Caroline had told him—ordered him—to remarry, one of the last orders she’d given him. Remarry and be happy. Don’t grow old, contrary, and blind in those damned glass houses.
“Should I be doing something?” Abby asked.
She should be changing her mind.
“I’m considering my strategy.” Though Axel hadn’t a strategy. Distracting Abigail from the heartbreak he’d served her wasn’t a strategy. Obliging a new widow on her first reckless tear wasn’t a strategy either. “I function well within clearly articulated rules.”
Abby wiggled around to peer at him. “No, you don’t. Whoever told you that was wrong. You function well when given a task and left complete latitude to decide how to execute it. Your estate thrives, and nobody tells you how to go on with it. Your boys are perfect gentlemen, if their behavior in the churchyard is any indication. You raised them without any guidelines save your own common sense. Your botany is entirely your own undertaking. Rules, indeed. I am in bed with a daft man.”
She wasn’t… she wasn’t wrong. She was warm, and naked, and so clearly happy to be in this bed. Axel wanted to savor that, and yet, he wanted her too.
Desperately.
“Lecturing is apparently contagious,” he muttered. “My sons have warned me this is so. Enough lecturing, then.” For once.
Axel rose over her, arranged himself on all fours, and commenced a spree of kissing that felt so miserably overdue, he nearly spent on Abby’s belly when she brushed her fingers over his cock.
Haste would not serve, but restraint would kill him.
“You want me,” she announced.
“Do I detect a note of glee in your voice? Perhaps smugness is the more accurate term. You’re the prose lover in this bed, and—merciful God, Abigail….”
She had the most beguiling way of wrapping her fingers around a man’s sanity. Caroline had been all reckless dispatch, a woman intent on her goals. Axel had been expected to aid that objective, and be content with what pleasure he could manage for himself along the way.
Abigail was the curious sort. She had deucedly good coordination too, tangling tongues as she stroked him and explored his most vulnerable attributes.
“Men are so oddly constructed,” she said, fondling him gently. She was bold but careful, and diabolically thorough. “I love touching you.”
Had Abigail raised her knee, she could not have dealt a greater blow to the composure Axel was determined to maintain, even under intimate circumstances. Every man should hear those words—I love touching you—spoken in those exact, purring tones, and yet, Axel never had. Not from his wife, not from the casual liaisons from years past, not from the well-practiced women who catered to strutting, insecure university boys.
“Your touch conveys your delight, Abigail. I can feel your joy to have me in your grasp.”
Not simple desire, which could be so much selfishness. He’d merely kissed her, and yet her joy in the moment—in him—was as much a source of warmth as the fire in the hearth or the covers surrounding them.
“You know you make a fetching picture in your breeches,” she said, palms brushing over his fundament. “I like to watch you walk away. I am shameless.”
She was balm to a widower’s soul.
This time, when Axel kissed her, he added a caress to her bare breast, and that—most fortunately—slowed her plundering of his wits.
“I like that,” she said. “You give me the warm shivers when you do that. The loveliest warm shivers.”
Not, “Again.” Or, “Harder.” Not, “Stop that!” Or, his least favorite, “Will you get on with it…?”
So Axel shaped, caressed, tasted, and nibbled, until Abby was squirming and sighing beneath him. The warm shivers were apparently as contagious as lectures.
“Now, Abigail? In choosing the moment of joining, your complicity would be appreciated.” Not her direction, not her permission. They would be accomplices in mutual passion.
What a novel concept. Axel poised above her, enduring the fascinating sensation of Abigail’s tongue applied to his right nipple, while a moment of bereavement assailed him, for a very young husband who’d tried his best.
For a young wife who’d not lived long enough to learn what Abigail already knew. Mutual pleasure was the best pleasure, and in the last hour, Axel had been ruined for anything less.
Abby became perilously inventive with her mouth.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear my question,” Axel whispered, pushing gently at her sex. “Now, Abigail?”
“Mmm.”
