Married by Morning (10 page)

A perplexed furrow appeared between her fine brows. “One.”

“All of them,” came his gentle reply. He tried to look sympathetic as he saw her incredulous outrage.

“Ask me another one,” Catherine said, furious and determined.

Leo shook his head, breathless with laughter. “I can’t think of any more. My brain is deprived of blood. Accept it, Marks, you lost the—”

She grabbed the lapels of his coat and dragged him back to her, and Leo’s mouth fastened on hers before he knew what he was doing. The amusement vanished. Staggering forward with her in his arms, he put out one hand to brace himself against the glass forcing house. And he possessed her lips with rough, wholehearted ardor, reveling at the feel of her body arching against his. He was dying of lust, his flesh heavy and aching with the need to take her. He kissed her without restraint, sucking, almost gnawing, stroking the inside of her mouth in ways almost too delicious to bear.

Before he lost all semblance of self-control, Leo tore his lips from hers and held her tightly against his chest.

Another question
, he thought dimly, and forced what was left of his mind to come up with something.

His voice was hoarse, as if he’d just tried to breathe in fire. “How many animals of each species did Moses take into the ark?”

Her answer was muffled in his coat. “Two.”

“None,” Leo managed to say. “It was Noah, not Moses.”

But he no longer found the game amusing, and Catherine no longer seemed to care about winning. They stood together, gripped tight and close. Their bodies cast a single shadow that stretched along a garden path.

“We’ll call it a draw,” Leo muttered.

Catherine shook her head. “No, you were right,” she said faintly. “I can’t think at all.”

They waited a little longer, while she leaned into the wild rhythm of his heart. They were both in a daze, mutually occupied with a question that couldn’t be asked. An answer that couldn’t be given.

Letting out an unsteady sigh, Leo eased her away. He winced as the fabric of his trousers chafed his aroused flesh. Thank God the cut of his coat was long enough to conceal the problem. Extracting her spectacles from his pocket, he replaced them carefully on her nose.

He offered his arm in wordless invitation—a truce—and Catherine took it.

“What
does
‘bugger’ mean?” she asked unevenly, as he led her out of the kitchen garden.

“If I told you,” he said, “it would lead to improper thoughts. And I know how you hate those.”

Leo spent much of the next day at a stream on the west side of the estate, determining the best site for a waterwheel and marking the area. The wheel would be approximately sixteen feet in diameter, equipped with a row of buckets that would empty into a trough from which the water would course along a series of wooden flumes. Leo estimated that the system would irrigate approximately one hundred and fifty acres, or ten generously sized tenant farms.

After laying out plots with the tenants and laborers, hammering wooden stakes into the ground, and wading through a cold, muddy stream, Leo rode back to Ramsay House. It was late afternoon, the sun a condensed yellow, the meadows still and breezeless. Leo was tired, sweat-soaked, and annoyed from battling gadflies. Wryly he thought that all the romantic poets who waxed rhapsodic about being out in nature had certainly never been involved in an irrigation project.

His boots were so caked with mud that he went to the kitchen entrance, left them by the door, and went inside in his stocking feet. The cook and a maid were busy slicing apples and rolling dough, while Win and Beatrix sat at the worktable, polishing silver.

“Hello, Leo,” Beatrix said cheerfully.

“Heavens, what a sight you are,” Win exclaimed.

Leo smiled at both of them, then wrinkled his nose as he detected a bitter stench in the air. “I didn’t think it was possible for any odor to eclipse mine at the moment. What is it? Metal polish?”

“No, actually it’s…” Win looked guarded. “Well, it’s a kind of dye.”

“For cloth?”

“For hair,” Beatrix said. “You see, Miss Marks wants to darken her hair before the ball, but she was afraid of using dye from the apothecary, since he got it so wrong last time. So Cook suggested a recipe that her own mother used. You boil walnut shells and cassia bark together with vinegar and—”

“Why is Marks dyeing her hair?” Leo asked, striving to keep his tone ordinary, even as his soul revolted against the idea. That beautiful hair, gleaming gold and pale amber, covered with a dull, dark stain.

Win replied cautiously. “I believe she wishes to be less … visible … at the ball, with so many guests in attendance. I didn’t press her for answers, as I felt she was entitled to her privacy. Leo, please don’t distress her by mentioning it.”

“Does no one find it odd that we have a servant who insists on disguising herself?” Leo asked. “Is this family so bloody eccentric that we accept any manner of strangeness without even asking questions?”

