Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

C ecilia lost herself to the sensation that swept through her body. It started at several points, all of them where Lionel's body made contact with her own. Her lips, her hips, her bosom. Lionel's hands slipped from the curve of her waist to her back, pressing her against the warm stone of the barn wall. Only the sensation of that stone reminded Cecilia of where they stood. The drape of shadows was scant cover from the eyes of those who danced mere yards away. She pushed Lionel to arm's length, feeling that his body was drawn to hers as though by magnetism. Then she took his hand and began feeling her way along the wall of the barn, leading Lionel by the hand. Presently, they came to the door and slipped inside.

The darkness within was warm and thick with the smell of horses and hay. Thor put his head over the top of his stall and Summer did likewise. Cecilia led Lionel deeper into the gloom of the stables, until they reached an empty stall. It was newly clean and covered with a thick layer of fresh straw, courtesy of the Duke and Duchess earlier in the day. Lionel fumbled with the latch of the stall door in the darkness, chuckling at his ineptitude and their daring. Cecilia felt like an adolescent girl, surreptitiously stealing moments of innocent romance. The stall door eventually opened with an alarming creak. Lionel put a hand to her lips and they both froze where they stood.

Overhead came a whispered voice.

"Did you hear that?" a girl said.

"No, Mary. Not a thing," came the voice of a young man.

"I thought I heard someone below."

"Just me, my love."

A husky chuckle came from the girl.

"You're sure no one came in… and don't give me any of your filthy jokes either, Henry Hatch."

"Everyone's in the house dancing with the Duke and Duchess. Pa will be playing until the early hours. He never needed much of an excuse for ale and song. Trust me."

Cecilia had estimated Henry Hatch to be in his late teenage years. Perhaps eighteen or nineteen. It seemed he was old enough to be courting. If that was what it could be called. Lionel's hands went about her waist and soon dropped to her derrière. They moved together, by silent consent, into the stall where the darkness was thickest. Hungry lips found hers once more, kissing with demanding passion. Then they moved to her neck and she wrapped her arms about Lionel, holding him close and savoring the painful pleasure of his biting mouth. Above came sighs of female pleasure followed by barely suppressed moans. The sounds were intensely arousing and Cecilia pressed her body tightly against Lionel's. Their loins were hard against each other and each movement sent a shudder of pleasure through Cecilia.

Lionel's hands crushed her rear, driving her sex towards his. The sensation of his hardness pressing into the soft core of her womanhood made Cecilia delirious. Combined with the smell of straw, horses, and hay; the sound of the stabled beasts shuffling and snorting and the soft noises of passion coming from above, all made Cecilia's head spin. It was intoxicating, dissolving reason behind a driving rain of desire. It washed through her, inundating every part of her being, leaving her nerves fresh and alive. Her hands were driven by that passion, to clutch at and consume Lionel's body. His incredibly masculine, bull-like body. She wanted that body. Wanted him on her and in her. Wanted to join her soft, delicate body to his thrusting physicality.

Lionel urgently tugged at her skirts, lifting them high and gathering her petticoats in the same brutal motion. Cecilia cried out in surprise and found a hand clamped across her mouth. She bit the hand and Lionel hissed between his teeth but endured. Their eyes met, she tightened the grip of her teeth and he kissed the back of his hand, eyes wide open. Those eyes filled her vision, excluding all else. The world faded from her consciousness. There was only the hypnotic attraction of his eyes and the animalistic desire of his body, manifesting in a frightening size and hardness. Frightening always, but fear just a drop of darkness in a lake of light, the naked purity of her sheer desire for him.

Lionel slowly removed his hand and replaced it with his lips. As she returned his kiss, Cecilia found her lower lip seized between his. There was a brief bite, a taste of his hard teeth. Then he sucked and Cecilia felt her head spin. Her knees trembled and she might have swooned had it not been for the chains of his powerful arms.

Above them, the two young people were reaching the crescendo of their own passion. The sounds drove Cecilia into a frenzy, matched by Lionel. Maddeningly, they had to contain their passion, lest they be heard by the two illicit love-makers above. Lest any of those in the farmhouse hear and scandal spring full-formed from the discovery, like weeds in black, fertile soil. Cecilia found herself fumbling at the buttons that secured Lionel's breeches. They had never before made love in any state other than complete nakedness. Cecilia felt the cool night air against her bare derrière, wanted the same sensation on her breasts.

But Lionel was now free of the encumbrance of his breeches and underwear. Cecilia had the brief sensation of the night's caress against her womanhood and then the glorious, insistent pressure of Lionel's body joining with hers. He held her by her rump and she lifted her legs, entirely supported by him. She wrapped them around him tightly and buried her face in his neck, clutching alternately at his back, his hair, his buttocks. Fingers clawed and grasped, nails raked. The wall of the stable creaked in time with their passion and it would have been obvious to those in the loft that there was someone below had they been able to hear. As it was, a female voice cried out and a male answered in desperate grunting passion. It pushed Cecilia from a precipice that she had been walking, a fine line between culmination and continuation. Lionel's shuddering climax followed a heartbeat later.

