by Rose Lerner
“I’ve to order all our fruit and cream and butter,” he told her, and off he went, leaving her alone.
Betsy had been prepared to set her plan into motion straightaway. Her nerves jangled; she found herself thinking of all the ways someone could get in and abduct her from the closed shop. She set a paring knife and a heavy rolling pin on the counter beside her, and kept on slipping almonds from their skins.
Mr. Moon didn’t reappear until eight, bringing bread and cheese to share and looking a little wide-eyed with anxiety. He hardly ate, and sifted her pounded sugar for lumps.
With an inward sigh, Betsy put off kissing him once again. “Mr. Moon,” she said firmly, “you’ve got to break your fast.”
“I had some coffee and a potato,” he said absently. But under questioning, he confessed that had been at dawn, and he’d only eaten half the potato.
“You won’t sleep much between now and Tuesday,” Betsy pointed out. “You need your strength. A man can’t live on coffee.” She didn’t point out how nervesome hunger made him.
He gave her a rueful glance and ate his bread and cheese.
Betsy felt warm. He needed her. If she were his wife, she could make him sleep too.
When he’d finished, he inspected her blanched almonds. Betsy held her breath until he smiled at her. “Fine work.”
She knew she was glowing and tried not to think of what Jemima would say about that.
He bit his lip. “Do you know, the pastries will go stale afore we reopen.”
Going to the front of the shop, he reappeared with the lemon custard pie, only missing three slices. He cut her a slavven, holding it out with a shy duck of his head.
Betsy melted a bit at the edges. The lemon custard was her favorite. And even though he knew it, even though he’d done her a kindness, he watched her face when she took a bite as if maybe this time, she wouldn’t like it.
She hummed happily for his benefit. “Faith, it’s better each time you make it. I know what I’ll have for my elevener.”
He broke into a smile and cut himself a piece, still watching her eat.
Betsy felt hot and crackly as a sugar topping under the salamander. Would he be so eager to please her when they coupled?
She met his eyes and licked sticky lemon custard from her lips. “Have I got it all?”
He flushed, eyes following her tongue. Was he interested, or only embarrassed? “I believe so.”
“Would you mind looking closer? I hate to go about with something on my face.”
He tilted up her chin into the light from the high windows and moved his head from side to side, his narrow gaze on her mouth. She let her lips part on a sigh.
“You’ve got a crumb,” he said. His thumb came up, pulled back, hovered, then rubbed at a spot just below his own mouth. “Here.”
“Thank you.” She brushed it away, trying to meet his eyes and let him know she was in no hurry to end the moment. But he turned away hastily, ears bright red.
Somehow the back of his neck made her wild too.
The almonds had to be pounded fine in a mortar with orange-flower water. She and Mr. Moon set up side by a side at a table, the great heap of almonds between them.
Betsy had often thought there was something immodest in the motion of driving the pestle into the mortar—more so when she watched Mr. Moon’s expert, forceful strokes, and his shoulder moving beneath his shirt. Even with most of the ovens banked, the linen clung damply to him.
Always before, she’d tried to put it from her mind. But Jemima had said, Make a few dirty jokes, so he knows you know what’s what.
“This poor mortar,” she said, glancing at him. “She’ll be that sore in the morning.”
Mr. Moon dropped his pestle with a clang. It rolled across the kitchen and under a table on the far side of the room.
* * *
By the time the macaroons were in the oven, Betsy had given up on subtlety. Mr. Moon was too honorable to take the hints she dropped in any practical way.
Jemima had said she might kiss him herself if he proved shy, but the difficulty was she was five foot one and he was near to six feet. She couldn’t kiss him without his aid and abetment unless she first dragged over a crate and stood upon it.
What if she tried it, and he didn’t bend down to meet her? She’d be trying to climb him like one of the overeager pugs customers sometimes brought into the store.
“We’d best get a start on the Naples biscuits,” he said.
