Page 49 of What a Widow Wants

“I don’t see anything so scandalous happening. The Harvest Lord will pick a Corn Maiden, he’ll give her a kiss and it will be done.” Fanny tried to act nonchalant, but her pulse raced beneath the skin of her wrist where he’d clasped it. Was she feeling some of the power of this ceremony? God knew he was.

“He used to give her more than a kiss, so Wrotham was telling the gentlemen after dinner.” Waggling his eyebrows, Matthew drew laughter from Fanny.

“Tell, tell.” She wrapped her arms around his, her giggling doing nothing to allay his predicament down below.

“The Harvest Lord claimed his Maiden, gave her a kiss to seal the temporary marriage, then the couple retired to a bridal tent made of sheaves of wheat draped with sheets washed in a local well. The couple spent the night there, in the field, the Harvest Lord sowing his seed with the Corn Maiden to bless the ground and increase the harvest for the next year.” Perhaps there was something to the ancient rite. The stirring in his groin had grown most urgent just describing the event.

“So they had sexual congress and then?” Fanny’s arms around him heated him to an inferno pitch.

“If the Corn Maiden caught with child, then the lord married her. If not, they did not. A man wants to sow in a fertile field.” That was certainly what Matthew wanted to do—this very minute. He checked the crowd, but every eye was on Michael Thorne, who looked ready to make his pronouncement. Now would be the best time to slip away with Fanny and complete their own fertility rite.

“As the seed goes to the fertile ground, so goes the Harvest Lord to his maiden . . . Nora Burns.”

The Wrotham tenants cheered as Thorne claimed his prize, drawing her to him, his attention so keenly focused on the brown-haired girl he’d just chosen Matthew doubted the man even noticed the noisy crowd around them. He’d not be surprised if Thorne lowered the girl to the stubbled ground and mounted her this moment.

Mother of God, his own need had become so great he’d burst if he didn’t have his own Corn Maiden and quickly. The rite had not finished, but if he stayed he’d surely make an embarrassing spectacle of himself. He grabbed Fanny’s hand. “Let’s go.”

A quiet moan from Fanny, staring at the Harvest couple, engorged him further. She turned to him, eyes wide and deep black with desire. They needed to leave now. He pulled her to him and she followed willingly, even eagerly, as he headed them for the only secluded spot around, a tree line above the cleared field. Matthew only hoped they would get there before the lust that filled his entire being overcame his better judgment and he took Fanny in plain sight of the entire village of Wrotham.

Once out of the immediate vicinity of the harvest rite, his primal urges eased, but only minimally. He wanted to sink himself into Fanny’s warm sheath so badly he ground his teeth in the effort not to give into it. Not far now. Moaning to their left brought him up short. He stopped, peering into the darkness.

The moon had sailed behind a cloud, so Matthew could only see the outlines of a man and a woman, in the throes of passion, lying on a blanket on the ground. A powerful rite indeed, for these were not the country people of Wrotham. In fact, if he didn’t miss his guess, the couple was the newly betrothed Wrotham and Lady Cavendish. As the seed goes to the fertile ground.

His own seed now urging him onward, Matthew continued to run toward the trees. The sound of panting in his ear as Fanny strove to keep up with his breakneck pace only served to enrage his blood more. A sound reminiscent of those she made when in the throes.

As they reached the trees, he dropped his hand to his fall, frantically working the buttons. With his other hand, he groped at Fanny’s long skirt. “Help me.”

“Wait.” She shook her head and pointed to the edge of the tree line some ten yards to their right.

A streak of errant moonlight suddenly illuminated another couple, arms entwined about one another, kissing passionately. The damned rite must be powerful beyond belief to affect all these people.

“This way.” Fanny grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the moonlight and into the woods.

The sudden darkness blinded him, but he strode onward, his need for Fanny too great to deter him. The lack of light never hindered this act. He bumped his shoulder against a tree and froze, pulling Fanny to a halt beside him. “Now. I have to have you now, Fanny.”

She launched herself into his arms, her mouth claiming him in a bruising kiss that drove him over the edge of sanity. With a deep growl he spun her around and pushed her against the tree. “Hold on.”

Nodding, she thrust her bottom at him, legs apart, and raked her skirts up.

Groaning from his soul, Matthew freed his member, guided it to her waiting channel, and thrust home. The intense relief of claiming her almost made him spill his seed on the first stroke, but he calmed a measure and paused, glorying in their joined state.

“More, Matthew. I need more.” Fanny’s voice broke his state of bliss.

He leaned over her back, straining into her until he could whisper in her ear, “You feel the power too, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

He nudged further inside her.

“Yes.” More insistent now.

Withdrawing almost completely, he then surged forward to the hilt, every inch of him on fire for her.

“Yes, oh, yes, Matthew,” she cried out, arching her back like a wild creature.

All semblance of civility fell away and he abandoned himself to the raw sensuality of the moment, thrusting faster and faster, deeper and deeper until they both cried out as he spilled himself—forever it seemed—inside her. Knees buckling, he wrapped his arms around Fanny and eased them to the ground.

They lay together panting, slowly coming back from the brink of madness that had consumed them.