"Dash."
His eyes flew open. She stared up at him, eyes glazed and cheeks flushed. Lips slightly parted.
"That's it," he told her. "Don't stop, darling." He fought the urge to thrust faster. "Don't you stop until you--?"
She cried out and convulsed around him, her inner muscles squeezing his cock like a silk-gloved fist.
And thank God for it, too. He couldn't hold back any longer. Ice and squalls be damned. He leaned forward, tilting her hips to a deeper angle. He knew she'd be hurting tomorrow, but he couldn't resist.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and held onto his neck, and Dash lost all control. He thrust hard and fast, and faster still, until he reached that blissful, dizzying plateau of inevitability.
"Yes," she urged, locking her legs tight around him.
Yes.
And yes and yes and yes again.
He slumped atop her, utterly spent in every way. His limbs were trembling with effort and damp with sweat.
She held him tight, pressing kisses to his shoulder and neck.
Why had he ever chafed against her hopes for them? In this moment, he never wanted to let go.
Nora, Nora.
"Well, what's the verdict?" she said, once they'd both caught their breath. "Am I acquitted of libel?"
He rolled aside and exhaled. "Unequivocally."
"Really?" She propped her chin on his chest and looked up at him. Sparks of amber flashed in her eyes. "You admit that you missed out on something in me?"
He reached out and tangled a hand in her fiery, tousled hair. "I can declare, without a doubt: Best lovemaking ever."
She grinned with satisfaction. "Magnificence accomplished."
"Of course," he said, staring at a lock of her hair as he wound it around his finger, "it was also my first lovemaking ever."
"What?"
"Do you know, I think the storm has stopped. I don't hear the wind any longer."
"George Travers." She playfully pounded him on the chest. "What are you telling me?
"That what we just shared was, indeed, magnificent. And no matter what happened, it was going to be my best time ever. How could it not be?"
"I don't believe it."
He shrugged.
"You're a lord. A young one, in your prime of life. Wealthy, educated, advantaged in every way. Not to mention, devastatingly handsome. Why on earth . . . ?"
Dash started to feel a bit self-conscious. "It's not as though I didn't have chances, you know. And I'm a hardly a saint. I did a fair amount of groping and ogling of girls at school, went to the typical bawdy shows with the Oxford set."
"You drank champagne from scarlet women's bosoms."
"Yes, that too." And there'd been some minor indiscretions he wouldn't detail. "But when it came to the act itself, I never met a woman I wanted so badly that consummation seemed worth the risk."
"The risk? I thought women bore all the risk. Men who have conquests are heroes. We're the ones who are considered ruined."
"I'm not going to argue it's equal risk, but men take chances, too. Fathering a bastard child. Angering a jealous lover. Contracting some hideous strain of the pox."
"The pox?" She made a face.
He tweaked her ear. "I'm an only child and an orphan. I don't have indulgent parents to rescue me from scrapes, nor a brother to fill my place. I had to take care."
"Oh, Dash. As alone as you've been, I can only imagine." She stroked his chest, thoughtful. "Do you want to know what I think?"
"Always."
It was the truth, too. Much as she had a way of maddening him, he would always wish to know what was on her mind.
"I think you feared more than just the pox. Like being vulnerable with the wrong person. Exposing your heart to someone you couldn't trust."
Damn. There she went, maddening him. How did she know him better than he knew himself? It wasn't fair.
"Perhaps that was part of it, too." He gathered her in his arms and buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair, breathing deep. "It's good to be here with you."
She hugged him close. "What are old friends for?"
"Are we friends again, then?"
"Were we friends before?"
"I think so. Friends who spent a great deal of time dreaming about kissing and fondling one another. Which sounds to me like the best sort of friends, come to think of it."
She laughed.
"Now tell the truth." He propped a finger under her chin, tilting her gray-blue eyes to his. "How many were there, and what were their names?"
"How many what? Whose names?"
"Our children. The ones you had all planned out."
