CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Brace yourself, Humphrey. Such provocative behavior invariably garners a reaction of equal severity.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to her boon companion, Humphrey, upon said companion’s ill-advised incitement of a prospective mate’s temper.
He was going to torture his wife with pleasure. Before the end of this night, she would understand she belonged with him and no one else. Not Holstoke. Not daft Hastings. Not any other man.
Him.
Bloody hell, he’d never been so incensed as the moment she’d implied she regretted their marriage. He suspected she’d only said it to hurt him, but that did not make the wound any less severe.
He began where he knew she was most sensitive—those round, blushing breasts with their tight, pink nipples. “When judging fleshly compatibility, one must consider, above all, one’s response to stimulus.” With one hand bracing her lower back, he used his other to plump and tease her left breast, watching her eyes fall to half-mast as his thumb repeatedly stroked the ever-hardening tip. “There, now. You see? Perfect.”
Her hands came up to his shoulders. She stood on her toes and tried to rub her body against his.
“No, no, pet.” His arm secured her waist and kept her in position. “One experiment at a time, if you please.”
“Kiss me, Henry,” she pleaded.
He resumed stroking her nipple, giving it subtle little pumps of pressure between his thumb and finger. “Are you feeling warm?”
She moaned and nodded.
“How are your legs? A bit weak?”
“God, yes.”
“Perhaps you’d care to lie down.”
“Only if you are on top of me.”
His cock throbbed like a pulsating wound in agreement. “Not yet,” he whispered into the orange-blossom curls at her temple. His fingers lengthened and kneaded her nipple, drawing the sensation deeper, pushing her harder. “First, why don’t you lie on the bed, and we shall resume our study of compatibility.”
“R-resume?”
He removed his hands.
She swayed in place, her eyes flaring at the sudden loss. “Henry!” she snapped hoarsely.
“Lie down, pet.” His voice was quiet, but his tone deliberately firm. She responded well to commands, at least when he promised her pleasure. It was something to remember for the future.
She huffed irritably, but walked to the bed and threw back the quilt, climbing onto the mattress and lying on her back. He took a moment to savor the creamy curves and rosebud nipples and downy thatch that matched her sunlit brown hair.
This time, she expressed her impatience by groaning his name and grinding her lush hips into the mattress. “I have done as you asked. Touch me now.”
The white-hot magnitude of his arousal made the light brighter around him. Made his skin unbearably tight, his cock unbearably hard.
He moved to the bed, his head filled with all the ways he could ensure her surrender—watching her wrap those secretive lips around him, take him deep inside her mouth, for example.
No, he was too close to the edge for that. He needed to control both himself and her.
“Place your hands above your head, love.”
“Why?”
“So we might see whether we are compatible.”
Her eyes grew mutinous. “Don’t be silly. I want to touch you.”
He crossed his arms and waited.
Within seconds, she hissed in annoyance and did as he’d requested. The position of her arms stretching upward raised her breasts higher. “Happy?”
No. He’d be happy when she admitted she was his wife, and that nothing could ever take her from him. “Better,” he murmured. “Now, keep them there.”
“Henry, are you going to kiss me?”
He traced the nipple he’d neglected earlier with a fingertip. It grew pearl-hard in appreciation. “Yes, pet.”
Sighing and squirming, she thrust her breast toward his hand. “When?”
He met her eyes. “Now.”
With that, he gripped her behind her knees and spread her beautiful white thighs. He climbed between them and wedged them wider with his shoulders.
“Oh, dear heavens.” She panted as though she’d raced uphill. “Like in the kitchen?”
“Hmm.” He drew two fingers down through her glistening folds. She was pink and wondrous, wet and swollen. “I watched you today, you know.” He slid two fingers inside her.
She arched on a keening cry, gripping the pillow beneath her head and grinding her hips upward. “I—I saw you, too. Through the window. I thought I was … going to burn to ashes inside my own skin.”
For the first time that evening, he grinned. He’d seen her response. In her eyes. Her lush, open lips. He’d wanted to bend her over that old, scarred table and make her scream in pleasure. He’d feared burning to ashes, himself.
