Trenton: Lord Of Loss

by Grace Burrowes

  “Feeling scared, Ellie.” Trent was angry as hell, exhausted from a sleepless night and a long day, but also frightened—for her—and resentful of the entire mess. “I’ve racked my brain for who could mean me ill, and I cannot come up with a soul. Your case is easier to fathom because you carry a potential heir, and Drew or Drew’s heir might mean you harm.”

  “Except Drew has no heir,” Ellie pointed out, “and Drew doesn’t mean me harm. I don’t think he wants the title and the bother that goes with it. Sit with me?”

  She’d made her balcony into a pleasant bower indeed, with pots of fragrant pink and white roses along the railing and a hanging swing the width of a love seat.

  Trent lowered himself beside her, the chains and the swing creaking at his weight. “You have a talent for making things comfy.”

  She ran her finger down a velvety pink petal nearly the same shade as her lips. “I like my comforts. I was alone a great deal when Dane was alive, except for Andy and the servants, of course, and I wanted my prison to be at least welcoming.”

  “Prison?” Trent’s marriage had felt like prison. He could admit that now…here and now.

  “Dane kept more to the family seat, closer to Town, though I usually knew where he was. He used the town house in London, the Hampton family seat, a hunting box in the North, and so forth. My job was to stay out of his way except on those occasions when he’d feel the need for a repairing lease. Then I was to cosset and fuss and be glad to see him.”

  Reminding Trent that resentment might not be an exclusively male sentiment. “Were you glad to see him?”

  “His visits were a break from my routine, some assurance I wasn’t entirely extraneous to his plans.”

  “Did you ever wish him dead?” Trent watched her expressions. He also took her hand in his. “I ask because I suspect Heathgate might inquire.”

  “Heathgate?”

  “He’s serving as magistrate, and he’s… shrewd. He likely knows you’re expecting, and he’s already surmised we might be more than neighbors.”

  “How did he surmise that?”

  Trent explained the basis for Heathgate’s conjectures.

  “He presumes a great deal. His presumption is particularly irksome when I consider that, except for a few kisses, you and I aren’t more than neighbors.”

  She withdrew her hand, else Trent might have missed the hint of pique in her tone. Did mere neighbors endure a compunction to touch each other, to kiss each other?

  The serving maid, Annie, brought a large tray, curtseyed, withdrew. Ellie waited for a moment as if collecting her thoughts then closed the door between the sitting room and the corridor and returned to the balcony.

  “Ellie, we ought to leave the door open.”

  “I am a widow,” she said in a low, fierce tone. “I’m in my home with a widower to whom all would agree no hint of scandal clings. Cease carping, Trenton, lest I turn you over my knee.”

  “Interesting proposition.” One that would have horrified Paula into a week-long fit of the vapors. He sipped his lemonade, letting it cool his throat, while the sight of Ellie, safe, tidy, and at peace, cooled his temper. He wrapped an arm around her when she took the place beside him on the swing.

  She obligingly set her drink beside his and cuddled up. “I feel a nap coming on,” she declared. “This occurrence has become frequent, but I’d like not to waken to a gunshot this time.”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Trent shifted off the swing and scooped her up against his chest. “You can nap in a bed, like the rest of civilized society.” He wasn’t about to let her torment him with her soft, sleepy warmth against his side, not again, not today, maybe not ever. He carried her through the door connected with her bedroom then stopped abruptly.

  “Trenton?”

  “Is that a bed or a fairy tale with pillows?”

  Ellie slept on an enormous four-poster, the covers and shams all in white, the pillows in lavender, pink and gold.

  “I like my comforts.” She tucked her nose against his neck. “And, no, Dane couldn’t bring himself to exercise his conjugal rights in that bed, said it gave him nightmares to contemplate it.”

  “It’s…different,” Trent said, setting her down on the mattress. “You’ll sleep more agreeably here than on a swing.”

  “Open the doors to the balcony,” Ellie suggested, sitting up to pull off her slippers. “I didn’t plan to nod off at the sight of you.”

