How to Be a Proper Lady

by Katharine Ashe

  She slid off the bed, dragging the top coverlet with her. A servant had made up the fire; the rug was warm and soft. She knelt, then curled up on her side and pulled the coverlet over her. As she drifted off she allowed herself to imagine a handsome pirate making love to her all night long.

  She slept like a sailor, hard and motionless. But she looked like a lady, slender hands tucked beneath her cheek and hair sparkling with bejeweled pins. She still wore the glowing gown that caressed her curves and had every man between the ages of eighteen and eighty staring at her all night. Now her breasts pushed against the low neckline, soft rose-colored areolas peeking out.

  Jin’s mouth went dry even as he told himself he had seen her body already, had enjoyed it, and should not be so affected by a mere glimpse of it now. But he could stand about all day and night trying to convince himself that she was just another woman. He would never succeed.

  He crouched and touched her cheek. Her breaths hitched, black lashes flickering. He slipped his fingertips through the tangle of dark curls straying across her brow, imprinting upon them the texture of perfection.

  Her eyes opened. “You came back.”

  “You did not wait long for me. I think I am disappointed by your lack of eagerness.” He smiled and stroked the graceful column of her neck.

  She blinked, sleep clinging. “Not long? I am eager.” She stifled a yawn. “How long?”

  “Perhaps thirty minutes.”

  “That was a quick game.”

  “I threw it.”

  “Mr. Hopkins will have his matched pair, then.”

  “I couldn’t give a damn. Viola, I will leave you to your sleep.”

  Her fingers clamped about his wrist. “Don’t!” She pushed up to sit, her thick hair tumbling across a shoulder and half-exposed breast. “Don’t leave.”

  Never, if it could be. “I shan’t now.”

  The tip of her tongue stole over her bottom lip, moistening it, then flicked upward. Jin could not look away. Remaining aloof from her had been the most difficult challenge he had ever met. He didn’t need Carlyle’s disapproval to remind him that he was not a suitable suitor for this lady; he had known that since the first. But she wanted him, and he would not deny her what little he could give her, tonight.

  “Have you come back to make love to me again?”

  “Indeed I have.” He brushed his fingertips across her cheek again, the silken skin he could not seem to take his fill of, then trailed the backs of his fingers along her throat to the cleft between her breasts. Her lashes dipped, her breath pressing her soft flesh against him.

  “But…” She sighed, her eyes closing. “I must have something to drink first. Wine.”

  He smiled. “You must?”

  “My mouth is all wooly. I don’t want you to kiss me until I have washed it out.”

  He laughed and her eyes snapped open. “What?”

  He shook his head. She claimed confidence, but she had no idea of her true allure. It made her more beautiful yet.

  “Viola, I don’t care about that.”

  Her full lips tweaked into a frown. “Well, I do. There is cordial on the nightstand.”

  He stood and retrieved the cordial. When he turned again she was standing facing the fire, hair cascading down her back, gown crumpled but the curve of her behind still discernable, the profile of her features delicate. He nearly dropped the cordial. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever known, and even now it was nearly impossible to believe his good fortune.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, her sleepy eyes reflecting the flickering golden light. She accepted the cordial and sipped, took some time with it in her mouth, then swallowed, the sweetness of her throat’s movement working like a drug on him. Finally she set down the glass.

  The entire operation had taken far too long. His pulse pounded. Curving his hands around her shoulders, he drew her back against his chest, bent to her neck, and breathed her in. No heavy perfume now, only her scent-sweet, stubborn, intoxicating Viola.

  “Tell me where you wish to be touched.” He stroked back her hair and set his lips to the nape of her neck where she was perfect woman. Everywhere she was perfect woman. But he would begin here.

  Her breaths came fast. With such a slight touch, he could do this to her. He could almost pretend that she had been made for his hands. Hands that had made men suffer in the most brutal fashion.

  “What do you mean, where do I wish to be touched?” she whispered.

