Never Kiss a Laird (14 page)

“I think you should call me Sally,”
she informed him, the smile in her eyes replaced with a compelling light.
 
She took hold of his lapels and gently drew
him closer.
 

“Sally,” he whispered imploringly,
feeling his ability to hold back falling away.
 
“This is wrong.”
 

“It doesn’t feel that way,” she
murmured as their lips touched.
 
Hugh’s
resistance dissolved as he pressed his lips to Sally’s eager mouth.
 
He wanted her, but it was more than that.
More than her beauty, her alluring smile and tumbled red-gold curls, more than
her soft, yielding body, Hugh was captivated by her courage, and her
indomitable spirit.
 
As she twined her
arms around him, one hand caressing the back of his neck, he gave in to his
desire.

Sally met his kiss with an almost
frantic need.
  
She opened her mouth
impatiently,
meeting Hugh’s teasing tongue with her own, her
arms pulling him as close as she could get him.
 
Hugh’s hand slipped down her back, and cupped her rounded buttocks with
a pressure that caused a groan to come from between Sally’s reddened lips.
 
She was aware of her breasts, feeling heavy
and full, and a desperate need to feel Hugh’s touch on their sensitive
tips.
 
Hugh’s lips moved to her neck, and
as his hot lips pressed down her neck, Sally slipped her hands inside his
tight-fitting jacket, and eased the fabric back and over his shoulders.
 
Hugh obediently dropped his arms, his lips
still busy, and allowed his jacket to fall away.
 
Her hands moved from his shoulders, over the
hard muscles of his back, easily felt through the thin lawn of his shirt.
 
Keen to feel the touch of his skin, Sally
pulled his shirttails from his breeches, and slipped her hands underneath, her
soft palms teasing the flesh of his flat stomach.
 

She felt his muscles, taut beneath
her hands, and as her hands moved up and over the soft hair that covered his chest,
Sally’s very core began thrumming. She was aware of an insistent need beginning
between her legs, a throbbing that seemed to emanate from her center all the
way to her chest, causing her heart rate to speed up.
 
Her nipples felt as tight as pebbles, and she
brushed her breasts against Hugh’s hard chest.
 
She reached up, starting to unbutton her shirtwaist, as Hugh
straightened and captured her mouth once more.

“Sally,” he murmured against her
lips, as she took his hand, and raised it to her soft breast.
 
He cupped the full, soft mound, rasping his
thumb back and forth over the taut tip.
 
Sally dropped her head back, arching her back and pressing into his
hand.

“Come with me,” she pleaded, taking
his hand and tugging him out of the room, and towards the little stairway that
led to the upper floor.

“Sally,” the Earl temporized,
holding back.
 
“Are you sure?”

“Please,” Sally met his gaze, her
own eyes darkened with desire.
 
“Or I
think I may go mad.”

Hugh, unable to resist, followed
her up the stair, into a small bed chamber.
 
Sally turned to him and pushed the door closed.
 

She reached behind herself, and
unbuttoned her skirt, allowing it to fall to her feet.
 
Hugh strode forward, and took her face in his
hands, kissing her at first softly, then more urgently.
 
He peeled her shirtwaist back over her
shoulders, sending the last two buttons flying.
 
Sally laughed at his eagerness, but as he hooked his fingers into the
top of her pantaloons, sliding them over her hips, her laughter stopped as her
need intensified. As her pantaloons fell to the floor, she stood before him,
clad only in the white stockings that ended above her knees, and she took his
breath away.
 
Hugh scooped her up in his
arms, and settled her onto the bed.
 
He
straightened, and pulled his cravat roughly from his neck, slipped his shirt
over his head, dropping it onto the floor.
  
Sally saw his broad shoulders and the dark hair that swirled over his
chest.
 
She held her breath as he
unbuttoned his trousers.
 
He pulled off
his boots, and then quickly stripped off his breeches.
 
He stood for a moment, allowing her to look
at him.
 
His broad shoulders tapered to
narrow hips.
 
Sally took her under lip
between her teeth, holding her breath as she looked at his muscled form, his
firm manhood, his muscular thighs, and she knew that she wanted him.

