by Rose Lerner
“Tell me if I do anything you don’t like.”
She nodded.
He settled down and kissed her. She followed his lead, more easily this time for having a small bit of practice. His hand, which had rested on her hip, began to move up. She closed her eyes and followed its progress desperately. Last time, he had touched her breast and-yes, there it was, his hand settling over the curve of her left breast. There was nothing between them, nothing at all. He squeezed gently a few times, and tiny waves of sensation ran all through her. He brushed her nipple with his thumb, and she almost jumped at the sharp shock of pleasure. She didn’t, though. This time, she was going to stay in control. She was not a common, wanton trollop.
He moved down, following the line of her throat with his lips. I can do this, she thought, and then his mouth closed over her other nipple and she despaired. It was hot and wet and his hair was brushing her skin and suddenly he sucked, hard-she struggled not to cry out, not to buck under his mouth and hands.
He raised his head. “Is something wrong?”
She swallowed, opening her eyes. His blue eyes were fixed anxiously on her. What had she done? “Why-” Her voice cracked. Why wasn’t he touching her anymore? “Why would something be wrong?”
“Well-did that feel good, when I did that?”
She flushed. “Yes.”
“Then-you’re just being awfully still and quiet.”
“Aren’t I supposed to be?”
He sat up. “Why on earth would you be supposed to be?”
“I-I don’t know,” she said, mortified. “I didn’t want to give you a disgust of me. Ladies don’t give in to their base urges.”
“They don’t?”
Despite her embarrassment, she wanted to laugh at his confounded expression. “I don’t know. Do they?”
“I don’t know either. I’ve never done this with a lady before.” Nev thought for a moment. “Did you feel like moving, or making any noise?”
Penelope held herself very still. “Well…yes.”
He sighed in relief. “I’d really rather you did then. It lets me know I’m doing it right. Otherwise I start to worry.”
She wanted to make him happy. “All right.”
He started over, and this time she tried to relax and trust him. He went slow, so slow, and the heat built and built. His mouth was back on her breast, and she was so distracted that she didn’t notice his hand moving lower and lower-until he touched her, there, and she felt her whole body arch toward him. “Oh!”
He murmured against her breast in response, the hum doing very pleasant things to her nerve endings. His fingers moved over her, and his mouth teased her breast, hotter than she had ever thought anything could feel without scalding. It would have been hopeless to try to be still, anyway, not when she felt like this-she had never felt anything like this-had never known anyone could ever feel this good.
A thought came to her-this is how a violin feels. She was filled with sound, resonating to Nev ’s playing-trills and arpeggios, higher and higher, the tempo increasing until she vibrated under his hands-
Suddenly the pleasure was so strong she could hardly bear it. “Oh!” she cried out-she would break-she would die-and then the whole world rang with a crescendo of bright, pure pleasure.
Penelope shuddered, again and again-and then it was over and she was herself once more. She could hardly believe it. She lay there, trying to catch her breath, for a long moment. Finally she opened her eyes and turned to look at her husband. “Was that-was that supposed to happen?”
Nev grinned widely. “Yes.” He looked proud of himself. “It was, in fact, my intention.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Um…thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, that pleased note still in his voice.
“Can…can you feel that too?”
He nodded.
“Do you have to be inside me to feel it?”
“No. Hands and mouths work just fine.”
“Do you-do you want me to-”
“You don’t have to. This was for you. There’ll be plenty of time for me.”
Didn’t he want her to? “May I?” she asked, surprised by her own boldness.
He was very still. “Are you sure you wish to?”
She nodded, his uncertainty giving her courage. “Take off your clothes.”
He shuddered and fumbled at the tie to his dressing gown, looking nervous. He pulled off his nightshirt, and then he was naked. Penelope’s first impulse was to glance modestly away, but she made herself look. He did look like a painting or a sculpture-a Greek athlete, or a Jacques-Louis David hero. But he was real, and if she put out her hand his warm flesh would yield under her palm. The cinnamon-colored hair on his chest and legs was a surprise, but oddly exciting-intimate, somehow. And, she thought, finally bringing her mind to what she hadn’t had the courage to look at first, he wore no grape leaf. Between his legs, surrounded at its base by more cinnamon-colored hair, his erect male part bobbed.
It was larger than she had expected. She pushed the uncomfortable thought aside that one day soon that would have to fit inside her. Taking a deep breath, she reached out-
A sharp, crackling pop came from somewhere. Another followed it almost immediately.
Penelope met Nev ’s eyes, feeling suddenly cold and frightened. “That-that sounded like gunfire.” She drew back her hand.
“That was gunfire.” Nev swore. “Stay here, do you hear me?” He threw his dressing gown on over his nakedness and ran out, slamming the door behind him. “Lock it!” he called, his voice receding as he ran down the hall, his bare feet making hardly any noise at all.
Penelope sat there stupidly for a few moments, and then she pulled on her discarded nightclothes and ran after him.
Ten
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Nev ’s back was to her and he was speaking to Captain Trelawney, who wore a large red nightcap. “ ‘Is something wrong?’ ” Nev mimicked. “Are my wife and I the only ones who heard the repeated sounds of gunfire?”
