A Falling Star, page 43
part #3 of Wintercombe Series
It was unquestionably Alex, back with a vengeance. She had seen that look on his face before, and inexorably, despite her earlier resolution, the answer began to beat a pulse through her own blood. She gave him a rather shaky smile, and said very softly, ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I have a sore head,’ Alex told her. Her arms still encircled him, and she had pins and needles in her hand. She tried to extricate herself, and sit up, but he pulled her back towards him, his face so close to hers that she could hardly focus on it. ‘Sweet Louise, I am well aware of how much I owe you for today — so will you not accept at least one token of my gratitude?’
She drew back her head a little, staring down at him, and knew suddenly that she was lost. Resistance was futile, she had known it in her heart all along: the attraction between them was so powerful and compelling that delay had only served to heighten their desires, rather than to quell them. And in the aftermath of danger and battle, and the uncertainty of the future, with no one to know or to see, what did her reputation matter, concealed in a cowshed with the man who had filled her thoughts for the last four months?
Her eyes suddenly sparkling with joyful mischief, she bent her head and pressed her lips to his. He responded instantly, with a forcefulness and urgency that roused a similar passion in herself. As they kissed, his hands caressed her shoulders and then swept lower, pulling the lacings of her bodice undone. The narrow belt followed with experienced speed, and then he was fondling her breasts. She moaned softly with pleasure, her own hands, slightly less practised, struggling with the innumerable buttons on his waistcoat, and unexpectedly he gave a grunt of laughter. ‘Shouldn’t have worn this,’ he whispered, in between kisses sliding deliciously lower — neck, shoulders, breasts, nipples. ‘My Puritan suit — takes half an hour to get it off!’
With rather breathless, interrupted laughter, she managed to pull the garment off him, ripping the last few buttons in her haste. Then he was kneeling astride her, his face alight with desire, his hands exploring, touching, rousing her, while she, no less bold, unbuttoned his breeches with rather more ease than the waistcoat, and pulled them down.
‘Puritan coat — but a gallant’s breeches!’ Alex said with a gasp, as her fingers roved freely down his body, and then there was no more waiting, he was inside her, and she forgot everything — the tickling hay, the guns, the fear and the fighting in the glorious and passionate sensations filling her mind and body, bringing her swiftly to a wild explosion of pleasure that made her cry out in delight, and brought him to his own climax almost simultaneously.
It was worth it, she thought, lying buried in the hay, wondering if she was going to sneeze, with a wonderful sensuous afterglow settling in her loins. Worth all the waiting, the temptation, and the risk. She opened her eyes and saw him looking down at her, his face still very pale and thoughtful. For a long, silent moment, their gazes held, and for the first time she saw him as he truly was, without deception or malice or mockery, a man who had made love to her with passion and laughter, and treated her as his equal in desire. And in that moment, irrevocably, her feelings for him altered and became something much deeper, and stronger, and more binding than the brief fierce physical attraction that had brought them together.
It was a discovery at once terrifying and utterly glorious, and she gave him a smile that, unknowing, revealed far more than she would have wished.
‘There’s no doubt of it, a hay heap is not the perfect site for a tumble that it’s supposed to be,’ Alex observed. He propped himself on his elbows and grinned. ‘I tremble to think where stray seeds and stalks have lodged themselves, and I’ll swear there’s a thistle in here somewhere.’
‘There is — I’m lying on it,’ Louise said. ‘But at least we did not perform for an audience of bullocks.’
He glanced round, but there was, thankfully, no sign of them. ‘I’m surprised — we were not precisely quiet.’ Slowly, his fingers coiled a lock of her dark hair, and then traced the sharp, slender lines of her face. ‘How ridiculous all these garments are — they take an age to put on and a century to remove, and the greater the urgency, the more time it seems to take… In that respect at least, heathen savages have an enormous advantage over us, who are supposedly more civilised.’
