He looked surprised. "Where are you going?"
"I should be helping."
"No, Juliet, you'll stay right there and let the servants earn the money I pay them. And you're barefoot. Have you no stockings?"
She nodded. "But I've nothing to mend them with. For heaven's sake, I had no key. What did you want me to do, beg for alms in Millcote?"
He scowled blackly, and for a moment she was afraid she had pushed him too far. She scurried away from the chair, flinching as she did so as if to ward off a blow.
He gaped at her in astonishment and growled, "Come back here and sit."
She scurried back like a mouse and sat, gathering her legs up under her nightrail like a small child. Damned if she didn't look terrified of him. He reached for her. She shrugged out of his jacket and tried to hand it back.
"Thank you. But I shouldn't have presumed."
"No presumption. You're still frozen. Put it back on."
She hurriedly complied.
The fact that Juliet obeyed him with such alacrity showed just how scared she was of him. Damnation, he had really succeeded in making her think him an ogre.
He had been furious at all of his plans for the future coming unstuck. But if she had been part of some sort of plot to dupe him or fleece him, she certainly wasn't going about it very well. Unless it was all part of a scheme to get him to feel sorry for her, the better to get even more out of him…
But no, Juliet really did look wan and ill, and the house was indeed in the most desperate case. She had had no way of knowing he was coming. She'd been sound asleep when he had gone into her bedroom.
He thought with shame of how he had pulled the covers down hoping to feast on the sight of her naked and had terrified her by losing his temper. Just what was it about her that had him so tense and on edge? He wasn't usually so short-fused.
He sighed. He knew why. Every time he laid eyes on her he wanted to bury himself in her right up to the hilt. Yet he knew she deserved better than that--all women did. He had never had problems with his fleshly desires before. And she was his wife, however much she had been an unexpected one.
He thought about Matilda. For a moment he tried to remember what she looked like. It was only with great difficulty that he pushed the omnipresent image in his head of Juliet to one side and recollected Matilda's feline grace and beauty.
She had been like a large predator, hunting him, yet eluding him when he had decided he didn't want to be the prey but had become the hunter himself. She had said she was determined to maintain her virtue, not become the stereotypical lusty widow. However, the few snippets of gossip he had picked up about Matilda in London had told a different tale. Nothing specific, merely hints that he had missed something.
Regarding Juliet, he had not been able to find out anything about her at all, though he had asked around enough while he had been stuck there taking care of all the business he had suddenly started to find too tedious for words. She had been so sparkling and vivacious the night they had first met he found it hard to believe that she had not made an impact on the Ton . Her beauty was so luminous she must have turned half the heads in London.
Yet there had been no gossip about her at all that he could discern. In fact, most of the men he had spoken to all knew Matthew Dane, but none of them knew anything about two lovely sisters. He had not met Miranda, but if she was anything like Juliet, well, he was sure the two of them would have been the talk of the Town.
Yet now his gorgeous young wife was in a completely plain nightdress and wrapper without a trace of lace, just her own embroidery by the look of it. She had said she was not very good at fancywork. Nor did she play the harp and pianoforte very well if anything she had told him was to be believed. Of course, with her family and connections, she didn't need to do anything to attract a husband. The fact that she was so very lovely was just the icing on an already sumptuous cake.
Or would have been for any other man but him. He wanted nothing from her family. Well, nothing except her, he had to admit when he saw her eyelashes flutter down sleepily. He had dragged her out of a sound slumber. It was late and he had been traveling for days. He had wanted nothing more than to curl up beside her and smell her wonderful honeysuckle and rose fragrance. Now they were committed to eating supper at this ungodly hour and waiting until her room was shaken down completely. The scantily clad servants moved back and forth with hot water bottles, warming pans, fresh sheets and towels, and heaps of firewood.
He wanted to kick himself for having been so impetuous. He really had to get a tighter rein on his emotions, relax a bit more. Well, as soon as they ate he was going to do just that.
"I want a bath as well," he said suddenly. "Will you please light the boiler for me?" he said to one of the men.
"Yes, sir."
By the time we eat the water will be hot."
She looked at him wide-eyed, and then lapsed back with a sigh.
"Oh no, let me guess," he grumbled. "You've not been allowed to have bath either?"
"They wouldn't light the fires for me and I was afraid of blowing up the boiler."
"Then you shall have the water first."
"Oh, no, I--"
"You need a bath," he said simply.
He put a bowl of hot soup into her hands and handed her a chunk of bread. The roast beef wasn't long in coming, and he made her drink some milk.
