What the Marquess Sees (29 page)

She did not let them halt her departure.

“All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.”

―James Thurber

Beatryce returned to her room with a fast step, yet heavy feet. La, she had jumped up and fawned over Cliff the same as she had in her role as Mrs. Churchmouse.

And everyone knew it.

Except this time, she wasn’t play-acting. This was real.

They knew that, too.

And it scared her to death.

Ha! As if she couldn’t see this coming. She’d feared this for days now, though she’d desperately tried to ignore her feelings and focus on plans for the future.

Yes, she saw it coming all right. Like a coach and four barreling toward her at great speed. She couldn’t not see it.

She was in love with Cliff. In. Love.

Her…

How could she not be? He was good. He was kind…even to the likes of her. Now, at any rate. She snorted at that.

He was strong. Trustworthy. Dependable. Witty. Fun. He was…everything. Any fool would love this man.

Oh, D.

And she was the biggest fool of them all.

She’d practically run toward love with open arms…but also toward certain heartbreak, she’d known that as well, try as she might to ignore it.

Why couldn’t she have held out a little longer and fallen in love with a simple man? From a small village or a farm in the middle of nowhere. Hell, a blacksmith or a costermonger. A butcher or even a cobbler. Or maybe, just maybe, a poor, lonely gentleman, searching for comfort and companionship.

Not a Marquess! He was of a world she must relegate to her past. She had to…She swallowed.

She could not go back. She refused to go back. She didn’t want to go back.

Even for him.

For so long, she had doubted anyone else, besides herself, would ever see her worth. So why did he, of all people, have to be the one who just might be capable of doing so?

Oh, God. This was going to hurt. This was going to hurt in a way that defined the very word despair. Already her soul began to mourn his loss.

And they hadn’t yet said the words…good bye.

A sob caught in her throat and her eyes began to burn at just a hint of what it was going to be like to say good bye to this man. Forever. She nearly doubled over from the pain just by brushing the edges of that thought.

Oh, God!

She wanted to throw herself on the bed and weep. Rather, she paced the floor; her strength of will the only thing keeping her from doing just that…burying her face in the pillow and sobbing until she was shriveled and dried from a lack of water. As it was, silent tears were now streaming in copious amounts down her cheeks—memories over their time together rolling out in liquid form. She couldn’t stop them; the same as she couldn’t stop her lungs from taking her next breath.

Gasp.

She shuddered as a sob tried to break the last of her composure. Her jaw felt like it would crack from the strain.

La, there was only one thing she could do at that moment—to manage the emotions threatening to burst forth uncontrollably…The one thing she always did when her emotions endangered her good sense…

She began to strip off her clothes, the act almost symbolic. She dropped off each article of clothing to the floor as she made her way to the clothespress where she found and put on her borrowed, manly trappings—just the trousers and a shirt.

She spun and dropped to her knees to hunt for her boots; they were somewhere under her massive bed.

Once she found them, she sat right where she was and pulled them on, while her all-too-informative eyes continued to reveal her every emotion whilst blurring everything in sight, like rain on a chalk painting.

She stopped by her vanity, swiped at her eyes, and pulled back her hair, tying it into one long tail with a strip of knotted linen.

Then, she left her room and…

She ran.

She ran until her sides ached. Until her knees hurt. Until she could barely breathe from her exertions.

She ran to the mill. She ran to the lake. She ran around the lake three times. Then once more for good measure.

Her hair was loose and billowing behind her now, her tie having fallen out before she’d run her first mile. The sleeves of her shirt flapped in the wind. The muscles in her thighs twinged and twitched from their efforts as she pumped her arms and wrung every bit of strength from her body.

She coughed a little; her lungs expelling built-up crud from the air, and gained a stitch in her side in the process. She slowed and bent at her waist toward the bothersome ache and breathed through her nose until it went away. Then, she bolted forward at full speed once more.

