by Eve Pendle
She mewed, on the cusp of release. Everett withdrew his mouth. Immediately, she made a frustrated sound of protest.
“Say you will stay.” He said the words before he knew that was what he intended.
“What?” Her voice was thick and confused with arousal. She thrashed around, trying to get his mouth onto the needy part of her. His own desire throbbed to see her so desperate.
“Promise you will stay, and I will bring you to completion.” His muscles clenched with the instinct to pull himself over her and satisfy them both in an overwhelming coupling. Instead, he tightened his forearms over her hips, forcing her still and under his control, unlike his own yearnings. They had so little time left, and she had to stay. He couldn’t bear for her to leave. She wriggled and he held his mouth just over her, tempting her with the prospect of relief. He held fast as she moaned.
“Yes. Yes, yes, just please…” Her begging was incoherent.
Everett felt a rush of triumph as he lowered his head and licked her bud. With hard, even strokes that pushed, he forced her over the edge into orgasm. As she bucked and moaned through his onslaught, he held her firm. Feeling her pulse beneath his tongue swelled in him an answering surge of lust.
But even as he felt her pulse, among his satisfaction at her ecstasy, a part of him knew he was a cad. A true gentleman would never take advantage of a lady seduced in this way. Holding her to a promise made under coercion would be wrong, but he would do it. He wanted her, every bit. He’d held himself back, not claiming anything physical, allowing her to dictate the pace of every intimacy. But this, this he had to claim, even if it turned out in the morning to be nothing but a long evening shadow.
When her movements finally calmed, he lifted himself over her to look into her yellow-brown eyes. She was just recovering from her peak, but he was going to have more. Give her more. He stroked his finger down the hair between her legs, then slipped inside. Feeling carefully for the right place, he thrust one finger into her tight passage, eliciting a gasp and an answering lifting of her hips. His hard cock twitched as though it could feel the softness of her. He was aching for the release that was so close and yet completely unobtainable. She grasped his shoulders, seemingly undecided whether to pull him down to her or push him away.
He wanted to keep looking into her eyes. But they were so clear, so trusting, she seemed to look straight into him. He couldn’t hold her gaze, so he let his lids close. The darkness focused him on the delicious warmth of her welcoming body around his finger and under his chest, and of her promise not to leave.
She was tight and slippery around his finger. “Tell me what made you this aroused.” He pushed a second finger deep into her as he ground out the words. It felt like claiming her, so he said it again, punctuated with a solid thrust that took his hand all the way to her slick skin, stroking his thumb over her tender bud in circles.
“I don’t… Oh…” She threw back her head as he increased the pressure against her.
“It was me, wasn’t it? No one else makes you feel like this.” He kept up an insistent rhythm. Beneath him, her thighs began to tremble. “You want me.” The scent of her skin was intoxicating.
She moaned, head thrown back and hands clutching at his back. He wanted to feel her gasp and writhe under him when it was his cock deep inside her, rather than just his fingers. Until then, he wanted her words, even though he knew it wouldn’t relieve the ache. He thrust his erection against her hip, an illicit, pin-sharp euphoria. He stroked himself against her, imagining he was inside her.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“Yes, yes. I do. I do.” A shuddering moan tore out of her. She was beyond herself again, pulsing around his fingers.
Even so, the words overcame him. Just one further stroke against the skin where her body met her thigh tipped him over the edge and into the harsh release of oblivion, spilling across her.
For a few seconds, he felt as though he’d been cracked open. The rawness of their pleasure was like a wound in his chest. Would she reject him now? He had torn a confession from her and sullied her.
Before she could push him away, he rose and fetched the jug, basin, and washcloths from the dressing room. She was languid, relaxed on the bed as he cleaned her skin. A part of him didn’t want to wipe away all the evidence of their lust. But she was so beautiful he couldn’t bear to see any stain on her. He gently smoothed the cloth across her skin, leaving her untarnished.
“I thought you said, ‘without deception.’” Her voice was still hazy from their lovemaking.
“Erotic duress isn’t deception,” he said lightly, as though this were of no consequence. Not talking to her about Peter’s debt, that was deception. Ignoring that his brother’s reputation might destroy her chances of getting Henry back, that was deception. He pressed a kiss to the yielding skin of her inner thigh, then looked up when she didn’t respond. He’d told himself trying to force her would be a mistake, and here she was proving him right.
“You cannot expect anything said under such conditions to be any truer than a tarot card reading.” She didn’t meet his eyes.
Tarot, a prediction of the future. God, he hoped that was what this had been.
“I understand.” He restored the wash things to their place. “Matrimony without regret, remember?”
When he returned to the bed, she was lying on her side, having pulled the covers up over her nakedness, watching him. He lay down, waiting for her reaction. She didn’t withdraw, but she didn’t come to him, either.
She offered only a token resistance when he gathered her into his arms. He wanted the closeness they had found. And deceptive or not, when she was lying with her head tucked next to his heart, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
…
“I thought you might appreciate coffee in bed, m’lady.”
Grace opened her eyes just enough to see Letty place a tray over her knees.
