Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One

by Burrowes, Grace

  Tales of Hollandaise sauce and bœuf à la Bourguignonne, perhaps, or maybe she treated herself to novels of adventure and far-off lands.

  “You want to come upstairs with me?”

  “I most assuredly do, but only if you want that too.” How shy they had both become. Rye marshalled his courage and laced his fingers with hers. “I want to take you to bed, Annie, to make sweet, passionate love with you, to lie spent, amazed, and grateful in your arms. I think of you when I ought to be attending to my ledgers and correspondence. I lie awake…”

  She was watching his mouth, and that threatened Rye’s dwindling store of self-restraint.

  She rose and settled in his lap. “You lie awake?”

  How good and right she felt in his arms, how precious. “I lie awake, and I ache, Annie Pearson. I ache and enjoy the ache, which is surely the sign of a man who has lost his wits if not his heart.”

  Ann sighed, her breath a soft breeze against his cheek. “My bedroom is to the left at the top of the stairs.”

  Rye let the joy of that announcement sink in, then rose with Ann in his arms. “Top of the stairs, to the left,” he muttered.

  She looped an arm around his neck and managed the door latches. As Rye traversed the house, he wondered if this was how a bridegroom felt, carrying his true love across symbolic and literal thresholds.

  Hopeful, nervous, proud, and aroused.

  He sat Ann on a comfy four-poster bed and stood before her, pleased to find the room warm. “You kept the fire going?”

  She leaned her forehead against his middle. “I hoped you would call.”

  If she’d kept her bedroom warm, she’d hoped he’d do more than call. She’d hoped for more than a quick tup in the parlor, too, and she deserved more than that. Rye’s nervousness abated, replaced by a sense that he was exactly where he was meant to be and exactly who Ann wanted to be with.

  “Will you valet me?” he asked, though he hadn’t needed assistance undressing since he’d been breeched. He made the request because he suspected Ann would be less nervous if her hands were occupied.

  She hopped off the bed. “Of course. Your eye patch first. You have lovely eyes, and I want to see them both.”

  He passed her his eye patch, feeling oddly exposed by that simple gesture. She’d seen him without it before, but this was different.

  “I need a moment to adjust after I’ve taken it off,” he said. “What next?”

  By slow degrees, she peeled him out of his clothing, sniffing each garment before folding it neatly. “You greeted your horse this morning.”

  “Our new lad, Victor, has taken over the stable duties, and the work wants regular inspection. I also like to look in on my mounts. The older of the two was with me on campaign. He likes apples.”

  Inane thing to say in the midst of a seduction, but Rye was down to his boots and breeches, and Ann was studying his arm.

  “You described your injury as being mostly to your hip and ribs, with some damage to the eye and your hearing. You suffered more than that, Orion.” She ran her fingers over the scars on his arm, then over the scars on his ribs.

  “My uniform caught fire when I raised my arm to shield my face.” Thank God that MacKay had been on hand to put it out almost immediately. “The scars on my ribs were from some other battle.”

  She wrapped him in an embrace. “There were so many, you forget?”

  “Right now, all I can think about is getting you out of that dress and into bed.” He fell silent, lest he babble in two languages at once.

  “You’d best deal with my hooks, then.” She presented him with her back, and Rye did as she commanded, freeing her from a legion of hooks, each one tinier than the one before. He untied her stays while he was in the neighborhood and stole a few kisses to her nape.

  “Lilacs,” he said when her dress and stays had been draped over a chair. “You must wash your hair with lilac soap. Shall I take down your hair?”

  “Take out the pins and leave the braid.”

  “Up on the bed with you, then.”

  She slanted a dubious glance at him, but complied. Rye pulled off his boots and sat cross-legged behind her. She wore her chemise, he kept his breeches on, the better to comport himself with the restraint the situation called for.

  He searched her hair for pins and mentally cast about for next steps. “What sort of loving do you enjoy most?” She had experience. She’d been at pains to assure him of that, but what sort of experience?

