A Fine Passion (15 page)

On. Unrelentingly demanding. Not just him but her, too; her own demands swelled and filled her. She let her body free, let it take him as it would, as he gave himself and took her.

They were matched. Despite the unforgiving, brutally hard body pinning her down, plunging deep, powerfully driving her on, despite the fact that in the presence of his strength she felt so much weaker, despite all the physical advantages he held, she held advantages, too.

Her power showed in his touch, not reverent so much as covetous, in the hunger that drove him, that seemed to well from his soul as he drove himself into her. As if he needed to be there, deep inside, and that need was not physical alone.

That knowledge was hers, instinctive and sure, but understanding was beyond her. The flames grew, roared; sensation built, nerves steadily coiling, tight, then tighter. Hot, then hotter. Then the kaleidoscope of passion and desire swirled about them, swooped and caught them, whipped them high to some pinnacle of earthly bliss, held them there for one bright, indescribably intense instant, then flung them down.

Released them.

Shattered them. Fragmented their senses with that release.

Emptied them.

Of thought, of will, of feeling.

The little death, they called it; she now knew why. But unlike death, in the aftermath came…not feeling, not sensation, but a warm sea of emotion, flooding in, filling her, buoying her.

Blindly, she shifted one hand, found his head on her shoulder, lightly riffled his soft hair. He’d collapsed and lay heavily upon her, pressing her into the bed, totally immobilizing her.

It didn’t matter; she couldn’t move, and his weight felt curiously right.

Just as the whole, first to last, had felt…meant to be.

So easy.

So…amazing.

She felt her lips curve. Eyes still closed, she gave herself up to the golden glory sliding through her veins, and let the peace and the sense of fulfillment soothe her, let them both seep to her soul.

Jack stirred. Eventually. Not because he wanted to; he could happily lie on her, feeling her soft and sated beneath him, feeling her sheath hot and wet occasionally contracting about his sated flesh, for any number of hours.

But although she was relaxed beneath him, he was worried he was crushing her, and as he had every intention of persuading her to repeat the exercise later, not just tonight but frequently in the future, it seemed wise to exercise some degree of restraint and not push his luck.

Besides…

He rolled onto his back, lifting her half over him, draping her long limbs about him, securing her, still boneless, within the circle of his arm.

Where she belonged.

That wasn’t a thought he’d intended thinking, but he couldn’t deny what he felt. That, however, was only one of the disturbing mysteries their actions of the past half hour had uncovered.

Head back on the cushions, he looked up at the ceiling, at the dappled shadows that shifted as the breeze played in the treetops outside. He stared unseeing at the changing patterns while he cataloged what he knew, and what he didn’t yet understand.

Minutes passed, then she stirred. He felt the infusion of tension into her muscles, the change in her breathing as she came fully awake. He didn’t move. For a long moment, she lay cradled in his arm, then, hand splaying on his chest, she pushed back and sat up. He let his arm slide down, permitted her to move away. Smoothly, without looking at him, she swung to sit on the edge of the daybed, then rose.

He had to fight to squelch the urge to reach out and haul her back. He watched as she walked, not to where her clothes had fallen, but to the window. She stood and looked out. The moon had risen; half-full, it shed a gentle light, one that bathed her white skin in an unearthly radiance, making it glow softly, pearl-bright. Her hair…he’d avoided disarranging it earlier; now it hung in a heavy knot low over her nape, still coiled and partly anchored in her usual chignon, but with dark tendrils their lovemaking had teased loose curling over her shoulders and down her long, exquisitely lovely back.

Her spine remained regally straight; her stance gave no hint that she was uncomfortable in her nakedness. She’d moved through the room with her usual grace.

He shifted onto one side, coming up on one elbow, settling, raising one knee. “You were a virgin.”

Clarice turned her head and looked at him. Studied the body that had so recently joined with hers. “‘Was’ being the operative word.” She’d foreseen the comment, one reason for her clear rules of engagement. “I was, now I’m not. That’s all there is to it.”

She couldn’t see the frown in his eyes, but she knew it was there.

“You should have told me—I could have hurt you.”

She raised her brows, faintly skeptical. “I’m twenty-nine. I’ve ridden all my life. It was unlikely there’d be much pain.” Just the faintest of stings, as it had happened; she’d hoped he hadn’t noticed. She kept her gaze on his face. “My virginity wasn’t something I valued. It was something I’d been left with long past the date it should have been gone. Pray accept my thanks for eradicating it.”

