A Matter of Indiscretion

by Jackie Barbosa

  Her eyes stinging with tears, Sabine choked back a sob and gave him a watery smile. “Right now, I wish you were a little less sure.”

  23

  Thomas could not fault the Montagues for his foul mood; they were excellent traveling companions, adept—as spies usually were—at witty conversation as well as comfortable silences. He did not blame them for anything except their presence, which prevented him from being alone with Sabine. And it wasn’t only their nights together that he missed, though he certainly missed those. He just hadn’t realized how much he had come to enjoy on the easy intimacy that had grown between them in the days since they’d left La Perche. And as their time together grew shorter and shorter, he resented having to share her with anyone, even people he found perfectly pleasant.

  And perfectly necessary.

  The coaching inn they stayed at the first night after departing Paris was abuzz with the story of the red-headed young lady who had been abducted from her home along with a valuable pair of Percherons by a suavely handsome blackguard who clearly had designs on either her virtue or the horses. Or possibly both. The poor girl’s uncle, devastated as the prospect of what might become of his favorite niece, was offering a substantial reward for any information leading to her safe return to the bosom of her family. The portly coachman-for-hire who bellied up to the bar beside to Thomas gleefully related all the details to him—including an uncomfortably accurate description of Thomas’s own appearance—without seeming to notice Thomas’s resemblance to the man he’d just described. Thomas managed to keep a straight face when the coachman assured him that if he encountered the scoundrel who would do such a thing to an innocent young lady, he would punch the man in his too-handsome face before turning him in for the reward money. But it was a near thing.

  They encountered similar gossip at each of their stops, although Thomas noticed that the farther north they traveled, the more muddled the story seemed to become. In some versions, it was her father who was offering the reward and in others, her brother. The amount of the reward on offer was in dispute as well, but generally crept upward so that, by the time they reached Rouen, the number had reached the princely sum of ten thousand francs. And although there were always two horses—a stallion and a mare—there was confusion as to their colors and even their breed, which meant their coach with its three gray and one black Percheron drew no particular notice. Finally, everyone agreed that the girl had red hair, but Rousseau’s description must have been vague on other details, since some people were certain she had a great number of freckles on her face, others that her eyes were bright green, and still others that she was not a grown woman, but still a child. That last bit of misinformation troubled Thomas the most, since if anyone ever did look at him long enough to really see him—the one part of the tale that seemed to remain consistent was the rather detailed description of him—he might not live long enough to find himself in the gentle custody of the gendarme.

  All in all, it was a damned good thing he and Sabine had not attempted to travel the rest of the way to Le Havre in the guise of husband and wife. Thomas had no doubt they would have been recognized the very first day, and he was grateful that Montague’s intelligence had warned them of the danger. He was also relieved to discover that the French were, as he had posited, as oblivious to servants as the English. Even members of the servant class seemed to ignore the possibility that a lady’s maid with sunset-gold hair and a valet who precisely fit the description of the villainous kidnapper might actually be the very people they were seeking.

  But he was still not happy, because this was to be their last night in France—barring some unforeseen disaster, of course—and Sabine was upstairs, sleeping on a cot in a chamber adjacent to the Montagues while Thomas was down in the tavern, trying to drink himself insensible. While he knew he would feel like hell in the morning, it was preferable to the alternative, which was to lie awake all night on his own narrow cot in a dormitory occupied by a dozen or so other working-class men who could not afford a chamber of their own for the night. Better to drink until he passed out than to toss and turn while everyone else around him slept like lambs.

  He had just signaled the bartender for a third snifter of brandy when he felt a presence at his elbow. Turning his head, he found Montague sitting on the stool beside him. Thomas gave the head spy a quizzical look. “Something amiss?”

  “Not at all.” He nodded at the two empty glasses sitting on the bar in front of Thomas. “How drunk are you?”

  “Barely getting started.” He estimated he was a good five more glasses away from anything approaching unconsciousness.

  A grin flashed across Montague’s craggy features, hinting at the handsome, devil-may-care young man he must have been. “That is good news, because I would hate for you to be too far into your cups to use this.” The spy held out his hand and opened his fingers. A key rested in the center of his palm.

  Thomas frowned. “What is this?”

  “The key to the room the wife and I rented for tonight. Take it.”

  “But—”

  “There is a lovely hotel on the river less than a mile from here.” The bartender entered Thomas’s peripheral vision, a glass containing a finger of golden liquid in his hand, but Montague held up his hand. “Give us a moment, please,” he said. He looked around, verifying that no one else was near enough to eavesdrop on their conversation before returning his attention to Thomas. “Maggie will enjoy spending the night there far more than here, which means you can have our room for…whatever purpose you would like.”

  Thomas could only stare at the older man in disbelief. “You cannot mean that I should…that she and I should…” He trailed off, unwilling to complete the thought aloud.

  Montague closed and opened his hand emphatically. “I am not blind and neither am I stupid. Nor is my wife. We remember being young and in love, and we are perfectly capable of recognizing the symptoms. Do not squander your opportunity at one last night together.”

