The Lady Who Broke the Rules (14 page)

He was still fastening his buckskin breeches over his nightshirt as he ran barefoot down the curved corridor, where Kate’s ancestors eyed him askance from their gilded frames. Down to the gloomy entrance hall, where the marble pillars were like a regulated forest in the shadowy light. Without caring who heard him, Virgil yanked open the locks and bolts on the heavy front door and sprinted towards the lake.

He couldn’t see her. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought that she must have gone under, but then he remembered that graceful dive. She could obviously swim, but where was she? His feet sank into the mud, which oozed between his toes. The water was icy. There was an island about four hundred yards out, but it was a wild tangle of trees and bushes, impenetrable to the naked eye from here. A faint splash caught his attention. He would get a better view from the bridge, but if she needed help, then he’d be further away. He was being irrational; she could swim, she would be perfectly safe, Virgil told himself as he waded through the reeds until he was thigh-deep and dived in after her.

The cold took his breath away. His feet had stirred up mud and leaves, making the water cloudy. He came up for air spluttering, heading half blind towards the island. He had learned to swim in the creek at the plantation, where the water had been a delightfully refreshing relief from the summer humidity. The Castonbury lake was fed from water which originated in the Peaks. The cold gripped him like a vice, making his breathing painfully sharp. The water soaked the leather of his breeches, dragging his body downwards to the murky depths.

Virgil struck out with renewed determination. He was panting heavily as he reached the sandy banks of the little island. Chest heaving, water streaming from the tails of his nightshirt and the cuffs of his breeches, he forced his way through the bushes to the other side, just in time to see her at the far end of the lake, next to the bridge, heading back round. Unlike him, she seemed perfectly at home in the water. She swam with effortless grace, arm over arm, her head under the water, then up for air, sleek as an otter, cleaving through the lake with barely a ripple, clearly in no need of rescue. He watched her, thinking that he would be content to watch her for ever, while at the same time feeling excluded, shut out from whatever place it was her mind had gone to, for she seemed to make her way by some other sense than sight.

As she rounded the corner out of sight again, Virgil made his way back into the centre of the island in two minds. He wanted to call to her, but he didn’t want to disturb what was obviously a customary swim and a private moment. He would wait until she circled back again, then he would make his own way back to shore without her seeing him. He felt foolish now at having come rushing out half naked to rescue someone in absolutely no need of help. There was a clearing in the middle of the shrubs and trees, a little hollow of ground quite hidden from view. A circle of blackened stones had obviously been used for a fire. Around it the ground was bare, packed dirt and sand, where the undergrowth had been worn away from use.

Chapter Seven

‘W
e used to come here as children.’ Virgil started. Kate was standing in the clearing behind him. He hadn’t heard her approach. ‘It’s one of the few places at Castonbury out of Aunt Wilhelmina’s reach,’ she said. ‘There’s a box down by the beach with wood and kindling—will you help me fetch it?’

Virgil dragged the heavy chest through the undergrowth, and Kate opened the lid. She took out a quilt and handed another to him. ‘You look as if you need this. I’m used to it, but I expect you found the water cold. What are you doing here?’

‘I saw you dive in from the window of my bedchamber.’

‘Did you think I needed rescuing?’

‘Not once I saw you swimming. You’re very…lovely.’

He’d meant to say
good
or
strong
or even
graceful
, but the truth slipped out before he could stop it. The quilt was draped over her shoulders. She wore what looked like underwear, a short, sleeveless cotton chemise and a pair of knee-length drawers. The sodden material clung to her figure, revealing tantalising glimpses of the pink flesh beneath, hugging every contour, from the swell of her breasts, the flare of her hips, to the dark cluster of curls between her long legs. Her nipples were hard peaks, clearly visible. Long damp tendrils of her hair had escaped the bun on top of her head and stuck to her throat, her neck, her cheeks. Water dripped from her lashes. It dripped from the ends of the ribbons which tied her drawers at her knees and at her neckline. ‘Charybdis,’ Virgil said with a smile, ‘daughter of Poseidon.’

He still held the quilt folded in his hands. If he would wrap it around himself, then she wouldn’t have to look at him, Kate thought. Dripping wet. His skin dark, glistening through his shirt. Was it a shirt? It looked more like a nightshirt. She should be cold, but under her skin she felt unaccountably hot. She laughed nervously. ‘That’s not very flattering. Charybdis makes whirlpools to drown men at sea.’

‘I know, but she was once a nymph.’

‘So it’s a compliment?’ It was the swimming which made her sound so breathless. It must be the swimming which was making her shaky too. She’d overdone it. Was it the swimming which was making her mouth dry? It was definitely the cold which was making her nipples ache. Virgil looked—oh, heavens, there was no getting away from it—he looked magnificent.

‘I’ll light a fire.’ Kate hunkered down over the chest, fumbling for the kindling. ‘You’ll catch cold, else.’ It didn’t occur to her to suggest that Virgil would be better getting back to a warm bath and dry clothes.

‘Let me.’

