A Precious Jewel

by Mary Balogh

  “Come,” he said when she was finally quiet again. He fumbled in a pocket and drew out a handkerchief. “Let me dry your eyes, Priss. There, that’s better. All the wetness gone. Here, take the handkerchief and blow your nose. That will clear out the nasal passages and make you feel better. Better now?”

  She nodded and set the wet handkerchief down on the grass. She hung her head forward so that he would not see the redness of her face.

  He wanted very badly to comfort her. He wished he knew how. He had always been so awkward about women. He lifted her chin with one hand.

  “No,” he said, when she grasped his wrist, “don’t hide from me, Priss. It is just me. Just me.”

  He looked down at her mouth. He had never kissed a woman. It was a strange thought under the circumstances. But it was true. He had come close once, but he had never done it. He did not know how to do it.

  He closed his eyes, lowered his head, and kissed her. And lifted his head again sharply. She was looking up at him, her eyes wide. She had felt sweet. Very sweet. Warm and soft. He could feel the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. He could hear the droning of innumerable invisible insects.

  He touched her lips with his tongue before joining his own to them again, tracing their outline, pressing against the seam. She was very still in his arms. He could feel her lips trembling against his tongue, and then she opened her mouth and moaned as he thrust his tongue once inside.

  “Priss.”

  He laid her back against the grass, struggling out of his coat, rolling it to make a soft pillow for her head. And he brought himself down half across her, cupping her chin with one hand, drawing down her lower lip with his thumb, plunging his tongue into her mouth, taking instant fire at the heat and moisture and softness he found there. She moaned again and sucked inward on his tongue.

  He wanted to give her comfort. He wanted to give her pleasure. But he did not know how. He had only ever taken both from her, instructing her on the exact positioning and movement of her body that would give him the maximum pleasure.

  He did not know how to love her.

  He touched her with unpracticed hands, moving them over her, wanting her to feel good. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her eyes and temples, her chin and her ears. He kissed her mouth again, stroking into her with his tongue. She looked up at him with wide and wondering eyes when he knelt up beside her once more.

  He drew loose the ribbon that held her dress tight beneath her breasts. And he lowered the dress down over her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, down her legs. Her undergarments and her stockings followed.

  So familiar, the small and shapely little body. Except that her nipples were peaked and taut. He did not know how to … But yes, he did. Once he had been shown, though he had not wanted to do it at the time….

  He cupped her breasts in his hands, massaging them gently, rubbing his thumbs over the nipples, pressing lightly inward. Her eyes closed and her lips parted. He lowered his head and licked at one nipple and felt her shudder. He moved his mouth to the other breast.

  “Priss,” he said, and he moved his hands down over her hips and lowered his head to kiss her stomach. Her fingers twined in his hair.

  He touched her with one hand in the warm, soft, moist place, where he knew her so intimately with another part of his body. He feathered his fingers over her, pushed two inside her, felt her muscles contract around them.

  By sheer instinct he found a part of her with the ball of his thumb and pulsed against it with quick shallow movements. Her hips arched upward. When he lifted his head to look at her, it was to find that she had thrown her head back against his coat and opened her mouth in a silent cry of agony or ecstasy. He circled his thumb more gently against her.

  He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to love her. But he had no experience and very little knowledge.

  “Ah,” she said, her hips lifting again, her hand grabbing for the arm that was working her. “Ahhh!”

  “Priss,” he whispered, watching her shudder out of control on the ground before him.

  She turned her head to look into his face, her eyes deep with pain, wonder, bewilderment, pleading—he could not interpret the look. He had no experience.

  He wanted to give her pleasure.

  “You are still aching?” he asked her, bending his head toward her. “It is not finished?”

  “Gerald.” Her voice was a whisper. “Gerald.”

  He dragged off his Hessian boots and tossed them aside, fumbled with the buttons of his pantaloons and stripped them off. He tore at the buttons of his shirt.

  “I’ll make it better for you,” he said. “Just tell me how to make it better.”

  But she said nothing as he put himself inside her body. She twined her legs about his, spread her hands over his hips to draw him inward to her, and drew him closer with inner muscles.

  He set his jaw hard, held to her shoulders, and moved in her, alert to her every demand, waiting for her to take her own pleasure before he would allow his body to demand its own.

  And yet somehow—and he knew instinctively that he should not allow himself to go too soon—they came together and cried out together. And they descended to a moist and panting peace together.

  He rolled his weight off her, taking her with him, holding them joined, cradling her in his arms away from the hardness of the ground. And he kissed her openmouthed once more, even though he knew she was already asleep.

  THE EARL OF SEVERN SPOKE TO SIR GERALD alone two days after the incident with Mr. Ramsay and his friends.

  “I’ll be taking myself off home tomorrow, Ger,” he said. “I must make sure that the place has not collapsed without me there to hold it together.”

  “Tomorrow?” Sir Gerald said. “You have been here only just over a week, Miles. I thought you were staying for at least two.”

  His friend grinned. “Ah,” he said, “but I know when three is a crowd, Ger. I hate to be a poor sport.”