“I like watching you cook, pet.” Had she any idea how much, she would never let him in her kitchen again, at least not if she wanted to finish preparing a meal.
“I like watching you eat,” she whispered. “So very much.”
The confession surprised him. He rewarded her with a firm thrust of his fingers and a long stroke of his tongue upon her needy little nub. She gifted him with another high, breathless moan, and her tight sheath gave a warning ripple.
She was close. He repeated his strokes, taking her pleasure on his tongue. Vanilla, honey, and Maureen. How she obsessed him. How she maddened him.
Sudden and sharp, her peak came. He suckled and stroked and pumped his fingers inside her, letting her sob and writhe and clench, giving her the completion she needed. When she relaxed into the mattress, panting and flushed, he kissed her inner thigh and asked, “So, pet. How compatible would you say my fingers are with your—”
“Henry!”
“Perhaps we should try again.”
Her head rocked side to side on the pillow. “No. I can’t possibly.”
He tsked and flickered his fingers, curling them just so. “Nonsense. Compatibility is important. One must be diligent.”
She swallowed, eyeing him nervously. “What—what are you …?”
He found the spot he’d been seeking.
Her back bowed and her hoarse shout echoed across every inch of oak paneling.
He pressed harder. Leaned in to suckle her sweet nub with firm draws of his lips and tongue.
Her thighs squeezed his shoulders with astounding force. Her heels dug hard into the mattress. She cried his name over and over, every syllable leaching another drop of his anger, easing the edge of his temper. Finally, the rush of blood in his ears dimmed, and he could hear her sobbing that the pleasure was too much. She was begging him to let her rest.
He would not, of course, but he would pause for a moment before resuming. “I shall require an answer, wife. Compatible?”
She groaned.
He pressed again.
“Yes! Yes, Henry. We are compatible.”
It was not enough. He withdrew his fingers and climbed her silken belly. Worked his way north to her nipples. Began suckling and nibbling the firm, luscious tips, using his teeth and tongue while she moaned incoherently and attempted to force her hips up into his. He growled, “My mouth and your nipples, pet. Compatible?”
“Oh, God. Yes. Yes. Yes. Compatible.”
He flipped her onto her belly. Pulled her up onto her knees. Gathered her lush, silken hair into his hand and swept it over her shoulder so he could position his mouth near her ear.
“Now, I want you to focus, love. Concentrate very hard.”
He took his cock in hand and slid it slowly into her drenched sheath. She was swollen and fist-tight. He gave her a moment to accommodate him, and himself a moment to regain control, for he’d never been quite this aroused before.
“How does it feel?”
Soft white hands clawed into the bedclothes. “Henry,” she sobbed. “Please.”
He gave her a hard thrust. “Tell me, Maureen.” And another. And a third. Each deeper and harder than the last. “Compatible?”
She grasped his wrist where his arm braced beside her. “Com-compatible, Henry. So bloody compatible I think I shall go mad.”
He nibbled her ear, teasing the lobe with his teeth as one hand came up to caress her pouting breast. “Then, I daresay to call us incompatible would be a lie, would it not?”
To emphasize his point, he pounded inside her several more times, letting her hitching moans soothe his outrage at her earlier claim. She squeezed him rhythmically now, her sheath desperate, her fingers clutching and clawing his wrist. She turned her head and bit his biceps, then soothed the nip with her tongue.
He was not the only one feeling savage, it would seem.
In reward, he gave her what he could—a drumming cadence they both seemed to need. And as she began to seize upon him, arching her back and sobbing, he extracted what he most desired from her—a confession. “Say you are my wife, Maureen.”
“Ah!” Her breath sawed in and out, her skin damp and her scent filling his head to the exclusion of all else. “I—I am yours, Henry.”
“My wife.”
“Yes, your wife.”
“And I am your husband. I love you more than you will ever understand. More than anything in heaven or hell. More than anything on this bloody earth. I will kill ten thousand men before allowing anyone to harm you. So long as I live, you will be safe. Do you hear me?”
The hand that had been around his wrist reached up to cup his cheek. “I hear you,” she whispered.
He shoved deep inside her, sinking to the root. He cupped her wondrous breast and kissed her beautiful neck. And he felt the first signals of her culmination quaking around him as her soft hand threaded his hair and drew him to her mouth.
