Wages of Sin (Regency Rebelles Book 1)

by Jen Yates

  ‘Pa—’

  ‘You want my letter too?’

  He shook his head violently.

  ‘Pa—pa.’

  ‘Paper? You want paper?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You want to write something?’

  Another nod.

  Understanding what he wanted brought her a measure of peace and she laid a fresh piece of paper on the desk, eased her chair aside and pushed his closer until he sat at the desk.

  His first effort was a wild splatter of the ink and after several determined tries he'd managed a recognizable ‘L’ and pointed to it.

  Liberty gazed at it for a moment, then said, ‘Like? Love?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Liberty?’

  ‘L’ always brought Levi to her mind, but Justin was not likely to mention him and she certainly wasn't going to.

  Then he scrawled a recognizable ‘m’, looked at her then added i l l.

  ‘Mill?’ Liberty whispered.

  Justin nodded and pointed the quill at the ‘L’. She could no longer deny what he was trying to say.

  ‘Levi?’

  Justin nodded again.

  ‘Yes.’

  Dear God, that was clear enough, but the sounds he was struggling to make now were testing her unbearably. For try as she might, all she could think he was saying was ‘go to him’.

  Then he pointed at ‘mill’ and thrust the quill towards the door, saying the words again.

  ‘Go to him?’ Liberty asked slowly.

  His twisted face finally broke into a smile and he nodded seriously.

  Liberty shook her head violently.

  ‘No, Justin. That’d not be right.’

  He tried to say more and tears fountained from her eyes.

  ‘Goddammit, I wish I could understand you clearly.’

  His grey eyes blazed fiercely for a moment and then he began struggling to write again.

  ‘TELL ME,’ he wrote.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘’Bout,’ he said and pointed at the ‘L’.

  ‘Tell you about Levi?’

  He dropped the quill on the desk and reached for her hand, and began making excited efforts at speech.

  ‘You want me to tell you about Levi?’

  Good God. Could she? Could she not?

  ‘We grew up together here. Longie, our governess, is his mother. He used to come with her everyday—like Rose still does. He was two years older than me but if there was mischief to be found we were always in it up to our necks—together. Swimming naked in the lake was the last straw for Papa. I was ten, Levi twelve at the time. Papa decreed he could no longer come to the Hall. So he began taking his lessons with the vicar in the mornings and helping his father in the mill and the stables in the afternoons. Ever since, we've left each other messages in a bottle in a hole in the lightning tree—an old oak down by the river that was struck by lightning just as we climbed out of it. I feel—right—when I'm with Levi,’ she admitted at last and subsided into silence, but her fingers kept twisting together in her lap.

  What was he thinking? She had probably done a very poor job of concealing her feelings for Levi from him.

  Looking up to gauge the level of pain she’d inflicted and intending to soften it by reminding him she'd come to hold him in her affections, she was startled to find his grey eyes peaceful and the good side of his mouth quirked in a tiny smile.

  He tried to say something, then picked up the quill and began the laborious struggle to shape letters again.

  ‘Go → L.’

  ‘Go to Levi?’

  He nodded once, decisively.

  Liberty had to swallow several times before she could answer him.

  ‘You’re a good man, Justin. I'm glad I've come to understand that and—I'm privileged to be your wife. I do believe Levi and I will be together—when the time is right. That time is not yet. We both understand that. But—thank you.’

  Gently she lent in and wrapped her arms about his boney shoulders and pressed her lips to his forehead.

  ***

  Chapter 10.

  The day Dr. Abbott decreed it would be perfectly safe for Justin to make the journey to Earnslaw was a bitter awakening for Liberty.

  Nothing at Earnslaw attracted her. It didn’t feel like home and she could never feel as easy taking care of Justin there as she did here at Stannesford. She didn’t want to be banished into Wiltshire just when Charity was due home from school—along with Lucy Wolfenden and Raquelle Adderley. There would be lightness and laughter about the place again.

  The only company likely to grace the austere halls of Earnslaw was that of Gareth and Astoria, or heaven forbid, George.

