James, on the other hand…
Under the table, his foot brushed hers. A shock of pleasure, hot and honey-sweet, sizzled from her toes all the way to her core. A flush spread up her belly and across her breasts. She dared a glance at his face. He appeared to be listening politely to his mother’s rambling conversation and entirely unaware of that subtle, devastating contact.
Of course he’s aware, laughed the Wanton. Let him know you know.
Surreptitiously, Pompeia rubbed her foot against his.
“Bedchambers!” the dowager exclaimed.
Pompeia jumped and snatched her foot away.
“I beg your pardon?” asked James, snaking his foot around hers and trapping it.
“Clarabelle is too totty-headed to have thought of it, but your bedchambers are inconveniently far apart for newlyweds.” Eyes narrowed once again, she added, “We shall have to move Pompeia to the one next to yours.”
“An excellent notion,” James said promptly, but his mother and sister shared uneasy glances. Poor Sally, still so innocent, looked a little ill.
Pompeia began to be annoyed at this managing old lady. “That would be ideal,” she said with perfect composure.
“I believe there’s even a connecting door,” the dowager said.
“Yes, there is,” Clarabelle put in, “but what about the plasterers? I don’t believe they’ve finished.”
“That’s right, they haven’t!” Sally turned to James to explain. “There was damp all down one of the walls, so we’re having it redone. And after the plasterers come the paperers.”
“Dear Pompeia will have to stay where she is, but it will only be for a few nights,” Clarabelle said.
“Don’t be a fool,” the dowager said. “She will share James’s bed. She would have done so anyway, or he hers.” She beckoned to a footman, ordered that all Pompeia’s belongings be moved to James’s rooms and took stock of the various reactions. “Don’t look so shocked, Sally. You’re not such an innocent as that, I assume. How else will they produce my grandchildren?”
“How else indeed?” murmured James. “Grandmama, if your wish is to embarrass everyone, you are doing a masterly job of it.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” Pompeia said. She turned to her two-day spouse and added brightly, “Perhaps we shall even conceive that coveted grandchild tonight.”
Simon choked and broke into a fit of coughing. He’d been largely silent until now; after enduring a scold for arriving at the table with wet hair, he’d applied himself to his meal. Sally thumped him hard on the back.
“If we don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying,” James said wickedly, with a twitch of the lips.
Red tinged the dowager’s cheekbones. “I hope you shall succeed,” she said primly.
Pompeia did her best to reassume an air of propriety during the rest of the meal. It wasn’t easy, with the Wanton speculating continually about James. She couldn’t help smelling him—virile, desirable male with a hint of shaving soap. She couldn’t help but feel the warmth emanating from him, and she longed to touch him. Perhaps to untie that cravat and kiss the strong pulse underneath. To slip her fingers under the shirt. No, to take the shirt off and press her naked breasts to his powerful chest.
Fortunately, Pompeia’s breasts were safely inside her bodice and her hands occupied with fork and spoon, but her thoughts went precisely where they wished, to those kisses they had shared and to what might possibly happen if they were alone. She wasn’t exactly sure what James would want—well, apart from the obvious—but she had no difficulty at all imagining what she would like to do. The Wanton conjured up visions of James naked in rumpled sheets, fantasies of him peeling her layers of clothing away one by one, vivid scenes in which he kissed her everywhere and pressed her close, skin to burning skin. She imagined coupling with him in any number of positions, some of which were probably impossible, but the only way to find out was to try them.
And try them she would.
“Pompeia?” asked James.
She came to with a start and blushed hotly. “I—I beg your pardon? My wits must have gone wool-gathering.”
He grinned down at her knowingly and she blushed even more.
“We were talking about the coming Season,” he said. “It’s going to be a busy one, what with Sally’s debut. After Grandmama leaves for Tunbridge Wells, should you like to go up to London to see my mother’s modiste?”