He kissed his wife fully, tenderly. Loving her secretive lips and savoring the stroke of her hand along his cheek. Finally, as her belly began to ripple and her soft cries of ecstasy echoed against his mouth, he let the undulating force of Maureen’s pleasure carry him willingly—happily—into the shoals of his own pinnacle. It battered him. Shattered him. Wrung him dry.
When the waves receded, he took his Maureen into his arms. Held her as tightly as he could. She laid her head upon his shoulder and gently brushed the damp hair away from his brow. Her lips found his neck. Her thigh covered his. Her sighs soothed him.
In the dark, he heard the soft, snuffling strains signaling her descent into slumber. And for the first time since awakening to a nightmare, he kissed his precious, passionate, snoring woman, and fell asleep with a smile.
*~*~*
Over the following twelve days, Maureen fell into a rhythm with Henry. She awakened each morning in his arms having spent the night in pleasurable splendor. He often began by kissing her neck or whispering devilish things in her ear that made her laugh and then groan and then turn over to trap him in a kiss.
At the hunting lodge, breakfast was a simple affair prepared by Martha and laid out on several trays in the dining room. Maureen at first avoided cooking another meal, worried that she’d embarrassed herself with her dinner their first night, but Henry wouldn’t have it.
“Don’t be ridiculous, pet,” he said as they strolled along the banks of the pond on the third day, tossing scraps of stale bread to the ducks. “Martha was right. You have a remarkable talent for cookery, and anyone who tastes your food would be daft to say otherwise. You love it. Why should you avoid doing something you love?”
She sighed and threw a cube of bread as far as she could, watching the ducklings swim behind their mother toward the treat. “Countesses don’t cook. That is the rule.”
He cast her a look over his shoulder, raising a brow. “I seem to recall a friend telling me once that the rules are rubbish.”
She glanced at his face, trying to judge his sincerity. Despite having known the man for years and being in love with him for the last two, she found herself curious about him—the real Henry. She’d decided that regarding him as not-Henry was to imagine that no part of the man she’d fallen in love with had been real. And that was wrong. The Henry with whom she’d been infatuated—the charming, dapper, amusing Lord Dunston—was a part of him, she discovered. It was his hidden half—the darker, quieter, deadlier part—that she was now coming to know.
“Well,” she answered pertly. “Your friend sounds very wise. If she says it is permissible, then I suppose I should dispense with concerns about propriety. Dreadfully old-fashioned, in any case.”
He laughed and caught her around the waist, kissing her lips and knocking her bonnet askew.
That very day, she took his advice and began helping Martha prepare dinner. At first, the questioning frowns from the other servants disturbed her—not all households were as tolerant of eccentricity as Berne House.
However, Henry made a cake of himself demonstrating his appreciation as they sat at opposite ends of the table. With loud sighs and groans and rolling eyes, he expressed delight in every morsel, lavishing her with praise, making her Huxley Flush rise and her belly ache with laughter. After his show of support softened the disapproving frowns of the staff, the devil spent another hour teasing her by devouring her creations with lingering, sensual bites.
Each night, of course, he made love to her with thrumming intensity and urgent purpose, as though his mission was to wring every ounce of pleasure from her body that she could bear. And then, another ounce more.
In turn, she explored every inch of him, including his scars. “Tell me truly,” she murmured on the fourth night, lazily stroking a fingertip the length of the scar on his thigh. “How did this happen?”
He grunted and shifted in the bed. “Why do you want to know?”
She kissed his belly and gazed up the length of his chest to meet his eyes. “Because you are so reluctant to say.”
His mouth quirked. “Curious little cat.”
“Tell me.”
He sighed. “A colleague and I were meeting a man who worked for Syder. After we concluded our … negotiations, my colleague departed, and I was set upon by three brigands.”
“Th-three?”
“Mmm. Should have been more, but one suspects they were not the sort to study mathematics.” His fingers sifted through her hair.
“More.” She snorted. “Really, Henry.”
He chuckled and shrugged. “My talents are legion. An onerous burden, but one I bear willingly.”
“Continue, please.”
