They started up the high street. He introduced himself. The woman was a Mrs. Canning, a widow of some years who had apparently seen no reason to ever put off her half-mourning. “I’m neighbor to a widow myself,” he said, “though a much more recent one. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Russell of Seton Park?”
He could see her revising her opinion of his intelligence another notch downward. Yes, he was used to that from a woman in mourning as well. “She’s landed gentry,” came the answer. “Our paths haven’t crossed.”
“Ah, of course. Only you strike me as so much alike in your manner, in your common sense and plain way of speaking, and then of course the gravity with which you each approach widowhood. I had supposed you might know one another.” This gambit took him as far as the dairy stall, where he came to a stop, arms folded, and made a show of studying a wheel of cheese.
“I shouldn’t eat that if it stood between me and starvation.” Mrs. Canning dismissed the cheese with a single swift gesture. “Do you mean to say you’ve been calling on Mrs. Russell yourself?”
“A time or two, I have. How much will he ask for this inedible cheese?”
“Eight or ten pence a pound is what I hear. They’ve no shame. I’d lay my soul it’s half sawdust.” She frowned at the cheese with some ferocity. “It’s not proper for an unrelated man to call on a widow.”
“My point exactly. I wish I’d brought along a sister to keep house for me, so I could send her to call. A gentleman on his own isn’t a very useful kind of neighbor in these cases. And then, I don’t seem to make the right sort of conversation.” He rubbed a rueful hand over his jaw.
“You ought not to be making conversation at all. Hasn’t she any family come to stay with her?”
“None, I’m afraid. They’re mostly occupied with professions.” He moved along the stall. “Barrister and soldier and some such. And she was married too short a time, I gather, to acquire proper friends among the neighboring gentry. Ought the butter to be that color?”
“Don’t start me on the butter.” She shifted her glare to where it sat. “Do you know what they add to get that color? Copper.”
“Copper, indeed? Singular. You know, Mrs. Russell takes an interest in just these things. The diet of those too poor to keep a cow, and so forth. I shall have to tell her—but no, it’s better I don’t call. You’re quite right. Though she did serve me the most delectable cake. Now would you be so good as to ascertain the prices of some of these items for me?” He brought out a pencil and pocket-book. “I daren’t ask myself, or I’ll end by buying one of each.”
Mrs. Canning obliged him in fearsome fashion, demanding to know the cost of everything and repeating each price in ringing tones of incredulity, that he might have time to hear and copy it down. Here was grist for an idea, indeed, if the grindstones of his brain were up to the task. He pocketed the book and pencil, thanked the woman for her time, and insisted she take the lettuce, if only to feed to her pig.
He’d meant to buy presents. Perhaps he’d done better than that. Still, because a gentleman ought to finish what he set out to do, he stopped at the bakery stall and picked out a currant bun. At the street’s end he pitched the bun upstairs to the flaxen-haired child, who caught it, laughing, on the first try.
I HAVEN’T THE least idea of how to broach the subject.” Martha stood in the bay-window alcove of her dressing room, watching Sheridan put away some underclothes just back from laundering. “Her manners aren’t encouraging. And once she knows I’m seeking a child, she will surely deduce the reason, and then I’ll be at the mercy of her discretion and her sympathy, the latter of which seems to be in decidedly short supply.”
Sheridan brushed at the mourning gown hung over the wardrobe door. “I doubt she’d give it that much thought. I don’t think farm people care a great deal about intrigues among the gentry. Probably it’s all the same to her who owns Seton Park.”
I doubt … I don’t think … Probably … These were not the foundations upon which to go forward with such a risk. She set her hands on her hips and tilted her chin to study the ceiling. “I wish I knew how long Mr. James Russell meant to stay. If he means to be here at the time of confinement, then I don’t see how to manage at all.”
“If you give birth to a son, there’ll be nothing to manage.” The maid knelt to brush the ruffle at the gown’s hem.