He teased, he feinted, he reveled in a joining that didn’t consist of the lady taking him by the hand, shoving him along, and then flopping back to the mattress as if her obligations for the entire evening had been met, and somebody should ring to have the coach brought around at the top of the hour.
“You are a devil,” Abby said, biting his shoulder. “You are the worst, most delectable devil. You could do this all night, couldn’t you?”
With her, Axel was capable of feats of loving heretofore unknown to mortal man. Never had the reproductive organs of one male and one female been as slowly, carefully, or pleasurably introduced to each other. Instead of the tired parents’ marital hornpipe, joining with Abby was a pavane of bliss.
The fit was exquisite, and Abby did Axel the great courtesy of remaining still until they were fully joined.
She stroked her hands down his back, then cupped his backside. “The feel of you, Axel Belmont… The sheer, glorious feel of you. You can’t know… I want to move, to thrash out my gladness that we are close like this.”
She would soon have him in tears.
“We’ll move together.” He started slowly, because they did not know each other intimately, and yet, with Abigail, the rhythm was just there, a gift to each other born of mutual attention and genuine regard.
The thrashing phase came soon enough, and Axel obliged his lady without limit. Abigail’s passion was magnificent in its spontaneity, and nearly lethal to Axel’s self-restraint. When she was panting beneath him, her fingers lazily disarranging his hair, he realized that part of him was waiting on his marks.
Old habits died hard, if at all, and yet, he didn’t ask.
“You are such a fraud, Axel Belmont. Such a terrible, shameless fraud.” Abigail’s tone was drowsy and pleased, but her words sent unease through passion Axel could barely limit to a simmering boil.
“I’m a fraud?”
“You trot about the shire, tending to the king’s justice, or you spend hours muttering to your roses. I can tell you’ve spent years with your violin too, but all the while, you are the dearest, loveliest man. I don’t even have the words to tell you what I want, and yet, you know. That generosity, that attentiveness… You are nothing less than a wish come true. I suspected you would be too, but not like this. Nothing, not the most exquisite, explicit book in the world, could have prepared me for this.”
She kissed his temple, undulated luxuriously beneath him, and the intermission was over.
Axel set those extraordinary words aside to be admired, sniffed at, and examined later—he could show her very exquisite, explicit books—and bent himself to the bodily admiration of the woman in his arms.
He’d had sex with enough women. For a time after Caroline’s death, he’d been a monk, then he’d been overtaken by a need to assure himself of his continued functioning. Some of those excursions had been pathetic, but some had been pleasant, a few had been very pleasant.
But this… with Abigail… this was a new kind of intimacy, and he was enthralled. Axel didn’t simply see to her pleasure. With his body, he worshipped her, and in her arms, he felt worshipped in return.
Her satisfaction came easily the next time, a long, sweet, rolling thunder of bliss moaned against his ear, followed by a sigh against his chest, as natural as spring breezes wafting past wild daffodils.
The experience was beyond words, beyond…
“Now you,” Abby said, patting his bum.
How he adored the sensation of her touch on his backside. How he blossomed with renewed desire at her gentle pats and quiet murmurs.
“I’ll withdraw.” A promise, to her, to himself, to his scholarly ambitions, and to common sense. Children should be conceived with at least a commitment between their parents, with love of some sort, and a respectful—
“No lectures. Move, Axel. You move so beautifully, but I lack your stamina. You’ve loved me too well.”
He moved.
He held off as long as sanity allowed, then longer still, because he did not want this interlude to end, and because Abigail was with him in a sense new to his experience. The tender edges of that newness wanted exploring, and yet, desire demanded satisfaction too.
He withdrew—barely—and poured his seed onto Abigail’s belly. She held him ferociously tight, not easing her grip until Axel found the strength to raise himself up on his arms.
“I left my damned handkerchief in the pocket of my breeches.” Proof he’d been ambushed by Abigail’s overtures.
“Use mine,” she said, brushing his hair back. “I don’t want you to leave this bed a moment sooner than you must.”
