Patricia Rice (16 page)

Giggling, she tried to extricate herself from the
entanglement of line, pole, skirts, and Wyatt’s long legs. “Such a good pillow
you make, my lord,” she murmured.

Fairly caught, she gripped Wyatt’s thigh to balance herself.
Liking the muscular hardness, she made little haste to escape but turned a pert
smile at the trapped earl.

Whatever words she meant to say disappeared, seared from her
tongue by the look in Merrick’s eyes. Lying flat on his back, his arm clamped
around her waist, the earl looked at her with desire igniting his eyes.

Knowing what she did was brazen beyond all the bounds of
propriety, Cassandra turned more fully in Wyatt’s grasp. Still lying between
his thighs, she rested her hands against the rough weave of his shirt and bent
forward to place a kiss upon his lips.

The grip at her waist tightened, hauling her upward so she
no longer possessed all the advantage. Cassandra sprawled full length along a
man’s hard body, her breasts pressed against an unyielding surface, her legs
entwined about limbs stronger than a young tree’s. Wyatt’s lips drew her
concentration back to the wondrous blending of their mouths and breaths and
tongues.

Sighing with pleasure, Cassandra gave herself up to the kiss
she had feared would live only in her imagination. It burned like fire but sent
shafts of pleasure through her center.

Wyatt groaned when she parted her lips and allowed his
tongue entrance. Cassandra melted against him, wanting to know more of his hard
male body and kisses. She sensed his tension, but the sweetness of his kiss and
the tenderness of his hold were too new an experience to abandon.

As the kiss deepened, Merrick’s hands roamed, and Cassandra
shivered, wrapping her fingers instinctively in the thick hair at the nape of
his neck. When one large hand cupped her breast, she made no effort to resist.
The shivers had become something else, a need, a yearning for more.

When hard brown fingers pushed aside her tucker to caress
her bare flesh, Cassandra gasped, but she scarcely had time to explore this new
avenue of pleasure.

A loud male voice yelled “Merrick!” from just beyond the
bushes, bringing their idyll to an abrupt end.

Cursing, Wyatt rolled Cassandra to the ground and sprang to
his feet. Grateful he was wearing loose breeches, he adjusted himself and
strode to the pond’s edge, avoiding the tumbled beauty lying in the grass. One
sight of her might destroy all the good intentions in the world. Just that
brief glimpse of fair, full breasts had nearly crippled him. Aware of Cassandra’s
attempts to right her appearance, he called out to the intruder.

“Bertie, you damned fool, don’t you know better than to yell
around fishermen?” He stooped to retrieve the broken pole.

Wyatt couldn’t turn around until his ardor cooled, and he
listened with disgruntlement as Cassandra greeted their neighbor with
pleasantries. He heaved the snapped pole into the water after the treacherous
trout and greeted their jests with grunts.

“He got away, Bertie, the biggest fish you ever did see!
Snapped my pole right in two! You should have seen it. I’ll have to come back
tomorrow with a stronger pole.” Cassandra chattered senselessly.

“I’ll bring one of my lines down to try if Merrick’s are so
flimsy as to break at a mere tug,” Bertie said. “He hasn’t got time to idle
away. They’re raising a hue and cry for him back at the house. I just came to
ask if our lofty earl will honor our poor house with his presence on Friday
eve. And now that I’ve found you” —he glanced down at Cass sitting cross-legged
with her maid’s discarded skirts billowing around her— “I would ask you the
same. It will just be an informal dinner and musicale. Do say you will come,
Cass.”

“It is very kind of you to ask me, Bertie, but it would
probably not be appropriate for me to attend a respectable neighborhood
gathering. I would like very much to see your brother again, if I might.”

Merrick hauled in her catch line. “She’ll be there,
Scheffing. I’ll bring her with me. If Thomas is up to it, I’ll bring her over
for a few minutes this afternoon.”

“Merrick, of all the high-handed—”

Bertie grinned and cut Cass off as he helped her to her
feet. “His lordship speaks. We must obey. We keep country hours. You needn’t
worry.”

She angrily shook out her skirts and glared at them. “It is
all very well and fine for you to say, gentlemen. You do not have to show up in
cotton skirts and be the butt of gossip. I will accept your offer to see
Thomas, Merrick, but I cannot attend a social occasion.”

