Bound with Passion Read online

  The carriage slowed and Georgie pushed open the door before the wheels had come to a complete stop. The footman jumped from his perch and gave his apologies as Georgie stormed past him. She spun on her heel and turned her fury on the innocent man.

  “Do stop with that, Hartley! I can’t stand how everyone is already treating me as if I am already the lady of the house, which is many years off—if ever!” She was standing very close to him, and he kept his eyes steady on some point over her shoulder. “Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, m’lady.”

  She growled at the respectful form of address and turned back toward the house. “And do not put the horses away. I am returning to Camburton as soon as I pack my trunks.”

  The butler opened the front door right before her hand landed on the knob. Even the excellent staff at Mayfield made her want to scream in frustration. Why was everyone so accommodating? She needed to get out of here just as much as Trevor needed her to get out.

  In love with her. She huffed and tore the stupid hat off her head, tossing it carelessly on the bench in the front hall, then kicked off the stupider Italian shoes, and lifted the skirt of her consummately stupid dress, and took the grand stairs two at a time.

  Mrs. Daley was coming around the corner at the top of the stairs, probably having turned back the beds in anticipation of their return.

  “Don’t say a word!” Georgie cried, lifting her palm in a gesture she hoped would prevent the other woman from speaking. “I am going to my mother’s to spend the next few weeks before we go to London for the wedding.”

  The news seemed to make Mrs. Daley well chuffed, like a little fat robin in springtime. “Well, that’s quite as it should be. A London wedding! And a young miss and her mama planning her—”

  “Stop!” Georgie wheeled on her. “Please.” She lowered her voice somewhat, but it still came out with a hint of fury. She felt—and probably looked—like a banshee.

  “Yes, m’lady.” Mrs. Daley dipped her eyes and curtseyed.

  “No, no, no!” Georgie cried, pulling at her short hair. “Not you as well. I forbid it. If one more person defers to me, I’m going to scream.”

  “You are already screaming,” Mrs. Daley pointed out helpfully.

  “That’s more like it.” Georgie sighed. “I treasure your serpent’s tongue. Now, help me pack up my things before those two men get back from their walk. I can’t take another moment of all this soppiness!”

  Mrs. Daley didn’t look the least put out by Georgie’s tantrum. In fact, if Georgie hadn’t known better, she would have said Mrs. Daley looked quite pleased about Georgie’s snit. Young Franny entered the room a few minutes later and helped fold and pack all of Georgie’s clothes and toiletries.

  Used to traveling light and quickly, Georgie knew better than most how to decamp with admirable speed and efficiency. Thirty minutes after her arrival, she was looking around the guest room to make sure none of her effects had been left behind. She would never return to this place.

  After she said her vows next month, it was quite likely she would never return to England at all. She watched as Franny clamped the last buckle on the third trunk and then stood back to make way for the two footmen who’d arrived to bring everything to the carriage.

  They all looked like they’d been asleep and had been ordered to put on their uniforms to assist her. She realized they had been ordered—by her—to do exactly that, and she felt a pang of real guilt. She reached into her smaller traveling bag, where she kept her coin, and took out a few bob. “Please give my thanks to the housemen and other servants who were inconvenienced at this late hour by my hasty departure.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Mrs. Daley said, offended. She stuck her hands beneath her apron skirt so it would be impossible for Georgie to force the money into her palm.

  “Damn you, Daley.”

  Mrs. Daley shook her head. “You’ll be back and you can say thank you properly, rather than in this crass and unladylike fashion.”

  Georgie slammed the coins on the side table in the bedroom and growled again. “For the last time, I am not, nor will I ever be, ladylike!”

  With that, she stormed from the room and felt the freedom of having abandoned that useless dress for deerskin breeches and riding boots. She practically skipped down the stairs, feeling like freedom was finally at hand.

