The Lesson Plan

by Jackie Barbosa

  “Very well, then. Let’s take the questions in reverse order, as I believe that will be easier. Your maid left when I arrived in the doorway; I believe she had the impression I wished to be alone with you. Since she was entirely accurate in that assessment, I didn’t argue when she departed. I got to your chamber by coming in through the servant’s entrance, which I realize is entirely improper, but then, so is everything else about my being here.”

  “Are you mad? Dabney is sure to go and tell the butler, and then Nash will find out. We’ll have to marry.”

  Conrad shrugged. “That’s a risk I’m more than willing to take.” He was so calm, so…resigned, it made her want to scream.

  “Well, I am not. You need to leave.” She pointed toward the door. “Before someone finds you here, and we’re forced into something neither of us wants.”

  He didn’t budge from his spot beside her bed. “You have no idea what I want.”

  Her temper flared. “Well, then, for heaven’s sake, tell me, because I haven’t the foggiest notion what—”

  When he moved, it was with what seemed to be super-human speed. In an instant, they were toe-to-toe, and in the blink of an eye, they were lip-to-lip. And Freddie suddenly didn’t care at all what she might be forced to do, as long as Conrad kept forcing her to kiss him.

  Compulsion had never been sweeter.

  10

  Conrad hadn’t intended to kiss her. He hadn’t planned, in fact, to touch her at all…at least not until he had got her to agree to marry him. But when it came to Winifred Langston, it seemed that what he planned to do and what he actually did rarely had much in common.

  Not that he could say he minded the discrepancy. It was difficult to object to anything that involved the softness of her breasts pressed against his chest or her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck or the sweet-hot tang of her breath mingling with his. To think that he had nearly allowed her to slip from his grasp, that he had almost made the colossal blunder of believing himself better off without her. She was a mass of contradictions, as impossible to predict and control as the weather, and yet somehow, she yielded to him and made him feel like a god. How could a man be better off living without that? Without bliss.

  With a groan of regret, he lifted his mouth from hers. Her eyes were dark with surrender and desire, and he knew he could have her bent over the bed, her skirts around her waist and her drawers around her ankles, with just a word. She would do anything for him, and that was a power he must never, ever take advantage of. Not even to ensure he got the one thing he most desired.

  “Does that answer your question?”

  She gave him a blank look. “Question?”

  He smiled. “You asked me to tell you what I want. What I want is you.”

  “You want to fuck me, you mean.” She rolled her eyes. “I know that.”

  When she’d said more or less the same thing to him in the cottage the other morning, he’d reacted badly. Their lovemaking had been much more to him than mere fucking, but her casual use of the word combined with her rejection of his marriage proposal had made him imagine it hadn’t been more to her. That had been poorly done of him, as had the proposal—which hadn’t been a proposal at all, but an order. And if there was one thing Winifred Langston never did, it was to obey an order.

  Unless, that is, it was an order to do something she knew was wicked and forbidden.

  “You’re right. I do want to fuck you. Right now, as a matter of fact. On your bed. Or perhaps in that window seat, with your face pressed against the glass so that anyone who happens to look up can see the expression on your face when you come.”

  Her eyes widened, and she took an unsteady breath. He knew she was imagining him doing exactly what he had described. So was he, which made it rather difficult to concentrate on the rest of what he had to say.

  “But that’s not why I want to marry you.”

  “No,” she cut in acerbically, “you have to marry me because you ruined me.”

  He shook his head, regret slicing through him. “I know I said that, and I’m sorry that I did. It was stupid and thoughtless.” Taking her hands in his, he searched her face with what he hoped was his most earnest, genuine expression. Because the words he was about to say were more earnest and genuine than any he’d ever uttered.

  “The only one of us who’s ruined here is me. You’ve ruined me for any other woman, long before that night in the cottage. I think it happened the first time you sauntered by me in a pair of breeches.” A rueful chuckle escaped him at the memory. “But you were only sixteen and Nash’s little sister, not to mention my younger brother’s friend. There wasn’t anything I could do about my feelings that wouldn’t get me called out for pistols at dawn, so I tried like bloody hell to ignore you.”

  “While I was doing everything I could think of to force you to notice me. The more you ignored me, the harder I tried to find ways to ruffle you.”

  “Well, rest assured that your methods were quite effective. I could no more ignore you than I could ignore a blizzard in August. But surely you can see why I thought I ought to.”

  She nodded, a wry smile lifting one corner of her lips. “I thought you just didn’t like me very much.”

  “Oh, I didn’t. I didn’t like that you were constantly reminding me of how much I wanted you…and how impossible it would be for me to have you. I thought the only way I’d ever have any peace of mind was to get you out of Winmarleigh altogether, which is why I agreed to Nash’s ridiculous kidnapping plan in the first place. When it was over, I knew you’d leave for London, and my torment would be over.”

  “And instead, I just tormented you even more.” She squeezed his hands. “I’m not a very good lady, am I?”

  “Oh, you’re good, sweetheart. Very good.” He gave her a wink and waggled his eyebrows so there could be no mistaking his meaning, but then he sobered. “But that’s still not why I want to marry you. Or at least not the primary reason. I want to marry you because life without you would be orderly, predictable, and very, very dull. At base, I’m a dull, unimaginative man—”

  “You are not!” she protested indignantly.

