by Lucy Langton
Louisa backed away from Isaac slowly, looking ashamed of herself. “I’m so sorry, Mr Quince, but I must be gone. It isn’t ... it is not because ... farewell.”
Louisa ran from the room, and Isaac was left standing by the still-open door feeling as though he had been standing next to an explosive when it went off. I must have done something wrong, Isaac cursed himself. Perhaps I was not an adequate kisser, or perhaps that did not unfold in the way that she wanted it to. But why did she not stay and tell me those things? She ran from the room as if she had seen a ghost!
In the end, Isaac could not entirely put together why Louisa had been so ashamed and had run from the room so quickly. That did not, however, stop him from worrying and thinking over it constantly until the next time that he saw Louisa.
Chapter 16
As Louisa sat in the carriage on the drive home from Isaac’s house, she could not seem to stop her hands from shaking. No matter what she did, she could not stop re-playing the few moments before the kiss as well as the kiss itself. It simultaneously felt like a dream and a nightmare; it was both better than she could have ever imagined, and the worst thing that could have possibly happened.
She made herself look out the window, attempting to become distracted. It had started to rain just as she was fleeing from the Quince estate, and now the rain was coming down in buckets. Unlike most people, Louisa actually found rain to be quite calming. She zeroed in on the rain droplets running down the carriage windows and tried to focus only on that.
When she was able to do that for about thirty seconds, she finally found that her breathing had begun to return to normal, and her whole body had stopped vibrating from the excitement of the kiss.
Though, of course, when she gave her mind a moment’s break from looking at the rain, the guilty thoughts flooded back in. You fool! she cursed herself. Now you know for certain the way that Isaac feels for you, and he believes that you have confirmed your feelings for him. This will only make your betrayal of him ten times worse, and he may never recover from something like this.
Louisa was suddenly jarred from her thoughts when the carriage came to an abrupt stop. Louisa looked around to see where they were and recognized none of the landscape. She was just about to lean out the door and ask the driver what had happened when the door to her right swung open, and Stephen Strandmere let himself into the carriage.
“Hello, my dear,” he greeted her gleefully. “What an unexpected pleasure to have stumbled into you on this road leading from Isaac Quince’s home to yours. Driver? Continue!”
Stephen banged on the front of the carriage twice, and the driver continued at his previous pace. Louisa shrunk as far as she could away from Stephen with a grimace upon her face.
“Mr. Strandmere. What is it that you want?” she asked frankly, affording him none of the social pleasantries that she had been forced to in front of her parents. Stephen had dropped by unannounced a few times this week, and Louisa had been obligated to introduce him to them. Naturally, she did not inform them of the plan that they had been forming, but it still made her uncomfortable to know that her parents were now becoming acquainted with this vile man. His visits would also make their engagement seem less surprising to Louisa’s parents, for better or for worse.
“Can I not simply surprise my fiancée-to-be on her way home?” Stephen asked innocently, unsuccessfully trying to brush some of the water from his jacket. “Why do we need to discuss our little scheme at all of our meetings?”
“Because otherwise, we have no reason to be acquainted,” Louisa said coldly. “If you have something to say to me, do it now, and do it quickly, for we are rapidly approaching my home, and I do not wish my parents to see you travelling with me.”
Stephen raised his eyebrows and leaned back onto the seat, crossing his hands and placing them on his stomach. “Well, well, look at you, Miss demanding,” Stephen said condescendingly. “Isn’t that adorable; you think that you have any choice in the way that I treat you. I shall not adhere to your wish of being unseen by your parents, but I shall get right to my point of dropping in on you like this. What price have you driven your home up to now?”
Louisa felt the panic that she had just managed to control, beginning to bubble beneath the surface once more. “Almost ... double what it was before,” she lied, not meeting Stephen’s eye.
Unfortunately, Stephen could see right through her. “That is a flagrant lie, and I will not have that!” Stephen slammed his hand so hard against the seat that a cloud of dust filled the air in front of Louisa and made her cough. “If you do not adhere to our plan and my wishes, then I shall call everything off. You will not only be left penniless and disgraced but the Quinces, the only family held in high regard in town who currently wants anything to do with you, shall abandon you as well for leading their son on a fool’s errand. Is that what you want?”
Louisa, having recovered from her coughing fit, stared determinedly out the window and did not say a word to Stephen. She could feel his eyes boring into her, but she did not care; he was behaving like a petulant child, and she was not going to be a part of it. Finally, when she thought she had given him enough silence, she gave him an answer.
“Mr Strandmere. I understand that you think that you control every aspect of this situation, but you sadly cannot. I am the middle man in this situation, and I am suffering dearly for it. You continuously ask me to draw out the process of selling my family’s home to ask for more money, and yet you have not once thought about the fact that my father has not worked for some time, and so we are in rather desperate need of assistance. I cannot draw this out any longer, and I cannot ask for more money; we need the money from the sale of this house now.”
