Now Reggie was filling in the gaps in her education. She might be an aging spinster, but he allowed no quarter for her inexperience. His kiss was deep, intense, and utterly enthralling. She shivered as he explored her mouth with slow, rich sensuality. Knowing hands slid under her coat to caress her back and hips as his damp clothing warmed with the heat between them.
Though she might lack skill, Alys did her best to compensate with enthusiasm, kissing him back with all the abandon she had never dared show Randolph. Desire surged through her, searing like liquid flame.
There was a moment of shock when he wrapped strong arms around her waist and rolled over, reversing their positions. Then his long powerful frame pinned her into the yielding depths of the hay. The sweet green scents of crushed vegetation surrounded them, drenching her heightened senses with sensation.
She gasped when he pressed his warm mouth to her ear, then trailed kisses down her throat. Her hands moved frantically over his back, hungry for the tense masculine feel of his body.
He cupped her breast with one large hand, teasing the nipple to taut response with this thumb. “You've a rare talent for this, Allie,” he whispered.
In a remote part of her mind, Alys knew that she was about to abandon a dozen years of blameless respectability, and she didn't care. Nothing mattered but this, the passion that promised to fulfill the dreams of her restless nights. She licked his throat, tasting the salt of his warm skin against her tongue.
He was fumbling with the buttons of her shirt when the sound of a throat being cleared struck like a blast of icy water. Alys froze, torn between pure horror at being caught writhing in the hay like a dairymaid, and raging fury that they had been interrupted.
Reggie went rigid. Then he gave a sigh of regret and rolled away, leaving her cold and bereft. The warm hand he offered to help her to her feet was poor compensation for what she had lost.
As she stood, wavering from the force of what she had just experienced, Alys saw that the intruder was a wiry fellow dressed in London style. Though his expression was carefully blank, she sensed the disapproval radiating from him. Her face burned with shame that a stranger had seen her wanton behavior.
Totally unabashed, Reggie steadied her with a light grip on her elbow. “Lady Alys, this is Mac Cooper, who came down from town yesterday. Mac, this is Miss Weston, more familiarly known as Lady Alys.” After a quick, perceptive glance at her face, he added, “Don't worry, Mac never sees anything he shouldn't.”
He released her arm and swiftly brushed the hay from her back and legs, his hands impersonal where they had been so intimate. Alys supposed that his words were meant as reassurance that everyone at Strickland would not know that she was a slut by breakfast the next day. But she would know, and so would Davenport and his servant. That was two people too many.
Barely managing a nod at Cooper, she turned and fled the stable, into the safety of the night. She was halfway back to Rose Hall before her pace slowed. Not yet ready to face her household, she halted under a tree. She had the irrational feeling that the marks of Reggie's hands and lips were blazoned across her in streaks of scarlet.
The night air cool on her flushed skin, she folded down under a tree and wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering with humiliation. Yes, Davenport had briefly desired her, but drunks were notoriously undiscriminating. Any female would have suited him equally well. He and his servant were probably laughing over how susceptible she had been, amused that she was desperate for any man's attention.
Of course, Reginald Davenport was not just any man. The blasted fellow was so diabolically attractive that all he had to do was stand and wait for females to hurl themselves into his arms. She made a choked sound and buried her face in her hands.
For a handful of astounding moments, she had forgotten propriety, reputation, and obligations. Now, alone in the night, Alys wondered with despair how she was going to face Davenport in the morning.
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As Reggie brushed sprigs of hay from his coat, Mac said, “Miss Weston is an unusual female, to be sure,” his voice frosted with disapproval.
A smile still lingering on his lips, Reggie said, “She most certainly is.”
“I see you're proud of yourself,” Mac said sharply.
“Not exactly that, but certainly in charity with the world,” Reggie said lazily. “What are you so Friday-faced about?”
Mac scowled. “Miss Weston is highly regarded here. 'Twould be a pity to see her ruined because you have nothing better to do.”
Reggie's face stiffened. “I doubt that she would consider it ruination. If you were spying for any length of time, you'll have noticed that she was entirely willing.”
His valet spat on the floor. “Did you see her face when she left? She may have succumbed to a moment's temptation, but now she hates herself. She must be thanking her lucky stars that you were interrupted.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Reggie snapped. “If I have ever met a woman eager for ruination, it's Alys Weston.”
“Why don't you just discharge her and get it over with quickly?” Mac asked caustically. “She'd still be out of work, but at least she'd have her reputation.”
“She does her job superlatively well, and I have no intention of discharging her,” Reggie growled, his temper dangerously near the explosion point.
“How long do you think she would be able to do her work if the locals found out she was your mistress?” Max frowned. “She'd be forced out in a fortnight. Besides, since when have you taken to seducing respectable virgins? You've always said that they were nothing but trouble.”
His temper well and truly lost, Reggie roared, “Bloody hell, Mac, who are you to tell me what to do?” He turned to storm out of the stable.
Mac's quiet voice followed him. “Your conscience.”
Reggie swung to face him, eyes glinting with fury. “You should know that I haven't got a conscience.”
“You will in the morning when you're sober.”
Reggie swore viciously and spun away into the night, but Mac's words pursued him. Knowing that he would be dangerous to anyone whose path he crossed, he turned away from the house and into the park, needing to work his anger off. Bloody-minded little cockney prig. How dare he lecture his employer, who had taken him from the gutter? Reggie was a trifle foxed, but hardly roaring drunk. And if there was any seduction going on with Lady Alys, it had been entirely mutual.
