Chapter 5

Silence.

Dark, persistent, absolute silence that might last until the end of eternity roared in Callie's ears. How long was this blasted night doomed to drag on?

She flipped onto her other side, annoyed she only had two, and doubled the pillow beneath her head. All had gone quiet within and without the inn, providing the perfect combination for a restful night's sleep, yet the swarm of activity buzzing about her brain kept chasing it away. That moment kept returning to her.

"You've never seen a man's bare chest before?"

She'd screwed up her every last bit of courage to peek her eyes open. She'd most definitely not seen one like his. Broad shoulders, muscled chest, segmented stomach exposed all the way down to the level points of hip bones, which his blanket had blessedly cut across the lower half of him.

If a body could be a sin, his was.

But it wasn't his body that had shocked her speechless. It was his skin. Or rather the drawings stained into his skin. One covered his entire right pectoral, another smaller one lay to the left above his heart, yet another wrapped around his left shoulder, and one more inked into his right forearm.

What sort of man had ink needled into his skin? What sort of man was the Viking… her enemy?

In her fluster over naked torsos and sponge baths, she'd forgotten that not insignificant detail. The man was her enemy. He would take the Grange from her, if given the chance.

Did he have more of those tattoos on other parts of his body?

Likely.

Had they been painful?

Doubtless.

Were they still painful?

Why wouldn't her mind settle and sleep? The man was more interesting than he had a right to be.

Had Mrs. Bickle returned to mind her charge? Mrs. Bickle. The woman was a trial at every turn.

Callie tossed onto the side she'd abandoned not a minute ago. But, really, had Mrs. Bickle returned? She hadn't heard another peep through the wall, which was in all likelihood a very good thing.

It could also be a very bad thing.

She snorted in frustration, swept the covers off her body, and retraced her steps to his room. This time she really did have to be careful not to make a sound, quiet permeating the air at a level that begged to be disturbed by the errant creak of a floorboard.

The door closed behind her on a muted click, and she went still, her eyes adjusting to the darkness whose only source of light was the pale moon streaming through the open window. On quick cat feet, she made her way to the bedside, noting on her way that Mrs. Bickle's cot lay empty, and found the Viking lost to slumber, blankets pulled beneath his armpits.

He was in no mortal danger. She could leave now. But her feet refused to obey her good sense. The position of the moon had its rays washing over the still figure, as if displaying him. Glorious and golden, he lay. His red beard remained. He hadn't shaved it off, and, strangely, she was glad.

Her timidity slid away, and her curiosity drew her in. She'd seen plenty of men stripped to the waist during harvest season, yet none of them were like him. They lacked his presence and his beauty, and none of them had tattoos.

Each appeared to have been done by a different hand. The one on his right pectoral was simple in concept, swirling lines thick, bold, and a soft black that faded into his skin as if it had been there a very long time. The same was true of the smaller one on his right forearm, a simple black anchor. The one at his shoulder, however, possessed a different character. Its lines twisted about in intricate, braided patterns that were familiar. It might've had origins in the ancient tribes of Ireland or Scotland.

But the small one left of the center of his chest intrigued her most. Delicate and perfectly symmetrical, it consisted of three vertical columns of what appeared to be lettering from an Eastern language of the sort she'd seen at the British Museum upon her one and only visit.

What did it say? And why had he placed it directly above his heart?

Nothing about the tattoos would have been remotely civilized in the eyes of English society. What did they feel like? Not the experience of having them on one's body, but to touch beneath one's fingertips. As if a person outside of herself guided her actions, she leaned in, and her breath hitched, catching in her lungs his newly clean scent. Trembling fingers reached out to hover a hairsbreadth above his shoulder for a collection of one, two, three seconds before touching tips to flesh.

The tattoo felt like… skin, warm to the touch, as if the sun had just kissed it. A quick glance confirmed the rest of his arm was tan. This man spent his days beneath an open sky. They were similar in that regard.

She shook her head. It wouldn't do to think of any similarities between them.

Of a sudden, his hand shot across his body and strong fingers closed around her wrist. A shocked yelp escaped her, and she startled backward, but she didn't get far as his grip only tightened. Her eyes met his blue gaze steady upon her, not an ounce of surprise in their depths.

Her stomach dropped to her toes, and mortification swept through her. He'd been watching her watching him and… touching him. Again, she tried to draw back, but he held fast onto her wrist and her gaze. How long had he been observing her?

Her heart threatened to thunder out of her chest. She didn't know this man. They'd been in close proximity for days, but she knew him not at all. She knew not what sort of life he led, what those tattoos said about him. The man was a sailor, which wasn't a solid marker of good character.

