clumsy. But still so eager. And now so trusting.
And he was a bastard of the first water.
“Nature makes certain that you’re ready for me, sweetings, and you are. You’re glorious,” he told her, gentling her as he would a timid young colt. “There will be some pain, I won’t lie to you, but only this once, and I’ll make you forget it. I swear I will.”
“Hold me, please,” Julia said, her eyes closed as she reached for him. “Don’t talk. Just…just do it.”
There never was a bastard like him.
Chance kissed her yet again, then levered himself over her, settled himself between her thighs and let nature do the rest.
Julia felt the pain, digging her nails into the hard flesh of Chance’s back, knowing she’d just crossed over from maidenhood to womanhood and knowing there was no way back.
And then he began to move. She could feel him take possession of her, moving inside her, and she was the eager pupil once more. She moved with him, tentatively at first, and then, as the heat grew, as the need grew, so did her courage. Holding on to him as his breathing became even more rapid and shallow than hers, as she felt the sweat break out on his skin, as she felt something inside her grow and bud…and burst into bloom.
Chance felt her give over, give in, let her body take her where it wanted to go.
He didn’t have that luxury.
Muttering a curse under his breath, he withdrew to all but collapse on Julia as he spilled his seed on her belly, then lay there, his strength gone, his passion released but not wholly satisfied.
“Stay here, sweetings, don’t move,” he told her quietly, then retrieved a towel from the washstand in the corner. He sat on the bed and slightly pressed the towel between Julia’s legs, then wiped her belly. “Are you all right?”
All right? She was mortified! She was lying there naked. She’d just given herself to this man, and now somehow something very beautiful had become something very tawdry as he wiped away the seed he hadn’t cared to spill inside her.
“I’m fine,” she said, glad for the dark that was broken only by the small candle she’d brought to the room with her. “Could…um…could you please leave now?”
Chance tried for some humor, something to lighten what was rapidly becoming the most awkward moment of his life. “Are you speaking to your conscience again?”
Julia pulled the covers up to her chin. “No, I’m not. Please…just go. I don’t know if you feel some small need to talk now, to discuss what just happened, but I must tell you that I most assuredly do not.”
Chance nodded, then reached for his clothing, quickly pulling on his breeches and stabbing his arms into the sleeves of his shirt, not bothering with the buttons, then lowered the gad over his head. His hair was hanging loose, and when Julia dared to peek at him in the semidarkness, she caught her breath. He looked so beautiful and yet so dangerous. Untamed yet vulnerable.
And he had just made love to her, to the spinster daughter of a Hawkhurst vicar. The world had turned upside down, and Julia still wasn’t quite sure how that had happened.
Would he please just leave!
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Julia nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“I’m serious, Julia. We will talk.”
Then Chance snatched up his hose and shoes and headed for the door. Stopped.
“So much for a gracious exit. Julia, I’m still locked in.”
The most ridiculous thing happened. Julia smiled. Then she giggled. She laughed until tears came to her eyes and then she began to cry.
She was still crying when Chance, having retrieved the key from the pocket of her gown, and without another word, left her, closing the door quietly behind him.
CHAPTER TEN
CHANCE WASHED HIMSELF hastily in cold water, then pulled on the clothing Billy had laid out for him. Black. Black from throat to ankle, including a pair of black boots he’d left at Becket Hall when he’d gone to London, boots that went to the knee in the back, up and over the knee in front. Boots last worn on the deck of the Black Ghost.
He tied a length of black silk around his waist, another around his throat, then slid his favorite knife between the sash and his waistband.
A black knit toque would completely cover the hair he pushed up inside it as he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
“My, my, my. You are having a busy night, aren’t you, Chance?”
Morgan. Chance turned to look at his sister, who stood with her back to the wall, her hands tucked behind her and rhythmically pushing against that wall, so that she seemed to gracefully move while standing in place. “What in bloody blazes are you doing here? And what in God’s name are you wearing?”
The girl stepped away from the wall and spread her arms wide before turning in a full circle. She, too, was in black from head to toe. “You don’t recognize your own clothes, brother mine? Anyone else would have noticed if I’d raided their wardrobes, but you weren’t here to notice, were you? Yet here we are. I thought you’d never leave her room. Honestly how anyone would rather rut like a boar than ride the Marsh, I’ll never know, but to each his own, I suppose. Come on, they’ll be waiting for us out at the stables.”
Chance scrubbed at his face with his hands, then chuckled darkly. “You’re seventeen, Morgan, if I’m remembering correctly. Too young to be so jaded but not too old to be spanked and sent back to the nursery.”
She pulled herself up straight, unaware that the action only served to accentuate the lush swell of her breasts beneath the black silk. When had she grown up? How had it happened without him ever noticing?
Her dark brown hair was tucked up inside a drooping knit toque, but one thick lock of hair was visible, hanging from her forehead and sweeping down the curve of her cheek, ending beneath her chin. Her stormy gray eyes seemed to dance in mischief. Beautiful. Wild. The girl was becoming a woman, even if she didn’t know it.
“I’ve ridden out before, Chance. I have. What’s one more, when there are already so many? I didn’t have to come here. I just thought…I just thought you would…”
“You thought I’d be pleased? That I’d enjoy being in on the joke? Ainsley definitely has had his nose too long in his books, hasn’t he? You’ve gone wild out here on the Marsh.”
“I’ve grown up out here on the Marsh. And I help. What do you do, big brother?”
“What do I do? I count to five, little sister, and if I don’t hear the door to your bedchamber slamming shut by then, I’ll find a rope and tie you to your bedpost. Wait. First, I’ll relieve you of this, thank you,” he said, snatching the wicked-looking knife from the black sash she’d tied around her waist. “What a piece of work you are. And now, Morgan…one…two…three…”
Morgan stood and glared at him a moment longer, her full lower lip pushed forward