“Ah, yes. Well, I was set upon, but I fear it was after I had imbibed too much Scottish whisky. My colleague was fond of the stuff at the time. In any event, the three chaps took their chances. They lost.”
“Henry,” she prompted when a long silence signaled he thought he had finished the story. “The wound to your thigh. How did you get it?”
“One of them had a sword. He attempted to … well, let us say, as my wife, you should be profoundly grateful he was a poor marksman.”
“Oh, dear God.”
“Yes, my sentiments precisely. I retrieved the sword from where it was lodged—”
“In your thigh.”
“—then I put the thing to better use. Slayed the dragons, as it were. Hoisted them on their own petard. Gave them their just—”
“Henry.”
“Apologies, pet.”
“Why should you hesitate to tell the story? You were wounded whilst defending yourself. That sounds heroic to me.”
She watched in fascination as Henry’s face grew suspiciously ruddy and his eyes dropped away from hers.
“Ghastly wound. Dreadful memories. I may be haunted forever.”
Narrowing her eyes, she muttered, “Rubbish. Do not make me use your full name. I shall do it, I warn you.”
He laughed, deep and delicious, his belly rippling beneath her cheek. “The aftermath of the story is rather less heroic, I fear. Unbeknownst to me, a crowd had gathered from a nearby tavern. It was dark where the battle began, but we soon came within the periphery of a streetlamp. The audience arrived in time to see the brigand thrust his blade in a location one scarcely likes to contemplate. Apparently, it was in shadow, so they assumed I had been …”
She swallowed her nausea. “Oh, my.”
“Hmm. I staggered nearer the light for the second act.”
“Removing the sword and—”
“Dispatching the evildoers. Yes.”
“So, they thought you had killed three men with the same weapon used to—”
“Render me a fine soprano.”
Her fingers covered her mouth.
“Pray, contain your mirth a moment longer, pet,” he said. “That is not the worst part.”
“What is the worst part?” she mumbled, caught between laughter and horror.
Sighing, he took on a look of weary resignation. “They gave me a moniker.”
No, disgust better described his expression. Disdain. Annoyance.
“A moniker?” she squeaked.
“Sabre.” He spat the word. Rolled his eyes. “I do not even own one. A man uses a sabre one bloody time to defend his most precious cargo, and forever after, he is known by that ludicrous title.”
She covered her face with both hands, seized by gasps of terrible, rising mirth. “Oh, God.”
“Go on, then. Laugh. But I warn you, wife, your punishment will match your amusement in severity.”
“It—it could have been worse.”
“You shan’t be comfortable walking for days, love. I shall bind you to this bed—”
“What if”—she stifled a series of giggles—“the tavern had instead been a theater? What if they had decided their hero was a performer?”
“Do not say it.”
“A lover of music.”
“Maureen.”
“Il castrato.”
“Good God, woman. Have you any idea how loathsome this subject is for a man?”
Only when her laughter had subsided did he trap her beneath him and begin her punishment. Unsurprisingly, he was a man of his word.
On the seventh night, she awakened to find him standing with his hands braced wide on either side of the window. He was painted silver by moonlight, the naked contours of his back and buttocks, muscled legs and sculpted arms a feast for her eyes.
“I love you, Henry Thorpe,” she whispered.
His head turned. A grim mouth eased and curved upward in a smile. “And I love you, Maureen Thorpe.”
On the tenth night, he tossed their quilt over his shoulder and coaxed her to follow him outside where a full moon held court among a thousand stars. Tugging her along behind him, he drew her down to the bank of the pond where the grass grew thick and high. The breeze was cool and soft, his hand warm and strong around hers. He laid the quilt atop the grass, then laid her atop the quilt, then stretched out beside her and tucked her close.
She listened to his heart beating through linen and flesh. Gazed up at stars sparking white trails through a sky the color of his eyes. Felt his palm settling possessively along the small of her back, his lips pressing her hair.
Suddenly, she knew.
He was leaving.
He was making memories for her because he was leaving.
“At Fairfield, there is a valley much like this one,” he murmured. “Ideal setting for a fish pond, I think. You must confirm my supposition when you see it, of course. But I think you will agree.”
She breathed his name.