Most importantly, he was her rival for the Grange. How could she have lost sight of that? Well, the sight before her was how.

As suddenly as he'd grabbed her, he released her. Reflexively, she reached up to clutch her nightrail to her throat and found nothing there, only bits of flimsy linen. Alarm streaked through her. She was clad simply in her sleeveless shift.

He rolled fully onto his side, eyes assessing, propped on an elbow, his unclothed torso stretched before her. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and went very, very still.

Again, he reached out and caught her wrist, this time gently. His thumb began stroking its inner pulse point, and his blue gaze burned into her. "Is that a blush pinking your pale cheek?"

Oh, the tumult his words, the gravel of them against the back of his throat, unleashed in her. That numb feeling of acting outside herself returned. It was just him and her and the moon.

She swayed forward, and he released her wrist, his fingers catching at the indent of her waist, his eyes never leaving hers for an instant. "What a lovely curve."

His gaze, his touch, his words stole into her. No man had ever spoken of her thus.

Straight. Flat. Tall. Mannish. Unnatural. Those were the words Georgie used.

Yet in this deep hour of an endless night that existed in a limbo between reality and fantasy, a different narrative called out to her, one that whispered of her lovely curves.

His hand trailed higher, and the breath froze in her chest. A fingertip circled the tiny pink birthmark near the top of her arm, once, twice, before moving an inch over and brushing the outer curve of her breast. A smile, shadowed and knowing, curled about his mouth. "So sweet."

She should be outraged, livid. She should storm out of this room. Yet it didn't feel right in this oh-so-wrong moment. A reality unlike any she'd ever experienced held her in its grip. His words, his touch, his smile struck fierce, hidden longing into sudden flame.

His hand curled around her ribs and pulled, the sinewy muscles running the length of his forearm flexing, tugging her closer to the bed, to him. Sudden doubt spiked through her, and she went rigid, her body transforming into an unyielding plank. His eyebrows creased together, and his smile fell. Alarm pulsing off him in waves, he shot upright and swung his legs off the bed, a strip of blanket now only covering… Quite a bit of him. Her blush doubled in ferocity.

"Have I," he began, discomfiture in his words, writ across his face, "misinterpreted the situation?"

"What situa—" She stopped.

Oh. The situation.

Yes, she should say yes, that he'd misinterpreted everything. But it was a lie. Her body, warm and liquid and vibrating with novel sensation, had known all along what her mind hadn't: she wanted him, and every cell in her body combined into collective desire for this situation.

He'd misinterpreted nothing.

"Stay."

Further melting occurred inside her. A man had never touched her, looked at her, not like this, not like his world would collapse if she didn't stay. Something shifted into place. Desire. She'd never been desired, a fact well-established by three years of marriage to Georgie, and she'd never experienced desire for herself.

To have the object of her desire begging her to stay? She was powerless to resist it.

With a confidence she'd never dreamt of possessing, she stepped into the parted V of his legs. The darkness lent a strange anonymity to the moment, even granting her permission to proceed in a way she never would in the light. She wasn't sure how much more out of character she could act tonight, but she was about to find out.

She took his upturned face between her hands and lowered her lips to his, unprepared for the heat of his skin upon hers. Large, strong hands wrapped around her waist, and she never felt so feminine as when he pulled her into him on a low, gravelly groan. His tongue touched hers, and she startled back on a shocked, "Oh!"

"What did I do?"

"I don't know." She bent forward, her mouth a hairsbreadth from his. "Do it again."

Who was she right now? It mattered not. It felt right, being this woman.

Well, it didn't feel right, but it did feel good, oh so good, when his mouth strained up to close the distance between their lips and touch his tongue to hers again. Warm, slippery skin on hers. Soft. Firm. Inviting. Exacting. Lava pooled in her belly, seeped into her veins, pulsed through her body, lit her skin alive.

Oh, this felt good. It had to be right.

His hands shifted to her bottom and pulled her into him. He broke from her mouth, and she cried a protest at the loss. His lips found the crook of her neck, his tongue tickling, teasing, tempting her to venture down this path of sin with him. She'd never felt so physical, so carnal, her body understanding what her mind hadn't until now: she was made for this. She'd never felt more like a woman.

With a knowledge of their own, her legs slid up his muscled thighs until she straddled either side of him. Here, she hesitated, her quim hovering above his manhood. She could turn back, forget this reckless, wanton night ever happened.

His tongue slid across her collarbone, and she knew: she would never forget this night. Why not make it worth remembering?

