If she had for a moment thought of not risking the second hedge, the thought was gone. She laughed once more. “Are you afraid I will beat you?” She called back withoutremoving her eyes from the hedge ahead. It looked higherand thicker than the first. “Come on, Flossie,” she urged,leaning farther forward across the horse’s neck, lifting asmuch of her weight as she could from its back.
They went over together, side by side. By some miracle Flossie cleared the hedge, though the moment was to giveJulia nightmares for several nights to come. The earl’shorse, a massive stallion, had no trouble at all, of course, butJulia did not spare any attention to notice that. She slowedfor the stream, patting Flossie’s neck, wondering if her heartwould stop pounding before cutting off her breathing altogether or before breaking right through her ribs.
A horse drew up beside her and she remembered her pride again. She flashed a smile. “A dead heat would yousay?” she asked. “We will have to try again some time,Daniel, to see who is really the better horseman.”
She scarcely finished the words. Her companion had thrown himself from his own horse—there could be no better word to describe the way he dismounted—and wasreaching up to grasp her ungently by the waist and drag herfrom hers. She came down in an inelegant heap—all armsand legs and indignation.
But before she could gather together either her dignity or her anger, a hand clamped on each shoulder hard enough toleave bruises and she was being shaken and shaken. Justlike a rag doll with no chance to grab either her breath orher balance or fistfuls of his coat.
“You she-devil!” were the first words she heard, though many had gone before. “You might have killed yourself,Julia. Worse, you might have killed your horse. Do youhave no sense of danger? No sense of responsibility?” Theshaking continued so that she had no immediate chance either to reply or to marshal her thoughts.
“You are a dangerous child,” he said, holding her still at last, clutching her shoulders even more tightly if it werepossible, speaking directly into her face from only a fewinches away. “Without thought, without conscience, without discipline. You are a wild uncivilized child. I have amind to turn you beneath my arm and give you the thrashing with my riding crop that my uncle should have givenyou years and years ago. Or better still, with my barehand.”
She was afraid of him. For the first time she was afraid. He was within a whisker of doing it, she knew. And shecould sense the power of his body through the strength ofhis hands. She was totally powerless in his grasp. Therewould be pain—he was furious and would not spare theweight of his hand. But far worse than the pain, therewould be humiliation. Being spanked by Daniel. Just like anaughty child. She was not a child. She was a woman.
The realization that she was both in his power and afraid of him turned her to ice. “Take your hands off me, Daniel,”she said. “I am not answerable to you for anything I do.And I did not force you to follow me, to turn my ride into arace.”
“You did not force me!” He almost spat the words from between his teeth. He forced her closer to him so that shefelt her breasts flatten against his coat and had to tip herhead back. “You go out riding astride dressed like this andchallenge me to a race across uneven ground and over unkempt hedges and you expect me to let you go? It is timeyou were taught a lesson you will never forget, Julia. Apainful lesson.”
“You did not follow me because you were outraged,” she said. Her neck was aching already from the awkward angleat which she was forced to hold her head. “Or because yousaw me as an unruly child in need of chastisement. Be honest with yourself, Daniel. You followed me because I am awoman. More woman than you have ever encountered before. More woman than you know what to do with.”
The words seemed to speak themselves. In her voice. She listened, appalled, and stared defiantly into his eyes.
“My God!” His words were whispered, and she suddenly found herself no longer frightened, but terrified. Mindlesswith terror.
Julia was quite blase about the art of kissing. She had been kissed several times and by more than one gentlemanand knew all there was to know about it. She even knewenough about it to realize that a gentleman she fancied orone with expertise could make the exercise a great dealmore interesting than it had been in her experience.
But what followed was not, of course, a kiss. It was something she had never experienced and something sheknew nothing about and something she had never suspectedto be within the realm of anyone’s experience. His mouthwas open when it came down over hers, both his lips andhis tongue demanding that hers open too. One iron-hardhand spread over the back of her head to prevent her frompulling back. But she had no thought of doing so or of resisting the demands on her mouth. She opened and was invaded. And invaded in her turn. She pressed her mouthback against his, fenced with his tongue in her mouth, followed it out and into his own, got her arms up somehow tocircle his neck, pushed the fingers of one hand up into hishair to hold his head steady.
