by Jane Lark
“We have had months of foreplay, will you forgive me now if I am too eager?” His fingers squeezed her breast gently.
“You are forgiven.”
He laughed as he leant to kiss her and ran his fingers over her flat stomach to the place between her legs.
Heat gathered in his blood as he groaned into her mouth, and his fingers slipped inside her, where they had not been since the autumn. He reacquainted himself with warm, silky flesh as his erection pressed against her hip.
He rolled back and reached for Harry’s gift.
“Let me help.”
It took them a few moments to sheath him, her cool fingers brushing his sensitised skin, and he would not admit the agony that pulsed within his groin. He’d longed for this, for so many months.
She rolled to her back and opened her legs for him.
The heat gripped about his heart throbbing there as hard as it did in his groin as he pressed into her. “Oh.” The sound that came from his throat had been wrenched from his soul. The sheath covering him stole some of the finer sensations, but there was still warmth, and a feeling of being consumed.
He held her gaze as he moved and her fingers clasped his shoulders, but the look in her eyes spoke only of love.
~
She had no doubts of the longevity of Rob’s love, not anymore. She had learned the depth of his loyalty as well as his love in the months they’d been married, and he had feared losing her for months and never spoken.
She wished to cry for him again, as she’d done when she’d found out about his foolish duel, and yet how could she cry for such an elemental man. A man who had been patient with her, and kind, for all the months they had been unable to be intimate in this way.
Rob was special, he was a treasure she’d discovered when she’d looked out through the walls of her glass gaol.
“Oh.” The sigh breathed out of her lungs, but it was from her heart. She’d craved him constantly since about three weeks after Sarah had been born, and yet he’d continued to refrain, to protect her.
She lifted her hips and thrilled at the feeling of his swift, firm strokes.
His movement became sharp, hard jolts into her, striking at her pelvis in a rough hunger, as his gaze clung to hers and his fingers clawed into the mattress beside her shoulders.
Her thoughts dissolved into sensations as he withdrew, looking down at where they joined, and then pulsed slightly, playing with her.
Her hips lifted, trying to catch at every feeling, and then when he invaded her with another hard thrust she pushed back up against him so they thrust at one another.
His gaze came back to hers.
It was a fast, thrilling, country dance of movement.
He rolled to his back, pulling her over him, and then the steps were the other way about as he thrust up and she sank down to meet his strokes, her hands on his shoulders as his clasped her breasts. She rocked against him, heat and pleasure skipping through the dance with them, and the little death danced beside her, almost there but not.
She tumbled, as though she’d missed a step, and fell, then inside her there was a flurry of petticoats, as the little death fell on top of her.
Rob’s fingers gripped her hips as his heels pushed into the mattress.
His legs were bent up and she sat astride him, her toes curled into the mattress as he lifted her and pulsed up into her.
His face contorted with hunger, then he broke too, pulsing, his seed spilling into their gift from his brother.
He groaned with pleasure as she fell forward and lay against his naked chest, her cheek brushing against his shoulder. She could hear his heavy breathing echoing in his chest. Her fingers settled over the dusting of hair across his pectoral muscle.
“I love you” he declared as his fingers ran through her hair.
“I love you also. Thank you for giving me Sarah.” She rose up and looked into his dark blue-grey eyes.
His palms cupped her face, as they’d always done when he was speaking to her of anything important. “You have blessed me, with Sarah, and with yourself. You have given me a life I did not know I sought. I am the happiest man.”
“While I am the most honoured of women. I am truly the blessed one, Rob, and I will help you achieve everything you wish from life. I will not hold you back.” It was a promise. She’d been a shadow of herself, and now she was whole—healed and wonderfully happy. She wished him to be whole and fulfil his dreams. “Must you wash that thing out if we wish to do it again?”
“Yes.” He smiled.
“I wish to be intimate again,” she breathed the words against his neck.
~
Pride raced in Rob’s blood, making his heart beat at an outrageous pace, as the men in the rows of seats about him applauded his first speech. He’d won his seat a month ago, and he was already making his mark. He’d worked hard in the months before the election to become known, both in Yorkshire and its surrounding area, where he might earn the support of those who would vote. Here in London, amongst the Whigs, he’d been speaking of his hopes for future laws that would make men more equal and see women treated fairly.
Yet not all men were treated equally in the House of Commons. Birth and money made a difference here as much as it did anywhere, and yet the men in this room also judged a man who earned respect well, and Rob was fast gathering respect, and relying on that trade. Of course, his birth and his illustrious relations made a difference too, but Rob no longer shied away from that. He earned his own income, he was able to hold his head high when he spoke up for the working classes of the country, yet he would willingly use the power of his family when it came to making alliances that would push his bills through. All help from his family had been gratefully received since the moment Sarah had been born.
When Rob walked from the giant hall with its stacked, leather-lined seating, he was then in an equally grand and overwhelming hall, the ceiling was as high as a cathedral, and the walls as ornate.
“Rob.” It was his father who’d come down from the viewing chamber first to greet him. His hand grasped Rob’s shoulder as he turned him to face the crowd of other men who’d come to hear his first speech. Rob had been practising it for a week.