A ripple of something passed through him, but she could read nothing in his shadowed face. He lay there, flagrantly male, blatantly strong, his chest—that glorious expanse that fascinated her—wide and heavily muscled, tapering past a rock-hard abdomen to much narrower waist and hips, and long, strong, legs. All naked, blatantly displayed for her delectation.

Except…was it her imagination, or had some dangerous quality, one she couldn’t name, crept in, infused his body, his stance, something that was not quite a threat, but a hint of displeasure?

“Your thanks…” His voice was low; she hadn’t noticed before how gravelly it had grown. Now she felt it slide through her and fought to quell a shiver.

His gaze hadn’t left her; she could feel it like a flame. Slowly, he let it slide down her body, a caress, intimate, frankly possessive.

Oh, yes, she’d been right to state her terms, and make them clear.

Slowly, his gaze rose, returned to her face. “Perhaps you should tender your thanks in more than just words?”

She couldn’t help hear the challenge in his voice, couldn’t help read it in his frankly masculine pose. Couldn’t help meet it. Coolly, she raised her brows.

With slow deliberation, he held out one hand. “Come here.”

For one long moment, she studied him. Then she pushed away from the window, crossed the room unhurriedly, and placed her hand in his.

Walking home through his fields in the dark hours before dawn, Jack detoured via the rose garden. He sat on the cold stone bench in the alcove and stared at the still pond, giving his mind, his thoughts—hell, his body—time to rediscover their equilibrium.

She’d thrown him. Not just off-balance but into some disordered reality where he wasn’t entirely sure which way was normal, which was safe.

He’d started the evening sure he was in control, that he had the reins of their affair—that’s how he’d thought of it—firmly in his grasp. Even after she’d surprised him with her unexpectedly straightforward view of the matter, he’d believed all was, if not quite as he’d anticipated, then only slightly off-track. His urge to oppose her, to disagree and change her rules, even if he hadn’t previously been one to react to feminine suggestions with mindless, instinctive opposition, he’d assumed that was all his reaction was.

He was no longer so sure that was true.

Not after she’d blindsided him with her statement about her virginity, serenely absolving him of any and all responsibility for taking her maidenhead.

Not after what had followed.

He didn’t, even now, understand his reaction. All he did know was that it was real, that it was a fundamental part of him, no fleeting response but something grounded in who he truly was, in the man he was, not superficial, not something he could discard. His taking her virginity might not have meant anything to her, but it had meant, and still did mean, a great deal to him.

Her dismissal of her virginity as valueless, her casting of her allowing him to take it as a matter of no account, had triggered that response. When she’d so calmly put her hand in his, he hadn’t been able to suppress it, whatever it was. Not temper; that didn’t even come close. Something akin to an unquenchable need to conquer.

The passion she’d unleashed in him had been frightening. It had pushed him to sweep her into sexual arenas of which she couldn’t possibly have had any experience, into realms of sensuality that should have shocked her, that should have had her retreating if not outright fleeing.

Instead, she’d met him, matched him, risen to every challenge, every blatantly sexual demand he’d made of her.

One point was clear; the gentlemen who’d labeled her an iceberg had had no notion of what she truly was. It was true she wasn’t a woman who melted into a man’s arms. Boadicea didn’t melt—in the throes of passion, she was like flaming steel, hot, searing, malleable, giving in her way, but not weakly. Never weakly.

He’d wanted to conquer her, and in the end she’d surrendered at least enough to appease him, but along the way he greatly feared that she had returned the favor.

His head was still spinning, an unsurprising response to discovering the one lady who could affect him to that extent, while simultaneously realizing that she hadn’t intended to.

Didn’t intend to; she had no interest in any long-term relationship. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Even while he’d been inwardly rebelling at her insistence that their liaison was strictly temporary, he’d recognized why she’d taken such a stance, and declared it so clearly.

But that had been before he’d thrust inside her and felt the telltale give, so slight that if he hadn’t been concentrating so intently on her body’s responses, he would have missed that fractional instant of pain. Most other men would have; he hadn’t. He’d known.

And the knowledge had made him feel…like a conqueror who had found his rightful queen.

Putting his head in his hands, he clutched his hair and groaned.

He’d turned his back on marriage, deliberately, unequivocally, so fate had sent him a lover, one who possessed the ability to satisfy him, all of him, as no other ever had, one who wanted marriage no more than he….

