Edmund sat up then, alert. “What do you mean? Threatened you how?”
Sylvie sighed and gestured around them. “Threatened this—to tell everyone about him and me.” She looked down and folded her hands in her lap. “About us. He knows about us, Edmund.”
Edmund snorted. “Apparently most of the parish knows about us, Sylvie. But the other, it’s unconscionable that a gentleman should tell tales of a lady.”
Sylvie was shaking her head. “He is no gentleman, Edmund.” She bit her lip. “He tried to…to grab me, in the stable. I had to bite his lip to get away.” She was shaking, and Edmund felt murderous.
“I will take care of him, Sylvie. You aren’t to worry anymore. When I am done, no one will believe his tales.” She looked so upset that Edmund deliberately changed the topic.
“Hmmm,” he said, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turning her face this way and that. “I must be losing my touch.”
Sylvie looked adorably confused. “What?”
“I have not fucked you insensible. I do not care to leave my lovers until they are insensate with pleasure.” He grinned, but Sylvie’s eyes filled with tears.
“Is that a way to get back at me?” she whispered. “To tell me of your other lovers?”
Edmund gathered her in his arms and lay down on the floor again with her draped across his chest. “No, my darling, it is my very awkward way of saying we both have pasts that are best forgotten. From this moment on there is only me and you, and no one else, ever.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck, rubbing his cheek on the hair that had fallen there, breathing deeply of the scent that was pure Sylvie—pastries and sex.
“You mustn’t say that, Edmund,” she murmured, arching her neck to the side to give him more room as his lips began to roam.
He groaned and dropped his head to the floor. Christ, he thought she’d given up protesting. “Sylvie,” he said, exasperated, “will you stop?” He lifted his head and glared at her. “You are not going to get rid of me, so you’d best get used to me.”
“Edmund—“ He cut her off with a kiss. If he fucked her long enough, perhaps she’d forget her foolish worries and marry him.
Sylvie kissed him back but he could feel her reservation. It was so unlike her he pulled away, lingering against her lips for a moment.
“Please don’t worry, Sylvie,” he whispered. “I will take care of you. I want to take care of you.”
Sylvie smiled, the effort a little forced, and Edmund remembered his earlier feelings of panic.
“Well, I hate to be the one to point this out,” Sylvie said, giving him a quick kiss, “but we are rolling around on the floor of my solar, fucking in front of the windows in the middle of the day.” She pushed up on his chest with her hands and smiled wryly. “And Jernigan knows we are in here alone, with orders not to disturb us.”
Edmund felt relief wash over him. Was that all she was worried about? He gave her a roguish grin. “True, but he also knows I plan to marry you.” He grabbed her arse and squeezed and Sylvie yelped. “And I can’t very well get dressed with a beguiling wench lying invitingly across my very interested cock.”
Sylvie scrambled off him, to his regret, but she was right. This was not the time or place.
“Oh, goodness, Edmund, why didn’t you say something?” Her hands flew to her cheeks, pink with embarrassment.
He laughed. “The day I complain about a warm, willing woman spread across me like a wanton blanket is the day they’ll lay me in the ground.” He adjusted his trousers as he lay there, closing them, and tried to tuck his shirt in.
Sylvie laughed delightedly. “You look like a dog scratching his back the way you’re wiggling around down there.”
Edmund gave up on his appearance and pulled Sylvie back over on top of him. She squealed with surprise. “Edmund! I thought we were getting up?”
He buried his nose in the warm hollow behind her ear and kissed her. “You were too far away. And besides, I’m decent now.” She relaxed in his embrace, and let him kiss her. She was unable to remain passive for long and began to kiss him back, her passion rising. Edmund was considering moving behind the divan where no one would be able to see them through the window when an angry, insolent voice spoke from the terrace to their right.
“Well, now, sir, that’s the problem there. As soon as you let a woman on top in the bedroom, so to speak, you’re under her thumb out of it, my da used to say.”
