“But what if it was my father who—” Her voice broke as Lettitia was assailed by an unbearable thought. It was unimaginable that her father would commit so heinous a crime. And yet she knew the question had to be addressed. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she asked the unthinkable: “What will happen if you discover that it was my father who killed Emmaline?”
“If that’s the way it goes down, I’ll turn the evidence over to the Metropolitan Police and let them handle the case.” Holding her gaze, Mick paused a moment. In that instant, Lettitia had the uncomfortable feeling that he was taking her measure, gauging her trustworthiness. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Unnerved by his resolute gaze, Lettitia stared at the Aubusson carpet. “If my father killed Emmaline, he must answer for his crime. In a court of law,” she added, the words paining her greatly.
“So when can I question him?”
“My father is hosting a shooting party this coming weekend at his manor house in Kent,” she informed him. “We can journey there tomorrow.”
For several moments, neither spoke.
“You know, we are supposed to be having a romantic evening,” Mick said, the first to break the awkward silence.
“Yes, we are, aren’t we?” Suffering from a bout of girlish timidity, Lettitia nervously plucked at the lace ruching that encircled her wrist. “I thought that we might start the, er, romantic evening with a bit of—” she cleared her throat— “pleasant conversation.”
Mick’s gaze unerringly went to the four-poster bed before resettling on her. “Sure,” he said, walking over and laying claim to the tufted velvet armchair. “What do you want to talk about?”
As she seated herself on the edge of the bed, Lettitia thought that he made the perfect picture of leonine grace and manly beauty. “I am curious to know why it is that you… you’ve never married.”
“Who said I’ve never been married?”
Lettitia’s hand went to her throat, utterly horrified.
“Good heavens! I had no idea that you were a married man,” she avowed. “It’s shameful enough that I wantonly gave you my virginity. But to think that I unknowingly engaged in adultery with you is… is—”
“Is jumping to the wrong conclusion. For your information, I’m a divorced man,” he said, as though that absolved him from his sins.
“Surely, you jest.”
“Surely, I don’t,” he countered. “The going rate for divorce in the twenty-first century is about fifty percent. Though it’s probably closer to seventy percent for us cops. Just another perk of the job.” The addendum was punctuated with a bitter laugh.
His remarks gave Lettitia great pause. Within the ranks of the British upper class, divorce was unthinkable. The dissolution of a marriage required no less than an act of Parliament.
“If you must know, I find your marital status too scandalous for words,” she informed him, wondering what could give rise to that surfeit of marital discord. “The vows of marriage are sanctified by the church, and as such, those vows are inviolate.”
“It’s not like I didn’t try to save my marriage,” Mick said quietly. Dropping his gaze to the floor, his broad shoulders slumped ever so slightly. “Although I admit that, even before the atrocity at Kingsborough, we were having problems.”
Sensing that there was something highly significant in his remarks, she probed a bit deeper. “Kingsborough? What exactly is that?”
“On September 21, 2012, a mass murder took place in New York City at Kingsborough Community College,” he clarified. There was a faraway look on his face, one that made Lettitia think that he was reliving that day in his mind’s eye. “A lot of innocent people were killed, my best friend Tommy included. In a nutshell, my whole life changed on that day. All of my beliefs, my convictions, they… I guess you could say that they imploded. And when they did, I became a different man. Physically, my hair went gray. Emotionally, and believe me, Diane used to love to harp about this, I became despondent. Detached. Moody as hell.”
“I take it that Diane is your wife?” Lettitia inquired, grappling with the enormity of what he’d just told her.
“Was my wife. Diane might have been able to handle one or two problems in the marriage. But she couldn’t deal with all of it happening at once.” Mick now held her gaze, his handsome features marred with a bleak expression. “To tell you the truth, I don’t blame her for leaving me.”
The self-recrimination in Mick’s voice tore at her heart. She sat silent, uncertain how to give solace. Uncertain what to say to lessen the pain from which he so obviously suffered.
