Page 21 of How to Tempt An Earl
Chapter Eleven
In the span of a few hours everything had changed and yet nothing had changed. The thought chased itself around Celeste’s mind as she lounged against the strength of Kieran’s chest, her body far more relaxed sitting before him on his horse today than it had been a few days ago. It no longer felt strange or invasive to sit in the vee of his thighs, to feel the muscles of those thighs press about her. His body was known to her now, as hers was to him, and deliciously so.
What did their walk by the stream mean? Anything? Nothing?
And so, the thought came full circle again: everything had changed; nothing had changed. The latter was the implicit promise they’d made to each other. They were people of the world, experienced in the body’s pleasure. Passion had many explanations; it was a natural outgrowth of having faced great danger and survived. It needn’t mean anything more than that. It didn’t change their circumstances.
No matter what they’d done beneath the oak or why they’d done it, it didn’t erase the reality that Roan and Vincent were tracking them. There were only two outcomes. Either Roan or Vincent would eventually find them, or Kieran would find them. She was existing within the endgame, after which her fate would be decided. The point was there would be an ‘after’.
These days on the road and the days that would follow in Wrexham would end, just as her days at various boarding schools had all ended. Like so much in her life, this interlude would be temporary. She could only allow herself to fall for Kieran Parkhurst with that single understanding firmly entrenched in her psyche:thiswas not permanent; itwouldend, and with it her association with him. She would go on from him and from Wrexham. Holding that understanding close would lessen the pain of parting.
Already, she didn’t want to think about leaving him. Already, she liked him far too much on far too short of an acquaintance for the simple reason that, beyond the jaw-dropping body that possessed the ferocity and power of a warrior, and the dark eyes that promised a girl he could and would make all her dreams come true, Kieran Parkhurst wasnice. And nice was hard to find in her world. He was nice to everyone, from the water-trough boy to someone like her.
It was that last piece that she found compelling. He could have strategically chosen to feign niceness to her in exchange for whatever it might woo from her—information or sex—but he’d had nothing to gain from being nice to the water-trough boy at St Luke’s. He’d likely never see the boy again, and yet he’d done what he could in that moment to ease the boy’s needs. She’d learned under Roan’s tutelage that men were always willing to appear nice to a beautiful woman; pretending was easy. A person could always tell a man’s true character by how he treated animals and the downtrodden. Kieran saw people, all people. He saw their worth and their pride. When he could have shown her pity, he’d shown her admiration instead.
‘Penny for your thoughts.’ His voice was low at her ear as they rode beside the coach. ‘I’m only asking because I can almost hear you thinking, but not quite,’ he teased.
She settled more firmly against him. ‘I was thinking about you.’
‘Did you reach a verdict?’ He steered around a low spot in the road to spare Tambor the change in terrain—further proof she was right about him.
‘I did.’ She tilted her head up to see his face and smiled. ‘You are nice.’
He laughed down at her and she liked too much how the corners of his eyes crinkled and his face broke into an infectious smile. ‘I am nice. When I can be.’
She returned her gaze to the road. ‘It must be difficult to have to always make that determination.’
‘If I didn’t, I’d be riding dead.’ It was not a particularly funny joke, because he was right. A Horseman could not always be nice, could not always believe those who came forward with information or asked for help.
‘What does it say about the world that we cannot simply be nice all the time? It’s a sad commentary. You are right: one must mete out niceness as if it were the most precious of jewels.’ She’d been nice to the wrong man once and thrown her proverbial pearls before swine. She’d paid for it, and she’d never forgotten the lesson.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kieran offered quietly.
‘Why?’ The words caught her off guard.
‘If you understand the need to protect your niceness, then it means you’ve learned that lesson the hard way. So, I am sorry for that. It’s not a pleasant lesson to learn, but it is one that stays with us.’
Ah, so the Horseman had some experience with that too. What a veryhumanthing to have in common. She leaned back against him. His arm came about her in silent accord and for a little while she felt closer to him than she’d felt to anyone for long time. It felt good—dangerously good—to share such a connection. Old fantasies, old girlhood hopes and naïve dreams once locked tightly away began to rattle their cages. She let them, knowing full well it would make it more difficult to put them away when the time came—and the time always came.
