How I Met My Countess (12 page)

Black Britch eyed him closely, then reached out and clapped him on the back, nearly knocking him out of his boots. “Oh, now, I like you, Drayton. Got the manners of a toff, you do. But if you can stomach a pint of Notton’s worst, you must be a rare dodger indeed.”

Everyone laughed as if they’d never heard anything so funny, and from there the night continued in jovial, if not eye-opening, congeniality.

For Clifton knew exactly why Lucy had sent them out with Rusty and Sammy. And it wasn’t just to see that he never found himself sharing Darby Bricknell’s fate.

She was giving him a look inside her life, as well as a good examination of her father’s upbringing. And when he got over to the Continent and needed to run to ground, he would be able to find his way through the rough currents of the underworld and mix among them, hidden from the grand workings of Society.

Even if she got him killed in the process. Or the very least, hung for this Drayton fellow’s crimes, which apparently were legendary.

Clifton spent the next four hours “interviewing” his new crew, listening to inflated tales of criminal prowess, including Black Britch’s detailed explanation of how to silence a fellow “good and well” and leave “no trace of the deed.”

Hours later, as they walked home through the quiet meadows, a bit dazed and knocked up from more pints of Notton’s “worst” than he cared to count, Malcolm leaned over to Rusty and asked, “What will happen when we don’t return for our crew? Won’t they be suspicious?”

The man shrugged, a drunken sort of careless waver, both in his shoulder and his step. “Not to worry, guv’ner. We plan on telling them you got snapped by a China street pig and danced the Paddington day frisk.”

Clifton staggered to a halt. “You mean to say that we got caught by the runners and hanged?”

“Exactly,” Sammy said, snapping his fingers. “Sad day, that. They’ll raise a pint to you both, they will, ’cause they’re decent lads at heart.”

“Yes, quite,” Clifton agreed, amused at the idea of such honor among thieves and at his own untimely demise.

“There you go now,” Rusty said, swinging his lamp to the road that led up the hill to Hampstead. “This is where we leave you be.”

Clifton held out his hand. At first the man seemed taken aback, but then he latched on and gave it a hearty shake.

“You’re a fine one, guv’ner,” he said. “Do well against the Frogs. Cut a throat or two for me.”

“I will,” Clifton replied most solemnly.

“Aye, milord,” Sammy said, muscling in for a shake as well. He took Clifton’s hand and pumped it heartily. “Remember all Black Britch said about that sort of business—he’d never steer a fellow wrong.”

“Yes, I will take his example to heart,” Clifton promised.

They shook hands with Malcolm, slapped him on the back a few times, then sauntered down the road toward London. When their light was but a twinkle in the distance, Clifton leaned over and said to his brother, “Do you still have your watch on you?”

Malcolm patted his vest. “Aye. And yours?” Clifton nodded. “Wouldn’t put it past either of them.”

“No, I fear not. Such fine company your Lucy keeps.”

Clifton stumbled a bit, then caught himself. “She’s not ‘my’ Lucy.”

“Could have fooled me with that performance last night.”

By chance or fate, they’d come to the Ellysons’ house at that moment and found the entire place shuttered in darkness. They both stood there, lost in their own thoughts as they looked up at the rooms where their lives had changed so much over the course of the last few weeks.

Malcolm broke the silence with a softly cast-out question. “Do you think we are in over our heads?”

“Decidedly so,” Clifton told him. There was no point in not being honest. “But this is what we must do. What we’ve agreed to do.”

His brother nodded. “Most decidedly. Though it seemed a fair sight easier when listening to Templeton espouse the virtues of the Foreign Office over a decent bottle of claret at White’s, eh?”

Clifton smiled. “I believe he choused us.”

Malcolm grinned. “You think?”

“Entirely!” he laughed. “But he’s caught us well and good now.”

“He and others,” Malcolm persisted, shooting another glance at the house. “Do you think we’ll come home?”

This question sent a raft of shivers down Clifton’s spine. “I want nothing more.”

“So do I,” Malcolm echoed, conviction ringing in his words. “Will you come back here?”

Clifton didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

“For her?”

He nodded. “If she’ll have me. If I don’t fail at this.”

Malcolm stared at him. “Not have you? You’re the Earl of Clifton. She’d be mad not to—”

He cut him off. “She’d be mad to take me. And if I fail—I could never face her.”

“Then don’t fail,” Malcolm advised him, staggering a bit, then grinning drunkedly. “Demmit if that Notton fellow doesn’t brew a wicked pint. I fear when I wake up …” He shook his head ruefully.

“Oh, aye,” Clifton agreed. “We’ll both be casting up our accounts before morning.”

