Chapter Twelve

Catherine de Braganza sat in a padded armchair before a fire. Dressed all in black, the color made her face looked paler than Cat remembered.

The poor woman had been through much, and from what Scarlet had told Cat, the court had never truly accepted her with her foreign accent and Catholic ways. Even if they adopted her love for tea, they spoke in harsh whispers about her, especially now that she was no longer their queen.

“Your Grace,” the man said, bowing low. “I have brought your Highland Rose.” He straightened and indicated the chair opposite Catherine for Cat to sit. Jane remained near the door where the man retreated, the two of them perching on small benches, pretending not to listen.

A movement in the corner drew Cat’s attention to another woman, sitting swathed in light blue silk, a swirl of rich fabric tied about her hair and head. Her skin was smooth, the rich color of cinnamon. Cat nodded to her as the woman stood to walk toward the door where she found her own bench. The heaviness of sorrow and silence penetrating the room pressed in on Cat, reminding her of the weeks after her father’s death.

Catherine smiled softly. “Lady Campbell, welcome. I hoped that you would be the Rose to come. You are quite capable of keeping yourself safe, and you know the ways of medicine and disease.”

Her compliment warmed Cat where the disdain of the ladies upon entering had left her cold. “Thank ye, your Grace. Lady Scarlet and Lady Evelyn send their best wishes. Although they did not know it at the time, I am sure they would offer their sympathies with me for your loss.” She reached forward to squeeze the woman’s cold hand, meeting her gaze with sincerity. “I am so sorry. I could not get here any sooner. We left Finlarig within an hour of receiving your request.”

Catherine offered her a tired smile. “It could not be helped. He died so quickly despite the ministrations of his physicians. His poor body was bruised, bled, and blistered from them trying to save him.” She shook her head. “Nothing worked.”

Holy God. What had they done to him? Cat lowered her voice to a whisper. “And ye believe he may have suffered poison?”

Catherine gave a rapid bob of her head. “It was so sudden, without warning. Vomiting and weakness at first.”

“Did he smell sweet, of almonds?”

“I…I do not know. I was not with him. When the illness hit him…” A tear rolled from one of her dark eyes. “He asked for me to come to him, but I did not want to interfere, asking instead for his pardon for offending him with my presence through his life.” She sniffed. “My husband sent word back to me, asking my pardon for his offending me all of his life.”

Catherine took a moment to regain her composure. Charles had numerous mistresses and hadn’t asked the Campbells to save his queen when she was abducted in Scotland, which was why the Roses had gone to retrieve her. She had been queen, though she’d suffered in an unloving marriage, devoid of even a surviving child into which to pour her love. Their marriage had been a mere show. At least she’d heard the king’s sorrow for it at the end.

“He saw his brother before the end and my priests who made his conversion to Catholicism, so he could receive the last rites. None of them mentioned any indication of poison, but I know you would have been able to tell.”

Cat squeezed her hand again. “Ye have suspicions?”

She nodded. “Charles’s man, John, came to me. I do not know if John shared his suspicions with his son, Iain, who Charles asked to attend me.” She glanced at the young man still sitting with Jane and the richly garbed woman near the doors. “Master Iain gave me the message from the king asking forgiveness. But Master John, the man who knew my husband well, thought that Charles’s illness came upon him too suddenly to be natural. No warning signs.”

“Has he been buried?”

Catherine sniffed, touching a delicate handkerchief to her nose. “Yes. On Saint Valentine’s Day,” she said.

Damn. Cat exhaled, leaning back in her chair. There was nothing she could do now. They would not exhume a buried king. The fire crackled in the hearth. “Will ye stay on here at Whitehall?”

Catherine shook her head. “I am waiting to be transported to Somerset House here in London.”

“I know Ladies Scarlet and Evelyn would say that ye are always welcome back at the Highland Roses School.”

The duchess smiled gently. “Thank you, but I will endeavor one day to return to my home in Portugal. Scotland is too difficult for people of the Catholic faith.” She gave a weak smile. “England, too.”

