Ha. He’d drink himself into a stupor, stumble upstairs, and fall into bed to wake foggy-headed in the morning. He’d been doing that far too often of late. He should—
“Oh. Er. Ah. Argh.”
The grunts and squeaks were coming from Caro’s room! He leaped to his feet, bounded for the connecting door—
And paused with his hand on the latch.
He’d have sworn Caro wasn’t in any danger from Woods or Archie or the other men, given the Christmas merriment and fellow feeling that had overtaken everyone in the Long Gallery earlier—and the fact that the rumor of his affair with her had spread throughout the house.
A rumor that, oddly enough, Mrs. Brooks seemed quite happy about.
He must have imagined the sounds. He didn’t hear anything now. He put his ear to the door to check . . .
Zounds! That was a yelp followed by a thud!
His heart jumped into his throat, and he threw open the door—
To see Caro sitting on the floor, scowling up at him, the neck of her dress twisted around as if she were trying to strangle herself.
There was no one else in the room.
“Caro! Are you all right? What are you doing?”
She was alone, wasn’t she? Should he look under the bed? Or in the wardrobe?
“What does it look like I’m doing?” She sounded very annoyed.
“Er, sitting on the floor?”
She appeared to grind her teeth at this inanity before saying, with barely restrained temper, “Of course I’m sitting on the floor. Any idiot can see that.” She tried to get up, but accidently put her hand on her skirt, pinning herself to the spot.
He approached her cautiously. “Would you like some help?”
“No.” She tried to get up again, but with just as little success. “Oh, fiddle. I told you skirts were the work of the devil.”
He bit his lip so as not to laugh and extended a hand wordlessly.
For a moment he thought she might bite his fingers, but then she sighed and let him pull her to her feet.
She stumbled—well, he might have pulled a little harder than necessary—and braced herself by putting her free hand on his chest.
His bare chest. Zeus! He felt the imprint of her palm and each of her fingers as if they’d burned themselves into his heart—and a far less noble organ.
She snatched her hand back. “Must you go around naked?”
He laughed, though the sound was a little shaky even to his ears. “Are you asking me to shed my breeches, Caro? I will be delighted to do so, if you insist.”
“What?” She glanced down as if to confirm that his lower regions were still properly clad.
Perhaps she wouldn’t notice, but he feared his fall was bulging conspicuously. It felt as if his cock had swollen to several times its normal size.
Her cheeks flared bright red.
She’d noticed.
She looked back up into his face with . . . alarm? He hoped not.
Compassion tempered desire. “Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I won’t hurt you.”
She snorted, though her eyes shied from his. “I’m not w-worried. Of course I’m not. How ridiculous.”
She was worried. She was afraid of him—or perhaps not afraid, but not at ease, either.
He suddenly remembered how she’d stared at him—and at a particular part of him—last night when she’d come into his room, and an audacious thought presented itself. Perhaps she needed to feel her power. She did seem to like to be in charge of things.
He’d be happy to give her that opportunity. It might be difficult, but he would rise to the occasion.
The most relevant part of him already had.
“Since you’re here,” she said rather waspishly, “you may as well make yourself useful.” She tilted her head forward to reveal the top of her dress. “I was trying to untie my tapes when I lost my balance. I’m sure they are knotted.”
“Ah.” His eyes focused on her skin instead, on the nape of her neck, on the sensitive spot just under her ear that his lips had brushed that morning . . .
“Well, are they?”
They? What—oh! The tapes.
“Yes.” He cleared his throat of the desire clogging it. “They are knotted.”
She tried to crane around to see, but only succeeded in lurching up against his chest again—with more than just her hand this time. He steadied her, held her . . .
He thought he felt her relax, but he might have been mistaken, the sensation was so fleeting.
“Oh!” She pulled back, and he let her go.
He smiled. “I see how you ended up on the floor.”
He got a scowl in reply.
“Turn around and let me look at the knot again, will you?”
She growled low in her throat, but did as he asked.
Mmm. Her twisting about had sent one lock of hair tumbling down her back. He ran his fingers through it. It was so heavy and silky . . .
“What are you doing?” She sounded more annoyed than nervous.
“Moving your hair so I can see the knot better.”
“Well don’t take all night about it.”
He’d love to take all night....
Hell, it might take that long to undo the knot. “I need better light. Come into my room. I’ve got an Argand lamp on my desk.”
He put his hand on the small of her back to guide her—and she didn’t object, though she didn’t seem to be especially pleased by his touch, either.
“Right over here,” he said. He pulled out the chair at his writing desk and had her sit sideways on it so he could reach her back easily. Then he knelt down and moved the lamp closer. He had to push or pull on her shoulders a few times to position her precisely where he could get the light most focused on the knot.
“Don’t set me aflame.”
“I won’t as long as you sit still. You’re not making this any easier, you know, with all your squirming.”
“I’m not squirming.”
He could make her really squirm, but, sadly, that would also make her angry. It certainly wouldn’t help him get her tapes untied and free her from her dress.
His cock perked up in interest again.
So she can go to bed.
His cock endorsed that thought enthusiastically.
To sleep! Nothing else.