“No wonder those fellows are so ruthless,” Malcolm said, wagging his finger. “If I had to drink that swill seven days a week, I’d be the meanest cur in England.”

“That or dead,” Clifton told him, steering to the right and opening the gate to the Ellysons’ yard without even thinking.

As if guided to her by an invisible, unbreakable thread.

Malcolm pulled him to a stop. “What the devil do you think you are going to do? At this time of night? She’ll as likely shoot you as welcome you.” He wagged his finger at him. “Remember the tale of—”

“Of Monday Moggs. Yes, yes, but—”

Malcolm tugged at Clifton’s arm. “You’re well into your cups. Now come away, Gilby. Sleep this off and go seek your lady love in the morning.” He tugged him away from the gate and back into the dust of the road, where they stumbled on toward their gate.

“I wonder what her hair looks like when it’s completely undone …” Clifton mused aloud, feeling the effects of too much of Notton’s worst freeing his usual reserve.

Malcolm shook his head. “Enough to tempt a man to risk his neck? I wager that’s the least part of what you’ll have to worry about losing if Ellyson discovers you nosing about his daughter.”

Clifton glanced over his shoulder as his brother tugged him past the gate. “Ah, but some risks …”

And from the side of the Ellyson house, a shadowed figure stepped out.

Letting the shawl that covered her head drop away, Lucy watched Clifton and his brother disappear around the curve in the lane. She’d been waiting out here for some time, worried out of her mind that she had sent them to a certain death.

But her fears were nothing compared to her shock at the conversation she’d overheard.

“Will you come back here?”
Malcolm had asked.

“Yes. If she’ll have me.”

There hadn’t been a moment of hesitation in Clifton’s determined voice.

But discovering that the earl wanted her wasn’t the triumph she’d thought it might be, for her ears still rang with her father’s warning.

“…
he will never have you. Not in a way that is honest and noble. He cannot.”

“No,” she whispered. “It isn’t like that.”

“What do you want it to be?” came a deep whispered voice from behind her.

Lucy whirled around and found herself caught in a man’s arms. He pulled her close, and she immediately knew it wasn’t her old adversary Monday Moggs but a man who meant to steal more than just her hand in marriage.

He wanted her heart.

And how she longed to give it to him. Or perhaps she already had.

“Oh, Goosie, my love, you are a sight for me eyes,” Clifton whispered in her ear.

His words, loosened by copious amounts of Notton’s infamous ale, drifted over her in a hazy, delicious fashion.

No longer the formal, tight-laced earl, the man holding her—yes, holding her—had lost all his veneer this evening. She glanced up at him, and he was staring at her haphazard tumble of curls.

“I wonder what her hair looks like when it’s completely undone …”

And by the set of his jaw and the glint in his eyes, he looked about ready to discover exactly that.

Oh, good heavens! She’d accomplished far more than she’d thought possible when she’d sent him out with Rusty and Sammy.

He snuggled her closer. “Goosie, what are you doing out here?”

“I was … I was …”

“Waiting up for me?” He nuzzled her neck, inhaling deeply, which only enticed her to move toward him.

Then his words registered.
“Waiting up for me
.
”
Like some blowsy milkmaid. She ruffled a bit at the implication.

Even though she had been.

“Of course not,” she told him, struggling to get out of his grasp.

He chuckled and held her fast, for he believed her protest no more than he did her halfhearted struggles. His hands roamed beneath her cloak, exploring her every line, her every curve, as if he was memorizing her, drinking her in.

And like Notton’s wicked brew might, Clifton’s touch left her intoxicated and trembling.

Suddenly she went from being the teacher to the student, longing for the lessons his hands offered, the desires his touch brought out in her with an insatiable curiosity.

Especially when his fingers curled around one of her breasts and cradled it, the tip puckering with a delicious languor and her knees threatening to buckle at the sheer wonder of it all.

Her lips parted and her hips rocked forward, for suddenly her body needed no lessons and knew exactly what she wanted.

Clifton’s kiss. His body to claim hers.

Lucy looked up at him and saw the desire in his eyes, the smoldering fire that burned for her and her alone.

“You aren’t going to darken my lights, are you?” he whispered, teasing her. “You won’t send me packing if I dare to kiss you again?”

Kiss her? Oh, if only he would.

She licked her lips and drew closer. “That depends on the kiss.”

“Minx,” he growled in a deep, hungry voice as he lowered his head and claimed her lips.

Fool
, her better senses railed against her, for the moment his hard lips touched hers, she was lost. Oh, she was drowning in a heavenly, wild passion.

His tongue teased over her, taunting her to open up to him. Daring her to match him.