Everything became jumbled after that. If she had been able to think, she might have concluded that what happenedover the next several minutes was more like a wrestlingbout than an embrace. They fought each other, tasting, licking, biting, sucking, breathing in loud gasps, exploring eachother with ungentle, unsubtle hands.
Julia could never afterward remember how they had got down onto the ground, and yet when she began to comepartly back to herself, she opened her eyes and saw graysky straight ahead. She was on her back on the grass by thestream, her jacket wide open, the buttons of her shirt all undone, her breasts aching from where he had been strokingand fondling them beneath her chemise.
His weight was half on her, one arm beneath her head, his mouth and his warm breath at her throat, one of his legshooked over one of hers, holding it apart from the other.
His free hand was stroking down her inner thigh, on top of her breeches, and up again. And on up until his handcupped her most private place and his fingers pulsed flatagainst her.
And the encounter changed tone. They both stopped fighting as if by mutual consent, although not a word hadbeen exchanged. She tilted her hips, allowing his hand freeraccess. And she closed her eyes again as his head lifted andhis mouth covered hers once more, open, wet, warm.Bringing pleasure. Bringing intimacy with his tongue,stroking aches and yearnings through her mouth and intoher throat and breasts and on downward to be intensified byhis hand.
He lifted his mouth away to kiss her chin and her throat. But they opened their eyes at the same moment and gazedwith heavy desire into each other’s eyes. There was a moment, Julia thought afterward, or perhaps the merest fraction of a moment, when all they saw was a mirrored self, amutuality of need and desire. No more than a moment atthe longest. And then he was sitting up beside her, his armsdraped loosely over his knees, gazing out over the stream,and she was lying on the ground, doing up buttons withhands that felt as if they had been created with ten thumbs.
“That is the lesson, you see, Julia,” he said quietly after what must have been a full minute of silence. “If you arenot dressed like a lady, and if you do not behave like alady, the chances are that you will not be treated as one. Bethankful that you will escape from here without being ravished.”
The thing was, the very worst thing that had happened all morning, the worst thing she could ever imagine happening—the thing was that she could think of not a single replyto make to his words. They hurt like the stabbing of a dagger and they angered like the slap of a glove across theface. And they invited retaliation for their smug male double standard. But she could not marshal words scornfulenough to speak. Her body was still crying out too loudlyfor him.
She lay where she was until she was sure that all her buttons were done up, and then she got to her feet without a word, walked over to where Flossie was cropping the grassin deep contentment, mounted with shaking legs that almost would not accomplish the feat, and rode off at a trot,in search of the gate leading into the nearest meadow. Shedid not look back.
Her throat was aching. She had to keep swallowing to get rid of the unfamiliar urge to start bawling. And herbreasts were tender and aching against the cotton of hershirt and the coarse cloth of her jacket. There was a throbbing between her legs and along her upper thighs. And ofcourse she was not even going to pretend that she did notunderstand either what was happening to her body or whathad been happening down by the stream. Her body was stillyearning for him. She had wanted him. She had wantedeverything that a woman can want of a man. Had hestripped off her breeches, she would have allowed him theultimate intimacy. Not only allowed it—she would have invited it, begged for it.
She had wanted him. Daniel. As she had always wanted him since childhood fantasies of Daniel as hero had beenconverted into girlhood fantasies of Daniel as lover. As shehad wanted him since he came back to Primrose Park a fewweeks before. She had always wanted Daniel—his attention, his approval, his admiration, his affection. His love.And because she had never been able to have any of thosethings, she had hated him and despised him and set out toshock him and outrage him. Just like a child who must winattention by being naughty if being good would not do it.
She hated herself.Hatedherself. Craving the attentions of a man who was so prim and proper on the outside, solustful just below the surface. Craving the attentions of apompous hypocrite. She eyed the second hedge speculatively for a few moments, but good sense prevailed. In herpresent mood of agitation, she would doubtless come togrief if she tried to jump it. And that would be unfair toFlossie—as he had said. It was worse that she had endangered Flossie’s life, he had said, than that she had endangered her own.
She hated him.
And she hated herself ten times more than that.
The earl did not turn his head to watch her go. Neither did he make any attempt to follow her until long after shemust be back at home already. He sat and stared sightlesslyat the stream.
