There was going to be enough gossip about her presence as it was, without giving the servants fuel for the bonfires. She certainly wouldn't achieve acceptance in local society, let alone in the upper echelons of the ton, if she made herself notorious in such a shameless costume.
But, then, if she didn't choose to cooperate, he was well within his rights to call a halt to the exercise.
He strode from the room, passing a sleepy-eyed maidservant hurrying from her attic bed to rake the kitchen fires before cook and the upper servants appeared. She bobbed a curtsy, blushing at his lordship's bare chest. Julian accorded her a brief nod. She was unknown to him, and he made a mental note to discuss with the housekeeper the servants who'd been taken on in his absence.
He let himself out of a side door and made his way across the lawns, following in Tamsyn's footprints, still visible in the wet grass. His irritation lifted somewhat in the soft air of the new morning, the carpet of raindrops glittering in the sun, the fresh-washed fragrances rising from the parterres as he stepped down toward the stone wall.
Reaching it, he stopped, gazing down toward the cove. For the moment he couldn't see Tamsyn anywhere, and yet she had to be there, unless she'd climbed one of the steep cliffs on either side of the narrow valley. Then he caught a glimpse of silvery hair halfway down the slope, the rest of her lost in a rioting mass of purple-red foxgloves and lilac rhododendron.
He jumped lightly over the wall and made his way down toward the bobbing head. “Tamsyn!”
She turned and waved, her face alight with pleasure, her violet eyes blending with the armful of blooms she held.
“Aren't they so beautiful? I've never seen such an incredible sight,” she called, beginning to wade through the waist-high field of color toward him.
“Judging by your clothes, I assume you're no longer interested in this contract you insisted upon,” he declared, his mouth close-gripped, as she reached him.
If Tamsyn heard, she chose to ignore it. She buried her nose in the flowers she held. “What are they called?
I've never seen anything like them, just growing wild like this.”
“Foxgloves,” Julian said.
“And the sun's shining, and the sea's sparkling. It's all so lovely, I would never have believed England could look like this,” Tamsyn continued, her head thrown back to catch the sunlight, her neck curving gracefully from the open collar of her shirt, her eyelashes thick half-moons on her sun-tipped cheekbones. “Cecile used to describe Cornish summers, but after the last few days, I'd decided absence must have distorted her memory.” She laughed, a happy, chiming chuckle.
She was radiating a deep, sensual delight and Julian was moved despite every effort he made to resist-a buttercup lifting its golden head to the sun. Vigorously, he dismissed such whimsy and said sharply, “Have you any idea the talk you're going to cause in those clothes? Give me one good reason why I should persist with my side of this ridiculous scheme of yours when you won't even follow the most elementary rules.”
“Oh.” Her eyelashes swept up, and her almond shaped eyes gazed at him with their habitually quizzical air. “I don't mind not wearing them in the least, milord colonel.”
Before he could react, she flung her arms wide, tossing the red and purple armful over him so he dripped foxgloves, and with a deft movement stripped away her shirt, kicked off her britches, and stood naked in the purple sea, grinning wickedly at him. “This better, sir?”
“Sweet heaven,” he murmured, his disordered senses tumbling in a maelstrom, all reason and resistance slipping from him like a boat loosed from its mooring at high tide.
She was a creature of the sun and the sea breeze and the rich wildflower fragrances, and her hands were on his waist, nimble with the buttons, her tongue peeping from between her lips, her eyes intent as she bared his belly, traced the thin dark line of hair running from his navel, down over the muscled concavity to disappear into the shadows of his body. Slowly she pushed his britches down over his hips, releasing the erect shaft of flesh. She stepped closer, pressing her belly against the hard, pulsing warmth, sliding a hand between his thighs; then she raised her eyes and laughed up at him, reaching up to brush a broken velvety purple glove from his chest.
“Better, milord colonel?”
He didn't understand why he couldn't stop this. Why he couldn't put her away from him, drag his britches up again, subdue his errant flesh, and walk away from her, back to the house. She'd broken the rules, he could legitimately refuse to be manipulated for another moment.
Instead, he stood looking down at her, lost in her eyes, his loins heavy with longing at the press of her smooth, bare belly against him. His hands moved to span her waist and her breasts trembled, her nipples rising hard against his chest.
Slowly, she sank down into the purple mattress, her hands sliding over his hips, down his thighs, as she slipped to her knees. She bent her head to take his aching stem into her mouth, teeth grazing lightly, tongue caressing in long, sweeping movements that brought a groan of joy to his lips. His fingers twisted in the silky cap of her hair; he gazed down at her bent head, the exposed nape of her neck, the sharp shoulder blades, the curve of her spine, the flare of her backside, the grass-stained soles of her feet, as she knelt to pleasure him.
He hauled himself back from the brink with a shuddering breath and came down on his knees beside her, cupping her face, taking her warm, busy mouth with his; the salty taste of his flesh was on her tongue, her skin was infused with the scents of her own arousal.
He pressed her back into the purple waves around her, and her body was pink and cream against the flower mattress. Her thighs parted for his own grazing exploration, and little murmuring cries of pleasure. bubbled from her, her fingers tangling in his hair, her hips lifting in ecstasy as his breath was hot and then cool on her petaled flesh and his tongue burned within her.
Smiling, his eyes hooded, molten with passion, he came up her body, drawing his tongue upward between her breasts, darting into the hollow of her throat, licking a little bead of sweat from her skin, his mouth once more fastening upon her lips as his hands moved beneath her to cup her buttocks, lifting her now to meet his surging entry into the silken sheath that tightened and closed around him, sending ripples of delight along his flesh so that he was moving in an exquisite world of sensation, bounded by the sweet flesh beneath him and around him.
He heard as if from a great distance her softly jubilant cries as she neared the pool of glorious extinction where she would lose herself, the shape of herself dissolved into the cool void of pure sensation. And with a supreme effort he clung to reality just long enough to withdraw from her body the instant he joined her, sinking into the ever-expanding space of eternal pleasure.
He came to himself with the sensation of the sun hot on his back. He was still clasping the small body tightly against him, and with a groan he rolled over, bringing her with him, so she lay beached on his length, her head drooping into the curve of his shoulder. She felt formless and weightless, her skin damply melding with his, and he was filled with a euphoria he'd never known before. None of his sexual adventuring had brought him this glorious satiation, this sense of fusion and peace.
Gently he patted her bottom, and Tamsyn raised her head with visible effort. “How did that happen… whatever it was?” She smiled dreamily, kissing the corner of his mouth.
“I don't know,” he said, kneading the curve of her backside. “You aren't real.”
Tamsyn chuckled weakly. “Oh, yes, I am, milord colonel. I'm flesh and blood to the very tips of my toes.” She pushed upward on his chest and sat astride his thighs. “And just to show you how real I am, I'm going to swim.”