Valor Under Siege (The Honorables) (6 page)

The supper laid out in the private dining room held no appeal, and the sight of yet another pot of tea made her stomach turn. Maybe a glass of watered wine or a mug of small beer would be permissible, just to have with her food. Those beverages were mild enough for children. She couldn’t see any harm ...

“The kitchen is preparing hot cider for us. Fresh, not fermented.”

From across the table, Norman regarded her with that steady gaze.

Were her thoughts so obvious? Guilt and Shame, those wicked twins, stirred in her belly. “There’s no need for them to trouble themselves on my—our—account.”

He shrugged, his massive shoulders rising and falling like a gentle swell of the sea.

It was a good mulled cider, as it happened, and she sipped slowly at her mugful. Of the food, however, she partook only a little. Soon enough, the room felt suffocating and she wanted only to get away. Norman’s efforts at conversation put her teeth on edge.

“Anything amiss, Elsa?”

Lips pinched, she glanced at Foster, whose attention was determinedly fixed on the pigeon on her plate. Norman shouldn’t be so familiar with her in front of Foster. It would give the maid the wrong impression. Lord knew Foster was used to Elsa bringing home the occasional paramour and always exercised utmost discretion, but this wasn’t that. She wasn’t sure why it mattered, but it did. It just did.

His brows lowered. “You look a bit peakish.”

Elsa touched her upper lip, surprised to find her fingers trembling and her skin damp with perspiration. Just like this morning, her pulse galumphed inside her chest and beat against her temples from within. Her hair hurt.

“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Wynford-Scott.” She shot to her feet, and he quickly fumbled to stand. Foster, too, got up. “No, no,” she waved the lady’s maid back. “Finish your supper, Foster. I’m fine, I just ...”

Nothing to say, she turned sharply, feeling their eyes boring into her back as she left the dining room, cutting off their questioning gazes by firmly shutting the door behind her.

The stairs she had to take to reach her room were adjacent to the common room, at this time of day filled with travelers and locals enjoying a pint or glass of their favorite libations.

Her belly was a hard knot of wanting and dread as she approached. The innkeeper stood at a wooden barrel, pulling on the tap to fill a mug. He gave Elsa a welcoming smile. She was choking for want of a drink. Just one.

With a strangled cry, she turned and darted up the stairs, running all the way to her room. Slamming the door behind her, she leaned her back against it and cried.

The night did not improve. Foster helped her bathe and change into her nightclothes before removing to her own cot in the little dressing room, but sleep was out of the question for Elsa. She’d slept all afternoon and thought she might crawl out of her skin, besides. She paced the length of the small chamber, back and forth, back and forth, desperate to reclaim the relief she’d found earlier while walking with Norman.

Elsa twisted her fingers tight and tighter, trying to wring from them the need to touch a bottle. Then her hands were in her hair at her temples, clenching, pulling, and seeking to distract herself with pain.

Distraction. Distraction. What was it Mr. Dewhurst had said? Something about keeping herself busy, distracting herself with her favorite activities. She barked a bitter laugh. Her favorite activities were drinking and fucking. One was forbidden, and as for the other—

She halted in her pacing. As for the other ... Norman found her physically appealing. A woman intuited these things, but she’d seen the evidence for herself when he’d watched her dance on the tabletop at the Christmas revels, seen desire writ plain across his face. As for her, she found him intriguing. Compelling. He was so tall. Enormous, really. It would be pointless to deny her lusty mind had pondered his manly asset, wondered if its size was commensurate to the rest of him.

Her lower belly quivered, and her nipples perked against her thin night rail. “Oh, God,” she moaned, lifting her hands to her cheeks. This was hellish. Norman Wynford-Scott? Was she really going to do this? Then again, if she did not, how would she live through the endless hours stretching from here to dawn? If something did not give, Elsa would find herself downstairs gulping the first potent drink she could get her hands on; of this, she was certain.

But, Norman was ... well, he was kind and considerate and noble of spirit and ... a bit boring, really. So upright and proper all the time. Except when he made her laugh with his story about a brewery with a stable full of horses with naughty names, of course. And when his voice rang with command, there was something rather thrilling about it. All the same, he didn’t seem the sort to countenance a tumble in a roadside inn with a notoriously immoral woman.