  In the weeks since Justin had told her to go to Levi she’d managed to resist the temptation of actually having his permission to do that which her whole being craved.

  Go to Levi.

  But occasionally meeting him while out riding and being able to chat with him about the mundane happenings of their lives had allowed her to keep the worst of the longing at bay.

  Dr. Abbott only called once a week now and always stayed for a cup of tea with the Earl and Countess of Stannesford thereafter. Justin and Liberty also usually joined them.

  ‘You know,’ the good doctor said, doubtless believing he was stating something they'd all been hanging out for, ‘Lord Earnslaw could probably make the trip home to Wiltshire now without cause for concern and may even benefit from being in his own home with familiar things surrounding him.’

  A light had come into Justin’s eyes at this idea then faded just as quickly as it had come, as his gaze came to rest on Liberty.

  She had become quite adept at reading her husband's thoughts and knew immediately he had brightened at the idea of going home, and just as quickly abandoned his own desires in deference to what he believed were hers.

  She truly did not deserve him. Again and again he’d shown he would sacrifice himself to her happiness if he possibly could. And dear God, she was tempted to let him.

  After the doctor left, Brant came and took Justin to his room for a nap. Liberty rose with the intention of donning a cloak and boots and braving the autumn wind for a walk in the orchard.

  ‘Dr. Abbott is right, Libby,’ her father said. ‘Justin would likely improve immensely if back in his own surroundings. It's not that I wish to see you leave—’

  ‘But you would feel much easier if we did?’

  Papa sat in the big leather chair by the library fire where they’d just finished their tea, Mama opposite him with her embroidery on her lap and Dr. Abbott had just taken his leave. A muscle tensed and released in Papa's jaw, a sure sign he was a little agitated.

  ‘It has to be said that while you remain here I cannot be easy.’

  Their days at Stannesford were numbered, that message was clear in the deep blue of her father's eyes.

  Something akin to panic lodged in her chest.

  She had to warn Levi. She’d not go without seeing him one more time.

  ***

  He had the plans of a magnificent bedroom dresser and dreams of lying in bed watching his wife sitting before the mirror brushing the rich fire-fall of her hair. It would glow like old copper in the candlelight and her eyes would shine like emeralds, rich and mysterious—filled with love—for him.

  God damn, he was tired and yet he knew once he stopped work and lay down, his mind would churn and his whole being would thrum with longing.

  Patience, he counseled himself, over and over.

  His body was not listening. Keeping himself busy until he fell asleep with the chisel in his hand was his only recourse.

  ‘Patience,’ he said into the silence of the night, shifted the lanterns for a better light, and carefully chiseled the horn of the unicorn on the top left drawer front.

  Liberty had been fascinated by the mythical animal when they were children and he knew his whimsy would delight her.

  And it was easy to imagine her rich, bright
laughter when she saw the dragons he would carve on the chest of drawers for himself. He yawned, and stopped to run his finger over the last two gouges with the chisel, testing for smoothness. It was late. He really should stop. But from experience he knew he still wouldn't sleep. Might as well keep—

  Knocking on the door downstairs stayed his hand—and his thoughts.

  At this hour?

  Heart pounding in time with his feet, he held a lantern aloft and hurried down the stairs.

  He knew. In every fiber of his being, he knew.

  ‘Liberty Lou? What are you doing here?’

  He should step out that door and walk her home, return her to the safety and security of Stannesford Hall. Save them both from the maw of temptation yawning in the silence and privacy of the loft above them.

  She reached for him. He clasped her to his chest with his free arm and hauled her into the shadows of the entryway, kicking the door shut with his foot.

  Liberty in his arms—he needed to put the damned lantern down. He set it on the bottom step, then gave in to the blind instinct to hold her close, to taste her, brand her, love her.

  ‘What are you doing here, Lou? What's wrong?’ he managed to rasp between hungry forays into her mouth.

  ‘Upstairs—please, Levi.’

