Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 55

‘You all right, sir? Did the trick all right, that did.’ Half-convinced he was dreaming, Jack got to his feet, trying not to tread on the struggling figure underneath him.

‘Yes, I am fine. Sam all right? Good lad, there’ll be a bonus for you—you’re as good as your father, and you can tell him that for me.’ His head was spinning—with shock and anger, he realised. The men must not find out that Lily was here. No one must. ‘This foolish wench here has got a bit of a bruising. I will just walk her back to the shaft, make sure she gets back up all right. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, Will.’

Lily had struggled up on her elbows and was making undignified whooping noises. ‘Quiet,’ he hissed, hauling her to her feet and beginning to march her back down the heading. ‘Have you hit your head?’

‘No.’ She had enough breath back to snap at him, and enough sense to keep her voice to a furious hiss. ‘No, my head is fine. The rest of me has just been used as a mattress by some idiot man with delusions of chivalry. Or possibly he was just looking for a comfortable landing.’

‘You had no business to be here. You might have been killed.’ For endless seconds he had not known whether she was alive or dead or seriously injured as she lay crushed under him. His stomach still churned with reaction.

He should escort her to the surface, he should remonstrate with her in a quiet and dignified manner until she saw the error of her ways. What he wanted to do was to shout at her and shake her until her teeth rattled for scaring him more than he had ever been frightened in his life before.

But it was impossible to do that in the middle of a working mine, as impossible as it would be on the dance floor at Almack’s. Jack set his teeth and half-dragged, half-carried, Lily to the foot of the shaft.

Her hat was gone. A bedraggled bandana hung down in the midst of a tangle of red curls. With an oath he took off his own hat, bundled her hair under it and jammed it on her head. It came down to her nose.

‘Ow!’

‘Quiet.’ Jack opened his coat. ‘Put your arms around me, stand on my right foot. Stand, I said, not stamp! Hold on.’

He crushed her close, the brim of his own hat knocking against his face as he tried to shield her as much as possible. He was shaking, he realised. Just a little. Just enough to be conscious of the tremor running through his arms and legs. She could have been killed, wandering around down there by herself. How the hell had she got there? Oh, God, Lily. I love you. I am going to strangle you …

They emerged into the daylight, unnoticed in the usual milling crowd at the top. Jack took Lily’s arm above the elbow and walked her fast, straight across the open space to the hovel where he had hitched his horse under the sloping roof. He plucked his hat off her head, clapped it on his own and lifted her, before she could do more than yelp in protest, tossing her over the horse’s neck.

‘Stay still.’ He swung up behind her and kicked the big grey into a canter, away from the mine, over the crest of the hill, down towards a copse of trees that lay a mile distant. A favourite picnic place, it would be deserted now. Deserted and just the place for the blazing row he was aching for. Lily was struggling. He fetched her a light slap on the rump. ‘Quiet! You will fall off.’ She retaliated by sinking her teeth into his thigh.

‘Bloody hell!’ Her teeth, however sharp, made little impact through the thick canvas trousers he was wearing. Jack snarled in exasperation as she continued to struggle. When the grey plunged into the clearing in the middle of the copse he let her go immediately, so she slid down on to her feet, glaring up at him. The tracks of tears had cut through the dirt and dust on her cheeks. His heart contracted as though a hand had squeezed it.

‘Bully!’

Jack swung down, dropping the reins. ‘Have you got windmills in your head? How the hell did you get down there?’

‘I shall not tell you. I tricked them into thinking you approved, but I do not trust you not to sack them, so I will not tell you.’

‘I can well believe you tricked them, you hellion. Do you think I don’t know that? Anyone you deceived has my deepest sympathy. Will you stop at nothing to get what you want?’

‘I cannot have what I want.’ She said it starkly, stopping him in his tracks. ‘I wanted to see the mine because it is so important to you. I wanted to understand. That is all.’

‘And do you understand?’ Jack knew his voice was harsh. He cleared his throat against the obstruction that seemed to be filling it.

‘Yes.’ Lily said it quietly. ‘It is the land again, isn’t it? You love all of it, rock deep. You have to be born to it, I think, so it is difficult for someone who is not, but I do think I understand now.’

‘Why do you need to?’ He began to move towards her again, not realising just how threatening he must look with his black-grimed face and the heavy coat swirling around him until she took several steps backwards. A tree stopped her. She shook her head, watching him silently.