"You rogue."
She squirmed in good-natured outrage, and he tickled her into submission, rolling her onto her back.
"I have you pinned," he said, gripping her wrists and holding them over her head. "Just admit it."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Five."
"Five?"
"Three boys and two girls."
"And . . . ?" he prompted. "What were their names?"
"I only named the girls. Desdemona and Esme."
He collapsed atop her and laughed so hard, the bed shook.
"I know, I know." She kneed him in the ribs. "I was stupid then. But I'm not a girl anymore."
No, she wasn't.
She was a woman. An accomplished, brave, beautiful woman. An acclaimed authoress. A creative lover.
Best of all, his friend.
And she was laid out before him like a landscape of pristine, snowy hills on a winters' night, lit by a dying ember of sun.
Still holding her hands overhead, he dipped to kiss her brow. Then her nose. Then her lips.
And then down, down. Breasts, belly, navel . . .
She gasped and bucked. "Dash."
He released her arms and settled between her thighs, a man with a purpose. He was not going to get carried away with his own needs this time.
This time, she came first.
"Nora," he whispered, kissing his way back up her body once she'd shuddered and sighed his name.
"Hmm?"
"That word you said, when we locked ourselves outside . . ." He slid a hand beneath her, cupping her arse. "You know, the one a well-bred lady should not know, and most definitely should never speak aloud?"
"Yes." She looked up at him, her eyes drowsy with pleasure. "What of it?"
He flexed his arm and flipped onto his back, bringing her with him. She gave a little shriek of delight.
He tucked her sleek legs on either side of his hips, then propped both hands beneath his head. "I want to hear you say it again."
CHAPTER TEN
Nora woke to the worst sort of knot in her neck, a throbbing twinge her hip, and a dull soreness between her thighs. Her stomach twisted with hunger, tying knots around memories of fried eggs and ham. The fire had gone out, and she was stuck in a bare, humble hut in some unnamed bit of countryside, miles from help or civilization.
But life had never been so wonderful.
She lifted her head from Dash's shoulder. He looked so different in sleep, and not at all like the determined lover who'd transported to bliss her last night.
His chest rose and fell with each easy breath. With the furrows ironed from his forehead, his dark eyebrows couldn't even manage to look severe. He looked peaceful. Content.
At home.
Tenderness welled in her heart. She touched a lock of his dark hair. She didn't know what happened from here, but she had no regrets.
Rising from bed, she pushed on the shutter--just an inch--and glanced out the window. A swatch of blue sky greeted her. It was bright this morning, and clear.
After pulling her shift over her head, she did up her corset in the front, swiveling the laces to the back before cinching them tight. After rolling her dried stockings up her legs and securing them with garters, she stepped into the still-damp wool of her traveling frock, worked her arms through the sleeves, and closed the buttons up to he
r neck.
Behind her, Dash stirred on the bed.
"Whatever are you doing?" he asked drowsily.
"Making ready." She sat on the stool and laced up her boots. "I expect the driver will be here soon. With luck, I can still make my engagement."
He rubbed his eyes. "You can't still be planning to go to Spindle Cove."
"Of course I am." She twisted her hair into a knot. "Why would you think otherwise?"
"It's impossible. You're not going today. The bridge is out, remember?"
"Oh, drat. Yes, the bridge." Nora sighed. "Well, if it hasn't been repaired, I suppose I'll have no choice but to go back to Canterbury. Can you loan me the money for a private coach? There's always the long way around to Spindle Cove. Perhaps I can just make it."
He struggled up on his elbow. "Nora, don't be absurd. You don't need to go. There's been a storm. They'll understand."
"But what about all those young ladies, waiting to hear me speak?"
He rubbed his eyes. "Waiting to hear you disparage me, you mean."
"Waiting to hear that they're worth something. Waiting to hear that their dreams and lives have value, regardless of a man's opinion. It's not about you." She bent to kiss his forehead. "Perhaps I can't make it, but I want to be ready in case. I'll walk out to the road and fetch a few necessities from my trunk."