She took her shift in hand, inching it up fold by fold, breathless to feel him against her naked flesh.

"Wait," he spoke into her neck, his breath deliciously warm and humid against her, his beard one part scratchy, one part soft. Oh, how she liked his beard. "Are you ready?"

"Ready? I've never felt more ready for anything in my life."

His hot laugh skated across her skin, and a different sort of heat ribboned alongside her desire. She'd amused him, and it felt good. His fingers slid along her legs, and the thought fell away. One hand clasped her thigh, steadying her in place, while the other feathered across the sensitive inner flesh. Her breath caught in her throat, and her quim throbbed, ached. She waited and craved.

Then he touched her, his finger a wet slide along the slit of her sex. A shudder ripped through her, and a deep animal moan sounded from a part of her she hadn't known existed. Ephemeral tingles of desire, pleasure, and need glittered through her, transforming her into a heavenly being, no longer bound to this earth.

His finger slipped inside her crease and touched, oh!, a part of her too sensitive to be touched, yet it begged, pleaded, for more of that sweet pressure.

"Your cunny is so wet for me."

What absolutely filthy words. She wanted more of them. "How wet?" she heard herself ask.

"Mmm, let's see."

Again, his long finger feathered along her slit, before pressing into her center. She inhaled a sigh. What novel sensation, to have him inside her.

"Oh," she breathed out when he began moving, his finger a slick, slow slide. Pleasure cascaded through her in tiny ripples. Her lips found his neck, salty, sweetish, and she licked up to the lobe of his ear, taking it between her teeth and giving it a testing nibble. He groaned and increased his rhythm. With a will of their own, her hips began to move in unison, and a sudden craving to touch him, all of him, intensified.

She reached between their bodies, her fingertips brushing the hardened muscle of chest and stomach until the solid velvet of his manhood throbbed against her fingers. Reflexively, her fingers wrapped around him. How very large this part of him was.

"Firmer," he groaned.

She squeezed her fingers. His eyes drifted shut, lost to the pleasure she gave. Then they slid open, and a smile curved about his lips, a smile so sure, so confident, it would have sent her running in the other direction on a different night. But not tonight. Tonight, his cocksure smile emboldened her, spiked her craving higher.

"I think you're ready."

He took his cock in hand, and, instinctively, she placed both hands on his shoulders and lowered to touch her sex to the tip of his manhood. With his other hand, he cupped the back of her head and drew her face toward his, her hair falling to form a curtain around them. It was only him and her at the center of this night where time had left them to their own devices.

"You're trembling." His words formed an intimate whisper, a caress.

"Am I?"

His lips touched hers, and the pure carnality of the moment slid into something softer, something more intimate. His hands clasped her waist, and he began to enter her with a slow sureness, her quim stretching to accommodate him.

Oh. He was large, so very large. The sensation wasn't exactly pleasurable, but it wasn't unpleasurable either. She shouldn't enjoy it, this pleasure mixed with pain, but her body wanted more. On mindless impulse, she lowered as he continued to penetrate. How much of him was there, anyway? Could there possibly be more?

He tensed beneath her, and his eyes flew up to meet hers, a question forming about his mouth.

She pressed a shushing finger to his lips.

She understood.

He'd reached her maidenhead.

He removed her finger from his mouth. "I don't deflower?—"

"I want this."

A hesitation. A clench of his jaw, until finally, "You're certain?"

On wicked impulse, she twisted her hand and grabbed his, bringing it to her lips, her tongue tracing along his forefinger and slipping it inside her mouth. She sucked, and he moaned. Her hips bucked as he thrust upward, fully impaling her, and her maidenhead was no more.

Breaths heaving, mingling, he and she went still as her body adjusted around him. It burned. She'd known that would happen. It ached, too. But, oh, how sweet the ache. And, oh, how she wanted more of this ache, an ache borne of pain, pleasure, and desire.

She moved up, then down, slowly, developing a rhythm on him, his hands at her waist, steadying her, even as he took the tie of her shift between his teeth and tugged. The garment fell open, revealing her breasts. Self-consciousness flared through her. "I'm sorry. They're so?—"

"Lovely and"—he kissed one nipple—"pink and"—he kissed the other—"perfect." He took the hard bud into his mouth and sucked.

The pain, the self-consciousness, all the world fell away, and she was no longer herself. Her hips bucked, and she rode him.

"Do you feel it building?" he groaned against her breast, his fingers digging into her hips.

She clutched his hair at the scalp and held on for dear life as sensation swept through her. "What is it?"