For a long time, after she had lowered her feet to the ground, Cecilia stood in Lionel's arms, panting. Her breath was muffled by his shirt, his by her cascading hair. Above them came the sounds of movement. Two people gathering together scattered clothing and dressing. Then the furtive movement of tip-toes across the boards of the loft, to the ladder at the far end of the stable. As the two young lovers paused for a final kiss before going outside, Cecilia had a fit of the giggles. She clung to Lionel, biting his shirt, and desperately trying to contain the explosion of snorting laughter that was making her shoulders shake. Lionel, famous among his peers for his reluctance to smile or laugh, began to shudder in a similar way.

The stable door closed and both managed to hold their merriment for a few seconds before exploding into helpless laughter.

"We are just the worst," Cecilia said in between catching her breath, "terrible people. Imagine the insult to Master Hatch by fornicating in his stable."

"And beneath his eldest son while he engages in the same activity. Did you see who it was that he was with?" Lionel replied.

Cecilia gave him a level look, raising her eyebrow. "The same young lady he has been making calf eyes at all night. The same young lady he has danced with and is clearly besotted with him in return. That one, do you think?"

"Oh, I had not even noticed," Lionel sounded genuinely surprised.

Cecilia laughed. "I think we should ensure that we are presentable. No straw in the hair. And then rejoin the company. Master Hatch will be wondering where we have gotten to."

"Quite right," Lionel replied.

They bid goodbye to their horses and stepped outside. Light from the farmhouse windows was reflected in the water of a stone horse trough. Cecilia inspected herself in the dark mirror, plucking away a piece of straw and smoothing out a wrinkle in her dress. Fortunately, the dancing had been so frenetic that any disarrangement of clothing or sweat-darkened hair would be put down to the exertions of the dance. They went to the door of the farmhouse, re-entering to a warm furor of music and laughter. Later, when the fiddle and flute were put away and a late supper had been served by Doris Hatch, Cecilia and Lionel made preparations to leave.

"Nonsense, Your Grace! You can't be riding about the district in the middle of the night. Your horse will break a leg. You can stay the night and leave in the morning."

"Unless, of course, you've a mind to give a bit more help about the place. It was surely much appreciated," Tom Hatch put in.

"Now, Tom. Don't be greedy. You got some free labor out of the Duke and Duchess yesterday and I shall never live down the shame of it. Fancy letting a gentleman muck out the stables. My old mother would be turning in her grave!"

"I enjoy the chance to do something practical with my hands," Lionel smiled disarmingly. "So much of my business is paper and ink. And long dry meetings with equally dry men. It was a pleasure, really."

"But we could not possibly take up room at your house," Cecilia protested.

"Nonsense!" Doris insisted. "You'll take our room. We'll take Henry and Billy's room. They'll sleep in the stable."

There were groans of protest from the two eldest Hatch boys which Doris silenced with a look.

"I won't hear a word said about it," Doris insisted, turning away to see to the washing up.

Lionel exchanged looks with Cecilia and shrugged.

"Then we accept your kind hospitality. And will find a way to make it up to Henry and Billy come morning," Lionel said, regarding the two boys.

"Letting them have a ride of those fine horses tomorrow is all they really want," Tom Hatch remarked, "mad about horses they are."

"Done," Lionel exclaimed with a grin. "Take them out as early as you like, boys, and give them a good run."

A full moon shone pale through the small window of Tom and Doris Hatch's bedroom. The room was modest, set under the eaves of the house so that Lionel had to stoop to move about. The bed was wide and with a carved frame. An ancient chest sat at the end of the bed and an equally antique wardrobe stood where the ceiling was at its highest point. A small fireplace provided warmth from smoldering peat, if the earthy smell was anything to judge by. It created a feeling in the room of a warm embrace. As though the house were enfolding them into itself. Lionel slept in his shirt and underwear, Cecilia in her undergarments. She lay in his arms, content and filled with an overwhelming feeling of being protected and safe.

"One tenant met. Several more to go," Cecilia whispered.

"I am not so sure all the others have barns," Lionel replied with fake seriousness, which was met with a playful slap against his chest by Cecilia.

"You know what I mean," she chided lightly.

"Yes, yes," he chuckled. "And a good impression created. As good as we could have hoped for at least. The Hatch's will be singing the praises of the new Duchess at market and in the village to any who will listen tomorrow. It should combat the gossip from the likes of the Dowager Countess… uhh, which Dowager Countess was she again?"

"Purfleet," Cecilia whispered.

"They all blend together. Powdery, brittle, sharp women with pinched faces and turned-up noses," Lionel muttered disparagingly.

"But reaching the ears of more influential people than the Hatch's, unfortunately," Cecilia added.

"No matter. The Regent trumps all," Lionel replied with finality. "The arrangements have been made, we shall make for London tomorrow."

Cecilia only hoped it would be that simple. What would happen if the Regent had already been turned against Lionel and his new wife? Then they would be pariahs. Not welcome by the ton or the county set. Not welcome, except by the simple folk like Tom and Doris Hatch.

Truthfully, that was enough for Cecilia and, she suspected, possibly for Lionel too. But what about their children? It was not fair that their prospects would be curtailed, their lives less than full because of their parents. And maybe Lionel was not going to be as blase about it as she hoped. Maybe he would grow tired of being an outcast and she would be to blame.