“What an excellent notion! Of course I should.” Pompeia tried to hide her wistfulness and, although she hated to admit it, downright envy. If only she really were a respectable matron going for a London Season.
“Wells,” the dowager said. “That’s it! I knew I’d heard that name before. Pompeia Wells!”
All heads turned. Pompeia’s heart plummeted. She would never be a respectable anything.
With a grim little smile, the dowager said, “You know of her?”
Unnatural calm descended upon Pompeia. “She was my great-grandmother.”
“Is that so?” The dowager’s tone was all accusation. “She was the talk of London, back in my salad days.”
“You listened to gossip?” Simon said. “Grandmama, I’m shocked.”
“Enough of your impertinence,” the dowager said. “Well, Pompeia?”
“I knew her when I was a child,” Pompeia said with the tranquility of despair, although why she cared, she had no idea. She was only playing a role; not only that, she was already committed to debauching herself with James and meant to enjoy every second of it. “She came to visit every year, and commanded my parents to bring me to see her once she became too infirm to travel.”
“Every family has scandals,” Clarabelle said. “How wonderful that yours didn’t try to hide this one.”
Pompeia laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, my parents definitely wanted to bury the past.”
“I should think so!” the dowager said. “Pompeia had two children out of wedlock with a German prince before finally consenting to marry Lord Wells.” She sniffed. “If your parents disapproved, and rightly so, why did they give you her name?”
“Money,” Pompeia said bluntly, and Simon let out a crack of laughter.
“Enough!” the dowager barked, and bent her stare once more on Pompeia. “How so?”
“Grandmama Pompeia promised to pay my father’s debts if he named me after her. She continued to contribute to the family coffers each year as long as it was proven to her that I was called by that name in everyday life.”
“Thus perpetuating the scandal and marking you for life as her descendant!” The dowager sounded genuinely horrified. “You poor child!”
A familiar pain surfaced in Pompeia. She’d been told the same by her parents and refused to believe it. She summoned the words she usually used when her scandalous ancestress was mentioned. “Whatever she may have done in her youth, she was a charming old lady and always very kind to me.”
“Perhaps she meant to suggest that it’s not the name that matters, but the person who bears it,” James said. “She must have been a strong woman to weather such scandal.”
The dowager snorted. “Wells was besotted with her. Must have been to marry her and give her countenance. Even so, no one would receive her.”
Rage simmered within Pompeia for what her great-grandmother had endured. She took a deep breath. For Sally’s sake, she must remain calm and pleasant, but while she might be living a lie, she simply couldn’t play the hypocrite where Grandmama Pompeia was concerned. “She was a strong woman, and I loved her dearly. She taught me tolerance and kindness and a sense of humour. She told me…” To be myself.
She’d forgotten that.
“What?” said Clarabelle.
“That everyone makes mistakes, and when I made mine, as I assuredly would, not to let the opinions of others destroy me.”
Under the table, James’s hand closed around hers. There was a silence. Simon downed the rest of his wine. Both Sally and Clarabelle looked as if they wished they had someth
ing to say.
“Surprisingly good advice, but extremely difficult to follow,” the dowager said at last, her eyes fixed on nothing, her thoughts clearly someplace else.
After an exchange of surprised glances between James and the rest of his family, he said, “You were involved in a scandal, Grandmama?”
“Impossible,” Simon said. “Do tell us all about it.”
“The past is best forgotten,” the dowager said. She bent a firm frown on Sally. “It is far, far better not to make the mistakes at all.”
After dinner and some chaff from Simon over their port, James partook of tea with the ladies in a haze of lust. And astonishment—for he’d never imagined how easily Pompeia would slip into the life of his family. She appeared completely at ease, sailing confidently through a restless sea. She flipped through fashion journals with Sally and got his mother started knitting a muffler, which evidently was easier than stockings. She even suggested a game of backgammon to the dowager as if the prospect delighted her.
Perhaps the impulsive youth of four years ago, acting on instinct in becoming so attracted to her, hadn’t been a fool at all.
