by Lisa Torquay
“Don’t,” he said as her gaze met his, and her fingers froze.
Slowly, her hand rested on the wooden surface, leaving her wheat strands over one shoulder. The faint fire shone on the wavy, glossy mass, making him wish to bury his face in it.
His fixed attention seemed to stir her, eyes restless like a butterfly. “Did you retrieve what you needed” she asked, her satiny voice filling the nightly silence.
He nodded. “I crossed paths with Trent and his crowd on the way,” he added. Over the years, he realised Harriet had no love lost on the future Marquis. “You care little for him, I can see.”
At that, her eyes snapped down, concealing her thoughts. “A useless ruffian.”
“I cannot disagree with you there,” he replied, and they fell into their own thoughts for a moment.
A minute or two elapsed before she spoke again. “Do you miss Scotland?”
He did, a lot. But to tell the truth, he had not thought about his home country in quite a while, so absorbed had he been in his studies and, well, in her. “I do miss it, yes. When I’m not so busy, that is,” he paused to witness her interest. “My father keeps me informed of the latest news.” And Sam travelled home on holidays.
“And what about your mother?” she asked and sipped her tea.
It was his turn to lower his eyes at the wave of emotion that filled him. “She died when I turned three,” he said after a pause then looked back at her quizzical stance.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the words became compassionate.
Sorry was not a term he would use to describe how he felt. A void would be more like it. A place where his mother should have stayed full of affection and memories. But no. After giving birth to him, she took off to Aberdeen, where she died in a drunken accident. As far as he gathered, she displayed a flighty disposition, a woman to whom childbirth was not a positive thing. The elderly servants whispered that Fiona had fallen in a melancholy mood in the months following his arrival in the world. In Aberdeen, his mother enjoyed the city life she had been so keen on experiencing. And died knocked down by a carriage while trying to cross the street on tipsy legs.
“I never knew her,” the simple answer more appropriate. “My grand-fathers arranged my parents’ marriage when they were barely seventeen.” Taran, his father, concluded that they both had been too young, which probably meant Sam’s late mother had problems understanding the responsibility marriage encompassed.
But there was the undeniable fact that Sam grew up without a mother, receiving care from nannies and governesses. His father was kept constantly busy with the clan’s affairs and receded into a shell of wariness. Only Aileen, his father’s second wife, succeeded in dragging him out of it. She came as a breath of fresh air that healed both the McDougal men.
“But you have brothers,” she commented. Naturally, he had told her about six-year-old Roy and two-year-old Errol, the most recent addition to the family.
A fond smile lit his face. “My father married Aileen just before I came to Oxford,” he quipped, remembering the torrid love The McDougal and his wife shared. “Actually, she was the one who convinced him to let me come.” Sam had dreamed of academic life for a long time. Aileen told Taran that she would marry him only if he stopped being so stubborn and granted it to his son.
Harriet smiled too. “She must be a remarkable woman.”
“Exceptionally so,” he admitted. “They’re happy together.”
She nodded, but a flitting glimmer of hurt passed over her features. “Good to know that there are marriages which pane out.”
Concerned, his brows pleated, “Yours wasn’t?” Funny how little he knew about her life before becoming a governess in the professor’s household. Not that he could discuss marriages with that much knowledge.
“I cannot say that, no,” a delicate hand took the cup, her thumb gliding over it distractedly.
He waited, uncertain if he should ask why or refrain from interfering with what had surely resulted in a difficult time.
Harriet took a sip, placed the cup on its saucer as her fingers traced the ridges on the table. An undefinable amount of time slipped by before her head raised to him.
“He proved to be a drunkard more interested in soused brawls than domestic life.”
The selfish bastard! Sam cursed. With a woman like her by his side, he had been stupid to the point of wasting his life and missing the chance to enjoy her company and her warmth. Had it been himself, he would not even think of leaving her bed, let alone the house.
“How did you meet him?” he asked to dispel his murderous thoughts.
“He was a newly graduate attorney who my father met at work,” a nostalgic faint smile drew her tempting lips. “John started to come to my home. When he asked for my hand, my parents thought he had a bright future ahead of him.” With a tilt of her head, the smile vanished. “His charm concealed his true personality, and at nineteen I fell for it.”
“To me, he sounds like a stupid man,” Sam stated candidly.
Those crystalline eyes blinked, and she smiled her gratitude for his words. “We’d better retire. There are loads to do tomorrow,” she said becoming serious again.
Sam looked at her, a strong reluctance dominating his insides. He did not want the night to end. Or better, he did not want for them to finish the night separated by those walls between their chambers, separated by the walls determined by society and foolish morals. He wished them to spend days and nights together talking, kissing, working. They could lie even if chastely, but he wanted to revel in her warmth, to wrap his arms around her, inhale her scent, hear her voice, watch her sleep. And go on doing this his entire life.