Putting her own feelings to the wayside, Lettitia finally found the fortitude to say, “If you truly love this woman, and if she truly loves you, then perhaps there’s still a chance that you can overcome your differences and—”
“Don’t you understand, Tisha? It was fate that she left me. Just as it’s my destiny to be here with you.”
She shook her head, uncomprehending.
Getting up from the armchair, Mick came over and sat beside her on the bed. “You know, this isn’t how I envisioned our night together. I hope you haven’t reconsidered.”
“Of course not,” she assured him. Then, struck with a horrifying thought, she said, “Why? Have you?”
“Yeah, right.” He chortled, clearly amused by the question. “You don’t know much about men, do you?”
She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I was hoping that you could teach me.”
His spirits clearly on the mend, Mick leapt to his feet. With a devilish twinkle in his eyes, he took hold of both her hands and pulled her off the bed. “Lesson number one is anatomy. It’s simple enough: you take off my clothes while I take off yours. Ready to begin?”
She hesitated. It had not occurred to her that they would completely disrobe. They had, after all, remained clothed during their two prior intimacies.
Although the idea was most risqué, and more than a bit unsettling, Lettitia nonetheless nodded her consent.
Permission granted, Mick fingered the top button of her peignoir. In turn, she dutifully reached for the buttons on his white linen shirt.
Within moments, he had slid her peignoir off her shoulders and she had removed his shirt, leaving both of the discarded garments consigned to the floor. As Mick began to unbutton her nightdress, Lettitia nervously stared at the bandage that was wrapped around his ribs, the white cotton a stark contrast to his bronzed torso. Somewhat hesitantly, her gaze dropped to the top button of his trousers. Gnawing on her lower lip, she wondered if she dare be so bold.
Have I not already crossed the Rubicon? In truth, she had done just that, having vowed to fully explore passion’s realm in the few days allotted them.
Courage bolstered, Lettitia reached for his top trouser button, quickly releasing it from its mooring. She then tackled the next three buttons. When her knuckles brushed against the wiry nest of pubic hair that covered Mick’s groin, she was shocked to discover that he wore no undergarments. When his organ unexpectedly sprang out at her from the open flap, she gasped, the sudden motion putting her in mind of a child’s jack-in-the-box. At that thought, she stifled an irreverent giggle.
But amusement soon turned to fascination as she observed the way that his organ lengthened and expanded under her avid gaze. Anxious to continue her anatomy lesson, Lettitia slid his unbuttoned trousers over his muscled haunches, letting them drop to the floor.
Transfixed by the sight of Mick’s long, muscular limbs—at the juncture of which proudly arose his turgid manhood—her breath caught in her throat.
So mesmerized was she that it came as something of a surprise to discover that not only had Mick unbuttoned her nightdress, but he’d slipped it off her shoulders, leaving her “naked as a worm”, to quote Chaucer.
Although Lettitia’s first impulse was to cover her nudity with her hands, she refrained from doing so. Instead, she straightened her shoulders and looked Mick squarely in the eye.
; “Rock… my… world,” he rasped.
Lettitia glanced at his well-endowed member.
“My thoughts exactly.”
* * *
Unable to tear his gaze from Lettitia’s nude body, Mick was ready to declare her Miss November right there on the spot. No need to look at any of the other contestants. With her gorgeous, rose-tipped breasts, her small waist, and her lush hips, Lettitia Merryweather won the prize hands down.
Thank you, God.
In the next instant, when he caught her unabashedly checking out his equipment, it only proved what he’d figured out during their energetic tryst in the carriage–beneath Lettitia’s Victorian prudery there was a wanton in the making. He still couldn’t get over the fact that she’d screamed during her orgasm.
Talk about spectacular.
Filling his nostrils with the floral scent of her perfume, he gently bumped his chest against the soft mounds of her breasts. For several seconds, he simply stood there, unmoving.
