Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

‘I like looking at you.’ To her delight he blushed.

‘Wicked woman.’ But he came and leaned down to snatch a hard, fast kiss. ‘I like looking at you too.’ Then the smile vanished and he knelt by the bed. ‘Meg. Are you…is it all right?’

‘Our adventure last night or…or what happened afterwards?’

‘Both. Meg, would this have happened if it had not been for last night? I should have waited, we were both…emotional. After that nightmare I was not thinking straight.’

‘I am…fine.’A very inadequate word for the way she felt. ‘I hope it would have happened anyway. I hope I would have had the courage to tell you how I felt, what I needed.’ She curled her arm around his neck and tugged him down to find his mouth again. When he pulled back she clung on, using his own strength to rise up and wrap herself around him, bare skin against bare skin.

‘Stop it.’ Ross untangled her and sat her on the bed. ‘I never knew what will-power meant until I met you.’ He picked up her wrapper and held it out.

Meg took it, wrapped it around herself and curled up against the head of the bed. Last night she had accepted that she loved this man. She had told him, as he slept, after she had made love with him. Now she had to come to terms with that. She wrapped her arms around her bent knees, rested her chin on them and watched while Ross shook out her nightgown, fingering the rent down the front of it. How long have I loved him?

‘What is it?’ He looked across at her. ‘What is wrong, Meg? There won’t be consequences, I was careful.’

‘No, of course not. I am not worried about that. I am just sleepy.’ She managed a smile, and, if she was honest with herself, she reflected, it did not take much pretence to smile at Ross. But there were consequences far beyond what he meant just now. She would not be able to stay here when he married. She was not even sure her conscience would allow it once he began to court a bride.

‘Come on.’ He bent and kissed her forehead, pushing back the salt-damp tangle of her hair, then pulled her to her feet beside the bed. ‘Tonight, come to me again.’ His lips quirked into a smile. ‘This bed is much bigger than yours.’

‘I know.’ Her imagination was full, as she was sure he had intended, with visions of what they could do on this wide expanse. Dare she risk another night? A night with time to explore each other, to make gentle, leisurely love. What if he guessed the depth of her feelings? She was not certain she could hide them from him.

‘You will come?’

‘If I can do so safely.’ She only had him for a few weeks, perhaps a month or so. She was not strong enough to gainsay both him and her own feelings.

His gaze rested on her, heavy, sensual, happy as she slid off the bed and tied the robe around her waist. I have made him happy. Ross opened the door, holding her gaze until the last moment. And I have made myself happy too.

‘There were smugglers in the bay last night, Mrs Halgate!’ Damaris dumped the hot water cans beside the tin bath, her face alight with her news.

‘I know. I had a very lucky escape.’ Meg decided that she must tell as much of the truth as she could. ‘I had been for a swim—’

‘In the sea, ma’am?’

‘Yes, in the sea. I heard the shot—someone seems to have frightened them away.’

As she hoped, Damaris put two and two together and made half a dozen. ‘So, you’d had your swim and were coming back? How did you know it was smugglers, ma’am?’

‘There was a shouted exchange.’

‘It was his lordship and old Billy Gillan who saw them off,’ the maid confided as she set the screen round the bath. ‘Perrott told me this morning. Apparently there was a fight and his lordship came back in ever such a state. You should see his inexpressibles!’

‘Damaris!’ Meg managed to look suitably shocked at the mention of a man’s nether garments. ‘But you may imagine my alarm. I had no idea anyone was around.’

‘Ooh!’ Damaris’s eyes were wide. ‘They could have been spying on you!’

‘I was wearing my shift,’ Meg said repressively. ‘And it was too dark, just the moon to see by.’ She climbed into the bath and reached for the washcloth. ‘Pour that jug of water over my head, would you please? I must get all the salt out.’

Ross took a gun and the old pointer dog that haunted the stable yard in the hope that someone was going out shooting and made his way through the woodland towards Billy’s cottage. It was remarkable how good a large breakfast—on top of action, danger and a thoroughly satisfactory bout of lovemaking—made a man feel.

He paused and leaned on a fence, narrowed his eyes against the sunlight and looked out over fields he was beginning to learn the names of. He knew where a hedge bank needed repair, just out of sight to the left, he knew how many cottages needed work on them and what the rents were and he was beginning, much to his own surprise, to enjoy learning these things.

My land. The sun was hot on his back and the gentle thump against his legs of the pointer’s tail was all the company he needed just now. My people, my place. My home, as Meg would say. He climbed the fence and plunged, whistling, into the coppice that sheltered Billy’s cottage, a piece of no-man’s land, its ownership lost in time.

‘You make enough noise, boy.’ Billy was leaning against a tree trunk, almost invisible until he moved. ‘Not a bird left, here to Truro, you and your big feet.’

‘We don’t all have to creep about on unlawful business, Billy.’

‘Aar, well. Suppose you don’t, not being lord and master, hereabouts.’ The old man shifted a plug of chewing tobacco in his mouth and spat.