Chapter 7
Jericho felt slightly less numb of emotions by the time he returned to Pomeroy Cottage several hours later. The walk through the forest had done him good. Hunting for rabbits had been successful and the water of the river refreshing when he skinned and gutted them ready for cooking. The weather was briskly cold, but at least it was not raining.
It was the sort of day, in fact, when he would normally have enjoyed being outside.
However, the closer he drew to his mother’s cottage in the woods, the heavier his mood became. Not because of any unpleasant thoughts of his mother spending time here with her lovers; he had ceased to care what his mother did long, long ago. But because the truth, and Jocelyn, awaited him there— Or, at least, she had better be waiting there for him, if she knew what was good for her.
The events of the past week meant Jericho was no longer undecided about extracting the truth from her. Nor did he particularly care how he went about it.
Jocelyn was nowhere to be seen when he unlocked and stepped inside the house, but she seemed to have been busy in his absence. The fire was banked and had now warmed most of the chill away from downstairs. A kettle hung partway over the fire on one side of the hearth, steam emerging from its spout testament to the hot water inside. A pot hung on the other side, also filled with water that bubbled and steamed, no doubt in preparation for the stew Jericho had mentioned making.
He glanced toward the stairs, wondering which of the three bedchambers Jocelyn had chosen for her own. Not that it mattered when all had those metal rings attached to the beds. Metal rings he had every intention of using to secure her until he was sure she had answered all his questions truthfully.
He scowled as he felt a stirring of his cock at the thought of Jocelyn spread out upon a bed, her wrists and ankles secured. The spreading of her arms would pull her chemise tight, forcing her breasts to swell over the top of it and no doubt make her nipples visible through the thin material. The slit in her drawers would be pulled apart along with her legs and would reveal her plump nether lips. Or perhaps he should have her remove all her clothes before he—
“There you are.”
He turned sharply toward the kitchen to see Jocey standing in the doorway. Her hair was in disarray, and there were several sooty smears upon her cheeks. She wore an overlarge pinafore looped about her nape and tied about her waist, concealing most of her chemise and drawers but leaving her shoulders and her stockinged legs bared to his gaze. His cock gave an acknowledging pulse of approval.
Damn it, he had not brought Jocelyn here for his pleasure or her own. He wanted the truth of her involvement with the French, and he would have it before they left here, by fair means or foul.
“I have been trying to light the range in the kitchen,” she continued lightly at his silence. “But I first had to remove the family of mice who had taken up residence inside.”
His brows rose. “Remove them how?”
“I unbolted the back door and carried them and their nest outside and placed it inside a hollow tree stump further into the forest. I hope they will be safe there,” she added with a frown.
His jaw tightened. “What did I tell you about leaving here?”
Color warmed her cheeks at his accusing tone. “You said I might collect the blanket from the carriage, but otherwise I was not to leave or there would be consequences. But I only went a short distance away from the house,” she defended. “Just far enough to relocate the mice and to gather some wild vegetables, mushrooms and such, and herbs for the stewpot.”
“Do you know the difference between an edible mushroom and one that is not?” He eyed her scathingly. “Or is it your intention to poison me before making your escape?”
Jocey was, quite frankly, tired of Jericho’s disparaging, and, since last night, his more alarming comments to her. She was exhausted from a lack of sleep, but also the emotional uncertainty of what it was he wanted from her and intended doing to her to achieve that end.
She had been unable to put the thought of those metal rings attached to the beds upstairs from her mind after venturing up the stairs to make sure two of the beds were aired and fit for their use. She had also filled the jugs in the rooms with water for both of them to bathe with later tonight.
To keep herself busy and dispel the image of being tied to one of those beds and completely at Jericho’s mercy from the forefront of her thoughts, she had swept and dusted through the downstairs of the cottage. She had kept the fire burning and heated up water for tea and the stew ready for his return before making a start on cleaning the kitchen and lighting the range.
She was now too emotionally and physically exhausted to want to placate him a moment longer with her poor attempt at pleasant conversation.
“If I had intended poisoning you, I would not have told you about the mushrooms,” she snapped. “And yes, I am well aware of the difference between an edible mushroom and one that is not. My education might be lacking in some areas, but my years of residing with your father in the wilds of Scotland and his refusal to employ any household staff have ensured I am more than capable of cooking and cleaning.”
Jericho grimaced as he recalled the condition in which he had found Jocelyn living under his father’s guardianship when he had ridden up to Scotland three years ago to pay one of his rare visits.
