Chapter Twelve
Finn had meant to take her arm at once and move her away from the horse before Chaos tried to knock her over or bite her, but he stilled when he caught sight of her leaning over the edge of the stall, her bright hair illuminated by a beam of sunlight.
Her head was bent toward the horse, one of her hands curled around the stall door, the other caressing the horse’s neck with slow, easy strokes. She was murmuring to him, and the horse’s ears were twitching with pleasure at the sound of her low, sweet voice.
Finn leaned a hip against the door of the stall and crossed his arms over his chest. She was so preoccupied with the stallion she didn’t seem to realize he was there, and the scene was so tranquil he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt them.
He’d watch her for a moment only, and then he’d—
“Oh, just look at you, you beauty.” She let out a soft laugh when Chaos butted his nose roughly into her shoulder. “Oh no, indeed. There will be none of that. When I ride you, you’ll act the gentleman, sir.”
She continued to stroke the horse with long, steady sweeps of her hand, again and again, slow and rhythmic, crooning to him all the while. Finn couldn’t hear all of what she said, but it didn’t matter.
She could be saying anything, or nothing at all.
His eyes slid half-closed as he let himself fall deeper under the spell of her hypnotic voice, but even as his brain was lulled into quiet the rest of his body surged with awareness. She didn’t look at him, but it was as if he were taking her inside him, each syllable sinking in and becoming invisible, like water disappearing into sand.
“There. That’s it, Chaos. You can be sweet when you choose, can’t you?”
She laughed again when the stallion nosed her cheek, and Finn’s own lips curved in response. Had he never heard her laugh before? Or was it another thing he’d failed to notice about her? Her laugh, the stubborn lift of her chin, her voice like the stroke of a hand over him, a lullaby and a seduction at once.
He would have stood there all day and listened to her.
“You’re both sweet and wicked, aren’t you? Ah, such a soft mouth, like velvet.”
Finn’s breath grew short, his chest heaving with each inhale. Even here, in the stables, with Lady Honora and Wrexley right outside the door, every inch of him strained toward her, his cock rising and pressing against the front of his falls, his body desperate for more of her voice, her fingers stroking his lips. What would it be like to lie next to her, with her mouth pressed to his ear as she whispered to him, each word no more than a warm breath of air?
“No, I can’t believe you’re truly wicked, not with that mouth.”
And the horse—damned if the horse wasn’t just as fascinated with her as Finn was. Chaos was a devil. One look into those black eyes and anyone could see it, but she seemed to know just the right way to touch him and just how to speak to him.
“There now, Chaos. Shall we go for a ride?”
Her spell dissipated into the dust motes floating in the shaft of sunlight above them, and a pang of regret pierced Finn’s chest. He couldn’t let her ride that horse—not without speaking to Captain West first. Chaos might seem tame enough now, in his stall, but there was no telling how he’d behave once she was mounted and riding him across open country.
He opened his mouth to tell her she’d have to choose a different horse for today, but when he spoke, that wasn’t what he said at all.
“He likes you.”
“Yes, I think he does.” A delighted grin flirted at the corners of her lips, and Finn’s knees weakened.
They were both quiet for a moment, then he surprised himself again by asking her a question he didn’t know he needed answered until the words left his mouth. “You never spoke to me about Typhon, or about your life in Surrey. All those weeks I courted you, and even after we were betrothed, you never spoke to me about your father. Why?”
She glanced at him, surprised. “I don’t speak of him much, and I—I didn’t think you were interested.”
“But you believe Lord Wrexley is?”
Wrexley was utterly unworthy of her confidence, and yet she’d chosen to share a part of herself with him?
“I told Lord Wrexley the story about Typhon because he asked, my lord. You never did. If you recall, we didn’t talk much, despite the many weeks we spent together.”
Finn’s brows drew together in a frown. “I don’t recall that, no. We spoke as much as any betrothed couple does.”
They’d spoken at suppers and musical evenings, and when they danced together at balls, or walked in Lady Chase’s garden. When he’d called on her, they’d sat with her sisters and grandmother and spoken of…they’d spoken of…
Well, whatever they’d spoken of, he’d thought it perfectly acceptable at the time, and he’d never noticed any dissatisfaction on her part. But perhaps that was the problem. Now she’d jilted him—twice—he was noticing all kind of things about her he never had before.
