Chapter Fifteen
The Fifth Week
It had been a long, hard night. Everett had cursed that he’d accepted the bargain that forfeited his ability to go to his wife and ravish her. She must need it as much as he did. But his honor restrained him, keeping him in his room and eventually in his bed, rather than with her.
When he woke as the sun rose about five in the morning, he was tired, frustrated, and ready to shout at Grace that when he’d said stay, she had promised to stay in his bed as well as Larksview. But that wasn’t true or fair. He jerked out of bed, threw on clothes without the help of his valet, and went out for a humid ride in the cool summer rain.
His black mood persevered through a wash and change of clothes, all the way until the breakfast room door was opened before him and Grace looked up with a guileless smile of welcome. There was no edge to her look, she was genuinely pleased to see him. She was the sun on a gray, rainy day. And all his unacknowledged fears that their night together had been an aberration, fell away.
“Good morning.” For the first time since one minute past twelve last night, it was true.
Everett drank coffee as Grace told him about the tasks they were to do that day, encouraged by her use of the word “we” when she’d said, “We must visit each of the farmers caring for the saved cattle herd.”
He didn’t know what it had meant that she hadn’t come to him last night, and he still hoped that she would tonight. But he’d feared all the affinity they had developed was gone.
…
“I was wondering, shall we visit Anna and Mary?” Everett asked as they slowed from a trot to a walk.
They were riding back from checking on the group of Mr. Evan’s herd being tended by Mr. Walker. Only minutes before, they’d been talking about Mrs. Walker’s cold. Over the last several days, they’d visited nearly all the farmers minding the small number of cattle remaining. It was a relief to find them doing well, with no current illness, and Grace had been feeling quite content.
“We can’t.” Her heart jolted with longing. Little Mary would be just a few months old, growing quickly and beginning to test her lungs and the grip of her tiny hands. But as quickly as the wish to say yes overtook her, she knew they couldn’t. “Why would you want to?”
Everett’s grip tightened on the reins. “Such things bother me.”
He had all the people across the estate to worry about, and still he thought of her concerns. Her heart gave a little flip even as her back prickled. It wasn’t his job to worry about Anna. That was what she did.
“I’d love to, but it could put Anna in danger of being revealed.” An unmarried woman pretending to be a widow would be vulnerable to the smallest stray piece of gossip.
“You can’t visit Henry because of Lord Rayner, I understand that. But you don’t have to deny yourself the opportunity to see everyone you care about.”
There was a brief silence between them, only the clop of the horses as their hooves hit the muddy ground.
“What story did you create for Anna, which means you cannot visit?” There was no inflection in his question.
Grace stroked her mare’s neck, the black hair dense beneath her gloves. “We remained as close to the truth as possible, so as to be easy to recollect.”
Everett nodded. Somehow, the enormous sky above them and his acceptance made opening the story to the light possible. She explained the imaginary life they had mixed up for Anna.
Anna had been Grace’s lady’s maid, that much stayed the same. While working at Alnott House, Anna and had met, fallen in love with, and married a young man also in her employ. “Well, it’s almost true,” Grace said when Everett raised his eyebrows.
They’d decided Anna’s husband died in an accident while working. Anna had relished the particularly grizzly end her gardener husband had come to, imagining it was the man who deserved such an end. Then, the Alnotts felt guilty about the accident and had provided her with a widow’s pension as recompense. Anna was apparently so distressed by the death of her beloved that she had to move away from the home she and her love had made together. So, she lived in a new county, away from the memories.
“I don’t want to draw attention to her. A visitor could be enough to make people wonder. And, the world is harsh on lying women and unmarried mothers.” Her skirt had ridden up as they’d trotted, and she rearranged her riding habit, a pretty silk and wool in a deep peacock green, over her boots.
Everett nodded. “Yet, what could be more natural than your visiting a favored ex-servant who has a new baby, as a charitable act?”
“She’s doesn’t require charity.” That was prickly, but it was true. “I provide for her.” Not as much as she wanted, but that would change.
“Of course. But she must be assumed to be a respectable sort of poor? She won’t be thought of as well off on a widow’s pension. As you say, too wealthy, when she was just a lady’s maid, and she would draw attention. She must be the type who would not turn away a visit from a great lady with beneficence to bestow. You might take a Christening gown or a blanket for the infant’s cot.”
“Do you really think it would be acceptable?” A balm spread through Grace at the thought. She could reassure herself that they were safe, see the baby, and check on Anna’s spirits. She did so want to see little Mary before she was grown.
