Miss Dashing, page 15
“I’m glad you have a use for me,” Flavia said. “I’m not sure anybody else does.”
“Nonsense.” Portia patted her sister’s hand. “I’d be lost without you, dearest, and you know it.”
Phillip could see no light shining from beneath Hecate’s bedroom door, and his heart sank. Her benighted family had exhausted her, and the house party wasn’t half over. He didn’t risk even a soft tap, but rather, let himself into her bedroom, because she’d denied herself one of the apartments that included a sitting room.
“You came.” She rose from the wing chair before the hearth—no fire—and crossed to him in shadows. “I was afraid you’d fall asleep.”
“Not likely.” He enfolded her in a hug, taking a moment to revel in something as simple as an embrace. Simple and precious. “DeWitt deliberately drew out our chess game. He’s a good player too.”
Hecate bussed Phillip’s cheek and stepped back. “But you contrived to lose with good grace and not too much haste. You’re wearing boots. Good. Come along.”
Phillip normally eschewed even a nightshirt and would have felt ridiculous wafting along the corridors in dressing gown and slippers. He was thus attired in his farmer’s garb.
“Where are we going?” The conservatory called to him, a contrived replication of the out of doors and, in the middle of the night, reliably deserted.
“It’s a surprise. I hope you like it.” Hecate took up a dark blue merino shawl and swirled it about her shoulders.
Phillip offered his hand. “Lead on. I am your willing accomplice in all adventures.” Nonsense, though he meant every word.
Hecate led him down the maids’ stairs, through the conservatory, and onto the terrace where they’d first shared a meal. From there, she skirted the garden, crossed the arched bridge, and five minutes later, Phillip realized their destination was the newly scythed hayfield.
He realized a few other things too: Hecate had worn a pale blue ensemble at supper, but she’d changed into darker attire. Not so much as a golden earbob glinted in the light of the three-quarter moon. She was surefooted in the darkness, and though she wasn’t hurrying, she was covering ground.
Eager, then. Or nervous.
He was both. “I love that the robins sing even at night,” Phillip said, slipping his signet ring into his empty watch pocket. “Even in winter. They are tireless in their song, and I find that comforting.”
“A pretty song too.” Hecate struck out across the newly scythed grass. “Confident and clear. I will miss you when this house party is over.”
“I’ve no intention of becoming a stranger. Will you return to London?”
They topped a slight rise, and in the shallow depression below, Phillip could just make out the shapes of a dark blanket, a pair of pillows, and a wicker hamper.
“I thought I might break my journey in Berkshire,” Hecate said. “Pay a call on my good friend, the new Marchioness of Tavistock, and see how married life agrees with her.”
A bit of moonglow seeped into Phillip’s heart, silvery, soft, and wonderful. He enfolded Hecate in another hug. “You did, did you? Have you any other friends in the vicinity of Crosspatch Corners you’d like to call on?”
“I do, as it happens. What of you? Any acquaintances in Town you’d look in on as you prepare for the Little Season?”
She tucked close, Phillip rested his cheek against her temple, and life became a sweet progression of possibilities that could turn into sweeter memories.
“I want to court you properly,” he said, “to out-gentleman the fanciest gentlemen in Town so all of polite society knows that Miss Hecate Brompton has a very dedicated suitor.” For her, he’d make that effort and enjoy it.
“You needn’t.”
She was wrong. Mayfair’s dandies and matchmakers had lessons to learn when it came to their treatment of her, but Phillip would make that point some other time.
“Are we to enjoy a picnic by moonlight?”
Hecate kissed him lingeringly on the mouth. “The food is to keep up our strength.”
How he loved her practical nature. “Is that a threat?”
She kissed him again, adding a sinuous female undulation when she pressed close. “I want you, Phillip. Passionately. Kisses and conversation, as lovely as they are, will not do this time.”
Thank heavens for a lady who knew her own mind. “You shall have me.” He handed her onto the blanket, and Hecate set to removing her footwear with endearing dispatch. She knew all the etiquette and protocol in the world, but for the next few hours, she would jettison that nonsense and devote herself purely to being Phillip’s lover.
