It took some time—hours, maybe—but at last I had myself in control again. Max’s fingers, his magic fingers, were quiet, one of them still inside me, solid among flesh quivering with delightful little aftershocks of pleasure. I looked down at his half-closed eyes bright with all sorts of naughty thoughts. “No one has ever done that to me. Well, I have, but other than me, I mean. Wow. You’re good!”
He gave a little, one eyebrow cocked. “Your husband never . . . eh . . .”
I shook my head, then slid down his legs, reluctantly parting from his fingers. “No, he always said that all the womanly parts were a bit off-putting. Mind you, he would have if I’d asked him to, but I didn’t. I think at heart he was a traditionalist, and I didn’t want to shock him, so I never asked.”
“He didn’t know what he was missing.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, lifting the bottom of his waistcoat to get at the top button on his pants. “I have to say I see his point. I mean, have you ever looked closely at that part of a woman’s body?”
“Yes. What are you doing?”
I paused. “Unbuttoning you. You like oral sex, don’t you?”
His handsome blue eyes bugged out just a little bit. “Yes, yes, I do.”
“Good.” I resumed unbuttoning. “Anyway, if you’ve looked closely at all those labia parts and whatnot, you’ll know. It’s not the most scenic part on a woman’s body. Oooh, you have red undies. Fun.”
He jumped beneath my hand when I caressed the aroused length of him beneath his red cambric drawers. I started unbuttoning the tiny white buttons on them.
“Tessa, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.” He was just as big and hard as I remembered. And hot—very, very hot.
“Are you planning on . . . eh . . . for lack of a more refined phrase, pleasuring me?”
I slipped the last button free and tugged the drawers down so I could expose his noogies, then looked up, suddenly worried. “Yes, I was. It’s only fair. You . . . uh . . . pleasured me, so it’s my turn to do you. You said you like oral sex, right?”
He blinked at me. I thought about reminding him about the bad effects that too much blinking has, but decided to save it for another moment. “Yes, but . . .”
“But what?”
“You don’t think having my fingers inside you or taking me into your mouth is too intimate an act, and yet you won’t let me use my tongue when I kiss you?”
“What is it with you and tongues?” I asked, wrapping my fingers around him. “Do you have some sort of a tongue fetish or something?”
“No,” he said, his voice a bit rough. “I just wondered.”
“OK. So we’re a go to proceed.”
“Uh huh,” he said, a slight tremor shaking his body as I slid my fingers up to spread around the little bead of moisture crowning the tip.
He was hard and hot and velvety, and holding him in my hand I felt a surge of feminine power. I knew I could bring him pleasure, knew I could bring him ecstasy, and suddenly, I wanted that more than anything else. I wanted to give him something unselfish, a gift to show him that I respected him and liked him and found him incredibly sexy. What started out as a reciprocal gesture quickly changed into desire.
I smiled into his eyes for a moment, then dipped my head and touched the underside of him with the tip of my tongue. He twitched and moaned at the same time, his head lolling back, his eyes closed, one hand on my shoulder, the other fisted into the grass.
I touched, I licked, I squeezed, I caressed, desire and pleasuring mingling within me with every groan that escaped his lips.
“Be sure to tell me what you like,” I said as I stroked my hand down him. His hips shoved upward.
“Whung.”
I laved a serpentine path up the heat of him and smiled as his back arched beneath me. “I don’t think that’s English, Max.”
“Snarg.” He was shuddering now, his breath wild and rasping as both hands clutched convulsively at the grass.
“Do you know what you taste like, Max? You taste salty,” I licked him in one long stroke from balls to the head. “You taste hot.” I swirled my tongue around the flared tip. “You taste like a very sexy, very aroused man.” He shouted something incoherent as I took him in my mouth, then pulled back slowly, gently scraping my teeth along his flesh as I reached lower to fondle the rest of him.
“Tessa!” he bellowed.
“Mmm? Oh! Wait, hold on, I have a handkerchief— oh, rats. Too late. Sorry. I’m sure that’ll come out with a little club soda. Here, let me mop you up a bit.”