“What is a countess, if not a lady bountiful? It was you who said aristocrats have all the power. We can do whatever we want. And they, the terrible, gossipy they, will think what we tell them to think.” His hands were loose on the reins, his long limbs easily controlling without any harsh movements or hard words. He was comfortable, no doubt from years of riding in the army, and it gave him the authority of a lord. She’d thought initially that he was arrogant and needlessly insecure about his place in the world. Now she saw that his place was here, riding, in the countryside.
There was just one last objection. “She lives in Essex. It’s a long way from Somerset. We would have to stay overnight.”
“I have no objection to that. Do you?”
Overnight, with her husband. The rolling motion of the horse underneath her that undulated her hips and her breasts back and forth was suddenly rather erotic.
Since their interlude after the Thompson’s wedding, she hadn’t been in his rooms. He hadn’t entered her bedroom, either. With every day that went past, she trusted Everett a little more, like interest building slowly and silently in a bank account. It took daily effort to remember he was an aristocrat and thus inherently not the same as her. They had settled into an absolute pattern of deliberate blindness to each other’s chambers here at Larksview. But in a hotel? Everything would be different.
…
Visiting Essex from Somerset necessitated several hours’ journey retracing their route into London, through the city in a hackney cab, and then onto the Eastern Counties Railway line. Plenty of time for Everett to think about how to solve the multiple financial issues Grace and he were responsible for, including Anna. If he met Anna, maybe he could… Make himself feel even worse about the necessity of paying his debts. The impulse to see her had been born of needing to make Grace happy.
Throughout the jagged trip, with changes and waits, Grace became more and more agitated. But there were good signs. She didn’t lash out at him when she became nervous, returning his smile when they stood on the platform at Bishopsgate and retaining his hand when she stepped up into the railway carriage. It was entirely natural, sitting next to her in the confined, shadowed interior, her hand in his. It was a smooth hand, even if marred by dots of ink from writing letters, and it was made to be a complement to his: just the right size to be enveloped, but not so petite as to be overwhelmed. He was reluctant to give up the connection when they arrived at the station, but relinquished her for the sake of decorum.
Anna’s house, in a winding village outside Colchester, was in an old style, thatched, and low roofed. It was one end of a terrace of three, presumably having been one longer house at some point. The last of the summer’s roses trailed around the windowsills.
“I’ve never been here,” Grace confessed as they approached. “I rented it for her sight unseen. The agent’s description was quite good. It’s more-or-less as I imagined it. Anna doesn’t describe such things in her letters.” Her smile was wry, but there was concern underneath it.
She took her hand from his arm to knock. There was a sound from within, then a heavy latch moved. A young blond woman appeared, holding a swaddled baby very much awake and gazing around with her blue eyes.
Anna saw first him, then Grace, and her expression flickered from suspicious, to disbelieving, to joyful, to fearful.
“Gra-Mis— Lady Westbury. How unexpected.” The young woman’s stare fixed onto Grace. “Is anything the matter?”
“All is well.” Grace’s voice was low and reassuring.
Anna must have believed her, as her expression relaxed. “Will you come in? Best not stand around on the doorstep. I’ll put on some tea.”
He had to duck his head as they entered the cottage.
“If you’d like to sit in the front room—” Anna began.
Grace cut her off. “Don’t be a goose, we’ll come to the kitchen.”
They made their way through the narrow corridors to the back kitchen, a fire on the range warming the room pleasantly.
“Here, I’ll hold Mary while you get the tea.” Grace held out her arms for the child.
The two women exchanged the bundle of white cloth, pink skin, and bright eyes. Grace took the baby and adjusted her in her arms, holding her easily against her chest.
“She likes—” Anna hesitated. But Mary was already settling into Grace’s embrace, looking with a curious gaze. “Well, she likes you. No surprise there.” Anna rolled her eyes and turned to the stove.
“Hello, little one,” Grace cooed to the baby.
Everett watched, transfixed. She was utterly natural with the child, as though she had done this a thousand times before. Soft eyed, rocking Mary gently in her arms, she was instinctive. It was unfathomable that he’d ever thought her indifferent to the welfare of any child, most of all her brother. She cared as deeply about her family as he did about his. She’d be equally tender with her own children. Children with Everett, or another man, or maybe not at all. If he lost contact with her when she left Larksview once their bargain was over, he might never know if she was childless or with someone else. A splinter of pain went through him at both of those two possibilities, and their likelihood. She’d not said anything about leaving and she’d stopped reading about life on the continent, but she hadn’t said she would stay, either.
“She reminds me of Henry when he was this age,” Grace said. “Except, Henry had brown eyes almost immediately. Is she sleeping through the night?”