  “Nod off whenever you need to.” Trent opened the bedroom’s doors to the balcony then jammed his hands in his pockets lest he start taking down her hair.

  “Come cuddle with me.” Ellie held out a hand, and Trent took in the invitation, and the fact that she’d bathed and changed since their morning adventure, whereas he…

  “That isn’t a good idea, Ellie.” He kept his hands in his pockets, but his benighted cock was making plans for that fairy tale bed.

  “Cuddling isn’t a bad idea,” she corrected him, taking pins from her hair until a thick glossy braid dropped over her shoulder. “You look exhausted, and I never sleep for long.”

  “I’m not fresh from my bath.” He went to the doors and turned his back on her, deliberately removing the sight of her from his gaze. “I’m not in a settled frame of mind, it’s broad daylight…”

  “Next you’ll be telling me you’re a tender-hearted virgin.”

  From the corner of Trent’s eye, he saw Ellie yawn and stretch like a lioness in anticipation of a good hunt.

  “You’re fresh enough, Trent, and a nap will settle your busy mind, and broad daylight matters naught to me. I want to be near you—need to. Come to bed.”

  Three words, three words his late wife had never said, and particularly not in such simple, straightforward welcome. To heed Ellie’s summons would be ungentlemanly, and to refuse her…

  Worse than ungentlemanly, also impossible.

  He tugged off his boots, cravat, waistcoat and shirt, while Ellie curled on her side, watching him with sleepy appreciation.

  “You are one of those fellows who will be strong when he’s seen his three score and ten. The young girls will flirt with you and be half-serious about it.”

  “Perish the thought.” Trent surveyed the bed and its contents and prayed for strength.

  “I can get rid of this.” Ellie sat up and drew her old-fashioned, high-waisted dress over her head before Trent could formulate a protest. “Cooler that way.”

  She tossed the dress to the nearest chair and was back on her side, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted, looking like some princess of old on her magical bed.

  Trent crawled across the bed to lie beside her on his back. The woman wore neither stays nor jumps, as if she’d planned to perpetrate her ambush-by-nap.

  “Mm.” She kissed his biceps without opening her eyes, then subsided, apparently intent on her nap and nothing more.

  And yet, Trent was still quite, quite ambushed, God help him. He was in bed with a female whom his body told him he had to have. Had to, and she was falling asleep beside him. Such a contretemps made for the sweetest, most frustrating twist to his day. He closed his eyes, and while he busily lectured his parts into submission, sleep took him captive.

  When he awoke, Ellie was spooned around his back, a novel sensation though welcome.

  “You napped. I told you we would.” Her lips on his nape punctuated her point. “You’re exhausted, the day has been eventful, and now you feel better for having a rest. What is this?”

  She traced a scar over one shoulder blade—with her tongue.

  “Scar,” Trent managed. “Fell off my pony.”

  “And this?” She used her finger this time, thank a merciful Deity.

  “Another fall.”

  “You must have had a fractious pony,” she said, hugging him from behind.

  He’d had a succession of demon ponies. “Elegy Hampton, what have you done with your shift?”

  “It’s cooler this way.” She pressed her breasts against his back to
kiss his nape then eased away. “A lady has to be resourceful when she’s bent on seduction, and you strike me as a man much in need of seducing.”

  “Ellie…” He wanted to turn and face her, but she was naked, warm, and in bed with him, so he kept his eyes on the flowers on her balcony. Flowers the same color pink as a—

  “My lady—Ellie—this is not a good idea.”

  Chapter Ten

  “You’re growing repetitive.” Ellie crawled up over Trent’s shoulder and took his earlobe in her teeth, causing sensation to reverberate through all manner of interesting and naughty parts of his body. “Impending motherhood is making me very forthright, I think. Shall we get under the covers? Is it the sight of me you’d rather avoid?”

  “How can you think that?” He rolled over to face her without having willed it, and God in heaven, she was lovely. Her hair was a soft, fuzzy braid curling down over one bare shoulder, her neck and throat a long, lovely study of graceful curves and female bones, and her breasts, ye gods…

  He rolled away again.

