The Greatest Lover in All England (17 page)

“Turn around,” she instructed.

He covered his eyes with his hands.

“That won't do.”

“Don't you trust me?”

She laughed, a rather brusque laugh, and when he peeked through his fingers she had disappeared. He heard a scrabbling behind him, then she came into the light and he forgot to pretend he hadn't watched. The shirt had never looked like that on him. The cream color accented her brown hair and amber eyes and made her skin glow. It reached well past her knees in a shimmering fall. The full sleeves covered her hands, and she'd tied the neck tight to inhibit his thoughts.

It didn't work.

Luckily, she had refused to remove her hose, baggy things that they were, and the wool material obscured her ankles and knees.

“You'll catch a chill from those wet hose,” he said.

She ignored the hint.

“Just as well to leave them on,” he grudgingly admitted. “Throw that pillow over here by my feet and sit.”

“Sit at your feet, sir? I will not.”

“Bring a comb, too. I'll untangle your hair.”

Lifting her hand self-consciously, she touched the wisps that stuck out in wild profusion.

He nodded at her unspoken question. “Aye, it looks like a bird made a nest on your head. The comb's over there.”

With a cushion under one arm and the comb in the other, she did his bidding, and he rejoiced at her obedience. She was obviously in a weakened state, and he planned to make inroads on her resistance while he could.

“The parish on this estate supports over three hundred souls.” Separating the strands of her braid, he began to work the ivory comb through the damp tangles.
“When I arrived at Odyssey Manor, the estate had been in the queen's hands for thirteen years, and much neglected. The villagers were hovering on the edge of starvation, and I sank my free capital into renovating the manor. Necessary, but also good for the economy of the parish.”

“How generous of you.” Her obvious interest offset her sarcasm. “I'll see that you're compensated.”

“Not at all. I'd been planning my whole life for the moment I acquired an estate of my own, and nothing was more important than the health of my property and my people.” The wide-set teeth of the comb bit into the glossy brown, subduing the wildness and leaving sleek wet strands in his hands. “Can you understand that?”

“I think so.”

Her cautious answer didn't fool him. He depended on her comprehension to build a longing for the land. “During the spring and summer, we hire an additional six men to work on the grounds. That causes a hardship in the fields, but I discovered early that the villagers would rather be overworked than ignored, and that professional gardeners are sneered at in the country.” Up and down the comb worked, massaging her scalp, spreading the individual hairs to dry. “Having Hal as a steward has worked marvelously well, for he's a native and conscientious beyond the bounds of duty. Should you persuade the queen to grant you this estate, you would be well served to keep Hal on.”

As he talked and worked his fingers through her hair, he saw her tension dissipate.

“What's the use of learning about the estate when I only wanted it for Sir Danny?”

She loved Sir Danny, true. She loved him above all things, and that mortified Tony, for surely by now the
silly woman should have developed fond and lusty feelings for him. But if she had, she hid them well, and he resolved to hold the mirror before her face until she saw herself as she truly was—selfish and considerate, grasping and generous. A human like any other. A human like him.

Turning her to look at him, he said, “You only wanted it for Sir Danny? Who would you have laugh at such a jest? Not me, Lady Rosalyn. I know why you demanded your rights to the estate. You may not like it, but you and I are as alike as two litter mates.”

“We are not!”

“Aren't we? Two travelers through the world, never quite as good as the others for no fault of our own, branded by the cruelest of epithets—bastard for me, actor for you.”

“Not so,” she said faintly, but he persisted.

“You know me, but what's worse for you—I know you. I know how the wandering life left you longing for a place of your own, where you could strip off the disguise and be what you are and not what others expect you to be. You longed for the dirt in which to sink your roots and the time to remain and grow. When you laid claim to this estate, I knew what was in your heart, and you can't tell me that the land will mean any less to you should Sir Danny perish. If anything, it will mean more.”

Unnerved by his acute observations, she struggled to speak. “Not so. If Sir Danny should die, I'll have nothing left to live for.”

He chuckled, and wrath and hurt struggled for supremacy on her countenance. “When I threatened you with the knife, you struggled against me. If you had no reason to live, you would have let me slit your throat.”

She didn't want to admit that life once more coursed
through her veins. He suspected her blossoming fascination seemed like a betrayal of Sir Danny, and she said defensively, “I don't know that he's dead yet.”

“Exactly.” With his thumb, he traced the tracks of her tears, then rising, wet a cloth and returned. “Think on it, Rosie. Think of the injustice you do Sir Danny by donning mourning black before his death, and think of how proud he'll be when you prove his faith in you by taking control of your responsibilities. He'll know then he made the right decision.”

