by Hazel Hunter
“You think to find someone in your chimney? The mysterious gentleman who tripped me at the ball, perhaps?” She shook her head. “I am cursed, Alistair.”
“As it happens, so am I.” He pulled her closer so that her soft breasts pressed against the vault of his chest. “Look at me now. There is no curse. Why do you frown?”
“We should not be in this bed together,” she whispered as she stared at his mouth. “Although I never want to leave it. I have fallen in love with you.”
He groaned as she pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “Now I never will.”
“I did not mean to love you,” she told his shoulder. “I was quite happy being a spinster, you know. Then my rig overturned and you were there and I was lost.” She hesitated before she added, “I should confess something. I know nothing about this, truly. Mama would never tell me.”
Thorne knew she was warm, and that he should release her and leave her to rest. He also knew there was no force in Heaven or on Earth that could make him do so. “Do you wish me to tell you what they do?”
She bit her lower lip. “I would very much like you to show me.”
“So would I, more than I can tell you.” He picked up her hand and held it between his. “Meredith, I would happily spend the rest of day and night here with you in my bed. But that cannot happen. I would not stop at kisses and caresses. What I do want could cause you to have a baby.”
She stared at him. “I thought a woman had to be first married in order to be so blessed.”
He shook his head. “Children are made by men and women in bed, as we are, and they do not have to be married to be together in that manner.”
She pressed her palms over her eyes. “You must think me a complete simpleton.”
Thorne drew her hands down. “Most young ladies are not informed on such matters until their wedding is imminent. When my own mother was told the night before her ceremony, she claimed she nearly called it off.”
“I would not,” Meredith told him. “If we were to be married…not that I would expect…oh, I am such a turnip-head.”
“You are wondrously sweet.” He smiled a little, until she pulled him on top of her. “Meredith.”
“I have not changed my mind.” She parted her legs to make room for him between them. “I am in love with you, sir. Would you be so kind as to show me all I should know?”
“Very well.” Thorne covered her left breast with his big hand and felt her catch her breath. “We must start by removing the last of our clothing.”
The scent of flowers woke Lucetta, who opened her eyes to see a bouquet of wildflowers sitting on the table beside her bed. The colors of the last of the autumn blooms glowed in the late afternoon sunlight. That they had been left for her while she had been sleeping did not disturb her as much as whom she believed placed them there.
Somehow Harshad Naveya always knew what she needed to hear. Now, apparently, he sensed what she needed to see. Soon he would be reading her every thought, and she could not bear that.
Lucetta rose and tidied herself before going downstairs. She found the reception room empty, so it seemed that Meredith had gone home. She had only herself to blame for that, but it could not be helped. Now her cousin would be trapped in that aging manor with a mother insisting on her marrying that dunce of a nephew. It seemed utterly ridiculous.
She walked out onto the back terrace, and made her way down the steps to walk along the old garden beds. She knew she should return and check on the preparations for dinner, but the cook likely had that well in hand. She kept walking as she realized that as part of the staff she would be expected to eat in the kitchen with the rest of the servants. She would not mind that; she liked the men.
Lucetta walked until she reached a meadow that had not yet browned, tucked in the midst of an elm grove. She looked around her with some confusion and realized she could no longer see Dredthorne Hall. She had not meant to wander so far from the house. Tired of walking, she sank down onto the grass.
“Miss Branwen?”
She glanced up as Harshad Naveya's graceful form approached. Some of his black curls had escaped his queue, and gleamed like spun onyx on his shoulders. “Mr. Naveya.”
Instead of offering her a hand up he knelt down in the grass before her. His dark gaze shifted to the flowers she held and then returned to her face. “You have been crying.”
Had she? Lucetta touched her cheeks, astonished to find them wet.
“I lost my handkerchief.” She bowed her head. “Thank you for the flowers, Mr. Naveya. They are lovely, but I do not deserve such attention.”
“I thought they would make you smile.” He held out a folded square of colorful cloth. When she did not take it, he added, “It is not soiled, Miss Branwen.”
“I do not doubt that. You are the cleanest man of my acquaintance.” She took it as if it were made of silk, and used it to blot the wetness from her cheeks. “May I call you by your given name while we are alone?”
“You already have before now, Lucetta,” he chided.
“Harshad, you have been very kind to me, and I thank you for it.” Speaking firmly came naturally to her, so she should have no trouble with the rest. “It is unseemly for you and I to be friends. I am the housekeeper, and you are the steward. We must refrain from any future expressions of affection. It is not proper.”
He looked all over her face. “What did your brother say to you to make you troubled and angry?”
Lucetta abruptly got to her feet and stalked away from him.
A hand encircled her wrist and pulled her around to face Harshad. “It was Lord Carlton again. What has this man done now?”
She saw the burning in his eyes, the same that blazed in her heart, and she placed her pale hands on his dark face. “Oh, my dear friend. You mistake my anger. It is for myself. Lord Carlton can do nothing more to anyone. He is dead.”
Lucetta turned to walk back to the hall, but her feet would not obey her. Harshad came to stand beside her, saying nothing at all. Then the words just seemed to spill from her lips.
