by Bianca Bloom
He lay on his back in the bed. I was not sure quite what he wished me to do. Did he want my lips around him, or did he wish me to put my knees on either side of his waist and lower myself down onto him?
I did neither.
Instead, I did what every lady knew she ought to do, which was to ride side-saddle. I did sit neatly screwed onto his prick, but both my legs were on the same side, so that I could not move up or down very well, instead relying on the gentleman to rock his hips up and give me the bouncing pleasure that I sought.
And he did so, indeed, with great alacrity. He stared with such intensity that I might have mistaken it for hatred. He stared at my eyes, my breasts, my legs. Though I looked down now and again, not always meeting his gaze as he began to grunt again, it appeared that he could not look away.
This time, I had no warning, and did not know when I should have been careful. When my husband spent, it was sudden, with a great gasp and a series of jerks. I laughed, so surprised was I that such tiny movements could leave the man in a state of agony.
I thought that he should probably have a drink, or perhaps even some smelling salts. If nothing else, he should at least rest, for it seemed that he was practically drowning in his sweet and sudden pleasure. Before I could object, however, he had gone underneath the mess of blankets and put his head between my legs, holding me so tightly that I could do nothing to fend him off.
At first, I wondered if he would be able to achieve anything. His breathing was ragged, and it seemed as if he would have to gasp for air always, without a moment to spare for kisses. Perhaps that was why his first kisses were light, little teasing things planted on the inside of my thighs like so many tiny flowers.
They were worse than anything else he could have done. I trembled, and would have wrenched myself free from Hamilton’s grasp if it had not been a particularly tight one. I wondered if his fingers were going to leave marks on my thighs, and if so, how I would explain them to anyone who might see them later.
And then I had no time to think of such things, because Hamilton actually stuck his tongue inside me, and then began pleasuring me with such speed and determination that I scarcely could tell his tongue from his lips. Even his nose seemed to play some role, and the urges that I felt were only increased by the very slight pain of his face, no longer quite cleanly shaven, on my skin.
After I spent, Hamilton pulled me into his body, and I thought that he would be ready to sleep. Or perhaps simply ready to let me sleep. After all, my newly recovered body was now completely vanquished by his attentions, and I only imagined that he must feel the same. I had made the great error of letting him bed me again, and he had made the great error of losing control of himself inside of me, so perhaps it was time for us to fall asleep and let the night erase all of the many mistakes we had made during the day.
But to my surprise, Hamilton was quite hard when I put my head on his shoulder, and before I could say a word to him he had shoved my legs over the side of his and put the whole length into me.
“Lord Bell,” I whispered, my late husband’s name blasphemous and delicious on my lips. “Will you not sleep?”
“How could I,” he asked, and smiled at me.
We both laughed. “I am sure you could sleep,” I told him, trying to relax as I felt him moving within me. “You could indeed, if you tried.”
“That is where you are wrong, Lady Bell,” he said, kissing the tender skin on my neck roughly. “I am sure I would not be able to fall asleep for even a moment.”
I was much too distracted to continue to argue the point.
And so passed a beautiful night. I could scarcely tell when my lord was having me and when I was ravishing him, as we were both mad with desire. At times, I slept for a fitful stretch, but I would either wake to insistent kisses or wake and decide that the best way to rouse my beloved was to take his prick in my mouth. We had each other quickly, like mad dogs, and slowly, with kisses and bemused smiles. I was so obsessed with the man’s body that the number of times he spent inside me outnumbered the times that either of us thought to separate before he exploded.
This was rather strange, as for years I had managed to take all proper precautions with Adam. Since Gilbert was so often away, I knew that Adam Taylor should never be allowed to even come close to spending in me, as if I bore his child that would cause all kinds of scandal and gossip. Moreover, it was never hard for me to achieve that aim, and Adam always seemed willing enough to avoid trouble by pulling out of me.
Hamilton, however, had no such inclination. There was once when he was behind me and we were both on our knees, his fingers torturing the beautiful button of flesh right over my entrance, when I lost all sense of myself and spent with cries so loud that I quickly put a hand over my own mouth to stifle them.
And Hamilton had not a moment to lose. He spent as well, but only clutched me tighter to him, and then we fell to the bed in the clutches of death. That was the moment when I should have taken him out of me and tried to purge the liquid from my body, but instead I delighted in feeling him in me, throbbing and spending as my own body beat its rhythm of joy and defeat around his.
42
When I woke, my husband appeared to be studying the ceiling. I closed my eyes, but he had already noticed that I was awake.
With a start, I wondered that he was in my bed. Of course, our lovemaking had been strange and sacred, and it had broken a dam of feeling within that I had expected would always be pent up.
Still, I had not expected him to stay.
“Go on then,” I whispered to him, drawing the covers tight about me. He had dressed me with care in my warm nightgown, though he was still wearing nothing. His chest was so smooth, his rumpled hair and dark eyes so very attractive, that I wished he would leave without speaking. That would keep him from spoiling the feeling of happiness and contentment coursing through me.
