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Authors: Joanna Bourne
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rocks with grim deliberation. He could have pointed her in the direction of China and she’d keep on going, one step after another, till she saw pagodas.
I don’t want to like de Fleurignac’s daughter. I don’t want to admire her.
He wasn’t sorry for what he’d do to her father. But he’d regret hurting her, if he had to.
Mistress Maggie scraped mud off her clogs on an upright rock, being a woman with a liking for lost causes, obviously. Strands of dark brown hair stuck to her forehead and her cheeks. Her clothes stuck, too, holding to the curves of her body. The tops of her breasts were stippled with little beads of sweat. Once in a while a couple of those drops got close and made friends and ran away together down the valley between her tits.
She’d be salty if he started licking her. Salty and sweet and musky. She’d taste like Maggie—like this particular woman out of all the world—with a sprinkling of dirt. There wasn’t a square inch of her he didn’t want to go over with his tongue.
If I hadn’t tasted her, I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t be thinking about it. Serves me right.
They were avoiding the main road. This cart track led to the Rouen highway, if you cut through the fields. Keep on straight and it eventually wound toward the Paris road. They hadn’t met anyone in four miles but a bashful girl with a pair of cows—the cows didn’t take kindly to donkeys—and a dung cart drawn by a horse so old even the army wouldn’t steal it.
Pear orchards stretched across the hilltops, rows of trees with a few brown cows grazing under them. Dun-colored fields, dotted with haystacks, alternated with the green and yellow-green waves of uncut hay. They’d cut that as soon as they had two dry days in a row.
The wheat was doing well. They’d get twenty bushels an acre in August and everybody would eat.
If the fighting in the Vendée didn’t spill over into Normandy . . . If the weather cooperated . . . If they could harvest it with half the men marched off to the army.
Weedy footpaths ran between fields, up over the horizon and out of sight. Off to the west he could make out the steeple of a church. They walked the long downward slope toward a thin pinewood. It would be cooler there, out of the sun.
Behind him, Maggie hit a soft spot in the road, gave a little grunt, pulled her sabot out with a suck and a squelch, and started again. He could feel her eyes boring a hole into his back. Thinking and thinking.
He shouldn’t have kissed her. I don’t chase bobtail when I’m on the job. A thousand times I’ve told some idiot, “Keep it in yer breeches when you’re working.” Now I’m the idiot.
When he’d run away from home the first time, he’d been, what? Thirteen? He’d hid out in the rookeries and docks of London, doing heavy labor. Even that young, he’d been tall as a grown man. That intrigued women. He’d had offers enough he could have slept in a different bed every night.
Being a shy lad, he’d turned them down. Mostly.
Five years later, he’d made the rounds of the Polite World. Turned out the minor son of a major earl got the same offers. It was cleaner women, but the same hot greed. The same curiosity to see if his cock measured up to the rest of him. Some just wanted a toss. Some of them, God help the fools, thought they could marry into the Markham family that way.
He was already working for the British Service then. He had access to levels of society most agents couldn’t touch. Sometimes that meant he bedded women who played spy games for France. Women with soft bodies and skilled little hands who asked about his father’s work at the War Ministry.
Copulation got to be a weary exercise when you didn’t like your partner. He’d lost his taste for casual encounters. I don’t poke my staff into every woman who wanders by.
But Lord, he wanted Maggie. He wanted to run his hands over every inch of her skin. Wanted his mouth on her. He wanted to slurp her down, like
I don’t want to like de Fleurignac’s daughter. I don’t want to admire her.
He wasn’t sorry for what he’d do to her father. But he’d regret hurting her, if he had to.
Mistress Maggie scraped mud off her clogs on an upright rock, being a woman with a liking for lost causes, obviously. Strands of dark brown hair stuck to her forehead and her cheeks. Her clothes stuck, too, holding to the curves of her body. The tops of her breasts were stippled with little beads of sweat. Once in a while a couple of those drops got close and made friends and ran away together down the valley between her tits.
She’d be salty if he started licking her. Salty and sweet and musky. She’d taste like Maggie—like this particular woman out of all the world—with a sprinkling of dirt. There wasn’t a square inch of her he didn’t want to go over with his tongue.
If I hadn’t tasted her, I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t be thinking about it. Serves me right.
They were avoiding the main road. This cart track led to the Rouen highway, if you cut through the fields. Keep on straight and it eventually wound toward the Paris road. They hadn’t met anyone in four miles but a bashful girl with a pair of cows—the cows didn’t take kindly to donkeys—and a dung cart drawn by a horse so old even the army wouldn’t steal it.
Pear orchards stretched across the hilltops, rows of trees with a few brown cows grazing under them. Dun-colored fields, dotted with haystacks, alternated with the green and yellow-green waves of uncut hay. They’d cut that as soon as they had two dry days in a row.
The wheat was doing well. They’d get twenty bushels an acre in August and everybody would eat.
If the fighting in the Vendée didn’t spill over into Normandy . . . If the weather cooperated . . . If they could harvest it with half the men marched off to the army.
Weedy footpaths ran between fields, up over the horizon and out of sight. Off to the west he could make out the steeple of a church. They walked the long downward slope toward a thin pinewood. It would be cooler there, out of the sun.
Behind him, Maggie hit a soft spot in the road, gave a little grunt, pulled her sabot out with a suck and a squelch, and started again. He could feel her eyes boring a hole into his back. Thinking and thinking.
He shouldn’t have kissed her. I don’t chase bobtail when I’m on the job. A thousand times I’ve told some idiot, “Keep it in yer breeches when you’re working.” Now I’m the idiot.
When he’d run away from home the first time, he’d been, what? Thirteen? He’d hid out in the rookeries and docks of London, doing heavy labor. Even that young, he’d been tall as a grown man. That intrigued women. He’d had offers enough he could have slept in a different bed every night.
Being a shy lad, he’d turned them down. Mostly.
Five years later, he’d made the rounds of the Polite World. Turned out the minor son of a major earl got the same offers. It was cleaner women, but the same hot greed. The same curiosity to see if his cock measured up to the rest of him. Some just wanted a toss. Some of them, God help the fools, thought they could marry into the Markham family that way.
He was already working for the British Service then. He had access to levels of society most agents couldn’t touch. Sometimes that meant he bedded women who played spy games for France. Women with soft bodies and skilled little hands who asked about his father’s work at the War Ministry.
Copulation got to be a weary exercise when you didn’t like your partner. He’d lost his taste for casual encounters. I don’t poke my staff into every woman who wanders by.
But Lord, he wanted Maggie. He wanted to run his hands over every inch of her skin. Wanted his mouth on her. He wanted to slurp her down, like
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