Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress Page 16

  Ross’s weight was on her, his hands were at her breast, then at her waist, then, as lawn and cotton slid over her skin, on her thigh with her skirts rumpling up under the pressure of his fingers. And his mouth never left hers, capturing her gasps, her moans, her protests that were as much at her own response as at his onslaught on her.

  She was losing herself in him, in his heat and in the scent of him, his strength, his masculinity. The reasons why she should say no to him were slipping away from her like mist under the first rays of the sun and all that was left was the delicious, aching torment of wanting and touching and being touched.

  Ross’s hand found the soft mound at the junction of her thighs, cupped it, wringing a moan from her lips that had him raising his head to look down into her face. His eyes were black, intense, deep with arousal and emotion and everything female in her responded to that look.

  ‘Ross…’

  ‘Mine,’ he said hoarsely, burying his face in the angle of her neck, his teeth rasping over the quivering flesh, nipping at the tendons with a delicacy that his strength belied. ‘You are mine. I will not have other men touching you.’

  The possessiveness shocked Meg’s eyes open. She stared over Ross’s disordered hair at the table still laid out with the tea things, at a display of jade bowls. They were in the Salon, on the sofa, in broad daylight and her entire body was flooded with feelings so overwhelming, so thrilling, that they were almost painful. This was the truth of what she felt for him, of what he made her feel. This was not for a tumble on the sofa, this was something else entirely, something precious and wonderful and utterly terrifying.

  ‘No. Ross, stop! Someone could come in at any moment, we are in the Salon, for goodness’ sake—’

  ‘Then come up to my bed.’ He raised his head and fixed her with a look that spoke of raw sensuality and need. ‘You are mine and you know it.’

  ‘I am not yours.’ Not yet, not like this. Meg realised that his fingers were still laced into the intimate, damp, tangle of curls, still sending quivering darts of lust through her belly and down the inside of her thighs. ‘Stop it, take your hand off me…Let me go!’ She wanted him so much it was an almost physical pain as he left her, thrust himself off the sofa and stood staring down at her, baffled desire and anger etched on his face.

  ‘Come to my bed, Meg,’ he repeated.

  ‘No. You think I am yours and I tell you I am not. I am no man’s.’ She dragged her skirts down, almost panting with reaction, the words all wrong because of the one she dare not use to him, her agitation emerging as anger when all she wanted was to sob out her feelings in his arms. ‘You are so strong—’

  ‘You think I would force you? Was I forcing you just now?’

  ‘No! I mean your personality is so strong. You command, you demand, you expect obedience. You expect to get what you want. And I must stand up to you or I will go down like wheat before the scythe and I will hate myself for it. And I will hate you,’ she flung at him as she got to her feet and went to the looking glass, her fingers desperate amongst pins and lace to order her hair and set her cap back on her head.

  ‘You own this house, this land, your title. But you do not own me.’ The long hair pins hurt her skull as she jammed them back. A good pain, a deserved one. ‘My father owned me, my husband owned me—now nobody does. You pay my wages,’ she told him in the mirror, his face a stark reflection over her right shoulder, ‘and for that you get my services as a housekeeper.’ I love you and I need you to love me too, or my heart will break and I am too weak to bear it. And she was too weak to say the words and face his rejection, the truth that he wanted her body and that was all.

  ‘You would deny yourself?’ he said softly, moving up until he stood directly behind her, speaking to her reflection as she had to his. ‘Just to keep me in my place?’

  ‘No, that is not why.’ Meg whirled to face him, refusing to move aside when he stood his ground, however much her knees were trembling. She could not say what she felt and the frustration was making the words tumble out heedlessly as she snatched at excuses. ‘Mine, you said. I am not one of your fields or coppices for you to put a fence round and nail a No Trespassing sign to.’

  ‘You are saying I am jealous?’ Ross laughed, a short, mirthless sound.

  ‘I am saying you are territorial and possessive, my lord. You are beginning to fill your father’s shoes very well.’

  That was unforgivable, she knew it as soon as the words left her mouth. Ross had confided in her about his relations with his father, had given her a glimpse of what the late Lord Brandon had been and how he had scarred the boy whose dark eyes stared at her from the man’s face. Now she had told him he was turning into that person.

