A/N: There are only two more chapters after this one :) Thanks for the lovely reviews so far. I'm definitely enjoying the feedback.
The house glowed with the warmth from the hearth in the kitchen. Its welcome heat coated her skin and she felt relief that, despite her situation, she could have some creature comforts for the time being. Harmony was seated at a roughly-hewn wooden bench near the open fire. Before her was a plate of coddled eggs and freshly baked bread, homely food but delicious nonetheless. She told the older woman as much.
Harmony was still trying to decide how to get around her present situation. The woman clearly adored the rake, Lord Darius, just as he had suggested, and although Harmony felt she would be more than cared for, she tended to think the other woman had no intention of questioning the situation. Furthermore, Harmony had no plan of running off into the woods, certainly not before she had a decent bath and was more suitably dressed.
Her gaze strayed toward the window, beyond which she could see the strong form of her captor who was presently talking with his men. She sighed and, when she turned her attention back to the amiable Mrs Pommeroy, noticed the knowing look in the woman's eyes.
"Come now, let's get you all cleaned up." With that, the woman bustled up the stairs with Harmony following directly behind her. The woman led her into a deceptively spacious room with a large bed and, in the far corner, behind a charming screen sat a wonderfully inviting tub.
Harmony opened her mouth to speak but was again interrupted. "Now you wait just here while I fetch some things." The woman ambled out of the room, leaving Harmony once more to her thoughts.
She walked toward the window, peering out to see what lay beyond.
"Planning another escape route, I'd venture..." The low rumble of his voice startled her, for she had not heard him enter the room.
"Just so that you can chase me down again? I think not." She pushed back her shoulders and gave him a rather imperious stare. She felt more confident now that she was on firm ground again. "What are you doing in my room?"
He barked out a laugh that caught her unawares, and she felt the look of haughty superiority slip from her features. She watched as he dropped a bag of various effects at his feet before spreading his arms expansively. "This is our room."
Her mouth fell open in what she felt sure was a most horrible display. She could feel his amused gaze upon her, even as her own eyes despairingly took in the solitary bed in the room.
"But… you said that-" Her heart was beating an unsteady rhythm, and she clutched a shaking hand to her chest.
"You need not fear your virtue, My Lady, as I have already said. I have no need for sleep." He paused and looked at her knowingly. "And I should not risk it in any case… for fear you would kill me as I slept."
She had no time to respond to that, because Mrs Pommeroy had returned with various linens and what appeared to be some fresh garments for Harmony to wear. No matter the simplicity of their make, she would very gladly swap the flimsy nightclothes she currently wore for something more substantial.
She had never felt as exposed as she did beneath the gaze of that errant lord.
"I am needed elsewhere," he said by way of departure, and she began to wonder just where that might be.
A short time later, her tired body slipped into the liquid heat of the bath, relishing its inviting warmth. The clean scent rose up around her, reminding Harmony just how wretched she had felt only minutes before.
Her introspection was broken when Mrs Pommeroy ducked her head around the corner of the screen and asked whether she would like assistance with her hair. Hermione acquiesced fervently. To be frank, however, it was more the company she craved than anything else. And she had an inkling that the other woman knew as much.
She chewed her lip to prevent the questions from falling from her tongue. It was to no avail. She was an eternally curious person by nature, one always prone to asking questions regardless of whether it was her place or not. She did not think the other woman would hold it against her for indulging in a few such curiosities.
"Mrs Pommeroy… do you mind my asking how you know Lord Marfly? I don't wish to-"
"He's a curious one, isn't he?" The older woman's laugh was deep and rich and laden with affection for the subject of her comment. Harmony swirled the water about her knees and nodded her assent.
"He is that," she said.
When the woman did speak, Harmony listened with rapt attention. "I was his nurse-maid, I was… raised him from when he was a babe. Of course, his mother died in child birth."
Mrs Pommeroy told of the quiet and inquisitive boy he had been and of the fierce loyalty to his family and their people. She also told Harmony of the sins of the father: the gambling and the building of debts. The young Lord had received nothing from the father but the empty title and those obligations upon the older man's death, and worse still, the pledge of allegiance to that dreaded man Lord Tòmas Ryder, the owner of said debts.
