Yankee Earl (11 page)

      
She stretched languidly, trying to relax her tense muscles, then lay back, only to be startled from her peaceful idyll by the sound of a sudden splash. At the same instant as she tried to sit up, a large hand encircled her ankle and a disturbingly familiar voice said, “What have we here, a mermaid?”

      
Rachel let out a shriek of horror, attempting to cover herself as his lascivious gaze swept over her naked body. “Release me at once, lest my dogs tear you apart,” she commanded in the steadiest tone she could muster while holding her hands over her privy parts and shaking her hair over her breasts.

      
Jason chuckled, not relinquishing his hold. While he tugged gently on her ankle, pulling her down the moss-slicked rock, he replied, “You will forgive my doubts that Venus and Helen would harm a hair on my head. At least intentionally,” he added, remembering the poison oak.

      
“I'm not referring to those fickle females. I brought Paris and Adonis today. I doubt they'll succumb to your masculine charms so easily.”

      
He could not resist letting his eyes roam over her golden flesh, butterscotch-soft and inviting. One rose-brown nipple peeked tantalizingly through the dark chocolate screen of her hair. It was a good thing he was half submerged in the pool or else she would be able to see positive proof of the effect she had on his body, which was rigidly at attention and throbbing wickedly. He struggled to concentrate on her words…something about Paris…

      
“If you were a gentleman, you would never spy on a lady's bath, much less accost her this way,” she said icily, much calmer as she saw the large tan heads of her mastiffs appear at the top of the hill.

      
“How often, Countess, have you yourself said I'm a Yankee impostor, no true gentleman at all, hmmm?”

      
His fingers stroked the instep of her foot tantalizingly. She felt like curling her toes with the pleasure of it.

      
Fighting the urge, she shot back, “I said
if
you were a gentleman. No one knows better than I that you are not, but that does not mean you can take advantage of a lady without consequences.”

      
“I fail to see any ladies about,” he said, tugging more insistently on her ankle. She tried to kick him with her free foot, emitting a startlingly unladylike oath as she did so; but he ducked and seized her other ankle, tsking at her as he pulled her into the water with a loud splash. “Ladies don't possess such vocabulary, Countess.”

      
“You'll shortly be treated to more than a demonstration of my vocabulary,” she gritted out, watching the dogs playfully bounding down the hill to join in the water sport.

      
Jason wrapped one arm around her and drew her body flush against his, oblivious to impending doom. All blood feeding his brain was in use elsewhere at the moment. “And,” he gasped in spite of himself, “you may be treated to a demonstration of the effects of your hoydenish behavior, Countess.”

      
Having grown up on a large country estate, Rachel was conversant with the aroused male of any species. Suddenly the dogs in the meadow were forgotten, as were propriety, her schemes to be free—everything but the heat and hardness of the man holding her so closely. Her breasts tingled where they encountered the thatch of dark hair on his chest. She could feel his heart pounding in rhythm with her own, hammering out frantic beats of awakened passion. Her hands had somehow taken hold of his shoulders, and her fingers dug into the sleek curve of powerful muscles. Below the water, his erection pressed at the juncture of her thighs, incredibly hot in the cool water.

      
Rachel was saved from utter madness by loud splashing and whoofìng as the mastiffs made their way clumsily toward her to join in the game. The noise of her rescuers galvanized her into action. She pressed her palms against his chest and gave a hard, sudden push while at the same time bracing her back against the rock so that she could kick out with one foot.

      
Jason felt her heel connect sharply with his knee and stumbled backward on the slippery bottom just as the mastiffs' loud snorting and splashing registered in his consciousness. Thrashing in the water to regain his balance, he suddenly remembered what she had said earlier—these were not his “girls” but the males, Paris and Adonis.

      
Rachel swam quickly to the mastiffs and positioned herself between them, then said, “Fetch,” pointing to Jason as if he were a twig floating on the current! And with those massive jaws and pointy yellow teeth, the beasts could crunch his bones as easily as if he were indeed no more than a bundle of sticks.

      
He had never moved so swiftly in his life as he did at that instant, scrambling up on the slippery rocks and climbing to the peak of the tallest one, where he wedged himself in a narrow crevice. The dogs tried but could not get a purchase on the mossy surface. Jason watched with horror as Rachel moved behind the behemoth she called Adonis.

      
“I could boost him up out of the water so he could reach you…” She let her words trail off. He deserved to be frightened out of his wits for what he had nearly done to her…or what, in truth, she had nearly done to herself, although she was loath to admit it.

      
“Killing me or dismembering me, as it were, would serve neither of us, Countess,” he replied coolly, hoping she could not see the sweat beading his brow. It was devilish difficult to maintain a facade of calm while one's private part, shrinking rapidly, was hanging out like a puckered sausage dangled in front of a ravenous dog.

      
He wriggled sideways as inconspicuously as he could, continuing, “You yourself admitted that if you fail to wed me, your father will only come up with another suitor, most probably Forrestal. We need to reach some sort of accord that will protect both of us from the machinations of that pair of old tyrants. Damn it, grab that dog—it's climbing up here!”

      
This was better than she could have hoped. He was playing directly into her hands. “Reluctantly, I am forced to agree that you are correct about the need for an accord, but you have behaved quite badly. I must administer some sort of punishment,” she replied blithely, pulling Adonis away from the rocks.

      
“Tis you, witch, who deserves punishment for the poison oak. I was merely exacting a bit of revenge for that trick.”