  Perhaps his deep reluctance at coming back was not only sadness at what he had lost or the guilt that had tormented him over Giles’s death, but fear of becoming the man his father was. The thoughts flashed through her mind even as his expression began to change, to close against her, every emotion masked behind the harsh bleak face she had recoiled from at first sight on the dockside.

  ‘I…I am sorry, Ross.’ What have I done? No…undone. All the peace that his meditation by Giles’s grave had given him dissolved into anger.

  He held up a hand for her silence. ‘No. Don’t say anything.’

  Somehow Ross got himself out of the Chinese Salon before he started to shake. The pain in his wounded leg was a nauseating ache. He must have knocked it when…when he had lost his mind, picked up his housekeeper and began ravishing her on the sofa in an unlocked room in broad daylight.

  He had to get out of the house before he either went back in there, dragged her upstairs and finished what he had begun or—

  ‘My lord!’

  ‘Heneage, are you unwell?’ Ross put out a hand to steady the butler who had walked round the corner without seeing him and was now white to the lips. How old was the man? Was his heart affected?

  ‘I am quite well, my lord. Forgive me—it is just that I did not hear you and you looked, for a moment, so like his late lordship when he was displeased that I was quite taken aback.’

  Ross stood there in his own hall, all the surging frustration and anger and misery of his childhood building up in him like a fermenting wine bottle that was ready to blow. He had schooled himself never to show those feelings, never to give his father the satisfaction of seeing how effective his disapproval, his punishments, his scowling anger were at withering his son’s heart. He had fought back with insolence and disobedience and that, in part, was why Giles’s accident happened.

  ‘I am sorry I gave you a shock, Heneage. You are not seeing ghosts.’ But I am. ‘I am going out. My apologies to Mrs Harris, but I will not be in for dinner.’

  ‘Very good, my lord.’ The butler was recovering his colour. ‘Shall I send round to the stables for your horse, my lord?’

  ‘No, I’ll saddle up myself.’ Ross paused with one foot on the bottom stair on his way to pull on a pair of breeches and topboots. The thought of waiting patiently for even ten minutes was intolerable. He had to get out of the house, away from Meg. Away, if that were possible, from himself.

  His father had never stinted himself on his stables. Ross strode across the cobbled yard, waving aside the groom who was sweeping out the central gutter. He had been riding out daily on one of his father’s cover hacks, a well-bred but sturdy animal that stood placidly while Ross grappled with the intricacies of crop rotation, but would take the hedge banks in its stride if necessary. And it was a sensible animal to ride for someone who had a healing wound in his leg. Despite what Meg thought, he was capable of some common sense as far as that was concerned, he reflected sourly, reaching for the bridle that hung by the door.

  A black head appeared over the door of the next box, ears pricked, eye rolling warily. His father’s last acquisition, Culrose, the head groom, had told him.

  ‘Fabulous blood line and it cost him a pretty penny, my lord. But it’s the very devil to ride. Threw your father
, first time out, and he never rode him again. I exercise it on the end of a leading rein—I don’t fancy having my neck broke, and that’s a fact.’

  At the time Ross had simply made a mental note to sell the animal. Now he put back the bridle and went to look at it. As he let himself into the box he saw it was no gelding, but an intact stallion. ‘Stop that.’ He grabbed its forelock as it snaked out its neck to bite him and hung on as it countered by trying to rear. ‘Do you want to get out of here and gallop, or not?’

  The horse showed the whites of its eyes, but stood still, obviously realising that he was not to be intimidated. With one hand still fast in its forelock, Ross shouted, ‘Get me the tack!’ and found, when he looked over his shoulder, a collection of grooms and stable lads all watching the half-door with wary anticipation. He hoped they would have the guts to come in and haul him out if the creature kicked him down.

  ‘My lord.’ One lad heaved the saddle up on to the door and hung the bridle over the pommel.

  Ross managed, one handed, to get the bit in its mouth, then the bridle over its head. The horse stood with remarkable, and suspicious, meekness when he released its mane and began to fasten buckles.