He nearly collapsed back on top of her, brought down like flying game by her sleepy sentiments. Only the certain knowledge that the maids would know if he made shift with the linens could have driven him from the bed.
Abby fumbled for the handkerchief on the night table, and Axel sat back. The moment was oddly intimate, for he’d barely allowed her a glimpse of him earlier. She lay on her back, knees spread, shadows flickering across her pale thighs, Axel’s seed glistening on her belly.
And kneeling between her legs, he was exposed to her too. From neck to knees, with the scent of spent passion in the air, Axel had never been with a woman so casually naked.
“What?” Abby asked, holding out her handkerchief. Such a delicate article was hardly adequate for the job, and yet, Axel managed. He tended to Abby first, then to himself, using some of the rose’s water to dampen the cloth.
Abby made no move to cover herself, nor did she look away as Axel dealt with their ablutions. Pity for Caroline assailed him, so demanding, and so unsure of herself.
“Earlier,” Axel said, folding the handkerchief and setting it under the rose’s vase, “I said something to you about others attributing their own shortcomings to us.”
“The log in your own eye, rather than the speck in your brother’s?” Abby murmured as Axel arranged himself beside her.
“Something like that. Remington being accused of tardiness by the brother who is, in fact, more lacking in punctuality.”
“I recall. You are wondrously warm, Mr. Belmont, a human recommendation for chilly winters and long, cold nights.”
He tucked an arm around her waist. “I might have overstated my capacity for bodily modesty.”
For even the Oxford fellow’s version of celibacy too. But then, the past hour had sent Axel’s every concept of himself into the waste bin, a random heap of vines, leaves, twigs, and roots that had once been a recognizable plant.
Not a very happy plant though, not a great, blooming, robust specimen.
Abigail’s passion, by contrast, was an open, generous, unguarded gift. For the first time in his life, Axel felt as if he’d made love with a virgin. The gift of her desire and closeness had been all his, and only his, a perfect rose.
Perhaps the man who’d made love with Abigail had been something of a virgin too. A dreaming virgin, who might bring his lady a few more lovely blossoms on long, cold winter nights.
Chapter Eleven
The first sight to greet Abby’s eyes in the morning was the little white rose on the night table. The fragrance was delicate but distinctive, so she could lie amid her covers and breathe in sweetness, mulling spices, a tangy hint of cider, lush summer meadows… and Axel Belmont.
Weak sunlight filtered around the edges of the bed hangings that some considerate botanist had drawn closed on three sides. Abby pushed back the hangings on the window side of the bed, revealing morning sun, though she’d probably missed breakfast.
Ah, well. Allowances would be made. She’d been up late reading, having a tantrum, and…
Making love with Axel Belmont.
Somebody tapped on the door—not his tap.
“Come in.”
“Morning, missus,” Hennessey said, pushing the door open with one hand, while the other balanced a tray. “Mr. Belmont left orders we weren’t to disturb you, but I was afraid your fire might go out.”
No, in fact, Abby’s fire had been rekindled. “I’ve slept as much as I can for now, thank you, Hennessey. Something smells good.” Abby’s appetite had apparently awoken along with the rest of her.
“Cinnamon toast,” Hennessey said. “The footmen will give up their half days for extra servings of Cook’s cinnamon toast, or so they claim.”
Abby sat up as Hennessey set the tray on the side of the bed. The dishes were porcelain with purple flowers patterning the glaze, and a bouquet of violets graced one corner of the tray.
Violets stood for modesty. Any girl who’d grown up with her nose in books knew the language of flowers.
“Mr. Belmont has asked that I act as your lady’s maid, if you need one. I have three sisters, which probably qualifies me as well as anything could.”
A rose, a lady’s maid, violets… small considerations to some women, but to Abby, sumptuous offerings. She would have traded them all to know how, exactly, a woman faced the man who’d shown her what pleasure between consenting adults could be.
“Will I disturb you if I build up the fire?” Hennessey asked.
“Of course not. Is that peat?”
