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His breath on her jaw, his lips on her ear… She slid a hand down her belly to her feminine place—she corrected herself immediately. She would not allow her clients to resort to euphemism, and she would not allow it in herself. Her fingers slid into her vulva and teased her clitoris. There. Adult terms for an adult woman.
But she mustn’t be doing very well if she was thinking so clinically.
She rolled onto her side, facing the window, open for a bit of night air.Do not dwell on the healthful benefits of night air, Tabitha!she scolded herself. No: she’d think of how the night air had brushed over her face as the duke held her hand and led her up the rocks, how his palm in hers was so warm and firm, how long his back was and how muscular his side. How he had protected her from the gaze of the wolf, how his biceps pressed against her shoulder and flexed when he moved her closer to him, oh, and again, his lips on her ear, how they caressed her skin, and his voice, that gravelly, rumbling, manly voice, whispering her name… What if they hadn’t been interrupted, and what if she had turned toward him, onto her side, and her breasts pressed against him, what if he had rolled her over onto her back, slid a thigh between her legs, leaned down, rubbed her cheek with his, oh God, those lashes fluttering over his changeable hazel eyes, brushing against her skin—
Her release crashed through her at the thought of touching his face, running a finger over those lashes, of his hips grinding against hers, and true to her prescription, she came and fell almost directly into a deep sleep.
Ten
“I thought it amusing, to leave a plant? Because I attempted subterfuge on Ostara Eve and said I had located a plant she had been looking for. It is amusing, is it not?” As perceptive as Delilah was, there was only so far she could go to offer her opinion. At least as regarded speech; the mare’s expression was dubious.
It was amusing, Alwyn was sure of it. Perhaps he would tell Miss Barrington how he snuck into the kitchen garden up at the Hall and sent that French cook into hysterics. What the man was doing out there in the middle of the night was anyone’s guess. He had been pillaging the basil when the Frenchman appeared; Alwyn had risen to his full height and snarled (more embarrassed to be caught than anything else), and the chef had started in such shock, he fell over backward, arms windmilling wildly as he screamed at the volume of a chorine in an opera. The Frenchman had been unharmed; Alwyn had beat a hasty retreat.
“It is only my first foray, a gesture of my intent to court her. I assume the meaning of it was clear.” He would have left a note, but as it transpired, he could write but was not in full command of a pen. “I left it on her doorstep. Where she would see it. Tied together with string.”
Delilah snorted and nipped his shoulder. Miss Barrington had made herself scarce all day yesterday, which he knew because he was, in turn, making himself scarce. It was not well done of him to abandon her on the hill, but the moment a stranger clattered into their midst—“One of those rackety colts,” he said aloud, and Delilah bared her teeth—he took flight. It was too much like the early days of his return to his manskin, of negotiating the London streets to Carlton House, every stranger a threat. Holy, Blessed Palu, was Georgie right in sending him here? Only think how nervy he would be, staying in the capital city. Even out here, with all this room to roam, he was too vigilant.
But he was improving. His senses were sharpening, his instincts returning. For it was a good instinct to fetch basil for the lady apothecary. It was Italian, and therefore she would find it pleasing. It was a useful plant, if nothing special… It was not as though he could offer white pimpernel, as he would find in great bunches along the waterways in Anglesey. That would have been a fitting tribute for his…
Blessed, Beloved Palu, was the lady apothecary his fated mate, and not only that but able for theconiunctio? As with all species, scent entered into finding one’svera amoris, but for lions, it was an awareness of the body as well. Even if he couldn’t fully parse her scent without the aid of his essential self, he had perceived more than enough that fateful night. It had started from the simple touch of her hand in his, grown exponentially as they lay side by side, and nearly exploded as he hid them from Lowell’s searching gaze beneath his awful coat. She was redolent of the astringency of rose water wedded with burning wood, a hint of cooling lavender, and the bracing air of a spring dawn. It wound through his senses like the path out of the darkest forest, and if that blasted colt hadn’t shown up—
Alwyn would have kissed her. His entire being roused at the thought of those lips beneath his, kissing him in return. If the scent of her arousal had been any indication, she would welcome his attentions. He at least guessed she would… It had been a long, long time since he inspired desire in a female.