“Yes, but to count entirely on that outcome would be imprudent.” Though really, the deeper she got into this undertaking, the more imprudent every bit of it seemed. Mrs. Weaver’s child could very well turn out a girl. How was a desperate widow to proceed? Bargain with a dozen different women for the right to their unborn babies, to be certain of getting at least one boy?
And yet she wouldn’t regret her course. Not when the alternative had been to sit idle and watch everything fall into Mr. James Russell’s hands. “I shall have to cultivate that woman’s goodwill first of all.” She folded her arms and shifted her gaze to the view from the window. “There will be challenge enough to occupy all my resources, I don’t doubt. I can worry about how to broach the pertinent subject after I’ve accomplished that.”
“Indeed. Only save some resources for Mr. Mirkwood.” Sheridan was sober-faced when Martha shot a glance her way, though the words did sound as if they’d been sieved through a smile.
“Mr. Mirkwood has grown quite reasonable.” She looked out the window again, to the woods through which he would come late tonight. “And he has more sense than I first credited him with. Altogether he is among the least of my worries at present.”
TALK TO me the way you did that first morning.” His face, above her, was half in shadow, half washed in shifting light. After two nights of darkness he’d chosen this evening to put out all the candles but one. Its illumination chased across his aristocratic cheekbones, warming his skin and kindling a diabolic glimmer in his eyes.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Opposition was a pleasure all its own, one she could allow herself and one that seemed to amuse him as well.
“Yes, you do. You could wake a churchyard with that thing.” He tilted back his head to look down at her from under half-lowered lids. “Only this time name it. Wake a churchyard with what?”
“With your male appendage. Obviously.” For Heaven’s sake.
“Appendage. Good God. Did your husband never teach you any proper words?”
“My husband was a respectable man. He knew the difference between a wife and a filthy-tongued harlot.”
“No wonder you never enjoyed yourself with him.” He eased in to the hilt, raising up on his arms and arching his back as he went. Candlelight danced over the squared muscles on his chest; the bands of sinew on his stomach. He might stay like this for a very long time and she would not grow tired of looking. Nor of the slight, sweet pressure where their bodies met. She knew what she would and would not do. But she could imagine how he might rock his hips against her, perhaps with a circular sort of motion, and she could imagine the motions with which she might answer.
He tipped his head forward and looked straight down into her eyes. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
Hot panic flared under her breastbone. He knew. He knew what was in her thoughts. “I only want the seed. You know that. Have you been drinking again?” All one hasty stream the words poured out.
In answer he sank his mouth to hers. His tongue swept over the seam in her lips, from one corner all the way to the other. “Taste,” he commanded, retreating an inch or two. “See for yourself.”
“That wasn’t necessary.” She tasted while fumbling back to the firm ground of opposition.
“Ha. Not to you, perhaps.” He oughtn’t to take such liberties. Doubtless she’d encouraged him by allowing him to help himself to pleasure that first morning, and the second morning as well. But he didn’t, admittedly, taste of liquor tonight. “I’m waiting.” His voice was soft as a spring shower, coaxing her to leave shelter for the uncertain out-of-doors. “Say something wicked, Martha. S
omething you’d never say to your husband.”
She twisted, though of course escape would be nothing to the purpose. “I have no idea what you’re hoping to hear.”
“Haven’t you, really?” His gaze alone pinned her. The weight of his body was superfluous. “I’ll give you a hint. It begins with F.”
She could feel a blush creeping right up into her hairline. Confound the lit candle that would let him see it. “I cannot say that.”
“No?” His smile creased deeper, iniquity incarnate. “Put your top teeth to your bottom lip and blow. That is how you begin.”
“You know what I mean. I don’t say vulgar things. Nor pointless things, for that matter.”
“Pointless.” His head tilted left and one eyebrow went up.
“Quite.” Yes, here was a bit of self-assurance. “Why on earth would I bid you do something you’re already doing?”
