He was damned tired of people telling him Eleanor Goodrum was too clever...too dangerous...too well-connected...and on and on. He knew her better than any of them, and what he knew for sure was she was too hauntingly beautiful by far, regardless of the sword slash disfiguring the ethereal face he couldn't banish from his adult dreams any more than he'd been able to dismiss them from his youthful night fantasies back in Combe Down.
He pulled tight the wool neck kerchief he'd added to his disguise at the last minute. He'd fancied himself a dashing sort of rogue when he'd lingered a few moments in front of the front hall mirror at his nearish country estate.
Added to the soot he'd rubbed onto his cheeks, he was fairly certain no one of his acquaintance would recognize him. Although none of his pathetically few close friends would be caught dead skulking along a garden walk through one of those precious mazes that people with more money than sense seemed to have their gardeners construct these days.
He lifted his chin and quirked an eyebrow before remembering he was alone. No one could see him indulging in something so daring as breaking into a grand estate owned by his female nemesis.
Later, he would muse he went from master of all he surveyed to a craven prisoner of lust in a matter of a few flashing seconds. One minute, he was walking at a leisurely pace through the maze and the next the earth shifted mightily. He found himself flat on his back with a she-cat riding his thankfully still well-covered cock.
"What do you want, Percy Whitcombe?" she grunted through clenched teeth. His first instinct, to buck against her weight, did odd, frightening things to his cock. His truant member apparently hadn't gotten the message that they were out to destroy the dangerous, feline-like woman now grinding above them at a leisurely pace as if they had all night to re-acquaint their bodies. He was indignant within an inch of his ducal title, but somehow could not bring himself to protest the mad, ridiculous pleasure the annoying woman provided.
When she finally freed him by leaping to her feet and pulling him with her, she didn't demand an explanation for what he was doing sneaking about her property as he would have done in her place. All he could see in the dark between them was the gleam of something sharp she held in her hand.She was going to kill him. He didn't care.
In the dim light of the torch lanterns several rows away, all he could do was take in the scent of Eleanor until he couldn't take in a proper breath. She leaned against him, the knife still tightly held in her hand. He could feel the oddly erratic thump of her heart through her thin muslin dress, the warmth of her breasts, and he could not for the life of him stop what happened next.
* * *
El had meantto thrash the righteous look off Percy's face when she took him down, but her body had betrayed her with other ideas.
He surprised her. He seemed heedless of the wicked sharp knife she held so tightly in her hand, that her sweat slickened the blade.
Neither of them said a word, but the man who'd driven her mad ever since they were both still coming of age backed her slowly toward the stone bench in the center of the maze. She threw the knife to the ground and thumped down, pulling up her skirts. She pushed her knees apart, and looked up expectantly at the Duke of Chelmsford.
He knelt on the ground and buried his head in her center, turning from side to side, licking, and then lightly nipping at the tender skin of her inner thighs. At the first thrust of his tongue between the lips of her sex, the granite self-control for which she was feared slipped like a silk ribbon from her fingers.
El fought against the feelings overwhelming her and squeezed her eyes tight against an eruption of tears that she damned well wouldnotshed.
She pushed him away and stood suddenly, staring down to where he sat sprawled on the manicured lawn of her maze, shooting accusing looks her way. His lips glistened still with her juices, and as she watched, he slowly licked them, sucking her essence into his mouth.
Percy's perfectly cut dark blond hair was now disheveled and hung across one dark eye, an eye she knew to be the fathoms-deep shade of blue she'd encountered many times out on the ocean at midday. The deeper the seas, the darker and more dangerous the shade of blue.
The man looking up at her as if she were the interloper on her own estate had not changed one jot since the day he and his father had hidden her in the boot of their carriage. They'd driven her to Bristol and passage aboard a safe ship in the harbor about to sail toward a fate none of them could have anticipated.
Percy Whitcombe still believed he was the master of his world and could control all that swirled around him. Although he was in fact a bit older than El, she felt centuries older than the duke considering the road her life had taken since they'd last met.
And that memory opened the floodgates to the time in her life when she'd been barely more than a girl, but tall for her age. She'd been abused by her father, the owner of the local inn located in Combe Down. He'd passed her on to the men to whom he'd lost money in the endless private card games in the tiny room behind the inn's kitchens.
An unbidden wave of nausea struck El as she recalled the many nights the father who should have protected her crept into her room and picked her up in her sleep. He'd wake her and warn her to be a good girl and help her father by being nice to the gentleman who would take her away for the night. He'd threaten her that they'd lose the inn and be sent to the poor house if she did not do exactly as he said.
Later, still bundled in the blanket from her small pallet, she'd be passed on to a dark figure who would take her out to a carriage before later depositing her on a soft feather bed in a chamber in a grand house on a country estate.
The shame was worse even than the pain of abuse that followed the frequent episodes of "paying" her father's gambling debts. Keeping such a dark secret in a small village was impossible, and soon she was shunned by all of the villagers when rumors of what went on at the inn trickled out to become common gossip.
She remembered particularly the first time Percy, her only friend during that dark time, had tentatively touched her hand when they were playing a game in the paupers' cemetery hidden far behind the village church.
She was thirteenand had jerked away from his touch before racing to cast up her accounts behind a tree. When he demanded to know what was wrong, she couldn't help herself. She spilled out the bitter secrets she'd been keeping for months.
It was shortly after that day that the Whitcombes, both Percy and his father, carried out their plan to trick her father and send her away to their friends in America.
Percy finally stood and came to her side. Uncharacteristically quiet and subdued, he pulled her close and rubbed her back. "I'm sorry Eleanor. I'm sorry we failed to save you all those years ago. If I could go back..."
In a sudden move, she slipped away from him, leaned over to retrieve the knife, and leaned close to his face. She pricked the skin at his throat with the deadly blade while pulling tightly on the kerchief at his neck. "I could kill you now, bury you beneath the hollyhocks, and no one would ever know. Because we were friends once, I'll let you live, but donotlet me ever catch you again trespassing on what is mine."
He choked and muttered something incomprehensible before turning and walking slowly toward the first turn in the maze toward the exit. She'd faced many a man who had underestimated her at their own peril. But she'd never known a man like Percy who would saunter away at a desultory clip while almost daring her to throw the knife at his unprotected back.
Her blade had knicked blood from his neck, the dribbles of which now stained the front of her muslin frock. He hadn't even had the decency to cry out. Ice must flow in the dratted man's veins. Now she'd have to face Hetty, who hated it when she had to purge bloodstains from yet another one of El's dresses.
And then there was the matter of her throbbing quim. That demanding bitch would probably not soon forgive her for turning her back on what they both needed and yearned for.