  “I can’t think when I see you unclothed, except to consider how I might take advantage of you.”

  For months, for months, he’d regarded the absence of lustful inclinations as a relief.

  Ellie’s hand trailed along his waist to smooth over his bare ribs. “I have often wondered if men and women aren’t more similar than men would like to admit. Are you shy?”

  “God yes, I’m shy.” Trent glared at her over his shoulder then whipped his head back around. His cock was not shy. His cock clamored to be out of his breeches, to enjoy what the lady was so damned determined to offer.

  “Shyness is endearing.” Ellie said, her hand trailing higher. “Are you sensitive here?” She feathered her fingertips over his nipple. “I swear, Trenton, I think I can almost hear with my breasts, they are so sensitive these days.”

  A tortured chuckle escaped him at her observation, followed swiftly by an indrawn breath as she climbed over him, pushed him to his back and straddled him.

  “Look at me, Trenton, please.”

  He surrendered to his fate gracefully, and when Ellie remained silent, he let himself appreciate the magnificent view.

  He drew his fingers slowly along her jaw. “You are lovelier than a mortal man could convey in three languages and six lifetimes.” Her gaze was anxious, so instead of lingering on her features, he took in the full, round perfection of her breasts, the slight convexity near her waist, the soft patch of dark curls over her mons, the lean strength of her thighs and the feminine delicacy of her features.

  In five years of marriage, he’d never once seen his wife unclothed. He’d regret that. When he was strong enough, when he was alone enough, he’d find the strength to face and withstand that regret.

  “Come here.” He held out his arms, and when she folded down against his chest, he gathered her to him. “You should not share such a treasure with me, Ellie. I am not worthy.”

  “You are,” she countered, nose against his throat. “You look at me.”

  “Dane didn’t?” He traced the bones of her back, shoulder blades, spine, the crests of her hips, her tailbone.

  She tucked closer. “Never once. He was one to dispatch with matters after dark, candles out, under the covers, and off we go.”

  The viscountess had regrets, too. “Shame on him. What a fool the poor man was. You are worth savoring in the broad daylight, Ellie Hampton.”

  He felt the doubt in her, even as he knew exactly how that self-doubt corroded one’s entire life, and like a stubborn, miserable taproot, it grew right down into the soul. He wouldn’t join his body with hers, wouldn’t couple with her, wouldn’t swive her.

  He would make love with Dane Hampton’s widow, and thank God he’d pleasured himself earlier in the day. Otherwise, he’d have already spent in his breeches.

  “Up you go.” He patted her bottom. “I need to divest myself of my remaining clothes.”

  She smiled Eve’s smile and hopped off of him so quickly he had to smile back.

  He paused with his hand on his falls. Her experience had all been lights out, under the covers. “Maybe you shouldn’t look.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t try to stop me.”

  He stood beside the bed, hands at his sides, and let her unfasten his breeches. Her fingers were nimble, and she soon had him standing naked as God made him, his cock arrowing up shamelessly along his belly.

  “Holy Halifax.” Ellie reached for his cock, and Trent arched away.

  “Gently,” he cautioned, drinking in the unabashed eagerness in her eyes. “Slowly, like you would a two-week-old kitten.”

  He recalled the way his wife had grabbed at him and practically shoved him into her body after Michael had been born.

  The whisper-soft caress of Ellie’s finger up his rigid length distracted him from that memory. While he tried to recall Caesar’s Gallic letters in the original Latin, she repeated the caress, then went on to slip her fingers over his stones and then the length of his cock again.

  “Am I doing this right?” She brushed her thumb over that spot at the tip, and Trent’s self-restraint strained its short, frayed leash.

  “I’ll spend, Ellie,” he managed. “If you do that one more time…”

  “Dane did.” She sat back, regarding him from a too-short distance. “At least half the time he’d lose control before he even managed… I should not be saying such things, but I know it bothered him.”

  Rammel’s lack of control had clearly bothered her, too, feeding her feminine self-doubt.

