The Rogue and the Rival (16 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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He kissed her in a stunningly sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. Her hips were rocking beneath them, as if they had their own free will. Phillip’s mouth roamed all over her now. Every second that she settled into the feeling of his lips against her skin in one place, his mouth moved on to another, leaving her tingling all over in anticipation.
He still caressed her in a steady rhythm. Faster. The heat pooling there was spreading all over her now, into her stomach and into her limbs. Hot. If hell were this kind of hot, she would happily spend eternity there. But it was too pleasurable to be hell. Instead, it rather felt like heaven, or how she imagined heaven might feel.
She sighed. She moaned. She couldn’t help but writhe beneath him. She faintly heard him murmur her name, and God, in one breath.
Lightning flashed. More than merely flashed. The crackling was deafening. Angela opened her eyes at the sound, and was nearly blinded by the flash of light. The brightness faded slightly but did not go away. Phillip, above her, kept stroking her there. His eyes locked in a gaze with hers, just for a moment before he kissed her once more.
There was another rumble, certainly not thunder, but she knew not what it was. She didn’t even give a damn.
Between his hands, his kiss, his weight upon hers, thought of any kind was impossible. There was the heat, and now a delicious tingling sensation radiating throughout her. She couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t want to. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might burst through her chest. She didn’t care if it did.
And then the feeling took over. She was wholly owned by it. Possessed. She cried out, not to fight the feeling but in surrender. The sweetest surrender.
She didn’t know it, so lost in her own pleasure, but Phillip was owned by the same feeling. He was trying to fight his release. Because he was a grown man, not some overexcited schoolboy, it was supposed to take more than this to make him come. And he was supposed to be able to control it. But he took one look at her face in the throes of her climax, one that he had given her, and it was all over for him. He groaned at his release. In defeat. But losing never felt so damned good.
It took him a minute to gather the strength to move off of her. God, the last thing he wanted to do now was suffocate her by his weight. He didn’t go far, though; the single bed didn’t leave much extra room with two people on it.
“What just happened?” she asked in a whisper. “What did you do to me?”
“The French call it
petite mort
,” he said, his voice low and rough. “A little death.”
“Then I want to die again and again,” she murmured.
Phillip turned to look at her and saw the smile of a satisfied woman. Of an angel who had fallen from heaven and was raised back up to the lofty place she deserved. And he felt a tremendous swell of pride and power. He had made her feel that way.
He had put that smile on her face. Her eyes were closed now, so she didn’t see that his lips were curved in the same smile.
The sound of doors slamming throughout the abbey broke their quiet moment. There was a pounding on the door to his chamber, and before Phillip and Angela could disentangle themselves and dress, the door opened.

 

Chapter 8
It
was only Helena, with Penelope standing behind her, which was bad, but not catastrophic. Friends were better than mothers and chaperones when it came to being caught in a compromising position. Phillip, of course, had plenty of experience in that area.
“Bloody hell,” Phillip muttered, as he saw the situation from their point of view. Him, shirtless with his scarred, bruised, and naked torso. Angela, in a nearly transparent chemise, long locks unbound and, now that he paused to notice, with flushed cheeks and lips plump from his kisses.
“Oh, thank God,” Helena said, leaning against the door frame. Phillip was confused. He, too, had been thanking God, but he suspected for different reasons.
“What is it? Is Angela there? Is she safe?” Penelope asked, sounding hysterical.
“She’s here,” Helena said, still staring at Phillip and Angela as they fumbled around for clothes.
“It’s not what you think,” Angela said. “Really, it’s not. I swear it, and oh, where are my hairpins?”
“Forget your hairpins, Angela,” Helena snapped. “The chapel is on fire. We need everyone’s help.” She turned and started down the hall.
“Stay here,” Phillip told Angela. He crossed the room while buttoning his shirt, and in a few strides, he caught up with Helena.
“What happened?”
“I should ask you the same thing,” Helena said sharply.
“Lightning struck the old oak tree, setting it afire. Branches have fallen on the roof, and now that is on fire, too,” Penelope explained.
Phillip swore.
“I quite agree,” Helena said.
“Was anyone hurt?” he asked.
“No, but we feared Angela might have been,” Penelope said.
“She wasn’t in her chamber, and we thought she might be stuck in the chapel, because she goes there every night,” Helena explained.
Phillip dared not speak.
“It could be divine providence that she was in your room, Lord Phillip, in deviation from her usual routine. You might have saved her,” Penelope said, a little breathless now from the quick pace.
“Or ruined her all over again, Penelope,” Helena responded. Turning to Phillip, she said, “I’m not going to forget what I saw.”
Staring levelly at her, he answered, “And I am not going to forget about her.”
“There’s no time for this,” Penelope reminded them, pushing open a set of doors that led outside, which they hurried through. Phillip swore under his breath again.
A massive orb of fire seemed to float in the sky; upon closer look, it was the top of the old oak tree. Flaming branches had indeed fallen onto the nearby roof of the chapel, setting that on fire, too. Phillip heard a low roar and rumble; it wasn’t thunder but another portion of the roof collapsing into the chapel.
Torrents of rain were helping to contain the destruction.
The heat of the fire kept them all from feeling the cold of soaked garments against their skin. Talk about being thankful for small favors, Phillip thought grimly.
Dozens of the nuns were about in their nightgowns. Phillip couldn’t recall ever seeing so many women in such a state of undress at once. Given the circumstances, he rather would not have. Given the circumstances, they didn’t seem to care that a man was in their midst.
Villagers were now streaming in to help the women in lining up and passing along buckets of water from the well to try to douse the flames. Phillip estimated there must have been fifty or so people trying to control the inferno.
“Find some things to start collecting rainwater. Bowls, chamber pots, troughs, anything,” Phillip said to Helena. “Set them up around the chapel, so that we needn’t carry them far. It won’t be much, but anything will help.” Then he walked away and cut in line so that the abbess, who had been at the head of the line, was not so close to the fire.
Even though after a minute he was soaked to the skin, Phillip was not cold. The fire took care of that. It wasn’t long before his skin felt scorched and dry. It wasn’t much longer before his injuries began to ache for the first time all day, and soon after that, all the muscles he owned were protesting. He ignored the pain and lost himself in physical labor.
He threw one bucket after another onto the fire and watched it accomplish almost nothing. Their best hope, it seemed, was to save the rest of the abbey, for the chapel and the greater buildings shared one wall. He gave the roof up for lost, as another hideous cracking sound erupted, and a large section of the roof collapsed, landing just before the altar. Right in the spot where a man and woman might stand to recite their wedding vows. Phillip did not believe in signs, but that really unnerved him.
But not as much as the thought that Angela could have been trapped in this. To think such a thought brought on a wave of nausea. That the thought of her being hurt induced such a visceral reaction could only mean one thing: he was beyond merely caring and on the verge of falling in love.
He threw another bucket of water onto the flames. One little patch went out with a hiss, but it was nothing compared to the crackle of the rest of the fire.
Phillip had never suffered from attacks of modesty, and he did not now. She could have been caught in this inferno, if it was true that she was in the habit of visiting the chapel every night. Instead, she had been with him. He had been on the verge of ruining her all over again, but it seemed as if he had saved her.
 