And he would devote himself to being hers. Hours. Ye heavenly angels. He took the place beside her and pulled off his boots and stockings.
“I love the smell of cut grass,” he said. “To me, that’s the fragrance of a winter safely passed, of the good earth giving forth what we need to thrive. Of a conscientious farmer keeping after his acres.”
“Your shaving soap has a hint of the same scent,” Hecate said, starting on a garter below her knee. “Along with the lavender, I can detect—”
Phillip shifted to face her on the blanket. “Allow me.”
She regarded him in the moonlight, her expression nearly solemn. She leaned back, bracing on her hands, and extended a silk-clad foot toward him. He grasped her arch, pressing gently against the bottom of her foot, and her eyes closed.
That subtle willingness to experience physical pleasure fortified him, and thus he made the simple exercise of removing her stockings into a prelude to passion. Hecate had lovely feet, delicate ankles, sturdy calves.
Phillip limited his explorations to that territory, rolling down her stockings, drawing the silk slowly over her flesh, and familiarizing himself by caresses and kisses with her particulars.
“A scar?” He traced a thin white line that trailed across her anklebone.
“I jumped into the creek when I was eight. My foot slipped on a rock, and that’s the result. No more jumping into creeks. I learned my lesson. When you touch me like that, my thoughts turn the consistency of honey.”
Phillip gently kneaded her calf a few more times for good measure. At some point, Hecate had lain flat on her back, and the picture she made, feet bare, skirts frothed above her knees, sent Phillip’s thoughts in a very sweet direction.
Before he became utterly witless, he sat back and unbuttoned his breeches.
Hecate watched and then made an impatient gesture with her hand.
“DeWitt says I have the dimensions of a pugilist.”
“I don’t care that,”—Hecate snapped her fingers, a crisp report in the darkness—“for what Mr. DeWitt says. I’m not sylphlike. One of my myriad failings. If my modiste mutters even one more time that we do as best we can with what heaven gives us, I shall smite her.”
“Sack her at least.” Phillip untied his cravat, shed his jacket, peeled out of his waistcoat, and pulled his shirt over his head in less than a minute. He’d been naked beneath the moonlight any number of times. Ending a summer day with a dip in the pond behind Lark’s Nest’s stable was a delightful pleasure and saved the household the bother of preparing a bath.
But those occasions behind the stable had never had his heart thumping a slow tattoo of desire, or hoping that the lady liked what she saw.
“My proportions are not gentlemanly,” he said, remaining seated two feet from where Hecate lay, “but the muscles are honestly come by.”
Hecate sat up and arranged herself tailor-fashion. “Phillip, gentlemen come in all shapes and sizes. It’s what’s in here,”—she smoothed a hand over his chest—“that makes the difference. A lady doesn’t plan moonlit seductions in a hayfield, but I could think of no better place to embark on this adventure with you. I saw you with your shirt off, swinging that blade, and I thought, ‘He pitched in without being asked. He did not stand on pride or appearances. He is precisely who he appears to be, and I adore him.’”
“And I adore you.” Phillip knelt up and kissed Hecate onto her back, then situated himself over her.
The kissing took on a different, more deliberate rhythm. By degrees, he got her skirts up around her waist, but at that point, Hecate patted his bum and gave him a little push.
Up you go. He was loath to allow even that much distance between them. They’d begun to move together, only the thin layers of her dress between them. To be skin to skin might well be too much, but Phillip had been entranced by the growing intimacy, part frustration, part pleasure.
Another little push, more insistent. He yielded to Hecate’s direction and levered up on all fours.
“I want my dress off. I want to be as naked as a pagan and twice as wanton.”
Wanton and Hecate Brompton were a lovely combination. She whisked off her clothing with the sort of determination Phillip had long associated with her and then sat, regally naked, and gave him her profile.
“Will I do?”