  He kissed her shoulder, the curve of feminine beauty. “A lady deserves to be touched where she wishes it,” he murmured against her skin, watching the peaks of her breasts barely hidden at the edge of her garments grow taut. He wanted his tongue there. He needed to taste her everywhere. “Only where she wishes it.”

  “Where, on me?”

  He smiled. “Where, on you.”

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “Where, Viola?”

  “Everywhere,” she whispered.

  He knelt. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”

  “What are you doing?” But she obeyed. He lifted her foot and removed first one shoe, then the other. “Oh, yes. I hate those slippers. Hate them.”

  “We will burn them when we are through here.” He stroked his hand up the inside of her calf, then her thigh.

  She leaned into his touch. “I don’t ever want to be through here.” Her palm flew to her mouth. “What I mean to say is- Ohh.”

  He had intended only to unfasten her garters. That touching her body made him insane with need and prone to behave contrary to his intentions could not, however, be regretted. She was beauty incarnate, and already slick for him. She moved her hips against his fingers.

  “There,” she whispered, eyes closed, head back. “I want to be touched there.”

  Softly he caressed her, then not so softly as her breaths came faster and her knees parted. Then she was pushing herself onto his hand, begging with her body, and whimpering. It happened quickly, and the ecstasy upon her face awed him and made him hard beyond endurance. She cried out, thrust against him, and her mouth opened in a sweet, rich moan.

  She collapsed into his embrace.

  “I-I-” She caught her breath, twining her arms about his neck. “I do not want to do it standing up wearing clothes again.”

  “I was actually trying to remove yours just then.”

  “Well, you didn’t do a very good job of it.” Her eyes were alight. She began unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat. “Ladies and gentlemen wear far too many garments.” She pushed it over his shoulders.

  “Perhaps to discourage this very activity.” He shrugged out of the waistcoat and she tugged his shirt up and off. Her hands spread on his chest and she stared at them. At him.

  He had never, even with her before, been so ready for a woman.

  “Oh, Jin,” she murmured, “if all gentlemen were fashioned like you, ladies would need quite a lot more garments to discourage them from stripping naked on the street every day.”

  He laughed, but it came forth a bit strangled. “Thank you, I think.”

  “Thank you, most certainly,” she breathed, making an exploration of his chest with her fingertips that left him needing her hands on him entirely. But something was different.

  He grasped her wrist and brought her palm up to the firelight.

  “Your skin-”

  She grabbed his hand, covered her breast with it, and exhaled audibly.

  “My skin has been filed raw.” She reached behind her back. “Ladies do not have calluses. But it doesn’t matter, because callused or smooth I still cannot get out of this damned gown by myself. At this moment I absolutely despise being a lady. Jin, undress me now. Please undress me.”

  “So gracious in your demands.” He slid his hands around to her back and started on the tiny hooks.

  “Of course. I don’t like how all these people who came into this house today for the party never said please or thank you to anyone. Don’t they know you
can catch more bees with- Ahh.” She leaned back into his palms. “Thank you. You are much quicker than Jane with the stays.”

  “I have good reason to be.” He kissed her neck, silk and lace and sparkling fabric sliding through his fingers until she came into his hands wearing only the thinnest shift. She pulled it off and threw it aside.

  “Thank God. Now you needn’t serve me any longer… in that capacity.” A maidenly flush stole across the cheeks of the beautiful woman straddling his lap, naked of all but stockings and garters. Jin stared and he thought perhaps he was trembling. For the first time he could recall. Trembling.

  “Viola?” His voice barely sounded above his thundering heart.

  “Y-yes?” she whispered. She stroked a single fingertip down his waist, pausing at the front fall of his trousers. “What?”

  “If you were to ask-whatever you asked of me-I would serve you.”

  She blinked a number of times, swiftly, her throat doing a little dance. Then she closed her eyes and, ever so deliberately, touched him.

  For the first time in his life, serving came quite easily.

