Lady Wild (3 page)

The fabric of her gown peeled away from her corset and chemise, which had become transparent. He ached to slip his fingers beneath the thin fabric and caress the delicate skin of her back, but he refrained. “Yes, it is. I promised whilst you were in the river to tell you who I am. No prince, alas.”

Her shoulders straightened, a strange prickliness giving her body starch. “Princes, I should think, are far and few between.”

“So are lords.”

“Lords seem to be everywhere,” she countered, a brittle note to her voice.

“You know many?”

“I know enough.”

“Enough to have clearly harbored an unfavorable disposition toward them?” he observed dryly.

“Please, just continue on with your task.” She shivered, and a delightful display of chilled skin mirrored what she might look like when overcome with desire. It was a damned appealing image.

He teased his fingers along the base of the wool bodice, inching it away from her white corset and chemise, sliding it down her arms. “You can continue to call me sir or mister, if it gives you more pleasure.”

She tossed her head at that, her hair, the color of the setting sun, flying over his hands. “What I call you does not change who you are.”

The feel of her slightly wet, silken locks stole his breath. The waist-length strands spilled over his fingers. He longed to wind them with his palm, grip her nape and take her sweetness in a wicked kiss. “I suppose not. What shall I call you?”

“Ophelia, of course.”

He frowned. There was more to her name. He felt certain of it. “Yes, but—”

“Plain Ophelia will do.”

“You could hardly ever be called plain.”

She snorted. “You are falling into a most drab text.”

Forcing his fingers to move, he went to the hook and eye at her waist, easing the fabric away from her trim middle. Her hands came up to grab the dark material, and she pulled downward, revealing her white petticoats. And he stilled, unable to move, barely able to say, “It is the one I know.”

She laughed. “You should read more.”

He let his fingers trail from her heavy skirts as they fell to the earth. “My words come from experience.”

“If those are the words of your experience,” she said lightly, “I pity the poor female you have brained them with.”

Though she teased, there was truth in her jest. What had so framed her against lords, or men, for that matter? He reached out and gently placed his hand on her bared shoulder. “You do have claws. And I so bravely dared the river to pull you out.”

She tsked. “Perhaps you should have left me to my lot.” He turned her slowly, gazing down at her. Wishing that they could dispense with all the armor she had so quickly placed upon her heart and soul. Wishing that he himself didn’t have such a wall of iron about his own heart. Wishes were for fools. “I could not let such a precious jewel as you drown.”

She rolled her eyes and said tightly, a sudden verbal shield icing her words, “You have returned to your boring text. I do not care for hyperbole, sir.”

He couldn’t help himself. She was so unlike the other women of his acquaintance, fanciful and strange. He
liked
her. Andrew gazed down at her through heavy-lidded eyes, the air about them growing tangible with his growing desire for her.

She flushed, heady at his nearness. Whether she realized it or not, she tilted her head back slightly, her lips parting, baring the slightest hint of pink tongue. “You are so. . .”

“Handsome?” he teased.

“Odd.”

Andrew drew her to him quickly and lowered his mouth to hers. Unthinking, he took her lips, kissing with a softness he had not felt in a decade. It made no sense, the desire to meld her body to his own.

The taste of her was sweet, mint leaves and unsurety, as she gasped against his assault. Her hands gripped his arms, hard at first, but then she yielded, her body pliant.

A pleasure so great he could scarce countenance it overwhelmed him. She was the answer to his unknowing pleas that he find solace in this broken world.

And how could he ever let that go?

CHAPTE
R THREE

Love is a thing most wished for, and yet

what we wish for burns us with a fire so sharp

it destroys. To be consumed, who would wish such a fate?

-Ophelia’s Notebook

Ophelia burned and froze at once. Her cold garments chilled her skin as a cool breeze blew down the river, but oh, the heat of
him
. A perfect stranger? The touch of his hands possessively pressed to her back and the soft roughness of his kiss lit her ablaze, threatening to turn her body to cinder.

She’d been kissed by a few boys, neighbor lordlings come to visit her father and even once the blacksmith’s son, each and every one part of her quest to feel something more than the placid, ongoing, never-ending monotony that was her life in Sussex, but this?
This
kiss destroyed the significance of any of those other kisses, except perhaps that they highlighted the mastery of
this
lord’s kiss.

And that she didn’t like, even if her body so clearly did.

Even so, surely she could venture a little further in this kiss, if only to sate her need for knowledge? If only to experiment, as she had not been allowed to do now for some time? So, she opened her kiss to him. His tongue didn’t thrust but seduced, teasing the inside of her mouth, featherlight. A mesmerizing, breath-stealing set of small, delicate, yet infinitely masculine touches.

She gasped and was startled by how her body responded favorably to the slight taste of juniper berries, the scent of lemon and the faint hint of the stallion he’d ridden this morning on his clothes.

Her heart accelerated in her chest. Thinking of him. Riding. Wild. Hard. His slightly too long black hair tangled by the crisp air, his wicked body working at one with the animal beneath him as they had torn across the stony landscape.