Hugh slipped into the bed with her,
and Sally reveled in the feeling of the full length of his warm body against
hers, and the heady masculine scent of him.
 
He captured her mouth again, and his hand slid over her, to cup her
breast.
 
He moved slowly down her body,
his lips moving to the soft white skin of her throat, and then down to capture
her breast in his mouth, sucking and teasing the rosy nipple.
 

His hand slid further, down over
her stomach, and Sally knew that his goal was the sweet throbbing center that
seemed to control her.
 
She opened her
legs to his searching hand, and as he reached that spot, she cried out.
 
His skillful fingers made slow circles, and
she moved with him, her body on fire with need,
a
sweet torture that seemed to control her senses. Her own hand moved to cover
his, and she pressed into the fingers that were causing such magical sensations
to shoot through her.
 
But she wanted
more.
 

Hugh shifted his weight, moving
between her soft white thighs, pushing her knees further apart.
 
He took most of his own weight on his elbows,
and Sally moved back and forth beneath him, arching her back to get the closest
contact she could get with him.
 
She felt
a sensation that she had never
imagined,
a need to be
filled with him, an emptiness that was not there before.
 
Hugh groaned, and with one hand he brushed
the damp curls from her forehead, meeting her eyes.
 
He took her hand and guided it down between
them, and she encountered the rigidity that she craved.
 
She leaned forward, and captured his mouth,
and as he pressed her back against the pillow, he entered her.
 
Sally felt a pressure that almost felt like
pain, but it was immediately overshadowed by the wonder of Hugh moving inside
her, pushing into her.
   
She rose to
meet him, and the sensations as he pressed against her sensitive core again and
again caused a rising tension that pushed her to the brink almost of madness.
 
She wrapped her legs around Hugh’s body,
pulling him in to her as he moved above her, her breath coming more and more
quickly.
  
She wanted him to move faster,
and as if he could sense her need, he did so. Sally moved her head back and
forth on the pillow, trying not to scream her need aloud, and when she thought
she would go mad, the delicious agony suddenly gave way in wave upon wave of
shuddering release.
 
Sally’s body bucked
against Hugh’s tension as their passion exploded in climax and then slowly
quieted.
 
Hugh relaxed against her shoulder,
his breath coming in gasps, his weight heavy upon her.
 
He rolled to his side, and subsided onto the
mattress beside her, and they lay there for a few minutes, catching their
breath.

A slow smile spread across Sally’s
face, and she turned her head to meet Hugh’s face, a similar expression upon
his visage.

‘If I’d only known,” Sally
marveled.
 
“That is well worth a ruined
reputation.”

A surprised laugh escaped Hugh, and
he pulled up on one elbow to look down at Sally.
 
A sheen
of sweat on
her brow made her appear to be glowing, and a blush of color blazed on her
cheekbones.
 
Her eyes met his, open and
smiling.
 

Hugh shook his head in awe, and
raised one finger to trace the line of her jaw, down her soft white throat, to
lay
across her chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall.
 
The smile died out of her eyes, to be
replaced by an intent look that seemed to move right through him.
 
Hugh slowly lowered his head, and pressed his
lips to hers.
 

“How soon can we do that again,”
she giggled against his lips, raising her arms up around his torso.

Hugh chuckled, but before he could
reply, they both became aware of the back door of the cottage slamming shut.

“Millie,” Sally breathed
guiltily.
 

Hugh closed his eyes.
 
“My horse is out front.”
 
He sprang from the bed, rummaging on the
floor for his clothes.

“And your riding jacket is in the
front room,” Despite the gravity of the situation, Sally subsided into helpless
giggles.
 
“Oh, my reputation,” she
sputtered.

“That’s not funny,” Hugh looked
over his shoulder at her as he pulled his breeches on, and slipped his feet
into his boots.

Sally sat up, reaching for her
chemise.
 
“Sorry,” she said without
sounding in the least sorry.

At the sight of her naked body,
creamy pale skin and full breasts, Hugh’s hands stopped buttoning his
shirt.
 
“I can’t even think with you
sitting there looking like that,” he admitted.

“Then don’t think, just dress,” she
ordered, pulling on her skirt and shirtwaist, and going to the mirror to
straighten her hair.
 
