Wallace met her gaze. “So it would seem.”
“He took no time with me. And I wondered why not. I could have learned. Would have. If he’d cared to educate me.”
He kissed her temple. “He had women.”
She nodded. Robert’s reputation was well known so she was not surprised that Wallace had heard rumors. “I wondered if he paid them a lot of money to respond to him. Still, I was insulted he took no care with me. It was as if he assumed I’d not be interested.”
“That’s not unusual for a man to neglect his wife.”
“I have since learned that.” She cleared her throat. “But I took time to learn a few things about the arts of bliss which he did not teach me.”
Finnley pulled away. “What are you saying?”
She tipped her head this way and that. “I have read books. Viewed pictures.”
His mouth dropped open, whether in shock or delight or both, she could not say. “I won’t ask where you got them.”
“I have one in my bedroom that I did not return to its owner.”
“I see,” he said with furrowed brow and a grin edging his mouth. “She shall remain anonymous.”
“She? What makes you think—?”
“Oh, no. You will not bait me,” he said chuckling.
“Men,” she fumed, crossing her arms.
He threw back his head to laugh heartily.
“Do not assume I am incapable of—of—“
“Passion?” he teased.
“Excitement. Delight. If you do, we are finished before we’ve begun.”
“I don’t.”
“I will not have it, do you hear me?” She was quite adamant.
“I do.”
“I will not live that way with a man who has no care of me. I will not do that again. Robert had enough years of my life. I will give no more to any other who would take me for granted.”
He brushed her hair back from her cheeks. “I understand.”
“But I do want this closeness, this affection with you.”
“And you have it, darling. You have it.” He settled her into his embrace as the coach rumbled on in the afternoon snowstorm.
If only now he would see that she wanted him in bed with her for tonight and tomorrow. She wanted all the passion she’d missed. All the laughter and kisses. Sighs and cries of rapture. She wanted that and she’d have it from him—or no other.
Chapter Nine
The coaching inn where they stopped for the night was six miles outside the town of Sevenoaks along the post road. Finnley remembered the place, a decent accommodation given the additional snowfall. The flakes had coated the roads and turned to ice. The accumulation, though half an inch, had slowed them, the paths so laden with last week’s accrual. When it seemed that the coach could not go on, the horses sluggish from fighting the slick ice, Finnley had agreed with the driver that they should stop and he’d recommended this place with decent beds and food.
Other travelers had the same idea and what was left for Alicia and him was a tiny room with a very small bed, a chair and table. Luckily, the room also had a fireplace and Finnley asked for logs soon after they arrived.
The inn was no fine place for a night of bliss with a lady he adored. That irritated him, but he had no choice but to stay here. He would not leave her alone in such a place. Protection was more important than propriety.
Still they were not far from his estate and his uncle’s. And though he’d not ventured here often, he knew not who might recognize him. He did indeed resemble his father to the inch. Save for the debauchery that killed the old man.
Shaking off the ill memories, he lifted the biggest log from the hearth. “I’ll build a fire now. We’ll need the heat. I’ll not have you ill.”
She thanked him. “Nor I you. Shall we go down to see what the keep’s wife has for us for supper?”
He didn’t expect much. Fine inn though it was, he knew the fare was not superb. Day-old bread and a thick soup, if they were fortunate, was most likely what they’d get.
But when they both went downstairs and the man’s wife set before them big white pottery bowls chock full of big chunks of potatoes and carrots and savory beef, Finnley had to smile. A full belly put him in a better mood and he gave himself enough license to regard Alicia more tenderly.
“I shall remember that if you are fed well with heavy beef and roots,” she said to him as they wiped their mouths, “you are more pleasant.”
He smiled and returned to enjoying his stew. His worries mounted. This morning before he had left the house, he’d taken a turn out to the garden. Such as it was, narrow and covered in inches of snow, brown branches spiked up from the earth. Nothing looked alive. The nightshade was gone.
Events tomorrow plagued his mind, too. These he could speak about to Alicia.
He took a drink of ale. “In this snow, the rector may not be able to bury your old governess.”
“They’ll say a service for her and that’s what she deserves..”
“She was that kind to you?” He reached across the table to take Alicia’s hand.
“Very. The only one to smile at me and Jerome. She taught me that one must wring from each day whatever joy it offers. Whoever offers it.”
“I have an uncle who taught me a similar rule of life. From afar. He was in the Army, you see. And more on the Continent than at home, yet he was a good influence.”
“Does he still live?”
Newport? Finnley barked in laughter. “Yes, he does. Fortunately. He is sixty-two years of age and I think he will last forever. I hope so.”
Alicia gazed at him with a twinkle in her eye. “Is he as kind to you now you are grown as when you were a child?”
“Kind but as rigidly demanding in my performance.”
“What can you say he taught you best?” she asked, whimsy in her tone.
That’s where Finnley stopped to consider her beauty of face and heart. “How to treasure what I love. Give it my devotion.”
“Such as?”
He curled his lips in a smile. “My position. My employer.”
“Well!” She flicked a hand into the air. “You’ve done that, dear sir. And I am grateful.”
