Chapter Twenty-Six
“Don’t turn around, Cat.” His voice was quiet, the assured confidence sweeter to her than the soft morning birdcalls.
“Jones.” She did not move, but let her arms remain wrapped around her curled legs, let her face continue to rest on her knees as she watched the sun steal over Ashdown Abbey—only now her body hummed and heart leaped.
Somewhere behind the stone bench she sat on, in the thicket of tree and brush and shadow, was the man she wanted to see more than any other. Only she could not turn to see him lest someone from the Abbey observe them.
“Are you well?” They were solemn words, weightier than the fog lifting from the great pond spreading in front of the Abbey. She could picture Jones’s solemn expression as if he stood before her—eyes deep and focused. Jaw tight with concern. “After yesterday afternoon by the granaries.”
She could not answer that question. She didn’t know.
Kisses. Fire. Threats.
All of them equally compelling.
“Wycomb held a knife to my throat.” She said the words in an even tone. Anything else would break her.
Underbrush rustled once, then went still again. “Cat.”
“I’m safe, Jones.” Her mind knew this, but the alarm rattling around inside her chest did not. “He did nothing more than threaten.” The light prick of the knife wasn’t a true injury—there had only been one small bead of blood.
The silence behind her was solid and heavy. It drew out so long she wondered if Jones had disappeared into the trees at her back.
“Why?” The word was choked, as though it were difficult for him to speak.
“For one, Hedgewood.” She tightened her arms around her legs. Ashdown Abbey was lovely at dawn. Pink and gold light shot from the horizon, turning the stone of the house a beautiful rose. Bright flowers bordering the pond danced as if greeting the early morning sunbeams rippling across the ancient moat.
There was no hint of the danger sleeping inside the building.
“Will you marry Hedgewood?” A rustle of branches again, a whisper of leaves. Jones was not far from her, probably not ten feet from the stone bench she sat on. Yet he seemed to be well beyond her.
“I think I must.” It would be bitter. Jones had stirred something inside her, and nothing would ever be quite the same.
“I shall look into Hedgewood.” A hard tone, but she heard something else coating the word. Not panic, not fear—something, though.
She spun on the stone bench, setting her bare feet down on the dewy grass and searching the foliage in the wooded area behind her. She could not see Jones, not even a boot or a flash of jacket.
“Are your feet cold?” he asked. She couldn’t determine what direction the words came from. They seemed to echo against wildflowers and fresh green leaves.
“Yes, but I’ve done this since I was a girl.”
“What?”
“Walked barefoot at Ashdown Abbey.” She smiled as memories floated in and out of her consciousness. “My father once said I understood the estate more than anyone else because I was always barefoot. I’ve walked every inch of the estate, curled my toes into the soil.” She did so now, gripping the grass and dirt. “I have felt the blood and bone and dust of my ancestors, felt the future. I know what it is to toil in the dirt, day in and day out, because I did so as a girl. I worked beside the laborers so I would know.”
Heat, dust. Aching back and arms, legs that shook as much as cook’s pudding. Welts from plants whipping her calves and blisters on her palms from the scythe handles. The frantic need for water.
“I know what it is like to work in the fields, and I know what it is like to have tea with the Prince Regent in the drawing room.” She looked over her shoulder at the many stories and outcroppings and additions to the Abbey. “It’s mine.” Fierce propriety filled her. She loved every stone, every blade of grass and drafty window. It was hers to protect, along with all the other properties. But none were as dear to her as this one. “I will not let Wycomb take it from me. Never. It is mine.”
She hadn’t known how much she would fight for it.
Last night, rooted in the ground of her ancestors and waiting for death, she’d learned.
“My lady. Cat.” The hand came from nowhere. Wide, callused, and just there in front of her. She looked up into Jones’s face, into eyes that were softer than she’d seen before. “Quickly.”
She set her hand in his and stood. He pulled her into the trees and brush, past ferns and branches full of early summer growth.
The eyes of Ashdown Abbey faded away.
They were alone.
Sunlight shown through new leaves, tinging the air a pale green. He stood among the trees and brush just as if he were on a London street. Feet solid on the ground, shoulders back, gaze flicking around. Always on guard.
