My Fair Lord

by Wilma Counts

  “Pleasantly so, I hope,” she murmured. She put her arms around his neck and nudged his face back to a kissing position, pouring into her kiss the pent up desire she had felt for days now.

  “Very pleasantly so,” he said, his voice growing husky.

  He trailed his tongue across her lips, teasing them open then plunged her into a maelstrom of sensation. Not only were his lips and tongue wreaking havoc on her mouth and neck, but he had slipped his hands inside the dressing gown to caress her sides, her back, and her breasts. She felt her nipples harden and a burning need lower in her body. His hands cupped the rounds of her buttocks and pulled her even closer. Something firm pushed against her belly; she knew immediately what it was and what it meant. The knowing made her hungry for more.

  He pulled away slightly. “You can change your mind if you want, Retta. But once I take you to bed, there will be no turning back.”

  “I don’t want to turn back.” Her own voice was rather husky too.

  He let her go for a moment as he turned out the lamp near the chair and turned the one next the bed down to spread only a soft glow about the room. He grabbed a towel from the washstand and placed it beside the lamp on the nightstand, then he threw back the covers of the bed, and reached for her again.

  “Last chance to change your mind,” he said softly as he undid the loose braid of her hair, let it drape about her shoulders, and buried his face in its tresses.

  “I am not changing my mind,” she said firmly, and pushing his robe off his shoulders, pressed her lips to his skin, the hair on his chest tickling her face. She licked at his bare chest, noting that he tasted slightly salty. His robe fell to the floor.

  “My God, Retta. Oh, my God, I want you.”

  “That is why I am here,” she said in a saucy tone that belied the butterflies of doubt she was feeling at the sheer boldness of what she was doing. She put her arms around his neck again and pressed her body against his.

  He shoved her dressing gown off her shoulders and the silk fell to the floor with his robe. He stepped back and for a moment merely looked at her in that thin nightgown. She knew it revealed not only that her nipples had hardened, but also showed clearly the dark patch of hair at the juncture of her legs. She felt shy and wanton at the same time.

  He drew in a sharp breath and, quickly divesting himself of his breeches, shoved her gently towards the bed.

  “That nightgown must go, too,” he said. She slowly removed it, aware of his steady gaze all the while, and let it drop to the floor with the rest of their clothing.

  She lay on the bed and scooted over to allow him room as he lay beside her and took her in his arms. He kissed her and nuzzled against her neck as one hand toyed with her hair. She was immediately lost in the sheer sensation of skin against skin as he kissed her lips again. She kissed him back, reveling in the way her whole body responded to his every touch. He trailed kisses down her neck and to her breasts. As he kissed and nibbled at one hard nipple, he stroked the other, gently pinching it. She whimpered her pleasure in the sheer ecstasy of what he was doing, but she knew there was more, and she was torn between wanting it all now, or savoring each little nuance of his lovemaking.

  Savoring could be had in memory.

  He placed a hand on her inner thigh and she instinctively opened to allow him access. His fingers stroked and probed, awakening her very core of sensuality; he stroked gently, then with increasing intensity as he kissed her mouth, his tongue echoing the rhythm of his strokes below.

  She jerked her mouth away from his to say, “Oh, my God, Jake, what you’re doing to me!”

  He gave her a knowing grin and whispered, “We are not there yet, Retta. Touch me, sweetheart.” He positioned her hand around his erection and she wondered at the smoothness and warmth of it. He uttered a groan and inserted a finger and then two fingers into her and she could feel the wetness.

  When she had reached a fever pitch of sheer desire, he positioned himself between her legs. “Put your legs around mine,” he whispered. She did, thus allowing both of them better traction as he continued to stroke her, but not with his fingers. His hands were braced on either side of her head and his gaze locked with her own as he entered her with slow strokes at first, then more rapidly as she responded thrust for thrust. His moans of pleasure blended with hers. She felt a twinge of pain, then an incredible sense of euphoria as her body reached for—for what? She strained harder and suddenly, there it was! She cried out, but he quickly caught her cry in a long kiss. She began to relax as she felt him building to the same pitch. With a soft groan, he withdrew from her and reached for the towel into which he spilled his seed. He rolled to her side, buried his face against her neck, and just held her close as he regained control of himself. After a while he rose and, retrieving a wet cloth from the washstand, he gently cleaned her and himself before again lying next to her, kissing her neck and nibbling at her earlobe. He reached to spread the blanket over them and they lay quiet for a while, he trailing a hand idly over her body, and she savoring their closeness.

  His care in not spilling his seed inside her and his tender ministrations in cleaning her moved her profoundly. These actions bespoke a man whose thoughtfulness was somehow ingrained in his character. No wonder she loved him so.

  “That was pretty wonderful,” she said. “Wherever did you learn that? No. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  His chest rumbled with a laugh. “You are wonderful, my lady of surprises. How will I ever be able to let you go?”

  It was a rhetorical question and an idle one at that, but she said, “Who says you must?”

  He rose on one elbow and held her gaze. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

  “Probably. In less than a month, Jake, I will be a very rich woman in my own right, and, frankly, I want to keep you in my life. There. I’ve said it.” She buried her face in his neck and said against his warm skin, “Does that make me a bad person?”