No sooner had Juliet proclaimed herself full than he scooped her up, brought her to the bathroom, and removed all of her garments. She blushed, but saw little point in trying to shield herself. Especially when he shucked off his own clothes without any hesitation, and told her to get into the bath first whilst he shaved.
She laved and scrubbed herself until her skin tingled, peeping every so often at his bare magnificence and feeling inexplicably relieved that he was home, for all that he had stormed, raged, and turned the house upside down in the middle of the night.
Her spirits lifted considerably. It felt so good to be really clean. She started as he took the flannel from her fingers and began to scrub her back, and sighed.
"You can do the same for me in a moment if you don't mind. And as much as I would love to show you how much fun we can have soaping each other from head to toe in this tub, we're both tired and I need you."
She looked at his straining manhood, fully erect against his abdomen and darkened with desire, and thrilled at his words. She finished with her wash and scrambled out of the tub.
As she dried herself she had to admit that if she was being completely truthful, she didn't want to wait a moment longer than necessary for that which she had viewed.
Juliet scrubbed his back and shoulders, and he completed his ablutions with a few more scrapes of the flannel, and then ducked down to wash his hair quickly. She admired his finely sculpted body as he stood and the water ran down his abdomen and thighs in sensual rivulets. For a moment she wondered what it would be like to let her tongue flow over all of him like...
He draped a towel lightly around her, one around his own loins and took her hand gently. He led Juliet up to her room once more.
"Out," he ordered the remaining servants. He dropped his towel as soon as they were gone. She waited for him to grab her, fearful and excited.
He caught her look of trepidation. "Lie down, Juliet, and get warm. I'll be with you in a moment."
He sorted their clothes into two piles efficiently and draped those that were not going into the wash over the back of a chair so they would not get too crumpled. Then he lit several candles and placed them near the bed.
"Show me all of you," he ordered.
She removed the towel.
"Spread your legs. Go on, wider."
She turned her head away from his burning gaze but complied. His fingers reached up to force her to look at him. "You're lovely. There's no need to feel ashamed. I like looking at you. Still better to touch. Delicious to taste."
"Oh, Lawrence, no, you can't enjoy--"
"I think y
ou know how much I really do," he said softly.
She blushed at the memory he had evoked.
"Just relax."
She let her legs fall where they would and readied herself for his first touch or lick. Instead of between her thighs, his hands came up onto her breasts and she gasped as her nipples leapt into his palms. Now he bent his head and his tongue glided down her most tender flesh. He inhaled deeply and groaned, "Mmm, so succulent."
She wondered if this was part of a new campaign he was waging to humiliate her. At the same time, she wasn't going to complain, for he was a most remarkably thrilling lover when he took the time to touch her. Caress her as if he cared that she enjoyed herself. Though enjoyed was such a weak word to describe the sensations he filled her with as his tongue and fingers began to explore her with a deft assuredness of touch that had her soaring.
Her lips parted, swallowing a little sob of pure bliss. The sight of her looking so moist and inviting notched up his desire to an even higher pitch. He rubbed her swelling bud of sensuality and she bit back a groan.
"Tell me what you want," he urged hoarsely.
She remained willfully silent, determined not to beg abjectly when she knew he knew full well what her hips were desperately questing for.
"Ask and it shall be yours, I promise."
She shook her head, causing her hair to tumble out of its confining ribbon and spread on the pillow in a dark fluffy cloud.
"All you need to do is ask. I give you permission to speak."
Juliet could stand it no more. "Please, all of you inside me, your body on top of mine, please," she gasped, writhing and twisting under his hands and lips as she sought her urgent release.
Still he teased her with his tongue, circling her entrance, and occasionally peeping it in the tiniest fraction, causing her to clutch at his head and pull his head even closer to her. He felt his hardness grow almost painful in its incessant need for fulfillment. He kept tasting her, smelling her sweet fragrance, and it was the most exquisite torture for them both.
He just couldn't turn away, almost afraid to end the wildfire between them. He knew only too well how delightful it was to kiss her. It was how all their troubles had started in the first place.
But if he did that his control would be tattered to shreds, and he was not willing to accede control to her or allow himself to make love to her with the unbridled passion which was simmering just under the surface. Demanding he enter her with one blistering thrust until they both screamed...
Lawrence rolled her over on her front and sought to keep control by depriving himself of the thrill of her arms around him, her drugging kisses. But he wanted to feel her. He pulled her onto her side, and began to stroke her front and mound while he set up a blistering pace with his hips.
She exploded against him quaking and sobbing, and he was right behind her, at last slowing to a more leisured pace, but never holding still inside her as he sought another climax for them both.
He flipped her onto her front again and rose to his knees, grasping her legs on either side of his body as he held them like a wheelbarrow's handles.