  Yes, of course she was sad about the possible loss of her friendship with Trevor, but she refused to believe it. His silly ardor would cool, and they would probably have a wonderful correspondence at some point in the future, as they always had. If he really loved her, there was no way he could expect her to shrivel up and die in a place like this.

  She turned to look around the main hall one last time, catching a glimpse of Mrs. Daley at the top of the stairs, then opened the front door and saw the carriage. Her trunks were stacked neatly, two at the back and one on top, and she realized the last thing she wanted to do at the moment was step back inside Trevor Mayson’s barouche.

  She handed off the smaller tote she was carrying. “Take this and all the baggage to Camburton Castle at once, and I will follow on horseback.”

  “But m’lady, it’s the middle of the night, and you’ll be alone on the road—”

  “Yes, Hartley. If I’m very, very lucky, I will be alone . . . for once. Now be off!”

  She turned toward the stables and immediately started to settle—all that inquisitive, opinionated humanity behind her and her beautiful, nonchattering, nonmanaging beasts before her. Cyrus nickered when she was a few paces from the entrance of the stables. When she approached his stall, he whinnied with that aristocratic toss of his narrow Arabian head that was so particular to his line.

  “Yes, your majesty. I see you. And I too wish for a fast midnight run. We’ve been far too complacent since we arrived.” She rubbed the long, smooth line of his nose and then his buttery soft lips, slipping him one of the treats she always kept hidden in her pockets. “Shall we?”

  He lifted his chin as if he knew full well what she was suggesting and agreed wholeheartedly. She turned and found a length of rope and fashioned a head-collar while she talked to him in a string of nonsensical praise. When she slipped it over his ears, he looked like he was as grateful as she was.

  She’d been so concerned about making sure he was adjusting to the new routine, she had completely forgotten his need—and hers—to go at a full gallop several times a day. She reached for a crop out of habit. Not that Cyrus would need the slightest prodding to let loose, but she never felt like she was really riding unless she had it tucked in her hand.

  “You want to blow off steam, my love?’

  He whinnied and lifted his head twice. Saladeen looked bored as he glanced at them from his stall, while across the way, Bathsheba peered over with a disapproving look, then withdrew. Georgie laughed softly and walked Cyrus out of the stable and into the clear night. She took a deep breath and felt at peace for the first time in weeks.

  She led him to the block and got on his bare back. Her thighs gripped firmly around his middle and she leaned down to wrap her arms around his neck and burrow her face into his mane, letting him know she was there and she wouldn’t be going away . . . for now.

  The elegant beast exhaled with a gust of satisfaction, and she did too, letting her heart slow to meet the beat of his. After a few minutes of, well, communing, she supposed, she adjusted the soft rope reins in her hands, tucked the crop neatly between arm and ribs, sat up slightly, and urged him on.

  Trevor held James’s hand as they walked down the long gravel lane that led to Mayfield House. Trevor looked up and saw the outline of the medieval keep under the moonlight. As they turned a bend, the rest of the large manor house became visible against the night sky. The building was a dark silhouette, but Trevor could picture it in his mind, with all the riotous reds and metallic golds of the autumnal ivy that covered the home at this time of year. “I love it here so much. Do you ever miss the action of town?”
r />   James pulled Trevor to a halt and turned to kiss him. It was hot and passionate, not a tender, conciliatory kiss like the ones he’d given him a few minutes ago.

  “I never miss anything when I’m with you, you idiot,” James said breathlessly. “We could live in a bloody cave for all I care.”

  Trevor reached to touch James’s moist lips, loving the way they glistened in the moonlight. “Did you mean everything you said to Georgie? Do you really think she is so deplorable?”

  James pulled Trevor’s taunting finger into his mouth for a second, then released it. “Of course not. I think she’s splendid—and I think she loves you—maybe even loves both of us—but she has to come to realize all of that for herself. I was wrong when I thought we could seduce her through some version of persistent, subtle wooing.”

  “How do you think Sebastian convinced Anna to marry him?”