There was nothing for it. A week was pitifully scant time to win a man’s heart. She couldn’t allow this whole day to go by.
“In a moment,” she said.
He frowned at her in puzzlement.
Betsy gulped. “It isn’t often we’re alone in the kitchen.”
“It’s odd not having Peter about, isn’t it?” He chuckled. “And much more work for us.”
Her muscles tightened with nerves—even her cunny, and that made her ache delightfully all over. “I was hoping we might”—meet his eyes, meet his eyes—“take advantage of the opportunity.” She couldn’t quite smile.
Neither did he. It was rare that he stood so still. It made her feel as if she didn’t know him at all.
“Take advantage of it how?” he asked slowly.
“I was hoping you might kiss me.” The last few words were a squeak. Oh God.
There was a long silence. Betsy felt near tears. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to and she’d have to leave. What would she tell her mother? Good jobs didn’t grow upon trees.
He turned his face away. “You know I can’t take a wife.”
“You were ready enough to take a wife last autumn.”
Oh, to take the words back! She’d meant to be a promise of enjoyment as sweet and undemanding as a slice of cake, and now she sounded like a nag.
He turned away further. “You know I only needed the money. I was this close to sending the bankruptcy notice to the Intelligencer, and marrying Mrs. Dymond would have stopped it. I can’t—I might still have to send that notice, one of these days.”
His eyes went round the shop, lingering on each bright copper mold as if losing even one would break his heart. She remembered how he’d hung them so carefully on their hooks when the shop was new, the look on his face when he’d stepped back. Proud and happy, as if he’d earned his heart’s desire. He’d never look at her that way, would he?
He didn’t say he didn’t like you, she comforted herself. But Mr. Moon was the softest-hearted man she knew. He’d never admit he didn’t like her if he had another reason he could give.
“I can go hungry, if I have to,” he said. “I couldn’t watch my wife do it. And I’ve got debts of my own that bankruptcy wouldn’t cancel out. I could bear to go to debtors’ prison, if I wasn’t leaving anybody behind that I was meant to keep and care for.”
The injustice was hot coals in her stomach, that because she was poor and had no patronage to bring him, he wouldn’t look at her. She’d never minded going without fine clothes or rich joints of meat, but she hated being unable to afford happiness.
He cracked an egg into a bowl with a vicious jerk of his wrist. “Nicholas Dymond can make a love match. A man like me…” His mouth drew tight. “And there I’ve got eggshell in the bowl.” He reached in to pick it out, his lips whitening each time the shell eluded him.
More than she wanted to marry him, she wanted to ease his burden. She liked the shop well enough, but her reward for smiling at customers until her jaw ached, scrubbing gummy flour from the floor on hands and knees, forever tasting and smelling charcoal smoke—it was his smile, his relief at not having to do this alone.
He needed a bit of uncomplicated fun. Maybe it would even help him see that a wife was more than a weight on a man’s shoulders.
“I didn’t ask you to marry me. I asked you to kiss me.”
He looked back at her. “But—I couldn’t—you’re a good girl, and—”
“I’m not a virgin,” she blurted out.<
br />
It was only true in the barest sense. She’d let Lenny Sadler roger her a few times when they were both fourteen and his aunt was chambermaid in a house with a perpetual bloodstain, and he’d got her in to see it.
She’d wanted it at first, but she’d liked it much less than Lenny had, and he hadn’t seemed overjoyed himself. Then she’d been terrified she was pregnant and cried herself to sleep every night until her monthly bleeding started.
She’d stayed clear of the whole business after that. Still, she wasn’t a virgin.
Mr. Moon’s eyes went round. Oh, what if he called her a slut and dismissed her without a character?
“You really only want me to kiss you?”
She licked her lips—not to be seductive but because they’d gone dry. “Well…not only kiss me.”
He swallowed hard. There was another long silence. Surely he couldn’t only be hunting for a kind way to turn her down?
