James flicked open the topmost sketchbook and began to turn the pages. Leah watched his face as the signs of hope slowly began to return. By the time he closed the book, a soft, tentative smile sat on his face.
“Thank god you saved the sketchbooks. Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?” he said.
“Are you happy in London?”
The question had been on the tip of her tongue for several days now. With her parents being set against hers and James’s marriage, and James working himself ragged in order to establish his career, Leah had begun to wonder if London was truly for them.
“I can’t say it has been a wonderful experience since we returned from Cornwall. At times I feel like it is you and I against the world. That’s why last night was such a blow to me; when I thought you had gone . . .” he replied.
“I want to return to Cornwall. My family are set on making things difficult for us in London. And you are going to work yourself into an early grave if you have to keep the hours you are doing. I don’t want living in London to cost us our marriage,” she said.
She could quite happily go back to Mopus Manor and live there permanently. If James had not followed her, that had been her original plan.
“Your grandfather did offer for us to come and stay with him, and I have thought about his suggestion that I consider running for office. Truro is a big enough town for us to be able to get whatever we need, and London is only a three-day trip from there. But are you serious about it? I mean, it would involve leaving friends and family behind,” he replied.
Leah would not miss London, nor the pressure that living in the city would place upon James to earn enough money to keep his wife and family in the particular lifestyle approved by other members of the ton. She did not want that for her husband, nor for their future.
She leaned over and placed a tender kiss on his lips. “Yes. I want us to be where you can pursue your passion, and where we can raise a family. I couldn’t think of anywhere better than my grandfather’s house.”
James pulled Leah to him and kissed her deeply. When he released her from the kiss and their gazes met, he nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
Chapter Fifty
Six months later
* * *
Leah sat on one of the high, dry rocks at the entrance to the sea cave, watching as the tide continued to go out.
A lone male figure appeared on the beach in the distance. She knew it was James from the soft roll of his gait.
She clambered off the rocks and went to meet him. As they drew close, she could see he was beaming.
“Wife! I have missed you,” he cried.
Leah leaped into his embrace, and James wrapped his arms around her. Hungry mouths joined in a long sensual kiss. The feel of her husband’s touch again after two weeks was magnificent.
“I have missed you too. How was London?” she asked.
“Good and excellent,” he replied.
She raised an eyebrow and he laughed teasingly.
“Good in that the dowry is now finally settled. Your father was his usual pleasant self when I met with him at his solicitors to sign the papers. But I was respectful and polite to him,” he said.
“And you being polite to him would have annoyed him no end. I am sure he would have much preferred it if you had engaged him in another battle of wills,” she replied.
It had taken six months of, at times, blunt correspondence between the parties to finally get Tobias Shepherd to release Leah’s dowry. He had been more than a little outraged to discover that she and James had given up London and relocated permanently to Mopus Manor. By refusing to stay and allow him to exact his petty revenge on them, Leah and James were beyond her father’s reach.
“So, what is the excellent news?”
He kissed her again. “Francis secured me an audience with the Prince Regent. After I showed him the new miniatures of the Derbyshire Twins, the prince immediately decided he wanted the main paintings. They are going to be hung in the royal pavilion at Brighton.”
Leah squealed. “You sold two paintings! James that’s wonderful. We must celebrate!”
A familiar look crossed his face. One she had been missing for the past few weeks. She went to pull out of his arms, intent on leading him home and to their bedroom, but James refused to budge.
He nodded in the direction of the rocks where she had been sitting.
“Here. Now. I can’t wait,” he growled.
When they reached the rocks, James took a seat before lifting Leah into his lap. The moment she was settled, he speared his fingers through her long, fine hair. As their lips met, he whispered, “Leah.”
Two weeks without waking beside him and having him make love to her felt like an eternity. The longing of those lonely hours they had spent apart was captured in a single kiss. They reached for one another, hungrily grabbing hold of clothing, hair, skin, anything. Neither were prepared to let go.
She gasped as he slipped his hand from around her waist and roughly tore open the buttons on her coat. His fingers touched the soft form of her breast, then brushed over the hardened nipple.
She raised herself up and straddled him. His face was now level with her breasts. She placed a hand on the back of his neck, then slowly rubbed. He lifted his gaze and she met a pair of warm brown eyes clouded with passion. He groaned.
The front of her gown gave little resistance to his hurried attention. Buttons and lacings were swiftly dealt with before he pulled the folds of her gown apart. The instant her naked breasts met the chill of the wind from the river, her nipples peaked, and she craved to feel his mouth on them.
James dragged a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard. She whimpered. Her hand continued to stroke the back of his head as he sucked and laved at her breast.
Tugging on the corner of her skirts, she pulled them free of his lap. She closed her eyes as he delved his hand under her skirts and blazed a trail up her leg. When he reached her hip, she rose on her knees. Leah didn’t need to tell James what she wanted. He slipped two fingers inside her and began to stroke. She angled her hips, allowing him full access to her heated core.
He released her breast and his forehead came to rest on her cleavage. The noise of the river and the wind fell silent to her ears. All she could hear was the hard thump of her heart. Her love for this man was all-consuming.
“Oh, James,” she murmured, knowing there would be time for talking later.
He continued to work his magic while Leah clung to him, her head resting on his shoulder. He was a master of loving her body. Her sobs and breathing became more ragged the deeper and harder he stroked. When he slid his thumb over her sensitive bud, she sobbed. “James, please.”
With his one free hand, he flicked open the buttons of his trousers, releasing his engorged erection. Their gazes met. The look of pure desire on his face reflected her own desperate need.
