Chapter 10
“You are not well enough to travel yet,” Pru protested as she watched Edgars move about the bedchamber repacking Titus’s belongings into the portmanteau he had brought with him. He’d already helped his employer to dress in black superfine, gray pantaloons, and white linen.
“Leave us,” the viscount instructed his valet. He waited until the other man was out of the room and the door closed behind him before speaking again. “It is for the best if I return home now your parents are here with you.”
“But—”
“It is but a mile by coach,” he chided gently.
Pru did not want his gentleness. She wanted Titus to stay here, where she could keep him safe.
Ridiculous to think Titus would ever really need her protection, but the thought of him leaving, of not knowing when she would see him again, was almost too much for her to bear. “I will miss you,” was the most she dared allow herself to say.
His mouth tightened. “It was foolish to think we could remain here as we were.”
Foolish or not, Pru had grown accustomed to visiting Titus in his bedchamber each morning, to spending most of the day at his side, the two of them occasionally playing cards together or, if Titus was feeling especially tired, to reading out loud to him.
It had felt right to her.
Meant to be.
Perfect.
As if it might go on forever.
Until her parents left Titus’s room a short time ago to inform her he had decided he was feeling well enough to leave today.
“How can you think of leaving after the things we have shared? Or is the reason you are going because you wish to put those intimacies behind you?” Her tone was accusing, her chin tilted in challenge rather than allowing Titus to hear her heartbreak or see her tears.
“I have things to do, Pru—”
“More important than staying here and—and recovering fully?” she substituted for what she had really wanted to say, which was being with me.
Titus’s gaze was hooded. “Stonewell informed me this morning that my men have a lead on who is responsible for killing Parker.”
“You are not well enough to go in pursuit.”
“I am well enough to direct my men as to the best way to do so.”
Pru knew of her own feelings for Titus, knew that she loved him, would always love him. Just as he was making it clear he did not feel the same way about her. He would not be leaving her if he did.
She had, after all, been nothing more than a warm and convenient female body for him to take and give pleasure to.
Much as it pained her to let him go, Pru’s pride would not allow her to resort to begging.
“Very well.” She nodded. “I trust you will send word if or when your men apprehend the murderer and he reveals his employer.”
“Of course.”
There seemed nothing more for Pru to say without making a complete fool of herself. Pride might be all she had left, but she was determined to hold on to it. “I will wish you a safe journey, then.” She gave an abrupt curtsey before departing with a swish of her skirts.
Titus drew in a long and ragged breath, his hands tightly gripping the arms of the chair he sat in to stop himself from going after her. To do so would make null and void all that he was trying to do by leaving, namely protecting Pru and her family from coming to further harm.
He had thought over this situation constantly the past four days, and leaving Pru and Germaine House, giving the impression to any who might care to know that the two of them were no longer friends, was the only way he could think of to protect her. His near proximity seemed only to have succeeded in drawing that attention to Pru and her family.
Much as it pained him to do so, Titus had decided he must make a clean break of things. Until the matter of the traitor was settled, at least. After that, he would not hold back in taking what he wanted. And what he wanted was Pru.
If his coldness toward her just now meant that she no longer wanted to be with him, then so be it. An alive-and-despising-him Pru was preferable to a dead one.
For now.
“You are moping again, darling,” Pru’s mother chided gently. “Although I doubt it is for the same reason,” she added shrewdly.
“We buried Parker today, and I am also still in mourning for Cilla,” Pru defended.
“We all mourn for Cilla and Parker,” her mother soothed. “But your restlessness these past three days and again today is not the same thing at all.”
It was now four days since Titus left Germaine House without so much as a goodbye. Not that Pru had said a proper goodbye to him either after leaving his bedchamber; she had been too angry with him at the time to stand on the steps of the house and speak polite niceties as he departed.
“It was noticeable that you and Romney did nothing more than nod a greeting to each other at the funeral today,” her mother added softly.
Pru gave her a sharp glance. Today’s funeral had been a sad affair for the household staff and the Germaine family. The only consolation, if it could be called that, was that Parker had no close family to mourn his loss or demand an explanation as to why and how he had died. The Germaine family was his family, and they mourned him as such.
She frowned. “Noticeable to whom?”
Her mother smiled ruefully. “Me, darling.”
Color bloomed in Pru’s cheeks. Her mother always had been able to discern her mood, and today it was one of anger as well as sadness. It was true she and Titus had not spoken at Parker’s funeral, but that was all Titus’s doing, not her own. Pru would have liked to approach him—reproach him, for his not having so much as written to her these past four days, even if it was only to tell her he had made no progress in his search for the traitor—but apart from that brief nod in her direction as he left the church, accompanied by the other Sinners, Titus had not acknowledged her as being anything more than a passing acquaintance.
Possibly because to him, that was what she was?
Not his lover.
Certainly not the woman he loved.
Merely another woman he had dallied with to satisfy his lust.
Pru could not and would not accept being dismissed from Titus’s life with such cold disregard to her own feelings.
Admittedly, Titus had said they had been living in a fool’s paradise before her parents arrived home, but she had believed that to be because of her parents’ presence. But if Titus had decided their liaison was completely at an end, then she at least deserved to have him tell her that to her face, rather than be forced to accept it because of Titus’s sudden and continued absence from her life.
Pru came to a decision. “I am going out in the carriage for a while, Mother.”
The countess’s brows rose. “Are you taking Mary with you?”
Her mouth firmed. “No.”
Her mother nodded after a brief pause. “Very well. But have a care, darling. Romney is not a man to be trifled with.”
“He is the one that has trifled with me and my affections,” Pru defended, not at all surprised her mother had guessed where she was going.
Her mother sighed. “I thought as much. He is…much older and more sophisticated than you, darling.”