“Oh, that.” Trelawney smothered a yawn. “Don’t worry about that. It’s only the poachers and your gamekeepers.”
“Shooting each other?” There was an edge in Nev ’s voice that Penelope had never heard. “And this is a common occurrence?”
“Well, not precisely common. Once or twice a month, maybe.”
“Let me be sure I understand you. There are Englishmen shooting at each other out there, on my land, and you’re telling me not to worry about it.”
“Usually they don’t hit each other in the dark.” Trelawney seemed oblivious to the dangerous note in Nev ’s voice. Penelope thought he might be drunk.
“How many gamekeepers do I employ?” Nev asked, quietly.
“Eleven, my lord. It takes that many to keep the buggers away.”
“They do not seem to be keeping the buggers away at all.”
“Well, many a man would rather poach than earn an honest living,” Trelawney said philosophically. “Would you like me to install traps? Spring guns, maybe, like Sir Jasper has.”
Penelope flinched.
“No, I would not like you to install traps,” Nev said with cold fury. “Your effrontery is appalling. Loweston is in a disastrous state. I do not doubt that my father is chiefly responsible, but you have done nothing to help. You were content to sit in your office, drink, and keep shoddy records while everything fell to pieces around you. Tonight my wife and I are roused from our bed by gunfire, and you tell me not to worry, because it is only the unconscionable war you have launched against people who cannot make an honest living because of our mismanagement? How dare you?”
Trelawney sniggered. “So you finally managed to tear her away from those account books? No wonder you’re so angry.”
Nev seemed to grow another three inches. “I ought to have you horsewhipped for that. I want you gone by morning. Get out of my sight.”
Trelawney opened his
mouth, shut it, shrugged, and left.
Penelope stood at the bottom of the stairs. For the first time, she had seen the centuries of inherited power, the iron hand without the velvet glove. Of course, she had seen her father angry-she had seen him berate men under him at the brewery-but her father was a big man. Trelawney could have broken Nev over his knee, but Nev had never considered that. His instinctive authority was something else entirely. He had never doubted that he would be obeyed. It was intimidating and unfathomable-yet also, if she were honest, a little thrilling.
He turned around and saw her, and the aristocratic command crumbled. “I shouldn’t have done that, should I? Now we haven’t got a steward at all.”
“He wasn’t very good. We’ll hire a new one.”
“But he knew Loweston.”
It was undeniable, but Penelope couldn’t be sorry the man was gone. “We can inquire locally, and I’ll send an advertisement to the London papers. We may find someone familiar with this part of the country, at least.”
Nev went to the window and peered out toward where the shots had been fired. Then he looked around the room. Penelope followed his gaze, seeing the missing furniture and the discolored rectangles on the wall where paintings were missing. He did not look at her. “You’re tired. Go to bed.”
She couldn’t move, for a moment. “Don’t you-aren’t you coming?”
“Evidently not,” he said, a little bitterly. “I’ll sleep in Trelawney’s office. Wouldn’t want him making off with half our records.”
It was a good idea, and yet Penelope felt unreasonably disappointed. She thought of offering to go with him, but she couldn’t quite find the courage. Only a few minutes ago, she had felt so close to him, but now he was a stranger again. Besides, Trelawney’s sofa wasn’t big enough for two. “All right,” she said meekly, and went upstairs to sleep alone.
Nev awoke to sunlight in his eyes and a crick in his neck. He staggered upstairs to be shaved and dressed. He couldn’t hear anything from Penelope’s room.
Last night came flooding back, all that soft fair skin in the firelight. She had been so afraid of losing control. And yet she was formed for passion-she had responded to his lightest touch. She had been so sweetly amazed at her own pleasure. Nev began to see why some men liked virgins.
When he walked into the breakfast room, she was watching the door with sparkling eyes and a nervous smile-she must have heard his footsteps in the hall. She had bathed, and her still-damp hair was more elaborately arranged than usual. Parts were braided and parts were bound and it all somehow became a sleek brown knot at the crown of her head. He wanted to drag her upstairs and take down her hair and get her out of her gown.
“Good morning,” he said.
“G-good morning.” She met his eyes with a shy smile, blushing all over. “How-how did you sleep? Here-come and sit down, I’ll pour you coffee.”
She put the right amount of sugar in his coffee without having to ask, and Nev got a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.
She was radiant and happy because she had never experienced the peak of pleasure before. When Nev had discovered he could do it to himself the summer he turned twelve, he had spent nearly three days in his room with the door locked. But poor, innocent Penelope didn’t realize that’s all it was. She thought there was something special about him.
Nev knew perfectly well that there wasn’t. If she had married Edward, she would be looking at him right now as if he had hung the moon. The thought made him queasy. He had taken everything from her and given her only this one thing she could get from any man who took her fancy, and she was smiling gratefully at him and doing her hair up pretty. Nev did not like virgins.
Her bright face dimmed. “Is-is everything all right?”
“Of course,” he said hastily, and could think of nothing else to say. “What-what are you doing today?”
