“Mr. Redfield is preaching about how he reveres the hearth and the family. And here I am, the debauched scourge of the neighborhood, a man with no concern for the spiritual value of marriage at all, living openly with all my congregated bastards and a downtrodden wife who goes along with the fiction.”
Jack said, “But the fact that you have your bastards living near you should convince everyone that you’re a fine, responsible man who cares about any child he brings into the world.”
Gray rolled his eyes. “Jack, you’re sweet and good and very naive. People’s brains don’t work that way. We’ll talk about that later. What else, Ryder?”
“I hear too that Mr. Redfield is using bribery so that people will repeat this ridiculous tale to anyone still breathing. People are credulous, their lives are tedious. Give them a chance to wallow in wickedness and they’ll leap into the mud as fast as a pullet escaping the hatchet. As you said, Gray, people’s brains don’t work in reasonable ways. It’s true that they’ve all known about Brandon House for years. Good God, we order in huge amounts of food locally as well as bolt upon bolt of fabric for clothing. Do you know just how much leather for shoes alone we order? You know how fast the children grow, Gray. It’s hard to keep up with them.
“Yes, they know the truth, but now because Mr. Redfield has intimated hidden lust and sex and scandal, they’re eager to disregard what they’ve known for fact and leap upon this new wagon. It’s just so more titillating than a simple haven for hurt children, and that’s the truth of it, Jack.
“Right in Upper and Lower Slaughter, the very warm belly of England, I’m learning that anything to do with fleshly concerns brings people flocking to believe it.”
“Have a cup of tea, Ryder,” Jack said and pressed a cup into his hand. “It will be all right. We will come up with a strategy.”
“Where did you get the tea?”
“Quincy came in,” Gray said. “You were so engrossed in your tirade that you didn’t heed him. Come sit down, Ryder. We understand the problem now. Let’s solve it.”
“I want to smash the blighter.”
“The borough isn’t controlled by a local family?” Gray asked.
Ryder shook his head. “No, not now. It was a rotten borough until the Locksley family died out some twenty years ago. Now it’s free and clear, the elections, for the most part, aboveboard.”
Jack said, “What’s a rotten borough?”
“It’s a borough that’s controlled by a local aristocratic family. Some boroughs have fewer than fifty people living in them. It’s disgraceful.”
“Hmmmm,” Jack said, “what a wonderfully easy solution.”
Both men stared hard at her.
Jack gave them a beatific smile. “All right, Ryder. You’ll simply make it rotten again. You’re a Sherbrooke—control it. Your family must be more illustrious and have more influence than these Locksleys ever had.”
“I hadn’t thought about being as underhanded as Redfield,” Ryder said slowly, looking at Jack with some respect. “What is involved, I wonder, in re-rottening a borough?”
“It can’t be too difficult if those idiots in the House of Lords have managed to rotten them for the past hundreds of years,” Gray said. “Come to think of it,” he continued, smacking his palm on his thigh, “I’m one of those idiots.”
“Let me consider this,” Ryder said, gulping down his tea. “First, though, I must speak to Douglas. I hope that he and Alex have calmed their bile. Why were he and Alex shouting at each other, I wonder?”
“I believe,” Jack said, “that it has something to do with a very big lady named Helen Mayberry. The woman who helped me save Gray.”
“Oh, Helen. I took her to Gunther’s on Tuesday. She told me Douglas had taken her there on Monday and she certainly did like those ices. Douglas and Alex were screaming at each other about Helen? Why, for heaven’s sake? She’s a good sort. Likes a jest and a mug of ale. And those Gunther ices. When we were driving in the park later, she knew at least half a dozen people. She said that Douglas had taken her driving the day before and introduced her to everyone. I’ll have to tell Alex to get a grip on herself.”
He rose and dusted his hands on his breeches. “Now I’m off to think. Re-rotten the borough, huh? That might be an appropriate solution, Jack. Thank you.”
Jack just stared at Ryder’s back as he accepted his newly reshaped hat from Quincy and left, talking to himself.