  Sir Gerald flushed. “It was just that she was upset with what that ass said,” he said. “I have been trying to make it up to her, Miles, take her mind off it and all that.”

  “And doing extremely well by the look of it,” Lord Severn said.

  “You must not leave on that account,” Sir Gerald said. “I would feel guilty, Miles. Priss is just my mistress when all is said and done.”

  “Well,” the earl said, “the truth of the matter is, Ger, that I am mortally jealous and feeling my womanless state like a gnawing toothache. I am going to be in London the very minute my year of mourning is over and I am going to employ the most handsome, most voluptuous, and most expensive courtesan in town. I have the blunt and the consequence to do it with my new title. There are some advantages to being an earl, you know. And for a whole week, don’t expect to find me outside my mistress’s boudoir. For a whole week, Ger—day and night.”

  Sir Gerald laughed. “You will too, Miles,” he said. “Remember that barmaid at Oxford? The redhead?”

  “I believe that was only four days,” the earl said. “She feared for her job if she stayed with me longer, if I remember correctly.”

  They laughed again.

  “Of course,” the earl said, sobering, “I am going to be dodging my mother and the girls once we are out of mourning. They are going to be in search of a leg-shackle for me. I can feel it in my bones. The very last thing I want is a leg-shackle. Not for another ten years or so, at least.”

  “Then you will have to say no,” Sir Gerald said. “A firm no, Miles. You and I will remain bachelors together until our eightieth year, and by that time no one will want us.”

  “There speaks a man without female relatives,” Lord Severn said. “I have the strange fear that I am not going to stand a chance.”

  “Then I pity you,” Sir Gerald said, “and am grateful that I have no one in life to please but myself.”

  “Yes,” his friend said, looking at him curiously from his very blue eyes, “there is that advantage to having a mistr
ess rather than a wife, I suppose.”

  SIR GERALD WAS in his study with a tenant farmer who had arrived after breakfast agitated by some grievance. The Earl of Severn waited for his host to be free so that he could take his leave.

  “Well, Prissy,” he said, when she would have withdrawn quietly from the breakfast room, “you must take a stroll with me in the formal gardens, if you please. I have been meaning to get you to name all the individual flowers to me. Flowers are just flowers to me, I am afraid. But I am sure you know all their names and natures. Will you take my arm?”

  She took it and smiled fleetingly up at him.

  “I have been pleased to make your acquaintance in the past week or so,” he said, leading her down the steps and across the terrace to the formal gardens. “Gerald is a fortunate man. And I must apologize again for what happened three days ago. It was very largely my fault since I would not let you escape. I should have noticed sooner than I did that all three of them were thoroughly foxed.”

  “It was Gerald who told me I was not to go to the conservatory, my lord,” she said. “I always obey Gerald.”

  “Do you?” he said. “I envy him, Prissy. I wish I could find another such as you.”

  She darted a glance up at him.

  “You worked at Kit’s,” he said. “For how long?”

  “For four months,” she said quietly.

  “And have been with Gerald for almost as many more,” he said. “You were very upset with what Ramsay said, Prissy, and I don’t blame you. I am sure Gerald must have spoken with you on the matter and reassured you, but let me add my own assurances. You must not let yourself be dragged down by the vulgarity of a man far your inferior.”

  “Mr. Ramsay?” she said.

  “The Honorable Mr. Ramsay, actually,” he said. “Very far your inferior, Prissy. The words ‘whore’ and ‘mistress’ and all the other synonyms for them are only labels, you know. The person wearing those labels can sometimes transcend them. You do, very much so.”

  She swallowed. “Thank you,” she said. “You are kind. But I am not easily crushed, my lord. When I entered into my profession, I did so deliberately and even with some pride. I know what I am. I also know who I am, and the two are not the same at all.”

  He smiled and patted her hand. “I have been to Kit’s myself on a number of occasions,” he said, “and only found an hour’s entertainment. Gerald was more fortunate. Far more fortunate. He went there and found a very precious little jewel. I am glad to know that, Prissy—that who you are is so much more important than what you are.”

  “Gerald is waiting for you,” she said. “And your carriage is coming from the stables.”

  “Ah,” he said, looking back toward the terrace, “it is time for me to leave. No, you shall not slip your hand from my arm and melt into the background, Prissy. You shall come and say good-bye to me properly at Gerald’s side. And do you realize that you have not named even one flower to me? I begin to suspect that you are no more knowledgeable about plants than I.”

  He shook Sir Gerald heartily by the hand a few minutes later, kissed Priscilla on the cheek when she would have curtsied to him, and was on his way.

  THERE WAS A new wonder about the world and about life. A cautious wonder. A wonder because they had become lovers beside the lily-covered lake and had remained lovers ever since. Cautious because not a word of their new relationship had been spoken between them.

  When she had woken up beside the lake, she had found herself lying on her side in his close embrace. the sun still warm on her naked flesh. He had been looking at her, not with a smile exactly, but with a look that had warmed her heart like a fire on a winter’s night. She had gazed back into his eyes.

  She never knew what he would have said. They had both started speaking together. When they had both stopped and smiled at each other, she had continued.

  “It must be getting late,” she had said.