She spoke the truth, and the hunt for Catholics seemed more vicious in Scotland. Even though the ban on celebrating Christmas, put in place by the puritan leader, Oliver Cromwell, had been lifted, it was still considered a popish holiday in Scotland and not celebrated.

“Nathaniel and I will see ye safely to Somerset then before we depart.”

“Nathaniel?” Catherine said, her delicate brows rising. “Lord Worthington did escort you then?”

“Aye. Yes.”

“Are you two…close?” She tipped her head to one side, studying her in the firelight.

A light flush spread along Cat’s neck, but she shook her head. “I…we…there is no understanding between us.” This seemed to be the way nobility talked about courting and betrothal. It left questions about their physical relationship open, but Catherine was too polite to dig for answers.

She stood, and Cat followed her example, as well as Iain Padley, Jane, and the woman near the door. “Please extend my thanks to Lord Worthington,” Catherine said. “For bringing you here and for his protection and efforts in helping me move to my own residence away from court. Your presence here is a comfort to me.”

Cat nodded, though she really wanted to hug the woman. Despite years of sadness at the loss of baby after baby, and the insulting parade of mistresses Charles had brought before her, the queen had held onto her honor, living her faith with dignity. She’d kept moving forward with hope instead of wallowing in misery. Cat would never have survived. By now she would have stabbed the king herself and ended up on the executioner’s block.

“I will lead Lady Campbell to her rooms to refresh,” Iain Padley said, opening the tall door.

“Thank you, Master Iain,” Catherine said and sat back in her chair to stare into the fire. She looked over her shoulder. “While in London, Lady Campbell, do partake of the Frost Fair along the Thames. The river is frozen over this winter, and the festival is said to be grand. A diversion to make the long journey down here worth the effort.”

Cat nodded. “Thank ye, your Grace.”

The duchess glanced at the woman in blue. “Princess Ekua, come sing to me.”

“Yes, your Grace,” the woman said in a thick accent that Cat had never heard before. The elegant woman picked up a square, flat instrument fitted with taut strings across it, and moved to fill the seat Cat had vacated.

Jane touched Cat’s arm, and she felt a small prick on the skin through the sleeve. Frowning at the woman, she realized that she curtsied, so Cat sank into one as well. They turned and followed Iain out the door, Jane coming to walk next to her.

“Did ye just stab me?” Cat asked in a whisper.

“A pin works better than pinching,” Jane answered.

As the door closed behind them, a haunting melody began from the plucked instrument, and the lady in blue’s lilting voice lifted in song.

…

A bath and food had been brought to Cat’s spacious room, and she’d partaken of both. Jane was housed on a floor for staff and maids. Cat would likely feel more comfortable in one of the small, spartan staff rooms but asking to be moved would cause a stir.

Clean and dressed in a lovely embroidered day dress, into which Jane had locked her, Cat paced before the fire. She wasn’t even going to see anyone for dinner, yet here she stood tied into tight stays and a petticoat of blue silk.

Where was Nathaniel? Did he know where she’d been housed? He’d said that they must keep a proper distance at court, but what if he needed her and didn’t know where she was?

She turned, pacing back the other way. She stopped to flex her healing foot slowly. Was he kissing Esther Stanton because he should while playing the Viscount? Had Esther been part of his warning to her about his role as a courtly nobleman? The woman was bloody beautiful and completely refined, chiseled from childhood into the perfect gentleman’s wife. She’d probably worn stays and silk in the cradle while Cat had been wrapped in rough wool. She’d basically raised herself while her father was off warring and her mother taken to crying in bed. Suffering pinches and pricks from Jane Pitney, it was obvious that there had been very little refining and shaping in Cat’s upbringing.

“God’s teeth,” Cat cursed and frowned. The curse sounded foolish, and “bloody hell” reflected her mood succinctly. She glanced at herself in the mirror that stood in the corner. It would take some twisting to release herself from the prison of her gown and stays. She plucked the pins from her twisted curls, letting her hair fall loose again. They were still damp from washing earlier. She sighed, glancing toward the door. “Where are ye,” she whispered. “Well, I am dressed,” she said, arguing with her reflection. “I will go for a little exercise in the corridor.”

