by Jo Goodman
“A summer cold, then. A very bad one.” She did not give him time to dismiss this idea as well. “When will she arrive?”
“Sir Arthur is one of my neighbors. His property abuts mine north of here. Aunt Georgia says she will leave on the morrow, but I think that means this morning. It is possible she will be here before the boys return with Pipkin from the village.”
“But that is no time at all!”
“As you intend to merely affect an illness and absent yourself for a week, I cannot see any reason for you to make haste.”
Lily’s free hand went to her hair. “I must change this. I cannot hide it under a cap for a sennight. If she deigns to meet me, she will see through it straightaway.”
Sheridan’s brows lifted. “Dye it again, you mean?”
“I have no dye. I will have to use blacking, just as I did before.”
“Like hell you will.”
She blinked. “You cannot prevent me.”
“I forbid it.”
Lily stared at him, incredulous. “That is terribly high in the instep, even for you. You cannot mean it.”
“I do.”
She would have thrown a primer at him but had too much respect for the books to do so. “Has it not occurred to you that she might recognize me?”
“If that is even a remote possibility, then you lied to me. You are not no one. Aunt Georgia is not acquainted with no ones.”
“I did not say we were acquainted, only that she might recognize me. I certainly do not know her, not by name. And I am no one. I have no title, no fortune. My parents are dead, and I have no brothers or sisters.”
Sherry was not appeased. “That does not mean there is no family. Lady Rivendale does not know you from L’Abbaye de Sacré Coeur, I am certain of that.”
Lily was certain of it, too. “I told you I left the abbey at sixteen.”
“You ran away.”
“Yes, but not because of anything that happened at the abbey, or rather not because of anyone there. I know you thought otherwise, and I allowed you to believe it because it is simpler that way.”
“And safer?” he asked.
“Yes. For both of us.”
“I do not require your protection, Lily.”
“I have a scar beneath my ribs that speaks to the error in your thinking.”
Sherry gave her a sour look. “That was an entirely different matter.”
“Dead is dead.”
“I should not have carried you back to your room this morning,” he said, letting his eyes drop deliberately to her mouth. “You and I would still be abed, and I would be making love to you as I meant to last night. If I was considerably fortunate, Aunt Georgia would surprise us flagrante delicto and you—” He paused. “You know what that means, do you not? Flagrante delicto?”
“I could understand the gist of it, my lord, whether or not I knew Latin. As it happens, though, I know Latin.”
“Yes,” he said wryly. “You would. As I was saying, you and I would be forced to make some explanation that would satisfy, particularly if she did indeed recognize you, and the whole of it would be out.”
“And then?”
He regarded her blankly.
“And then, what?” she persisted. “Once the whole of it is out, what is changed for the better? Do you think your aunt would condone an affair between us if she recognized me? I can tell you with complete confidence that the opposite would be true. She would drag me from the bed by my hair and send for a physician to examine you for the pox.” Lily paused long enough to let that thought take hold and said, “I do not have the pox, by the way.”
Sherry gave her no chance to escape. One moment he was leaning comfortably against his desk and in the next he was pressing Lily back against the pocket doors.
“My lord?” Her face was raised to his; her eyes regarded him warily.
“Sherry,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sherry. It is my name. I should like to hear you use it.” Whether or not she would have said it then, he didn’t know. He was not about to pass on an opportunity to kiss her parted lips. There was sauce enough that would come from them later.
He angled his mouth across hers and felt her immediate response. The books, the ones he was almost certain she’d considered throwing at him, thudded to the floor, and her arms lifted to his shoulders. He kissed her long and deeply, savoring the taste of her, remembering how she had lain so lightly in his arms. She did not feel insubstantial now. The languor that stole over her limbs made her require him for support, and he felt the comely shape of her pressed to him. Her simple muslin day dress was a suitably modest cover when viewed from any distance, but when she was flush to him, it was insufficient to keep him from knowing every long line and curve of her body. He felt the swell of her breasts above the neckline, the slope of her shoulder beneath the lace shawl. His knee insinuated itself between her legs, obliging her to stand on tiptoe. He welcomed the slim hands clinging to his neck and wished that she might always drink kisses from his mouth.
He lifted his head to inhale a shaky breath but did not draw back far. “Was this a mistake?” he asked. “Tell me this was not a mistake.”
“Will you stop if it is?”
“No.”
Her smile was a shade wistful. “Then it is of no consequence, is it?” This time she placed her mouth on his and kissed him with every bit of the yearning she’d felt since waking alone in her own bed. It was not sensible, or right, that she should like or even desire him, yet she could no longer pretend that it wasn’t so, and there was no reason that he shouldn’t know it. This risk was hers to take, and he couldn’t forbid her feelings any more than he could forbid her to change the color of her hair.
She broke off suddenly. Still clinging to him, she said, “I must go.”
He nudged her lips with his. “Of course.”
In the space of a heartbeat she was made breathless again. She tore her mouth away from his a second time. “No, truly, I must go.”
He nodded his agreement, but the movement of his head merely caused his lips to brush against hers. “Hm-hmm.”