  He pulled a mock frown. “Have you never learned not to argue with a man who’s trying to apologize?”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I’m not sure that it’s ever happened before. I don’t usually inspire apologies; I issue them.”

  “And then go right back to being your incorrigible self.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” she asked, her bright brown eyes twinkling with merriment.

  “Far too well,” he agreed with a laugh before asking sternly, “Now, are you quite finished?”

  She composed her face into a mask of studiousness and nodded solemnly.

  “Very well. As I was saying, I am rather dull and unimaginative, which means I had a difficult time imagining myself married to someone who is…well, not. It was only when Nash came by this morning to tell me you were leaving for London that I realized how very ridiculous I was being, thinking I should marry someone as proper and priggish as myself.” She opened her mouth to object, but he wagged his finger in admonition. “Uh uh uh, no interrupting while I’m debasing myself.” He dropped down on one knee. “I love you, Freddie Langston. Will you do me the great favor of marrying me to keep me from becoming a dreadful bore and an insufferable stuffed shirt?”

  Freddie needed every ounce of her self-control—a quality she was not renowned for having in any significant quantity—to keep from throwing her arms around Conrad’s wonderful neck and shouting that yes, yes, of course she would marry him, the silly fool. And perhaps, if she had been a kinder, sweeter sort of person, that was what she would have done. But after the misery he’d put her through, not just these past nine days but most of the past five years, she felt he ought to suffer through at least a few more seconds of uncertainty.

  Withdrawing her hand from his, she tapped her index finger to her pursed lips. “Hmm. I must admit that is a mu
ch prettier proposal than the last one you tendered me, and yet…” She pretended to ponder the question very seriously.

  “And yet?” he repeated, his voice a low, impatient rumble.

  “It’s just that…I was quite ready to say yes, but that was before the second time you told me how dull and unimaginative you are. Now, I’m not so—”

  He was on his feet in a trice. “Left to my own devices, yes. But you quite inspire my creativity. Shall I demonstrate?”

  Before she could answer, he had taken three strides away from her and shut the door to her bedchamber. Finding the door had no locking mechanism, he turned his eyes in the direction of the heavy trunk that occupied the center of the room. With a mischievous glance in her direction, he walked over to it and shoved it in front of the door.

  “That won’t keep anyone out for long, but long enough for what I have in mind.”

  “And what do you have in mind?” she asked. Surely not what she thought. Not what she hoped. He wouldn’t risk it. Would he?

  “You and me. In that window seat. Now.”

  He would. And, heaven help her, so would she.

  They could be interrupted at any moment, caught in flagrante. By her brother. But when he advanced on her, unbuttoning his fall and releasing the rock-hard length of his cock as he approached, she didn’t care. She wanted this—wanted him—too much.

  He pointed toward the seat, stroking his erection with a slow, idle motion. “Hands and knees, facing the window, skirts up around your waist.”

  That familiar twinge of longing corkscrewed its way through her belly and settled as an ache in the delicate flesh below. There wasn’t any question at all of what she’d do. She would obey, and in obeying, heighten her own pleasure. What was it about surrendering control to Conrad that made her feel so free? She didn’t know and, as she followed his directive and bunched up the fabric of her dress, she didn’t care to examine the reasons.

  Maybe it was just that everything he asked her to do was a hundred times more wicked—and therefore more exciting—than anything she could think of herself.

  His fingers found and opened the slit in her drawers. He dragged them through the moisture that had gathered there, coasting between the swollen, sensitive lips. She trembled at his touch, glad she was safely on all fours and couldn’t topple over.

  “I’ve been dreaming of this every day,” he muttered. “Of having you just like this, on your knees, wet and ready for me.”

  “So have I,” she admitted, then gasped as the velvety head of his cock replaced his fingers. Greedy for more, she rocked her hips back toward him.

  “Patience, sweetheart.” He slid the head up and down the valley, coating it with her juices before lining up to plunge—

  Thump, thump, thump.

  The sound of footsteps and voices came from below-stairs. Freddie could make out the unmistakable tenor of her older brother’s voice. Raised. Furious.

  “Oh God, Nash is coming,” she moaned.

  “Then we’d better hurry,” Conrad answered and filled her snug passage in one fluid, delicious motion.

  She took a slow, cooling breath through her teeth as Conrad withdrew and drove back in again. And again. And again. Her heart thudded in her ears in time with the feet that pounded nearer and nearer to her chamber. Up the stairs, along the corridor, almost upon them now. Somehow, her anxiety that they were about to be caught increased her ardor. She shook with the need for release, the pressure building with each thrust of his cock, each beat of her heart, each echo of a footfall.

  “Touch yourself,” he whispered near her ear. “Make yourself come.”

  Her face flooded with a heat that was half embarrassment and half pure, wanton lust. It seemed so personal, so intimate to put her fingers there, to rub herself there, but that was ridiculous when he was already doing the most personal, most intimate thing imaginable to her.

  “Do it.” The order was more urgent this time, a growl.

