Captain Durant's Countess(19)

Even if she’d never felt so exhilarated, she was falling into herself, her back muscles tightening in tension, her bare arse chafing against the rough wood of the old table. Her crumpled new dress would require ironing, her mind retrieving from wherever Reynold Durant had sent it. Maris had sworn to herself she would take no joy in their arrangement, and she’d broken that vow already, on his very first afternoon at Kelby Hall. She was worse than Patsy Rumford.

She pushed his hands from her body and smoothed her skirts over her stockinged legs. “It’s late.” The room was no longer bathed in bright sunlight, and shadows deepened in the corners.

“Don’t go yet.” He wasn’t satisfied.

Did he want her to return the favor? She knew that women could kiss men down there, even if she’d never suspected the tables could be turned. David had tried to make her do it, and a ghastly business it had been.

“I-I really must. I have a thousand things to do before I have to dress for dinner.” She couldn’t remember a single one.

His hand slipped into her disordered hair and pulled out a loose hairpin. “I feel guilty, Maris. I tricked you. You were expecting an altogether different kind of kiss, weren’t you? Something ‘usual.’ Although I don’t think anything between us will ever be usual.”

“There is no ‘us,’ Captain Durant.” She meant to sound superior, but her words rang hollow.

“Oh, there’s going to be an ‘us,’ if only for a few minutes every day. Maybe several times a day to make sure we’ve given this mission all our efforts. I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”

He was teasing her! Did the damn man not know his place?

And it wasn’t between her legs in whatever form he happened to choose.

“I need to go,” she said firmly.

“A good-bye kiss then. For luck.” He waggled a black eyebrow at her. It needed some smoothing down after his recent activity.

“I am only going downstairs to my rooms, Captain, not off to war.”

“Luck always comes in handy. We will need as much of it as possible in the weeks ahead. Come, Maris, just a quick kiss and then you can scamper off while I go back to numbering boxes.”

She slid off the work table, surprised her legs were strong enough to support her. Before she could refuse his offer she was in his arms again, tasting herself on his lips. She was shocked—and something more.

The kiss was not long in length, but not short on sensation, either. Reyn was very gentle, teasing her again, but not with words. A butterfly kiss, that’s what it was called. She’d read about it somewhere, but had not understood.

Now she did.

And knew she was in trouble.





Chapter 9


Reyn’s chair before the fire was comfortable, his dinner delicious, the accompanying wine truly spectacular. A man like the Earl of Kelby must have a cellar anyone might envy and a kitchen staff imported from damned France. Reyn was no connoisseur of the finer things in life, but they were all around him and inside him, digesting happily. Even a heathen like he could appreciate his new position.

Especially since it involved seducing the countess.

Maris.

The afternoon had been promising. He’d been valiant in his effort to make her come, and come she had. Repeatedly. Her taste still resonated through the vintage port he held in his hand. Reyn had always enjoyed giving women their pleasure. He’d never been a selfish lover. In his experience, the more one gave, the more one got back.

He had been willing to try anything—hence the Reining Monarchs—to feel sated. Find peace. There had to be some fun in life beyond bayonets and tradesmen’s bills. He was good at three things—cards, making men laugh, and making women breathless. Resentful as he might be over the earl’s investigation, Reyn’s reputation as a lover must have been discovered and found acceptable.

Maris Kelby was not quite the buttoned-up biddy she’d first appeared. For one thing, now that she was not dressed in drab grays and browns, she was more than passably handsome. With her wavy hair loosened, her cheeks flushed, and her lips swollen, she could rouse any man’s desire. Reyn had been in such agony when she’d left him that afternoon, he’d sat back down on the chair and jacked off, imagining those swollen lips around his cock.

However, teaching her to do that was not part of the plan. They were not having an ordinary affair, after all. He was there for one reason and one reason only. His own pleasure was incidental, but he wanted Maris Kelby to find hers . . . to help ease her regret about their liaison and find it less sordid.

