He grew closer to the brink and then with a sudden movement caught her head, moving her mouth away from him. “You will share this with me,” he rasped, his voice sounding oddly harsh with the effort of restraint. He bent and caught her up beneath his arms and toppled her backward onto the bed.
Phoebe writhed, her entire body suffused with need. His hands were rough on her thighs as he pushed up her skirts. He seized her ankles and lifted her legs onto his shoulders, kneeling between her thighs, his eyes fierce as he drove deep within her.
He leaned over her and pushed her gown off her shoulders, catching her full breasts in his hands. She moaned and bucked beneath him as he played with her nipples. The corded muscles in his neck stood out as he held himself on the brink for as long as he could. Then, when he could wait no longer, he ran his hands down the backs of her thighs, grasped her buttocks with hard fingers, pulling her closer against him. Phoebe’s eyes flew open, pure wonderment in their depths. Then her back arced off the bed and her body convulsed around him.
Cato fell forward with a groan, gathering her against him in a tangle of skirts and petticoats, his mouth buried against the softness of her throat. Phoebe quivered beneath him.
And into this dark and sweat-tangled world of their own came a knock on the door.
Cato pulled himself up. “What is it?”
“Me, m’lord.” Giles Crampton’s robust tones called through the oak. “You ordered me ‘ere fer dinner at noon, sir. We’re to set off after, you said.”
Cato uttered a barnyard expletive and got off the bed. “I’ll be down in five minutes, Giles.”
“Right y’are, m’lord. I’ll tell Bisset to put the meat back in the warmin‘ oven, shall I?”
Cato glanced at the cloak on the mantel. It was a quarter past noon. “Damn his impertinence!” Cato muttered, stripping off his disordered clothing. Giles always found a way to make his point.
“I don’t think I can get up,” Phoebe murmured, stretching languidly. “I seem to be dissolved.”
Cato looked down at her as she lay in an abandoned sprawl on the bed, her skirts pushed up, exposing the sweet white plumpness of her thighs and the small curve of her belly. The dark bush at the base of her belly glistened with the juices of their loving. Clearly her responses the previous night had been no artful pretense.
“Where did it come from?” he muttered.
“Where did what come from?” Unconsciously Phoebe passed her hands in a long caress over her body.
“Your wantonness,” he said, tapping his mouth reflectively with his fingertips. “I’ve never come across it before in a woman of your breeding.”
There was a note in his voice that made Phoebe sit up, pushing down her skirts. “Is it wrong, then?”
Cato hesitated for a minute too long before he shook his head. “No… no, of course not.” He gave a half laugh that didn’t sound particularly mirthful and went to the armoire for his leather riding britches and woolen jerkin.
Phoebe dragged herself off the bed. Why had he hesitated?
Cato dressed swiftly, saying as he strode from the room, “Hurry, Phoebe, I don’t relish any more of Giles’s veiled impertinence.”
Phoebe dipped the washcloth into the basin and wrung it out. He’d been as eager for that passionate lust as she had. So why did she feel this unease? Thoughtfully she tidied herself and hurried down to the dining parlor.
Everyone was already at table when she came in. Giles Crampton cast her a knowing sidelong glance which infuriatingly made her blush. She took her seat with a somewhat incoherent apology for having kept them waiting and hastily reached for her wine goblet.
“Have you decided to play Gloriana, Phoebe?” Olivia inquired, helping herself to roast mutton and onion sauce. She studiously ignored Brian Morse, who sat opposite her.
“I’m thinking about it.” Relieved at this ordinary turn of conversation, Phoebe looked over at Cato, “Do you think, sir, that some of your soldiers would be willing to take part? I’m writing the scene where Elizabeth addresses the troops and says those things about having the heart of a man in the weak body of a woman, and it would make a better spectacle if there were some real troops for her to address.”
Giles snorted. “Over my dead body, m’lady! They’re soldiers, not play actors.”
Phoebe was too used to Giles to take offense, but she could mount her own spirited defense. “I thought a midsummer pageant might cheer people up,” she said. “Life’s so gloomy and hard for everyone with the war, and it’s been going on for so long. Raising morale is an honorable enough task for a soldier, I would have thought.”
“You’re writing a play, Lady Granville?” Brian sounded amused.
“A pageant,” she corrected.
“Oh, I do trust you’ll find a part for me,” he said in the same tone.
“Surely you won’t still b-be here at midsummer?” Olivia said in undisguised horror, looking at him for the first time since the meal began. “That’s months away!”
Phoebe broke in as she saw Cato’s expression. “I’m sure I can find a part for you, Mr. Morse, if you’re still here. But what about the soldiers, my lord? Real ones would be much more effective than villagers dressed up, don’t you think?”
“Undoubtedly,” he agreed, quelling Olivia with a glare. “But I have to agree with Giles that the men have better things to do than play at amateur dramatics, however worthy the motive.”
“So, you’re an amateur playwright?” Brian pressed, before Phoebe could respond to Cato’s careless dismissal of her enterprise. “It was always quite a popular activity at court before the war. But not too many ladies indulged in the pursuit, as I recall.” He offered a humoring smile and sipped his wine.
“Phoebe is a very accomplished poet,” Olivia declared. “I dare swear no c-court poet would be ashamed to acknowledge her writing.”
“Indeed.” Brian’s eyebrows rose. “I hadn’t realized you had frequented court circles.”
“Phoebe has and she told me about the empty-headed courtiers,” Olivia said.
Brian ignored this. “Maybe you would show me some of your work, Lady Granville. I have, after all, some experience of what’s considered good poetry at court. And, of course, you must please the court if you are to succeed.”
“I write to please myself, sir,” Phoebe said with unconscious hauteur. “I have no particular desire to shine at court, if indeed the court is ever reinstated. Indeed, as Olivia said, my few visits there at the beginning of the war gave me a great dislike for its posturing and pretensions.”
Brian recognized a snub when he heard one. Strangely, instead of infuriating him, it piqued his interest. Little sister had nothing at all in common with big sister, it seemed. He regarded her over the lip of his glass. Her hair was rumbling from its pins; the upstanding collar of the blue gown was rather limp. In fact, it almost looked as if she’d slept in it. It hadn’t looked quite so bad earlier that morning before the trip to church. He wondered what on earth she could have been doing in it.
“Perhaps you didn’t meet James Shirley,” he suggested. “A man of little or no pretension.”
“Oh, yes, I most particularly admire Mr. Shirley’s dramas,” Phoebe interrupted, forgetting her moment of irritation. “He has no pretension at all.”
“You’ll need music for your pageant, Phoebe,” Olivia said, refusing to be shut out of the conversation by Brian. “Have you thought about it?”
“Not really. I wish I could find a composer like Henry Lawes.” Phoebe passed Olivia a dish of buttered salsify.
“Ah, the incomparable Mr. Lawes,” Brian murmured. “I saw him at a performance of Comus once with John Milton.”
“Oh… you’ve met John Milton?” Phoebe’s fork hung neglected halfway to her mouth.
“The gentleman has a great conceit of himself,” Cato observed.