Juliet rested her head on her arms and wondered at the new angle of penetration, the slow sure thrusting nearly driving her mad. Her palms itched to touch his magnificent body. She adjusted her weight on one arm and brought up her forefinger and thumb to circle him, holding tightly as he pressed inwards. Her other three fingers brushed his satiny pouch, and a burst of breath was wrenched from him as he pounded into her.
He gasped but said nothing, and she bit back her cries until he finally collapsed on top of her.
Juliet waited for him to roll off her body, but his head beside her on the pillow, his chin resting on her shoulder, was still. She turned her head enough to kiss him on the cheek, and then she too slept in utter peace.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She awakened to Lawrence's slow, thrusting movements and kisses all over the nape of her neck as the sunlight filtered in through the shutters. She moved her hips to meet him, and he turned them on their sides and made love to her so exquisitely she felt as though she would weep. She bit back her sobs of desire as he took her ever higher.
Just when she thought she couldn't possibly climax again, he drove her yet higher again. But the one thing she longed for eluded her. She could touch his arms with her hands, but his mouth was much too far away, and at last she had no energy left to struggle, and gave up.
He was about to turn her over and let her cradle him against her wonderful softness, and kiss her now that he felt he had at last taken the edge off his blazing hunger for her, but a tap at the door and his name being called had him out of bed in an instant.
"What is it, Nash?"
"I heard you were back. I wanted to know how you had got on."
The dismissed servants had run to Bristol to complain to Nash, and he had returned to Millcote at once to stave off disaster. All his plans were coming undone because of that chit of a girl…
"I got back late," Lawrence said gruffly. "What time is it?"
Nash glimpsed the jet hair and ivory flesh in the bed and tried to tamp down his fury. "It's nearly ten. I've called a meeting for one, and arranged to take you around the new tea rooms, to see what you think."
Lawrence cast one longing look at the rumpled bed, sighed, and nodded. "Order us some breakfast and have it sent up to my wife on a tray. I'll be down for a wash in a minute. And get the boiler lit."
Juliet murmured sleepily as he returned to the bed and rolled her over. He kissed her abdomen and stroked her curls, noting how thin she was. He felt a brute for ever having subjected her to his relentless desires last night, knowing as he did what she had had to put up with these past three weeks since he had gone.
He licked both nipples lightly, and with a quick taste of her, as delightful to him as always, he pulled the covers up to her neck and left.
Nash, ever resourceful, had come up with a whole new ploy to keep Lawrence out of the way whilst he consolidated his position and put the second phase of his plan into motion.
"Liverpool, Chester, York and Hull? But we've scarcely got organised in London and Bristol!" Lawrence exclaimed.
"Think about it. You have the ships. They're fine ports up in the north. Bring the tea straight in and--"
"But we have no local contacts, no base of operations," he outlined, ticking all the needful items off on his fingers.
Nash shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Easily done with the right people to help, good connections. Lots of willing local investors who want to see their towns prosper. And we can't look down our nose at the north. There's traditional landed gentry, sheep, money to be made. They'll want to share the same social pretensions as the more fasionable cities in the south, and there will be less competition, since there are not so many coffee houses. Plus, York and Chester are fine towns. People visit them all the time to see the historical sights. We would not only get locals but all the visitors if we had decent tea rooms."
Lawrence pointed out, "It will mean delaying the tea rooms here."
"That's all right. We can set up shop at the front of the warehouse in the meantime."
"It will mean weeks on the road. Are you sure you want to--"
Nash shook his head at once. "Not me, sir. You. I would never presume to make such vast decisions on your behalf."
Lawrence could not resist saying sarcastically, "I don't see why not. After all, you chose my house and hired those hopeless servants."
Nash's green eyes glittered but he forced himself to remain silent.
"I need to stop in Bath and find some replacements as soon as possible."
"I'm sorry they didn't work out."
"They might have if you'd been here. Just where have you been?"
"In Bristol, working, of course," he said smoothly. "The Canton and Macao both came in ahead of schedule."
"Good and bad. I'm delighted they arrived safely and made such good time despite the season, but I don't want a glut of
tea on the market." He sighed. "All right. Have you got a kit of samples to take up with me if I go?"
"Of course, sir."
Nash got out the rather cumbersome-looking cases he had had prepared. Lawrence thought once again of Juliet's suggestion about the little sample tea bags as he checked through the caddies and tea service.
"I've made the appointments for you starting Friday up in Liverpool."
Lawrence's brows shot up. "But that means I'll have to leave tonight, or first thing in the morning," he said, hoping his tone did not betray his frustration.
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