by Amelia Grey
He exhaled a shaky breath. “You obviously don’t know my boundaries, Susannah. I am not that strong.”
He lifted the hem of her chemise and in one fluid motion had it off her body and tossed aside. When she stood before him naked in the dim candlelight, she suddenly felt shy and insecure. He could have any young lady in London; what had made her think he would want her? Her breasts weren’t as firm as they used to be. She was thin, her shoulders, ribs, and torso not as voluptuous as in her younger years. The changes in her body had never bothered her until now, when more than anything she wanted to please the man standing before her.
As if sensing her apprehension, he smiled sweetly and whispered, “You are beautiful.”
Susannah lowered her lashes. “I am old,” she refuted.
“Then I am, too, for we are the same age, are we not?” For a brief moment, Susannah felt tears well in her eyes. Even though her body was not as young as it once was, she saw desire for her in his eyes, and at that moment she knew that she had fallen deeply and madly in love with Race.
With tenderness, he reached up and covered her breasts with his hands, lifting their weight.
Susannah gasped with pleasure at his warm touch.
Race rubbed the nipple gently with his thumb and forefinger. Lowering his head, he kissed the rosy tip of first one breast and then the other.
He looked back into her eyes as he licked his lips and then said, “Hmm, you don’t taste old.” He gently kneaded her breasts as his twinkling gaze stayed on hers. “You don’t feel old.” He bent his head again and nuzzled the soft, warm spot behind her ear and breathed in deeply as he whispered, “You don’t smell old. You taste, feel, and smell heavenly to me, Susannah.”
Susannah’s spirits soared, and she laughed lightly. “You are much too charming, Race.”
“Good. You feel womanly to me, Susannah, very soft, very firmly womanly.”
His warm breath floated across her skin with each word he spoke. Filled with emotion, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly, hoping he would know, that he would sense the love she was feeling for him at that moment.
“Get beneath the covers while I take off my shoes and trousers. I don’t want you to catch a chill.”
Susannah climbed onto the bed her maid had turned down and slipped under the cool, crisp sheet and watched as Race stepped out of his slippers, stockings, and trousers. He was a magnificent man, with wide shoulders, slim hips, and powerful-looking legs.
Without hesitating, Race crawled onto the bed and lay down beside her. He enveloped her in his arms, entwining her legs with his, pulling her smaller, slender body against his. He held her close while his lips roved over hers, his hands explored her breasts, her waist, and the smooth plane of her hip and inside her thigh. He touched her as if she were a fine piece of silk, too delicate to be treated harshly.
His warmth was comforting, and Susannah felt as if her body was unfurling and opening to him, to a man, for the first time. She overflowed with love for him and wished she could tell him, but knew it was best to remain silent and keep her feelings to herself.
Susannah feathered her hands over his shoulders, down his ribs to his flat stomach, and then lower to his manhood. Her hand closed around him. She smiled beneath his generous kiss as he gasped in pleasure.
Lowering his head, he found her nipple and gently sucked it into his mouth, letting his tongue stroke her over and over again. The muscles in her thighs clenched tightly, and she moaned softly as pleasure built inside her.
“I never knew I could feel so good,” she whispered.
“This is only the beginning, Susannah,” he murmured.
Race moved his lips back up to hers with a hungry kiss. His tongue filled her mouth, exploring its depths. His hand skipped down to the downy thatch between her legs, and he caressed her center, filling her deeply, forcing her to silently moan for more. As passion continued to build inside Susannah, her body moved with his fingers. She felt ready to fall off the edge of something but she didn’t know what.
As if sensing her demand for more of him, Race rolled on top of her, settling his weight on her. She felt his hardness between her legs, and she opened for him.
Race lifted himself on his arms and looked deeply into her eyes as he coupled himself fully to her. Susannah lifted her hips to meet him.
For a moment he remained motionless, as if savoring something so special that if he moved, he’d lose it. Susannah glanced down to where their bodies joined, and she was filled, overwhelmed with the luscious sensation of being part of Race. Warmth scattered through her. The words of love she wanted to say remained silent and throbbed in her throat.
Race softly placed his lips on hers as he sank deeper into her.
His body moved smoothly with each long thrust. She caught his rhythm and joined him without reserve.
“Susannah, oh, God, you feel so good,” he mumbled against her lips.
Gulping in her breath, she managed to say, “I—I’ve never felt this way. I think I might scream from the wonder of it.”
“Don’t do that,” he said and completely covered her lips with his as her hips arched to meet him in a final thrust that toppled her over the edge of desire and into that sweet heaven called ecstasy.
A moment later, while still trying to calm her breathing, Susannah felt Race’s body shudder, and a broken gasp tore from him. He slowly lowered his chest to hers. Susannah’s heart pumped erratically, and she turned her face into the hot, damp crook of his neck. Now, she finally knew what had been missing in her life for so many years, and she couldn’t help but wonder how she was going to live without it.
“Susannah, tell me I’m not dreaming. Tell me I’m here in your bed making love to you.”