The hunting lodge where his father preferred to live on the estate was rustic at best. Nor did the older man trust any of the estate workers or their families enough to allow them inside. Food and other supplies from the estate were delivered. But from what Jericho had been able to observe during his stay, Jocelyn had been in charge of preparing and cooking the food she also served to the table.
Meaning Jocelyn was not, as she had just pointed out so succinctly, a typical lady of Society, afraid to get her hands, or anything else, dirty.
Even so, Jericho had no intention of feeling in the least guilty as to his reason for bringing her here. People had now died to get the information he desired from her, and Jocelyn was now even more at the center of his own investigation. “In that case, you will not mind slicing and dicing the meat for the stewpot.” He brushed past her to place the rabbits on top of the kitchen table. “While the stew is cooking, we will see about dealing with your punishment for having disobeyed me,” he added with a challenging raise of his eyebrows.
Temper flared in her eyes and caused her cheeks to flush. “You do not frighten me with your threats, Jericho Bla—” She broke off with an indignant squeak as Jericho’s fingers closed about one of her wrists before he sat on a kitchen chair and pulled her facedown over his thighs.
“Are you frightened now?” he challenged, easily holding her in place with a hand placed firmly against her spine.
She turned to glare at him over one bared shoulder. “No.”
Jericho raised his other hand and brought it down sharply against her ass cheeks, causing them to jiggle enticingly beneath her drawers. “Now?”
Her struggles to right herself proved in vain. “How dare you treat me in this undignified manner? You are nothing more than an arrogant son of a—”
“Oh, I believe we might both agree my mother was so much more than a bitch,” he bit out humorlessly before landing another blow to the globes of her bottom. “Have you learned to fear me yet?” he challenged in a hard voice.
Jocey’s primary emotion was not fear but arousal. As she had surmised when last Jericho threatened to spank her, those stinging blows to her bottom were painful but arousing, and caused a heat and gushing between her thighs. Her hardened nipples were also pressed uncomfortably against the material of her chemise.
“I do not fear you. I hate you!” she announced vehemently, her efforts to right herself proving useless against Jericho’s superior strength. “I hate you,” she repeated as tears of humiliation gathered hotly behind her closed lids.
The third blow against her bottom cheeks carried less force but was still as painful when her abused flesh was already smarting from the previous two. “And now I will demonstrate how easily hate can turn to desire,” Jericho remarked conversationally.
Jocey drew in a shaky gasp at the feel of Jericho’s fingers parting the slit in her drawers, her gasp becoming a low groan as those fingers stroked along the wetness of her swollen nether lips. “What are you doing?” Her legs had turned to the consistency of jelly, every inch of her body tingling and aroused.
He gave a harsh laugh. “Showing there is more than one way in which to torture information out of you.” As if to prove his point, his fingers now stroked the sensitive nubbin nestled amongst the curls covering her mound.
“I— This is truly shocking!” Jocey gasped.
“And yet this part of you is not in the least shocked.” He gave another stroke of his finger against that pulsing nubbin.
“What information?” Jocey groaned weakly, pleasure coursing through the whole of her body from those knowing and experienced fingers. A pleasure that rose higher, and then higher still as he continued to stroke her, until she felt herself poised on the edge of falling over a precipice she instinctively knew there would be no coming back from.
“I want to know who you report to and what information you gathered while you were in France and have passed on since your return to England.”
“I do not—” She broke off with a low groan as she received another slap to her bottom, her arousal now such that she could not think or feel anything but pleasure as Jericho’s fingers once again caressed the flesh inside her drawers.
“I forbid you to come.” He ceased the torment of her throbbing nubbin. “Your punishment is to not be allowed release until you have answered my question.”
“How I can I answer your question when I do not understand it?” She sobbed in humiliation at having her body aflame with a need she had no control over. That control belonged solely to Jericho. A control he seemed bent on exploiting for his own ends.
Whatever they were.
Jocey had no idea what he was talking about, and her brain was so befuddled with the lust he had incited, she was unable to think clearly enough to even guess his meaning.
“You understand this.” His fingers resumed their caressing, stroking her swollen nether lips now, then around and about the throbbing nubbin above without quite touching it.
She understood Jericho was trying to drive her insane as he took her to the edge of that precipice again and again, his hand alternating between spanking her bottom cheeks and stroking between her thighs. Her bottom now throbbed almost as intensely as that need between her thighs. But each time she reached that pinnacle and was about to attain a release, Jericho would cease both activities, wait until her desire had receded, and then begin the torment all over again.