“And leave you, Lady Bell?” he asked, moving closer, and putting his arm about my waist.
I wanted to say something cutting, but I loved the way that his body had encircled mine. And so I said nothing.
“You haven’t even wished me a good morning,” he whispered, kissing my cheek. “How could I leave you?”
“You’ve left me before,” I said, turning my head away.
His body grew tense, but did not move from its place. “She left me,” he said. “And so I suppose I grew used to leave-taking.”
“And you seem to think that ‘she’ provided a very good example, and that it was better to leave than to love,” I offered, turning my head to look at him.
He closed his eyes, stung by the truth of my words, but when he opened them he was ready to tell me his story.
“I wandered so long after I got my fortune,” he said. “And the reason that I had the money was because my family was dead. All except Gilbert, really, but with him off in India, where I did not wish to follow, I was rather an orphan in England.”
He used one hand to touch his hair, pressing it back as he continued. “When I arrived in Australia, I found it a rather savage place. Our colonies there do not have proper cities, and the prisoners and settlers alike are all rather strange beings. But when I met Sonia, I thought that I would never have to search for anything again in my life. And I believed that her love for me was just as potent, though even then I ought to have known that this couldn’t possibly be true.”
I found the strength to sit up, though he kept holding my hands as I leaned back on a rather sturdy pillow. “There must have been something else that happened. You loved her, but that is nothing. Why would you take on her debts?”
“Well, I was her husband. Or the nearest thing that she had to a husband. She told me her husband would kill her if she asked for a divorce, and that she was running from him – almost in hiding, really. She told me that it didn’t matter, that we could live as man and wife, and it would be almost as if we were really married.”
A little bit of wistfulness crept into his voice as he told it, even though he
must have known that it was all a passel of lies.
“And you believed all that?” I asked.
He gave me a rueful smile. “I was much like you were before your first marriage. Good with numbers, but not very clever where love was concerned. Particularly when it came to seeing any possible flaws in a very beautiful person before me.”
It was a very apt summary of my first marriage, and so I said nothing.
“Well, you know much of the rest. One morning she was gone, and the people who came in her stead were debt collectors. She’d lost a good deal of money gambling, then left the miserable town with every single present I’d ever given her. And with her husband, who was, in fact, still apparently very much a part of hear life.”
“And here you are,” I told him, “On what looks to be a fine morning.”
Esther, with her typically excellent abilities to read my mind (and perhaps Hamilton’s) had stayed well away from the room, but even the little gap between the curtains was enough to let us know that the day would be particularly beautiful, with cloudless skies and the promise of mild weather.
“I was afraid of ever waking up in a shared bed,” he said. “It was part of my vow of celibacy.”
“Your failed vow,” I told him, running a hand over his organ, already warm and erect.
He put a hand over mine, but did not demand more attention for that particular appendage. “My failed vow, indeed. I thought that any woman I knew would leave me.”
My head, still on his shoulder, rocked ever so slightly back and forth. “It’s rather a ridiculous conclusion to come to about all women, just because of the actions of one.”
He kissed me again. “I am sorry for it now, truly. There are some, like Sonia, who make all women look vapid and ugly.”
“That is true,” I told him. “But there are plenty of faithless men about.”
“None whom you have ever had dealings with, surely,” he said, pulling back in surprise. “According to the vicar, both your previous husbands were very devoted to you.”
My lips set themselves in a firm line. “You’ve been gossiping with Reverend Manley?”
He turned my face toward his own, kissing me again. “I wouldn’t call it gossiping. We had a great deal of time to talk when you were laid up at the vicarage, and he gave me a bit of a talking-to. Wanted to make sure I could be a proper husband.”
Pulling one of the blankets up higher, I hid in that proper husband’s shoulder. I couldn’t even bear to respond to his flirtation, and thought only of how my first two marriages had ended. “Well, I’ve not been a proper wife. Gilbert couldn’t stand the sight of me, at the end.”
Hamilton kissed the top of my head, and the tenderness of the gesture made me start. “The reverend said that wasn’t true. That Gilbert loved you, and was jealous that you took an interest in so many things that he did not understand.”
The truth hit me with a pang. “Yes, that is it exactly. Though I hardly know how a man could be so jealous of accounting books and sheep.”
There was a rumbling laugh that roiled my body as well as my husband’s. “At any rate, none of your husbands have been faithless. Not even me.”
My face turned crimson as I thought of Adam, my faithless lover. Hamilton knew nothing about him, and I wondered if he would be as forgiving of me. Just because he had been duped by Sofia, or whatever the little demon’s name was, did not mean he would appreciate the knowledge that I had been determined, not only to make a cuckold of him, but to leave him for one of our neighbors.
And thoughts of Adam Taylor reminded me that we still had to deal with the man’s nephew.
“We’ll see a good example of a faithless man today,” I groaned, ripping the covers from me and rising from the bed. No matter how much I would have enjoyed staying with my gorgeous husband, my worries for Flora drew all thoughts of sleeping late from my mind. “Young Peter Taylor would have nothing to do with us if not for my money, though I don’t know how I’ll convince Flora of that before he becomes her fiancé.”