He sat up in bed at once. "No, no. I'll fetch it."
"You can't mean to go out like that." She smiled.
Lord, he was magnificent by daylight. She gazed at his nakedness, observing the many shades of his body, from sun-bronzed to snowy white. The dark hair on his chest narrowed to an arrow-straight trail bisecting his abdomen.
And at the end of the trail . . .
His manhood stirred. She stood transfixed, watching it swell and stiffen to a ruddy, arcing column of flesh. As if she'd commanded him to rise.
A heady feeling of power suffused her.
She'd done that.
"Come back to bed and join me." He reached out and caught a handful of her skirt.
Oh, no. She whirled away from him with a laugh. They'd never leave at this rate.
Before he could reach her, she was out the door.
The sun was already up, warming the earth. The tree branches dripped overhead, releasing little missiles of water to pierce holes in the crusted blanket of snow.
Her heart lightened. Perhaps the coachman would be on his way soon. This could prove a fine day for traveling.
She made it to the road easily. More difficult, however, was unsecuring her trunk from the carriage's rack. The rain had soaked the knotted rope, and then the sun had shrunk the knots. She pulled off her gloves and attacked them with vigor.
"You must admit," a man said, "that was a bloody good time."
Nora looked up from her struggle with the knots. She spied four gentlemen approaching from the west, walking four horses behind them. Two wore the red coats of officers. As they approached, she could see the other two were dressed in expensive clothes--but they were all looking rather worse for wear.
"You were brilliant with that saber," an officer said to one of the finely dressed men.
"I liked the part where Thorne cracked their heads together."
The handsomest among them flipped the end of his knitted scarf. "And who knew this hideous muffler would make such an effective garrote?"
The one leading the group caught sight of her and stopped in the road. "I don't suppose you're Miss Elinora Browning?"
"Yes," she said, amazed. "Yes, I'm Miss Browning."
"Oh, thank God," said the one with the lethal muffler.
The larger officer only blinked. And loomed, disconcertingly.
"Don't be alarmed," his friend said. "We're harmless. Unless you happen to be part of a smuggling ring."
Nora didn't know what to think.
"Allow us to begin anew. I'm Griffin York, the Duke of Halford. My wife is proprietress of the Two Sisters subscription library in Spindle Cove. She was distressed when the weather turned yesterday and was concerned that you might have been waylaid."
"We're your search party," finished the handsome one.
"Oh," Nora said. "That's wonderful. Our coach skidded off the road. The splinter bar was broken, so the coachman took the horses back to the inn."
"And you stayed in the coach?"
"No, there." She looked toward the tiny herder's hut, just visible through the trees. "But how did you cross the river?"
"The usual way," the duke replied.
"I thought the bridge was out at Rye. Has it already been repaired?"
The men looked from one to another. "I don't recall seeing any damaged bridge, do you?"
His friend shook his head. "None. Not between here and Spindle Cove."
One of the officers examined the carriage hitch. "I thought you said the splinter bar was broken. This looks to be fine to me."
"But that can't be," Nora said. "Unless . . ."
Unless the bridge had never truly been out. And the coach had never truly suffered a broken hitch.
Unless Dash had lied to her. About everything.
Oh, God.
Oh, no.
He had to have lied to her. That was the only explanation.
Her heart plummeted to her boots. Their entire night together--their lovemaking, their laughter, their friendship--was nothing but a sham?
As the gentlemen began untying her trunk from the top of the coach, Nora stood aside, quietly reeling.
Why, Dash? Why?
Revenge, she supposed. He never wanted her to reach Spindle Cove. If she failed to appear, she wouldn't be able to speak against him. Then word would spread quickly, questions would be asked. Soon everyone would know that she'd been compromised. Humiliated. Discredited. Her image as a bastion of defiant spinsterhood would be destroyed. He would be free to pursue his career. His plans to marry. Unencumbered by Nora.
