16
Benedick managed to turn them as they tumbled, so that he landed beneath her, his body protecting hers from the brunt of the fall. He let out an inelegant “oof” as he landed, the combination of the fall and her body bouncing on top of his knocking the wind out of him. He struggled for a moment, still holding her, and then it came back with a whoosh of relief, and he could breathe again. She didn’t appear to be in any hurry to let go of him. She wasn’t moving, clinging tightly, and he had the sudden fear that she might be hurt. He moved his hands, touching her carefully, looking for broken bones, when she rolled off him, slapping his hands away.
He sat up, wincing slightly. “Melisande, are you all right?” he asked urgently.
There was dust and dirt in the air, and she coughed. “I seem to be,” she said finally. “What happened?”
He looked around him, slowly, taking it all in. “I believe we may have found where the Heavenly Host meets.”
“In a cellar?”
“Look around you. We’re not in a cellar. We’re in the middle of a tunnel, with torches and crude drawings on the walls. Not the kind of thing they use for mines. The combination of the fire and the elements must have weakened the ground overhead, enough so that our combined weight collapsed it.” He began to brush the dirt and dust from his abused coat, then realized it was a lost cause. Richmond would kill him.
He saw her shiver. “I don’t actually like enclosed places,” she said in a small voice.
He’d gotten to his feet, shaking himself slightly, but he paused, looking down at her. He’d known people to became half-mad with fear when forced to be in a confined area, and the memory wasn’t a happy one. “Exactly how much do you dislike enclosed places?” he inquired politely. “Do they make you uncomfortable, or do you curl up in a ball and start screaming?”
She looked at him indignantly, and he breathed an inner sigh of relief. “Do I strike you as the type who would scream?”
I could make you scream, my girl, he thought. I could make you scream and weep with pleasure.
“No, I suppose not,” he drawled imperturbably. “Then you’ll simply have to bear it until we find our way out of here.” He held out a hand to her. There was a streak of dirt across her cheekbone, her tawny hair was halfway down her shoulders and there was a delicious rent in the side of her riding habit. Apart from that she appeared relatively unscathed, thank God.
She considered him for a moment, considered his proffered hand, and then, reluctantly, put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet.
Wherein she immediately let out a shriek of pain and began to buckle, but he caught her before she could fall, holding her against him, too close, and they were frozen for a moment.
She was looking up at him, all magnificent blue eyes and soft mouth trying to hide the pain she was clearly feeling, and he had the sudden absurd urge to shelter her from any danger or discomfort, to fight dragons for her. He ignored it and went for deliberately provocative. “Apparently you do scream.”
She was white with pain and dust from the chalk caves. “My ankle,” she said with a tight voice. “I must have twisted it when we fell.”
He glanced upward. The light was unlikely to be much better anywhere in the tunnels—at least here they had the filtered sunlight beaming in from overhead. He levered her back down on the hard ground, knelt at her feet and flipped up the hem of her riding habit.
She flipped it back, kicking at him with what must be the undamaged foot. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Checking for damage. I assure you I’m quite capable. I had to patch up my brothers and sister any number of times before our parents discovered what kind of trouble we were getting ourselves into. We had a tendency to climb cliffs and play pirate. I can at least ascertain if your ankle is broken.”
“And what good would that do? If it’s broken it’s broken.”
“If it’s broken the sooner you get it bound and splinted the less likely you are to have permanent damage. How would you feel if you could never dance again?”
A moment’s consternation showed on her face, then quickly disappeared. “There are certainly worse catastrophes in a woman’s life,” she said stiffly. “I’ve never been much for dancing.
“I remember. You did learn quite quickly, though, once you relaxed.”
“It hardly matters when you think about the women I care for…”
So tiresome. “How would you feel if you couldn’t storm around saving your wounded doves? A crippled ankle could effectively damage your charitable activities.”
And it was that easy. “All right. That makes a certain amount of sense.”
“If it’s broken, I’ll get you to the nearest doctor. There has to be one in the nearest town, and your ankle can be properly dealt with. If it’s simply a sprain we can ride back and you can summon your own doctor. Surely that sounds reasonable?”
“It does.” She looked at him from beneath her furrowed brow. “But I don’t trust you.”
“Very wise,” he said. While they spoke he’d managed to get his hands beneath her skirt and clasped around her riding boot. At that moment he yanked, hard, and it came off, and she let out another shriek of pain, this one louder than the first.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, a fact he viewed with surprise. In matters like these, one usually did what one had to do and didn’t stop to consider how much it hurt. Charity Carstairs had an unfortunate effect on him.
