Page 10 of Joy to the Earl

“Almost the Earl of Lynthorpe…” he replied, then winced and pressed his hands to his temples as if in pain.

“Jack? Are you well?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Who the hell is the Earl of Lynthorpe? And why do I know his name?”

“I’ve heard the title bandied about here and there, but certainly haven’t met him,” she said thoughtfully. “Wait, the carriage you were in had a crest. Perhaps your employer was Lord Lynthorpe? He was very well dressed in the latest fashion. Oh no. We’ll need to get word to London as soon as possible to inform his family what has happened. How awful. Do you know where the family lives?”

Jack paled further. “No. That was bizarre. The words came out of my mouth and I saw the man in my mind. And then he was gone and no matter how hard I tried to remember, I couldn’t see him. Maybe I hadn’t been working for him for very long? I feel like I should know far more about him than I do. And my damned head is aching…hell…”

He wobbled on his feet, and with a cry of alarm, Rosalind sprinted across the room, just managing to push him onto the edge of the bed before he collapsed in a heap. “Put your head down,” she said sternly, sitting beside him. “Toward your knees.”

His head dipped immediately, and she couldn’t resist gently massaging the back of his neck, enjoying the silken feel of his collar-length blond hair against her fingers.

“I’m not normally this feeble,” he muttered, but didn’t move from his spot, in fact flexing his shoulders so she had better access to his neck. Well. It seemed Jack Reynolds rather liked being touched.

Lifting her other hand, she pressed her fingertips into the base of his skull and rubbed his lower scalp, careful to avoid the wound site, smiling when he let out a faint groan. “How is that?”

“Stop.”

Bewildered, Rosalind pulled her hands away, and he took them in his, brushing a kiss over each of her knuckles. Incredibly, heat surged through her entire body, and she shifted on the bed as her nipples began to harden. “Again. Please, Jack, again.”

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.

“Wait. Why?”

“Just close them. It will be better.”

Obediently, she did so, and a moment later his lips brushed hers. Slowly. Tentatively. As though he were learning her mouth. Then one big hand cupped her cheek and he kissed her more firmly, his hard lips moving sensually against hers. Oh God. If he did that to her nipples, she would come from that alone.

Keeping her eyes closed but unable to sit still a moment longer, Rosalind found his shoulders with her hands, braced herself, then twisted and slid onto his lap, one knee either side of his thighs. Then she wound her arms about his neck, the position allowing her to press her breasts against his massive chest and begin a light, circling friction.

“Mmmm,” she moaned in delight as his mouth reclaimed hers and the tip of his tongue flicked her lips. In response, she opened her mouth, darting her own tongue out and rubbing it against his.

“You are so beautiful,” he said hoarsely between kisses, his lips becoming more forceful with each one, his embrace slightly tighter, like he was progressing through the steps of a manual describing the perfect kiss.

Again that nagging feeling of something not right tugged at her, and she opened her eyes. To see his close up and in full light, one the blue of a perfect summer sky and the other a rich moss green.

“Your eyes,” she whispered, stunned and charmed at the same time with the unusual attractiveness of the combination.

Jack went rigid, and abruptly she found herself sitting on the bed again while he stood several feet away from her, his fists clenching and unclenching. “Don’t worry. I won’t infect you or anyone else. I haven’t yet.”

“What?” Rosalind said in consternation, as his face deadened into the expression of someone about to face a battle they were long weary of. “Jack, I—”

“Watch me walk,” he said savagely as he limped across the room toward the door in a manner achingly similar to Fliss. “Nothing to do with the accident you say I was in. My left hip has been bad for as long as I can remember. Now you understand why I was kept away from people, for my own good. Nobody wants to see a monster. And the last thing I need from a woman like you is goddamned pity touching.”

Pity touching?

The man who’d had her in a constant state of arousal since she’d met him thought she wrapped herself around him out of pity?

Her jaw dropped at the staggering accusation. “Jack Reynolds, you come back here right this minute!”

But he was gone.

Chapter 3

There was something incredibly soothing about physical labor.

Wiping his sweat-lined forehead with his shirtsleeve, Jack glanced at the pile of planks he’d sawn and planed in preparation for constructing new side fences for the first and third stalls in the main stable building. The stables were not in good shape at all, with patches of damp, rotting timber, and broken stone in several places. Really, the roof needed repairs as well, but that was beyond his expertise. Besides the fact that trying to clamber up onto an uneven roof with an unstable leg was a disaster waiting to happen.