by Julia London
Grace slightly turned her head toward him. “To hurt me?”
His lips grazed her temple. “No. To see your undiluted pleasure. But I fear, in my zeal, I will harm you.”
She stood for a moment, then moved away from him. He thought he’d gone too far—she was moving to the door. But she went to the table and picked up the riding crop he’d laid next to his hat. She turned around with it in her hand. “Show me,” she said.
“Grace, no—”
“Jeffrey Donovan, I should rather my husband desire me so much that he fears it will harm me than not desire me at all.” She tossed the crop at him, forcing him to catch it. She reached behind with both hands and began to unbutton her gown. Her bodice came loose, and she pushed the gown from her shoulders, stepping out of it. She was not wearing a corset, only a chemise underneath.
“Show me,” she said again.
He could not have been more aroused if she’d put her mouth on his cock and twirled her tongue around the tip. He gripped the crop tightly, then flicked it lightly against the tip of her breast.
Grace lowered her head, pushed her chemise down. It drifted to the floor, too, and now she stood before him, starkly naked, her skin cast glowing in the light of the hearth, the thatch of hair between her legs as golden as the hair on her head.
Jeffrey was lost now, falling into the pit of his desires. He traced a line across her chest to the other breast, and flicked the end of the crop against the tip. Both peaks were rigid now. Grace gave him a sultry smile. He shifted to her right, tested the crop against her bottom. Grace hopped a little when he did, and turned eyes blazing with heat to him.
“How do you find it, Lady Merryton?” he muttered, and slapped the crop against her again.
“Interesting,” she said. She drew another deep breath as he moved the crop in between her hips, sliding in between her legs. He stepped up behind her, put his hand on her waist and leaned down, nibbling her shoulder.
Grace twisted around in his arms. She reached for his neck cloth, quickly undoing the knot and drawing it free. She held up the neck cloth. “Bind me.”
“No,” he said, but Grace pressed the neck cloth into his hand, then stepped back and pulled the pins free from her hair. Gold hanks of hair fell down around her shoulders. She lifted her hands, her wrists pressed together. “Bind me, Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey looked at her delicate hands, uncertain if he should leave or allow this young woman, this innocent, to convince him that there was no depravity in him. He didn’t know if he had the strength to deny himself; his cock was already straining against his trousers.
It was no use. He was going to take her here. He was going to toy with her, then plunge into her. “Touch yourself,” he commanded.
“Pardon?”
He flicked the crop against her breast again, only a bit harder this time. “You want to know what my desire is? Then touch yourself.”
She hesitantly lifted her hands to her breasts.
It was hardly anything at all, but Jeffrey found it strangely erotic. Grace slowly spread her fingers across her breast, squeezing her stiffened nipples between them, and Jeffrey could almost feel her fingers on his nipples.
He yanked his collar free of his neck and tossed it aside. He pushed away from the door and started walking toward her. “Slide your hand down, between your legs.”
Grace did as he instructed, her hand moving slowly over the soft plane of her abdomen, slipping in between her legs. She lifted her head slightly, as if the sensation of it had pricked her.
Jeffrey reached her, ran his hands down her sides. He let his gaze slide down her body, taking in the dark aureoles of her breasts, the hardened nipples, the goose skin of her arms. He took one of her hands, then the other, and bound them with his neck cloth. Her eyes sparked as a seductive smile curved on her lips. Jeffrey brushed her hair back from her face. “You amaze me,” he murmured.
He turned her about, then guided her to bend over the settee, her bottom exposed to him, and slapped the crop against it.
Grace made a sound—of distress? Of pleasure? He panicked a moment, but then Grace turned her head and looked at him. “You see?” she said silkily. “You’ve not harmed me.”
He lifted his gaze to her, and myriad images, all of them starkly prurient, rushed through his brain. He slapped her again with the crop, then tossed it aside. He could scarcely draw his breath now. A flame had ignited in his groin. He bent over her. “Spread your legs.” He slipped his hand between them, his fingers into her slit.