She’d fallen back on her elbows, pale and sweating. “You could have warned me!”
“That would have made it worse.”
“Impossible.” Her foot jerked as he put his hands on it, gently, his fingers probing for damage. It was a nice foot, narrow, with surprisingly pretty toes. He’d never found feet particularly enticing, but hers were another matter. Then again, he was coming to the unfortunate conclusion that he found almost everything about her enticing.
“All right,” he said, keeping his voice impersonal, “this is going to hurt.”
She managed well enough as he poked and prodded, only muffled groans letting him know when he’d reached a particularly tender spot. He began to slide his hands up her shapely calf, and she jerked, glaring at him. “You don’t need to go any higher.”
He ignored her protest. “The pain might come from your knee, sweet Charity. I need to rule that out.”
It was a lovely knee. He could just imagine pulling them around his hips. And he needed to stop thinking about bedding her and concentrate on the dilemma at hand, no matter how preferable the former was. Her ankle was already beginning to swell, and there was no way he’d be able to replace her boot. Which meant he’d have to carry her, which he didn’t mind but she would doubtless find maddening. He smiled.
“Not broken,” he said. “I can’t be completely sure, but I expect it’s nothing more than a sprain. You need to get it elevated, and iced, if possible.”
“I can do neither at the moment,” she said reasonably, sitting up. “Hand me my boot so I can put it back on.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, my lady. Regardez là.”
She glanced down at her swelling ankle and cursed most impressively beneath her breath. So she’d learned at least one useful thing from her gaggle. “How am I supposed to walk with only one boot?” she said with some asperity.
“You aren’t.” He rose, bent down and scooped her up effortlessly. She was fairly light, and he was strong, used to controlling difficult horses. He could handle her with ease.
“I don’t like this,” she said in a warning voice, her usual serenity deserting her. A good thing, that. Her usual calm infuriated him, when he wanted to see her as rattled as she made him feel.
“I know you don’t,” he said with great good cheer. “One of the few blessings of this afternoon.”
He expected that would make her ire rise even higher, but to his astonishment she laughed. “You,” she began, “are a very bad man. Though I don’t know why that should surprise me—you’re one of the wicked House of Rohan, are you not? I imagine your family’s perfidy predates even the Heavenly Host.”
“Most assuredly. We’re devotedly incorrigible. Which direction would you prefer—right or left?”
She put her arms around his neck. It was a simple gesture—clearly this enterprise would go a lot better if she held on. For some reason, though, it touched him. It was a gesture of trust, of acceptance, whether she knew it or not. She glanced in both directions. “Let’s head to the right,” she said at last.
“Left it is,” he replied. And started off.
She should be a great deal more upset, Melisande thought as she clung to Viscount Rohan’s strong neck. Her ankle throbbed like the very devil, she’d lost her boot somewhere and she was being carted around by her arch-enemy as if she were nothing more than a sack of potatoes.
They were in the middle of nowhere, stuck inside a tunnel with no discernible way out, and he’d called her “Melisande.” He probably didn’t even realize that he had. It had come out spur of the moment, when they’d tumbled down into this subterranean passageway, which made it all the more interesting. When he wasn’t taunting and teasing her, he thought of her as Melisande?
He’d started down one corridor, where they’d swiftly been enveloped in first shadows and then darkness as he’d turned a corner. There was no artificial light down there at the moment, though she could see unlit torches set into the walls as they passed, and scorch marks on the white cave walls. He carried her easily enough, as if she weighed no more than a feather, which she knew was a far cry from the truth. She was, admittedly, curvaceous, even bordering on plump. Carting her around would be a strain on a lesser man. Rohan wasn’t even breathing heavily.
It was getting darker. She wanted to cling more tightly to Rohan’s strong body, but she resisted the need. Really, she had no choice but to let him carry her, given the condition of her ankle, but there was no excuse for cuddling. “Are you certain we’re going in the right direction?”
He let out an irritated growl. “I’m not certain of anything. I was going on instinct.”
“Instinct being that you do the opposite of what I suggest?”
It was too dark to see his expression, but she knew he would be amused. “Indeed. I wonder…” His voice trailed off as he came to an abrupt halt.
