Chapter 33

T he footmen saw them coming, and this time Lucius didn’t give a damn what they thought about what he was doing with his new wife in the carriage, given that the horses were unhitched and stabled for the afternoon. With one jerk of his head he sent them flying in different directions, not to return for at least an hour. He pulled open the door himself and let down the little steps.

On the top step, Tess turned and smiled at him over her shoulder. “You are coming with me, aren’t you?” she asked, so throatily that he almost scooped up her perfect little rounded bottom and threw her in so he could slam the door behind them.“I’m right behind you,” he said.

It wasn’t until she was lying back on the seat and he was sliding into her warmth, her head thrown back, one arm around his neck, the other over her head, that Lucius Felton realized—something.

Something important.

He couldn’t put it into words, though. All he could do was drive into his wife, giving up any semblance of control he’d ever had over his emotions. She was under him, arching up, twisting under his hands as his fingers shaped her breasts, crying out…He could feel his own face changing, his teeth bared as he struggled to maintain control.

And then, suddenly, he realized that with Tess there would never be control.

He reached down and touched her slick, soft warmth and her eyes opened wider, wider…

“Lucius!” she cried.

And he gripped her hips, with the joy of a Bach hymn pouring through his soul, gripped her hips and pulled her higher and let go, let go, let go…

He could feel his face tightening and shaping itself in ungentlemanly ways, a guttural sound coming from his lips, a burst of noise, of pain, of joy.

She had one arm curled around his neck, and she was not lethargic now. She was boneless. Her hair spilled down the side of the seat; her lips were ruby red from kissing.

“What if you hadn’t come to Rafe’s house?” Lucius asked her suddenly. “What if you hadn’t come?”

“Mmmm,” Tess said. Then she sat up. “Imogen!”

Lucius sighed.

“Imogen is going to know instantly what we were doing,” his wife said anxiously, trying to wind her hair into some sort of a pile on her head, presumably so that she could jam a bonnet on top of it.

Lucius grinned. “Your sister and her husband were passionate enough about each other that they actually eloped. I’ve no doubt but that they’ve stolen away an afternoon or two themselves.”

There was a dim roar in the distance and a great pounding roar of hooves rounding the corner. Tess stopped trying to wind up her hair and lapsed back against Lucius’s chest again. She didn’t want to ever leave. She wanted to stay here with Lucius, in their little velvet-lined chamber, with her head on his shoulder and the wonderful melting feeling of delirium just past…she snuggled against him and listened to his heartbeat. It was steadier now, not galloping along.

“I don’t think they talk very often,” she said.

“Who?” He sounded sleepy.

“Imogen and her husband.”

“He talks,” Lucius said with some feeling. “He spent a good hour this afternoon talking up the points of some hellish animal he has running in the Cup. When we went to look at it, damned if the brute hadn’t eaten a chunk of his stall. He was spitting wood chips in all directions. The stableboys are terrified of him.”

“Imogen desperately wants him to win,” Tess said, snuggling even closer and smelling the soap-clean smell of Lucius’s chest. “Apparently Maitland lost twenty thousand pounds at Lewes last week.”

“Silly chump,” Lucius said, his hand tangling in her hair. “The jockey was trying to back out when we were down there, saying he was afraid the horse would pull his arms from his sockets. Maitland was threatening to race the horse himself; said he was bound to win.”

“He can’t do that,” Tess said. “It sounds as if the horse is mad.”

Lucius had pulled on his shirt but left it untucked when he sat down with her, so Tess slipped her hand under the white linen and slid them through over the rippled muscles of his chest. Under her ear, his heart beat steadily. “I’m so lucky,” she whispered into his shirt.

But he heard her and smiled over her head.

Tess sat down next to Imogen, knowing without question that her cheeks were flushed rose, and her hair looked nothing as smooth as it had in the morning.

Imogen threw her a jaundiced look that said without words: kissing behind the stables, were you?Draven had bounded to his feet the moment they opened the door. “Finally!” he said. “Since you’re here now, I’ll just check how Blue Peter is doing once more. I want to make sure the jockey understands how important this is. He was showing signs of being cowardly earlier.”

“A yearling and a new stableboy,” Lucius commented. “Perhaps you would do better to consider this a trial run.”

But Draven shook his head with his customary intensity. “No, I’ve decided to take the purse from winning this race and buy that two-year-old filly that Farley’s offering for sale. I must have her. She’s a beauty, bone-deep, and she’ll win the Ascot this year, I’m certain of it.”

“I thought Blue Peter was going to win the Ascot,” Tess said.

Draven nodded. “That’s possible too. Very possible. Lovely horses, both of them. But the two-year-old has a bit more experience, and I fancy she has a slightly higher flank. A beauty, she is, and Imogen agrees with me. We went to the stables while you were walking—where were you?” he asked Lucius. “I looked all about for you because I wanted you to see the animal as well. Would be a lovely investment, but Imogen and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“We looked all over the grounds,” Imogen put in, with a rather waspish note in her voice.

“Let me see how the race goes,” Lucius said in a voice that quelled any further questions. “I’d be happy to think about the two-year-old, Maitland. Perhaps I could stroll with you to the stables?”

Draven’s attention swung like a child’s when offered a toy back to the important theme of the horse. “Good man! Let’s be off, then. As I say, I’d wish to just check on that jockey and give him a last few words of advice. I’d love to be running Blue Peter myself, in all truth.”

“You promised,” Imogen said sharply.

He blinked and looked at Imogen as if he’d forgotten her very existence. “So I did,” he answered. “It’s just a matter of bracing up Bunts. He’s being crotchety about it at the moment, but I’ll have a word and all will be well.” And he took himself out the door, obviously eager to chide the fearful Bunts.

Lucius looked down at Tess. He was wearing his noncommittal expression, but she could read him. Not that there was much interpretation needed in the way his hand touched her cheek and the back of her neck, a caress so fleeting that it burned her skin with its intensity.

“I shall return shortly,” he said, inclining his head to Tess, and then bowing to Imogen.

Lucius had lovely manners, Tess thought to herself.

“I gather you didn’t mind your husband making a cake of himself like that,” Imogen said scornfully.