  First she traced the contours of each muscle in his chest and arms, which was wonderfully satisfying although it did make her want to eat him with her teeth. And tongue. So she did so, a little. Since he seemed to enjoy that, and she enjoyed it quite a lot, she pushed him back onto his elbows so she could have greater access. He was made like a god. Rather, like her pharaoh statue, although a great deal larger, of course. And hot. And touching him, tasting him with her mouth like this, made her quite hot as well.

  “Viola.” His voice sounded taut. She jerked her head up. He was staring at the ceiling and breathing hard.

  “Is something wrong?” She spread her hands on his chest and moved up his body to kiss him on his jaw, the day’s shade of whiskers wonderfully rough to her lips.

  “On the contrary.” His eyes were liquid sapphires, like the sea. “But at the risk of sounding impatient, I am-”

  “Impatient?”

  “Eager to consummate the moment.”

  “That is the same thing.”

  “Not entirely.” He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, drew her to him and kissed her, then murmured against her lips, “And might you consider not arguing now?” He released her to remove his trousers. Viola got all quivery inside.

  “Y-yes.” She snapped her gaze back to his face. His eyes glimmered with amusement. “No. I mean to say, no, I will argue if I wish to, or if there is suitable cause to-”

  He pulled her onto his lap and quite abruptly she had nothing whatsoever to argue about with him.

  They made love. She did not argue. He did not tease or make her suffer, not in the usual manner, at least. But he did serve her as he said he would, although she did not need to ask him to do so.

  Perhaps it was this serving that altered the rhythm of their desire for each other. Or perhaps it was the wonder that trembled in her from the beauty and sobriety in his eyes as he touched her. For shortly there was heard no laughter, no clever ripostes, no demands or even reasonable expressions of gratitude. There were instead the soft sounds of pleasure freely given and fervently taken, and the thunder of hearts poised on the brink of that greatest and most thrilling abyss.

  Viola fell into the abyss quite willingly. In truth, she had fallen months ago and would not, she realized now, ever climb out of it no matter how she tried. Jin held her tight, his strong arms banded around her, face buried in her shoulder. Every nerve strained toward the completion he would give her, she trailed her fingertips down his back.

  “Jin?”

  He looked into her eyes, and the intensity of his gaze knocked the air from her lungs. There was distance there, and pain.

  Alarm sluiced through her. “Jin?”

  He dragged her off him, took her down onto her back on the soft rug, and thrust inside her. He groaned and pulled out entirely, then thrust again.

  “Ohh.” It felt so good. Better than good. She clung to his shoulders, meeting him with each powerful thrust he drove into her. Then more, and more. She grabbed the edge of the rug, steadying herself and arching beneath him to make it come faster, the need twining frantically. She fought for breath, fought against his punishing thrusts that pleased-such pleasure. Then, clutching his waist, she forced him to her. Again and again.

  When it came, it was deeper, harder, tearing her apart and bursting out her fingertips and toes. “Oh, my God.”

  “Christ, Viola.” He shuddered, his muscles like rock as he shook beneath her hands.

  She gulped in air, circled her arms about his shoulders, and welcomed his weight atop her.

  He did not remain long.

  “I am crushing you.” Every muscle in her body had gone lax, but his voice was strangely tight.

  “I don’t mind it much.” At all.

  “Nevertheless.” He drew away from her, onto his heels. But his gaze did not leave her. Simply, quietly, looking only into her eyes, he said, “Miss Carlyle, you are beautiful.”

  Through her exhaustion and thorough satisfaction, she attempted a saucy smile. “I am familiar now with the wicked flattery of gentlemen, sir. You are only saying that because you hope I will take you to my bed.”

  The edge of his mouth curved up the slightest bit. He scooped her into his arms. “Better late than never.” He laid her down on the thick coverings and she burrowed beneath, her damp skin cold in the night and the fading coal fire. Now he would dress and say something perfectly reasonable or perhaps infuriating, and he would leave. Then she would spend the next forty years sewing the pieces of her heart back together again.