It
should
have been perfect. He should have been deliriously happy.

Instead, there he was, sated to his teeth, sitting on a cold hard bench trying not to think of how his entire life had, in one night, turned on its head, so that his future—any degree of future contentment—now depended on him succeeding in a task that was as close to impossible as made no odds.

He had to get Boadicea to change her mind.

H
e’d charmed women by the hundreds, ladies by the score. All he had to do was charm Boadicea.

Jack stood at the manor’s drawing-room window and watched Clarice walking briskly up his drive. So briskly, she appeared set on storming his castle; from the look on her face, pale and serious, he doubted charm—any amount of charm—would get him far today, but what concerned him most was the figure struggling to keep pace by her side. James.

Clarice was only an inch shorter than James; she had the longer legs. Jack watched as she halted, rather grimly waited for James to catch up, then stormed on.

James didn’t look upset; he looked concerned but, Jack would swear, not about Clarice. He didn’t waste time wondering what might have happened; he headed for the front door.

The doorbell pealed. Howlett appeared, tugging his coat straight as he made for the door. Jack fell in behind him. He waited until Howlett swung the door wide, then stepped forward to greet Clarice as, head up, spine rigid, she marched in.

He reached for her hand, squeezed it, met her dark eyes. “What’s happened?” This close, with her hand in his, he could sense her agitation.

She drew breath, then said, “Over the breakfast table this morning, I realized who that unfortunate young man reminds me of.” Turning, she waved at James, who, almost puffing, had followed her in. He exchanged a nod with Jack as Clarice continued, “The young man reminds me of James.”

Jack blinked; the young man looked nothing like James.

Clarice made a dismissive sound. “Not as James is now, but there’s a portrait in the family collection of James when he was sixteen.” She viewed James critically. “
Now
James looks more like the Altwoods, but
then
he looked more like his mother’s family, the Sissingbournes.”

James met Jack’s eyes. “If Clarice is right, I greatly fear the young man might be one of my relatives.” James’s face clouded. “I should have come earlier, done the right thing and put my books aside—”

“Never mind that.” Clarice took his arm and drew him on. “You’re here now, so let’s go upstairs and see—” She broke off.

Clattering footsteps drew their eyes to the stairs. A maid came hurrying down. Seeing them, she blushed, slowed; stepping off the stairs, she bobbed a curtsy. “Begging y’r pardon, m’lord, m’lady, Reverend Altwood, but Mrs. Connimore says as the young man’s stirring again. She thinks he might wake this time.”

Clarice nodded. “We were just on our way up.” Determinedly, she steered James to the stairs.

Jack came up on James’s other side in time to hear James murmur, “I wonder if it’s Teddy.”

Clarice glanced sharply at James. “Were you expecting him?”

James shook his head. “But he’s the most likely of that lot to come calling.” To Jack, he added, “Teddy’s a canon with the Bishop of London.”

Jack grimaced. “Not many canons drive high-perch phaetons.”

James’s face cleared. “True.” Then his frown returned. “So…”

Clarice stepped off the stairs into the gallery. “Come along, and you can see who it is, and then we can puzzle over why he’s here.”

Her bracing, faintly exasperated tone got James moving down the corridor. They came to the open sickroom door. Clarice led the way in, then stepped to the side. James followed, his gaze going directly to the young man lying in the bed.

“Not Teddy.” James studied the young man, now restless and twisting fretfully beneath the sheets, frowning as if in the grip of some nightmare. James frowned, too, then his face cleared. “Anthony—it’s Anthony.” James glanced at Jack. “Teddy’s younger brother.”

At the sound of his name, the young man stilled, then, with obvious effort, he lifted his lids. James was standing at the end of the bed, directly in his line of sight.

“James?” The young man blinked, struggling to focus. “Is that you?”

“Yes, indeed, my boy.” James went around the bed so Anthony could more easily see his face. “But what brings you here? And what happened?”

Anthony licked dry lips. Instantly, Clarice was at his other side, holding a glass of water. Jack pushed past James and supported Anthony’s shoulders. He gratefully sipped the water, then weakly motioned that he’d had enough. Jack laid him back on the pillows Mrs. Connimore plumped behind him, relieved to see a little color returning to his face.

“I came to warn you. Teddy sent me.” Anthony looked at James. “He found out there’s some report within the church that names you a military spy through the last decade. You’re under investigation.”

“What?” James looked stunned.