  “Not hurried,” she said, “not furtive. What of you?”

  How modest were her sexual ambitions, and what a poor reflection they were upon her previous lovers.

  “I hope the interlude can be joyous,” Rye said, “sweet, a little wild, and a lot pleasurable. Leisurely until we’re overcome by passion. I want my lover to think of me always with fondness and a smile.” With Ann, fondness and a smile would not be enough, but a soldier crossed Spain mile by mile, step by step.

  “Tell me about the wild part.”

  And yet, a man could fall in love between one heartbeat and the next.

  He showed her, starting with sweet kisses to her shoulders, then turning her to straddle his lap and adding caresses to her breasts. She liked that apparently, arching into his touch, burying her fingers in his hair, and joining her mouth to his.

  “Breeches off, Orion.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” But to remove his breeches, he had to part from her, which was difficult when he craved to touch her and taste her and feel her heart beating against his own.

  Ann solved his dilemma by extricating herself from his embrace and scrambling under the covers. “Quickly, please.”

  Rye left the bed and stepped out of his breeches, tossing them atop her dress. He made a little production out of adding a half scoop of coal on the fire, not only to give Ann a chance to inspect him, but also to give himself a chance to gather his wits.

  “Should I remove my chemise?” she asked.

  He faced the bed and pretended to ignore the cockstand arrowed up along his belly. “If you have to ask, the answer is not yet. When you cannot bear to have the blasted thing on, when you fling it across the room to land who knows where, then it’s time to take it off.”

  Ann blushed, but she did not look away. “Clearly, it’s time you joined me in this bed, Orion Goddard.”

  “A woman of discernment.”

  She lay back, and he climbed under the covers and crouched above her, not touching.

  “Orion?”

  “Tell me what you want, Annie.”

  “You,” she said, reaching for him. “I want you.”

  “I am yours to command.” He resumed the slow, soft kisses she seemed to like and by degrees gave her his weight. The fit was marvelous, and the feel of her legs snug around his flanks a pleasure beyond description.

  She’d kept the bedroom warm, she’d told him her troubles. She touched him as if he were every weary soldier ever to come home to loving arms, and kissed him as if he were her favorite treat.

  He kissed her back with the same sense of rejoicing, for he was hers to command—and hers to love too.

  * * *

  Orion Goddard’s loving had a relentless quality, an unwillingness to be either hurried or denied, that drew Ann away from the troubles in the Coventry’s kitchen. His touch was slow and cherishing, his kisses entrancing.

  He focused on Ann, and her focus shifted to him. He was lean all over, tough muscle, scarred flesh, but warm, too, and comfortable with physical intimacy. He ran his hand over Ann’s neck and shoulders, and traced her features with delicate fingers.

  “You hide yourself,” he whispered. “Hide behind recipes and aprons, busyness and competence. You don’t have to hide from me, Annie Pearson. Tell me what you want.”

  You. Closer. More. The words would not come and barely made sense to Ann anyway. Orion knew what he was about, a far cry from the fumblings Ann had endured in previous encounters. She locked her ankles at the small of his back and
pulled him closer.

  “You are like the cavalry,” he said, tracing her brow with his nose. “All headlong and heedless. Wellington despaired of us. Surrender to pleasure, and I promise you victory.”

  He touched her everywhere, teasing her breasts, caressing her arms, and nuzzling her palms. He was like an incoming tide, submerging Ann more and more deeply in sensation and yearning. When he had introduced her to the wonder of a man’s mouth skillfully applied to a lady’s breasts—even when she yet wore her chemise—she rallied her wits to return fire.

  She started where he had, tracing his facial features, and she spent extra time brushing her thumbs across his brow. That damned eye patch had to be a nuisance, for he went still under her hand, then sighed.

  Ann graduated to the planes and sinews of Orion’s back, making so bold as to learn the contours of his muscular bum and to put her own mouth to his flat, male nipple. That foray earned her a soft groan. All the while, she was aware that her lover was in a state of splendid readiness for the act itself.