Her hands played in the hair at his nape. “Have you dreamed of being here with me like this, too?”
“More than once. Often, since the first time I saw you in my music room I knew I wanted to be right here with you beneath me.”
She ran her hands over his smooth, strong back and smiled at him. “Being with you was better than in my dreams. Your touch was so much more than I expected.”
He rose on his elbows and chuckled as his gaze drifted down her face. “I’m glad to hear I exceeded your expectations and won your approval.”
His eyes were glowing with joy, and she didn’t know when she had ever felt this good, this complete, this satisfied.
“Immensely so.”
“Since you are so pleased with my, ah—shall we say performance—so far, I think I should dig into my bag of tricks and show you a few more things, don’t you?”
Susannah laughed and hugged him to her.
And so he did.
* * *
“Race,” Susannah whispered much later as she kissed his cheek. “It is dawn. You must go before the servants start stirring about in my house and yours.”
He looked up and saw her leaning over him. He smiled. “Susannah, my servants have seen me come home at every hour of the day and night, admittedly sometimes not properly dressed.”
“However,” she countered, “we must be circumspect concerning my servants. My life has not been as varied or as colorful as yours, and I can assure you my servants have never seen me improperly dressed, and I think they would faint if they ever saw a man in my bed.”
He let the backs of his fingers trickle down her cheek, her throat, to the valley between her breasts, while his gaze held steadily on hers. “I understand, but I do hate to leave you. The air has just enough chill to make your body impossibly warm.”
He kissed her shoulder, the crook of her neck, and let his lips travel to the tip of her breast. “Hmm, I think I might decline to leave and stay a little longer.”
Susannah rolled away from him. “I think you will not. But if you behave and leave now, I might invite you to return another night.”
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Race rose on one elbow. He looked so roguishly handsome with his hair tousled, his eyes shining with laughter, and his broad chest gleaming in the early light of dawn.
“Susannah, after what we shared, you could not keep me away.”
Eleven
My Dearest Grandson Alexander,
Here are words from Lord Chesterfield that are worth putting to memory: “Having mentioned the word Rake, I must say a word or two more on that subject, because young people too frequently, and always fatally, are apt to mistake that character for that of a man of pleasure; whereas, there are not in the world two characters more different. A rake is a composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character and to ruin his fortune. By-the-by, let me tell you, that in the wildest part of my youth, I was never a rake.”
Your loving Grandmother,
Lady Elder
“My lord, are you awake?”
Race’s lashes lifted to the bright light of day. He rolled over to see his valet standing over him. The short, thin man’s eyes were rounded in fear. His hands were held in tight fists at his sides, and his moustache quivered. Race’s gaze darted around his bedchamber. No other person was present in the room, and nothing seemed out of place. He had no idea what was wrong with the servant.
A quick glance at the clock on the mantel told Race it was just past nine o’clock. An ungodly hour to be awakened, especially after spending the night as he had in the bed of the most desirable woman he’d ever met. His lids gently lowered as his thoughts quickly took him back to Susannah’s bed.
“My lord, are you awake?”
“Yes, what is it, Jenkins?” Race muttered, keeping his eyes closed, not wanting to be distracted from the pathway his thoughts were leading him.
“You should come downstairs immediately.”
Something in the man’s tone seeped through Race’s sleep-clouded mind. He rose up on one elbow and squinted against the harsh light.
“What is it? Is something wrong with Gibby or one of my cousins?”
The man shook his head. “Not that I know of, my lord.”
“Then just tell me what the devil is going on, and be quick about it. I’ll decide if I need to disturb my slumber to go downstairs.”
“You’ve been robbed.”
“Robbed?” Race bolted up in bed and threw the sheet aside. He was wearing only his trousers from the evening before. He’d been too tired from his blissful night with Susannah to step out of them and pull on his nightshirt. “Damnation, Jenkins, what do you mean by robbed?”
“Mrs. Frost went into your book room to dust just minutes ago and found your safe door standing open and empty.”
“Empty!” His grandmother’s pearls were in that safe. Race jumped off the bed and headed for his book room, bare-chested and barefoot. He hurried down the stairs, refusing to let his mind go wild with possibilities. He had first to see for himself what had happened, and then he could think.
When he rushed into the library, Mrs. Frost stood sniffling in a corner, twisting the hem of her apron in trembling hands. His safe was located behind a row of books on the fifth shelf of the bookcase. The volumes had been removed, and the safe door stood open. He felt deep into the recesses of the hole. The safe was as empty as a dry river bed.
“Whoever stole the contents of your safe, my lord, took the time to neatly stack the books on your desk,” Jenkins said in a shaky voice. “Mrs. Frost said she hasn’t touched a thing since she came in here.”
“That’s right, my lord,” Mrs. Frost said in a squeaky voice. “When I saw your safe open, I immediately ran to find Jenkins so he could wake you. I knew something was wrong. The safe wasn’t like that last night. When I came in and turned the lamp out, all was well.”
“The odd thing is that I don’t know how the man got in and out of the house,” Jenkins said, looking bewildered. “I checked all the doors and windows before I went to wake you. They are all bolted from the inside.”
