Hadrian (19 page)

Was that what leading a flock had been to him? A collar? “In either case, you prayed?”

“I did, either in thanksgiving or for fortitude. A winter without a full hay barn is a frightening prospect.”

“Much like spring without new life,” Avis said as the pond came into view.

Now that she’d made the climb, the expanse of cool water beckoned, and she would have commenced stripping off her half-boots and stockings, at least, but Hadrian had gone still beside her.

He’d also kept his fingers laced with hers.

“I wanted children too, Avie. That was part of what motivated me to marry.”

“Children?” New life—of course he would not miss that reference.

“Yes, children. Messy, disruptive little beasts who make noise and break things by accident, and sometimes on purpose. I never considered that my wife wouldn’t share that objective.”

He seldom referred to the lady by name, but Avis wondered if Rue Bothwell was ever far from his thoughts.

“She didn’t want children?”

“She wanted something.” He took off his jacket, which at one time might have been a fine piece of apparel, and spread it on the ground. The green slopes rose around them, while the pond was a flat mirror of the evening sky. “She perceived more clearly than I that Harold wouldn’t have sons. I suppose she wanted Landover.”

“Did she say as much?” For Hadrian’s sake, Avis hoped his wife had at least been tactful about her ambitions. He deserved that much kindness. “Maybe her mother had a hard time in childbed, and she was anxious.”

Hadrian handed Avis down onto his jacket, then joined her, carefully, slowly.

“Her mother produced several healthy daughters in rapid succession. They fascinated me, with their looks, indecipherable asides, and exclusionary airs.” His tone said he wasn’t pleased with his easily fascinated younger self.

“Exclusionary?”

He took Avis’s hand, though his had to be sore. “A sibling group of sisters, no brothers, and their dear papa was devoted to the Lord’s work in sheer self-defense. They were a mystery to me, a sweet-smelling, coy, teasing, unknowable mystery.”

“So you married to unwrap the mystery?” He’d had no sister, not even a mother for most of his boyhood. Avis would not have blamed him for marrying to unwrap the mystery of femininity.

“I married in part because they decided their baby sister would have me, and into parson’s mousetrap I went.”

He was trying to lighten the moment, and yet his grip on her hand had tightened.

“You went willingly.” Or had he sought marriage because for one summer, Avis and Alex had sheltered under Landover’s roof, and Hadrian had liked that?

“We were both willing, at the time. We weren’t miserable.”

“Not miserable.” Avis said the words as one might have said “slightly putrid” or “a little fatal,” for Hadrian had clearly been something worse than miserable. He’d been resigned.

Out in the pond, a fish leapt. How did fish find their way into a hillside pond?

He untangled his hand from Avis’s grasp. “Not miserable is better than my parents had. Perhaps we should remove to a blanket?”

“Somebody has been making regular visits,” Avis said, for an oilskin covered a hamper under a particular rowan tree, and the edge of a tartan blanket peeked out from under the wicker lid.

“Fen and I have taken to bathing up here. We keep soap, towels, blankets, and if I’m not mistaken, a bottle in there.”

“A bottle? What resourceful fellows.” And how easily Hadrian made a friend of the steward Avis had taken several years to turn into an ally.

“The bottle was my idea,” Hadrian said, rising and opening the basket. “If Fen asks me to help him build a tree-fort, I’ll be tempted.”

“Would you play castaways too?” The notion appealed to Avis. Haying had made her daft.

“Only if Fen is the loyal companion, and I get to be head of the expedition,” Hadrian said, moving things around in the hamper.

“The Cumbrian countryside can be a lonely place to grow up.” Avis pushed to her feet, because clearly, Hadrian was intent on some objective. “I had Alex, until she went a-governessing.”

Hadrian stopped plundering the basket’s stores long enough to let Avis have a look. “Is that when Miss Prentiss joined the household?”

“More or less.” Avis extracted a corked bottle—haying was thirsty business. “Shall we?”