She tried to look confident and tempting, to put nothing but I want you to kiss me on her face.
* * *
Robert looked down at Betsy, asking him to kiss her with her big hazel eyes.
She wasn’t a virgin? She didn’t want to marry him?
Panic filled him. He’d known he could lose her, that every moment he was obliged to delay was another chance for her to leave. But he’d never guessed that he’d maybe already lost her.
Had she been meeting other men all this time? He tried to decide if the idea disgusted him. It didn’t.
Surely the idea of one’s intended wife with another man ought to be repulsive, and not…exciting. Betsy, demure Betsy who worked cheerfully from dawn till dusk, had a secret life he knew naught about.
He hadn’t known what to think when she’d said that about the pestle. Now he wondered, did she speak from experience? Had there been mornings when she’d come in yawning to open the shop, sore and sated from being pounded by another man’s cock?
He shouldn’t think like this. He respected her. He loved her, and whatever she’d done with other men, he ought to treat her like a respectable woman.
But she said she wanted him to. She said they’d ought to take advantage of this opportunity, and she was right about one thing at least: who knew when they’d have another chance? Peter would be back soon.
If Robert gave her this, if he satisfied her, maybe she’d not mind waiting to marry. Maybe she wouldn’t look elsewhere.
Maybe—he could barely let himself think it—maybe if he did well enough, she’d fall in love with him. Then she wouldn’t wed someone else while he was waiting to see if the Honey Moon would ever turn a profit.
They’d be risking her reputation, but it seemed she was risking that already. And if she wasn’t his wife, his creditors couldn’t squeeze money from her. She could walk away if the shop closed.
She was so beautiful.
He could fill a ledger with reasons to kiss her, but it came down to this: he didn’t have it in him to say no to her one more time. Not when she looked at him through her lashes like that, her breasts rising and falling as if she was trying to be calm and wasn’t, not at all.
He grimaced.
Her face fell. “Never mind,” she muttered. “I—”
“It’s only that you’ll have to show me what to do.” His ears were hot. “You, erm—you might not be a virgin, but I be.” He’d been busy. And shy.
“Oh.”
Was it a disappointed ‘oh’? “But I learn quick,” he added hastily. “It can’t be much trickier than a good pie crust.”
She smiled as if that was funny.
He flushed harder. “I can make it good for you.” It came out lower and more pleading than he’d meant it to. “I will. I promise.”
Her lashes fluttered, and her mouth curved just a quarter-inch. Not amused this time. She looked as if she were about to bite into a chocolate caramel—the same rich, melting expectancy. “I know you will.”
He leaned down—rather far down—and kissed her.
She tasted like lemon custard, and lurched about on her tiptoes. He tried to get closer, and she stepped back. When he did it again, thinking they’d fetch up against the wall, they almost tumbled through the swinging door into the cold room.
There was a bout of nervous giggling. Robert looked round and spied a solution to his trouble. “Come here.”
Putting his hands round her arse, he lifted her onto the edge of an empty worktable. She flailed a little, but he stepped in before she could tip off.
Yes, now her mouth was only a few inches lower than his. Much better.
She pressed close, spreading her legs for balance, and he realized something else. Her cunt was just at the level of his cock. Could he—she’d said ‘not only kiss’—could he really—?
One of her shoes clunked to the floor. Kicking off the other one, she tugged her skirts above her knees and wrapped her legs eagerly around him.
Ouch. His cock was trapped at an unpleasant angle in his smallclothes.
“I, erm, I beg your pardon, but I—” He reached apologetically into his breeches to arrange his cock upright along his belly, where it cradled snugly in the juncture of her thighs. Dear Lord in Heaven.
“Oh,” she said. “Pardoned. Oh.” She clasped her hands behind his neck and wriggled closer, tilting her hips up. “Oh, that’s—I—” Her cheeks turned pink and she squeezed her eyes shut. “You don’t mind?”