“Thank you,” she mumbled. There was a heaviness in her limbs and a tiredness that she couldn’t identify for a moment. But then she remembered.
The wedding. His speech. Her sudden understanding that he was trying to keep her and everyone else safe.
Everett and she had spent all night together, he a solid wall of heat in the bed while they hadn’t quite slept. In the early hours of the pale light, he’d woken her by bringing her to climax again, his dexterous fingers between her legs, slippery again, despite his ministrations. Her hand had found and closed around his member, which responded and hardened beneath her touch. When they peaked, her closely after him, it was face-to-face, his tongue stroking the inside of her mouth in a mimicry of the act he really wanted. She’d opened her eyes just before the pleasure had exploded and seen his face inches from hers, seemingly drinking her in.
Her skin warmed at the recollection.
“I brought the morning post.” Letty placed a stack of letters onto the tray and a nightdress onto the edge of the bed, just within her reach.
She couldn’t meet her maid’s eye. “Thank you, Letty.”
When she sneaked a hand out of the bedcovers, the air chilled her skin. Grace wriggled into the nightdress, then reluctantly raised to a sitting position and nodded gratefully when Letty placed a cushion behind her.
“Could you give me ten minutes to drink this, then I shall be ready to dress.” She hoped she’d be ready. She felt like she might never be quite the same person again.
“Yes, m’lady.” Letty bobbed a curtsy and left.
The coffee was strong and hot. She took a sip, then set it aside and picked up the letters, the top letter showing Caroline’s spikey handwriting in the address. She ripped it open with her fingers and began to read.
Her friend wrote that she was bored to tears by sewing and had been banned from collecting even butterflies from Hyde Park. Maurice had gone back up to Cambridge, and that had focused their mother’s matchmaking effort on her only daughter. Grace relaxed at the familiarity. Nothing had changed. No catastrophe had ens
ued because of her night with Everett. It was silly to have been worried at all.
Caroline signed off with her usual affection and a picture of a stag beetle from her collection. Then, in the postscript: P.S. I have just heard from reliable authority that Mr. Brooker married in June. I thought you should know.
Grace’s skin prickled as she stared at the words. Two months ago, before she’d returned to England, Samuel had married. Looking around for a wrap to cover her shoulders, she found nothing and instead picked up the coffee again. It had cooled and even as she enclosed her hands around the cup, it provided little comfort. When she took a sip, it was watery, devoid of warmth and flavor.
She ought not to be surprised Samuel had married. He hadn’t stood by her when her father had objected to their marriage. But still, he’d been faithless and that hurt. He must have been courting the lady he married, for what, at least a month before marriage? No crying over their broken engagement for him, evidently. While she’d been gray and listless in Geneva from missing Samuel, apparently, he’d been courting someone new.
Hurt pushed up at the spot behind the bridge of her nose, making her eyes water. She closed her eyes to block it out, but that brought the vision of her fiancé as he was nine months ago, the man she’d cared for and could trust.
Grace took a deep breath through her nose. Samuel’s actions spoke very poorly of her judgment. She trusted the wrong men and gave her heart too easily. Stupidly. It was an illusion, made in her own mind, just as it had been with Samuel Brooker. He hadn’t loved her and neither did Everett.
How could she know that this was anything more than wishful thinking on her part? Close proximity to Everett was addling her mind. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted and chase a meaningless idea about staying with Everett when there were important issues to be dealt with. There would be plenty of time to examine her feelings for her husband once Henry was safe. She had to remember this was a six-week bargain and not a marriage.
Grace’s resolve wasn’t as easy as she’d thought. She kept her thoughts on the solicitor’s letters all morning and ignored the Larksview household tasks that she’d taken on since Everett had started helping with the Chancery case. They walked around the lake after lunch, and Everett told Grace about the gossip from the wedding; thankfully there was no mention of them. She didn’t allow herself to read anything into his actions, either of catching her hand while they walked or the sweep of his gaze down her body. When he smiled at her, she knew it was because he had money to look after the cattle. The honeymoon plans of Jane and Thompson—Everett had insisted they went—signified not his kindness but nothing other than two staff taking a holiday. Even over dinner, she’d kept a semblance of normality as they’d discussed how she ought to respond to questions from the solicitor about Alnott Stores. But now at the end of the day, she was standing in front of their adjoining door.
If she opened the door, that would be it. The things he did to her would drive her to words of love and utter capitulation. Copulation. Consummation.
If she went to him now, there was no way she’d be able to restrain herself. With the things he did to her, she would be begging him. If he was hard and said her name in that rough voice, she would guide his manhood between her legs and let instinct and lust overcome her.
A truthful marriage would be impossible if she allowed her passion to rule. Her aching quim wouldn’t care that he didn’t love her. Even now, the beat inside the hidden place of her demanded him fully. If she set a precedent for going to him, she wouldn’t know whether she was just a convenient wife, an outlet for his lust, or his love.
She walked away from the door and climbed into bed. Her instincts with men were atrocious and not to be trusted.