“Beyond my most passionate imaginings.” He gently tackled her, and she lashed her legs around his flanks. Phillip commanded himself to go slowly and cherishingly, even as he longed to ransack Hecate’s wits and reave her control.
The lady wasn’t having any of that go-slowly nonsense. She wiggled lower, shifting the fit between them, and on the next glide of her hips, she nearly took Phillip into her body.
“For God’s sake, woman.” He stilled and held himself away from her. “A moment.”
She stroked his hair back from his brow. “For God’s sake, man, another moment’s delay will wreck me.”
As Phillip commenced a slow nuzzle from her throat to her shoulder, he identified the source of the last increment of his hesitation. He was not concerned that he’d fall short as a gentleman. The situation had passed the point where any sort of propriety applied.
He was concerned that he’d fail her as a man. That she’d try his gaits, consider a lifetime in harness with him, and then let the pull of family obligations serve as her excuse for waving him on. His own father had found him wanting, his Crosspatch Corners neighbors considered him eccentric, and he’d left a trail of faux pas in Mayfair wider than the Thames.
“I want to get this right,” he said, lips pressed to Hecate’s brow.
“You already have. Please, Phillip.”
Never, ever did he want to hear Hecate begging. He gave himself up to the intoxicating pleasure of joining his body to hers, and the whole world came right.
Here, on the good earth, under the summer stars, the robins serenading the darkness, everything came right, and Phillip was home at last.
Chapter Eleven
The pleasure Phillip wrought with Hecate was beyond her wildest, most private imaginings. He was inexorable in his loving, relentless, like the approach of nightfall or a gathering storm.
Nothing distracted him, and to be the sole object of his adoring focus brought an intensity to his loving that scoured Hecate’s defenses. She fought for control even as she moved with him, fought for reason even as she grabbed with her entire body for bliss.
She lost those battles in a glorious cascade of sensation blended with emotion, a bonfire of oneness in pleasure, that by degrees became oneness in peace and no less wondrous. She was sweating—sweating—and naked beneath the stars and beneath Phillip, who had wrapped her close and cradled her gently against his chest.
Hecate kissed the nearest available part of him—his throat—and opened her eyes to behold the heavens over his shoulder.
“I’m crushing you.” His voice had acquired a lovely rasp.
“Don’t you dare move.”
He sighed and pressed his cheek to hers. That he’d await her pleasure even now, even in this, made Hecate tear up. Nobody took orders from her, nobody awaited her pleasure.
“If you farm half as well as you make love, then Lark’s Nest is the premier rural estate in all the world,” Hecate said, stroking his bum.
He kissed her cheek. “So well I’ve moved you to tears?”
She was warm and safe in his embrace, and yet, if he moved, if he got all brisk and satisfied, or rolled over and had himself a restorative nap, she’d dry her tears and be brisk right along with him.
Which her heart could not allow. This softness of spirit, the glow in her heart, was too precious to part with.
“I open my eyes after enduring the madness you visited upon me, Phillip, and I behold the stars. The entire heavens are awash in nocturnal splendor, and that is how I feel inside right now. It’s too much.”
Too much for a woman who’d devoted herself to ledgers, investments, allowances, and pensions because those had been the only means she’d had of mattering to her family. How little, how small she’d become, trying to fit into the narrow box they’d allotted her.
How exhausted and lonely. Spent.
I love you. The words welled with greater conviction than any Hecate had ever uttered, but she hesitated. Please don’t leave me crowded close behind them, and she would not spoil the moment with pleading.
“What if,” Phillip murmured near her ear, “I go only far enough to allow us to tidy up, and then we can admire the stars together, until my strength is restored? You have loved me to flinders, Hecate Brompton. I am a man at his last prayers, and they are prayers of gratitude.”
“If I had the strength to pray, mine would be as well.” Blasphemous, no doubt, to offer thanks for a tryst that was so much more than a stolen moment, but Hecate felt no remorse. In fact, she predicted more blasphemy in her immediate future and contemplated the prospect with relish.
