He carried her up the servants’ stairs to avoid the hazardous possibility of meeting her father in the main corridors, the whisper of her crinolined skirts swishing against the wainscoting in the narrow staircase; the dim light defining the stark modeling of his face in grisaille; tempestuous desire warming their blood. In order to navigate the sharp turns, he adjusted her position in his arms in a smooth stirring of powerful muscles, his smile closer now and the scent of his hair fragrant in her nostrils. He stopped to kiss her on the second landing, a compelling, deep, heated kiss that left them both breathless.
“Hurry,” Flora murmured on a deep inhalation. “Please …”
He looked down at her, his dark eyes muted velvet in the shadows, her urgency matched by his. “Wait,” he whispered, the word hot with promise. “We’re almost there.” He moved quickly then, taking the stairs in great strides, glancing down the lamplit corridor as he reached the second floor, looking for the nearest empty room.
They were inside in seconds, the door abruptly kicked shut, and in seconds more he made his way in the darkness to the bed, placed her on the silk comforter, and followed her down. She lifted her own skirts, so frantic was her need, while he ripped open the tie on his leggings, and in only breath-held moments more he was deep inside her. They blazed hot with two weeks of pent-up desire, and their first time that night was an incoherent memory, so ravenous was their passion, so overwhelming their hunger. Panting afterward, they wondered how pleasure could be so fleeting.
“My … apologies,” Adam breathlessly murmured as he lay over her, his heart beating like a drum.
“No need …,” Flora replied on a suffocated breath. “Believe me.…”
He tried to smile in reply, but he didn’t have the necessary energy. Later he did when his body had cooled and his brain was capable of more than one thought, when he’d lit the bedside lamp and they lay side by side on the rumpled blue comforter. “Lie to me if I’m wrong,” he said with a grin, propped on one elbow beside her, still fully clothed, his finger tracing a lazy pattern over her collarbone, “but isn’t this combination—you and me,” he added in unnecessary explanation, “more intense than—say—other … experiences?” It was the understatement of his life.
“Why would I lie?” Flora replied with a teasing smile, gazing up at him in tumbled disarray, her gown and petticoats pushed up in crushed folds, her bare thighs above her silk stockings rosy pink, matching the glow on her face.
“I retract the phrase.” His finger drifted downward over the swell of her breast. “Tell me,” he murmured.
“Yes,” she whispered, moving his hand slightly to one side so his fingertips brushed her nipple through the silk of her gown. “Yes, ummm … definitely, yes.”
“I almost rode to Virginia City one night to see you,” he whispered, lazily circling the rising bud of her nipple.
“I wish you had.”
“I wanted to feel your legs wrapped around me.…”
“But it wasn’t worth a ten-hour ride.” Her smile was mischievous.
“It turned out to be a three-hour ride,” he said. “I was able to bring my libido under control by the ford at Pine Creek.”
“A shame,” she theatrically pouted. “When I was in decline.”
“For lack of sex?”
“For lack of your sex.”
His fingers closed firmly on her nipple. “Whom did you sleep with?”
“You’re jealous.”
“I don’t get jealous,” he answered, the pressure of his fingers easing. His familiar drawl had returned. “Who was it?”
“It’s none of your business. Whom did you carnally entertain these last two weeks?”
“Is it a contest?” Withdrawing his hand, he studied her, a new cynicism in his eyes.
“Not with me.” Her dark brows rose archly. “You’re remembering your wife.”
“And you’re different?”
“I didn’t even kiss a man in the last fortnight because I wanted only you. Is that plain enough? I’m not much good at subterfuge.”
“Pardon me if I don’t believe you after our fascinating introduction at Judge Parkman’s.”
“Whether you believe me or not doesn’t concern me, but I’m going to fuck you to death tonight,” she softly whispered, “because two weeks is a long wait.”
He suddenly smiled. “I love a plain-speaking woman.”
“Provided she’s talking about sex?”
His grin widened. “Provided she’s talking about sex with me.”
“And I’d adore you, Adam Serre, even more intensely than I already do, if you’d substitute performance for talk.”
“Impatient libertine.”
