Lord Perfect (26 page)

Then at last he drew up her legs and thrust into her.
She wrapped her legs tightly about his hips and thrust back. When he
answered in kind, she threw her head back and arched her body. She
was fearless and uninhibited, taking pure animal joy in him, and he
could not get enough of her. He could only give himself up to her.

He was lost and didn't want to be found. The world was
bedlam and he didn't want sanity.

He wanted only her. He let passion take them where it
would, rushing recklessly to the last jolting ecstasy. He clasped her
tight in his arms and held on, through a short, sweet nothingness,
and he was holding her still while the world slowly rocked back into
place.

BATHSHEBA LAY SNUGLY in his arms for far longer than she
should have done. She need only breathe to inhale the scent of his
skin, and it made her feel as though she'd drunk one glass too many
of champagne.

She lay securely wrapped in his arms, her head resting
on his chest, one hand clinging to his shoulder, one leg tucked
between his. She wanted to stay where she was, where she had wanted
to be, it seemed, since the first moment she saw him. She wanted to
make believe this was where she properly belonged.

But she was too aware of the midmorning sun, and the
sounds outside of a town fully awake and busy.

She made herself draw away. Or try to. His arms
tightened about her. She pushed at him. The muscular arms were
immovable.

"You must let me go," she said.

"You are becoming emotional," he said. "I
knew this would happen."

"I am not emotional," she lied. As the languor
of lovemaking wore off, she was rapidly approaching a state of panic.
She was ruined, utterly. She'd ruined everything. Olivia's future
was—

"You are not thinking rationally," he said. "I
can feel it. You are agitated, when you ought to be calm and content.
After all, we have done what we both have been longing to do—"

"Speak for yourself," she said.

"If my touch disgusts you, you have a curious way
of showing it," he said.

"I did not want to hurt your feelings," she
said.

He laughed softly, his big chest rising and falling.

"Yes, of course, you are happy," she said
tartly. "You got what you wanted."

"Did you not get what you wanted?" he said. He
drew his head back to regard her. "If that is the case, I should
be happy to correct any oversights."

"That is not what I meant," she said. "I
meant that you are a man, and lovemaking means nothing to you. It is
not the same for me. I cannot simply roll over and fall asleep,
especially when all my carefully arranged world is falling to
pieces—and I know I have no one to blame but myself."

There was a short silence, then, "I should not have
to remind you that it takes two," he said. "I made no
effort to free myself from your wicked toils."

She recalled what she'd done: the irresistible urge to
lick the water droplet from his chin… the urge she'd given in
to. What more brazen invitation could she have issued?

She ought to hide her head in shame, but shame was not
in her character.

"No, you did not," she said. "You put up
no struggle at all."

"I appear to be sadly lacking in moral fiber,"
he said.

"That is true," she said. She let her hand
stray over his chest. "Naturally, I prefer that. The Great World
will be vastly disappointed in you, however. You know what they will
say, do you not?" she went on ruthlessly. If she did not face
the facts, aloud, she'd let herself hope. For more. For everything to
come right… when she knew it could only go wrong. "They
will say a man of your strong character ought to have been able to
resist the likes of a common harlot like me."

"You are not a common harlot," he said
tightly.

"Very well. An uncommon harlot."

"Bathsheba," he said.

The sound of her Christian name in that deep baritone
surprised and moved her, but not as much as the anger that flared in
his dark eyes.

"I should never allow anyone to say such a thing of
you," he said. "That includes you."

He took her hand and lifted it to his lips and kissed
each knuckle. "Stop talking nonsense," he said. He returned
her hand to his chest and lay his atop it.

His hand was warm and big, and the simple gesture calmed
her. It was only then she realized that her hand no longer throbbed
with pain.

"My hand is better," she said.

"That is because your humors are in better balance
now," he said. He looked away, turning his head toward the bed.
"How comfortable it looks." He frowned. "How hard the
floor is."

"Was your bed not comfortable?" she said.
"Where did you sleep?"

He loosened his hold, and she sat up. He sat up, too,
and she let her gaze roam over him: miles and miles of naked, muscled
male. For a time, he had been all hers. She ought to be content, but
she was awash again in longing, exactly like a girl experiencing her
first infatuation.

Oh, she would pay dearly for this.

"I slept," he said. "I bathed." He
grimaced. "At least I did not come to you in all my dirt—not
that I came here intending to ravish you—er, I mean, to be
ravished." His dark gaze slid over her, lingering upon her
breasts, and a fire trail burned its way from there to the pit of her
belly.

She rose hastily.

He turned away and reached for his shirt. "I
thought you were still asleep," he said. "I was planning to
hide under the bed. But there you were, rising like Venus from the
waves— and may I say that Botticelli's Venus hasn't a patch on
you?" He pulled the shirt over his head and stood up.

You'd think she'd never heard a compliment before. It
was no use reminding herself she was two and thirty years old and
she'd borne a child, for she blushed, exactly like the innocent
maiden she wasn't, and something like pleasure danced in her heart.

The dancing stopped abruptly when he told her about the
servants' whispering in the corridor.

"Pray do not make yourself anxious," he said.
"The innkeeper did not see you."

His countenance seldom told her anything. Hers, she
realized, was an open book to him.

Her uneasiness grew. "She saw
you
,"
she said. "We must not leave this place together." She
moved to the chair that held her clothes. She took her chemise and
drawers from the top of the heap and eyed them unhappily. "I
wish I had brought fresh undergarments at least," she said.

