She was starving.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped.
Geoffrey growled something unintelligible but plainly favorable as he went about scooting her skirts further up her legs. She trembled with anticipation and eagerness when his hands neared the juncture of her thighs. On a colder day, she would have worn a pair of knickers, but today she had chosen to go bare but for her petticoat and shift. The sound he made—primal and possessive—upon finding her bare and wet made her shudder with wicked delight.
“Open my trousers,” he muttered, still plying her with searing, open-mouthed kisses while his fingers dipped between the supple folds of her sex.
Her body throbbing with need, she reached for his fall and undid the buttons, careful not to tug too hard and pull one free by mistake. His cock was thick and stout beneath the fabric, and once she released the final fastener, she needed no encouragement to free the organ from the slit in his drawers.
At the touch of her hand against his hard, hot flesh, Geoffrey hissed in a sharp breath even as he thrust himself into her enclosing palm. “This is going to be fast,” he warned her, tracing the soaking seam of her sex. “Are you ready?”
She thought that should be obvious, but she loved that he was so careful of her comfort. Of her pleasure. In answer, she scooted closer to the edge of the table and spread her legs wider. “Fast is good.”
With a grateful groan, he replaced his hands with the head of his shaft and drove into her in a single, silken glide. Her head dropped back at the sensation of her channel stretching and filling with the broad, sturdy length of him. Heavenly. And yet so profane and earthly.
When he was fully seated, he slid his hands under her backside to hold her in place and began to move. He hadn’t exaggerated. It was fast. Fast and wild and utterly breathtaking. He slammed into her like a hurricane, and desperate pressure roared up inside her. At the crest, she thought she would fly apart, torn asunder by the storm, and then there was that single, perfect moment of pure stillness and bliss before the shuddering spasms of climax took her. As she rode out the ebbing waves, Geoffrey went taut, his handsome features tightening in a mask of pleasure-pain. He held the position for several seconds before he wrenched himself from her body and spilled his seed onto the floor in heavy, viscous spurts.
The entire glorious coupling had taken, by her reckoning, less than five minutes. They were both panting with effort and exhilaration. Geoffrey rested his forehead against hers, his hands moving in a gentle caress from her buttocks up to her back and shoulders. They stayed that way for more than a minute, neither of them wanting to break the spell.
Only once their breathing had slowed from a gallop to a trot did Geoffrey release her. Lifting his head, he stepped over the puddle he’d left on the floor and headed into the kitchen to retrieve a clean linen towel from the rack. After drying himself off and tucking his penis back into his drawers, he bent to wipe up the mess.
Tossing her petticoat and skirt back down over her knees, Laura remarked, “I don’t suppose you need do that any longer. We are getting married, after all.”
He looked up at her, his expression remarkably prim for a man who had just ravished her on the dining room table in the middle of the afternoon. “I did not wish to presume. And we have not talked about having children.”
“Oh.” A series of emotions burned through her: surprise, doubt, fear.
It had not occurred to her that a married couple would discuss whether they should have children. What would be would be. And given her track record of having produced only one living child in nearly nine years of marriage, she supposed whether or not children were even possible was up for debate. And perhaps at their ages, purposely starting a family was unwise. Her heart felt leaden. She wasn’t sure what she dreaded more: that he wanted children or that he did not. If he did, perhaps it was not her he should marry. Though his efforts to prevent conception even after there would be no harm to her reputation from a pregnancy rather argued the reverse.
After several agonized seconds, she gave voice to the question. “Do you want children?”
Completing his task, he rose to his feet again. A shadow of regret flickered across his features, but he quickly mastered the emotion. “I want you,” he declared with a firmness that was unarguable. “Future children are…theoretical. Abstract. You are not.”
“But theoretically, do you like the idea of having children?” she pressed.
Sighing, he hoisted himself onto the table beside her. After setting aside the soiled cloth, he enclosed her nearest hand in both wide, warm palms. “I already have a child.”
Laura could not have been more surprised if he had told her he wasn’t a British Army officer but an itinerant preacher in search of converts. Which was ridiculous, of course. He was an adult male in his forties. And he had certainly had plenty of experience in the carnal arts. It would be more surprising if he did not have at least one child and, indeed, that he had only one could be considered something of a miracle.
And still, she felt cut to the quick by the revelation. “I see,” she murmured.
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. Because while I know I have a daughter, she has no idea I am her father.”
“Oh. That must be…” She struggled for the right word. Difficult? Painful? Confusing?
To her gratitude, he relieved her of her hardship. “My own fault. You see, when I was nineteen, I met a very beautiful young woman who was married to a much-older man. It is a common occurrence in England—young ladies becoming second or even third wives to wealthy noblemen old enough to be their grandfathers. That was the case with Diana.” He grimaced with obvious chagrin. “I cannot blame her. I should have known better. When she told me she was carrying my child, I offered to sell my commission and run off with her. She looked at me as if I was daft. Her husband did not visit her bed often, but often enough that she could pass the child off as his. She only told me, she said, because she did not want me to do something rash and ruin her life by letting on that the babe was mine.