‘But hardly practical, in this weather,’ Louise reminded him. She was acutely conscious of his warmth, around and inside her, and the unfamiliar traces of tenderness on his face made her blood sing. In this moment, their minds seemed as close as their bodies, totally absorbed in each other, without pretence or artifice. He stroked her breasts with a gentle finger, and at once the passion, unslaked after all, flared into brilliant life. She gave a whimper of desire, and moved involuntarily under him. Slowly, his eyes holding hers, he bent his head to kiss her, and his body began a slow, luxurious rhythm against hers.
This time, it was lingering, teasing, bringing each other to the edge of ecstasy and then pausing there, savouring the moment, knowing that the final, shattering, glorious fall would engulf them both, whenever they wished. And when neither of them could hold back any longer, the fantastic rush of pleasure overwhelmed them together and then slowly ebbed, leaving them stranded, gasping, amazed.
She saw his face, so close to hers, flushed in delight and wonder, and her heart turned over with something that, at this moment, she did not want to acknowledge. She gave him a rather bemused smile, and saw the answer leap in his eyes, and knew her power over him.
‘Oh, Louise, ma chère Louise, tu es merveilleuse,’ he said, very softly, and kissed her. ‘And I warn you, I don’t think I can stop, now that we’ve begun — I shall want you tonight, and the next night, and the next, like a drug…and keeping it secret will not be easy.’
At that moment, she would happily have proclaimed from the rooftops the fact that they were now lovers, but she knew that to do so would be unwise, to say the least. And she knew also that, like him, their lovemaking had only served to increase her desire. The thought of it, of going to his chamber to enjoy him in the warmth and comfort and hay-free privacy of his bed, was deliciously exciting. She said, ‘We’ll manage, somehow — as long as we can keep our hands from each other in company.’
‘The most difficult task of all,’ Alex said. His eyes considered her, lazily amused, some of the usual irony restored. ‘Now I know why your mama packed you off to England — you must have set the Loire aflame from end to end.’
Louise grinned. ‘It was a very small blaze — but there was some scandal.’ She paused, wondering if she should tell him the truth: he was not, after all, going to give her a list of his previous lovers. But of course, she reminded herself, his were probably too numerous to count or to remember: whereas she had had only the one.
‘He was married, and twice my age,’ she added reminiscently. ‘And I regret to say that he did not seduce me — rather, it was the other way about.’
Alex did not seem shocked or horrified: he grinned. ‘I can well imagine it, sweet Louise. Did you love him?’
Louise opened her chestnut eyes very wide. ‘Love? That did not come into it. Lust, rather. He was handsome, accomplished and amusing, and I wanted him. So I set out to attract him…and succeeded.’
‘You must have learned well,’ Alex commented. ‘And when you put your skills into practice, you are breath-taking… Does my beloved Aunt Silence know that she is responsible for such a dangerous grenado?’
‘I fear,’ Louise said demurely, ‘that Maman was less than honest with her, or with Uncle Nat. Gran’mère knows that there was a scandal, but she was not told the whole truth — although she might have guessed some of it. She has been very concerned to keep me away from you.’
‘I am delighted that she did not succeed in the end,’ Alex said. He paused, looking down at her thoughtfully, and then added, ‘Did you think that I would care that you were no virgin?’
‘No virgin would have done what I did just now,’ Louise reminded him. Alex snorted. ‘True enough — but no answer. Did you think that I would mind?’
Louise looked at him. ‘No,’ she said briefly. ‘You’re not the kind who collects maidenheads to notch up the tally on his bedpost.’
Alex grinned. ‘How right you are. That has never been my desire — my only wish is to find a woman who is not afraid, or inhibited, or suffering from coyness or false modesty, who can recognise that love is a game played between adults, and that the only rules are honesty, and fairness, and consideration. Have I found her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Louise said, her eyes searching his face. ‘I’m no paragon of any kind of virtue — and neither are you. But I don’t think that either of us is prey to very many illusions, do you?’
‘I doubt it, somehow,’ said Alex. ‘And I think that we have both been hurt in the past, and will do our best to avoid it in the future. And so, sweet Louise, is my memory of you to remain forever wreathed in hay and headache and gunfire, or are you willing to continue what we have begun so unconventionally and delightfully?’
