Castonbury Park 01 - The Wicked Lord Montague

by Carole Mortimer

  Lily had now seen him as a man who loved his family deeply, and in such a way that he was willing to do anything, say anything, in order that he might protect them from all that he thought might harm or threaten them. He was a man who had given up his life in the army, a life he was so suited to and a career which he had loved, in order to take his place here at Castonbury as his father’s heir.

  He was, in fact, all that Lily admired in a man.

  And the man that she knew she desired with every particle of her being.

  And as surely as Giles’s doubts had been dispelled, in regard to her intentions towards Edward, Sir Nathan Samuelson and even Judah Lovell, so had Lily accepted she would, by necessity, one day become that old maid she had imagined.

  Despite being adopted by Mr and Mrs Seagrove, she was, and would always be, a foundling, her only choice to marry someone like Sir Nathan, an unpleasant man whom no other woman wished to take for her husband, or to become the plaything of a man like Judah Lovell, a good-natured wastrel, who would take and use her body and emotions before discarding them.

  If that truly was to be her fate, then Lily would rather choose the man who might one day discard her.

  She now took a determined breath. ‘I was not frightened or disgusted the other day, Giles.’

  ‘No?’ He looked down at her searchingly.

  ‘No. I—I thought it beautiful,’ she admitted softly. ‘I thought you beautiful.’

  Giles stilled, momentarily stunned into silence by Lily’s words, by the unmistakable sincerity of her husky tone. ‘Men are not beautiful, Lily.’ He finally regained his own voice ruefully. ‘We are brutal, selfish creatures, more often than not led by our—’ His harsh words ceased abruptly as Lily placed her fingertips against his lips.

  ‘Giles, if your intention is to succeed in shocking me into running away from you, from this, then do not even try.’ She pulled out of his arms to step away from him, her gaze meeting his unwaveringly as she reached behind her.

  Her intention of unbuttoning the back of her gown was so achingly obvious that Giles could only watch in mute fascination as she finished unfastening the buttons before the bodice of her gown slid down the slender length of her arms and she allowed the gown to fall to the ground, leaving her dressed only in a thin chemise and white stockings secured in place by two pretty blue garters about her thighs, the heavy length of her ebony hair flowing seductively over her bare shoulders and down the slender length of her spine.

  Giles sucked a gasp of air into his lungs as he gazed at the full plumpness of her breasts beneath her chemise, the tips hard and red as berries, her waist slender, with a dark triangle of curls visible between the gentle curve of her thighs.

  She looked, in fact, so beautiful, so like Giles had thought of her so many times in his tortured nights, that he felt a moment of light-headedness as all the blood in his body seemed to rush to one single location. ‘You are so very lovely, Lily,’ he groaned, his hands clenched and trembling at his sides.

  ‘As are you,’ she assured softly as she stepped forward to slide his jacket from his shoulders before her fingers moved to the buttons of his waistcoat.

  ‘No.’ Giles placed one of his hands over hers to still those questing fingers. ‘Before you do that you must know that I have— That I have many scars from battle…’

  ‘And, if I am not mistaken, many that are not visible to the eye,’ she guessed huskily.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he allowed gruffly.

  ‘Then, if you allow it, I shall kiss each and every one of the scars that I do see.’ She looked up at him in mute appeal.

  It was a plea Giles was unable to resist, groaning his acquiescence even as his hand dropped back to his side and he stood tense and shaking as Lily removed his waistcoat, before untying and discarding his neck cloth, the slow unfastening of the buttons of his shirt revealing the first of those scars.

  Giles drew in a ragged breath as he felt the softness of Lily’s lips against his hot and sensitised flesh as she gently kissed the length of the first scar, the silky curtain of her hair as warm against his skin as he had imagined it might be.

  He offered no further resistance as Lily freed his shirt from his breeches before lifting the garment over his head, her gaze darkening as she viewed the half-dozen or so scars that criss-crossed his chest before her fingers traced caressingly the lines and planes of his torso.

  ‘You must have been very brave—’

  ‘I am not brave, Lily, I am—was…merely a soldier,’ he corrected gruffly.

  Lily’s hands were warm against his flesh as she glanced up at him in gentle rebuke. ‘Can you never return to that life?’