“Very well, then.” He drew back his hips and the appendage left her to press importunately against her thigh. “Just as you like. Now you must bid me. Or beg me, if I should prove recalcitrant.”
She would forget he’d said that. She would not allow her conjured man to say it later, for all that it sent a shameful tremor down her spine. She met Mr. Mirkwood’s intractable gaze with her own for several seconds. Then she sent up her right hand and trailed a finger across his nipple.
He shivered. “What are you doing?” Instantly his voice was hoarse.
Foolish irreverent pleasure boiled up in her, and through his skin she could feel how he, too, took the joke. That he should be the one, this time, to say those words. That he should be the one off balance, wondering what she meant to do. “I’m touching you.” She dragged her finger back the other way. “In this one spot.”
“There are two.” His lowered lashes cast shadows, exaggerated candle-flame shadows, on his cheekbones. “Two such spots. In case it’s escaped your notice.”
Like a cat demanding to be petted. Well, why not? She put her second set of fingers to work. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, yes, very like a cat. His breaths went slow and even, as though every last bit of energy in him must be diverted from its usual occupations, and applied to receiving the sensation. His head tipped right and then left. “I don’t suppose …” His brow furrowed slightly, his eyes still closed. “Can you be persuaded to employ your mouth?”
Her mouth. Indeed. If she put her mouth here, he would soon want it elsewhere. Any woman who’d been a wife knew how that went.
So be it. If he made impertinent demands, she would simply say no. She slid her hands round to his ribs, found a grip, and brought him down to her. Her lips met his skin, the taut-drawn coin-sized circle, and he let out a ragged breath.
She would make him forget entirely that he’d wished her to say indecent things. She dragged her lips across that inch and heard a hitch in his inhalation. Men. Men and their weakness for women’s mouths. Her tongue ventured out and found his taste not unpleasant. He growled low in his throat and squirmed, the hairs on his chest brushing ticklishly over her lips. “More,” he whispered, so she let him feel the edges of her teeth.
A strangled sound came out of him. He pulled back, and fumbled to put himself inside her again. “Witch,” he muttered, thrusting. “Sorceress. You won’t rest until you’ve unmanned me utterly, will you?”
Sorceress. Witch. She was nothing of the kind. But she put her mouth back on him, that she couldn’t be expected to use it for any bidding or begging, and through her lips and tongue and teeth she felt every tremor of his thorough, exultant, unbridled capitulation.
“Good Lord,” he said when he’d caught his breath. “I was already prepared to call this my best day since I’ve come to Sussex. I haven’t the words to do it justice now.” He heaved himself off her and sank stonelike at her side.
“You enjoyed your trip to the mill? Will you tell me about it?” That seemed the safer part of the day to discuss.
“In fact I hope to be shut of the mill altogether in time.” He pulled the covers back over them both and rested an idle hand on her thigh. “I’ve had an idea.” His eyes glittered hopeful and a bit apprehensive in the scant light, as though he cared very much for her opinion and feared it might not be a good one. “I think to give up the wheat field in favor of a small dairy. Not one of your large modern concerns with cowsheds and so forth. Just something modest, to supply the neighborhood with purer stuff than what’s sold here now.”
For a moment she couldn’t speak. She had never, to her shame, supposed him capable of coming up with such an idea. “It’s not good at all, what’s sold at the market in town,” she then said. “They water the milk, I’m told.”
“Yes, I know.” Good Heavens. He’d informed himself. “And if I had cows, instead of crops, I could graze them on the common land. No need to enclose. Only I’ve everything to learn about the enterprise.” His hand flexed absently on her thigh. “I don’t even know where to get milch cows, or how much they cost.”
“I’ll help you. We can ask my steward, to begin.” So many poor people in the neighborhood could benefit from better milk.
“And I suppose I should have to persuade Granville of the scheme. And persuade my father to the expense.” His hand twitched again, settling farther up.
“We’ll study numbers. You’ll show him how it can bring a better profit than wheat.” Now he’d had the idea, she would not let him lapse in carrying it out.
