by Bliss Bennet
Harry closed the valise with a snap. “Deficiencies? What deficiencies?”
Instead of answering her question, he posed her another. “How long would it have taken you to notice if a few pounds had gone missing from your accounts?”
“Why, I don’t know. Several days, perhaps. A month, at the most. But what has that to do with your marriage prospects?” She pulled the case from the bed and strode out into the passageway.
He followed her, but paused on the sill of the door. “I would never have noticed. I never did notice, not even when the amount involved thousands of pounds.”
She drew to a halt at the landing and turned back to him, her brow furrowing. “But you were the one who told us that funds were missing.”
“I didn’t discover it myself. My banker in town had to alert me to the problem, and in a most embarrassing fashion. And even then I had to take his word for it, no matter how he waved his account books in my face.” He stepped to her side and took the valise from her hand, setting it down by their feet.
“Harry, what I am trying to tell you—well, I am a mental idiot of sorts. Oh, I can read, and converse with apparent intelligence, but when it comes to matters mathematical, I am at a complete loss. I cannot do sums, or understand numbers, or work figuring of any kind. I can certainly not make heads nor tails of those damned estate ledgers you parse with such ease.”
Her hands flew to her hips. “Theodosius Pennington. You cannot expect me to believe you cannot add two and two.”
“Oh, yes, two plus two is four, two plus three is five, two plus four is six,” he said in a singsong voice. “I can recite all the simple sums, the multiplication and division tables, as easily as I can the catechism. But only because I memorized them to appease my tutors and my father. And even that wasn’t enough when the arithmetic grew more difficult. Then, when I faltered, they accused me of being lazy, of refusing to apply myself.”
“Theo, I don’t understand—”
“I can’t do the sums, Harry.” He paced up and down the passageway, raking his palms through his hair. “Not on paper, and not in my head. The numbers just don’t move for me as they do for other people. When I stare at a column of figures, it’s almost as if I’m staring at Russian, or Chinese, or Arabic, some language written in an alphabet I’ve never been taught.”
“But you are so well-spoken, so intelligent! Your instructors must have been incompetent.”
He cocked his head. “A few, perhaps. But not your father. Yes, if he were in his right mind, Mr. Atherton could tell you how hard he tried to teach me to read the estate ledgers when I was a boy, and with such little success. He tried to explain my difficulties to my father, but father refused to listen. My brothers learned. Haviland learned. Even you, a girl, learned, nay, even excelled. So my father thought I was just stubborn, not applying myself. Not trying hard enough. A right wastrel, he believe me. And soon had everyone else believing it, too.”
“Oh, Theo. How painful that must have been for you.” She reached out a hand, but he shrugged it away, no matter how his body craved the comfort of her touch. He would not accept it, not until she knew everything, and made her choice.
“Is that why you moved to town, rather than remaining at Saybrook?” she asked, her head cocked in bird-like curiosity. “And took up a life of dissipation? Because you might as well enjoy the pleasures of being the wastrel Lord Saybrook insisted you already were?”
“Insightful, aren’t you?” he said with a rueful smile. “But then, before I even knew it, my father was gone, and I, the most unsuitable heir imaginable, was put in charge of his viscountcy. How could I explain to my sister or brothers, or to my invalid uncle, how ridiculous it was to expect me to oversee the family’s finances? Far easier to pretend those new responsibilities were not mine, and drink and carouse my way through an entire year of mourning instead. My sister nearly disowned me when she came to town his spring and discovered the state I was in.”
“Yes, Miss Sibilla is not one to suffer a shirker lightly, is she? Does she know about your difficulties with ciphering?”
“No. No one in the family does.” He shook his head. “Even if I tried to tell her, I don’t think she’d understand.”
“So you’ve hidden it, all this time. All these years.” Heart aching for him, Harry reached out a hand to cup his cheek. But he shrugged her off, not ready to accept her sympathy.
“And as I was hiding, I refused to consider any of the financial responsibilities of my new position. And you see how well that has turned out. I’ve ignored my tenants. I’ve even put my sister’s marriage at risk! Sir Peregrine is a kind man, but will he still want Sibilla if I cannot produce the rest of her dowry?”
She grimaced.
He filled his chest with a deep breath, then continued. “You must see the difficulty I face in finding a suitable bride. What father would allow her daughter to marry a man incapable of seeing to her financial security? I might keep silent about my mental shortcomings and trick a lady into marriage. But what would happen when she discovered the truth? I doubt I could keep such a thing hidden, not from someone so intimate as a wife.”
“But you are not lying to me. Why?”
“Because it is only fair. I know a secret about you. And now I’ve given you a secret of my own. So you no longer need to fear that the only sacrifice would be on my side. You would be giving up much to marry me, perhaps even more than you would gain.”
She stepped into his path, halting his restless pacing. “You would trust me to keep your secret?”
“Yes. And I would also depend upon you to manage the estate books, to be my financial advisor. I need to know whether it is better to take out a mortgage or sell lands to make up for the monies your father—for the funds that have gone missing. Later, after we’ve dealt with this debacle, I’d want you to consult with me, keep me informed, but not trouble me with the details. If I try to pay someone else to do it, I could never be sure I won’t be cheated. But if we were wed, it would be in your own best interest to ensure that the estate prospers.”