“You wonder?” she prompted, only to be dropped from his arms summarily, though he still supported her, and a hand came over her mouth, silencing her.
And then she heard it. Voices arguing, and a growing pool of light heading in their direction.
He moved, fast, as the light came around a bend in the tunnels, and she felt herself being pushed into a dark hole, onto a padded surface, with his hard, heavy body on top of hers, his hand still covering her mouth. “Don’t say a word,” he breathed in her ear.
She nodded, or tried to, though his imprisoning hand made it difficult, and he moved it away, keeping perfectly still in the darkness.
She could see light in the tunnel beyond, and the voices were clearer now. “Did you see someone?” The voice sounded vaguely familiar. A man, in his middle years, clearly of the ton.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The next voice was younger, slightly petulant, and that of a stranger. “We didn’t see any sign of horses near the ruins, did we? Who else would be down here? We came in the only entrance and it was locked when we got here.”
“I thought I saw someone moving. Over by one of the training rooms.” The voice and the light came closer, and Rohan pushed her back into the corner of the alcove with his body, pressing her face against his shoulder. He stayed very still, but Melisande could sense the light beyond him, and panic swelled inside her. They’d been discovered.
Apparently not. “It’s black as pitch in there,” the older man said. “Nothing but bedding and rags.”
“You could always walk in and look,” the younger voice taunted him. “I promise not to lock you in.”
The light moved away, and Melisande felt relief flood her body. “Do you seriously think I’d be fool enough to trust you, Pennington? Your sense of humor has always been a bit outré.”
“Coward.”
“I could call you out for that.”
“You could. But we have better ways of settling our differences, do we not?” The man called Pennington had a smooth voice, but there was a chill to it.
The other man chuckled, though. “True enough. There are few things more enjoyable than watching two whores trying to cripple each other.”
Melisande jerked, sickened, but Rohan simply pressed harder, keeping her still, his hand over her mouth to silence her. She closed her eyes, forcing her body to relax. Much as she wanted to leap up and start beating at the degenerates in the room beyond, she wouldn’t get very far with a sprained ankle and no stout stick to bash them with. She would have to find other ways to stop them.
She could feel him pressing against her, their bodies almost plastered together. Her breasts felt strange up against his chest. Sensitive, almost abraded, and tingling. His legs were between hers, she realized, holding her down, and his hips were cradled against her.
He was getting hard, she realized. She thought about it, concentrating on the sensation, and realized he was becoming noticeably more aroused, the longer he stayed pressed against her. And yet he couldn’t very well move, not without drawing attention to their hiding place.
So she couldn’t shove him away, or slap him, or do any of the dozen or so things she could think of to halt the direction in which his body and her mind were going. Because her mind was most definitely going there, whether she wanted it to or not.
He was lean and strong, delightfully so. She’d never thought whether there was one particular physical form she preferred—she’d done her best to concentrate on the person rather than their appearance. But in truth she liked being around tall men, and she liked strength, and she liked long, lean, elegant bodies. She liked the way Benedick Rohan looked, and felt, and, yes, tasted, and she could feel a slow heat begin to build between her legs.
It was all wrong. They were in danger, and those two men, members of the foul Heavenly Host, could walk in on them at any moment. She should be concentrating on anger and escape. Not on the feel of him, the hardness between his legs pressed against the softness between hers.
And then, to her shock, he bumped against her. Just a tiny little bounce almost, and her body tightened with surprise.
He did it again, and she realized it was deliberate. She was pressed up tight against him, and he was holding her head against his shoulder, her face hidden, and his other arm was tight around her waist, imprisoning her there. She knew she should try to get her hands up between them, to push him away, but there was simply no room.
He bumped again, and she could feel her nipples harden almost painfully. She wanted him closer still, she realized, moving her legs so he could settle more fully against her. With the next jerk against her she pressed her face harder against his shoulder, to stifle her instinctive cry.
She was burning up. Her breasts, her heart, between her legs, everything was on fire, and she waited for the pulse of him against her welcoming heat once more.
But Rohan didn’t move. The voices had drifted away, though she could still hear them, and the light was faintly visible when she lifted her head from his shoulder. He moved his head, just a bit, and she tried to look up into his face. She could just see his eyes, and they gleamed as they looked down into hers.
She shifted beneath him, restless, longing, half hoping he’d move away from her, half hoping… She couldn’t think clearly. She didn’t know what she wanted.
