The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

“Nothing at the moment. Don’t worry about a thing, Helen. I’ll do all the worrying. Now, how far are we from a village or a farmer’s house?”

She was shivering. He wrapped her more tightly against him. “I know you’re wet. Unfortunately I am just as wet, so I can’t help you.” He thought a moment. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to get all those clothes off you and strip myself as well. Then we’re going to get so close we’ll be hot as oven bricks in no time at all.”

Helen moaned, but said nothing. He stripped her, something he had done to many women many times in his adult life, but it wasn’t fun this time. Her clothes were wet and sticking to her, she was shivering, her teeth chattered, and her eyes were closed against the pain any movement brought her. “I’m sorry, Helen, nearly there now. Did I tell you how very beautiful you are? No, perhaps now isn’t time to talk about bodily sorts of things. Now, these clothes are wet. You’ll have my body against you in just a moment. Hold on just a bit longer.”

Finally they were both naked and he managed to pull Helen’s petticoat directly over them. The petticoat was just damp, so it wasn’t quite so bad. Then he layered all their other clothes over the petticoat.

It wasn’t bad at all.

“You’re hotter than the old brick oven my father had installed in his hunting box near Leeds.”

His eyes were crossed. He was hard against her belly, he just couldn’t help it. He kissed her temple. “Don’t pay any attention to me, Helen. I can’t control that part of me. Just ignore it. Are you feeling warmer?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, her breath warm against his throat. “You feel very interesting against me, but it doesn’t matter. I’m very tired, Spenser.”

“Blink your eyes and look at me. Yes, that’s it. Now, Helen, you’re not a fragile little miss. Don’t you dare go to sleep. Wrap your arm around me. Yes, that’s right. Is your back warm enough?”

Since he was stroking his hand up and down her back, over her buttocks and as far as he could reach down the back of her thighs, she was growing very warm, very quickly. And because he was a man, he probably spent more time stroking her hips. “This isn’t something you could have planned, is it, Spenser?”

“The roof collapsing?”

“No, I was thinking about all of it, each thing that happened that triggered the next. It is almost as if you put into motion a perfectly executed form of discipline. Except for me getting hit on the head. A master of discipline wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“No, the master wouldn’t.” His hand was on her buttocks, his fingers splayed. He was pushing her against him, and he was desperately hard again, nearly shaking with it. What was wrong with him?

“Just ignore me,” he said again against her ear.

“That’s rather impossible. You’re shoving me against you. My head is better. Yes, and I’m warm now. Oh, goodness, this is nonsense. I’ve never lost my head like this before. I don’t like it, Spenser, I don’t like it at all.” And without any shoving from him, she moved against him.

He didn’t care about liking it or disliking it. He just wanted her now, and it was as strong and prodding as it had been the first time. He rolled on top of her. “Helen,” he said, and began kissing her. He was between her legs and then he was inside her, her arms clasped around his back.

It was fast and hard, and when she yelled to the roofed sky that still held steady over their heads, he reared back and did his own yelling.

He didn’t want to leave her, and so he didn’t. He managed to cover them again and to his surprise, he went to sleep, his head beside hers, still inside her.

Helen looked up at the narrow slice of roof that covered them. She wasn’t cold now and her head didn’t particularly hurt. She was so surprised, so utterly bewildered by what had happened between them, that when the incredible feelings began to build again inside her, she just sighed deeply and kissed him back. She felt his fingers on her, and he didn’t stop his beguiling rhythm until she was panting hard into his mouth. He smiled down at her as he moved slowly, fully, and it didn’t take long, even this time, the third time, and he realized vaguely as he spilled his seed deeply inside her that surely this was something amazing, to want and want. He wasn’t a randy boy; he was a damned man and he was thirty-three years old.

When his brain turned outward, finally, he said against her left ear, “I really don’t want to expire in a ruined cottage, wallowing in the rain.”

“I’m well enough, just a slight headache. It will be dark in an hour. I should be exhausted, but I’m not. I feel marvelous. I can walk now.”

Actually, he himself could have leapt up and danced an Irish jig. His body pulsed with incredible energy. He didn’t want to, but finally he managed to make himself pull away from her. He rose and looked down at her. His face was hard with satisfaction. He gave her his hand and pulled her to her feet.

“No,” he said, “Helen, don’t look at my mouth or I’ll toss you back down

again. We must dress. We must find shelter.”

She hated the layers of clothes that chilled her to her very bones. When she sat down to lace up her boots, he was leaning over trying to pull on his own boots.

She laughed. He looked at her and grinned. It wasn’t raining quite as hard when they made their way back to the country road, but it still took them an hour to return to Shugbourgh Hall.

“Oh, my God,” Lord Prith said when the two of them strolled like bedraggled urchins into the entrance hall. “I shall heat some champagne immediately.”

Lord Beecham begged for brandy and got it. Lord Prith shooed him off to his bedchamber, where Nettle was already pouring hot water into his bath. He stripped his lordship in a minute flat and wrapped him in a dressing gown. Lord Beecham added wood to the fire while Nettle nearly broke into tears over the state of his Hessians. When he was in the tub, leaning back, his eyes closed, he saw Helen, naked, beneath him, arching up when his fingers caressed her, and he saw himself leaning down to kiss her as she screamed out her pleasure.

Three times he’d taken her.

What the hell had he done?