All About Passion (35 page)

Smiling, she raised the scone to them. "Thank you all—for today and tomorrow."

"And my thanks, too." Gyles raised his scone high. "To Lambourn!" The rousing cheers raised the birds from the branches. With a wave, Gyles directed everyone to the trays. Exchanging a glance, he and Francesca retreated to where Mrs. Cantle was serving his mother, Henni, and Horace.

All three were liberally stained with plum juice. They were beaming.

"My dear, this has been a wonderful event."

"We'll have to do it next year."

"Every year."

Gyles checked; other than a few splatters, he'd escaped lightly. Francesca's gown was smeared at hip and breast, where she'd forgotten and wiped her sticky fingers.

Two grooms produced flutes. As the scones were washed down, a party atmosphere took hold. Gyles and Francesca, side by side, passed through their people, thanking and being thanked.

"No need to rush in again," Gyles told Wallace, ignoring the red juice running down the side of his dapper majordomo's face. "Everything's done. They deserve to enjoy themselves."

"The evening will bring a natural end to things." Francesca leaned on Gyles's arm and smiled at Wallace.

He smiled back. "Indeed, ma'am. We're on top of everything and can rest on our laurels, so to speak."

"Enjoy our laurels," Gyles murmured as they moved on. "Tomorrow's for the estate, but the plums are the Castle's harvest. This is the Castle's celebration." His arm slid around Francesca's waist and tightened—he swung her into the country dance just beginning, much to the delight of the staff. Francesca laughed and danced, following his lead, his directions. People clapped and cheered them on; they whirled until she was giddy and breathless, drunk on happiness.

"Oh!" She collapsed against Gyles when he finally drew her from the throng.

"Mama's leaving."

They waved to Lady Elizabeth, Henni, and Horace, then watched the three stroll away across the park. The sunlight was dimming, the last westering rays fading, yet the party in the orchard was still in full spate.

Gyles bent his head and murmured in Francesca's ear. "I think we should leave them to it. If we stay, we'll remind them of their duties."

Francesca leaned back against him, folding her hands over his at her waist. "If they see us leaving, they'll feel compelled to come inside, too."

"In that case, it behooves us to slip away without them seeing, somewhere other than inside." The seductive murmur tickled her ear. She smiled. "Where do you suggest?" They slipped away through the trees, and only Wallace saw them go. Gyles signaled him not to notice. Francesca was not surprised when, her hand in his, Gyles headed down the path zigzagging down the bluff. Down to the ledge on which the folly stood.

Her heart was light; she laughed and let him pull her along. Her world was as rosy as the western sky. She'd been right to keep a rein on her temper, to muzzle her impatience, to mute all demands—to resist the urge to push and let him come to love her in his own way, in his own time. She'd exercised more discipline than ever in her life before, and was reaping her reward. Poised to gather in the only harvest she'd ever wanted. He was so strong, so controlled, so resistant, yet he was almost persuaded. Soon, he would be, and her dream would become reality.

There was not a single dark cloud left on her horizon.

They reached the ledge as the sun dipped and the strip of sky between the clouds and the horizon burned a hot cerise. They paused to watch; she slipped her fingers from his, slid her arm about his waist and leaned against him. His gaze left the sunset and touched her face, then lowered. His head bent; his lips grazed the whorl of her ear.

She turned. Eyes met, then she lowered her lids and stretched upward as his lips covered hers. They kissed, long, lingeringly, fighting to keep the building urgency at bay.

And not entirely succeeding.

"Come to the folly."

His words, his arm around her, urged her feet to follow his. Their lips touched again, brushed again; they stopped again to feast.

By the time they finally reached the folly and he opened the door, desire had them firmly in its grip. Francesca smiled, feeling like a cat with a bowl of cream set before it; she led the way in, crossing to the middle of the room.

She'd been here often, drawn by the privacy and the silence, by the lingering scent of emotion. This was a place of quiet joys and shared pleasures; the past had made it so; now it was theirs. She turned and held out her arms. He closed the door, studied her, then paced slowly toward her. His eyes were very dark; she smiled into them and reached for his cravat. His gaze lowered to her breasts; his fingers found the laces on either side of her gown.