Unless . . .
He put the thought aside to attack the knot. He tried with his fingers, but they were too fat. He needed something sharp, but he’d trimmed his nails just before he’d left London....
There was only one solution.
Caro jumped as he leaned closer.
“What are you doing?!”
“I’m not a vampire, if that’s what’s worrying you. I’m just trying to loosen the knot.”
“With your teeth?”
“Yes. Haven’t you ever done that?”
“N-no.”
“No? Perhaps you keep your nails longer than I do.”
He inhaled, filling his lungs with the scent of her soap and hair and her. Then he bit one strand and worried it, brushing his cheek against her skin.
He might have prolonged that effort a bit. Her skin and hair were so soft. He could feel her tension, hear her sharp intake of breath, smell her desire. . . .
No, I can’t. I’m not a dog, either.
But he still thought she was . . . Well, aroused might be too strong a word. Interested?
Finally, he had to admit he’d loosened the knot enough that his fingers could finish the job. Regretfully, he leaned back and pulled the tapes apart.
“There you go.”
“Thank you.” Caro bolted out of her chair.
Sadly, her bodice was not loose enough to droop in any significant way.
But she also had tapes at her waist.
“Let me get the other ties for you.”
She flushed. “I can manage by myself.”
He raised an eyebrow, and she laughed.
“Oh, very well. I supp
ose you can play lady’s maid if you insist.” She presented her back to him, a stiff, slightly trembling back.
She wasn’t afraid of him, was she?
Perhaps she’s afraid of herself.
Right. That was his cock talking.
“These are in better shape. At least I won’t need to use my teeth to loosen them.” He tugged a few times, and—voila!—Caro was free. The back of her dress opened—to reveal stays and shift.
She grabbed her dress as she spun around to face him. “Th-thank you.”
He smiled, staying where he was and trying to appear as unthreatening as he could. “You’re welcome. How do you manage normally?”
She looked toward her room as if she’d like to flee. “Oh. I-I don’t usually have any problems. I’m just a little n-nervous now.”
“Why?”
She frowned at him. “I . . . I’m not used to sharing, ah, space with a m-man.” She took a deep breath and then said so quickly the words almost tripped over one another, “I think the danger is past, N-Nick. Mr. Woods hardly looked my way in the Long Gallery, he was so intent on the Christmas preparations. And if Archie said anything, it made no difference. Everyone is talking about you and me. Our charade is a complete success. We don’t need to act it out in private any longer.”
Her voice squeaked up at the end of her little speech. She swallowed rather convulsively and took another deep breath.
He spoke before she could try to drown him in another verbal deluge.
“What’s really bothering you, Caro?”
* * *
“I told you.”
One of the man’s evil eyebrows arched up.
Oh, blast. Yes, Nick was right. She hadn’t been thinking of the Weasel or Archie or the success of their charade when she’d managed to knot her tapes so thoroughly. She’d been thinking of him and how he’d made her feel this morning.
And her decision to experiment.
What had seemed so splendid and brave on the main staircase didn’t feel quite so brilliant in Nick’s bedchamber.
She wasn’t usually so totty-headed. It must be the bloody holiday. The hideous merriment. The hail-fellow-well-met jollity. It had been so thick in the Long Gallery earlier she could barely breathe. And it would only get worse. Tomorrow they were going to gather holly and ivy—and mistletoe!— and sing carols and have that stupid Nativity play and light the Yule log just like they used to do at home.
At her family’s home where she hadn’t been in thirteen years.
She much preferred Christmas at the Benevolent Home. Things there were so much tidier. They had committees to handle everything: decorating, baking, making presents for the children. There weren’t all these loud men.
Maybe that’s what was reminding her of her family—the men. The Home had only single women. Friends.
Well, perhaps not friends, precisely, but they were all in the same boat—or at least the same flotilla, charting their course across life’s stormy seas.
“Caro . . .”
Nick took a step toward her. She took a step back, holding up her hand to stop him.
And then she had to grab at her dress again to keep it from—
What? It had long sleeves and a high neck. It wasn’t going to fall off.
“Caro,” he said again, his voice gentle and . . . kind?
It was rather disarming, that note of kindness.
There’d been no kindness with Dervington.
Kindness? Ha! Kindness required seeing someone as a person. She finally understood that Dervington hadn’t seen her. He’d seen a female body. He’d been feeling goatish and had decided to make use of her, just as he would eat a joint of beef if he were feeling peckish. Their two encounters had been only physical—no more than what animals might do.
She had no interest in ever again submitting to that sort of mauling.
And yet . . .
For years, she’d listened to women at the Home talk about carnal relations with enthusiasm—and had shaken her head in disbelief. She was certain they must be engaging in puffery if not out-and-out lying, like her brothers had used to do to make themselves sound braver or faster or stronger than they were and so earn their friends’ admiration and envy.
What the women said couldn’t be true. But if it was? Then she must be fundamentally different from them.
She hadn’t thought herself a rara avis. Neither Pen nor Jo had shown any interest in male companionship in the years Caro had known them. Pen had a daughter, so she’d obviously experienced a carnal encounter or two. Jo was a widow who, Caro surmised from things she’d said, didn’t miss her marital duties in the slightest.
