did that wicked, delightful finger. And Charity gasped when he slid it inside her. “Mercy,” she cried, arching her back as his mouth found her nipple.
Her core was wet and slick, and Harry worked his finger in and out, continuing his merciless kisses.
Charity’s eyes rolled back. Astonishingly, her coccyx didn’t bother her an iota while her hips rocked in tandem with the escalation of desire—a burning, intense craving low in her belly demanding more, threatening to send her to the brink of sanity if he dared to stop.
Thank God he did not. If anything, his swirling grew faster, his kisses more insistent while Charity’s mind whirled, wanting more, needing more. Her toes curled. Her breath caught in her throat, the mounting tension making her buck.
“No more,” she whimpered. As the words slipped past her lips, his tongue flicked her nipple, his finger working faster, the water in the tub sloshing.
Unable to utter a coherent word, Charity gasped and tossed her head from side to side, clutching her arms around his neck. This was wonderful and unsustainable, and utterly exquisite. “Dunna stop! Please!”
On a precipice of pure elation, her eyes flew open, a cry caught her throat as her body shattered. Stars darted through her vision while she gasped for breath. Her breasts heaved as if she’d just sprinted down the drive of Huntly Manor.
Once Charity was finally able to focus, she met Harry’s predatory gaze—filled with whisky and wanton desire.
“Am I ruined?”
“If you’re asking if your virginity is intact, it is, to my grave disappointment. But if you’re asking at this moment if anyone in your family marched through that door and found us, then I would have to say yes.”
Too many emotions swirled through her, the most powerful being self-doubt. A tear dribbled onto her cheek as she cupped that rugged jaw in her palm. “You said you were disappointed that my virginity is still intact. I must know why.”
Those whisky eyes grew darker as his lips neared her ear. “Because I want to be the first and only man who ever lies with you.”
Charity dropped her hand into the water, her shoulders falling. “You want me in that way, yet you are entertaining marrying an American heiress and have never come to call at the Dunscaby town house. Please tell me what those lassies have that I canna give?”
“Damnation, my lady. It is I who am not good enough for you. Never think for one moment that I do not love you.” He grasped her hand and tightly squeezed his eyes shut as he kissed her knuckles. “You are a goddess divine, and the only woman in possession of my heart.”