Mary Balogh - Red Rose

Why, then, did he feel this impossible attraction to the girl? It was years since he had been tempted by a lady of quality. His tastes had drawn him to women of the theater, with whom he could very quickly satisfy his appetites. There was no way he could rid himself of the desire he felt for his ward. In fact, he felt quite humiliated even to admit to himself that he did want her. He must concentrate on his dislike of her, he reminded himself as he kept urging his horse to a slightly faster speed to keep pace with hers. His rose!

Suddenly he found himself left behind as Rosalind spurred her mount into a gallop. She did it partly to show him that she cared nothing for his admonitions; Yet she had intended when she left the house to blow away the cobwebs of her mind. She bent low over the horse's neck and urged him on ever faster and faster. When she saw a hedge approaching, she made no attempt to avoid it but soared over with a feeling of great exhilaration. She felt again the thrill of speed and uninhibited motion. On horseback she could forget her disability; she was the equal of anyone. She was aware of Raymore half a length behind her. The need to stay ahead of him added to her excitement. With Flossie she could have done so with ease.

There was another hedge at the far side of the field through which they now raced. There was also a five-barred gate, higher than the level of the hedge. Rosalind turned her horse's head so that she galloped directly toward it.

Raymore saw her intention at a glance. He gritted his teeth and knew a moment of blank terror. She would kill herself. Even if the horse did not catch a leg on the top bar and plunge them both to the ground, she would never be able to keep her seat over such a height, mounted as she was on a sidesaddle. He considered trying to head her off, but that would mean risking collision and almost as much danger.

He took the hedge at the same time as she soared over the gate with inches to spare. Rosalind immediately pulled back on the reins and eased the horse to a walk. She had turned its head so that it could keep to the cooler shade beside the hedge. She leaned forward and patted its neck.

The next moment a very firm gloved hand grasped the reins and her horse was pulled to an abrupt halt. The Earl of Raymore was off his own mount almost as quickly. He reached up, caught Rosalind by the waist, and almost dragged her to the ground. The horses wandered off, side by side, in search of some longer grass on which to graze.

Before Rosalind could make any sort of protest, she was being shaken by hands that held her shoulders in a bruising grip. Her head flopped back and forth like a rag doll. Her riding hat fell to the ground and her hair cascaded down over her shoulders and face.

"Damn you to hell!" Raymore was shouting. "You could have killed yourself, do you realize that? You hotheaded, stubborn fool!"

When he finally stopped shaking her, Rosalind had a hard time catching her breath and her sense of balance. She clung to his arms in self-defense. "Stop treating me like a child," she cried, her voice shaking. "I am mortally sick of your constant spying and scolding. Leave me alone!" She struggled to free herself from his grip but only found herself hauled firmly against his chest, her hands imprisoned between them.

"By God, Rosalind," he said between his teeth, "I shall teach you that you cannot bait me and get away with it."

His mouth was savage on hers, as it had been the last time, she remembered. But that last time he had not tumbled her immediately to the ground, his weight pinning her to the grass and depriving her momentarily of breath. He had not then proceeded to dispense with her upper garments so that almost before she understood his intentions his hands were on her naked breasts, his mouth and tongue plundering her own before trailing a hot path down her throat and to her breasts. But then that other time her hands had not unbuttoned his coat and roamed over the thin silk of his shirt to feel the firm muscles of his chest, the rippling muscles of his arms.

"Rosalind," he was murmuring over and over again. "My rose! My red rose!" His hands twined in her thick dark hair until his fingers rested against her scalp. He turned her head up to him again and traced her parted lips with his tongue before covering them with his own and exploring the warm excitement of her mouth.

"Edward," she moaned when he lifted his head again, "oh, please. Please!"

He had to have her. He would go mad with longing if he had to wait just one moment longer. He had to be one with her, had to be inside her. He eased his weight half off her and reached down to pull up the skirt of her heavy riding habit. His hand caressed her slim legs as his mouth sought out the pulse at the base of her throat. She twisted her hands in his hair and gasped out his name.