There: he was not entirely lacking notions of what was proper. He recalled his questioning of Lowell and his cadre; he must let her court him as well, and her version of that would most likely be tending to his ills. It was his ills that interfered with his capacity to know if she was his fated mate, and the intimation, the hope he had of her being more—
“I cannot be certain,” he said, and Delilah made a show of rolling her big brown eyes at him. “Not without being at full strength, and I require my lion for that state, and my lion—” No, he would say no more, not even to a creature who could not betray him. He must remain silent. The notion of being on the receiving end of the pity he would inspire in the others was enough to make him growl as if he were indeed in harmony with his essential self.
It made little impression, as Delilah didn’t even flick an eyelash. “What do you think, my fierce one? Shall I let the lady tend to me? What harm can it do? I doubt it can do any good—”
The mare suddenly came to attention, ears forward and nostrils flaring. She whuffled deep in her chest, and the band, who always kept Delilah between them and potential threats, whinnied in distress and galloped for the opposite side of the paddock.
Now that he was no longer moaning about how to woo Miss Barrington, he heard what the horse did: a rustle in the underbrush, a scrape of hoof on rock, the slip and slide of leaves on muddy earth. He turned to see the shrubbery shiver, and that was all Delilah needed: she reared, backed up, and jumped the paddock fence in a smooth leap to charge straight into the wood. Alwyn followed, delighted that his endless wandering had rendered him more than fit enough to keep up with the mare.
When he came upon her, she was undertaking to herd a large chestnut stallion out of a ditch, and he in turn was unsuccessfully attempting to use a holly bush as camouflage. The state of the beast’s mane spoke to a lack of grooming, and the muddy, torn rug straining to contain his great bulk bore the rubric for Templeton House.
“Templeton,” he growled, and Delilah whinnied again, high and harsh. Alwyn’s vision came over in a red haze, and slipping his fingers around one of the buckled straps at the horse’s chest, he pulled the animal from the mud, across the field, and toward the village. Delilah capered in their wake, bucking and snorting until she jumped back into the paddock to soothe her band.
The horse had a powerful will. It dug its hooves in the dirt and threw its head around in a bid to shake off Alwyn’s grip. A force surged through him, and in fits and starts as he reacquainted himself with it, it flowed free. Hisdominatumwas not what it could be, but nevertheless it surged through him and around him, obeying his instinct to exert his will, and in this instance, to protect. Did this horse require protection? Her Grace was meant to be forward-thinking and compassionate in her animal husbandry. How dare she spout such empty platitudes when she knowingly…but did she know what this horse truly was?
Duchess or no, he would demand an explanation as to how this captive creature came to bear her family’s colors.
***
“This is very impressive, Mr. Beckett, and we all look forward to greeting our first visitors.”
The publican and his wife beamed as Felicity spoke, and she and Tabitha admired the common room of the coaching house. The tabletops were polished to a shine, and the brass gleamed; a massive hearth took pride of place. A long bar stretched to fill the side of the wall opposite the fireplace; this was currently receiving the devoted attention of a cloth wielded by another Mr. Beckett, he of the pot of honey.
“We will welcome each and every one,” Mr. Beckett replied. “And we hear tell Mrs. Anchoretta Asquith may be first among them.”
“Do you enjoy her novels, Miss Barrington?” asked the Mr. Beckett who was not the publican but the suitor, for lack of a better term.
“I have read only the most recent, Mr. Beckett.” This would devolve into confusion in no time at all.
“I would be happy to lend you my sister’s volumes,” he offered.
“But would your sister be happy to have you lend them?” Tabitha asked.
“Archibald! If there’s any lending going on, it’ll be your hands to the task you’ve left undone!” The shout issued from deep within the pub, and he waggled his fingers at her before he turned to go. Felicity snorted and turned it into a delicate sneeze into her handkerchief.