Louisa finally looked back at Stephen and expected him to be still fuming after his explosion. However, he now simply looked upon Louisa with pity. “Oh, you poor thing,” he said patronizingly. “You’re that desperate for money? Why did you not ask me, your soon to be dearly beloved. I shall take care of you.”
Louisa felt as though she might be sick. “No,” she said firmly, standing her ground. “My family’s name has already been dragged through the mud for making foolish errors. I shall not take money from you until we are married. I will not do anything more to risk my reputation.”
Stephen laughed cruelly. “Miss Louisa, I shall say this one last time and make myself perfectly clear: you will do as you are told. I am sickened by your lack of gratitude for my generosity, and you are almost making me regret my decision to offer to marry you. But in the end, I know that it will be worth it. And I can always supplement you with a mistress or two.”
That was all that Louisa could take. She banged twice upon the front of the carriage, and it ground to a halt. She jumped from the wagon, looked around, and saw to her great relief that she was close to their home. She could hear Stephen shouting something from behind her but did not reply. She turned to the driver on her way past and said, “Please deliver Mr Strandmere to his home and then return the carriage, thank you.”
The driver nodded and turned the horses around. She could now only hear the muffled tones of Stephen, as the door had been closed on him when the horses turned. All that mattered now was that her feet were pounding against the road, the rain was in her face, and she was within sight of home. She did her best to erase what Stephen had said from her memory and decided that no matter what Stephen said, she would meet Isaac tomorrow to finalize the sale. She would deal with the consequences of that when the time came.
She decided against writing to Isaac to warn him that she was coming, enjoying the idea of surprising him. Louisa still felt a massive amount of guilt for having kissed him when she knew what she had to do to him, but she also needed to have a few small delights to keep her going, and so the thought of surprising Isaac remained.
She spent the rest of that evening caring for her father while her mother struggled through making dinner, and Sophie had the night off. Louisa could not have been more grateful to
have Sophie around, especially now, and she hoped that even though the family could not be more generous to her financially, she felt appreciated through their verbal gratitude. Louisa was also thankful that Sophie had pressed no further about what had been on her mind the night that she had caught on to her ill mood. Sophie was wonderful like that.
She decided to set out for Isaac’s home early the next morning while her family was still in bed. She did not want them to enquire about where she was going, as she had been trying to keep her visits to Isaac’s home a secret. She knew that if her father were to become aware of any sort of continuation regarding negotiating the house price, he wouldn’t be able to rest.
He was already being stubborn enough now about remaining in bed while Louisa took care of the household affairs. Doctor Abbott had been by to visit a few times (and of course, the Quince brothers had kindly already taken care of his fee) and was really helping Archie to recover, but Archie was anxious for his recovery to move even faster. Louisa hoped that she could keep his concerns about the house at bay for long enough that she could handle it.
Louisa took the family’s horse and rode to Isaac’s estate. It was so early in the morning that there was still mist coming off of the fields as she rode past. The sunlight was just beginning to sparkle through the trees, and the dew that had collected on the foliage was now encouraging the light to twinkle. For once, Louisa allowed herself a pleasurable ride where she did not once fret over what would happen when she arrived at Isaac’s estate.
She took her horse inside the barn when she got there, and then entered the house through the servants’ entrance. She felt very scandalous entering the house without knocking or being welcomed, but she so hoped to catch Isaac off-guard and surprise him to see what his genuine reaction would be to her.
Louisa knew she could always make up some excuse as to how she had entered the house; her main concern was seeing how Isaac truly felt about her when he saw her unannounced.
She walked through the main hall, past the dining room and the first sitting room, and then was about to go down the long hall towards the garden when she passed the library. There was a figure sitting in a chair with his back to the door, and from the blond tuft of hair she could see poking out above the top of the chair, she knew it was Isaac. She took in a deep breath and gently knocked on the door.
Chapter 17
It took a moment for Isaac to move, but when he did, he turned around and looked somewhat scared. However, when he saw that it was Louisa, the most delighted, blissful look came over his face. “Miss Louisa,” he said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “I do apologize, did we have a meeting this morning that I missed? I’m afraid that I fell asleep in my chair last night; I was re-reading some of my father’s old law books and couldn’t make myself get up and go to my bed. Please, come in!”
Isaac rose from the chair and waved her over towards him. Louisa’s heart was pounding now, for she had hoped that Isaac’s reaction to her would have been different. She had thought that maybe Isaac would have caught on to what she was doing to him by now and would have begun to hate her, for that would have made Stephen’s plan so much easier. She would be alright if Isaac were to hate her for the rest of her life. However, she could not bear it if she knew that Isaac hated her because he had loved her and then had been betrayed.
