Dangerous Weakness (4 page)

Chapter 6

Glenaire’s hand, which had shot out swiftly to steady her, lay hot on Lily’s arm. She batted it away.

“Too late,” she said. “Keep your protection.”

He rose to tower over her. “You doubt me?” Glenaire sputtered; he pinned her with a glare. “Your father—”

“Yes, I know. You’ve taken steps. Will I be safe on the streets of London?”

“He threatened you also.” It wasn’t a question; his eyes burned, hot with rage.

She rolled her eyes.
Damn but the man is exasperating
.

Lily pulled her skirt, giving it a yank to free it from where it snagged on the rough chair. She needed to get out of there. The impulse to seek out Sahin Pasha had been, she thought, ill advised.
Ill advised? It may end in disaster.

The marquess put out a hand again to stop her but stopped short of touching her. “I can protect—”

“What about my reputation?” she demanded. “Can you protect that? Volkov promised to destroy all hope of a suitable marriage.” Despair enveloped her; she felt her body sag.

“I shouldn’t have come,” she breathed. “I should have avoided you all.”

She pushed away from the table. “I have to leave. I can meet Aunt Marianne on the road. I can try to minimize the damage.”

“I’ll escort you,” Glenaire said. From another man that would be a polite offer. From Glenaire, it sounded like a command.

“No need. I will send the earl’s horse back to him.”

He followed her past the taproom to the courtyard; she couldn’t prevent it. “Wait here,” he ordered, “while I get our horses.”

Leaning against the wall, Lily squinted at an orange and red sunset. The air already grew colder and night would come on fast. Cold from the stones seeped into her. She tried to silence the drumbeat of worry.
Volkov will know. Father must be protected. Volkov—

The Marquess burst from the stables in a rush, looking as if the Furies rode his tail.

“That damned old man outmaneuvered me,” Glenaire spat, rushing past her.

“What do you mean?” She hurried after him.

“He took our horses,” he growled over his shoulder without slowing. Lily skipped to keep up with his long stride. She followed him into the sort of public room no lady should enter; it reeked of ale and stale bodies. Horror over the consequences of her impulse to seek out Sahin ate at her.

“Rent two more,” she suggested in desperation. “You can afford them. You can afford to
buy
them.”

“Sahin Pasha beat me to it. He bought them all,” Glenaire said over his shoulder. He strode up to the bar and demanded the innkeeper.

Sahin, favored uncle, don’t do it
, Lily moaned inside herself.

The old man wanted to delay Richard long enough to get couriers out of England on their way to Thessaloniki. They would outstrip her father’s travel arrangements. She leaned one hand on a filthy table to keep from toppling over from the sick feeling in her stomach.

The innkeeper bustled over.

“What happened to our damned horses?” Glenaire demanded before the man even came to a stop.

“The
mussulman
gentleman told me you ordered him to take ‘em, to help like. Have a powerful need for horses do the mussulman folk,” the man said. He looked genuinely confused. He wrung his hands.

“What did the bastard pay you?” Glenaire demanded. The innkeeper looked at Lily. He pretended to look affronted at the marquess’s language for her sake.

“I have to leave. I can’t stay here,” Lily cried, panic rising.

“The mussulman gent told me you would be well protected, and so you will be.” He glanced up at Glenaire. “Promised to send horses, he did. Only take a day. No more’n two, once he finds more. Fer now—” He wiped his hands on his apron, ready, Lily suspected, to extort large sums from two people he mistook for fools.

“You heard the lady,” Glenaire growled. “She cannot stay here. You will send someone to Chadbourn Park to fetch a carriage. You will do it now.”

“M’lord!” the man exclaimed. “It is come dark already. Send a man ten miles on foot in the dark? Even if a man don’t lose his way, he could fall in a ditch or be gored by Harry Martin’s bull. Safer in t’morning.”

Neither Lily’s pleading nor Glenaire’s aristocratic bullying moved the man, who insisted, “T’ lady and gent can stay til morning.” When Glenaire threatened to bring the full weight of the Foreign Office, the man suggested Glenaire might meet the full weight of the village blacksmith by morning.

Dear God. I am trapped at an inn with the Marquess of Glenaire. Volkov will know. All of London will know.

“I have to leave,” Lily choked. “I can’t stay here.”

Before Richard could respond, she pushed aside the inn door with one hand and stumbled out. Shadows engulfed her, her graceful figure swallowed up in growing darkness.

The sight struck Richard dumb mid speech, eyes on the door and one finger pointing at the innkeeper. No one had ever walked out on him before.

