The Seduction of an Earl

by Linda Rae Sande

  Hannah’s heart clenched at his simple words. “Nor mine without you,” she whispered back.

  Henry’s arms were suddenly like steel bands around her body, pulling her against him so hard she couldn’t breathe. “You send word back to the duke and duchess. Tell them they must visit. I insist they do so. Perhaps late August, when the pheasants invade the wheat fields. Joshua and I can hunt while you and Charlotte ...” Hannah’s lips were suddenly covering his, cutting off his words with an urgent kiss.

  Stifling the urge to laugh at her enthusiasm, Henry returned the kiss in equal measure. At some point, he felt her hand reach around to grasp one of his hands to pull it between them. She placed it against her abdomen, covering it with her own as she did so.

  Henry suddenly pulled his face away from hers, a look of surprise on his face.

  “While Charlotte and I share stories of impending motherhood,” Hannah finished for him.

  Staring at her for several seconds, his expression of surprise not changing, Henry slowly smiled. “You’re sure? She is sure?” he asked, his face brightening even more at her answering nods. “Oh, Hannah,” he breathed, wrapping his arms around her and holding her far more gently than he had the moment before.

  He pressed his face into her bosom, inhaled the scent of honeysuckle and musk and felt a profound happiness he’d not felt since the birth of his son. So he was startled when a sob racked the soft body he held. His head jerked up to find Hannah crying quietly. “Oh, Hannah,” he repeated in an entirely different tone of voice. “What is it now?” he asked as he reached up to stroke her face. Why did women who were with child have to cry so much? he wondered.

  Struggling to breathe, Hannah, hiccuped and whimpered before saying, “We ... had an agreement ... that you would b-b-bed me ... every night until I was ... w-w-with child,” she barely managed to get out.

  “Yes,” Henry replied hesitantly, wondering at the sadness in what little of her voice he could make out.

  “Does that mean ... y-y-you won’t be ... sharing my b-b-bed anymore?” Hannah inhaled deeply, as if steeling herself for his response.

  Henry stared at her in disbelief. He remembered the day in the coach when they’d made the agreement. He thought they’d made it with Sarah in mind. And then, a week later, he promised Hannah he would bed her every night for three weeks to make up for having cursed her dog. He hadn’t made that promise with Sarah in mind.

  Perhaps Hannah had her in mind, though.

  Perhaps his wife had decided she didn’t want him and Sarah to continue their relationship as lovers. The mother of his child had made it perfectly clear his conjugal visits were no longer welcome the night she told him about her impending marriage to Tad McDonald. And Henry had begun to wonder if they ever had been.

  With Sarah out of his life, at least as a lover, did Hannah really think he was going to quit spending his nights with her? Now that she had him so besotted he could barely think straight? So bewitched he actually came in from the fields every day for luncheon just so he could see her? So addled he would play horse to her Lady Godiva in his study? In the late afternoon, no less?

  “Actually,” Henry finally spoke, “It means I won’t be bedding you anymore, my love,” he said quite sternly. The sound of Hannah’s sob could probably be heard through the entire house, and his heart clenched hard at how cruel his words must have sounded just then. “However, I intend to make love to you as often as possible. Your bed, my bed, this chair,” he said wearily, realizing he was still buried deep inside her. “I’d suggest the large table in the kitchen, but Mrs. Chambers can be rather prickly, and I shouldn’t like to be naked anywhere near her meat cleaver.”

  Hannah’s body stilled so suddenly, Henry had to pull his face away from the soft breast that was cradling his cheek. He’d been listening to her heartbeats, the tattoo a gentle rhythm under his ear until this latest round of tears. The tempo had turned to one more closely matching her heartbeat after he’d pleasured her, after she’d been brought to ecstasy and was clinging to him as if her very life depended on it.

  “Are you ... teasing?” she whispered, sniffling.

  Henry cocked his head over the chair back, taking in the sight of Hannah’s tear stained face, her tentative smile, her soft white shoulders, the crest of her collarbones and the round, pink-tipped breasts he so adored. “I assure you, my lady, I will be at your beck and call whenever you ever wish to make love.”