She ran her palm down the horse’s nose, avoiding Finn’s gaze. “We spoke, of course, of the things any courting couple speaks of, such as dancing, mutual acquaintances, and the latest scandals, but we never spoke of anything of consequence, and certainly never of anything personal. I can’t think of a single instance in which I openly shared my opinion with you during our courtship, or our betrothal.”
There was a dejected note in her voice that startled Finn. He tried to recall their courtship—what he’d said, and what she’d said—but all he could remember was he’d always come away from their time together with a vague feeling the courtship was going as he intended. He hadn’t bothered to consider it, or her, beyond that.
It had been a mistake, but surely it wasn’t only his mistake? “I beg your pardon. I should have asked, or talked to you about my own—”
Family.
That was what he’d been about to say, but he bit the word back before he spoke it. What was there to say about his family? That his mother had run off to Scotland with her lover when he was six years old and left his heartbroken father behind to struggle with his grief? That his father had lost that battle when Finn was eight years old, and he’d been left to the care of an indifferent guardian, his headmaster at Eton, and a houseful of distracted servants? He never talked about his family, because beyond that grim tale and the empty void that followed it, there was nothing to say.
He cleared his throat, and tried again. “I should have talked to you, but you could have talked to me, as well. You never did.”
She’d reached over the stall door and was stroking the stallion’s chest, but her hand stilled at his words. “I wanted to at first, but…well, I was afraid I’d say the wrong thing, and after a while I was afraid to say anything at all. It just seemed easier to remain quiet.”
Finn almost laughed. A few minutes ago this woman had nearly brought him to release with her voice alone. What did she need with words? “You don’t seem to have any trouble finding the words to speak to Lord Wrexley.”
“He’s easier, somehow.”
A muscle twitched in Finn’s jaw. “Why? Because he’s an earl and I’m a marquess? Or is it because Lord Wrexley is such great fun? After all, he’s the sort of man who’ll run races with you, whereas I’m the man who refused to kiss you in a sunlit garden.”
There was so much resentment in his tone he couldn’t deny the truth to himself any longer. He was jealous. Of Lord Wrexley, for Christ’s sake, and angry with himself, because he’d been fool enough to squander the chance to kiss her.
A faint flush rose in her cheeks. “It has nothing to do with that, and even if it did, I don’t wish to discuss it here. Lord Wrexley and Lady Honora are right outside the door, and they’re waiting for us.”
“Let them wait. It sounds as if you’re saying you were afraid to talk to me, and I want to know why. I may be a marquess, but I’m not a brute.”
She sighed. “I don’t think you’re a brute, Lord Huntington.”
This sounded more promising, and some of Finn’s tension eased, but before he could draw another breath, she added, “But at the same time, I never got the impression you cared much about what I thought, whereas I believe Lord Wrexley asked about Typhon because he truly wanted to the know the answer.”
“Yes, he was quite keen, wasn’t he? I doubt his curiosity is as innocent as you think it is.” Wrexley was a villain, but he wasn’t a fool. He had a reason for everything he did, and Finn had no doubt whatever reason he had to suggest she ride Chaos, it benefitted no one but himself.
She turned away from him, back toward Chaos’s stall, but when she spoke she was watching him from the corner of her eye. “Innocent or not, I prefer his curiosity to your indifference, Lord Huntington.”
She’d gone back to stroking the horse, but Finn wasn’t about to let her avoid his gaze. If they were going to speak truthfully to each other at last, she was going to look him in the eyes.
He caught her wrist and drew her away from the stall. “Look at me. I’m not as…easy with people as Lord Wrexley is, but if you’d tried to talk to me, I would have listened to you. Did you think I’d reproach you, or dismiss your wishes?”
“We’ll never know now, will we?”
“Why shouldn’t we? You have my undivided attention right now, Miss Somerset, so if you’ve something to say to me, then say it.”
She met his gaze with unflinching steadiness. “Very well, my lord. If I had told you about Typhon, if I’d said I wanted a beast of a horse just like him once we were married, what would you have said?”
Finn hesitated. Part of him wanted to insist he’d have been delighted to hear his future marchioness rode like a cavalry officer, but he’d asked for this, and he wasn’t going to lie to her. “I might not have liked it, but I wouldn’t have forbidden it. I would have insisted we get you a second horse, however.”
“Why should I need a second horse? Surely one horse is enough for any lady.”
“Not for a marchioness. Several horses, a carriage for your exclusive use—these things would have been yours as a matter of course, but a horse like Typhon or Chaos wouldn’t be appropriate for a ride in Hyde Park during the fashionable hour.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? I don’t see why not.”