But he could not. She may have allowed him to touch her out of pity for the lonely scholar he must seem to be in her eyes. She called him a handsome young man, surely implying she would not take a younger man like him seriously. Whichever the case, what was clear was that he stood no chance of accompanying her to her chambers at that moment. So his only choice was to nod agreement and stand up when she did. They bid good-night to each other, and the kitchen became the coldest of places with her absence.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sam questioned the wisdom of his decision to stay in with a book as he sat on a settee in the professor’s drawing room the next evening. Harriet sat straight with a book of her own right across from him, her tea on the side table. The simple chignon, the demure light-blue dress and her engrossed stance did nothing to distract him from the gnawing desire coursing through him. The gnawing desire that had poured through him the whole day.
They had worked diligently on the paper from morning until dinner, having nearly finished it for him to present to the visiting group of botanists arriving at Oxford shortly. The work was diverting, but did not erase the tension clouding the air between them every minute they spent in the same room.
Like now, for example.
The fire in the fireplace and the candle lights they used for reading fell on her with a warm glow. They emphasised her delicate nose, the satiny skin of her cheeks and neck and the wheat wisps of hair framing her face. All he wanted was to kneel before her seat, take her in his arms and kiss her until the end of time.
On his armchair, he went utterly still as the vision of her worked its way in his blood with inevitable intensity.
Perhaps, he should retire to his chamber and stop this torture, or at least douse its raging effects.
Abruptly, she lifted her head, and their stares clashed, causing his body to react with unbearable—and embarrassing—swiftness. She must have realised he had not moved in ages, no crossing or uncrossing of legs, no turning of pages, not even breath.
“What is it, Samuel?” she asked, going motionless herself.
Damn his colouring for showing the furious red that burned on the surface. Momentarily, his voice failed him, then his mind as it blanked. In a struggle to react and answer, he said the first thing that came to his mouth.
“I’d like to see you,” the shameful request aired low and hoarse, he swallowed hard and tried to apologise, but no words came.
Her feminine nostrils took in air in a faint gasp, but did not release it. “You’re seeing me,” she replied in a silky tone.
He could take it back and claim misunderstanding. Or he could reiterate it, repeat it, delight himself in the mere idea of it if she became outraged.
“Can I-can I see you, that is...well…you know,”
The revealing blush covered even the tips of her shapely ears. “You mean you want—” her lashes fluttered in the heavy silence that ensued.
“Yes, I do,” he stated, filling the quietness with more tension. “As a scientist,” what gibberish is this, McDougal? He admonished himself. There would be no red-blooded male on this planet that would have the remotest scientific curiosity where she was concerned. Not this cold or analytical in any case, least of all academic.
“Samuel,” it came so faint it seemed almost a moan. Her book closed, forgotten.
“W-would you lie down and let me—” the feverish wave that travelled to his groin prevented him from completing the sentence.
Her gaze darted down to her slippers, hiding under her prudish skirts. God, prudish must be the most erotic thing since the invention of the wheel, for it turned him on in seconds. He had gone so hard it ached.
Their eyes continued absorbing each other, her finger clawed at her skirts in a clear sign of ragged resistance.
“Please,” he uttered in a coaxing tone.
She looked at him, then to the settee, then at him again. He body shifted a fraction of an inch, froze. The book fell on the carpet with a muffled thud. Her hands adjusted her skirts to cover her better, then let it go. She froze again for several heartbeats, making his own heart stop in the process as he literally held his breath.
As if making a decision, her feet slid her slippers off and she rotated onto the settee, knees bent. Her frame rigid, she straightened her spine and dared not direct her gaze to him.
Afraid she might change her mind, he fairly flew to the seat across from him, sitting on the other end. Her eyes flashed on his middle, one hand going to her bosom as if stopping herself from reaching out.
Slow, so slow, he placed one long-fingered hand on each dainty foot, covering them, registering the demure stockings. Warm and soft, they tantalised his palms. He felt weak and powerful at the same time. This woman was bestowing the precious privilege of her person on him. He became so aroused and awed at the same time he did not wish to spoil the moment.
Her skirts covered his hands as he slid them up shapely calves, taking the fabric with the movement. Their eyes locked in simmering expectation, her chest raising and falling in short intakes of oxygen.
Sam had not the slightest idea of what women’s underclothes were or looked like. So, he let his hands follow the stockings as a myriad of fabrics bunched on his wrists. He kept going because not doing it would be the death of him.
He travelled over her slim knees only to count another flimsy piece of clothing. “I did not know there were so many layers,” he commented when his fingers sneaked under those too.
“These are the drawers,” she informed breathless, relaxed enough and leaning on the settee’s arm.
He had heard of these. Under so many pieces of clothing, they were the ones which contradictorily had a slit that would bare her to him so easily. His need would have driven him to ruck all those useless things up and reach for her femininity with avid intent. But he dared not, the moment held a high chance of growing memorable and he wanted to miss not a second of it.
Suddenly, there were no more cloths as he reached the top of her stockings. His palms touched the strip of thighs, smooth and warm, like nothing he had ever touched in his entire existence. She helped him by bunching the skirts around her waist at the same second her knees gave and flapped to the sides.
Fucking blasting hell!