The hand holding hers tightened, rich chocolate eyes targeting her throat. His breath hissed out as his free thumb came up, pressed lightly against the mark between her collarbones.
She’d never felt anything so gentle. So reverent.
“I would take you away from Wycomb if I could.” The vicious tone was one she’d not heard from him before. It scraped at her heart, digging into a place already weak. “I’d take you across the world, if it meant you were safe.”
“I can’t leave everything in the hands of Wycomb.” Stepping closer, Cat looked up into his face. Lean, even common features—grim. Tension edged his unshaven jaw, temper drew his brows down. Every plane of that face tugged at places inside her she could not allow free rein.
“Kiss me, Jones. Please.” The words spilled from her before she could think to stop them. She didn’t care. “Please.”
…
“Cat.” He was not certain what he wanted to say. He was not even certain if his heart was beating.
The sun slipped between the leaves above, illuminating her face, her eyes, with such brilliance he could not breathe. Each curve, the shape of her mouth, the lashes fringing her eyes. Each was gilded by beams of light that turned the beautiful into the exquisite.
There was nothing he could do but kiss her.
But not yet. Not yet.
The hand reaching for her belonged to him, and yet he did not recognize its movement as being directed by his mind. “You are not what I expected.”
Her skin was soft beneath his thumb when he feathered it over her cheekbone. He slid his fingers into the bound curls feeding into the braid tracing the line of her spin, let the loose strands slip against his skin. Those renegades, too, were soft and fragrant.
“What did you expect, Jones?” Her eyes were bright, but not with shock or fear. With need, even longing. It echoed in him, calling up all the need and longing he did not want to give voice to.
Sometimes the heart had its own voice.
“I don’t know, but not you. Not this woman who sees the people on her lands so clearly. Who loves them so much.” His other hand now moved of its own volition so that he cupped her face. “Your heart is lovely, and I had not expected it to be so.”
He leaned close, thinking only to taste her. Here, where the silence of the morning met the thrumming inside his head, inside his heart. Where the cool air fought the heat in his blood, and where there was no one to know but the two of them.
Her mouth was sweet, her lips inviting. They opened for him on a sigh—a contented one.
“I was waiting for you, Jones.” She pulled back, looked up at him with eyes so blue he could barely hear. Could barely see. Everything stopped, even the earth on its axis. “I was waiting for your kiss.”
“Cat.”
He had to have her. To taste her. Fire and lust swam in his head, in his belly. Something else—something deep and pure—moved in his chest.
His arms went around her, pulled her close. She was warm and soft against him, but filled with a power and resilience that defied everything he knew. Small, strong hands snaked around his back, gripped tight in the folds of his coat.
She rose up, simple cotton gown and Kashmir shawl nothing against the bulk of his clothing. He wished he could feel the length of her against his body, narrow hips, small breasts, but the clothing he wore made it impossible.
His hands roamed down her sides, covering rib cage, waist, hips. She wore no chemise, no petticoat. Dawn must be too early to dress properly for the day. Her skin was hot through the featherweight fabric, the barrier leaving almost nothing between his hands and her body.
It was she that deepened the kiss, sending her tongue over the seam of his lips. Tongue tangled with tongue and he could not hold back. With a light groan, he moved his lips to her throat, feathered kisses down that lean line until he reached the edge of the shawl. He tugged at it, let it drop to the ground, so he could press his lips to the smooth skin between the curve of her collarbone and line of her bodice. The dress was loose without stays and he was able to push the sleeve down to reveal her bare shoulder.
Pale. Curved. Strong.
“You are so lovely, Cat.” Skimming a finger along the line, he marveled at the freckles there. Pale gold, as if her shoulders had been kissed by the sun. “Inside and out.”
He set his lips to those freckles. Beneath the hand still gripping her hip, Jones felt her body tremble. His heart thumped in response, his blood thundering with need.
Bending close, he ran his fingers along the edge of the bodice. His mouth followed the line, nibbling, kissing. She tasted as subtle as her scent, and as mysterious. Her hands dove into his hair, tugged just a little.
