Andrew Lord of Despair(34)

“Shall you come, sweetheart?” he asked, his warm hands palming her breasts. “A sweet, easy pleasure at the end of your day?” He teased at her nipples, kissed her shoulders, and rocked himself slowly in and out of her body as if they had years, not mere days to enjoy each other.

“Andrew, I’m going to… Andrew—”

“Let me love you easy this time,” he murmured. “You relax. I’ll bring it to you.” He set up a slow, deep thrusting; maintained a steady, gentle rolling of her nipples; a patter of words and kisses and nibbles that, indeed, brought Astrid’s pleasure to her.

Andrew’s loving was profoundly sweet, also heartbreaking—for her. She had no notion how it was for him, and that was yet another heartbreak.

***

When ladies fainted in stuffy ballrooms, a bit of drama always ensued. The nearest pair of debutantes often took to shrieking, while the dowagers bellowed for their hartshorn and the hostess sent the footmen scampering to open windows that had been opened hours previous. How could passersby appreciate the spectacle of Polite Society dressed in its finest unless the windows were open and the drapery pulled aside?

Some gentleman would gently deposit the afflicted lady on a chair, and she’d flutter gracefully back to awareness, certain her loss of consciousness would be the butt of gossip and speculation for at least two entire days.

Astrid fluttered back to awareness, certain that cat breath had to be the worst scent a lady was ever subjected to.

“I’m fine,” she told her rescuer, who sat back on his tabby haunches and closed his yellow eyes. “I simply left the bed too quickly.”

The beast hopped onto the bed, curled up in the warmth Astrid had left behind, and went about dreaming his feline dreams, while Astrid donned riding attire and hoped a fainting spell was not something Andrew might divine by inspecting her.

By the time she had purloined raspberry jam and toast from the kitchen, she’d concluded that the fainting spell had been an aberration, and nothing to be alarmed about. She munched her toast on her way to the stables and promised herself nothing was going to spoil her last day of freedom before her in-laws appeared on the morrow.

She found Andrew currying a tall, black gelding. A petite mare, already under saddle, stood sedately in her stall, lipping at hay while she watched Andrew with the other horse.

“I don’t think the mare likes the thought of sharing you,” Astrid observed, biting into her toast.

“Possibly, but more likely she doesn’t like the thought of sharing Magic.” He came around to Astrid’s side of the horse, kissed her nose, and stole a bite of her toast.

How casually he charmed, and how thoroughly.

“Besides,” he went on as he resumed grooming the gelding, “she knows better than to be jealous of me, for I love her dearly, don’t I?” He blew a kiss to the mare, who didn’t so much as pause in her chewing.

“I don’t think she doubts your love,” Astrid said, walking up to the gelding and reaching out a hand toward his great Roman nose.

“Of course she doesn’t,” Andrew said quietly. “She’s a smart lady and knows I give her every bit of myself I can.”

“Lucky her.” To be a horse, whose heart could be broken only by an absence of oats in her bucket or grass in her paddock. “This magnificent fellow is Magic?”

“One and the same. Gareth gave him to me, probably because he didn’t have the patience for him,” Andrew said, placing a saddle pad across the horse’s broad back.

“What’s his breeding?”

“Don’t know.” Andrew settled the saddle over the pad. “He’s twitchy enough to be bloodstock, but big enough there has to be some draft in him not too far back. For all I know, he’s a reject from the Gypsy fair. But we elegant, noble fellows of good bone have to stick together, don’t we?” he asked the horse as he reached under its belly for the girth.

And females intent on enjoying the morning had to take that hint. Astrid led the mare to the ladies’ mounting block and climbed aboard, arranging her skirts while Andrew rechecked Magic’s girth and bridle.

“Let me know when you ladies are situated, because once I’m up, we’ll move off directly at the walk.”

Magic looked around, seemingly ill at ease in the yard, though he’d been living on the property for months.

“We are situated,” Astrid said, petting the mare.

Andrew was up in the saddle in one smooth movement, no small feat given the height of the horse. Magic danced and wheeled, while Andrew merely nodded at Astrid and followed as she moved her mare forward at the walk.