  ‘What’s its name?’

  ‘Trevarras Dragon, my lord.’

  Appropriate. Ross could imagine it breathing fire. As he hefted the saddle on to its back he felt the muscles twitch under the glossy coat. Did it have the intelligence to work out it could do him a lot more damage once he got up on its back? Probably.

  ‘Open the door and stand clear.’ As Dragon charged for the opening Ross swung up into the saddle, ducked under the frame and jammed his feet into the swinging stirrups before the horse realised what had happened. It erupted into the open, the men and boys scattering, then stopped dead, legs braced, ears back. Ross could almost hear it thinking how it was going to kill him. He shortened the reins, closed his legs and dug his heels in as the stallion went sideways across the yard, bucking, then dragged its head round to the gateway and slackened the reins.

  As he hoped, the chance to run won over the desire to unseat and trample its rider. Dragon gathered his haunches under him and took off, all seventeen hands of black-coated muscle thundering down the carriage drive like one of Congreve’s rockets. And just about as predictable, Ross thought, concentrating on staying on until the stallion tired itself.

  His leg hurt like the devil, his arms were aching and his mood had lifted miraculously. It was not just Dragon who had wanted violent physical exercise. Ross laughed as his hat flew off, squinted against the sun and galloped on.

  It took all of twenty minutes before Dragon allowed himself to be pulled up to a canter, by which time they had jumped too many banks and hedges to count and devoured the length of the gorse-covered commonland.

  ‘Give up?’ Ross enquired. One ear swivelled back, then, to his surprise, the big horse responded to the rein, dropped down to a trot and finally a walk. ‘You see? If you are reasonable, I let you run,’ he continued as they came to the edge of the common and turned into the lane.

  Dragon snorted, but it was the peal of feminine laughter that startled Ross. A tall woman in a plain gown with an apron, her blonde hair piled up on her head and a basket at her feet, was leaning back on the gate opposite. She must have been resting and admiring the view, Ross guessed, and had turned at the sound of hooves.

  And then a cloud moved across the sun and took the dazzle out of his eyes and thirteen years dropped away. ‘Lily!’ He swung down out of the saddle and went to her, catching her around the waist and kissing her, right on her wide, generous mouth. ‘My God, but it is good to see you! Billy told me you were down on the Lizard.’

  ‘I only went to help my cousin with a birthing.’ She put out her hands to hold him away so she could look at him and Ross saw the lines of laughter and sadness around her eyes, the silver hairs in the gold, and realised she must be in her mid-thirties now. ‘Look at you now, all grown up.’

  They stood grinning at each other and Ross felt the darkness lift further. Lily was another of the good memories from his youth. Three years older, she had been the sister he had never had. When he had discovered that his father had forced himself on her, leaving her with his child, a killing rage had washed through him. Even as he smiled at her now the lash of that remembered anger, hot and acid, touched him.

  ‘I’ve someone for you to meet. William!’ she called. ‘He’s grown a bit since you last saw him.’ A gangling lad appeared from round the bend of the lane, a bundle of driftwood slung over his shoulder.

  ‘My God.’ The boy was the spitting image of himself at fifteen—black hair, height, build, the formidable Brandon jaw and nose still to be grown into. ‘Does he know?’ he asked Lily urgently. ‘Does he know who he is, who I am?’

  ‘Yes…’ she nodded as his father’s discarded bastard broke into a run, ‘…he knows.’

  ‘Mam.’ The boy stared at Ross with Billy’s amber eyes. He was not all Brandon then.

  ‘Say good day to his lordship, William. Where’s your manners?’

  ‘Good day, my lord.’ He reached for his forelock to tug it.

  Ross put out his hand and caught his wrist. ‘Don’t do that. And not “my lord”. I am your brother Ross.’

  Lily gasped. ‘You can’t mean to acknowledge him?’

  ‘I don’t need to.’ Ross let go of William’s wrist and tipped up the boy’s chin. ‘Look at that jaw.’ He ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘But, yes, he is my brother and I will make no bones about it. You call me Ross, William. “Sir”, perhaps, when we don’t want to shock the servants.’