He lay panting while I tidied him up, giving him a little pat as I tucked him away and buttoned his drawers and pants. With a low, exhausted groan he lifted his head enough to glare accusingly at me. “You can’t tell me your husband didn’t like that!”
“Well, of course he did. All men like that. Are you OK? You look a bit flushed. You’re not going to have a heart attack or anything, are you?”
“I’m not sure. I might.”
I watched him closely for a minute, then decided he was exaggerating. I have to admit that I was more than a little bit pleased with his response. “I’ve only had Peter to practice on. I’m glad I did it right.”
His chest shook in a feeble laugh. “You did it more than right, Tessa.”
“Good.” I glanced back through the woods to where the roof of the house was visible. “I suppose I should get a move on.”
“You could stay,” he suggested, his eyes darkening. “There’s that ride I mentioned. You’ll have to give me a little bit to recover from your wonderful mouth, but I’m sure that I can provide you with an afternoon of enjoyment.”
I smiled. “Well, my body is demanding I say yes, but . . . well, that’s a big step.”
He grinned and tugged me forward until I lay across his chest again, his lips teasing mine. “I’m a patient man.”
“Good. I have more persuading to do.” I kissed him, sucking his lower lip into my mouth before releasing it. “Oh, speaking of that, I wanted to tell you how great Melody did this morning.”
“Did what?” he asked, nuzzling a hot line of kisses along my jaw.
“Riding. She’s got a natural seat, Max. I don’t think you need to worry about—”
“What?” He shoved me backward, sitting up as I slid off him. “What do you mean she’s got a natural seat?”
“I meant that she’s got good balance, that she can feel how to move on a horse without thinking about it. That’s what having a good seat means.”
He jumped up, his jaw tight, his eyes furious. “Dammit, you put Melody on a horse?”
I struggled to my feet. “Now, calm down, Max, it’s nothing to get upset or angry about. We stayed in the stable yard. I walked her around on Talisman. I didn’t leave her alone, not for a second. She was just fine—”
He let out a string of invectives that stunned me not for their variety (which was breathtaking), but for the fury behind the words. “I told you not to! I specifically told you I didn’t want her getting near a horse!”
“Yes, but—”
“Dammit, Tessa, she could have been hurt.”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. All she did was walk around the stable yard. Besides, you told me you wanted me to persuade you.”
He glared at me, his eyes burning a brilliant blue light. “Persuade me, yes. I had no intention of ever allowing Melody near a horse.”
I bit back the oath I badly wanted to yell at him and bent to retrieve my parasol from the ground (an act guaranteed to squeeze all the breath out of my body). By the time I stood back up and could breathe again, I had regained my control. “Really. How nice to know that this is all just a game to you.”
“My daughter’s life is no game.”
“No, it’s not,” I snapped, my control not as good as I thought it was. “But encouraging me to become physically and emotionally involved with you is. Thank you for making that crystal clear to me, Max. I would have ha
ted to waste all that time trying to soften you up for nothing.”
I turned on my heel (not easy to do in the grass) and stormed off (also not easy to do, especially when you’re wearing two thousand pounds of clothing in one-hundred-and-ninety-degree weather). Max called out something after me, but I ignored him. I didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to see his flushed, handsome face.
I didn’t want him to see me cry.
Thursday
September 2
8:40 P.M.
Fainting couch
I wish I had more experience with men. I wish I had dated lots and lots of men, broken up with them, made up, been through all the ups and downs, rather than having been married for sixteen years to a man twenty years older than me, a man who was well settled into his skin when I met him.
Experience, I feel sure, would be the only thing that would help me figure out just what the devil was up with Max. Obviously, he had some issues with the idea of Melody going riding (issues? Ha! More like unassailable mountains!), but somehow I didn’t think a horse was really what was bothering Max. Still, I didn’t have enough experience to tell if he was reacting to me, his situation, or some other stimuli.