"You've reorganized."

"A little." She'd moved his mother's abandoned tapestry into a corner. It belonged here, but not at center stage where he would always see it. "I had Irving bring the daybed down." With her head, she directed his attention to the large daybed beside them, placed to catch the view. "It'll be pleasant to lie here in summer and relax."

She let her voice convey her real meaning. His eyes lifted to hers briefly; they were turbulent, stormy. She caught only the barest flash of intention—lightning against the grey—before his fingers slipped through her open laces and skittered along her ribs.

She shrieked. Laughing, she flung away—she was ticklish, and he knew it. He stayed with her, the knowing trail of his fingers quickly reducing her to a giggling wreck. She tried to escape but found herself trapped against the daybed. "Oh, stop!" She clutched the daybed's back for support, half-doubled over the cushions as she tried to catch her breath.

He stopped. From behind her, he closed his arms around her, pressing close, holding her against him. Still laughing, almost sobbing, she let him draw her upright, let him mold her hips against his thighs. Let him press closer still so she could feel the strength of his erection.

"What about autumn?" The deep whisper feathered her ear. "Do you think it would be pleasant to lie here now"—he shifted his hips against her—"and relax?"

He invested the word with far more sexual nuance than she had.

"Yes." From all she could feel, she would shortly be sobbing from quite a different cause. Anticipation streaked like silver fire down her veins. She licked her lips. "We could watch the sunset." She felt him look up, then he murmured, in the same devilishly dark tone, "So we could." He had her trapped between him and the daybed. Her gown was already loose. She felt him shrug. Turning her head, she saw his coat land on a nearby chair.

Arms clothed in soft linen closed around her, hard hands splayed across her curves. "I thought you were going to watch the sky change."

She shifted her gaze to the horizon. He bent his head and his lips brushed her nape. Then his lips and teeth grazed the long line of her throat, and his hands moved over her.

They knew her well, those wicked, wanton hands, knew how to make her shiver, shudder, knew how to make her flower for him beneath her skirts. His touch was not delicate but possessive, each caress tending to the primitive. He made her hunger for more, made her want with a level of desperation that strangled her breath in her throat.

Her breasts were swollen and aching although he'd yet to lower the gaping gown and take them in his hands. Her nipples tingled; her stomach was a tight knot of need. He seemed to know; one hand closed possessively over her stomach, kneaded provocatively. Head back against his shoulder, she moaned and shifted her hips against him. The hand slid down; pressing her skirts between her thighs, he rubbed the side of his hand against her, slowly, deliberately, until she thought she'd go mad.

"I've"—she had to stop to swallow—"I've had enough of the sunset."

"But it's not dark yet."

She lifted her heavy lids. A pale wash of color was rapidly fading into the blue of the night. "It's dark enough."

"Are you sure?"

There was no humor in the question. If she'd had any doubt who it was who stood behind her, rapacious lord or smoothly elegant lover, his tone made it clear. The steely arms that held her, the hard body behind her, were in no mood to be gentle. Their coupling would be heated, furious—primal. The prospect—the promise in his voice, in his body—sent excitement lancing through her. "Yes." His hands closed about her waist and he lifted her forward.

"On your knees, my lady."

His gravelly purr sent heat curling through her. He set her on the daybed, her knees close to its edge. He straddled her calves, keeping her knees more or less together.

"Bend forward. Hold on to the back of the bed."

She did. The daybed was wider than a
chaise
, but she could reach. He flipped her skirts up, pushing them and her chemise over her waist, baring her bottom and legs. The cool air feathered over her fevered flesh; anticipation seared her. Then his palms curved almost reverently about her bottom, lightly caressing before trailing down the backs of her bare thighs. One left her; she imagined him unbuttoning his trousers while his other hand slowly slid upward, long ringers tracing the inner face of her thighs, higher and higher—he stopped before he touched her. Her body reacted as if he had.

He shifted, moved closer. His hands gripped her hips.