  Orion, however, did not seem aware. He seemed content to let her pet and taste him until spring.

  “Up,” Ann said, giving his bottom a pat. “Please.”

  He eased up and sat back, his weight grazing Ann’s thighs.

  “The chemise has to go,” Ann said, pulling the hem free from the covers and half raising herself on her elbows. “Get this damned thing off of me.”

  “Hold still.” He complied without so much as a tug to Ann’s braid and pitched the offending linen over his shoulder. “The look of you now will stay with me until I’m a tired old man, past all mischief, save what I’ve stored in memory.”

  “Enough looking,” Ann said, wrapping him in her arms and urging him down over her. “More loving.”

  He exhibited more of his infernal patience. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, Orion, I am sure.” About the larger picture—the situation with Jules, Aunt Melisande’s backhanded support, the dreaded prospect of becoming Aunt Meli’s companion—Ann was in a welter of bewilderment. But in this bed, in Orion Goddard’s arms, she knew exactly who and what she wanted.

  “So be it,” he said, kissing her forehead with an odd solemnity. “But you tell me if I’m blundering, Annie. You pinch my arse, pull my hair, bite my ear. I can get carried away.”

  “Your version of lovemaking sounds like a brawl.” A glorious brawl. Ann would have elaborated on that point, except that Orion hitched closer.

  “Hold me,” he whispered, tucking an arm under Ann’s neck. He murmured something in French—she caught the verb rêver, to dream—and the moment did take on the quality of a reverie. She closed her eyes the better to savor the sensation of Orion easing his way into her body. He stole forward by minute increments, then slipped away, then gently pressed forward again.

  “You are driving me mad, Orion.”

  “Good.”

  Ann came to appreciate his delicacy, for her body had an adjustment to make. He seemed to sense even that, going still, hilted inside her, while he treated her to wicked, heated kisses. His tongue had skills other than the ability to taste, and so, Ann discovered, did hers.

  She was exploring that skill when he resumed a slight rocking of his hips, and something about the angle he’d taken was different. More maddening.

  “Move with me, Annie. Take what you need.”

  She never took. Never demanded, never insisted, but her self-restraint deserted her when Orion levered up on his arms and began thrusting in earnest.

  “This is the part where you get carried away?” Ann managed.

  “This is the part where we get carried away.”

  He knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly how to ply Ann’s body so desire rose to a galloping need, then beyond that, to a transcendent pleasure. She arched up at the same moment he tucked close, and she battered him with the cataclysm storming through her.

  He might have laughed softly, the wretch, while Ann pressed her cheek to the rough warmth of his chest and shuddered under an intensity of sensation. She had glimpsed these feelings before, fleetingly, glancingly, but with Orion, she became another creature entirely, luminous with bodily joy.

  The magnificence faded like summer thunder, and Orion gathered her close. She needed his embrace to keep her from flying into a million iridescent pieces, and she needed his arms around her because tears threatened.

  “Catch your breath,” he said, stroking her hair. “I certainly need to catch mine.”

  How gracious he was, particularly for a man who’d denied himself satisfaction, the better to please his lover.

  Ann burrowed closer, a greater act of surrender than even what had passed before. “I am all in a muddle.” Scattered to the four winds and keenly dreading what a reassembling of wits and dignity would entail. I need this. I need this man.

  But she did not need the complications that came with such an admission.

  “Let’s undo you a little more.” Orion eased back, and Ann nearly shrieked at him not to leave her yet. She should have trusted him, for he surged forward again, setting up a steady rhythm. “This is not like tea biscuits, Annie, where you must be careful not to overindulge in company. Gobble me up, devour me, and with a little time and inspiration, you can have me all over again.”

  She had no breath with which to argue, because when she’d hiked her knees the better to wiggle closer to him, he’d taken hold of her foot, his grasp warm and firm. As the abyss of satisfaction loomed before her again, he pressed his thumb into her arch, and several forms of pleasure coalesced.