      
“You seem to have recovered without a trace,” she said, letting her eyes stray from his face to his hands, then lower. Indeed he was recovered…breathtakingly! “What you did just now was far more heinous. I should let you rot until you starve on that rock, but I shall be merciful. Guard,” she instructed the mastiffs, then turned and swam toward the willows, where Araby and Jason's saddle must be hidden.

      
His saddle…and his clothes! Suddenly he realized what she was about. There was nothing he could do to stop her. He eyed the dogs, whose energy in the water appeared boundless as they circled the rocks. After making a few utterly futile overtures to them, he concluded they were made of sterner stuff than Venus and Helen. They snapped at his fingers and growled at the sound of his voice.

      
Rachel appeared on the opposite bank several minutes later, having retrieved her own clothing and donned it in the cover of a willow. She waved his pants and shirt like banners from across the water as she called out, “I left you your boots.”

      
“Most generous of you,” he replied sardonically.

      
“Twouldn't do to try riding barefoot. As to the rest…I would give a great deal to be present when you arrive at your stables clad only in riding boots. I do hope the saddle leather does not geld you.”

      
He could see her grin even at that distance. “I shall manage, Countess. My Shawnee friends ride bareback...I recommend we try it some day.”

      
A faint grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as she stomped toward her mare. Uttering a sigh of relief when the mastiffs swam toward the shore to rejoin their mistress, he slipped from his perch on the rocks and made his way to where Araby grazed patiently. Dinner that evening should prove most interesting indeed.

* * * *

      
Jason considered with wry amusement that his arrival at the stables dressed in nothing but boots and buckskin breechclout would be bandied about the manor house and surrounding countryside in shocked whispers for weeks to come. As he rode toward Harleigh Hall that evening he murmured, “Well, why not?” Such a peccadillo fit his image as Yankee earl, and since there was no way he could ever dispel that, he might as well play the part to the hilt.

      
Of course, Miss Rachel Fairchild had contributed significantly to his scandalous reputation as well, first dumping champagne over his head, then stealing his clothes. It was just as well that the chit had no idea he carried a few “necessaries” from his days with the Shawnee in his saddlebags. If she'd taken the breechclout with the rest of his clothes, he might have been too sore to ride to dinner this evening. For all his sly innuendo regarding bareback activities, he'd always found it damnably uncomfortable to have nothing between his person and a horse's bony spine.

      
He grinned, remembering the way she had yielded to him in the water before the untimely arrival of those hounds from hell. He had tried to sort through his feelings about her ever since their afternoon encounter, but was no closer now to deciding exactly what his feelings were than he had been four hours earlier.

      
It had been many a year since he'd felt such intense desire for a female, perhaps not since his first sexual adventures as a green lad. Rachel was highly unconventional, stubborn, opinionated and choleric. But she also possessed a razor-sharp wit and keen sense of humor, not to mention all those perfectly marvelous physical attributes which he had only begun to explore in the water. But Jason was far too young to marry. He had, in fact, never given it serious thought during his seagoing days, ignoring his mother's subtle hints about settling down.

      
After all, his sister Margaret had provided three children who could one day take over the family estates and shipping firm. But now, he was forced to concede, the situation was different. If he and his grandfather reached an accord and he returned to England to live, he would one day have to wed and provide Cargrave an heir. But that whole issue was still far from settled. “I'd be well served if Grandfather refused to negotiate and Roger Dalbert inherited,” he muttered to Araby. Then he could stay in America and never have to face matrimony.

      
Gwendolyn Beaumont had been wise enough not to force the issue or try to be a matchmaker for her son. Perhaps therein lay the problem. If his grandfather had not attempted to manipulate his life so arrogantly, he might have found Rachel Fairchild quite appealing—that is, if she, too, had not been infuriated by her father's determination to see her wed to his old friend's grandson. But as things stood now, the only thing he and the lady shared in common was a resolute determination to thwart two scheming old men.

      
She was a hellion when crossed. He shuddered to think of what Paris and Adonis might have done to him if they'd been able to climb up on those rocks. Who knew if she'd have been able to call them off once they had the blood scent? Who knew if she would have tried? No, it was decidedly wiser to forget the interlude in the water and concentrate on outsmarting the marquess.

      
“You're not the only chess player in the family, Grandfather,” he murmured to himself. Feeling a bit of satisfaction with his resolve, he reached down to give Araby a pat.

      
Just then the crack of a shot rent the bucolic quiet of the country evening. Jason felt a sharp, burning pain in his right arm, but took no time to consider it as he kicked the stallion into a swift gallop. He stretched out low on the big black's neck to present a smaller target. Within a few dozen yards a second shot rang out, whistling past his ear. Whoever was firing at him was not only a damn good marksman, but could reload with considerable skill as well. Of course, there could be more than one attacker. In any event, if he had not leaned down when he did, he would be a dead man now.

      
Jason rode hard for several miles, rounding a bend in the road and then pushing Araby over the rise of a hill before he slowed the big stallion to a brisk trot. Whoever had fired at him did not appear to be giving pursuit. Still, Jason planned to take no further chances. He removed one of his Hawken pistols from his saddlebag and clenched it in his fist. The familiar feel of the American weapon was a comfort. Thank heaven the marquess had been able to retrieve his grandson's sea chest. For the second time that day, Jason felt a surge of gratitude toward his conniving grandfather.

      
By the time the rambling manor house came into view, he was starting to feel light-headed. The wound in his upper arm was bleeding copiously. When he slipped from the saddle at the front entry, the footman paled, his eyes nearly popping from their sockets as he observed the widening red stain on Jason's sleeve.