The Wrong Marquess EPB Read online

  A tremor of longing rolled through Brandon. He tried to push that out of his mind and focused, instead, on walking his horse to the mounting block. “Do you feel brave enough to take Samson out of the stable?”

  An incredulous laugh escaped her as if she thought he was teasing. Yet, when her gaze met his, her eyes quickly widened. She swallowed, gripping his hand tighter. “Well, you certainly like to push, do you not? One morning on a horse and suddenly I’m a seasoned equestrian?”

  Turning her toward him, he took both of her hands in his. “If you are afraid, then he’ll remain tethered in the stall. We’ll take this as slowly as you like.”

  “If we went at my pace, I’d likely never have made it across the bridge,” she said ruefully. Expelling a slow breath, she offered a tentative nod. “Very well, then, we’ll try a step or two.”

  Caught up in a moment of admiration for her remarkable bravery, he leaned down and stole a brief searing kiss.

  Before she could change her mind, he lifted her to the mounting block and swung himself into the saddle. Reaching over, he pulled Ellie into his arms. She clung to him even tighter than before, like a yoke and collar, inhibiting the movement of his shoulders. That wouldn’t do.

  “You know,” he began, considering. “When my sister was first learning to ride, she complained that she felt unsteady on the sidesaddle. So I allowed her to ride astride for a time until she grew comfortable with the movements of a horse, at least when she was not in public. You might feel more secure if you did the same.”

  Ellie pulled her head back to blink at him. “Astride? But I’m not wearing a riding habit . . . undoubtedly my skirts will . . .”

  Color suffused her cheeks.

  His gaze drifted down and every muscle in his body flexed, causing Samson to shift slightly. He knew at once that he wouldn’t be able to withstand the temptation of looking down and seeing stocking-clad legs spread open on either side of the pommel, with her skirts bunched in between.

  Darting a glance around, he saw a horse blanket hanging over the top of the stall. He eased Samson over, close enough for Brandon to reach it. The coarse wool unfolded as he drew it over her lap. “There. All settled.”

  However, it wasn’t that simple.

  The instant he turned her and carefully arranged her body, he realized his mistake. The plump curve of her bottom was nestled intimately against his groin and his body reacted in a low, unmistakable surge of lust. The blanket might be concealing her from his eyes, but did little else to erase the ideas his mind conjured.

  Hearing her breath quicken, he secured an arm tightly around her waist, pulling her secure and flush with him. He held back a groan, knowing he would just have to endure the sweet agony of it all.

  “Are you ready, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice hoarse. Feeling her head jerk in a small nod of acquiescence and her hand grip his arm, he assured her in a whisper, “Just a step or two. It might help if you closed your eyes.”

  “You mean keep them closed? I haven’t dared open them since you turned me around.”

  He smiled at her scolding tone. And, with a press of his thighs and the click of his tongue, he prodded Samson away from the mounting block. Then, as he’d agreed, he pulled back on the reins and stopped.

  Ellie heaved out a labored breath. “Strange, but I feel as if . . . I am carrying two people . . . on my back.”

  “And you survived it well,” he said tenderly, pressing his lips to her temple. “We’ll head back to the block now.”

  “Wait. I think I want”—she hesitated, the gulp in her throat audible—“to go farther.”

  A shock of surprise spurred through Brandon, but he didn’t reveal it. And he didn’t question her either, fearing that would only make her doubt her decision.

  “Ah. I see what’s happened,” he said in a teasing drawl as he gradually eased Samson out of the stables. “You’ve decided to torment me endlessly with the feel of your body in my arms and leave me with nothing to do about it.”

  She rested fully against him on a soft puff of laughter. “I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I do like being in your arms. They’re like mooring ropes, keeping me tethered and secure. And I like that I can feel the rise and fall of your chest against my back . . . the hot brush of your exhale against my cheek . . . the sure beats of your heart . . . the strength of your thighs as you flex and shift to direct the horse . . .”