The blunt head of his erection pressed between her thighs, probed her swollen flesh. She would have wriggled and taken him in, but he anchored her hips, held her steady as he searched and found her entrance, then pressed inside.

He held her still. Inexorably he pushed into her, filling her inch by inch, stretching her softness, claiming it as his. She thought he'd gone as far as he could when his hips met her bottom, then he thrust and she gasped.

He drew back and filled her slowly again, again thrust at the last, jolting her breathing. Then he settled to a slow rhythm of thrust and withdrawal; within a minute she was melting. Her body rocked with each thrust, each possessive claiming.

She tried to ease her knees apart, to gain some purchase in the dance. The rigid columns of his legs gave not an inch. He kept her knees trapped together as he plumbed her, entirely at his whim. As if to confirm that, he increased the pace, then, just as she thought the inferno would ignite, he slowed again to that same steady, pleasant but unfulfilling rhythm.

She could do little to influence his script. Could do nothing other than close her body like a glove about him and give herself up to his possession.

She did, and sensed him draw in a huge breath, then he released her hips, pushed aside the neckline of her gaping gown, released her chemise, stripped it away, and closed his hands about her naked breasts. Heat poured through her. His touch was commanding, covetous yet as one who had the right. Fire flowed from her breasts to her womb, to where they joined.

He filled her again and again, over and over, his hips rocking hers, his hands closing about her breasts. The fire flamed, spread, then erupted in a spasm of heat and desire, white-hot sensation shooting down every vein, frazzling every nerve. She cried out, and heard it as a distant song, then all she knew, all she felt, coalesced into one exquisitely intense sensation.

He held her there, his hands firm about her breasts as he thrust harder, deeper, faster. She felt the power shudder through him, felt him surrender, felt him join her in that place where lovers go.

Gyles's heart thundered as he wallowed in the indescribable sensation of his body emptying into hers, so tight, so hot, so welcoming. He supported her in his arms, his hands full of the bounty of her breasts, his loins flush against her naked bottom.

A shudder of primal triumph rocked him.

She was a harvest he'd just reaped. Nothing in his life had ever felt so good. They did lie, relaxed, on the daybed, but it was now full dark outside. Neither felt any desire to move, content in the warmth of the other's embrace.

Francesca's dark head lay on Gyles's chest. He stroked, letting his fingers slide through the silky black locks. He smiled self-deprecatingly as he recalled his original view of her as a woman too dangerous to seduce. A woman he should fear, given her innate ability to reach behind his civilized mask and communicate directly with the barbarian behind it.

He'd been right. That was, indeed, precisely what she did. Yet he no longer feared her ability—he exulted in it.

Why fate had been so kind as to send him one of the few women—the only one he'd ever met—who seemed to think nothing of his baser instincts, indeed, seemed to delight in said instincts, he didn't know. He was only glad he hadn't been able to do anything other than marry her. The thought of not having her as his wife was enough to make him tighten his arms; she murmured and wriggled; he eased his hold.

He glanced down at her, and could no longer recall why keeping his true self in check had once seemed so important. It had been his way for so long—as if keeping his true feelings, his true nature, suppressed was essential to functioning, to living his life.

Hiding that side of himself from her had never been an option; he'd stopped worrying about it on their wedding night. With her, being himself, his true self, simply didn't matter…

He stared out at the night.

That was why, with her, he felt so complete. So whole. Being himself, with her, was permissible, even desirable. She delighted in calling the barbarian forth, delighted in throwing herself in his arms—

delighted in giving herself to a maruading rapacious barbarian. And she couldn't care less if he was incoherent at the time.

His lips curved in a smirk. Her own lack of coherence was telling—attempting any degree of conversation during coitus was wasted effort. He only had to touch her, and she became a totally sensate being—the only avenue of communication she was interested in was by touch and feel. His gaze steadied on her face.

She was a field he would willingly plow for the rest of his life.

He didn't think she'd mind.

Shifting his hand from her head to her breast, he continued stroking. She made a smoky, purring sound and shifted suggestively. He smiled and lifted her across him.