The two women began a conversation about the habits of babies, and Everett pulled up a chair, deciding his role was to be quiet and observe. Anna had a neat efficiency as she moved around the kitchen, gathering all the things needed. Eventually the unsealed wooden table had a teapot, cups and saucers, and all the correct things on it, and Anna poured them tea.
Grace sat and then gently pushed her teacup away from Mary’s waving little hands. “Have you heard from Lord Rayner?” she asked.
Anna clattered her cup on its saucer, spilling the hot liquid with an exclamation of pain as it touched her fingers. She rose hastily, turning away to dry and tend her burn. When she finally sat back down, her eyes were lowered to the table. She didn’t apologize. “No,” she said abruptly. “Why, should I have done?”
Everett could almost see the protective spines Anna wanted to grow from her back.
Grace let out an audible out-breath of relief. “I thought he might contact you.” She indicated the baby with a dip of her head.
“He hasn’t. He won’t.” There was defiance in her tone and a thick rope of fear in it, too. “She’s mine.”
“Yes.” But there was doubt in Grace’s voice.
Everett agreed. A bastard Mary might be, but any child was the property of the father. Lord Rayner could come for Mary, and Anna, at any time. Grace hadn’t said that, but he recognized that she feared it.
“Besides, he doesn’t know where I am.”
“I believe not. And I sincerely hope it remains that way,” Grace replied.
Anna was vulnerable here on her own with little Mary, but her protection was her anonymity. Lord Rayner certainly knew where Grace was.
Everett had to protect Grace. His name was a start, but he wanted to be the one she turned to for shelter. He wanted her to ask him for all the things a husband did for his wife.
…
They dined in the hotel restaurant, a room newly decorated with hand-printed flock wallpaper in a deep maroon, with marble floors and intricately patterned plaster ceilings. The silver cutlery, crystal glasses, and delicately gold-edged plates put Grace on edge. This grandeur was what Everett was born to, and he seemed at ease. She, though, was transported back to her season in London, when she’d been constantly frustrated by the plethora of ways she could do not-quite the correct thing. It reminded her that the only reason Larksview was so reassuringly plebeian was Everett had sold all the expensive objects.
“You need a glass of wine after today, darling,” Everett had said when she’d tried to demur as the sommelier had begun to pour the deep red liquid into her glass.
“I… Yes. I do.” But not for the reason he meant. She had liked seeing Anna, and it had all gone well. Despite that, she was nervous. And the truth was, surely, she ought to admit it to herself? It wasn’t really the grand surroundings that were disconcerting her.
It was one room. Her limbs had an electricity of awareness that they’d be in the same room all night.
He took a mouthful of wine and hesitantly, Grace did the same, the thick, heady drink slipping down her throat. His gray eyes were trained on her, but it must be the sip of wine that made her begin to feel giddy.
It was probably the wine, because by the time they had started their main course, a lamb joint, she was happy to answer Everett’s thoughtful questions. He kept up a flow of conversation, asking her about herself. He asked about her mother, Alnott Stores, and Anna, and he listened carefully to her answers, appearing to hear what she didn’t say, as well as what she did. But anticipation was still there, and awareness, too, of his gaze steady on her face.
“You wouldn’t know it now, but Anna used to be so fun, so vivacious. She always had me laughing, telling me anecdotes about what the footmen said or what the kitchen maids did to the food.” It was good to finally have someone to talk with. The good times as well as the bad. It made her shoulders lighter.
“Motherhood has settled her.”
She wished it were just that. “It was before that. Ever since…the incident…she hasn’t been carefree. I ought to have noticed.”
“You couldn’t have known.” He said it with total certainty, and his faith reassured her.
“Perhaps. When I look at Anna, I think that she could be me.” They were a similar age and from similar backgrounds. The main difference was Alnott Stores was so successful that she could be raised into society.
“There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Everett’s grin was infectious and a bubble of laughter escaped her. “Yes.” But as it faded in her mouth, a serious topic should be broached. “I was oblivious. Focused on my own happiness. And I don’t know that I haven’t done it again.”
Did he understand that she meant him? For weeks, she’d thought only about Henry. She’d told herself Everett was another Samuel Brooker, a distraction. But she was starting to wonder if again she’d missed the central thing that was right in front of her. In this case, her husband.
Everett sat forward, leaning his forearms on the tablecloth. Never his elbows, he was too well bred for that. He ducked his head to look at her. “I get the impression you are not being straightforward. Why not just say exactly what you want to tell me?”
Her heart smashed against her corset. “I can’t.”