“Best fetch ‘er. Dangerous in th’dark,” the innkeeper said.

“I’m not finished with you,” Richard responded in a rush.

He strode to the door with the remnants of his dignity and broke into a run when he did not see Lily in the inn yard.

He bolted onto the road, short of breath, and scanned it in both directions for Lily without success. Across the open fields, a figure, faint in the darkening twilight, moved purposefully in the direction of Chadbourn Park.

It took him an hour of hard walking to catch her, delayed as he was by the need to pop back into the inn to fetch his saddlebag and berate the innkeeper. A rabbit hole, a muddy hollow, and a rather tenacious bramble had not helped either.

At least I haven’t encountered Harry Martin’s bull.

Every other step he berated the foolish woman for her determination to come to harm. In between he cursed himself for acting like the sort of fool who couldn’t control his impulses. Once he thought he had lost her, and visions of her tiny body broken in a ditch hastened his steps until he saw movement ahead.

“Where do you think you’re going,” Richard demanded. Gasps for breath weakened the force of his words. Fear gave it an edge.

“To Chadbourn Park, of course, my only alternative with no conveyance. I plan to throw myself on the countess’s mercy,” she said without breaking stride.
That woman is too damned energetic. She’s out pacing me even with the train of a damned riding habit tossed over her arm.

“She can plot to save your reputation in the morning better than in the deep of night,” he countered, keeping up.

“I have to get there before Volkov finds out we’ve both been gone all night.”

“He’s gone.”

“What?” She spun around so fast he ran into her.

Richard put an arm around her waist to steady her. “He left this morning before you did.” She didn’t object to his hand at her waist; he left it there.

“Are you sure?”

“My man said he left first. I will verify that.”

Lily laughed, a deep rich laugh, no schoolgirl titter. She reached up and pulled a leaf from his hair. “How do you plan to do that?” she asked.

For a moment he stood transfixed, her breath sweet warmth on his cheek. The moment passed. Standing in the middle of a field in utter darkness, mud on his boots, and leaves in his hair, Richard felt vulnerable. He did not enjoy the sensation. He dropped his hand from her waist as if on fire.

“When we return, I will see to it,” he ground out, resuming their hike.

She picked up the train of her skirt and stepped into place beside him. “So you agree. We’ll return to Chadbourn Park tonight.”

“No.”

She sped up, moving deeper into the night. Richard matched her pace longer than he thought possible.

“Enough of this,” he growled when he reached the end of his rope.

“I am not returning to that inn, my lord,” she said, giving his title a twist of irony. He could hear the shiver in her voice.

“No, I don’t suppose that would be practical either.”

“What then?”

“We shelter for the night before we freeze and the sheep find our bodies cluttering their pasture in the morning.” February winds cut through his greatcoat.
How can she stand it, tromping along in that riding habit, the little fool?

“Sheep, my lord?”

“There are always sheep. This is Dorset.”

As if at his command, twenty minutes of walking brought them to a sheep pen. Lily’s outburst when she bumped into the rough stone wall in the darkness unleashed a frenzy of “Baa” from the pen’s unseen inhabitants. The setting moon left them in gloom.

“Can you see a farmhouse?” she asked between chattering teeth.

“No, but I can barely see my hand.”

“Look there,” Lily said, “across the enclosure. Do you make out a shape?”

He took her hand; her fingers, icy even through her gloves, laced with his. Together they groped along the stone enclosure until they came to a rough wood structure. The stench told them it was no house long before they reached it.

“Storage barn?” she suggested.

“Shearing shed,” he guessed. Will had gone on at some length about shearing one night. Richard wished he had paid attention.

He tightened a grip on her hand and looked in every direction. When he saw no glimmer of light or other sign of humanity, he tossed about for an alternative. This close, he could feel that she had begun to shiver violently. He needed to get her out of the wind.

“If the racket those creatures made didn’t bring the farmer, he must be at some distance,” he said. “This appears to be our only choice.”

She tried to open her mouth, but her teeth chattered too rapidly to speak. If she meant to disagree, she failed.

If I don’t warm her, she’ll fall ill.

He pulled her into the shed, and into his arms.

Chapter 7

Warmth, wonderful warmth.

Lily burrowed deeply into it, shaking uncontrollably. Her nose nestled into the soft lawn of Richard’s shirt, and she let the scent of sandalwood, shaving soap—the scent of man—fill her senses.

“Easy,” he soothed. “Let me warm you.”

His heavy greatcoat fell around her. In the protective cocoon of his arms, the odor of sheep receded, the ache in her legs eased, and her sense of threat in the darkness yielded to a sense of safety. She snuggled against him.

