The Bargain of a Baroness

by Sande, Linda Rae

  “I don’t need milk,” Hannah murmured as she set the cups on a tray and added the teapot.

  “Since when?” he asked as he pulled a canister of biscuits from another cupboard, rather glad everything was still in the same place as it had been when he was younger.

  She paused, her gaze briefly on Graham before she regarded their assembled tea in awe. “Probably since Edward was born,” she murmured as she examined the tea tray and the matching cups, saucers, sugar-pot and creamer.

  “What is it?” he asked as he placed several Dutch biscuits on a plate and added it to the tray.

  Hannah grinned. “I haven’t been in a kitchen in an age,” she said in awe.

  “I would not have guessed,” he replied.

  “You appear quite at home in one.”

  Graham shrugged. “Although I did have a housekeeper and a cook in Boston, I fended for myself at the office,” he replied. “I am a commoner,” he added in a quiet voice. His eyes narrowed. “Will that be an issue for you? I rather imagine you’ve grown accustomed to life as an aristocrat.”

  Hannah lifted the tray and said, “Not at all. You forget I have been both,” she said as she headed to the parlor.

  Graham followed, rather liking how her bell skirt swung back and forth as she walked ahead of him. “I haven’t forgotten,” he replied as he watched her place the tray on the low table and then take a seat on the velvet settee. He moved to sit next to her, his large frame forcing her to slide sideways.

  “You’re terribly close,” she whispered, once he was settled next to her so their thighs were pressed together.

  “I intend to be far closer in a few minutes,” he warned with a teasing grin.

  A frisson shot through Hannah. “Not in here, surely,” she replied.

  Graham chuckled as he leaned down and kissed her hair. “Of course not. Will you do the honors?” he asked as he indicated the tea.

  Hoping her hands weren’t visibly shaking, Hannah leaned over and poured the tea. She lifted one saucer and offered it to Graham. When his fingers gripped the porcelain, they brushed against hers, and it was all she could do to not snatch her hand away.

  “I’m not going to bite you,” he teased.

  Hannah reached for the other saucer and had barely straightened on the settee when she turned to regard him with a look of shock. “Why ever not?”

  Graham blinked and stared at her before a brilliant smile appeared. “Oh, you minx. Your earlobes will be between my teeth before we’ve removed your gown,” he warned, and then he once again kissed her hair.

  “I’ve missed that,” she whispered, her gaze on her tea as the liquid swirled in the cup.

  Furrowing a brow, Graham took a short breath. “Surely Harrington nibbled your ears.”

  Hannah shook her head. “He did not.” When she noted Graham’s expression, she added, “Charlie was not very... experienced. Nor particularly amorous.”

  “Oh?” The word came out in two syllables, even though Temperance’s words from the night before had rattled around in Graham’s head for all the waking hours since. His attention went to his tea, and he drank over half the cup in one gulp.

  “He did not visit me in my bedchamber very often,” she said, finding it easy to speak of her late husband with the man who had been her best friend since their youth. She drank some tea and made a sound of appreciation.

  “No mistress?” he asked, deciding there would have been one in name only, even though Charlie had courted Hannah in earnest. Every day and night for an entire week, bestowing her with rings for every occasion.

  Rings provided by Charlie’s mother.

  “At first, I thought so,” she said. “But one night he came home smelling of cologne.” She watched as Graham placed his empty teacup and saucer on the table and then felt his arm lift and wrap around the back of her shoulders. Settling against him with a sigh, she added, “Several nights, in fact.”

  “Another man’s cologne?” he guessed in a whisper.

  Hannah gave a start, but she finally nodded and said, “We had a guest come for dinner the first year we were married. He was well known to the Mayfields. Apparently Charlie had attended school with him since Eton,” she went on, her head turned so her cheek rested against the side of his chest. “He wore that same cologne.”

  Glad Temperance had shared her secrets with him the night before, Graham regarded Hannah with a look of understanding. “Oh, Hannah.”

  “He had become my best friend—”

  “But not your lover.”