“And so, I have a twenty-three-year-old daughter about whom I know next to nothing. I stayed out of her life because it was best for her and her mother, and also because it was easier for me. But I learned my lesson, and I’ve been damned careful ever since to do everything I can to avoid siring another child. As far as I know, I’ve succeeded. Now you ask whether I want children, and the truth is, I have no idea.” He gave her a helpless look. “All I can tell you is I have spent most of my adult life trying not to have them.”
Laura leaned her head against his shoulder. “To be honest,” she said, “I am not even certain I can have more children. I miscarried when Daniel was three, and I never conceived again. So in some ways, it is a relief you don’t particularly want them. But as long as you don’t particularly not want them, I do not see that we need to continue to take precautions against having any.”
After pressing a kiss to her hair, Geoffrey released her hands and hopped back to his feet. “Are you sure you want to start all over again now?”
She chuckled, recalling what it was like to have a newborn with a mixture of nostalgia and trepidation. “I’ll admit, the idea is a bit daunting. But part of me misses the simplicity and sweetness of infants and small children, and I am certainly in no rush to regain that experience by having grandchildren. I may be rather old to become a mother, but I certainly feel too young to be a grandmother!”
With a snort, Geoffrey circled her waist with his hands and lifted her from the table. “I’m not certain any of us ever feels old enough for that.” He spun her back toward the chair she’d been kneeling on when he’d first arrived. “Though, come to think of it, I may be one. My daughter is very likely married by now.”
Resettled on one knee, Laura reached up to cup his cheek. “I’m sorry you never had the chance to know her.”
He shrugged. “I rarely think of her at all. Which does not speak well of me, I suppose,” he added, frowning.
With
drawing her hand from his face, Laura shook her head. “I think it’s perfectly understandable. From your point of view, she’s as theoretical as any children you and I may have together. The only difference is you’ve been denied the opportunity to make her real. And while I suppose she must have felt she was doing the right thing, I find I very much dislike your daughter’s mother for keeping her from you.” Picking up the knife again, she repositioned the sausage on the board and began slicing it again, her motions brisk and precise.
Geoffrey let out a whoop of laughter. “I think she is lucky she is not in the same room with you, or she might be in some danger.”
The observation made Laura laugh too. She had been imagining carving up the other woman for her cruelty, at least figuratively. Perhaps Laura was more bloodthirsty than she had previously realized.
When their mirth subsided, Geoffrey asked, “Would you mind terribly if we try to avoid making babies for at least a little while? I find I am in no hurry to share you with an infant. Sharing you with your nearly adult son is complicated enough.”
Laura thought wistfully for a few seconds about how sweet it would be to have not just another baby, but Geoffrey’s baby. A physical representation of their devotion to one another. But he was right—they barely knew one another. By the time she had married Samuel, she had known him for nearly a year. Daniel’s arrival, more than a year after their nuptials, had been disruptive in a number of ways. How much more disruptive would his birth have been if she and Samuel had spent less time together first?
“No,” she said at last, “I would not mind. But whenever you are ready to try, I shall be a most willing participant.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Whatever for?”
His smile was crooked. “For caring about me more than I care about myself.”
“Hey,” shouted a voice near the doorway. Daniel. “Can we expect lunch sometime today?”
Laura and Geoffrey exchanged a look that was equal parts horror and delight, and then burst into laughter again. It was some time before lunch was ready to be delivered.
* * *
And so, Laura got to have her cake and eat it too. Which was to say she got to have her illicit affair and her respectable marriage.
Geoffrey sneaked to and from her bedroom that night and the next two nights. They made love furtively but enthusiastically, and it was every bit as much wicked fun to meet his eyes across the table at breakfast and know what they’d done in secret the night before as she had imagined.
It ended all too abruptly on Thursday morning when the three laborers she normally employed for the harvest arrived on the doorstep, hats in hand, pleading for work. Like many others, the men—two brothers, James and Henry, and their cousin, George—had decamped from Plattsburgh shortly before the battle. James, the eldest of the group, explained they had found employment as construction laborers in Albany. Although the pay was good, the group had realized after a few weeks that the expense of keeping lodgings in the city and feeding themselves offset any increase over what they could earn back home, and so they had returned once they’d felt confident another British attack was not in the offing. Would she, could she see her way to clear to hiring them? In penitence for their failure to make themselves available at the beginning of the harvest, they would work longer hours for the same wages.
Even if Laura had been inclined to turn them away as punishment for their somewhat cowardly decision to flee from Plattsburgh when it was threatened, she was in no position to do so. Between her injury and the fact that neither Geoffrey nor Abigail was as quick and efficient as an experienced picker would be, the harvest was well behind schedule. Under current conditions, there was absolutely no possibility they would bring in all the fruit before it turned and became unusable. And if the harvest was short, the cider would be short as well. No, this was not the time to stand on principle, and in any case, her principles did not extend toward holding their flight from danger against them. Especially when almost everyone else in town had made same choice.