Rolling over on top of him, she kissed him lightly. “Very impatient,” she murmured, placing her palms on his chest and pushing herself upright so she straddled his legs. “And seeing how you seem to be … um, ready,” she breathed, tugging her petticoats out of the way with a tantalizing movement of her hips and bottom, “why don’t we”—rising slightly on her knees, she guided his rigid erection to her pulsing labia and softly finished—“be libertine together …”
He shut his eyes as she lowered herself, the sensation momentarily heart stopping, and when he opened his eyes, his erection ensconced deep inside her, he said in a low, heated growl, “Maybe I’ll fuck you to death first.…”
“Starting now, I hope, Monsieur le Comte,” Flora murmured, coquettish demand beneath the velvety resonance.
His hands came up leisurely and grasped her waist, but his grip was hard and possessive, and his dark eyes were touched with a flash of temper. “You like to give orders.” His grip tightened at her waist.
“Sometimes. Do you mind?” Her violet eyes were teasing and unintimidated, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders.
He shrugged so she felt the small ripple of his muscles under her palms. “It depends,” he carefully said.
“On?” She moved her hips slightly so they both felt the slippery friction, the acute throbbing response.
“On what the orders are,” he answered with a seductive smile, his temper dispelled by carnal diversion.
“You’re accommodating, then,” she whispered, his powerful shoulder muscles bunching under her hands.
He lifted her as if she were weightless, sliding her up his rigid length. “To a point,” he murmured, intent on gauging distance.
“Will I know … when that point is reached?” she asked in a breathy hush, tantalized by the exquisite gliding ascent.
He held her suspended on the pulsing tip of his penis for a provocative moment. “You’ll know,” he whispered, exerting a gradual pressure downward with his hands so she was slowly filled with his hardness again, deeply penetrated, stretched. Then he arched his back and drove upward that small sensational distance more.
She cried out in a fierce heated whimper at the irrepressible rush of pleasure. And when the flaring intensity had partially diminished and her lashes half lifted to let the world in again, he softly said, “Hello …” He smiled then, self-confident, assured, a man skilled at pleasing women. “And now we have to take your gown off, sweet bia,” he murmured, sliding his fingertips over the silk-covered stays at her waist. “It’s in my way.”
“Only my gown?” It was a sultry courtesan voice, heated and low, and those violet eyes gazing down at him were wanton, audacious in their challenge.
He chuckled at her unabashed sensuality. “We’ll begin with that,” he softly replied, “and go on from there. We’ve plenty of time. It’s a long night.…”
The breakfast room was awash with sunshine, Lucie’s bright chatter sunny like the warm spring day outside. The small table held a steaming array of food on crested china and gleaming silver: scones: porridge; bacon; ham; poached eggs; buttered toast; colorful jams. A small bouquet of lavender-blue iris in a celadon vase graced the center of the table, the arrangement suitably low so conversation wasn’t impeded. Adam and Flora, seated opposite each other at the round table, exchanged discreet smiles over the delicate blooms. Neither had slept more than an hour, their senses languid in the aftermath of a night of heated passion, tantalized by their nearness, hot desire a tangible presence to the initiated.
“Can we ride to see the baby foxes?” Lucie inquired, stirring Chantilly cream into her hot chocolate so briskly it splashed over the rim of the cup.
“After your lessons,” Adam replied, ignoring the widening chocolate stains on the linen cloth, a silver spoon with a dollop of cream in his hand. “Do you want more?”
“After my morning lessons?” Lucie stopped stirring in her excitement.
“Right after,” Adam answered. Assuming her nonreply to his question meant no, he placed the sweet mound of cream in his own chocolate. “Tell Miss McLeod she can come along if she wishes.”
“Cloudy doesn’t like to ride horses.”
“But she likes baby foxes. She told me.” Reaching over, he began cutting the ham on his daughter’s plate.
“Maybe she can ride old Charlie.”
“Is Charlie the big chestnut?” Flora asked, thinking no man deserved to look that good in the morning after a near sleepless night. He appeared fresh, alert, his hair still damp from the bath, his white linen shirt crisply ironed, unbuttoned at the neck, the dark vest he wore over it a handsome Irish wool tweed. An ornate gold charm dangled from the watch pocket—an elegant touch, as if a valet had dressed him.