She tried to control the sharp intake of breath as the history was revealed. It did, however, shed much light on the sort of man he was, and the many cryptic statements he had made.
"Is he a good man still? I wonder," she whispered the words, not certain of an answer.
"You don't seem so certain that he's not. He is a good man, and he does all he can for the people loyal to him… he suffers another man's poor decision." She continued smoothing the comb through the wet tangle of Harmony's curls. "He's been led down the wrong path now, I fear… but not beyond redemption."
Harmony sat quietly and wondered about that.
She was left to her thoughts, shortly thereafter, when Mrs Pommeroy announced that she had best tend to other things about the house. The young woman was left thus in a state of introspection, pondering all that she had heard and witnessed.
It disconcerted her to a small measure to realise that she had not given the least thought to making an escape. Aside from the fact that it would likely be pure folly to attempt such a feat, given she had no mode of transport nor inkling of where she was, a certain part of her was keen to find out more about the man behind her present circumstances.
Why that was, she did not like to think too long about. She told herself she would never be swayed by a few pretty tales from an indulgent old woman. She told herself she was likely bored at the prospect of her future, could find little pleasure in the thought of ever marrying a man she held no interest in. It would be far too easy to wish for the handsome lord to be a hero in disguise, but Harmony had never considered herself as one prone to flights of fancy like some of the other ladies of the ton.
Yet, in spite of such reassurances, she found herself stretched out on the bed and gazing at the ceiling, wondering just what it would be like to know such a man. She flushed to recall the way heat had pooled in her stomach, and her skin had tingled to feel the warmth of his firm thigh against her own. She tried most valiantly not to think about what it would be like to kiss a man like him. She suspected it would be very unlike the polite and practiced attentions of the gentlemen she knew. She found their touches respectful, their kisses soft and sweet. Somehow she did not think the embrace of Lord Darius would be any such thing, and yet she felt strangely certain that he would never hurt her.
It was an extraordinary assertion for a woman to have about the man who had, only that very morning, snatched her from her bed.
She felt she understood the enigmatic young man much better now, thanks to the musings of his former nurse maid. And although she could never suggest that his treatment of her, his decision to partake in such a scheme, was the right thing to do, she rather felt she recognised those motivations a little better now.
After all, Lord Darius Marfly had nothing to gain directly for his involvement in the exercise. But Mrs Pommeroy had talked extensively of the way his father gambled away their fortune after his wife's death. Lord Lawrence Marfly had become entirely owned by Lord Tòmas Ryder, a man who, though not of old blood like the Marflys had been, managed to accumulate a vast wealth on the continent. With such wealth inevitably came power.
Lord Ryder was known to be a brutal man, one who slaughtered all in his path. He was also a man who would never allow someone to escape the hold he had over them. Those in his debt remained that way for life, and it would seem that in the case of the late Lord Marfly, that obligation would extend to his heir.
Harmony could not deny the lurch she had felt in the pit of her stomach as Mrs Pommeroy spoke of that very occurrence, when the son was not yet 17. It had been left to him then to ensure the livelihood of his people, to regain what respectability had been lost. He had tried to evade Lord Ryder, but it had been in vain.
It was these thoughts and others of the same nature which flittered restlessly across her exhausted mind, as she lay back staring at the ceiling. And it was in this same position that, sometime later, she succumbed to the seductive pull of sleep.
The warmth was like a luscious coating wrapped around her, calling her to stay in its safe knell. But there was something, a tingling of her skin which caused her eyes to flutter open in reluctance. Even before her heavy-lidded gaze scanned the room, she was struck by the sudden and inexplicable realisation that she was longer alone in the room. The darkness of nightfall was overwhelming, but for the warm glow of a fire in the hearth and the beacon of the moon peaking in through the far window.
He stood there, bathed in its pale glow.
Harmony realised then that she must have fallen asleep in his absence. It was a disturbing thought to know that he could have stood there watching her in a most vulnerable state. His back was, however, turned to her; his gaze was entranced by whatever mysteries lay beyond the window pane.
His voice was low, uttering words before she could fumble to find her own. "It is little wonder you fell asleep. It has been a long day."
He was a master of the understatement, she mused.
