She gasped. “Colin.”
He clutched a fistful of her skirt and brought her pelvis flush with his.
“Min,” he groaned against her neck. “I know it’s mad, but I need this right now. Right here, in the midst of all this beauty. I need to feel you hot and alive beneath me.”
As he leaned in to kiss her mouth, she put a hand to his chest. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
His hand swept over her body. “Last night wasn’t good?”
Shadowy memories of that frantic, wicked, grinding pleasure assailed her. She grew damp between the legs, and it had nothing to do with the loamy soil.
“It was very good. But it was confusing.”
“This doesn’t have to be complicated.” He cupped her breast and thumbed her nipple to a stiff, aching peak. “It’s physical. Instinctual. Releasing tension in a mutually pleasurable way.”
He seeded kisses along her neck, and tendrils of desire unfurled from each one. Still . . .
“I’m not . . .” She gasped at another greedy kiss. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable being the instrument of your release.”
“You make it sound so one-sided. I promise, you’ll enjoy it, too.”
She didn’t doubt that. His hand found its way under her neckline, and he slipped his fingers beneath the fabric to curl around her breast. With practiced skill, he eased the soft globe up and free.
“God,” he breathed, circling her bared nipple with his fingertip. “You’re so soft. So warm and soft and sweet.”
He took her nipple in his mouth. He moaned, drawing lightly on the tip with delicious suction, then swirling his tongue around the peak.
Minerva reeled with the exquisite sensations. The way he was touching her, kissing her, licking and suckling her . . . it felt so good. The pleasure was so sharp, it made her ache deep inside. It was impossible to feel this and not crave more.
But Colin wasn’t the only one with principles. He wasn’t the only one who could make rules. She just couldn’t take any more “lessons” or pretending. She only wanted this if it was real.
His leg snaked between hers. “You have so much fire in you, Min. A natural talent for passion.”
A talent for passion? Her?
“Even if that were true,” she said, “look where indulging it has landed me.” Thrown off one carriage, robbed on the next. Lost in the woods. Hungry, almost penniless.
“It’s landed you here. In the most beautiful afternoon to ever grace the English countryside. Sprawled on a lush carpet of bluebells, staring up at a heartbreakingly blue sky.”
“With you.”
“With me.”
They were silent for a time. Then she sensed his demeanor make a sudden shift. The muscles of his chest tensed beneath her touch. His tone changed.
“I see,” he said, withdrawing his fingers from her bosom. “So that’s the problem. Not the setting, not the notion of pleasure. It’s me. You think you’re here with the wrong man.”
“Colin—”
He rolled away from her. “You’d rather be sharing all this with someone else. Someone like Sir Alisdair Kent. Talking of loam and soil composition, and denying the part of yourself that screamed my name last night.”
Blushing, she tucked her breast back into her bodice and fumbled for her spectacles. “There’s no need to be cruel.”
“I’m not being cruel.” He pushed to his feet, brushing off his dirt- and grass-streaked breeches. “I just feel sorry for you, is all. I’ve been trying to break you out of that shell, teach you how to enjoy life. But now I can see you don’t want it. You’re going to die curled up in that hard, brittle cage you’ve constructed. I hope Sir Alisdair doesn’t mind cramped quarters.”
“So now I should apologize? For wanting something more than carnal ‘lessons’ on your charity? After all, that’s the best an awkward bluestocking like me could hope for. Is that it?” Minerva struggled to her feet. “At least Sir Alisdair would remember my name.”
“Perhaps.” He closed the distance between them, standing so near his chest grazed her br**sts. “But could he kiss you so hard, you forget it?”
For a hot, confusing moment, his breath mingled with hers.
But before she could think of any possible retort, he retreated. He picked up the trunk and shouldered it.
“Come along,” he said irritably. “By this time, we must be nearly there.”
“Nearly there? Nearly where?”
Minerva lagged behind him, trying to understand his irrational anger. And here common wisdom would argue that women were the sex with changeable moods.
They walked on for perhaps a quarter hour more, and then they emerged from the woods at the edge of a crest.
In the distance, down the slope, sat an immense stone manor house, bordered by gardens and outbuildings.
“Good heavens,” she breathed. “What is that place?”
“Winterset Grange,” he answered. “I knew we had to be close. A good friend of mine resides there. We need a place to stay the night. To lie low, in case those highwaymen are still sniffing about.”
“And we’re going to just appear on your friend’s doorstep? Uninvited, out of nowhere?” She waved a hand between them. “Looking as we do?”
“Oh, no one will blink. Guests are always coming and going from Winterset Grange. Whenever the duke’s in residence, it’s one never-ending bacchanal.”
Minerva stared at him. “The duke? We’re going to be guests of a duke?”
“He’s not a royal duke,” he said, as if this should be some comfort. “Hal’s an amiable fellow, you’ll see. He’s patron of a popular gambling circle called the Shilling Club. I’m a member. He’d never begrudge my lack of an invitation, so long as I show up with money to lose at his card table.”
“But you haven’t any money to lose at his card table. We have precisely one sovereign to our names.”
“Details, details.”
They started down the grassy slope. The vast, sprawling manor house seemed to inflate as they approached. As if some mischievous boy were behind the thing, huffing air into it like a scraped pig’s bladder. It was just grotesquely large, its windows deep-set and hooded, like leering eyes.
She didn’t like this. Not one bit.
As they neared the drive, Colin pulled her into the gardens, behind a windbreak of cypress trees. After dipping a handkerchief into a trickling fountain, he swabbed his face and neck clean, then retied his cravat. He brushed the dust from the front of his coat and gave a brisk, jaunty toss of his head that instantly tamed his hair.