“It seems that Lady Carlton wrote from Canada to everyone she knew—family, friends, and neighbors—and she informed them of what her husband had done to their son. She also revealed how I helped her escape with the children. The letters arrived just as Lord Carlton returned to London. Everyone knew.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “As soon as he learned he had been exposed, his lordship went home and hung himself.”
Harshad made a soft sound. “You are free now, Lucetta.”
“Yes, and my good name has been restored. Since she did not know my whereabouts, Lady Carlton wrote to my brother. She is arranging for her family to repay the money I gave her for their passage.” Her knees wobbled and she fell to them. “I am glad he is dead. I am glad, do you hear? I wanted to laugh and dance and go to London and spit on his grave. What does that make me?”
Harshad knelt before her, and touched his brow to hers. “You saw a terrible thing. You chose to save the child. Lucetta, you ruined your life to save them all.” He softly pressed his mouth to her right eyelid, and then her left. “You are blessed in the eyes of God.”
“I don't believe in God anymore,” she whispered.
“I will believe for both of us.” His mouth touched the corner of hers.
In possibly the most wanton, reckless and wholly natural impulse of her life, Lucetta turned her face so that her lips were on his. For a moment Harshad went still and then his arms were around her, pulling her against his hard body, his fists bunched in the back of her dress.
Lucetta had no knowledge of passionate kisses, but Harshad quickly educated her with his lips and tongue and even his teeth. He kissed her as if he wished to do nothing else for the rest of his days, openly, wetly, as if starved for such a thing. She behaved in much the same manner, at first a bit awkwardly, but the delight and heat that billowed inside her soon swept away those girlish feelings and brought her into panting, full-blown womanhood.
“My sweet,” he gasped after he wrenched his mouth from hers. “We must stop this now.”
“Absolutely not,” she snapped, tangling her fingers in his curls. “You will kiss me again, and again. That is what I want. And you, you want it just as much.”
“I am a man.” He dragged her hand down to the front of his trousers and pressed it over the long bulge beneath the rough fabric. “I want to join with you. Put myself, put this, inside your body.”
She would let him do anything he liked to her, but having a baby out of wedlock would bring shame on their child. “We will have to marry before we do that.”
His expression cleared. “Yes, please. I would like that very much.”
Lucetta felt hot and faint as she slowly rubbed her palm over the ridge of his erect manhood. “I can tell.”
“Now I am blessed by God.” He spread his hand over her lower belly, and rubbed her there with the same, slow deliberation. “We could marry very soon?”
She took a note from his book and said, “Yes, please.”
Thanks to novels, Meredith had some notion of what she had asked of Alistair. As he undressed them both she knew it felt very different from reading words in books. Pinned beneath his large, heavy form made her feel hot, but not from the weight or press of it. No, this was more an internal burning, kindling upon waking in his arms, and flaring from the moment he placed his hand on her womanly curves.
Breast, she thought, correcting herself. That is my breast he caresses now. And he likes it. He keeps looking at it in an admiring fashion.
“Meredith.”
She glanced up at him, suddenly aware of how fiercely she was concentrating. “Yes, sir?”
“We do not have to do this now.” His voice sounded gentle and yet somehow strained. “We could delay it until we have had more time to…discuss such matters. Perhaps even become engaged.”
He was trying to be kind to her, again, and suddenly Meredith could not bear it. “Colonel Thorne, I am naked, in your bed. I am not interested in discussing this or the possibility of marriage. That can come later. What I wish to do now is make love. Now, if you please.”
“I am at your command, my dear.” He smiled a little. “We will begin with our mouths. You know how this is done. Part your lips for me.”
As soon as Meredith did so, he put his mouth over hers in an open kiss, and pressed his tongue between her lips. The sensation felt even more delicious than the first time he had kissed her, likely because she enjoyed the gliding strokes, the taste of his mouth, and the rumble of sound he made in his chest.
Alistair lifted his head. “You may do the same to me now, if you wish.”
Meredith nodded, and reached up with her mouth, somewhat awkwardly imitating the kiss he had given her. He sucked on the end of her tongue lightly as she did, sending a peculiar burst of sensation into her breasts.
“Oh, dear.” She glanced down. “Something is amiss with me.”
He looked at her breasts, which appeared flushed and somewhat swollen to Meredith. The oddest aspect was how her nipples had changed. The soft rosy tips had turned a darker color and contracted as they sometimes did when she was chilled. They also ached with something like pain that was perversely almost pleasurable.
“You are becoming aroused,” Alistair murmured to her. “Desire causes this, and when it engages our senses our bodies change. Women show very subtle but definite signs of sexual arousal. As you have noticed, your nipples grow hard. You may also feel a dampness between your thighs.”
“Indeed.” She felt utterly fascinated. “How does a man's body change?”
“In far more flagrant fashion.” He moved against her so that she felt the hard length of him against her folds. “What you feel is my cock. When I am aroused, it becomes erect, so that I may penetrate you.”
So that was what he would put inside her body, as the animals did. Meredith had suspected as much, although she had not anticipated his cock would be quite so large. “Does this happen now?”