He walked to the window and looked out. The shirt
covered him too well, allowing a view only of the lower part of his
long, muscled legs. Still, in the sunlight, the fine material was
semitransparent. She could make herself miserable studying the planes
and contours of his long, lean body… the narrow hip and taut
bottom…

She swallowed a groan.

"The inn yard is busy," he said. "Saturday
is market day in Reading. I am sure your wish can be accommodated."

"Are* you mad?" she said. "You cannot go
out in public to buy me underwear."

"I can think of very few labors I should more
enjoy," he said, turning back to her, face sober, dark eyes
glinting. "In the circumstances, however, I must assign the task
to others. I shall let Thomas—"

"Not
your
footman
!"

"I shall let Thomas choose a maidservant to attend
to the matter."

"If it comes to that, I can purchase my own
underthings." she said. "At least I am not known in
Reading. But it is not necessary."

She might as well have talked to the chair. He'd already
found the bell. He rang it.

"You cannot go out like that," he said. "And
you do not wish to don the garments you were wearing."

"It does not matter what I wish," she said. "I
am perfectly capable of making do."

"Why on earth would you want to?"

She grew exasperated. "That is exactly what Jack
used, to—"

A rap at the door made her break off and dart behind the
bed curtains.

"Ah, Thomas," Rathbourne said, opening the
door but a crack. The rest was conducted in whispers—a deep
rumble on Rathbourne's part—then he closed the door.

Bathsheba emerged from behind the bed curtains.

"It will take a while," he said.

"You have taken leave of your senses!" she
cried. "We have been too careless already. We have lost valuable
time."

"I think it is time we admit we have lost the
children," he said. "They might be behind us, ahead of us,
beside us, or right under our noses, but we have not found them and
are unlikely to do so in the immediate future. The more time passes,
the more ways we might go astray. Our present course, for instance,
will not serve us beyond Chippenham. We might continue making
inquiries along the road to Bath—but from Chippenham there is a
slightly shorter and more direct route to Bristol. We cannot
investigate two routes simultaneously."

Her heart beat, too hard. Even without being aware of
the alternate route from Chippenham, she'd come to the same
conclusion. She'd held the thought—and the accompanying
despair—at bay.

No wonder she'd yielded so easily to desire. Deep in her
heart she'd known the cause was lost. Scandal was inevitable.

"There is no need to look so stricken," he
said. "All is not lost. We simply need to look at the problem
afresh."

Bathsheba did not want to look at the problem. She
wanted to sink to her knees and bawl like a child. She didn't want to
be a grown-up anymore. She didn't want to be a mama anymore. She
didn't want to have to mend matters and clean up after others and
make the best of things.

"Stop that," he said, reading everything in
her countenance. Yet he said it gently, and came to her, and wrapped
his arms about her. She broke then, and wept.

Only a little storm, and it soon passed, but he held
her. When she'd quieted, he said, "You are fatigued."

"I am not fatigued," she said. "I slept
for hours."

He let out a sigh. "You are behaving like a child
who needs her nap."

"What do you know of children who need naps?"
she said.

He muttered something, then picked her up and tossed her
onto the bed.

She bounced up from the pillows. "I
am not a child and I do not need a
nap
!"

"Well, I do," he said, and swung up and onto
the mattress beside her.

"Then sleep," she said. She tried to scramble
away, but one long arm hooked about her waist and drew her back.

"We cannot sleep together in the same bed,"
she said. "That is asking for trouble."

"I know," he said.

He pulled her on top of him.

SHE HAD TRIED so hard to think, to be responsible.

But he had only to claim her, in that imperious,
possessive way of his, and her defenses—what was left of them—
shattered.

"It is not fair," she said, lowering her head
to within an inch of his mouth.

"No, it is not." Their lips met and clung and
she was young again, blood running hot. They kissed, deeply and
wickedly, and she flung herself headlong into the pure wild pleasure
of it: the taste of him, the feel of him, the scent of him, this big,
beautiful male animal.

His long, warm hands moved over her, and she moved
helplessly under them. His hands… his touch… she
thought she would die when he touched her and then she wanted only to
die of that touch and of the gladness that coursed through her, the
tingling current that raced over her skin.

Besotted. Enslaved.

She didn't care.

For this moment, he was hers. She broke the kiss and sat
up and dragged his hands up over her belly to her breasts. She held
them there and arched back, in pure animal pleasure.

"My God," he growled. "My God. You will
kill me, Bathsheba." He pulled her down to him and kissed her.
He ravished her mouth, then broke away to ravish her throat. She was
impatient already to have him inside her, but before she could reach
for him, he rolled her over and straddled her. He grasped her hands
and held them flat on the bed on either side of her head. He gazed at
her, dark eyes fathoms deep, his mouth hinting at a smile.

"You must let me kill you a little," he said.

He bent then, and made a trail of kisses along her
shoulder and along her arm to the hand he held. He licked her wrist,
and sensation shot through her and swirled to the pit of her stomach
to make her ache with need. She writhed helplessly, lust-crazed.

It was torture, delicious torture.

He tortured the other side, then slowly worked his way
down, and she had no words for what he did with his lips and tongue.
All she knew was sensation, thrill after thrill of it, strange and
wonderful. Every caress of his mouth, his hands, sent lascivious
messages straight to her groin, and she was shaking by the time he
brought his mouth there.