“Exquisite,” he murmured. “Lovely. Kiss me.”
Teasing him bodily was more than exquisite… But so was the sensation of his tongue teasing at her mouth. She took that tongue and drew on it, fleetingly, and he pushed his body up more snugly against hers. Something was building between them. She could not have said what or how to construct it—but Trenton knew.
Clearly, her marital experience had left gaps in her intimate vocabulary, and it was too late to hide that from the man in her bed.
“Trenton.” She curled away from his kisses and stilled her hips. “I don’t know what to do.”
He relaxed beneath her, and his arms encircled her.
“Then just kiss me. Let me do the rest, and we’ll take it slowly.”
He didn’t hop off the bed with a kiss to her forehead the way Dane so often had, but Ellie still felt defeated.
She nuzzled his chest and wanted to cry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there was so much more to it.”
“Hush.” Trent’s voice was right near her ear. “You tell me what you want from me, or you take my hands and put them where you want them, Ellie. There’s no apologizing for what happens in this bed.”
She managed a nod.
He slipped a hand over one bare, full breast, and Ellie arched into his palm involuntarily. “You’re not too sensitive to enjoy that?”
“Your touch feels good, Trenton.” Heavenly, in fact. In all the years she’d been married, Dane had never—
“Up a little. Let’s see what you like.”
Trenton drove her to madness, caressing, kissing, suckling, and ever so gently kneading, then found her favorite touch was a slow, subtle caress of the soft, soft undersides of her breasts.
“I think we have to stop.” Ellie panted, hanging over him. “This is…I didn’t know I could feel this.”
“Then we’re getting somewhere.” He teased her nipple with his tongue, while his hand plied the other breast and he didn’t relent until Ellie clutched him to her and rocked herself along the length of his cock in a slow, needy rhythm.
“I am…overset,” she rasped in his ear. “It wasn’t like this…before.”
“You’re close.” His hand slipped down her abdomen. “Let me bring you closer.”
Had she been capable of coherent speech, she might have questioned his meaning, but he’d slid his thumb over a particular part of her that screamed in response to that one simple touch.
“Trenton—”
“You feel that.” He did it again, and she pushed hard against his hand. “Take your time, Ellie. Find what you need.”
The moment became a procession of moments. He touched her with patience and skill, until all she needed was more, from his hands, fingers, mouth, and body; until pleasure cascaded up from her center in a great deluge. Sounds came from her throat, soft, unladylike sounds of overwhelming gratification, and then, when he entered her in one smooth, deep lunge, she shook with the satisfaction of it. The luscious, thrusting heat of him turned her mad, fearless, and wanton in his arms.
The bodily tumult ebbed but didn’t recede entirely, and at first Ellie could not have said why she was crying. Trent’s hands stroked her back, then he drew something over them, a cover, a sheet, it didn’t matter. She burrowed into the warmth of him, the strength and quiet comfort, and her feelings sorted themselves out.
“Damn him,” she rasped against Trent’s chest. “Damn that selfish, greedy, ignorant, stupid man. Damn him to Halifax.”
“He’s gone, love,” Trent replied, “while you’re alive, and so, thank God, am I.”
***
Ellie fell asleep—of course—her weight a warm, cozy comfort on Trent’s chest. He was glad for the respite, even as he felt himself slipping from her body. He retrieved his handkerchief by virtue of careful stretching and contained the damage as best he could without waking her. She stirred against him then subsided after rubbing her nose against his chest.
He treasured that small gesture of trust, and familiarity, too.
If he lived to be a hundred, he would not forget the pleasure of this terrible, wonderful day.
If he lived to be a thousand.
If he lived forever—
He’d pushed from his awareness, if he’d ever known, the profundity of the pleasure that could be sexual intimacy with a caring partner. With Paula, the whole business had become twisted, wearying and burdensome. He’d eventually been not unwilling to perform, but unable.