“Touch me.”
Dark lust roared in him at her words, desire mingling with yearning, hunger for her overwhelming him. He pressed her against the tree just there at her back and took her mouth. He had to taste her again. Had to, even as he pushed that loose bodice far enough to expose her breast.
She was beautiful. Small, round, and perfect. Nipple pebbled in the cool morning air. He brushed his thumb across that point and heard her gasp. He looked to her face, searching for fear or shock. Neither was in her eyes. Instead, that iridescent blue seemed to burn into his soul. Her lips were parted and reddened from his kisses.
Suddenly, as if in a dream, he felt her fingers twine with his and bring them to her breast. He cupped her, brushed his thumb across her nipple again. The elegant fingers moved with his but her gaze never left his face.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He was lost in her. Suddenly frantic for more, he slid his free hand down to her thigh, lifted it. Her leg curled around his waist, held there, as natural as if they had done this before. Only they hadn’t. She hadn’t.
He should go. Leave her.
He couldn’t. He wanted to devour her, so that every part of that sweet, feminine, fiery soul would be part of him.
He didn’t, because she was making him part of her. The leg around his waist tightened, her hands gripped the front edges of his coat as she pulled him to her. One arm snaked around his neck as she rose to meet him, mouth hot and needy.
He gripped her leg—realized her gown was rucked up, exposing soft skin. His palm slid over a smooth thigh, her skin hot despite the light morning chill.
“I’m yours, Jones.” Eyes so brilliantly blue he could not withstand them, she held his gaze. Lips curved up, mischievous, needy, wicked. Leg curling more firmly around him as if to steady herself, she guided his hand up, up, toward the heat. Toward the sweet center of her. “Make love to me.”
She was wet, ready.
“Touch me here.” She let go of his hand, arched toward him so her sex pressed against his hand. “I want it. Want you.”
She was not his.
He did the only thing the pulsing in his blood and body could allow. He slid a finger into her, slow and soft, carefully. That would be the extent of it.
Still, it was all he had to be slow and soft.
She was tight. Hot. Her muscles contracted at his movement, contracted again as he moved his finger inside her.
“More.” Her breath shuddered out, but her eyes fixed on his. “I know there is more. I want it.”
Now his breath shuddered out. He would not be able to resist her plea. Her need and hunger swirled around him, echoed inside him, as if it were his own.
“I can’t.” Hell burned inside him to say the words, to remove his hand from feminine heat. “We shouldn’t.”
“We can. My uncle already believes we have.”
He froze, hand on her smooth thigh, as lust gave way to ice in his gut. “What did he say?”
Face still gilded by gold sunlight, cheeks flushed, she stared at him. “That he knew a man helped me with the bags of grain. He believes we were—were—” She paused, licked her lower lip. “Together. He told me to play a virgin on my wedding night.”
“Did Wycomb mention me? Specifically?” All thought of kissing her, of tasting her, was driven from his mind.
He should not have started this interlude in the first place.
Slowly, carefully, he lowered her leg, gown falling into place at her ankles. He raised her sleeve, pulling the bodice higher to cover that perfect breast. He tried not to linger over her skin, over the gold freckles on her shoulder.
“No.” She shook her head, breath shuddering. Regret edged the sound. “He knows enough to be observant, I believe. That is all.”
He bent, retrieved the shawl that had fallen onto grass and leaves only a few minutes before. His body still wanted her, so badly that just setting the fabric around her shoulders tested his resolve.
“We’ll have to be more careful.” There was too much at stake for Wycomb to see them now. He had been stupid, losing control of himself. “Go back to the house, Cat. Be careful.”
“That is it?” She pulled her shawl tight. He looked to her face, unsure if she was shocked or angry.
“It must be.” He rubbed a hand against his chest, trying to ease the erratic beat of his heart. “Anything more is a risk. We never should have—”
“I know. I know. Only, I want you. I’ve never wanted someone this way.” The anger faded to a somber expression. She rose onto her toes, pressed her lips softly to his. “Be safe.”
She slipped out of the copse and began to pick her way toward the Abbey, leaving everything inside him aching for her.