by Lucy Langton
She had to put her hand over her mouth to muffle her screams of pleasure as she got right up to finishing, and then when the wave of ultimate pleasure finally hit her, her juices forced Isaac out of her, and she uncontrollably sprayed all over his face as he continued licking her.
As Louisa languished in the last moments of her release, she whimpered, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to … I couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
Hearing that, Isaac came up from between her legs and seductively wiped away any remnants he had on his face. “You’re joking, aren’t you?” Isaac asked, quickly taking off his shirt and pulling down his pants to reveal his throbbing cock. “Would I be looking as big as I am right now if your pleasure did not enthrall me? I’m going to make you do that again, but this time with my cock in you.”
Louisa let out a whimper of delight, and then she reached down and stroked Isaac with her hand. He felt so silken and yet firm as she tantalized him with her fingers. When she pulled him in towards her, instead of teasing her as he had meant to, he just guided himself right in between her lips. Louisa moaned, and Isaac practically growled upon feeling how warm and wet she was.
They said nothing, but locked eyes and kissed even more passionately than before. Isaac found it unbelievably sexy that Louisa still had her dress bunched up around her midsection, and Louisa felt the urgency of their lovemaking when she looked down and saw that Isaac’s pants were pulled down just enough to reveal his cock.
As he started moving faster, Louisa wrapped her legs around him and pulled him even deeper into her. She raked her nails along his back, and Isaac groaned with pleasure. He was beginning to feel light-headed from how close he was getting, and how hot it was to be making love to Louisa on that tiny settee in the early morning sun in the library.
And then, Isaac felt Louisa clamping down on him, and he knew that she wasn’t going to last much longer. He had tried to draw himself out for long enough so that they could finish at the same time, and it seemed to have been successful. He felt the pleasure taking over, and before he could even warn Louisa, he collapsed on top of her and sprayed inside of her.
When she felt him release, it pushed her over the edge, and she clung to him as she pulsed in release. She whimpered as she felt Isaac draw back out of her so that she could once again squirt herself all over his cock and legs. She released even more than the time before, and when she collapsed onto the settee, Isaac had a goofy smile upon his face.
“You cannot believe how incredibly arousing it is to watch you finish against me like that,” Isaac whispered. “I want to make you do that over and over and over again.”
Louisa giggled, and then Isaac came down on top of her again and embraced her. She felt so warm and safe in his arms that she momentarily forgot about all of the rest of her problems. She could have stayed laying with him forever.
“Louisa,” Isaac whispered as he held her, “I ... I know that was improper, but I hope that it was not too improper for your liking. You see, over the last few weeks, I have developed ... a great affection for you. I ... I think that you might be the woman who I am destined to spend the rest of my life with.”
Louisa pulled out of the embrace and looked at Isaac. “You ... you what?”
Isaac gave her the most endearing smile, looking at her like the sun rose and set according to her wishes. “You are the most enchanting, smart, kind, considerate, and wonderful woman I have ever met, and I have not stopped thinking about you from the moment I met you. And so I feel this is the right time to say ... Louisa. I think I’m in love with you.”
Louisa froze. A million thoughts ran through her mind at once, but the main one was that she had to get out of there. It absolutely broke her heart to have to flee from Isaac once more, but at that moment, all of her duties and responsibilities came flooding back in. She thrust herself out from beneath Isaac, laced her corset back up as quickly as she could, and pulled her dress back on. Isaac pulled his shirt on and did up his pants, looking positively crestfallen when she did not say anything in return.
“Isaac, I’m sorry, but I ... I can’t right now,” Louisa said hurriedly. “It isn’t your fault at all, in fact, quite the opposite. I ... I have been nothing but terrible to you, and so now I must undo what I have done.”
Isaac could not seem to comprehend what was going on. “But ... but you haven’t been terrible to me at all,” he stammered, panic-stricken. “Why do you have to leave?”
Louisa took a deep breath and kissed Isaac on the cheek. She lingered with her lips pressed to his face for a moment longer than she should have, for when she waited there, she did not want to go. But then she extricated herself from him and simply said, “I know it does not make sense right now. But it will very soon, I promise.”
And then, Louisa turned and once again fled from the man who she wished she could tell that she was falling in love with him, too. Before she could admit that, however, she had to ensure that their future together was safe, and so she left him in the library, looking heartbroken.
Chapter 18
Meanwhile, at the Strandmere estate, Stephen was happily putting all of the finishing touches on his plan to ruin Isaac. To anyone who didn’t know Stephen’s history, this plot might have seemed like a flight of fancy. Stephen, however, knew that this plan had been a long time coming.
