“I am telling you the plain truth,” Casriel replied, “when I say that a cup of tea or a plate of sandwiches would be enjoyable.” His lordship was apparently content to stroll along, a gentleman matching his steps to a lady’s stride.
“You are hungry? I can see you fed.”
“My appetite is for your company, my lady. We need not begin our time together in the bedroom.”
At first, Addy thought he meant they should climb to the hayloft in the stables, or avail themselves of the settee in the library, but Casriel wasn’t being sly or naughty.
He was being considerate.
“Is there a discussion that comes before the bedroom part?” she asked. “Something about rules, duration, days of the week?” Something tawdry but practical, perhaps?
“I am unaware of any such requirement, though I am honestly happy to discuss any topic you wish. I also contemplate—with utmost joy—shedding every article of clothing from my person and divesting you of your own habillement. From there… I thought we did rather well with the kissing part. Perhaps you have some ideas for what comes next?”
Addy’s belly did a little somersault that landed in an ache. “You would like to kiss me when I’m unclothed?”
“When we are unclothed. If modesty on your part renders that prospect uncomfortable, then I’d like to kiss you when you’re wearing nothing but your shift, so only a thin layer of cotton comes between my touch and your tender flesh. I want to learn your curves and contours with my eyes closed, and I want your hands on me everywhere.”
Addy tried for several steadying breaths. A pair of dowagers toddled past, and Casriel politely touched his hat to them.
“Everywhere, my lord?”
He waited with her at a street corner while a hackney rattled by. “Everywhere. I particularly enjoy how you pull my hair and clutch my bum. A man appreciates a good, ferocious bum-clutching, under the right circumstances—in case you were wondering.”
Addy was wondering how she’d last the next two streets to her own door. “And how does a man feel about having a lady’s mouth on various parts of his person?”
Casriel patted her fingers where they were curled about his arm, a friendly gesture to any passersby.
“When considering such a pleasure, this man is tempted to hoist the lady over his shoulder and sprint for the nearest bed. That option being unavailable, I can assure you that such a notion will render him speechless with delight.”
“Not appalled?” She’d been married for six months before Roger’s coaxing and teasing had finally overcome her reluctance regarding this intimacy.
“Would you be appalled to know that I long to pleasure you in a similar fashion? I want your thighs over my shoulders. I want the taste and scent of you filling my being while my cock fills your sex. I want you, Beatitude. All of you. Body, mind, fears, and frolics. This is to be an intimate liaison, is it not?”
That blunt speech rendered in such cultured, conversational tones had an impact that similar words whispered behind a locked door would lack.
Then there was Casriel’s question about intimacy. His inquiry pointed to a shortcoming in Addy’s marriage that she hadn’t found words for. Roger had been forever strutting around without his clothes. He’d been an enthusiastic and inventive lover. He’d shown Addy a side of life few proper ladies, and very few vicar’s daughters, ever saw, all without jeopardizing her social standing.
But at some point, the erotic joinings had stopped being intimate. The whole marriage had stopped being intimate, if it ever had been.
Intimacy—the intimacy Casriel described—took courage, and in some regard, Roger had been a coward. That insight nearly had Addy stopping in the middle of the street.
“My lady? Have I offended?”
“You have inspired. If this is your version of conversation with a lover in broad daylight, I eagerly anticipate further discourse with you in private.”
His marvelous gentian eyes danced, though his pace remained decorous. “Eagerness must be in the air today, for I am similarly afflicted.”
Addy was ready to toss him over her shoulder, or simply start the clutching and kissing on the walkway, but oh, the glee, the sheer, adult delight of knowing that anticipation was a mutual torment. Roger had been the type to look up from his noon meal, send the footman at the sideboard a dismissing glance, and then lock the door before Addy had taken the first bite of her raspberry fool.