Sally took advantage of the backgammon to drag James into the corridor. “What are we going to do? You can’t share a room with Pompeia!”
He hustled her down the passage where there was less chance of being overheard, and said, “Do you want your ruse to succeed or not?”
“Not at the cost of Pompeia’s honour!”
“You should have thought of that earlier,” he said, and then took pity. “There’s a cot in my dressing-room. Pompeia’s honour isn’t in danger.”
“It is! Grandmama will believe you shared a bed with her, and even if she never knows the truth, gossip is certain to leak out.” She bit her lip. “Pompeia’s being so brave, and I’m so proud of how she manages Grandmama, but I never meant this to happen. Pompeia will be ruined!”
“No, she won’t,” James said, and went outdoors for a long, family-free, soul-searching walk.
The dowager was as combative at backgammon as at everything else, and the one game stretched to five. At any other time, Pompeia would have yawned with boredom at the dowager’s deliberate style of play, but tonight it was all she could do to concentrate on her own moves. It didn’t help when Sally said she absolutely must come take a look at a fashion plate between games two and three.
“James swears your honour isn’t in danger,” she whispered, under cover of showing her a hideously over-trimmed gown.
“Of course it isn’t,” Pompeia said. She’d gotten rid of her honour long ago, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed hearing it from James.
He had left the room a while earlier, but now he returned to prop himself against Pompeia’s chair and watch their game. One glance at the heat in his eyes, and she knew only too well what he was thinking. She’d been thinking about it, too, and had grown both more anxious and more determined as the evening wore on. What if she did indeed conceive a child tonight?
James seemed unworried, but the only consequence to him was a bastard child, which he could easily support. She would forever be considered a wanton. Worse than that, a woman who had chosen to betray her class: a gently-born whore. Did she have her great-grandmother’s strength to survive that?
The Wanton Within, the legacy of the only family member Pompeia had ever loved, stirred and stretched languorously. You are what you are, she said.
Perhaps, but she didn’t want everyone else to know. She thought back to the few conversations she’d had with her brother’s mistress before leaving his house. She shouldn’t have spoken to the woman at all, but being so fatally improper herself, she couldn’t bring herself to play the hypocrite and shun her. Instead, she’d succumbed to curiosity and asked about how one prevented pregnancy, and learned, among other things, that one was almost safe just before one’s courses were due. And hers were due in a couple of days, so perhaps she needn’t be concerned.
Hopefully so. Didn’t she deserve to abandon herself to pleasure just this once?
The dowager played even more slowly, champing her jaws and pondering every throw of the dice. Pompeia’s moves grew more and more reckless.
“Got you!” cried the dowager, sending one of Pompeia’s pieces back to the beginning. “You’re much too careless. Must we play to the finish, or do you concede defeat?”
Never, swore Pompeia and the Wanton in unison.
James pushed away from the chair and took her hand. “This game’s over,” he said, “and a far more enjoyable one begins.” Heat flooded her, but she managed to bid the others a cheerful goodnight and in silence accompanied him down dimly-lit corridors to a bedchamber at the far end of the house.
The room was dark but for a lamp by the door, but she couldn’t miss the bed, turned down and awaiting them. He showed her to the dressing room, which contained her belongings, a cot, a table with a ewer, soap and towels and a chamber pot behind a screen. He pulled her close, pushed up her chin, and kissed her long and slowly. “When you’re ready to undress, come to me.”
She quivered at the prospect, but when he left her alone, her courage flagged. With Mr. Belfort, it hadn’t mattered what her prospective lover thought of her; with James, it did.
But I never really wanted anyone but James, the Wanton wailed. This is our only chance!
You are who you are. But she didn’t know who she was, or who she wanted to be. Who she should be.
A knock sounded in the next room, and a few seconds later, James appeared with a maid, who giggled and said, “Miss Sally sent me to help with your corset, my lady.” With a gesture of resignation, James left them to it.