  “No, my darling, of course not.” He continued to idly caress her body. “I cannot like the idea of a future without you, but circumstances are against us, you know. At least for now. I doubt your family would approve your marrying a dockworker—or a Bow Street Runner, for that matter.”

  “I am of age,” she said. “Their approval is not really necessary. And in about two weeks, I will be very rich. You need not stay a dockworker—if, indeed, that is what you were—are.”

  He laughed and drew her closer. “Are you proposing that I become a kept man? A rich woman’s plaything?”

  “Oh, please, don’t put it that way.”

  “Why don’t we just leave things as they are for the time being?” he asked. “I am not going anywhere soon. Now. How much time do we have before this house starts stirring?”

  “Enough,” she said, surrendering again to his exploring hands and kisses, but she also noted that he had ignored her challenging his status as a dock worker.

  * * * *

  They made love twice more, dozing between encounters and joking about how the teacher had suddenly become the student—and an eager one at that. Jake always slept with his window open and when he began to hear the familiar morning sounds coming from the stable yard, he nudged Retta, then kissed her awake.

  “Hmm. What?” She snuggled closer.

  He chuckled. “If you do not wish to be caught in my room, love, you’d better wake up and return to your own.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Fully awake now, she scrambled off the bed to reach for her clothes. She hastily tied her hair back and tightened the sash on her dressing gown. He grabbed his robe too, and pulled it on as he went to the door to open it and peer into the hall.

  “All right,” he said, keeping his voice low. As she passed by him, he kissed her and said, “Later.”

  He went to the window to check the weather. He heard rather than saw that it was raining. Sunrise was la
te this time of the year, and all he could see were vague shapes of surrounding buildings. Well, that rain answered one question: there would be no riding this morning.

  No longer sleepy, he quickly pulled on his buckskin breeches, a wool shirt, and his boots. He had opened the door when a thought hit him. He closed it and returned to the bed to throw aside the bedcovers. Aha! Just as I thought. There was a telltale spot of blood on the sheet. He wet a cloth in the basin and scrubbed at the spot until it was hardly visible. He hoped it would dry by the time the maid came to clean his room, but as a precaution he made up the bed himself. The maid might wonder at the already made bed and an excessive number of cloths near the basin, but that could not be helped.

  At this hour and with all the bedchambers on the second and third floors, he would be disturbing no one by playing the piano. The Earl of Blakemoor had installed gas lighting within the last two years, so the halls were dimly lit as he made his way down to the music room on the ground floor. The room was cold, so he lit the fire and heaped the coal high, glad that in this well-run household the fireplaces were cleaned every day and a ready supply of coal was always available. He thought briefly of the cold, dark room he had shared with those other dockworkers only a few months ago.

  But mostly he thought of Retta as he began to play the piano softly, just letting his fingers find the keys as they would. Well aware of what she was risking, he was humbled by her willingness to give up her life—a life in which she had always been an important and respected figure in society—merely to be with him. He did not doubt that she meant every word, and it made him love her even more. He was growing used to the idea that he was in love with her. A few months ago—during that first meeting in The White Horse, for instance—he would have scoffed at such a possibility. But here he was, loving her and hating the fact that he could not throw everything aside and court her as he wanted and as she deserved. He wondered how she would take the truth of his identity . . .

  Jake had met with Peter Fenton, but neither had much to report as they simply waited. When he thought about it, it occurred to him that intelligence work involved a good deal of that: waiting. Two weeks ago, the Marquis of Trentham had reported to Fenton that he was ready to take home his carefully contrived false documents showing what England wanted at the Vienna Congress in the way of distribution of territories that Napoleon had conquered. Fenton had then made sure to have Trentham’s butler under surveillance whenever he left the house. The butler was seen visiting the docks where he met with an officer on a French ship visiting the London harbor. Since that ship was one that carried passengers as well as cargo, it was not difficult to put an English spy on board to follow the trail once the information made its way to France. Once Colonel Lord Peter Fenton was certain the information had been passed to French recipients, he would give the order to arrest Trentham’s butler.

  The information that Lord Alfred manufactured—ostensibly from the Army Commander-in-Chief—supposedly showed locations of various units of the army and their strengths now that England, no longer at war on the continent, was reducing its numbers. Jake had actually had some small input to this misleading information, and he was glad to see that Lord Alfred included just enough verifiable information to be fully believable about the English army of occupation in France and Belgium. Again Lindstrom was seen visiting the home of the deputy ambassador of Rome. Because this information would go into a diplomatic dispatch, it would be harder to trace on the continent. It was a now a matter of waiting to hear when Napoleon might have received it. The British commander overseeing Napoleon’s exile on Elba sent regular messages regarding the prisoner’s daily life and his visitors. When the British Foreign Office was informed that the Countess Borghese had visited her brother again, Jake and Peter would put into motion the arrests of Morrow, his sister, and Dr. Lindstrom. When, Jake thought, and if nothing goes wrong. After all, it was just a stroke of luck to find that we are dealing with two lots of these bastards with different, albeit overlapping motivations.