That Casriel would use the length of four streets to tease and flirt was a degree of loverly expertise Addy had yet to encounter. She’d probably never find its like again, and that thought—a little sad, a lot honest—helped her identify the feeling that walked arm in arm with her eagerness.
She was determined—that was the word, determined—to indulge in this affair to the fullest. Casriel had turned her head, which was bad, because he wasn’t meant for her. But nobody else had gained her notice to the extent he had, and Addy would sample his charms thoroughly before commending him to the company of his heiress.
For once, she would think of herself, and to blazes with everything else.
Her house came into view, and it was her house, not a dower property. Roger had done that much for her, or one of his late aunts had.
“If you were in earnest about the tea and sandwiches,” Addy said, “now is your last chance to make that clear. Once I get you behind my door, you will be clutched within an inch of your lordly life.”
He tipped his hat to an elderly couple doddering along.
“I live in hope, and I am desperately earnest, my lady—not about the sandwiches.”
Grey was about to make love with a woman not his wife for the first time in… He could not make his mind function. His last tryst—a tipsy mutual groping at some house party—had been an appalling several years ago. Before foot rot had followed his flooded water meadows, after the failed harvest.
He had no idea of the when or who, and not much idea about the why. Lust and stupidity explained a seventeen-year-old’s idiocy, but a titled man with scores of dependents could not be a slave to lust or even its occasional bond servant.
He could, though, find a lady’s company exceedingly agreeable. Lady Canmore—Grey liked thinking of her in polite terms almost as much as he enjoyed using her given name—sashayed along at his side, enjoying a pleasant spring day, not a care in the world.
To appearances. Meanwhile, she spoke of intimate pleasures that ambushed his reason and made him ache. He hadn’t planned this assignation, but half day was half day, and what was there to plan, really? Nature mapped out the whole business, but for the details.
They approached her ladyship’s town house, a solid, elegant structure in a solid, elegant neighborhood.
“I can leave you at your door if you’d rather,” Grey said. “We did not intend to encounter each other today.” She had fallen silent, else he would not have made the offer. A lady could have second thoughts.
“I would not rather. Would you? Rather leave me at my door?”
A gratifying hint of a grumble accompanied that question, though Grey could answer with only qualified honesty. He’d rather this was not a moment stolen from impending obligations. He’d rather this was a step in a courtship.
“What I would rather,” he said, leading her ladyship up the porch steps, “had best be discussed behind a closed and locked door from this point forward, or all who behold me will know exactly what I’m thinking.”
She darted a glance downward to the vicinity of his falls. “Oh.” Another glance, now that they were under the awning of her porch. “I see. Good tailoring leaves a man little privacy.”
“You see. I ache.”
“Delighted to hear it.” Her ladyship stepped back, allowing Grey to open the door for her.
She took off her bonnet. He kept his hat and walking stick, lest some caller dare to stop by. “Shall we to a guest room?” Grey asked.
“No guest room,” she said, peeling out of her spencer.
&nbs
p; Grey assisted, mostly for the pleasure of brushing his hands over her shoulders. The sight of her ladyship’s nape lifted erotic stirrings to outright desire, and had she not preceded him up the steps—foolish, foolish rule that said a woman should go first up a stairway—he would have commenced kissing her in the foyer.
Instead, he trailed her onto the higher floor, arousal creating a pleasant yearning to go with… What, exactly, did he feel about this encounter?
Joy, of course. What man didn’t joyfully anticipate gratification of his animal spirits?
A touch of shame, perhaps, to be sneaking around on the servants’ half day, departing from the path of strict propriety?
But no, not shame, exactly. He owed no woman fidelity—yet—and the highest stickling hostess wouldn’t hesitate to seat him at her right hand, even if an affair with the countess became an open secret. The same hostess would receive Lady Canmore graciously, or become an object of gossip herself.
Still…
The thought trailed away as Beatitude led him into a sitting room done up in blue, white, and gold. Elegant, like her, but a bouquet of fragrant pink sweet peas sat on the windowsill where Grey would have expected roses. An embroidery hoop had been left on the sofa, with the side of the fabric exposed that showed all the knots and loose threads.