This got a smile out of him. “No need to fret,” he said. “You may leave that all to me.”
43
Indeed, I hoped that my husband could be trusted with the essential task of separating Flora from Peter. For all through dinner, the two did nothing but make eyes at each other. Mrs. Regina Taylor, seated next to her grandson, gave him a meaningful look when she caught the two of them at it. But she never took it upon herself to scold Flora, who was seated next to her twin.
Ordinarily, I would have been able to rely on Fran to mock Flora mercilessly. But because there was finally a chance that Frances would be going to London, she appeared to think of little else. She did not seem to notice that her twin was making a fool of herself, and stood ready to make fools all the members of her family. At home she had been even worse. Nothing I could do seemed to vex her, and she had nearly forgotten her whole family as she spent hours cloistered in the study with plays. She was to leave as soon as we located a suitable set of relations she could stay with, so she would not be lost in some dingy boardinghouse as soon as she reached town.
Indeed, it was not long before the talk of the table went to town. Adam Taylor was going there the next day, and he was to be there for a whole month, so he enjoyed telling the company of his exploits and adventures.
“London has much more variety than we can dream of,” said Adam Taylor, with the easy assurance that I had once found irresistible. “Truly, it is an extraordinary city.”
“They have the best theatres!” said Fran.
“And the best shops,” gushed Flora, and I knew that she was thinking of her trousseau. She had been thinking of nothing else for days, and it was not going to be easy for me to put her off much longer by telling her we would not begin the shopping until all the arrangements for the engagement itself were finalized.
“They have theatres and shops enough, yes, but so do most all other cities,” said Hamilton, smiling at the party with good humor. He still did not look quite as well-fed as Adam, and he was a good deal older, but he no longer looked gaunt. In fact, I thought that the new cravat Esther had found for him made him look rather distinguished.
Peter Taylor only looked confused. “Yes, but we have shops here.”
His uncle Adam shook his head. “Trust me, my boy. Once you have seen London, Skye will no longer be enough for you.”
Hamilton looked down at his soup, then up at the company. “It is quite enough for me, and I have lived in a handful of other cities. Why do you think your nephew would be unhappy?”
Flora, thinking that she would be moving anywhere that Peter Taylor decided to go, began to open her mouth, but Adam got there before her.
“Well, I will trust my nephew to know his own mind. But I can certainly say that I’ve loved nowhere as much as I’ve loved London, and would never think of living somewhere else. In fact, as soon as my business is ready, I mean to take up permanent residence there.”
I could not help but smile. Of course, when he used to have me, my lover Adam would swear up and down that he never wanted to leave Skye. Every time he went to London on business, he complained about the length of the journey and the ugly surroundings of that city.
And now he was sitting at my dinner table, revealing to everyone present that he disliked Skye and wished to absent himself quickly. He was a master deceiver, and if I never spoke to him again I would feel the richer for it.
44
Unfortunately, I did have to spend another interval alone with Adam. It was the express wish of my husband, and I did not know how to turn the man down without revealing the long love affair and its unfortunate aftermath.
Even though Hamilton had appeared to make no headway on his plan to separate Peter Taylor and Flora, he did not seem panicked, only a little bit rushed. Touching my elbow as we left the dining room, he murmured to me so that no others might hear.
“I need a few moments alone with the young man,” he said. “Could you contrive to
hold the uncle back a bit when we go to my study?”
It made me breathless for a moment. The way that Hamilton had phrased the question, I wondered whether he had somehow divined that I had various ways of, well, holding Adam Taylor.
But he only put a hand on my arm, looking genuinely puzzled. “Could you? Or would it be too taxing? I don’t mean to try your strength, I just felt that it would be highly improper to ask one of the girls to try it.”
Catching my breath, I shook my head. “You needn’t worry about me. I am quite well, and I would be happy to hold him back.”
Happy, in fact, was perhaps not quite the correct word to describe my feelings.
Getting the man alone was easy enough, of course. All I had to do was ask the party if they would rather hear some music first, as Frances played quite well, or perhaps have a look at the household collection of snuff boxes.
“I’d rather go have a smoke,” said Lord Bell. “Would the Taylor gentlemen care to join me?”
“Yes,” said Peter, with a little too much enthusiasm, just as Adam said, “No thank you.”
I looked at him, trying to appear casual. Really, separating him from the pack was rather too easy.
“I’d like to see the snuff boxes,” Adam said, and his mother laughed.
“Fine, then. I’m sure Lillian and I would rather hear Miss Frances Sutherland play, but you go look at boxes if you like.”
“I’ll show them to you,” I said, “Though I confess I know little enough about them.”
The look that he gave me was packed with lust and meaning, and I only hoped that nobody else noted it. After all, we were all party to certain polite falsehoods. I knew that the old grandmother was only pretending to be interested in music so she could judge whether Flora, in addition to her riches, had other qualities that would make her a good wife to Peter. But for the moment, I did not care.
For I had Adam Taylor on my hands.