She slipped from her room and stood to examine which painting hung opposite her door. An English landscape with a unicorn galloping across it. “Likely there is only one of these about,” she whispered and looked right, then left. The corridor was long and dark, with only a few sconces lit to shed light on the floorboards, which were covered at intervals with long, narrow woven rugs in dark hues. She remembered coming from the right earlier so decided to go left. With luck she’d stumble upon Nathaniel. Without luck, she’d wander around and then find her way back to her room to toss and turn until dawn as she tortured herself with images of him kissing Esther Stanton.

The palace was sprawling and seemingly random. Jane had said it was built in sections with different kings and queens adding and renovating to match their preferences. Together it looked like a jumble of treasure hung along corridor after corridor. When she reached the end of the silent hall, she again turned left and marked the picture that stood at the corner to help her find her way back. A movement at the end of the corridor made her flatten back against the wall, seeking the cover of the thickest shadows.

“What was that?” A man’s voice came just loud enough for her to hear. She squatted down beside a pedestal holding a marble bust, her knees resting up under the stiff edge of her stays. The damn apparatus wouldn’t allow her to bend forward into a smaller shape.

“Nothing,” a woman answered. Cat strained to see down the long corridor, but she couldn’t make out anything about the couple hidden in the shadows at the far end. “Tell me, what did they discuss?” the woman asked.

“I could not hear it all, but the duchess wiped away tears, and the lady held her hand.” It was Iain Padley, Catherine’s man. “The duchess did advise her to go to the Frost Fair on the Thames.”

“Damnation,” the woman whispered. Apparently, Jane was wrong about the curses ladies could use at court, at least ladies hiding in the shadows at night. “We should keep her away and send her back to her dirty stone school up in the middle of nowhere.” The venom in her voice added just enough volume that Cat could tell she was Esther Stanton. A prickle went up her back, and she strained to make out the viper draped in silk. Why would she care if Cat went to the Frost Fair or not?

“I want you to find out everything about the Scottish chit,” she said, the hiss in her words coming easily to Cat in the whispers. “Her family, if she has any wealth, to whom she answers, those she loves. Everything.”

“Yes, milady,” Iain said and seemed to bow.

“Go,” Esther said, and Iain strode toward Cat.

Cat gathered her skirts close where they pooled around her in the darkness behind the pedestal, and Iain stepped briskly past. At the other end of the hall came the small click of a door. Cat stood slowly, expecting to be alone, the woman having exited. She jumped as she heard a familiar voice instead.

“Lady Stanton? You are roaming the halls at night?” Nathaniel must have come through the door at the end instead of Esther walking out. Cat slid against the wall behind the head of marble, grabbing hold of it so it wouldn’t wobble. Whomever the carved bust was, she was thankful for his impressively large cranium.

“I had hopes of finding you,” she said, her voice soft but definitely louder than her whispers with Iain. “My father has spoken to me about your father’s wishes.”

“Lady Stanton, I wish that you had not yet been informed of the marriage proposal, as I was not consulted.”

Cat couldn’t contain the smile that came with the relief unknotting her chest. She leaned her forehead against the back of the bust and inhaled. The dust tickled her nose, and she pinched the tip, pressing it back and forth to stop the impending sneeze.

“I was not consulted either,” Esther Stanton said, though there was a pinch to the voice that had dripped with sweetness before. “I fear that our fathers have plotted to bring us together for the sakes of both of our estates. Stanton House being much larger and grander than Hollings of course. And your father wanted you to take his place in the new parliament, which my father basically controls. But they really should have brought our desires into the conversation.” She drew out the word desires. “Although a year ago, at the Saint Valentine’s Ball, I daresay, that I would think our desires were both heated enough to make marriage agreeable.”

Cat jerked her head upright, her hands slipping off the marble bust as it wobbled. The heaviness pitched forward. A loud crack mixed with a thump as the head fell from the pedestal to roll across the wooden floor. Without waiting for the forthcoming “who goes there” question, Cat lifted her skirts above her knees and dodged along the wall back the way she had come. Keeping to the shadows, she hurried along the edge of the rug, leaping across the hall to turn right at the portrait of an old king. She ignored the slight pinch in her ankle and raced along the corridor, her eyes focused across the hall at the paintings. “Bloody unicorn, where the hell are ye?” she whispered.