A book lay open on a low table, and a pair of worn slippers sat one across the other beside the sofa.
“Your personal sitting room?”
“The very one,” she said, closing and locking the door. “Through that door is my personal bedroom. I am not at home to callers on half day, so we are as alone as two people can be in the middle of Mayfair.”
And yet, she wasn’t grabbing his bum, or any other part of him. He set his hat and cane on the sideboard. “Would you think me very forward if I asked to kiss you, Beatitude?”
“Addy,” she said. “My closest friends call me Addy. All, save Theodosia, who calls me Bea.”
“I am Grey.”
They’d had that discussion, and yet, this time the exchange had the lady smiling. Grey held open his arms, and she crossed the room, straight into his embrace.
“I am at heart still a vicar’s daughter,” she said. “Roger despaired of me.”
“Orgies were beyond you? I’ve always found them rather tedious myself.”
The comment was meant to be humorous, a means of reducing awkwardness, but Addy ducked her face against his chest. “Something like that. He was not merely a hedonist. He thrived on novelty and adventure. If we’d seen to the succession, he might well have been one of those explorers who disappears into the wilderness and grows a beard while subsisting on bear meat and poetry.”
From what Grey understood of the New World trappers, they generally had more than one family, and their hygiene departed from gentlemanly standards by the distance of half a continent, which was probably intended to prevent bears from snacking on them.
“I do not thrive on novelty,” Grey said, stealing a kiss to the lady’s cheek. “I thrive on order and hard work, with the occasional leavening of good company and bodily pleasure. The only adventure I seek now is the adventure to be had in your bed.”
She sighed against his neck. “You truly don’t care if I’m wicked or boring, as long as I’m willing?”
Roger had doubtless been young and spoiled, so Grey withheld a more plainspoken reply. “If you are willing and our dealings are boring, then I, as the only gentleman participating in the proceedings, must hold myself accountable for your disappointment.”
The dialogue should have progressed along a predictable script from there: Shall I unlace you, my dear? A bit of kissing. A rampant cockstand. Smiles and touches, the lady disappearing behind the privacy screen, the gentleman wrestling off his boots and thinking happy, naughty thoughts while glancing at the clock.
Grey remained in the middle of the parlor, his arms around Addy, breathing in her gardenia scent. He would forever associate that fragrance with joy and a sense of sanctuary from life’s demands.
“I did not thrive on novelty either,” Addy said. “I learned to tolerate it for my husband’s sake, up to a point. These are not trysting thoughts.”
“Here’s a trysting thought.” Grey kissed her gently, without hurry. They had all afternoon, and probably other afternoons besides. Gradually, Addy became more enthusiastic, tasting him, getting a hold of his hair. Her participation struck him not as flirtatious so much as determined.
“My hooks,” she whispered, drawing close enough that his arousal had to be apparent to her. “If you please.”
He reached behind her and unhooked her dress while she stood with her arms around him. “Your laces?”
“I’m not wearing any. I wear two chemises and seldom go out without a spencer. My modiste knows I don’t like to be trussed up and reinforces my bodices accordingly. For evening occasions, of course, I must bow to convention, but during the day…”
He rubbed her back, and she wiggled, like a cat enjoying a caress.
“That feels good,” she said.
“Indeed, it does.”
Ah, there. A soft, stroking pat to his backside. Her mood was improving.
“Come to bed, Grey,” she said, leading him by the hand into the bedroom. The appointments here were unremarkable. Blue bed hangings over a large expanse of blue counterpane, an Axminster carpet in blue and cream with touches of pink. A comfortable reading chair by the window, a vanity and privacy screen along the wall opposite the windows. A rocking chair near the hearth, which was unusual outside of a nursery.
