What Happens in Piccadilly

by Bowlin, Chasity

  And then he slipped the delicate chemise she wore from her entirely, shoving the garment down over her hips until he could tug it free and toss the crumpled linen to the floor. Then she was naked in his bed, her normally alabaster complexion flushed with desire. Winn kissed her again, even as one hand stroked the supple flesh of her thighs, soothing, coaxing, until they parted for him and he could touch her intimately. The heat of her was the sweetest kind of torment, but he endured it as he explored her body, learning the ways to please her. He noted which touches made her gasp, which made her moan, those that made her arch and strain against him. And then he noted those that made her tremble and cling to him as the pleasure built inside her. But it was the sound of his name on her lips as she came for him that would be forever emblazoned on his memory.

  He couldn’t wait any longer. Moving between her parted thighs, he hitched her knees high on his hips until he was nudging inside her. Slowly, carefully, he eased his way until he could feel the fragile barrier of her innocence. He kissed her, claiming her mouth just as he claimed her body.

  When it was done, he went still immediately, struggling to breathe, struggling to cling to the last vestiges of his willpower. And then, slowly, she began to relax again, her hands which had been fisted against his back slowly eased until he felt the splay of her fingers along his sides.

  “That wasn’t exactly what I anticipated,” she said.

  Winn smiled then, kissing her again. When he drew back, he replied, “We aren’t quite finished yet… and it only gets better from here.”

  And then he showed her. With slow, rhythmic strokes, he built that perfect tension once more, until she was clinging to him, her back arched and her head thrown back in beautiful abandon. With more patience than he knew he possessed, he held his own pleasure at bay until she crested that peak again. Then he followed her over the edge, thrusting deep, holding her to him as her soft cries echoed around them.

  Eventually, the room grew quiet, even their ragged breaths settling until they were just soft whispers of sound. Rolling to his side, Winn pulled her with him. He found himself unwilling to let go of her, even for a moment. And luckily for him, she was content enough to rest easily in the circle of his arms, her head on his chest and one of her hands clasped in his.

  Neither of them spoke, but then again, they didn’t need to. They’d already expressed the depths of their feelings for one another. There was something almost sacred in that silence as they lay there together, as if to speak would break the fragile spell that held them cocooned together away from the world and all the ugliness it could hold. Eventually, they fell into a deep sleep just that way, entwined together, wrapped in the tangled bedding and one another.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Averston was in his study. Seated in the chair across from his desk was a woman he should have resented, a woman he should, based on everything that had been drilled into him since childhood, despise. And yet, he found himself glad of her presence, glad to have her there in the home where he’d welcomed so very few visitors. In the weeks since his newfound cousin had been married to the Earl of Montgomery, they’d been frequent visitors to his home and had welcomed him on numerous occasions into theirs. It was a strange feeling to find himself suddenly welcomed into a loving family when he’d never known such a thing truly existed before.

  That wasn’t true, of course. He’d known that people could love and be loved by their families. Charles Burney had shown him that. Thoughts of the young man he’d shared such a brief romantic interlude with often crossed his mind and brought with them a pang of sadness and a wealth of regret. After all, if he hadn’t sought to further his association with Burney, then his grandmother would never have begun plotting against him. He’d all but painted a target on Burney with his attention. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

  “Are you well?”

  Averston looked up, noting the worried expression on Calliope, Lady Montgomery’s, pretty face. “Quite well, Cousin. Thank you.”

  Forcing his attention back to the document before him, he went over it again and again. Yet no matter how many times he read it, he still could not make sense of it.

  “You’re mad. They’ll lock you in Bedlam for this,” he said.

  “Who would do it?” Calliope asked. “Not my husband. I have his wholehearted approval on the terms. And why on earth would you take such steps when they are so favorable to you?”

  He laughed, a rusty sound that he was entirely unused to producing. “This isn’t favorable. It’s madness. You’re giving away the entire fortune.”

  “No. I’m giving away a large portion of the fortune. There are numerous charities that will get hefty donations, as well as the Darrow School. The mother and sister of Mr. Charles Burney shall be well taken care of… and so shall you. After all, it was your investments and your business acumen which helped to amass that fortune, was it not?” Callie pointed out. “What fairness is there in turning it over to me? Winn has all he can to do to keep up with his own properties and estates. I certainly have no head for business!”

  “Yes, but you will have children one day and they should have some access to this fortune.”

  “Then when my children are born you may include them in your will if you choose,” she replied firmly.

  Averston looked back at the document once more. “And the trustees agreed to this?”

  “The trustees no longer have a say. Once it was determined beyond any doubt that I was the daughter of the 10th Duke of Averston and his wife, they had to release the funds to my husband. And this was undertaken with Winn’s full knowledge and approval,” Callie explained. “We really do not need the money. And it isn’t right that you should have to manage family estates on a sliver of a budget just because my late father was trying to punish his mother.”