“It’s a puzzlement,” I said in my best Yul Brynner voice earlier in the day as I entered the house.
“What is?” Teddy asked, opening the door to me. The hall was empty, no cameras to be seen. Yay!
“Men. You have any sage advice for me on the subject?”
“Yes. We’re gods. Worship us appropriately.”
I snorted. “Fat chance! How’s it going? You holding up under the strain of all that footmanning?”
He shrugged and looked at his reflection in the huge gilt mirror hanging across the hall. “I thought I would have more time on camera, but the work is all right. It’s a good sight better than what’s going on downstairs.”
“Oh?” I asked, pausing as I was about to enter the gold drawing room. “Is there trouble?”
“You could call it that. I’d call it a revolt.”
My heart sank. Two days and already there was trouble? “Crap.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
I glanced toward the green baize door. “Do you think I should go down?”
“Might help,” he said, shrugging slightly, preening a bit. “Then again, it might not. There’s a lot of unhappy people down there.”
“Maybe you should tell Roger that.”
He rolled his eyes. “I did. He thinks it’s great; says that conflict makes it much more interesting to the viewers. He doesn’t care that old Palmer is guzzling beer, claiming it has healing abilities to clear up his lumbago, or that Michael is allergic to the tooth powder they gave us, or that the scullery girls are screaming bloody murder about washing up.”
“Oy. Maybe Kip—”
“He’s worse than Roger,” Teddy said, straightening his waistcoat and tie before brushing a hand over his hair. “He told Michael that his hives from the tooth powder added reality to the show, and he’d just have to deal with the situation.”
“Kip is a big old snotball,” I said, gnawing on my lower lip. “Do you think I could do anything to help? I mean, I am supposed to be in charge of the servants.”
He shot me a look from the corner of his eye. “You could talk to Roger. He’d listen to you.”
“I doubt that, but maybe I can talk to the gang downstairs and see if I can straighten things out.” The big grandfather clock interrupted me as it tolled the hour. “Poop, I’m officially on display. Maybe there’s enough time for me to just pop downstairs and see—”
Roger, Sam, Kip, and Wilma burst through the green baize door.
“Drawing room, now,” Roger ordered, shooing me before turning and snapping out some orders at Sam.
“Drat, I can’t go down now,” I whispered quickly to Teddy. “Do me a favor: Trot downstairs and tell everyone who’s unhappy to give me the specifics, and I’ll try to run interference for them later with Roger.”
“Tessa!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. I don’t know what your knickers are in such a twist for; there’s no one here yet.”
Just as I spoke, a sharp hammering came from the front door.
Roger grabbed me by the arm and hustled me to the drawing room just as Teddy went to admit whoever had come to pay a call on the Duchess of Bridgewater. I had just smoothed my dress and struck what I hoped was an elegant and sophisticated pose when Teddy opened the door.
“The Reverend and Mrs. Hewitt.”
I recognized the names from the info sheet as belonging to the local vicar and his wife. I assumed that Roger must have had some arrangement with them to pay me the obligatory visit, no doubt outfitting them in appropriate attire.
I assumed wrong.
“Your Grace, what a very great honor it is to meet you at last.” A pleasant, round-faced man paused at the door and made a bow embellished by fanciful gyrations of a lace-cuffed hand. “I am Reverend Hewitt, the vicar for Worston. I am so delighted that at very long last the duke has brought home a bride worthy of the noble house of Bridgewater.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t help it, I honestly couldn’t. From the top of his tricornered hat to the toes of his lavender satin, diamond-buckled shoes, the vicar was the embodiment of a late-eighteenth-century dandy a la the Scarlet Pimpernel. We’re talking lacy ruffles at his neck, a salmon-colored watered silk coat that reached to his knees (opened to display a gold-embroidered long vest), tight satin knee britches of a mauveish color, and white stockings. He swept his hat off his head and made another bow, a ring-encrusted hand held to his chest as he waved the other toward the door. Reluctantly, I dragged my gaze off the pink-powdered wig that sent long tendrils of curls snaking down his shoulders to look at the vision coming through the door.