Lucie’s curls bobbed in affirmation. “ ’Member,” she said through a mouthful of ham. “Charlie was the one who liked apples.”
Adam’s gaze met Flora’s fleetingly over Lucie’s head, a swift, private look, explicit with torrid memory. “Tell Miss McLeod she can have the padded Mongolian saddle,” he said, his attention returning to his daughter, his neutral tone distinct from his obsessive thoughts.
“Cloudy’s too fat,” Lucie explained to Flora and the earl, “so she always rides in a carriage if she can, but the foxes’ den is up in the hills and the baby kits are ever so cute and fuzzy, which is why Cloudy will probably change her mind just this once and try old Charlie.”
Adam allowed himself to watch Flora as Lucie spoke to her, his observation ostensibly benign. He thought her ravishing even dressed simply in a tan silk blouse and twill skirt. Or nothing at all, his inner voice noted in pleasurable memory. She was astonishingly beautiful with her coppery hair pulled back in a sleek chignon, although the bright morning light accented the faint lavender shadows under her eyes, causing him a slight twinge of guilt. He’d have to allow her more sleep tonight.
“Papa, could you put two Mongolian saddles on Charlie?”
Forcing his mind back to the immediacy of his daughter’s query, Adam said, “Why don’t I check with Montoya in the stables? He knows what Charlie likes. Now, do you want strawberry jam on your scone?” he asked, the prosaic routines of the breakfast table so at odds with the lust so prominent in his mind.
“Can we have a picnic too?”
He smiled. “Why not?”
Lucie clapped her hands perilously close to the full chocolate cup, but her father didn’t flinch. “I want lemon pie and sugar cookies and those little white puffy things with nuts inside.”
“Perhaps we should see what others want,” he suggested, not certain a three-year-old’s favorite foods held universal appeal. “Why don’t you check with Lady Flora and Lord Haldane?” Adam said, his dark gaze resting on Flora.
She immediately looked away, dropping her gaze from such vivid, hot-blooded allure. It felt as though he’d touched her intimately or kissed her in full sight of everyone, so uncontrollable was the heated sensation. It took her a fraction of a second to find her voice. “What do you think, Father?” she asked, needing time to compose her emotions. “Do you have any preferences?”
“If you include a flask of brandy for me, I’m content,” George Bonham pleasantly replied. “And those white puffy things sound intriguing,” he added, smiling at Lucie. “Are they really good?”
Adam’s bronzed hand dwarfed the silver knife he held to spread jam on his daughter’s scone, Flora noticed, drawn to the powerful image, to the subtle flex of his muscles and the rhythm of his movements. Heedless of her father’s voice, she remembered instead the delicacy of Adam’s touch the night before.
“They melt in your mouth, Georgie,” Lucie replied, addressing the earl familiarly after the last two days of easy friendship. “They taste like candy and cookies mixed together. You’ll like them immensely,” she went on, “but make sure you take some before Cloudy reaches them, because she likes them the very best and she can eat hundreds and hundreds.”
“I’ll race her for the basket.” The earl leaned back in his chair, his coffee cup in his hand, his smile for the little girl across the table from him. She reminded him of Flora as a child; she had the same captivating charm and lucid assessment of the world. Pure and genuine and guileless.
“You’ll win, Georgie, because Cloudy can’t run at all. And I’ll run with you if Cloudy doesn’t holler at me for being unladylike. Papa, do I have to be ladylike on a picnic?”
Adam didn’t hear the question, occupied as he was with wondering if he could spirit Flora away during the day somehow, somewhere.
Flora could feel her nipples grow taut against the fine linen of her chemise and an insistent ache throb between her legs. All because Adam Serre was too perilously close. She squirmed on the padded blue-and-white upholstery of her chair. How was she possibly going to wait until nightfall to feel him inside her again? As confident as he, she didn’t question her tempting allure.
“Papa! Listen!”
“Whatever you want, poppet,” Adam vaguely replied, absorbed by carnal thoughts, hoping he wasn’t agreeing to anything outrageous.
