by Darcy Burke
Fortunately, he was near enough to the foyer that he managed to duck out before the women could waylay him in the crowd. Grateful that the modest proportions of the home Sabine had bought for herself meant any gathering of more than a dozen or so people made the space difficult to navigate, he darted up the stairs before anyone could follow him. When he finally opened the door she had indicated belonged to her—now their—bedchamber, he found her sitting in a window seat, gazing out at the rolling green landscape.
Still clad in the blue silk gown she’d worn to the wedding, she turned to look at him as he entered. “I was beginning wonder if you got lost,” she teased, “but it is not that a large house.”
Closing the door, he reached up and tugged to loosen his cravat. “It is harder than you would think to escape from a small room when it is full of people. Especially when one of them is your boss.” He unwrapped the length of white fabric from around his neck and frowned at her. “Why are you still wearing that dress?”
Not that he objected to the gown, in and of itself. It was, in fact, quite beautiful. Or, more accurately, she was beautiful and the dress wore her well. Simple and elegant, with a scooped bodice that cupped her breasts in a manner he rather envied, the gown definitely benefitted from the generous curves of her body and the luminous color of her skin.
And he wanted her out of it.
She rose from the window seat in a fluid motion. “Once I was ready to leave for the church, I gave Finchley the rest of the day off.” Then she turned so her back was to him, displaying the long row of small pearly buttons running down along her spine. “But as you can see, I cannot get out of this on my own.”
Thomas glared at the fiddly-looking buttons, which he would have had trouble with even if he weren’t burning to have her. A year. It had been almost a year since that last night in Rouen, and it would take another year to unhook those damned buttons. “I could just rip it off you,” he suggested helpfully.
She snorted. “You absolutely will not. This is not even my dress. It is Freddie’s. She lent it to me after reviewing my wardrobe and declaring I had absolutely nothing appropriate to get married in.”
That sounded like Freddie. She might prefer wearing breeches under her pelisse—Thomas had had that particular story from her own lips the day it had happened—but she had a surprisingly good eye for which pelisses were most fashionable and appropriate for any occasion, and that eye extended to clothing for other occasions. And she would most definitely not be pleased if he left one of her best gowns in ruins. “I would have married you if you’d been wearing a burlap sack,” he groused and then sighed with resignation. He was just going to have to undo the buttons himself. He tossed his cravat onto the window seat. “Come here.”
The smile that lit her face was half apologetic, half sultry. “I really did not consider the problem of the buttons until I got here,” she admitted.
“I don’t mind,” he lied, but it was only a small lie. He minded the delay, not the task itself. Although, to be truthful, his eagerness to have her made his fingers clumsier than they ought to have been, and the buttons were slipperier than he anticipated. At one point, about midway down, he gave serious thought to risking the wrath of Freddie and simply yanking the two halves apart, but managed to restrain himself.
When the dress finally fell away from her torso, she stepped out of it, revealing her short stays and chemise. Still too much clothing, but a considerable improvement. She stooped to retrieve the gown from the floor, giving him a tantalizing view of the plump curve of her arse before she straightened and crossed to the wardrobe to return the garment to a hanger propped over the open door. Thomas spied several dresses he recognized, including the plain woolen frocks she wore when caring for her horses and the dark green traveling dress she had worn several times on the way to Paris.
Once she had hung the gown to her satisfaction, she turned back to him and said, “Now I believe it is you who is wearing far too many clothes.”
“I can take care of that,” he assured her and began shrugging out of his frock coat.
She shook her head and advanced on him. “Oh, no. I demand to take part.”
Well, he couldn’t very well argue with that, could he? He allowed her to remove the coat and then his waistcoat. She undid the buttons of his shirt and untucked it from the waist of his breeches, but he had to help her draw it over his head. His cock was hard and aching by the time she finished, her apple-and-cut-grass scent mingling with the unmistakable musk of female arousal in his nostrils. He felt like a bull in rut. But she didn’t immediately move to release him, curse her. Instead, she traced her fingers over the muscles of his chest, grazing his nipples with her thumbs. He clenched his teeth.
“You are more muscular here than I remember,” she mused.
Swallowing a groan, he said, “When I missed you, I exercised.” He grasped her wrist and brought her hand to his mouth, kissing her palm before flicking his tongue against is center. “And I missed you a lot.”
After that, the remainder of his clothing—and hers—came off with remarkable alacrity. When they were both naked, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, a tall, four-postered affair with pretty spring-green curtains embroidered with tiny pink flowers and a matching coverlet. Fortunately, she had thought ahead on this point at least, and the bedclothes were turned back so he could deposit her directly on the sheets and follow her down, their mouths joining in a carnal dance. The stiff peaks of her nipples pressed against his chest as he rolled her beneath him.
Her hands went everywhere, reacquainting herself with the terrain of his body in swift, greedy strokes—his hair, his neck and shoulders, his biceps and forearms and finally his back and arse. Heat exploded in his loins as she arched and adjusted her hips until the head of his cock was pressed against the folds of her sex. She was soft and warm and very, very wet.