Louise smiled. ‘Do you doubt your own powers so much? Of course I will, but on one condition only — that we keep it a secret, with as much care and discretion as possible. Even in Wintercombe it should not be too difficult.’ She saw something in his face and added, ‘There are too many people who would be hurt, perhaps grievously so, if we flaunted it openly. And besides, although with your reputation no one would be surprised, my good name is a slightly more fragile affair.’
‘Charles, and Amy,’ said Alex. ‘I had of course noticed the sheep’s eyes that Charles has been making at you — almost as conspicuously as his sister’s rolling in my direction.’
The careless contempt in his voice stung her and shattered the mood of intimacy. She said, ‘He has been a good friend to me, and I intend that he remain so — but no more than that. And you cannot deny that you have treated him abominably, despite that house in Bath — if he ever takes up residence in it.’ She saw his eyes narrow, and added, ‘And Lukas too, of course — he must be considered.’
If he realised her deliberate attempt to avert a quarrel, he gave no sign, but his face softened suddenly, and he smiled. ‘Lukas would be pleased. He has a great liking for you.’
‘And I for him,’ Louise said. ‘But he is devoted to you, and I do not want to come between you.’
‘You won’t,’ Alex told her, and touched her cheek. ‘You occupy quite different compartments of my life…’ He rolled away from her and sat up, chewing rustically on a hay stalk. ‘And I suppose that we must give some thought to the immediate future. It might be wise if it were not generally known what I have been doing today.’
‘Before the cowshed? Or inside it?’ Louise enquired tartly. She stretched luxuriously, cat-like and unashamed of her lean, small-breasted body, and saw him looking at her. ‘Cover yourself, woman, or I’ll succumb to my baser instincts once more,’ Alex said, grinning, and tossed her the discarded belt, lying almost buried beside him. As she pulled up her laces and adjusted the concealing folds of her chemise, he pulled on breeches and waistcoat, with a grimace. ‘Damp clothes are the very devil. In answer to your question — both before and inside it: as you say, your good name should be protected, although I’ve long since ceased to care about mine. But my evil reputation is one thing — taking part in rebellion is quite another.’
‘Why?’ Louise asked him curiously. She hauled her stockings back to their usual level, and fumbled in the hay for her shoes. ‘After all your talk — why did you join them?’
Alex sat on his heels, a distinctly rueful expression on his face. ‘Would you believe that I don’t know? I don’t honestly know — and my memory of it is a little vague, anyway, that blow on the head dislocated my wits a trifle.’
‘More than a trifle,’ Louise told him. ‘When I found you, I don’t think you knew where you were, or what had happened.’
‘I didn’t — but I can recall some of it, now that I have the space to think about it without your alluring distractions. I went to find out what was happening — I saw Bram, and spoke to him, and there was, I think, some remark made by one of his comrades — and then we were caught up in a rebel charge, and somehow, I can’t quite remember how, there was a sword in my hand and I was fighting alongside them.’
Louise sensed that he was not telling her the entire truth, and that perhaps he recalled it rather more clearly than he had indicated. She said, ‘There were two dead men where I found you, a rebel and a King’s soldier.’
Alex shook his head. ‘No, I can’t remember anything except charging with the rest — perhaps it’s just as well.’ He picked up his coat, which was sadly muddied and still wet, and looked at it with distaste. ‘I shall have to give some account of myself at Wintercombe, I suppose — fortunately, the only person there who would certainly not be deceived is Phoebe, and she would never betray me.’
‘I had thought,’ Louise said, glancing at him mischievously, ‘that I could put the tale about that you had spent the day in the George, prevented from returning by the fighting, and attempting to drink one of Master Prescott’s barrels dry.’
Alex laughed. ‘In view of my headache, I rather wish that I had — but then the delightful events of the past couple of hours would never have happened, and I would not have foregone this for anyone, not even the King himself.’ He got to his feet, and stretched out a hand to her. ‘May I assist you to rise, Mistress Chevalier?’