Lily simply held on. He raised his knee, lifting her, grasped her by the bottom and carried her to his desk. Resting her on the edge, he used one arm to sweep across the top of it, clearing it of papers and quills and sealing wax. He rucked up her gown and petticoat while she fumbled with the buttons on his trousers. He stepped closer, spreading her thighs to stand between them, then he pulled her tightly against him, grinding against her once but not entering. He looked down at her flushed face and saw the centers of her eyes were very wide. Moreover, he saw that even the irises had darkened from leaf green to emerald.
She stared up at him, waiting, then realized he was waiting for something from her. She let go of her bottom lip and nodded.
Sherry lifted her hips and thrust deeply and hard. She was ready for him this time, wet and warm, the musky scent of her sex inviting his entry. He withdrew slowly, watching her, then watching them. She made small contractions around him as he moved as though she meant to hold him to her.
Lily sought purchase for her fingertips on the edge of the desk, then found she could not hold on. She lay back, stretching, and felt him plunge into her again. Her head was thrown back, her neck arched. She felt his hand slide over the fabric of her gown from her breasts to her belly. She wished she were naked. She wished the suck of his mouth was on her breasts and that he would take a nipple between his teeth and bite very gently.
The vision in her mind’s eye, as much as the rhythm he forced on her, made Lily’s hips rise and fall. Her breath caught at the back of her throat. She pressed one knuckle against her lips and bit down to keep from crying out. Her heels banged the desk making it shudder under her.
Lily turned her head from side to side, not in negation of pleasure but in the acceptance of it. Every muscle in her body felt as if it were pulled taut. Last night Sherry had cradled her fall. This time he aba
ndoned her to it. The strangled sound at the back of her throat was unrecognizable to her as her own voice. She gulped air, then held it as her body seized in the moment before her release. She arched, lifting herself up to him, wanting as much of him as she could take or he could give her. His thrusts quickened between her thighs, then he was in her one last time as powerfully as he was able. He gave a hoarse shout, then collapsed over her, taking his weight on his forearms.
Breathing hard, they stared at each other for a long moment, then began laughing.
“If I had known you would shout like that,” she said when she could catch her breath, “I would not have bitten my own hand.” She held it up for his inspection, showing him the knuckle she’d abused with her teeth. Lily was only slightly mollified when he kissed it. “Next time I will bite yours.”
Sherry doubted he would mind, or even feel it. He said nothing to that effect, certain she would never allow him to have her on his desk again if she knew the extent of her power over him. He straightened, righted himself and his clothes, then helped her up. Since coming to Granville her hair had grown long enough to require a few combs to keep it neatly tucked. Two of the combs were loose, and one of them was lying on the floor. He bent and picked it up.
“I hope you will reconsider doing anything to change the color of your hair,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow as she tucked the combs back into place. “So you are no longer forbidding it?”
“I lost my head for a moment.”
Snorting delicately, Lily pushed her gown over her knees and stood. She shimmied once so that the hem fell neatly to the floor. “It would be better, perhaps, if you did not follow me immediately. I am certain to have a difficult time composing myself if I meet a servant in the hallway. It will be impossible if you are sniffing after my skirts.”
“A coarse expression, but apt enough in this case. Very well. I’ll let you go.” Sherry straightened the shawl for her, fixing the tails so that they fell neatly between her breasts. “But you mustn’t think things are settled between us, Lily. You always raise more questions than you answer. You have only whet my appetite.”
She raised herself on tiptoe and brushed his mouth with hers. “And I was so certain I had satisfied it.” Before he could respond, Lily ducked past him and hurried to the doors. On the point of leaving she paused only long enough to glance over her shoulder, cock an eyebrow at him, and make certain she had the last word. There was more than a trace of huskiness in her voice when she spoke it.
“Sherry,” she said, then she was gone.
Lady Rivendale arrived late in the afternoon in a coach and four, followed by a second carriage with her servants and still more of her trunks. Sherry saw the coaches coming around the lake from his position in a field west of the house. He did not immediately ride out to meet his godmother; rather he finished his random inspection of the corn crop and judged the early plantings were ready for harvest. He communicated this to his land manager, discussed at some length the proper way to turn over the field, and bid good day to his tenant farmers. When he could find nothing else to detain him, he turned Achilles toward the hall and headed back.
By the time he appeared in the entrance hall, his godmother had already been shown to her rooms. The servants, hers and his, were still unloading the carriages and settling in with varying degrees of equanimity to this disruption in their own routines. He inquired of the butler as to the precise location of her rooms and was informed she was indeed pleased to have accommodations in his own wing of the house.
Upon hearing it, Sherry released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He had had some concerns that she would choose to take up residence elsewhere, and it was his wish to keep her as far from the scoundrels and Lily as was possible when he was not present to observe and mediate. The size of the hall should have made that a simple matter, but Sherry knew from experience that Lady Rivendale, with the very best of intentions, could manage to insinuate herself and annoy like a strawberry seed in a wisdom tooth.
Lily was in the right of it when she’d said he loved his godmother dearly, but it was equally true that he could cheerfully throttle her when she got up to mischief.