Nor was he unmoved by the intimacy; Jocey could feel the ridge of his hardened cock, long and thick, pressing against her side. She could only imagine how it would feel thrusting inside her, giving her the release Jericho continued to refuse her. That he refused to give them both.
Her drawers were now drenched with the juices that gushed copiously from her pulsing channel, and her nipples tingled with such a need to be touched, they had become painful and oversensitive.
At this point, she was willing to tell Jericho anything if only he would set her free from this physical torture. “The only people I saw in France was my mother’s family,” she choked. “My aunt and uncle. My cousins.”
“Who else?”
“No one.”
“Who else?” he demanded again as his hand moved from her back to slide forward and unfasten and pull down the front of her chemise.
To Jocey’s everlasting shame, her bared breasts now dangled in front of her, free of all confinement.
Jericho took one of the engorged nipples between his thumb and finger, squeezing and pulling on that swollen nub until Jocey writhed and groaned unashamedly with need. “I said you will not find release unless I say you can.” He spanked her bottom again when she attempted to rub her neglected pussy against his thigh in an effort to find relief.
“No one else,” she said again brokenly. “I saw no one else. Please, Jericho!” she pleaded shakily. “Please.”
“You wish for release?”
“Yes! God, yes!”
“Then answer my question truthfully.”
“I have!” Jocey hated her weakness, the desperate need that caused her to beg Jericho in this shameful way.
“And whilst you were in London for a week?”
“I saw no one— The Germaine sisters,” she recalled agitatedly. “But I have told you that already.”
“Who else?”
“Worthington and Romney. But I told you about that too.”
“What did you do, Jocelyn?” he rasped harshly. “What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing! I did nothing—” Her breath left her in a whoosh at the suddenness of being tumbled to the flagstone floor as Jericho surged to his feet.
Her hands moved instinctively to cover her bared breasts where her chemise hung loose at the front, the dampness of her drawers uncomfortable between her thighs. The ache and throb of her arousal prevented her from feeling the cold of the floor or the bruise she might later have on her hip from landing so heavily.
Jericho turned his back on her. “Go.”
“But—”
“Now!” he thundered as he turned to glare at her with glittering dark eyes. “Before I do something we will both have cause to regret.”
The humiliation Jocey felt caused her to already regret ever meeting this man, let alone believing she might actually be falling in love with him. But she was not about to run, was made of sterner stuff than that. “What was in the letter you received to cause you to behave in this brutal manner?”
The cold and numbness that had held Jericho securely in its grip since he read Stonewell’s letter had been seriously undermined by the intimacy of this incident with Jocelyn. By touching her. Spanking her. Caressing her. Behavior he usually reserved for his sexual trysts with ladies of the demimonde. Women he rarely saw more than once and certainly had no personal knowledge of. For Jocelyn to now demand answers from him had succeeded in dispelling the last of that cold numbness about his emotions, leaving a red tide of anger in its place.
His hands clenched at his sides. “The fact you dare ask me that shows me you have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.”
Her chin rose. “That I am asking shows I have no idea what the answer is.”
Jericho’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched as he attempted to maintain control of his anger. “You have admitted to having met with four people during your week long stay in London. The Germaine twins and two of my own friends. Two of those people are now dead.”
“W-what…?” Jocelyn’s face paled as she staggered before sitting abruptly on the chair Jericho had recently vacated, staring up at him with bewildered and pained gray eyes.
Jericho said nothing as he waited for her to recover—if she needed time to recover rather than only pretended to do so—from whatever emotion she felt at his news.
“Who?” she finally voiced emotionally. “Who is dead?”
A nerve pulsed in Jericho’s jaw as he fought to control his own emotions. “Lady Priscilla Germaine and—and Lord Jeremiah Worthington.” Saying his friend’s name out loud for the first time since Jericho had received word of his death was almost too much for him to bear.
He had no siblings. Consequently, the other seven Sinners had become his family once they had all met at boarding school. Jeremiah Worthington was as dear to him as any brother by blood could ever have been.
Had been as dear to Jericho as a brother.
Because Worthington’s body now lay forever cold and lifeless in his family crypt in Cheshire.
Nor, he realized bleakly, did Worthington’s comment three weeks ago of whether or not they had “attended a wedding or wake” hold any humor now that it was his wake that had been attended.