Harry stared up at him with wide eyes. “You would trust me with such responsibilities? When my own father is the party who lost your funds in the first place?”
“I would trust you with that, and more. Even the most important thing. I would trust you to teach my heir how to cipher.”
Her face grew troubled. “But what if he inherits your difficulties with arithmetic? Or worse, my father’s madness?”
“Then I would depend upon your warm heart to ensure that he still felt of value, felt loved, in spite of his shortcomings.”
The way you make me feel . . .
Banishing the shiver of vulnerability that chased down his spine, Theo cupped her chin in one hand, tipping it until her eyes met his. “Say yes, Harry. If not for anything I’ve said, then at least for this.”
And with a groan, he lowered his lips to hers.
Welcome, almost familiar, was the touch of his lips against hers, the strength of his arms about her body, the play of the muscles on his chest beneath her hand. And yet shockingly different now, more intimate, more alive, with the secrets they’d both been keeping for so long laid achingly bare.
Those secrets. If she let herself dwell on them, let herself feel for the broken boy he had been, or for the broken man her father was fast becoming, how could she stop herself from fissuring and fracturing too? A single tear would lead to a torrent, a flood that would shatter her into thousands of tiny pieces, all with edges far too sharp ever to be picked up again.
Much wiser to drown in pleasure than in pain.
And if such drowning let Theo to forget, too, then all the better.
With a sigh, she gave herself over to sensation, nay, pursued it, kissing him back with an eagerness that might have shocked her had she allowed her mind to have any say in the matter. She urged his head closer, weaving her fingers in his tight blond curls, the pound of her pulse furious in her chest, her ears, her lips.
/> With a growl deep in his throat, he pushed her against the wall, his body, no taller than hers but far more broad, able to shift hers with an ease that took away her breath. Her hands began to fall to her sides, but he caught them up, pressing their backs flat to the wall, as if she were a fruit tree he would espalier, so she might absorb his heat and bloom all the more abundant.
“Talk to me, Harry,” Theo whispered as he traced a line of kisses up her jaw. “Tell me you want this as much as I do. Please, before I do something you do not wish.”
Harry jerked free of her daze, her cheeks flaming at his bold demand. Lieutenant Chamberlayne had never asked such a shocking thing of her. No, he’d always cautioned her to be silent during their stolen moments together, taking it for granted that agreeing to meet with him alone was assent enough for any liberty with her person he might wish to take.
But Theo, unlike Chamberlayne, had a care for her feelings, not just his own.
Did she want this? Not only to kiss Theo Pennington, but to lie with him?
To marry him?
She stared into the blue of his eyes, clear and bold as a summer sky. Such a small part it was, the part of herself she allowed to want, to need. Helping others, being there for those she cared for, that was most important. That is what gave her pleasure, not indulging her own selfish desires.
But today she’d let her own need slip its rein. And now it was grown immense, leaving no room for pretense. No room for denial.
Yes.
She tried to give voice to her assent, but a tangle of embarrassment snarled the words tight in her throat. How else could she show him her want?
Show him . . .
Staring at him so he might see the intention in her eyes, she pulled her hands free of his and raised them to the pins holding up each side of her drop-front bodice. She watched his eyes fix on her fingers as they traced over the fastenings. With a jerk, she drew one, then the other free and let them fall to the floor, sending her bodice skimming down her chest. Then, with deliberate care, she reached for his hand and set his palm against the swell of her breasts.
Such boldness did not repel him, as she’d half feared. No, his pupils darkened, and he hummed, low and needy, in the back of his throat. An involuntary shudder shimmered down her entire frame as his fingers began to trace the edges of her corset.
“Harry,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, deep. “I suddenly find myself unutterably jealous of those frogs I placed in your room so long ago.”
She smiled at his playfulness, even as his wandering touch made her lips tremble. “No need for envy. None ever transformed himself into a handsome prince begging for my hand.”
He chuckled, his breath hot in her ear. “Ah, that is because you chased them all out your window directly you discovered them. Have you not heard, a princess needs to allow a frog to sleep in her bed for three nights before his magical change can occur.” He pushed the sleeves of her gown off her shoulders, setting the tiny hairs on her arms atingle.
“I understand that in the German version of the tale, the princess throws the frog bang! against the wall in disgust, and that causes his transformation.” With unaccustomed daring, she raised her hands to a button on his waistcoat and slipped it from its hole.
“What luck we live in England, then, and not on the continent,” he said as his lips glanced over her collarbones, the hollows in her throat. “For you would never be so unkind as to resort to violence to rid yourself of such a creature, no matter how uncomely you found the unfortunate thing.”
“Three nights in my bed it must be. Will an afternoon count toward that total, do you think?”
Theo growled, then bent and swept her up in his arms. “Perhaps not. But I don’t see it being held against me. This way to my lady’s chamber, is it not?”
Harry pointed a slipper in the right direction, then tucked herself against the comforting warmth of Theo’s chest.
