Wedded in Sin

by Jade Lee

  The situation wasn’t ideal. She had shift and dress on, but her nipple was tight, and in her innocence, she was extraordinarily sensitive. The first touch had her breath catching on a gasp and her eyes turning soft as she let her head drop back against the chair. He couldn’t resist such an invitation. So as his hand continued to mold and tease her breast, he pressed kisses to her lips, her jaw, and down along her neck.

  She trembled in reaction. He felt it clearly—a slight shudder against his lips—and it so affected him that he physically jerked his groin against her. He hadn’t meant to. He’d always thought it a rather crude act, but his body had taken control as he pressed himself rhythmically against her leg.

  Her eyes widened at that. Or perhaps it was because he had begun tasting her skin, pressing nibbles with his teeth along her jaw. Good Lord, he was out of control. But even as his mind tried to remind him of the people downstairs, that anyone could walk in on them, and that this was not the way to seduce an innocent, his body continued assaulting her. He tried to be gentle. And by all accounts, she was enjoying his every stroke. But he knew how beyond the bounds his actions were.

  His mind railed in a distant kind of harangue as his free hand began working at the buttons of her dress. For a man out of control, he had remarkable dexterity. She wore a workwoman’s gown—one that fastened down the front—and so he began teasing the fabric open one button at a time. And as her flesh was revealed, he shifted to press his lips to the pulse at her neck, the expanse of her throat, and then to the top ridge of her shift.

  It was a cheap muslin, worn thin and too small for her. He wanted to tear it apart with his teeth, but she had so few things—only the clothing on her body—that he could not do such a thing to her.

  So instead, he slipped both hands beneath the fabric of her dress but above the shift. Her body was hot now, her skin flushed, and her lips parted as she panted. He let his mouth wet the fabric of her shift as he kissed lower. He wanted to suck on her nipples, to bite and to tease, but her clothing was in the way. There wasn’t room. And bloody hell, his back was beginning to strain as he knelt in front of her.

  He pinched her nipples and she gasped. Her back arched to give him better access, and he lost all sense of control. He pulled her dress open, straining the buttons but not breaking them. He didn’t rip her shift, but only because he was too impatient to bother with the effort. Instead, he set his mouth on her left breast. He sucked through the muslin. She cried out in surprise and he felt her hands on his shoulders. Neither pulling him close nor pushing him away, her fingers just seemed to clutch there, holding him steady as his mouth worked and his right hand left her chest to slide down her leg. He would work it under her gown and…

  She pushed him backward. It wasn’t a strong push, but it was a growing pressure. It took him a while, but in the end, he left her breast. In truth, he had little leverage, so even her little bit of push was enough to force him onto his heels.

  “Penny?” he said, his voice thick.

  “Thank you,” she said, her words a soft pant in the semidark.

  He frowned. His mind felt dull. “What?”

  Her back curved, slumping her back into the chair. And with shaking hands, she released him to begin buttoning up her dress. With the release of pressure against his shoulders, he nearly returned to her. But her arms were blocking him, and he was fighting too hard to regain control of his thoughts. Why could he not think?

  “Penny?”

  She glanced up at him, and her lips curved into a soft smile. Her skin was still flushed, her mouth an enticing red, but her gaze was steady as she looked at him. “Thank you, Samuel. That was…” She released a happy sigh. “That was wonderful.”

  “It doesn’t have to stop,” he said. “Your bedroom is close. There is so much more to show you.” Bloody hell, what had happened to the sweet words he usually spoke to women? He usually was able to speak them without actual thought. He should be complimenting her beauty, expounding on how lost he was in the glory of her body. Any number of things. Except this time he actually was swept away, his mind scrambling for purchase. And there she was calmly buttoning up her dress! “Penny—”

  “I wanted to feel it,” she said as her gaze dipped to the closures on her gown. Her hands were shaking on the buttons, so at least she wasn’t as calm as she sounded. But bloody hell, women as a rule did not re-dress until afterward. They’d barely even begun!