“Mr. Belmont does experiments, and this winter’s fancy is comparing the heating properties of coal, wood, peat, and I don’t know what else. All this science is for his glass houses, of course. We test his theories here in the manor house, and any benefits go to the flowers. He’ll be very much at home among the other professors at Oxford. They doubtless compare experiments with each other the livelong day.”
The cinnamon toast was… ambrosial. The bread had been sliced to a generous thickness, then fried in some sort of batter, complete with spices more complicated than simple cinnamon. Sugar and melted butter adorned the whole, and a bowl of pears completed the feast.
And yet… Hennessey had mentioned Oxford. Axel’s ambition was not news, but the reminder dimmed Abby’s joy.
“When do you expect the professor to remove to university?”
“After he’s published his latest herbal, though he’s been working on it ever so long. Shall I come back to lace you up?”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you. I mostly wear jumps. Please give Cook my compliments on the cinnamon toast. It restores the soul.” A steady diet of such meals would help a lady fill out her dresses too.
Hennessey gave the room a visual going-over, popped a curtsey, then withdrew.
Abby treated herself to two cups of gunpowder tea and an entire slice of cinnamon toast, but left the second slice for some deserving footman or boot boy. Since joining the Belmont household, she’d done little besides eat, sleep, and read—also cry—and yet, she was feeling… better.
Not simply better as a grieving widow gradually recovers from the shock of her husband’s death, but better than she had for weeks, possibly for months. Her digestion was settling down, her energy was coming back, her temper was reappearing in fine style, and soon… she’d be well enough to return to Stoneleigh Manor.
Every rose came with a complement of thorns, a reality even Axel Belmont hadn’t been able to change.
“The law conspires against a man’s honor,” Nick said. “The widows know it too. You have a small window in which you might console the dear lady without repercussions, and she’ll thank you for it. That’s not taking advantage, Professor, that’s merely—”
Axel drove his fist into Nick’s gut.
Because Dayton and Phillip occa
sionally had a go at the old man—all in good fun, of course—Axel knew how to deliver a blow without trumpeting his intentions about the shire first.
He and Nick were in the stable, so if Nick wanted to oblige with return fire, no breakables were endangered. Right now, Axel would enjoy throwing a few punches. Or a lot of punches.
He’d forgotten how passionate lovemaking could put a man back on his mettle and renew his spirits in all regards… or perhaps this was a new discovery.
“Ouch, dammit,” Nick groused. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“You are not to procure on behalf of the lady, Nicholas. She bides here newly bereaved, and the neighbors already regard her in a pitying light, at best. Then too, I wanted to hit something solid and worthy of my ire.”
“Happy to be of service, and at least you didn’t rearrange my handsome phiz. Damned lawyers are enough to turn any reasonable man violent. What will you tell Abby?”
Axel had yet to discover those particular words, for they’d be difficult to say. “I’ve not the slightest—the lady approaches.”
In her black cloak, Abby stood out against the snowy garden like a raven winging free against the winter sky. Was her walk more relaxed? She hadn’t bothered with a bonnet, hadn’t bothered with a scarf. She didn’t even look cold, and the sight of her warmed Axel in places too long neglected.
The center of his chest, his hands, his throat, the middle of his back.
Behind his falls.
“The lady thrives in your care,” Nick said, leading his mare into a loose box. “She’s like one of those droopy, sad, horticultural specimens you get from Cathay or Persia. They arrive half dead, not even a rose to the casual observer. A year later, all is blossoms and exotic perfume.”
Nick exaggerated, but not by much.
“Mrs. Stoneleigh, good morning.” Axel took the lady’s hand and bowed over it. “You’re looking well.” She looked shy, delectable, rosy-cheeked, and entirely lovely. “You will not remain well if you insist on braving the elements without gloves or a scarf.”
Nick emerged from Buttercup’s stall. “Forgive him. He’s been to see the lawyers and is thus in more of a foul humor than usual. I can cheer him up with a sound thrashing, if you like. Might cheer myself up too. In fact, I think a little friendly pugilism is just the thing to settle the manly humors on a brisk winter morning.”
It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels Page 17