  ‘It would be better for my own peace of mind if I were to accept that this, being heir to the Castonbury estate, is now my fate.’ His voice sounded harsh in the silence.

  She looked up at him as her fingers once again began to lightly trace the scars upon his chest. ‘It is not all bad, surely?’

  ‘Not all, no.’ Giles drew in a sharp breath even as he forced the tension from his shoulders and felt the pleasure of those caresses. ‘Indeed, I am slowly learning it has unexpected…compensations.’

  She chuckled huskily. ‘And are those compensations to your liking, my lord?’ Her lips were once again light as a butterfly as she kissed the long scar on his belly that he had received some four years ago and which had put him on his back in the hospital for months following the battle.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Lily was to his liking! Her hands and lips traced that scar down to where his long, hot length tented the front of his breeches. ‘Not yet!’ Giles reached out to clasp the tops of her arms as she would have unfastened the buttons which would release that hardness to the caress of her lips and tongue. ‘I wish to kiss and touch you first, Lily.’ He wanted to worship at her feet. To touch and kiss every inch of her silken body before claiming her as his own.

  For he intended to claim every part of her. Would make love to Lily in such a way she would never be able to forget how it felt to have him touching her, or dispel the taste of him from her lips and tongue, and the feel of him moving inside her hot and silken sheath.

  His eyes were fully accustomed to the half-light now, allowing him to step back slightly and gaze his fill of Lily’s pale ivory skin. He slipped the straps of her chemise from her shoulders before it fell softly to her waist, leaving bare her full, pert breasts tipped with those ripe buds on which he had long ached to feast.

  Lily gasped softly, her hands moving up to rest on Giles’s shoulders for balance as one of his hands lightly cupped her breast, his gaze continuing to hold hers as his head lowered and he began to lick and tease that full and sensitive tip. Long, arousing sweeps of his tongue swept against aching flesh, teeth gently biting, tasting, before he finally parted his lips and pulled her nipple deeply, hungrily, into the moist and encompassing fire of his mouth.

  She felt the rush of heat between her thighs as Giles moved his other hand up to cup her other breast before rolling the sensitive peak between thumb and forefinger, setting a rhythm that caused a point between her thighs to swell and moisten. To ache with need. To burn.

  Lily’s hands rose from Giles’s broad shoulders to become entwined in the heavy silkiness of his hair. ‘Please…! Oh, please!’ She felt the heat of the increasing moisture between her legs as she moved restlessly, groaning softly, trembling uncontrollably, as Giles’s other hand stroked between her thighs and pressed gently against the sensitive throbbing bud there.

  She felt cool air brushing against the dampness of her nipple as Giles released her before dropping down onto his knees in front of her to slowly slide her chemise down over her hips and allow it to fall to the ground beside her gown, her stockings and garters now her only adornment. ‘Have you touched and caressed yourself since we were last together, Lily?’ His fingers lightly parted the dark curls between her thighs, the warmth of his breath a teasing caress against her skin.

  Lily felt the burn of colour in her cheeks. �
�I—’

  ‘There must be truth between us from now on, Lily.’

  The truth. The truth was that until four days ago, until Giles had touched her so intimately, Lily had known nothing of the pleasures of her own body. Had never dreamt…imagined—

  ‘Did you touch your breasts, Lily? Did you caress your breasts until you ached with need?’ he pressured huskily.

  ‘I cannot—’

  ‘You can!’

  ‘I— Yes, yes, I did that!’ she admitted breathlessly.

  ‘And did you touch yourself here, where you ached the most?’

  Giles swept his tongue across the aching place between her thighs, causing Lily’s legs to tremble so much she would have fallen if not for her hands gripping Giles’s warm shoulders. ‘Lily?’ His tongue rasped against her a second time.

  ‘Yes!’ She shuddered uncontrollably as the pleasure became almost unbearable.

  ‘And here?’ That marauding tongue swept lower, caressing, building the need until she thought she could take it no longer.

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘And did you put your fingers here?’ He gently nudged her legs apart before moving closer, his fingers taking Lily to the edge of that plateau of hot and overwhelming pleasure. ‘Lily, answer me,’ he urged fiercely.