Stephen was older than Isaac, but they had both studied law at the same institution at the same time. Stephen knew that he was the most intelligent person in their class, and yet somehow, whenever it came time for their knowledge to be tested, Isaac had somehow managed to beat him. He could never figure out how it happened. Deep, deep down, he knew that Isaac had never acted in a pompous manner, and so his superior intelligence over Stephen was just that – Isaac was smarter than he was.
But his entire life, Stephen had always been the best at everything. He never failed to run the fastest, jump the highest, or speak with the most authority. He was revered by everyone he met, and his family was held in such high esteem within the community that he had never known anything other than greatness.
And so when this man – this boy – stepped into the classroom one day and began showing him up at every turn, he vowed to make him regret the day he had ever met Stephen. For a time after they graduated, however, Stephen had been unable to find a way to get Isaac back for his insolent behaviour. However, when he overheard that young Irish girl talking about Isaac and the young Miss Louisa, he knew he’d found his way in.
And even better, he had spied on the two of them enough to know that they were falling in love. Stephen hadn’t originally intended to propose marriage to Louisa, but when he discovered he would be taking away Isaac’s great love if he did that, it was the easiest decision he’d ever made. It didn’t matter who his wife was in the end, for he would be spending so much time with his many mistresses anyway. What mattered was that his great rival would never have the pleasure of getting to marry the love of his life.
As Stephen sat at his desk admiring the murder of crows once again and thinking about the loss of Isaac’s love, he began laughing. He couldn’t believe that everything had fallen into place so nicely; it almost didn’t seem real. Even though Louisa was being rather recalcitrant about the whole business, he knew that the rest of their plan would go off without a hitch. And if it didn’t, he had plans for that as well.
Stephen fanned out the collection of papers on his desk and perused them once more purely for his own pleasure. “There is my investment in the business of his rival lawyer, there is my investment of the office that he had planned on buying when moving his firm into town, that investment will implicate his first-ever client, Richard Uxbridge, in a scandal, and that will make all of his investments turn sour,” Stephen whispered to himself. “Stephen ... I do believe you’ve outdone yourself!”
He clapped his hands together with glee and heard the familiar sounds of flapping wings. He looked out the window, which he had forgotten he’d left open, and saw many of the cro
ws taking flight. One, however, remained in a nearby tree and seemed to stare at Stephen. He rose from his desk to address the bird.
“You aren’t afraid of me in the least, are you?” he asked the crow. The bird began grooming itself idly as if in response to Stephen’s question. “What a foolish, foolish error to have made, you great beast.”
Stephen picked up the hunting rifle that was leaning against the window, pointed it through the open pane towards the bird, and then crack! The branch that the bird had been sitting on had broken, and the crow flew away, completely unaware of the danger he had escaped. Stephen lowered his hunting rifle and watched the black bird flying across the grey sky. “You won’t be so lucky next time,” he growled.
There was a knock on his office door. “Enter,” Stephen said, quickly hiding the rifle out of sight. His valet, Damien, entered, looking quite pleased.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said respectfully. “I came to inform you that the invitations for your engagement party have all been delivered. I will send Anna out tomorrow to collect the responses, but I can only assume that you will have a grand turn out for such an auspicious occasion.”
A cruel smile crept across Stephen’s lips. “Wonderful,” he said. “And has Mrs Craigmore finished the dress for Miss Louisa for the occasion? I should be wildly embarrassed if the young lady were to come dressed in her own clothes.”
“She has, sir,” Damien responded. “We could never have that, now could we?”
“Out of the question. Thank you, Damien, you are dismissed.”
Damien bowed his head and disappeared wordlessly from the room, leaving Stephen alone with his thoughts. And all Stephen could think about was the sweet, sweet reward of Isaac’s misery.
Unbeknownst to Stephen, however, at the same time as he was finalizing his plans, Louisa was doing everything that she could to undo him. As she rode home, she thought of who she could enlist to assist her in discovering all of the atrocious things that Stephen would certainly be trying to do to ruin him.
Of course, she would first refuse to marry Stephen and not go ahead with the sale of her house at that price to Isaac. She knew that this would come at a great social and monetary cost to her and her family, but she had no other option; she absolutely could not hurt Isaac like that. Without that central part of his plan, Louisa knew that the rest of his ill-deeds would hopefully fall apart, but she needed to ensure that they did. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Isaac in the lurch like that.