Phillip produced a plain linen handkerchief from a jacket pocket, a white flag amid the night shadows, and dealt with practicalities. He rummaged in the wicker hamper, found the flask of lemonade, and passed it to Hecate.
“This was the right place,” he said as Hecate sat up to enjoy a drink. “The right hour, the right everything. I am so drunk with wonderment right now, you will have to lead me back to the manor house by slow, small steps.”
She passed him the flask, wishing Nunnsuch in all its grandeur far, far out along the Cornish coast, or perhaps over the cliffs and into the sea.
“You should find some sandwiches in the hamper.”
“I am more interested in holding you,” Phillip said, draping her shawl around her shoulders. “I need to, in fact, or I will waft away on the night breeze like so much thistledown. I am that inebriated on joy.”
The things he said. “Can’t have you wafting away.”
They arranged themselves like a pair of spoons, Hecate’s shawl over them both. The robin had gone silent, and the quiet was profound. Hecate pillowed her head on Phillip’s biceps, his arm about her waist.
“Sleep if you want to,” he said. “I’ll be here when you waken.”
Until the snowdrops bloomed. The marvel was not that he’d offer her such sentiments, but that she trusted what lay behind them. Phillip wouldn’t return to Lark’s Nest and consign her to the category of pleasant memory. He was in her life to stay and in her heart to stay.
“I love you,” Hecate said, just as a star dropped from the zenith of the firmament. A brief, surprising trail of light that blazed more brightly as it fell, then winked into darkness.
Phillip shifted over her, and Hecate rolled to her back.
“Again, please,” he said. “I want to see your eyes when all my dreams come true.”
“I love you,” she said. “I esteem, adore, desire, and respect you, et cetera and so forth, but the truth of my heart is that I love you.”
He brushed his thumb over her brow. “How you honor me. How you honor and decimate me.” He kissed her forehead, then her cheeks, then her mouth, a romantic benediction. “I love you, too, and I always will.”
Desire rose again, just as sweet and fierce, but less frantic, less anxious. Hecate gave up any pretense of control and bobbed along on a tide of pleasure, letting Phillip work out for them both the path to satisfaction. He took his time. He meandered and moseyed until Hecate was flailing against him, and then the heavens once more revealed their magnificence, and Hecate became a temple to shared, incandescent joy.
She dozed off, to her mild chagrin, while Phillip held her and stroked her hair. When she awoke, they needed those sandwiches she’d packed, and the robin was once again in good voice. Nights were so short in summer.
And so lovely.
“Do we return the hamper and blanket to the kitchen?” Phillip asked when he’d assisted Hecate to dress and shrugged into his own clothing.
“We do not. I haven’t the strength, and there’s no need.” Hecate brushed her fingers through his hair and contemplated the monumental effort involved in getting to her feet. She was leaving the blanket a different woman from the person who’d lain down upon it just a few hours previously.
A happier woman, a more loving woman.
Phillip rose, stretched, and offered her a hand. He had her on her feet as easily as if he were plucking daisies, and then he hugged her.
“Never, ever will I forget the miracle of this night. You are a marvel, Hecate, and that you’d look with favor upon me to this extent… I am agog.”
“The marvel is mutual.” She hugged him back and knew they should be returning to the house. “Will I see you at breakfast?”
He brushed his fingers over her knuckles. “If only we could return here for breakfast or, better yet, never leave this place. You will think me a coward, but I do not want to face the people you call family.”
“I haven’t wanted to face them for years, but you have fortified me. I’m moving you to the summer cottage.”
Phillip began their progress across the field, hand in hand. “Does this summer cottage enjoy privacy?”
Hecate halted. “As a matter of fact, it does. A great deal of privacy. It sits across the park from the stream, shaded by tall maples and out of sight of the garden.”
They shared a smile, and Hecate’s steps were lighter as she resumed walking.
“Why am I to have the great boon of private quarters?”
“Papa’s arrival has thrown the arrangements into disarray, and you might recall that there’s some possibility another cousin will show up in the near term. I don’t have a specific date.”
