A Woman of Passion (51 page)

As Anne and Francie embraced, Grace made an announcement. “Bess says we didn't kill her—God did.”

Young Gilbert Talbot joined them, and when they were all together, they found the courage to tell Bess of the terrible argument Francis had had with his mother and how the rest of them had joined in the shouting match to support their eldest brother. When his mother
laid about him with her walking stick, she fell to the floor in a seizure and died.

Bess talked to them for hours, doing her best to take away their guilt and assure them they would not be blamed. She knew they all felt considerably better for talking about it openly. Finally, Grace asked, “Will Father punish us?”

“No, my darling, he will not,” Bess promised. “I shall write him a letter and leave it with your big brother Francis. Your father will likely be home tomorrow. He loves you all very much. Your welfare will be his only concern.”

In the letter Bess told Shrewsbury that his children were blaming themselves for their mother's death.
I know you will take away their guilt, as you took away mine. You have an infinite supply of strength and compassion and an amazing ability to comfort. My heart goes out to the children, and to you also, Shrew.

That night, as Bess lay abed, her thoughts were filled with him. Before he left for Court, they had pledged to become discreet lovers with a long, beautiful summer lying before them. Instead, Shrewsbury was returning to a dead wife, a big funeral, and a long, circumspect period of mourning with the eyes of the kingdom upon him. Gertrude's death had changed everything.

In spite of the fact that she felt cold and shivery, Bess finally fell asleep. Gradually, she felt a warmth against her back that slowly seeped into her limbs. She stretched as the delicious heat crept over her entire body. Suddenly, she realized he was there in the bed with her, and she turned eagerly into his arms. “You came,” she whispered in wonder.

He took her whispered words into his mouth, then murmured against her lips, “Of course I came.”

She melted against the molten heat of his body and opened her mouth for his ravishing. Bess moaned with longing. He was easily the most attractive and sexually arousing man she had ever encountered. Her breasts and belly ached with need. She wanted his hands and his mouth on her body, she wanted his long, thick, marble-hard manroot filling her emptiness, but above all, above everything else in the world, she wanted to be Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury.

“Are you mad?” He pulled away from her and quit the bed. “You're only a servant.”

Bess sprang from the bed to confront him, uncaring that she was naked with her disheveled hair tumbling about her shoulders. “I am Bess of Hardwick—just as good, if not better, than any in the land!”

“Well, at least your name is apt,” Lord Talbot drawled. “You certainly make my wick hard.”

She flew at him and raked his dark, arrogant face. “Bastard! Whoreson! Ravisher!”

He began to laugh. “You openly invited me, Vixen.”

“I've changed my mind; I won't fuck with you, Shrew. I won't be your mistress. No bedding without a wedding!”

“You set too high a price on yourself! You will never become Countess of Shrewsbury.”

“I shall, I shall!” she vowed.

Bess awoke with a start and sat up in bed. She was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration and didn't know where she was for a moment. She lit a bedside candle and saw with relief that she was at Chatsworth in her own beautiful bedchamber. The dream came flooding back to her. She realized it was made up of memories from the past. Shrewsbury had always desired her, but only as his mistress; it went without saying that she could never be
anything more. She had deliberately suppressed her deep feelings for him for years, but now that he was a free man, she could deny them no longer. Her heart told her that she loved him. Then, as clearly as if he was in the room with her, Bess heard the man she loved say:
You will never become Countess of Shrewsbury.

Bess drew up her knees and wrapped her arms about them. She sat hugging herself for an hour, deep in thought, then slowly the corners of her mouth lifted and she whispered into the flickering candlelight, “I shall, I shall!”

Two weeks had passed since Gertrude Talbot's large funeral, which all the northern nobility, except for Bess, had attended. Her married daughter, Frances, and husband, Henry Pierrepont, had represented her. Bess and Shrewsbury had not seen each other since the afternoon they had ridden alone in Derbyshire's magnificent peaks.

It was the last day of May, and twilight descended in the gardens of Chatsworth. When Bess heard the dinner bell clang, she sent her daughters inside for their evening meal. She lingered in the rose garden, breathing in the heady fragrance produced by a warm afternoon followed by a cool evening. When she glanced up from admiring a full-blown bloom, Shrewsbury was coming toward her.

