So perfect she forgot it was Harry as she ran her hands up and down his back, too. And she forgot about him again when he locked one of her legs between his own, bending her back just enough to place a kiss on the top of her breast, exposed above Fiona’s impossibly low neckline.
She couldn’t help but moan at the pleasurable sensation. He murmured something deep in his throat, and then he yanked at her neckline with his teeth—his teeth!—and nudged it farther down.
And then his tongue began the most delicious exploration of her—
Molly’s eyes flew open.
She couldn’t forget. This was Harry. The bachelor to end all bachelors! One of Prinny’s own Impossible Bachelors.
“That’s enough,” she gasped, and pushed him away. “You’ve had plenty of kissing tonight. You kissed Athena, too, don’t forget.”
He laughed softly and grabbed her waist. “That meant nothing,” he murmured against her neck.
His mouth tickled in the most pleasurable way. But with everything she had in her, Molly pushed him away again. “This means nothing, as well,” she said in her best Miss Dunlap voice. “The fact is, Harry, I would simply rather not participate in nothing unless I have to. After all, I’m not your real mistress.”
“Yes, but—”
“Thank you for instilling confidence in me again,” Molly interrupted him. “But I think it best that you save your displays of so-called affection for when others are present to see them.”
Oh, she hated to say that! Because he was quite adorable just now, with that jet-black curl falling over his eye and the obvious disappointment in his gaze.
He sighed. “Have it your way. But remember, Delilah, if you fail at this mistress game, you are on your own this coming Season.”
She felt all mixed up inside when he left through the dressing room to go to his bedchamber—angry at him for being so shortsighted yet craving him, too, somehow.
He was her only friend at the house party. It was going to be a long, lonely week if even Harry were to give her the brush-off.
She listened as he opened a drawer. And then she heard his boots come off and imagined him cursing her under his breath. And then she imagined him taking off his breeches, and—
No. She must not imagine him taking off his breeches.
Slowly, she undressed, and then she put on a stunning embroidered shift which clung to her curves and was completely see-through. If she wore it—which she would because it was quite the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen—she was sure she’d go to hell if she were to die the next day in a freak accident.
Although she was probably already going to hell for letting Harry kiss her so.
She’d best pray.
After she’d finished a rushed plea to God to send her an extra angel to help her resist Harry and prevent her having an untimely death in the meanwhile, Molly decided to give herself some extra protection against both Harry and her own decadent impulses by dragging a chest over to their connecting door.
Not that she really believed he’d take advantage of her without her permission.
Or that she’d wake up pretending to have had a nightmare so she could have the excuse of running into his room, where she’d cuddle next to him under the bedclothes and they’d resume kissing so her pretend nightmare—about a ghost? or a monster? she couldn’t decide which—would be irrevocably banished.
Although the nightmare idea was tempting. Very tempting.
She blew out her candle, crawled under the covers, and tried to sleep.
But she couldn’t. She had the noble thought that she must do better in the morning—first, by trying to win over the other mistresses, and then by somehow charming the men, even the vile Sir Richard, if she could do so without getting too close to him.
But she also couldn’t sleep because the bureau in front of the dressing room door reminded her that Harry was just on the other side. And thinking of Harry reminded her of how much she enjoyed his mouth, his hair, his whole body, pressed against hers.
It made no sense. This was Harry she was feeling all these feelings about!
She was desperate, she decided, blinking into the darkness. That was all. She was almost a spinster, and no man had ever brought her flowers. She was to be excused for feeling all mushy inside when she thought of Harry kissing her.
But she couldn’t let those mushy feelings continue. She must cease them immediately. So she thought about the time a much younger Harry had planted all her dolls head-first in a little vegetable garden she’d cultivated long ago.
That got her blood up.
She heard a noise and sat up, her heart pounding. “Harry?”
Someone was scratching at her door, from the hallway. But Harry was in bed. And he would have knocked on the door connecting their rooms, if he’d needed to knock at all.
Molly crept to the door and made sure the key was in the lock. “Who’s there?” she whispered.
“Sir Richard,” the voice whispered back. “I just wanted to say good night. Will you open the door?”
“No!” she hissed. “Go away!”
He laughed. “Something’s different about you. And I intend to find out what it is.”
She heard his footsteps move down the corridor.
Thank God.
Returning to her bed, she drew the sheets up to her chin and stared at a beam of moonlight illuminating a corner of her room. If Sir Richard found out she was no mistress, he might find out her real name, and he’d tell everyone, and then she’d be properly ruined. Not even a bounder like Cedric would want to marry her. She’d be stuck with Cousin Augusta forever, and everyone would whisper about her behind her back.
Except for Harry’s family, of course. They were perfectly proper, but they were also fun, sometimes entertaining on a lavish scale and, other times, inviting just a few neighbors over for an afternoon picnic or an evening of music. It wouldn’t do for the duke and duchess to think badly of her. They were Penelope’s family now.
A tiny tear escaped Molly’s eye.
Penelope!
It was at times like this that Molly missed her sister. And her mother. Because there was no one she could turn to in this house for comfort. No one at all.