Knowing he had tarried too long, Sherry took the stairs two at time on his way to greet her.
“There you are!” her ladyship cried, waving off her maid as Sherry poked his head in the open doorway. “Come in, you dear boy, and give me a proper kiss.” She held out her arms in welcome and proffered her cheek.
Sherry took her hands, gave them a warm squeeze, and bussed her on both cheeks. “Can it be that you look lovelier than when I saw you last and that it was only yesterday morning that I took leave of you?”
“I detect flattery and censure there, Sherry. Flattery is all that is ever necessary. I do not accept criticism well, even from you. You must know I could not announce my intention to come here. You would fob me off again and feel very bad about it, I am certain.”
“Then you practiced this subterfuge to spare my feelings.”
“Yes.” Lady Rivendale freed one of her hands from his so that she might pat his cheek. “How well you understand me.” She looked past his shoulder to where her maid stood in the doorway of the dressing room. “Yes?”
“It’s your ladyship’s bath. It’s been drawn.”
“And still too hot by half. You can attend me in a moment, Digby.” She waited until Digby disappeared again, then said to her godson, “I am favorably disposed to these rooms, Sherry. I don’t recall that I’ve ever stayed in them before. I believe I’ve always had accommodations in the east wing.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
“You still have your rooms here, do you not?”
Sherry could feel that strawberry seed wedging itself between his teeth. “I do. I thought you should like to be close.”
“You will not find that inconvenient?”
“In what way?” As a child he would have broken under her scrutiny, much in the way Midge had surrendered to Lily at breakfast, but he had had considerable practice in the intervening years shuttering his expression and was able to hold his own.
“Bah!” She freed her other hand and waved him off as cavalierly as she had her maid. “I see there will be nothing forthcoming from you. You always were a deep one, Sherry, but I used to be able to plumb those depths. I will tell you straightaway that I have every intention of meeting these lads you told Arthur about. I cannot imagine what you were thinking taking three creatures from the Holborn slums and putting them up in your home. They might come upon you in the middle of the night and slit your throat.”
Sherry was very aware of the maid’s presence in the adjoining room. “Please have a care, Aunt Georgia. Only the servants that came up from London with me know the precise origins of the boys, and they are under threat of being dismissed if it becomes fodder for all. If you have already made your distress known to Digby, then I would ask you to caution her as well.”
“Why?” She lifted her chin a fraction, and her gray eyes flashed silver. “Why shouldn’t people know what a good heart you have? In any event, there must be suspicion about them, or are their manners and speech so improved they can pass for children such as you and dear Cybelline were?”
Her point was well taken, though Sherry did not say so. “I will let you judge, Aunt. They will dine with us this evening.”
“Oh, surely not.”
“You would prefer to dine in your room?”
“I would prefer they dined in theirs. It is not the done thing, Sherry, for children to sit with the adults.”
“It is done here at Granville. Not always, certainly, but on special occasions my own parents permitted Cybelline and me to join them. I seem to recall that you were present more than once.”
“That was entirely different. We indulged you both, and you had the advantage of not being raised by wolves.”
“Are you afraid they will snap and growl at you?”
“Do not be impertinent.�
� She pursed her lips and leveled a reproving glance at him. “You might at least tell me their names, Sherry. Arthur said you were closed mouth there.”
“Pinch, Dash, and Midge—the diminutive of Smidgen, not Midget.”
“You cannot be serious.”
He shrugged.
“Oh, Sherry, it is far worse than I imagined. In every way that can be conceived, this is a ramshackle affair.” She breathed deeply through her nose, nostrils flaring slightly, and released the breath slowly. “What can you have been thinking?”
Since she had posed the same question before, Sherry believed this one was strictly rhetorical. In any event, he had no intention of answering. “Then you will not approve of this either, Aunt, but I am making arrangements to make them my wards.”
Sherry had never considered his godmother faint of heart, but he was tempted to call Digby to fetch the smelling salts. He judged the moment as passing quickly and encouraged her to sit on the chaise longue to collect herself.
It was at the exact point of color returning to her face that the door to her room swung open hard and Pinch and Midge skidded breathlessly to a stop on the edge of the carpet.
“Beggin’ yer pardon, but it’s Miss Rose!” Midge cried. “She’s taken a spill from the top o’ the chestnut! Ye must come, m’lord! I fear she is broken!”
Lady Rivendale ignored the urchins dancing with anxiety on the perimeter of the room. She had eyes only for her godson’s pale countenance, and upon seeing it, saw her greatest fears confirmed. Her dear boy wasn’t thinking at all; he was besotted.
Ten
It required some effort of will for Sherry not to run. He had a view of the chestnut tree—all seventy-five feet of it—as he passed one of the arched windows on the main staircase landing. He could not see Lily because she was already surrounded by servants. Dash was visible, though, darting in and out of the servants’ circle, anxiously looking toward the house.
Pinch and Midge slid past him on the banister and were out the door before the housekeeper finished scolding them. Sherry paused long enough to give her instructions, then he continued in the boys’ wake.