  Trent put a finger over her lips. “Leave the poor man a little dignity.”

  She peered up at him. “Why? Dane is gone and he wouldn’t let me even see him, much less touch him—Dane, the supposed great Ram—and here you are, and you’re…glorious.”

  “I’m aroused.” Trent climbed on the bed, wondering at a swaggering lordling who hadn’t had a clue how to appreciate his own wife. “You mustn’t malign a man who can’t defend himself. Maybe you were too much inspiration for him.”

  But holy God, had Trent’s wife even wanted to look at him, much less enjoy looking at him, how different might their marriage have been?

  Ellie scooted across the bed. “In complete darkness, I was too much inspiration for him?”

  “He’s not here. We are. Now, how can I pleasure you?”

  “How can you…?”

  She didn’t understand the question, and Trent was abruptly finished defending dear old Dane’s memory.

  “Are you still comfortable on your back? Or would you prefer to be on top?”

  “I didn’t know I could be on top.” Ellie’s gaze lit on his cock, and Trent’s went to her breasts in retaliation.

  Bad idea. Beautiful, lovely, succulent, lush, bad idea. His hand, at complete variance with the inclinations of his brain, reached out so his fingers could brush against the full underside of one breast. Ellie closed her eyes and tilted her face up, as if he were beaming sunshine onto her soul.

  “You like that?”

  “I don’t know.” She opened her eyes, her smile mysterious. “Do it some more and I’ll decide later.”

  “Come here, wench.” Trent lay on his back and gently wrestled her over him. “Touch me however you please, and we can refine the details some other time. When you’ve frolicked enough, I’m available for your pleasure.”

  “What does that mean?” Ellie sat on him, her damp sex poised over him, her expression puzzled.

  “When you’re ready.” Trent flexed his hips so she could feel him rampant beneath her. “Take me inside you, but I warn you, precipitous moves will be dealt with sternly.”

  She leaned forward and, to his relief, simply cuddled onto his chest.

  He tucked his chin over her crown, wrapped his arm around her and waited.

  And waited.

  “Ellie?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Maybe a kiss to get us started?”

  “I like kissing…you.” S
he peered at him. “Then what?”

  Women were notorious for posing difficult questions with no correct answers. This wasn’t such a question. “Then whatever you want, however you want it.”

  ***

  For the first time in her life, Ellie Hampton was inebriated.

  Trenton Lindsey gazed up at her as if she were some great work of art, one he’d come upon at the end of a long and arduous pilgrimage. His hands were reverent as they trailed along her arms and over her shoulders. His eyes glittered with what she was sure was a determination to possess.

  But what on earth was he waiting for?

  “Touch me, Ellie,” he coaxed. “Kisses, touches, anything. I’ll take anything you’ll give me.”

  She ran her fingers over his hair, and he closed his eyes, so she did it again, loving the silky feel of each lock.

  “Kiss,” he whispered. “Please.”

  She bent forward, and her braid slid over her shoulder to land on his chest. On impulse, she trailed the end of it across his nipple as she brushed her lips over his. He groaned, a sound of pleasure and longing that she’d caused, and low in her belly, something started to dance.

  She managed to kiss him again, even as she continued to torment him with her braid.

  “I’ll grow my hair long enough to braid,” he threatened between kisses. “My revenge will be merciless.”

  She settled her lips over his, because any more of such talk and she’d beg him to show her what he meant. His arms anchored her to him and urged her lower as she joined her mouth to his.

  “Give me your weight, Ellie. Please.”

  Gingerly, she lowered herself closer as his tongue teased at her lips.

  “More of you, Elegy.”

  They touched. Her sex against the rigid length of his cock, and the contact ricocheted through Ellie like a hot, roaring wind.

  “More, love. All of you,” he whispered, his tongue asking for entry. “Move on me.”

  Move on him? Ah, that she could puzzle out. Slowly, she rocked her hips, caressing the length of him the way his tongue caressed her lips. He let out another one of those groans, but softer, more in his chest, and she did it again.