“Yes, sir.”
“Good night, Mr. Thompson.”
The groom nodded and took his leave of the stables, heading for the manse just beyond.
Without a word, Tom lifted Victoria into his arms and made his way back to the house. “Will someone put out the lanterns?” he asked once they were just inside the corridor. He turned to close the door and noticed the stables were already dark.
“Jemmy sees to it,” Victoria assured him.
Tom lowered his gaze to meet hers. “May I take you to bed now?”
“Are you coming, too?”
Wondering if she intended her comment to be a double entendre, Tom replied, “In more ways than one.”
Chapter 38
Paying a Debt
Two hours later, in the bed in Victoria’s bedchamber
Tucked against the front of Tom’s bent body, Victoria was quite sure she couldn’t move.
Not that she wanted to move. Not when her entire body felt as if it were floating, despite the weight of an arm that was wrapped around her waist. The hand at the end of it held one of her breasts.
Perhaps that’s why Tom held her like this. So she wouldn’t float away.
She grinned as her entire body vibrated with an unfamiliar thrum of excitement. Even though she should feel exhausted—experiencing wave after wave of pleasure was rather taxing—she didn’t wish to sleep.
She also didn’t wish to forget what Tom had done to her on this night. His kisses had her aroused even before his tongue saw to pleasures she had not imagined. When his tall body covered hers, she wrapped her legs around his long thighs and allowed him entry into her most private space.
After his tentative start, his thrusts had grown stronger, his penetration into her deeper, until all at once a pleasure so intense, she could not breathe, had overwhelmed her—and apparently him, for he had said words that might have been a curse combined with a prayer of thanksgiving.
Nor would she forget what she had done to him as she sat on him, astride. Her hands had been braced on his shoulders as she rode him, her body lowering with each of his upward thrusts until her nipples had grazed the dark, crisp curls on his chest. Delightful frissons raced through her at the very moment her mount seized and nearly bucked her off.
Not once had she detected a limp.
Then she remembered what he had threatened to do to her before the sun lit the sky. Only a day ago, she would have been scandalized. Now she looked forward to it with every fiber of her being.
Two hours of pleasure for every hour of pain I have caused you, he had said between his series of kisses.
At the rate they were going, she feared his bill would be paid before the month was gone.
What then?
Before she could spend another moment wondering, she felt the slightest touch between her shoulder blades as his lips traced the bumps of her spine. She shivered in response, and then tried to suppress a giggle when his lips took purchase on one of her shoulders. The arm around her waist tightened its hold, and his manhood suddenly stiffened, lengthening between her thighs to rest against her honeyed folds.
The memory of how it had felt when he entered her the first time had Victoria inhaling sharply as her insides reacted. That sense of invasion, of taking in the entire length of him in only a few slow movements, of the careful thrusts meant to avoid causing pain, nearly had her pleading for him to stop.
But then he had done something to bring on a series of delicious sensations beneath her skin. The frissons that had her lower body trembling. Her womanhood throbbing. Her desire for him cresting. A moment later, and any thoughts of asking him to stop had flown from her mind, replaced with words of encouragement and pleading and begging him to go on.
“My apologies for having fallen asleep,” he whispered as he raised himself onto an elbow. He lowered his lips to her ear and nibbled on the lobe.
Victoria turned her head and stared at him from the corner of her eye. “I could not sleep if I tried,” she whispered in return.
“Then you will not mind if I pay down my debt more this night?”
Turning her body so she lay on her back, Victoria furrowed a dark brow. She loved the way his appreciative gaze darted to her breasts and belly, and secretly chided herself for having been so modest before dinner. “That all depends.”
Tom’s expression mirrored hers. “On what?”
“What happens after you have paid your debt in full?”
Thinking on the query for a moment, Tom chuckled softly. “Then I shall begin banking credits for the future.”
Victoria inhaled sharply when he dipped his head and nipped one of her breasts with his lips. “You expect to cause me pain in the future?”
Tom’s attentions had moved farther down the front of her body, but he paused in his ministrations to say, “I’m a man. It’s inevitable I will do something stupid,” he murmured. He lifted his head from her belly to remind her of the times she would be with child. “All those little aches and pains will add up quickly,” he warned, reminding her of how the little things mattered. “I would rather I never be in debt with you for the rest of our lives.”
She was about to put voice to a protest that she would be in debt to him, but thought better of it. Or at least she would have, if she’d had any mental faculties about her.
Whatever Tom was doing to her left her quite unable to think.
Epilogue
Three months later
“What is it, my love?” Tom asked when he found his wife staring at the floor in her bedchamber. He was dressed for the first ball of the Season in a black topcoat, white cravat, white tie and black satin trousers. She was dressed in the orchid gown she’d been wearing for their first dance together.
Her lady’s maid had apparently been dismissed, since Cummings wasn’t in the bedchamber.
Victoria furrowed her dark brows. “I cannot decide,” she complained.
Tom frowned and joined her, attempting to suppress a chuckle when he discovered various colors of dance slippers arranged in a long line. “The sliver ones, dear heart,” he said as he knelt and helped her into them.