Sylvie gasped and Edmund rolled, placing Sylvie beneath him, his back to the room, protecting her. “What the devil?” he cried, looking over his shoulder. A young man, built like a laborer, with a shock of dark black hair stood in the doorway of the terrace glaring at them. He felt an unaccustomed spurt of jealousy. This must be the coachman, the one who fucked Sylvie. He was attractive in a coarse, brutish way.
“Glad to see someone’s been scratchin’ her itch for me, Vicar,” the young man drawled as he leaned in the door. “Hate to think the widow’d let our little spat keep her from filling that hot little cunt.”
Sylvie whimpered beneath him and Edmund saw red. “What do you want?” he snarled as he rose to his feet, keeping Sylvie behind him.
The coachman laughed, the sound ugly. “What I’m due, of course. I serviced ‘er fair and square, and deserve my due.”
“You little bastard,” Edmund growled, taking a menacing step toward him.
The coachman laughed again. “What you gonna do, Vicar? Nothing, that’s what.” He scoffed in disdain. “You gentry, so afraid of what everyone thinks. Well I can make it better, can’t I? Tell ‘em what you wants ‘em to hear.” His look turned sly and calculating. “Or I can tell ‘em what I just seen. You and the sainted Lady Bartlebyrne fucking like animals in the parlor. Cost you a livin’, eh, Vicar?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Edmund said, his voice throbbing with anger.
“Oh, ho, that’s what the lady said to me, and I did it, didn’t I?” He laughed as he said it. Laughed about the horror he put Sylvie through this morning. Edmund didn’t think, he just charged.
“Edmund!” Sylvie screamed, but it was too late. He would only be satisfied with the little bastard’s blood.
Sylvie was horrified at John’s words, at the utter shame she felt for having put Edmund in such an untenable position. Then Edmund charged without warning and she screamed. She scrambled to her feet as the two men tumbled out the door onto the terrace. When she ran out after them she saw Edmund jump to his feet and race at John, still struggling to regain his footing. Edmund grabbed the front of John’s shirt and punched him in the face, the impact spinning John’s head to the side. The coachman grabbed the lapels of Edmund’s jacket and threw him into the wall of the terrace, and the two men wrestled, brute strength against pure unadulterated rage. They rolled along the wall once, twice and then the wall abruptly ended at the stairs. Neither man was paying attention and their momentum carried them into the empty space before they fell and rolled down the stairs still grappling.
Sylvie screamed again as she watched Edmund hit the stairs, his descent rough and frightening on the stone steps. She heard the door of the solar burst open and turned to see Jernigan race into the room, two footmen behind him.
“Jernigan!” she cried. “Help him! Help Mr. James!”
She pointed to the green in the garden just as John landed a punch on Edmund’s jaw, sending him sprawling. John fell on Edmund, choking him, but Edmund grabbed his wrists and forced his hands back, bucking until John fell off.
“You can have the bloody, cold bitch,” John snarled, rolling to his feet gracelessly. “She weren’t much of a fuck anyway, Vicar.”
“You goddamned little guttersnipe,” Edmund growled, circling the wary coachman. “You’ll pay for that remark, and for everything else you’ve done to her.”
John grinned evilly. “Well I certainly wouldn’t pay for that fuck.”
Sylvie sobbed and retreated to the back wall of the terrace covering her face with he
r hand. Oh God, everyone could hear him. They knew!
“She never let you touch her,” Edmund snarled and Sylvie looked up in surprise, meeting Edmund’s eyes. He was lying for her. She’d never loved him more than at that moment.
“What?” John yelled. “Is that what she told you? She’s lying! I fucked her but good, in the carriage on the side of the road, like she weren’t no better than she ought to be. And she was bloody panting for it, I tell you.”
“You lie,” Edmund growled, his voice low and contemptuous. “Do you expect anyone to believe that Lady Bartlebyrne would let scum like you near her?”
John’s face contorted with rage. “You were just fucking her on the floor, you bloody lying pig!”
Before he could say any more Edmund tackled him. They went down and Edmund began to brutally hit the other man, who managed to block some of the punches and throw a few of his own.
“Jernigan,” a calm, deep voice said from the doorway, “fetch me a gun.”