“He won't know if he's dead!”

“Oh, won't he?” He held her gaze until she looked down, then with the expertise of a parent, he scrubbed her tearstained face.

He was done before she could do more than struggle and cry, “Hey!”

He chuckled. “I have experience with rebellious children.”

“Yours?” she asked sullenly.

He checked, then hustled her toward the bed. “Nay. Didn't you know? My brother Michael has eight little heirs whom I have undressed and placed in bed, and that is what I plan to do with you now.”

As he expected, she clutched the bottom of his shirt. “What?”

“Not for any nefarious reason—yet. But because you've cried and I know the consequence of tears. Also from my experience with my nephews and nieces.”

She glanced at the bed, then glared at him. “And what is that?”

“The one who cries is tired, fretful, ill-tempered—”

“I am not!”

“—disagreeable, perverse, contrary.” Picking her up, he tossed her onto the mattress. “Obnoxious, cranky, and in need of a nap.” He leaned over her, trapping her
between his two hands, and he wanted to climb onto the bed with her and kiss her. He wanted to caress her breasts and discover if the shapes he remembered were in sooth their true shape. He wanted to hold her between the legs and probe the depths of her.

She crossed her arms in self-righteous appraisal. “You're looking a little cranky yourself.”

“After your nap, the world will look better to you.”

She pushed the drape of hair off her eyes. “After my nap, Sir Danny will still be gone.”

“Ah, but after your nap, I'll show you another reason to live.”

Rosie opened her eyes
, and realized she lay on her side in a bed. A hairy, muscled arm extended from under her head, ending in a hand, palm up, blunt fingers curled. It rested among the ripples of white sheets over a feather mattress, directly below a pile of embroidery-trimmed pillows.

Tony's arm. Tony's bed. Her back curled into his front. The thin crackle and the smoky tang of a dying fire hung in the air. The dim light of early evening proved she'd been here for hours, ever since her humiliating collapse on the terrace. She, who'd been so guarded, had revealed her vulnerability to Tony in one traumatic, dramatic scene. She squeezed her eyes shut as if that would help her flee the consequences, yet the scene of the morning came to vivid life.

Ugh.

Her tears. Tony's kindness. And the reason for it all—Sir Danny's defection. He'd gone to meet his death, she knew, and he'd gone without her. He'd abandoned her, and there was no reason to get off this bed.

How long had Tony been beside her? She remembered that final promise of his. Or had it been a threat?

She opened her eyes to see the fingers flexing. Was his arm asleep? Cautiously, she lifted her head, and he spoke close against her ear.

“Awake?”

She jumped. She'd known he was close. It was just that she'd had no experience with having someone
so
close. She hadn't realized how his chest would reverberate with the timbre of his voice, or the way he could tuck his knee against the back of hers. One arm supported her head, but the other lay across her waist, and it moved. Holding her breath, she waited to see where it would light, and when it wrapped across her ribs and pulled her closer still, she whimpered slightly. This damned silk shirt proved no bulwark against Tony's battering ram, and somehow her hose had disappeared while she slept.

“I had promised to show you,” he murmured, “another reason to live.”

Flinging herself around, she glared at him with what she hoped was stern dignity.

Poor strategy. His halo of spiky golden hair stuck up all around his head, making him appear as innocent as a child. His blue eyes glowed with unholy pleasure, and the warmth of his smile could have melted a plaster saint.

Obviously, sainthood was beyond her.

She held out a restraining hand and cried, “Wait!”

“I've done nothing.”

As he spoke, he raised up on his elbow and the sheet
fell away. Maybe he'd done nothing, but he'd done it with nothing on.

He had a muscled chest with crinkly blond hair, but she'd seen that before. He had ripply arms with powerful hands, but she'd seen that before. He had the sheet clinging to the lowest part of his hips…but she'd seen everything hidden by the sheet before.

And she remembered it quite clearly.

Amazing how he could distract her mind from her woes.

“I promised to show you another reason to live.” He smoothed her hair out of her face, petting her as if she were a wildcat he wished to tame. “But actually, I know of several reasons.”

“I'm not interested in any of them.” Sadly, she liked the way he stroked her. She wanted to stretch and flex her claws and purr, but it would have been surrendering without a fight. And surrender, she'd just discovered, looked very much like paradise.

“The first reason to live is kissing.”

“I don't like to kiss.”