“How I've missed you,” he said simply.

“How are the children?”

That they were her first concern told him exactly why they spoke of her on a daily basis. The older ones had such deep admiration for her, while little Grace was besotted with her, demanding to know why Bess couldn't be her mother. “They will be all right, I think. We've
become closer. Thank you for talking to them. Your understanding words comforted them.”

“I didn't attend the funeral; I couldn't bring myself to play the hypocrite.”

“I understand that, but why are you avoiding me, Bess?”

“Everything has changed.”

“Nothing has changed,” he contradicted flatly.

“Will you take dinner with me?”

“Can we be private?”

“Of course.”

Bess had been waiting for him to come. She had planned exactly what she would say, what she would do. Since she was a young girl she had been taught how to catch a husband, and the lessons she had learned would stand her in good stead now.

Bess's mother and Marcella offered the earl their condolences and politely withdrew. Bess ordered dinner be served in her private sitting room, then she took him directly upstairs. The moment the door closed, he reached for her.

“No, Shrew.”

“Why the devil not?”

“We have to get something clear. Please sit down. This is difficult for me to say, Shrew; please try not to interrupt me.”

He folded his long length in a leather chair and waited.

“I've been avoiding you because your status has changed. You are now a widower, and I want to make it clear from the outset that I won't marry you.” She saw him slant an eyebrow at her but was relieved when he did not interrupt.

“I know that you covet the land I own in Sherwood
Forest, and I know you would love to own Chatsworth. I'm fully aware of the benefits you'd reap from a business merger between us. Our land runs together and would not need to be managed separately, but for the first time in my life, I have a considerable income and no debts to speak of. I am a wealthy widow who has already received two proposals of marriage, so I don't want another one from you.”

“Who the devil—” His words were cut short by the appearance of a footman who brought their dinner.

Bess hid her amusement at the perfect timing of the interruption. “We'll serve ourselves. That will be all,” she instructed the footman, who bowed and withdrew.

“Don't ask me who the proposals came from. I don't want you to get angry—you are far too possessive of me as it is.” She indicated the food. “Come and eat before it gets cold.”

He came up out of the chair and took two long strides, swallowing the distance that separated them. “To hell with the food. Was it John Thynne?” he demanded.

“No, it wasn't Sir John, though his correspondence hints at it.” She smiled up at him and laid her hand upon his cheek. “It doesn't matter who it was, for you have all my heart.”

He groaned and enfolded her in his arms. “Bess, Bess, don't do this to me—you know I've loved you forever. I don't want your lands, I just want you.”

Men want what they cannot have, Bess reminded herself sternly, and will move heaven and earth to get it—I devoutly hope, she added, crossing her fingers. “Darling,” she whispered her first real endearment to him, “if you start kissing me, we'll never get to the food. We won't often be able to dine so intimately; let's enjoy it while we have the chance.” Bess knew that while they
talked and ate, she had a small measure of control, but once he started to make love to her, all her control would be swept away by his passion.

Beneath the silver covers were a brace of plump partridge crisped in wine, followed by a venison pasty, redolent with leeks and herbs. She served him a hearty helping of each and poured them wine. She was acutely aware of his gaze, which never left her face. “For all the notice you are taking of your food, I could have served sheep brains.”

“I'm starving for you; all I can taste is breast.” He threw down his napkin and moved around the table. Then he lifted her up and slid beneath her.

“I'm not finished,” she protested breathlessly as the heat from his thighs seeped up through the material of her gown.

“I'm not started.” He lifted her hair from the nape of her neck and set his lips to it. He was already full and hard, but when he felt his cock throb with every heartbeat, he began to lick and suck her neck, unable to resist a passionate love bite.

Bess gasped as his hands came up beneath her breasts and cupped them possessively, loving the exquisite sensations he aroused as she felt her nipples harden with desire. “Darling, there's no need for haste. I want you to stay all night.” She knew her words inflamed him, for his hands slid from her breasts to lift her skirts and stroke her naked thighs above her gartered stockings.