And so, their workforce expanded from three pickers to five, and Abigail was able to come back to work in the house. This left them, however, with a shortage of billets. There were four beds in the bunkhouse and three in the house. Daniel’s bed was not large enough to be shared by two grown men, even two brothers. Abigail could have slept with Laura, of course, ceding her bed to Geoffrey, but there was a much simpler and more obvious solution. With Daniel and Abigail as witnesses, Laura and Geoffrey were married that morning in a quick, impromptu ceremony performed by Reverend Shackleford in his parlor.
That night, Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Langston slept together the entire night with the blessing of both church and law. In deference to the rest of the household, their lovemaking remained as furtive—but as enthusiastic—as before.
Part II
London
Chapter Seventeen
London, England –December 1814
Walter Langston was only present when the pair of starched, stern-faced army officers delivered the message to his brother, Viscount Nash Langston, because the entire family—four couples and their combined fifteen children—had gathered in London to celebrate an early Christmas. This had been the custom for many years due to the fact that Walter, as vicar of a church in Cumbria, was required to actually be in that church for the aforementioned holiday. Had the missive arrived a week earlier or a week later, he would not have been party to the shiver of dread that ran through the assembled members of the extended Langston clan when Nash’s butler escorted the two military men, outfitted in full dress uniform and wearing identically solemn expressions, into the parlor.
At the sight of the officers, the buzzing of conversation and laughter ceased, replaced by a terrible, heavy silence. There could be only one reason for such a visitation, and all of them, with the exception of the youngest of the children, knew what it was.
Nash rose from his chair with ponderous deliberation, as if he could change the content of the message by delaying the timing of its delivery. When he was standing, the officers approached him and bowed. The more senior of the two, a captain from his insignia, held out a thick, folded piece of parchment, sealed with a stamp in red wax. His brother made no move to take it.
Walter’s gut roiled. His eyes sought his wife, Artemisia, first. She sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room, where she had been supervising several of the older children in setting up and reading the rules of a new board game. Her comprehension of the nature and gravity of situation—and of the whole family’s impending grief—was written in the unusual pallor of her complexion and solemn cast of her lovely features. This was their first Christmas without her beloved father in attendance. She understood, better than any of them, what the next few minutes and hours would hold. He held her gaze for the barest of seconds and felt the tightness in his chest loosen ever so slightly at the constancy of her love and support.
Glancing toward his twin sister, Freddie, Walter saw her grope for her husband’s hand, her eyes bright with embryonic tears. Conrad Pearce’s palm dwarfed his wife’s, but the gentleness with which he enclosed her fingers was evident in the way her shoulders relaxed at his touch. Their fifteen-year-old son, Harry, too old for the board game but too young to be treated as an adult, sat beside his mother, wearing a tight-lipped expression that belied his attempt to appear prepared to take the imminent blow in a suitably manly fashion.
Conrad’s brother, Thomas, and his wife, Sabine, sat farther away from the rest of the family and nearer to the fireplace, where the stockings had been hung and where their two children, along with the three youngest members of Walter and Artemisia’s adopted brood, sat on the floor examining their new treasures. The older of the Pearce children, Marie, who’d just turned six, seemed suddenly to notice the pall that had fallen over the room. She pointed at the officers and asked plaintively, “Mama, why are there two Father Christmases? And they don’t seem
very jolly.”
Somehow, the childish observation eased some of the tension in the room. There was nearly palpable whoosh of released breaths as, to a one, the adults and near-adults stifled their laughter.
Sabine opened her mouth, no doubt to correct her daughter’s misapprehension, but before she could speak, Walter’s youngest son, Noel, who considered himself very much superior to Marie by virtue of being almost seven—his birthday being celebrated on Christmas Eve since its exact date was unknown—said haughtily, “They aren’t Father Christmas. They are in the army.”
Marie huffed. “Then why are they wearing red suits? And why does that one—” here, she pointed quite impolitely toward the captain, who still proffered the folded missive to Nash as if it were a gilded crown of thorns, “—have white whiskers?”
Her observation was, of course, completely accurate. The captain’s sideburns were quite long, quite bushy, and nearly snow-white, as was his curly but short-cropped hair.
“Because British officers wear red, mon chou,” said her mother gently. “Now, come sit with me for a moment and be quiet.” Sabine patted her knee in invitation.
The little girl, her hair a bright, coppery-red like her mother’s, frowned in annoyance at the order, but then clambered readily into Sabine’s lap.
Thomas scooped their son, three-year-old Jasper, from the floor and into his own lap, though not before the child managed to grasp two of the toy soldiers he’d received in his stocking in his chubby fingers.
The irony was not lost on Walter.
“My lord,” the captain implored, thrusting the parchment toward Nash. “Please, take it.”
Nash folded his arms over his chest. Though he was approaching his fiftieth birthday, Walter’s brother looked fitter and sturdier than either of the officers, both of whom had the appearance of men who’d been riding more desks than horses recently. “Tell me,” he rumbled.
Sleeping with the Enemy: Lords of Lancashire, Book 4 Page 13
