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He shrugged. “I told you it was stupid.”
Wilhelmina laughed. “Sam Pellow, you hypocrite. You, who had once railed at me for degrading myself as a demirep, wanted to set me up for yourself? My, my. How things change.”
“It was the ultimate hypocrisy. I was ashamed ten years ago and still am. I’m sorry, Willie. It was beastly of me to want that from you.”
“Is that what you still want, Sam?”
“No, Willie girl, I would never ask that of you. Besides, you’re too good for me now. A highly respectable woman. A duchess!”
“I’d be anything for you, Sam.”
“Ah, Willie.”
And he kissed her again. Despite all the years gone by, despite the opposite directions their lives had taken, despite the very different person each of them now was, it was nevertheless a hauntingly familiar sensation to be held in his arms. Back in Porthruan, though, they’d both been i
Sam tried to ignore the drops of rain that began to fall on his face, not wanting anything to interrupt this moment with Willie. But when it suddenly began to pour in earnest, he was forced to end the kiss.
“Damnation. We’ll have to make a run for it, my girl. Follow me.”
He took her by the hand and rushed to the door of the church, but it was locked. Tugging her with him, he hurried into the nearest shelter: an open stable behind the church.
“Damn and blast.” Sam shrugged out of his wet coat and began to shake it out. “It seems I am destined to ruin all my clothes this day.” He looked up to find Willie flicking her damp skirts. “Here, take my coat. At least it’s dry inside.”
He placed the coat around her shoulders, then wrapped his arms around her waist beneath it. Bending his head to hers, he said, “Now, where were we?”
Wilhelmina pushed him away playfully. “No, where are we? Sam, you old sea dog, did you plan this?”
“The rain? I may be a good sailor, but I ca
“Not the rain. This.” She swept out an arm to indicate their surroundings.
A slow grin quirked his mouth as he looked around. When his gaze took in the hayloft above his head, he laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“If you did not plan this, please do not tell me. It is much too romantic to be coincidence. Are you going to make love to me in the hayloft, Sam?”
He pulled her close. “There is nothing I want more, Willie. But only if you want it, too.”
“You know I do. I have wanted it almost since the moment you invited me to join you for tea in the taproom. I have been determined that we should catch up with each other in more ways than simple conversation.”
Sam arched an eyebrow. “Willie, what instructions did you give to that hatchet-faced factotum of yours when he came to our table?”
She smiled sheepishly, and the merest hint of a blush colored her cheeks. “Why do you ask?”
“I have a hunch that wheel was in perfect condition when I arrived. What did you say to him?”
“I asked him to do whatever it took to keep you from leaving tonight.”
He laughed and brushed a kiss against the top of her head. “You cheeky wench. And the blasted pigs? Were those his doing as well?”
“Smeaton is very thorough and very resourceful. And I wanted this night with you, Sam.”
“Then you shall have it, my girl.” His heart soared with delight that she had orchestrated his delay. He took her hand and led her toward a wooden ladder leading up to the loft. “Come. Let us pretend to be eighteen and sixteen again, when life was simple and love was new. Just for a few hours, let’s recapture our youth, and each other.”
He’d been dashing up stepped ladders between decks for years, but he went slowly this time, guiding Willie in front and taking each step with care. When they reached the loft, it was as though years had melted away and they were back in Cornwall in her father’s barn. But Sam had been an awkward, inexperienced youth in that hayloft. He trusted he could perform with more skill and polish in this one.
He took the coat from her shoulders and spread it out on the hay, then laid Willie down upon it. He untied his neck-cloth and joined her, and took her in his arms and kissed her. He slid his mouth to the sweet, vulnerable skin of her throat, then allowed his lips to cruise the elegant length of her neck. His hands slid over the silky fabric of her dress, tracing the feminine curve of hip and thigh as his lips continued their exploration. She purred like a kitten, and Sam’s blood heated at the sound. He wanted to invade her, to possess her, to transport her to the heights of pleasure…
“Ouch!”
He stiffened. “Did I hurt you, my girl?”
She wriggled beneath him, and not seductively but as though she was uncomfortable. “No, I was just being poked in the neck by a sharp bit of hay. It was nothing.”
He kissed her mouth again, then buried his face in her slender neck, ru
She looked up at him, blue eyes twinkling with mirth, and soon they were both laughing.
“How did we ever manage this before?” he asked as he sat up, brushing the hay from his shirt. “It’s like making love on the back of a hedgehog, for God’s sake.”
“I think we must have been so young that we never noticed how uncomfortable it was.”
Sam helped her to sit up, all the while thinking what a mess he’d made of this seduction. She must think him the clumsiest and most unsophisticated of men. No better than the callow youth she’d once known.
“Don’t look so forlorn, Sam.” She smiled and stroked his cheek. “I know it seems very romantic to think we have come full circle, from one hayloft to another, with two decades and more in between. But it doesn’t have to be a hayloft, you know. I have a perfectly comfortable bed back at the Blue Boar.”
Hope flared in his chest. “Are you inviting me into that bed, Willie?”
“Yes. I want to make love with you. Not for old times’ sake, but for now. For tonight.”
He kissed her. “For tonight. Come on, then. Let’s behave like two adults, get out of this damned prickly hay, and find that bed of yours.”
Once in her bedchamber, they lost no time in renewing their passion. They each plucked impatiently at the other’s clothes, and their own, until every garment had fallen into a tangle at their feet.
Wilhelmina was rather vain about her body. Indeed, she was quite proud of it. Because her face and figure had been her fortune, she had taken good care of both. She exercised to keep her muscles taut and youthful, riding and walking regularly, and working in her small garden. And she did not allow herself to overindulge in either food or drink, which helped to keep her waistline trim. It was not a girl’s body-there was only so much one could do to hold back time-but neither was it matronly. She felt no shame in displaying it to Sam.
And he had no cause for shame, either. He was no longer the beautiful young boy she’d known, but a magnificently beautiful man.
She stroked the hair on his chest. “There was a lot less of this on the boy I knew back in that other hayloft.”
“And a lot less girth around the waist.”
“Nonsense. You’re remarkably trim. With girth in all the right places.” Her hand traced the muscles of his chest and shoulders.
“I could say the same about you, my girl. In fact, you look better than you have any right to.”
“I wish you’d gone bald and run to fat, Sam. You’d be much easier to resist.”