  “There are ways to preserve your virginity. Please, Penny, there is so much to know,” he said. Good God, was he actually begging her? This was ridiculous. And yet, he wanted nothing more than to teach her, to show her the delight he could give her. He wanted her screaming in ecstasy, and he needed to be the one bringing her there. The idea gripped him so hard that he lost all other thoughts completely. And that was the surest sign that he had gone mad. He saw it, noted it with a clear dispassion, and completely ignored it.

  Instead, he grabbed her hands before she could completely close her gown. He brought them to his lips, sucking gently on her bent knuckles.

  “Please, Penny.” Lord, he had to stop. He could hear the voices downstairs clearly now. They didn’t appear to be coming upstairs, but the door to the workshop was open. It was probably late enough that Tommy would be ready for bed soon. And yet, the hunger to disregard all of it consumed him and he groaned. As a gentleman, he had to strangle his baser instincts. That had never been hard for him before now. He was a man of intellect after all.

  “Samuel,” she reproached him gently. “I said a little. That was a wonderful little, but I will not do more.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. How lowering to realize that I am a base creature after all.” He looked into her eyes, and damn it all, his groin pressed against her leg like a dog begging for a treat. “Bloody hell, I am a bastard!”

  She laughed at that. A light, happy sound that frustrated him as much as it made him want her even more. Then he felt her hands on his cheeks, gently lifting his chin to look at her. He stretched forward, hoping she meant to kiss him, but she didn’t. She held him back even though her gaze held desire. He was sure it did. She wanted him! And yet she held him back, so perhaps it was his own base desires he read.

  “Penny,” he groaned.

  “Go home, Samuel. Get me back my home.”

  He ground his teeth together. “Of course I will do that. This has nothing to do with that!”

  She smiled and then indeed did press a kiss to his lips. But she slid her hands down to his shoulders, so that when he would have deepened the kiss, she held him back. “I am not one to separate the two, Samuel. It is all wrapped up together in my mind. I will not bed you like a tart as payment—”

  He actually growled at that. He did not think of her as a whore. He could never think of her that way.

  “And if this is something else, then you must know I am an honest woman. I will not bed you out of marriage. It would be a sin.”

  He wanted to argue her statement. He had not studied overmuch into religion as he thought most of it created for the convenience of the priesthood and not for a rational man. But the moral code was deeply entrained in women, and the penalty for an accidental pregnancy was very high. So he wrestled his lust down and forced himself to pull away.

  “I have never thought you a sinful or immoral woman. Nor could I ever.”

  She smiled and would have said something, but at that moment, they both heard steps on the stairs. He scrambled back to his feet, picking up the tea tray as he did. She double-checked her gown and her hair, though everything could be explained away by her having been asleep in the chair. Meanwhile, he called upon his acting ability and stepped to the side of the staircase.

  “Excellent timing, Mrs. Appleton,” he said. “Miss Shoemaker has recently awoken and was asking after Tommy.”

  The lady smiled warmly at him, but didn’t speak. The reason was obvious. The boy was fast asleep on her shoulder. Behind him, Penny stood up and moved to open her bedroom door.
Samuel noted the crib in the room and that both women were fully occupied with settling the child.

  It would take but a moment. They merely had to lay the child in bed. But then there would be women talk—God only knew what about—but there was always women talk. Normally he would run as fast as he could from such a discussion, but he found himself lingering, the tea tray growing heavier by the second. He wanted to catch Penny’s eye one last time. To connect with her silently if only to say he was leaving.

  But she was busy, and very soon, the other woman had appeared. The seamstress had mounted the stairs and was clucking at him.

  “Oh, ’ere. I’ll take that. No need to have you standing about holding a tray when everyone’s heading to bed. I’m sure you have a great lot to do setting things to rights. Constable’s useless when it comes to folks being tossed from their homes. He’s got too much to do with the cutpurses and thieving rings. Damned shame, but it makes everyone afraid.”