Through the slit, a triangle of pale hair came into view together with an aroma so enticing it called for him to lower his nostrils and inhale it in all its potent scent. His hands splayed over the thighs in a subterfuge to feel more of it.
His eyes were incapable of ungluing from the spot. “May I…?” he asked not looking at her.
“Yes,” she breathed.
It was all the permission he needed. Masculine thumbs parted the slit on the fabric, only to find another one, hers. Rosy and glistening with a sort of moisture. One index traced the outer layer, encountering silky hair, damp skin, until it came across a soft place at the base. Lightly pressing, it gave and his finger dove inside, it was hot, wet and it seemed as if it swallowed a whole phalange.
“Sorry,” he blurted, about to leave it be.
“It’s where you fit,” she informed in a whisper.
His brain halted for several seconds. Then it grasped her meaning.
Fit?
How was he supposed to survive this in one piece?
If he was to fit in there, he would never leave. Ever.
One more phalange slid in, he allowed it to be sucked, imagining all kinds of paradises it suggested.
Curiosity got the best of him though, there were a whole lot of elements to explore here. Exiting, he used his thumbs to open the inner lips, one and the other, to find a nub peaking from a sort of hood.
In utter amazement, the botanist in him kicked in. The lips resembled petals, his middle finger glided over the whole extension and rested on the firm centre so similar to the stigma, the very core of a flower. He rounded it, opening the spot for his observation. And smiled as if before a new discovery.
"You have petals that open to a perfumed centre with a pistil and a bud.” An enlightened expression lit his face. “Harriet, you are a flower!” a eureka moment that received no reply.
Round spectacles snapped to the woman sprawled on the settee. Her head was thrown back, fast breathing, spine arched, her teeth clamping on her lower lip.
“What is it, Harriet?” worry coated his question.
"You're reducing me to a mass of pleasure, that's what." She barely clipped out before moaning, for his hand continued to move over her dewed flesh.
“Does it hurt?”
Her head shook in denial. "If you stop, I swear I'll die!"
So he did not.
Not in a million years did he want her to die.
“Put your finger back where it was,” she murmured.
The only way of doing it was to use his index where he ‘fit’, and his thumb to do the rest of the job. Her long moan said it had been a wise solution.
Sam watched her closely, enthralled, when her fist flew to her mouth, her entire body tensed, her nub became harder. A muffled scream echoed in the drawing room at the same time her flesh gripped his index, and everything in her flower pulsed.
A mediaeval book he once read in the Bodleian Library, the biggest and oldest in Oxford, mentioned the female ejaculation. This must be it, he contemplated as he soothed her with his caresses until she seemed calmer.
When her breathing normalised, she opened her eyes and looked at him with a sated expression on them. “I never dreamed this could happen,” the surprise clear in her tone.
“Neither did I,” he said, taking in her flushed cheeks and dishevelled hair.
“Come here,” she invited.
Cradled in between her knees, he rested his head on her bosom.
“Here, let me take these,” and took off his spectacles to place them on the side table.
From her core, his hand had wandered to her back and now caressed a delectable nether cheek.
His voluminous crotch found itself snuggled in her centre, and his imagination saw himself freeing it to try and fit where she said he would. He dared not, though. After asking to see her…parts, he had used up any right for further explorations.
“Thank you,” he ventured as her fingers rolled in his hair.
; “For what?”
“Letting me see your flower.”
She breathed a small grin. “I’d never thought about it like that,” her voice smiling.
“What would you call it?” His hand had abandoned her back and climbed up her bodice.
“I don’t really know.” That palm covered one breast over the bodice. “What about you?”
“Cock, I suppose.” The thumb glided over the tight nipple eliciting an approving sound from her.
“Hm, makes sense,” she replied. He lowered her bodice. Blue eyes darted to him. “What are you doing?”
A noise on the stairs outside alerted them of Mrs Marsh. Quickly they put themselves to rights and caught their books when the knock came. The housekeeper come in to ask them if they needed anything before she retired.
In the morning, they sat in the study to continue their work. The lecture would be that week, and they needed to write the final version of the paper.
Harriet slept like the angels. Not surprising after what Samuel did to her. When he issued his request in that tentative, soft voice of his, a mixture of eagerness and shyness invaded her. The will to grant him the opportunity to see a woman for the first time warred with the notions of modesty and decency ingrained in her from childhood.
But her memory argued that being a good girl and an exemplary wife had got her nowhere. The thought propelled her to grant his wish. Together with the frisson of being the first woman with whom he would experience it. Not for a millisecond did she imagine it would end as it did. The minute he had placed his long hands on her feet, the world tilted on its axes and transformed her from prissy governess to wanton widow in a question of seconds. The way he thoroughly explored the new element at hand threw her in a pit of need and greed. From which she did not rise until the final satisfaction he afforded her with so much generosity. As he lay on her bosom, she had this urge to ‘invite’ him in, reciprocate the joy he had given her. Just as she had been about to do so, the housekeeper’s steps on the stairs prompted her to scramble from her lying position into her usual modesty.