“Sometimes, if the man and woman have great need.” He cradled her breast in his hand. “We have no reason to hurry. This is your first time, my lovely girl, and I want to make it memorable.”
“I should like that.” She cleared her throat. “Do you mean to kiss and fondle me before we attempt these other matters, sir?”
“I should like to, very much.” Thorne brushed his thumb over her pebbly nipple. “This part of you wants to be kissed and fondled, and suckled, does it not?”
The thought of Alistair's mouth on her breast made Meredith feel a little dizzy. “I believe it might, sir.”
“You will watch me do this to you,” he said before he lowered his mouth and enveloped her nipple. At the same time his hand began gently squeezing the mound of her breast around it.
The feel of his tugging and suckling caused Meredith to shiver violently, and now she could feel a definite wetness down there. She had seen mothers in the village nursing their babies in such fashion, of course, but the sight of Alistair sucking at her breast engendered far fewer tender feelings. On the contrary, at present she thought she might shriek out with crazed need.
Alistair lifted his head and moved his mouth to her other breast. Before he touched it, he said, “Tell me what you feel when I do this to you, Meredith.”
“I feel very heated inside,” she admitted, and took in a sharp breath as he commenced with licking and sucking and fondling. “The wetness you spoke of is becoming most pronounced. I want something, quite desperately, but I do not know what it is, exactly.”
He made a rough sound and rolled his hips against hers, again stroking her most intimate place with the long, thick shaft of his penis.
“Oh, Alistair.” Something down there sent a jolt of aching pleasure through her. “Do that again, please.”
He did so, and then took his mouth from her breast and watched her face as he reached down between them with his hand. “You may enjoy more direct stimulation for now.”
“What are you doing.. Oh,” she gasped as she felt his fingers parting her folds. “You are fondling me down there?”
“Yes. I very much want to touch you between your legs.” He used his fingers to probe and stroke her. “Does this feel good to you?”
“I…I’m not certain.” She felt entirely wicked now for permitting him to intimately caress her in such a private place. “Your fingers are becoming very wet from me.”
“That is to be expected,” he assured her. “I enjoy the feel of any part of you on my skin. Such contact makes my cock cry for you.”
This revelation astounded her. “It weeps?”
“Yes.” His eyelids drooped and his voice went low and soft. “Put your hand on me and you will feel it.”
She raised her brows. “I am permitted to touch you as well?”
He chuckled. “You may touch me and kiss me and do anything you please with me, Meredith. Anywhere.”
“May I look upon you, then?” She felt brazen for asking, but he had given her permission to do as she wished. “I have never seen a man unclothed.”
Alistair drew back the covers, rather slowly, Meredith thought. Likely he expected her to be shocked or scream or have the vapors, or perhaps all three. But as he exposed his body to her, she found the only difficulty she had was with breathing properly.
“Oh, my.” She admired the hard-muscled planes of his chest, and the flat narrow span of his belly, but it was his erect manhood springing into view that held her utterly riveted. “Alistair.” She reached out and gently touched the shaft with just the tips of her fingers before meeting his narrowed gaze. “You are made so very large.”
“Desiring you makes me thus.” His eyes shifted to the other half of the covers that still draped her. “May I look upon you as well?”
“I am nothing to you,” she warned him, “but yes, if you wish.”
“I think you are mistaken.” Alistair slowly exposed her naked form, his hand returning to caress the small, hard mounds of her bre
asts. “Yes, here is the evidence. These are quite lovely.”
“My mother thinks I am rather small-bosomed,” she said. “But I rather like them. They should never pop out of anything, which pleases me. I do not care for larger ladies who so often tempt Fate with the depth of their necklines. May I put my hand on you again?”
He traced a circle around one of her nipples and sighed. “If you do, I may disgrace myself.”
Meredith frowned at him. “Have we not both done so thoroughly already?”
“I meant, I may lose control and spill my seed on your hand,” he clarified. “Your touch is somewhat unbearably arousing, my dear.”
“Good.” She ran one hand over his broad shoulder. “It means we are well-suited. for yours does the same to me.”
“If I spill, I cannot proceed with the rest of what you have asked me to show you,” he warned. “At least, not immediately.”
“Oh. I shouldn't want to delay.” In fact, she did, but not to his detriment. “I may touch you again later, when your needs are not so urgent?”
“Yes.” He rolled on top of her again, his weight and nakedness sending shivers through her.
Meredith parted her legs to make room for him there, and felt the bulbous end of his shaft rooting against her. “There is a great disparity of sizes, sir. I do not think that part of you will fit it where it is meant to go.”
“That is why you are wet, love,” he murmured, reaching down between them and grasping his shaft to seat it more firmly against her. “So that I may come into you, where I long to be.” His expression grew serious. “There may be some discomfort, this first time.”
“Because I have never been with a man,” she guessed, and he nodded. “Will it hurt very much?”
“It is different with every woman,” he admitted. “But those who are eager, who welcome it, seem not to mind so much.” He took her hand down between them, and curled her fingers around his shaft. “We will do this together, love.”
Her hand tightened. “Yes.”