“My lady, you left me little choice.” His blue gaze narrowed on her beauty.
She leaned close. “Wallace, you did not accompany me because you had to. Oh, certainly for my safety, but there is more to your presence here. Be honest.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the soft flesh. “You are right. You captivate me. And I am stunned with my sentiment.”
She had watched his lips with a hunger in her eyes. “Why is that?”
“In this past month in your employ, I have learned that I never really cared for any other woman.”
“Is that so?” she asked him, breathless.
“Quite.”
“But why, sir? You are a handsome specimen. Wise and droll. But sweet and kind. Is there no woman who recognized your special nature and captured your heart?”
“You are the first who has ever truly cared for me.”
“Caring for you is so easy, Wallace. I find it difficult to believe no woman has had a tendre for you.”
He had enjoyed women in his bed, but never found one to intrigue him for long. All seemed artificial, interested in marriage for its own sake. Since becoming Newport’s heir, women fancied him for his money or his title. “I took no time to cultivate any intimate relationship.”
She tipped her head. “Is that true? What have you been doing, dear man, that you have no time for affection?”
“As a lad, I found myself enchanted with a young lady who was above my station. I was naïve, blind, totally taken by her smile and her form. She was a duke’s daughter.”
“And she rejected you. Is that it?”
He shook his head. “She had to. Duke’s daughters do not marry just anyone. And I was not equal to her.”
&n
bsp; Alicia put a hand to her heart. “Dear me. You loved like a knight in armor, from afar, pure and noble.”
“More like a silly boy who knew not love or lust or any rules of courtship, real or in a romantic tale.”
“And you never loved again?”
“I did not permit myself the luxury.”
“And there was never anyone else whom you considered marrying?”
“One whose hand I asked for,” he admitted with caution. “But my offer was out of obligation to her brother. When I asked her father for the lady’s hand, he would have nothing of me. He wanted a great and profitable marriage for his daughter. And I was fresh from Waterloo, with only my captain’s insignia to commend me. Her father, practical or mercenary as he was, awarded her to another.”
“You see,” she said with a nod. “That’s what is wrong with our social organization. We rely on money to form our opinions.”
“I agree. Difficult to change the whole of society, though. Happily, some do marry out of fond regard.”
“Few. But having been on the bad end of such a financial union, I will say I will not do it again.”
He did applaud her for that. But he had to remind her of reality. “Should this new title come to you, many men will find your new status and wealth intriguing.”
“Good for them.” She grinned at him. “I wish to meet none of them.”
“The ton will prevail upon you to do it.”
“I’d rather stay at home in my own parlor and have you read to me.”
He pulled back, arguing with her a constant reaction. “Alicia, please—“
She shook her head, pushed aside her bowl and rose. “Come to bed, Wallace.”
Fool, besotted as he was, he took her extended hand. He’d fought with himself about this but lost his determination each time he looked at her. He’d brought a few French letters, damning the clumsiness of the things. But he’d use them. He had to. If he could not save her from his own weak desire to take her, then he would save her from the consequence of a child.
Up the stairs, he led her into their little room. There he closed the door and she came into his arms as easily as if she’d done it a thousand times before.
Her lips were warm and supple. Her hands were at his nape, in his hair. She sighed and kissed him eagerly over and over again. He met her advances with a fire of his own.
She was everything he’d never thought to have. Natural and loving, kind and sincere. She even loved him for himself. Not his wealth. Not his estates. Not his title. Remarkable.
He worked at her bodice, closed at her collar by satin wool frogs above her bounteous breasts. The cloth undone, he put his lips to her sweet soft flesh. She smelled faintly of her signature lilacs and his senses reeled with her nearness. He aided her to remove her gown over her head, then set to work on her chemise and her half corset. He ran his fingers over the stiff stays that he wished to free her of.
Turning her around, he made short work of the corset and whirled her into his arms. She was smiling, her lips parted in anticipation of their union.
Playful, she undid his cravat and worked at the buttons of his waistcoat. To aid her, he shrugged out of them and suddenly, her hands tugged at his shirt and pulled it up and over his head. His torso was naked to her touch and he reveled in the caress of her talented fingers.
He leaned over his leather satchel to extract the bit of sheepskin, clutched it in his hand and pulled her to their tiny bed. There he sat her down. Kneeling beside her, he took her lips once more, his desire for her hardening every limb, every nerve.
“Remove your boots, darling,” she whispered to him. “And your breeches.”
He hesitated, but rose at once. She knew a man could not make love encumbered with such clothing. And he’d rather discard it now to concentrate on enrapturing her by removing her own garments. He shot to his feet, his letter on the bed, his boots gone in a thrice, his breeches down too in a second. His small clothes went too so that he was before her as God made him and the look on her face made him stifle a moan.
Her jaw dropped. Her eyes widened. And she reached out a hand to cup his hip. With a butterfly’s touch, she ran her forefinger along the side of his very rigid cock.
He swallowed, hard and loudly.
And she wrapped her hand around his length with such tenderness, he had to set his teeth so as not to come then and there.
“Darling Wallace,” she said as she stroked him, “you are quite well endowed.”