“I do not think I can wait to have you inside me.” She sighed. “Inside my pussy,” she clarified. “I feel as though I have been waiting forever for that.”
God, so did he, but he did not want to move too quickly, to hurt her more than necessary in his eagerness to complete the act. “Are you sure you are ready? I had thought to make you come at least once before—”
She pressed two fingers to his lips to silence him. “You can make me come a dozen times later. But what I want now is to feel you inside me. Where you belong.”
Her plea hit him squarely in the solar plexus. Yes, he belonged inside her. But also beside her, near her, around her, against her. Always. And somehow, through some remarkable twist of fate, he would never have to leave her. He was the luckiest man alive. “You are a persuasive woman.” Bracing himself on his forearms, he kissed her again, reveling in the taste and texture of her lips, her mouth, her tongue. His heart thudded in his ears when he raised his head. “This will probably hurt,” he told her gently.
“I know. I do not care.”
He shifted back onto his knees and looked down at the glistening pink folds of her pussy, adjusting his position and hers until he was satisfied with their bodies’ alignment. His eyes damn near rolled back in his head at the hot, wet feel of her flesh against the engorged head of his cock. Hoping to minimize her discomfort, he eased in, his breath coming in hard, rough pants of effort. And then, with a suddenness that caught him utterly unawares, Sabine grasped his buttocks in her hands and thrust her hips upward while pulling him down at the same time, taking a full two-thirds of his length into her tight passage in one motion.
Her eyes flew open, and she gasped a little “Oh” of pained surprise. Thomas held himself ruthlessly still, despite the way the fluttering contractions of her inner muscles seemed to demand that he move. Caught in paradise and the seventh circle of hell at the same time. He waited and watched as the tension of discomfort eased from her face and became tension of a different sort. Her fingers dug into his arse, and she shifted restlessly beneath him. “I am ready for you to fuck me now, husband,” she
said in her sweetly accented, dirty English.
“As you wish, wife,” he replied, and the word wife had never felt more pure or perfect on his tongue.
He started by drawing back and then thrusting once, twice, three times until at last he was seated to the balls inside her. Then he began to move in earnest. She caught the rhythm quickly, rocking her hips to meet him. In and out, faster, harder. Her breath came in the short, harsh puffs he recognized as signaling an impending climax, and he thanked God, because there was no way he could hold on more than a few. More. Thrusts.
Just when he was certain he would finish before she did, every muscle in her body went taut, and she moaned as the spasms began to shake her. With a groan of pure gratitude, Thomas kissed her and let his own release spiral from the base of his spine to his balls, emptying his seed in long, hot spurts that made him see stars behind his eyes.
When he came back to his senses, he managed to remember not to collapse on top of her, and withdrew gently. “I hope you have a basin of water and a cloth nearby.”
“Mm,” she murmured and pointed vaguely toward the opposite side of the room. “Over there.”
He rolled off the bed and found what he was looking for, wiping himself down with one side of the cloth before bringing it back to the bed. She hummed with approval when he pressed the cool, damp fabric to her tender flesh, cleaning away his seed and a slight tinge of pink. Not that he had needed any evidence, but something fierce and possessive burst inside his chest at the sight, not so much because it meant he was her first, but because it was tangible proof that she was truly his at last.
The sound of querulous voices floated up from downstairs.
“Oh dear,” Sabine said, raising her head. “They have missed us.”
“Do you want to get dressed and go back downstairs?” he asked. He hated the idea, but if it would make her feel better, he would do it.
She shook her head. “No. I am just wondering how many times you can make me come before they give up waiting for us.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you know how much I adore you?”
A smile of sleepy, feminine contentment curved her lips. “Yes, I believe I do.”
More in the Lords of Lancashire Series
The Highwayman’s Hellion
The Vicar’s Mistress
No one ever expected the rakish, irresponsible Walter Langston to take up the collar, least of all himself. After an accident renders him unfit for military service, however, he has few other options. When he’s given the post of vicar at a parish church in a sleepy, coastal village, he’s convinced he’ll molder in obscurity.
Artemisia Finch left a lucrative career as a celebrated courtesan to care for her ailing father. Returning home hasn’t been easy, though, as her past isn’t even a poorly kept secret in the village. When the new vicar arrives on her doorstep, Artemisia is determined to send him on his merry, pious way. But Walter Langston is nothing like any man of the cloth she’s ever known—he’s funny, irreverent, handsome, and tempting as sin. Falling in love with a vicar would be a very bad idea for a former courtesan. Why does this one have to be so hot under the collar?
The Soldier’s Forbidden Lover
When Laura Farnsworth discovers the blood-stained body of a man wearing the distinctive red coat of the British army, her first instinct is to let dead dogs lie. But then the man proves himself to be very much alive by grabbing her ankle and mumbling incoherently.
