A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(53)

The kiss didn’t stay sweet or tender for long.

Toby tried to hold back. He really did. But one stroke of her tongue against his, and the reins of his passion slid straight out of his grip.

So he filled his hands with Isabel instead.

With artless greed, he clutched at her hips, her br**sts, her bottom, her thighs. He wound the fingers of one hand into her hair and cinched it so tight, she gasped.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her throat. “I’m so sorry. But Isabel… Christ, I need this.”

“I know,” she said, tugging at his cravat. “I need it, too.”

He needed to feel her. All of her. Every living, unharmed inch of her body. For a terrifying moment, she’d been lost to him. She’d been safely returned, thank heaven, but it wasn’t enough to simply see her alive and hear her say she was well. He needed to feel it. To verify with his hands, lips, tongue that each glossy strand of hair and silky curve of her flesh remained exactly the same.

“Isabel.” He groaned as she worked her hands under his collar and her fingernails raked against his bare flesh. “You have to stop me. God knows, I can’t stop myself.”

“Don’t. Don’t stop.”

Three more arousing syllables were never spoken.

He had so much energy coursing through him—the fuel of resolve and desperation and veinchilling fear. And now that there was nothing to fear, no desperate crisis… all that energy simmered inside him, building, rising, needing release. He wanted nothing more than to get inside her and let it all explode. Right here, on this stone wall—which seemed to be just the perfect height, God bless the world.

And God bless his wife, she pulled up her skirts so he could nestle his hips between her thighs and test that theory.

Yes. A low moan escaped them both as he pressed the hard ridge of his erection against her feminine core. Just exactly the perfect height. Now it was only a matter of removing these bothersome layers of fabric …

He snaked one hand under her petticoat. Her thigh went rigid beneath his palm.

“Toby, someone’s coming.”

He rested his brow on her shoulder and cursed. Someone’s coming. Oh, why, why, why, why couldn’t it be him?

“It’s the coachman,” she said. “Oh, I’m glad he’s alive.”

“So am I,” Toby said. Stepping back, he released her thigh and rearranged her skirts with sullen tugs. “Now I can kill him.”

Here came that gently reproving Isabel look, and the matching patient tone. “Toby—”

“No, no. I know you’re right. I’ll sack him. Without a reference. And then I’ll kill him.”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

No, it was mine, Toby thought ruefully. He should never have let her stay. He should have anticipated the melee. He should never have agreed to run for office in this blighted borough in the first place. “Are you well enough to drive home?” he asked.

She paled. “Must we?”

“Well—”

“Please, Toby. I can’t get back in that carriage right now, not with those horses. Not today. I just can’t.” Tears welled in her eyes, catching on the ebony fringe of her lashes.

“No, of course not. I understand, darling.” He cast a glance over her shoulder, out at the countryside. “Wynterhall is only about two miles’ distance, if we cut across the fields. Would you prefer to walk?”

“Oh, yes.” Her face brightened. “I would prefer it. In fact, I suspect I’d enjoy it.”

Toby suspected he would, too. There were any number of stone borders between here and his estate. Haystacks, too, and smooth-barked trees. Yes, walking could prove a very enjoyable alternative to traveling by carriage.

He exchanged a few words with the driver and then vaulted the wall before swinging Isabel around and helping her down the other side. She laughed. It was a giddy, girlish sort of laugh that he didn’t recall ever hearing from her before. He liked it.

He took her hand, and together they started off across the field.

For some time, they did not talk. It seemed too soon to speak about what had happened in the square, but also too soon to think of anything else. So they simply walked in silence. They walked like children, letting their linked hands swing between them as they made large, purposeful strides past the knee-high grain. First fast, then slow, then quickly again as they gathered momentum coming down a slope.

When they reached the opposite edge of the field, Toby helped her squeeze through a gap in the hawthorn hedgerow.

“Just a moment,” he said, once they’d both made it through. “You’ve a bit of bramble in your hair.” He disentangled the offending twig and held it up for her inspection before tossing it aside.

“Thank you.” She blushed, popping up on her toes to kiss him.

It was lovely, that kiss. Petal-soft, and innocent. And it told Toby instantly that he would not be tumbling his wife against a tree, somewhere along the journey home. All that sensual urgency between them earlier—they’d lost it somewhere in that barley field. Now it was comfort that warmed the place where his fingers grazed her wrist. Comfort, and companionship, and a general sense of all being well with the world. Toby couldn’t honestly say it was better than sexual release. But neither could he say it was worse.