The Earl Next Door

by Amelia Grey

  Adeline lifted her arms to circle his neck and melted willingly, easily into his arms. At her invitation, he took the time to run his hands down to her waist, hips, and buttocks, and then up to flatten his palm against her breasts. Her body was firm and trim, and yielded to his touch.

  “You are pleasingly made, Adeline,” he whispered against her lips.

  He felt her smile. She opened her mouth and gave him her tongue, feeding his hunger. Lyon moaned his approval and lifted her buttocks up to meet him where there could be no mistake he was hungry for her. Ready to give and to take pleasure at her command.

  With deliberate quickness, her warm hands slid under his untucked shirt and raced up his cool, bare back to caress his shoulders.

  “Yes,” he whispered. That was a welcomed sign. He deepened, lengthened, and sweetened their kisses with every breath he took. He plundered inside her mouth and her shape with growing anticipation as they pressed together.

  It was so easy to completely lose himself in her and take what she offered without worry, but that wasn’t wise. Before they went too far he said, “Adeline, I must protect your reputation. Can Mrs. Lawton be trusted if we are caught?”

  “She is faithful, but there is no worry today. She won’t leave the girls until I go to the school and dismiss her.”

  “I will take your word for that.” He looked over at the settee. Larger than most, but still small for a man. “This will not be easy,” he said and then swooped one arm under her knees and the other across her shoulder. He lifted and carried her over to the settee and laid her down.

  With one hand, Lyon jerked his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor while at the same time unbuttoning his trousers with the other. He then swung one booted foot and leg over her and with some effort nestled it between her and the back of the cushion, keeping the other foot firmly planted on the floor to steady himself while resting his lower body on top of her.

  While he positioned himself, Adeline untied the knot in her long-sleeved bodice and he helped slip it off her shoulders. Two pulls on the laces of her stays released her beautiful, small breasts. Gently he swept his fingertips over the swell of one and then the other.

  It felt so damn good to be with her like this again, loving her, touching her. He looked into her eyes for a long moment before his gaze drifted down her face, lingered over her breasts, and swept back up to her eyes again. He whispered, “You are so beautiful I don’t want to stop looking at you.”

  She smiled so sweetly at him. Lyon wanted to take her immediately, satisfy them both and forego the sweet building of pleasure that they both needed and deserved.

  Instead he tamped down his rigid desire and buried his lips in the hollow of her throat, trying to ease the rage of his passion for her. When he was in more control of himself, he fondled her breasts. First one and then the other, taking his time to feel their soft, firm shape and loving the arousing tautness of her nipples beneath his fingers. His body kept urging him to be as aggressive as they’d been last time they were together.

  But no, not this time.

  He held himself in check. Slowly, letting his lips trace down to tease, circle and cover the rosy tip of her breast into his mouth to heighten both their desires. He felt her body quicken beneath him.

  Lyon savored the taste of her, taking his time to properly adore her body. He glided his hand down the plane of her hip, and when he brought his hand back up he caught the skirts of her dress and brought them with him. He caressed the warm bare skin of her shapely outer thigh and slowly let his hand slip between her legs.

  “You wouldn’t believe how much I have wanted to touch you like this again,” he whispered in a heated voice against the cool, silky skin of her chest.

  “Do you mean that?”

  Lyon lifted his head, his expression questioning her. “Adeline, I will never lie to you about anything.”

  She smiled shyly at him. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” he whispered. “For wanting you? I’ve never desired anyone the way I have ached for you.”

  “I have dreamed and longed to be with you again, too,” she answered softly.

  Lyon saw and felt her words were as true. She wanted him. Not just anyone to satisfy her.

  “After the last time we were together like this you said you didn’t know if it was me you wanted or just someone to satisfy your desires.” A smile narrowed his eyes just enough to let her know he wasn’t being too serious when he asked, “Are you sure it’s me you want to be with or would just anyone make you feel this way?”

  Her expression was almost shy. “I might have been unsure at the moment I said it, but no longer,” she answered. “I want only you.”

  Adeline grabbed hold of the band of his trousers and slid them down his hips. She arched her hips toward him and surrounded his back with his arms, urging him to continue without hesitation. Her response was just what he wanted. Now he would to take over. Moments later Lyon claimed her once again for his own.

  He made love to her with all the gentleness his eager body would allow. His movements were leisurely, sensual, and reverent. He kissed her, caressed her, and moved gently on top of her until he sensed that indescribable pleasure rising up inside her.

  Lyon had never experienced such raw craving for a woman he’d already lain with once. With Adeline it was just as exciting and fervent as the first time. Her impatience for him was elating, the power she’d just given him exalting. His decision to go slow and follow her lead in the beginning was the right one. He reached down and swathed the tip of her breast, pulling it gently into his mouth, tugging lightly on it.

  More tremors flowed from her and she whispered, “Lyon.”

  He smiled against her breasts, knowing her desire was for him, her pleasure coming from his touch. Her hands moved over his body, making him ache with deep longing.