Three years…since he’d had sex. Far more years than that he’d gone without feeling the hot, wet glory of a woman’s arousal, without hearing her breathing quicken with surprise and urgency, without feeling her seize around him in mindless abandon… While for Ellie, unbridled passion had apparently been entirely unknown territory.
He was her first, in a sense, and the joy of that, the newness and singularity of it, was a precious secret.
Who knew what had been amiss with Rammel? Too much liquor maybe, too jaded a sexual palate, or too guilty a conscience from swiving too many demi-reps or straying wives. What mattered was that Ellie Hampton had sought Trent out to set the matter to rights, and he hadn’t failed her.
Affection for her bloomed as she raised her head and blinked sleepily.
“I’m awake.” She closed her eyes and settled back against him. “What does one say in such circumstances?” She gently bit the tendon between his neck and shoulder. “I am more than a little mortified. You engender this state in me, apparently.”
“You are magnificent, Elegy.” He kissed the side of her neck. “One says, ‘Thank you, Almighty God, and may I please be so blessed again in the immediate future?’ At least one does if he’s me.”
She tilted her head back to look at him, then ducked her face again. “Noise.”
“I beg your pardon?” Trent couldn’t let out the laugh he felt, not when she was plastered to his chest and obviously feeling on her dignity.
“I’ve never made such noises.” Ellie pushed up on a sigh and peered down at her breasts. “And these. Who knew what mischief one might undertake with such seemingly prosaic and maternal apparatus?”
Trent tucked her braid over her shoulder. “Ellie, this mischief is a good thing, this”—he caressed her breasts—“apparatus should be a source of mutual delight. I’d forgotten that. You were right to drag me into your bed.”
She beamed at him. “I was right, and you were wrong.”
“Would you like to be right again?” Trent used her braid to bring her within kissing range. “Maybe on your back with a little more company along the way?”
“Hmm?”
He rolled them, then nudged at her sex with his restored erection.
Her expression of surprise, replaced immediately by pure feminine speculation did make him laugh.
“I think you’d like to be right again.” He gave her a shallow penetration. “What do you think?”
Ellie wrapped her legs around him, fastened her mouth to his, and let Trent show her the worthiness of a man who could admit when he’d been wrong.
***
Afternoon was stretching into evening when Trent handed his reins off to Peak. Ellie had dozed again, slipping into sleep while Trent was still inside her, reeling with the pleasure and glory of making love with her. She was artless and shy, generous and bold. Most of all, she was eager—for him, for what he could give her.
The eagerness wouldn’t last, of course. Clearly, Dane hadn’t known how to go on with his wife, but he’d been inept rather than mean, and once Ellie had her confidence restored, she’d no doubt relegate Trent to a fond place in her memories, while he…
He’d cope. A little affaire de coeur wasn’t an excuse for excesses of sentiment or attachment. In time, he’d acquire the knack, probably, though he hoped never to resemble his parents for the velocity and viciousness of their affairs.
“Is Cato about?” Trent asked.
“Pitching the evening’s hay,” Peak replied. “Heathgate sent a messag
e up to the house for you.”
“Send Cato along when you can spare him, and please look after Arthur. He’s had a long and trying day.”
“Oh, right. Poor old Artie looks worn to a veritable nubbin. Is her ladyship bearing up?”
“Doing fine.”
Peak patted Arthur’s neck while the horse stood placidly, one hip cocked. “Breeding females. They have that secret look about ’em, like God whispered a private joke in their ear.”
“Or assurances of a happy ending to some fairy tale. Cato will find me in the library.”
“I’ll let him know. Come along, your highness.” Peak led Arthur away, muttering something about the Quality and their stubbornness.
As Trent walked up to the house, he debated ordering a bath, but he’d ridden home at a sedate walk, keeping to the lanes rather than the bridle paths, the better to think through his circumstances—and avoid the woods.
His interlude with Ellie had been unexpected, unspeakably sweet, and troubling.