“Not in the slightest.”
She edged forward, her lips parting in rapture. “Oh.” Soft and eager, it was halfway between a word and a moan.
His own pleasure wasn’t great—her movements were small and his breeches thick. But he could have watched her for hours, her creamy brow furrowed in concentration. The hollow between her breasts narrowed with each shallow gasp.
He took her arse in his hands again, squeezing, rubbing her against him. He’d never dreamed he’d be allowed to touch her like this. Not so soon, or so suddenly.
Her eyes flew open. “Oh—I’m going to—you’re sure you don’t mind?”
He made a choked sound. “I’ve—I’ve wanted you to. Dunnamany months now.”
“You have?” Her mellow voice was thready with passion.
He nodded. “When you put something I cooked in your mouth, and you—you shut your eyes and sighed. I thought about what it would be like to give you—well, this.”
He’d imagined all kinds of things. Her sharing his bed and board.
She couldn’t stay the night, he realized, disappointed. He’d still be alone in his bed tonight, and every night for who knew how long.
She pinked, looking pleased. “Truly?”
He leaned down to kiss her. “Tru—” His eyes widened. “Wait! I’ve to look at the biscuits.”
He’d almost forgot. He’d almost ruined them.
Three trays were round and golden; the fourth needed another half a minute. In agony he waited at the oven for them to darken, heart pounding, darting glances at her. Would she be patient? Was she annoyed at having her pleasure put off?
This was still Betsy, he reminded himself, not some courtesan with smooth white hands. She was a reasonable girl, and she understood about biscuits.
And to his relief, though she hunched nervesomely and rubbed at her arm, she stayed where she was, skirts above her knees. He caught her smiling once or twice, and she swung her legs like a carefree child.
At last the fourth tray was cooling on the counter. Had he ought to begin again where he left off, or had he better do something new?
“Will you…never mind.” She bit her lip, looking at him and then away.
“I’m sure I will.”
She shook her head.
“Tell me. I want to.”
“I was going to ask if you would touch me. There. Only I’m afeared ’twill be—well. Messy.”
He laughed. “Will it now?”
In truth, Robert had little notion what to expect. French engravings lacked detail, and he hadn’t seen so very many of them
as all that. Stepping back, he pushed her skirts out of the way with a touch of anxiety.
He saw fine golden hair and a strip of brownish pink flesh, wrinkled like a plump raisin. Hardly frightening. He ran his thumb through thick, slippery wetness.
She shivered, and he couldn’t help smiling. “No worse’n egg whites. And I’ve never minded those.”
Her laugh was a little self-conscious. “Oh, Robert Moon, you’ve got a silver tongue.”
The word tongue put an idea in his head. “Would you—would you dislike me to kiss you there?”
She looked alarmed. Was that not a thing folk did? Robert couldn’t be the only man to think of it.
“I don’t know what it will taste like,” she said.
“No way but one to find out.”
“If it’s awful…”
“I’ll stop and eat a sweet.” He reached up to a shelf for a jar of licorice drops, fishing one out and setting it on the counter in readiness. “There. I be prepared now.”
She rolled her eyes and nodded, looking reassured.
Robert lowered himself to his knees on the floor, thinking this was an excellent reason to get flour on his breeches, not like dropping his pestle behind a table. He spread the folds of her cunt with his thumbs, to get a better look.
The smell was pleasant enough, musky and rich with a salty-smoky tang to it. Not like something you’d want to eat, but not like fish either, as people joked. He dipped his head to taste her.
She had a salty-smoky tang in his mouth too, and a hint of sourness. He skimmed the tip of his tongue along the edge of her slit.
She cried out in surprise and clutched at the table, hooking her legs over his shoulders for balance. When he licked the other side, her knuckles turned white.
“Are you sure it isn’t awful?” she said in a faint voice.
“Quite sure.” Robert felt smugly superior to the other men she’d bedded, who’d never thought of something so simple.