  Unendurable arousal coursed through his veins in thick pulses, not only at her words but the light, teasing caress of her hand over his. When had she stopped gripping him as if her life depended on it?

  He didn’t know. He’d lost the ability to think as she traced the lengths of his fingers and slipped beneath his sleeve to touch the furring at his wrist. Then those petal soft pads stole around to the other side to skate across his pulse. It quickened for her.

  Unable to help himself, he bent his head to graze his lips against the shell of her ear, the exposed curve of her throat, seeking the fluttering place beneath the fragrant skin. “Do you like this, too, Ellie?”

  “Yes,” she rasped, her breaths shallow and panting.

  Arm around her waist, he drew her back against the slow cantering of his hips, easing the ache of his lengthening erection. “And what do you feel now?”

  “That your heart is thundering, like mine.” She took his hand, easing him higher over buttery soft muslin to the warm valley between her breasts, sending a scorching jolt of pleasure through him. “Can you feel it?”

  He groaned in response, and loved the way she wasn’t shy or reserved with him, as if she needed their contact as much as he. Even so, he didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

  To gain a measure of control, he tightened his muscles. But, unthinkingly, he’d spurred Samson into a loping gallop.

  Beneath his hand, Brandon felt her breath catch, and the harried rhythm of her heart. He cursed inwardly. Looking ahead at where they’d gone, he realized he’d let the horse lead the way for some time. And now they were farther from the house and stables than he imagined, headed toward the field of clover that surrounded the pond and the folly.

  “It seems that Samson has a taste for clover,” he said, trying to keep his tone light and reassuring as he eased the reins back to a canter.

  She didn’t answer.

  Damn! What a distracted fool he was! He’d been so lost in having her in his arms that he wasn’t thinking. At all.

  He could head back to the stables, but the folly was closer. So he stayed the course, crooning reassurances to her. “It’s almost over, sweetheart. We’re nearly there.”

  At last, they reached the folly, the white marble gleaming like a beacon in the hazy moonlight. He directed the horse to the steps, needing a place to dismount safely with her in his arms. Then he turned her in his lap and she clung to him, tremors quaking through her.

  Keeping her tucked in the cradle of his arms, he carefully dismounted. “Ellie, forgive me. I never meant to go so far. I—”

  “Brandon,” she cried, clutching him tightly. “I opened my eyes.”

  Standing on the flat stones, he pressed his lips fervently to her temple and damp cheek. He hated himself for what he did to her. “I know, and it was my fault. I’ll make it up to you. Just please, don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not,” she said with a quiet bemused laugh. “I opened my eyes. And, yes, it was terrifying at first . . . but exhilarating too. With you at my back, I wasn’t focused on falling to my death at all.” She laughed again and slipped out of his stunned embrace to twirl on the flat stones, her face tilted up to the dome overhead. “It’s such a liberating feeling to gallop, isn’t it? Like we were flying under the moon, just the two of us.” Samson issued a snort, lifting his head from his clover snack. “Pardon me, the three of us.”

  Brandon was confused. A moment ago, he’d been worried that he’d pushed her too far, that she’d never look at him with trust in her eyes again. But now, watching her, so carefree and elated, he
didn’t know quite what to make of this. “Then you are fine?”

  “Fine?” she teased, then twirled again, her yellow skirts flaring like a bell. “I just rode a horse for the first time in my life! I feel so alive that I can hardly contain it. Is it possible to burst apart from happiness? Never mind. Don’t answer that because it doesn’t even matter. I’m not afraid. If I explode, then it will be on your head since you are the one who has filled me with this terrible, uncontainable joy. Oh, Brandon, I just love you so mu—”

  His heart stopped. She stopped, too, her skirts tangling around her legs in a final swish before falling still. Her cheeks were flushed, her wide eyes blinking at him in patent startlement.

  “What was that again?” he asked, his throat dry.

  She swallowed. “The part about being happy, or my imminent explosion?”

  “No. The last part.”

  “Oh, that. I must have . . . mentioned it before.”

  He shook his head.

