The Viscount's Addiction (13 page)

They had not uttered a word on the path. As they reached the gritty shore, Lord Blackwood stopped at the edge and let the clear water lap over the toes of his boots. He sat and looked up at Jessie. “You first.”

“Me first?”

“I will undress, but after I watch you remove your clothing.” His gaze was drawn to her breasts. “Surely, you don’t intend on swimming in your garments.”

Jessie surveyed the area around the lake. “We are rather exposed out here. I usually swim in my dress. If someone were to ride down the road there…”

“There was one reason and one reason only that I went along with this plan, Jessie. I wanted to see that beautiful arse of yours floating in the water. Now strip off all those unnecessary garments. But take your time. I want to savor the whole event.”

Suddenly the idea of undressing for him out in the open with his eyes watching every move thrilled Jessie. She felt warm moisture between her thighs as she slipped off her shoes. Flirtatiously she lifted the hem of her dress, skimming it slowly up her calves.

“Stop,” he nearly shouted. “I thought I could do it but I simply can’t. If you were any other woman, ’twouldn’t matter. A wife should not look or act as you do.”

Insulted, she dropped the dress and the thin muslin slid back down past her ankles. “Well, you aren’t exactly how I pictured my husband,” she said, the hurt a solid lump in her throat.

He frowned. “I meant a wife should not be so sensual. I want you there where only I can see you.” He pointed to the secluded bend in the pond.

“As you wish.” Forgetting her slippers she circled the pond, doing damage to her stockings.

One of the trees in the grove was charred and split, as though cleaved by lightning. Half the dying tree sagged, creating a rough bench. Gingerly Jessie brushed off an insect then sat atop the fallen tree. With flirtatious deliberation, she smoothed the stockings down, baring her legs to the cool air. She draped the stockings over a branch. Lord Blackwood’s intense gaze followed her hands as she straightened and reached around to undo the buttons of her bodice, revealing the sheer chemise beneath. She slipped her thin muslin dress from her shoulders and dropped it around her bare feet. She hesitated in her undergarment. “I don’t mind getting this wet. It will dry quickly.”

“Wife, you are disobeying my order.” He pushed to his feet as if he would leave. “Stay right there.” The straps of her chemise tickled as they slid down her bare arms.

She stood completely naked in front of him. Her nipples tightened. “I’m going in. Hurry

and undress.”

“I am not done looking at you.” His gaze never leaving her, he sat to remove his boots and breeches. He whipped off his white linen shirt and stood. The sun radiated off his pale skin and he resembled a master’s work, a statue so finely chiseled that Jessie sighed in awe. She could only imagine how extraordinary a physical specimen he would be if he didn’t have opium polluting his blood.

A tiny burst of wind floated over the water causing ripples and landing a large leaf on Jessie’s bare foot. She smiled and bent to pick it up. It was large enough to cover her triangle of hair. With a seductive flutter of her lashes, she placed the leaf at the apex of her thighs. “I’m beginning to feel like Eve.” She looked around her. “But without the apple. And without the snake.” Theatrically, she lifted a foot off the ground and checked under it then smiled up at him. “I hope. And you must be my Adam.”

He walked toward her and took the leaf from her hand, purposefully grazing her nether lips as he did. It was a possessive action, as if her body was his by rights. He lifted

the leaf to her breasts and ran it lightly over her erect nipples. “If I am Adam then I fear for the future of humankind.”

Jessie’s laugh floated away on a breeze. “I think humankind could do much worse.” She took his hand and led him to the water. They both tested it with their toes. A shiver traveled up his body and down his arm into her hand. “It’s colder than I remembered,” she said. “Perhaps it will be a shock to your system.”

He shook his head. “No, it is just what I needed.” He dropped her hand and fell face first into the water. As he surfaced, he flung his thick black hair from his forehead and turned to look at her. “Christ, that was invigorating. I may sit here for the next several months.” His body was completely submerged. The water gently lapped the tops of his shoulders.

Jessie congratulated herself for a splendid idea. The cool water was restorative; the grimace lines on his forehead had smoothed. She pushed off the shallow sand bar she’d been perched on and floated out to him.