This space had less of her about it, and that troubled him. No flowers, no books, no workbasket or forgotten tea cup. Perhaps the room wanted happy memories, and maybe he could give those to her. “Shall I take down your hair?” he asked.
Blond brows rose, then knit. “I can manage,” she said, moving to the privacy screen. “Do you need help with your boots?”
He was to undress, then. “I’m not that fashionable. My boots are comfortably made and allow me to retire without bothering a valet. Shall I turn down the bed?”
“Please.”
Addy disappeared behind the privacy screen, her manner puzzling. A tryst should be lighthearted, friendly, a shared delight. Her mood was becoming serious, and that troubled him too.
Grey sat and took off his boots, then stood to remove his coat and waistcoat. He’d put his handkerchief on the bedside table and was down to his breeches and bare feet when a sound escaped the privacy screen.
“Beatitude?”
“I cannot believe this.”
“Addy?”
“My body hates me. I am a woman cursed. I cannot…”
She emerged from the privacy screen wearing only a shift, her hair a thick golden rope over one shoulder. She was holding a white linen cloth, staring at it incredulously.
Grey approached, at a complete loss. “I certainly do not hate your body. I am rather taken with it, along with your many other fine attributes. What has upset you?”
She bunched up the cloth. “I thought I was nervous, a bit unsure. I thought perhaps my nerves… My courses are about to arrive, two days early.”
Her… courses. The great indisposition about which Grey’s sisters were too blunt, the symptom a woman endured when she was not expecting a child.
“Bloody bad luck,” he muttered, then realized what he’d said. Not even when all but naked in the bedroom should a gentleman use that language before a lady.
“Well, yes, to be shockingly vulgar about it.” Addy was smiling. A rueful smile, true, but genuine. “I do apologize.”
“What can you possibly have to apologize for? Nature does what she pleases with all of us. Here I stand, ready and randy, for example, though we’ve barely kissed.”
Not merely randy, hard and aching.
“We are not off to a very passionate start, are we?” Addy said, tossing the cloth over her shoulder. She stepped close and wrapped her arms around Grey. “I am sorry.”
; She felt good in his embrace, warm and lithe, real. “I am not put off by a little reproductive biology, Addy. If you’re interested, I’m still… I have an idea.”
She did not like novelty, she’d said. Based on her expression, novelty had served her several bad turns. “What sort of idea?”
“May I finish disrobing?”
She stepped back and flipped down the bedcovers. “I was rather hoping you would. I’m not a mess, not untidy—yet.”
But she was unhappy to be denied her intimate interlude. Disappointed. Grey could work with that. He peeled out of his breeches and let the lady have a look.
“You do enjoy physical activity, don’t you?” She drew a single fingertip up the length of his cock, which was angled in the direction of true north.
“I thrive on hard work,” he said. “Strenuous physical labor being one sort of hard work. You can clutch and pinch and pull on me all you like, and I’ll like that too. Come be with me, Addy.”
He climbed onto the mattress and lay flat on his back.
She stood on the step beside the bed. “Where does one…?”’
“Here,” he said, patting his cock. “You can ride me without taking me into your body. I’ll show you.”
Lord Roger, Earl of Adventure, had apparently overlooked a few of the pleasurable measures a couple could take to avoid conception. Grey knew them all, though none equaled actual coitus for satisfaction.
“Straddle me,” he said, lifting the lady over him. “Tuck in close and prepare to enjoy yourself.”
She looked uncertain, a songbird ready to take flight, so he leaned up and kissed her, assaying a glancing caress to her breasts at the same time.
“I like that,” she murmured against his mouth.
“This?” He cupped her breasts.
“Mmmmm.”
That, accompanied by Addy arching her back, was a yes. Her shift did not unbutton all the way down, so Grey stroked, teased, and fondled with the aid of the thin cotton to enhance the sensation. By degrees, Addy settled herself over his cock.
A Truly Perfect Gentleman Page 12
