LITMIR.BIZ

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decide whether he was perishing with embarrassment, fighting the urge to laugh or was unfairly furious with her for landing him in such a position.

      ‘Of course. Thank you, Trent.’ Julia managed as dignified a nod as she could under the circumstances and let Will usher her out of the milking parlour into the main yard. Fortunately there was no one in sight and Will strode across to the drive with Julia in tow. ‘Oh dear. I am afraid that was not very decorous.’

      ‘It was, however, exceedingly amusing.’ His voice was shaking with laughter.

      ‘Will!’

      ‘And arousing. I assume, my lady, that you will now find it necessary to take all your clothes off in order to remove the lingering traces of the farmyard?’

      ‘Indeed, my lord. And you will doubtless wish to take off your clothing also to assure yourself that no harm has come to those fine boots. Or your breeches. And I fear your shirt may be torn.’

      ‘Quite. This is obviously an emergency. Can you walk any faster?’

      ‘No, but I can run.’ Julia took to her heels with Will beside her, burst through the front door and was halfway up the stairs before Gatcombe emerged to see what the commotion was.

      ‘My lady?’ He took one look at Will and effaced himself.

      ‘We will have scandalised the entire staff at this rate.’ Julia fell panting on to her bed as Will came in behind her and turned the key in the lock.

      ‘I have no intention of having anyone else as an audience,’ he promised as he threw his coat on to a chair and began to untie his crushed neckcloth. ‘One yokel and one butler is more than enough.’

      Julia watched appreciatively as he dragged his shirt over his head, then bent to unlace her boots. ‘I am not a very dignified baroness, am I?’ she asked, studying the muddy, battered footwear. A real lady would not have been seen dead in those boots, or in a cow shed, either. She would probably have no idea how milk was extracted from a cow and would faint at the sight of a dung heap.

      Julia chided herself for the negative thoughts. For the first time I feel at ease with him, for the first time this feels like a normal marriage. They had shared secrets and painful memories and, for the first time, Will had been clear about his feelings over the management of the estate.

      If only she did not feel so guilty whenever she thought about the secret she was keeping from him. He was coming to trust her and yet what she was hiding from him was awful beyond anything he might imagine.

      ‘Do you think so?’ Will said, jerking her back to the moment. What had she said? Oh, yes, something about not being dignified. He sat down to pull his own boots off. The muscles in his back rippled as he moved and tugged and Julia felt her mouth go dry. ‘Rolling about in the straw is not dignified, I will agree, but it is perfectly suitable for a milkmaid and her rustic swain. Why do you want to be dignified, anyway? I don’t want you to turn into a sober matron, Julia.’

      ‘My clothes are not very... I suppose I should dress better.’ Julia pulled up her skirts and untied her garters, conscious of Will’s eyes on her hands.

      ‘That footwear is suitable for walking around the yards or the fields,’ Will said, standing his boots by the chair and pulling off his own stockings. ‘But do you not want to buy new gowns? Or slippers or hats? Some feminine frivolity?’

      ‘Frivolity,’ she said blankly, then hauled her concentration back from the contemplation of Will’s bare feet—who would have thought that feet could be so attractive?—and thought about his question. ‘I did not like to spend the money on frivolities. It did not seem right.’

      He had saved her life, given her hope. It had seemed immoral to indulge in what seemed like luxury with his money into the bargain. And even the fleeting thought of wandering around a large town, visiting shops amidst a crowd of strangers, brought back that feeling of panic and foreboding. She shrugged. ‘I do not like shopping much.’

      ‘I cannot believe that I have married the only woman in the country who doesn’t enjoy it.’ Will stood up to unfasten the fall of his breeches. His eyes narrowed and she realised she had run her tongue along her lips in anticipation. ‘We will go shopping together in Aylesbury and then in London and I will teach you to be frivolous.’

      ‘You want me to buy lots of new clothes?’ She slid off the bed as he came towards her.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ Will murmured, turning her so he could undo the buttons at the back of her gown. ‘Then I can enjoy taking them off you. Silks...’ he pushed the sensible heavy cotton off her shoulders and it fell to the floor ‘...and satins.’ He began to unlace her stays. Julia shivered despite the warmth. ‘And Indian muslins so fine they are transparent.’ The practical, sensible petticoat joined the gown on the floor. ‘And when I get down to your skin, like this...’ he began to nuzzle along her shoulder and into the crook of her neck ‘...there will be the scent of edible, warm woman, just as there is now, and perhaps just a hint of something exotic and French.’

      Julia reached behind her and found the waist of his unfastened breeches and pushed down, her palms running over the smooth skin of his hips as they fell. Against her bare buttocks she felt the heat of his arousal branding her with its length and pressed back with a little wriggle.

      Will groaned, pushed her forwards so that her hands were on the bed, and then entered her from behind with one swift stoke. ‘Julia.’

      The blatant carnality of his need, her own excitement, the overwhelming sensations the position produced, all sent her tumbling helplessly over the edge with dizzying speed. She heard Will gasp, his hands tightened on her hips and then they fell on the bed in a panting, uncoordinated tangle of limbs.

      * * *

      Will rolled on to his back and pulled Julia against his side. It was not easy to find words and he was not certain she wanted any just now as she relaxed confidingly in his arms. Something had shattered the pane of glass that had been between them ever since he came home. Was it that shared laughter, or his realisation of how deeply she had been hurt by the loss of her child? Whatever it was, the results felt good. That hollow well of loneliness inside him that had ached ever since he had been given that death sentence by the doctors was being filled with something warm and soothing. He grinned at the whimsical thought. He had not realised just how much the loss of his siblings, the lies and secrecy, had hurt him until he had told Julia about it.

      ‘You are quiet,’ Julia said, her breath feathering across his chest.

      ‘Just thinking.’ He wasn’t ready to share that feeling of loneliness with her yet. It felt like weakness: a man ought to be able to look death squarely in the eye and not fall prey to self-pity.

      ‘I had never heard you laugh like that before.’ Julia sat up, curled her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.

      ‘I’m sorry, I hadn’t realised I had been so dour.’ When he looked back he could not recall laughing about anything since he had fallen ill. Things had amused him occasionally. The discovery that he was recovering and would not die within months had filled him with happiness, but not laughter. Not the healing, playful laugher that they had shared that afternoon. Perhaps today he had finally accepted that he had his life back to live.

      ‘It was the release after the sad things we spoke of earlier, I expect,’ she said. ‘Sometimes laughter brings healing.’

      Will sat up too and tipped his head to one side so he could see her face. ‘I am glad you talked about it to me and that you understood about my parents. I am glad that you could trust me. That is important to me.’

      ‘Trust?’ She slanted him a look.

      ‘Yes. I suppose it comes from growing up in a household with so little honesty and so many secrets. You must not think it was the fact that you had a lover before that disturbed me when I found out. It was the fact that you had not told me the truth about how you had come to be by the lake that night.’ Julia went very still. ‘That was all it was, wasn’t it? A reluctance

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