He tended to the fire efficiently and quickly. Of long habit, Kate sank onto the sandy hollow and pulled her quilt around her as the flames took life. Virgil had abandoned his quilt. The ridges of his whip marks could clearly be seen through his shirt. They were vicious, long welts, some overlapping. More than one whipping or one particularly fierce event? He looked as if he’d been flayed. She swallowed the lump in her throat, determined not to show him she’d noticed.

Virgil dropped down beside her. Through the cold lake water, his body was already starting to emanate heat. ‘Last night, it must have taken a great deal to say what you did,’ he said.

Kate turned round to face him, dislodging the quilt from her shoulders. ‘You don’t despise me?’

‘On the contrary. You are very hard on yourself, Kate.’ Virgil wiped a drop of lake water from her cheek with his thumb. Her skin was softened by the water, chilly to touch, whereas he felt as if he were burning up. ‘Yesterday, it wasn’t that I was afraid of your reaction to my scars, I was afraid of my own.’ He still was, but he could manage it. He could. He owed her this much. No, it was more than that, he wanted to show her. Virgil lifted up the hem of his nightshirt and pulled it over his head. ‘These are not just from one whipping. I don’t know how many. I lost count,’ he said, swivelling round to show her his back.

Kate gasped. He wasn’t surprised; he knew it was a horrific sight. He’d seen it reflected in the mirror, though it was a long, long time since he’d seen it reflected in anyone’s face. ‘At the slave market, it’s what saved me.’ The words came out stiff, cold, but at least they came out. ‘It shows I lack discipline, you see. My scars, they mark me out as a rebel. A clean back would have brought a much higher price for Master Booth. This back, it’s what made Malcolm Jackson buy me.’

‘Why?’ Kate asked.

Her voice was ragged with horror. She hadn’t touched him. Virgil managed a shrug. ‘He said it was because he saw a free spirit. A man with dreams, he said I was. A stubborn man. A man who would fight for his cause. He took a chance on me, and I made sure it paid off.’ Another debt. In Glasgow at least he would have the opportunity to pay that one in full.

Kate touched him. Virgil flinched at the unexpectedness of it. ‘Did I hurt you?’ she whispered.

‘No.’ These scars no longer ached, though what they stood for would hurt him always.

Kate’s fingers traced the fretwork of lines, some threads, some thick like ropes, where his flesh had been opened and healed, opened and healed. The skin was tight in the bigger scars. It still pulled sometimes, tugged at him, wanting him to remember, making sure he could not forget.
You are not healed. You will never heal.
His scars spoke to him.

‘Did you run away?’ Kate asked.

Her hands smoothed over his back now, as if she would erase the mess, as if she would make him new. As if she could. He wished she could. Virgil nodded. ‘Once. Mostly I refused to do as I was bid. Spoke when I wasn’t supposed to. Looked them in the eye when they spoke. Once, they wanted me to fight and I wouldn’t.’

‘You mean box? Young Charlie was right?’

‘No! I wouldn’t fight. I saw Molineaux once. Prizefighting is how he earned his freedom in the end, but I wouldn’t let myself be treated like that, like an animal. I never fought that way, but I fought them every other way. Working too slow. Not working. Working too fast. I learned to read and write and they didn’t like that.’

‘They whipped you because you could read?’

He would have laughed at the utter shock in her voice, only it hit him like a punch in the stomach that she was right. It
was
beyond belief. He’d survived because he hadn’t let himself think about what was happening to him. He was afraid the horror of it would sap his strength. He had no energy to waste on railing against what he could not change. ‘They whipped us for any reason, and for none at all, but the last time I guess I gave them cause. I led a rebellion.’

Talking of his plans to force concessions by striking, to add weight to their strike by spreading it through neighbouring plantations, Virgil remembered what he had forgotten all these years, that despite all the evidence to the contrary, he’d believed that reason would triumph. ‘I thought if they could just be forced to see our point of view, they’d realise how wrong it all was.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I thought that if we could show them we had some power, if they could see that we were strong enough to stand together, they’d realise they would have to change. I was so wrong.’

‘What happened?’ He could see she already knew. Could tell from the way she gripped her hands together in her lap that she wanted to be wrong.

‘Just exactly what you think,’ Virgil said with a twisted smile. ‘It’s one thing to make promises, another to keep them when you know what the consequences are likely to be. Some didn’t strike. Some caved early.’

‘But not you?’

If only he had.
Virgil shook his head. ‘Not me.’ He told her of that final whipping. He told her about the hellhole. And then he stopped.

Kate swore long and viciously in response, words even Virgil would not have spoken. Then she wrapped her arms around him, and leaned her body against the breadth of his back. ‘I would kill them.’

She took it for the end and he was too relieved to do anything but follow her lead. Her voice contained real menace. ‘I believe you,’ Virgil said. If it came to it, he doubted she would, but he believed she would want to, as he had, and it was a sweet revenge in its way, knowing that a duke’s daughter wanted to do what he had chosen not to. His vengeance had been slow in coming, but it was worth every second of hard slog it had taken. He had proved himself better. Now he would make sure others like him could do the same.

