by Josie Litton
Tempting Gemma
Part Four
Josie Litton
Contents
About this Book
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Appendix
My Gift to You!
Sneak Peeks
About this Book
There comes a time in every new marriage when it is incumbent upon the bride and groom to allow the outside world into their charmed circle of connubial contentment. In other words to resume entertaining.
Newlyweds Gemma and Charles host their first house party in Episode Four of this sizzling summer romance.
Set in a version of the modern world very loosely inspired by Jane Austen, this is the story of what happens when a lovely young woman unexpectedly finds herself married to a gorgeous British lord possessed of inexhaustible virility
In between encounters in every room of her husband’s sprawling ancestral manor house, not to mention the surrounding grounds, Gemma must cope with peculiar family members, a local village filled with secrets and her own overwhelming lust for the man she doesn’t dare to love.
Will she succumb to temptation and fall in love with her uninhibited and unexpectedly charming husband? Will Charles come up for air long enough to confess to his enchanting wife that she is the woman of his dreams? Find out this summer in TEMPTING GEMMA.
Don’t miss the free gift offer for you at the end of this book!
Chapter One
By the way,” Charles said as he helped himself to a plump breakfast sausage. “We’re hosting a house party this weekend.”
Gemma looked up from the drizzle of honey she was applying to her croissant. They were alone--blissfully so--in the breakfast room. That is, if one did not count the three footmen in attendance.
Mother had not stirred from her rooms since the departure of Brother Harold and Sister Ismay for distant continents. With each passing day minus her mother-in-law’s company, Gemma had come to see her less as a family member and more as a large, nasty spider squatting inside the walls of Ardsley Manor. Unpleasant, to be sure, but to be expected in the older homes.
“Pardon?” she asked, the two syllables hinting at her willingness to give her husband the benefit of the doubt while still maintaining a prudent level of wifely suspicion. Surely, she hadn’t heard him correctly. He hadn’t said…
“A house party.” He sighed, less with apology than with the sensible man’s acceptance of inescapable realities. “Can’t stay in the honeymoon cocoon forever, sorry to say. It’s expected that we start entertaining.”
That in itself did not dismay Gemma. A break from Charles’ undivided attention might even be welcome. Still, there were preparations to be made. She did not intend for her first foray as his hostess to be anything less than perfect.
Her eyebrows arched. “When did you say?”
“This weekend. They’ll all be arriving Friday afternoon.”
“You mean…tomorrow?”
The shrug of his broad, manly shoulders diverted her momentarily. Scant hours before, she had been clinging to them, her legs wrapped around his lean hips as his long, thick cock drove--
“Yes, I suppose so,” he said.
Abruptly returned to earth, Gemma gaped at her husband. He supposed? Tomorrow was Friday, immutably so. How could he possibly not know that? Granted, with the coming of high summer, he had stopped going into whatever very important job it was that he did in the City. But still, what would he lose track of next? Clothes, perhaps?
He was wearing shorts to the breakfast table but she did not delude herself, Charles was a true child of nature, inclined among so much else to go about in the buff. The maids should be put on alert. Although, really, now that she thought of it, what was the point of doing that? It wasn’t as though they would choose to avert their eyes from the virile magnificence of their master.
With admirable restraint, she said, “This is rather short notice, don’t you think?”
A man more alert to the mine field that is marital conversation might have paused to consider whether retreat wasn’t the more prudent course. Charles merely charged right on.
“Nothing to be concerned about. Cook and the others…” He waved a tanned, muscular hand, one designed by Nature to wield a sword or the oar of a marauding long ship. “They’ll see to everything.”
No doubt that was true would yet it was still her responsibility. She was, after all, quite literally the lady of the manor.
Dozens of decisions had to be made. The choice of menus alone was daunting. Did any of the guests who were about to descend on them follow peculiar diets, have an aversion to certain foods or even worse a potentially lethal allergy, real or imaginary? Having someone die on them would no doubt enliven the weekend but it would hardly do credit to the hospitality of Ardsley Manor.
Yet lacking sudden, dramatic death, how were they to be kept entertained? Excursions had to be planned with in-door alternatives if, heaven forbid, it happened to rain.
But all that faded before the truly monumental challenge of getting the bedrooms right. Were couples actually sleeping with one another or were they shagging someone else in the party? In the latter case, no one wanted a long slink down the hall in the wee hours to get to the right paramour. It could all blow up in scandal!
Doing her best to remain calm in the face of potential disaster, Gemma asked, “How many…guests, that is?”
Her husband looked surprised that she was still going on about the matter. He’d already moved on, being happily absorbed reading the report of the previous day’s cricket match between long-time rivals, the Mumbai Master Batters and the Edinburgh Ball Burners. Now that had been one sloggy sweep!