“I will go
downstairs and keep Millie in the kitchen, and you see if you can get your
jacket and slip out the front.
  
I will
say that you left your horse there as you looked about the grounds, and then
planned to leave directly.”

As she put her hand on the door
knob, she paused and turned back to Hugh.
 
With his hair in disarray and his shirt unbuttoned, he looked impossibly
handsome to Sally, and much younger than he did when first she saw him.
 
She walked slowly back to him, and, putting
her hands on his shoulders, she reached up and kissed him.
 

“I had no idea,” she said
simply.
 

Captivated, Hugh started to pull
her back to him, but she whipped her hands behind her and backed away.
 
With a mischievous smile, she slipped through
the door and few minutes later, Hugh could hear her talking in the kitchen as
he returned to the sitting room, picked up his jacket and slipped out the front
door.

He threw himself into the saddle,
and urged Rufus into a gallop, racing away from the one place he most wanted to
be.

Chapter Eleven

Sallie paused before pushing
through the door into the kitchen.
  
She
had watched Hugh swing gracefully into the saddle, admiring his seat as he
galloped away from the cottage.
 
She
tried unsuccessfully to erase the smile from her face as she entered the small
warm kitchen.

Millie looked up from the table,
where she was assembling a tea try.
 
“Miss Sally,” she greeted her mistress.
 
“I must say that it seemed a terrible extravagance to buy that gig, but
it makes the shopping very much easier, besides saving the cost of deliveries.”

“I am glad,”

“Whose horse is that, Miss Sally,”
Millie continued.
 
“I thought to find a
visitor.”

“No.
 
It was an agent from our landlord, I think,
who was just looking at the cottage for repairs.”
 
Sallie suddenly because engrossed in perusing
the various groceries upon the table.
 
“But it looks like you forgot to buy the beef, Millie,” she accused.

Her maid gave her a dour
frown.
 
“Now, Miss Sally, you know we
agreed that we would have beef on Sundays only.
 
We can’t afford to be living like kings.”

Sally grimaced.
 
“Well, I’m starving for some reason,
Millie.
 
Can we at least have biscuits
with our tea?”

Millie filled the teapot with
boiling water, and before she could answer Bridget chimed in.
 
“We bought you a Dundee
cake,” she blurted out.
 
“For a surprise.”

Sallie smiled and took the tray
from her maid.
 
“Delightful,
thank you!
 
I’ll carry that,
Millie.”

Her maid
tsk-tsk-ed
at her, but yielded the tray, and preceded Sally out of the kitchen, holding
the door for her.
  

Entering the sitting room, Sallie
bent to set the tray down on a small table, and her eye was immediately caught
by something winking brightly by the hearth.

“What on earth can that be,” her
sharp-eyed maid queried, bending to retrieve a gentleman’s tiepin, an ornate
piece with a very fine diamond sparkling in the center of the setting.

“Wherever can this have come from?”
Millie asked, turning the jeweled pin so that the diamond seemed to shoot with
fire.

Sallie blanched, remembering
pushing Hugh’s jacket off his shoulder’s in just that spot.
 
She must have inadvertently snagged the
jeweled pin in his cravat.
 
“That must be
Rupert’s,” she made a quick recover.
 
“He
is so careless!”

“I’ve not seen him with such an
expensive piece before, Miss Sallie,” Millie said thoughtfully.

“I think that pin was a birthday
present from our father,” Sallie lied.
 
“Rupert rarely wears it for just such a fear of losing it.”
 
She plucked the pin from Millie’s fingers,
and put it into her pocket.
 
“I will
return it to him when we meet on our ride this morning.”

“Very well, Miss Sally,” Millie let
it go, and poured out tea.
 

Sally accepted a cup and a piece of
the almond studded cake, and moved over to stand before the fire.
 
Even though it was approaching April, the air
was still chilly in the morning.
 
There
were definitely better ways to get warm than a cup of tea and a fire, she
chuckled to herself, her cheeks reddening at the memory of Hugh’s touch.
 

“Are you feeling quite well?”
Millie broke in upon her thoughts.
 
“You
look quite flushed.”

Sally pressed one hand to her hot
cheek, and gave a laugh.
 
“I’m fine,
Millie.
 