“Er, my lord, there are two letters here for you.”
“I’ll see to it later, Quincy.”
“They appear to be important, my lord.”
Gray grabbed both envelopes and stuffed them into his waistcoat pocket. He gave Jack a big smile, hauled her up in his arms, and took the stairs two at a time.
“Our boy is married,” said Mrs. Piller fondly, standing beneath a large portrait of an eighteenth-century St. Cyre viscount. “Imagine, carrying a young lady in his arms in the middle of the afternoon, all the while kissing her and laughing. It would have quite scandalized my dear mother. In her day, she told me, things of that sort didn’t happen in a gentleman’s household.”
“Your mother lied to you,” said Quincy. “Everything has always happened in gentlemen’s households since the beginning of gentlemen.”
24
AS FOR the gentleman in question, Gray was starting to breathe hard. Not because Jack was weighing him down but because he was randier now than he’d been just three steps before. “I swore that not another day would pass without me trying to show you that a woman’s second time with her husband brings tears of joy to her eyes. The day is nearly over and I haven’t yet done a blessed thing. Yes, it’s late afternoon, nearly evening. We must work fast, Jack, while there’s still daylight.”
“What if it were raining?”
“I’d have to go by the clock in that case.” He set her down in the middle of his bedchamber. “You’ve never been in here before. It’s my room. It’s got a lot of light if you fling back those heavy draperies, but you might think it’s a bit heavy with all the Spanish furniture my father brought back from Cordoba. This second time, Jack, there’s no blood and I won’t hurt you.”
“I imagine that chest at the foot of the bed is sturdy enough for you to give me teasing lessons on, Gray. What do you think?”
He groaned instead, and was on her. Buttons, he thought, usually his friends, were slipping everywhere but out of their holes. He cursed.
“No, don’t say it. Your mother made you eat turnips. I promise you, Jack. No more bleeding and no pain.”
“I believe you. You’re being clumsy, Gray. Do you know how that makes me feel?”
He looked at her. “Like you want to run back to your own bedchamber and hide under the bed? Like you want to go find yourself another husband who could demonstrate a modicum of competence?”
“No, you’re far off the mark. Every time your fingers slip and fumble, it makes me feel blessed. You want me so much you’re losing control of yourself. I like that, Gray, very much.” She laid her hands over his and together they unfastened the row of buttons that marched down the front of her gown.
Finally her slippers were tossed atop that Spanish chest, her stockings were off her feet, and Gray stepped back to look at her. “I’m exhausted from getting you out of all those bloody clothes, Jack. But now, at last, you’re naked, standing here right in front of me, and I can touch you wherever I want to. I don’t know where to start.”
“Perhaps,” Jack said, her voice a bit on the reedy side, “perhaps you could take off your clothes too? I feel very strange just standing here.”
“All right, but you’re so beautiful, Jack, I will have to get out of my clothes by touch. No, I can’t look away from you, I won’t. I love your breasts, did I ever tell you that?”
“Yes,” she said and slapped his hands away from his waistcoat buttons. His b
uttons were larger than hers and easier to work out of their fastenings. “Do you know what I want?”
He gulped, reached out his hand to touch her, then dropped it to his breeches buttons. He began fumbling. “What?”
“I want to unbutton your breeches for you.”
“Oh, God, I couldn’t bear that. No, keep your distance. You have no idea what that would do to me. I’m already closer to the edge than I was our first time together and that first time I was barely hanging on by my fingernails, and then of course I lost my grip.
“No, it’s better that you don’t do anything except stand there naked and breathe very lightly, and let me stare and go all dry in the mouth. Very well, go ahead, unfasten my breeches buttons. Oh, yes, there are three buttons. Now you’re on the last and your hand, Jack, my God, that hand of yours is—”
She touched him and he shuddered like a palsied man. It was going to be close. When he knew he simply couldn’t have her touching him any longer, he pulled away. “No more,” he said, panting, “no more.”
It took another three minutes to get him naked. He kicked his left boot out of his way, grabbed her by the waist, and tossed her onto the bed. “It’s a big bed, belonged to my grandfather. He died in this bed, but perhaps you don’t want to think about that event at this precise moment.”