Especially not Harry.
Chapter 12
Despite a restless night’s sleep, the next morning Molly was ready to face another day as a contestant in the Most Delectable Companion contest. This time, she told herself, she would do well. She dressed in her least revealing gown, which was still outside the boundaries of good taste as it was a shocking shade of spring green. And she read the note Harry had slipped under her door: Have a good morning. Yours, Harry.
Yours? She blushed, remembering their kissing session last night. She supposed he was hers. At least for this week.
You should let him be yours even more, a tiny voice in her head urged her.
Molly cleared her throat and tried to ignore that wicked voice as she walked downstairs to the breakfast room. Once there she saw only one footman, the same one who’d helped her the day before when she’d first come to the house. Again, he looked right through her, as was appropriate, but she wondered if he were having any illicit thoughts about her or perhaps the other mistresses.
Because they were mistresses. Even if she was simply pretending.
She filled her plate and sat at the table, all alone.
Thankfully, Joan came in a few minutes later.
“Good morning.” Molly smiled and took a sip from her tea.
“I abhor country hours,” Joan muttered, and brushed by Molly rudely on her way to the sideboard.
“The men are already out and about, exploring the countryside on horseback,” Molly said when Joan returned to the table.
But Joan merely gave her a flat stare and stirred sugar into her tea.
The other mistresses trailed in one by one over the next half hour, and none of them ate terribly much. Molly, meanwhile, enjoyed eggs and a rasher of bacon, toast and marmalade.
Athena eyed her plate. “You do eat like a horse, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “I have a good appetite.”
Joan snickered and stretched her arms above her head. “I have a good appetite, too.” She winked at Athena again. “But not for breakfast. At least that’s what Lumley tells me.”
Everyone else laughed, especially Hildur, who laughed heartily at everything, probably because she didn’t understand much of what was being said and wanted to fit in.
Molly herself wasn’t quite sure what was funny, so she kept quiet. She remembered her kiss with Harry in the carriage, and that gave her an idea. She had developed an appetite for kissing after that episode and so had given in easily to Harry last night.
Perhaps Joan had meant the same kind of appetite as that!
So she eventually did laugh, but she was a trifle late.
Everyone stared at her.
“For someone vying for the title of Most Delectable Companion, you’re a featherbrain,” said Joan to her. “At least Hildur has an excuse. She can’t understand the language.”
Molly couldn’t think of anything clever to say back. So she said what she was thinking. “You remind me of some teachers I used to know. I never once saw them laugh. Some students said it was because they were naturally hateful. But I think it was because our headmistress was difficult and wouldn’t let them write their families, as penance for their supposed failings. Miss Dunlap thought we were all wicked.”
Joan simply blinked.
There was an awkward silence, which Bunny was good enough to break. “What an interesting story, Delilah,” she murmured, and patted Molly’s hand.
No one else said another word, until Athena suggested they adjourn to the drawing room.
All the women, except Molly, carried bags of some sort. Hildur sat on a sofa and pulled out some knitting. Athena opened a sketchpad and looked out the window. Joan sat at the pianoforte and began a charming prelude.
Molly sat next to Bunny on another sofa and opened a book on ancient Rome which she found on the tabletop. Bunny nudged her. “Don’t you have anything to work on?” She pulled out a lovely piece of needlepoint.
“No,” said Molly. “For five years I went to a very strict school where my chore every day was to peel potatoes for each meal. I never developed any feminine skills. But my father loves a good tart, and Cook never made one to his satisfaction. So I stepped in and learned three years ago.”
“You live at home?” Bunny looked vaguely shocked. “And make tarts for your father?”
Molly felt her heart quicken. “Oh, no,” she said breezily. “I meant in the old days. Before I—before I—” She didn’t know quite how to say it.
“Before you became Lord Harry’s mistress?” Bunny whispered.
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you make him tarts?” Bunny asked her, all the while pushing her needle through her canvas.
“Yes, every Tuesday and Friday.” She hoped she wouldn’t go to hell for all the lies she was telling this week.
“That’s wonderful,” said Bunny, sounding wistful.
“Do you do anything…special for Sir Richard?” Molly set aside her book.
Bunny’s eyes darkened. “What he thinks of as special and what I think of as special are two very different things.” She shuddered and closed her eyes.
Molly couldn’t even imagine to what Bunny was referring. “What do you mean?”
Bunny opened her eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
Molly felt her skin prickle. “I hope he doesn’t do anything to make you feel uncomfortable. Or sad. Or frightened.”
The way he does me, she wanted to say.
Bunny half smiled. “Nothing you should worry about,” she murmured. “It’s all right.”
But Molly could tell it wasn’t all right. It wasn’t all right at all.
Bunny cleared her throat. “Let’s talk again about cozy things, shall we? Things that a loving wife would do for her husband, like that baking of yours. Do you also mend Lord Harry’s stockings?”
“No. I’m no good at mending. Just potato peeling. And tart baking.”
Bunny giggled. “I design my own gowns. “
“Really? How fascinating.”
