Page 50 of The Rebellious Countess
Elias barely refrained from rolling his eyes.
“Hubert, we thank you for your hospitality.” Máira bowed her head to the boy, and the boy’s eyes darted to Elias. No lady would bow to a servant or someone in working class, he wanted to throttle her.
The boy’s lips quirked in an uncomfortable smile and then he ran from the stable. No doubt ready to turn them over to the first soldier he saw.
He turned on his wife. “I told you to keep quiet.”
“He needed my help.”
“When did you pick those plants?”
“After I heard the couple talking about the townspeople being ill. When you were…”
He winced. When he was burying the bodies of the men they’d killed. He’d gruffly sent her back to the stream with their horse to see to the animal’s needs.
He ran his hand through his hair. “He knows you’re not French.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He was watching your mouth.”
“He was focused on my instructions.”
Women. Did they not know the male mind? Not only had the teenager been focused on the way her tongue moved when she spoke, he noticed her curves. Hell, he’d have to be blind not to notice them. Hag’s gown did little to hide the woman beneath, even if the gown was too big.
He turned toward their horse. “I better take care of the horse. You can clean up in the other stall.”
“Elias…”
He froze mid-step but wasn’t man enough to turn around and face her. When her hand touched his arm, he flinched, and she withdrew her touch.
“None of this is your fault.”
A snort slid from his lips. Everything that she’d experienced was his fault.
“You only did what you had to do to save Astley.” Her voice was soft and soothing, as if she spoke to a child.
He turned and grabbed her with so much force she stumbled back, but he was there, pressing her against the wall of the stable with a sneer on his face. The venom in his voice split the silence of the night. “Where is Astley, now? Is he safe? For all we know he died at the hands of the soldiers months ago, and if he did survive, who’s to say the sickness hasn’t already taken him, as it has so many others? Will you say it was worth it then, when he is dead?”
No, she would hate him for everything.
Her kindness did not disappear, despite his rough handling. “You will find him,” she reassured. “You will return him to his family…one way or another.”
He searched her eyes looking for her hatred. She should hate him with every fiber of her being, every other lady of thetonwould want him hanging from a rope for what he had put her through. Yet in Máira’s fathomless blue gaze, he only saw forgiveness, and then she reached up to caress his check, her soft skin in direct contrast to the coarse beard he now sported.
Mon Dieu.It was there burning brightly within her, it was in her touch, her voice…in the way her body pressed against his despite the distance he’d made certain to keep. This was more than just curiosity and lust, this was the reason a woman saidyesto a man. He had convinced himself the emotion he saw in her eyes was the infatuation of a lady seeking a marriage of comfort and security, but he’d been wrong. It was something a great deal more.
It couldn’t be.Theycouldn’t be. Máira was everything he never wanted.
He released her and stalked the horse, who shied away from him the way Máira should, but didn’t. “Get cleaned up and get some rest. We leave at first light.”
Máira stood at the stall wall that separated them since he'd taken on the task of grooming their horse. She watched through a small hole as Elias cared for the stallion. The way he spoke to it, relaxing the horse with the smoky gravel of his voice as he whispered words she could not discern, only made her think of things he’d whispered to her in the heat of passion.
His touch was gentle and soothing, the exact opposite of what she would expect from large, sea-roughened hands, yet she knew exactly how tender that touch could be. Watching the way he cared for the animal as he wiped down its lathered neck and brushed its sweaty coat, had mesmerized her. It was as if the horse was being bathed in the luxurious care of his touch, and Máira was jealous—of a horse.
There should have been nothing erotic about what he was doing, but the way his body moved made a woman feel every last stroke. From the moment she met this man, her body responded to him, acknowledged his presence before she was even aware he entered a room. It was as if the very air she breathed became an intoxicant when he was present. She counted herself lucky to be able to watch the way the muscles of his back and arms had flared to life with each stroke of the brush, and his buttocks…
Dear Lord, he had a glorious backside. Tight and rounded, his trousers clung to his form as if they were a part of him. Like the flesh covering his bone, muscle, and sinew. She had watched his arse tighten and flex, imagined stroking him there, feeling the strength of his movements under her fingertips as theirbodies became one. It had been torturous, and then when he’d finished and the stallion was grazing on grain, he’d removed his shirt to bathe!
