“Yes, milord!” The boy ran in a flash to the empty space on the west side of the green beyond the sanctuary posts.
“What are you doing?” Lillian asked as Westcliff stood behind her.
“I’m correcting your swing,” came his even reply. “Lift the bat, Miss Bowman.”
She turned to look at him skeptically, and he smiled, his eyes gleaming with challenge.
“This should be interesting,” Lillian muttered. Taking up a batter’s stance, she glanced across the field at Daisy, whose face was flushed and eyes over-bright in the effort to suppress a burst of laughter. “My
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swing is perfectly fine,” Lillian grumbled, uncomfortably aware of the earl’s body just behind hers. Her eyes widened as she felt his hands slide to her elbows, pushing them into a more compact position. As his husky murmur brushed her ears, her excited nerves seemed to catch fire, and she felt a flush spreading over her face and neck, as well as other body parts that, as far as she knew, there were no names for.
“Spread your feet wider,” Westcliff said, “and distribute your weight evenly. Good. Now bring your hands closer to your body. Since the bat is a few inches too long for you, you’ll have to choke up on it—”
“I like holding it at the base.”
“It’s too long for you,” he insisted, “which is why you pull your swing just before you hit the ball—”
“I like a long bat,” Lillian argued, even as he adjusted her hands on the willow handle. “The longer the better, as a matter of fact.”
A distant snicker from one of the stable boys caught her attention, and she glanced at him suspiciously before turning to face Westcliff. His face was expressionless, but there was a glitter of laughter in his eyes. “Why is that amusing?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Westcliff said blandly, and turned her toward the pitcher again. “Remember your elbows. Yes. Now, don’t let your wrists roll—keep them straight, and swing in a level motion… no, not like that.” Reaching around her, he stunned her by placing his hands right over hers and guiding her in the slow arc of a swing. His mouth was at her ear. “Can you feel the difference? Tryagain…is that more natural?”
Lillian’s heart had begun a rapid rhythm that sent the blood in a dizzying rush through her veins. She had never felt so awkward, with the solid warmth of the man at her back, his sturdy thighs intruding in the light folds of her walking dress. His broad hands nearly enclosed hers completely, and she felt with surprise that there were calluses on his fingers.
“Once more,” Westcliff coaxed. His hands tightened on hers. As their arms aligned, she felt the steely hardness of his biceps muscles. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed by him, threatened in a way that went far beyond physical influence. The air in her lungs seemed to expand painfully. She let out a swift, shallow breath, and another, and then she was released with disconcerting swiftness.
Stepping back, Westcliff stared at her intently, a frown disturbing the smooth plane of his forehead. It wasn’t easy to distinguish the sable irises from his pupils, but Lillian had the impression that his eyes were dilated as if from the effects of some powerful drug. It seemed that he wanted to ask her something, but instead he gave her a curt nod and motioned for her to resume the batter’s stance. Taking the catcher’s place, he sank to his haunches and gestured to Arthur.
“Throw some easy ones to begin with,” he called, and Arthur nodded, seeming to lose his apprehensiveness.
“Yes, milord!”
Arthur wound up and released a relaxed, straight pitch. Squinting in determination, Lilian gripped the bat hard, stepped into the swing, and turned her hips to lend more impetus to the motion. To her disgust, she missed the ball completely. Turning around, she gave Westcliff a pointed glance. “Well, your advice certainly helped,” she muttered sarcastically.
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“Elbows,” came his succinct reminder, and he tossed the ball to Arthur. “Try again.”
Heaving a sigh, Lillian raised the bat and faced the pitcher once more.
Arthur drew his arm back, and lunged forward as he delivered another fast ball.
Lillian brought the bat around with a grunt of effort, finding an unexpected ease in adjusting the swing to just the right angle, and she received a jolt of visceral delight as she felt the solid connection between the bat and the leather ball. With a loud crack the ball was catapulted high into the air, over Arthur’s head, beyond the reach of those in the back field. Shrieking in triumph, Lillian dropped the bat and ran headlong toward the first sanctuary post, rounding it and heading toward second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daisy hurtling across the field to scoop up the ball, and in nearly the same motion, throwing it to the nearest boy. Increasing her pace, her feet flying beneath her skirts, Lillian rounded third, while the ball was tossed to Arthur.