  She relaxed into completion, let it wash through her rather than struggling to endure it, and the result was a relief so profound as to defy words. She was satisfied, whole, at peace.

  Spent and amazed, to use Orion’s words.

  “I have been selfish,” she said before sleep could drag her under.

  “You have been magnificent, but now I must be selfish. Kiss me farewell.”

  She kissed him, languid heat threatening to flare into another bonfire, even as he slid from her body. He pressed near, rocking against her slowly.

  “Someday…” He drifted into French again, the words too soft for Ann to translate. His pleasure came quietly while she hugged him close, grateful that she’d been spared his more tender sentiments.

  Ann didn’t have a lot of experience, but she had enough to know that Orion Goddard was special. For the closeness he offered her, for the spectacular pleasure, and the simple consideration of a shawl draped over her knees, she would give up much.

  Not everything, but much. Much indeed, and that was a problem.

  * * *

  A first encounter with a new lover was supposed to be a little awkward, a little sweet, and something to be got through as pleasurably as possible. The true indulgence came later, when habits and needs were familiar, and the lovemaking could be adventurous or comforting at the whim of the lovers.

  Not so, making love with Ann Pearson.

  She held nothing back, not her kisses, not her passion, not her affection. Rye had withdrawn, of course, and she’d clung to him through the inevitable mess and lassitude. Her hands were marvelous—both callused and tender, a novel sensation—and she was comfortable with silence. She’d pulled the covers up over his shoulders, stroked his hair, even let him doze off.

  When had he ever, ever, ever fallen asleep in a lover’s arms? The words sounded romantic, the reality was fifteen stone of weary lout snoring away atop his lady. Rye had awoken to the feel of Ann’s hands moving on his back, the fragrance of lilacs teasing his nose.

  In addition to the lovely sense of repletion, he’d also felt—the word both fascinated and unnerved him—safe. With Ann, he felt safe. Safe enough to doze off, safe enough to linger.

  Safe from what or whom? He pondered that question while wrapped around Ann spoon-fashion, inordinately pleased that he wasn’t the only one who’d needed a nap.

  He was dreaming of gingerbread when Ann stirred in his
embrace, faced him, and tucked a leg over his hip. “You are so warm and lavender-y. I dreamed of Provence, and I have never been there.”

  I’ll take you. She would delight in the herbs, the sunshine, and garden-scented breezes.

  “Would you like to go?” A wedding journey came to mind, more evidence that Rye had lost his wits. One tumble, however glorious, did not a betrothal make when a man’s business was faltering and his enemies massing their forces.

  “My home is in England. A cook cannot gallivant about the Continent on a whim, and who would look after Hannah in my absence?”

  “I did not mean leave this minute, I meant…” A long courtship, perhaps? Hannah would be apprenticed for the next seven years.

  Ann regarded him in the dim light of the bedroom. “I know what you meant. It’s a sweet thought. I think of taking you to see my little manor. Papa left me land in Surrey, and he was wise enough not to sell off all of our trees. We have a proper wood, where I fought every battle in history and lived out every fairy tale ever told by old women to fractious grandchildren.”

  “You own property?” Perhaps it was the context—naked, under the covers, replete with spent passion—but Ann’s admission had the quality of a confidence.

  “I lease it out, or my solicitors do. The proceeds go into the cent-per-cents.”

  She fell silent as if expecting Rye to leave the bed in a fit of male insecurity because she wasn’t penniless.

  “My family seat is let out as well,” he said. “I did not see how I could manage my English acres in addition to farms in Provence, vineyards in Champagne, and a London business. Not without hiring a parcel of expensive stewards or factors. Something had to go, and letting out the country house was the logical choice. Do you miss your home?”

  “That’s complicated.” She rolled to her back, and Rye wanted to pull her close again. “For more than half my life, I haven’t lived there, and nobody I love is there anymore. It’s a place full of memories.”