“I don’t understand what’s wrong with me,” Victoria said, placing her hand on his shoulder for support. She leaned over him, admiring his backside as he saw to helping with the slippers.
“Are you staring at my bum?” Tom accused, his attention still on one of her feet.
“If you didn’t want me to, you shouldn’t have bent down like that, especially whilst wearing satin trousers,” she replied in a teasing voice. She sobered, though and said, “Other than matters of a carnal nature, I cannot seem to think straight.”
Tom finished putting on the slippers and leaned back on his haunches, her comment bringing back memories from his childhood. “There’s nothing wrong, exactly,” he said, his gaze moving to her midsection, where the orchid satin skirts flared out from a fitted waist. Although she was as trim there as she had been since their first night together, he remembered his mother never showed evidence of a pregnancy until she was five or more months along.
“Exactly?” Victoria repeated in alarm. “What does that mean?”
Tom straightened and pulled her into his arms. “There’s a colt on the way, my love. Six months, mayhap?”
Victoria’s eyes widened, and she leaned back to stare at Tom. At seeing her look of shock, he allowed a huge grin. “Or it could be a filly,” he offered. “Truth be told, I’d welcome either one. Or both,” he quickly added. “I should warn you that twins do run in my family.”
Blinking, Victoria looked as if she were about to faint. “I’m with child?”
Tom pulled her into his arms again and kissed her forehead. “I’m fairly certain you are.“
“There are six colts due to be born in the next couple of months,” she argued. “Who’s going to train them?”
The query had Tom wondering how best to respond. “You are, of course. I don’t expect to have to hire a replacement for you
until... until you’re no longer able to sit atop a horse,” he lied.
Victoria stared at him a moment. “You’re lying,” she accused.
“I am,” he agreed. “It will probably be the moment you go into labor. Until then...” He sighed, a grin still lighting his face. “You and Countess Haddon can commiserate together.”
“Commiserate?”
Tom nodded. “Haddon is sure she’s with child. At least, his mother is fairly sure—”
“Thomas!” she scolded. “How long have you known?” Juliet had just been to Fairmont Park this Tuesday past.
She hadn’t said a thing.
“About you? Or Juliet?”
Victoria angled her head to one side in an attempt to be cross with him. She couldn’t be, though. Not with the way he beamed in delight.
“You’ll probably deliver your babies on the same day,” Tom said with a shrug. “At least, that’s what Haddon seems to think.”
“You bounder,” she accused, a fist pounding his chest.
There wasn’t much force behind it, though, and Tom caught it in one hand and kissed the back of it, still grinning. “You can find out tonight. That is, if we’re not too late. We may have already missed the entire ball,” he teased.
An hour later
The Weatherstone manor was ablaze in lights as the Morganfield town coach came to a halt in front of it. David Carlington, Marquess of Morganfield, was the first to step down, followed by his marchioness, Adeline. Then their son, Christopher, looking as if he wasn’t a day past thirty, jumped down and turned to lift his wife from the coach.
“Christopher,” Juliet chided him. “You’ll wrinkle my gown,” she complained, her tone more of a tease than a complaint.
“No one will notice,” he countered as he set her down so her slippered feet touched the ground. “You glow as if you have a thousand lights inside you.”
“That’s because the gown is covered in gold sarcenet,” she argued. “And I’m wearing most of the parure you had made for me.”
“Actually—”
“Let’s go inside, shall we?” Morganfield suggested, his wife’s hand already on his arm. “I’d like to get to the library before anyone else,” he added as his eyebrows waggled in Adeline’s direction. “Lock the door and—
“David,” Adeline scolded. But she hurried alongside her husband as they made their way to the front door of the Weatherstone mansion.
Juliet glanced up at her husband. “Was he... serious?” she asked.
Christopher nodded. “They rather enjoy this first ball of the Season, and it’s not because of the orchestra or the dancing,” he murmured as he offered his arm.
Blushing at the thought of what the Morganfields intended to do in the library, Juliet struggled to keep a straight face. “About that,” she said as they made their way. “Did you intend to...?” She paused, unsure of how to finish the query.
“Intend to?” he prompted.
“Have your way with me? In the gardens? I hear they are legendary for illicit kissing. Forbidden fondling. Copious couplings.”
Christopher blinked. “Would... would I be allowed?” he asked. “It’s terribly chilly.”
Juliet suddenly screwed her face into a pout. “I cannot believe I just put voice to all that,” she claimed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“Oh, I do,” Christopher replied, just as they reached the front door.
“Oh? Do tell.”
“Me. And now my heir,” he said as he handed their coats to a footman. “Oh, look. The Grandbys are here,” he added, before Juliet could form a coherent response. “I’ll put money on a bet they have similar news,” he added as a dimple formed in his cheek.
“You toadie!” Juliet said in a hoarse whisper, but her smile was bright as she and Victoria embraced.
“Am I the last to know?” Victoria asked in a whisper.