  “I miss him for that reason,” she admitted. “He had become what Henry was no longer. I loved Charlie, even though he never got a child on me,” she added with a sigh. “He was so relieved when I told him I was with child. As if he was happy to have the responsibility done with, although I think he wanted a spare, but...” She allowed the words to trail off as she sighed again. “So Charlie was like having another brother. One with whom I got along better than I did with Henry.”

  Graham wondered what had happened to cause a rift between the twins, but he didn’t ask about it. There were more important matters to discuss. “I am sorry for your loss,” he whispered. “And more sorry I did not stay to remain your lover. Who knows? I might have gotten another child or two or three on you,” he murmured against her hair. “Ensured the Mayfield line continue.”

  “It’s not too late,” she said, her voice breathy. Although she hadn’t meant to tell him about Charlie this way, she was glad to have it over with. To learn that Graham might have stayed had he known the truth of her marriage. “I would dearly love another child. One that would be your heir. And a daughter, too.”

  “As many as you want,” he breathed. “You’ll not be able to keep me from your bed.”

  “Our bed,” she murmured. She closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall back, breathing deep when she inhaled the scent of musk and man, Bay Rum and spice. She glanced up to find Graham watching her, an enigmatic grin lifting the corners of his lips.

  Charlie would do that right after his ecstasy. Although he sometimes pleasured her before he took his own, he usually appeared in her bedchamber right after her maid had finished brushing her hair, claiming he had need of her.

  He didn’t really, but she supposed he thought he needed to say such things in order to keep up appearances.

  Sometimes he asked permission. Other times he did not.

  On those nights, there was no foreplay. Just a quick and frantic race to a release that would leave him replete and recharged. I shall not be tempted by the courtesans on this night, he would say, right before he took his leave of her bed and headed for his club.

  At first, Hannah was never sure if that meant there were nights he was tempted by courtesans. Nights he might have spent in some other woman’s bed.

  After a time, she knew he only said it to cover the fact that he was spending his nights with another man. She thanked his discretion, for she never heard rumors about him. She supposed his mother helped in that regard. Lady Mayfield controlled what gossip was printed in The Tattler, after all.

  Hannah sighed. “Why didn’t you fight for me when Charlie was courting me?”

  Wincing, Graham wanted desperately to put off such a serious discussion. “I didn’t think I had to. I thought him the horse. I am the turtle, remember?”

  Hannah inhaled softly as she recalled their afternoon staring at clouds. “I am truly sorry,” she whispered. After a pause, she added, “When you didn’t pay a call immediately upon your return to London, I thought you had changed your mind.”

  Graham lifted his head and captured her lips with his own, kissing her until a need for air had him settling back against the settee. “I never changed my mind.”

  “You must have hated me.”

  “Never,” he replied in a soft whisper. “I simply blamed your mother.”

  Hannah once again turned her head to stare at him. “You hate my mother?”

  His head moved on the back of the sett
ee as he murmured, “Never. Nor your father, since I now know it was Lady Mayfield who influenced him,” he said in a whisper.

  “Temperance?” Hannah said in disbelief.

  “She knew about Charlie. Knew he needed a wife before rumors could become his undoing. You were... friendly with Charlie, and you were available, so she saw to it he courted you in earnest.”

  Hannah gave a start in his arms. “Yet, you don’t seem angry with her,” she whispered.

  “She did what any mother would do to protect her son,” he reasoned. “I cannot blame her for that.” He paused before he added, “Well, I could, but she’s always been Aunt Tempy to me, and she’s rather pleased I could provide an heir when she knew her son probably would not.”

  Hannah lifted her head from his shoulder. “I still can’t believe she knows,” she said in a whisper.

  Despite the seriousness of their discussion, Graham grinned. “She is no fool, Hannah,” he said softly. “Mayfield is, though. Edward will be a marked improvement for the earldom when he inherits.”

  “That’s because Mayfield no longer wants the responsibility of being an earl,” Hannah said on a sigh.