He had to stop and think for a moment before he said, “Heavens, I don’t know. The team, of course, that’s three besides me--Freddy, Nigel and Clive with their girlfriends. You met them at the wedding. Plus a few more, ten in all, a dozen perhaps. Hard to say. You know how these things go.”
The news that she would be entertaining witnesses to her by now notorious wedding reception did not sit well with Gemma. She had understood that they were Charles’ friends, therefore she would encounter them again in the normal course of events. She’d just expected to have a bit more warning.
Mulling that over, she asked absently, “What team?”
He looked perplexed, as though knowledge of all things Charles should have blossomed in her the moment she became his wife. Still, credit where it was due, she was making a much better job of it than he’d expected. That inspired him to patience.
“Polo,” he explained kindly. “I’m captain. We’re playing an exhibition game this weekend at the club, warm up for the season opener. I’m quite looking forward to it. We took the All Cup last year and I’m determined to retain it.”
Of course, her husband played polo and equally understandably, given his preference for non-verbal communication, this was the first she was hearing of it.
“Captain?” she chirped, feigning brightness she was far from feeling. “I had no idea. That’s marvelous. You’re very good at it, aren’t you?” A safe enough guess if they’d taken the whatever cup.
“Oh, well…” He shrugged modestly. “It’s all in knowing the horse, really.” Charles paused a moment before adding, “Are you going to keep pouring that honey?”
With a start, Gemma realized that she’d never stopped. What had begun as a drizzle had become a puddle on her plate.
“Oh,” she said in surprise and set the honey server down.
“Hmm,” Charles replied. His gaze flicked from the sweet, syrupy liquid to the lush curves of his wife’s breast
s swelling above the neckline of one of her pretty little chiffon dresses. He quite liked those dresses, especially the taking them off her part.
A tilt of his tousled blond head in the direction of the door dismissed the footmen. The last one out took care to shut the door behind him.
“What’s this now?” Gemma inquired.
She was about to rush off to confer with Cook, Mrs. Harkness, the housekeeper and Mr. Danvers, the butler. With those three, she was certain that she could manage anything. But the look in her husband’s eye all was all too familiar. It held her pinned in place, teetering on the edge of remembered ecstasy.
Charles stood and walked around to the other side of the table. Standing behind her, he slipped his hands over her shoulders, shoved her dress down and cupped her bare breasts.
Flicking his thumbs over her nipples, he said, “You’ve got the most gorgeous tits.”
Doing her best to retain her composure in the face of such blatant provocation, Gemma murmured, “So you’ve said.”
He chuckled. “Done more than that. Wasn’t but this morning that I fucked them.”
An unsettling business, all the more so because it had left her hanging. That was not something she forgave.
Rather than give him the satisfaction of revealing her frustration, she said, “I really must speak with Cook and the others. There is so much to be done--”
For an instant, she thought she’d succeeded. Charles released her and stepped back. However, he didn’t go very far. She was vividly aware of him directly behind her, so close that she fancied she could feel the heat of his big, hard body.
“Dab your fingers into the honey and rub it onto your nipples.”
She froze in her seat, struck by the combination of shock and allure that his debauched cravings inevitably produced.
“W-what--?”
“You heard me and not just a few drops. I want to see it dripping from you.”
She couldn’t…she wouldn’t! But, of course, she did. Every alumna of dear old Mary Magdalene understood the importance of accommodating a husband’s wishes regardless of how indecent or lewd they might be. Nothing else better assured connubial contentment.
Slowly, Gemma’s hand moved toward her plate. Hesitantly, she lowered a finger and swirled the tip of it through the honey. Scarcely breathing, she touched a nipple lightly, staring as she did at the smear of sweet, thick nectar spreading over the rosy bud.
“That’s it,” Charles murmured. “Keep on.”
Stifling a moan, Gemma did as he said. Very shortly, both her nipples were ripe, swollen berries coated with golden honey. Between her legs, she was slick and hot. Her bottom writhed against the pad of her seat.
She was very close to where she had been so frustratingly that morning when Charles suddenly lifted her clear of her chair. Holding her facing him, her feet dangling off the floor, he lowered his head, latched onto one of her glistening nipples and sucked hard.
Clinging to his broad shoulders, she struggled to breathe. His swirling tongue, the suction of his mouth and the graze of his teeth all combined to bring her right to--but alas not over--the edge. She was nearly delirious with need by the time he tumbled her onto the table and crawled on top of her.
As dishes clattered every which way, Charles plunged his head between her breasts and reached down to free himself from his shorts. Making sounds remarkably like a motorboat, he thrust into her. The venerable oak table creaked wildly.
Gemma had a moment to note the censorious gaze of an Ardsley ancestor glaring at her from a portrait over the buffet before the riptide of pleasure sucked her away.