Kiss for kiss.

And she did, for suddenly he was all she craved. All that she’d been missing.

She opened up to him and reveled in the feel of his lips, his tongue caressing hers, their bodies twining together.

Where she’d shown him how to pick a pocket, he now stole away her senses. Where she’d taught him to decode a missive, he effortlessly unraveled all her secrets.

And when she’d instructed him in finding the safest routes over the Pyrenees, he carried her to a different sort of heights—dizzy, breathless heights nonetheless—a place she never wanted to leave.

His hands began to explore her again, cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples to tender points, and when one hand began pulling up her skirt, the cool night air whispered up her bare legs beneath.

Lucy shivered, and he pressed her backward into the garden wall so he covered her, his coat concealing them in the shadows, leaving them in a world of their own making.

He eased the shoulder of her gown down and freed one of her breasts. She gasped at the feeling of his bare skin on hers, but that wasn’t enough for the earl, for his head dipped down and he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked deeply on it.

“O-o-oh,” she gasped at the sweet sensations he pulled from her very core—the part of her that was growing more sensitive by the moment, tight and anxious.

He continued to tug up her gown, his fingers sliding up her leg. As much as she wanted to clamp her legs together—for she was enough of a lady to consider that was what she was supposed to do—his touch undid any such thought of modesty.

How could she refuse him when his every touch, every stroke urged her upward, called her to explore this wild, starry world he was carrying her into?

“I don’t want to leave you,” he said, his lips nibbling at her neck, at her earlobe. “Not yet. Not ever.”

But he must, and they both knew it.

Not that she wanted to let him go. Either right this moment, or in the days ahead.

“Then stay with me for now,” she whispered back.

When his fingers brushed over the curls between her legs, she gasped, for it sent a rocket of desire through her. And when he found the hidden nub beneath, her entire body stretched like a cat’s, urging him to continue, to both ease her longings and stoke her desires.

She swayed with the music of it, unheard by any but the two of them, her body rocking until she brushed against the hard lines of his manhood straining beneath his breeches.

He wants you, he desires you
, a siren voice whispered to her.
Feel him. Touch him.

There was no way to resist such a clarion call, so she let one of her hands fall from his lapels, let it explore the muscled lines of his stomach, follow the band of his breeches to where they buttoned.

She hesitated for only a moment before she slid her fingers over him, from the top of his manhood all the way to the base. She cupped him, as he had done to her earlier, and listened with a feline pride as he groaned, his mouth leaving her breast and coming crashing down on her lips, kissing her, devouring her with a hunger that drove her to unbutton his breeches, enough so she could slip him free and stroke him.

The head was slick, and she let her fingers slide over it, marveling at the thick hardness, the masculine length.

He pulled back and stared down at her, as if he was seeing her for the first time, seeing something he’d never imagined.

As much as her father’s warnings waged a noble war on her desires, the passionate fire burning inside her easily swept them aside. She saw how her days would be without him, without ever having known the secrets that her body clamored for Clifton—and only him—to reveal.

And what if he didn’t return? Her entire life might hold only memories of this night.

She blinked and her gaze focused again on him. He was still studying her.

“Demmit, Lucy, what are you doing to me?” he said in a voice hoarse with need.

“I don’t know,” she said quite honestly. “But I want you. I want you to take me. I want you to love me.”

There was a long moment of silence between them. The entire world stilled, and for Lucy it seemed she had said far too much.

Asked too much, and she regretted her hasty words.

He reached out and brushed her tangled hair back from her face. Then he smiled at her. Grinned, really.

And her heart hammered in her chest at the sight of his almost boyish glee.

“But Goosie, my love, I already do.”

With her hand clasped with his, they raced like wayward children through the darkened lanes and byways of Hampstead, Lucy leading Clifton along.

Every once in awhile, he couldn’t help himself. He pulled her to a stop, hauled her up against his chest and kissed her. Once, he leaned over and plucked a stray blossom from the grasses and wild flowers, which he tucked in her hair.

“I’ll press it and keep it always,” she teased, and then he kissed her anew.

The scent of her filled his nose, drove him as mad as the way her body fit to his. With every kiss, she grew more bold, her hands and lips pushing him beyond any sense of control.

God, he’d never wanted a woman as badly as he wanted Lucy. She had filled his very soul with want, a craving to have her, completely and utterly.

This was sheer madness, that he knew. But it wasn’t the copious amounts of Notton’s ale that he’d consumed or this time in Hampstead, or even the fears of what he faced in the coming months that was driving him onto this reckless course—no, it was having finally discovered what it was to find one’s match, one’s heart.

Lucy Ellyson made him feel.

