“I’ve no intention of becoming a stranger. Will you return to London?”
They topped a slight rise, and in the shallow depression below, Phillip could just make out the shapes of a dark blanket, a pair of pillows, and a wicker hamper.
“I thought I might break my journey in Berkshire,” Hecate said. “Pay a call on my good friend, the new Marchioness of Tavistock, and see how married life agrees with her.”
A bit of moonglow seeped into Phillip’s heart, silvery, soft, and wonderful. He enfolded Hecate in another hug. “You did, did you? Have you any other friends in the vicinity of Crosspatch Corners you’d like to call on?”
“I do, as it happens. What of you? Any acquaintances in Town you’d look in on as you prepare for the Little Season?”
She tucked close, Phillip rested his cheek against her temple, and life became a sweet progression of possibilities that could turn into sweeter memories.
“I want to court you properly,” he said, “to out-gentleman the fanciest gentlemen in Town so all of polite society knows that Miss Hecate Brompton has a very dedicated suitor.” For her, he’d make that effort and enjoy it.
“You needn’t.”
She was wrong. Mayfair’s dandies and matchmakers had lessons to learn when it came to their treatment of her, but Phillip would make that point some other time.
“Are we to enjoy a picnic by moonlight?”
Hecate kissed him lingeringly on the mouth. “The food is to keep up our strength.”
How he loved her practical nature. “Is that a threat?”
She kissed him again, adding a sinuous female undulation when she pressed close. “I want you, Phillip. Passionately. Kisses and conversation, as lovely as they are, will not do this time.”
Thank heavens for a lady who knew her own mind. “You shall have me.” He handed her onto the blanket, and Hecate set to removing her footwear with endearing dispatch. She knew all the etiquette and protocol in the world, but for the next few hours, she would jettison that nonsense and devote herself purely to being Phillip’s lover.
And he would devote himself to being hers. Hours. Ye heavenly angels. He took the place beside her and pulled off his boots and stockings.
“I love the smell of cut grass,” he said. “To me, that’s the fragrance of a winter safely passed, of the good earth giving forth what we need to thrive. Of a conscientious farmer keeping after his acres.”
“Your shaving soap has a hint of the same scent,” Hecate said, starting on a garter below her knee. “Along with the lavender, I can detect—”
Phillip shifted to face her on the blanket. “Allow me.”
She regarded him in the moonlight, her expression nearly solemn. She leaned back, bracing on her hands, and extended a silk-clad foot toward him. He grasped her arch, pressing gently against the bottom of her foot, and her eyes closed.
That subtle willingness to experience physical pleasure fortified him, and thus he made the simple exercise of removing her stockings into a prelude to passion. Hecate had lovely feet, delicate ankles, sturdy calves.
Phillip limited his explorations to that territory, rolling down her stockings, drawing the silk slowly over her flesh, and familiarizing himself by caresses and kisses with her particulars.
“A scar?” He traced a thin white line that trailed across her anklebone.
“I jumped into the creek when I was eight. My foot slipped on a rock, and that’s the result. No more jumping into creeks. I learned my lesson. When you touch me like that, my thoughts turn the consistency of honey.”
Phillip gently kneaded her calf a few more times for good measure. At some point, Hecate had lain flat on her back, and the picture she made, feet bare, skirts frothed above her knees, sent Phillip’s thoughts in a very sweet direction.
Before he became utterly witless, he sat back and unbuttoned his breeches.
Hecate watched and then made an impatient gesture with her hand.
“DeWitt says I have the dimensions of a pugilist.”
“I don’t care that,”—Hecate snapped her fingers, a crisp report in the darkness—“for what Mr. DeWitt says. I’m not sylphlike. One of my myriad failings. If my modiste mutters even one more time that we do as best we can with what heaven gives us, I shall smite her.”
“Sack her at least.” Phillip untied his cravat, shed his jacket, peeled out of his waistcoat, and pulled his shirt over his head in less than a minute. He’d been naked beneath the moonlight any number of times. Ending a summer day with a dip in the pond behind Lark’s Nest’s stable was a delightful pleasure and saved the household the bother of preparing a bath.
But those occasions behind the stable had never had his heart thumping a slow tattoo of desire, or hoping that the lady liked what she saw.
“My proportions are not gentlemanly,” he said, remaining seated two feet from where Hecate lay, “but the muscles are honestly come by.”
Hecate sat up and arranged herself tailor-fashion. “Phillip, gentlemen come in all shapes and sizes. It’s what’s in here,”—she smoothed a hand over his chest—“that makes the difference. A lady doesn’t plan moonlit seductions in a hayfield, but I could think of no better place to embark on this adventure with you. I saw you with your shirt off, swinging that blade, and I thought, ‘He pitched in without being asked. He did not stand on pride or appearances. He is precisely who he appears to be, and I adore him.’”
“And I adore you.” Phillip knelt up and kissed Hecate onto her back, then situated himself over her.
The kissing took on a different, more deliberate rhythm. By degrees, he got her skirts up around her waist, but at that point, Hecate patted his bum and gave him a little push.
Up you go. He was loath to allow even that much distance between them. They’d begun to move together, only the thin layers of her dress between them. To be skin to skin might well be too much, but Phillip had been entranced by the growing intimacy, part frustration, part pleasure.
Another little push, more insistent. He yielded to Hecate’s direction and levered up on all fours.
“I want my dress off. I want to be as naked as a pagan and twice as wanton.”
Wanton and Hecate Brompton were a lovely combination. She whisked off her clothing with the sort of determination Phillip had long associated with her and then sat, regally naked, and gave him her profile.
“Will I do?”
“Beyond my most passionate imaginings.” He gently tackled her, and she lashed her legs around his flanks. Phillip commanded himself to go slowly and cherishingly, even as he longed to ransack Hecate’s wits and reave her control.
The lady wasn’t having any of that go-slowly nonsense. She wiggled lower, shifting the fit between them, and on the next glide of her hips, she nearly took Phillip into her body.
“For God’s sake, woman.” He stilled and held himself away from her. “A moment.”
She stroked his hair back from his brow. “For God’s sake, man, another moment’s delay will wreck me.”
As Phillip commenced a slow nuzzle from her throat to her shoulder, he identified the source of the last increment of his hesitation. He was not concerned that he’d fall short as a gentleman. The situation had passed the point where any sort of propriety applied.