Bertie looked dismayed, but Wyatt merely handed her the line
of fish. “You will have to face them sometime. It might as well be among
friends. You can wear what you have on for all I care. I’ll be by this
afternoon to take you to Thomas. First, I better see to the uproar at the
house.”

He strode off without leaving a chance for reply. Left with
the choice of following at the earl’s heels or staying with Cass, Bertie chose
the latter.

He reached for her line of fish. “I don’t know what’s got
into Wyatt these days. He didn’t used to be so toplofty. Let me see you home.”

Cassandra felt a tug of sadness at Merrick’s retreat, but
she donned a smile and disengaged herself from Bertie. “My maid would be all up
in the boughs did she know anyone saw me like this. I thank you for your offer,
but I had best see myself home.”

Before Bertie could object, she scampered away, her lips
tingling with delicious stolen kisses better than any pilfered apple.

~*~

Merrick climbed over the stile and into the manicured park
of his estate. Ancient evergreens beckoned him with their shade, but he trudged
toward the sunny cascade of the flower gardens in the side yard.

He didn’t know why he had even gone to the pond this
morning. He had just felt misplaced and out of sorts and wanted some time
alone. The quiet reflections and musical bird calls of the pond had always been
one of his favorite escapes. Too favorite, obviously, he grunted to himself.
Elsewise, Bertie would never have found him.

Imagining what might have happened had Bertie not arrived,
Merrick bit back a deep groan and covered his eyes. Neither action appeased the
surge of lust in his loins.

Never in his life had a woman driven him to this sort of
behavior. He had considered himself a dispassionate man. He enjoyed the brief
pleasures of a woman’s body, but not to a degree to distract him from his
goals.

Awakening to the fact that he was in danger of trampling his
mother’s prized flowerbeds, Wyatt halted to admire the unopened new buds of the
rosebush. Cassandra was like a rose in that she had her roots in the muck of
Howard ancestry, but she still produced the heady, sensuous beauty of a perfect
blossom. No man in his right mind clasped thorns, particularly when the rose
belonged to another man.

Wyatt glanced up to see his mother bearing down on him,
followed by a harassed and angry MacGregor. It would not do to make his steward
angry. The man was worth his weight in gold. But then, Lady Merrick on her high
ropes was not an adversary to be discounted either. Cursing his unlucky stars,
Wyatt stretched his legs in the direction of the coming battle.

His mother glared at his rough garb. “Where have you been,
traipsing around like some Gypsy? You even have grass in your hair!”

With a tired sigh Wyatt ran his fingers through his hair to
remove the offending article. “Bertie says there is some problem, Mother. I
assume my offensive appearance is not what he had in mind.”

“Most certainly not! You have no cause to be rude, Wyatt.
The men are planting turnips in the south field. We always plant oats in that
field. Your father swore the soil was best for them there. You must order them
to stop at once. MacGregor won’t do it. He is above all insolent.”

Merrick sent his steward a sympathetic look. “Quite right,
Mother. The soil in the south field has been diminished by too much planting of
oats and no replenishment of nutrients. I told MacGregor to have turnips
planted there.”

As his mother choked on her outrage, Wyatt dismissed the
steward before he could be subjected to another scathing attack of the countess’s
particular brand of vitriol. He watched the man stride away, wishing he could
do the same.

“You never told me, Wyatt! I should have been told. You
cannot go making decisions behind my back and leaving me ignorant in front of
the servants.”

Wyatt offered her his arm as he steered her toward the
house. “If you did not interfere in what is not your concern, Mother, there
would be no reason to show your ignorance. Why can you not visit the other
ladies and hold teas and parties and play cards and leave me to running the estate?”

Lady Merrick sniffed. “I always helped your father run the
estate, and I am sure he did not object. But if it is parties you want, you
will be pleased to know we are entertaining this evening. I have invited
Catherine and her family. It is time you mend this foolish breach. You must
have heirs, and even you have admitted that Catherine is the ideal candidate
for your wife.”

He nodded politely to his mother’s chatter and concentrated
on the day’s chores ahead.