He came to a pause on the doorsill, his face suddenly contorting in comical dismay. “Wait. I require three nights before I become handsome enough for you? What, do you not find me a veritable prince of men already?”
She tapped a considering finger against her lips, struggling not to laugh. “Well, you are not quite as fine as Mr. Benedict, to be sure. But handsome enough, in your own way.”
He snorted, then tossed her onto her coverlet and tore off his coat. “I see I must persuade you to think of something else besides your silly calf-love. Something that will prove just how handsome I can be to the woman who welcomes me to her bed.”
He crawled up from the end of the mattress, his eyes alight with predatory intent. And then he was over her, touching her, freeing her with ease from the confines of her corset and gown. She felt clumsy, her own hands not nearly as familiar with the removing of male garments as his were with hers. He chuckled when she huffed her frustration, demonstrating the workings of his hidden buttons and ties before giving way to her own impatient fingers.
Until suddenly they lay side by side, she in her shift, he in his smalls, his hands roving the hills and valleys of her hips and waist, shoulders and spine. And then his lips, following the paths his palms had traced, bussing and licking as if he were a cat and she the sweetest cream. When he pushed aside her shift and lowered his head to her chest, she gasped, her torso rising to press against him of its own accord. Her entire body felt alight, as if molten heat, not blood, flowed through her veins.
“How lovely you are, Harry,” he murmured as his hand weighed her small breast in a warm palm. “Far more lovely than even I could have dreamed. Foolish, really, to waste such rare beauty on a mere frog.”
Her laugh quickly turned into a moan as he took the tip of her breast between two soft lips and tugged, gently at first, and then with more insistence. She grabbed his head and arched up into his mouth, hardly recognizing the wanton creature his touch made of her.
His knee urged her thighs wide, sending a shocking burst of lust through her, so strong her whole frame trembled. And again, when he set his hips in the cradle of hers, the hard, insistent length of his manhood pulsing between their bodies, her own hips moved restlessly beneath him, yearning to join her body to his. Oh, how she wanted, wanted to feel his warmth inside her, in her very marrow. Not only to assuage his desire but to appease her own.
“Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth,” he whispered, his eyes fixed on hers as his hips moved in small restless circles, his virility sliding through the folds that surrounded her bearing-place. “Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.”
“Ravished,” she echoed, basking, mindless, in the redolence of his scent.
He groaned, all amusement wiped from his tight, almost pained, face. “Touch me, Harry, please. Take me in hand, show me the way.”
But a hand was hardly necessary. All she need do was tip her hips the tiniest bit in silent invitation and suddenly, he was no longer just sliding against her, but right inside.
She had thought a female was meant to lie still, as a ewe stood quietly during the tup. But her body urged her to move, to push up to meet the thrust of his hips with her own. And when her hands clutched his arms and her the soles of her feet pushed against the bed and lifted, lifted, his moan, and her own, were her fitting reward. She rose, and rose, and rose again, pushing herself so wide, so open, drawing him in as if her body might envelope his entire being, his entire soul.
Until all her muscles began to quake from the effort, from the joy, from the shocking thumb circling in her nether curls, and she let herself fly, a willing sacrifice to her own obliterating pleasure.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Fellowship of the fleshly kind had always numbered among Theo’s greatest pleasures. As, of course, it did for most men of his acquaintance. But for Theo, the aftermath of carnality—lying, sated and spent, in the arms of a lover, sharing soft murmurs and languid touches—proved far more
sweet. At least, it did today with Harry, her head resting on his chest, his hand stroking down her spill of sable hair. Pleasure, satisfaction, and peace, a peace unlike any he had ever known.
When they were married, would it be like this every morning?
He started as something heavy landed on his foot. His movement might have spilled Harry right out of the narrow bed if he had not had an arm tight about her shoulders. He peeked over Harry’s head and spied the cat, eying him with obvious displeasure.
“Stolen your usual napping spot, have I, feline?”
“Indeed.” Harry smiled and held out an inviting hand toward the beast.
“Oh, no, Miss Atherton. Tomorrow, you may spread your kindness far and wide, but I lay claim to all your caresses today.” With a laugh, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, until she was lying full atop him. Much to the dismay of the cat, who proclaimed its displeasure with a loud mew before thumping to the floor and pacing away, its tail high in the air.
Harry wiggled, struggling to reach out and placate the damned feline, her movement rubbing her curves against his chest in a far too enticing way. Ignoring the sudden tightening in his stones, he spanned her shoulders and pushed her up to a seated position.
“Now, Miss Atherton, I believe you owe me an answer to a certain question I posed before your lips proved such an inconvenient distraction.”
“My lips! What of yours, sir?”
He groaned, not at her mock rebuke, but at the way her folded arms raised her small, pert breasts high. She had no idea how enticing a picture she made, did she, so slim and naked and yet still so very Harry.
“Yes, my lips do have the most wayward tendencies.” He sat up, too, then bent his head to nuzzle one dark nipple, then the other. “In fact, they are quite beyond my control. I’m afraid I cannot answer for the consequences if you do not agree to be my bride.”