* * *
Kieran didn’t call a halt until the sun was setting. He told himself it was because they’d not set a gruelling pace this afternoon on account of the heat and the long night prior, but if he was being honest he might also have been reluctant to see the ride come to an end. It would mean relinquishing Celeste in exchange for the chores of establishing camp—a poor trade in his estimation. He’d enjoyed her presence today, the feel of her body against his and the way she tipped her head up to look at him when she teased.
She’d been completely herself this afternoon. There’d been no coyness, no guardedness. Her real self was delightful—fresh, fun and straightforward. But he positively hated that Roan had had access to that; had taken that wonderful freshness and polluted it. She’d said he was nice, but Kieran wanted to do violence to whomever had made her pay for her own niceness. He’d not pressed for her story, although his curiosity had been rampant. That shehada story told him all that was needed. He recognised the rest was only necessary for his own gratification—gratification that had been stoked further as a result of their interlude in the woods. It was an unlooked-for consequence—proof that, no matter what arguments he’d made in his mind about limits, intimacy was seeping in past boundaries he’d set despite his best efforts. This journey, this task, was quickly becoming about him and her and less about the Horsemen and Roan.
And he did not resent it; he did not necessarily want to change that trajectory. That was the real danger. Offering her pleasure today against the oak tree had been exquisite; watching her claim her passion, her long neck arched, pleasure purling up her throat, had been pure masculine delight. That alone would have been enough for him, but she’d taken it a step further and offered him pleasure in turn. The echoes of her hand on him still reverberated in his blood. She’d answered his body’s needs instinctively, her hand sensing the pulse of him, the rhythm of him, and matching it in an intimate dance of cock and hand. In those moments he’d been met, answered and fulfilled most unexpectedly. It had not been mere physical release.
He was honest enough to admit that the interlude had rendered far more in terms of feeling and emotion than he’d anticipated. Having had a taste of the potential between them made him hungry for more but also cautious of such passionate gluttony. Forewarned was forearmed, as his grandfather liked to say. If they knew now how explosive it could be between them, then they knew empirically not to stoke the fire, even as the temptation to do just that still lay banked between them.
* * *
He and his men were efficient, and it didn’t take long for their simple camp to be established. He made a trip to a nearby river for washing water. When he returned, he discovered Celeste had been busy too. While the men had been caring for the horses, she’d been caring for them. She looked up from a makeshift table where she was laying out an evening meal and smiled at him. She was slicing bread and the sight stirred something so dangerous, so strong, within him that he had to stop and gather himself. The table was nothing more than the storage trunk that had been strapped to the back of the coach, the meal was simple and was not even hot—he’d not wanted to risk a fire attracting attention—but somehow she’d transformed it into a feast. His mother had always said the fastest way to tame a wild man was to find him a cultivated woman. His mother may have been right. She usually was.
‘Wash up, men, and let’s eat. We can’t come to this meal with dirty hands.’ Kieran set the bucket down next to the basin and she flashed him a smile of appreciation for the support. But the appreciation, he thought, was all his. It took a special kind of person to put themselves forward; to make themselves part of a team that pre-dated their membership. What woman had he met this spring in London who would have done as much? Which of his dance partners, in their fine silks and jewels, would have joined in, laid out a meal or thought about others before themselves? He was fairly sure Lady Elizabeth Cleeves would have sat by the coach and expected to be waited on.
The five of them ate together, telling stories of past missions. Bert, Eric and Matt tried to outdo one another in an attempt to impress Celeste, whose efforts and comportment in difficult circumstances had won their approval. Overhead, the stars came out, a twinkle at a time in a lavender sky trending to deepest indigo. One by one, the men drifted off into the darkness to take care of evening needs and chores. Celeste rose and busied herself packing away the food in the storage trunk.
Kieran reluctantly went through the motions of converting the coach seats into a bed, privately acknowledging to himself that was the last place he wanted her to sleep tonight. He’d spent the meal in a state of semi-arousal, watching the evening light limning her profile, living for the moments when she looked across the circle of people and smiled at him while she laughed at something one of his men said. Here was a woman who might come alongside a Horseman, who, in her own way, had some experience living in a Horseman’s grey world between good and evil and who understood the dangers inherent in that life. She was living those dangers right now and yet she was capable of conquering her fears.