And Clifton found himself a man starved, hungry for the love she offered, delirious to discover her every secret.

They snuck up the back stairs and into his room, and when the door closed behind them, he paused and looked down at the starry-eyed woman before him.

Her dark hair fell down well past her shoulders, a tumbled mess of curls that enticed a man to run his fingers through them, to discover what they hid… .

But it was how she made him come alive that left him dumbstruck. The fire she lit inside him, not just with her kiss but also when she’d tried to cheat him at cards and he’d outwitted her, when she’d stolen glances at him when she thought he wasn’t looking, the times their hands had touched, and that unlikely spark ignited them both.

While he hadn’t noticed it before, he now saw that she was wearing the same gown she’d had on the night before, a pink silk, trimmed in black velvet. On any other woman it would have bespoken innocence. On Lucy Ellyson, the silk revealed in so many enticing ways her two sides—sensible and passionate, intelligent and fiery. And as he reached out and slid the sleeves down over her shoulders, bared them to his touch, to his kiss, she moaned, a hungry, earthy purr that said which side had prevailed this evening.

It was an invitation no man could refuse.

He continued to slide the gown down, slowly, letting his lips, his fingers explore every inch.

The taste of her skin was like some ethereal brew, something no man could ever bottle, and it filled him with a freedom from every constraint that had ever confined his heart.

She was his, his glorious, wondrous beauty.

And in his arms, she writhed with impatience, reaching for him, opening his shirt, pulling it and his jacket off at once. Her hands smoothed over his chest, over his belly, down to his trousers, her fingers tracing a line over his rock-hard manhood.

“Demmit, Gilby, please,” she whispered.

He obliged her by tugging her gown down the rest of the way, until it pooled at her feet. She arched toward him, her bared breasts rising up.

He took one, then the other nipple in his mouth, sucking hard on them, bringing them to hard peaks. She moaned again, this time louder, and he grinned, pulling her close and kissing her, pressing his tongue into her mouth and letting it slide over hers in an erotic dance. All the while, her hips rose and fell against him.

He swung her around and pressed her up against the door. One of her legs twined seductively with his, rubbing against him like a cat.

Letting go of the tangle of hair he’d been toying with, he reached between her legs, slowly parting the curls there to explore that very private part of her.

Her eyes fluttered open wide as he began, ever so slowly, to stroke her, explore her. Sliding first over the nub, and then around the wet, slick opening.

Her mouth fell open, but no sound came out as, in wordless amazement, she tried to catch her breath. Her body trembled and she clung to him. “I want … I want …”

He knew exactly what she wanted. Sweeping her into his arms, he carried her to the bed, tumbling into the deep, soft mattress in a tangle of limbs … and desires … needs about to be answered.

She was his.

His tonight. His always.

As they fell into the bed, Lucy reveled in the passion that enveloped her, much as the thick, soft mattress folded in around them, pressing them close.

She should have been completely mortified— her without a stitch, the earl utterly naked—but instead she basked in the sheer heat of Clifton’s glance, his unrepentant desire to explore every inch of her. His need for her only that much more apparent now that he’d shed his breeches and his manhood thrust out, erect and hard, pressing into her thighs.

As innocent as her experience with men might be, she hadn’t just set her mother’s birthday books aside; she had read them, memorized each print and wondered how such positions could bring the rapture the books described.

Hardly a proper gift from one’s mother, but right now Lucy was ever-so-thankful for her unconventional upbringing.

Now her body—awakened to this state of wild abandon by Clifton’s skilled touch—trembled with desire, craved for him to drive deeper between her legs, to fill her until she found the rapture, the release that was his to give.

He caught her lips with his and kissed her again, deeply, thoroughly, and Lucy grew more bold, meeting the sally of his tongue with her own, thrilled to find that she could leave him as breathless as he left her.

He touched her again, his fingers slowly stroking her, and the fire, that irresistible yearning, began to take over her senses.

She writhed and stretched, aching to feel more, to feel him.

Her fingers ran down his back, caught hold of his hard ass and pulled it closer to her, even as she ran her foot down his leg, winding hers around his, opening herself up.

Over her, Clifton stilled, and Lucy’s lashes flew open.

He gazed down at her, his eyes so very dark, but it was evident he was hesitating.

No, no, no
, she wanted to cry out.
This will never do
.

Not with her body racked with longing, in a frenzy for release.

She knew she wasn’t thinking straight, hadn’t been since he’d taken her in his arms in the garden, but this was hardly the time for him to shake off the effects of Notton’s brew and discover his honorable side.

No, that would never do.

“What is it?” she whispered, her fingers stroking his back again, urging him closer.