  “I rather imagine I might feel the same way when I reach his age. All I’ll want to do is eat, drink, and make love to you.”

  Hannah gave a huff. “And what is it you want to do now?” she challenged.

  Graham chuckled. “Eat, drink, and make love to you,” he murmured with a grin. “In our bed,” he added. He inhaled and then straightened on the settee, his arm guiding Hannah so he could kiss her on the lips. “I shall have to find us a suitable townhouse,” he whispered. “But until then, I do have a bedchamber upstairs we can use.” He grinned when she didn’t put voice to a protest. “I rather doubt your gorgeous hair style will survive what I’m about to do to you.”

  Hannah let out a nervous giggle. “Promise?”

  Graham was up and off the settee, lifting Hannah into his arms even before she knew quite what was happening.

  Hannah wrapped her arms around his neck as he trudged up the stairs, angling her to be sure her slippered feet didn’t hit the bannister. “I can walk,” she whispered.

  “You’ll need your strength,” Graham countered when he stepped into his bedchamber and lowered her until her feet touched the carpeted floor.

  Hannah closed his bedchamber door and turned her back to him. Her gaze swept the carved wooden door and the plasterwork and silk fabric that covered the walls and ceiling.

  At first, Graham didn’t understand what she was about until she said, “You have to undo my buttons if you expect to undress me.”

  “Oh. Of course.” He stepped forward and lifted his hands to her back. He struggled with the fastenings. “I don’t have much experience with undressing ladies,” he murmured.

  Hannah turned her head to rest her chin on her shoulder. “No mistress in Boston?” she asked, her voice light.

  “No,” he replied. When the bodice sagged from her front, he placed the flat of one trembling hand on her bare back and smoothed it to the side—until she pulled her arms from the sleeve. He lowered his lips to the nape of her neck and placed a kiss there, his nose tickled by the short curls that had escape her elaborate hair style.

  She inhaled softly before divesting her other arm of its sleeve. “Did you... do you have a wife there?”

  “No,” he said as he helped to pull down the fashionable bell skirt of her gown. Then he offered a hand as she stepped out of it.

  Hannah turned her attention to his cravat and top coat. “So, only... ladies of the evening?” she guessed, unsure if they even had such a thing in Boston.

  Graham cleared his throat at the touch of her fingers sliding on his neck as she undid the knot. “Hannah, I may as well have been a monk,” he murmured. “I spent my nights reliving our only one together. It’s what’s kept me sane. Sleepless and celibate.”

  Her eyes wide at hearing his words, Hannah seemed to relax as her hands moved to unwrap the silk from around his neck. “As did I,” she admitted. “I rather imagine it will be very different now,” she added, as she undid the buttons of his top coat and pushed it from his shoulders.

  Graham took over removing it before he tossed it onto the back of a chair. “Why do you say that?”

  “In the event you hadn’t noticed, you’re... taller. And your arms are...” She exhaled and then inhaled slowly. “Larger,” she said, turning so he could pull the ties of her corset.

  “Unfashionably so, it seems,” he murmured as he plucked the corset ties.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Undoing the ties of her petticoats, Graham paused and lowered his lips to her shoulder. He didn’t kiss it, but nibbled the curved flesh as he considered her words. “But you were thinking it.”

  Hannah inhaled softly, finding it hard to keep up her end of the conversation. “I was actually thinking you had the physique of a pugilist.”

  Graham placed his hands on either side of her waist. “A bare-knuckle fighter?” He pushed the corset and petticoats down past her hips and then let gravity do the rest. He nearly groaned out loud when she shimmied and then stepped out of the puddle of silk and muslin. When she turned to face him, he said, “I will fight for you,” he whispered.

  “I rather doubt that will be necessary,” she murmured, her fingers lifting to his chest.

  “Edward seems to think you’ll have a line of suitors at your door starting tomorrow.”

  Hannah grinned as she managed to undo every button on his waistcoat and was pulling the hem of his shirt from out of his trousers before he noticed. “Then I suppose it will be necessary for you to make your intentions known. And quickly.”

