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The glint in his eyes caught her by surprise. So he wouldn’t be scandalised if she’d done so? She’d pegged him as having a rather entrenched attitude towards behaviour that followed societal expectations.
Without warning, he leapt into the saddle—the one he’d transferred from his previous mount. “Come, Miss Montrose. I’ll take you up in front. I promise I shan’t tell and, as you say, in the dark no one will see.”
A skittering of nerves ran through her as she stared at his extended hand. The idea was appealing. Too appealing. She knew she should resist, but she gripped his large, warm hand all the same, and he hoisted her up onto the saddle in front, his arms curving around her as he took the reins.
The sensation of enveloping, manly warmth was so unexpectedly and sinfully delicious, Eliza didn’t know what to say or do. She shouldn’t be in such a position, and yet it was quite the most exquisite feeling she’d enjoyed almost for as long as she could remember. Well, for seven years, that at least was true.
“Are you comfortable, Miss Montrose?” His voice warmed her ear while the rest of him did far more than that.
“Mmm-hmmm,” she managed, resisting the urge to snuggle more deeply into his embrace for she must not give him the impression that she liked the closeness as much as she did. This was for expediency only. She had stubbornly insisted on going out on this final trip to stable Devil’s Run for she’d not see him again for some time, while he had simply wanted to get them there faster so he could return to the White Swan to get some rest before riding the horse back to Quamby House.
They travelled at a gentle pace, and Eliza couldn’t decide whether Mr Patmore’s arms were more familiarly wrapped about her than was warranted, and wished she didn’t hope that they were.
Any gentleman in his position would be acting just as he was, and the warmth churning in her body was simply a reaction to the fact that it had been so long since she’d actually felt a man’s hands upon her.
Better get used to it, she thought with a stab of despair as she called to mind Mr Bramley, whose hands would be all over her soon. For even if her aunt didn’t make Eliza her beneficiary, Eliza planned to use every bargaining tool at her fingertips to persuade him she was a good proposition. She had to, and she must not let any feelings for Mr Patmore divert her. Mr Bramley must be part of her future if Gideon was ever to be.
A smattering of rain took her by surprise, and she gasped. Or was it that his body suddenly seemed so much closer against hers as he spoke
above the noise of galloping hooves and rising wind.
“We’ll have to hurry!” His voice was right in her ear. Intimate. Unnervingly so. “Hold on!”
He hunched over her as they flew over the undulating ground, while the wind whipped their faces and the rain quickened.
It was the most thrilling sensation Eliza could remember.
He slowed to a stop outside the stables then dismounted, raising his arms to take her down, and she slithered off the back of Devil’s Ride and into his embrace. Perhaps he’d have let her go had a gust of wind not whipped Eliza’s hair across her eyes. With one hand still upon her waist, he lowered his head a little and gently untangled her unruly tresses.
Perhaps, in the glow of moonlight, he saw the spark in her eyes that reflected his own feelings, for something in his expression flared. There was a split second of arrested awareness before a subtle shifting in the mood between them, then the sharp excitement of melding bodies, arms entwined, and mouths unexpectedly fused in a kiss. She didn’t withdraw. Instead, the jolt of something come to life within sent Eliza into the abyss; her mind a mass of coalescing thoughts; her body a jumble of nerve endings as she clung to him.
Another smattering of rain caused them to break apart, then her hand was in his, the reins of Devil’s Run in his other, and she was stumbling after him. He hurried them both into the stables, Eliza in his arms again before he’d even sent home the bolt.
And as she stumbled backwards, her arms twined round his neck, she wasn’t sure whether she’d put them there to steady herself, or through base desire, but that was a question for another time.
All that was important was the here and now; an array of sensory delights in which to indulge for a mindless eternity, or a quick and satisfying five minutes. Her body was on fire like it hadn’t been for years, but the reminder of how she’d once responded to a man when her heart was engaged was like a drug.
His cheek was rough as she ran her mouth across its angular plane to kiss the smoothness beneath his eye; her nipples burned with excitement and want, perhaps more through the urge that he touch her there as she silently willed that he dispense with restraint.
With one arm around her waist, he swung her onto a hay bale, resting her on her back while he leant over her, cupping her cheek, kissing her lips and, oh joy, cupping her all-too-sensitive breast as he trailed kisses across her décolletage before hungrily kissing her mouth.
Eliza held him close, pushing her body against his, all but drowning in a long-forgotten abandonment that made her weak and loose-limbed with longing.
Her skirts had rucked up to her knees, and with her legs freed of the usual restraint, it felt only a natural progression to hook them about his waist, for he’d surely need no more prompting than to carry this to its natural conclusion. If Eliza had only this one opportunity to answer to a passion she may never again experience, she was mindless enough to do what was needed to spur him on.
It had entirely the opposite effect.
Raising himself, a chill draft swept between them as Mr Patmore withdrew his mouth from where she was sure he was heading once more to her breast. An aching chasm of disappointment filled the place where seconds before thrilling desire had pumped through her lonely heart just now come to life.
“I’m sorry!” He said the words a fraction of a moment before they’d have spilled from her own lips, and perhaps that was best so she’d not sound so ashamed, diminished and needy; all three of which threatened to choke her with mortification.
He helped her to her feet, brushing the hay from her skirts, gently withdrawing yellow stalks from her hair while she stared at the moonlight streaming through the window, and wondered if she’d ever feel the way she had just now.
Alive. Like she’d felt during the gallop to the stables, and here in the stables in Mr Patmore’s arms, feeling the weight of his hard, masculine, dependable body upon hers, and the sensations that coursed through her when his mouth touched her skin.
Chapter 10
Rufus blinked at the young woman who’d just turned him from a man of restraint—a characteristic upon which he prided himself—into a lust-crazed young buck. How could he have forgotten himself to such a degree? Only just had he drawn back from the brink of dishonouring her, to put not too fine a point upon it. She was an unmarried young woman betrothed to another, and he had been set to seduce her until, fortunately, a rush of rational thought had saved them both.