He felt vibrant, animated, and pushed her bound hands up, high over her head. She was stretched over the arm of the settee and across it now, a feast for him. “Yes,” he breathed, his mind racing, his body moving ahead of his thoughts. “Now close your eyes.”
Grace did as he bid her. “You are forbidden to open them,” he said. He grabbed her chin in his hand and leaned down so that he was only a moment from her lips. “Are you afraid?”
“No.”
He dipped his finger in a pot of honey that had come with the tea service and first painted her lips with it, then spread a line of it down her back, to her hips. He rubbed it against the pink patches of skin where he’d spanked her with the crop. He watched her dip the tip of her tongue to taste it, then scrape her teeth over her bottom lip, the honey into her mouth.
It was wildly erotic, and she seemed quite at ease with his play. He didn’t hold his desire—there was nothing left for him but to have his way with her. That notion seemed decadent to him, but at the same time, it felt incredibly freeing. Exhilarating. He could feel her body quivering with anticipation beneath his. He could feel his own heart pounding with it, as well.
A bit of honey ran down her hip; Jeffrey sucked it from her skin. He applied honey to more of her, licking it and sucking it from her skin. When he bit her, Grace moaned and lifted to him, and the tremor of lust rattled all the way to Jeffrey’s feet.
He continued the honeyed assault on her skin, working his way down between her legs, lapping honey from her slick sex as she gasped and squirmed against him. “Untie me,” she said breathlessly.
He thought he’d gone too far and felt the apologies and self-loathing, begin to form. He stood up, quickly undid the tie and held his hands up, surrendering. “I beg your pardon. I knew—”
Grace made a clucking sound. She slid off the table and ran her hand over it, finding the pot of honey. She dipped two fingers into the pot, and with her gaze on him, she reached for his cock, smearing the honey over the tip.
Jeffrey’s breath caught in his throat as Grace dipped her fingers into the pot again and smeared it down his chest, his abdomen, following the trail with her mouth, nibbling and licking him as he’d done to her.
The effect was staggering; Jeffrey fell back onto the settee as his chest rose with each sharp, steadying breath. She pushed him, forcing him into a chair, and sank between his legs.
“Grace,” he said, but he lost his intended warning when she took him in her mouth. Her tongue swirled around him, and she moved her lips as if tasting him, driving him to madness, until Jeffrey could bear it no more. He suddenly grabbed her, lifting her up, surging with her and putting her on the table. He kissed her almost desperately as he pushed into her. His entry was a shock of raw pleasure; his breath came out in one long and heavy sigh. His hand slipped from her breast to her sex, and he was moving deep and hard into her, pushing her toward release with his body and his fingers.
She came with an animal cry, one arm flailing, knocking something to the floor, shuddering violently with her release and drawing an explosive one from him. Jeffrey fell headlong into pure rapture.
Several moments passed as he clawed his way back to the present. When the fog of ecstasy had cleared, he staggered back into the chair at the table, pulling Grace into his lap.
She kissed his cheek, licked a bit of honey from his mouth and laid her head on his shoulder.
He stroked her hair, overwhelmed and amazed by what had just
It dawned on Jeffrey in that shiny afterglow that perhaps his concern had been misplaced all along. Perhaps he was the one who should fear his thoughts.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GRACE WORE JEFFREY’S shirt and sat cross-legged on the floor before the hearth. Wearing only his trousers, Jeffrey was stretched long on his side before her. There was a plate of biscuits between them, but the tea had gone cold, and instead, they sipped wine from two small tots.
Grace’s hair, a bit sticky in one tress, felt wild to her, hanging loose down her back and front. She felt warm, relaxed and ravenous.
Jeffrey was circumspect, watching her eat the biscuits with her fingers as if she’d been living in the woods. In a strange way, Grace felt as if she’d just emerged from the woods. She felt exuberant, alive, invincible and a bit smart, too, as she believed she had reached this mysterious man. She had climbed a mountain in the past twenty-four hours, and honestly, it had been far more enjoyable than it had sounded.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked him, and playfully forced a bite of biscuit into his mouth. He smiled, stroked her cheek, his green eyes full of uncharacteristic warmth.