He reached across the table, offering his palm. Her hands were clasped in her lap. Undo, she told her hands. They didn’t move. Undo, she willed them. She had to let go. She must.
“Grace?” He was watching her intently. Waiting for her to meet him halfway.
Then her hand was in his without her volition. His fingers curled up and clasped hers, holding her tight.
“Dessert?”
Her body reacted with an all-over flush that warmed her skin, as though he’d suggested a sexual act, rather than a slice of cherry tart. The dessert trolley, pushed by a smartly dressed waiter, was approaching their table, but she wasn’t hungry for soggy cake or mousse.
“I think we ought to retire for the evening.”
…
Everett tugged her into the room and into his arms. She felt so right pressed to him, her breasts to his chest. It would feel perfect when they were joined.
“What do you want?” he whispered against her neck between kisses and nips at the tender skin there. “Tell me what you’d like to do.”
No husbandly claims, but if he was just doing what she asked, that was permissible. Tempting and seducing wasn’t claiming. Pulling her a bit closer, so his hardness pressed to her belly, he willed her to ask him to make love to her.
“I liked what we did the other day.” Her light golden-brown eyes appeared intoxicated with anticipation. “And I’d like to do more, but not.” She licked her lips. “You know. Congress. Sexual congress.”
Just the awkward words out of her unknowingly erotic mouth brought a vision into his mind of her taking the length of him into her body. He hardened further. “We can do that without you getting with child.”
“But there’s some risk?” The anticipation was clouded by doubt.
“Yes.” Honesty compelled him to admit that. But he could feel what he really wanted slipping away.
She shook her head.
“Very well.” He ran his hand up her body, over her shoulder blade, to cup her jaw for a full, openmouthed kiss. It covered his need to argue with her, persuade her in a way that would be unworthy. He couldn’t wait; his impatience was insurmountable. But like any challenge in his life, he would manage himself. He would coax her. In the meantime, he would have most of her body as a gateway to her mind and heart. That was enough for now.
He wanted to look at her forever. But he dragged his eyes away to consider the room. It was inviting, the large bed sumptuously covered with cushions and surrounded with thick curtains. A large mirror on the wall and lush oil paintings on the walls. Ideal for his requirements.
He went to the bed and started throwing the cushions from the bed onto the floor.
“What are you doing?”
He looked at her in the reflection of the glass, the gold leaf frame glinting in the candlelight. She was staring at him, baffled. “Come here.”
Her skirts swished as she came to stand behind him.
God, but she was beautiful. He knelt and took his time removing her little ankle-high, aqua-green suede boots, feeling the shape of her slim ankles under her thin silk stockings. Her feet were neat and small. He wanted to know every part of her body, know all the sensitive spots and the scars, physical and metaphorical. He ran his hands up her calves and tilted his up to her face. “Let me see you.”
“You can see me.” Her eyes were wary, but her mouth had gone slack in a way that belied her words. “There are plenty of candles.”
“Not the way I want to.” He stood, dropping her skirt. Cupping her head in his hands, fingers tangled in her silky dark hair, he kissed her. He felt the moment she relaxed, kissing him back, their tongues moving together. When she reached around him to hold his back, the sensation went up his spine. She wanted this as much as he did. All he had to do was tend her need.
“Let me undress you.” He touched his mouth to her cheeks, then her forehead.
Her breath hitched. “Yes.”
“Turn around.” It wouldn’t do for her to see how wide his smile of triumph was. She complied, and he undid each button with hands that shook. He’d not really thought this would happen. And the gravity was crushing. If this wasn’t enough, if she didn’t like it, he might not get another chance. There was less than two weeks left.
He undressed her carefully, taking each layer off and leaving a kiss and a caress in its place, as much for the pleasure of touching her, miraculously without question, as for the purpose of seduction and the beating demand of his cock, still throbbing and hard.
When he pulled her chemise over her head, his stomach pinged and sprang. She was overwhelmingly lovely and she was reaching for him, clumsy fingers popping open buttons. Their hands rubbed past each other as they took off his clothes. Her unfamiliarity with men’s attire allowed him to enjoy her cautious fumbling and distract her with a long, deep kiss while he divested himself of his clothes. When they were both naked, and he’d pulled enough pins from her hair that it flowed down in dark waves, he led her down onto the cushions and angled them so they were side on to the mirror, his body braced behind hers. Her buttocks, gently rounded were a delicious torture even before he pulled her to him.
Another flicker of confusion went across her face. “What are you doing?” She looked over her shoulder toward him.