“Yahoo! Thanks, Papa. Now I’m going to go and tell Cloudy she can’t scold me because you said it’s all right.” She slid from her chair. “You have to come up to the schoolroom, Papa, and tell Cloudy about Charlie. She won’t believe me.”
“I will, when I come to fetch you.”
“Our picnic’s going to be fun! Flora and Georgie, you’ll just love it!”
The grown-ups smiled at one another as Lucie raced from the room.
“I can’t guarantee an expedition to match that fervor,” Adam said with a grin.
“She has enormous vitality,” Flora said. Like her father, she thought, recalling the pleasures of the previous night. “And a real appreciation for the outdoors.”
“Luckily,” Adam declared with feeling. “If she took after her mother, she wouldn’t be very content here.”
“This wilderness would be too distant and remote for many of my friends too,” Flora noted, feeling as if she owed Isolde a certain indulgence after having so profligately made love to her husband all night.
Adam shook his head briefly, his expression shuttered. “Isolde never stayed here long. She spent the season in Paris and generally visited friends in London for the English season. We saw her only for short periods during the year.” He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair, as if memories of his wife had quelled his appetite.
“I think I may have met her at a country-house party at the Darcys’,” the earl interjected, blasé about society marriages, and much else, after fifty-some years of viewing the foibles of mankind. “Is she a Deauville Haubigon?”
Adam nodded. “And her mother’s family prides themselves on their ducal blood and Leoville vineyards.”
“Yes, I remember. She spoke of the vineyards. I don’t think you were there, Flora. It was when you were in Italy visiting Adele.”
Flora suddenly wished she’d been at the Darcys’ to meet the woman Adam had married. As if she could know him better or differently or more completely if she knew his wife. She was curious, too, about the beautiful blond pictured over the mantel in the pink silk boudoir. How did she speak and laugh and move? Was she seductive like her husband? Was she cool? Did she wear diamonds often? And then, on a less charitable level, a more primitive impulse drove her, enigmatic but powerful—perhaps she wished to experience a perverse triumph over the woman whose husband had kept her awake all night.
“I may meet her some other time,” she said, opting for the safety of bland politesse.
“Not likely,” Adam bluntly retorted, “unless Baron Lacretelle tires of her. You wouldn’t get along anyway,” he added with gruff displeasure.
Thin-skinned at the tangled state of her emotions, Flora responded more forcefully to his brusque rebuff than she should have. “I can get along with anyone.”
“So can I,” he coolly replied, a masculine arrogance to his pronouncement. “But I know Isolde.”
“Maybe you’re wrong. Perhaps we could be friends,” Flora sweetly retorted, absurdly irritated by his certainty and—considering their short acquaintance—at his husbandly tone.
“You’re not the right gender to be a friend of Isolde’s.”
His abrupt, dismissive delivery rankled. Flora didn’t tolerate authoritarian men. After years of serious research she’d established herself as a recognized scholar in her field. She’d cut her eyeteeth on the Aegean explorations of Ludwig Ross and had first been recognized at the precocious age of seventeen when her paper on The Lampstand from Phylakopi, defining the distinctive design elements of an early Aegean civilization not yet discovered, had been read before the Royal Society. So Adam Serre could run his large valley like a local god, but he didn’t control her. “Under the circumstances,” she replied with a small testiness, “forgive me if I question your complete understanding of your wife.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He glared at her from under his dark brows.
“Must everyone agree with you?” An arch retort, female and heated.
“This is stupid,” Adam snapped.
The conversation had turned disastrously personal.
“Could I suggest a truce?” Flora’s father cordially interjected. “You two sound like squabbling siblings.”
Adam smiled instantly, his scowl erased. “Forgive me,” he apologized, his manner conciliatory. “And excuse my temper.” His mouth quirked into a grin. “Isolde always has a predictable affect on me.”
How smooth he is, Flora thought. How hatefully smooth.
“Now, then,” he graciously went on, “why don’t we go out to the stables and see if you can decide on some horses?” His offer was pleasantly put, his voice undemonstrative again, unruffled.
She wanted to hit him and wipe that well-bred smile from his face. And mar that unruffled calm. With inexplicable, hot-tempered resentment, she also wished him to pay for Isolde’s presence in his life.