How To School Your Scoundrel (24 page)

T
he hot August sun was melting the back of Luisa’s dress to her skin, and it was only ten o’clock in the morning. She clipped another rose and laid it in her basket, and moved on to the herbs in their boxes, which were presently enjoying the shade of the cypress trees.

She had never been terribly interested in gardens back in Germany. Gardens were places to be enjoyed, to pass through, to provide flowers and food for an abundant table, to be tended by a small army of laborers who dissolved into the landscape as she approached. She was far too busy with affairs of state to interest herself in the art and science of growing things.

Now, of course, she had all the time in the world.

She clipped a few leaves of basil, a few sheaves of rosemary. She was just reaching for the parsley when a hand closed around her shoulder.

She jumped and turned, nearly sticking her husband with the gardening shears. “Good Lord! You’ve got to stop sneaking up on me like that.”

An injured air. “I prefer the word
stealth
, madam.
Sneak
has such a vulgar cast to it.”

“It’s your natural style, I suppose. You can’t help sneaking about, after all those years of hunting down traitors and assassins.” She waved the shears for emphasis.

“Among others. Put those down, for God’s sake. You make my blood run cold.”

But though his voice was its usual acerbic self, the Earl of Somerton’s blood seemed anything but cold. In fact, he looked decidedly warm. His skin had taken on a golden tan, his hair shone sleek and black in the sun. His shoulders looked as if they could hold up the world. Luisa turned back to her herbs just in time to hide her smile.

He was thriving. He was alive.

“Are you gathering herbs again? I hope you’re not planning to make another ill-fated assault on the kitchen, my dear.”

“God forbid.” She shuddered. “I like the scent of them in the house, that’s all. I’m going to put them in jars on the shelves and lie there on the bed and just smell them.”

“How imaginative. I pant with anticipation.” He reached for the basket, plucked out a stalk of rosemary, and sniffed it.

“Have you been out walking?” she asked.

“Up the hill and back.” By
hill
he meant
mountain
, and by
mountain
he meant the one three miles away by the beaten path, which he climbed daily. He had, as usual, left directly after breakfast, wearing his white shirt and breeches and a white cloth hat; the hat was now gone, and his shirt was sticking transparently to his skin, revealing every hill and hollow of his burly chest.

She cleared her throat and turned away. “And a bathe in the lake afterward, apparently.”

“I had no wish to offend my bride.” He brushed the rosemary against the back of her neck.

She rested the shears against the edge of the planter. “You could take me with you.”

For an instant, the rosemary stilled against her skin, and then resumed its slow circle at her nape. “You were sleeping so soundly, madam. I hadn’t the heart to disturb you.”

I missed you.
The words filled her mouth, but she could not quite bring her lips to open and release them. Absurd. They had spent the last fortnight and more making love with abandon, with unchecked depravity, at every opportunity, in every possible location, in every possible position, by the lakeshore and against a cypress tree, and on her belly over the table with her hands curled around the opposite edge and Somerton on his feet behind her, gripping her hips, thrusting into her like a stallion servicing a mare, while she screamed with the raw, unending intensity of the pleasure. They slept side by side every night, in a tangle of possessive arms and sultry breath, as if they could not get close enough, could not get enough of each other’s skin.

Why, then, should the simple admission that she missed him, when he left her bed at dawn and went out walking for hours in the Tuscan countryside, seem to violate the unspoken pact they held between them?

Somerton’s large body pressed against her back, humid from exercise and the clean lake water. Already her flesh was responding to him, already the familiar warmth of desire pooled in her belly and between her legs. She couldn’t stop her hand, when it snaked up to enclose his silky dark head; she couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped her lips when his fingers found her breast.

She turned in his arms and took his face between her palms. But instead of kissing him, as she usually did, stopping any chance of conversation with the wordless communication of sexual union, she said, “Are you happy here?”

Somerton’s eyes, heavy lidded with desire, opened warily. An instant’s telltale hesitation, and then: “Of course, my dear.” He removed one of her hands from his face and kissed it. “Are you?”

“Yes.”
Speak. Say something. Break the stalemate
. “I don’t want to leave,” she said in a rush.

The tension about his eyes softened briefly, and then his eyebrows rose in that self-contained way of his. “I beg your pardon.”

“I was thinking, just this morning, when I woke up. What if Olympia doesn’t come? What if . . . what if the situation can’t be recovered?”

“Then we shall march over to Germany ourselves, I suppose.” He was still holding her hand, and gave it a little squeeze. “I gave you my promise, after all.”

She whispered, “What if I don’t want you to keep it?”

His expression didn’t change. Above them, a flock of sparrows took flight from the cypress, in a gigantic flurry of wings and disputed positions.

“What do you mean?” he said at last.

“Listen to me. All my life, I’ve been groomed for my position. My education, my upbringing, all of it was designed to fit me into my place. The place God intended for me, my father said. My life, my choice of husband, my duties, they were supposed to be a fair exchange for all that luxury and privilege. For which I’m grateful, but . . .”

“I think I understand you.” He removed her other hand and held them both between his, next to his chest. “You’ve had a taste of freedom, haven’t you? The simple life, a bit of passion to stir the humors. You don’t want to back to your castle now. You’re perhaps even a little afraid of going back.”

“No.”

Somerton glanced up at the sun and back again. His expression remained inscrutable; she couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. Her pulse beat madly in her neck. Did he welcome this admission? Was he flattered by it? Did he agree?
A bit of passion.
Was that all this was to him, these weeks of undreamt-of pleasure and intimacy?