Maybe he was getting sentimental in his old age, but standing there with Tisha felt incredibly right. Something about the way that the top of her head fit perfectly under his chin. And the way that her breasts nestled against his chest. He wondered if she felt it too because, when she peered up at him, Mick saw a look of wonderment on her face. Like she knew they’d been given this amazing gift. That out of all the billions of people who inhabited the universe, they’d happened upon one another for a reason.
And, then again, maybe he’d just been spending too much time with Phoebe Mazursky.
“You know, Tisha, I was just thinking that—”
Rising on her tiptoes, Lettitia silenced him with a kiss. A warm, inviting kiss that had “take me” written all over it.
Eager to oblige, Mick suckled on her lower lip before slipping his tongue into her mouth. Palming one of her breasts, he rubbed his thumb over the hardened nipple. Hearing her whimper, he gently squeezed before tugging it between his fingers.
No shrinking violet, Lettitia slipped a hand between their two bodies, her untutored fingers brazenly curling around his cock. When she started fisting his mister, he groaned.
“Here, like this,” he instructed. Taking hold of her hand, he showed her the tempo that he liked. When her fingers possessively tightened around him, he shuddered and said, “And whatever you do, don’t stop.”
Head bent, Mick watched as Lettitia’s slender white hand moved up and down the length of his erection, the blood-thickened flesh twitching in her hand. With each passing second, his breathing became more labored. When, a minute or so into her amorous ministrations, he caught sight of a pearly white drop of fluid clinging to the tip of his penis, he grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her hand away from him.
“Okay, time to stop,” he gruffly ordered, inhaling through his nostrils to steady himself.
“But you said—”
“I wasn’t thinking straight. I, um, lost my head there for a minute,” he told her with a self-conscious laugh. “Believe me. That happens a lot during lovemaking.” Wrapping a hand in her hair, he gave her a quick, closed-mouthed kiss. “I want us to take it slow and easy this time. When we made love in the carriage, I had all the finesse of a rutting stag.”
One side of her mouth flirtatiously curved upward. “I, for one, happened to enjoy sharing my carriage with a ‘rutting’ beast of a man.”
“We were pretty hot for it, weren’t we?” Smiling, he picked up his trousers and removed several packets of Lambert’s Paragon Sheaths.
Lettitia eyed him skeptically. “Unless I’m mistaken, you have more than one package in your hand.”
“Uh-huh. Hope you ate your Wheaties this morning.” Taking her by the hand, he eased her onto the bed, fluffing a pillow behind her head.
Still standing, he stared at the incredible sight, his detective’s trained eye committing each detail to memory–her long, black hair spread across the pillow, her nipples hardened into little nubs, her lips parted in anticipation. He would most definitely envision this scene when he returned to New York and was reduced to more solitary pursuits.
Ripping open a package, Mick removed a paragon sheath. Not exactly a Trojan, but I suppose it’ll do the trick. Covered, he made his way to the bed. Given Lettitia’s wide-eyed stare, he figured that he made for a less than awe-inspiring sight what with his cock encased in vulcanized rubber.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her as he gently pried open her thighs and situated himself between her legs. “It always feels better than it looks.”
A second later, when he thrust deep inside of her, Lettitia closed her eyes and crooned, “Oh, yes, indeed.”
Not certain how long either of them would last, he tried to take it slow, keeping to a cadenced rhythm. But like a lot of good intentions, it fell by the wayside the moment that Lettitia started to actively participate, her hips bucking and grinding with increasing urgency. When she started to claw his back, he sensed that she was close.
“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he hoarsely instructed as he rose upward, placing his weight on the palms of his hands.
With her legs now cinched around his waist, Mick was able to deepen his thrusts. Spellbound, he watched as Lettitia’s pupils dilated, her breath coming in short, uneven pants. Recognizing the signs—the flushed breasts, the engorged nipples, the sheen of perspiration—he could see that she was teetering on the edge. Probably just take one good push to send her overboard.
Which was exactly what Mick did.
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes,” she moaned, her pelvic muscles convulsing around his sheathed cock.