“That’s nonsense.” Clarice stared down at Anthony.

Anthony waved weakly. “We all know that, but, well…something’s going on.” His lids fluttered; he seemed to gather his strength, then he gestured to the bed. “Well, it’s obvious. How else did I get here?”

Jack’s face set. Dragging an armchair from the side of the room, he set it beside the bed, then bundled James, still shocked and stiff, into it. Mrs. Connimore, on the other side of the bed, had pulled up a chair for Clarice; Jack fetched a straight-backed chair for himself.

Clarice turned to Mrs. Connimore. “Perhaps a little chicken broth?”

Mrs. Connimore, eyes on Anthony, nodded. “Just what I was thinking myself. I’ll get it heating.”

She left the room, closing the door behind her.

“Now,” Jack said, “tell us first about the accident on the road.”

Anthony’s lips twisted. “No accident. I’m not such a ham-fisted clod that I would run my cattle into a ditch, and I swear I was stone-cold sober.”

“There was another carriage,” Clarice prompted, and was immediately treated to a hazel-eyed glare. She was taken aback for a second, then met it belligerently. “We know there was.”

Anthony, eyes half-closed, nodded. “He drove me off the road.”

“Can you describe him?” Jack kept his eyes on Clarice; she mutely sniffed, but kept her lips closed.

Anthony frowned. “Largish, pale face—rather round. A gentleman…of sorts.”

Clarice’s description had been more detailed, yet they were clearly describing the same man. “Had you met him or seen him before?” Jack asked.

Anthony started to shake his head, then winced and stopped. “No. But…just before it happened, before the phaeton tipped, I knew—knew he meant to run me off the road. He stared at me, looked into my face.” Anthony’s gaze found Jack. “He did it deliberately.”

Grim-faced, Jack nodded. “So it seems.”

Anthony grimaced. “When I knew there was no help for it, I jumped, but the phaeton rolled on top of me.” He glanced down at his legs.

“One’s broken, but mending well, as is your arm. Other than that, it’s all bruises and wrenched muscles.” Jack caught Anthony’s gaze. “You’ll be hale and whole in a few months.”

Relief filled Anthony’s face, making him look much younger.

“Now,” Clarice said, “what’s this about James being under investigation?”

“Before you get to the message your brother sent,” Jack smoothly cut in, “fill in the gap between leaving your brother and reaching here.”

Anthony smiled, faintly apologetic, at Clarice, then turned to Jack. “Teddy sent for me. I met him in the shrine in the grounds at Lambeth. I was surprised he’d told me to go there, but as it turned out, he didn’t want anyone to see him speak with me.”

Clarice, lips tight, raised her gaze and, across Anthony, met Jack’s eyes. Clearly, despite Teddy’s caution, someone had seen the brothers talking.

“Teddy told me about the allegations against James and asked me to come straight down and warn you.” Anthony looked at James, rather sheepishly. “I had a dinner to attend that evening, but I left first thing the next morning.”

“You stopped somewhere along the way.” Jack leaned forward. “Swindon?”

Anthony nodded. “I left Swindon after breakfast but I wasn’t entirely sure of the way, so I went to Stroud first. Longer, but at least I didn’t get lost.”

His voice was less strong; he was clearly tiring. Clarice kept her lips shut, but caught Jack’s gaze and widened her eyes at him.

He looked at Anthony. “All right, now tell us about these allegations. Better yet, try to tell us exactly what Teddy told you.”

Anthony sighed; he closed his eyes, a frown creasing his brow. “Teddy overheard a conversation between the bishop and the dean. He was passing the bishop’s study, and the door was slightly ajar—Teddy heard James’s name, so stopped and…he heard that there’d been allegations made that James had been hand in glove with the French, not just recently but over the past decade.

“The accusations were that James was passing on strategic analyses of Wellington’s campaigns, as well as information he’d gleaned about troop strengths and movements from the soldiers he interviewed. When one of the deacons at the palace first warned the bishop about it, the bishop dismissed the whole as scurrilous rumors, but then the deacon returned with more details and…the conversation Teddy overheard was the bishop telling the dean that they would have to treat the matter seriously—that it did indeed appear truly serious—and so they would have to investigate James.”

Anthony paused, then opened his eyes. “That’s all Teddy heard because Deacon Humphries—he’s the one who’d brought the allegations to the bishop’s notice—came into the corridor and Teddy had to move on. Teddy saw Humphries go into the study, presumably to give the bishop all the information he had.”