The bastard.
The smug, cunning, seducing bastard.
Nora still had time. She could outrun the prospect of ruin, with luck. So long as she arrived in Spindle Cove for her reading today, no one would ever be the wiser.
"I don't suppose we could use the coach?" she asked the duke hopefully.
He shook his head. "We haven't the right tackle or horses, I'm afraid. But if you can ride with me, we'll just make it."
She looked at the horse, her stomach turning. Inside her chest, her fear did furious battle with her anger. Could she manage it?
"Nora!"
The deep call rang out from the direction of the herder's hut.
She clenched her jaw.
"Nora!" Dash had pulled on his clothing and started to walk toward the road. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called again. "Nora!"
"Who's that man?" the duke asked.
"No one important," Nora replied.
"He seems to know you."
"He's a fellow traveler. He helped me find shelter last night. But he was highly unpleasant and presumptuous. I'm glad to be quit of him, truth be told."
She went to the duke's horse and mustered all her courage before accepting his help in mounting the beast. As she settled sideways on the saddle, her stomach skipped about her chest.
"Nora, wait!" Dash had started running now, charging across the fields with his shirt collar open and his trousers held up with one hand. "Don't leave! I can explain everything."
So, he admitted it was all a ruse.
The shameless rogue. The liar.
"Do you want us to thrash him for you?" the duke offered. "We're rather good at it, thrashing blackguards."
The other men nodded in agreement.
"We've a sort of gang," the handsome one said. "Legendary in these parts. You might have heard of us. Lords of Perdition."
The largest--Captain Thorne, was it?--cracked his neck in an ominous way.
"That's tempting," she said, imagining Dash's neck constricted by an ugly striped muffler. Very, very tempting. "But no. Let's just be off
."
The duke mounted behind her. As the horse kicked into a canter, Nora held tight to the pommel and blinked a stupid tear from her eye. She would not cry. Instead, she took comfort in the same knowledge that had steadied her once before:
Lord Dashwood had missed out.
Again.
And this time, Nora wouldn't look back.
The day looked a good deal brighter than Pauline felt.
She and Daniela had gone about the morning as if all were fine and going as planned, partly to keep Daniela happy and partly because Pauline didn't know what else to do with herself.
She was worried about Miss Browning. The author in question had as yet failed to appear.
But most of all, she was worried for Griff.
Charlotte Highwood breezed through the library's front door, drawing at once to Pauline's side and putting an arm about her shoulders. "Do cease making fretful faces, Your Grace. You'll smudge the windowpane."
"Your mother decided to let you attend?" Pauline asked. "Or did you come without her approval?"
"She sent me over. There was never any question." Charlotte plucked a volume from the shelf of new arrivals and cracked the spine. "This is Spindle Cove. Mama always says, you never know when a wealthy, handsome gentleman might appear."
Something out the window caught Pauline's eye. "Your mother might be more clever than we give her credit for."
Because not one, but four such gentleman appeared at that moment, emerging over the distant rise like legends. Heroes, come home from war. Walking their horses behind them and passing a flask from one to another.
Griff.
She dashed out the door, not caring about the puddles that muddied her boots and hem. She scarcely even saw the other three men. Her eyes were for her husband alone.
She ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. The greeting wasn't very duchessly, perhaps, but it was entirely sincere. His arms came around her tight.
Nothing else mattered but this.
When she managed to pull back, Pauline noticed that her husband was wearing an appalling amount of mud, and one or two fresh rents in his clothing--in addition to his boyish grin.
And on his cheek, was that . . . blood?
"Sorry we're late," he said, eyes gleaming with mischief. "It took us some time to find her, what with the storm."
"But you did find her?"
"Of course. I promised she'd be here in time." He looked over his shoulder.
It was only then that Pauline noticed a pale, blue-clad young lady perched on his gelding. Lord Payne helped her to dismount. Miss Browning looked extremely happy to be reacquainted with solid ground.