He could feel Kate’s breasts flattened against him. Her breath was warm on his neck. Her hands were wrapped around his body, her palms resting on his chest. ‘We should get back,’ he said, telling himself that he meant it.

Her arms tightened around him. ‘No.’

She nestled closer. Despite the cold, Virgil’s manhood stirred to life. ‘Kate…’

‘Did you tell me all that to show me I can trust you?’

‘And because I wanted to.’

‘Do you want
me
, Virgil?’

The evidence of just how much he wanted her was taking solid shape in the chafing leather of his buckskins. ‘You know I do.’ He twisted around in her embrace. Her mouth was soft, trembling, pink. Her eyes were grey rather than blue. ‘Kate, I don’t want to hurt you. I would never use you or force you or any of the things you’re afraid of, but if you’re not sure…’

‘I am. I think I am.’

Was he?
He was sure he wanted her. He was sure it was different. The power of it came from passion heightened by abstinence, not love. But his abstinence had been one of the sources of his strength. Still, he wanted her and there were ways for both of them to have what they wanted without risk. Without compromise. Without hurt. He did want her. He was so tired of fighting it.

Virgil wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down onto the quilt which had fallen from her shoulders, and kissed her.

* * *

Was she sure? Kate locked her arms around Virgil’s neck and kissed him back. She was sure of him. Sure she wanted him. Sure she wanted what she had never had, what Anthony had taken from her.

He tasted of lake water. His lips were warm against hers. He rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his own. So large. Kissing, she stroked the breadth of his shoulders, then let her fingers flutter over the tortuous mess of his back. And so powerful. His kisses heated her. His hands on her face, her shoulders, her breasts, made her shiver in anticipation.

He kissed her deeply, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, then tangling with hers, teasing, tasting, then taking again. He kissed her neck, her throat, the valley between her breasts. The damp cotton of her chemise clung stubbornly to her body, but he was patient, untying the ribbons and buttons, feasting on each inch of skin as he opened it. Hot mouth on cold nipples. She arched up in delight, for his actions connected straight to her throbbing sex.

He kissed her lips again, as if he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, and that, too, delighted her. She watched him avidly as he kissed his way back down between her breasts, cupping them, his thumbs stroking, as his mouth nipped and licked at her ribs, her belly. Skin. The delicious abrasion of his skin on hers. Was there anything more delightful?

There was. The ribbons on her drawers were knotted. When she would have torn them, he untied them with care, easing them down her legs. His face was taut, his eyes glittering, fierce and focused. The way he looked at her filled her with the most glorious sensation. She knew herself powerful. She knew herself wanted. Truly wanted. She let him look, made shameless with his need, her own need making her wanton. She kept her eyes open, fixed on him, his hands, his face, his mouth, his body.

She fumbled with the fastenings of his buckskins, but the leather was so wet her fingers could make no sense of them. She could have cried out in frustration but Virgil saved her, sitting up, quickly dispensing with buttons and falls, pulling them down his long, muscled legs.

He was utterly naked. Kate looked. She had seen a naked man before. She knew what an erect member looked like. She had been curious enough to look, and Anthony had been determined that she touch, but this was different. She’d thought the male body strange. Ugly, almost. Now, fascinated by the differences between them, she thought Virgil simply beautiful.

He sat down on the quilt opposite her and pulled her to him so that they were facing, her legs over his thighs. They studied each other, touching, tracing their shapes with their fingertips, exploring. They kissed. Virgil cupped her breasts, kissed her nipples. Kate arched back, her heels digging into the sandy floor of the hollow behind his back. He touched her belly. He kissed her again. He stroked her flanks, and then the soft flesh inside her thighs.

But when he began to stroke into the folds of her sex, she tensed, and Virgil stopped. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid I’ll fail you,’ Kate whispered.

‘Did
he
say that?’ Virgil swore. ‘Kate,
he
failed
you
.’

He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘Just trust me.’ He kissed her. He kissed her breasts. Then he kissed her mouth again. When her breath came shallow against his, he eased her back and stroked her thighs. Then stroked again, and slid easily past the folds of her sex and inside her. She gasped. Her muscles tensed around his finger. He eased into her a little more.

‘Do you like this?’ he asked. When she nodded, he took her hand and wrapped it around his shaft. They both stared, fascinated by the contrast of her skin on his.

The muscles in Virgil’s belly tightened. His erection thickened. He eased his finger higher inside her, seeing from the way her eyes widened that she liked it. ‘Stroke me, like this,’ he said, showing her, for he had no faith in her previous experience, and was glad, if he was honest, that she seemed so unsure.

She did as he asked; he had to close his eyes to hold himself back. ‘Again,’ he said, thrusting into her as she stroked, watching her as she touched him and he touched her. He could see his desire reflected in her eyes. It was intoxicating. He could see that she found it so too. He kissed her. Her lips were hard on his now, her tongue thrusting into his mouth.