Bunny giggled. “You’re the first person to find me at all fascinating, Delilah.” She paused, took out some thread and a needle from her basket. “Here, I’ll teach you to sew.”
And Bunny proceeded to do just that. She found an old piece of cloth, which she folded in two, and made tiny stitches in it. “See?”
Molly peered at it.
“You can do that, too,” said Bunny. “Give it a try.”
Molly painstakingly sewed the seam. She pricked her finger only twice.
Bunny took it from her and examined it. “Very good!”
Molly smiled. “Thank you for being kind,” she whispered. “No one else is friendly at all.”
“That’s because everyone wants to win the title.”
Molly frowned. “But what good is a crown of paste?”
There was a shocked silence in the room. Apparently, she’d voiced her question a little too loudly.
Bunny gave a nervous laugh. “But Delilah—it’s the very idea that one might be named the Most Delectable Companion. Being an excellent one takes a great deal of skill. Don’t you agree?”
Molly had once again forgotten that she was supposed to be a mistress.
“Oh, yes,” she lied. Because she really wasn’t sure of the skills involved. Although last night was giving her an idea. And of course the idea had to do with her being naked, and Harry being naked. Perhaps on the floor. Or the bed. Or against the door. Any of those places would do.
She felt herself blush. “That’s why if I win, I’d prefer to receive money. A hundred pounds should do it.”
Joan huffed. “That’s more than most people earn in several years!”
Molly shrugged. “A tiara of paste won’t sustain me if”—she hesitated, but then decided to be brave—“if, um, Lord Harry throws me over someday.”
Again, there was an awkward silence.
“You’ve put me in a very bad mood, Delilah,” Athena said, her winged eyebrows lowered dangerously.
“Me, too,” said Hildur, crossing her arms and glaring at Molly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I just meant that we all deserve something better than a tiara if we win.”
“Would you be quiet with your outrageous speech?” Joan said. “You’re boring me to tears.” She struck a jarring chord on the pianoforte, her chest heaving with…something like discontent.
But Athena diffused the tension when she stood and flung back her hair, quite as if she were onstage. “We’ve no time to indulge this sort of prattle. The men approach!” Quickly, she put her sketchbook in a drawer and fussed with the ringlets around her face.
Indeed, Molly could hear the horses’ hooves galloping across the yard. Her heart started beating at a fast pace. She didn’t know why she was excited to see Harry again. But perhaps it was because being alone with the other mistresses had its own stresses.
Hildur hid her knitting behind a curtain. Then she lifted her bosom higher in her dress and threw her shoulders back.
“You’re blocking my profile,” Athena warned her.
Hildur didn’t appear to understand.
“Move.” Athena waved her hand. “I must be seen to advantage.”
Hildur glowered at her, then threw herself onto a chair and sulked prettily.
Joan put the music away on the pianoforte, and Bunny stuffed her needlework under a table. They both took up strategic positions lounging on sofas near the drawing room entrance.
All of them appeared completely indolent, Molly thought, as if they’d merely been waiting for their men to return and accomplished nothing else in the meantime.
Predictably, the men came in with much noise and dropping of equipment near the front door. Molly had no time to think of how she should
appear when Harry saw her. She merely stood there, like a stump, and watched the drawing room entrance.
All the men poured through together, like puppies.
Which amused Molly no end. Their faces were red and their hair was tousled. Harry looked extremely handsome, and for a fleeting second, she felt a surge of heat and possession grip her.
She was proud he was “hers.” And oh, how she wanted to mark him with her kisses! She wanted to fling her arms about his neck and look into his eyes and know that he would do things to her that would turn her knees to blancmange any time she wanted him to.
Because her wish was his command.
And in her daydream, he would desire nothing more than to pleasure her senseless and hold her when she was afraid—and laugh with her when she needed a friend. And then go back to kissing her, of course.
But then she remembered. Harry was most definitely not hers. Nor did he want her. And why should he? The other women, except for Bunny, had made clear yet again this morning that she made a terrible mistress.
“Delilah,” Harry said with much energy and enthusiasm. Yes, he was merely putting on a show for the room, but a small part of him was actually happy to see her. And another part was worried about her.
She appeared…small. As slight as a shadow. Ever since she’d arrived here, she had. Except for last night against her bedroom door. She’d been very noticeable then.
“Harry,” she greeted him back, her hands folded in front of her. She appeared rather nervous about what he planned to do next. Everyone around them was kissing and murmuring sweet nothings.
So he bounded across the room to her, leaned in, and kissed her full on the mouth.
But he kept the kiss short. Too long, and he would get frustrated. He found the short kiss invigorating, to tell the truth. And it appeared to have the same effect of lifting Molly’s spirits as well, which was a good thing.
Her cheeks reddened. “D-did you enjoy yourself?” She smelled deliciously of fresh bread somehow. And strawberries.
“Very much.” He smiled and pulled her aside, as if they were having an intimate tête-à-tête like the others.
She nodded. “Bunny is very kind.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re doing…better,” he said.
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