As she came closer to him, she could see a faint glimmer in his violet eyes that she had not seen for several days. “You know, if you decide to stay out here, you will have to learn to snatch flies from the air with your tongue,” she said.

Through the cloudy water his hands found her waist and yanked her body against his. His gaze softened as he stared down into her face. “I do have a very talented tongue.” His mouth covered hers. Jessie pressed her naked skin against his. She could not seem to get close enough. His arms circled her and he held her so tightly she could barely breathe.

He lifted his head. “You realize you’ll have to stay out here with me. They could just find us shriveled and naked one day still wrapped in each other’s arms.”

A little grim, but a romantic notion nonetheless, Jessie decided. She dove under the cool water. When her head popped back up she found he was watching her.

“Where did you learn to swim?”

“Witches float, didn’t you know?” She smiled. “One of the places my father and I traveled to was New South Wales. He wrote papers on the native cultures. We set up camp on the beach. The climate was occasionally harsh and hot, so the turquoise waves were very inviting.” Jessie put her head back and twirled. The white fluffs of clouds seemed to spin with her.

Lord Blackwood scooped water in his huge hands and let it cascade over his black head. “How did your mother end up married to my wretched uncle?”

“My mother detested traveling. What my father and I found intriguing, she found repulsive. Eventually, they separated and remained married only on paper. I spent my time between both. Two days after my thirteenth birthday, my mother received a letter from a man in New Guinea. My father had been stung by a poisonous fish and died from the venom. For me it was as if I’d stepped into an abyss, but for my mother it was like a door opening. She was free to marry again.”

A broken branch floated by and he grabbed it and flung it across the water. It landed silently on the shore. “But Henry?”

“She was determined to find someone who was the exact opposite of my idealistic father.”

“Well no one can accuse Henry of having ideals.”

Jessie nodded. “Or charm, or generosity, or scruples. I suppose the list is endless.” There was a quiet seriousness to his expression. “My lord, I had nothing to do with tricking you into marriage.”

“You don’t know how badly I want to believe you, Jessie.”

She sliced the smooth surface with her palm and sprayed his face with water. “Then at least try to believe me. You don’t honestly equate me with your monstrous relatives?”

“If you hated them so, why did you stay?” His frown lines were returning, and she wished she had not broached the subject at all.

“And, pray, where was I to go? I was but fifteen. Living under the same roof with them was a step above starvation in the streets.”

He tilted his head back slightly and narrowed his eyes. “Am I to understand that your mother blithely accepted Henry’s dictates?”

Somehow Jessie’s justifications only seemed to dig the hole deeper. “Sadly, so. My mother could be willfully blind to inconvenient truths.”

“Yet you worried over a headstone for her.” “For all her faults, she was still my mother.”

He scrubbed his face hard with his hands and then looked at her. Agony crept back into his expression, but she could not tell if the cause was physical or mental. A combination of both, she surmised. “What the hell am I to think? You signed the damned document. Even at fifteen you must have known what you were doing.”

Tears glossed her eyes as she glared back at him. “Of course I knew what I was signing. I am not a dimwit. But my motive for putting the pen to paper was far different

than anything you might imagine.” She refused to detail the brutality she’d endured from his uncle. If he decided to trust her, it had to be on her own merits.

“Since I was forced on you, as you continue to assert, and far from the mate you’d hoped for, my curiosity compels me to ask that you describe this ideal husband for whom you would gladly exchange me.”

She’d hoped he’d forgotten her retaliatory outburst. He seemed rather more angry than curious. Holding her breath, she dropped until her feet touched the bottom of the pond. The water just cleared the top of her head. She bounced upward and began treading water again.

“Should I attribute your hesitation to caution? Do you worry that I know where this man lives?”

“It is not one of the Duckett twins.” She was thankful for the coolness of the water that kept a heated blush from staining her cheeks. “The man does not exist outside my imagination.”

He quirked a brow. “Then tell me of this fantasy mate.”

Too embarrassed to look at him, she let her gaze settle over his shoulder. “An adventurous scholar like my father. I imagined myself copying out his scribbled notes, organizing his papers and aiding in his research. And, of course, ministering to him when an exotic fever would overtake him.”