Ahead of her, a door opened, and a man stepped out wearing a loose shirt with breeches. Running at a heart-pounding pace, Cat tried to stop. Her injured ankle shot pain up her leg, causing her to stumble directly into the man.

“Well now,” he said in a thick English accent. He smelled of wine and held a large rolled parchment under one arm.

“Excuse me,” she whispered and tried to step away, but he held her arms. “Let go…please.” Panic began to grip her inside, which sped her heart, making her muscles ready for an attack.

“Not until I know who you are, running about in the darkness.” The man peered at her closely, but with the shadows around them, she was certain he couldn’t fully see her just as she couldn’t make out his features. “Come now.” He grasped her wrist and began to drag her down the hall. “To the bottom of this pleasant mystery,” he said.

“Nay,” she said, her voice rising as she heard footsteps from the direction from which she’d fled. With a twist and snap of her wrist she freed herself.

“Come here, woman,” he said, his voice turning hard.

Cat reached to her curls for her hair stick but remembered her tresses were down. Bloody hell. Her first night at Whitehall and she was already being attacked. The man, tall and weighty, dropped his rolled parchment and grabbed for her, capturing her around her cinched waist. “Nay,” she called again, louder, and jabbed the palm of her hand upward into the man’s smoothly shaved chin.

He yelled, dropping his hands from her waist to grab his mouth. Doubling over, he howled.

Behind them, her pursuer caught up. “What goes on?” It was Nathaniel. “Your majesty? Have you been attacked?” he asked, and Cat heard the sound of Nathaniel unsheathing his sword.

“Yes,” the king yelled, the sound garbled. “I have been attacked by that woman.”

“Frig,” Cat cursed low, her stomach sinking.

The door opened, and two men hurried into the hall. “Your majesty? What is amiss?”

Nathaniel re-sheathed his sword and bent to help the king stand. “A terrible mistake, your majesty,” he said. “Step down Lord Wren, Lord Kellington.” He stared into James’s face. “Are you injured?”

“My tongue,” he said and spit to the side. “I about bit it off when she struck me. A man cannot even walk about his own palace, strategizing improvements with his architects without being set upon.”

“Your majesty,” Cat said. “I did not know it was you.” She fought against her Scottish accent. “This is my first night at your grand palace, and I was warned not to be caught by men in dark corridors.”

“Who the bloody, foking hell are you?” he asked, peering at her in the darkness. Apparently, there were a number of colorful curses that Jane didn’t know were used at court. He beckoned to the men at the door, and one brought forth a candle burning in a glass globe, which illuminated the corridor.

Cat curtsied low, wishing the floorboards would open under her, swallowing her away from an angry king and, most likely, a highly irritated Nathaniel. Surely Esther Stanton wouldn’t punch the king in the jaw. “I am Catriona Campbell, your majesty. A student of the Highland Roses School at Finlarig Castle. The Duchess of Braganza had sent for me when King Charles first became ill. We have arrived to learn of the sad news.”

The king grunted. “Ahh, one of the Roses that Charles raved about, saving his queen from the clutches of assassins. After this blow, I believe his stories. Perhaps instead of sending you to the Tower, I should send you to join my army.”

She curtsied again without another gesture available. “I am most aggrieved, your majesty.”

“What were you doing out in the corridors at night?” James asked. “After you had been warned that villains lurk in the shadows.”

Lord help her. What could she say? I was trying to find my lover but found him reacquainting himself with his arrogant past lover and possible betrothed. Or, I was spying on a clandestine meeting between the arrogant lover and the duchess’s man. Or, I was trying to find the privy when I dislodged a marble bust that is worth more than the whole town from where I hail.

A heavy silence sat like a row of judges. “Speak up, girl,” the king said.

Nathaniel cleared his throat. “She was meeting me, your majesty. A tryst at my request. We were much thrown together during the journey when bandits required her maid and coach to return to Scotland. I persuaded her to step outside her room tonight to meet me.”