He came down over her, closed his eyes, tried to get hold of himself, then said, “Now, I’m coming up on my elbows so I can see your breasts.”
“Gray?”
“Hmmm. I’m nearly ready to let myself touch you, Jack. No, I won’t think about how my belly is against yours and I can feel every white inch of you. You’re smooth and soft and—”
“Gray? I just wanted to say that I’d like to perhaps go over to the window and pull back the draperies.”
His fingers were nearly touching her breast. He blinked down at her, his fingers still hovering. “I’m sorry, Jack. What did you say about the draperies? If you don’t like them, then we can pull them down. Now—”
“No, please, Gray. You stopped teasing me. You mean business now. You’re like a racehorse who sees the finish line and is going all out to get there first. I’m the jockey, Gray, and I don’t even know where the reins are now. I’m not sure of any of this anymore.”
It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, at least the hardest thing he’d ever done that he could remember at this moment. Jack was afraid. Curse it, she was right. He was galloping. She wasn’t galloping. She’d come to a full stop. She’d lost the reins. He cursed, saw a plate of turnips, and rolled off her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, coming onto his side. “This is a very odd thing, Jack. No, I’m not lying to you. If you hadn’t stopped me, I don’t know what I would have done. Probably you would have been left in the dust again, wondering what kind of a clod I was.” He leaned down and kissed her breast.
She froze. He continued kissing her, light, nipping little kisses on her mouth, her chin, her eyes, nothing menacing or suspect. Slowly she began to ease. Gray kissed very well and he tasted sweet, and her interest grew. She placed her hand on his shoulder and brought him just a little closer to her. He raised his hand and lightly brought it down on her breast.
“Oh,” she said. “Gray, this is all very nice. You’re teasing me again.”
“I’ll tease you forever, Jack. I swear I won’t forget anymore.”
He kissed her breasts, then moved to her mouth while his hands caressed her. When she lifted herself toward him, he wanted to shout. “That’s right,” he said between kisses, “just enjoy yourself, Jack. I’m not going to roll over on you and crush you into the bed.”
It was then that she arched up and kissed him herself. He started to say something more, and to his nearly hysterical pleasure, she slipped her tongue into his mouth. Not a moment later, she was pulling at him. She even tugged on his hair.
And he, an intelligent man of superb judgment, said easily, “No, Jack, not just yet.” He smiled down at her as his palm flattened on her belly. Her muscles tightened beneath his hand. He didn’t move his palm, just let it lie there, warming her. Finally, she said, “Oh, dear, Gray, perhaps you could consider remaining there for a while longer, even extending beyond the present reach of your fingers.”
“I know,” he said, “I know.” When his fingers found her, she nearly trembled herself off the bed.
“Oh, goodness, this is just too much. It’s—”
“Just wait, Jack.” Without another word, he came over her. His mouth replaced his fingers, and Jack, embarrassed for perhaps a blink of an eye, forgot everything, even her own name, when she went over the edge into a blinding sort of pleasure that tossed her about like a leaf in a strong wind. She gasped for breath, arched her back, and tugged on his hair until he came into her. She simply couldn’t grasp the joy of it, the utter belonging, the instant of being one with another person and that other person a man she’d met only a month before.
“I’m not going to live beyond the next minute,” she whispered against his sweaty neck, enjoying his gulping breaths interspersed with kisses on her jaw. “Gray, if there is any enemy you wish me to rid you of, just tell me. I never imagined such a thing as this.”
And Gray St. Cyre, Viscount Cliffe, closed his eyes, breathed in his wife’s sweet scent, and the smell of sex and sweat, and settled himself atop her. His last cogent thought was that he was still inside her and it was more than a man deserved.
She must have dozed after Gray had showed her how she could sit astride him, and how she could treat him as her personal stallion and drive him as hard as she wished.