Taking his hardened length in hand, she guided it to her heated, slick entrance. Slowly, Leah sunk down and took the fullness of him inside her. They sat for a minute, their foreheads gently touching, absorbing the earthy presence of their joined bodies.
Then Leah began to rise up and down, riding James. They held one another’s gaze.
“That rock is going to leave marks on your arse,” she teased.
“I don’t care.”
The pace of their coupling increased. She watched the emotions cross his face as she rode his hard cock. The torture of gliding up and down his erection was divine.
He took a firm hold of her hips and pulled her down fully onto him. At the same time, he offered up his mouth to her. She kissed him back, while he held onto her and began to draw her up and down the length of him in an ever-increasing tempo.
“Oh God, James,” she sobbed. She was close to completion.
“Lean forward; let me grind against you. I want you to see stars when you come,” he ordered.
Leah did as he commanded. His erection ground hard against her sex and she
cried out, collapsing against him. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight.
She eventually pulled out of his arms, smiling at him. She was exactly where she had always meant to be, and he knew it.
He whispered, “I love you.”
Their lips met in a kiss that sealed the moment. James closed his eyes as Leah worked herself against his cock. She knew how to bring him to the edge, then pull back before taking him close once more. Loving him with her body was beyond pleasure.
“Fuck me,” he muttered.
“As you wish.”
With her hands held tight on his shoulders, she rode him hard once more. Gripping her hips even harder than before, he held her in place as he stroked his length deep into her willing body.
On the end of one final frenzied thrust he cried “Leah”, then stilled.
Utterly spent, they wrapped their arms around one another, their faces cheek to cheek. The only sounds were the noise of the wind and the slowing beat of their hearts.
When James eventually roused, Leah sat back and looked at him.
He brushed her windswept hair away from her face, then placed a soft, almost reverent kiss on her lips. “It is so good to be home. I don’t miss London at all. I used to think that in coming here, we were running away from our old lives. But I realize now that we were, in fact, running toward our destiny,” he said.
She took his hand and placed it on the slight bump of her belly.
“No more running, James. My love. We are home,” she whispered.
Epilogue
The odd look on her grandfather’s face when he saw James pull into the forecourt of Mopus Manor had Leah looking away, trying not to laugh.
“A barouche is not the most practical of things. You will need a driver every time you go to town. And what about the children?” muttered Sir Geoffrey.
“This is purely just for Leah and me when we make short trips into Truro and the surrounds on constituency business. We don’t need a driver,” replied James.
Leah pretended to ignore Sir Geoffrey’s concerns. At some point, he would see her, and James do their little dance as her husband hoisted her onto the driver’s bench. What he would make of it was anyone’s guess.
All that mattered to her was that every time she and James travelled from the manor and into town, her wicked husband would have an excuse to lay his hands on her body. She also thought it best not to mention the little cove where a barouche could be well hidden from the road by the shrubs. Nor the blanket that they planned to keep in the box under the driver’s seat of the new carriage. Sir Geoffrey need never know about any of those things.
Leah was also pleased that her grandfather had the good sense not to enquire as to why it seemed to take forever for her and James to make the short trip in and out from Truro, even when they did use the larger estate carriage. The fact that Leah’s hair was always mussed up upon her return home from a visit to town was also never mentioned by anyone.
Some secrets were best kept between the local member for Truro and his good lady wife. In that particular matter of parliamentary business, James and Leah were in firm agreement. They and their two little boys travelled up to London together for each session of parliament but were on the road home to Mopus Manor and Sir Geoffrey at first light the very next morning.
“And it will be useful for me when I have to make the trip over to Brighton to oversee the hanging of my landscape pieces in the Brighton Pavilion. His Majesty, the king, has commissioned another two landscapes to go along with the Derbyshire Twins. The new pieces are to be of the Cornish coastline. The barouche will enable me to make the trip in good time and then be back home here with my family as soon as possible,” said James.
Leah gave her husband a loving smile as James pulled her into his arms.
Home for them would always be Mopus Manor. Their lives and hearts were entwined with the windswept coastline of Cornwall, and in that, they were two of a kind.
Author Note
Malpas, Mopus and Truro
* * *
My husband’s family originate from Truro in Cornwall, his grandfather lived in Lemon Street, so I have always wanted to set a book in the area.
Mopus Passage was a tiny hamlet in the area near Truro, but the actual location of Mopus Manor is where the village of Malpas now sits at the confluence of the Truro and Tresillian Rivers.
And if you ask anyone from Cornwall about scones, jam goes on first then clotted cream. Those from Devonshire may however beg to differ…
* * *
Linseed Oil
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My research for this book uncovered some interesting information about paints and oils. When linseed oil rags are drying, they can spontaneously combust. As the oil oxidizes it generates heat. The rags can act as an insulator, allowing the heat to build to a point where the cloth eventually ignites. If you are using linseed oil to restore furniture etc. be sure to handle clean up rags which have linseed oil on them strictly in accordance with manufacturer’s instructions.
Also by Sasha Cottman
The Duke of Strathmore
Letter from a Rake
An Unsuitable Match
The Duke’s Daughter
A Scottish Duke for Christmas
My Gentleman Spy
Lord of Mischief
The Ice Queen
Two of a Kind
Mistletoe & Kisses
London Lords
An Italian Count for Christmas
About the Author
Born in England, but raised in Australia, Sasha has a love for both countries. Having her heart in two places has created a love for travel, which at last count was to over 55 countries. A travel guide is always on her pile of new books to read.
Sasha’s novels are set around the Regency period in England, Scotland, and Europe. Her books are centred on the themes of love, honour, and family. Please visit her website at www.sashacottman.com
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