“Wait and see.” When he cupped her breasts, the curve of them was just right in his hands. He could feel her rib cage rising and falling quickly as she was increasingly excited. Her nipples were pert and just there for his thumbs to stroke, and her gasp struck through to the base of his cock.
She reached behind, her questing hands finding first his thighs, then creeping inwards. He stiffened in anticipation of her touch. This could all be very brief and much less in his control than he could deal with if she began to realize how susceptible he was to her. He shifted his hands across her breasts and pinched both her nipples hard. She gasped and arched at the pleasure pain. But her fingers were still exploring, running up his cock and sending pulses through him.
“Put your hands over mine.”
She hesitated, and he could feel her confusion and reluctance. But she did as he directed. She trusted him in that whatever he requested, he wouldn’t go further than she’d specified. Her trust was both misplaced, and a standard he yearned to live up to. He maneuvered so his fingers guided hers.
“Touch your breasts.” He breathed in the scent of her, musky with desire and sweet with the scent of lilies and a smell entirely her own. “Rub your nipples between your fingers.” They were dangerously erotic words and she trembled, but she didn’t scare.
“Like this?” Her hands moved in unison across the pink tips of her breasts.
“Yes.” He was an idiot. He’d taken her hands away from his cock, but this was even worse. Was there anything more gorgeous than a woman touching herself at his direction? He looked over her shoulder at their braced arms over the soft skin of her body. His throbbing cock certainly didn’t think so.
“Look in the glass.” He took one hand and turned her cheek so she was watching them. It was a delicious sight. Her naked body curved to fit his.
She let out a shuddering breath.
He dragged his hands over the silk of her skin. Her waist was just the right size for his hands, and he lingered there until the flare of her hips was too tempting. Then over to the smooth pelt of her mound, caressing her as if that was his only aspiration. But he felt every sixteenth of an inch as he curled his fingertips closer to her slit, his heart banging harder in his chest.
His hand met moisture spilling from her well before he thought to feel her. “Oh, you’re drenched.”
She made a little mew of embarrassment.
“No, it’s a good thing.” Her slickness invited him in, and he smoothly circled his forefinger inward. She moaned as two of his fingers slipped into her, and the sound shot into him. Her heat and wetness distracted him momentarily from his task and reveling in the feeling of her. But then she moved against him, rubbing herself to him and rolling her nipples in her hands. The longing to gratify her was merciless. He moved his hands in tandem, circling the nub of her pleasure as he stroked and pressed the rippled flesh inside her.
“Look,” he insisted. Her eyes opened, the pupils dark. In the mirror, he watched as her eyes moved up and down, flitting as she took in the sight of her body and his. Then their gazes met in the mirror and his heart shook. The feeling of union as they watched was as heady as the wine they’d drunk over dinner. His fingers were over and in her, evidence of her desire glistened between her legs, her back was pressed to his front. She was naked and vulnerable and watching him with plain desire, her eyes wide and mouth open with wordless arousal. But he wanted more. However close they were, skin to skin, he wanted to be inside her, joined together. He needed her to want it enough to untie the knots she tied in her mind to keep him out.
“When you ask me to, I’ll make love to you like this.” He moved in a simulation of what he wanted, fitting his cock snugly into the gap between her buttocks as he plunged his fingers into her. The shard of satisfaction went through the tip of his cock, all the way to the base of his spine. “You’re so wet, I’ll slip in easily. Grace, I want to be as intensely close to you as a man and woman can be.”
Her eyes fell closed and her head rested back on his shoulder. He didn’t let up, making smaller and smaller circles around the center of her nub. She moaned uncontrollably, her cheeks flushed, her hands still on her breasts. He felt her tighten around his fingers and her moans transformed to a cry. Leaning back onto him, her body shook as she reached the peak. The faith that her resting her weight on him implied surged through him.
They were skin to skin, but not joined. She allowed him to support her, but hadn’t capitulated. The space between them was still bigger than he wanted to admit, and there was hardly any time left to span it. He had to have her, or the illusion of it. His eyes closed and he allowed himself to imagine Grace willingly opening to him. He pulled her closer and rubbed his cock on the slickened skin of her buttocks. With the feel of her quim beneath his fingers and her sighs of ecstasy in his mind, it hardly needed more than a few hard movements and he peaked, the pleasure a quick serrated stroke.
As he carried her to the bed, he told himself that if she really intended to go, she wouldn’t open herself thus. He could ask her outright while she was warm and sated in his arms, as was his instinct. But she almost seemed to have forgotten that they had a temporary marriage, a bargain, and he wasn’t going to remind her. If what he gave her was heady enough, she wouldn’t leave. He almost convinced himself.