Phillip was really stupid, Angela thought, if he assumed she would sit in his bed and wait for him while the chapel burned. Instead, she ran through the halls, through the doors, and outside. She stopped short then, her breath catching in her throat.
Without fail, every night, Angela had trouble sleeping. She never felt as lonely and alone as she did in her bed at night. Desire, pent up, with no way out, kept her awake. And every night, without fail, she ended up donning her robe and taking a candle down to the chapel, and she would pray and draw until she was so tired she wasn’t sure she could make it back to her bed. One night she had even fallen asleep in one of the pews.
And tonight, of all nights, she hadn’t been there. A small part of her wondered if it was her absence that had caused this disaster, and she wondered if perhaps it was her presence that protected the chapel. But it had remained unscathed for two hundred years without her nightly devotion.
She needed it more than it needed her.
But tonight, she hadn’t needed it at all. Because tonight Phillip had conquered the feeling that kept her awake at night. His kiss and his touch satisfied her in a way that hours of midnight prayers had never managed.
And there he was, soaked to the skin, face-to-face with the flames, fighting them back from their path of complete destruction. She choked back a bubble of completely inappropriate laughter. The wickedest man in England was risking his life to save a church. She would have never believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.
Angela also saw all of the sisters working to fight the fire. She saw villagers assisting, too. And she also noticed someone had set out an assortment of receptacles to capture the rainwater. They were now near to overflowing, so she set about picking them up, hurling their contents at the fire, and setting them right side up so that they might collect more rainwater.
It was quite nearly dawn when every last smoldering ember was extinguished. Angela ignored commands not to enter the chapel. Stepping gingerly around all the heaps of half-burned timber and wrecked pews, she made her way to stand before the altar, where she turned in a slow circle to survey the damage.
The old stone walls, at least, had survived, though they were blackened by the smoke. By some miracle, the stained glass window behind the altar had remained intact. Angela tilted her head back and gazed up to the night sky. The storm had ceased, and now the clouds were passing, allowing her a glimpse of a few stars and the moon.
“Angela, come out of there.” It was Phillip, and he sounded weary.
“In a minute,” she answered, still looking up at the sky.
“
Now
. It’s still not safe.”
And she turned to look at him. His shirt was soaked and clung to his body. Parts of it were burned straight through, leaving big holes in the fabric, exposing his skin. There was a black streak of soot on one of his cheeks. He had been that close to the fire.
He held out his hand to her.
Once she was close enough to place her hand in his, he pulled her into a tight embrace. He just held her, that was all, but it was everything.
It would have been perfect, had Helena not been looking on with a fierce scowl upon her face. Penelope’s innocent eyes were wide, but when Angela smiled at her, Penelope smiled back.
“Come on, let’s go to bed,” Phillip said, pulling away.
“She’ll be coming with us,” Helena said, taking Angela’s other hand. “And you,” Helena said once they were out of earshot of Phillip, “will be telling us everything in the morning.”

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