  Picking up the lantern and clamping his lips against the barrage of questions he wanted to fire at her, he led the way upstairs. By the time his hands were free again, Liberty had thrown off her cloak and launched herself into his arms.

  ‘God, Levi, love me, just love me.’

  He'd had questions.

  What questions?

  With Liberty Louise in his arms begging for love, questions were forgotten.

  And there was no question of his willingness to comply.

  With fingers flying, with moans and whispered incitements to hurry, their clothes fell away to lie discarded among the wood shavings on the floor and when at last they stood naked together, Levi hauled her up into his arms and carried her through and laid her on his bed.

  ‘Don't move,’ he ordered, ‘while I get the lantern. I want to see you here—on my bed—like this.’

  He was back almost before he'd finished speaking, placing a lantern either side of the bed then staring down at her, lying across the patchwork quilt Granny Joan had given him, her legs hanging off the side.

  She had such long shapely legs, his beautiful Lou. The womanly vee of curls at the junction of her thighs was the same rich auburn as her hair.

  And the hated freckles that dotted her face faded completely on her chest, leaving her breasts a creamy confection of translucence.

  She came up on her elbows, her eyes slowly caressing the length of his body.

  ‘You’re so beautifully built, Levi. Every muscle so clearly defined. Like a sculpture. I want to touch you, trace you.’

  Coming up off the bed, she laid her hands against his chest and let her fingers follow the indentations of muscle, the ridges of his ribs, the triangle at his hips, the long corded muscles up his thighs—his cock straining upwards against his belly in an urgency of wanting.

  Gripping her shoulders, he bore her down to the bed, and claimed her mouth.

  ‘Love me, please,’ she husked.

  He was beyond arguing, beyond thought. All that registered was Lou, in his arms, naked, begging. A chorus of angels could have been singing, ‘Patience, patience, patience. Honor, honor, honor,’ and he’d not have heard them.

  ‘I love you, Lou,’ and he surrendered to the desire driving his body to show her. ‘Dammit, you're so ready for me.’

  ‘Yes! Love me, Levi. Make me yours. Give me all of you.’

  ‘You have all of me, my darling. Always.’

  With wild mingling cries of ecstasy he thrust and withdrew, faster and harder, as she urged him on.

  But he was determined, regardless of the desperate rush of need, that Lou would reach her peak before he allowed his own completion. She was so precious, so desperate.

  Her breathing became deeply erratic and harsh and her sheath began to clench around his cock and he almost lost it. Gritting his teeth, he withdrew and thrust again, then withdrew and reached between them to find the tiny knot of nerves, caressing it firmly until she screamed.

  A long drawn out gasping howl of his name. He fastened his mouth over hers to absorb the wildness of it and gave in to the demands of his body and pumped to oblivion.

  Lou. Naked. In his arms.

  It was the stuff of his dreams yet he wasn't dreaming.

  Holding her close, he tried to retain the dreamy state of no thinking. But all too soon his brain kicked back to awareness.

  ‘We agreed to wait. You were not going to break your vows. What has changed?’

  ‘Justin. He gets better daily and Dr. Abbott has said he believes he could now handle the journey to Earnslaw—and Papa—has indicated he would feel easier if we were to return there—especially after my visit here the other day.’

  ‘That was foolish, Lou.’

  ‘I know. God, Levi, I know. Sometimes the pain of not seeing you is more than I can bear.’

  He buried his lips in her hair.

  ‘I know, love. I know.’

  ‘And Justin told me—gave me permission—sent me!’

  ‘Justin—sent you—to me?’

  What manner of man had she married? Her hands cupped his face, thumbs caressing the stubble on his jaw. He’d have shaved if he’d known she would come this night.

  ‘Yes. He tried so hard to talk, then he took the quill right out of my hand and tried to write. ‘L’ he managed first and when I kept guessing any word but Levi, he wrote m i l l. Then he asked me to tell him about you. Can you imagine? He's a good man, Levi. He wanted to know and then he told me to go to you. I told him it wasn't right, wasn't time—that we would wait. But—if we return to Earnslaw, I won't even be able to see you occasionally.’