  She felt bereft, empty, without Giles’s mouth on her. ‘Yes!’ she groaned achingly. ‘Yes. Oh, yes! I did all of those things. All of them!’ And she had. Every night since Giles had made love to her she had moved restlessly in her bed, until, with a groan, she had had no choice but to give in to the temptation to caress her breasts, to rub the throbbing ache between her thighs, her own fingers in place of him.

  ‘And did you climax, Lily? Did you rub and caress yourself until you reached completion?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘And did you think of me when the pleasure came, Lily? Did you imagine it was me touching you?’ he pressed urgently.

  ‘Yes…’ she sobbed.

  ‘I have thought of you too, Lily,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘Each and every time I have brought myself to the same point, I have closed my eyes and imagined it was your hands touching and caressing me.’ He smiled ruefully as she looked down at him in surprise. ‘Oh, yes, Lily, I have needed to find a release for my desire for you too. Many times over. But none of my imaginings measured up to the reality of touching your silken skin, to tasting you, and holding you.’ He buried his face between her thighs once more.

  She gave a low cry of rapture as Giles sent her over the edge of that plateau and into the deep and overwhelming sea of wave after wave of uncontrollable pleasure.

  Again, and yet again, he took her to that plateau and then over its edge, until Lily answered only to the relentless caress of Giles’s mouth and hands. ‘Please! No more!’ she finally begged as she swayed weakly. ‘I cannot again, Giles. Please, no more.’

  He ran his tongue lazily over the sensitivity of her inner thigh. ‘Do you want me, Lily? All of me?’

  She was mindless with that need. She knew that a hundred Mrs Lovells, and a dozen Judah Lovells, could now be outside on the riverbank, and she would not care. Only Giles existed for her at this moment in time.

  ‘Lily?’

  Her knees buckled as another wave of pleasure overwhelmed her, and she knew she would have fallen if Giles had not held her so tightly. ‘Yes, I want you,’ she gasped, her voice raw.

  ‘Then you shall have me.’ His eyes glittered in the gloom of the weeping willow as he moved to smooth his jacket on the ground before lowering her onto it. ‘But first I have to kiss you,’ he groaned before his mouth claimed hers.

  Minutes, hours, days could have passed as Giles kissed her, lingering to play and stroke once that first hunger had been assuaged, the heat of his tongue seeking out every sweet curve of her lips and mouth, the smooth column of her throat, the slope of her breasts, allowing her the time to recover from his earlier onslaught, when he had been unwilling to give her respite as he brought her again and again to climax just so that he might hear her gasps of pleasure and mewling cries as she shuddered and trembled to completion.

  Giles had never before known a woman who responded so readily, so completely, or gave that response so honestly. So much so that he ached to be inside her just so that he might hear those groans again as she reached orgasm.

  ‘Will you help me take off the rest of my things?’ He sat up to begin pulling off his boots, for once cursing his boot-maker for having made them such a perfect fit.

  Lily chuckled huskily as she moved up on her haunches to aid him, completely unconcerned with her near-nakedness, and rendering Giles temporarily still as he gazed hungrily at the gentle sway of her bared breasts as she pulled off one boot after the other before her deft fingers moved to the fastening of his breeches.

  She gasped slightly as she saw that last scar etched deep into his muscled thigh, her lips as soft and tender as butterfly wings against his puckered flesh.

  Giles reached up to touch either side of her face. ‘You truly are a wonder to me, Lily.’ He kissed her again hungrily, only to break off that kiss as he felt her cool fingers close about him. His hands closed about those caressing fingers. ‘Not this time, Lily. I—I am too far beyond control to hold,’ he acknowledged gruffly as he gently pushed her back onto his jacket before moving over and between her parted thighs.

  He rested on his arms as he paused to look down at her in the dappled darkness. He saw her dark curls, wild and wanton, about her bare shoulders. Her eyes were languid with longing. Her lips were full and swollen from his kisses. The dark triangle of her curls was a sharp contrast to the long length of him as he shifted to slowly guide himself into her.

  ‘You will not get me with child as my father did my mother?’

