He wrapped his selections in a soft hunting jacket. “No. Norris knows I don’t leave. I head for the garden door, then go up the back stairs.”
So she was never truly alone with Nicholas.
Picking up his bundle, he waved her back, closed the door, and followed her to the stairs and down.
He’d already sent word to the stables; their horses were waiting. Stuffing his clothes into a pair of saddlebags, he tossed them across Domino’s neck, then lifted her to her saddle, mounted Domino, and they were away.
This time she led, urging her mare into a gallop as soon as they left the park, streaking up the grassed side of the escarpment, then flying south, riding into the wind. He joined her, thundering along beside her. The wind rose to greet them, shrieked in their faces, dragged at their hair.
They paid it no heed but streamed over the green, checking only to descend to the flat and clatter across the bridge at Lostwithiel before taking to the heights again. The wind followed their progress, whistling like a banshee as they turned east for Wallingham and thundered on.
A sense of déjà vu rose and crashed through him. They’d ridden this way, just like this, many times before, but he was so far removed from the youth he’d been, and she from the girl he’d known.
Exhilarating and disconcerting, that sense of sameness only emphasized all that had changed.
And all that hadn’t.
They raced, not each other but simply for the sake of it. Late afternoon edged into evening, the sun a ball of fire dousing itself in the ocean ahead of them. In the last of the golden light, they rode wild along the ridge, then down through the fields to clatter into the Wallingham Hall stable yard.
Penny kicked her feet free and slid from her saddle; he met her gaze as, boots touching ground, he hauled the saddlebags free, slung them over his shoulder-and suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Awareness, sharp, intense and familiar, flashed between them.
Eyes wide, she stared, then swung on her heel, grabbed up her trailing habit, and headed for the house.
He fell in beside her as she walked past the kitchen garden. She glanced at him; he caught her gaze, held it-sensed the raw energy prickling over his skin, arcing between them, felt its compulsion in his veins.
Knew she felt it, too.
It was he who stepped away, increased the distance between them. He looked ahead. Impossible to whisk her off to her room or anywhere else, not like this, with the elemental hunger their wild gallop had set free riding him. And her. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
He dragged in a breath, held it. Forced himself to open the garden door and stand back, to let her precede him and walk a safe distance down the corridor to the front hall before he stepped across the threshold.
Pausing just inside the door, he waited.
She realized, stopped, and looked back.
He nodded. “I’ll see you at dinner.” With that, he turned, walked the other way, swung onto the back stairs, and climbed swiftly upward.
Away from temptation-a temptation that hadn’t changed with the years but had simply grown.
By the time she returned to her bedchamber later that evening, Penny’s nerves were jangling, taut, tightrope-tense-waiting. Not with innocent expectation, but an educated and quite specific anticipation; she knew what she wanted.
Having made her decision, wild impatience had infected her during their ride home and hadn’t dissipated in the least, not over their fifteen minutes in the drawing room, where she’d played the dutiful damsel for Nicholas’s benefit, nor over dinner, an unusually silent meal.
Charles hadn’t been interested in talking any more than she; they’d both had other matters on their minds. As for Nicholas, he’d remained sunk in thoughts that appeared little short of openly distressing. He’d looked wretched, but had shown no signs of confiding in them.
Climbing out of her evening gown, she donned the nightgown Ellie had waiting, then sat at her dressing table to brush out her hair-anything to keep her hands busy, to conceal her rising, nervy impatience.
Charles had been discretion itself, appearing from outside as if he’d just driven over for dinner, then later, after they’d sat through the required hour and the tea trolley had come and gone, formally taking his leave and, apparently, heading out to the stables.
He’d be waiting to see Ellie depart, to hear her go down the back stairs.
“Will that be all, miss?”
“Yes, thank you, Ellie.”
Ellie curtsied. Penny nodded in the mirror, watched as Ellie went out.
The instant the door shut, she rose, set down her hairbrush and looked at the bed. Imagined…then stiffened her spine.
The candles…should she snuff them? The single candle by the bed and the two in the dressing table sconces were all relatively new; they’d burn for hours before guttering.
Years ago, she’d been a prude; she hadn’t looked, hadn’t wanted him to look. Now…drawing in a deep breath, she left the candles burning. She wanted to know everything. Wanted to experience all there was, every sight, every sensation, to gather them greedily to her and hoard them.
The latch clicked; by the time she glanced at the door, Charles was inside. He’d seen her; she heard the clunk as he locked the door.
His gaze had locked on her. “Penny…?”
She flew across the room, flung herself into his arms. Knew he’d catch her. She didn’t want to talk.
Charles swore, the oath muffled beneath her lips as she framed his face and kissed him. At least he had the answer to the question she hadn’t waited for him to ask. He rocked back against the door as he took her weight, without conscious direction his arms wrapping about her and locking her to him.
With a herculean effort, he broke from the kiss. “Pen-”
She caught him again, dragged his mouth down to hers, found his tongue with hers, and breathed fire down his veins.
His next curse was entirely mental; she was racing faster than the wind had blown, and it wasn’t wise, wasn’t safe-not for her, not with him. He’d been half-aroused before he’d entered the room; now he was rigid, one step from pain, his demons eager and straining, his control seriously weakened.
By her. Again.
He seized her. Tightened his arms, lifted her from her feet, and wrenched control of the kiss from her.
Tried to; to his amazement, it didn’t work. She levered herself up in his arms until she leaned over him, her forearms on his shoulders, his head clasped between her palms, and kissed him as if he were the last man on earth and tonight was her only time with him.
Women and their passions were his specialty, but this…this devouring, hungry, ravenous need-where had it come from? He’d known she wanted him, had known since they’d reached the stable yard; he hadn’t anticipated any resistance tonight, but he hadn’t expected this.
Hadn’t expected to be left gasping, wits reeling, pulse pounding, reduced to elemental need with just a kiss.
She angled her head, pressed the kiss deeper, and he shuddered. She spread her thighs, gripped his hips with her knees, and something inside him quaked. Then his cravat loosened; he felt her hands slide down, working between them, felt his shirt give-felt her hand slide in, fingers spreading, palm gliding over his upper chest.
And down as far as she could reach.
He’d been caressed by courtesans expert in their art; no touch had ever rocked him as hers did. It nearly brought him to his knees.
Never, not ever before, had any woman met him like this. Challenged him like this. Relinquishing any thought of sophisticated play, of hours spent introducing her to all he’d learned in the years he’d been away, he staggered to the bed and fell across it.
Later.