James had stiffened at the mention of Humphries’ name. Studying James’s face, Clarice found it unusually unreadable. “Who’s Humphries?”

James blinked, then grimaced. “He’s another scholar…well, would-be scholar. He also specializes in military strategy, although in his case purely battlefield tactics.”

“So he’s a competitor of sorts,” Clarice said.

James grimaced again. He glanced at Jack. “Years ago, Humphries and I were the principal candidates for the fellowship I still hold.”

“So,” Jack replied, “not just a competitor but a rival.”

James sighed. “Unfortunately, Humphries does see it that way.”

“Still?” Clarice asked. “You were made a fellow more than twenty years ago.”

James nodded, his expression one more of sorrow than anger. “When I go up to town to do research, I stay at the palace. The bishop has always been interested in my work, which of course means Humphries hears of it, too. He’s never been slow to show that my success, then and now, rankles. You see, without the fellowship, and without the livings I hold, he has to support himself via his duties, and so has little time for his research.”

“So he resents you,” Clarice said.

“I fear so.” James looked troubled.

Jack straightened. “Regardless, if there’s to be an investigation, then we need to learn the substance of Humphries’ allegations.”

“Teddy might have learned more by now. I’m sure he would have tried…” Anthony’s lids had fallen; his voice was increasingly weak.

Clarice exchanged a firm glance with Jack and James, then patted Anthony’s hand where it lay on the covers. “I daresay, but you don’t need to worry about that now. You’ve delivered your message, and may leave the rest to us. You should rest. Mrs. Connimore will bring some broth for you in an hour or so.”

She pushed back her chair and rose, forcing Jack and James reluctantly to follow suit.

Anthony lifted his lids enough to look up at her, and smile, rather sweetly. “You’re Clarice. Teddy said you’d be here. You probably don’t remember me. I was still at school when you…left, but Teddy said to remember him to you.”

Clarice was surprised—if James was the black sheep of the family, then she was obsidian—but she smiled and inclined her head regally. “Thank you. Now you should sleep.”

She turned and led the way from the room, with one glance ensuring that James and Jack followed, then headed for the stairs.

With a nod to Anthony, Jack left in James’s wake, closing the door behind him. He paused, then ambled after James, wondering if he’d read that last exchange between Clarice and Anthony correctly.

Teddy and Anthony both viewed Clarice warmly, something she hadn’t expected. Jack couldn’t help but wonder how deep the break with her family had been, how acrimonious. Apparently enough for her not to expect to be fondly thought of by other family members.

He started down the stairs some steps behind James. Clarice was already sweeping across the front hall toward the drawing room, presumably expecting a serious confabulation over Anthony’s revelations, when the front doorbell was rung with considerable force.

Clarice stopped at the drawing room door. James stepped off the stairs and halted, too. Jack continued his descent, outwardly unperturbed, inwardly aware of his instincts stirring even though he couldn’t yet see why.

Howlett appeared and swept majesterially to the door. He opened it; over Howlett’s shoulder Jack saw Dickens, James’s groom.

Dickens nodded to Howlett. “I’ve a message for the master and Lady Clarice. Urgent, it is.”

Howlett stepped back as Clarice, James, and Jack converged on the door. Clarice got there first. “Dickens.” She nodded at the man. “What’s the message?”

Dickens bobbed to her, and to James and Jack behind her. “M’lady, m’lord, sir, Macimber sent me.” Dickens’s gaze settled on James. “The dean’s come from Gloucester and he’s waiting to see you, sir. He’s not staying, but he has an urgent communication from the bishop and must see you right away.”

Standing beside James, Jack felt reluctance sweep over his friend, closely followed by resignation. James sighed. “Thank you, Dickens. I’ll come straightaway.”

James went to move past Clarice, but she briskly descended the steps, tightening her shawl about her shoulders as she swung to glance at James. “I’ll come, too, of course.”

Jack hid a faint smile and followed at James’s heels. “We’ll all go.” He met Clarice’s dark gaze. “Of course.”

She hesitated for a heartbeat, then nodded, and turned to follow Dickens down the drive.

“I’m afraid, James, that I must insist that you abide by the bishop’s stated wishes.” Dean Halliwell, the rural dean representing the Bishop of London, tried his best not to meet Clarice’s eyes. “You must remain within your parish of Avening until the investigation into these allegations is complete.”