“Because a marchioness doesn’t get into a tussle with a headstrong mount in the middle of the promenade with all of the ton watching.”
“Ah.” She smiled a little. “What if I told you I’ve never in my life gotten into a tussle with any horse, and even if I did, I wouldn’t care a thing what the ton thought of it? What would you have said to that?”
Finn opened his mouth, then snapped it shut without speaking.
Now she’d found her words at last they poured out of her, as if she’d kept them behind her lips for far too long, and a dam had suddenly given way. “What if I said I didn’t want to ride on the promenade at all, but preferred a hard ride in Richmond Park to a mindless simper with every other aristocrat in London riding on my heels? That even if I did take a gentle mare out for sedate rides along the promenade, and everyone who saw me thought me a proper marchioness, I would have been wishing I was flying over the open ground of Richmond Park the entire time? Somehow, Lord Huntington, I don’t think any of it would have pleased you.”
Finn stared at her. He wanted to argue with her, to deny her assumption, but he couldn’t say a word, because it was true. He wouldn’t have been at all pleased to hear that, not so much because he gave a damn if she paraded around Hyde Park on the mare, but because it was the last thing he would have expected her to say, or to feel.
A lie by omission.
He’d lied to her. The wager, his mistress, his past—he’d hidden it all from her, and those were lies of omission, and as devious as any other kind of lie. But she’d lied to him, too. She’d pretended to be someone she wasn’t, just as he had.
“Yesterday you accused me of not being the perfect gentleman I pretend to be, but neither are you the quiet, docile lady you pretended to be, Miss Somerset. A great many lies were hidden in our silences, weren’t they?”
She stiffened, going unnaturally still. “I think…I think we preferred each other’s silence. It’s easier that way—easier to be what you’re expected to be, rather than what you are. If we’d been honest with each other, we might not have made it as far as a betrothal. It’s a pity we did, but we can be thankful we escaped the marriage, at least.”
Anger pulsed through him, and his fingers tightened around her wrist. “We’ve escaped nothing. It’s much too late for that now. We will marry, because people will be hurt if we don’t.”
You’ll be hurt.
“But we’ll be hurt if we do.” She tugged to free herself from his grip. “Now, if you’d be so good as to tell the stableboy to saddle Chaos, I’d be grateful.”
Damn it, he’d forgotten all about the horse. “No, Miss Somerset. You can’t ride this horse. You’ll have to choose another.”
“I beg your pardon? Did Captain West say he couldn’t be ridden?”
“No, but I’m saying it. You need a safer mount. Chaos may look quiet now, but he’s as temperamental as they come, and he’s too much horse for you. Choose another, and then we can be off.”
She studied him for a moment with narrowed eyes, then, “You’ve never seen me ride anywhere but on the promenade, so you can’t have the faintest idea what I can or can’t manage, and I’m afraid this isn’t your decision to make, Lord Huntington. I can ride Chaos, and I will.”
She spoke politely enough, but the cool determination in her tone told him she wouldn’t give up easily, and it lit a spark inside Finn’s chest. He kept his temper under tight control at all times, but this wasn’t just anger. Oh, he was angry enough, but the anger was tangled up with other, more complicated emotions.
Admiration, disbelief, and a pulsing, restless excitement.
“No, Miss Somerset, you won’t. Not until Captain West approves it, and not until you’ve taken him out in the stable yard and convinced me you can manage a horse of that size.”
She stared up at him with mutiny in every line of her face. Her lips pressed into a thin, tight line, and…
Ah, yes. There it was, that stubborn chin.
“Convinced you? I don’t think so, my lord. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll find the stableboy myself.”
She went to brush past him, but he still held her wrist, and he pulled her against his chest. “You’ll do no such thing. You will not ride that horse, Miss Somerset. Not today.”
His voice was low and rough, and he felt a slight shiver go through her.
Finn went still as his senses leapt in response. Her stared down at her, into eyes such an endless blue he felt as if he were hurling himself into an ocean, willingly, even though he knew he might never surface again. She was so close he could see the quick rise and fall of her chest under her riding habit, and caught the soft, delicate scent of her hair. Jasmine, perhaps, but with something else, too, something unexpected and exotic.
“How do you intend to stop me, Lord Huntington?”
An unmistakable challenge sparked in her blue eyes, and then, somehow, his lips were mere inches from her ear, so close the springy tendrils of hair that seemed to be forever escaping her pins brushed against his jaw, and he had to bite back a sudden, unexpected groan at the teasing caress of those curls.