“Shh, love.” He stroked her hair with the softest touch. “Let us lie here a while. Nights like this are a rarity. The last one I remember was your sister’s midsummer ball. God, you were an enchantress. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
Squeezing her eyes closed, she held him tighter, soothed herself with the sounds of the night—wind sighing through grass, frogs singing, owls hooting—and prayed she was mistaken.
On the eleventh morning, her suspicions were confirmed.
She found him talking with Stroud in the small stable behind the cottage, his chestnut hair lit by the graying light. Clutching her shawl around her shoulders, she slowed her pace, catching a piece of their conversation.
“… anywhere alone. You must remain by her side at all times, understand? Do whatever is necessary, Stroud. Nothing is more important.”
“I will keep her safe, my lord. Upon my honor.”
Henry set a hand upon the other man’s shoulder and nodded. He pushed away from the rail fence upon which he’d been leaning and moved to where Dag happily munched his breakfast.
Maureen watched him stroke Dag’s neck and give the animal a brisk pat with a lean, elegant hand.
“Please don’t go, Henry.”
He stiffened. “I must, pet.”
Fear—grinding and roiling—swelled inside her chest. The pain of it was a devouring void. “No. What you must do is stay with me. Here. I am your wife.”
He slowly closed the distance between them, coming around the edge of the stall to where she stood in the wide entrance. A strong wind buffeted her back. The line between shadow and daylight moved like a rising curtain across his features as he approached, revealing his solemnity. His resolve. “My wife, indeed. And you shall be at risk until the Investor is eliminated. That is unacceptable to me.”
“Leave the matter to Mr. Reaver. Hire more men to pursue him.”
“That might take years, love. We cannot hide here forever. And what of our children, hmm?” His palm settled over her belly, warming her there. “They must be safe, as well.”
She grasped his hand and pulled it to her mouth, laying a kiss upon the flesh at the base of his thumb, then another in the center of his palm. “Just a while longer, then. I beg of you …” Her voice contorted. She swallowed upon her fear, the gnawing agony at the center of her chest, her heart’s demand that she hold him. Keep him with her.
He gathered her close. Gently kissed her forehead. “You are all that matters to me. I need you to be safe.”
“I need you to be here.”
“Here will not help us. The Investor disposes of anyone who has knowledge of him. A boy who delivered a message. A woman who received it. Anyone. I must find him before he finds you.” He rubbed her back with soothing strokes.
She was not soothed. She was quaking for him. The fear gripped her insides until drawing breath was painful. “What are you going to do?”
“Return to London. Reaver is expecting me. I should have left days ago, but … well, you are an intoxicating minx, Lady Dunston. The extremity of my desire would shock your sensibilities.”
“Doubtful,” she said, laying her cheek against his chest and sliding her arms around his waist. “I find even your neck arousing.”
He chuckled, the sensual rumble echoing through whorls of her ear. “Bloody hell, Maureen. Little wonder I am mad for you.”
She wanted to beg him not to go. Blackmail him with complaints about his duplicity. Bribe him with endless lovemaking. She wanted to tie him to their bed and force him to remain where he would be safe. Unharmed. Alive.
His lips settled on the crown of her head then trailed down to her temple. “I would never leave you were it not necessary, love.”
The refrain of her own words from months ago forced hot tears to spill onto her cheeks. The raw wound in her chest expanded until it swallowed her.
Letting him go was going to tear her in two.
She wasn’t strong enough. All her life, she’d had her family surrounding her. Papa protected and indulged her. Mama directed and coddled her. Her brother and sisters counseled and commiserated with her. Then there had been Henry, hiding a part of himself and, yes, deceiving her in a most unforgivable manner. But he’d also been her friend, giving her strength and solace and shelter from the darkness lurking at the edges.
Now, Henry needed her to stand on her own. To be stronger than she’d ever been. To send him into battle with that darkness, knowing he might never return.
She wasn’t strong enough. God, she wasn’t strong enough for this.
The weakness shook her muscles and closed her throat. But for him, somehow, she found the words and spoke them anyway.
“Henry Edwin Fitzsimmons Thorpe. Come back to me whole and alive, or I shall never forgive you.”
*~*~*