“Better?” he slid his hands up her back to her shoulders, as if to push her away.

“Some,” she replied, cuddling closer. The hands slid back down, sending warmth through her. “I’ve made a mess of it, haven’t I?”

He didn’t answer.

“Too much a diplomat to agree with me?” she mumbled from deep in his coat.

“Too intelligent to state the obvious,” he responded.

I acted without thinking. I put us both in jeopardy. I led him through muddy fields and sheep dung for heaven’s sake.

And Volkov will know.
She shivered again.

“More cold?” he asked. He held her tight.

Volkov will know and Sahin will kill his agent. Papa!

The weight of it crushed her. Wet tears overflowed, ran down her cheeks, and soaked his shirt.

Richard jerked away. “Please, no tears,” he whispered. “It won’t help and—”

A sob escaped her and then another.

“Don’t!” She could hear his consternation and confusion in that one word, a man all at sea when faced with a woman’s tears. He pulled her close again.

Some things you can’t control, Glenaire. A woman’s grief is one of them.

“Don’t,” he repeated more gently and lowered his mouth to hers.

He kissed her, she thought, to quiet her sobs as much as to comfort. It quickly flamed into something else.

She tasted salt in the kiss, her tears flowing into his mouth. His harsh lips softened, gently teasing and urging Lily to open to him. She did, falling headlong into the fire that had threatened to ignite between them for two days. One last coherent thought came to her: among the insane events of this foolish expedition, opening to Glenaire would be the most foolish. At that moment she didn’t care. She wanted the comfort he offered.

He shrugged off his coat, brushing her hand aside when she tried to cling. “I need to touch you,” he rasped. “Let me get this out of the way.” He slipped off his tailored jacket and tossed it over the stall behind him. The jacket of her riding habit followed it, removed by his deft hands before she could protest.

Soon enough he’d wrapped his greatcoat around them both, his hands inside, gliding up her back to undo the ties of her chemisette, one after inevitable one.

Talented fingers slipped through the gap in back and caressed her through her shift, up, down, and up again to run his fingers along the edge where her skin burned at his touch. All the while his mouth moved down her neck to its juncture with her shoulder.

He tugged the front of her chemisette and followed it with his mouth when it slipped across her breasts to fall to her waist. His mouth clamped over one breast, wet through her shift, and sucked, gently at first and then hard and demanding. A sharp clenching deep inside overtook her. Lily found it hard to breathe. Impossible to think.

“Glenaire,” she gasped.

“Richard,” he murmured against her skin. He clamped one hand on her derriere and held her in place while his mouth found her other breast. She came up against the hard ridge of his arousal and slumped forward, leaning over his head.

I need to touch him. I need—
She slid her hand down the neck of his shirt.

He shot up, yanking his shirt from his pantaloons. She pushed it up until she could kiss the places her hands explored. His hands—

Ah, talented hands!

—touched the sensitive skin above her shift, then inside to tease her nipples. When her hands slid to the waist of his pantaloons, he moaned deeply.

“Wait!” Cold air, sharp and icy against her overheated skin struck her damp breasts when he pulled away. Something rustled in the dark. She groped though the maelstrom of desire for her moral compass. She failed to find it.

He came back before the madness receded, swept her up in his arms, and captured her mouth. “Clean,” he said against her lips.

Lily lifted her head, confused. He kissed her again.

“I found a bin of clean straw,” he explained. She kissed him back, teasing the side of his mouth with her tongue. His mouth held hers when he lifted her off her feet and swept his coat from around her shoulders.

He spread the coat and lay Lily on it. In seconds he lay on top of her, his weight both warm and welcome. He pulled the edges of the coat around them both. His hands and mouth drove all thought but one from Lily.

More. I need to touch you more. I need to be touched. I need . . .

His mouth explored her, without the shift now, that garment pushed down to her waist. She gripped his hair with one hand and ran the other down the corded muscles of his back.

When a tug alerted her that he had loosened her skirt, she started to rise up so he could pull it down. Instead, he yanked it up to her waist, urging her to relax into the cocoon of his coat. One hand caressed her inner thigh, sending waves of heat through her womb. Her hands moved restlessly under his shirt.

Fingers fluttered through the curls between her thighs and caressed her where she already felt moisture. She reached for the fall of his pants, but he stopped her.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “Almost.”

One finger slipped inside her. Another followed. She drowned in a sea of unfamiliar sensation. His hands caressed until Lily clung to him, desperate and unable to contribute to his pleasure.

“Richard?” she murmured, her voice rising at the end. “Too much, too . . . Oh.” Waves of pleasure left her blind. Mute.