“It rhymes with bliss.”

“Will Shakespeare's poetry pales before your own,” she said sarcastically.

“There's a purpose for kissing.”

“We're not right for each other.”

“And that's it.”

He diverted her with his illogic. It didn't even sound like they were having the same conversation. “What?”

“The purpose of kissing.” Leaning forward, he put his face so close against hers, her eyes crossed. “When we think we're not right for each other, we kiss, and we're so close, 'tis impossible to see any disparities.” His lips fluttered against hers, tempting her with a physical declaration of devotion and the unspoken lure
of delight. “Can you focus on our disparities?” he murmured.

Her lids felt heavy, as heavy as they had before her sleep, but for different reasons. “Nay.”

“Close your eyes and put your arms around my shoulders. The important differences will be obvious beneath your fingertips.”

Unwisely, she obeyed. The disparities between them—of breeding and upbringing—faded. As he pressed his mouth to hers and her hands quivered across his back, it was the difference she noted. He was a man; she was a woman. He was a teacher; she was a student. He used his tongue as a lure; she rose to the lure as eagerly as a Scottish trout.

Stupid trout.

She shoved against his shoulders, and he backed off immediately.

Forsooth, why shouldn't he? When she had pried her eyelids open, he smiled at her, and she knew that if she were a trout, she would have been cooked to the bone.

No man with his looks would have to demand. He'd just wait, and a woman would beg to give to him.

She determined not to beg. “These differences of which you speak are unimportant when compared to our divergent desires.”

“Divergent desires.” He stroked his chin and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Aye, we do have divergent desires. 'Tis ever so. Men desire women, and women desire men.”

“These light matters matter not when compared to…what are you doing?”

Dusting her lips with his fingertips, he murmured, “Rosie lips.” With his palm behind her neck, he lifted until her head fell back, and kissed the cord below her
jaw. “Rosie throat,” Then, through the silk material, he brushed his mouth across her breasts and asked, “Rosie nipples?”

How could he transform her into a wanton with a few words and a touch? How could he make her wish to show him what he hadn't seen before? Her voice shook when she accused, “You have swiving on the brain.”

Looking up at her face, he chuckled. “Well, let's see if we can move it down where it belongs.”

She almost chuckled, too. Damned seducer! To make her laugh and want at the same time.

He shared the gleam of camaraderie, then in a soothing tone, he promised, “I won't take the jewel of your virginity from you now, but I will show you the pleasures that await us.” He stroked her from her shoulder to her knee. “If you like.”

Damned seducer, indeed, to banish her suspicions with honesty and tenderness. With Tony, she remembered her girlish curiosity. She remembered how she'd always wondered what it would be like to mate with a man, and how she'd reluctantly dismissed the possibility. With Tony, for just a fleeting moment, she wondered if she should use him to satisfy her curiosity. Not all of her curiosity, for the complications would be too great, but part of it.

There was no doubt, Tony was like a bright spot on her wit, blotting out good sense. “I think…I would like.”

He grinned in delight. “You'll see. Swiving is the most fun you can have without smiling.”

“You're smiling.”

He seemed to contemplate, then concluded, “Swiving is the most fun you can have.”

She was smiling when he kissed her again, no longer
with delicate finesse, but with relish and skill. When he lowered himself to cover her, light and warm, she drew as much comfort from his weight as she had drawn from her baby blanket. But although the comfort relaxed her, each touch of the tongue, each brush of the lips intensified the feeling of sweet madness. It must be madness, to feel secure yet daring.

She grasped him eagerly, wanting the experience of freedom, but he pushed himself off of her body with one mighty thrust of his arms. He hadn't shown her half his experience, yet already he'd doubled her knowledge.

He panted, his eyes dilated. She wiped her fingers down his chest. “You're sweating.”

Catching his breath, he said, “So we won't catch fire.”

Delighted, she laughed.

“We dare not do more, or we'll be a conflagration and my promise not to take you will be for naught.” But his gaze lingered on her face and dropped to her bosom. “Although, I suppose, we could look more upon each other.”

She ran her gaze down his naked body. “How much more is there to see?”

A sheepish grin gave rein to his dimples. “Humor is contagious. Be careful lest you catch it from me.”

“Other men than you have thought me droll.”

“Other men have thought you…another man.”

“Would you have them know different?”

“Nay, lady.” He reached for the hem of the shirt. “Even now, I mourn the loss of the bold lad who won so many of my serving maids' hearts.” Slowly, his fingers pushed the material up her thigh as if he were waiting for her objection.