When she returned home, she finally thought of the one person who she knew had enough connection to undo all of Stephen’s plans: Gregory Quince. And she knew just the person to ask to return to the Quince Estate to call upon him and ask for his aide.
“Sophie?” Louisa called when she got inside. The young maid popped her head out of Louisa’s parents’ bedroom.
“Yes, Lulu, what is it?”
“Are you in the middle of something?” she asked, taking off her cloak and replacing it on the hook beside the door.
“Just talking with your father, but if there’s something that needs doing ...” Sophie stepped further out of the room, striding over to stand in front of Louisa.
“Yes, I believe there is,” Louisa replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “And I do believe that this is a task that you will greatly enjoy.”
Sophie’s eyes lit up. “I like the sounds of this,” she said happily.
“I need you to take a visit to the Quince house and call on the duke …” Louisa began explaining, but Sophie put up a hand to stop her from going further.
“Say no more. I am up for the challenge!” Sophie responded enthusiastically.
“Wonderful, but I do rather need to say more, as what I am going to ask you to do involves a good bit of explanation, but also requires no extraneous questions to be asked. Do you agree to that?”
Sophie nodded emphatically. “Good,” Louisa said, “then allow us to pop out into the garden for a moment so that I might explain things more clearly to you.”
Louisa and Sophie sat outside, and Louisa explained only what Sophie needed to know about Stephen, what had transpired between the two of them, and what exactly she needed to ask of Gregory. Sophie was rapt the entire time, and Louisa only left out the part about promising to marry Stephen in exchange for acceptance back into society.
“Nothing would make me happier than to see this man ruined for his cruelty,” Sophie said determinedly, slamming her fist against her open palm when Louisa finished explaining herself. “And while I believe you understand the ... shall we say attraction between the duke and I, I shall endeavour to be on my best behaviour and repeat everything that you have told me to the duke. You have nothing to worry about, Lulu.”
Sophie gave her a reassuring pat on the knee and then left the garden to go and collect up the horse. Louisa wondered what Isaac would think to see a young woman returning on the horse that she had left on this morning. She worried what he must have been thinking about her right now but tried her very best to put those awful thoughts from her mind. She had more important things to focus on.
Chapter 19
Three days later, everyone who was anyone in society turned up to the Strandmere estate for the engagement party of Stephen and Louisa. There was much buzz among the guests that a man of such high regard was marrying a woman whose family had been so disgraced. Many guests, however, promised themselves that they had to see the couple together to believe that the engagement was real.
Louisa had not informed her parents of any of what was happening in her life, as she did not want to alarm them before she had everything under control. Thankfully, though, neither her mother nor her father went into town over those three days, and so they heard nothing of their daughter’s engagement.
Archie was doing much better thanks to the assistance of Dr Abbott, but Louisa was worried if he caught word of what she was doing, he might have another attack, and this time it would be worse than before.
And so, on the morning of her engagement party, Louisa left the house in her ordinary clothes, under the guise that she was meeting a friend in town for an afternoon together. As soon as she was out of sight of her home, however, Louisa pulled the dress that Stephen had sent to her to wear for the party out of her bag and changed into it in the bushes.
It was a stunning gown – bright blue and made of the finest fabric with a delicate lace overlay. But even so, Louisa was not excited about wearing it because of what it stood for. However, she knew that she had to in order to keep Stephen in the dark about the change of plans on her end until the very last minute.
Louisa re-mounted her horse rather more delicately in her new dress and rode with great speed towards the estate. She knew that she wanted to arrive before the guests so that she would not have to be seen by anyone. When she finally came upon the grand house, she was relieved to see that she had managed to make it there in plenty of time and that no guests were present.
Louisa put her horse in the barn and entered the house through the servants’ entrance. They were all rather surprised to see her walking through their quarters, and she apologized profusely for the intrusion. She then quickly made her way to Stephen’s study, where she knew he would be preparing himself for the party.
She didn’t even knock on the door when she got there, just striding right into the room. Stephen was indeed in there, and the shock on his face when Louisa walked in was priceless. Louisa wished that she could have captured his expression and looked at it whenever she was feeling bad about herself.
“Miss Louisa,” Stephen said, sounding very annoyed, “what are you doing here so early? I was not expecting you, especially as unannounced as this.”
Louisa had to admit that when Stephen cleaned himself up, as he had for this party, he did not make her eyes as sore as he had. He’d had his hair trimmed, and his eyes looked far less sunken than they had previously. He was wearing a fine suit and had Louisa not been well acquainted with him, she would
have taken him to be quite an approachable man.
