Someone walked diagonally across the cobbles, white shirt stark in the dim light. She would know that figure anywhere from the way it moved, even in this light, but why was Jared prowling around outside in his shirtsleeves, rapier in hand? The shadowy form disappeared through the dark mouth of the barn that made up the far side of the yard and after a moment a light bloomed, as though a lantern had been lit. She watched as it vanished.
Thoroughly intrigued and completely awake now, Guin found the dress Faith had laid out for the morning and slipped it over her head, blessing the ease with which the simple walking dress fastened. No underwear, no stockings, but she found some shoes, threw a shawl around her shoulders and tiptoed out.
The door to the private parlour was locked, as was the door from there into the passageway. Guin turned the key in that door as she closed it, leaving Faith safe inside, then ran down the backstairs to the kitchen passage and out into the yard. There was the sound of laughter and talk from the taproom and from the kitchen but otherwise all was quiet. Even the ostler seemed to have finished for the evening, the light was out in the stables and the doors closed.
The cobbles were uneven under her thin slippers and she picked her way carefully by starlight into the barn. At first she thought it was empty of life, filled only by the looming shapes of the coaches and gigs drawn in there under shelter for the night. Then she saw the lines of light round an inner door and made for that.
The door opened silently onto another space, a threshing floor, she guessed, seeing the flat circle of stone-slabbed flooring at its centre and the wooden bins set around the sides to take the wheat after it had been threshed. There would be outer doors to let in the necessary breeze, but those were closed now, making an arena for the man who moved at its centre, lit by two lanterns.
Jared was stripped to the waist now, barefooted as he exercised with the rapier, lunging and thrusting, parrying an unseen opponent, repeating the same move over and over again. He had his eyes closed, Guin saw, as she moved to lean against one of the grain bins.
Did he know she was there? She had been very quiet, although she was quite prepared to credit Jared with almost supernatural powers of awareness. He turned and the lamplight caught his back, shining with sweat that highlighted the strapping of muscles, a few old scars. He bent to lay down the rapier, dropped to the floor and began to raise and lower himself at full stretch, poised on fingertips and toes.
Guin’s own muscles shrieked in sympathy at the first lift, but he kept going like a machine until, after about twenty – watching mesmerised she had lost count – he stilled, rolled head over heels, rose into a crouch and then did a back-spring, scooping up the rapier as he landed.
As he straightened up she let out a breath she had not realised she had been holding and Jared spun round, weapon raised. When he saw who it was he lowered the point. ‘What is wrong?’
‘Nothing. I saw you cross the yard from my window and was curious. I could not sleep.’
‘You should be resting. Curiosity is dangerous.’
‘Surely not.’ Neither of them moved, only the reflected lamplight on the rivulets of sweat trickling down Jared’s bare chest flickered in time with his breathing. ‘What is the danger here?’
‘Us.’ He walked towards her, past her, and for an aching second she thought he was leaving. Then the bar that closed the door dropped into place with a dull thud that seemed no heavier than the beat of her heart and he came back to stand in front of her. ‘You seem to think I am made of stone, Guinevere.’
‘No, of muscle and sinew and bone. And blood.’ She reached out one finger and drew the nail lightly down his chest from the notch at the base of his throat, over his sternum, watching the red line the pressure left. His nipples tightened and she caught her breath. ‘You say you are not made of stone? I did not come to spy – but I could not take my eyes from you.’
‘You are in mourning, Guin.’ His voice was steady, so was his breathing. Only the heavy eyelids and those tense brown nubs betrayed him. She did not dare let her gaze drift any lower.
‘For a dear, elderly man I loved like a grandfather. Not a true husband, not a lover.’
‘And you are in shock and too tired to rest as you should.’ But he stretched out his arm and laid the rapier on the grain bin. And he had barred the door.
‘I am very much awake now. As are you. And – ’
Jared moved, caught her round the waist, lifted her onto the edge of the wooden lid. Legs dangling, Guin caught her balance with her hands behind her as he leaned in, his lips hot and hard on hers. Then Jared tossed up her skirts and fell to his knees between her legs, his head pushing between her thighs until she opened them with a gasp and his mouth found her in a deep, intimate kiss.
‘Jared.’
His only answer was to reach up one hand and place it firmly on the tangle of curls still damp from her bath, newly damp with arousal, holding her in place. Through a rising tide of shocked sensation she was aware that he must be unfastening the falls of his breeches with his other hand. Is he going to… No. Her last coherent thought was the realisation that Jared was taking care of them both.
His tongue pressed though her folds, lapping, teasing and then, to her shock, penetrating, firm and insistent, his spread hand holding her still as she tried to buck against his mouth.
Francis had never done this. He had never, Guin realised through the horrified delight, done anything for her pleasure, only his. But Jared appeared to know exactly what would reduce her to quivering, squirming, mindless ecstasy and he was doing it ruthlessly. She reached for his head, her fingers frustrated by his hair, drawn tightly back into its queue. She wanted to run her fingers into it, hold onto it, a lifeline in this maelstrom he had thrown her into.
He must have realised what she wanted. Jared reached up and tugged free the leather lace securing the braid and she burrowed in, freeing the thick locks. The sensation of that wild, unbound hair over her bare skin triggered something deep inside, freed the thing that had been tightening, knotting within her. There was a cry and she realised it was her, then everything unravelled, pleasure lanced through her as between her spread thighs she felt Jared’s shoulders tense, shudder… then the world fell away.
Guin came back to herself to find Jared on his feet stuffing a handkerchief into his pocket with one hand and reaching for her with the other.
‘Guinevere? Are you all right?’ He batted down her tumbled skirts and drew her to her feet, keeping hold as her knees gave way and she sagged against him.
‘I think so,’ she said, her mouth against the bare skin of his shoulder, her senses spinning with the heat of him, the taste of salt, the caress of his unbound hair against her face, the scent of their loving and the after-waves of pleasure. ‘I have never… I had no idea.’
‘I shocked you.’ Jared eased her down onto a seat of some kind and it took a definite effort of will to release her hold on him. ‘Your first husband – ’ He broke off abruptly and crossed the threshing floor to retrieve his shirt.
‘Francis never did that. He only ever, you know…’ She realised that she did not have the vocabulary for it. ‘And I never felt like that.’ Now she was blushing, she could feel it, although why talking about it should make her colour-up when a moment ago this man had been kissing her like that and she had surrendered to it shamelessly, she could not think.
Jared said something, his voice muffled as he pulled the shirt on over his head. Guin thought it was, ‘Selfish bastard,’ but she could not be certain. He shook his head as the shirt settled around his body, the glossy brown waves freed from the tight braid lay on his shoulders and Guin’s mouth dried. Long hair on a man was wildly unfashionable, but it suited him perfectly, she thought. The wild mane escaping from its rigorous binding was like the man himself, letting go his fierce self-control for a moment of passion.