His hand stroked and caressed its way up one leg to the knee, along her warm inner thigh, over the tight muscles of her stomach to the fastenings of her undergarments at her waist.

She wanted him so desperately. He was moving so slowly, pulling loose now the ribbons that kept him away from her. Finally his warm and gentle hand was against the bare flesh of her stomach, moving to one side to trace her hip before continuing its descent. Rosalind was raw sensation. She would explode if he did not release this tension soon. She arched her hips against his hand, parting her legs, willing him lower.

He raised his head and she gazed into his passion-heavy blue eyes. Beautiful eyes that she could drown in. "My rose!" he murmured. The eyes and voice heavy with feeling, the hand worshiping her body. So different from usual. From usual! Rosalind was suddenly jerked back to reality. She was lying under a hedge in an open field in broad daylight, almost naked to the waist, her skirt bunched up around her hips, within a few moments of being bedded by the Earl of Raymore. And inviting and responding to his advances every step of the way. With a cry of panic, she pushed at his chest and rolled to one side, pulling her skirt down with shaking hands as she did so.

"Rosalind!" he protested in bewilderment.

"Go away! Leave me alone!" she cried, leaping to her feet and, her back to him, pulling her blouse around her and buttoning it up. "Do you think I am a servant or a milkmaid to be rolled on the ground like this? I am the niece of the former Earl of Raymore and your ward. I am betrothed and soon to be wed. Do you hate me so much that you must ruin me and spoil my one chance of a respectable future?"

She babbled on, not knowing half of what she said. Finally her jacket had been buttoned up again and her hat and riding crop gathered from the ground. In her frenzy she had tried to find enough hairpins in the grass to pin up her hair again, but it was a hopeless task. She limped across to where Prince was grazing and mounted unassisted into the sidesaddle. Without a backward glance at her companion, who had not uttered a word since her outburst, she spurred the horse into a gallop across the field.

Raymore, who had been sitting with his head resting on his updrawn knees, looked up as she moved away. What a fool he was! She was easily the most accomplished horsewoman he had ever seen, as he would have realized earlier had he not been blinded by irrational fears for her safety. She was true grace and beauty as she disappeared from sight, dark hair streaming out behind her.

And, God, more than a fool. A prize idiot! He loved her. He loved Rosalind Dacey, the woman to whom of all others he felt most antagonistic. Of course! He must have felt it from the start, and some inner instinct of self-preservation had reacted with such terror that he had convinced himself that the opposite was true, that he hated her. God help him, he had lost, cruelly lost, every woman to whom he had entrusted his love and now it was happening again. But this time he had lost her before ever having her. He had done everything in his power to make her hate him, and hate him she did. He had used every effort to find her a husband, to be rid of her before he was forced to recognize his love of her. And she was now betrothed to a man with whom she seemed quite contented and who obviously desired her. And he had just insulted her beyond endurance. The terrifying experience of expecting her each moment to break her neck had snapped his control. If she had not broken away when she had, he would be lying with her now, his seed inside her, contemplating the worst dilemma of his life. He would have been forced to marry a woman who hated him, keeping her away forever from the man with whom she could be happy.

He had lost again, and through his own stupidity this time. Raymore looked up at the blue sky and laughed harshly. But the smile on his face faded quickly and he rested his forehead on his knees again. He could not get that song out of his head. Words that had eluded him for days were suddenly there with cruel clarity:

Rosalind!

Sylvia had passed a restless night. She felt extremely foolish having discovered that yet again she had only imagined herself in love. But tbis time it was impossible to get out of the entanglement that she found herself in. Lord Standen was a man of principle and impeccable reputation. Their betrothal had been publicly celebrated in London at his sister's ball and was being celebrated this week. She had been accepted by his mother. Plans for a wedding in the autumn were already being made. She could not possibly tell him now that she did not wish to be his wife.