  They both inhaled with deeply satisfying gasps. Their movements were no less eager or frantic than when they last came together. Their passion was too strong to go slow or be tame. He swallowed every soft sound made, gloried in every touch she gave him. When he felt her body tremble and heard her soft moan of peaking pleasure he allowed his own fulfillment to follow. Their chests heaved, and both sucked in ragged breaths of ebbing, all-consuming sensations.

  Lyon slipped one hand under her shoulder to hug her up close and relaxed against her body. With his nose, he nestled her neck and he kissed her over and over again.

  Finally, his breathing started to slow, his heartbeat calmed, and he tried to move. His body was stiff from the awkward position he’d been in. He grunted and then chuckled low in his throat as he tried to move his leg and lift it over her.

  “It was much easier to get down on this damn thing than it is to get up from it.”

  Adeline whispered a laugh, too. “Then stay here with me a little longer.”

  He kissed her deeply again and felt the urge to accept her invitation. But there were hazards in doing that. He didn’t want the housekeeper or the headmistress to come looking for her.

  “Your drawing room is not the place for such intimacy between us,” he said, and then lifted himself off the settee with no small amount of struggle and effort.

  “There has to be an easier way to do this,” she said, lowering her skirt and then reaching for her bodice that had been slung to the other end of the settee.

  “I agree,” Lyon said and started adjusting his clothing as he smiled at her.

  His attraction to her was even stronger than it had been the first night they’d met. She was different from any other lady. It wasn’t just the explosive desire he had for her that made him want her for his own. It was more than that. He welcomed her independence, her free-speaking, her strength, her generosity and kindness to the girls. He even enjoyed arguing with her. It was refreshing to know someone who took him to task when he was wrong and even when she knew he was right, as Adeline had a few minutes ago when she’d first heard the girls had entered his house.

 
; Watching her lace her clothing, Lyon felt a new protectiveness stir deeply in his chest. He’d known earlier he wanted no other man to touch her, and he didn’t want her to desire anyone but him. What he was feeling now went further and was stronger than just a man being jealous of a lady’s attention. It surprised him to realize it, but what he was feeling had to be love. There could be no other explanation.

  His heart pounded. She was the one he wanted for his bride. Without reservation, he said, “There is a better way. Marry me.”

  Chapter 16

  Adeline’s hands stilled on the laces of her stays, but she felt a quivering in her chest and stomach. She stared at Lyon. They’d been laughing over the cramped settee, but he looked so serious she suddenly felt that way, too. There was a time she could hide all her emotions. She’d had to. It hadn’t been that difficult with Wake, but with Lyon, she found it hard to do. He touched her in so many ways that her husband never had. She was sure Lyon could see in her expression that she was stunned by his statement.

  Marry him.

  Share this exquisite passion and pleasure with him every night? Yes, she wanted to do that, but marry him? Be his wife? No.

  Lyon walked over and bent down on one knee in front of her. “I don’t want anyone but you. I don’t want us to hide that we want to be together. What’s between us and what we’re feeling is too important to be treated lightly. Marry me.”

  The thought of marriage again sent Adeline into panic. She couldn’t.

  “The feelings I have for you are more than I could have ever imagined feeling. It’s true I thought you a beast at first. With good reason. I now know you are kind, strong, and your touch thrills me, but I’m not interested in matrimony, Lyon.”

  She brushed away from him and rose from the settee, quickly shoving her arms into her bodice.

  He stood up and said, “Look at me, Adeline,” he said, and waited for her to do so. “Marriage is what usually follows the kind of passion we have for each other. I feel it in here.” He put his hand over his heart. “This is the right thing for us to do.”

  “No,” she said, giving her attention back to the bow she was tying in her stays. “I admit if I were to ever be tempted to do so, it would be with you, but I will never marry again.”

  “That is a bold statement, my lady.”

  “A true one,” she answered earnestly, making a loose knot at the center of her back.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve been a wife and found I’m not suited to marriage and have no desire to entangle myself in it again.”

  He took hold of her upper arms, forcing her to look at him again, and said, “So your marriage wasn’t a happy one?”

  “It wasn’t, but I don’t intend to discuss it with you.”

  “I respect that you want to remain silent about that. I’m not demanding you tell me anything concerning your past. I am willing to listen if you ever want to. Your previous marriage is not a concern to me unless you want it to be. I want to talk about us. The future. Our future. What we will share. How we will live with each other.”

  She pulled out of his grip and straightened her shoulders. “I don’t want to think about marriage. Past or future. I don’t want to have this discussion. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be with you. I do. Often. I have since the first night we met when you—well you know. We’ll have to find another solution to our dilemma of nosy neighbors and servants.”

  “No, Adeline,” he said tersely. “I will not make you a mistress that I visit every now and then when I so desire.”

  “Not a mistress!” she said fiercely. “I need no man keeping me for his private pleasure. I will be an equal lover. Our coming together would be on mutual terms as it was just now.”

  “A lover? You mean like this?” Capturing her up in his arms again, he gave her a short, hard kiss, but it was no less passionate than any of the others they’d shared. “Is this really what you want? Grabbing a quick kiss or a longer moment or two with you on the settee or against the wall when your housekeeper is away or asleep? Is that what your heart desires?” he rasped. “Should we just go ahead and set a time and a day of the week for you to send Mrs. Lawton to the school or elsewhere so I can slip in and out of your bedchamber without her suspecting?”