  Hiccuping, Hannah lowered her head to his shoulder. “Oh, Henry,” she whispered, her lips nipping at his earlobe and kissing the space between his neck and shoulder. Within a moment, she felt his hands slide to her hips and his manhood harden inside her, his breaths quicken and his pulse beneath her breasts increase two-fold. Even before his hands could lift and lower her, her toes began pushing her up and lowering her around his straining cock. “I do not think Lady Godiva had quite the right idea,” she managed to get out just before Henry placed his thumb onto the swollen space where their bodies met and merged.

  “Right idea, wrong horse,” Henry countered, just before the growl of his tightening body erupted from his throat. Had they been anywhere but the study, he might have allowed the entire sound of his pleasure to escape. Instead, he simply groaned and covered Hannah’s mouth with his own as ecstasy took them.

  Henry wore only his breeches as he helped Hannah to redress. Given her few garments, it did not take long to make her presentable enough to get up the stairs and into her bedchamber to change for dinner. He reminded her of the letter that still lay on the desk.

  Hannah regarded the wax seal on the back. “It’s from my father,” she said as she opened it. Reading in silence for a few minutes, she lifted her head to find Henry’s gaze on her.

  “Is everything alright at Devonville House?” he asked carefully.

  Hannah finally nodded. “Lady Winslow is now the Marchioness of Devonville,” she said as a brilliant smile appeared. “They married by special license the day before yesterday.”

  Grinning, Henry took her into his arms. “So, now you have a stepmother,” he said before kissing her on the nose.

  “But she’s not wicked, not in the least,” Hannah said, surprised at his comment.

  “Neither are you,” he countered. He handed the pasteboard box with the coins in it to her. “And just to prove it to my son, I’m thinking you should be the one to give him back his treasure.”

  Hannah gave him a curious glance. “As long as I can give credit where credit is due,” she stated, imagining how she and Harold would go in search of Nathan to present him with his pirate booty.

  “If you mean Harold, then, alright,” he agreed. “Come on, Lady Godiva. We need to get dressed for dinner,” he reminded her, lightly slapping her bottom with the palm of his hand.

  “Oh!” she got out in response, her gaze sweeping over his bare torso. “Do you honestly think you’ll make it all the way upstairs without being seen half-naked?” she teased, grabbing her stockings from the desk and sliding her feet into her slippers.

  A burble of laughter erupted from Henry. “You see what you’ve done to me, you minx?” he accused, grabbing his shirt and pulling it over his head.

  The afternoon tryst had been as exciting as it was enlightening and satisfying. Perhaps it was alright that Lady Bostwick had been so free with her recommendations on how a married couple could enjoy one another. He wondered at how loyal, or deaf, perhaps, the servants must be in the Bostwick household, to have their master and mistress behave so, yet not a hint of scandal about their lives were spoken while he was in London.

  He suddenly considered how his own servants had been behaving lately. And he remembered the cook’s words, implying tonight’s dinner would be special. “Hannah. Who have you told?” he wondered suddenly. “About the babe, I mean.”

  Hannah blinked. “Only you. When I first suspected, that night when...” She allowed the sentence to trail off, not wanting him to remember how bereft he felt the night Sarah had told him
she intended to marry Tad McDonald.

  Furrowing his brow, Henry thought back to the cook’s comment. “Mrs. Chambers doesn’t know?” he asked, one eye cocking.

  Hannah shook her head. “I don’t see how she would.”

  “Nor Mrs. Batey?”

  Hannah shook her head again. “I wouldn’t speak of such a thing with either of them,” she insisted. “At least not yet. Why?”

  Henry held her close for a moment. “I think they must suspect, is all,” he managed to get out. “Come, let’s dress for dinner. I am especially curious as to tonight’s meal,” he said as he led her out of the study and up the stairs.

  Surprised by his comment, Hannah shook her head. “Beef steak, potatoes, carrots and Yorkshire pudding,” she said with a shrug, as if there wasn’t anything particularly special about the menu.