  James shook his head. “Apples and oranges. Anna was a penniless convent girl on her way to becoming a courtesan. Sebastian was a step on the way to her independence, an expedient.”

  “You are very cold sometimes.” Trevor started walking again. “Even so, after they were married, she obviously came to love him.”

  “Trevor, stop.”

  Trevor turned and looked at James. “What is it?”

  James reached over and touched his cheek, where he was already starting to have a bit of rough growth after only a few hours since his last shave.

  “Are you happy with what we have?” James asked.

  “God, yes.” The words came out before Trevor could even contemplate them. “I-I don’t even think of myself as me anymore, in any real sense. I feel like you and I are part of each other.”

  “So do I,” James whispered and leaned in to kiss him again.

  Trevor gasped at the intensity of it. James was pushing him off the gravel and onto the grass, with Trevor taking precarious backward steps into the darkness. “I have you,” James whispered between kisses, until he was pressing against him with Trevor’s back up against the trunk of one of the large plane trees that lined the long drive. Before Trevor was really aware of what was happening, James was pulling at the fabric of Trevor’s white linen shirt and reaching under to press his cool palm against Trevor’s hot abdomen.

  “Oh, God, you feel so right against my hand.” James’s breath caught.

  “James, I want to take you now. Here. On the cool evening grass. We won’t be able to make love out of doors for much longer this year. I want to look up at the autumn sky and feel myself inside you.”

  “Yes,” James whispered against his ear. “God, yes.”

  Trevor fumbled with his silk breeches and pulled them down enough to expose his swollen, stiff cock. “I was half-hard all through dinner, thinking of the three of us in the carriage, thinking of Georgie letting me tup her while you took me—” He gasped when James grabbed hold of his cock and began stroking him with long, nearly painful pulls. James knew exactly the pressure Trevor could bear, exactly how to bring him to the knife-edge of pain and pleasure.

  “My hands are aching to touch you,” Trevor panted. “Get yourself free, man.”

  James laughed low. “My hands are busy, mate. Do it for me, would you?”

  Trevor couldn’t see well due to the darkness, but he thought he’d be just as clumsy if it were high noon. He’d been so aroused all afternoon, then even more excited when he let his hopes rise that Georgie shared his feelings, that his fingers felt swollen with desire. He finally got James’s pants out of the way and shoved him bodily down onto the grass. Trevor was probably a good two stone heavier than James, most of it muscle, and while he didn’t always take advantage of the disparity in their strength, tonight he felt like having his way with him.

  And the idea obviously pleased James as well, if his guttural moans were to be believed. Swinging James’s body around roughly, Trevor pressed his fingers into James’s hips to hold him pinned to the ground, then took his cock into his mouth. James cried out when Trevor began to scrape his teeth along the edge of his shaft, trailing his tongue along the underside.

  Being at opposite ends as they were, Trevor moaned around James’s cock when he felt James’s mouth take him. They clung to each other, rolling and groping, looking up at the sky when they could, bringing each other to peaks of pleasure without ever going over the edge.

  Trevor was becoming frantic with wanting—wanting to fuck James, wanting James to fuck him. Their clothes were torn half to shreds. He felt a thundering desire, a pounding, quivering need to fill and be filled. And then he realized the pounding wasn’t coming from his heart—or only from his heart. One of the horses must have got loose, he thought through the fog of lust.

  “James . . . ”

  “I know! It’s incredible—”

  “James!” he yelled. “Watch out!”

  He grabbed James roughly and shoved him away from the thundering hooves in the nick of time. Both of them were panting and breathless, clinging to each other as the hot energy of sexual desire was replaced by the icy vigor of battle.

  “Who goes there?” Trevor called.

  But he knew.

  The enormous beast wheeled around and lifted its front hooves in a display of arrogance.

  Trevor put James against the tree and whispered, “Set yourself to rights and don’t move until I’ve dealt with Georgie.”

