‘… back parlour, Mr Nick, and no fear … anyone will … big house. It’s a great day, that’s for sure.’
Nick ushered them all firmly through into the room the innkeeper indicated and opened a door in the panelling at the rear. Katherine glimpsed the foot of a narrow flight of stairs. ‘Up there are the rooms, choose whichever you wish for yourself and Jenny.’
‘You sound as though you know this place,’ she observed, only to interrupted by a hearty chuckle from the inn keeper.
‘That he does, hinny, that he … I mean to say, ma’am, we remember Mr Nick from years back. When he was just a lad,’ he added hastily with a glance at Nick. ‘I’ll just take your bags up, I expect you ladies would prefer the back room, it being quieter, like.’
‘Hinny?’
‘You are lucky he didn’t call you hen or flower.’ Nick smiled, suddenly looking five years younger. ‘It’s good to hear the accent again.’
The old inn was like a haven before a storm, Katherine thought two hours later as she curled into the corner of the settle in front of the fire after dinner.
Nick and John were playing cards with an ancient pack Nick had somehow known to find on the mantelshelf and Jenny was leaning over John’s shoulder, egging him on to wild bets with the broken pieces of spill they were using for gaming counters.
From the public taproom across the hall came the sound of a fiddle and an instrument the like of which Katherine had never heard.
The windows were snug behind curtains apparently made from a cast-off chintz gown and the fire flickered and glowed, casting hot light over the flagged floor and gleaming off the old polished oak of settles and tables.
Candles cast more intimate pools of light on the hands of the card players and made strange masks of their faces. Under-lit, John’s double chin was exaggerated, Jenny’s brown hair gave off red glints and Nick’s face was unguarded as he fanned the cards in his hand, his head slightly cocked, his underlip just caught by sharp white teeth as he considered his bet.
‘I will meet you and raise you ten.’
Suddenly she saw the young man of six years ago, straightforward, untried, proud and hot at hand. He must have sat here on many an evening with friends, perhaps with the sons of local farmers and squires, learning to keep their faces straight whether they held good hands or bad, flirting with the barmaids, boasting of their horses. Her mouth curved in an unconscious smile.
John folded with a groan, tossing his hand on the table. ‘You’re bringing me no luck at all,’ he chided Jenny. ‘Go and jinx the master’s hand, why don’t you?’
Nick laughed and reached out long fingers to gather up the pile of spills. His eyes met Katherine’s and suddenly he was still. The smile faded from his lips and his shadowed eyes seemed to speak straight to hers. The room went quiet, so quiet that the crackle and spit of the fire and the tic-toc of the battered mantel clock sounded louder than the music from across the way.
‘You can’t afford to lose any more, John,’ Jenny said brightly. ‘I want to hear the music—they might be dancing.’
‘They will be,’ Nick told her, scooping up the cards and tapping them back into one pack. ‘Why don’t you go on and tell me what you think of the Northumberland pipes?’
Jenny needed no further urging. She tugged John grumbling out of his chair and out of the room. The volume of the music swelled, diminished and swelled again, marking their progress through the doors into the tap.
Katherine swallowed. She knew perfectly well what Jenny was up to, wretched chit. She had some romantic idea of throwing her mistress together with ‘the master’ and confounding all talk of annulment.
Nick got up lazily and wandered over to replace the cards where he had found them and toss the handful of spill fragments on to the fire. He stood gazing into the firelight, one foot up on the high fender seat, his forearm resting on his bent knee.
Katherine was so jumpy she felt sure she could feel the nerves crawling under her skin. If only he would say something. She had a careful store of unexceptional subjects for conversation: how much later the season was up here, how much smaller the lambs were than in the south, how surprised she was not to find great mountains, how far were they from the sea?
Nick straightened up and came to sit beside her on the settle, propping his feet up on the fender and falling into a relaxed slump that somehow managed to look elegant. Still he did not speak. Katherine clamped her teeth firmly together to prevent herself beginning to babble of nothings.
‘You look very comfortable.’ His remark was so sudden she almost jumped.
‘Doubtless you are about to make a cat-comparison,’ she grumbled, attempting to inject a note of humour.
‘Well, you are not quite purring, Kat. What would it take to make you purr, I wonder?’
You could listen only to the teasing, she realised, or you could listen to the sensual undercurrent in his voice. ‘Oh, cream and a feather cushion and a mouse to catch. This is a very comfortable room.’
‘It is, is it not?’ He seemed pleased with her appreciation. ‘I have always thought so. What do you like about it, Kat?’
She considered, head on one side in thought. ‘I like the entire inn. I like its size—it is so snug and homely. I love the way it sits here in the shelter of the hill, half-hidden, its back protected from the wind. I like the faded old fabrics and the deep glow on the furniture.’ She thought some more, letting the comfort and security of the old house sink into her bones. ‘Yes, homely. Perhaps I can find somewhere like this to live.’
‘Ah.’ Nick seemed momentarily disconcerted and Katherine had a qualm that she had been tactless. What if his home was like the bleak foursquare farmhouses and manors they had passed so frequently? ‘You would not prefer something just a little larger?’
‘Well, perhaps just a little.’ Somehow his arm had crept around her shoulders and she was curled more against his side than the settle cushions. How had that happened?
‘Kat.’
‘Hmm?’ She looked up, having to tilt her head back against his shoulder to do so, and his mouth found hers.
This was not the desperate last kiss of a condemned man, nor was it the first sensuous celebration of a reprieved one. This was an assured, deliberate claiming, a determined attempt at seduction by a man who appeared to have no doubt he would succeed.
He held her, not brutally but firmly, so that she could not escape without fighting; that, somehow, did not seem to be an option. He held her with those long, strong fingers while his mouth systematically removed every trace of resistance.
Her own lips had no choice but to part under the pressure of his, her own tongue seemed to know just how to meet the challenge of his as it touched, flickered, tasted, then plunged and took quite ruthlessly.
She was bent back over one imprisoning arm, her breasts crushed achingly against his chest and suddenly he left her mouth and began to nibble the length of her throat, down the delicate, tender curves, down to where the pulse raged in the angle of her collarbone.
Katherine moaned, part in protest that he had abandoned her mouth, part in exquisite agony at the havoc he was wreaking now with his teeth and lips.
She was so hot, so … needing. She wanted him to touch her everywhere and did not know quite why. Her body arched against him, untutored, innocently demanding. He growled deep in his throat in response and his mouth was suddenly on the curve of her breast, impatiently pushing aside the modesty of the fichu she had tucked in around her shoulders. She moaned, whimpered.
‘Purr for me, my Kat.’ His voice was husky, muffled against the taut swell of her breast. And then