"You were gone a long time." The statement was revealing, but she found herself thrown by the situation and could not hope to conceal her thoughts. This strange man had flustered her from the first. It seemed she had no defence to the fluttering of her stomach upon her looking at him. It was especially so in that very moment, when he fairly glowed in the surrounding darkness: a deceptive siren call which seemed to cause an ache in the very centre of her being.
"I trust you found some way to pass the time."
Her throat felt dry. "Yes... Mrs Pommeroy tells a great many stories of your youth." His head snapped toward her then; his piercing gaze seemed to cut through the layers of cloth and skin to the very heart of her.
"It was not her place to tell such tales," he whispered in a tone that was dangerously soft.
Harmony extricated herself from the folds in the bed, and brushed errant wrinkles from her simply made garment. She took several steps forward then, in spite of his slightly menacing demeanour.
"I think perhaps she is correct... on a few points." He raised a brow at her in question, but the reaction was belied by the intensity of his gaze. "I do not think you wholly bad... regardless of your... acquaintances."
"Is that so?" he whispered.
"I know about your father and-"
"Enough!" He cursed under his breath and glared at her, eyes dark and intent. "You have no idea what you speak of."
She pushed her shoulders back and raised her voice. "I do. She told me all." Her voice softened, "I think there can be better for you... I think-"
"What is this?" he burst out, throwing his hands up in the air. "What sort of temptress are you. It is barely one day in your company and you think to convince me with pretty words and smiles."
He turned his back on her and she noted the hunching of his shoulders, his raggedly drawn breath. Quite without her knowing why or how, she stepped forward and pressed gentle fingers to his back.
His tone was raw. "What are you doing?"
Her caress was tender, a mere breath across his back as she tried to reason that very same riddle. "I... I don't know." She took a deep breath, watching the way her fingers fanned out against the starkness of his coat. "You would have me think the worst but... I do not think you are what you want me to believe..."
His anger lashed out and he moved so swiftly to face her, grabbing her upper arms and hauling her against the warm breadth of his chest. Her gaze flew to his, ferocious in its gleam.
"You think me some sort of hero? Stupid girl." The words were whispered so that the softest expulsion of breath tickled her cheeks.
Her heart beat stopped when his lips took her own. She gasped at the unexpected force of the kiss, the texture of his mouth as it tugged on her own. Her lips parted and she knew the sweet taste of brandy on his tongue. It was dizzying, the feel and the taste of him. It was a kiss clearly intended to dominate her, to punish her for speaking out of turn. Somehow they both forgot that fact.
He moulded her to him, her nipples tight buds against his chest. Her fingers curled in the fabric of his coat, clutching. When he set her back from him, she struggled to pull that heady rush of air to her lungs.
"You are treading dangerous ground," he whispered, a husky quality evident in his voice. "You should go to sleep and forget your fancy notions."
Her pink tongue brushed her bottom lip, moistening its swollen shape. She could not help but notice the way his eyes, dark like obsidian, seemed to track the unconscious action. It released a fluttering in her abdomen, a giddy realisation of power she had never known.
He was right, Harmony knew. She ought to go to bed, and yet she found that she did not want to.
"I find I've slept enough," she whispered archly. His probing eyes searched hers, a warning clear in their ashy depths.
"You should know the offer in your eyes... it can torment a man... and I've no intention of-"
"Does it torment you?" she whispered.
He pulled her toward him once more, using a broad palm to push against the small of her back. She could feel the heat, the hardness of him pressed against the soft and yielding curve of her belly. A small gasp fell from her lips.
He was beautiful, she thought, like something of another world. Harmony moved a hesitant finger to brush the line of his jaw, allowing it to dip into the hollow of his cheek. "You are beautiful," she whispered, taking in that gaze, those haunting eyes and the inviting texture of his lips.
"As are you, My Lady." He shook his head. "I fear you will be the death of me... Perhaps that is your intention."
She grinned and leaned toward him. Her nerve endings snapped with feverish excitement, the likes of which she had never known. Harmony knew two things quite acutely then. The first was that she could not find it in herself to care at all for issues of her reputation in that moment. The second was that she could not suffer a marriage to a man she did not love nor yearn for.
Yet she yearned for this man.
"Please," she whispered. A groaned imprecation fell from his lips before they took her own once more. She opened to him immediately, revelling in the feel of his lips against her own, and the gentle sweep of his tongue.