“Apparently, I am,” Juliet complained on a sigh. “But it matters not,” she added as she released her best friend. “We’re with child. At the same time.”
“Well, it’s the little things that matter most,” Victoria replied as she let go her hold and regarded Juliet with a brilliant smile.
“He’s not that little,” Juliet argued.
Victoria stared at her friend for a moment before she burst out laughing.
Tom exchanged a quick glance with Christopher. “You look as if you’ve hit your head.”
Christopher waggled his brows. “Every night, damned headboard. So, shall we start our evening in the gardens?” he asked.
“The gardens,” Tom agreed, rather glad Victoria’s headboard was upholstered.
They took the hands of their wives and quickly made their way outside.
None of them complained about the cold.
Excerpt
Read on for an excerpt from Linda Rae Sande’s Book 4 of “The Heirs of the Aristocracy” Series
The Bargain of a Baroness
March 29, 1839, Harrington House, Mayfair
The black town coach might have been glossy when it departed from Eton, but it was covered with splatters of mud and dust by the time it covered the three-and-twenty miles to the Earl of Mayfield’s mansion in Park Lane.
Baron Edward Harrington, son of the late Charles Harrington and now heir-apparent to the Mayfield earldom, stepped down from the coach and regarded the stucco-covered brick pile that stood before him. Until he had left for Windsor when he was twelve years ago, Harrington House had been his home. At some point in the future, Stanley Harrington, Earl of Mayfield, would die of what would most assuredly be old age, and Edward would inherit not only the earldom, but also the house.
When he had left Eton that morning, he thought he couldn’t wait.
Now he was having second thoughts.
Apparently, his grandfather was still spending his blunt on the horses and stables rather than on the upkeep of the house. The gardener obviously hadn’t paid a call since the autumn before, and soot stained the stucco. At least the green wrought iron fence looked as if it were still in good repair, and the pavement in front had recently been swept clean.
Edward gave a nod to the liveried footman who was seeing to his trunk as he took a deep breath and headed for the front door.
The dark blue door opened even before he had a chance to use the lion head brass knocker. Potter, as ancient as he had been when Edward was but a tot, stood, stooped nearly in half, and actually displayed a nearly toothless grin at seeing him.
“Potter, you haven’t aged a day,” Edward said with a huge grin.
“You lie like a rug,” the butler responded, his aged laugh sending him into spasms of a cough that had been with the servant for over a decade.
“Oh, that’s one I’ll have to remember,” Edward said as he entered the vestibule. He blinked as he surveyed the interior. “Let me guess. Mother finally convinced her ladyship a renovation was required,” he guessed.
“Truth be told, I don’t think she asked,” Potter replied in a hoarse whisper.
“Is she in residence?”
“She is. I’ll let her know—”
“I’ll surprise her,” Edward said, knowing it would take the butler at least ten minutes to make his way up the stairs to the parlor. “Any idea where I might find her?”
“Right here, actually,” Hannah Simpson Harrington said, stepping from somewhere beyond the vestibule to regard her son with a mixture of surprise, happiness, and annoyance. “Did you... get kicked out of school?”
Edward’s jaw dropped at the same time his brows arched. “Mother! Easter is this Sunday. I have the week to attend the entertainments before classes resume,” he replied.
Hannah let out a gasp of relief and hurried to pulled her son into a hug. “I’m so sorry. I’ve lost track of time,” she claimed, just before she kissed his cheek and then stepped back to regard him. “Are you getting enough to eat?”
“Yes, Mother. But I could do with more,” he replied as he patted his mid-se
ction.
Turning to Potter, Hannah said, “Tea in the parlor, as soon as it can be arranged. Lots of cake. And let’s do have a luncheon in the breakfast parlor.”
“Already arranged, my lady,” Potter replied.
Blinking, Hannah regarded the butler a moment before she turned her attention to her son.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t order it,” Edward said with a grin.
“Potter, you’re not allowed to retire,” Hannah stated before she grabbed her son’s arm and pulled him into the hall. “Tell me everything,” she ordered as she led him to the curved staircase that led to the first floor.
Edward furrowed his brows, his gaze taking in his mother’s gown. “You’re still wearing lavender,” he said, censure apparent in his voice.
“I haven’t yet paid a call on my modiste,” Hannah replied.
“I’ll take you on the morrow.”
Hannah paused on the stair landing. “I rather doubt you wish to spend your limited days in London at a modiste’s shop,” she replied.
“I’ll be spending time with you,” he countered. “Have you accepted all the invitations for this week’s entertainments?”
Dipping her head, Hannah resumed her climb up the stairs. “It’s not as if I receive very many,” she replied.
Edward pulled several missives from his waistcoat pocket. “You might not, but I certainly have,” he countered. “I’ve responded to every one saying I will be in attendance.”
Hannah’s eyes widened at seeing the folded notes. “You’re only sixteen. And just how long will you be in London?”
“Just the week, Mother. Before I leave, I want you to have invitations to ride in the park from no less than four gentlemen.”
The Choice of a Cavalier (The Heirs of the Aristocracy Book 3) Page 29