Before her disbelieving eyes, she saw Westcliff standing at the last post, Castle Rock, with his hands held up in readiness to catch the ball.How could he? After showing her how to hit the ball, he was now going to tag her out?
“Get out of my way!” Lillian shouted, running pellmell toward the post, determined to reach it before he caught the ball. “I’m not going to stop!”
“Oh, I’ll stop you,” Westcliff assured her with a grin, standing right in front of the post. He called to the pitcher. “Throw it home, Arthur!”
She would gothrough him, if necessary. Letting out a warlike cry, Lillian slammed full-length into him, causing him to stagger backward just as his fingers closed over the ball. Though he could have fought for balance, he chose not to, collapsing backward onto the soft earth with Lillian tumbling on top of him, burying him in a heap of skirts and wayward limbs. A cloud of fine beige dust enveloped them upon their descent. Lillian lifted herself on his chest and glared down at him. At first she thought that he had been winded, but it immediately became apparent that he was choking with laughter.
“You cheated!” she accused, which only seemed to make him laugh harder. She struggled for breath, drawing in huge lungfuls of air. “You’re not supposed …to stand in front… of the post …you dirty cheater!”
Gasping and snorting, Westcliff handed her the ball with the ginger reverence of someone yielding a priceless artifact to a museum curator. Lillian took the ball and hurled it aside. “I wasnot out, ” she told him, jabbing her finger into his hard chest for emphasis. It felt as if she were poking a hearthstone. “I was safe, do you… hear me?”
She heard Arthur’s amused voice as he approached them. “Actually, miss—”
“Never argue with a lady, Arthur,” the earl interrupted, having managed to regain his powers of speech, and the boy grinned at him.
“Yes, milord.”
“Are there ladies here?” Daisy asked cheerfully, coming from the field. “I don’t see any.”
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Still smiling, the earl looked up at Lillian. His hair was mussed, and his teeth were very white in his swarthy, dust-streaked face. With his autocratic facade stripped away, and his eyes sparkling with enjoyment, his grin was so unexpectedly engaging that Lillian experienced a curious melting sensation inside. Hanging over him, she felt her own lips curving in a reluctant smile. A loose lock of her hair dangled free of its tether, sliding silkily over his jaw.
“What’s a trebuchet?” she asked.
“A catapult. I have a friend who has a keen interest in medieval weaponry. He…” Westcliff hesitated, a new tension seeming to spread through his taut body as he lay beneath her. “He recently built a trebuchet using an ancient design…and enlisted me to help fire it…”
Lillian was entertained by the idea that the normally reserved Westcliff was capable of such boyish antics. Realizing that she was straddling him, she colored and began to wriggle off him. “Your aim was off?” she asked, striving to sound casual.
“The owner of the stone wall we demolished seemed to think so.” The earl caught his breath sharply as her body slid away from his, and remained sitting on the ground even after she had gotten to her feet.
Wondering why he was staring at her so oddly, Lillian began to whack her dusty skirts with her hands, but it was impossible. Her clothes were a filthy mess. “Oh God,” she murmured to Daisy, who was also rumpled and dirty, but not nearly to this extent. “How are we going to explain the state of our walking dresses?”
“I’ll ask one of the maids to sneak them down to the laundry before Mother notices. Which reminds me—it’s nearly time for us to awaken from our nap!”
“We’ll have to hurry,” Lillian said, glancing back at Lord Westcliff, who had put his coat back on and was now standing behind her. “My lord, if anyone asks you whether you’ve seen us…you will say that you haven’t?”
“I never lie,” he said, and she made an exasperated sound.
“Could you at least refrain fromvolunteering any information?” she asked.
“I suppose I could.”
“How helpful you are,” Lillian said in a tone that conveyed the opposite. “Thank you, my lord. And now if you will excuse us, we must run. Literally.”
“Follow me, and I’ll show you a shortcut,” Westcliff offered. “I know a way through the garden and into the servants’ entrance beside the kitchen.”