While he’d heard the mantra before, coming from Lettitia’s kiss-swollen lips, it was the most uplifting ode he’d ever been privileged to hear. Right up there with the “Hallelujah Chorus.” So inspiring that, a few thrusts later, he joined the choir, unable to control the shudders that wracked his body, the intensity of his orgasm more than he’d bargained for.
As they both came down from the high, they gazed into one another’s eyes. In a strange, mystifying way, it was like seeing each other anew.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
Lettitia’s brows drew together, the lady clearly perplexed. “Whatever for?”
“I don’t know… for just being you.”
Gray eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled at him. “Four days ago, who would have thought we’d become so enamored of one another?”
He returned the smile. “Yeah, who would’ve thunk it?”
“Perhaps it’s a bit of capricious fate,” she teased.
Mick held her close, certain that it was far more than that.
Chapter 13
“I’m telling ya, a man can’t ask for more than this,” Mick declared as the open-air carriage rolled through the idyllic Kent countryside. “Pretty scenery, an Indian summer day, a gorgeous woman sitting across from me. If I had a cold beer in my hand, I’d swear I’d died and gone to heaven.”
“Really, sir!” Smiling, Lettitia took her lover’s measure as he lazily sprawled on the opposite seat of the landau. Although tempted to lean over and brush a wayward lock of hair from his brow, she refrained. Like many who engaged in an affaire d’amour, they had a need for secrecy. “ ‘An Indian summer day?’ That is a most peculiar turn of phrase.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is. Why it’s called that, I’m not really sure. It refers to those few brief days of warm weather that you get right in the middle of the chilly autumn season.”
Not unlike our love affair, she thought sadly, recognizing that there was something poetic about that—Mick, her Indian summer love.
Indeed, the previous evening had been an epiphany. In the hours leading up to dawn, she’d played the wanton, the seductress, the temptress. When all was said and done, and Mick had returned to his own bed chamber, she’d felt no regret. No remorse. And most important of all, no shame.
“Hey, what do you call all these funny-looking buildings that we keep passing?” Mick ask
ed, gesturing to a structure in the distant field.
“Those are oast houses,” Lettitia informed him. To a stranger, the distinctive angled cowl on the roof would appear out of the ordinary, but because she’d grown up in Kent, she was accustomed to the sight. In fact, she’d always, somewhat fancifully, thought that the oast houses looked like so many russet pepperpots sprinkled across the verdant fields. “The buildings are used to dry the hops after they’ve been harvested. Kent is famous for its hops.”
Mick craned his neck, surveying the endless brown fields. “No wonder your father lives in Kent. What with him in the brewery industry, it must be convenient for him, you know, being able to buy all the hops that he needs to make beer.”
“Actually, my father owns all of these fields,” she remarked quietly.
“Well, that would certainly eliminate having to deal with the middle man. Smart move.” Mick gave an approving nod of the head. “Although he has to pay people to pick the hops, so I’m guessing that he has a lot of overhead.”
“He doesn’t incur as much overhead as one would think.” Try as she might, Lettitia couldn’t keep the rancor out of her voice. “At the end of each summer, my father brings in migrant workers from London’s East End, paying them a pittance, a mere shilling for every four bushels picked. From that paltry sum, he then deducts threepence for the one meal that is served to them.”
“The guy sounds like a real robber baron.”
“An apt term.” In her mind’s eye, Lettitia could see the smocked men and broad-aproned women toiling under the August sun, filling the canvas panniers with sticky, yellow-green cones. “It is quite appalling, really, to attain one’s wealth in such a despotic manner, never thinking to return to society that which you have so cruelly seized.”
Suddenly self-conscious of the fact that she’d spoken impulsively, Lettitia turned her head and gazed at the far horizon. Hers was not a popular opinion. At least not amongst the moneyed classes.
“I take it that this issue has created a lot of friction between you and your father,” Mick correctly deduced.
A Love For All Time Page 18