He slowed his rhythm and met her eye. "Bloody hell."

Panic streaked through her. "Don't stop," she pleaded. He couldn't, not now. "What did I say?"

"You'll have your pleasure, too."

Without another word, he slipped his hand between them and touched a fingertip to—oh—what must—oh—be the most sensitive spot in her body, rubbing, sliding along it as his hips began to move in smooth strokes.

"Do you feel it now?"

"Yes," she exhaled, caught up in sensation she couldn't name.

She ground down on his fingertip, even as he continued to penetrate her. Her eyes closed, she reached, she strove for a place just out of grasp. He took a nipple between his teeth and bit down, his tongue flicking across the hard bud. Of a sudden, the elusive place opened to her, and she hung suspended on the edge of a precipice.

Driven by wild animal instinct, he thrust into her, and his fingertip worked her, and she fell headlong into an oblivion of bliss, her quim clenching, then pulsing its pleasure around his hard cock. He drove harder, stroke by delicious stroke, and shouted his release into her clavicle, his rhythm slowing to an eventual stop, the ragged in and out of their combined breaths, the only sound in the room, his forehead heavy on her shoulder.

A strand of dismay twined through her. What was she to do next?

His hand began feathering up and down her spine, and she longed to sway into the light pressure. It very closely resembled… affection?

She needed to leave… now. She pressed one foot, then the other, to the floor and slid off him. Even in the moonlight, she could see the satisfied smile curling about his mouth. "Must you?"

Yes. She absolutely must.

She cleared her throat. "Why don't you lie down while I"—she glanced down at her thighs, smears of blood dark against her pale skin—"wash up?" He needed a little washing up, too.

She snatched the unused cloth off the washstand and made quick work of cleaning herself. She turned to hand him the cloth and saw that he'd drifted off to sleep. She made to wake him and stopped. Why on earth would she do that? Tomorrow, the humiliation of this night would be difficult enough to bear. Why start tonight?

She placed the cloth on his manhood, which even in its sated state was no small thing, and cleaned him. After all they'd done, this act felt as intimate. She tossed the thought into the rubbish bin along with the stained cloth. If Mrs. Bickle noticed it, well, she was just the sort of person who could intuit what had happened tonight with a single glance, for that was where the woman's thoughts resided.

Callie's rational mind was beginning to reassert itself, and it didn't like at all what it would need to contend with in the hours and days to come. Drat it all, what had she done?

Shame warred for primacy over another feeling: a bright gloriousness, full to bursting. Did all coupling feel like this?

Something else tugged at her: the possibility of a babe. After all, new life was the natural consequence of what they'd just done. It was possible she could have the estate and a babe, all she ever wanted…

Ridiculous thought. After one coupling? She'd observed enough animals in the farmyard to know it usually took more than once. Still, a thread of hope that wouldn't be snapped by mere reason shimmered through her.

She gave herself a mental shake. It was high time she remembered who she was and her place. She wasn't a farmyard animal. She was Lady Calpurnia Radclyffe, Dowager Viscountess St. Alban, skilled at all she put her hand to and as frigid, Georgie had assured her, as the North Sea wind in January. That was who she was, and she mustn't forget again.

She rushed to the door, sparing one final glance for the man laid out flat on his back and fully asleep. Oh, how was she to face him in the clear light of day?

His handsomeness wasn't merely superficial. Somehow it radiated from the core of him, so bright it burned. It really was near impossible to look at him directly, which suited her perfectly. She would never be able to look at this man directly again.

Not with the knowledge of this night in his eyes.

A proper, indifferent dowager viscountess for all the world to see, Callie drew her shoulders back and lifted her chin. She was the only still point in the courtyard that had transformed into a hub of hustle and bustle with the dawn. Not a whiff of the lusty hussy she'd been in the dark of the night hung about her.

Oh, what had she done? And she would have to sit inside an enclosed carriage across from the man she'd done it with? A wave of nausea threatened to topple her.

"Kip!" came a shout from the inn's main doorway.

The boy sauntered around the corner and shouted back, "Whut?"

The innkeeper burst forth and snarled. "You'll show a little more respect and snap in your step if you expect to earn your keep!"

"Beg pardon," Callie cut in without thought.

The innkeeper stopped dead in his tracks and pasted a smile, false and obsequious, onto his face. "Why, Lady St. Alban, I didn't see you standing there. I trust you had a restful night?"

Callie cleared her throat. She wouldn't be discussing last night with this man, or anyone else for that matter. She nodded toward Kip. "What's your business with this boy?"