The king chuckled. “See Lady Campbell, there are scoundrels in the dark corridors of Whitehall.” He turned to Nathaniel. “Best that Stanton does not hear of you chasing another set of petticoats, else find yourself hard pressed to win a seat in parliament. His daughter is a banshee when snubbed.”

“I had heard that you would reconvene parliament,” Nathaniel said. “How long must I behave before securing a seat?”

The king’s shoulders shook as he chuckled. “I am afraid you must keep your trysts a secret until spring. My coronation is set for April, and I will convene parliament in May.”

Nathaniel nodded, and Cat felt him take her arm in the dark. “Again, your majesty, I am very aggrieved that I allowed Lady Campbell to return to her rooms alone.” His grasp on her arm was firm. “Had I been with her, I would surely have identified you in the dark and saved your tongue.”

The king waved his hand. “It is recovered.” He looked to the two men in the hall with them. “Find your beds, gentlemen. We will discuss the queen’s chapel more at our next meeting.”

“Goodnight your majesty,” Cat said. “If your tongue is sore on the morrow, I could brew you a wash for it.”

The man turned without comment, picked up his fallen scroll, and traipsed down the hall.

“Where is your room?” Nathaniel whispered in her ear, his words terse.

“Across from the unicorn,” she said.

“Unicorn?”

She pulled his hand to follow her past several more doors. Were the rooms empty except for the one that housed James’s architects? Lord, she hoped so, otherwise rumors would fly by morning and Esther would likely put a venomous snake in her bed.

Cat turned the knob and walked in. Nathaniel held a hand up for her to stay while he circled the interior, checking behind the drapes and under the bed. Coming back around, he turned the key that sat in the lock, holding it up for her to see. “Lock your door when you are not here and keep it locked when you are here.”

“So…keep it locked all the time,” she said slowly, her brows raised.

He turned on his heels, both hands raking through his hair. She was glad to see that he hadn’t yet donned the ridiculous wigs that every man she’d seen wore. “Damn it all, Cat. What were you doing in the dark halls of Whitehall, alone? Besides listening in on conversations, breaking priceless sculpture, and attacking the king of England?”

“When ye put it like that…” She sighed. Her first night, and she was already failing. She crossed her arms, glancing past him at the hearth. “I was looking for ye, since I haven’t seen ye all day and night, and I did not know if ye knew where I was.”

He stopped pacing and turned, taking her in, and stalked toward her. A little thrill ran down through her middle. “You have found me,” he said, stopping within arm’s reach. The firelight cast shadows across one side of his handsome face, making the lines sharper, more intense.

She stood tall without backing down from his stare. “So did Lady Stanton. Yet ye were not angry at her for being out in the halls at night.”

“She did not punch the king in the mouth,” he said, taking another step closer so that he loomed over her.

“I had no idea who he was, and he grabbed me. Luckily I was not armed with a blade else I might have stabbed him.”

“Why were you looking for me?”

“I…” She swallowed. “I wanted to tell ye about the interview with the duchess, and ye should probably know that your lady love was meeting with the duchess’s man, Iain Padley, before ye found her. She has a spy in Catherine’s quarters.”

He frowned. “What was Lady Stanton talking with him about?”

“Me and about what Catherine and I discussed. For some reason, Lady Stanton does not want me to go to the Frost Fair.”

His brow furrowed deeper, and she smothered the urge to reach up and run her finger across his forehead to smooth it. She crossed her arms before her. He was an Englishman by blood, cold and dutiful. She shouldn’t want to touch him at all.

“Why would we go to the Frost Fair?” he asked.

“Catherine said it was running right now, and that I should attend. Iain Padley told Lady Stanton, and she was angered by the idea and wants me gone. Iain ran off, and then ye conveniently found her. Did ye perhaps slip her a note to meet ye to reacquaint yourselves after the Saint Valentine’s Ball a year ago?”

For several long breaths, he stared down into her pinched face. “You think I want Esther Stanton,” he said.

She blinked and took a step around him. Only then could she fully inhale. “She is beautiful, refined, and apparently one little word away from being your betrothed. Although, perhaps wives are not desired in England as they are in Scotland. There are more mistresses about in this country than wives, it seems.”