“I've waited an eternity to hear those words from your lips.” The food was forgotten as his fingers stroked her. His hungry mouth took possession of hers, and as his insistent tongue slid inside, he thrust a long finger inside her sheath and thrust deeply, rhythmically. The way her sugared walls closed over his finger told him her body
responded instantly, hungrily, to his foreplay, and he thanked God for this woman whose passion matched his own.

She clung to him as he brought her to shuddering climax with his fingers and knew this was just a foretaste of the dark velvet pleasuring he would give her this night. She felt his impatient hands on the fastenings of her gown and knew that any moment he would rip it from her in his haste.

She slipped from his knee and smiled as he protested. “I want to undress for you. Curb your impatience and watch me. It gives me unbelievable pleasure to see the desire blaze up in your eyes when you look at my body.”

The intense, hard look on his face thrilled her as she moved about the chamber, drawing the heavy brocade drapes across every window. Next she lit a long taper and set ablaze the dozens of candles in ornate silver candelabra. Then, very slowly, with sensuous deliberation, she unfastened the sedate gray silk gown and let it slither in a pool about her feet.

The impact of her tangerine undergarments made him draw in a swift breath of appreciation. Her clothes matched her personality perfectly tonight. Beneath her serene exterior lay a riot of flagrantly shocking color that revealed her passionate sexuality. Then, beneath that, he suspected there were dark erotic layers whose depths had never yet been plumbed.

She slowly stepped out of her petticoat, and as she flung it away, it flashed an arc of brilliant color across the candlelit chamber. She stood before him now, her sinuous body clad only in a short shift and black lace stockings. As she inched the shift up her thighs, she uncovered startling tangerine garters that held up her black stockings
, but even more arresting was the riot of red-gold curls that covered her high mons.

Bess slowly licked her lips in a deliberately provocative gesture as she paused for a full minute before lifting off her shift to reveal her breasts. She knew the arousing effect they had on him and knew the wait would heighten his anticipation.

He looked his fill, in a growing agony of need but thoroughly enjoying the splendid show Bess put on for him. Her body was so lush, it spoke a language of its own, crying out to be mated often, and mated well. And it promised untold rewards for the man bold enough to accept the challenge of arousing and satisfying the towering passion she had held in check for so long.

“You make the most beautiful mistress any man could wish for in his wildest dreams.”

“Shrew, I don't want to be your mistress. That's a demeaning position where a man pays a woman for sexual favors and only a small step up from being a whore. I want us to be lovers, equal in every way and completely free in every way. Promise?”

He was ready to promise her anything and give her the earth as well. He stripped off his clothes in a fever of need and tossed them away impatiently as he stalked his prey. He gathered her up and lifted her onto his engorged phallus. He did not need to tell her to wrap her legs about his back. He could feel the texture of the black lace stockings against his skin, as well as the heated flesh of her naked thighs where the stockings left off. The contrast was so erotically arousing, he plunged up into her with a savage thrust and felt her nails claw his back. Her velvet sheath lured him deeper, and, unable to remain standing a moment longer, he took her to the floor so that he could bury himself all the way inside her. She
felt like scalding honey, and his balls tightened so pleasurably, he growled deep in his throat like a wolf with its mate.

It was such a swift, dominant possession, Bess writhed beneath his big powerful body, relishing the fierce hunger he unleashed as he pounded into her, holding nothing back, like a rampant male animal. The mating became ferocious, with both of them making fierce demands upon each other. Bess loved the things he did to her, loved his hard hands on her body and the way they made her feel. He knew how to arouse her passion to madness. Her sheath gripped him convulsively as he buried his maleness inside her, harder and deeper with every savage plunge.

When her moans turned to gasps and a scream began to build in her throat, her lover took possession of her mouth, taking her love cries into himself, muffling her vocal response to keep them private from any who might be awakened by their passionate coupling. He felt her first flutters, knowing she was building to orgasm, and timed his climax accordingly. They spent together in an explosion that robbed them of breath and coherent thought. Then they collapsed together, his great weight pinning her to the floor as she sprawled beneath him in wanton abandon.