  Thomas couldn’t think of one damn thing to say in response. He understood what Montague was offering him—him and Sabine—but he couldn’t quite process it. One more night with her to last a lifetime. It was the most precious gift anyone had ever bestowed upon him…and the most potentially dangerous.

  “Take the damned key,” Montague growled. “I will never tell a soul, and neither will Maggie.”

  “Does she know?”

  “Maggie is talking to Miss Rousseau now.”

  Joy and gratitude surged in Thomas’s chest. Snatching the key from Montague’s extended palm, he rose to his feet. He extracted the coins to pay for the three brandies he’d ordered and set them on the counter. “That one is for my friend here,” he called to the bartender. “Thank you,” he said to Montague.

  The man laid his hand on Thomas’s upper arm and squeezed. “You are most welcome.”

  Thomas strode down the corridor to the Montagues’ room, his emotions twisted a tangled knot.

  My last night with Sabine.

  He ached to make love to her. Not that he did not think of what they had been doing as “making love,” but rather he wanted—nay, needed—to be inside her. A complete, proper joining of bodies to hold onto in his memories after they parted.

  But his conscience warred with his desires. He did not want to subject her to even the smallest risk of pregnancy. No matter how badly he longed to bury his cock in her sweet, wet pussy—and no matter how much he knew she wanted the same thing—the guilt and anxiety that would follow such an act would be intolerable.

  Keeping her safe—in every way—was his first and most essential priority.

  That meant either confining himself to the territory they had already explored or introducing her to a decidedly esoteric variation of sexual intercourse that he wasn’t certain she would enjoy, much less be game to try. Granted, she had liked it when he had used his finger there, but enjoyment of that did not guarantee acceptance of—let alone pleasure from—anything more adventur
ous than that.

  And just the thought of getting inside her already had his cock at more than half staff.

  He reached the appropriate door and turned the key over in his fingers, willing himself to some semblance of calm. If he was going to broach the idea to her, the discussion needed to be calm and rational, the positives and negatives laid out in as detached a manner as possible. Which meant he couldn’t go in slavering for her like a rutting beast. Even if that was how she made him feel.

  His hand trembled only slightly as he inserted the key into the lock—an action that reminded him all too uncomfortably of coitus, given his current state of arousal—and turned the door knob.

  The Montagues had rented one of the largest rooms the coaching inn had to offer, which meant that rather than being composed of a single chamber, there were series of interconnected spaces. Not precisely separate rooms, with the exception of the small nook that served as a sleeping space for a lady’s maid or valet, but rather areas with specific uses divided by partial walls and casemented openings.

  The space in front of him was a dining area and sitting room, with the door that led to the servant’s room to his right. Beyond that to his left, he could see a privy screen in what was no doubt intended to be a dressing area, and behind that must be the main bedchamber.

  He shut the door behind him with an audible thump to announce his arrival.

  “Thomas?” Sabine’s voice was pitched low but loud enough for him to easily hear her. The way she said his name made the throbbing in his loins kick up a notch. Not Tom-ess, like an English speaker, but Toe-maas. He’d never known before now how much he preferred the French pronunciation of his given name.

  “Yes,” he answered, taking off his coat and hanging it on the peg beside the door. He considered removing his waistcoat and cravat as well but decided that might be going a bit too far too fast. She might want to talk and if he was already on his way to being undressed before he reached her, he might give the impression that all he wanted was to get inside her drawers.

  Which he admittedly wanted to do, but that wasn’t the only thing he wanted to do. He could wait.

  “I am already in bed,” she said. “Waiting for you. Naked.”

  Christ. Every drop of blood in his body rushed into his cock and balls as if drawn by an excessively powerful magnet.

  He started unbuttoning his waistcoat and walked—because running would have been undignified—through the sitting room and then the dressing room. By the time the bed was in view, he was bare-chested and his waistcoat, cravat, and shirt were strewn on the floor behind him like a trail.

  Sabine lay on her side, facing the entrance to the room, her head propped up on one hand. Her hair was down, the fiery tresses cascading over her shoulder and around her magnificent breasts. She looked up at him with unabashed hunger—and, he thought with amusement, no small amount of impatience—in her azure-bright eyes.

  “Waiting long?” he asked, surprised to discover his voice was hoarse.

  Her pretty pink mouth curved into a smile. “Forever. You are lucky I did not fall asleep.”

  Reaching the bed in three long strides, he rested one knee on the edge of the mattress and bent down to kiss her. Losing himself in the sweet warmth of her mouth would have been easy, but when she parted her lips to allow him to deepen the contact, he broke away. At her moan of protest, he muttered, “Overdressed,” and sat down beside her so he could remove his boots, breeches, stockings, and drawers.

  There was no hiding his rampant erection when he stretched out on the bed facing her. Not that he wanted to hide it, but he wanted to determine where her boundaries lay before he pushed them too far. He couldn’t do that if she took matters—in other words, his cock—into her own hands first.