  “Yes.” He had eased away from her and only then had she realized that they had still been joined. “Miles will be wondering where we are.”

  They had dressed in silence, not embarrassed because they were accustomed to each other’s nakedness, but turned away from each other nevertheless. And they had begun the walk back to the house side by side. He had taken her hand in his after a while, lacing his fingers with hers, and they had looked at each other and smiled.

  When they returned to the house, she had bathed the Earl of Severn’s bruised knuckles despite his amused protests and rubbed ointment on them, and the three of them had conversed easily through dinner and for an hour afterward in the drawing room until the earl had excused himself, saying he needed an early night.

  And they had gone to bed, too, and made love and slept and made love and slept all night long, saying nothing but commonplaces to each other. Their couplings had been shared and tumultuous. He had kissed her and touched her in ways that had made it impossible for her to lie still and passive as he had always liked her to be. He had lifted her right off her back once, bringing her over him, lowering her with firm hands on her hips, impaling her, and loving her until she had thought she must go mad with pleasure and pain.

  The following day he had canceled his usual morning of business in order to walk with her in the woods toward the lake again and had strolled all about it with her, gazing at the lilies and the sun sparkling off the ripples caused by the breeze. They had stood on the bridge for a long time, looking across the lake, absorbing the warmth of the sun.

  In the afternoon he had canceled half-made plans to return a visit to some of his neighbors and had taken her and the earl on a picnic instead.

  The night had been like the night before except that they had tired faster and slept more.

  But there had been not a word, except on topics that had nothing to do with anything. His eyes told her of wonders she dared not hope for, and his body took her beyond reality and caution into a world of love and security and forever. But he said nothing.

  She could say nothing herself. She was a mere woman. Less. She was a fallen woman, his mistress, the woman he paid to provide him with sexual pleasure. It could be said that he was getting full value for his money during these days and nights. For undoubtedly.

  though they performed in ways that were not the ways he had always most liked, she was giving delight to his body.

  He set an arm about her waist as the earl’s carriage disappeared down the driveway, and drew her against his side.

  “You like him, Priss?” he asked. “He has been a close friend ever since we were at university together.”

  “I like him,” she said. “He’s a gentleman.”

  “We were as unlike each other as it was possible to be,” he said. “He was intelligent, always did well at his studies, was handsome, charming, popular with other students and with the g—. Well, with the girls. But he seemed genuinely to like me.”

  “There can be no doubt of that,” she said.

  He looked up to the sky. “This weather still has not broken,” he said. “It’s amazing. If I were like my farmers, I would say that we are going to suffer for this. But who cares? Let’s enjoy it while we have it, shall we?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling.

  “I am supposed to join a party on a ride to Rosthern Castle this afternoon,” he said. “I would be gone from luncheon to dinner. Shall I send my excuses and stay here instead, Priss?”

  “It must be as you wish, Gerald,” she said. “You must not stay on my account if you think you should go.”

  “But what if I should stay on my account?” he asked.

  “Well, then,” she said, smiling at him, “I suppose it would be all right.”

  “I still have not taken you up the hill, have I?” he asked, gesturing toward the back of the house, and the wooded hill that formed the northern boundary of the park. “It is a strenuous walk, Priss, but there is a splendid view from the top. Shall we do it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “That would be lovely.”r />
  “After luncheon,” he said, turning toward the house with her, his arm still about her waist. “I shall have Cook make up a small picnic basket for us again. Come upstairs with me, Priss. I want you.”

  “Yes,” she said as he hugged her closer.

  The honeymoon lasted for two full weeks. The weather cooperated—there was scarcely a cloud in the sky during the daytime. The little rain they had was kind enough to fall at night. Her body cooperated—she had had her monthly period just prior to their first real loving. And the neighbors cooperated, leaving them alone, accepting, however disapprovingly, the fact that Sir Gerald Stapleton wished to spend his days with the unchaperoned young lady who was his companion.

  Priscilla had always lived a great deal in her imagination. Perhaps that very fact helped her to distinguish between illusion and reality. She knew that what she was experiencing, what Gerald was experiencing, was not anything of any permanence. Men did not fall irrevocably in love with women they had taken from whorehouses. He would have too much pride to do so and would be too much a product of his society. And even if he wished to so thumb his nose at convention, society would not allow it. And society would inevitably win. It always did.

  She had made her choice when she had taken her first client at Miss Blythe’s and sacrificed her virginity to him. And she would not do anything as futile and foolish now as regret that decision. If she had not entered on her profession, she would never have met Gerald.

  Things were as they were. For now, for this moment in time, however long it lasted—but it would not last very long—they were in love. She loved him beyond time, but even he—yes, it was not wishful thinking to believe so—even he was in love for this moment of time, though he said not a word to her of his feelings.

  And they were lovers. Gloriously, passionately lovers. In all those encounters with so many different men at Miss Blythe’s and in all her encounters with Gerald, she had never dreamed that the sexual act, which could be so distasteful and even ugly, could also be an experience of such beauty and—she could never find quite the right word. Goodness? It was a thing of goodness. With Gerald it was goodness. It was right. It was the way man and woman should be. The way they should be.