  She was babbling on, her own wall of words filling the air as she took the tray from his hands and started back downstairs. He had no choice but to follow. There could be no decent reason for him to hang about upstairs. So with an internal sigh, he followed the seamstress downstairs.

  The woman continued to chatter, but he could tell her true intent was to push him out the door. He allowed it to happen because he had no reason to stay. And yet a melancholy had crept into his thoughts, every bit as annoying as the ache in his balls. He was not generally a maudlin sort of person, but when the mood gripped him, it held on with sharp claws. And it growled in his ears so loud that he had trouble hearing his own thoughts above its noise.

  The meaning was always the same, merely the details different. The mood told him over and over that he was unimportant except in how he could solve a mystery or answer a trivial question. As proof, the mood replayed how easily Penny had set him aside. Despite the passion that burned in her eyes, she had stopped him and turned her thoughts to Tommy. Clearly, his only value to her was in the solving of her mystery.

  So that, he thought with a depressed sigh, was exactly what he would do. But in the morning. For the moment, he shifted his steps to a brothel. He had no interest in the women there. The ache in his balls would not be satisfied by any tart. But the men who drank and whored at this particular brothel were of an elevated sort. They would not mean to, of course, but all sorts of secrets dropped from their lips as they were pursuing their other passions. And as he was a man who collected secrets, the brothel was a wonderful place for him to pass an evening.

  Odd how the coming evening held no attraction whatsoever to him.

  Penny slept very well that night, except for the dreams. Asleep dreams she could handle very well. Even the nightmares that sometimes came—jumbled images of her parents as they died or any other such demon visions—were a natural part of life. She brushed them aside as soon as she focused on the next day’s tasks. No matter what time of night it was, a single mental list of what she needed to accomplish either had her getting out of bed or huddling back to sleep, the nightmare long since forgotten.

  No, asleep dreams held no power over her. It was the not-yet-asleep dreams that haunted her. The memories of the way Samuel had touched her, and the silent yearning for more that unsettled her mind.

  She knew he was a mad toff, playing at her life as easily as others played with a deck of cards or a roll of the dice. She knew with a certainty that gentry—even the second son of a nobody baron—would never marry a tradesman’s daughter. And yet, as she closed her eyes, she remembered the touch of his hands on her breasts, the desire in his eyes, and more potent still, the way he had looked at her with surprise and admiration. More than once that day he had looked at her, obviously impressed. Entire dream fantasies were built on such moments.

  She had them married in her mind, in a church decorated with flowers. She pretended her friends stood by her side and that young Max stood as ring bearer. She wished she were as happy as Francine was, eagerly planning her nursery. She pretended all these things, and no simple list of tasks could banish the desire that sparked in her soul from these fantasies.

  Eventually she fell asleep. Eventually Tommy woke her, babbling in the way of toddlers. So she pulled him into her bed and played there with him, all the while wondering what games Samuel’s son might play. Could a daughter by him be equally smart? Would that girl find a place in this world with ease?

  She was perhaps ten minutes away from banishing her daydreams. Tommy would get hungry soon. There were ladies to fit and slippers to sew. But she lingered in bed and dreamed only to have it all interrupted by loud banging on the door.

  Twice in as many days, she heard the hated bellows of Mr. Cordwain. Thankfully, she could not make out his words, but the tone was clear enough. To Tommy as well, who started crying immediately.

  Penny’s daydreams disintegrated as she leaped to dress in the nearest clothing at hand. It was what she’d worn yesterday, of course, as she had nothing else. Thankfully, Helaine’s mother was equally fast. The two women met at the top of the stairs, their jaws identical pictures of angry determination.

  “Here,” said Penny as she held the frightened boy to Mrs. Appleton. “You hold Tommy. I will handle that bastard. He’s got no right coming here. None at all!”

  The woman took Tommy immediately, but the martial light didn’t fade from her eyes. Instead, she lifted her chin. “We’ll face him together.”