And yet Rohan asked her the one thing she couldn’t answer. “What do you want, sweet Charity?” It was just a taunting breath of sound, and no one outside of their tiny cave would hear it.
She turned her face away from him, staring at the wall, trying to control her wayward body, envisioning it packed in ice, frozen. But the ice melted against him, and her body was soft and welcoming.
“What do you want?” he persisted, his breath hot against her ear, and his teeth closed lightly over the lobe, and she wanted to moan in pleasure. “What…do…you…want?”
She gave in. She had reached the end of her ability to fight him. “More,” she whispered.
She knew he smiled in triumph. She knew she didn’t care. He pushed up against her, slowly this time, grinding against her, and she lost her breath as sensation danced through her. It was as if they were having sex, she thought dizzily, except that instead of inside her he was outside, rubbing against her with the hard ridge of his erection, a pressure that was making her tremble and dampen in the place where he pressed, and she felt a soft little explosion course through her, leaving her shocked, astonished, as she fell back on the cushioned ground beneath her.
She tried to speak, to say something airy and dismissing, but for the moment she was unable to make a sound. She felt strange, unsettled, anxious, and she knew she should be angry at what he’d done to her, except that she’d asked for more, hadn’t she?
She tried to relax, but her legs were restless, entwined with his. The voices had faded, though there was still just the faintest light emanating from the tunnel outside their pillowed cave. “We…uh…we should go,” she finally managed to say. She could pre tend that unexpected response had never happened. After all, how was he to know?
“Not yet.” His voice was against her ear, tickling her, arousing her. Arousing her? Had she gone mad? “You’re not finished.”
“Not finished? What…?” Just as her voice rose slightly, he clamped his hand over her mouth again. He’d moved, his body lying partly across hers, pinning her there, and she felt his hand on her skirt. Pulling it upward, slowly, his warm, hard hand beneath it, and for a moment she was too shocked to protest.
Then she tried to push at him, but he simply caught her hands in his arms and held them. “Don’t make a sound,” he whispered. “Not if you want to rescue your doves. This won’t take long.”
“What won’t?” she whispered, but then she felt his hand on her thigh, long fingers stroking, caressing, moving upward beneath her loose cotton drawers till he reached the damp, most secret part of her. Vagina, she told herself sternly, remembering Emma’s lessons. Vulva. *or…
She slammed her face against his shoulder to muffle her reaction when he touched her, his fingertips sure and practiced. And then his hand cupped her, holding her still by that simple expedient, and he released her wrists. A moment later she felt something thrust in her hands, a soft cloth. “Stuff my handkerchief in your mouth,” he suggested, a note of laughter in his voice. “That will drown out any noise you might make.”
“I don’t want this,” she whispered.
One of his fingers had begun to move, lightly stroking, and that anxious, aching feeling was back, tenfold. “Are you certain?” He was somehow able to speak with only the breath of a sound coming out. His hand slid down farther, and she felt one of his fingers slide inside her, and her hips jerked at the sudden invasion. He moved his mouth to hers, running his tongue along her trembling lower lip. “Do you really want me to stop?”
Of course she did. This was madness; this was pleasure that was oddly painful. She needed him to leave her, she needed…
Her body arched up, almost of its own volition, and without thinking she shoved the cloth into her mouth, smothering her instinctive cry. She felt his laughter against her cheek. “That’s right, my precious. Charity begins at home.” And he slid two fingers inside her, and the slippery dampness would have embarrassed her but she was well past that point.
She could no longer think about how he was causing such sensations to rocket through her body. His fingers thrust inside her, his thumb rubbed against that most sensitive part of her, and she wanted to yank the cloth out of her mouth, to beg him to stop. It was too much, too powerful, she couldn’t stand it, she wanted…
And then all conscious thought vanished in a white haze as her body arched, rigid, as thousands upon thousands of tiny pinpricks shot through her, and she lost herself, the pleasure-pain exploding into a rich darkness she never wanted to leave. It was glorious. It was heaven.
It was disaster.
She came down slowly, brought back to safety with his gentling strokes, and she realized that despite the cloth she’d used she’d managed to bite her lip. She pulled the cloth from her mouth and hid her face from him, pressing it against his shoulder even though it was too dark to see. He was going to say something horrible, she just knew it. He was going to mock her pathetic reaction to his practiced touch, he was going to make her feel…
“Lovely,” he whispered against her ear, smoothing her tangled hair. “Perfectly lovely.”
And she wanted to weep.