Yankee Earl (39 page)

      
Well, once they arrived at his seat, there would be an accounting.

* * * *

      
That, however, was far easier vowed than achieved. By early afternoon the overcast skies opened up with promised rain, drenching them in a deluge of biblical proportions and turning the country roads into quagmires of muck. Then Rachel's carriage became stuck in a deep rut, breaking a wheel during the arduous attempt to pull it free. By the time Jason and one of his men returned with a wheelwright from a neighboring village, it was growing dark.

      
The rain still had not abated when they were once again on the road. Jason was drenched through his heavy cloak, as well as covered with so much mud that it provided him an additional excuse for not climbing inside the coach with his wife. Moreover, he had always shared his men's privations aboard ship and saw no reason to change his style of command just because he had been elevated to the peerage.

      
When the coaches finally reached the entrance to the sprawling estate, it was nearing midnight. The final indignity was provided by a tenant's cart overturned in the middle of the road. Bushels of turnips were scattered in huge piles, now smashed into slimy pulp by the skittering horses' hooves and coach wheels.

      
The rain had relented to a slow, cold drizzle as Jason dismounted from Araby to supervise the cleanup of the mess. He ordered more lanterns lit to expedite the work. With the aid of his footmen, they quickly had the cart righted and shoved off the road. He instructed his servants to gather what tools they could from the coach, then shovel away the wreckage.

      
Rachel pulled up the hood on her cloak and climbed from the carriage to investigate all the commotion. After taking a few steps in the wretchedly uncomfortable slippers which Harry had insisted went so well with her outfit, she nearly fell into the noisome mess before grabbing hold of the harness on the carriage team. The horses were snorting and prancing nervously in the confusion. She decided to make herself useful and calm them, since the driver had tied off the reins and joined the cleanup.

      
As she soothed the matched grays, she watched Jason, imagining that this was much the way he must have looked aboard his ship, giving orders and putting his own strong arms to work beside his men. “He was born to command,” she murmured softly, rubbing the muzzle of the lead horse.

      
Seeing her standing in the drizzle with the horses, Jason was struck by how calm and practical a female she was. He could well imagine most ladies of the ton wringing their hands and vaporing inside the carriage. He walked over to her, picking his way with considerable care across the road. As he drew near, her expression in the dim lantern light was obscured by the hood of her cloak. “You seem to have matters well in hand as always, Countess,” he said.

      
“I was thinking the same of you, m'lord,” she replied. “Tis a pity you will not be Cargrave's heir after all. You would have made a splendid marquess.”

      
Before he could reply to that disturbing compliment, one of his footmen interrupted, saying, “The coaches can pass now, m'lord.”

      
“Good. Leave two of the lanterns so the servants can see what they're doing. Damnation, what a night,” he muttered, shivering in misery. “If it continues raining like this, we'll never make the ride to Bristol without breaking our necks,” he added in a whisper.

      
Hearing his angry words, Rachel felt a chill that owed nothing to the raw night air. He still intended to go through with their plan. She had failed to deter him. Perhaps her scheme had even contributed to his resolve. There was nothing she could say to him that would change a thing.
How wrong you were, Harry
.

      
Within minutes they pulled up to the front entryway of Falconridge, where Jason assisted his new countess from the carriage. “We are almost as muddy as our poor servants,” he said as he took her hand.

      
Even through the damp thickness of leather separating their fingers, she could feel a frisson of heat when he touched her. She murmured, “Considering how we met, mud seems our destiny.” His smile twisted her heart when he nodded.

      
A full array of household servants were now lining the front steps to welcome the bridal couple. The chief housekeeper, a portly woman of indeterminate years but possessing a very determined jut of chin, began issuing orders for hot baths and a lavish supper to be laid out in spite of the ghastly hour.

      
“I believe a simple pot of hot soup and some warmed bread would suffice, Mistress Mallory. Do you not concur, m'lord?” Rachel asked, turning to Jason.

      
When he gave a bone-weary nod, she smiled at the harried older woman and said, “Have the food brought to our rooms after we bathe.”

* * * *

      
Jason lay back in the tub of steaming water and closed his eyes. His valet gathered up his ruined clothes, which he had stripped off the moment he reached the dressing room. Bloody hell, would he ever be warm again? His muscles ached in ways they had not since he was a stripling lad first shipping out on one of his father's schooners. Life as an earl had made him soft. Best that he leave it and return to the sea.

      
But that would mean leaving Rachel
. Why did that bother him? She was a schemer almost to match his grandfather. Small wonder the old man had chosen her. He could see her standing by the frightened horses in the rain, calmly patting the nose of the leader, crooning to them, oblivious of her muddy hems and slippers. When visions of her beneath him followed, he shifted uncomfortably in the water. Just thinking of her made him as hard as an oak stake.

      
He cursed aloud in the empty room. Splashing water over the sides of the tub, he rose and stepped out, reaching for one of a pile of snowy towels on the stool beside the tub. Seizing it, he began to dry himself with considerable vigor. At least he had finally made it clear to his personal servants that their services were not required unless he specifically asked for them. He had never learned to be comfortable with valets and footmen hovering.

      
Striding across the small dressing room, he pulled a brocade banyan from a hook on the wall and put it on, tying the sash as he searched for carpet slippers to keep his feet warm on the cold wooden floor. Rachel had instructed the housekeeper to bring up hot soup. His stomach gave a sharp rumble when he remembered that. Donning the slippers, he strode silently from his room through the door adjoining hers, expecting to find servants laying out the simple meal.