Did he even understand what she was really trying to say?

“You know it’s not possible,” he said at last, not unkindly. “The trappings of your life, you can’t escape them. You are who you are.”

She was falling, falling from a great height, and there was nothing below to catch her.

“Yes, of course. I was only trying to say . . .”

“Olympia will arrive, I’m afraid. You will be obliged to act once more. God willing, we shall restore you to your throne. Life will go on, one dutiful step after another. In the end, I suspect you wouldn’t really be happy otherwise. Purpose, after all, is what keeps the human condition from becoming unbearable.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said numbly.

“And this, of course. This makes it bearable.” He released her hands and took her in his arms and kissed her, long and slow, with strokes of his tongue she might have called loving, if they came from another man. A man who loved her. She gave herself up to the kiss. She gave herself up to the hands that caressed her. She unbuttoned his shirt with eager fingers and sighed at the familiar expanse of masculine chest before her, the evidence of his great strength, of his heart buried somewhere beneath. If she laid her ear on it, she could hear it beating.

“You are so beautiful,” she said. “Beautiful and brutal. You’re like an ancient Roman coin. Like Caesar himself is taking me to bed.”

Somerton picked her up and set her on the stone bench. It was warm from the sun, adding to the heat in her loins. He lifted her skirts around her waist and dropped to his knees between her bare legs, and her body thrilled with anticipation of what he would do to her.

His mouth was hot and knowing on her delicate flesh, exploring her expertly, teasing the core with tender flicks of his tongue. Oh, he knew how she liked it best. His hands wrapped around her thighs, holding her steady while she moaned her approval, while her hands dug into his black hair in animal delight for the connection between them.

They had
this
, at least. They had this powerful surge of desire that ran between them, like a massive electrical current. When her flesh contracted against his lips in a shimmering climax, she knew he was relishing her response, relishing the scent of her desire and the sight of her arousal. He was enjoying
her.
And when he lifted her up, sat on the bench, and settled her astride him, she knew the thick rod that pressed into her folds would be as hard as stone, would fill her to bursting, would surge in and out of her with the energy of a beast mating in the wild.

So she rode him with joy, because this was the joy that had been allotted to her. She threw back her head and called out his name when a second marvelous climax throbbed through her body from the hard male organ buried inside her. She took his shout of release into her skin, absorbing his ecstasy within her own, and when she sank on his neck and shoulders, sweat soaked and replete, she listened to the slowing thud of his pulse and knew that his silence, like hers, was meant to be shared.

It was their silence, together.

She didn’t want to move, though the sun was hot, though her husband’s body was even hotter. The air was so thick and pregnant with heat, it lay around them like a cloak. Perhaps they should go down to the lake together and bathe. The cypress trees rustled with birds, still agitated.

“Somerton.”

“Yes, Markham?”

She smiled. He still called her that when his guard slipped, when he was as close to happy as his nature allowed. His most affectionate endearment.

“It . . .
that
 . . . It’s late.” The words, which had been rattling in her head for three or four days now, were easier to say than she had imagined.

“What’s late?” He sounded drowsy.

“
That.
I mean me. I’m late.”

He made a noise in his throat. “Late for luncheon?”

“Late for . . . well, for not being with child.” A peculiar feeling rose and swelled inside her, as she shared this intimate detail with him. She couldn’t quite put a name to it.

“I see.” No longer drowsy.

She lifted her head. “Are you happy?”

He looked at her with grave eyes. “Are you quite sure?”

“Of course I’m not sure. It’s only a few days. But I thought . . . well, it’s never happened before, I’ve always been exact to the day, and . . . I wanted to tell you.” Now she was blushing. Curse Somerton and his searching gaze.

He straightened himself and lifted her away in a seamless motion of his powerful arms. “Very good. Excellent news.” He set her carefully on the bench, handed her a handkerchief, and rose to his feet, fastening his trousers as he went. His face was dark. “How gratifying to discover I’ve already executed my duty in such a satisfactory manner. Naturally, I am at your service in the future, when further children are required to fill out the royal nursery.”

She jumped up from the bench. “What the devil does that mean?”

“Have I mentioned, my dear, how relieved I am that your language hasn’t gone missish since you resumed wearing dresses,” he said.

“Don’t be a beast. I didn’t want to tell you yet. It’s so early, and nothing’s certain. It might be something else, or maybe I’ve miscounted, and . . . and anything could go wrong. But I thought you would be happy at the possibility, at least. I thought you wanted a child with me.”

He stood stock-still, looking down at her with his blackest scowl. “I am happy.”

“You look as if I’ve just passed you a sentence of death.”

“Naturally I’m happy. This was the entire point of our heroic efforts this past fortnight or so, wasn’t it? Our rabbitlike devotion to the business of copulation. To populate your royal womb with . . .”

A sound interrupted the motionless garden air.

A human sound.

A careful yet masculine cough.

With horror, Luisa listened to the delicate crunch of gravel on the garden path behind her. She looked desperately into Somerton’s face for some clue, some indication of the identity of the man behind her. That it was not whom she feared.

But the expression on her husband’s face was exactly as she dreaded: a glowering and decidedly hostile resignation.

He laid a hand on her shoulder and turned her gently around.

“Your Grace,” he said. “What an extraordinary coincidence. We were just speaking about you, not half an hour ago.”

•   •   •

A
fine abode,” said the Duke of Olympia, waving his wineglass to the white walls around him. “A trifle small, of course, but newlyweds only need a single room for their purposes, eh?”