Sylvie spun around to see her son Geoffrey standing in the door positively vibrating with rage.
“Mother, are you all right?” Geoffrey asked, sparing her a glance.
Sylvie cringed at the anger in his eyes. She nodded and he turned back to the brawl in the garden.
“Stay here,” Geoffrey ordered, “I don’t want you hurt.”
Sylvie could only watch as he marched down the steps.
The gun went off right behind Edmund and he spun around in shock. A young man stood there, the smoking pistol pointed into the air. The damned coachman took advantage of his inattention to throw him off, but before he could launch himself at Edmund again, the young man spoke.
“The next time I fire it will be at you, coachman. You are easily explained away.” His voice was clipped, but Edmund could hear the sincerity in it, and the bloodied young coachman froze.
“I was protecting your mum, your Lordship,” he whined. “This one over here were trying to have his way with her right there on the floor of the parlor.”
“You lying dog,” Edmund snarled, scrambling to his feet. He froze when the freshly loaded pistol turned in his direction.
“You would be harder to explain, Mr. James, but not impossible.”
“Geoffrey,” Sylvie said quietly, her voice pained. She’d rushed down to them after the gunshot. “Please. May we discuss this inside?”
John’s eyes turned calculating. “That’s right, Your Lordship. We wouldn’t want your mother’s reputation getting any more tarnished than it is, now would we?” He smiled with a smirk. “I’d be more than happy to discuss how I can make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“You are fired.” The young marquis’s voice was flat. “Collect your things and go.”
John’s eyes widened with shock. “Now don’t be hasty, sir—“
The Marquis of Bartlebyrne cut him off coldly. “Be grateful you leave here with your life and your belongings, cur.” He motioned imperiously to Jernigan. “Have two of the footmen escort him from the property.” He paused a moment. “Have them escort him out of Byrnham. He is not welcome there anymore, either.”
John lost all semblance of courtesy or respect. “That whore begged me for it!” he snarled, pointing at Sylvie. “And then that bloody vicar come along and took her right out from under me nose! He’s been crawling in between her sheets for weeks now, and all I got was one bloody fuck!”
Edmund didn’t care if he got shot for it—he dove for the coachman and punched him so hard his hand exploded with pain. “You goddamned bastard! You are speaking of my future wife!”
He heard the collective gasp of the crowd that had gathered.
“Now,” Lord Bartlebyrne said, his voice a low growl, “we take it inside.” He walked over and kicked the coachman where he lay on the ground moaning. “Get rid of this offal.” He turned furious eyes, the same soft blue as Sylvie’s, on Edmund. “Inside, Mr. James.” He turned and offered his arm to Sylvie, who looked frantic and scared and still lusciously rumpled from their fuck in the solar.
Edmund didn’t think—he just reacted. He walked quickly over to Sylvie and fell to his knees.
“As God as my witness, Sylvie, I love you. I love you more than I can say. Please marry me, my love.” She gasped and looked frantically between Edmund and her son. Edmund grabbed her hand. “I was nothing before you, Sylvie. If you cast me aside I will be less than nothing. I will be a shell of a man. My heart will remain with you, always, forever.” His frustration got the better of him, and he gestured angrily to the coachman being dragged away between two footmen, who were staring agog over their shoulders at the spectacle he was making of himself. He didn’t care. “That means nothing. His lies mean nothing. I don’t care about the scandal.” He kissed her hand fervently, noticing absently that he left some blood behind. He closed his eyes and held the back of her hand to his pounding forehead. “I need you, Sylvie. I care nothing about age or scandal, or what should be, or gossip.” He looked up into her eyes, which were swimming with tears. “I just care about you, about us. You are brave and beautiful and brilliant, and I need you, Sylvie. Please say you’ll take me. Marry me, Sylvie.”
The young marquis snorted inelegantly. “Well, it’s about bloody damn time someone noticed. I was beginning to think all the men around here were stupid and blind.”