  Graham pushed the neckline of her chemise past one shoulder, his lips forming kiss after kiss on her heated skin. “Is this making my intentions known?” he asked as he moved his lips to her jaw.

  “Quite. However, not to the line of suitors,” she whispered, her breaths short. She moved her fingers lower.

  “So... threaten them with a right cross, perhaps?” he asked in a teasing voice. “Or a left hook?” He wasn’t oblivious to her fingers as they undid the fastenings on his trousers, especially when the last button was undone. His manhood was so engorged, it sprung forth when released from its prison and landed in her far more hospitable hand. He jerked, breaking his hold on her shoulders.

  “Hannah,” he breathed as he gathered up the folds of her chemise and stripped it from her body.

  Aware of the lightweight fabric billowing as it made its way to the floor, Hannah giggled and then wondered if he was even aware of what he was saying. “A simple announcement is all that will be required. Tonight. At the ball.”

  “Then when I have recovered my ability to speak, I shall do so,” he managed to get out between soft gasps and quiet curses. “After I spend the day in that bed with you.”

  One of her thumbs rubbed over the wet silken skin that barely contained his manhood, her fingers wrapping around the shaft and squeezing until she heard Graham’s much louder gasp. “And after today? Will we share a bed, do you suppose?”

  She had to inhale when his mouth came down on one of her breasts. Although nearly flat, the mounds they formed when his hands moved to cup them filled his palm. “You will hear no complaint from me about a shared bed. Especially since you’ll be my wife.”

  His thumbs circled the rosy nipples until they puckered. When his lips took purchase, gently nipping and suckling both, Hannah sighed and slid her grasp down the length of his manhood and back up and down until she had established the rhythm she knew would bring him to ecstasy. Even now, his gentle hold on her hips and his lips on her breasts were becoming tenuous. She smiled when she heard his breaths come in short pants.

  This, they had done before—although never in such an elegant bedchamber and never quite so naked. “The bed,” he managed to get out, pulling himself out of her grasp.

  Startled by his sudden departure from her hold, Hannah stared at
him. Graham took another step back and regarded Hannah, his eyes clearing.

  In the late morning light from the room’s only window, her naked skin seemed to glow. He hadn’t had a chance to remove her stockings or slippers—the garters were still tied around her milky white thighs—but the sight of her like this, with her nipples hard and her skin flushed and her lips swollen from his kisses, Graham was quite sure she was the most beautiful sight he could ever behold. “I am going to make you mine again,” he whispered, not giving her a chance to do anything more than inhale sharply as he lifted her into his arms and moved to place her on the bed.

  Hannah wasn’t about to protest—the space at the top of her thighs was pulsing—she was so wet with desire, she wanted nothing more than his velvety rod to fill her.

  Who but Graham would she ever allow this kind of intimacy?

  Slowly, she settled into the linens, sighing as she felt their softness surround her.

  Graham leaned over the bed, sprinkling her body with kisses as he moved onto the bed and then positioned himself so his legs were between hers. His kisses became longer and slower, moving toward the throbbing space. First one hand and then the other moved beneath her knees, gently lifting them so her legs bent. Using his teeth, he untied the garters on each stocking, slid a finger beneath the top edge of each and slowly moved them down the length of each leg, leaving soft kisses in their wake.

  His hands moved to the inside of her thighs, stroking the tender skin until she finally relaxed and her womanhood was open to his lips and tongue.

  Arching her back at the sudden sensation of his tongue invading her most private place, Hannah inhaled sharply. Her hands grasped at the linens, holding onto the fabric as if she had to anchor herself to the bed or float away on the waves of pleasure she felt cresting deep inside.

  Her moans went from soft sounds to erotic cries in only moments as Graham’s tongue flicked across her womanhood over and over until the swollen bud was red and ready. When his lips captured and suckled it, Hannah cried out, her entire body breaking apart as the waves crested and crashed and carried her to ecstasy.