  “Stop it,” she pleaded. “You’re making it sound so tawdry. What we shared wasn’t.”

  “No and it shouldn’t be, but that’s what you’re asking for,” he insisted angrily, turning her loose. “You are asking me to treat you less than a lady deserves. Less than I want for you and me.”

  “No, I’m not. Respectable widows take lovers.”

  “They do,” he said more calmly. “Some are most content doing so. I don’t want that for you. For me. I have deeper feelings for you. I can’t accept you as a casual lover.”

  Adeline searched his eyes. She understood and believed what he was saying. But she didn’t believe the good would outweigh the bad. “I want to be with you, but I won’t hear more about marriage.” She stepped away and pulled the tail of her bodice down over the skirt of her dress, fitting it properly.

  “Then tell me why.”

  There was more than just one reason why she couldn’t marry him. Lyon was titled and would expect to have an heir, which she could never give him. She couldn’t go through another man demanding of her what she wasn’t capable of giving. And she wouldn’t deny Lyon what was rightfully his.

  A wife to bear him a son.

  Shoring up her courage with a deep breath, she said, “It would make no difference. I will not be persuaded. Now, I need to get to the school. You can see yourself out.”

  She started walking past him, but he caught her arm and stopped her. “What if you are with child?” he asked.

  Adeline gasped. “What?” Her breath caught in her lungs and couldn’t move for an instant. She felt as if she were choking. “Why would you ask that?”

  “It could be true.”

  “No,” she said adamantly. “That can’t be.”

  “I may be a man, Adeline, but I am not naive when it comes to matters such as this. We’ve been together twice now and sometimes it only takes once if measures aren’t taken to ensure otherwise.”

  “It didn’t happen and it won’t.”

  Anger clouded his features. “You can’t be sure.”

  “I can. A woman knows these things, Lyon. I don’t want to lose what we’ve been sharing, but I won’t marry you. Being a widow gives me the right to live my life as I so choose. I have freedoms now to make my own choices that I never had before. I can go where and when I want to go. I can eat and drink what I want with no one telling me I must stay at home, or stay in bed, or—” She stopped and took a deep breath, already having said more than she intended.

  “Did your husband do those things?”

  She looked away from him, determined not to reveal any more of her past than she already had. It would serve no purpose. “Marriage doesn’t suit me. Accept that I can’t marry you and leave it at that.”

  “I wouldn’t restrict you like that, Adeline.”

  “I didn’t think Wake would treat me as he did, either. Now, turn me loose. I have nothing more to say about the subject.”

  His expression had told her he wanted to say more. He didn’t want to give up, but after a moment or two, he bowed to her wishes and let go of her. He stepped back, as if realizing it was best to save his argument for another day.

  “All right, I will accept your answer. And you must accept mine. I won’t take you as a lover I must keep hidden.”

  “Then we understand each other, again,” she said, feeling as if she’d stabbed herself with a knife.

  “We do.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to re-pin my hair before I leave.”

  He nodded once, and said, “Usually just the threat of a ruler across the knuckles of a hand or cane on the backside is enough to make unruly children sit up and take notice that rules must be obeyed. Keep that in mind when you
talk to the girls. Let them stay and give them the chance to learn. Don’t send them home.”

  Adeline watched him walk away and her heart ached. Her arms felt cold and her stomach empty. She couldn’t take back her words of rejection. Married life had been much too cruel to her. During her marriage she thought she’d learned how to endure anything that might come her way, but saying no to Lyon had been harder than drinking the foul-tasting tonics Wake had prepared for her.

  Knowing Lyon wanted her, wanted to marry her would have to be enough to sustain her. She couldn’t suffer through trying to be in the family way again, and she couldn’t leave him childless and without an heir.

  The thought of never being in his arms again was heartbreaking. Perhaps in time he would agree to keep their time together going as it was now? Surely being together sometimes was better than not being together at all.

  For now, she had to put thoughts and feelings for Lyon aside. She had to decide what to do about the girls. Their violation of the rules of the school and decency could not go without a strong punishment.

  After a visit up to her room, Adeline walked over to the school and into the large open front room. Mrs. Tallon and Mrs. Lawton rose from the teaching table where they were sitting and walked over to the door to stand with her. Fanny and Mathilda rose from the opposite corners at the back of the room where they’d been seated on the floor facing the wall.

  Adeline looked away from the girls. She didn’t like the way it made her feel to see them punished. “I’m sorry to have kept you, but the earl is a difficult man to get away from.” That was no prevarication.

  “Is he going to do anything terrible to the girls?” Mrs. Lawton asked worriedly. “Will he send them to the workhouse for their mischief?”

  “No, no,” Adeline answered softly. “I don’t know what would make you think he’d ever do anything like that. He’s not really a harsh man. It wouldn’t even enter his mind to do something so reprehensible. He wanted to have his say, of course, and I listened. In the end, he has left all punishment to me and Mrs. Tallon. Thank you for helping her, Mrs. Lawton. You may go back home.”