“Why don’t you ask me why I was walking the dark halls of Whitehall,” he said, and she realized that he’d followed her toward the fire. She turned to see him fully illuminated, the golden light making his hard face less menacing. His brown, wavy hair fell over his brow, parting to show his handsome features and trimmed beard. He took a full breath, his face relaxing until he looked like the Nathaniel who had kissed her before the fire at Hollings. “Ask me,” he repeated.

“Why were ye walking the halls then?” She kept her frown even though her stomach twisted. Bravery could be measured on many levels. Cat had no problem plunging into battle to defend someone or help a woman birth a turned-around bairn, but the waiting for answers to questions that could pain her made her pulse beat frantically like a bird desperate to escape its cage.

He took another step closer until the wall stood firm against her back and the light brush of Nathaniel’s body pressed her front. “I have a…problem,” he said, his voice smooth like pure Scottish whisky. His words funneled down through her like the liquor.

“A problem?” She wet her lips, his closeness making her yearn to rest her hands on his broad shoulders, but she flattened them against the rough stone wall at her back.

“An ache has plagued me from the moment I sat in that damnably cramped carriage across from a temptress for two bloody long days.”

Cat’s breath stuttered to a halt. She swallowed, rubbing her lips together. Lord, how she wanted him, and here he was before her, locked away from the rest of the judgmental world. A vision of Esther Stanton stopped her from reaching for him. “I am sure there are others who would like to help ye with your ache,” she whispered.

Nathaniel lifted one of her curls, inhaling it as if he was starving and the curl was a delectable treat. He touched a finger to her forehead and traced a light line down her nose, touching her lips and chin before continuing down the naked skin of her low-cut neckline. Chill bumps speckled her entire body, her nipples peaking against the linen of her smock under her gown.

“Damn,” he closed his eyes as if struggling. “All day I have met with old acquaintances and dry, pompous men. Listening to philosophy and political theories and business ventures.” He opened his eyes. “The whole time, I could not stop thinking of you, Cat Campbell.”

Her breath caught in her chest as she watched him. She drew in a shallow inhale. “Me?”

He looked tortured. “I was searching for no other tonight, Cat.” Nathaniel dropped his hand, shaking his head. “Tell me to leave,” he said. “There are things that we have not discussed yet.” He glanced upward at the ceiling, a tightening of pain over his face. “And we must keep your reputation above reproof so that you can move in the duchess’s and the queen’s circles.”

“The king has already seen us together,” she whispered. Her voice sounded different, as if she didn’t have enough breath. She couldn’t stop her hand from reaching to rest on his strong arm. “And right now…we are just a man and a lass. Not English and Scot. Not Viscount and peasant.”

His gaze slid from her eyes to her slightly parted lips and then up again to her eyes. The strength of the wall at Cat’s back was the only thing holding her up as her knees weakened. She breathed evenly despite the racing of her heart and the heating of her blood. He had an ache, but could it be as torturous as the one she’d been trying to ignore all night? “If ye think of me and no others, and we are alone now in my room with the door locked, why must ye stay away from me?”

Cat’s hand slid up to his shoulder, her fingers curling into the weave of his tailored jacket. She pulled herself up onto her toes to press her lips against his, stopping any paltry answer he might give. Parting to look at him, she let the desire coursing through her reflect in her gaze and pressed her softness against his hardness, marveling in the contrast. “Believe me when I say that I ache, too.” She let her gaze drop to his strong jaw. “From the blasted moment ye kissed me, incoherent with fever.” She looked back up to his eyes. “Ye damn Englishman.”

Her breath caught as Nathaniel’s powerful arms lifted her against him. One of his hands spanned her back, the other holding under her backside to fit her against the hardness of his jack.

“God, Cat,” he murmured against her lips. “I cannot get you out of my blood.”

“I am quite bloodthirsty,” she murmured back as he fitted her snuggly against him. She tried to lift her legs and remembered that she wore a full gown, the stays encircling her as if in iron. “And I have way too many clothes on.” Her words were muffled as they kissed, slanting.

“Agreed,” he said, his hands coming to her cheeks, cradling her face, as the kiss intensified.