Elsa swallowed. Drew a deep breath. Now that the idea of sex was in her head, her body thrummed in anticipation. She would take care of her own needs, was all, as she’d done many and many a night. Decision made, she crossed to the bed. Her knee sank into the mattress.

A soft knock. “Elsa? Lady Fay?”

Her lids slid home on a soft groan. It was as inevitable as that first snifter of brandy turning into a second.

She jerked open the door, and there he was in only dark breeches and a rumpled white shirt. How broad his shoulders were, she marveled, and how wide his chest. She could spend hours exploring it, give her mouth an occupation beyond demanding liquor. Her heart hammered.

Norman’s gaze slipped down her length, then pulled back to her face. She’d neglected to put on a wrapper before opening the door, she realized.

“I just wanted to look in on you,” he said in a low voice. “You left supper so abruptly, and—forgive me, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop—but I’m just in the next room, and I heard you pacing and crying even, I thought. Is there ... may I be of assistance?”

Without allowing herself time to think, she grabbed his hand and tugged him to his room. When they were inside, she shut the door, and tipped her forehead against the beveled panel. “I’m suffering. I didn’t know it would be this hard.”

Behind her, he sighed. “What can I do to help, Elsa?”

“I need ...” Turning, she let her eyes travel meaningfully over his body, from tip to toe. He had a hand buried in the muss of his brown hair, cupping the back of his skull. He was utterly delectable. How had she never seen it before? “I need a distraction.” She sauntered to close the distance, allowing her hips to sway and her hand to trace the valley between her breasts. “Distract me, Norman.”

His eyes widened. “You mean ...” His tongue darted out, a flash of pink swiping across his bottom lip. “I’ve a deck of cards.” He jerked his chin toward his valise standing by the foot of his bed. She saw his pulse leap in his neck, knew he wasn’t unaffected.

“I want you to take me to bed,” she stated bluntly.

He grimaced as if in pain, kept his eyes averted.

“I want to undress for you, and I want you to undress for me.” She plucked at the shirt tucked into his waistband. Norman drew a sharp breath, but made no motion to stop her. Rising on tiptoe, Elsa dropped her voice to a sultry whisper. “I want to look my fill at this most impressive body of yours, and then I want you to put it to good use.”

“You said you were suffering,” he accused, his voice strangled.

She gave a laugh-cry. “I am. God, you don’t know how much. I need ...
I need
, Norman.” Her fingers closed on his bicep. “The wanting is driving me mad.”

“Wanting for drink?”

“Yes, yes, but you, too. It’s all tangled up, don’t you see? Just a dreadful ache that’s killing me. I swear to God, Norman, I’ll be drunk or dead by morning if I can’t have
something
.”

Frowning, he took a step back. “This isn’t fair, Elsa. You can’t lay that at my feet: If I don’t do this with you, you’ll drink?”

“Would it be such a hardship?” she cried. Hands shaking as if she were palsied, she managed to untie the ribbon at her neck and pull her nightgown over her head. She swept her arms wide, presenting her naked form. “Does this not please you? I have seen you look at me with longing. Will you stand there and tell me you do not want me?”

For a terrible moment, she feared he would tell her exactly that. His eyes caught on her raspberry nipples, swept the curve of her hip, halted on the triangle of black hair at the apex of her thighs. But he said nothing, gave no hint of his thoughts.

Then he groaned, the sound rumbling in the depths of his massive chest, echoing her own pain. “Damn it, Elsa, yes,” he rasped. “Yes, I want you. There’s not a man who looks at you and doesn’t want you. Is that what you want to hear?” His pupils were wide, nearly obliterating the soft green of his irises. With jerky movements, he fisted his shirt, pulled it over his head, and dropped it to the floor.