  “Which she deserved,” Averston said, his gaze flicking to the black velvet band around his upper arm.

  “She did,” Callie agreed. “Sign the papers, Cousin. Sign the papers and have all that is dear to you free and clear. There is only one thing I would ask you for.”

  “And what is that?” Averston asked. He’d give it to her, of course. How could he not when she’d placed the proverbial keys to the kingdom in his hands?

  “I would like the portrait of my mother, and I’d like to hire someone to paint a duplicate of the portrait of my father so that I might have both in my own home,” she said. “It seems silly to want portraits of people I’ve never known, doesn’t it?”

  “No. It doesn’t. It’s a connection to them that has been denied you for far too long. You’ve every right to the portraits. Both of them. I’ll have them delivered to your home. Not a copy either. The original is yours. I doubt he’d mind it hanging in Hamilton’s gallery rather than this one. Heaven knows he shouldn’t have to share wall space with the dowager duchess!”

  Callie grimaced. “You make an excellent point. Are you well, truly?”

  “I am,” he said. “I don’t expect you to understand the nature of my relationship with Mr. Burney.”

  “But I do,” she said. “You cared for him. And you were deprived of the opportunity to find out if it could have been something more than that. There is nothing so bitter as regret and missed opportunities.”

  He drew in a sharp breath. “And you do not revile me for it.”

  “It is not for me to dictate where, how, when or who you love, Cousin,” she replied. “I understand the world holds such relationships in contempt, but the world is wrong about many, many things.”

  Averston signed the documents, sanded them and when they were dry, folded them before passing them back across the expanse of the desk to her. “Thank you for that.”

  “For what?”

  “For accepting me,” he said. “I truly had no notion such a thing could exist in my life.”

  Her kind eyes were filled with sadness and sympathy. “She took so much from me but, in the end, I was spared her influence on me. I didn’t have to li
ve under her thumb or being twisted by her to serve her purposes. I think in that way I was very lucky. And I think you underestimate what a truly remarkable person you are to have withstood her influence for as long as you did without caving to it.”

  “I’m not good, Calliope. I am not kind nor am I warm and loving. I don’t possess those traits. I am grateful for your friendship, for your acceptance of me. But that doesn’t make me a good man,” Averston warned.

  She smiled then, rising to her feet. “Oh, Cousin… I don’t offer you my friendship. I offer you my love. We are family, after all. And acceptance is simply part of that. As to your character, well, time will tell. But there’s something remarkable that happens to us all, Averston, when someone loves us unconditionally. It makes us better, whether we wish it to not.”

  Averston had no notion of what she was doing as she walked around the desk. By the time he realized that she meant to embrace him, to hug and comfort him as if he were some sort of wounded child, it was too late to stop her. “Sweet heavens, woman! Get hold of yourself!”

  She went on hugging him as if she hadn’t heard a word he said. It was, in spite of his protests, strangely comforting to him. When at last, she stepped back, she smiled up at him in a manner that could only be described as beatific. “For better or worse, Gerald, we are the only blood relations either of us shall have. At least for a time. I won’t stand on ceremony and allow you to be hurt and alone… not when I can help it.”

  “I’m not one of your charges. You don’t get to governess me,” he said.

  “You’ll come to dinner on Friday?” she asked.

  “Will you promise not to hug me?”

  “I shall promise to refrain from hugging you unless I feel you need to be hugged,” she said, still smiling. “It is the best I can do.”

  He sighed. “Fine. I’ll see you at dinner. But I’m having a talk with your husband. You can’t just go around hugging men! Good lord. How have you survived this long?”

  “But you’re my cousin,” she protested, even as she picked up her reticule and made for the door. “I will see you on Friday.”

  She exited the library and Averston was alone again. Alone, but perhaps for the first time in a very long time, he did not feel lonely. And for that, he had Calliope to thank. And Montgomery, Highcliff and Effie Darrow for that matter. Regardless of what they knew about him and his lifestyle, they’d welcomed him openly into their little circle. He wasn’t foolish enough to think the entire world would be so understanding, but he was beginning to see that perhaps his grandmother had used that against him, as well, mocking him and making him believe that no one would ever tolerate him.

  Opening the top drawer of the desk, Averston moved several items until he found the letter buried underneath. He’d hidden it there, tucked it away so that he wouldn’t have to look at it. So that he wouldn’t have to face what had occurred.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, he broke the seal and read the neatly penned note.

  Your grace,

  I do hope this letter finds you well. I wanted to tell you that, following the tragedy of my brother’s death, I found some entries in his journal that made particular reference to you. I’ve hidden these away. It would be a lie to say that I was shocked by these things. The truth is, my brother thought he was hiding things from everyone. But he could never hide things from me. Regardless, there is nothing that my brother could ever have done that would damage my deep and abiding affection for him.