Glancing at each other, the sisters nodded in unison and hurried after him, waving distracted good-byes to Arthur and his friends.
As Marcus guided the Bowman sisters through the late-summer garden, he was annoyed by the way Lillian kept sidling ahead of him. She seemed physically incapable of following his lead. Marcus glanced at her covertly, taking note of the way her legs moved beneath the light muslin walking dress. Her stride
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was long and loose-limbed, unlike the practiced feminine sway that most women affected.
Silently Marcus reflected on his inexplicable reaction to her during the rounders game. As he had watched her, the vivid enjoyment in her expression had been completely irresistible. She had a coltish energy and an enthusiasm for physical activity that seemed to rival his own. It was not at all fashionable for young women in her position to exhibit such robust health and spirits. They were supposed to be shy and modest and restrained. But Lillian had been too compelling for him to ignore, and before he had quite known what was happening, he had joined the game.
The sight of her, so flushed and excited, had stirred up a few sensations that he would rather not have felt. She was prettier than he had remembered, and so entertaining in her prickly stubbornness that he had been unable to resist the challenge she presented. And at the moment when he had stood behind her and adjusted her swing, and felt her body press along his front, he had been keenly aware of a primal urge to drag her to some private place, flip up her skirts, and—
Forcing the thoughts away with a quiet sound of discomfort, he watched as Lillian strode ahead of him once more. She was filthy, her hair was tangled …and for some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about what it had felt like to lie on the ground with her straddling him. She had been very light. Despite her height, she was a slender girl without much in the way of womanly curves. Not at all his preferred style.
But he had wanted very much to catch her waist in his hands, and grind her hips down on his, and—
“This way,” he said gruffly, shouldering past Lillian Bowman and keeping to the hedges and walls that concealed them from view of the house. He led the sisters beside paths lined with blue spires of salvia, ancient walls covered with red roses and brilliant puffs of hydrangea, and massive stone urns bursting with white violas.
“Are you certain that this is a shortcut?” Lillian asked. “I think the other way would have been much faster.”
Unaccustomed to having his decisions questioned, Marcus shot her a cool glance as she came up beside him. “I know the way through my own estate gardens, Miss Bowman.”
“Don’t mind my sister, Lord Westcliff,” Daisy said from behind them. “It’s just that she’s worried about what will happen if we’re caught. We are supposed to be napping, you see. Mother locked us in our room, and then—”
“Daisy,” Lillian interrupted tersely, “the earl doesn’t want to hear about that.”
“On the contrary,” Marcus said, “I find myself quite interested in the question of how you managed to escape. The window?”
“No, I picked the lock,” Lillian replied.
Tucking the information in the back of his mind, Marcus asked mockingly, “Did they teach you how to do that in finishing school?”
“We didn’t attend finishing school,” Lillian said. “I taught myself how to pick locks. I’ve been on the wrong side of many a locked door since early childhood.”
“How surprising.”
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“I suppose you never did anything worth being punished for,” Lillian said.
“As a matter of fact, I was disciplined often. But I was seldom locked away. My father considered it far more expedient—and satisfying—to thrash me for my crimes.”
“He sounds like a brute,” Lillian remarked, and Daisy gasped behind them.
“Lillian, you should never speak ill of the dead. And I doubt the earl likes to hear you call his father names.”
“No, he was a brute,” Marcus said with a bluntness that matched Lillian’s.
They came to an opening in the hedge, where a flagstone walk bordered the side of the manor.
Motioning for the girls to be silent, Marcus glanced at the empty walk, eased them out into the partial concealment of a tall, narrow juniper, and gestured to the left side of the walk. “The kitchen entrance is over there,” he murmured. “We’ll go through there and take the staircase on the right to the second floor, and I’ll show you the hallway that leads to your room.”
The girls stared at him with brilliant smiles, both faces so similar and yet so different. Daisy had rounder cheeks, and an old-fashioned china doll prettiness that provided a somewhat incongruous setting for her exotic brown eyes. Lillian’s face was longer and vaguely feline in cast, with tip-tilted eyes and a full, sweetly carnal mouth that made his heart thump an uncomfortable extra beat.