Large hands swept through the heavy drape of her curls, cupping the weight of her head with their capable strength. A mumbled noise of dissatisfaction fell from her lips when his own moved away. She gasped again, though, to feel the gentle suction of his mouth as it traced a path of torment along her jaw and the soft skin of her neck.
Her fingers clutched at the fabric of his clothes, uncertain what to do and yet eager to touch the heated skin beneath. He pulled away again, his molten gaze intent on her own and she watched as his deft fingers moved to detach those obstacles. The breath caught in her throat at the sight of his pale skin, stretched over taut and inviting muscle.
In that moment she wanted nothing more than to feel its silky touch against her skin.
"You are sure?" he whispered even as his hands moved to her own garment. She nodded yes, distracted by the fingers that trailed over her.
A flush of another sort raised across her skin when she stepped from the last folds of fabric. She had never stood facing a man like this before, but she found the heat of his gaze and the transparent want in its depths to be reassuring.
"Exquisite," he whispered, and she lifted her hands instinctively as though to cover her now bare breasts.
He shook his head, and grasping one fine wrist in his hand, he tugged her toward the slightly dusty old mirror, which sat in the far corner of the room. Harmony lifted dark eyes to watch him standing by her in the mirror, his intent gaze watching hers reflected. She swallowed as she fought to keep her hands still at her sides.
The sight of herself, her flushed and heaving breasts, the glow of firelight dancing on her skin, and the knowledge that he was watching caused a surge to ripple through her. The heat between her thighs was building to an intolerable point; it was a curious sort of need that she had ever known. Harmony cast her gaze up from the dusky pink nipples to catch his piercing gaze.
A gasp was rent from her throat when she watched him move to stand behind her. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin, tickling the fine slope of her back.
His rough palm lifted to brush across her breast, a taunting circle around the soft skin of her aureole. A quick tug at the sensitised tip caused her a sharp intake of breath, her eyes flashing towards his. The colour of his eyes, and the slight up turn to his mouth captivated her. It was a taunting sort of a look, and made her want to retaliate.
He would not let her though, and she revelled in the strength of him against her. Her throat convulsed when his hand slid from her breast to skim over the smooth plain of her stomach. She whimpered with the knowledge that he was about to touch her there. Her most secret place. The breath that she held left her body when his warm hand cupped that central, pulsing part of her.
Harmony's gaze flew to his, noting the ravenous quality which lurked there and which she thought must surely mirror her own. Lord Darius pressed a kiss to the seam of her shoulder and his hand fell away as she turned to face him.
She pressed her palms flat against the searing heat of his skin, and moved to match her lips to the action. He was salty on her tongue. Harmony relished the shuddery feeling in her stomach at being this close to something so decadent. She pressed open mouthed kisses along the ridge of his throat, and ran her fingers in circles around the flat peak of his nipple. He was heat and salt and sweat, and she wished for nothing more than to bathe in him all evening.
She shivered beneath his questing fingers, which brushed in taunting circles across her exposed breasts and over her gently rounded hips. His arms then braced around her, and swept her effortlessly against the wall of his chest before he moved them toward the bed.
When he placed her down upon the bed, a broad palm pressing against her stomach to keep her unfurled before his hungry gaze, she was certain that she had never felt quite so lovely before.
The image of herself which was reflected in his gaze sent a pink flush across her exposed skin, and he seemed to delight further in her responsiveness.
Harmony's eyes grew wide as she watched his deft fingers rid his lower body of its final shield. And the sight of him, long and hard and seemingly throbbing with the weight of blood pulsing, caused her breath to quicken. She had never seen a man without his clothes before; she had never known quite what to imagine. And although there was something infinitely strange about the sight of that part of him, there was a torrid sort of fascination as well.
She wanted very much to smooth her palm across its silken texture. Her gaze was intent, and she noticed the way it almost seemed to swell before her eyes. Muttered words fell from his lips when she reached questing fingers to indulge her curiosity. They were swept away before she had much success, and he leaned over her, pressing her into the mattress.
The weight of him against her made the blood sing in her veins, and she revelled in the touch of his mouth to hers once more. His teeth grazed across her lower lip, toying with its pillowed texture. And when her lips parted on a rather breathless sound, his tongue brushed across her own. It was dizzying.