  Henry laughed, his hand tightening on hers as he lifted her hand to his lips. “My favorite meal, of course,” he said, continuing to chuckle.

  Hannah’s eyebrow cocked in confusion. “You say that about every dinner menu,” she countered, wondering at his comment.

  Henry wagged an eyebrow. “I do. Keeps them guessing,” he said with all the mischief he could manage.

  Chapter 22

  Pirate Booty No More

  Hannah donned a cloak and made her way down the cobbles and through the front gate of Gisborn Hall, the pasteboard box filled with sovereigns under one arm and Harold at her heels. She timed her departure to match when she expected Nathan Forster to be making his way home from his tutor’s house. She was just past the dower house when she spotted the boy making his way home from the other direction. Harold’s ears perked up and he was suddenly racing toward Nathan, an occasional bark coming from his ever expanding body.

  “Here boy,” she heard Nathan say as he lowered himself to the road and waited for the dog to jump onto him. The impact knocked him over backwards. A series of shouts and giggles erupted from the earl’s son as Harold proceeded to lick the boy to submission. “Stop! Someone save me,” Nathan was shouting in between his giggles.

  “Harold!” Hannah called out, suppressing a giggle of her own. The puppy ceased his tail wagging and pulled his head up from Nathan’s face. “Sit!”

  Harold immediately complied, tucking his bottom under him and acting as if he were guarding his own recently acquired pirate booty.

  “Hello, Nathan,” Hannah said in greeting as she stepped up to the boy. He quickly got up from the ground and bowed quite formally. Although he was dusty and quite disheveled from Harold’s attentions, Nathan was obviously a happy child.

  “Hello, Lady Gisborn,” he said in reply. Despite their having frogs in common, the boy still seemed ill at ease with his stepmother.

  “Harold was out playing pirates in the eastern fields yesterday,” she said by way of introducing the topic of her visit. “And he made quite a discovery.” At Nathan’s quizzical expression, one that reminded Hannah so much of her husband when he was working to solve some problem, she pressed her lips together.

  “Oh?” Nathan prompted. He seemed to swallow, as if he thought he might be in some kind of trouble.

  Hannah nodded. “He uncovered pirate treasure!” She pulled the pasteboard box from under her arm and held it out to Nathan. “I believe you may have been the pirate that buried it?”

  Nathan’s eyes widened in disbelief. He took a step back and glanced up at Hannah and then back down at the box she held out to him. “My sovereigns?” he whispered.

  Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to open it, I suppose,” she said, still holding the box out to him.

  Wagging his tail, Harold stood up and walked around in a tight circle before sniffing the box and sitting back down again. Nathan finally took the box from Hannah and removed the lid. His eyes boggled at the sight of the dirt-encrusted coins. A finger dipped into the box and moved the coins around. He looked back up at her. “There was a ring,” he said, his eyes suddenly filled with disappointment.

  “Oh, Harold found that, too. He already gave it to your father,” Hannah hurried to assure him.

  A grin finally appeared. He turned to the dog and scratched Harold behind an ear with his free hand. “Good dog,” he said. Looking up again, his brow furrowed much the way Henry’s did when he was worried about something. “Did he really find the treasure?” he whispered.

  Hannah nodded. “He really did. Took a while for him to convince your father he’d found the treasure, though,” she added with a roll of her eyes.

  Nathan stood up, holding the box in both his hands. “Thank you, my lady,” he said with a nod.

  Smiling, Hannah nodded. “You can call me ‘mum’ if you wish. Especially since your little brother or sister will be calling me that,” she said with careful encouragement.

  Nathan’s eyes widened again. “I’m going to be a big brother?” he wondered, his face taking on an expression somewhere between delight and fright.

  Laughing, Hannah nodded. “Perhaps when you’re home from school at Christmastime,” she acknowledged. “Oh!” she managed to get out as Nathan dropped the box of coins, and his arms wrapped around her waist, and his head pressed against her midriff.

  Not sure what to do, Hannah wrapped her arms around Nathan’s shoulders and held him close for a moment. Harold jumped up, apparently deciding that he, too, needed some attention. And in a moment, Nathan was laughing and picking up his treasure and waving farewell and heading for the dower house as if nothing unusual had occurred.

