CHAPTER 15
Gareth rode back to Albany Lodge after breakfast and set about writing a letter to Ives, informing him of the upcoming conversation he intended to hold in Derbyshire.
He also mentioned that he had made the presumptuous decision to invite some friends to London for a fortnight, to stay at the family house. Not a week, as Eva assumed.
Out in the garden, Erasmus and Harold worked on the wall. He joined them and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
“Any word from the magistrate, sir?” Erasmus asked.
“Not yet, but it is early to hear anything.” He lifted one of the big stones.
“He found nothing to help?”
“Not at the house. Whoever it was left nothing behind to point to him.”
“The village is in a state about it. Was all you heard this morning.”
“Don’t you be stirring the pot more,” Harold said. “We don’t want every fool for fifty miles knowing that there’s women living there on their own, now do we?”
Erasmus paused with a stone halfway raised. “I never thought of that.”
“You never think much at all before you go wagging your lips, that’s the problem,” Harold said.
“If anyone wags back, be sure to let me know,” Gareth said. “That is the magistrate’s only chance of finding the culprits. If someone who knows something talks.”
Following an afternoon of finishing the wall with Erasmus and Harold, he sent them off after having them bring up water for a bath. He spent a half hour in the water, laying out the plan of Langley House’s chambers, deciding which ones would provide privacy and discretion.
He rode back to Eva’s home in late afternoon. As he neared the property, the unmistakable crack of a pistol split the air. He kicked his horse to a gallop and tore down the lane and up to her door.
No other horses were tied outside. Silence poured out of the house. Cursing himself, he kicked open the door and called for her. More silence.
He strode to the back of the house and looked out the window and cursed again, this time at her. Eva sat on a stone bench, loading the pistol. Even from the window, he could tell she had missed the big board again with that last shot.
Damnation. He had told her not to do this alone, without his supervision.
She stood and took aim. Proud. Straight. Determined. He saw her face. Flushed. Eyes bright. Lids low.
He knew that look. Apparently, using a pistol aroused Miss Russell.
* * *
She had no desire to hurt anyone. The very idea terrified her. Yet, as she held the pistol straight out and aimed, she could not deny the visceral satisfaction she took in its deadly potential. The contrast to what she experienced that night as she ran down the road made her heady.
She aimed as true as possible, then pulled the trigger. The sound, familiar now, assaulted her ears. She immediately looked at the big black dots where her prior attempts had hit. No new dot could be seen. Only then did she look at the board and see the hole in it.
Elated with her progress, she sat down and began loading again.
A shadow fell over her lap. A hand came over her own, stopping her. She looked up at Gareth. He did not appear happy. His stern expression caused her insides to tighten in anticipation of the night. Gareth angry looked a lot like Gareth in the candlelight, while he moved in her.
“I hit the board.” She pointed to it, very pleased with herself.
“I told you not to use the pistol unless I was here.”
“Yes, but you were gone and the pistol was here, so I—”
“You could have hurt yourself.”
“Only I did not. I remembered just how to do it, the way you taught me.”
“You disobeyed me and you broke your promise.” He just stood there, arms crossed, eyeing her severely.
“I forgot about the promise. I can’t even remember making it. And, look, I hit the board.”
He glanced to it. “So you did. That does not excuse you, but I suppose I may not turn you over my knee the way I intended.”
Turn her— What a notion! The very suggestion was— She squirmed. Goodness, she had never expected such a threat to cause that reaction.
He sat beside her on the bench, as if he meant to do it. He took the pistol from her. “You appeared quite confident with it.”
“Much more than yesterday. It frightened me then.”
“And now?”
“At first it did, but when I held it up to aim— I liked it more than may be wise.” He sat close to her, but not close enough. She breathed in the scent of soap. He gazed at the board, and she gazed at his profile. She wished he would turn so she could kiss him.
“How did you like it? What do you mean?”
She tried to articulate the thrill she had experienced, but currently anticipation of what waited in her chamber soon preoccupied her. “I became stronger.”
“You felt powerful.”
“Yes, in a very exciting manner. Alive and strong and powerful.”
He looked at her. “Did that give you pleasure?”
