And then the moment was shattered as platters and crockery were suddenly swept off one of the tables with an almighty crash. Rufus’s finger dropped from her nose and at last his eyes released hers.
Three men were dragging the table into the middle of the hall. “Come on, ladies. How about a dance to choose your customers?” a massive black-haired man bellowed, as he took up the role of master of ceremonies. “Doug, you play from the gallery. Ladies, take your places on the table. Gentlemen, pick your partner, and if she can outdance you, she demands her own price. If you outlast her, she’s yours for the night, no charge. Anyone who falls off the table loses. How about it?”
A surge of laughter greeted the suggestion. The women leaped onto the table, executing a few steps of a reel in invitation. Men jumped forward, pointing and shouting as they picked their partner. Under orders from the master of ceremonies, each woman jumped down to stand with the man who had chosen her, and then one couple took the table.
Doug launched into a caber dance. The man was not as surefooted as his woman, but he did his best, prancing and twirling, flinging his arms wide, while the spectators clapped the rhythm and cheered. The man took a step back, his foot slipped off the edge of the table, and he fell backward, just managing to land on his feet on the floor.
The cheers reached the rafters as the woman jumped down into his waiting arms and whispered something in his ear. He grimaced good-naturedly but nodded, then carried her away up the stairs to the gallery.
Couple after couple danced and the music grew ever faster. Portia was laughing and clapping with the rest, but her blood was pounding in her veins and her excitement was all consuming. It spilled over from that fantastical, intense moment, seemed bound up with it, but all she knew for certain was that she wanted to dance. She needed to dance. Her skin was on fire, whether with wine, excitement, or the wild swirl of the dance she didn’t know and couldn’t care. With a sudden cry of jubilation, she leaped onto the table as a couple jumped off it together. The piper hurled himself into the fastest, wildest tune he had, and she kept up with him, a whirling dervish on the broad table, hair flying, eyes blazing, her body a blur as she and the piper now engaged in a battle of endurance.
She came closer and closer to the edge of the table where Rufus stood, caught up with the rest in the frenzied magic of her dance. Without faltering, she leaned forward, hands extended toward him, then danced back, beckoning. The crowd roared and stamped. Rufus leaped onto the table. Portia tossed her head, hands on her hips as she danced, and she offered him a smile of such challenge and invitation that no man could resist.
He joined her, his feet flying, as he caught her up and tossed her into the air, sending her twisting away from him down the table, then catching her back again. She was laughing now, but with a strange wild intensity as she matched him, trying to second-guess his movements.
The stamping, shrieking audience was almost drowning out the piper. Rufus suddenly leaped backward off the table, then reached up and caught her around the waist. He held her high above his head as if he were about to toss the caber, then adjusted his hands and slung her around his neck like a shawl.
He picked up a candelabra in one hand, a flagon of wine in the other, and made for the stairs. Portia, still lost in the blood-heating power of the dance frenzy, was barely aware that Rufus was carrying her, his prize, up the wooden stairs to the gallery to the stamps and shouts of approval and a final ululating note of the pipes.
Chapter 11
Rufus knew where he was going. He always used the same chamber in Fanny’s house. Taking the flagon between his teeth, he flung open the door to a chamber at the very end of the gallery, stepped inside, and kicked it shut.
He set the candelabra on the mantel, the flagon on a small round table, and with a flourish unwound his trophy, setting her on her feet.
“I won,” Portia said breathlessly, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
“A moot point,” Rufus said, catching her chin on the palm of his hand. He kissed her mouth, his lips hard and yet pliant, his beard silky against her skin. It was as it had been that morning, and yet there was an added dimension… a sense of absolute inevitability, of destiny. Portia kissed him back with a fervor that matched the beat of her blood. The music, the shouts, the exultant cries came up from below so that she could feel the rhythm and the passion in the soles of her feet.
She was aware of nothing now except the thrilling of her blood, the scent of his skin, the feel of his mouth against hers, the taste of wine on his tongue and hers. His hands ran down her body and she rose on tiptoe, her arms sliding around his neck as she leaned into the caress.
Rufus laughed softly against her mouth. He moved one hand up to palm her scalp, holding her head steadily as with his free hand he pulled his shirt out of his britches, roughly tugged at the buttons, dragged it out of his waistband and shrugged it off his shoulders. All the while he held her mouth captive with his, and Portia’s hands ran up his back, kneaded his shoulders with hungry intensity.
He stepped back from her to kick off his boots, and she followed him, laughing, her mouth swooping and darting against his. And he laughed back, grabbing the back of her neck, pulling her face to his. His tongue plunged and plundered, raiding the soft, sweet corners of her mouth, and she opened her mouth to him, drawing his tongue deep within, refusing to let him go even as he pushed his britches off his hips and had to dance on one foot and then the other to kick them off. Then his fingers were working the buttons of her shirt, his hands sliding inside, running over her breasts, down over her rib cage, then up to her shoulders beneath the shirt, easing the garment off and away from her. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and her nipples ached and tingled with a new and wonderful sensation. She leaned back as he unbuckled and unlooped her belt. It fell to the ground. Her britches and drawers slid over her narrow hips in one movement, and her skin jumped beneath his brushing hands.
A light touch sent her tumbling back onto the bed, the britches tangled around her knees, caught on her boots. Rufus lifted her legs high as he pulled off the boots, tossing them over his shoulder to thump against the andirons. Her stockings, drawers, and britches were dismissed in the same swift, cavalier fashion, and only then did Portia realize on some far-off periphery of consciousness what was happening.
It was a fleeting realization. It contained the knowledge that if she wanted this to stop, she had only to speak. It contained the knowledge that she had issued this invitation and that the man who was about to take her virginity had no way of knowing he was about to do so.
And then it was gone. His flat palms moved up her legs, from her ankles to her thighs, spreading them gently, stroking the silky inner skin. Her core, the most secret places of her body, pulsed, open, vulnerable, aching with a need that she couldn’t form. She looked up into eyes as clear and as bright as a summer sky. They held a soul in their depths. A questioning that was both tender and demanding. And she knew, although she knew nothing of this business, that he wanted to see her response to his body, to feel it within him.
She touched him instinctively, felt his flesh leap against her palm, then he was pressing against the cleft of her body, pressing ever more deeply. She read the flash of surprise at the innate resistance of her untouched body, then she saw comprehension leap into his eyes, but before he could react, she gripped his buttocks urgently, pulling him into her. With a little sigh, he thrust deep and she was aware only of a miraculous opening, of a fullness, a pressure that filled her to the depths of her being.