“Look around you, Miss Somerset. I already have.”
Another lady would have shuddered at his rasped command. Another lady would have submitted to him, or pushed him away and fled the stables.
But not her.
She drew closer, until her lips were a breath away from his ear. “For now. But Chaos will be waiting for me tomorrow, and so will Lord Wrexley.”
The moment she said Wrexley’s name, the tight control Finn held over his emotions snapped. His riding crop landed on the floor of the barn as he caught her other wrist, then pulled her harder against his chest before his mouth crashed down on hers.
She let out a startled squeak at the first touch of his lips, but within seconds her mouth went soft under his, and when the tip of his tongue darted out to trace the seam of her lips she made another sound—a sigh, or a quiet moan—and her mouth opened to him without a hint of resistance, her breath a warm drift across his tongue.
And oh, God, she was sweet, sweeter than he could have ever imagined. Was this why he’d resisted kissing her? Because he’d known, even before his lips touched hers, he wouldn’t be able to get enough of her?
His mouth clung to hers, coaxing her to open wider with a single gentle stroke of his tongue, and then another. He still held her wrists, and he lifted her hands to his chest. Her warm palms pressed flat against him and her fingers curled into his waistcoat. He released her wrists then and slid his fingers into the mass of silky hair at the back of her neck and drew her tighter against him, a low groan tearing from his chest as his tongue darted over the delicious curve of her bottom lip.
Finn tried to pull air into his heaving lungs, tried to remember that Wrexley and Lady Honora were just on the other side of the stable doors and could walk in at any moment, but he couldn’t breathe or think. He could only taste her, his mouth growing more desperate with each eager stroke of her tongue, his hands rough in the heavy silk of her hair. He wanted to pull each pin loose until it spilled over her back as it had yesterday, so he could tangle his fingers in it, pull her head back and devour the soft, white skin of her neck and throat.
He nipped at her bottom lip, and a strangled moan escaped her as he trailed his fingers over her neck and down her back to palm the curves of her hips. He dragged her body tighter against his so the soft warmth of her belly cradled him, and he thought he’d go mad, was going mad, his brain clouding with frantic desire.
“We can’t…this isn’t…” She was breathless, her whisper a soft, warm breath against his neck.
Finn could almost pretend she hadn’t said the words, that she hadn’t gripped his forearms to pull his hands away.
Almost.
But he was still close enough to feel her trembling, and the thread of panic in her voice cleared some of the fog of desire from his brain. For the briefest moment he let his cheek rest against the top of her head, let himself bury his face in her hair, desperately inhaling her warm scent one last time before he forced himself to release her.
He dropped his arms to his sides.
They stared at each other, both of them breathing hard, neither of them moving, until at last he took a step back, away from her.
“Do you still think I’m a child, Lord Huntington?” There was a flicker of triumph in her eyes.
Finn stared down at her in a daze. “No.”
She was no child. She was a woman who needed to be kissed, often, by him, and only him. Her mouth was made for his, and no one else’s. He dipped his head toward hers again. Her taste was still on his lips, and all he could think about was getting more of it.
But she pressed her hands against his chest and held him back. “I’m not a child, and I’ll decide what horse I’ll ride and who I ride with. If I choose to spend time with Lord Wrexley, that’s not your concern.”
But it was, because he’d made it—her—his concern. “You think I’ll just let him have you? You may think Wrexley is a wise choice, but he’s—”
“He’s my only choice. Nothing has changed since I jilted you, my lord. Both of us know I’m not the kind of lady you’d willingly choose for your marchioness. You don’t want me, not really, and I don’t…” She stopped, her throat working, then said, “I don’t want you.”
Liar. I can still feel you trembling, still hear your breathlessness.
She did want him, and he wanted her, so much he was dizzy with it, but he couldn’t deny the thought of making her his marchioness filled him with both longing and dread at once. She was defiant and willful, tempting and beautiful, and he’d never wanted a wife who made him lose control. A wife who made him want her, who drove him mad with fury and desire.
He’d never wanted someone extraordinary.
But he didn’t say any of this, and when he spoke, his voice was cold. “It doesn’t matter what either of us wants anymore.”
Finn got one final glance at her pale face in the weak sunlight coming through the door before she stepped into the deep shadows of the stables and hurried down the row of stalls, the skirts of her dark blue riding habit dragging across the floor.
He leaned down to pick up his riding crop, and when he straightened again, she was gone.