Epilogue
Edmund gasped and arched his back, taking the jade dildo deep into his luscious, firm arse. Sylvie couldn’t resist leaning down and gently nipping one taut cheek. He was so wonderful, so sensual and desirable, and hers. She couldn’t believe she’d had the nerve to ask him to do this. She’d wanted to do it forever, and tonight was supposed to be about her, about her pleasure. This was immensely pleasurable.
Suddenly Donald began to cry in the nursery next door.
“Don’t you dare,” Edmund growled, pushing backward until he bumped her hand still holding the dildo deep inside him.
“But…”
“This is why we employ a nurse.” Edmund’s voice was clipped, the strain of their interrupted games showing.
“But you know Jernigan hates when he fusses at night.” Sylvie worked hard to keep the amusement out of her voice. She knew the baby was fine. He’d probably just kicked his blanket off, and nurse could handle that.
“Then let bloody damn Jernigan go in there,” Edmund growled, and Sylvie felt the muscles of his buttocks clench tightly on the dildo beneath the hand she had laid on one cheek.
Sylvie glided the dildo out through those tightly clenched muscles and Edmund groaned in despair. Then she plunged it back into him and he cried out. “I have no intention of leaving you wanting,” Sylvie purred as she leaned over his curved back and licked a path up the bumps of his spine.
Edmund shivered. “Christ, Sylvie.” He was breathless with desire and Sylvie felt a triumphant thrill at her ability to still do that to him. They had been married for well over a year already. Even through her pregnancy, which had been very hard, he’d been faithful and loving and attentive. They had been reduced to pleasuring one another with hands and mouths for nearly all of their marriage. The doctor had advised them not to have sex after a frightening incident in which they thought she’d lost the baby. The delivery had been so hard that, again, the doctor had advised they wait. Donald was four months old. Sylvie felt fit, and the doctor agreed.
Sylvie had thought that Edmund would throw her to the floor again and take her wherever they were standing as soon as she gave him the news. He’d surprised her by insisting they wait another day, and he’d planned a night of scandalous delights for her. They had had an intimate dinner for two in their suite, all Sylvie’s favorites, and then licked melted chocolate off various body parts for desert. It was heaven. But when Edmund had asked her what she most wanted, it was this. He’d been surprised, but enthusiastic, as he was with most things concerning sex. She knew he used to have sex with men, he’d told her, and she was worried that he missed that aspect of his past life.
He
was on his knees on their big bed, his head and shoulders pressed into the sheets, his ass high in the air for her. She was pressed up against him, her hips right up behind him, moving with him. She pulled her hips back as she pulled the dildo back, and then thrust forward with both hips and dildo. It was extraordinarily erotic, almost like actually fucking him.
Edmund moaned and Sylvie laughed throatily, rubbing her breasts along his lower back. She watched the fine hairs on his arms rise with his growing arousal. “Do you like this, Edmund?” she whispered against his back between kisses.
“God yes, Sylvie,” he moaned. “You are amazingly adept at fucking a man for someone who’s never done it before.” He wriggled his behind a little. “A little to the left, love. God! Yes, that’s good.” He shuddered with pleasure as she apparently hit the spot he wanted.
“Do you like it as much as…as fucking a man?” she asked quietly. She rushed on, afraid of his answer. “I mean, I know you enjoyed that before, and I…I don’t want you to feel as if you’ve given up something…like that, for me.”
Edmund froze in place, his breathing ragged. “Is that what this is about?” he rasped. “Is that why you wanted to fuck me with the dildo tonight?” He started to pull away, groaning as the dildo slid from him. Sylvie grabbed his hip to stop him, pressing it back in deep and he shuddered, thrusting back against her involuntarily.
“No, darling, Edmund stop,” she entreated him softly. “That isn’t why, not really. I just…I just wanted to do it. I wanted to see you like this, I wanted to give you this pleasure, and watch you take it, as you have me.”
Edmund fucked up and back, the dildo gliding in and out as he breathed deeply, a small sound of pleasure escaping from deep in his throat.
“Tell me,” Sylvie whispered as she snuggled up to him again and began to fuck him with hips and dildo. “Tell me how it feels.”
When Love Comes Calling: Two Short Stories Page 6