‘I cannot be indifferent to you, Lily. I tried to be just a friend, but I cannot.’ He was right in front of her now. Jack rested both hands on the thick oak trunk, trapping her as he had in the Long Gallery. He had mishandled that spectacularly. Now he had frightened her so that she wanted to run away from him.

‘I am sorry. It was kind of you to try. I realise I make you very angry.’

Finesse deserted him—he just said what he felt. ‘Do you realise I love you more than I have ever loved anything or anyone, Lily? Do you realise that?’

He did not know what to expect. A slapped face. Anger. Chilly rejection. Instead she went white under the dirt and closed her eyes.

He thought he stopped breathing. The wide, glorious green eyes opened again, slowly. ‘No. I had not realised that. Oh, Jack!’ Her arms went round his neck and she was pulling his head down, lifting her face for his kiss. He braced his shoulders, holding her back just an inch from his lips.

‘Do you mean you love me? Lily?’

‘Of course I love you, you thick-skulled aristocrat! Do you think I go around proposing to men I do not love?’

‘I have no idea,’ Jack said, finding his mouth was curving into a smile. ‘I find I have no idea whatsoever what you might do, Lily, my love.’

‘If you don’t kiss me soon, I think I might just faint.’ Lily thought she would anyway. Things seemed to be spinning, she had no idea if it were possible to be this happy and live, her back felt as though she had been beaten all over with meattenderising hammers and every cell in her body wanted Jack. ‘I love you.’

Jack’s mouth on hers was hot, hard, as desperate as hers as she strained into him, her fingers frantic as they clung to his shoulders. He was like a rock, her rock. His tongue was relentless, plunging, plundering, claiming her, as though she might have any intention of resisting. She could feel his anger still, it must be burning through his veins, just as her own fear, transmuted into desire, burned through hers.

His fingers were at her waist, struggling with the buckle of the heavy leather belt. It fell away. ‘What the devil are you wearing?’

‘Trousers.’ Lily tugged at the fastenings, her fingers tangling with Jack’s in their mutual urgency.

‘Well, you are never going to wear them again. Of all the improper—’ He broke off, on a gasp of laughter that answered hers. ‘Yes, well, never mind that now.’ The trousers dropped away, Jack was doing something to the fall of his own and then Lily found herself lifted, braced against the tree trunk solid at her back. Jack shrugged out of his greatcoat. ‘Damn these clothes. Lily—’

Acting on instinct, she wrapped her legs around his waist, panting a little. One hand cupped her bare bottom while the other stroked down, found the warm tangle of curls, slid between their locked bodies. Found her. ‘Jack.’

He shifted her slightly and she felt him, aroused, already brushing against her. ‘Lily, sweetheart …’

‘Yes, oh, yes, yes …’ He moved, just a little, nudging against her, entering her a fraction. Lily stiffened. It was almost like it had been when he had made love to her in London. Almost. This was different, this was … more.

She searched his face for reassurance, found it in the grey eyes steady on hers, in the taut tendons of his neck. He was fighting for control, fighting not to frighten or hurt her. Lily felt the trust wash through her, only to be swept away by a jolt of desire so intense she almost cried out. ‘Yes. I love you.’

He lowered her a little, watching her, filling her with love as he filled her with his body. Waves of arousal rippled through her belly, lower, lower, then suddenly it was as though he had hit a barrier. Lily caught back a little cry, tightened her arms around Jack’s neck for reassurance.

‘Love, I can go slowly, or I can go fast. Beyond this, I promise it will not hurt any more.’

‘Fast.’ She locked her lips on his, let her cry be swallowed in his kiss as he plunged, took her in one long thrust that turned pain into pleasure, sent her over the edge, down, falling into delight so intense she thought she must die of it.

Somewhere, beyond the swirling blackness, the stars, the liquid delight that turned her limbs to water so that she could hardly cling to him, she was aware of the hard, virile body, sheathed in hers, the final thrust as he joined her in ecstasy. I have done this, she thought hazily as he collapsed against her.

Lily came to herself to find they were still in the same position, only Jack was nuzzling gently at the angle where her neck met her shoulder. ‘So soft,’ he murmured.

‘I do not think I have any bones left,’ Lily confessed. ‘Jack, that was so wonderful. I do love you so much.’