“I haven’t quite decided.” She looked at him hopefully. When he didn’t reply, she sighed and said, “I suppose I’ll write that advertisement for the papers. I’m writing to my parents as well. I’ll ask my father for advice, and I made sketches of a few of the paintings in your family’s collection for my mother, and-”
“Do you miss them very much?”
She looked away and nodded. “It’s all right. I’m used to it. I went away to school, you know.”
Nev suspected it was a deal worse than school. At school she must have had a few friends at least, and the security that she would be home on holiday soon enough. And she had been in London. “Would you like to go up to London next week to interview stewards? You could see your parents, and perhaps we could go to a concert…”
“Really?” Then her face fell. “But-could we? It’s so far, and we’ve only been here a week and a half, and there’s so much to do-”
“Of course. Unless we interview applicants in person, how can we know we aren’t getting another Trelawney?”
She nodded. “You’re right, it’s only sense.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “I’ll book us a room in a hotel.”
Nev swallowed hard.
Penelope fled the breakfast room for her bedchamber, knowing she had made an utter fool of herself. But the moment Nev had walked into the room and met her eyes, every inch of her skin had seemed to wake up.
She stood at her writing desk, gripping the edges of the account books, trying to ground herself in charges and discharges and debits, but it was no use. Even just his eyes on hers had felt so-so intimate, somehow. This, she knew now, was why she had married him. This pull he exercised on her body without her consent.
She closed her eyes and relived that startling explosion of pleasure. She wanted it again. It was making her foolish, and weak. She’d had Molly do her hair up nicely. The maid had probably known she was trying pitifully to impress her own husband. Penelope wanted to tear it down and redo it in her usual simple style, but she refused to be melodramatic about this. Besides, he would notice when he saw her again, and that would make it worse. Instead she went into her dressing room and splashed water on her face.
The Hogarth engravings hung in a neat row by the mirror. She wasn’t sure why she’d put them there. To punish herself for what she’d done to Edward, she suspected. She looked at them now, slowly and carefully. It was like a toothache or a scab; poking at it was both painful and irresistible.
Yes, she told herself, she had married someone entirely unsuited to her because of her base urges. Yes, she was as much a slave to her own body as any slatternly shopgirl. Yes, Nev had seen it, and it had given him a disgust of her. How could he help it? He was a gentleman, through and through.
Worst of all, though, was that he had seen her happiness. He knew that she had thought-that she had allowed herself to hope that last night had meant as much to him as it had to her. Had meant something. His look of distaste and embarrassment was engraved on her memory.
It was a bitter pill, but Penelope had swallowed bitter pills before. There was nothing for it but to put a brave face on things and muddle along. Nev was trying to be kind. Next week she would see her mother. Nev was taking her to London.
She had better write to that hotel and book a room. Despite everything, Penelope couldn’t help smiling.
“I heard you turned off Captain Trelawney,” Mrs. Kedge said.
News traveled fast in the country. Nev sighed and looked instinctively for Penelope, but she was across the churchyard, talking to the Cushers. “Yes,” he said. “I didn’t like the way he was handling the poaching problem.”
“Good for you,” Mrs. Kedge said. “I always thought he was too soft by far. Poachers are like rats. The only way to get rid of ’em is to exterminate them all, or they’ll be back. Trelawney never struck me as much of a terrier, and those gamekeepers he hired-I heard they even had one of the poachers caught in a trap, and yet his fellows managed to get him free and get all away, every last one of them! Bungling, I call it.”
Nev drew back, disconcerted. “You are very
bitter against the poachers.”
“It’s these men from London.” The farmer’s wife shuddered comfortably. “Murderers and thieves, all of them, who’ve made town too hot to hold them. Then they come up here, and they work on our boys with their promises of easy money…”
“Then-you don’t think the men poach because they’re hungry?”
“Not on your life, my lord!-meaning no disrespect. The folk here poach because they hate hard work. They’d rather take eight shillings for stealing your hare than for a week’s honest labor.”
Nev privately thought that was understandable. But he could not have armed men running about the home woods. “Do you know who they are?”
Mrs. Kedge looked discomfited for the first time. “Of course not! No one knows who they are.” In her tone Nev heard clearly, Everyone knows who they are, and smothered a groan.
“The poachers aren’t so bad, really,” Josie told Penelope. “And they are hungry.” She darted an angry glance at Mrs. Kedge, whose cheerily grim monologue could be heard all across the churchyard. “They’ve got family who are hungry!”
“Hush, Josie!” Agnes said.
Penelope got the distinct impression that Josie also knew exactly who the poachers were. But asking a little girl to tattle on her friends seemed monstrous. Penelope sighed. “I’m sure they do.”
Josie eyed Penelope. “You’ve been to school, haven’t you?”
She nodded.
“Do you think God has chosen me to be lowly because he knew my soul needed the guidance of my betters?”
Agnes grabbed her daughter’s hand. “We’re going, Josie. Good day, my lady.”
Penelope’s heart went out to the little girl. “Please stay.”
Josie was quoting directly from Mr. Snively’s sermon, which had been on the text, Be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’s sake. Nev had rolled his eyes so much through Mr. Snively’s many references to Nev ’s “wise governance” and “benevolent authority” that Penelope had half feared they would stick.