  Turning to confront her, Trevor tugged up the fall of his breeches, not bothering to refasten them entirely, but attaching a few buttons to hold them in place for the moment. His jacket was somewhere in the grass, probably covered in mud the shape of horse’s hooves. His shirt had likewise gone missing.

  His heart was pounding with a mix of terror and anger as he approached her. Riding at night without a saddle or any proper bridle or reins was sheer madness, no matter how fine a horsewoman she was. Georgie or James—not to mention Cyrus—could have been horribly injured. A morbid vision of her body thrown from the beast flashed in his mind, and caused his heart to stutter. A further image of James crushed into the earth—

  Unable to contemplate that nightmare a moment longer, he let anger overtake concern for her welfare: she was a selfish brat who needed to be taught a lesson once and for all.

  “Get down from there this instant,” Trevor commanded evenly. He knew better than to show the least hesitation or fear around Cyrus. Over the past week, man and beast had formed a burgeoning respect. The horse was panting and flaring his nostrils, unsure of which human was his true master. Trevor murmured to the animal, reaching out to pet his neck and slowly grab hold of the primitive rope bridle. Damn her for not even saddling him properly.

  The horse’s eyes flashed, showing a bit of white in the moonlight. “I’ve got you, my man . . .” Trevor continued softly, until he had calmed the horse enough to speak to Georgie. Without changing his tone or taking his eyes off the nervous, massive animal, Trevor said, “That’s right, Cyrus. You will be free in a moment. Because this wild thing on your back will dismount immediately, and I will remove this rudimentary harness that is not fit for a pauper, much less a Persian king like you.”

  Cyrus nodded his agreement, and even nuzzled into Trevor’s neck and shoulder.

  “Traitor,” Georgie muttered.

  For all of Georgie’s posturing about how she needed to help the two Arabians adjust to their new life in the north, they belonged to Trevor now, and Cyrus knew it, sensed it.

  “Get down, George.” When she didn’t move, he added more sharply, “Now.”

  James stayed against the tree, as Trevor had requested, but he might as well have been that bit of rope in Trevor’s hand for how the man’s commanding voice rolled through him. James’s heart was back to a steady pounding, the frantic gallop of lust and terror having abated somewhat. The storm of powerful horse’s hooves had been inches from his skull and—not that he was at all of a fearful or maudlin disposition—James’s own mortality had flashed before him with harsh clarity.

  And in that moment
, he’d known the truth of what he wanted: if he was going to die at the hands—or feet—of this Amazonian empress, it was not going to be by accident. He watched and waited until Trevor had calmed the horse. He stared at the way Georgie sat on its bare back, her spine so perfectly straight, her chin and jaw at that aristocratic angle. She looked as if she had nothing to prove, and everything.

  James couldn’t hear the exact words Trevor was saying, ostensibly to the horse, but when he saw Georgie’s nostrils flare and her eyes widen, he knew there was a confrontation afoot.

  “Now,” he heard Trevor say more clearly.

  Georgie slid from the sweaty horse’s strong back with one fluid, confident motion, the moonlight glinting off the horse’s slick black coat where her legs had been clinging. Then Georgie watched helplessly as Cyrus nickered and whinnied contentedly while Trevor smoothed the horse’s neck and face with firm, knowing passes. While he was doing that, Trevor was also removing the rope bridle that Georgie must have fashioned in her haste.

  Once he had removed the rope completely and let the horse smell it, Trevor wound the length in a neat coil, talking in that murmuring, soothing way all the while. He circled the animal, rubbing him, owning him, as he checked for injuries and let Cyrus know he was loved and honored. Then, when Trevor was near his rear haunches, he slapped him with a quick, friendly spank and cried, “Off you go!”

  James loved horses as much as Trevor did, but James’s love was grounded in a healthy fear, whereas Trevor’s was grounded in mutual adoration. The horse whinnied and sprang about, all that black, shining muscle quivering in the moonlight, silhouetted against the lake like an enormous version of a giddy spring lamb. Then Cyrus looked back toward Trevor one last time, asking for permission.