  Knowing she’d collapse without both arms to balance her, she went down on one elbow, resting her sweat-dampened forehead on her forearm. The effect of this small change in her position was dramatic; the sharper angle made Conrad’s cock feel bigger, thicker, deeper inside her. The difference was obviously apparent to him, too, because the tempo of his thrusts quickened, and his breath blew hot and hard across the back of her neck.

  She found the spot between her legs with her free hand and brushed her fingers across it. Tentatively at first, then with more confidence as pleasure built on top of pleasure, spiraling higher and higher…

  Bang bang bang. “Freddie! Pearce! Open this door.” Nash.

  The door handle clicked, and then there was a scraping noise as the chest moved a painful inch across the floor. It wouldn’t be long before he was in the room. She was in so much trouble. He was going to kill her. Or Conrad. Probably both of them.

  But that knowledge didn’t stop her climax from crashing over her in a burst of colored lights. As the spasms gripped her, Conrad joined her, his warm seed pouring into her like a soothing summer rain.

  The chest rattled and rasped again as the door was shoved and it scooted another few inches. “What in bloody hell is going on in there?”

  “I’m asking your sister to marry me,” Conrad answered, his voice surprisingly steady for a man whose body still shuddered with the aftershocks of orgasm.

  There was a long moment of silence. The only thing Freddie could hear was the beating of her heart and Conrad’s fractured respiration.

  “What’s her answer?”

  She turned her head and looked at Conrad. He raised an eyebrow. Well, what is your answer?

  “Yes,” she said softly, so only Conrad could hear. As the last of the tension left his body and he nodded, she shouted loud enough to be heard throughout the entire house, or maybe even the entire county. “Yes! Her answer is yes.”

  Epilogue

  Thomas Pearce had made one accurate prediction: Freddie Langston took London by storm. It was just that she did it as The Honorable Mrs. Conrad Pearce.

  The sudden, simultaneous arrival in Town during the off-season of both the Langston and Ormondy families had caused a stir among the few aristocrats who remained in residence. The stir became a virtual din when the middle Langston brother, Geoffrey, took leave from his infantry brigade on the eve of its scheduled deployment to the Continent. The wedding itself took place the following day, and anyone who was anyone who lived within a day’s drive of London was in attendance—invited or not.

  But somehow, it was not the hasty wedding with all its scandalous inferences that people remembered and talked about months later, but rather Mrs. Pearce’s astonishing facility with firearms. The story held that a child’s kite had become stuck in a tree. His nurse, despairing of ever retrieving the beloved plaything, had been prepared to drag the sobbing boy home when Mr. and Mrs. Pearce, quite newly married, came upon the scene. Quickly ascertaining the difficulty, Mrs. Pearce withdrew a flintlock pistol from her reticule, and, after shooing aside the bystanders who had stopped to gawk, aimed for the scarcely visible string from which the kite dangled, cutting clean through it with a single shot. The kite then drifted unharmed to the ground, to the utter delight of the boy, his nurse, and the astonished crowd.

  Since then, Mrs. Pearce’s reputation had been further burnished by her skills as a horsewoman. Shortly after their arrival in London, her husband purchased for her a smart new phaeton and a spirited team to draw it, which she handled with such ease and confidence that even the conservative set who felt women ought not be permitted to drive were forced to commend her proficiency. Though it was deemed somewhat peculiar that she eschewed riding horseback in Hyde Park, no one speculated as to the reason. Certainly, no one considered it remotely possible that such a fine equestrienne might not know how to ride sidesaddle. There were, however, persistent rumors that Mrs. Pearce had accompanied her husband to Tattersall’s in the guise of a boy to assist him in choosing of the matched bays, b
ut as there was no solid evidence to support the allegation, the worst the gossipmongers could do was admire her for getting away with it…if she had, indeed, got away with it.

  In short, Freddie Langston, who had never nurtured the faintest concern for either respectability or popularity, had nonetheless managed to become the most sought-after young matron in Society. She was called upon to give shooting and driving lessons to the daughters of dukes and earls. She was invited to every at-home, every dinner party, every ball. And all of this without learning to dance a single reel, sew a straight stitch, or play a recognizable tune on the pianoforte.

  Conrad leaned in the doorway of his wife’s chamber as her maid readied her for whatever social engagement she had been invited to this afternoon. The relentlessly unconventional Freddie had made a few concessions to convention since their marriage, amassing an impressive collection of very fashionable gowns to complement the breeches, coats, and waistcoats she still kept in her wardrobe for “special occasions.”

  A smile pulled at the corners of his lips as he recalled the last such occasion. They’d gone to see a decidedly licentious floor show hosted by an underground men’s club. The results once they’d returned home had been equally licentious…and considerably more satisfying.

  The memory brought an immediate surge of lust to match the swell of pride he felt at having this woman—this clever, unique, talented, and utterly wanton woman—as his wife. To think he’d believed she needed to learn a lesson, when all along, it had been him.

  Love, it seemed, was the most difficult lesson of all. At least he’d finally learned it. But perhaps that had been the plan all along.

  He cleared his throat to make his presence known. She was going to be late for her engagement, whatever it was. Very late.

  The End