She smiled herself awake and welcomed his urgency as she felt his fingers probing each of her ribs three times. He was actually counting out loud. When he reached her lower ribs, he sighed deeply, kissed her slack mouth, and said, his nose nearly touching hers, “I’m adding rib counting to my repertoire. It seems to wake you quickly. What are you thinking about?”
“You kissing the back of my neck when you were inside me, your hands around me, pulling me back against you.”
“Well, I did ask, didn’t I? Ah, our third endeavor, you on your side with me curved around you. Was it just twenty minutes ago?” Already his heart was pounding, lust swirling through him. Since he was a man, he was eager. He supposed the combination was unavoidable. He also supposed that this was one area in his life where it was comforting to be predictable.
“And this, Gray? What does this do?”
She played no prelude, didn’t digress to, say, his shoulder or just lightly touch his hip or skip to tickle his leg. No, she went to him immediately and touched him and held him.
He reeled with shock; he nearly yelled with the pleasure of it. “Jack, where this is going to lead—well, I know it will be to new heights, but that’s not the point.” He moaned. “Jack, it’s going to happen very quickly if you continue touching and holding me like that.”
There was a sharp knock on the bedchamber door. “My lord?”
“Go away, Quincy.” Was that his voice, sounding all blank and raw?
“It’s nearly eight o’clock at night, my lord. Surely there must be some mention from one of you of sustenance by this time?”
He stared down at his wife, gritted his teeth, and sighed. “Quincy’s right, blast him. I’m starving. I can wait for those new heights. What do you think?”
She leaned up and licked his neck. “Feed me,” she said.
Georgie joined them for their late dinner, eating porridge sweetened with Mrs. Post’s honey from her brother’s farm in Sussex.
“How do you like the nursery?”
Georgie looked over her spoon at the man who was, like her sister, wearing a dressing gown and was feeding her sister bites of his bread pudding. “I-I-It’s good, sir.”
“I’m not a sir, Georgie,” he said, looking at that one blue eye and one gold eye of hers. Unique, utterly un
ique. “I’m now your brother. Can you call me Gray?”
“You’re old, like Freddie. But y-y-you’re not as old as my p-p-papa.”
“A name problem,” Jack said. “What to do?”
“What do you think, Georgie? Do you think you could bring yourself to call her Jack instead of Freddie?”
Georgie gently laid her spoon beside her bowl of porridge and climbed up beside her sister on the arm of the wing chair. A thumb went into her mouth and she leaned against her sister. The thumb stilled for a moment. “Jack’s not b-b-bad.”
“I like Jack, too, sweetie. Why don’t you think about it. You can call me whatever you wish. Ah, I’m so glad you’re with me, pumpkin.” She hugged Georgie against her, kissing her small ear. Gray saw tears swimming in her eyes. Jack pulled her onto her lap and began rocking her. “You and I are going to have such fun. I hear there’s this place called Astley’s. They have a horse ring with riders who do all sorts of tricks. Gray, have you ever been to Astley’s?”
“Once when I was about ten years old Lord Burleigh took me. I’ll take you and Georgie there next week.”
Georgie took her fingers out of her mouth and said, “I like h-h-horses.”
The next morning, Gray awoke early, feeling rested and remarkably energetic, feeling better, in fact, than he’d felt in a very long time. He stretched, hit a warm body with his hand and froze. For those few moment, he’d forgotten. His wife was sleeping next to him.
His wife. Jack.
He very carefully eased down again and pulled her against him. She fitted perfectly against his side, her face on his shoulder. He lay there, grinning like a happy fool, watching the morning brighten the bedchamber.
Finally he rose, careful not to awaken her, knowing she must be exhausted. He’d been the one to lead her to that marvelous exhaustion. He went to his dressing room and rang for Horace, his valet, a man recommended to him years before by Ryder Sherbrooke.
Ryder Sherbrooke had saved him from deportation to Botany Bay when he was ten and had been found guilty of stealing a gentleman’s gold watch from his pocket. He’d been beaten thoroughly, and Ryder knew he would never make it to faraway Australia. He bribed Horace’s way out of Newgate the night before he was to be sent away.
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