She leaned over the biscuits and kissed him, biting his bottom lip a bit. He caught a rope of her hair in his hand and wrapped it around his knuckles, touching it to his nose. “Does it smell of honey?” she asked him.
“A bit.”
“I rather liked it,” she said with a coy smile. “It wasn’t the least bit vile. Nor was I afraid. Or particularly shy.” She laughed at that, having only just realized it herself. “So you may put your mind at ease, Lord Merryton.”
“Would that it were that simple,” he said. “The problem will come to me later. My thoughts...” He shook his head. “I will begin to see images and believe that what happened was worse than the truth. My mind plays these tricks on me.” He sighed, and laced his fingers with hers, his thumb caressing her knuckles. He seemed reticent now, and she sensed he was withdrawing into that place where he kept her at arm’s length.
Grace was desperate that he not do that. She leaned across the space between them and looked into his eyes. “Please don’t go, Jeffrey,” she pleaded.
“I won’t leave you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done so—”
“I don’t mean that.” She pushed the plate aside and shifted onto her stomach, propping herself up on her forearms, her face only a few inches from his. “I mean, don’t go from here and now. From us. You must see that I don’t fear you. You mustn’t believe that you might somehow harm me. I’m quite sturdy.”
His smiled deepened. “You are very sturdy.”
“And you aren’t afraid for me or of me.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. “The only time I am afraid of you is when you take the pianoforte.”
Grace’s eyes widened with surprise, and then she laughed. “Do my ears deceive me? Does my husband jest?”
He lowered his head and kissed her. “Thank you, for allowing me to be candid. But no one must ever know, Grace. If it were even suspected, any children born of our marriage would be suspect. My sister’s children would be suspect. My brother’s unborn children. You understand.”
Grace’s eyes fluttered slightly. She thought she should tell him about her mother, just put it in the open as he had done, but somehow in that unguarded moment, having made the gains she had...
“My family can’t endure another scandal,” he said, tracing his finger across her mouth. “I fear the damage that has already been done. To add madness to it would forever seal it for my niece and nephew, I think.”
How did she tell him that madness had already touched his family in marrying her? Would he retreat from her? Would he forgive her? She ought to tell him, she knew she ought to say it, but she feared losing all that she’d gained this night. She decided she needed to think about how to tell him—but before she could, Jeffrey kissed her, and he sank his fingers into her hair, pulling her closer. Before she could even form a coherent thought in her head, he had rolled her onto her back, was at her breast. She stretched her arms above her head, her lips curling into a smile of pure pleasure as his mouth and hands began to move on her once more.
* * *
THEY LEFT FOR Blackwood Hall the next morning. This time, Jeffrey rode in the coach with Grace and Hattie and the dog. Grace was buoyant and chatted the entire way, as if she felt obliged to do so. Jeffrey was grateful for it, as he would have seemed rude to Hattie in his inability to participate to carry a conversation, no matter how benign. For her part, Hattie stayed glued to the window with the dog, pressing herself against the wall of the coach, obviously feeling terribly out of place with him.
Grace was clearly determined not to let a moment of silence pass between them. She talked about the weather, and her theories concerning it. She spoke of the last ball she’d been to in London before her stepfather had passed, and cataloged what everyone had worn. Jeffrey noted that she seemed to be inordinately interested in clothing. She remarked that Beckington House routinely hosted suppers of four-and-twenty and then took the time to name the guests that were often in attendance.
By the time they reached Blackwood Hall, she seemed to have exhausted herself with all the chatter. Hattie very nearly sprinted into the house.
“My lord,” Cox said, greeting them on the drive as Jeffrey helped Grace from the coach. “So glad that you have arrived. Mr. Ainsley, a solicitor from London, has come down.”