Smiling, she took it, and was hauled to her feet, and into his arms. For a moment they stayed locked close together, balancing rather precariously on the heaped hay, and she saw again in his face that unaccustomed, unlooked-for tenderness, and her heart melted. ‘I have not thanked you,’ Alex said very softly. ‘Perhaps you saved my life — and you certainly rescued me from probable denunciation and imprisonment, at the least. And I shall be for ever in your debt, sweet Louise, both for that, and for allowing me to take advantage of your wonderfully delightful attractions.’ He kissed her mouth, very gently, and pulled her closer. She laid her head against his shoulder, feeling the damp prickly cloth of the grey coat that had led her to him, and the warmth and strength hidden beneath, and, deeper within, the powerful, steady beat of his heart. And she wondered, with excitement and also with apprehension, what the future would bring to them.
Outside the cowshed, one of the bullocks lowed suddenly, making her jump. She nearly lost her balance, but Alex held her, laughing. ‘I think it’s time we went, before some astonished yokel discovers us. And we must agree, first, on our story.’
Louise had her suggestions ready. ‘We spent the day sheltering from the fighting in the George. I was there for some hours anyway, in the company of Mistress Prescott — so it is almost the truth. But you will have to speak to her, and to Harry, for he knows that I was looking for you, and that you had been seen in the thick of the fighting.’
‘He’s a good sort, Harry — we’ve sunk many a pot of beer or cider together,’ Alex said. ‘He will certainly agree to lie on my behalf, if it ever becomes necessary. So — it seems that I had best return to the George, while you go on to Wintercombe — where they will all certainly be frantic with worry. And since I doubt very much if Mistress Prescott has hay on her floor or her chairs, I shall have to brush you down.’
She stood, her hands braced against the stone wall, as he picked strands and seeds from her hair, her gown and her laces, and then shook out her maltreated Brandenburg in a cloud of dust and stalks. Inside it once more, she felt almost respectable.
‘That’s better,’ Alex said, surveying her critically. ‘You hardly look as if you had spent an hour or two rolling in the hay with your lover. But I hope your maid is discreet — there’s bound to be a great deal of evidence in places that I cannot reach at present, much as I’d like to.’
‘You’re not exactly hay-free yourself,’ Louise told him, performing a similar service. Her hand unwarily brushed the crusted gash on the side of his head, and he winced involuntarily. ‘Christ, that hurts!’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Louise said. She could not see the wound in this gloomy light, but was certain that, despite the thickness of his dark hair, it would be quite conspicuous to anyone who gave him even a casual glance. ‘It feels quite deep, and it’s bled considerably. You’ll have to find some way of cleaning it, making it less noticeable, or your story will be suspect.’
‘I’ll do it at the George,’ Alex said. He looked at her, and his hands caressed her face again, as if he could not keep from touching her. ‘Have you noticed something? Listen!’
There was no sound but the soft relentless hiss of rain on thatch and grass. Louise stared at him, puzzled, and then realised what he meant. ‘The guns — the guns have stopped!’
‘Yes — and what that means, I have no idea. It could be the signal for a withdrawal, or an attack, or even just because they’ve run out of powder or shot. So you, alas, had better go home now, and quickly, before anything further happens.’
‘I will,’ Louise said, and found, to her surprise, that at this vital moment she did not want to be parted from him. But she must, or their secret would be revealed; so she reached up and kissed him on the lips, both a reminder and a promise, feeling his response to her flare up again. She was confident of her power of attraction, the sensual allure of a face and body that were not conventionally beautiful, but could awaken desire whenever she wished. He would not easily forget her or discard her, for the passion burned between them like a flame.
She slipped away from the cowshed, an unlikely and humble setting for such overwhelming emotion, and made her way down the muddy, empty lane towards Wintercombe, in steady rain. Yes, she had ensnared him, already he was hungry for her body again, and the thought of the coming nights, the slaking of desire, over and over, made her weak with anticipation.
But now, she wanted more than lust: she wanted him to feel more for her than affection, tenderness, more even than that engulfing desire that had consumed them both that afternoon.
