Page 36 of Unmasked by the Marquess
“Are you laughing, Robin?”Thrust.“Scamp.”Thrust.“No sense of gravity at all.” His voice was warm and rough, barely more than breath, and so very close to her ear.
“Maybe.” She tightened around him again, just to hear him swear. And then her pleasure began to crest again, so she let it, and she did laugh. Just a little, and mainly from happiness.
He let himself go then, pounding into her hard and fast, a few quick thrusts before withdrawing on a curse and taking himself in hand. She watched him spill onto the sheets beside her.
Instead of lying down, he knelt there, seemingly dazed. He was wonderfully disheveled now, his cravat a wrinkled mess and his shirtsleeves askew.
“We ought to have been doing this for weeks,” he said, and the way his words mirrored her own thoughts made her sit up and climb onto his lap. She straddled his legs, lowering her mouth to his and unfastening every button she could get her hands on. She stopped kissing him only when he was as naked as she was and they were sprawled side by side.
She traced her fingers along the furrow of his chest, playing with the dark hair that dusted his lean muscles. But as her heart slowed to a normal rhythm and her body cooled off, she started to feel an uneasiness steal over her.
“You’re not about to throw me into the street in a fit of regret?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t throw you into the street under any circumstances. You ought to have grasped that by now.”
“Not even because I’m a fraud?” It was likely pathetic, this need for reassurance, especially since she couldn’t imagine what he could possibly say to reassure her.
He stared at the ceiling, the moment stretching out perilously far. “You aren’t a fraud.” His words came slowly, consideringly. “I don’t know what the right course of action was in your circumstances, so I don’t know that you’ve chosen the wrong one.” He pulled her closer, until her head rested on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her, strong and sure.
She wasn’t done yet, though.
“Not even because I’m low-born? A housemaid, a foundling.”
“Ha! I wish you were anything as dignified as a foundling.” His voice was somehow both lazy and haughty, and his hand absently stroked her back. “I’ve quite made up my mind that what you are is a changeling. Some very proper and well-behaved child was snatched away by the fairies and you were put in the cradle in her stead. That’s the only explanation for the mischief you’ve wrought among us mortals.”
A changeling. She liked the sound of that, as silly as it was. She had been in between for so long. Neither man nor woman, neither servant nor gentlefolk. Neither fraud nor honest.
“Seriously though, Robin. What more do you need me to tell you? I’m not good at guessing games. Tell me, and I’ll say it.”
There wasn’t anything. There couldn’t be. She climbed on top of him. “This,” she said, leaning down for a kiss. “Only this.”
Chapter Eleven
Alistair went to Broughton with the hope that being at his ancestral seat would bring him to his senses.
He ordered his post chaise almost as soon as Robin left his bed, so early that the sun had hardly risen. The horses were hitched, the portmanteau was packed, and Alistair, settled against the squabs, could still smell Robin on his skin. He took a deep, reluctant breath. It was her usual green scent, like a spring copse, but this time mixed with sweat and desire. So this was the scent of everything he’d never have, of everything he didn’t even know how to wish for.
On second thought, he wasn’t sure if the scent was on his skin or only in his imagination. It hardly mattered. Olfactory hallucinations weren’t any more troubling than the fact that he had thrown caution to the wind for an entire night. He had not only gone to bed with Robin, but lying in bed with her afterward, talking and touching, he had allowed himself to believe they could go on in such a way. Worse, he had allowed her to believe it too.
He arrived at Broughton Abbey long after nightfall, stiff and cold and very irritated with himself. He had chosen Broughton rather than the place in Kent despite the journey to Shropshire taking an entire day and the house itself lacking nearly all comforts. For most of the year the chimneys smoked and for the rest of the year the house reeked of damp. He had never known a meal to arrive on the table while still hot, the ancient kitchens being located far from the equally ancient dining room. One of the wings was literally a crumbled ruin, which had been entertaining to explore as a child but he now understood to be little more than a breeding ground for vermin.
But this was the de Lacey family seat, in the family’s possession since the monks had been tossed out some centuries earlier. Alistair hoped the cold gray stone and drafty passageways would remind him of what he owed future generations of de Laceys: honor, security, living up to one’s obligations. These things mattered more than pleasure, more than whatever he had let himself feel with Robin in his arms.
The housekeeper was exceedingly pleased with herself for having kept a few rooms in a state of readiness. Alistair was pleased with her as well, because there was a fire blazing in his bedchamber and freshly aired linens on his bed. He drank his wine—his father had, if nothing else, kept the cellars stocked—and climbed into the vast oaken monstrosity of a bed.
Some forgotten de Lacey ancestor had caused the family coat of arms to be painted on the wall facing the bed. It was the usual dragons—or were they unicorns?—and some coronets.Nil Penna Sed Usus, the motto read. The translation, as far as Alistair could tell, was “Not the pen but its use,” but he had always been fairly certain this was a Renaissance-era cock joke. Leave it to the de Laceys to let it all come back to that. Penises and comedy. Quite possibly this enormous bed had been constructed for orgies—andnowhow was he supposed to sleep? Perhaps coming to this house had not been the right idea.
But no. He was not looking to the past but to the future. He had rescued his name and his legacy, he had paid off creditors, he had honored pensions and annuities. He had taken up his seat in the House of Lords and presented himself around town as a respectable gentleman. Now that the property was reasonably solvent, he would finance grammar schools and new cottages, repair the roads and put new steeples on the churches.
He would leave no bastards, no string of discarded mistresses. There would be no disgraceful marriage, no rumors attached to his name.
There was no room for Robin in this plan.
He rolled over, trying to find a comfortable place on the bed, but he already knew there was none. Had he come to this monument to failed nobility and aristocratic dissipation as a kind of penance? Were the abominable chimneys and lumpy mattresses a way to atone for the pleasure he had last night?
Last night.His cock twitched at the memory. So much for penance. He had wanted to hold her forever, to sink into her body again and again, to make her laugh and moan and shudder. He wanted his fill of whatever comfort she was offering, and he wanted to give the same to her.
For his entire life, whenever he encountered a fork in the road where duty and righteousness lay to one side and pleasure to the other, he took the path of duty. He always chose the path he thought his father would not have chosen. It was little more than a primitive reflex. He had prided himself on his strict adherence to propriety, but now saw that there was nothing noble or praiseworthy in such a rote response. And suddenly that did not seem like a good enough reason to take a path that led away from Robin.