“To Blackwood Hall?” Jeffrey asked, trying to recall any correspondence he might have seen warning him of it.
“Yes, my lord. He says it is a matter of some urgency.”
Jeffrey looked at Grace. She smiled. “It’s such a beautiful day. I think I should like to ride. Shall I see you at supper, then?”
“Yes,” he said, and took her gloved hand and kissed it.
“Where is he?” he asked Cox.
“In the library, my lord.”
Jeffrey knew straightaway the matter Mr. Ainsley had come to address was not a pleasant one, given his solemn demeanor when he greeted Jeffrey and the nervous manner in which he handed him a letter. It had been penned by Sir Edmund Read, whom Jeffrey did not know. Sir Edmund wrote that he had retained Ainsley to collect a debt. He claimed that Lord Amherst owed him nine hundred pounds in unpaid gambling debts and that attempts at collection of the debt from Lord Amherst had not been successful.
Jeffrey’s pulse had begun to pound at his temples—he had not seen or heard from John since the night in Bath when he’d watched his brother slip out of the abbey during the performance. Jeffrey had sent his own solicitor to find his brother when it became apparent he’d have to marry Grace, but John had disappeared, presumably into the salons of London.
Jeffrey folded the letter eight times into a small square as Mr. Ainsley looked on. “Nine hundred pounds is quite a lot of money,” he said. He resisted the urge to crush the letter in his hand as a swell of anger began to push up through his veins.
“It is a large sum indeed, my lord. I’ve no doubt you understand Sir Edmund’s desire to have the debt paid.”
“Of course.” Jeffrey didn’t understand how a man could give his word and then fail to honor it. He thought of his father, how angry he would have been with John. How he might have accused him of single-handedly destroying the integrity of the Merryton seat. Ah, but now John had Jeffrey in his company.
“You may tell Sir Edmund that I find this matter entirely reprehensible. My father would be quite disappointed in my brother.”
“If I may say, my lord, your respect for propriety and decency is well known, which is why Sir Edmund felt comfortable in sending me to you.”
Jeffrey flinched inwardly at his own hypocrisy. He wasn’t decent. He was indecent. “I’ll write a bank draft,” Jeffrey said. “Will that suffice?”
“Of course, my lord. No one has reason to doubt the word or deed of the Earl of Merryton.” He smiled.
Jeffrey could scarcely speak—the fury of having to clean up his brother’s mess once more was sticking like dirt in his throat. He sat at his desk and prepared his draft. He thought of his rudderless brother, flitting from one woman’s bed to the next gaming hell with no regard for the debts he amassed and the trouble he stirred.
Jeffrey was reminded, as he dipped the pen in the inkwell eight times, that Sylvia had once told him he was too hard on John, that what John lacked in moral fiber he made up in kindness. Jeffrey was not inclined to agree. He himself suffered privately from moral turpitude, and yet he struggled each day to atone for it. John suffered nothing. He did not atone. He did not care.
He handed the bank draft to Ainsley and thanked him for his candor and his respect for the family’s privacy. Something in that made Ainsley look at him strangely. He turned to go, but he paused at the door and looked back at Jeffrey. “If I may, my lord?”
Jeffrey nodded, wishing the man would take his leave.
“I have the sense that you are not aware of your brother’s...” He paused, seeming to think the better of what he would say.
“My brother’s what?” Jeffrey asked.
Mr. Ainsley took a breath. “I think it is common knowledge around Mayfair that your brother has sired a child.”
The news stunned Jeffrey. It should not have been unexpected given John’s history, but nevertheless, it caught him completely off guard. He unthinkingly began to tap at his thigh. “A child,” he said flatly.
“Forgive me I have overstepped, but you are a man of good character and it seems obvious to me you have been kept in the dark.”
Jeffrey had to force himself to speak. He could not trust this man, could never trust a man who would take it upon himself to bring up such a highly personal matter. “Thank you, Mr. Ainsley.”
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