“He’d be penniless and struggling and worried to death he’d lose you. The poor bastard.”

“I protest most vehemently. I am a loyal creature.” She paddled around him. His hair, weighted down with water, adhered to his shoulders. Wrapping her hands around his neck, she pressed her face to its chill, inky blackness. After shifting his hair aside with her chin she pressed her lips to the tracery of scars on his upper back. His body seemed to vibrate with each tender kiss. He put her in mind of a beast that had never known kindness. Though she doubted it had always been so, wariness was his ruling trait.

Still clinging to his neck, she pressed her breasts against him and nibbled on his lobe. The opportunity to tell him how she felt would not present itself again. “I would simply reassure my distraught husband by telling him—” she leaned in close to breathe the sentiment into his ear, “—I love you and I shall always love you.” In fear that her voice had betrayed the truth of the words, she released him and dove under the water.

When she broke the water’s surface, she found his gaze unsettling. His expressive, dark eyebrows lowered. “What the devil are you thinking? Taunting me with declarations of love you wish someday to say to another. Do you think I’m less than a man because I’m battling this bloody vice? Believe me, sweeting, I’ve still got both my balls.”

What had she expected? Her impulsive avowal had only heightened his suspicion of her. It would take finesse and time to win him over. She envied the woman who would have both. Somehow, Jessie managed a carefree smile. “Of that, I am well aware and I believe they are made of steel. And to bolster your masculine pride even more I shall admit that you have completely spoiled me for such a docile mate.”

His lids lowered, and the slits of his irises seemed to glint with skepticism. His scrutiny made her squirm. Evidently, his initial impression of her as a fortune huntress made everything she said or did suspect. Perhaps this was to be expected from a man so damaged by circumstances.

Finally, he closed his eyes and rested back in the water. “My head is killing me and the water is no longer helping.”

His tall frame emerged from the pond with an obvious weariness that would not soon end. Jessie followed him to shore and wiggled into her chemise, her wet skin making it difficult to do it quickly or with grace.

The pats on the back Jessie had given herself earlier for suggesting the swim were soon regretted. With each passing minute, Lord Blackwood’s shivering became more and more pronounced. “Can you stand, my lord?” she asked as she pulled the shirt over his wet head.

Slowly he rose to his feet and swayed for a second before finding his bearings. “And if I couldn’t? Were you planning on carrying me back?”

She shrugged and smiled. Perhaps he was not as badly off as he appeared if he was still with humor. “It would be quite a sight, though. Me, carrying the swooning master of the manor across the lawn.”

Suddenly he draped his heavy arm around her shoulder and she braced hers around his waist. “That would not do much for my lordly image, I suppose. A shoulder to lean on will have to suffice.” He rubbed his chin over the top of her head. “Feel free to call me master anytime you wish,” he said with a hoarse laugh.

With painstaking progress they made their way back to the house.



As had been the case for the last week, William was the only person who joined Jessie for afternoon tea. Without even a muttered farewell, Lewis had taken his leave on the day of William’s arrival. Shoulders hunched in anger, he’d strode the path to the village toting a traveling valise that had appeared suspiciously heavy. And her stepfather had bolted himself in his room with his treasured books about the inquisition and witchcraft trials. She rarely saw him anymore. When she would leave a tray outside his door, he would not take it until she walked away.

Jessie noticed even William did not have much appetite for the scones she had brought out.

“It’s going to be a tough road for the lad,” William said as he dabbed the scone with clotted cream. “I’ve seen others go through it. ’Tain’t pretty.”

“Unfortunately, about all we can do is help him stay comfortable,” she said. “And make sure he doesn’t throw himself out a window,” William added grimly.

A loud crash from upstairs brought them both to their feet. They raced up the staircase. William pushed open the door to Ryder’s room. The blue and white china teapot and cup she’d brought him lay shattered on the floor. The tea was now a spreading stain on the rug. Ryder sat up in bed, his back pressed against the ornate wooden headboard. Long sable lashes shadowed his pale cheeks. His black hair was matted with perspiration.