  Giles drew in a harsh and rasping breath at the sound of her husky plea. ‘No, I—I will be careful,’ he assured her gruffly as he began to enter her inch by slow inch, the pleasure of it so overwhelming that Giles began to doubt his ability to control himself. ‘Lily?’ He looked down at her as he heard her sharply indrawn breath, very aware that there was still an equal amount not yet inside her. ‘I do not want to hurt you—’

  ‘I do not want you to stop!’ She reached down to clasp his buttocks as he would have pulled back. ‘It is only—’ She shook her head. ‘You feel so silky and smooth and yet so hard and big at the same time.’

  It took every ounce of Giles’s self-control to raise his head from looking down at their two joined bodies to instead look at Lily’s face in an effort not to give in to the need he felt to thrust fully inside her, until he was totally surrounded by her moist heat. ‘I am not hurting you?’

  ‘No,’ Lily assured, never having imagined that having a man inside her would feel like this, so full, so much pressure, the long length of him seeming like wood encased in velvet as he slowly entered her. ‘Well, perhaps it feels a little…strange,’ she conceded as he continued to look down at her. ‘But I do not want you to stop.’

  ‘Then we will go slowly. Very slowly,’ he promised gruffly. ‘And if it becomes too much for you, then you must tell me and I will stop immediately.’

  Lily was not sure that going slowly would ease the pressure building inside her; in fact, she was sure it would not. She knew only that she needed—wanted—something, and it only increased, intensified, at his slow and tortuous entry.

  She gasped as she raised her legs and wrapped them about Giles’s waist, lifting, bringing him fully into her and resulting in a momentary pain, a ripping, as that long and velvet length surged fully inside her, filling her completely. With a groan, Giles drove forward, touching something deep inside her, a place that had never been touched before, and which once again sent her spiralling up to that plateau of pleasure.

  His eyes glittered in the darkness as he raised his head sharply. ‘God, Lily!’

  ‘Do not stop, Giles,’ she pleaded, and her legs tightened about him as she began to move, working herself along his pulsing length and causing hersel
f to quiver and contract. ‘Please do not stop!’

  Giles knew he would not have been able to stop if his life had depended upon it, groaning even as he lowered his head to take one tight nipple into his mouth as he plunged into her, again and again, not even the shock of knowing he had pierced Lily’s innocence enough to bring him to his senses as she undulated rhythmically beneath him.

  Only the remembrance of her earlier plea made him pull out as he felt her pulsing in orgasm at the same time as his own climax began to explode.

  He let out a roar of ecstasy as his release burst from him, until he knew himself completely spent, and could only collapse against the heat of her breasts.

  And only just in time, as the faint sound of voices—Mrs Lovell and her nephew returning from the village?—could once again be heard heading towards the river!

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘And I thought I told ye not to mess with the lasses about here.’ Mrs Lovell could be heard scolding her nephew as the voices drew closer. ‘I’ll have ye know that Mrs Hall is a respectable widow.’

  ‘It’s usually the respectable ones as is most grateful for a bit of attention!’ Judah came back cheekily. ”Specially when they’s as pretty as Mrs Hall.’

  His aunt gave a disgusted snort. ‘You’ll meet your match one day, Judah-me-lad, mark my words, and it can’t come soon enough for me. Now hold on to this here basket whilst I go and see if there’s any mushrooms beneath this willow.’

  Which was the only warning Lily and Giles had of Mrs Lovell pushing aside the willow branches and poking her head inside where they still lay together in a naked tangle!

  Lily’s eyes were wide with shock as she hurriedly reached out to pull Giles’s discarded shirt over their nakedness before looking pleadingly across at the Gypsy woman.

  Mrs Lovell seemed completely at a loss for words for several long seconds as she took in the scene before her, her expression one of open-mouthed incredulity. Then she clamped her lips together noisily before speaking weakly. ‘No, it seems as if someone has been here before me….’ She ducked quickly back out of the branches—hopefully before her nephew could catch a glimpse of Lily and Giles entwined together. ‘Let’s get along, boy, I has things to do back at the yag. And I reckon some young lady might be along later to collect her bonnet and gloves,’ she added pointedly, followed by the sound of them both making their way along the riverbank.