“Certainly.” Hadrian spread the oilskin then laid a blanket over it and retrieved his jacket from the bank of the pond. “We can celebrate the end of haying, and your return to besieging the dower house with Miss Prentiss.”

Daunting thought.

“The dower house needs besieging.” Avis took a seat on the blankets, uncorked the bottle and cautiously sampled of the contents, finding them a blend of fruit and fire. “What on earth is this?”

“Peach brandy.” Hadrian settled cross-legged beside her. “Fenwick came across it on his travels in the south. Imbibe carefully; it packs a devil of a kick.”

“It’s different, like a cordial, but fiery.” Peach brandy put her in mind of Hadrian’s kisses.

He appropriated the bottle. “If you don’t exercise moderation, you’ll regret it in the morning, as much as you were in the heat today.”

“I should be ordering myself a bath right this minute.” Avis passed him the cork. “Except the house staff is run ragged along with the rest of us.” So she’d soak her feet in the pond and enjoy the peace and quiet of the hillside.

Hadrian pulled off a boot. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not inclined to wait for my bath.”

Another boot came off. Hadrian pitched both to the side of the blanket, and abruptly, Avis’s fatigue had also been tossed aside.

“Hadrian Bothwell, what are you about? It’s broad daylight, and you are not alone.”

“A lady is present,” he allowed, as his stockings came off. “A very hot, tired and, dare we say it, unrefreshed lady, one who could join me in yonder water and feel much better in short order.”

Unrefreshed. A telling summary of the past twelve years. “I haven’t been swimming for years. That water must be freezing.”

“Two months ago, it was freezing.” Hadrian’s shirt went over his head. “Now it’s pleasantly brisk.” He stood and began to unbutton his falls.

“Hadrian. This is not a good idea.” Though Avis would not object if his fingers worked more quickly.

“I have to agree,” he said as his breeches and drawers came off together. “It’s a
wonderful
idea.” Naked as God made him, he moved around behind her and hunkered to unfasten her dress. “The sun is dropping, the moon will be nearly full, and we can watch it rise together, but mind you, don’t be telling your duenna about this.”

“My who?”

A soft, warm sensation on her nape informed her Hadrian was sneaking kisses. “You’re unbuttoned, my lady. You can extract yourself from there, but please do not offend your Creator or present company by leaving your shift on. If you’re willing to celebrate Beltane, then celebrate Beltane.”

Beltane had come and gone. Avis was more interested in celebrating
him.

Which was bad of her. Very bad. “Hadrian, I should not.” Though, why not? What had twelve years of careful propriety earned her but a loneliness as deep as the quarry pond and twice as cold?

“We’re almost engaged,” Hadrian whispered, nuzzling her shoulder, “and it’s only me, Avie.”

“Only you.” She leaned back against the hands he’d rested on her shoulders. “Stark, stitchless naked.”

“And it feels wonderful, so stop stalling. I want to see you.”

“You must have what you want,” she murmured, and before her courage could desert her, she drew her dress up and over her head.

She was glad to be rid of it, for even an old, soft, summer walking dress was a weight, and for once, Avis wanted to be weightless.

“The shift, love.” Hadrian came around and held out a hand to her, drawing her to her feet.

“How can you strut about, unclothed and unconcerned?”

“Do you like what you see?” He stepped back and spread his arms. “If you like the view, I’m happy not to cover it up. I’m also in need of a liberal dose of soap and water and getting clean will feel nearly as wonderful as, say, kissing you.”

“How do you have the energy for this?” She turned her face away and let him untie the bows of her jumps and shift.

“How do you have the energy to resist?”

Avis shimmied out of her stays; Hadrian drew her shift over her head, and there she stood, naked, but for boots and stockings.

“I feel silly.” Also chilly.

“You’re overdressed,” Hadrian said, going down on his knees to roll down her stockings and unlace her boots. He also managed to work in a goodly number of little touches and caresses to her feet, ankles, and calves.