  Motivation was a key element. What on earth was Napoleon to do with the information he was seeking, incarcerated as he was on a small island? The only explanation was that he was planning an escape. He had tried that in the early days of his exile and had been suitably foiled in the attempts. The question was now: When would the next attempt come? And why were the powers that be in the entourage of England’s Prince Regent so reluctant to beef up security on that island? Instead they had allowed the former dictator to increase his number of “servants.” Jake did not know the exact number, but it was over a thousand. What individual—even a former dictator used to every luxury known to man—needed that many “servants” to keep him entertained?

  Jake had discussed this at great length with Lord Alfred and with Peter Fenton; the three of them agreed on possible motives of the man who had once sought to rule all of Europe, if not the whole world. And all three complained that those in power—especially the Prince Regent and the Prime Minister—seemed so unconcerned about the possibility of having “the Corsican Monster” unleashed on the world again. Jake and his cohorts only hoped that the Foreign Secretary and the man chosen to replace him would take a more practical view of the situation: Castlereagh and Wellington would surely have a better grip on the issue than the armchair diplomats here at home had.

  Jake decided he would deal with these issues when they received word that the false information had been delivered to its intended destinations—namely Talleyrand and Napoleon. Surely it was a matter of only a few days. Meanwhile, his life was consumed not only by finding reasonable, believable activities to fill his days, but also by his nights with Retta. Three times after that first encounter, she had come to his room and stayed until nearly dawn. Both complained that these nights were far too short, and he worried aloud about her being caught leaving his room, a worry she tried to kiss away. While they did, indeed, spend a good portion of those hours simply exploring each other’s bodies and sharing the incredible bliss of the most intimate union known to mankind, they also spent a good deal of time just talking, sharing small details of their lives as lovers since the dawn of time have done. On his part, Jake was careful to screen whatever he shared. He trusted her implicitly, but he did not want her involved in this messy spy business—at least not until it was necessary. And by then, he hoped it would be over. So, he withheld the vital information of his identity, but he shared truthfully as much as he could, telling her of escapades with his friends and with his brothers and sisters. Nor did he share only the happiest stories of his childhood. He told her of his estrangement from his father and how he hoped one day to mend matters with him.

  She, in turn, told him of the loss of her mother and how her stepmother had never quite been able to accommodate for that loss. She told him how Uncle Alfred and Aunt Georgiana had helped fill the void, and how her school friends, Hero and Harriet, had become essentials in her life. She confirmed what he had already deduced about her relationship with her brothers and sisters—her closeness and shared interests with the boys and how she had always felt a sense of distance between her and her sisters.

  He treasured these nights with her.

  * * * *

  For Retta, these nights were a taste of what she imagined paradise to be. The discovery of his male body, and discovering the raw sensation her own was capable of, thrilled her beyond anything she had ever experienced. She simply never wanted it to end. In the back of her mind, there was a persistent worry about keeping the relationship—that is, the change in her relationship with Jake—secret from members of a household of literally dozens of people, some of whom had known her all her life. But again and again, she found herself gently knocking at his door once it seemed all was quiet.

  On returning to her bedchamber after her fourth night with Jake, she entered the sitting room quietly and was surprised that a lamp was on. She was sure she had extinguished it. Then she saw Aunt Georgiana sitting in a chair nea
r the table that held that lamp. She had been reading, but Retta immediately surmised that the book she held on her lap was really just to while away the time as she waited.

  “Oh! You startled me,” Retta said. “Did you have trouble sleeping too? I—”

  “Do not even think of dissembling with me, Retta.” Aunt Georgiana spoke softly, mindful, Retta thought, of Madam Laurent who slept in an adjoining room. But the tone and expression on her aunt’s face were stern, disapproving. She held up a blue ribbon she had been using as a bookmark. “This is yours, is it not?”

  “Why, yes. I wondered where it had gone.” Retta also kept her voice low.

  “Mrs. Browning brought it to me yesterday. The maid who cleans Mr. Bolton’s chamber found it beside the bed and gave it to the housekeeper.”

  “Well, I—

  Her aunt ignored her. “Have you any idea at all of the consequences of what you are doing?”

  “I—I think so,” Retta admitted, sinking into a seat opposite the older woman.

  “I think not,” her aunt said emphatically. “Servants talk, my dear. So far, you are just incredibly lucky that that maid was Martha who has been with this family since I was a girl and that she went to Mrs. Browning who has served this house almost as long and feels remarkably protective of us. Neither of them will be able to cover for you forever—nor should they be expected to do so.”

  “No, of course not.” Totally chagrined at being caught out so, Retta sat twisting her hands in her lap. She wanted to defend herself, but the stark reality was that there simply was no defense.

  Her aunt went on unrelentingly. “This sort of scandal would be devastating to the whole family. We have whispers enough about Mr. Bolton’s actual residence in this house. Now, if this gets out too, your reputation will be ruined. I doubt not your sisters and stepmother would disown you, and the men in the family will have to deal with sly jokes at their expense. Is that what you want?”