Nine

She cocked her head. She loved to sit outside her cottage and listen to the sounds, but she had never tried to channel them into anything else, always content to simply enjoy.

"The song of the trees swaying to the gentle rhythm of a conductor we cannot see. Listen to the music, Miss Sculler. Roseford follows nature. Only by opening yourself up can you capture it and break the lifeless chill."

She gave him a sharp glance, but he merely smiled and hid aquamarine eyes once again, his fingers tapping some rhythm against his chest.

Caroline watched the breeze shift the wildflowers and crazed leaves of the ivy as they curled around whatever surface they could find, wrapping the Grange in an embrace. Something shifted in her mind, and she touched the chalk once more to the page. Her lines grew less straight and more fluid as she sketched the grounds, leaving the house alone for the moment. Her motions

took on a staccato in the bounce of a squirrel, a slur as a snake slithered through the grass, and a run as nuts and leaves fluttered down the chimney bricks.

Two cooing doves caused her to speculate on the curve of the garden, and she pulled a finger around the edge.

The chattering of the robins, crows, and finches grew louder as aviary territory was determined.

"I do not require battlements, but if they mount a force for war, we may be in trouble," she muttered.

One eye opened, and an amused indentation appeared in one cheek. "That we would." He looked up into the trees. "When I was a boy, I wished to transform into a bird and fly away."

"A vulture?" She settled in her seat, more relaxed now. While no one in her right mind would call the man harmless, there was something suddenly conspiratorial about him. She wondered if small prey were lulled into a false sense of security in the same way.

His mouth curved. "Nothing quite so vivid. I always admired the falcons, but a simple sparrow would have done."

She looked down at the page. "When I was a girl I wished to be a princess."

"A common dream, I‟d think."

"For a common girl." She pulled a line across the page that was more characteristic of how she‟d been drawing at the start. A gloved finger trailed along the chalk path, and the heat of his body reached toward her as he rose and leaned closer.

"Perhaps not quite so common." Fingers lifted her chin, then slid across the sensitive line of her throat and into her hair, pulling her closer. "Perhaps not quite so common at all."

His fingers curled around her nape, a thumb touched her cheek, sliding across her skin. He pulled her toward him slowly, and when their lips connected this time, it was with a burst of fire. The gentle, slow slide of the first kiss gives way to a more overwhelming claim, his mouth parting hers, drawing her in with heat and tense hunger. She felt the pull of the spell, the insidious song teasing her to give in to that which she had so long denied.

When he finally released her, the look in his eyes promised a myriad of craven delights were she to give in. To give up the lonely world she had locked herself within.

"Are you going to finish the sketch of the house, or shall I continue kissing you?" He smiled slowly.

Calculated, assuredly. She concentrated on his raised brow instead of his heated eyes or curved lips. She couldn‟t forget and get lost in the danger of the spell. She lifted the chalk in a shaky

grip and drew another line, then two, following his example. She imbued movement into each line, seeking something. Yearning. A peak in isolation that craved contact.

"Much better." His hand moved to her neck, rubbing and caressing, warmth springing beneath gloved fingers. The hum of the breeze charged, yet soothing.

"What is it you see, lovely?"

She saw a house that was waiting. Slightly overgrown and wild, but a home nonetheless. A house in need of someone or something. She drew in the windows, glass peering outward like great eyes searching for their owner to return.

"Yes." Fingers undid the strings of her bonnet, tugging it back from her crown.

She let him, eyes closing as the shield was removed, but too desirous of the magic to tell him to stop. She tried not to watch as he peeled his gloves from his hands. "Much, much better."

She pulled the stick over the outline of the gardens, suddenly drawing with more talent than she had any right to claim.

Bare fingers popped one pin from her hair, then two. Her hair fell in long chunks as it was freed. "A crime to hide this waterfall."

Fingertips gently drew her hair to the other side, and she shuddered as his lips touched her neck. "Keep drawing, dear Miss Sculler. But listen to yourself this time instead."

Wild lines formed as he did sinful things to the back and sides of her neck.

Instead of taking her interest away, his lips and seeking fingers seemed to push the chalk faster and in the correct direction. Shapes formed; lines full of life and depth took hold.

Hands touched her nape, catching the valley and pressing, rubbing down the column of her back.

She drew in the chimney spine as he traced hers.

The roof pulled into domed tips as he pressed against her back, hugging her to him, his palms running down the sides of her body, over her stomach and up to caress the sides of her breasts. His hands drew peaks over the tips.