Another startling notion, yet—something akin to pleasure had colored her dizzy reaction. Sensations much like sexual ones accompanied the power.
They returned now, and merged with the purring arousal Gareth incited. Looking in his eyes, she could tell he, too, was aroused. He had been when he came into the garden.
Their gazes locked for a long, thrilling, and silent agreement. She glanced to the house, then looked back at him.
“There is no one about,” he said. “You can be alive and strong and powerful right here.”
She nodded. She did not want to wait. She already swam in pleasure. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. She pressed her breasts against him so his chest would tantalize them. The kiss became hard and hungry between them.
He stood and took her arm. “On your knees, Eva.”
She did not understand, but she slid off the bench to her knees in front of him.
“Lift up your skirt.”
She obeyed, but it took some doing. She got it above her knees, then higher yet.
“Now the chemise too.”
She pulled it up into the bunch of cloth now at her waist. The cool evening air flowed around her hips and thighs. She reveled in how bad she was being.
He took a step back. He looked at her nakedness. At her mound and thighs. The heat in his gaze, the firmness of his jaw said desire tortured him as much as it did her.
“Your sensuality is power, too, Eva. Take pleasure in that part of it. Right now I would do anything to have you. Anything.” He looked in her eyes. “Do you understand?”
She did understand, she thought. Mostly. She knew what he meant about power at least. It thrilled her, having him want her so much. It also aroused her unbearably.
“You do not have to do anything to have me except take me, Gareth.”
He stepped around her. She glanced back to see him kneeling behind her. He bent her forward until she rested on arms and knees, and he pushed her skirt and chemise up more so her bottom was totally uncovered.
A pause then. She thought she would scream with impatience. Waiting carried its own erotic torture. Finally he stroked her twice, no more. He entered her in a slow thrust that filled her completely. A barely audible moan of pleasure accompanied the thrust.
Another pause, with him in her, filling her like never before. Caresses smoothed over her bottom. He adjusted the position of her legs, then gently pressed her back down so she hugged the grass. “You must let me know if I hurt you.”
She soon understood what he meant. This was different, feral, primitive.
He thrust again and again, deeply and hard, until it seemed her womb itself came alive.
She knew the pleasure differently too. More powerfully.
More confidently. Yes, she thought each time he stroked into her.
Yes, when the pleasure quickened around him, with a profound depth that tantalized her to want more and more.
Yes, right until the feverish violence of the end, when the release made waves of ecstasy glow through her entire body.
* * *
Eva tied on her bonnet. She pulled on her gloves. She lifted the leather-bound sketchbook and tucked it under her arm. Deciding she looked as presentable as she ever would, she left her house to pay her first social call in years.
She stopped in Langdon’s End to post her letters to Rebecca and Sarah.
She should receive a response by tomorrow at the latest. She trusted Sarah would find a way to convince Wesley to allow her to accompany her cousins to London.
It was not the sort of treat a wife like Sarah would take well to being denied.
Gareth had left her bed before dawn today.
He would be on the road now, on his way north for that meeting he had.
One day, probably. Two at most, he had said while he made a very sweet good-bye by driving her mad three times in quick succession, first with his hand, then his mouth, then his rod.
She had barely found the strength to see him off.
Nostalgia had tinged their actual parting.
When he returned they would journey to London.
This morning, in the dark before dawn, their affair had ended.
Inevitable, that. Even continuing this long had been risky. Sorrow touched her heart when she thought about it, relieved only by the knowledge that they would continue as friends. Special friends, who had shared an intimacy that few friends ever approach.
She smiled to herself now while she walked the lanes, greeting people who had known her all her life. Could they now see how she had changed? She felt so different that she wondered if she would recognize herself from even a month ago if she met herself in passing.
She presented herself at the home of the sisters Neville. Their servant took her card, one of the five she had left (have new cards made immediately so they will be ready for London, she noted on her mental list of things to do). The woman returned and escorted her back to the library.
Jasmine and Ophelia waited for her, sitting in the exact same spots as the last time she had come. Ophelia appeared delighted to see her. Jasmine eyed her with naked curiosity.