  ‘Yes, my…sir. Ross.’ The Cornish burr was rich in the boy’s voice, warm under the more refined accent Ross suspected Lily had schooled him to use. She’d been his mother’s maid until his father’s eye had lighted on her. ‘You’re fifteen now?’

  ‘Yes.’ The amber eyes were wide, full of intelligence and wary speculation.

  ‘He’s starting on the fishing boats next month,’ Lily said. Ross could hear the pride and the fear in her voice. Pride that her lad was growing up, working and earning. Fear because the churchyards of St Just and St Anthony were full of the graves of fishermen from this treacherous coast.

  ‘Do you want to be a fisherman, William?’

  No, those eyes said. ‘It’s a steady job.’ The boy shrugged. ‘The money’s not bad.’

  ‘What do you want to do—if you could do anything, any work?’

  ‘Be a lawyer.’ The answer shot back, even as William ducked to avoid his mother’s exasperated cuff round the ear.

  ‘Fool of a boy.’

  ‘Why? Can you read and write, William?’

  ‘I can, sir. Ross, I mean. I love reading—books, newspapers. Whatever I can get my hands on.’ He grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. ‘And lawyers make sure people get their rights,’ he added pugnaciously.

  ‘Oh, be quiet do, Will!’ Lily shook her head at Ross. ‘He reads all the newspapers he can find—he’s turning out to be one of these radicals, that’s what I fear. He’ll end up with some mob, breaking windows.’

  ‘Not if he is training to be a lawyer.’ Ross wondered what had left the boy with such an idealistic view of the legal profession. ‘They aren’t all knights in shining armour, you know, William.’

  ‘Well, it’s pie in the sky anyways.’ Lily picked up her basket. ‘A man’s got to go to university to be a lawyer, I know that.’

  ‘He’ll need a tutor, certainly.’ Ross turned and found, to his surprise, Dragon was standing where he had left him. He picked up the reins and began to walk alongside Lily and William. My brother. He’d lost Giles, but this one had his whole life in front of him. ‘And he can go and work in Kimber’s office one day a week. When he’s old enough, university. There’s more to it than that, but Kimber can tell us what’s needed.’ He looked down at William who had stopped dead, his mouth open. ‘Would you like that?’

  The boy stared back, then bit his lip, his expression clou
ding over. ‘Thank you very much, but I have to earn a wage.’

  ‘You are my brother, so you get an allowance. I’ll talk to your mother about it. Now, take that firewood home and leave us to sort out the details. Oh, and, William, you may use the library at the Court at any time.’

  His brother just looked at him, his throat working, then he muttered, ‘Thank you, Ross’, turned and took to his heels.

  Ross smiled at Lily, who stood there staring at him.

  ‘He’s grateful,’ she began. ‘But he’s…’

  ‘He’s a bit overwhelmed. It is all right, Lily. I can remember being that age. What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s a dream, it’s perfect. But you can’t do it, Ross. People will think he’s yours.’

  ‘He is mine—my brother—and I’ll tell anyone that, straight out. My father’s habits are well enough known for people to believe it if I acknowledge him. I was coming to see you when you got back, Lily, to see what I could do to help. There’s a cottage on the estate you might like and there will be an allowance for you, as well as for William.’ She tried to protest, but he closed his hand over hers and squeezed. ‘Let me help, Lily. Let me try to make it right.’

  She squeezed his fingers in return. ‘Thank you. Yes, I’ll accept, for William, and be thankful. You’ve grown into a fine man, Ross.’

  ‘I’m a soldier, Lily, a killer who has got to learn to be a landowner. I’m so far out of my depth I think half the time I’m drowning.’ The relief of having someone who knew him so well, someone he could pour it all out to, was shattering. And with Lily there were none of the feelings that almost overwhelmed him when he was with Meg. Feelings that were more than lust and longing and which he could not understand.

  But even to Lily he could not speak of the death and the blood and the feeling that all he had seen and done made him unfit for decent people, for the life duty told him he must lead. Or for the wife he knew he should take.

  ‘You’ll learn,’ Lily said comfortably as they strolled down the lane. ‘Just don’t be your father, that’s all anyone round these parts would ask of you.’