He pulled back gently. “What are you thinking? Your heart. . . It races against my touch.”

She stared up into his seductive eyes, tempted to push him aside, tempted to lie. Instead, she said, her voice shockingly deep to her own ears, “You. Riding.”

She blinked as an image of him came unbidden. The power of his body over hers, stripping her clothes from her until she was completely bared to him. And then he would ride her, hard, and fast, and sure, taking her away from everything, letting her lose herself in his dark talents. Dragging her down to something darker, something far more inescapable, and all in the guise of pleasure.

Ruination.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to read
Fanny Hill
when she’d been a girl. It had certainly given her a wide array of fantasies, such as his riding her, to choose from. But that’s all she could have. Fantasies. She could not embrace wild abandon.

As if he could read her thoughts, a stunned breath passed his lips before he whispered, “Riding you?”

Sucking in a large swallow of air, she pulled away, her hands shaking.

“Forgive me,” he said.

“No. Those were indeed where my thoughts progressed.”

“Do you wish it?” He studied her carefully, assessing her. “For me to make love to you?”

A soul-aching part of her cried out,
Yes
. It didn’t matter that she knew him not at all. She needed to feel, to be completely alive in this time of sorrow, and surely he could give that to her. But she shook her head. “It is a thing only of dreaming.”

“Then why wake?”

She laughed, a forced sound. “My dreams have leant themselves to nightmares of late, and it is not a thing I wish to dwell upon for fear that all this shall twist into something not pleasant at all.”

“I would never wish a thing upon you. So, I will take you home?”

She nodded, pressing her lips into a rigid line, lest she beg him to take her away from here entirely. “Please turn around.”

He hesitated but then did as she asked.

Quickly, silently, she stripped off the remaining elements of her garments, which were now dripping upon the loamy ground.

He held out his great coat, his head turned to the side, intent upon helping her into his clothes. Hesitantly, she studied the soft fabric and the silk lining, as if it were something not benevolent at all, but rather something which might steal her soul. Somehow it seemed if she allowed him to put it on her,
he
would envelop her. Not just his garment.

She shook the foolish thought away.

The heavy folds of wool slid over her arms, then enveloped her body. He stood behind her, his presence just as heavy a weight upon her as his coat. She fought the desire to lean back and rest her head against his chest. The coat dragged upon the ground, denoting the many inches that varied their heights.

She pulled the folds tighter, a barrier against the wind and him. But the closer she pulled the garment about her, the closer she felt to the strange lord.

The coat cradled her in his scent and caressed her body gently, just as his hands had done. Just a few moments before, the silk lining had stroked his hard limbs, touched his muscled chest, and given shelter to his broad shoulders. Now it sheltered her.

Inexplicably, tears came to her eyes. For the first time in a very long time, she felt protected, even if it was by this man who externally seemed a rake and a danger to any young woman who might hand her trust over to him.

“Thank you,” she said, determined to break the silence.

He bowed. “Now, where do you live?”

Her stomach tightened into a knot. If she could have, she would have left him here. She didn’t wish to draw him into the world she dwelt in, where he would see how small her life was, how sad it had become. “You don’t—”

“I do. Besides, I shall want my coat when you are done with it.”

It was a weak excuse on his part. How easy it would be to simply have a servant fetch it for him at a later time. But it was clear he intended to escort her. She simply walked up the bank toward the narrow path that traced its way through the ancient oak forest, wondering what bizarre mystery now might fly into her life with a viscount in tow.

The small cottage was not what he’d been expecting. In fact, it was only one story with what appeared to be a poky attic, crowned by a thatched roof. With its red door and red-painted window shutters, he half-believed he’d been transported into a Grimms’ fairy tale.

It was barely in decent repair. The thatch looked in need of new reeds, and the whitewash was beginning to chip in several places, like a once-loved child’s doll, its porcelain fading.

He assumed it was on Vane’s estate. If so, he was going to have to have a word with his friend about being a sufficient landlord.

He stole a glance at Ophelia. This could hardly be her home.

She gave him a tight smile, rushed up to the narrow door, apparently about to pull off his coat, despite the fact that a trap or farmer might pass down the deeply rutted lane that passed before the cottage, thrust it at him, and send him off into the world, completely unwiser to the cocoon that was her home.

“Will you not invite me in?” He eyed the chimney, black smoke swirling up into the air. “I should like to meet your parents and perhaps warm my hands by your fire?” It was damned rude, his pushing, but he felt compelled to peek inside her strange little world. One she clearly didn’t wish him to see.

She frowned, her fiery brows pressing together over her sharply green eyes. “If you insist.”

He grinned in response, disliking her discomfort, but determined.

Her pale hand twisted the black iron latch, and she strode into the narrow hall. His trailing coat brushed the walls, the space was so small, and he had to duck to enter behind her.

Dim light spilled in from the parlor, and the hall, bathed in shadow, led to a remarkably narrow and curved stair that likely ascended to the attic. Given the outside of the house, it would be barely large enough for his Ophelia to dress in.

“Ophelia, dear?”