“It’s not all that strange,” Beatrix said. “Many animals change their colors. Cuttlefish, for example, or certain species of frogs, and of course chameleons—”

“Excuse me,” Leo said through clenched teeth. He left the kitchen with purposeful strides, while Win and Beatrix stared after him.

“I was leading to some very interesting facts about chameleons,” Beatrix said.

“Bea, darling,” Win murmured, “perhaps you’d better go out to the stables and find Cam.”

Catherine sat at her dressing table, contemplating her own tense reflection in the looking glass. Several articles were neatly arranged in front of her: folded toweling, a comb, a pitcher and basin, and a pot filled with a strained dark sludge that looked like boot blacking. She had painted a single lock of hair with the stuff, and was waiting for it to take effect, to see what color had been imparted. After her last disaster with colorant, when her hair had turned green, she was taking no chances.

With the Hathaway ball only two days away, Catherine had no choice but to drab down her appearance as much as possible. Guests from surrounding counties would attend, as well as families from London. And as always, she was afraid of being recognized. However, as long as she obscured her appearance and kept to the corners, no one ever noticed her. Chaperones were most often spinsters or poor widows, undesirable women who had been assigned the task of watching over young girls who still had their best years ahead of them. Catherine was scarcely older than those girls, but she felt as if there were decades between herself and them.

Catherine knew that her past would catch up with her someday. And when it did, the time she had spent with the Hathaways would be over. It had been the only period of real happiness in her life. She would grieve to lose them.

All of them.

The door was flung open, shattering Catherine’s quiet contemplation. She turned in her chair and saw Leo in remarkable disarray. He was sweaty and rumpled and filthy, standing there in his stocking feet.

She jumped up to face him, recalling too late that she wore nothing but a crumpled chemise.

His hard gaze raked over her, missing no detail, and Catherine turned red in outrage. “What are you doing?” she cried. “Have you gone mad? Leave my room this instant!”

“Stop it,”
she screeched, flailing at him, while he pushed her head over the basin and poured water over the lock of hair she had saturated with dye. She spluttered furiously. “What is
wrong
with you? What are you doing?”

“Washing this slime from your hair.” He dumped the rest of the water on her head.

Catherine yelped and struggled, managing to slosh water over him as well, until there were puddles on the floor and the carpet was soaked. They fought until Catherine found herself on the wet layer of wool covering the floor. Her spectacles had flown off, leaving the room a blur. But Leo’s face was only inches above her own, his hot blue eyes staring into hers. He subdued her without effort, pinning her wrists, her torso, as if she had no more substance than a garment rippling on a clothesline. He was very heavy on her, muscle and weight and masculinity supported in the cradle of her thighs.

She twisted helplessly. She wanted him to let her go, and at the same time she wanted him to lie on her forever, his hips pressing hers harder, deeper. Her eyes turned wet.

“Please,” she choked out. “Please don’t hold my wrists.”

As he heard the note of fear in her voice, his face changed. He released her arms at once. She was gathered up against him, her dripping head clasped to his shoulder.

“No,” he muttered, “don’t be afraid of me. I would never—” She felt him kiss the side of her face, the edge of her jaw, the frantic working of her throat. Waves of warmth slid over her, sensation rising in the places where they pressed. She let her arms remain limp and outstretched on the floor, but her knees tightened on his body, holding him instinctively.

“What does it matter to you?” she asked against his damp shirt. “What do you care what color my h-hair is?” She felt the hard wall of his chest beneath his shirt, and she wanted to delve beneath the garment, rub her mouth and cheeks through the dark fleece.

His voice was soft and fierce. “Because it’s not you. It’s not right. What are you hiding from?”

She shook her head weakly, her eyes swimming. “I can’t explain. There’s too much … I can’t. If you knew, I would have to go. And I want to stay with you. Just a little longer.” A sob slipped from her throat. “Not you, I meant your family.”

“You can stay. Tell me, so I can protect you.”

She swallowed back another sob. There was a hot, irritating trickle on the side of her face. A tear had slid into her hairline. She lifted a hand to brush at it, but he had already put his mouth there, his lips absorbing the trail of wet salt. Her trembling hand curved around his head. She hadn’t meant to encourage him, but he took it as such, his mouth finding hers hungrily. And she moaned, lost in a flood of urgent feeling.