He choked in laughter and outrage. “I think you are mistaken, my dear.”
She fingered the slit of his cock. “Oh, I imagine nothing. You are as long as my hand. And hard and very hot.”
He hauled her up from the bed. Her words fuel to his fire to have her, he kissed her. Bending her into his arm, he took her lips, blessed her cheek, her ear, her throat, then set her squarely on her feet. “Let’s get these off you.”
She helped him, lifting her skirts, raising her arms, letting him tug and pull, giggling as he pushed down her petticoat and slid his hands beneath her corset to undo it and drop it to the floor. He laid her down upon the bed. There he ran his hands along her rib cage, his fingers tracing the lines where the ugly stays had creased her beautiful flesh.
She wriggled and sighed.
Chuckling, he admired the swell of her breasts. Bounteous, creamy and firm, they drew his gaze and his lips. He licked her rosy perfection, smiled at her moan of delight and swiftly sucked one nipple into his mouth.
“You are scrumptious,” he told her and drew her other breast into the hot cavern of his mouth. She was hot silk, her pebbled nipple a sweet treat that he laved and licked and nibbled. Grinning when she gasped and cried out and begged him to never stop, he wanted to comply.
He couldn’t. Driven by her urgency, he told himself to stop, to savor. Years of experience with other women meant he had the ability to draw out her delight. But she was wild heaven in his embrace and he was lost in her. Consumed by his need of her, he let his hand roam down over her ribs and her waist. He glanced at her legs, long and lean, her poor bruises still light purple and dark gold down to her dainty toes. With care, he rose on his knees to put his hands to her garters and tenderly, slowly, delicately stripped her white lace stockings from her luscious legs.
Back on his haunches, he admired her in the candlelight. Oh, what a beauty she was. Naked, she was his Venus. Smiling, eager, with a raw hunger in her eyes and on her lips, she murmured words of need.
“Come have me, Wallace.”
He shook his head, struggling for sanity. If he was to have her for only one night, he’d make it the ultimate expression of his love for her. He had to ensure she never forgot him, always remembered him and this for the true reverence it was.
He began by grasping her feet. Her elegant feet with perfect toes. He stroked them and kissed the end of each one.
She giggled.
He caressed her trim ankles, his fingers circling round each one and spreading her legs apart.
His eyes flared wide, but he trained his gaze on her face not elsewhere, not yet. She was his treasure, his beauty. Her core, he’d save and savor after he had admired all else about his beautiful lover.
She arched a saucy brow at him. Witch. And reached out both hands to draw him near.
If her move was motivated by her inherent modesty and she wished to avoid his admiration of her many charms, he would not allow it. He wished not to offend, but to entice and lure her to the fullest expression of her sexuality. He would not be bawdy, but he would show her that love-making was a time to share all one’s attributes to the delight of the other.
He fondled her knees and stroked the backs of his fingers up the insides of her thighs.
She shivered in response and he smiled.
“Wallace,” she crooned, her cheek to the pillow, her eyes fluttering closed, her arms up in the throes of her enjoyment.
“Darling,” he whispered
to her, bracing himself with two hands to the mattress on either side of her hips, “you are the loveliest creature I’ve ever beheld.”
She undulated at his praise.
He skimmed his hands over her hipbones, up her ribs to cup both breasts. He bent to suck each hard little nipple into his mouth, one by one. And then he licked her down the long hollow of her ribs from her breastbone to her tight little nest of blonde curls.
“Oh, Wallace,” she got out in a rush.
“Hush, darling. Enjoy this.”
Balancing on his knees, he sank over her and parted her fragrant folds. Heavy and wet, her flesh was bright pink and ready for him. He licked her, the essence of her desire for him musky and thick. He laved her, down one lip and up the other.
She bucked, her cry of delight a sound that thrilled him to the quick.
In the next moment, he sank his finger inside her.
And she writhed and pleaded in some ravenous language for more.
He smiled and obliged her, his cock jumping with the urgency to claim her, take her up and over the precipice. But he had more to do, more to show her, more to delight her.
With a ferocity that seized him, he drove another finger inside her welcoming channel and stroked her.
She plucked at his shoulders with urgent fingers.
He moved near, his cock leading him on, demanding he have her completely, and in the next moment, he halted and scrambled for the sheath. He rolled it on his member while she lolled her head upon the mattress, adrift in her bliss. He came to her then and claimed her fully, sliding inside her with a fulfilling ease that made him shudder and exult. Seated inside her to the hilt, he stilled, his head back. She went quiet. Shock, joy, ecstasy flowed through him. And then he moved, stroked her with the sure fire of his need—and his love for her multiplied a thousand times.
She sighed and moaned, her breath a frantic thing. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she arched up to take him deeper inside her.
And he lost his mind, his intentions gone to the madness of enjoying her.
They panted and pressed, never enough, every ounce of pleasure the only goal. He couldn’t stop, didn’t think, craved all of her. And when she reached her summit, she cried out, arched and dug her nails into his ribs. He slid her legs up over his thighs to drive impossibly deeper inside her. He could not leave her, dared not go until she belonged to him by nature and by complete deed.
Her Beguiling Butler Page 8