  But he did not leave. Instead he lay down beside her and, as he had done at the inn, closed his eyes. It seemed to him the most natural thing in the world to do. Yet it turned her world upside down.

  Nerves ragged, she remained awake, staring at him for a long time. The handsome planes of his face did not soften in sleep but were enhanced into severity by the light of the dying embers. And slowly she saw what she had not seen before, a man wary and troubled, as though in sleep he could not conceal what he would never reveal when waking.

  It pulled at her heart. She wanted to know what worried him. She wanted more than anything to touch that delectable mouth and smooth the tension from his jaw, to wrap her arms around him and tell him that whatever he faced, he needn’t face it alone.

  But he would not take that well. He was a man who needed no one. She was coming to understand this, and it made her heart ache more than she had imagined possible.

  Still, she leaned toward him, her fingertips hungry for the grave line of his cheek.

  “Do you always have difficulty settling down to sleep?” His voice rumbled.

  She jerked back. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “As you might be as well.”

  Her heart thumped as it had when he first appeared in the corridor, but with a yearning so much more powerful.

  “I am afraid that if I sleep,” she whispered, “when I wake up you will be gone.”

  His eyes opened and the warmth in them seized not her breaths this time but her very soul. So, she supposed he owned that too now, not merely her heart.

  He turned onto his shoulder and cupped her face in his big palm, and passed his thumb gently across her lower lip.

  “I will not go.”

  “You did upon each of the other occasions.” She didn’t care that she was revealing herself. She loved him so thoroughly.

  “If you do not wish it, Viola, I will not go.”

  She wanted to ask if he meant only tonight or this week or forever. But the courage that had seen her through kidnapping and tempests and grief and loneliness deserted her. She could not bear to hear his reply now because she knew what it would be. Tonight she wanted, for one precious moment, to be only with him and imagine it would last forever.

  She leaned forward and placed her lips on his. His hand moved to the back of her head and he kissed her softly, te
nderly, making her imagine that he cared for her. He had a truly black heart to string her along like this. If she were a typical flimsy sort of female she might be devastated when he did leave. Fortunately she was made of sterner stuff.

  She drew away, pulled the covers to her chin and, feet and heart both quite sore, finally she slept.

  Chapter 26

  He woke her before dawn with kisses. First on her mouth, then her cheeks and neck, rousing her gradually, then not so gradually when his hand cupped her breast. With his fingertips he caressed the peak, then with his tongue. She murmured her consent and pleasure. Eyes closed, she slid her arms about his waist and welcomed him to her.

  This time it was different. They knew each other’s bodies, the familiarity of skin and heat, and they moved slowly, luxuriously savoring their joining. There was no urgency or haste, only the perfection of form and feeling uniting into one.

  At first.

  Soon enough they might as well have been standing up in a closet again for all the luxurious savoring they did. Still, they enjoyed it, athletically and considerably, despite the early hour and paucity of sleep.

  “I-” He exhaled hard into her hair. “I did not intend that.”

  “Truly?” She ran her palms over his broad shoulders and along his back, wishing he never had to leave the place between her thighs and suspecting that in terms of feminine modesty, in this she was a complete failure. “The bed did not knock against the wall as I expected it to. Did you notice?”

  “Nothing.” His voice was quite rough. “I noticed nothing but you.”

  Her heartbeats halted, which was quite silly of them because of course he had noticed nothing but her. What man wouldn’t under the circumstances?

  A lock of dark hair fell across his eyes and his mouth curved into a tilt. “I intended only to kiss you.”

  “Admit it.” Bravado might save her. “You have no control over your actions with me.” But looking into his sparkling eyes, she doubted it. Nothing could save her now.

  “Little,” he agreed. “Enough, however, to leave here before a servant appears.” He pulled away, drew on his trousers and took up his shirt, then returned to the mattress and sat beside her. “Are you satisfied?”