      
What he found instead was his wife, reclining naked in a tub of water right in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace. One slender golden arm was raised languidly as she plied a dripping sponge to it with the other hand, affording him an excellent view of her breasts. Soap bubbles kissed the rose-brown nipples which rode just above the water line. Her eyes were half closed, and her expression was one of utter contentment.

      
She raised one impossibly long leg to apply the sponge to it, beginning with the high, elegant arch of her foot. Great masses of chocolate hair were piled in gleaming curls on top of her head, secured helter-shelter by heavy pins as if she, too, had performed the task without help from servants. Another of many things about her that he admired.

      
But right now, it was her magnificent body that he admired most of all. Every wet, glistening inch of it. And he would have it. His hunger for soup and the pain of his aching muscles were utterly forgotten as he walked silently across the room and took the sponge from her hand.

      
Rachel looked up with a startled gasp as his large, dark hand covered hers. “Allow me,” he said softly. Then he bent to his task, skimming the soft sponge over her leg, lowering it to the full curve of her hip, then raising it to circle her breasts until the nipples stood up, puckered by the delicate stimulation.

      
She moaned low in the back of her throat and closed her eyes in bliss. If she could not have him forever, at least there would be these few precious days before he left her. Then his voice, low and urgent, broke into her thoughts.

      
“Please, Rachel…I need you.”

      
She sat up, her eyes wide open now as she studied his face in the firelight. He looked grim, his dark blue eyes shadowed by fatigue…or wariness. She could not tell which, nor did she care. Without saying a word, she stood up in the tub, letting the water run in silvery rivulets from her body as he took a towel and enfolded her within it, then began massaging her dry.

      
That will have to do,” he rasped out after a moment of feeling the sweet, feminine heat of her body. Sweeping her into his arms, he carried her to the turned-back bed on the other side of the fireplace and laid her on it, throwing the towel on the floor.

      
She watched in avid silence while he shed his banyan and climbed beneath the covers with her. In spite of the chilly rain outside, the room grew toasty warm as they lay side by side, caressing and exploring each other's bodies. They kissed with a drugging hunger that made them both breathless. His tongue plunged into her mouth, twining with hers, then withdrew. She rimmed his mouth with the tip of her tongue and then nibbled at his lower lip.

      
He raised himself over her and began to suckle on her breasts as she ran her hands across the breadth of his shoulders and down his back. The pull of his mouth on her nipple seemed to cause a tightening deep in her belly, an ache which only he could assuage, an emptiness only he would ever be able to fill. She arched up, letting her hands find his hard buttocks and squeeze. He growled low in his throat, and she could feel the heat of his erection pressing against her thigh. She reached for it with both hands.

      
He stilled. She imprisoned it, her fingers boldly plying the velvety length. When he thrust against her hand in desperation, she held him fast, cupping his sac with her other hand as she stroked. Then she guided him to the portal that ached for his entry. He felt her wetness and knew there would be no barrier now. But might she be tender from last night? He hesitated for an instant, but when she arched up and clenched his hips between her thighs, he was lost.

      
She felt the power of his first thrust and moved with him, urging him onward. They coupled fiercely, almost grappling like two starved wolves feasting on a fresh kill. He rolled them over until she was riding on top of him. Rachel looked startled for an instant, but when his hands kneaded her buttocks and guided her movements, she quickly took over like some wild Valkyrie. The new position gave her more control, and she began rotating her hips in deep, rolling plunges that made them both cry out with the wonder of their joining.

      
The pins from her hair had long since been lost, and the rich chocolate-colored curls streamed over her shoulders, burnished in the firelight. His hands moved upward, brushing the dark locks away, taking a breast in each hand, cupping them and teasing the distended nipples with his thumbs as she pressed her palms against his chest. She could feel the hard thrumming of his heartbeat match her own. The intensity of this joining made it too uncontrolled to last. Now she understood what was to happen, and happen it did, all too soon.

      
Rachel wanted to go slow, to make the moment last, but she was as powerless as Jason to stop the wild rush to fulfillment. When it began, she arched her back and cried out his name, feeling his shuddering response.

      
His body seemed to buck off the mattress as the explosive orgasm engulfed him. Beyond the incredible pleasure, he could hear the keening cry of his name on his wife's lips. He did not hear himself as he rasped out, “Rachel!”

      
They lay, arms and legs entangled, the heavy coverlet twisted at their feet. In the fireplace, the flames leaped brightly, casting long shadows over their bodies. He raised his head and played with a curl of dark hair that lay over her breast, rubbing it back and forth across the nipple until it tightened once again. He could feel her begin to move her hips restlessly, turning her head into the tangle of her hair spread across the pillows. She kept her eyes closed.

      
Jason considered that he might be wise to do the same, but he could not get his fill of looking at her. Thick lashes fanned down over her high cheekbones. Those wide, eminently kissable lips parted ever so slightly as her breathing became erratic. Her face was strong, the nose and jaw straight—bold for a woman yet utterly pleasing to him. Slim dark eyebrows arched perfectly over those changeable eyes. What shade would they be in the firelight? He rolled her onto her back.

      
“Look at me, Rachel,” he commanded, taking a curl and tickling her chin with it until she turned and opened her eyes.

      
“Gold. I thought so,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth to hers.

      
This time they went slowly, taking the time to caress and kiss, rebuilding the inner fires even as the one on the hearth began to subside. Neither said a word but only made soft exclamations of pleasure. She traced the pattern of hair on his chest downward in its vee to his navel, then applied her mouth to a flat male nipple, eliciting a growl. Taking that to be good, she applied her skills to the other one and was likewise rewarded.