  When he had disappeared behind the door, Hannah glanced down at Harold. “Come on you little beastie, it’s time for your dinner,” she said, tears collecting in her eyes. She turned, Harold at her heels, and saw Henry watching her from where he leaned against the gate to Gisborn Hall. With his arms crossed and one booted foot crossed over the other, he looked every bit the nobleman. Walking slowly up to meet him, she raised her eyes to meet his and gave him a smile. “Hello, my lord,” she said, a tear streaking down her cheek. Henry had her in his arms before she knew what was happening. Like father, like son, she thought just then, reveling in the feel of the father’s hold on her as he buried his head in the space between her neck and shoulder. Wrapping her arms around his neck, splaying her fingers into his hair, she rested the side of her face against his chest. “I hope all our other children are just like him,” she murmured into his shirt.

  Henry kissed her head. “Just the boys, I should think,” he murmured, removing one arm and turning so he had one arm around her shoulders. She slid one of hers around the back of his waist. “I rather hope the girls are more like you, or we’re doomed,” he said as they made their way up the cobbles to Gisborn Hall, Harold hurrying on ahead and around the house to where his dinner would be outside the back door.

  Hannah’s melodic laughter filled the air around them. “They’ll be farmer’s daughters,” she said in voice that suggested she was warning him they might be hoydens.

  Snorting at the comment, Henry kissed her temple. “Do you mind so much being married to a farmer?” he wondered then, leading her up the front steps.

  “Not at all,” she replied happily. “If you were a man of leisure, I’d be inclined to believe you would drink and gamble and spend your nights whor ... not in my bed,” she countered with a raised eyebrow. “I would mind that.”

  A slow smile spread over Henry’s face. “Does that mean I can spend every night in your bed for the rest of our lives?” he teased, a grin slowly spreading across his face. The front door opened, Parkerhouse stepping aside as they made their way over the threshold.

  “Every night,” Hannah replied with a heavy sigh.

  “Oh, good,” Henry said with feigned relief. “So, what’s for dinner?”

  Hannah gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye. “I have absolutely no idea,” she replied in a teasing voice.

  “My favorite!”

  Epilogue

  The Wainwrights Pay a Visit

  The first greenho
use, with its panes of glass installed on the south facing roof and oilcloth around the remaining surfaces, was a beehive of activity the days following its completion. Rows of corn seed were planted to take up half of the building while a variety of other vegetables were planted in the remaining space. Small orange and lemon trees were planted along the southern side in the hopes the warmer, sunnier location would help them thrive. The planting in that building hadn’t even been completed when the second greenhouse was ready for its rows of cucumbers, melons, strawberries and other assorted vegetables. Meanwhile, the seeds for wheat, beans and barley were planted with seed drills in the furrowed fields.

  Over the course of the next few weeks, reinforcements were installed along the walls of the trenches to prevent erosion, a concern Murphy voiced with his master a few days before the irrigation gates were installed. He gave credit to Hannah for having mentioned it during one of her biscuit deliveries, and Henry made sure to thank her for her experience of having played in the water as a child. He was still a bit concerned about the fact that she had done so, especially with frogs.

  The first gate to be installed, on the central irrigation ditch, proved difficult to maneuver into place and to anchor into the ground. Once it was, though, the remaining earthen dam was dug out and the gate was left to settle into place for another day before the door was raised. The crew of laborers broke into hearty cheers as Henry tugged the rope that was threaded over a pulley and watched as the gate raised. Water gushed into the trench and slowly began filling the furrows in the fields.

  Longer support legs were welded onto the other two gate frames as anchors in the hope they would prove sturdier with their installation. With the help of a team of draft horses and a framework and pulley, the gates for the east and west ditches were installed the following week. Although everything worked as Henry had hoped, rain fell every day during the last week of May. The gates were closed and the caps to the large clay pipes at the ends of the trenches were opened up to allow the excess water to drain from the fields and irrigation ditches.