They breathed against one another, her fingers untying the knot at his neck. Her hands shook slightly as desire flooded her with an intensity that had her tugging the shirt out of his breeches and shoving the jacket from his broad shoulders. Cat kissed him with frantic intensity, the passion in her taking over any thoughts of consequence. Only Nathaniel mattered, he and she together, their heat meeting and growing.

He groaned in the back of his throat as her fingers moved to his hard member, pressing through his trousers. She rubbed as she unlaced the ties there. The weight of her short jacket lifted, and she had to release him as he drew it off her arms. His hands dropped to the pins of her stomacher, plucking them to fall on the thick rug beneath their feet. “Lush,” he murmured as her breasts swelled over the tight stays. He kissed the sensitive skin there, his strong fingers moving to the ties of her petticoats.

Their movements became more and more hurried, desperate. The heat inside Cat burned for want of him. Nathaniel threw off his shirt, leaving his muscled chest bare, and she ran her hands up the taught lines, marveling in the warmth emanating from him. She kissed his chest, then reached down inside her smock to pull each of her breasts out. They sat upon the boned stays, displayed like two round cakes. His mouth came down onto one and then the other, sucking until sensations shot down through her body. Her hands stroked him, and when he came up to kiss her again, she began to kiss her way down his chest and stomach. She had nearly reached his proud jack, which strained against his breeches, when he dragged her upright.

“I will explode,” he said, his voice hoarse. “After days of riding across from you, your foot sliding along my thigh…”

“Then take me now,” she whispered.

He yanked again on the ties of her petticoats. “There’s a damn knot,” he said, the anger at the little tie as fierce as if he met an enemy on a bloody battlefield. “A knife.”

“Never mind it,” she said, shoving down his trousers, releasing his thick length. He groaned as she took it in her hands, so hot and hard.

His hands rucked up her petticoats until the coolness of the air brushed her bare arse. Kissing her, he palmed the globes of her backside and slid his fingers between her legs from behind.

“Aye, bloody hell, aye,” she said as he opened her, finding her throbbing core. She moaned against his mouth as he played, rubbing inside and outside on her most sensitive spots. “Nathaniel,” she pleaded.

With a flash of movement, he pulled her to one of the four posters at the corners of her bed. “Hold on, Wildfire,” he said. Cat wrapped her hands around the carved wooden pole, feeling a tug on the ties of her corset as he loosened them under the knotted petticoat.

She groaned and took her first full breath since being tied into the hellish stays. “Oh God, ye freed me, Nathaniel, thank ye.”

A deep laugh tickled her ear, and he kissed along the side of her neck. “Anything to make you groan in pleasure.”

Cat pushed her hips backward into him, rubbing her backside into his hardness. Nathaniel lifted her petticoats, his strong fingers spreading her as she arched her back. He leaned over her, and she felt his length seeking her out.

“Oh God, Nathaniel,” she panted out as he entered her from behind, sliding deeply into her aching core. His large hands wrapped around to clasp her bare breasts as he thrust forward, retreating only to thrust forward again and again, a frantic rhythm that wove them into the perfect harmony. Bodies bonded, Cat’s breath came in gasps and moans, as she reared back into him. Working one hand down her front, and under her layers, he rubbed until she could think of nothing but her pleasure. Clutching the pole before her, she moaned as her release overtook her. Behind her, plunging into her open body, Nathaniel groaned, his jack swelling within her with his release.

He continued to hug her to him as they shuddered. His lips grazed the sensitive skin of her nape, and the roughness of his beard tickled as he kissed up her neck to the back of her ear. She inhaled the scent of them. “We didn’t even make it to the bed,” he said against her ear, sliding free to turn her in his arms.

Her skirts fell back around her, and she knew that she’d need a clean smock. But she didn’t care in the least. “Damn knots,” she said with a smile, bringing a grin to his handsome face. She touched his damp lips, feelings so intense she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She swallowed, feeling a flutter of panic beat within her, though she kept her smile. “Take me to bed, Englishman,” she said, but knew on a level that she didn’t want to think about that Nathaniel Worthington was turning into much more than an adventurous romp to her. And that was something she couldn’t allow to happen.