"He's in my employ, your ladyship."

"He isn't a relation of yours?"

The innkeeper shook his head, scorn in his scoff. "The boy has no relations to speak of."

Her mind made up in a snap, Callie addressed the boy directly. "How would you like to come to Wyldcombe Grange with me? You can enroll in the local school and train to be a groom, if you like."

Kip's mouth screwed up to one side as his eyes narrowed on her. He was testing her words for the truth. "I ain't settin' foot in no school, milady," he stated. "A groom is foin wi' me."

"Now see here," the innkeeper began, his obsequiousness losing to his true nature. "You can't sweep in here and steal my labor without consequence. Or recompense," he added on a sly note.

It wasn't difficult to see what the man was about. "This boy isn't chattel. He can't be bought and sold. He comes with me of his own free will. If you wish to keep your labor, my advice is to treat them like human beings." She turned to the boy. "Now, would you like to sit inside with us?" She wasn't sure how to fit him, but she'd find a way.

"Out on the boot is foin wi' me. Better 'n' foin." With that, he trotted past her and hopped onto the back of St. Alban's carriage.

"Don't you need to gather your belongings?" she asked, slightly nonplussed.

"I ain't got nuthin' worth takin'." He pulled up his feet and wriggled his bony bum into place. Clearly, he wasn't new to this.

Like that, Callie had picked up another stray. Between the boy, the Viking, and Mrs. Bickle, she'd accumulated quite a few on this journey. Speaking of her strays…

Movement beyond the innkeeper's shoulder pulled her attention from his livid scowl and toward a matter more pressing: Captain Nylander's blond head making its way through the main tap room. Panic spiked through her in time to her racing heart. Her moment of reckoning was on its way.

When he appeared at the doorway, confusion replaced panic. The Viking was, once again, being helped along by two strapping lads. His feet were moving, but his gaze stared out, clouded and unfocused on a distant point that wasn't—oh, could it be?—her.

"What is this?" she called out. "Isn't Captain Nylander recovered?"

The lads grunted in dissent. "Found 'im like this," said the one. "'Is nurse told us to bring 'im down," said the other. The trio shuffled past. The lads struggled to settle the Viking into the carriage, even rousting up a dubious Kip from his perch to help.

All the while, Callie stood back, careful to tamp down the pure, unfettered joy that threatened to spring to life. She should be ashamed of wishing ill health on a person, but she wasn't. She'd never been so happy to see someone so helpless.

Maybe… Perhaps… Could it be all wasn't lost? Was it possible that he wouldn't remember last night? Had the heavens offered her a reprieve from her midnight sin?

At last, the lads emerged from the carriage, beads of sweat trickling down their faces. Thomas the coachman slipped them a bit of coin, and Kip bounced back up onto the boot.

"Your ladyship," Thomas said, "we're ready to depart."

Callie allowed the man to do his job and hand her up into the carriage. Once inside, she gave the captain a quick once-over to ensure he was strapped in properly before settling her gaze on the view outside her window. She was just about to give the ceiling a quick double-tap to let Thomas know she was ready to depart, when a voice cried out, "Oi!"

In the next instant, Mrs. Bickle was rapping on the carriage door. With everything else going on, Callie had clean forgotten the woman. She twisted the handle and pushed the door open. Mrs. Bickle shouldered her way inside the carriage, along with her particular fug of stale beer and unwashed body… Or was that bodies? Distaste shuddered through Callie.

"Thought ye could git rid o' me that easy?" Mrs. Bickle asked, her usual fractious self.

"I would never in a million years dream that getting rid of you would be so simple a feat."

The woman harrumphed and jutted her chin toward the Viking. "This 'un made it through the night. Whut did I tell ye?"

"No thanks to you."

The woman shrugged an indifferent shoulder.

"You know, Mrs. Bickle, I'm beginning to have a few doubts about you."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Did you ever receive instruction on how to be a nurse?"

"Depends on 'ow ye define instruction."

"And given the company with whom I've seen you cavorting these last few nights, I doubt the existence of a Mr. Bickle altogether."

"Worked that one out, eh?" Mrs. Bickle barked a short laugh and immediately groaned, rubbing her fingers against her temples. The woman was clearly experiencing the aftereffects of a night of carousing, and who knew what else. Actually…

Callie did. Heat flared. Oh, how she knew. Intimately.

She didn't dare look at the man opposite her for fear of what her gaze might reveal. But she didn't need to look. She needed only count her lucky stars. It was possible the gods had granted her a reprieve this once.

She might not be so lucky a second time.