  She tried to shrug it off with a nonchalant air. “Well . . . I’m sure you’ve had . . . scores of women tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” He took one step, two, then stood toe-to-toe with her, his breaths shallow and quick.

  “Have you had scores of women tell you they love you?”

  “There’s only one woman that matters.”

  She huffed. “That really isn’t an answer.”

  “Ellie,” he warned, feeling as if he would go mad if he didn’t hear those words again.

  Reaching out, she placed her hand over the center of his chest and looked up at him shyly. “Shortly after we first met, I decided to hate you until the last dying breath left my body. After all, you were terribly overbearing. But even that didn’t seem long enough. So I decided to hate you for all eternity.” A soft smile brushed her lips. “What I didn’t know then, was that it wasn’t hate I felt. It was something much stronger. And I’m sure that, whatever amount of time falls beyond eternity, I will love you with all my heart until then. Perhaps even lon—”

  He didn’t let her finish. Her sweet words rushed in his ears and ripped open his heart, obliterating every obstacle, every reservation, and all he could think was finally, finally.

  So he took her face in his hands and pressed his mouth to hers.

  Chapter 29

  “A debutante must always be prepared for sudden explosions of exhilaration.”

  —A note for The Marriage Habits of the Native Aristocrat

  The declaration had slipped out before Ellie realized what she was saying, or how much it would change everything between them. Then, all at once, the words were caught in a scorching kiss as he took her mouth, fusing them into permanence.

  There would be no taking them back, even if she wanted to. But she didn’t. She wanted to live in this moment for an eternity.

  Her body rejoiced in the hard crush of his arms around her. The deep, searching pulls of his mouth. This was where she belonged. She felt it with marrow-deep certainty that was stronger than any fear that had ever plagued her.

  So she kissed him back with every ounce of love and unfettered passion inside her. And when he groaned in response, she knew he couldn’t fight it either.

  He angled her head and delved deeper, nudging her lips apart for the welcomed intrusion of his breath and tongue. He licked into her mouth, tasting her, his hands fisting into the fabric of her dress while her fingers splayed greedily over the firm wall of his chest, palms coasting over broad shoulders to the silken threads of the hair at his nape, tugging his flesh deeper inside. She wanted to taste him, too. Wanted to draw the flavor, the essence, the very soul of this man inside her body in a way that she couldn’t explain.

  She had a sense that she wouldn’t survive if they ever stopped kissing.

  Clutching him, she wriggled closer against his solid strength, needing to find the perfect alignment that would fit them together and assuage the desperation teeming through her veins. But the harder she tried, the more it seemed just out of reach.

  A frustrated mewl tore from her throat and he responded by hitching her higher against the hard, insistent ridge. He pressed against the liquid throb—there. Yes, there—and she went weak in his arms on a pleasure-singed sigh.

  He gripped her bottom, his large hands molding over the plump flesh. And then he lifted her until the toes of her slippers dragged backward in a hiss against the temple floor, all the way to the center cella, embedded with arched niches for urns and statuettes.

  This niche was empty. She felt the cool marble at her back, the ledge beneath her. Heard the rasp of his breath echo inside the carved space as he stepped between her parted thighs.

  A week ago, an alcove such as this might have caused a rise in fear, a shiver of dread. But not any longer. She was free from that, and far too alive to think about death at a time like this. Not while his lips coasted over her throat and his hips canted forward, pinioning her into the shallow alcove in focused rhythmic slides.

  Gasping and wanton, she clutched his broadcloth-encased shoulders, frustrated by the impediment. She needed to feel the heat of his flesh beneath her hands. Tugging at the crisp layers of his cravat, she huffed, “I much prefer you in just your shirtsleeves and trousers.”

  His mouth caught at hers and she drank down his gruff growl. He jerked out of his coat, always keeping one arm around her and she was glad that a lifetime of sewing had gifted her with a deftness for untying knots.