He slid an arm beneath her neck, supporting her as he kissed her. She felt the excitement in him, heard it in the rasp of his breathing as he searched and teased and licked deep. His weight lifted from her, his warm hand settling on the damp fabric covering her midriff. She might as well have been naked for all the concealment the chemise provided, her nipples rising tightly against the transparent chill of fabric. He kissed her over the wet muslin, his mouth fastening over the rosy veiled point. Impassioned, he tugged at the tie of her chemise and spread the garment to reveal the shapes of her breasts, high and small and round.

“Cat…” The rush of his breath against her damp skin made her shiver. “I could die of wanting you, you’re so lovely … sweet …
God
…” He drew a flushed bud into his mouth, circling it with his tongue, tugging softly. At the same time his fingers went to her intimate flesh, tracing the delicate slit, stroking until she was open and wet. She felt the gentle pass of his thumb over a place of excruciating sensation, the caress sending fire up to the base of her throat. Her hips lifted into the soft stroking, and he teased her lightly, tenderly, until pleasure hummed through every part of her and an extraordinary promise of relief hovered just out of reach.

His touch deepened, a finger nudging the entrance of her body. The gentle invasion caused her to shrink backward in surprise. Except that she was on the floor on her back, and there was no place to retreat. She reached down reflexively, her hand going to his.

Leo nuzzled the side of her neck. “Innocent darling. Relax and let me touch you, let me…” She felt the intricate workings of bone and tendon in the back of his hand as his finger slid farther into the fluid softness. She caught her breath, her body grasping helplessly at the careful intrusion.

Leo’s heavy lashes lowered over smoldering eyes, the color of the pale blue heart of a flame. A flush had crossed his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “I want to be inside you,” he said thickly, caressing her. “Here … and deeper…”

An incoherent sound climbed in her throat as the subtle inner teasing drew her knees up and caused her toes to curl. She was suffused with desperate heat, craving things she had no words for. Drawing his head down to hers, she kissed him frantically, needing the voluptuous pressure of his mouth, the thrust of his tongue’

A series of determined raps on the door broke through the lurid haze of sensation. Leo cursed and pulled his hand from between her thighs, and tucked her body beneath his. Cat whimpered, her heart pounding madly.

“Who is it?” Leo called out brusquely.

“Rohan.”

“If you open that door, I will kill you.” The statement was uttered with the vicious sincerity of a man who had been pushed to his limits. Apparently it was enough to give even Cam Rohan pause.

After a long moment, Cam said, “I want a word with you.”

“Now?”

“Definitely now,” came the inexorable reply.

Closing his eyes, Leo drew in a taut breath and expelled it slowly. “Downstairs in the library.”

“Five minutes?” Cam persisted.

Leo stared at the closed door with an expression of incredulous wrath. “
Go
, Rohan.”

As Cam’s footsteps retreated, Leo looked down at Catherine. She couldn’t seem to stop writhing and trembling, her nerves jangling with agitation. Murmuring quietly, he held her close and rubbed circles on her back and hips. “Easy, love. Let me hold you.” Gradually the frantic need faded, and she lay still in his arms, her cheek pressed against his.

Leo stood and scooped her up easily, and carried her to the bed. He set her half-naked body on the mattress. While she perched on the edge of the bed and fumbled to draw the counterpane around herself, he hunted for her spectacles. Finding them in the corner of the room, he brought them back to her.

The spectacles were beginning to look rather the worse for wear, she thought ruefully, straightening the battered wire frames and polishing the lenses with a corner of the counterpane.

“What are you going to say to Mr. Rohan?” she asked hesitantly, putting the spectacles on.

“I don’t know yet. But for the next two days, until the damned ball is over, I’m going to put some distance between us. Because our relationship seems to have become a bit too flammable for either of us to manage. Afterward, however, you and I are going to talk. No evasions, no lies.”

“Why?” she asked through dry lips.

“We have to make some decisions.”

What kind of decisions? Was he planning to dismiss her? Or was some kind of indecent proposition in the making? “Perhaps I should leave Hampshire,” she said with difficulty.

Leo’s eyes glinted dangerously. Taking her head in his hands, he bent down to whisper in her ear, in what could have been either a promise or a threat. “Anywhere you go, I’ll find you.”

He went to the door, and paused before leaving. “Incidentally,” he said. “When I drew those sketches of you, I didn’t begin to do you justice.”