But then the Earl of Darrow had come to Little Puddledon, and everything had changed. Pen—the Home’s skilled, smart, responsible, hop grower—had succumbed to love, throwing away everything she had, everything she’d worked for, to be with the father of her daughter and live happily ever after.
Blech. It didn’t even make a believable fairy tale; it was too hackneyed and mawkish.
Still, Caro had been deeply, deeply shaken. And skeptical. She’d felt sure Pen would have a rude awakening, face reality, and come back to Little Puddledon and the Benevolent Home, tail between her legs, soon enough. And Caro would happily—graciously—welcome her back without a single I-told-you-so.
Except Pen hadn’t come back. She married the earl and, according to her last letter, was enceinte and deliriously happy.
Anyone could feign happiness in a letter.
But I saw Pen that night when she’d got back from, ah, visiting the earl at the guest cottage.
There had been nothing feigned about Pen’s joy then. She’d been . . . Well, the only word for it was glowing. And now she was pregnant. There was only one way that could have happened.
Caro had to admit, much as it pained her to do so, that she was more than a little envious of Pen. And she felt . . . off-balance. Forced to question things she’d thought long-ago decided.
Here’s my chance to see if I can feel what Pen and the other women at the Home said they’ve felt.
It might be her only—or at least her best—chance to see what all the fuss was about carnal relations. Should she take it?
Her body said yes. Her mind said . . . maybe?
“Caro?”
She looked at Nick, at his handsome, kind, familiar face.
Perhaps she’d been wrong to shut and lock that door thirteen years ago. Perhaps it had been Dervington’s loutishness that was to blame for her distaste and disappointment and not the deed itself.
The same malt, hops, and water could produce a superlative pint or undrinkable swill depending on the brewer’s skill—or lack thereof. Perhaps it was the same with bedroom matters.
“Let me show you pleasure, Caro.”
Nick’s voice was kind, too. He looked calmly back at her. He didn’t move; he wasn’t trying to force her. He was just waiting—with those warm, sympathetic brown eyes.
Well, more than warm. Hot, but not in an alarming way. And intense, as if he was entirely focused on her.
A thread of excitement or anticipation shivered through her. She’d wager Nick was very skilled in bedroom matters.
She’d liked what he’d done with her that morning. He’d made her feel warm and a bit . . . tingly and had reminded her that years ago, before her brief time in London, she’d dreamed of a husband and children.
Not that she had those dreams now. Oh, no. Her life was full enough without adding a man to it. She had her friendship with Pen—well, only with Jo now—and her work and . . .
And her work.
Perhaps she was a little lonely, but only occasionally. She was too busy to be lonely. The Home needed her. Jo needed her. If Caro left, who would do the brewing?
Bathsheba and Esther and old Albert.
No. Well, yes. All three had helped Caro almost from the beginning. They could probably take over if they had to.
Stop it. You just want to experiment. To explore. To
let Nick show you pleasure. You aren’t committing to anything.
Looking at Nick certainly gave her pleasure. She let her eyes travel from his handsome face and warm eyes over his broad shoulders and muscled chest, flat belly . . .
Bulging fall.
She winced.
How could copulation not hurt?
“You aren’t afraid, are you, Caro?”
“Of course not.” She said it automatically—she never admitted to fear—but then realized she meant it. She wasn’t afraid of Nick. She might be uncomfortable at the thought of his male bit and not particularly enthusiastic about ever encountering it, ah, intimately, but she wasn’t afraid of him.
And remember, she wouldn’t encounter it intimately. She couldn’t. She had to be very clear about that.
And that would likely put paid to the entire experiment.
“Did you like what we did this morning?”
Her chin came up. She had liked it. “Yes.”
Nick smiled. “Then let’s pick up where we left off.”
Anticipation fluttered low in her belly.
She pushed it aside and called on her practical business sense.
“I can’t, Nick. I can’t risk getting pregnant. I’ve seen the troubles single mothers face, both for themselves and their children. I’ve had a front-row seat on too many performances of that tragedy.”
She was incredibly fortunate she hadn’t conceived either of the two times she’d been mauled by Dervington. She would be mad to roll that die again.
“I would marry you, Caro, if that happened. I’ve already said—”
She put up her hand to stop his words. “Yes, I know you’ve mentioned marriage, but you’re not really certain you want that, are you?”
She saw the truth of the matter—the hesitation and unease—in his eyes.
“And I’m not certain I want it, either. I’d hate to have to marry you, Nick.”
Nick nodded. “I understand. But there’s much we can do that won’t put you in danger of pregnancy.”
“Oh? What?”
Nick grinned. “Let me show you.”
Hmm. To have the sensations Nick had already evoked in her without risking a child?
That would be an experiment she was willing to undertake....
Ah, but once an experiment was begun, it was sometimes difficult to control. Just look at what happened when fermentation went awry. She’d spat out far too many mouthfuls of sour brew, especially when she was still learning her craft, not to have learned that lesson thoroughly.
The Merry Viscount Page 20