‘I love you. I had no idea how much.’ He straightened up, gingerly. ‘I will try not to drop you.’ Unsteadily Lily regained her feet, looked down at herself, then regarded her lover.

‘Jack, look at us! We look like the cross between a carriage accident and an orgy!’

‘What do you know about orgies?’ He was buttoning his trousers and stuffing his shirt back in.

‘Nothing,’ Lily retorted demurely. ‘Although I hope to learn, providing one can have them with only two participants.’ She held up her borrowed trousers. ‘I do not think I can bear to put those on again.’

‘No.’ Jack regarded her, his expression a cross between desire and amusement. ‘How did you get to the mine?’

Lily explained, and was left to regain what composure she could while Jack rode off to get the gig. He drove her back, wrapped in his greatcoat, the grey hunter trotting along behind.

‘Miss France fell in the river,’ he explained blandly to the concerned grooms who hurried to greet them. ‘I must get her inside as soon as possible before she catches a chill. Give that bundle …’ he nodded towards the filthy clothes she had been wearing ‘… to my valet.’

The Great Hall was mercifully empty. Jack carried Lily through, and up the stairs. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To my room.’

‘But …’

‘Shh.’ Jack shouldered open the door, deposited Lily on the bed, locked the door and went through to what she assumed was the dressing room. There was the sound of voices. Lily scooted down under the greatcoat until Jack came back.

‘Who was that?’

‘My valet, who regrets that his lordship feels so tired that he must eat in his rooms tonight, and is so dirty that he needs a very large amount of hot water fetched for his bath and who will, of course, pass the message to Miss Lovell that her friend Miss France is so weary that she is retiring to bed and does not wish to be disturbed by anyone, not even her maid.’

‘Jack, you are outrageous.’

‘I can do what I like in my own castle.’ He smiled at her with unrepentant arrogance as he began to undress.

‘Jack—how did you overcome your scruples about my money?’ Lily sat up, trying not to stare. She had seen Jack stripped to the waist, she had just been as intimate with him as it was possible to be, but she had never seen him naked before—except for that fleeting glimpse when he had scandalised Aunt Herrick. She realised with a gulp that it was a good thing that she had not, because she might have suffered considerable apprehension if she had seen quite how … how masculine he was beforehand.

‘When you asked me why I could not sell my land, it made me realise just how rich—how blessed I was with what I had. That there was no inequality between us that I need consider, any more than you need feel inferior because of your birth. We both bring wealth to this union, but, infinitely more important, we bring love.’

Lily, struggling with the distraction of the powerful naked body so close to hers, smiled. ‘I thought my heart was broken when you said we should act as though there had been nothing between us. It was as though someone had snuffed out the light. I had not realised, but I was still hoping you might come to love me.’ In answer, he bent and kissed her eyelids, his lips gentle on the soft skin, his breath tickling the fine hairs at her temple. His hands moved down to the shoulders of her shirt. ‘Jack, what are you doing?’

‘Taking your clothes off. We will then have a bath. A long, hot, very soapy, very wet bath. I intend ensuring that every nook and cranny of your entirely lovely body is free from coal dust.’ He ran one hand, flat-palmed, down over the swell of her breast, making them both catch their breath.

‘I then mean to make love to you. At length and slowly and as many times as we can manage before daybreak. I have made love to you on the carpet. I have made love to you in a furious temper and I have made love to you against a tree. I think it is time I made love to my future countess in my own bed, in my own castle.

‘Lily, my love, is that a proposition which meets with your approval?’

Lily could feel the blush tingling all the way up from her toes. She dropped her eyes to cover the utterly immodest desire in them and murmured, ‘I believe so my lord. Naturally, I will be guided by you in such matters.’

‘Naturally,’ Jack said drily as he slid the straps of her camisole from her shoulders and leaned forward to trace the sensitive line of her collarbone with the tip of his tongue. ‘I look forward to seeing just how long this unnatural state of meekness lasts. Let me see now. Did I mention that I will expect my wife to give up all her business activities once we are married? I would not want you to trouble your feminine brain with all those nasty figures.’

‘I will do no such thing!’ Lily sat up so abruptly that the camisole fell down to her waist, producing a moan of erotic delight from Jack. ‘I have every intention—You are teasing me! Wretch!’

Jack caught her hands, raised to box his ears. ‘Yes, my love. Just teasing. Now I know I have my Lily back!’