Her last thought, if it can be called that, was of rolling lawns, sultry heat and the ominous thunder of hooves bearing down on her all too swiftly.
Chapter Two
Friday arrived with the promise of fair weather that would extend over the week-end. Gemma allowed herself a sigh of relief. After huddles with Cook, Housekeeper Harkness and Butler Danvers, a solid plan was in place, more or less. Bedrooms were sorted and meals arranged, which left only the matter of how to keep the guests happily occupied.
Danvers assured her that would not be a concern. “After the match, the young gentlemen will want to relax at the Polo Club, my lady. You needn’t trouble yourself with entertaining them here.”
As the gray-haired majordomo gave the impression of being an island of calm in the midst of any storm, Gemma was inclined to take him at his word. Still, his certainty surprised her.
“Surely they won’t be at the club for the entire week-end?”
Mrs. Harkness’ round face creased in a smile even as caution lingered in the gaze known to catch out the wiliest of misbehaving maids.
“If you don’t mind my saying, my lady, the Polo Club is very popular with his lordship and likeminded gentlemen.”
“Indeed,” Danvers confirmed. “Very popular.”
Cook, a blunt-spoken Welsh woman whose genius with a soufflé and much else earned her a great deal of latitude, rolled her eyes.
“Vicar’s had a thing or two to say about that place,” she said.
Mrs. Harkness sent her a sharp look. “Never mind, Gladys. What matters is that her ladyship need not worry herself. Her guests will be well taken care of so far as amusements are concerned.”
Relieved though she was to learn that she would not be expected to arrange games of charades and the like, Gemma could not shake the thought that there was more to the coming weekend that Charles had yet revealed.
To her chagrin, the arrival of their guests precluded any opportunity to drag the truth from him.
Freddy Tewes, aka Baron Montague of Boughton, came first along with his girlfriend, Lady Ophelia Carlton. He was tall, lanky and wielded a ready grin. She had ebony hair, eyes almost as dark and very white skin. The monochromatic effect, further emphasized by her elegant black-and-white travel ensemble, drew the eye irresistibly to the carmine-painted fullness of her mouth as, Gemma suspected, was the lady’s intention.
Next through the grand doors of Ardsley Manor came ruddy-faced, ginger-haired Viscount Nigel Coombs accompanied by a coolly elegant blonde. She was introduced as Sienna Somers with no title to clutter up her name. Yet she possessed that unmistakable air of confidence bestowed only upon those who have large bank accounts in all the best tax havens.
Clive and Winfred Bonneville were hard on their heels. The only married couple in the bunch, he was an earl, she therefore a countess. Of the lot so far, they struck Gemma as the most congenial.
Barely were they all gathered in the Chinese drawing room--so named for priceless works of art looted by Ardsley ancestors during the Opium Wars--than Bernie Nethercott showed up stag. Of a size with Charles and equally boisterous, he barely nodded to Gemma, gave his host a manly hug that lasted rather longer than necessary and announced his relief that all that honeymoon nonsense was finally over so that the old gang could get back together.
Gemma had just begun to worry that there would be an odd number at the dinner table when the last of the party finally arrived. Sleek, handsome Stanton Beaufort, more formally known as the Earl of Lancaster, came accompanied by a pair of sisters--Lady Cecilia and Lady Georgiana Fernsby--because, as he explained to arch smiles from both young ladies, he simply couldn’t be expected to choose between them.
With the exception of the Fernsby sisters, Gemma recognized them all from the wedding. But her memories were vague, eclipsed as they were by Charles’ outrageous behavior during the reception. She could only hope that their recollections were equally murky.
Dinner passed smoothly enough. As the men were all the best of friends, and the women well acquainted with them, there was no shortage of conversation. Numerous references to people and events about which Gemma knew nothing flew right by her but she managed to keep smiling.
That is until, just as the sherry trifle was being served, dark-eyed Lady Ophelia said, “I must congratulate you, Charles. You’ve managed to sit through five courses without bon
king poor darling Gemma on the table in front of us all.”
The reminder of exactly how her marriage had begun made Gemma turn bright red. For an awful moment, she wished the ground would open and swallow her.
Even Charles looked abashed. “Should have been more gentlemanly about it,” he said. “Fortunately, Gemma has forgiven me, haven’t you, sweetheart?”
Before she could reply, he beamed her a smile that would have melted glaciers and added, “She truly is the best of wives.”
“Here, here,” Clive Bonneville said at once. Good man that he was, he raised his glass. “To Gemma.”
As etiquette required, the others all joined in the toast to their hostess but with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Sienna scarcely managed to get her glass off the table while Bernie looked so glum one might have thought he had been asked to swallow poison.