She felt great; she felt alive. Because for brief moments, she could almost forget.

She must have traveled more than four miles in less than an hour. And she wanted to keep going. Perhaps if she ran far enough or fast enough, she could outrun the misery that chased her. She could feel it nipping at her heels already. Every moment she lost her concentration on her run, her reason for it barreled its way to the forefront of her mind.

She finally stopped at a spot she’d scouted by the lake. It was well hidden…a place she could go to be by herself, to perform the rituals she’d always employed to purge unwanted emotions from her mind.

She stopped and bent at the waist, her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. Every part of her body throbbed with life.

Before the death of her father, she’d do this in the wee hours of the morning. In secret.

La, she had secret places deep in the gardens of every one of her father’s homes, where she would exercise her body until she nearly collapsed from exhaustion…until she could no longer think. Or feel anything but the burn from her exertions.

It was why she was so slender, she was sure. But it worked, it always worked, to suppress her overwhelming thoughts and anxiety.

It would this time. It had to.

She dropped to the ground and laid on her back in the grass, her knees bent, hands behind her head. She crunched her body into a ball, then stretched out straight again. She repeated the action over and over until the muscles in her stomach burned and cramped. Then, she rolled over to exercise her arms.

“What are you doing hiding out here in the shrubbery, Bea?”

She froze an inch from the ground.

La, Dansbury had come…

“But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts have left their places vacant, in their rooms come thronging soft and delicate desires.”

―Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

She collapsed the remaining way to the ground in surprise. Fortunately, she hadn’t been standing. She had been horizontal to the ground, stomach down, working her arms by lifting and lowering her body. She partially rolled to her side and looked over her shoulder to the man that drove her to be here in the first place.

Dansbury…Cliff. He was leaning against a nearby tree. Casual and calm, his arms crossed.

And staring at her ass.

“Stop looking at my ass, D.”

He grinned. The heart-stopping, tongue-wagging, charismatic grin that was a deadly weapon in his sensual arsenal.

“Stop flaunting it in tight trousers, Bea.” He said it and chuckled while he removed his boots.

“Fuck you!” Yes, she was coarse. Unladylike. Her revelations made her edgy, vulnerable, scared, and angry—despite her attempt to exercise her feelings into submission.

“We’ve already done that. Now, I want to make love to you.” He threw one boot aside.

“You…What? You what?” She was stunned by his admission and the implication behind it. It disarmed her.

“Come here.” He crooked his finger at her as he tossed aside his other boot. He remained otherwise fully clothed.

God, he was barefoot and dressed. Why did that sight of his feet planted in the grass seem more erotic than him standing there totally nude?

She rolled fully onto her back and leaned back on her elbows. She shook her head; she wasn’t daft. “No. You, come here.” She gave him her best smile.

Am I really going to do this?

Instead of stepping forward per her command…he began removing his clothes.

Piece by piece.

Her heart picked up its pace.

Am I really going to do this?

He untied his cravat and slid it from around his neck, his actions frustratingly slow. She resisted the urge to fan herself. Just.

“Faster…” The word simply exploded from her mouth.

He moved to his waistcoat, undoing the buttons one…by…one.

He laughed as he did. “What was that, Lady Beatryce? I didn’t quite catch that.” If anything, he slowed his pace.

Liar. The neighbors six miles away likely heard her. But she didn’t answer, just scowled at him while he continued his agonizingly slow show.

I’m really going to do this, aren’t I?

He never once broke eye contact while he worked.

Her eyes darted back and forth between his eyes and his hands. She wanted to watch the desire in his eyes…yet she wanted to watch his body as it was revealed. Bit by bit.

“My patience…” She had to catch her breath “…wears thin, D.”

It seemed like ten years had passed before he twisted out of his waistcoat and began on the buttons of his shirt.

He just smiled as he carried on. Unrushed, but steady.

There were too many buttons!

Slowly and steadily, his gleaming, smooth chest was exposed.