“Oh, lord,” Roger muttered from where he stood in the corner of the room, one hand over his eyes.
“And this, of course, is my lady, Penelope.”
Penelope had a bit of trouble getting through the doorway. “Good afternoon,” she called into the room, her face red-cheeked and cheerful, a bright sunny smile on her lips. She grunted slightly as she pushed her huge, and I mean huge, Scarlett O’Hara hoop skirt through the door into the drawing room. The skirt’s framework snapped back into its hemisphere shape with an audible whoop.
She came forward, holding out a hand covered in a netted glove, her skirt swaying and banging into the occasional tables as she moved. “What a pleasure it is to meet you. Oh, my, what a lovely dress. Greek, isn’t it? Very stylish.”
I stood up slowly, my eyes wide as I took in her big, floppy-brimmed hat decked out with cherries, silk flowers, a couple of stuffed birds, and what looked to be a badger’s head sitting on the crown, the red-and-pink striped dress with matching white-and-red bolero jacket, and the lacy pink parasol that dangled by a cord from her wrist.
“Penny,” her husband hissed. As she turned to see what it was he wanted, her skirt swung out, slamming into a small cherry wood table, knocking a lovely bust of Athena off the top. Wilma threw down the boom and microphone, flinging herself forward, down on one knee to catch the bust just before it hit the ground.
“You don’t shake a duchess’ hand unless she offers it first. It isn’t polite.”
“It isn’t?” Penelope turned back to me, her skirt swinging the other way, sending her husband staggering a few paces to the side. Wilma replaced the bust and dragged the table toward her until it was out of danger. “Oh, I’m ever so sorry. I didn’t realize it wasn’t proper to shake your hand.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, as well,” I finally said, getting a grip on myself and offering her my hand. She grinned and shook it, glancing over to where Sam was struggling to film without laughing. Roger had slumped down into a chair against the wall, out of sight of the camera, sitting with both hands over his eyes. Kip squatted next to him and whispered furiously in his ear, gesturing toward the Odd Couple.
That decided me. Cl
early, the production company hadn’t outfitted them, which meant they had decided to join the fun of their own accord. From the looks of it, they’d raided the local theater company for costumes. They looked like nice people, honestly thrilled to be there, and clearly they’d done their best to get into period costume for the show. That they missed by a century on his part and twenty years on hers was of no matter.
“How very kind of you to come to see me. I do hope you’ll stay to tea?” I asked. They beamed back at me and nodded.
“Excellent, why don’t you sit just here, Mrs. Hewitt.” I patted the spot next to me on a the gold-and-black couch as I sat back down. She flashed me another smile, and with a self-conscious bob toward the camera, sat next to me.
Instantly, I was enveloped in hoops, crinoline, petticoats, and what was probably eight yards of pink-and-red striped material. The front part of her skirt swung upward, one of the hoops smacking me sharply on the nose.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I had no idea it would do this . . . Kevin, can you help?”
The Salmon Pimpernel hoisted her to her feet, and with my help we managed to get her onto the couch in a way that it wouldn’t expose her underfrillies. I had to sit on part of the hoop to keep it beaten into submission, but that was a small price to pay for the look of pleasure in Penelope’s eyes once we got her settled.
“Well, that was a trial, wasn’t it?” she laughed, her cheeks a bit pink with embarrassment. “I never thought to practice taming my dress before I went out! Yours seems to be well behaved.”
“My lady’s maid, Crighton, wouldn’t allow it to be anything else but well behaved. It is a bit warm, though, for the lovely weather we’re having.”
Penelope rooted around in her pink netted handbag, then extracted from its depths a large black-and-white fan. “We’re having lovely weather, aren’t we? So unusual. Usually, we have terribly wet Septembers.”
Penelope chatted happily about the weather and the local area for several minutes, while Kevin the vicar sat in a chair across from us, his hat on his knee, on his face a smile that he shared between his wife and me as he sent shy little looks toward the camera.
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