Elsa’s lips parted on a soft gasp. Her eyes were level with his sternum, and she had only to raise them the barest fraction to see flat, berry-brown nipples surrounded by a little fringe of tawny hair. He was well formed, obviously took care of himself, but not overly muscled like some of her prior lovers had been. The skin of his torso was nearly as pale as her own, making the thatch of hair on his upper chest and the line of it beginning at his navel show all the more starkly. His belly pooched just a tad, and she remembered that this was not a man with hour upon hour of idle time to spend riding or fencing or boxing. Norman was a scholar, his days filled with whatever it was barristers-in-training did. Altogether, he gave the impression of strength and reliability and, maybe too, a touch of vulnerability. It was the skin, she decided, so white she could see the blue of his veins in places. Like the inside of his elbow there. Touching him would be heaven, heavy and solid, with just enough softness to sink her hands into as he rode her. Or she rode him.

She reached out to the indentation below his ribs. His hand covered hers, removed it from his person. “Elsa, we can’t,” he said. “You’re not well.”

Her eyes snapped to his. “I am as well as I can hope to be—perhaps as well as I’ll ever be. Am I too damaged for you?”

“No, that’s not what I—” Both hands delved into his hair this time, and he growled. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Well, then what do you mean?” she pressed. When he gave no reply, she retrieved her night rail. Coming here like this had been a mistake. She kept her eyes downcast, not wanting him to see the pain his rejection caused. She turned to go, heedless of the fact that her clothes dangled from her hand.

A grumbled curse, the sense of movement, and then his arm was around her, pulling her back tight to his chest. “Don’t go,” he whispered, cupping her breast in his palm. His other hand ripped the night rail from her grasp and dashed it to the floor. And then his hand was in her braid, wrapping it around his fist as he’d done Apple’s reins earlier in the day. He tugged her head to the side, exposing the sensitive place where her heart’s beat throbbed, and he covered it with his mouth. Just a brush of lips at first, but then he tentatively tongued her there.

Elsa moaned. He was so strong, sheltering her in the curve of his great body. His hand shifted on her breast to circle fingertips around her nipple, then moved to the other side to palm and pluck. The hard ridge of his erection pressed between her buttocks, and Elsa canted her hips, undulating to stroke his length.

Norman’s grip tightened on her breast; his breath was hot in her ear. Then his hands were on her hips, and he was holding her even closer as he pressed against her, a sort of helpless moan escaping his throat.

Elsa brought one of his hands to her belly. “Touch me,” she pleaded.

“I haven’t ...” he started. “I don’t know ... That is, I’ve never ...”

Elsa turned in his arms, took in the desperate, lust-crazed look of the man, eyelids heavy and hair tangled about his ears.

“Never? No one?” The seam of his breeches must have been sorely tested by the heavy press of his impressive cockstand. His chest heaved like a bellows, and his hands gripped her waist. He was utterly scrumptious, and the notion that no woman had yet laid claim to him boggled her mind.

He shook his head. “Not that I haven’t wanted to.” Color crept up his chest. “I mean, there have been—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she assured him. The last thing she wanted to do was make him feel self-conscious about himself. “I’ll tell you what I want, where I’d like you to touch me. But you must promise to do the same and tell me what you’d like.”

He nodded.

She smiled. “Kiss me, Norman. Please.”

His mouth covered hers, and she reached her arms around his neck—and it
was
a reach. Even though he bent low, she was obliged to stretch long, arching her full length against him and relishing the way he planted his hands just so on her back, gentle but firm. He explored her mouth, and she drank him in, sucking hard on his tongue.

She broke away, panting. Needy flames lapped up her legs and between her thighs, and Elsa was going to combust herself if she did not get the release she craved. “Here,” she said, pulling him to the bed. This would be easier for them both if they were horizontal. She climbed onto the mattress on hands and knees, giving him a good view of her arse and aching flesh.

When she rolled onto her back, he followed her down. She took his hand and brought it between her legs. “Like this,” she said, guiding his fingers between the slick folds, rocking her mound up to meet his palm. Then she released his wrist and let him explore on his own.

“You feel incredible,” Norman rasped. “So soft. Wet. And hot. God, I’ve never felt anything so hot.”

He gave her a firm stroke, and Elsa purred, then arched off the bed when he brushed over her clitoris.

He made a fretful sound.

“No, no, so good,” she rushed to explain. “Some men go their whole lives without ever touching a woman there. Just take care. Easy does—oh!” He pressed down lightly as he rubbed a circle, then ran his finger once more down the length of her wet slit.

“Inside me, Norman. I need it inside.” Her entire body shook, desperate for release.