by Josie Litton
Observing her with alarm, the Marquess wondered if it was something he had done…or failed to do. Or perhaps whatever it was, there was nothing to be done but he should still understand what it was…somehow…If he could manage to riddle it out, should he commiserate? Or would it be better to leave it unmentioned because if she wanted to talk about it, she would do so…wouldn’t she? Was the more sensitive and caring course to do nothing at all…or something and if so, what was that?
And while he was mulling it all over, was it reprehensible of him to notice how enticing she looked in those snug white Capri pants with the jaunty red knit top and matching red espadrilles? As he stepped aside for her to precede him into the house, he couldn’t help admiring the delightful sway of her hips and the pert little jiggle of what had to be the world’s most exquisite ass.
“More invitations?” he murmured absently as Danvers handed him the latest batch.
“I’m afraid so, sir,” the butler replied. “There seems to be no end to them.”
With his gaze still firmly on his wife, Charles dropped the stack of envelopes on a nearby table. “I’ll look at them later.”
Gemma had wandered off in the direction of library. He followed. When he got there, she was standing looking out the window with her arms wrapped around herself gazing out over the garden.
All that ‘should he’ or ‘shouldn’t he’ just gave a fellow a headache. Best to cut right through it.
“What’s wrong?” the Marquess demanded.
She cast him a look over her shoulder that suggested his question came out of a clear blue sky. She couldn’t imagine what had inspired it.
“Nothing. I’m just a bit tired.” Her shoulders heaved with a sigh. She went back to contemplating the view of the garden.
It began to rain. Not the soft, misty rain that should fall on a late summer eve. This was more the steady, dreary sort that drops a clammy blanket over everything it touches and sends even the heartiest souls indoors in search of cocoa.
Resisting the urge to ring for some, Charles surveyed his wife. Granted, he was still new to the business of being a husband but he was learning fast. Matter of survival, really.
Of course, she was tied up in knots over the whole nasty problem of Dame Aurelia. He could try to comfort her despite how withdrawn she appeared or he could find another way to remind her what he himself had discovered in the weeks since their marriage: She was a strong, passionate woman more than capable of standing up to any challenge.
However might he do that…?
“Fine then,” the Marquess said. “Take off your clothes.”
Chapter Three
In a voice that heralded a sudden, precipitous drop in the temperature, her ladyship said, “You want to…you know…now?”
His lordship shrugged. “Don’t see why not. It isn’t as though you’re doing anything else.”
His wife was moderately tall for a woman but on occasion she could look like an annoyed goddess peering down from the loftiest of heights. Right before hurtling a lightning bolt.
“Has it ever occurred to you, even once, that occasionally a person needs to reflect on their choices in life, on the decisions they have made and what impact those may have on others?”
“Of course it has but whenever that happens I just go for a run or lift some weights or--”
He arched an eyebrow invitingly in the direction of the burgundy leather chaise lounge that had pride of place in between the shelves of Pepys, Walpole, Tolkien, Fleming and the like. All the greats.
“A nice round of rumpy-pumpy will improve your mood no end.”
About to respond, Gemma suddenly broke off. Staring at the oddly shaped piece of furniture, she demanded, “Just what is that? You put one in my studio, there’s another in the Boar Room. I suspect if I looked, I’d find others. And now it turns up here.”
“That?” He affected surprise that she should have to ask. “That’s a Tantric sex couch, of course. What did you think it was?”
He had to have made that up. “A what?”
Loftily, he informed her, “Tantric eroticism draws on an ancient understanding of the spiritual underpinnings of human sexuality and indeed, all of human existence. The S-curve of the couch promotes deep, sustained union between the female yoni, the vessel of the universal creative force and the male lingam, the shaft of divine generative energy. It’s all very yin and yang, plus yoga is involved.”
He threw that last part in despite not being entirely sure how it fit, if at all. Truth be told, he kept meaning to read up on the whole Tantric business but simply hadn’t had the time. The shape of the couch appealed to him because it lent itself to a seemingly endless variety of positions. Gave a fellow something to look forward to.
“Forgive me,” Gemma said, looking quizzical, “But I assumed that you were Church of England?”
“That hardly makes me close-minded. What good is having an empire if we can’t learn from all those cultures we’ve conquered and oppressed?”
“What good indeed?” his wife mused. She returned to eying the couch. A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Is there an actual market for those or did you just buy them all?”
“You’d be amazed at how popular they are. Comes with instructional videos, if you’d care to--”
“Oh, god,” she murmured. She didn’t want to laugh, quite the contrary, matters were entirely too serious for that. But the way he looked…and was looking at her. Truly, he was temptation on three legs and if that wasn’t a wicked thought right there… A chuckle that felt as though it had started in her own personal yoni refused to be repressed.