He hadn’t meant to actually bed her, but her instinct had been accurate: He’d needed, desperately, not only bedding, but loving. He’d craved without knowing it the tenderness and intimacy Ellie had brought him. He’d needed to feel the silky smoothness of a woman’s skin under his hands, needed to feel her weight on him, her hair brushing his arms, belly and chest. Hear her sighs and whispers, taste the sweetness of her kisses.
And that bed… Ellie slept in a fancy, a confection. The bed was a bit of whimsy in a practical lady whose loveliness had been too easily overlooked by her late husband.
“There’s a rumor.” Cato’s voice sounded just behind Trent on the path. “The rumor’s that you’ve ordered Louise to abide by only one menu a day, and we’re all to dine on truffles as a result.”
“Are they in season? I don’t particularly care for them, but one should have variety in the diet.”
Trent had asked Cato to attend him, and yet, he mightily resented his stable master’s presence. That’s how badly he wanted to wallow in memories of the afternoon’s pleasures.
Cato drew even with him. “Are you to eat peasant fare?”
“Louise had to be stubborn to survive at Wilton Acres, but the rumor has a basis in fact. She was not conscientious enough in implementing my direction regarding the household’s victuals, so I made my intentions easier to understand.”
“Getting crotchety in your dotage?”
No “my lord,” no “Amherst,” and Trent wasn’t inclined to correct him. “I am unwilling for a female’s eccentricities to make my entire household miserable.”
Ever again.
“About damned time,” Cato muttered.
Any other evening, Trent might have let the remark pass, but having spent time in Elegy Hampton’s bed had put him more on his mettle. Interesting.
“What is that comment supposed to mean, Catullus?”
Cato held his silence until they were in the library, where a sealed missive awaited in the center of the blotter on Trent’s desk.
“Let me order us a meal, then you will answer my question.”
While Trent dispensed with cuff links, cravat, and riding jacket, Cato studied the spines of books written in Latin, French, English and German. Trays came up from the kitchen, along with a pitcher of cold lemonade and chilled white wine.
“Eat.” Trent took a seat at a table by the window and gestured for Cato to do likewise. “Or make yourself useful and pour some of that wine. I suspect I’ll need it when I’ve read Heathgate’s missive.”
Cato for once didn’t argue, scold or fuss, but sat and sipped his wine. “Jaysus, Mary and Joseph. At the end of a long, hot, miserable day, that is ambrosial.”
“German.” Though Ellie Hampton’s kisses were the definition of ambrosial. “The German wines have a sturdiness that holds up better to hearty fare or hot days. So what did your comment mean, Catullus? It’s about damned time?”
“Nothing. You hear too well, and I would never think to judge my betters.”
“For what I and this coy, mendacious jackanapes are about to receive…” Trent intoned, picking up his fork.
“And for nobody getting blasted to kingdom come today,” Cato interjected.
“We are grateful, amen,” Trent concluded. “You’re stalling, Catullus, and I’ve always taken you for a brave man.”
“Why would you make that mistake?” Cato started on a small mountain of mashed potatoes sporting a fat puddle of gravy.
“The ladies,” Trent said, tucking into his own meal. “A man with a reputation for racketing from bed to bed the way you do has to have a certain amount of courage.”
“Manly humors do not courage make. God in heaven, I have missed good food. To what do I owe the privilege?”
“I want for company and I will have an answer, your lordship.”
Cato’s fork clattered to his plate. “I will forget I heard that,” he said slowly, “if you’ll allow me to.”
Trent sliced off a piece of perfectly turned beef. “Will some angry papa come haring across the shire, blunderbuss in hand, demanding my stable master make things right with his daughter?”
“He will not.”
“You hope.” Trent resigned himself to prying, though the food was excellent, and he’d passed hungry halfway up the lane. “Catullus, what is afoot?”
“I am many naughty, disreputable things,” Cato said, staring at a forkful of potatoes. “I take responsibility for my sins, though, and Megan McMahon was not among them. I was with a female who answered to Meggie’s description, and Meggie no doubt saw us, but that lady was not Meggie.”