After twenty-five years in His Majesty's service, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Langston never expected to wake up in heaven, much less being tended by an angel. An angel who happens to be an American. As the long-widowed Laura nurses him back to health, the attraction between them heats from a simmer to a boil. He should be working to find his way back to his regimen, but instead, he's sleeping with the enemy--and thereby committing the crime of desertion if not treason. But then, who's going to find out? If only his family didn't refuse to take "missing in action" for an answer.
My True Love Gave to Me
About Jackie Barbosa
Jackie can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a writer when s grew up, but there were plenty of times when she wasn’t sure she ever would be. As it turns out, it just took about twenty years longer to grow up than she expected! Jackie firmly believes that love is the most powerful force in the world, and that makes romance the most powerful genre in the world. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise!
Sign up for my newsletter for updates, sale notifications, and bonus content! For a list of all my books, including my contemporary romances, check out Jackie’s website.
An Earl for Ellen
Catherine Bilson
Arriving from America to claim the earldom he never expected to inherit, Thomas Havers finds himself responsible for not only a huge estate full of servants and tenants, but also several female relatives. A countess to help him negotiate the unfamiliar intricacies of his new position is essential, and sooner rather than later, but how is he to choose? The beautiful Lady Louisa is born and bred for the role, but Thomas finds his heart pulling him in another direction entirely.
Orphaned and penniless, the best Ellen Bentley can hope for is a respectable position as a governess or companion. She has nothing to tempt any potential suitors, until the new earl takes an interest in his distant cousin and invites her to join the family in London.
Encouraged to find suitors of her own by her aunt, Ellen realises quickly that the only man she wishes to marry is Thomas, but he only has eyes for Lady Louisa. How can a parson’s daughter hope to compete with a diamond of the Ton?
Heat level: no sex, some kissing
Tropes: Cinderella, American hero inheriting a title, friends to lovers, medium angst
Chapter 1
December, 1817
“I’m sorry, Miss Bentley.” The steward twisted his hat between his hands, an expression of genuine distress on his face. “The living’s been awarded, though, and the new vicar will be arriving soon to take up residence. You’ve two weeks to vacate the Vicarage.”
Ellen Bentley clung to the door frame, hoping it would keep her upright as her knees threatened to give way. “My father was laid to rest just this morning, Mr Ellis, and as a female I was not even permitted to stand at his graveside to offer a proper farewell. I’d hoped to seek an audience with the Earl this week.” A distant cousin, the Earl of Havers did not acknowledge their relationship, but she’d planned to ask him only for a letter of recommendation for employment, perhaps assistance to find a post somewhere as a governess or companion. It was evident, however, that the Earl had no intention of allowing her to impose upon their familial connection even that much. Mr Ellis was clearly acting on his employer’s orders.
I am being thrown from the only home I have ever known, was all she could think.
“I’m right sorry, Miss Bentley.” The steward twisted his hat again. In her state of shock, Ellen noticed minute details; the furrow of concern between the man’s beetling brows, the mist hanging in the air from his quick breathing, the way his twisting hands were damaging the hat’s felt brim.
“I understand, Mr Ellis,” she said quietly at last, and watched as he gave her a shallow bow before turning on his heel and retreating down the garden path.
The church bell tolled, clear in the frosty December air, and the tears Ellen had been holding back since her father’s death of influenza three days earlier, not even two weeks after her mother was laid to rest in the cold ground, finally flowed.
She sank to her knees there in the doorway and bawled like a child.
What in the name of God am I going to do now?
Chapter 2
Eight months later
Ellen was picking tomatoes from the vines in the garden when she heard a horse trotting along the lane, regular hoof beats punctuated by the sound of a man whistling a tune. He sounded jaunty, happy in the bright summer afternoon, and she found herself smili
ng, thinking that it was nice to hear someone sound so carefree.
The man came into view then, or rather his upper body did, as he rode along the lane that passed by the lodge. Spotting her over the hedge, he reined in his horse.
“Good afternoon, miss! Could you tell me if I am on the right road for Haverford Hall?”
“I’m afraid you just missed the turning, sir,” Ellen said politely. “‘Tis about a quarter mile back that way, on your left.”
“Much obliged to you, miss!” He doffed his hat with another smile and she noticed how handsome he was, though his horse was a broken-down nag and his clothes looked worn. She smiled with a little tip of her head, but said nothing else, and he turned his horse about to ride on.
Pretty girl, Thomas thought, but he wasn’t there to look at pretty girls. Riding up the long avenue lined by larch trees that led up to Haverford Hall, he paused for a moment to gaze in wonder at the building. His grandfather had described it to him many times, in loving detail, but Thomas had honestly thought the old man had been exaggerating, his memory not quite what it once was.
Now that he saw the Hall for the first time in person, Thomas realised that he had been doing his grandfather’s memory a disservice, because the house was just as magnificent as he had always been told. Built of the local honey-coloured Cotswold stone, it glowed golden in the afternoon sun, windows all along the face of the building glinting in the light. He tried to count them and gave up at fifty; from his grandfather’s tales he recalled the house had two large wings spreading out to the back as well, so trying to guess at the number of rooms by counting only the windows on the front elevation would grossly underestimate their number.