Rob’s hand was shaken a dozen times as he carefully tried to extricate himself from the group of his friends, family, and even some of his supporters. He’d achieved his second step in his pathway in politics, and yet his mind was not in here with the men who patted his back in congratulations.
John said something and the group looked to him. Rob clasped his father’s coat sleeve. “I must go. I will meet you back at John’s.” His father nodded and smiled.
Rob walked swiftly away from the group before anyone else might stop him, elation flowing in his blood. He’d done it. When he walked from the Houses of Parliament out into the street he did not walk but ran about the corner.
A carriage waited there.
He pulled the door open. “Caro!”
“Rob!”
He climbed up without the step. “How did it go? I wish I could have come in and heard you. That is another thing you must make equal in this country.”
He smiled at that, although she’d heard his speech a hundred times, as he’d practised it in their rooms. “It went well. Very well. You will have to ask Papa to relate every element of the scene to you, though, I was so nervous I cannot recall a thing.”
She laughed, then leant across the seat, offering her lips. He kissed them quickly. Then he bent and kissed Sarah’s head. She was sitting on her mother’s lap. Caro had insisted they both came and were close, so that he might know they were near and supporting him, even if they could not come in.
He had thought of them here the whole time he’d talked.
“You did not stumble or stutter…”
“Not once.”
“I knew you would not. I knew you would be perfect.”
“People applauded me.”
“Well, of course they would, because y
our views are wise and righteous and they would look fools if they did not applaud them.” Caro looked at Sarah. “We are very proud of Papa, aren’t we?”
“Pa, Pa.” Sarah echoed. Rob lifted her from Caro’s lap, and held her up so her feet rested on his thighs.
Sarah was who he wished to change the world for now. Let her have equal choices in her lifetime.
He looked at Caro. She smiled at him, a broad smiled that said her heart was bursting in her chest with happiness, pride and love. He’d promised himself that he would see her smile and laugh for him two years before, but when he had made that promise to himself, he had not known what he’d truly wished for. He had wished for this. For this wonderful woman to love him as she did.
“I love you,” he said as he smiled back at her.
She did not answer, but leaned forward to kiss him again.
Author Note
The inspiration for Caro's and Rob's story is a bit different from the other books in the Marlow Intrigues Series. Their story does not have one specific trigger from a real historical tale, but it developed from lots of threads of truth in the stories I research and share on my blog janelark.wordpress.com. Caro's story begins in The Dangerous Love of a Rogue, a book that was very much inspired by Caroline Lamb's and Lord Byron's life stories, but also included elements of inspiration taken from the records of the courtesan Harriett Wilson who shared lots of the things which went on behind closed doors in the Regency period. The inspirations for Rob's and Caro's story were far more of a patch work, but many ideas for scenes did come from both Caroline Lamb's and Harriett's tales. I think that is why these stories are darker, because they are inspired by the elements of real stories from women who suffered at the hands of men, and of course the young men who at times suffered at the hands of women.
The main reason behind this story coming to life, though, was that when we left Caro at the end of The Dangerous Love of a Rogue I couldn't leave her story there, she needed a hero, and like Ellen in The Illicit Love of a Courtesan, because Caro was a very damaged person, she needed a kind hero full of goodness, so who better than Edward's eldest son…
I'll look forward to sharing the next story in the Marlow Intrigues Series with you, The Reckless Love of an Heir. Simply like my Amazon page to make sure you'll know when it's available, even if you buy from other outlets www.amazon.co.uk/Jane-Lark/e/B00CF5WXKI.
Thank you to all the readers who have taken the time to leave reviews, or get in touch and tell me how much they are enjoying the series, I do really appreciate all your comments.
Best wishes, Jane.
Like Jane on Facebook www.facebook.com/Janelarkauthor
Follow Jane on Twitter twitter.com/JaneLark
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Also by Jane Lark …
The Dangerous Love of a Rogue
The Lost Love of a Soldier
Capturing the Earl's Love (A Free Regency Romance Novella)
The Scandalous Love of a Duke
The Passionate Love of a Rake
The Illicit Love of a Courtesan
The Desperate Love of a Lord (A Free Regency Romance Novella)
Jane Lark
I love writing authentic, passionate and emotional love stories. I began my first novel, a historical, when I was sixteen, but life derailed me a bit when I started suffering with Ankylosing Spondylitis, so I didn’t complete a novel until after I was thirty when I put it on my to do before I’m forty list. Now I love getting caught up in the lives and traumas of my characters, and I’m so thrilled to be giving my characters life in others’ imaginations, especially when readers tell me they’ve read the characters just as I’ve tried to portray them.
http://www.janelark.co.uk/
@JaneLark
About HarperImpulse
HarperImpulse is an exciting new range of romance fiction brought to you from the women’s fiction team at HarperCollins. Our aim is to break new talent from debut authors and import the hottest trends from the US, bringing you the very best in romance. Whether that is through short reads for your mobile phone or epic sagas that span the generations we want to proudly publish romance fiction that gets everybody talking.
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