Trent chewed thoughtfully. “You were with a married woman, then. You couldn’t say anything without getting the lady in a deal of trouble, and Meggie probably knew it. Shrewd, but not shrewd enough.”
“I wasn’t with the lady, not in the sense you implied.” Cato took another drink of wine, probably stalling, the better to choose his words. “She was merely lonely and in want of a friend. I obliged with my company only, because my affections were elsewhere engaged.”
Trent pushed the decanter closer to his stable master. “This is what comes from crying wolf, or some such. You were hung for a ram and thus I find Glasclare’s baby earl in my stables.”
Cato looked miserable and did not top off his wine. “Glasclare himself.”
“My condolences,” Trent said softly. “When did your father die?”
“About six months past. My cousin Brian is maintaining appearances, says I’m off on a sea voyage and will no doubt be back before seven years is up and I’m disinherited.”
“You poor bastard. You’ll have to show up married unless you want Meggie’s papa to meet you with a shotgun. Has it been so bad, being my stable master here?”
“Not bad at all.” Cato’s smile was oddly bashful. “Except for Cook’s idea of what the help should subsist on, but you’re putting that to rights.”
“One hopes.” Trent poured more wine for his…his guest. Who outranked him. “Now that your personal peccadilloes are thoroughly dissected, Catullus, you’ve yet to explain what you meant earlier, when you said it’s about time I stopped letting a female’s eccentricities make an entire household miserable.”
The exact words would not leave Trent’s tired mind.
“A thousand apologies, and please don’t call me out, but your late wife was a flaming horror.” Cato put his utensils down and crossed his arms over his chest. “The help at your town house talk. They talk more than they work, if you want the truth, and whenever I’d take a team into Town, to bring in a load of produce or firewood, all I heard was how lucky we were out here, free of Lady Amherst’s hysterics and sulks.”
“She was sensitive.” Trent used a flaky, buttered roll on his extra gravy. “That’s all that need be said.” Lest he start drinking too much and too quickly, and ranting.
“Amherst.” Cato’s voice became carefully even. “That is not all that need be said, and you know it.”
/> “Another roll?”
“Please.”
What was the point of evading this difficult conversation? For whom was decorum to be observed in this library at the end of this day?
“What else would you say, Cato?”
“If you want to look for people who hold you in low esteem, people with a grudge against you, you need to include Lady Amherst’s family.”
Trent stopped chewing and reached for his wine glass. “How much do you know?”
“Enough.” Cato ran a callused finger around the rim of his glass. “They have to hold you responsible for her death, and for the fact that your nursery was full to bursting in five years flat and she was bloody miserable for the duration. The help was full of tales of her fits and pouts. She wasn’t a stoic woman, Amherst.”
“One perceived this when wed to her. You have a point, nonetheless.” A point that Trent, preoccupied with his neighbor’s kisses, had missed entirely.
“She was an hysterical female. That temperament can be inherited, which means it isn’t a rational set of grieving in-laws you’re dealing with, but instead, a pack of—”
“Lunatics,” Trent concluded quietly. “I don’t know them well, particularly Paula’s mother, but her father seemed steady enough.”
“Where does her family bide?” Cato polished off the last of his buttered green beans.
“The seat is in Hampshire, not far from Wilton Acres. I can ask our steward at Wilton to look into it, make sure they’re all present and accounted for.” Though the notion of ill will from Trent’s former in-laws made a good meal sit poorly.
“All of them?”
“Paula has—had—two brothers, both older than she—Tidewell and Thomas—still racketing around without benefit of marriage. Her father is the Baron Trevisham, though, so one of the brothers will wed eventually.”
Trent did not envy their wives.
“How did her ladyship’s brothers take her death?”
“I don’t know,” Trent said, thinking back. “We held the funeral before they could have come up, given it was winter, and my own situation was such that I haven’t kept more than perfunctory contact with them.”
Trenton: Lord Of Loss Page 15