  There was little an older woman carrying a babe could do against the likes of Cordwain, but Penny was relieved nonetheless. Compared to yesterday morning, this would be almost easy because she had a friend with her. Though inside, she wished Samuel would magically appear, just as he had yesterday. Logically, she knew it wasn’t possible, but that didn’t stop her from wishing.

  The three of them went downstairs, pausing only long enough for Penny to grab a heavy broom. She might not be as large as Cordwain, but she had strength. And a broom handle could crack a man’s skull if wielded correctly. Then, after a last shared strengthening look, Mrs. Appleton hauled open the door while Penny prepared to wield her broom.

  As expected, Cordwain immediately went on the attack. “There you are, you thieving whore! Where are my likes? You give them to me now or I swear by God—”

  A man’s loud voice interrupted the bastard’s tirade. “And I swear that I’ll crack your skull in two if you try.” Then a heavy hand grabbed Cordwain’s collar and hauled him back off the front step.

  Penny had been too busy blocking the ass from entering the shop to say anything. Even now she was too startled to do more than gape. She knew that the voice wasn’t Samuel’s but she couldn’t help scanning the area, hoping to see his face and wild hair.

  He wasn’t there. But the constable was, his face set and two of his men standing nearby, one of whom already had Jobby, Cordain’s nephew and thug, pinned against the outside wall.

  “Get off me, you—”

  “Oh, shut yer yap. You got no cause to be waking decent people at the crack of dawn.” The constable spoke calmly, but with no less authority. Then he chanced to glance at Penny. “You can put the broom down, Miss Shoemaker. We have him well in hand.”

  Penny swallowed, none too anxious to set her only weapon aside. She did, however, relax her grip and shift it to a less threatening position. Meanwhile, Cordwain was not to be stopped. He whipped about in the constable’s grip, breaking free as he held up his paper in a clenched fist.

  “I got a bill o’ sale! You need to be arresting her, the whore—”

  Crack! Penny had the satisfaction of knocking Cordwain backward a good step. She’d only landed a blow on his shoulder, but he’d sport a welt for sure. Meanwhile, she stepped into the doorway. “I warned you about calling me names yesterday,” she said.

  Cordwain had his fists bunched and was leaping forward, but the constable was faster. He had his billy club out, but didn’t need it. Just as Cordwain took a step forward, the constable swept his feet out from unde
r him, then followed the man down to the ground, pinning him there with his knee. The baton was out merely as a threat to keep the bastard down.

  “She did warn you,” the constable said in calm tones. “Now keep quiet. Let me have a look at your bill of sale.”

  It took a while and Cordwain was none too gracious about it. But in the end, he released the paper as the constable lifted it from the dirt.

  “This is the bill of sale from yesterday,” the constable said calmly. “It says you own the property you took yesterday and all its contents.”

  “Yes!” screamed Cordwain. “And she took my likes. She took—”

  “I didn’t see her take anything but a sack of nappies for the boy,” interrupted the constable.

  “She’s got my likes!”

  “I don’t see anything in this bill of sale about any likes. But what I do see is a man intent on harassing a woman to no reason. You got her home and her clothes, though what you’d want with a pile of women’s things, I’ve got no idea.”

  The words were meant as a slur on his character, and Penny had the satisfaction of hearing a few chuckles in the street. Just like yesterday, they had drawn an audience. But unlike yesterday, it was Cordwain who was taking the brunt of it. Meanwhile, the constable continued talking as calm as could be despite the fact that he held a roaring Cordwain pinned beneath his knee.

  “So what I see is a man intent on causing mischief to an honest woman. Is that what you’re doing? Causing mischief to a woman who wants no part of you?”

  Cordwain opened his mouth, no doubt intent on spitting some obscenity. But the constable had his baton at the ready.

  “Now mind before you speak. I’ve got no interest in hearing ugly names this early in the morning. Not when I’ve been chasing footpads half the night already.”