Entirely mutual, and entirely pleasurable ...
Reggie had suspected that his steward might have an ardent nature under her controlled exterior, but he hadn't realized how dangerously close to the surface it lay. Though her response might have lacked polish, he would lay odds that her capacity for passion equaled that of any woman he had ever known.
Swearing softly for any number of reasons, he made his way to the lake. The moon was nearly full, and sheets of light silvered the water. He followed the shore to the thicket that concealed his private clearing. As branches slapped him in the face, he made a mental note to have the old path cleared.
His temper had ebbed by the time he made it through the thicket to the smooth water of the lake. Half of his anger had been because of Mac's officiousness, he decided, but the other half was pure frustration. His hands tingled with the remembered feel of her lithe body. Just thinking of her fiery, uninhibited responsiveness made his temperature begin to rise again.
It was on this very spot that he had learned to swim as a boy. On impulse he stripped off his damp clothing and dove headfirst into the lake.
The chill waters brought a measure of reason back to his brain. He surfaced, sputtering, and admitted that Mac, damn him, had a point. He usually did. Alys Weston might be willing, even eager, to experience what she had been missing, but Reggie would do her no favor by taking advantage of that fact. Any affair posed the risk of physical, social, and emotional damage. Remembering the dazed, shaken look in Allie's wide eyes when they had been interrupted, he bestowed a particularly scathing curse on himself.
During his lengthy career as a rake, Reggie had learned that few females could enjoy an affair without having their emotions become involved, and Allie wasn't in the small number. Besides passion, she had a great capacity for selfless love. Look at the family she had created for herself. Look at what she had done for everyone on the estate. She was a giver by nature, and would be unable to prevent herself from giving away more than she could afford to lose.
His powerful strokes had carried him the full width of the lake, so he turned to swim back. Alys Weston might be physically ripe for an affair, but she was the sort of female who needed a man she could respect, while Reggie represented everything that decent, God-fearing folk despised. If she indulged her perfectly natural desires with him, she would hate herself, and him as well. It was a curiously unappealing thought.
He rolled onto his back and floated lazily in the moon-kissed water, stroking just enough to stay afloat. With Allie's looks and passionate nature, it was amazing that she had gotten to her present age unwed. Her height, forceful intelligence, and independence must intimidate most men. A waste; such a very great waste.
While he certainly lusted after that lovely body, he also liked and respected the woman inside. He had no desire to see her hurt. Which meant that he had damn well better stay sober around her, because he didn't trust himself an inch when he had been drinking. Reggie had resolved to behave himself in Dorset, yet when that stupid dog knocked her into his arms, her warm, willing body had caused him to instantly forget his good intentions.
With wry humor Reggie realized that the water wasn't cold enough to cool his rude male instincts. He had better find a topic other than Alys Weston to think about.
Distraction was provided when something splashed into the water at the edge of the lake. Automatically watchful, he floated and listened, though there shouldn't be any animals in the area that could threaten a human.
Then he identified the creature paddling valiantly toward him. The collie was ecstatic to find him, almost sinking in her attempts to wag her tail while swimming. Raising one hand from the water to scratch her head, he asked, “Haven't you caused enough trouble for one night?”
A raspy tongue across his face was the only reply. “Aren't you ashamed of yourself, having been routed by a mangy cat?”
Shame was apparently as foreign to the collie as herding instinct. The dog just tried to climb into Reggie's arms, not easily done when both man and beast were in the water. He pushed the collie away. “Come ashore before you drown, you idiotic creature.”
Side by side, they swam back to the shore. The collie managed to shake an amazing amount of water out of its shaggy fur while Reggie pulled on his clammy, uncomfortable clothes, shivering in the brisk night air.
As he walked back to the house, collie at his heels, he decided to go up to London for a few days. He had hared off so quickly that he had left some business undone. Besides, a brief absence would give Alys Weston some time to recover from her embarrassment. And if he was being strictly truthful, which he preferred to be in the privacy of his own head, he wasn't looking forward to the next time he saw her. She probably despised him just now, and with justice.
Back in his room to change, he found Mac unpacking and brushing out his master's wardrobe, unperturbed by the row that had occurred in the stable. Reggie felt a stab of guilt, remembering his uncharitable thoughts earlier. While he had helped the cockney out in the beginning, Mac had more than repaid Reggie's casual generosity. Hard to imagine anyone else putting up with Reggie's drinking, mood swings, and ups and downs of fortune. There had been times when Mac's pay had been months in arrears, and never once a complaint from him.
His valet glanced up, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the collie. “In case you haven't noticed, there's a dog following you.”
Reggie took off his coat and began to unbutton his shirt. “So there is,” he said with an elaborate show of surprise. “Fancy that.”
Mac snorted. “What kind of dog is it?”
“A boarder collie, b-o-a-r-d-e-r collie,” Reggie spelled out as he stripped off his wet pantaloons and drawers. “She's a hopelessly incompetent sheepdog. The shepherd was going to have her put down, so I decided to see if someone would take her as a pet.”
Unaware of the plans for her future, the collie sat on her haunches, tail wagging, black fur matted with water, and an expression of imbecilic happiness on her face. Mac looked at her dubiously. He didn't know much about dogs, but this one seemed to think she had already found a home. “What's her name?”
“She doesn't have a name. Once you've named an animal, it's yours for life.” Reggie toweled himself off vigorously, then pulled on the dry clothing Mac handed him. “I'm going to London for a few days. Anything you'd like me to get?”