  Their eyes met, and hers were so full of heat and eagerness that he almost lost his focus. “We need to talk,” he managed to say, though less convincingly than he might have wished, because talking was way down his list of needs at the moment.

  “Can we not talk after?” She trailed her fingers down his bare chest, her smile sultry.

  “Before,” he croaked. “I need to know how far you are willing to go on our last night together.”

  Her hand slowed. “You already said we cannot—” she paused, then finished with the coarse English term he had taught her, “…fuck.”

  God, would he ever get to the point where hearing that word from her lips didn’t make him hard enough to pound iron? “Not in the—” He started to say pussy, but changed his mind. Words for body parts did not, by themselves, adequately express the leap of faith he was asking her to take. “Usual way,” he finished. When she only looked at him quizzically—and a bit impatiently—he continued, “Our last night together, in Paris, I put my finger in your arse. Remember?”

  “Yes. I was…” Her English vocabulary was still shaky, so she paused to find the right word. “Shocked, yes?” He nodded to indicate she had landed on the proper meaning. “But then it was good.” She blushed, perhaps remembering how long and hard she had come that night. “Very good.”

  He let silence rest between them as she worked it out in her own head. She was too clever to need help completing the puzzle on her own, and he did not want to steer her to his way of thinking by framing the idea in his own words.

  Comprehension, when it came, widened her eyes and stained her cheeks an even darker pink, but he noticed that the flush continued down to her chest and that her nipples had grown tighter. She was scandalized, yes, but also aroused. “You want to put your cock in my arse.” She managed to say this matter-of-factly, despite the pulse ticking visibly in her throat.

  Yes, yes, God, yes. Thomas reined back his inner beast and responded with the same moderation she had displayed. “It is an option for us. I cannot get you with child that way.”

  “I see.” She licked her lips, and he fought the impulse to kiss her. “Is it… Will it feel good?” Leave it to Sabine to get to the relevant question by the shortest route possible. It was one of the things he loved most about her.

  Of course, she’d also gone straight to the most difficult question for him to answer.

  “For me?” He gave her a wry smile. “Sweetheart, for me, it will be paradise. For you, I cannot be certain. I know it feels good to some women. Others cannot bear it. We won’t know until we try which way it will be for you.”

  She bit her lower lip. “What if I do not like it?”

  “We will stop, and we will be content with all the other ways we can give each other pleasure.”

  “And if I am not sure I want to try?”

  Thomas stifled his disappointment. For the love of God, she was a virgin whose sexual experience up until a week ago had been limited to a few kisses. Proposing sodomy to such an innocent was wildly audacious of him, no matter how adventurous she had proved to be thus far. “That is all right, as well. I would never expect you to try anything you didn’t want. That is why I asked first.”

  She nodded, her expression sober. “I know you would not.” And then, after a long pause, just when he thought her answer would certainly be no, she said, “I love you, I trust you, and therefore, I would like to try this.”

  Thomas knew then there was a reason the universe was conspiring to keep them apart. Because surely no man deserved to have a woman like her for two weeks, much less for the rest of his life.

  24

  Despite her absolute faith that Thomas would never cause her harm or force her to do anything against her will, Sabine’s body was tight with anxiety as he rolled her gently onto her back. True, she had found the sensation of him moving his finger inside her there not only pleasurable but even wildly exciting, but there was a great deal of difference between a single finger and his cock. It seemed extremely unlikely to her that he could insert the entire length and breadth of that appendage into such a small, tight space without causing her terrible pain. On the other hand, she had similar doubts as to the capacity of the passage apparently intended for
that purpose, which her experience thus far suggested was much too confined as well.

  And mostly, she was afraid she would hate it and beg him to stop and thus disappoint him. He would never blame her, of course, but she wanted to give him that paradise he’d spoken of, especially tonight.

  But she needn’t have worried, because Thomas being Thomas, he did not fall upon her like a mindless, rutting animal. Instead, he slowly and carefully seduced her with his fingers and his mouth, bringing her to several exquisite climaxes until in a state of such blissful relaxation, she was surprised to discover he had managed to embed three fingers inside her rear passage and was pumping them in and out without causing her any discomfort at all. On the contrary, as he continued his relentless effort to bring her back to yet another peak, she found herself aching for more fullness there, not less.

  She tangled her fingers in his silky hair and pulled gently at his head. He raised his face from the cradle of her sex and arched an eyebrow in inquiry. “I am ready to try now,” she said.

  His pulse leapt visibly at the base of his throat. “Are you sure?”

  She swallowed the last remnants of her fear and nodded. “I want your cock in my arse, Thomas. I want to feel all of you inside me.”

  “Very well, sweetheart,” he said, the strain of keeping his excitement at bay evident in the tautness of his expression. “But you must stop me if it’s too much.”

  “I will,” she promised, although she was not sure it was true. Would she stop him? Or would she tolerate almost anything to give him the kind of exquisite pleasure he brought her, time after time?