“That’s better,” Charles said, beaming approval. “A decent start at any rate. Now about those clothes…”
∞ ∞ ∞
Moonlight, filtering through the high windows of the library, fell over the couple entwined in Eros’ embrace. In the pale silver light, they might have been carved from ethereal stone if any such could have lived, breathed, thrust, cried out and ultimately clung together in ecstasy.
“Got to hand it to them,” Charles murmured when he had recovered the ability to speak, more or less.
“Who?” his wife inquired in the soft, replete tones of an extravagantly well-satisfied woman. No thought troubled her mind save that between Ardsley Manor and the London residence, they were going to need a lot more of those couches. It might be wise to buy the factory that made them. She should remember to mention that to Charles.
“The Tantrics, Tantricists…whatever they call themselves,” her husband clarified. “They’re really on to something.”
Gemma nodded solemnly. What a marvelous experience! She was feeling quite exceptionally enlightened. “Oh, yes, they definitely are. It’s absolutely spiritual and very uplifting.”
They had started off so simply, Charles kneeling before her as she sat perched on the higher of the two curves, he parting her thighs and applying that wicked tongue of his…oh, my, so good! After that, what could she do but switch places with him until he drew her up, flipped her around and bent her over that marvelous curve, so firm, sliding into her from behind with long, slow strokes…so controlled yet so relentless…hurtling her once again into blissful release.
And then there was all that deliciously suspended time when they lay together on the couch, skin-to-skin, her husband cradling her in his arms as they kissed endlessly while she rose and fell on his marvelous--what was that word?--lingam so deeply in her…and out…and in…
“But don’t you think there’s still so much more to explore?” she asked hopefully.
“So much more,” he agreed. Brushing the hair back from her face, he kissed her softly and smiled. “But we can’t do that on an empty stomach. We really should get some nourishment.”
Gemma nodded. In their eagerness to embrace such a profound, new cultural experience, they’d forgotten all about mundane matters including dinner. She was suddenly ravenously hungry.
Hand-in-hand, they sn
uck down to the kitchen where in between irresistible touching and more, they managed the feat of not only microwaving popcorn but also making cocoa from scratch. Thus provisioned, they returned to the library.
“About those videos,” Charles said when they were seated on an actual couch in what turned out, predictably enough, to be a futile effort at avoiding temptation at least until the popcorn was gone.
“You are so bad,” his wife remarked, smiling.
Instructional videos were all well and good--these were very, very good--but nothing took the place of dedicated practice. They were still at it when dawn broke over the city.
At that hour, London belonged to its working class, dutifully rousing from their beds to trundle into the Tube or onto the trams and make their way to…well, work, as their name implies. Who else was going to bake the bread, sweep the sidewalks, deliver the petrol, make sure the power stayed on and in general see to it that the city could go on functioning in all its extraordinary complexity?
Not their ‘betters’ for sure. Even if they had known how to perform any of those tasks, they couldn’t possibly be expected to stir at such an ungodly hour. Yet in the darkest reaches of their dreams, the canny awareness of an animal evolved to sense any threat to its primacy sniffed the air.
Something was coming, something unsettling. Something that made them frown in their sleep as though their perfectly ordered world might not be quite so assured as they had thought.
Chapter Four
Smile,” Charles said as he and Gemma stepped into the lobby of the Duke of Bournemouth Theatre off Drury Lane.
It was opening night for the latest comedy from Society’s favorite playwright, Horace Xavier Pennywort. The title of it escaped his lordship at the moment but undoubtedly it had to do with a country house, mistaken identity, lovers and a dog. There was always a dog.
In all likelihood, the rave reviews were already written but that made no difference to the poor fellow. Pennywort was the lean, hunched figure in ill-fitted evening dress standing in a corner dragging on an illicit cig and looking for all the world as though he was dreading the next few hours. Charles remembered hearing that he longed to write penetrating post-modern drama but had become too accustomed to eating regularly.
“I am smiling,” Gemma whispered back. In a strapless evening gown of violet silk with diamonds gleaming in her upswept hair, she looked so enticing that it was all he had been able to do to leave the house. As it was, they had scarcely arrived in time to do a bit of mingling before the curtain.
“No,” he said patiently, “you’re baring your teeth. There’s a difference between wooing these people to our cause versus suggesting that you’re feeling peckish and have noticed how tender and vulnerable their throats are.”
With a sigh, she tried again. Several gentlemen found themselves the inadvertent target of a smile of such breathtaking beauty and warmth that they stumbled over their own feet.
“Much better,” Charles said. “Shall we?”
“I suppose but I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything, sweetheart.” Sun, moon, stars, she had only to name it.
“After this is over, you’ll take me home and see to it that I give no further thought to Dame Aurelia or any of the rest of it for the remainder of the night.”