She squeezed her thighs together.

“Goodness, Cliff, faster.”

I am going to do this.

“Tsk. Tsk. Patience is a virtue, Lady Beatryce. I assure you, I am worth the wait.”

La, how vain of him to be so sure of his appeal…not that it wasn’t obvious based on the many whimpers of impatience she could scarce control.

The breeze changed and with it she caught a whiff of…herself.

Oops.

She broke eye contact and surreptitiously sniffed near her left arm to be sure.

Ugh.

Of course, she would smell. She’d been exercising for over an hour…

She peeked up at Dansbury, and her jaw nearly fell to the ground. He’d released all the buttons of his shirt down to his breeches, where a trail of hair, the only hairs on his massive chest, disappeared beneath the fabric of his breaches like an arrow pointing the way to treasure. His treasure.

No. Her treasure.

He began to pull out the tails of his shirt.

She nearly stopped breathing, momentarily forgetting all about her malodorous problem.

His shirt fluttered to the ground. Poor thing.

But more importantly, he reached for the buttons of his breeches. And Beatryce’s mouth went dry in response.

He freed the first button of his fall front.

She felt the movement in her gut; she licked her arid lips.

He freed the corresponding button on the other side.

She could feel him watching her. She was sure of it. But she didn’t truly know; she was watching…his hands.

She whimpered again and gave up all pretense of looking him in the eye. His hands and what they were doing were far, far too fascinating.

When all four buttons of his fall were released, he paused. Dammit. He paused. He seemed to hold the flap in place for an eternity. Her heart ratcheted up with each second he made her wait. And wait. She wanted to look him in the eye and demand he get on with it, but she didn’t dare look away from the front of those breeches…

Then…

He let the flap fall…

Mmm…

She groaned out loud. She could not control it. He wore no smalls. No. Smalls.

She looked her fill. She wanted to beg him to step out into the light so she could see him more clearly. His cock was hard and upright and trapped by the top of his breeches. His manly, bushy hair peeking out from the opening covered by the fall front and hiding the real prize inside.

He reached for the button at the top of his breeches and released it…The fabric pulled apart revealing the tip of his long, hard shaft as it peeked out, its first taste of the air. It beckoned her…called her name…signaled Dansbury’s intense desire, which echoed hers.

It seemed an eternity passed while he released the remaining buttons…slowly revealing his glorious manhood. Lord, she was close to orgasm just from watching him undress.

He dropped his breeches.

His cock, freed now, bowed to her in greeting.

Her feminine core twitched in answer.

He stepped out of his breeches and took one step in her direction.

She scrambled to her feet and held up her hand, her thoughts finally forming some sort of cohesive thought and with it the memory of her little smelly problem.

“Stay.”

“Now, you want me to stay?” He was incredulous. He shaft bobbed as if to underscore his impatience.

“Yes.” She swallowed. “For the moment.”

It was her turn to undress now.

She began with her shirt. She rejoiced as his eyes smoldered with heat. Yes. Two could play this game.

“You play with fire, Lady Beatryce.”

“I love fire, Lord Dansbury.”

She watched his cock while she attended to her buttons. He was so hard, his staff stood out as if pointing to what it wanted: Her. It was beautiful. And it jumped with every button she released.

She smiled at him then, and they shared a laugh at his cock’s antics.

She reached for the buttons of her trousers. She heard him growl as she released the first one.

She paused, for just a moment. La, he was right. Enough was enough.

She made quick work of the rest of her clothing, but instead of stepping toward him, she stood still and threw him a cheeky grin.

Then, before he could move a single muscle, she spun around and dashed for the lake.

She was not going to do this smelling like foul sweat.

She dove headfirst into the cool water. Ah, it was so refreshing. The juxtaposition of her overheated body and the nippy water rolling down her back brought goosebumps to her arms. Her nipples beaded even harder; it’d feel wonderful when he finally joined her and suckled them.