Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Warmth, wonderful warmth.
Lily burrowed deeply into it, shaking uncontrollably. Her nose nestled into the soft lawn of Richard’s shirt, and she let the scent of sandalwood, shaving soap—the scent of man—fill her senses.
“Easy,” he soothed. “Let me warm you.”
His heavy greatcoat fell around her. In the protective cocoon of his arms, the odor of sheep receded, the ache in her legs eased, and her sense of threat in the darkness yielded to a sense of safety. She snuggled against him.
“Better?” he slid his hands up her back to her shoulders, as if to push her away.
“Some,” she replied, cuddling closer. The hands slid back down, sending warmth through her. “I’ve made a mess of it, haven’t I?”
He didn’t answer.
“Too much a diplomat to agree with me?” she mumbled from deep in his coat.
“Too intelligent to state the obvious,” he responded.
I acted without thinking. I put us both in jeopardy. I led him through muddy fields and sheep dung for heaven’s sake. And Volkov will know. She shivered again.
“More cold?” he asked. He held her tight.
Volkov will know and Sahin will kill his agent. Papa!
The weight of it crushed her. Wet tears overflowed, ran down her cheeks, and soaked his shirt.
Richard jerked away. “Please, no tears,” he whispered. “It won’t help and—”
A sob escaped her and then another.
“Don’t!” She could hear his consternation and confusion in that one word, a man all at sea when faced with a woman’s tears. He pulled her close again.
Some things even Glenaire couldn’t control. A woman’s grief is one of them.
“Don’t,” he repeated more gently and lowered his mouth to hers.
He kissed her, she thought, to quiet her sobs as much as to comfort. It quickly flamed into something else.
She tasted salt in the kiss, her tears flowing into his mouth.
His harsh lips softened, gently teasing and urging Lily to open to him.
She did, falling headlong into the fire that had threatened to ignite between them for two days.
One last coherent thought came to her: among the insane events of this foolish expedition, opening to Glenaire would be the most foolish.
At that moment, she didn’t care. She wanted the comfort he offered.
He shrugged off his coat, brushing her hand aside when she tried to cling.
“I need to touch you,” he rasped. “Let me get this out of the way.” He slipped off his tailored jacket and tossed it over the stall behind him.
The jacket of her riding habit followed it, removed by his deft hands before she could protest.
Soon enough he’d wrapped his greatcoat around them both, his hands inside, gliding up her back to undo the ties of her chemisette, one after inevitable one.
Talented fingers slipped through the gap in back and caressed her through her shift, up, down, and up again to run his fingers along the edge where her skin burned at his touch. All the while his mouth moved down her neck to its juncture with her shoulder.
He tugged the front of her chemisette and followed it with his mouth when it slipped across her breasts to fall to her waist. His mouth clamped over one breast, wet through her shift, and sucked, gently at first and then hard and demanding.
A sharp clenching deep inside overtook her.
Lily found it hard to breathe. Impossible to think.
“Glenaire,” she gasped.
“Richard,” he murmured against her skin. He clamped one hand on her derriere and held her in place while his mouth found her other breast. She came up against the hard ridge of his arousal and slumped forward, leaning over his head.
I need to touch him. I need— She slid her hand down the neck of his shirt.
He shot up, yanking his shirt from his pantaloons. She pushed it up until she could kiss the places her hands explored. His hands—Ah, talented hands!—touched the sensitive skin above her shift, then inside to tease her nipples. When her hands slid to the waist of his pantaloons, he moaned deeply.
“Wait!” Cold air, sharp and icy against her overheated skin struck her damp breasts when he pulled away. Something rustled in the dark. She groped though the maelstrom of desire for her moral compass. She failed to find it.
He came back before the madness receded, swept her up in his arms, and captured her mouth. “Clean,” he said against her lips.
Lily lifted her head, confused. He kissed her again.
“I found a bin of clean straw,” he explained. She kissed him back, teasing the side of his mouth with her tongue. His mouth held hers when he lifted her off her feet and swept his coat from around her shoulders.
He spread the coat and lay Lily on it. In seconds he lay on top of her, his weight both warm and welcome. He pulled the edges of the coat around them both. His hands and mouth drove all thought but one from Lily.
More. I need to touch you more. I need to be touched. I need…
His mouth explored her, without the shift now, that garment pushed down to her waist. She gripped his hair with one hand and ran the other down the corded muscles of his back.
When a tug alerted her that he had loosened her skirt, she started to rise up so he could pull it down.
Instead, he yanked it up to her waist, urging her to relax into the cocoon of his coat.
One hand caressed her inner thigh, sending waves of heat through her womb.
Her hands moved restlessly under his shirt.
Fingers fluttered through the curls between her thighs and caressed her where she already felt moisture. She reached for the fall of his pants, but he stopped her.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “Almost.”