In another life, Louisa would have taken a few moments more to delight in Isaac’s sleepy face and dewy eyes that she longed to get lost in. But she had a job that she came here to do and so had to accomplish it. “Thank you so much for seeing me so early, Mr Quince,” Louisa said earnestly, taking a seat on the couch that Isaac was encouraging her towards. “I came here this morning to ... to finalize the sale of the house. I know that we decided on …”
But that was as far as Louisa got before the stress and guilt of the situation got to her, and she felt overwhelmed. Louisa burst into tears in front of Isaac and could not stop the tears from coming even if she had wanted to.
Isaac was silent for a moment, unsure of what to do. He was still catching on to what exactly this meeting was supposed to be about, and now that she was crying, he felt utterly at a loss. “Louisa ...” he whispered quietly, moving onto the settee with her. “What has upset you? Don’t cry; everything will be all right.”
But Louisa just kept crying. She felt so embarrassed, having already made a fool of herself yesterday by kissing Isaac, and now she was dissolving into a mess right before his eyes.
“Here, I’ll tell you a joke I heard, see if that will cheer you up,” Isaac tried valiantly. “Why were the early days of history called the Dark Ages? Because there were so many knights!”
It was a terrible, terrible joke, but Isaac had thought the awfulness of it might be enough to momentarily pause Louisa’s crying so that she could tell him what was wrong, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Louisa only cried harder. He didn’t know what to do.
His mother hardly ever cried, and so he had no experience comforting crying women. Should I embrace her? he wondered, and because that seemed to be the only suggestion his mind gave him, he leaned in to hug her.
But when he got in closer to her, he had an idea. He lifted her chin with his fingertips and then gently pressed his lips against hers. Finally, that seemed to have the desired effect. Louisa was so surprised that she stopped crying immediately, and then Isaac pulled away.
However, when he saw the look of excitement on Louisa’s face after the kiss, he realized that he didn’t want just to kiss her. He allowed her to mop up her face with her handkerchief, and they both laughed at how funny it was to stop and do that, and then, Louisa turned back to him with a tantalizing expression. “Isaac,” she whispered, and the sound of his name in her mouth was positively thrilling. “Would ... would you put your hands on me?”
Isaac nodded emphatically and began kissing her again. This time, the kisses were more passionate, more frantic. Isaac cautiously began nibbling Louisa’s lips while they kissed, and it seemed to have the desired effect. Louisa found herself beginning to make quiet moans of delight, unable to control herself.
Isaac didn’t know where to begin with her, so he just went all in. He pulled her in close to him and undid the back of her dress. The thoughts of what was to come were beginning to cloud Isaac’s mind with excitement, and so he began moving even faster. He had her in her chemise and corset with lightning speed, and the sight of her half-dressed made his member throb.
She looked at him earnestly as he consumed her with his eyes. When he brought a tentative hand up toward her breast, she pressed him onto her with great speed, and as he fondled her, she unlaced herself. Her corset fell away, and when he laid eyes on her supple breasts, he made an animalistic noise, thrust her down upon the settee, and began kissing her breasts and suckling on her nipples.
When Louisa felt his mouth on her breast, she let out a quiet cry of pleasure. Isaac paused just long enough to look up at her and say, “I am conflicted, Louisa. I need to hear more of your noises, and yet if you keep making noises, you may alert the whole house to what we are engaging in.”
Louisa giggled at Isaac’s smirk, and then Isaac returned to her breasts and began tracing the outline of her nipple with his tongue. She arched her back and pressed her breast as hard as she could against his lips, and when she did, Isaac dragged one of his hands up her leg. She was only wearing her light dress and a single petticoat, and so when he drew them both up at her midsection, she was almost fully exposed. Isaac, however, did not look down, and instead danced his fingers along the inner side of her thigh and then placed a teasing finger upon her clitoris.
“Oh my God,” Louisa said reflexively. Isaac let out a low chuckle, his lips still pressed against her breast, and so she could feel his laughter resonating in her chest.
“Shall I?” Isaac asked, but before Louisa could even agree, she let out a whimper of desire, and Isaac began teasing her.
Feeling his fingers encircling her and then slipping inside of her
and stroking the place she wanted to feel him most, Louisa closed her eyes and allowed the pleasure to overwhelm her. She moaned as quietly as she could so that she would not alert the rest of the household to their scandalous deeds, but the truth was she did not care right now if anyone heard them. She’d had enough with propriety for the time being, and all she wanted to do now was feel Isaac pulsing inside of her.
As she edged closer to release, Louisa could hardly contain herself. She took her hand and encouraged Isaac to go as deep as he could with his fingers. When he saw her doing that, he gently took her hand away, moved his head down in between her legs, and flicked his tongue against her clitoris while slipping another two fingers inside of her. That was exactly what Louisa needed.