I think I will get changed for
my ride.
 
Will you ask Miles to saddle
Beauty for me?”

“I will.
 
But first I’ll run upstairs and fetch your
riding jacket.
 
I noticed a small tear in
the front pocket the last time you wore it.
 
I’ll just quickly mend that, or it will only keep tearing.”

Sally hastily set her cup down, and
hurried to the doorway.
 
She suddenly
remembered the state of her bedchamber.
 
The bed, which Millie had straightened for her this morning, was in
complete disarray.
 
‘I’ll bring it down
to you,” she said quickly.
 
“Save you a
trip up those stairs.”

“You are such a good girl,” Millie
approved.
 
“I’ll go speak with Miles.”

Sally’s conscience smote her as she
hurried up the stairs to her bedchamber.
 
“I am definitely not a good girl,” she admitted, the traitorous smile
taking over her features again.
 
As she
straightened the bedclothes, the masculine scent of the man she had held there
drifted up to her.
 
She picked up her
pillow, inhaling deeply, and feeling her senses quicken.
 

 
“Mother was probably right to be worried about
me,” she chortled to herself.
 
She
stripped out of her clothes, ruthlessly trying to suppress the memory of the
last time she did so.
 
Donning her riding
habit, and pushing her feet into her boots, Sally put the diamond pin into the
pocket of her riding skirt, and trod quickly down the narrow steps and out the
front door.

She allowed Miles to throw her up
onto Beauty’s back, and she wheeled the brown mare around and urged her into a
canter.
 
As they gained the main road,
Sally allowed Beauty to break into a gallop, enjoying the exhilaration of the
speed and the wind blowing at her.
 
She
laughed aloud, her spirits high, as she headed towards the moors.
 
She knew that she was early for her
rendezvous with her brother, so she slowed the mare down, and dropped into a
walk.

What a wonderful world existed that
she had never dreamed of, she thought to herself, with a smile.
 
A vision of Hugh as he had looked in her
bedchamber swam into her mind.
 
Young,
handsome, disheveled from their lovemaking.
 
She knew she was grinning foolishly, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
 
There was certainly some advantage in being a
fallen woman without a shred of reputation, she thought to herself.
 
Perhaps she would live to be grateful to
Simon Atherly after all, she reasoned.
 
Simon Atherly.
 
Sally felt the
smile fade from her face.
 
The thought of
Simon Atherly kissing her like that, touching her so intimately made her
shudder with distaste.
  
She remembered
the self-satisfied look in his eyes as he had informed her that he had a
special punishment in mind for her.
 
Sally’s lips drew into a grimace.
 
If escaping that fate was the only good thing to come from her flight
from Denham Park, it was well worth it.

Sally looked up and realized that
while she had been caught up in her thoughts, Beauty had continued to follow
the road, and the manicured drive they were now on denoted that she had
wandered onto the main drive up to the Castle.
 
Curious to see the edifice that Rupert had been so enamored of, Sally
allowed Beauty to walk on, and when they rounded a last turn in the drive, Castle
Kane loomed before her.
 
It really was a
magnificent building, the extensive grounds beautifully maintained.
 
It stood on a rise, and Sally imagined that
the view from the walkways at the top of the Castle would be spectacular.
  
In her previous life, Sally might have
imagined being mistress of such an estate, but with a slight pang she realized
that while she might indulge in a dalliance with the current Earl, she was no
longer an eligible partner for him.
 

Sally turned Beauty off of the main
drive, onto a lesser path that she thought would lead towards the moors.
 
As she did so, she became aware of the sounds
of a carriage coming down the drive behind her.
 
A few minutes later, a large travelling carriage, pulled by four black
horses, moved past in a swirl of dust.
 
It was followed a moment later by a smaller carriage laden with trunks.
 
Sally recognized it as the equipage of someone
coming to pay a lengthy visit, and wondered who would be coming to see the Earl
in the middle of the season.
 
A wry smile
crossed her face as she remembered that she had someone in the Castle who could
keep her informed of all the comings and goings there.
 

Speaking of whom, Sally remembered
that she was engaged to meet her brother in a short while, and she continued on
her way, all thoughts of the Earl’s visitors forgotten.