He was just the man to do that, as she had every reason to know. Stamina, thy name is Ardsley. She was going to have that carved into the stone lintel above the entrance to the manor, just see if she didn’t.
Just then an all-too familiar voice pierced her happy musings.
“A mere knight’s daughter accepted as an act of kindness. Her parents so pleaded with me, what could I do?”
Slowly, because she was damn well not going to over-react, Gemma turned her head. Off to the side, surrounded by an attentive audience, stood Dame Aurelia. She had left the cardinal’s regalia behind and was dressed in a black velvet evening dress ornamented by a tasteful diamond brooch. Her pose was that of a woman of substance who refused to be cast down by petty slander.
Catching Gemma’s eye, she bared her teeth.
That was what Charles had meant. Well, they’d just see who was better at going for the throat.
“Not yet,” her husband murmured close to her ear. “Ignore her. There are people I want you to meet.”
For a moment, she was tempted to defy him and plunge straight on but he was right. To engage in a public scene would be the height of folly. It would only lend credence to Dame Aurelia efforts to defame her.
Her gaze moved past the headmistress as though she did not exist. “Of course,” she said and slipped her arm through his.
Before they had taken half-a-dozen steps, they were loudly accosted.
“What ho, Ardsley!” Having thrust his tall, lanky self in front of them, Freddy Tewes slapped Charles on the back and exclaimed, “And what a delight to see you again, Gemma! Did we thank you properly for a house party to top all?”
Before she could think of how to reply, Lady Ophelia Carlton chimed in. “Can’t remember when I was better entertained. Lovely weekend!”
Gemma was still gaping at the spectacle of frosty Ophelia unbending herself to be charming when they were joined by Nigel Coombs and Sienna Somers. The ginger-haired viscount and his cool, blonde companion were equally effusive in their greetings.
That left Clive and Winfred Bonneville who were not far behind. The earl and countess were delighted to encounter the Ardsleys, most particularly Gemma for whom they had obviously conceived a sincere friendship.
“Save some time for us at the interval, darling, “ Winfred said loudly enough to be heard by all the ears bent in their direction. So many were there that it was a wonder the lobby didn’t tip over. “My friends are positively dying to meet you.”
“Now, now,” Bernie Nethercott said, arriving late as usual. He beamed Gemma an avuncular smile and told Winfred, “You shan’t be allowed to monopolize her, dear girl. Everyone wants to meet Gemma.”
Pleased to see that he was still in the company of the handsome staff member from the Polo Club, Gemma assured him that she was just as eager to meet one and all.
Softly, so that only he could hear, she leaned closer to her husband and murmured, “The entire polo team and Bernie just happen to be here this evening?”
He gave her a warm, approving look that made her toes curl. “They’re good chaps, top notch on the field and when the call goes out to close ranks.”
They were all standing about chatting, the focus of rapt curiosity, when a sudden hush fell over the lobby. Startled, Gemma turned round to see that they had just been approached by a couple she did not know.
The man was tall, exceedingly handsome and with something about him, a ruthless edge that put her in mind of Charles. The woman at his side was extraordinarily beautiful but the most notable feature about her by far was the clear, perceptive intelligence of her gaze.
“Adrian,” Charles said with genuine warmth, “good to see you.” Turning to Gemma, he added, “Darling, I have the pleasure to introduce Lord and Lady Burleigh. Adrian does something or other for the government--” That drew a dry chuckle from the gentleman. “whilst Jane is MP for Birmingham.”
The lady was a Member of Parliament? Gemma all but swooned. She knew there were women who had summited the heights of previously all-male domains but to actually stand in the presence of one--
“I’m delighted to meet you,” Lady Jane said, offering her hand. Remarkably, at her mere touch, it felt as though they were old friends.
“I told Adrian we had to come tonight,” she went on warmly, “as I could not possibly wait to make the acquaintance of such a remarkable young woman.”
A wave of confusion washed over Gemma. How could Lady Jane have formed any opinion of her on such short awareness unless..
Adrian. That was the name of the man to whom the thumb drives had been sent.
“Not portraits of Scottish terriers then,” she murmured to herself. More
clearly, she said, “It’s what we thought, isn’t it?”
Lord Adrian nodded. He looked entirely relaxed and at ease but she sensed a controlled anger in him that did not bode well for the cause of it.
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “We should speak tomorrow, if you would, Charles. But in the meantime--” With an indulgent smile at the ladies, he said, “I perceive that these two will not be easily separated. Perhaps we could share your box?”
Charles thought that a splendid idea as did Gemma. She was eager to know Lady Jane better. But she was also not impervious to the combined effect produced by the closing of ranks and the Burleighs’ clear showing of preference for their company. Already, the group around Dame Aurelia had begun to thin.