Pompeia hid a surge of annoyance. Sally was only trying, in her innocent way, to protect Pompeia’s reputation, but nothing could save it at this point. Shouldn’t she at least have the pleasure of being undressed by James?
Still, she let the maid remove her gown and corset and dismissed her. She washed her hands and face, brushed her teeth and returned to the main bedchamber wearing only her shift. James was poking a log in the fireplace, but he turned to smile at her.
He was bare-chested, and she sighed her approval. “You look exceptionally good without your shirt,” Pompeia blurted. He was even more glorious than her imagination had painted him. Her breasts ached to press themselves against his well-muscled torso; those powerful arms were meant to hold her close. He had a dusting of dark hair on his chest, a firm abdomen, and more hair in a slender line leading lower.
She forced her eyes away from his breeches.
“Will I do?” He had on that wicked smile.
She moistened her lips. “I know a delicately-bred female shouldn’t notice that sort of thing, but…”
“Why shouldn’t you?” he demanded. “Believe me, Pompeia, I have never failed to notice you.” Judging by the way his eyes roamed her body, he was noticing her right now.
That was considered normal. Acceptable, because he was a man, while she should be fainting with shock at such a sight. Well, she hadn’t fainted with Mr. Belfort, and she didn’t intend to miss any detail of James Carling. “I’m improper as can be, and there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“You are the most desirable woman in the world.” He placed the poker in its stand and set the fire screen in place. “There is plenty to be done.”
And then they were in each other’s arms.
His hot breath mingled with hers. Their lips touched, and his tongue probed her mouth. Longing swept over and through her. The passion she always kept bottled up burst forth, unleashed and unrestrained, and suddenly they were devouring each other, lips, teeth and tongues tasting, nipping, tangling, and she shuddered and moaned.
He broke the kiss.
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.” She would die if he suddenly decided to be gentlemanly now.
“I shan’t stop. I should have done this four years ago.” His hands cupped her face, and then his fingers slid softly into her hair. “I wanted you so much
it hurt.”
“I wanted you, too,” she whispered, standing there suspended as he traced her ears, caressed her shoulders and brushed his fingertips across her breasts.
Like a wind rising from nothing to the howl of a gale, heat suffused her, sent her quivering anew. His hands moved lower, lingering at her waist, feathering down her hips. Her secret core throbbed in response. She arched back, lips parting in a tiny, helpless whimper. He took her derriere in both hands, pulled her close, and ground his hard member against her.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Please.” She snaked her arms around his neck, crushed her breasts to his chest, slung one leg over his hip and mewled, demanding caresses like a cat. Like the wanton she was.
This is what I was made for, she thought.
He growled deep in his throat and kissed her again, his tongue bold and demanding. He tasted her thoroughly, and she savoured the tasting. He nipped at her lip, and she pulled at his, smiling against his smiling mouth. He feathered the back of his hand against her breast and chuckled when she quivered. He caressed her buttocks and squeezed. He slid sure fingers under her gown, between her thighs, and gently greeted her pulsing core.
Pleasure shot through her, and desire rampaged in its wake, desire for more pleasure until she all but died of it. He made a rough little moan that almost undid her. They both wanted this. This was no ravishment, nor the marital duty her mother had preached, but a mutual exchange of pleasure. This was how it should be.
If sating her desires with James made her a whore, so be it.
And whores were bold. She went for the buttons of his breeches. She would do this the way she wished, naked skin to burning skin, and in full, glorious view. She liked the look of her own body. She craved the sight of his. “Light some more candles,” she said. “I want to see you.”
She felt his grin against her lips. “And I, you.”
Cold invaded her as he left to light a taper at the fire, and a brief sadness seized her. A twinge of fear invaded her belly, and a faint but insistent pain burned her heart. She locked all those feelings away. They would find their way out and perturb her more than enough later.
The Wanton Governess Page 4