  A second later, his cravat fell to the folly floor, then his waistcoat, and her hands stole over the fine linen shirt, warmed to a sueded softness by the heat of his body. She clung to him, fitting herself against him as her mouth drifted over his throat, tasting the damp, salty essence on his skin. She tugged at his shirtsleeves, gripping fistfuls from the waist of his trousers.

  “Wait, Ellie, wait.” Brandon stilled her hands, his voice strained, his breaths rushing against her temple. And his heart thumped like a galloping horse against her own. “Let me catch my breath.”

  It was in that moment, she realized something truly terrifying—he’d come to his senses.

  Of course, he would, she thought miserably. He wouldn’t simply abandon years of chivalrous behavior and succumb to passion. But she needed him to.

  “You don’t need to catch your breath,” she said, tilting upward to kiss along the edge of his jaw. “There’s no reason to overthink this. Trust me, I’ve wasted too much time being cautious and fearful. That’s no way to live.”

  He smiled against her lips. “It isn’t?”

  “Just give yourself over to this moment. Embrace how you feel right now.”

  “Hmm . . .” he murmured in a soft caress against the fluttering pulse at her throat. “So if I need to see your bare skin beneath the moon before the silver slight fades, then I ought to surrender to the desire?”

  Her pulse quickened as she felt the gentle tugging at the back of her dress. “Yes.”

  “And if I want to see you in the glow of the sunrise and taste your blush on my tongue as I fill your shuddering body, over and over again?” He left no room for misunderstanding as he rolled the hard ridge that strained against the fall of his trousers into the cradle of her thighs.

  Spears of pleasure spiraled deep inside where her body felt liquid and empty. It was exactly what she wanted. And yet . . .

  As of this moment, her intimate experiences could be summed up with a few vague pages from novels, fully clothed kisses and a rather passionate encounter at an inn. Because of this, she felt an unanticipated rise of virginal trepidation.

  She swallowed. “You . . . you plan to be quite thorough . . . it seems.”

  “Quite,” he said succinctly, his lips lightly grazing across hers with just enough pressure to leave a path of tingles in their wake.

  She inched closer. There simply was no controlling the need, the gnawing ache inside her. Then he did the same again, another graze, not enough to fully satisfy the desire he kindled for another kiss. On the next pass, she foun
d herself gripping him to keep him close, straining to fuse her lips to his.

  Then he took her mouth and . . . oh his kiss. He devoured her in slow, tender sips as he held her securely against him, kissing and teasing and caressing until her body bloomed with liquid, pulsing heat that left no room for trepidation.

  His ardent attention fell hotly on the curve of her throat, his parted lips searing along the vulnerable skin. With the flat of his tongue, he tasted her, drawing gently on her flesh until she was panting and breathless. Her corset was too tight, her lungs straining against laces and whalebone. But then she felt the skillfully soothing passes of his hands down her back, the breeze through the parted fabric, the persistent tugs that loosened her corset.

  At once she could breathe easier. The weight of her dress shifted, slipping from her shoulders, down her arms to pool at her waist. Her corset followed. And there, she stood before him in the cool night air with her flesh drawn taut over her simmering insides, and the rosy tips of her breasts pebbling beneath the thin layer of cambric.

  His gaze devoured her. Those velvet irises turned dark and hungry, his bronze lashes lowering against the rise of burnished color on his cheeks as a breath shuddered out of him.

  “Damn, Ellie. Just look at you,” he murmured as his hands skimmed up to trace the undersides of her breasts. “You’re a confection of white dusting sugar and pink icing. And the only thing to keep me from devouring every single luscious inch of you, is that little red bow. I’m afraid it doesn’t stand a chance.”

  At the graveness in his tone, she felt a smile curve her lips. Boldly, she reached up and untied the ribbon.

  The gathered fabric caught for an instant on the moon-white swells, just long enough for her to hear him swallow. Then he shucked the gauzy fabric away and cupped the rounded fullness in his bare palms. His thumbs swept over the ruched flesh and she closed her eyes against a gasping shock of pleasure that quickened and clenched, deep in the core of her body.