One finger slipped inside her. Another followed. She drowned in a sea of unfamiliar sensation. His hands caressed until Lily clung to him, desperate and unable to contribute to his pleasure.
“Richard?” she murmured, her voice rising at the end. “Too much, too… Oh.” Waves of pleasure left her blind. Mute.
When she returned to awareness, she felt him, hard and hot, press against her moist opening.
When did his pantaloons disappear?
He took her mouth and entered her a short way.
When he pulled out, vague disappointment filled her.
Could that be all? No. He did it again. And again.
When he slipped in and out in shallow thrusts, her pleasure began to build again.
Lily gave herself over to it until, in one hard thrust, he entered her completely.
Pain tore through her, igniting red sparks behind her eyes.
Lily cried out in pain.
Richard went rigid. He’d just taken her virginity with one vicious thrust and little care.
Damn it woman, why didn’t you tell me you were untouched?
He forced himself to stay still, head down, panting.
I assumed, the business with Volkov—I assumed…
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she gasped.
Unwilling to withdraw, afraid to hurt her more, he focused on the sound of his own breathing.
“I heard the first time—” she began. “But I didn’t—”
He started to withdraw. Her hand on his buttocks pressed him back.
“Don’t stop, now,” she murmured. “The damage is done.”
Damage? Is that what this is?
“Really, Richard. I think you’re not finished.”
I damned well am not. The feel of her hands drove him mad. He began to move in her.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he rasped. He couldn’t have stopped if he tried.
“I will be, Don’t stop.” She trailed a hand up his belly. The feel of it drove him to move again, gently at first until the madness overtook him, and he finished what he started.
As he fell, satiated, to her side, he heard her moan softly. He prayed the moan meant pleasure. He owed her that at least.
Damn, damn, damn.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” His words sounded curt to his own ears. Why didn’t I pay more attention?
She didn’t answer. He choked back a curse.
“Are you—” he began.
“Fine,” she mumbled. She turned her face away. He let her. A moment later he curled himself around her from behind and pulled her close with one arm.
“Sleep,” he said. “We have much to deal with tomorrow.”
She lay very still. He hoped she slept. He did not.
What hold does this woman have over me? I never lose control. Never. But he had; he had ravished a respectable young woman.
Another thought struck him. I didn’t even take precautions. Richard was no monk, but he kept his liaisons discreet. He used every precaution he knew to prevent fathering a child. So far he had been successful.
He had never approached a respectable young woman with so much as a stolen kiss.
Irrationally, he resented her for it. Where was the damned woman’s common sense?
As soon as the sky lightened enough to see, long before dawn, he rose and began to assemble the remains of his clothes. He pulled up his pantaloons and picked up his shirt.
“Is it morning?” Lily’s voice, muffled by his greatcoat, interrupted him.
“Almost. The earlier we get to the Park, the better.”
He turned his back to her and examined his shirt. A particularly nasty stain covered the front. It would have to be burned.
“I need help,” she murmured.
At least she isn’t wailing.
He pulled the shirt over his head and turned to her. She lifted her shift back into place, covering her sweet breasts, but she groped in vain to fasten her chemisette. He would have her clothing burned also.
He knelt, closed the garment with a few short movements, and rose abruptly. He did not need the graceful slope of the back of her neck where she held up her glorious auburn hair to lure him to her. That dance had been done, binding him to her with silken cords.
He put on his jacket and handed her hers. The tailored riding habit did not look at all alluring. Yet, here he stood, his life in tatters.
They would marry of course. Not once in the entire night had he conjured a way out. They would marry. He pulled her to her feet and watched her fasten her skirt.
“We may still make Chadbourn Park before anyone rises if we set out now,” he said.
“Except the servants,” she retorted.
“They don’t matter. We can contain the scandal.” He picked up his coat and swung it around her.
She looked up then, hopeful.
“We will marry of course,” he told her. “Quickly, but not so abruptly as to cause comments.” He walked toward the door, expecting her to follow.
“I beg your pardon,” she called out to him. “We will what?”
He turned on his heel. “Miss Thornton, you will be the Marchioness of Glenaire. That is far from ideal, and the difference in our state will no doubt cause talk. We will have to endure it.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why this ‘far from ideal’ demand? Has Lady Sarah refused you?”
“Don’t be coy, Miss Thornton. You have led me into folly at every step. After last night I have no choice. I shall have to marry you. My family—”
“Your family would have kittens if I married you, which I will not.”
“You have respectable, if not the highest, breeding, you will show to advantage when properly dressed, and you will do well as a diplomatic hostess. My family, I was going to say, will have to deal with it.” He stalked away. “So will you.”
“I will not,” Lily shouted after him. He ignored her.
She isn’t a fool. She will leap at the chance to be a marchioness. Does the damned woman think she deserves poetry also?