Under the lonely covers, looking at the ceiling, she made a concession. When the six weeks were over, she would go to him. When their bargain was complete, it would be clear and simple. She would know by then if this feeling in her chest was desire and proximity. Or love.
Chapter Fifteen
The Fifth Week
It had been a long, hard night. Everett had cursed that he’d accepted the bargain that forfeited his ability to go to his wife and ravish her. She must need it as much as he did. But his honor restrained him, keeping him in his room and eventually in his bed, rather than with her.
When he woke as the sun rose about five in the morning, he was tired, frustrated, and ready to shout at Grace that when he’d said stay, she had promised to stay in his bed as well as Larksview. But that wasn’t true or fair. He jerked out of bed, threw on clothes without the help of his valet, and went out for a humid ride in the cool summer rain.
His black mood persevered through a wash and change of clothes, all the way until the breakfast room door was opened before him and Grace looked up with a guileless smile of welcome. There was no edge to her look, she was genuinely pleased to see him. She was the sun on a gray, rainy day. And all his unacknowledged fears that their night together had been an aberration, fell away.
“Good morning.” For the first time since one minute past twelve last night, it was true.
Everett drank coffee as Grace told him about the tasks they were to do that day, encouraged by her use of the word “we” when she’d said, “We must visit each of the farmers caring for the saved cattle herd.”
He didn’t know what it had meant that she hadn’t come to him last night, and he still hoped that she would tonight. But he’d feared all the affinity they had developed was gone.
…
“I was wondering, shall we visit Anna and Mary?” Everett asked as they slowed from a trot to a walk.
They were riding back from checking on the group of Mr. Evan’s herd being tended by Mr. Walker. Only minutes before, they’d been talking about Mrs. Walker’s cold. Over the last several days, they’d visited nearly all the farmers minding the small number of cattle remaining. It was a relief to find them doing well, with no current illness, and Grace had been feeling quite content.
“We can’t.” Her heart jolted with longing. Little Mary would be just a few months old, growing quickly and beginning to test her lungs and the grip of her tiny hands. But as quickly as the wish to say yes overtook her, she knew they couldn’t. “Why would you want to?”
Everett’s grip tightened on the reins. “Such things bother me.”
He had all the people across the estate to worry about, and still he thought of her concerns. Her heart gave a little flip even as her back prickled. It wasn’t his job to worry about Anna. That was what she did.
“I’d love to, but it could put Anna in danger of being revealed.” An unmarried woman pretending to be a widow would be vulnerable to the smallest stray piece of gossip.
“You can’t visit Henry because of Lord Rayner, I understand that. But you don’t have to deny yourself the opportunity to see everyone you care about.”
There was a brief silence between them, only the clop of the horses as their hooves hit the muddy ground.
“What story did you create for Anna, which means you cannot visit?” There was no inflection in his question.
Grace stroked her mare’s neck, the black hair dense beneath her gloves. “We remained as close to the truth as possible, so as to be easy to recollect.”
Everett nodded. Somehow, the enormous sky above them and his acceptance made opening the story to the light possible. She explained the imaginary life they had mixed up for Anna.
Anna had been Grace’s lady’s maid, that much stayed the same. While working at Alnott House, Anna and had met, fallen in love with, and married a young man also in her employ. “Well, it’s almost true,” Grace said when Everett raised his eyebrows.
They’d decided Anna’s husband died in an accident while working. Anna had relished the particularly grizzly end her gardener husband had come to, imagining it was the man who deserved such an end. Then, the Alnotts felt guilty about the accident and had provided her with a widow’s pension as recompense. Anna was apparently so
distressed by the death of her beloved that she had to move away from the home she and her love had made together. So, she lived in a new county, away from the memories.
“I don’t want to draw attention to her. A visitor could be enough to make people wonder. And, the world is harsh on lying women and unmarried mothers.” Her skirt had ridden up as they’d trotted, and she rearranged her riding habit, a pretty silk and wool in a deep peacock green, over her boots.
Everett nodded. “Yet, what could be more natural than your visiting a favored ex-servant who has a new baby, as a charitable act?”
“She’s doesn’t require charity.” That was prickly, but it was true. “I provide for her.” Not as much as she wanted, but that would change.
“Of course. But she must be assumed to be a respectable sort of poor? She won’t be thought of as well off on a widow’s pension. As you say, too wealthy, when she was just a lady’s maid, and she would draw attention. She must be the type who would not turn away a visit from a great lady with beneficence to bestow. You might take a Christening gown or a blanket for the infant’s cot.”
“Do you really think it would be acceptable?” A balm spread through Grace at the thought. She could reassure herself that they were safe, see the baby, and check on Anna’s spirits. She did so want to see little Mary before she was grown.
“What is a countess, if not a lady bountiful? It was you who said aristocrats have all the power. We can do whatever we want. And they, the terrible, gossipy they, will think what we tell them to think.” His hands were loose on the reins, his long limbs easily controlling without any harsh movements or hard words. He was comfortable, no doubt from years of riding in the army, and it gave him the authority of a lord. She’d thought initially that he was arrogant and needlessly insecure about his place in the world. Now she saw that his place was here, riding, in the countryside.