“I expect we’d better ascertain that fact before building a case for it.” He smiled, clearly enjoying her pleasure in his scheme. “I do know what they ask for everything in town. I copied down the prices. And at least one of my laborers has experience in a dairy of the old style.”
“That’s wonderful. That’s an excellent beginning. What is your hand doing there?” She might have said nothing. She might have carried on with the conversation and never acknowledged the upward migration of his hand until suddenly she was gasping in the middle of some observation about butter. If she were frail and foolish, she might have done that.
“Martha.” His voice sank, and his finger drew an exquisite small circle. “Give me eight minutes.”
More trickery, this time cloaked in the kind of conversation he knew she liked best. She felt cold at her center, even as part of her wished he would trace that circle again. “We’ve discussed this.” Her voice didn’t sound cold. It sounded panicked and desperate. “I’ve told you I don’t want it.”
“I think perhaps you do.” He spoke carefully. His fingers swept up the clefts at either side of her most sensitive flesh, navigating her with absolute ease. “You’re wet, Martha. Can’t you feel it?”
“You did that.” He always spilled an overabundance of seed.
“Decidedly I did. But not the way you mean.” One of his fingers went into her. Two of them did. That didn’t matter. What mattered was his thumb, steadily circling, determined to leave her in pieces. “Can you not trust your body to know what it wants?”
“My mind rules my body. Not the other way round.” That wasn’t no. Why hadn’t she said no? Her hips flinched as though to give the lie to her words.
“I’ll pleasure your mind as well. I’ll speak of land management the whole time.”
“You’re depraved beyond my worst conjectures.” That wasn’t no either. How had she lost the ability to form one short syllable?
“Tomorrow we’ll visit your steward, that he may advise me on cows and cottage roofs. Perhaps I’ll even speak to your curate about educating my laborer-children.” Too much triumph in his voice. He’d glimpsed her frailty and now he was smug as a lion surveying a lame-footed deer. “Let me do this.” His thumb was relentless. “Let me. Though it may sound like supplication, that’s actually a command.”
“You are not in any position to command me.” The candle was beginning to gutter, throwing fantastical shadows all over the room. Something similar was going on inside her. She flinched again, harder.
“On the contrary, I would sa
y I’m in exactly that position.” He smiled, so sure of his victory, and finally she had the grounds for resistance she’d needed.
“No. Stop. I want you to stop.”
His fingers stilled at once, though he kept them where they were. Foolish disappointment shot through her, there and gone like quicksilver. The candle flame perished and he spoke in the dark. “Martha.” His voice was tender with pity, insupportable pity. “Why must you fight it so?”
She had answers. She’d learnt them by heart. “You’re all but a stranger. My conscience objects. And you’re not a man I can …”
“Admire.” He supplied the word on which her own tongue had failed. “Do you really have to, though? Pretend the touch is your own.” He pressed delicately with his thumb. “Follow your body’s promptings for eight minutes. It needn’t be any more complicated than that.”
Now he was lying to them both. “It can’t be anything but complicated. You want to command me.” Why did she even try to explain? “You would have me give myself up to you.”
“Only for a little while. And I’d give you back.” But he lifted his hand away and she heard him sink onto his pillow.
“I’m sorry,” she said into the darkness. How could the loss of something she didn’t even want leave her feeling so desolate?
“Never mind about it. Perhaps one day you’ll have a change of heart.” Such unfailing optimism. She must hope he continued so confident, that she might read it for arrogance and find the means to resist.
Chapter Twelve
ONE DID not like to be illogical. One did not like to review one’s words or actions, and see how any impartial observer must find them inconsistent.
Surrender. Command. So zealously she guarded against giving herself up to a man who gave himself up to her every day. Every night, now, and every morning as well. She hadn’t told him to desist from that style of waking her. Nor had she said anything of how his limbs roamed while he slept, catching her body and reeling her in.
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