Captain Durant's Countess(48)

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Almost? I have offered you marriage, Maris, even if I’m not worthy. But I will take you as my mistress tonight gladly.”

She covered his mouth with her hand, where he proceeded to give it dogged devotion with his wicked swirling tongue. “You are terribly worthy. It is I who am not worthy of you. I’m a coward, Reyn. You invite me to put my past behind me, but I dare not. It’s just too soon.”

“Crumbs,” he said when she withdrew her hand.

“Pardon?”

“You’ve scattered crumbs for me, but I’m not too proud to lick them up. You give me hope.”

And that is exactly what she had come to do.

Parading about as Lady Kelby had never meant anything to her. She was not averse to being plain Mrs. Durant. It had taken Reyn’s confession for her to realize what a truly noble man he was.

In so many ways, it would be easier to be the wife of a country gentleman who raised horses. Their properties marched together, could be joined. Their physical joining had always been a thing of wonder to her, so different from anything she had experienced either with her husband or David. But would a son forgive her once he learned that she’d tossed away the Kelby fortune?

She wouldn’t think of the necessary waiting ahead, but just the now, with the rain pattering on the roof, lulling her senses. Reyn was taking his crumb-licking seriously, his tongue teasing the edge of her ear, her throat, the crease between her breasts. He cupped one in his free hand as she writhed under him, nuzzled her with a gentleness that went straight to her heart. His path led over her stomach to where his hand already worked feverishly.

And she had thought the night was meant for him.

His mouth was hot, insistent, working in tandem with his work-roughened hands. Maris let herself feel every freeing sweep of his tongue, the tug of his mouth on her core, the glide of his fingers within her. There was nothing in her world but that moment, nothing with more meaning.

She’d had a lifetime devoid of sexual satisfaction. Surely it wasn’t too sinful to want just a little before she turned back to duty again? Society might say it was, but Maris wished society to the devil for making her doubt her right to this particular joy. She could not have stopped her reaction to Reyn if all the patronesses at Almack’s wandered into the stable to object to her wantonness.

Maris shattered, even before she’d had the chance to remove Reyn’s clothes. Tears of gratitude welled in her eyes, but she sat up unsteadily and tore his loose shirt over his head. He had changed from his dinner finery, but to Maris it really didn’t matter what he wore. He was too lovely to cover up.

“It’s my turn.” Her hands shook too badly for her to unfasten his breeches. With a cheeky grin, he helped her. The grin vanished when he realized what she meant to do. “Maris,” he warned.

She looked directly into his sin-dark eyes. “I want to.”

There had been no time for this before, not when his seed had to be spilled into her womb. Maris was no expert. She took his member gingerly in her fist, but he placed his broad hand over hers and squeezed, showing her he couldn’t be broken. He was hard and so very warm, so very beautiful. She bent to cover him with her mouth, her unraveling braid falling on his thigh.

Reyn’s entire body convulsed with her capture. She had him precisely where she wanted him—flat on his back, at her mercy, for a change. She, plain Maris Kelby, could do as she liked with this gorgeous young man and all he could do was groan with pleasure.

He was so large, she divided her attentions to shaft and head, pulsing vein, and heavy stones. Reyn’s eyes were closed, his thick brows knit in what looked like agony. Maris knew better. She sheathed as much of him as she could in her mouth as he cupped the back of her head, gently guiding her movement until she tasted the beginnings of salt and sin.

He struggled to push her away in time, then tumbled her on her side, sliding in effortlessly behind her as if they’d practiced the movement a thousand times. He’d been worried, she’d remembered, about crushing the baby, and in this position she was safe. His hand swept with possession over her breasts and belly as he lost his control, whispering prayerful words she didn’t catch. With unerring precision he found her swollen center and brought her to climax, yet again.

Maris heard one of the horses snort, the driving rain, and Reyn’s jagged breath behind her. She was on the floor of a barn like a common trollop, the itch and smell of the horse blankets no aphrodisiac. Somehow, she didn’t mind a bit.

Reyn held her close, their skin slick and too hot. “Are you all right, Countess?”

She wiggled against him. “I could not be better, except if I could see your face.”

“This scarred old phiz?” he chuckled. “I can arrange that, but I’m not quite ready to give up your sweet sheath. Nature will deny me, soon enough.”

The tension had left his body, and, she hoped, his mind. Her actions spoke to him, did they not? She wanted him to be happy, to know—

Dear God. She had fallen in love with him, and it could no longer be denied.

When Henry died, she’d lost her husband and dearest friend. And she’d had to send her lover away, a man who in such a short time had breached her reserve and awakened her to the possibilities of—what?

There was the baby to consider. And David. And her own conscience. Maris had come to soothe Reyn, but was suddenly as agitated as ants under a quizzing glass in the sun.

They could engage in an affair, as long as her pregnancy was not an impediment. It was not the ideal solution. That would be a complete break, but Maris was not brave enough to do it. She wanted Reyn.

Did she still want the earldom for her son? That was not her dream, but Henry’s.

To have one’s cake and eat it too. Maris had never understood the phrase quite so accurately before. She was a gambler hedging her bets, and it was not a pleasant feeling. She sighed her frustration.

“What is it?” Reyn withdrew and rolled her on her back. She stared at the hatch-work of beams in the ceiling.

“Nothing much. Everything.”

He kissed her fingertips. “We must be modern. Don’t make things more complicated than they are. I know you cannot marry me. It would not suit. I was impertinent to ask, given the difference in our rank and situation.”

Maris wanted to punch him. “Do stop. This has nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing? Then why are you here?”

“That’s just it. I shouldn’t be . . . but I am . . . and I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

Reyn had the effrontery to laugh. “As I said, stop thinking. Let’s just enjoy what we have, for however long we have it. It will have to be enough. But when we do this again, we should aim for a bed.”

She was heartened by the when. Was it enough? Could she have a simple affair with Reynold Durant? Maris didn’t know. Things had not been simple for a very long while. She’d spent so much of her life under a thundercloud of guilt, recently, and she wanted to walk in some sunshine.

At least I won’t get pregnant from an affair, she thought. And then she laughed too.





Chapter 28


Reyn picked a bit of straw from Maris’s hair. Playing ladies’ maid had always been amusing, though tonight it was important he take his job seriously. If Maris was discovered re-entering Merrywood, there should be no trace of how they’d just spent the last perfect hour.

“Hold still. How am I to plait your hair if you’re hopping about like a rabbit?”

“Sorry. I can do it myself, you know.”

“And deprive me of touching the silk of your hair? You are too cruel, madam.” Abandoning his ministrations, he bent to kiss the spot below her left ear.

“Stop that or we’ll have to begin all over again. Where did the ribbon go?”

“It’s in my pocket. I’m keeping it as a token so I may tie it to my lance when I next go out jousting.”

“Silly man.” She sounded pleased though.

He set his hands on her shoulder and turned her to him. Her cheeks were pink in the dim lamplight and her eyes glowed. She looked like a well-tumbled woman despite the virginal white nightgown and even braid.

“It’s not raining quite so hard anymore. You should go.”

“I know.”

Yet he was loath to release her. The evening had been full of surprises for both of them. Miracles. Maris accepted him for who he was.

She wanted him anyway.

They had spoken just a little of the future. Reyn understood her reluctance to engage in anything else except an affair. How could she betray Henry’s memory with a hasty marriage? And what would happen to the child everyone thought was her dead husband’s?

Reyn could never go to Kelby Hall and watch his son be raised as the Earl of Kelby. He’d never belong there, would be a useless consort to Maris, and an inadequate “stepfather” to his own child.