"Sir?" Her breath caught, her head tilted back on his shoulder as a thumb slipped inside the bodice of her dress and his other hand touched her knee, pulling her skirt up, up, up, then slipping underneath. He pressed his palm against the inside of her right knee and pulled it away from her other one, her ladylike position turning into something open and wanton, on view for the entire Grange, if not for the waist-high bushes in front of them.

The edge of his thumb tweaked her nipple under the rigid edge of her corset, causing her to shudder. She moved into the touch instead of away, having never felt the overwhelming magic of

this type of desire where she didn‟t have any inhibitions—just the touch of a man who was a master at his craft. She felt him smile against her throat. Skilled fingers investigated beneath her knees, her stockings, her garters, then moved farther up.

"I wonder what other things you are hiding?" he whispered into her ear.

Fingertips curled around the heat at her base, as he successfully navigated the cloth of her drawers.

Overwhelming sensation filled her as she arched back against him. The paper fell from her hand; the chalk slipped from her grip. She gripped his thigh, and a finger curved into her, causing her to arch further, her breast pushing into his hand, which had slipped inside her bodice to palm her, his other thumb rubbing a spot nestled between her legs.

A dam broke that had too long been controlled. Lingering anger with the earl mixed with the earlier frustration at the man devouring her, and swirled with the irritation over the hand fate had dealt Sarah. Here was someone allowing her to release those emotions instead of swallowing them like a lump of coal.

All the past years‟ turmoil—keeping herself in line and isolated—pushed out.

She could be anyone at the moment. Do anything. Here was someone she‟d likely never see again. She was in fact not seeing him anyway, since he was sitting behind her, a phantom lover with skilled hands and a questing mouth who was mapping the planes of her neck more thoroughly than she‟d mapped the estate grounds.

A second finger requested entry, and some semblance of sense returned at the thought that she‟d never felt this vulnerable or out of control with Patrick.

He‟d never played her body with this sort of undeniable skill.

Her knees automatically pushed together. "I—"

He nipped her neck, and his palm hooked under her knee, pulling it over his thigh, opening her completely. Only this time, when she arched back, he easily slipped another finger in with the first, his thumb playing her like a mandolin player plucking at strings.

The sensations were vicious, delicious, and all-encompassing, reality and fantasy mingling. She moved rhythmically against his hand and violently arched back against him, whimpering for release.

He whispered words of encouragement as his fingers moved within her. Sharp waves of desire built into a crescendo for one, two, three beats of her heart before she convulsed wildly around his fingers, straining into him. He held her arched against him for a long minute, breathing heavily himself, before removing his hand and lowering her on the bench, one of her legs still draped over his lap, the other dangling uselessly on the grass.

He smoothed his hands down her flesh, down her dress, petting and soothing her as she gave a small shudder every few seconds, her breathing still heavy. His face was shuttered as if nothing monumental had occurred. He nonchalantly bent over her and lifted something from the ground. Her throat closed as she heard the crinkle of paper. She was in no position to stop him from destroying the sketch while lying on her back, her dress splayed about her, her body boneless. Betrayal and resignation washed through her as she watched him grip the paper‟s edge. She closed her eyes as his fingers moved away, waiting for the first rip, the first crumple.

The steady sound of chalk pulling along paper popped her eyes open. "No, please—" She struggled upward, thinking she could stop him from ruining the sketch.

One hand touched her breastbone and pushed her back down, not unkindly.

He cocked a brow, turning his attention back to her prized work. She closed her eyes again, listening to the scritches and swipes. Trying to keep her overwrought emotions in a tight grip.

He shifted over her, a hand wrapped around her nape, and pulled her to meet warm lips in a drugging caress. Her eyes opened as his lips left hers, and he lowered her head gently back to the bench. A slow smile pulled across his lips, and a piece of paper settled on her chest.

"Until the next time, dear Miss Sculler," he said in his deep, smooth voice.

"Consider that a gift."

His bare fingers pulled along her jaw, then he sauntered away, disappearing into the gardens.

She hastily sat up to inspect the vandalized drawing in the waning light. Shock held her immobile as she took in the lines and curves. The drawing had been decent before, if she did say so, but now…it was as if the house was alive on the page. Anyone seeing this would have the urge to visit, to see if real experience matched the vision. Only a truly gifted artist with an emotional eye could capture the essence like this and put it to the page.

Or someone who had a stake in the subject drawn.

She looked up sharply, but the man was gone.