After Leo had washed and changed into decent attire, he went to the library. Cam was waiting there, looking no happier than Leo felt. Even so, there was a calmness about him, a quality of relaxed tolerance that helped to blunt the edge of Leo’s temper. There was no man on earth whom Leo trusted more.

When they had first met, Leo would never have chosen a man like Cam Rohan for Amelia. It just wasn’t done. Cam was a Gypsy, and no one could claim that a Romany heritage was an advantage in English society. But the temperament of the man, his patience, humor, and inherent decency, was impossible to deny.

In a relatively short time, Cam had become a brother to Leo. He had seen Leo at his worst, and he had offered steady support as Leo had fought to reconcile himself to a life bereft of innocence or hope. And somehow, in the past few years, Leo had regained a little of both.

Standing at the window, Cam leveled a shrewd stare at him.

Wordlessly Leo went to the sideboard, poured a brandy, and let the snifter warm in his fingers. To his surprise, he saw that his hand wasn’t quite steady.

“I was called in from the stables,” Cam said, “to find your sisters worried and the housemaids in hysterics, because you decided to close yourself in a bedroom with Miss Marks. You can’t take advantage of a woman in your employ. You know that.”

“Before you tread the moral high ground,” Leo said, “let’s not forget that you seduced Amelia before you married her. Or is debauching an innocent acceptable as long as she’s not working for you?”

There was a flash of annoyance in Cam’s hazel eyes. “I knew I was going to marry her when I did it. Can you say the same?”

“I haven’t slept with Marks. Yet.” Leo scowled. “But at this rate I’ll have bedded her by week’s end. I can’t seem to stop myself.” He raised his gaze heavenward. “Lord, please smite me.” When it appeared there would be no response from the Almighty, he tossed back a swallow of brandy. It went down his throat in a rush of smooth fire.

“You think if you take her,” Cam said, “it would be a mistake.”

“Yes, that’s what I think.” Leo took another swallow of liquor.

“Sometimes you have to make a mistake to avoid making an even worse one.” Cam smiled slightly as he saw Leo’s baleful expression. “Did you think you could avoid this forever,
phral
?”

“That was the plan. And I’ve managed quite well until recently.”

“You’re a man in his prime. It’s only natural to want your own woman. What’s more, you have a title to pass on. And from what I understand of the peerage, your primary responsibility is to produce more of yourselves.”

“Good God, are we back to that again?” Scowling, Leo finished his brandy and set the glass aside. “The last thing I want to do is sire brats.”

Cam lifted a brow, looking amused. “What’s wrong with children?”

“They’re sticky. They interrupt. They cry when they don’t have their way. If I want that kind of company, I have my friends.”

Settling in a chair, Cam stretched out his long legs and regarded Leo with deceptive casualness. “You’re going to have to do something about Miss Marks. Because this can’t continue. Even for the Hathaways, it’s…” He hesitated, searching for a word.

“Indecent,” Leo finished for him. He paced across the room and back. Stopping at the cold, dark hearth, he braced his hands on the mantel and lowered his head. “Rohan,” he said carefully. “You saw what I was like, after Laura.”

“Yes.” Cam paused. “The Rom would say you were a man who grieved too much. You trapped your beloved’s soul in the in-between.”

“Either that, or I went mad.”

“Love is a form of madness, isn’t it?” Cam asked prosaically.

Leo let out a humorless chuckle. “For me, undeniably.”

They were both silent. And then Cam murmured, “Is Laura still with you,
phral
?”

“No.” Leo stared into the empty fireplace. “I’ve accepted that she’s gone. I don’t dream about her anymore. But I remember what it was like, trying to live while I was dead inside. It would be even worse now. I can’t go through it again.”

“You seem to think you have a choice,” Cam said. “But you have it backward. Love chooses you. The shadow moves as the sun commands.”

“How I enjoy Romany sayings,” Leo marveled. “And you know so many of them.”

Rising from the chair, Cam went to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy. “I hope you’re not entertaining any thought of making her your mistress,” he said matter-of-factly. “Rutledge would have you drawn and quartered, no matter that you’re his brother-in-law.”

“No, I wouldn’t, in any case. Taking her as a mistress would create more problems than it would solve.”

“If you can’t leave her alone, you can’t keep her as a mistress, and you won’t marry her, the only option is to send her away.”

“The most sensible option,” Leo agreed darkly. “Also my least favorite.”

“Has Miss Marks indicated what she wants?”

Leo shook his head. “She’s terrified to face that. Because, God help her, she may possibly want
me
.”