When she returned to awareness, she felt him, hard and hot, press against her moist opening.

When did his pantaloons disappear
?

He took her mouth and entered her a short way. When he pulled out, vague disappointed filled her.
Could that be all?
No. He did it again. And again. When he slipped in and out in shallow thrusts, her pleasure began to build again. Lily gave herself over to it until, in one hard thrust, he entered her completely.

Pain tore through her, igniting red sparks behind her eyes.

Lily cried out in pain.

Richard went rigid. He’d just taken her virginity with one vicious thrust and little care.

Damn it woman, why didn’t you tell me you were untouched?

He forced himself to stay still, head down, panting.

I assumed, the business with Volkov—I assumed . . .

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she gasped.

Unwilling to withdraw, afraid to hurt her more, he focused on the sound of his own breathing.

“I heard the first time—” she began. “But I didn’t—”

He started to withdraw. Her hand on his buttocks pressed him back.

“Don’t stop, now,” she murmured. “The damage is done.”

Damage? Is that what this is?

“Really, Richard. I think you’re not finished.”

I damned well am not.
The feel of her hands drove him mad. He began to move in her.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he rasped. He couldn’t have stopped if he tried.

“I will be, Don’t stop.” She trailed a hand up his belly. The feel of it drove him to move again, gently at first until the madness overtook him, and he finished what he started.

As he fell, satiated, to her side, he heard her moan softly. He prayed the moan meant pleasure. He owed her that at least.

Damn, damn, damn.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” His words sounded curt to his own ears.
Why didn’t I pay more attention?

She didn’t answer. He choked back a curse.

“Are you—” he began.

“Fine,” she mumbled. She turned her face away. He let her. A moment later he curled himself around her from behind and pulled her close with one arm.

“Sleep,” he said. “We have much to deal with tomorrow.”

She lay very still. He hoped she slept. He did not.

What hold does this woman have over me? I never lose control. Never.
But he had; he had ravished a respectable young woman.

Another thought struck him.
I didn’t even take precautions.
Richard was no monk, but he kept his liaisons discreet. He used every precaution he knew to prevent fathering a child. So far he had been successful.

He had never approached a respectable young woman with so much as a stolen kiss.

Irrationally, he resented her for it.
Where was the damned woman’s common sense?

As soon as the sky lightened enough to see, long before dawn, he rose and began to assemble the remains of his clothes. He pulled up his pantaloons and picked up his shirt.

“Is it morning?” Lily’s voice, muffled by his greatcoat, interrupted him.

“Almost. The earlier we get to the Park, the better.”

He turned his back to her and examined his shirt. A particularly nasty stain covered the front. It would have to be burned.

“I need help,” she murmured.

At least she isn’t wailing.

He pulled the shirt over his head and turned to her. She lifted her shift back into place, covering her sweet breasts, but she groped in vain to fasten her chemisette. He would have her clothing burned also.

He knelt, closed the garment with a few short movements, and rose abruptly. He did not need the graceful slope of the back of her neck where she held up her glorious auburn hair to lure him to her. That dance had been done, binding him to her with silken cords.

He put on his jacket and handed her hers. The tailored riding habit did not look at all alluring. Yet, here he stood, his life in tatters.

They would marry of course. Not once in the entire night had he conjured a way out. They would marry. He pulled her to her feet and watched her fasten her skirt.

“We may still make Chadbourn Park before anyone rises if we set out now,” he said.

“Except the servants,” she retorted.

“They don’t matter. We can contain the scandal.” He picked up his coat and swung it around her.

She looked up then, hopeful.

“We will marry of course,” he told her. “Quickly, but not so abruptly as to cause comments.” He walked toward the door, expecting her to follow.

“I beg your pardon,” she called out to him. “We will what?”

He turned on his heel. “Miss Thornton, you will be the Marchioness of Glenaire. That is far from ideal, and the difference in our state will no doubt cause talk. We will have to endure it.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why this ‘far from ideal’ demand? Has Lady Sarah refused you?”

“Don’t be coy, Miss Thornton. You have led me into folly at every step. After last night I have no choice. I shall have to marry you. My family—”

“Your family would have kittens if I married you, which I will not.”

“You have respectable, if not the highest, breeding, you will show to advantage when properly dressed, and you will do well as a diplomatic hostess. My family, I was going to say, will have to deal with it.” He stalked away. “So will you.”

“I will not,” Lily shouted after him. He ignored her.

She isn’t a fool. She will leap at the chance to be a marchioness. Does the damned woman think she deserves poetry also?