He pulled away from her once more, and blazed a trail of heated kisses along the delicate line of her jaw. The path moved down across her collarbone until he traced circles around the sensitised peak of her breast. She clutched at his shoulders as a grasping sort of feeling swarmed within her. She wanted something, though she was unsure precisely what.
Lord Darius finally captured the pebbled bud between his lips, and his fingers strayed across her heated skin to torment the other. When he released the petal-pink flesh from the wet cavern of his mouth, he blew a whispered assault of cool air against her skin. It caused her toes to curl and her fingers to grip him tighter.
Her gaze clashed with his, amid the tingling sensation and the mind altering fog of caresses. His gaze, normally so piercing with its brightness, was a dark shade she could barely recognise. And there was a possessive sort of gleam in the way he looked at her that made her want, most fervently, to have him hold her always.
A whimpering sort of sound escaped her lips when his mouth and fingers trailed across the landscape of her stomach. And when he pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss against the upper part of her pubic bone, her eyes snapped open again. He was too close to that hidden part of her, and she could not begin to wonder at what his intentions were. He grinned up at her in a way that stole her breath, and he pressed the weight of his palm against her stomach to hold her in place.
"What are you-" she mumbled through the fog.
He shook his head to silence her and turned his gaze to that very central part of her, now slick and very warm. Harmony squirmed beneath the weight of his gaze, so intently staring. When an errant finger brushed past the curls to dance across the paper fine skin there, she almost jumped in response.
There was a burning heat within her as she watched him, propped up as she was on her elbows, with her gaze wide and uncertain. His finger slipped with ease through her folds and a strangled sort of sob wrenched from her throat at the unexpected jolting sensation. She whimpered again as his deft fingers parted her to reveal her pink flesh to him.
And then he was there: all mouth, and fingers and sensation. Her skin leapt in rhythm with her heart as his tongue traced the seam of her before brushing ever so slightly against that secret spot that made her squirm with delirium. Her thighs were clenching and the muscles in her stomach contracted, willing something she did not understand but wanted nonetheless.
Before she realised it, her fingers were in the silken strands of his hair, relishing the texture, and pressing him against her. And then she felt it, the touch sweeping across her entrance, before his finger moved inside her walls. She was enthralled, all breathless anticipation and snapping nerves. Her hips rose to meet the rhythm he strummed across her body.
His palm cupped her mound, sealing the heat of her to him as his finger pushed deeper within her. He moved up then so that his mouth lingered across the seam of her neck, and his body pressed into hers once more. The searing heat of him branded her stomach, and her hips rose with increasing urgency.
But the feeling of that was nothing to what she felt when his hand moved away, leaving her bereft, before it moved to brace her hip and that very hard part of him nudged against her entrance. She leapt again in eagerness and heard a whispered reprimand uttered into her hair.
"Patience," he said.
She squirmed at the feeling of fullness when he moved his hips and his hard length pushed further into her sheath. He told her to stay still once more, but Harmony struggled. Her whole concentration was focused on that stretching feeling of him pressing further into her, and she shifted again to adjust.
He seemed to sense the tension creeping into her body because one hand slipped from its position against her hip, to brush tauntingly between her curls, just above the joining of their bodies. The sensation jolted through her and she clenched instinctively around him. A broken sort of sound was torn from his lips and she revelled in the rough quality of it.
She tried it again, and delighted in the repeated response.
Her giddiness cleared when he surged forward, sinking deep within her, and a sharp pain caused her to cry out. His mouth was on hers then, his fingers swiping across that hidden bundle of nerves between them. She gasped from the pain and the toe-curling sensation. And then, between the taste of his mouth and the feeling of him moving slickly within her, she was too embroiled to determine what exactly it was she felt.
Harmony wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer; her legs seemed to mimic this reaction and braced his hips as well.
As his hips snapped forward, she could feel something tightening within her: a maddening, clawing need to reach the unattainable. The urge was tearing at her, causing her to push against his thrusts fervently. The piercing quality of that silver gaze would haunt her forever.
She could feel it, closer, closer. And with the dizzying build up came the quivering of her, and her vision began to fray to a dusky sort of darkness.
And then reality: white walls, an office desk, and piercing silver eyes.