“Then who the devil could have gotten in?” Race mumbled more to himself than to seek an answer from his servants.
“We don’t know. I’ve called all the staff into the kitchen so you can question them,” Mrs. Frost said. “Jenkins and I don’t have a clue as to who might have done this. Everyone has been with you for years, and we can’t believe any of them would ever steal anything from you.”
“I know how loyal my employees are to me, Mrs. Frost.”
“But who else could it be but a servant, if all the doors are locked? Unless maybe it was a ghost that entered and took your valuables,” Mrs. Frost said, looking horrified at that thought.
Clearly not believing that possibility, Jenkins said, “Perhaps there is some explanation as to how he got in. The gardener told me a few days ago that he found a large hole cut in the hedge at the back of your garden. He said it would take months for it to grow back. I didn’t think that much about it at the time, but now I’m wondering if someone was watching the house, waiting for a time they could slip in unnoticed and make off with whatever was in your safe. He must have gotten in and out before we locked up for the night.”
A chill rippled down Race’s spine. Not all of the doors in his house had been locked all night. He had left the back door unlocked when he slipped out to Susannah’s house and relocked it when he came back in. If someone had been watching his house, they would have seen him leave last night.
A sick feeling hit Race’s stomach.
Susannah?
Could she possibly have planned this theft with someone? A knot of denial clogged his throat. No, she couldn’t have known he would leave the door unlocked. And he couldn’t have been deceived that badly by her, could he? She had wanted him in her bed. She had wanted him. She had thrilled to his touch. She had not faked her enjoyment, of that he was convinced.
But who else could have known that his back door might be unlocked last night? Was she, as he had first thought, working with someone in order to steal the pearls, or did someone as yet unknown to him create this mischief?
“Did you have much money in there, my lord?” Jenkins asked.
Money? He didn’t care a damn that the money was gone or the other documents he had in there. His grandmother’s necklace was gone.
His mind whirled with thoughts. Was Susannah in cahoots with Captain Spyglass? Was that why the man was nosing around the Great Hall last night? They acted as if they had never met, but was that just a ruse? It was ridiculous the way the man was decked out with pearls dripping all over him.
But Prinny’s man, Harold Winston, was there, too. Race had caught a glimpse of the sly little man sometime during the evening. Had Susannah conspired with him? Race didn’t trust that man an inch, either. And the one-armed man, Smith, was still being seen all over Town, acquiring jewels for his antiques shop.
Bloody hell, it could have been any of them. It could have been all of them, but the one thing he knew for sure was that Susannah was the only one who could have known there was the possibility his door would be unlocked. She knew he would not decline her invitation and pass up the chance to be with her.
“Susannah,” he growled.
Had she deliberately enticed him into her bed so that she would have an alibi and he wouldn’t think it possible that she was in on the burglary? Had she sent someone prowling his grounds, knowing there was a hole in the yew, knowing his house might be vulnerable?
She had been so receptive to him, so responsive, so aroused by his every touch. Susannah had set his soul on fire and made him forget all other women he had ever touched. Had he been so blind to what her real motives were?
He didn’t have the answers to his questions but he was going to find out, and he was going to start by having a conversation with the duchess.
Without comment to his servants, Race strode out of the book room,
down the corridor and through the kitchen to the back door, which he jerked open and then hurried down the steps. His arms swung limply at his sides, his soul felt empty, and a raging storm was blowing in his heart.
“My lord, where are you going?” Jenkins asked, hurrying behind him.
“To see my neighbor,” he offered so calmly it frightened him.
“But my lord, you don’t have on a shirt, you don’t have on shoes. You are not properly dressed to pay a visit to anyone.”
Race didn’t slow down. “Obviously not, Jenkins, but nevertheless I am going.”
The day was gray and heavy with mist. The pathway stones beneath his feet were wet from recent rain. The damp air chilled his bare chest but did little to cool the heat inside him.
“Wh-what are you doing? There is no way you can get through that hedge. The yew is too thick and the hole is too small.”
“Watch me.”
Race bent down on his hands and knees and, just as he had twice last evening, he crawled through the opening he’d cut a few days ago. A sharp twig slashed across his chest, and he winced. Several more broken shoots scratched his back, but he didn’t let it slow him down as he came out on the other side and into Susannah’s garden.
“My lord, should I follow you?” his servant called from the other side of the yew wall.
“No, Jenkins. I don’t need you.”
Susannah’s slate path was overgrown with weeds and not as easy to walk on as his well-manicured pathways; still he stalked ahead. He stepped on a pebble and hissed an oath under his breath, but kept following the path he’d walked just hours before, until he reached the side of the house where the stairs led up to Susannah’s room.
He stopped for a moment at the bottom and inhaled a bitter breath. He was shoeless and shirtless, but hell, he didn’t care. If Susannah had duped him, he couldn’t let her get away with that.
Race climbed the steps two at a time. Luckily, the outside door was still unlocked, so he entered and went straight to Susannah’s bedchamber door and threw it open.