  ‘He told you to come to me? Gave you permission to see me? The man is a saint.’

  And made him feel like he’d kicked a puppy.

  ‘It still feels as if I'm breaking my vows—I am breaking my vows—but it's not so bad as if he hadn't—urged it. I still wouldn't have come except—I didn't want to leave without telling you—and now the idea has been mooted I don't know when Papa will suddenly take it into his head to send us home to Earnslaw. But I'm not going—unless he or Justin insist on it.’

  Her hands were in his hair, shaping his face, his jaw, her eyes glowing softly in the lamplight. She was memorizing him.

  His heart swelled with the desperate longing for it to always be like this.

  Lou his to love.

  Sharing his life.

  His bed.

  He nibbled her fingers, sucking them into his mouth one at a time, then stole her lips, kissing and delving into the heat of her mouth until she was moaning softly again. Then he nibbled, licked and suckled down the satin planes of her chest to the rosy nipples beading and puckering in anticipation of his attentions.

  Even thoughts of her sick husband couldn’t keep him from her.

  This time he would savor and worship every inch of her body before bringing her to a point of mindless need, which would incite him beyond resistance.

  As they lay, bodies entwined in a tangle of blissful satiation, he murmured into her hair, ‘If you think he would care to hear it, please convey my gratitude to Justin. We’ve had so little—yet what we have had I give thanks for. It’s so much more than we should have rightfully expected. Are you hungry, love? I have a large piece of Granny Joan’s pound cake, if you’d like it. It also might be better if we get up because it would not be good if we fell asleep—but I'm not ready to let you go yet.’

  ‘Cake and—can you make a pot of tea here? Or is that all done in the mill house?’

  ‘I can make you tea—on the spirit burner. Come on.’

  He found her a warm shirt to wear like a robe and a pair of socks for her feet, put on his own trousers and shirt and carried th
e lamps back into the other room.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Liberty muttered, picking up her clothes item-by-item and shaking the wood shavings from them before hanging them over the back of a hand-carved rocking chair.

  Levi looked up from lighting the spirit stove. Lou seemed worried.

  ‘The only brush I have is the hearth brush but you'd better use it on that cloak, love. Wood shavings might be a little hard to explain away. Can't have anyone thinking you've been rolling about in the stables with—’

  ‘—the miller's son,’ Liberty finished for him in a gruff imitation of her father. Then she shot him an oddly vulnerable glance. ‘Why are we laughing? That's not funny. I think—Papa would make it very difficult for you here in Stannesford—if he knew. I—I should not have come.’

  Levi set a pot of water on the burner, put tea leaves in the teapot, cut two slices of cake and set them on a plate. Then he crossed to where Libby was brushing furiously at the dark woolen cloak with the brush from the hearth, tears glistening on her lashes. If anything, she was brushing the finer shavings deeper into the wool.

  ‘Give it to me,’ he said. ‘I've got a better brush downstairs. Watch the pot. Make the tea when it boils.’

  Taking a lantern he went down into the dark stables, hung the cloak over the rails of an empty stall and brushed it down thoroughly with a new, clean horse brush.

  He worked fast, reluctant to miss a moment of this stolen time with Lou. It felt—domestic. Cozy. Him downstairs working, her upstairs making tea.

  Did she know how?

  The thought stabbed at his heart, halting his momentum as he started back up the stairs. There had been little they hadn't known about each other until he was twelve and she ten, but what did he really know of the young woman she was now?

  Did she still believe in unicorns? Slide down the bannisters when no-one was around to see? Draw weird gargoyle figures when she doodled with a piece of charcoal?

  Setting his feet to the stairs he galloped up, draped the cloak carefully over the back of the chair and turned to where Lou was examining the drawer front currently locked in his wood vice.

  ‘Do you still like unicorns, Lou?’

  She laughed, a watery sort of a hiccup and he realized she was crying.