A little less cold.

She was a virtuous woman. Virtuous women were hard to come by nowadays. From what he could gather, she had been raised in this house with the earl acting as a second father to her. How she wound up marrying him was an oddity he couldn’t fathom. What young woman would throw her youth away on an impotent old man? Reyn supposed he was being silly. Lots of girls married for money and position. Those things didn’t seem to matter to her, though. Perhaps it was access to the Kelby Collection that made her subjugate herself to Henry Kelby. Maybe she had preferred scholarship to sexual satisfaction. If so, he pitied her.

He put the port back on the tray unfinished. Well, what was he going to do with the rest of his evening? It was hours yet before his usual bedtime, but there were no army friends to carouse with, just a shelf full of oxblood leather-covered classics he hadn’t bothered to read when he should have a dozen years ago. No point to picking one up tonight, although it might put him to sleep. He should be tired. He’d ridden half the day and pushed boxes around and twitched under the earl’s sharp-eyed scrutiny.

It was a relief he’d be excused from further contact with the man, though that might seem strange to the servants when Reyn had been hired to assist him. Poor Maris was to be their go-between, reporting on whatever rubbish they found in the sixty-seven boxes upstairs. It was too cold and dark to go up to the attics and get started, but he had managed to carry some of the smaller boxes into the workroom for inspection tomorrow.

He wouldn’t know how to begin, anyway. There must be some sort of method one used when describing artifacts. Did one pull out a tape measure and count the inches? Write down colors and country of origin? He knew his numbers and red from green at least. Advantage Reyn.

He rang for someone to take away the remains of his dinner. He felt a little like a princess walled up in a castle tower since he didn’t have free rein to wander about the house looking for amusement. Maris was not apt to come to him to begin their other project, either. He’d already stroked himself to blessed oblivion earlier, so even self-abuse seemed a bit redundant. What the devil was he going to do with himself for the next few hours?

A fresh-faced young footman came to reclaim the dinner tray. Reyn was almost bored enough to engage the boy in conversation, but that would have been considered odd. Everyone had their place at Kelby Hall. Reyn might not be good enough to eat with the earl and countess, but he was much too grand to gossip with a footman.

So there he sat. He poked at the fire and rubbed some dust off the side of his boot onto the patterned carpet. His hands itched for a deck of cards, if even to play solitaire. Getting up, he rummaged through the drawers and was rewarded by emptiness, not even an overlooked ball of fluff.

Probably nothing was overlooked at Kelby Hall. The place was run with an efficiency any army officer would long for in his own troops. The old butler Amesbury was even frostier than the earl. Between the two of them, they must scare the wits out of everyone within a ten-mile radius.

Maybe Reyn needed to get out of their range. It was a fine, crisp night with a three-quarter moon. There was no reason he couldn’t take a walk and enjoy some fresh air. Take a turn in the garden he’d seen from the windows of the library.

His old army cloak hung in the dressing room, gloves and scarf stuffed in the pockets. He wouldn’t ask for a lantern. His night vision had always been good—useful in his previous line of work. He dressed and took “his” staircase down several flights to the ground floor. The earl’s library was at the other end of the house, and Reyn wondered if the old man was in there fiddling with his papers, or if he was still dining with the countess. The house was quiet, but sconces were lit all along the corridor and a few footmen were visible at their positions farther down the hallway.

One of them raised a hand to Reyn and hurried down the oriental runner that seemed to go on for miles. “May I help you, sir?”

“Where’s the nearest door to the garden?” Reyn felt he should know this already. Good reconnaissance had always been a habit.

“You want to go outside, sir?” The footman sounded as if it was a rather outrageous plan.

True, it was chilly, but Reyn had toughened up in Canada. “I do.”

“Do you wish for a guide and a torch, sir?”

“To walk in the garden? Don’t be silly. I’m not exploring the pyramids. Just show me a door and make sure no one locks it so I can get back inside in an hour or two.”