The fact that they included driving Cassandra to visit
Thomas presented both irksome and pleasing aspects to the afternoon, Merrick
decided later that day as he guided the curricle down the rutted drive of the
Eddings estate.

He had changed into suitable attire for an afternoon visit,
and glancing down at his companion, he could see that Cassandra had done the
same. Rupert could not have left her entirely impoverished. The high-necked
sprigged muslin gown she wore was of the highest quality.

Clearing his throat, he began the speech he had practiced
these last hours. “I wish very much to apologize for this morning, my lady.”

Blue eyes the color of gentians flashed up at him. “I should
certainly think so. You cannot imagine how awkward a situation you place me in.
I am quite certain Mrs. Scheffing had no intention of inviting me and polluting
the polite air of her company. Even if she did mean well, I could not possibly
go. I left those hideous evening gowns Duncan bought for me behind, and I could
not possibly attend in one of the two morning gowns I came away with. I had sufficient
of that embarrassment at Hampton Court. I am happy to hear that you finally see
reason.”

Merrick didn’t know whether to laugh or weep that his hours
of agonizing over the insult he had offered her had completely gone by Cassandra’s
pretty head. He quirked his lips wryly. “That is not precisely the incident to
which I referred, Cass.”

That brought a flush of color to her cheeks, a rarity if he
ever recognized one.

“Oh, that, well, you were hardly to blame, were you? Does a
lady apologize for forwardness?”

“A lady is not forward, so she has no reason to apologize.
But you did not know what you were doing, and I did. Therefore, I must extend
my most abject apologies and promise it will never happen again.”

Cassandra thought about that for a minute. The curricle in
which they rode was small, and she had a new awareness of the hard male thigh
not inches from hers. The tight pantaloons encasing his muscular leg heightened
her fascination. There was a subtle difference in the way he treated her now,
as if he had finally become aware that she was a woman.

Cass realized she wanted Merrick to think of her as a woman.
“Why do you think I did not know what I was doing?”

Merrick gave her a startled glance, then flicked the whip
and continued to watch the road. “You are not old enough to know what you were
doing.”

Cassandra flounced on her seat. “I am old enough to be
married. I should certainly think a married woman ought to know what she was
doing.”

“This is a ridiculous argument. I will rescind my apology,
if you prefer, but you will still go to the musicale Friday. You cannot hide
forever. The frock you have on will be far grander than anything the other
ladies will have.”

Cassandra pondered this. Wyatt was no arbiter of ladies’
fashions, obviously. She knew perfectly well that what she wore now was
suitable for morning company at home, not even appropriate for this afternoon
call, and certainly not suitable for evening attire. But the question was more
of her courage than her attire. Did she dare face a house full of condemning,
critical people, even with Merrick at her side? Why should she?

“It is easier to slay dragons while wearing armor. I’ll not
go. You may make my apologies to Bertie.”

“You had best be dressed and ready when I come for you, or I
shall take you wearing whatever you have on.”

Cassandra sent his determined jaw an uncertain look. Wyatt’s
unprepossessing demeanor did not speak of a man capable of physical violence. A
shock of chestnut hair fell down over his forehead, and whereas his high brow
and square chin might have classical proportions, his nose had a sharp look to
it that diminished the image. He did not possess the deep romantic eyes of a
Byron or the sardonic piratical features of a Raleigh. He was just Wyatt, the toplofty
Earl of Merrick. He wouldn’t carry out his threats.

Cassandra crossed her arms and repeated, “I won’t come.”

Wyatt shrugged. “We’ll see about that.”

~*~

Wyatt had forgotten that conversation by the time he
staggered out of the stable later that evening and turned his weary legs toward
the house.

It had been a monstrously long day, starting with that
tussle with Cassandra and ending with the foaling of his favorite mare. The
birth had threatened to be a breech, but the blood and filth halfway up his
arms testified of his successful struggle to prevent it. All Wyatt wanted now
was a long, hot bath, some of his best brandy, and his dinner.

As soon as he walked through the door he realized his
mistake. Voices and light drifted from the first drawing room, which was never
used except for entertaining. His mother’s words of earlier that day came back
to haunt him, and he groaned. Catherine was here.