He hadn’t learned this masculine competence, with her clothing, with her body, in vicar school, and he hadn’t learned it from his ambitious, un-maternal wife. He’d had it before, during their one shared summer.

Avis had thanked God for it then; she nearly worshipped Hadrian for it now.

“You are lovely.” Hadrian rose when Avis had stepped out of her boots. “You honor me with your trust, and I shall perish of my own stickiness if we don’t get in the water immediately.” He set towels and soap on the bank, while Avis dashed past him, lest she expire from a combination of mortification, curiosity, and desire.

She came up sputtering, the cold reverberating through her bones. “Ye gods, Hadrian!”

He stood on the bank, a grinning pagan god. “You’ll adjust, just don’t stop moving.”

“It’s refreshing. Shockingly so.”

“I generally bathe first,” Hadrian said, balancing atop a rock that jutted out over the water, “in case my resolve fails, or winter comes early.”

He executed a graceful arc, knifing into the water with barely a splash.

Avis was standing in water up to her neck—the cold had become nearly bearable—when Hadrian approached her with the soap.

“You’re interested in using the soap, Mr. Bothwell?”

“On you.”

He didn’t give her a chance to argue—she’d meant to argue—he simply scrubbed up a lather and applied his wet, slippery hands to her neck, making a slow, massaging job of her ablutions. He washed every inch of skin, behind her ears, around to her throat and over her shoulders.

And merciful days, his attentions were pleasure itself. “I should not let you do this.”

“Not in water this deep,” Hadrian replied, tugging her a few steps closer to the bank. “Hold still.”

When she was submerged only up to her thighs, he resumed bathing her. He worked his way over her belly and ribs, up and down her arms, and finally, when her eyes were closed, and she was resting against him, to her breasts.

“I shall be quite clean,” she sighed, not opening her eyes. “Cleaner than I can recall ever being.”

“The cold water has you in a state.”

“The cold water does not have me in a state.”

He brushed a slick thumb over each ruched nipple in slow, repeated caresses, while a hard, warm, column of male flesh prodded Avis’s hip.

“You’re in a state, sir.” The sight of which might have disturbed her, but this was Hadrian.

“Rather.” He cupped water in his hands to rinse off her breasts, his smile distracted. “I was relying on the cold water to assist with my self-restraint. Turn.”

She obliged, for it was safer when he wasn’t in her line of sight.

“You get to bathe me next,” he informed her, “and I want a deal of washing.”

Generous man. In contrast to his brisk pronouncements, his hands were the embodiment of gentleness on her backside. “We might be up here until moonrise, Hadrian.”

“We might at that. You have dimples in an interesting location.” His hands slid to the base of her spine. “Be warned: Your dimples are of the kissable variety, and this part,”—his hands slipped lower—“is entirely enticing.”

That
part of her was enthralled. He soaped her thoroughly, gently kneaded each buttock—how was it even her backside could be tired?—then rinsed her lovingly and knelt behind her in the water to rest his cheek on the slope of one curve.

“Hadrian?”

“Recovering from my labors. If you swim off, I’ll likely drown.”

“Avoiding your bath?”

He kissed her on the swell of her fundament, nuzzled her dimples, and stood. “Quite the opposite. I’m anticipating it.”

Avie’s revenge was thorough, and more skilled than Hadrian had thought her capable of. She got him clean, but it was a process of
nearly
touching his cock,
glancingly
caressing his fundament,
almost
gliding a hand over his nipples. She’d press her body fleetingly against his—ostensibly to reach around him—and let her hip nudge at his cockstand—purely by accident.

The only thought giving him a measure of control was that this was the closest they’d come to reciprocal intimate play, and for Avie, that was likely as important as the actual joining.

And important to him. Who would have thought?

He’d reassured himself in York that he was still a man, still had functional organs unique to men, but he’d yet to reassure himself he was a
lover
. With Avis, only a lover would do.