The objection hovered on the tip of her tongue, but
something about the wonder in his eyes made her quip, “Give a man a free hand, and he'll run it all over you.”

His palm cruised over her hipbone, over her ribs, and found her breast.

She gasped. “If you're lucky.”

He pushed the silk up and looked, and she knew he didn't really know what she was saying, and probably not even what
he
was saying. He spoke only to relieve her apprehension. It was working; by concentrating, she could pretend the glow on his features was a mundane occurrence.

Well, not mundane, perhaps. Perhaps, no matter how often it occurred, she would still revel in his worship, want to stretch and show off, want to give him more than he had given her.

“I won't take you, but sweet Jesu! you are so beautiful.”

He said it, and she believed it. She especially believed it when his head dipped, he took her nipple in his mouth, and suckled as if he wanted to consume her.

She twisted upward, trying to make contact along the length of him. His body pulled her like a magnet. She had to be with him, pressed against him, now. She was still speaking, but the words no longer made sense. They were just sounds created in the kiln of heat and pleasure.

He lay on her once again and rested his head on her chest, panting as if he'd run a long way. “My sisters say that men are creatures with two legs and eight hands, and with you, I know the truth of it. I won't take you. We don't want to make a babe out of wedlock. But if it please you, I would untie the string which strangles your throat.”

She touched the shirt string she'd knotted so firmly around her neck. “That would please me beyond all imagining.”

Grasping the end, he tugged as if a weight were attached to the opposite end. As he freed the bow, he grimaced. “I won't do more than look,” he promised. “I won't do more than…” He touched his lips to the hollow of her collarbone. “You don't have to worry about your virtue.” His breath whispered across the tender place behind her ear. “I swear you shouldn't worry about your virtue.”

“Virtue?” she questioned groggily.

His shirt was constructed simply. That string gathered the fullness of material, and when Tony loosened it, he was able to slip both her shoulders free. He kissed one shoulder, then, as the silk slithered down her arm beneath his urging, he extended the caress all the way to her fingertips. What had been previously revealed from the bottom was now revealed from the top, and she wiggled to free herself from the expanse of cloth.

“Don't,” he commanded.

“Why not?”

“You'll be nude.”

“Tony.” Boldly, she thrust her fingers through his hair. Then because he
seemed
to like it and because she
did
like it, she crooned, “I'm as good as nude now.”

“Parts of my body believe that if you are wearing something, no matter how little it covers, you are unattainable.”

“Which parts?”

He didn't answer.

“The big parts?”

He caught her questing hand. “Flattery will get you everywhere, but we mustn't.”

She slithered out of the shirt and kicked it aside.

“We mustn't…” His gaze traveled down. “I won't take you, but might I just give you a sample of plea
sure?” Without waiting for permission, he touched her.

Lightly. Barely. Fingers drifting like dandelion seeds on the wind. She stilled, breathless, tensed, waiting, wanting something.

Wanting a chance to learn the whole of the secret. There would be repercussions; Tony would be difficult to deal with once the deed was done. But no other man existed who could take her so far so quickly.

She wanted him. “Tony.”

He jumped as if the faint whisper of his name startled him, and he stared at her with wild dismay. “Tell me quickly to leave you, or we are lost.”

“Lost”—she stroked the blade of his cheekbone—“together.”

He groaned as if she'd stabbed him, and she loved it. She loved having the strong-willed Tony subservient to the needs of her body. She loved being subservient to the needs of his. His chest worked like a bellows, his fingers still strummed a melody on her body, and she reveled in the scent of Tony. The scent of pleasure.

Still he struggled one last time, desperate to maintain control, to keep to his morals, to save her from shame. But she'd been reared without the normal strictures that restrained a woman, and she knew that nothing about this mating could shame her. Calling on her instinct, she sat up and leaned forward so that her head could rest on his shoulder. She kissed his neck, touched the lobe of his ear with her tongue, then, while he waited and trembled, she bravely rushed at his mouth. Mashing her lips on his, she touched him with her tongue, and the conflagration he feared took place. Both of their mouths opened, breath and wet and rapture mingling. She realized, to her delight, that he liked what she taught him quite as much as she liked what
he taught her. But before she could discover more to teach him, he took over.

He kissed with the craft and passion of a master. He fondled all the places he'd looked at; he kissed all the places he'd touched. She found herself clutching handfuls of the sheets while she watched him taking joy, giving joy. His eyes glowed when she gasped. “Did you like that?”