  My mother, however, would be quite scandalized by them. But I did want you to know that Charles held you in very high regard. I didn’t need his journals to tell me that. I could see it in the way he looked at you. I daresay that his feelings for you were quite beyond what you might have expected. I’ve no wish to make assumptions, but I thought perhaps you might wish to have these books. They could be damaging in the wrong hands and I can’t keep them here for fear my mother would find them. Please send word and I shall have them delivered to you.

  Also, I must thank you for attending the ball. It meant the world to my brother and to me.

  Sincerely,

  Miss Amelia Burney

  Averston sighed, folded the letter and tucked it once more into the drawer. It was too late to call on her. But the following day, he’d go to see Miss Amelia Burney. He owed the memory of her brother that.

  *

  Calliope stepped outside the residence of the Duke of Averston and smiled. Directly across the street, she could see her husband walking in the park with Claudia, Charlotte clinging to his neck like a monkey and William running wildly about them, swinging a stick like it was a sword.

  How she loved him! How she loved them all. The children had invaded her heart from the very first moment. But she’d been more cautious with him, as any woman should. Crossing the street, she joined them near the gates.

  “Now can we go to Gunners?”

  “Gunter’s,” Winn corrected Charlotte with a grin. “And yes, now we may go to Gunter’s.”

  “You spoil them shamelessly,” Callie said, smiling as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

  Winn set Charlotte down. “Go chase your brother down and tell him we’re going for ices.” With Charlotte gone, he leaned in once more, and this time, he didn’t kiss her cheek. He kissed that delicate and so very tender spot just below her ear which made her shiver. Then he whispered, “When we get home, I’m going to spoil you, too.”

  Callie spared a glance for Claudia who was watching Charlotte closely as she chased down William. “I believe that’s called despoiling,” she whispered back. “Now behave.”

  He grinned at her. “It’s only called that if we’re not married. Being married, it’s referred to as being an attentive and thorough husband.”

  There was no chance for her to reply. William and Charlotte returned then, running at them like wild things. “I want a coconut ice!” Charlotte said.

  “And I want lemon!” William cried.

  “You shall all have the flavor of ice that you desire so long as the shop has it,” Callie offered smoothly. Claudia held Charlotte’s hand. William skipped ahead of them and she and Winn were left to walk behind.

  “It’s all rather remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Callie asked, looking up at Winn, noting his somewhat bemused expression.

  “You were mere yards away from me. Growing up at the Darrow School, you were yards away from me, from Averston, from the place that should have been your home.”

  Callie shrugged. “There was more than distance separating me from all those things. Class can be an unreachable barrier. I was a servant… beneath notice. Or at the very least that is what I was being reared for.”

  “Hardly that,” he said. “You could never be beneath notice. But whatever strange stroke of fate brought you into my world when it did, I am grateful for it,” he said, his tone heartfelt and weighted with emotion. “I didn’t know how empty my life was until you. Even with the children, I loved them, but was too weighted down by the tradition of how things had been in my own childhood to show them that.”

  Callie leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked arm in arm toward the sweet shop and the treats that the children were all but salivating for. “If it’s any consolation, my life was quite empty, as well. And I knew that. I felt it. Every day. But I don’t feel it now. And I daresay, I won’t ever have to feel it again. I love you, Winn. I could say it a hundred times in a day and it wouldn’t be enough.”

  “I love you, too,” he said, pausing for a moment to kiss her lips.

  “EWWW!”

  They broke apart, laughing, as they faced William and his look of disgust. “You’re the one who kept suggesting I marry her,” Winn pointed out.

  “But I didn’t know you’d be doing that all the time,” William insisted.

  When the boy was facing forward again. Winn kissed her again, quick and hard. “Just wait… once we get home, I’ll kiss you properly.”

 
; “We could send them into Gunter’s alone for a moment and you could kiss me properly here,” Callie suggested.

  Winn’s lips quirked in a wicked grin and in a low, conspiratorial whisper, he said, “Oh, no, my darling wife. Because that proper kiss won’t be on your lovely lips… and neither one of us will be wearing a stitch.”

  Callie blushed furiously, even as she disengaged her arm from his. They’d reached Gunter’s and she was in full governess mode, herding children. “Come along, children. We don’t have time to dawdle. Your uncle has a very pressing engagement later.”

  She could hear him laughing behind her, but she didn’t care a whit. Ices were delightful, but she had something even sweeter on her mind, after all.

  About the Author

  Chasity Bowlin lives in central Kentucky with her husband and their menagerie of animals. She loves writing, loves traveling and enjoys incorporating tidbits of her actual vacations into her books. She is an avid Anglophile, loving all things British, but specifically all things Regency.

  Growing up in Tennessee, spending as much time as possible with her doting grandparents, soap operas were a part of her daily existence, followed by back to back episodes of Scooby Doo. Her path to becoming a romance novelist was set when, rather than simply have her Barbie dolls cruise around in a pink convertible, they time traveled, hosted lavish dinner parties and one even had an evil twin locked in the attic.

  Website: www.chasitybowlin.com