Pru gave a snort in recollection of the conversation she’d had with Titus on the same subject. “He has assured me that with maturity comes experience.”
“Has he, indeed,” her mother mused. “In that case, you had best go and remonstrate with him for his tardiness toward you today.”
Pru stepped forward to give the older woman an impulsive hug. “He is the one for me, Mother. I know it as surely as night follows day.”
Her mother smiled. “And when my Pru sets her heart on something, woe betide anything or anyone who gets in her way.”
She gave a beaming smile. “Exactly.”
Her confidence did not last for long, however, once she was seated in the family carriage. Her cloak was wrapped securely about her shoulders and covering the fact she was no longer wearing the black gown she had worn to the funeral earlier but had changed into a fashionable blue gown which perfectly matched the color of her eyes. Let Romney try to ignore her when her shoulders were completely bare and her full breasts were tumbling temptingly over the low neckline of her gown.
“The viscount is not receiving visitors,” the butler answered loftily in answer to Pru’s request to see Titus.
Her gaze sharpened. “Is he ill?” Titus had not seemed discomforted at the funeral earlier today, but that did not mean he was not suffering for the activity now so soon after being shot.
“Not at all, my lady,” the butler assured coolly. “He has simply left instructions he is not at home to visitors this afternoon.”
Not at home to all visitors, Pru wondered, or just her? Had he… Could Titus have dared to tell his butler to refuse her admittance if she should call?
Anger, strong and acidic, rose to the back of her throat as she pushed her way past that gentleman and into the entrance hall. “Where is he?” she demanded of the stunned butler.
“I— Well, really— I cannot allow—”
“I will make sure to tell his lordship of your valiant attempt to refuse me entry,” Pru dismissed. “Is he in the library? His study? His study.” She nodded confirmation as the butler’s gaze widened slightly at her second guess. “You will see we are not disturbed,” she instructed before striding toward the hallway where she knew Titus’s study to be.
She faltered only slightly when she reached the closed study door before straightening her shoulders and entering the room. She’d already barged her way into the house, and she saw absolutely no point in politely knocking to gain entry to Titus’s study.
“What— Pru?” Titus was more than a little startled at the suddenness with which she had appeared in the room with no announcement or prior warning.
Although perhaps he should not have been. Pru had made the anger she felt toward him more than clear earlier today with but a single glare across the church in his direction. An anger he knew he fully deserved.
It had been sheer bloody torture not to contact, see, or be with Pru since he’d left Germaine House. The wrist of his right hand actually ached from the amount of times he had pleasured himself merely from thinking about her. To have her here now, in the flesh—Good God, in an abundance of flesh, he corrected as she removed her cloak to reveal bared shoulders and the tops of her plump breasts—required more willpower to resist than he possessed.
“Stay exactly where you are,” she ordered as he pushed his chair back on its casters with the intention of rising. She turned briefly to lock the study door before moving farther into the room.
Titus remained seated, not because he had been instructed to do so, but because his cock had become instantly hard and throbbing the moment he looked at Pru. “You should not have come here,” he warned gruffly as she came to stand between him and his desk.
“You have not come to me,” she bit out accusingly.
Having reached out to grasp her bare shoulders to hold her at bay, he now groaned at the feel of that warm and silky flesh beneath his palms and fingers. “Because I cannot.” He scowled. “Because—” Titus had intended shaking her to emphasize his point, and instead, he only succeeded in jiggling her breasts until they literally spilled over the top of her blue gown, the deep rose nipples as plump as the raspberries they resembled. “Good God…” he groaned desperately, his gaze riveted on those lush and beautiful breasts.
“Suck them.”
He gave her a startled glance.
“Suck them,” she repeated determinedly, her hands moving to cup those twin orbs in offering. “Now.”
It was similar to the way Titus had once instructed Pru to suck his cock. Temptingly, undeniably so.
Too much temptation after days and nights of not even setting eyes upon the woman he desired above all others.
Seated as he was, Titus had only to lower his head to draw one of those ripe berries into his mouth and suckle, hard. First one and then the other; he could not have been any greedier if he had been a babe suckling the milk from its mother’s breasts.
Pru’s groans of pleasure only spurred him on to further intimacies. He continued to suckle her breasts while moving one of his hands beneath the skirt of her gown, fingers caressing up the length of her thigh to find her pussy bare. Titus pulled back at the discovery she wore no drawers beneath her gown.
“Do not stop.” Pru thrust her breasts forward, the nipples now elongated and a deep red from being sucked on so greedily. “I do not want you to stop, Titus,” she pleaded, parting her thighs wider to allow his hand easier access.
This woman, his Pru, would be the death of him. She was the death of his willpower and control as Titus lifted her so she sat on the edge of the desk, scattering the reports he had been reading as he threw up her skirts and bared her pussy to his avid gaze.
Her nether lips, delicate as a deep red flower in bloom, surrounded the wetness of the entrance to her pussy. Above those delicate rose petals, her nubbin stood proud and firm as it protruded from amongst her golden curls, begging for the attention of his mouth and fingers. The insidious aroma of her arousal curled about and captured all his senses, until there was only Pru and the lush pussy in front of him.
He glanced up at her. “I want to put my mouth on you there.” No matter how much he wanted that, he would not take Pru anywhere she did not want to go.
“Do it.” She parted her legs wider, her pussy now totally vulnerable and inviting.
“If I do, I cannot be answerable for what happens next,” he explained gruffly. “I might, in the throes of passion, rob you of your innocence.”
She gave a dismissive snort. “My mother warned Cilla and me that might happen when we pleasured ourselves, but…”
“You did not listen,” Titus guessed dryly.
Color entered her cheeks. “It felt too good.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “Perhaps you should not have told me that.”
“Why not?”
He groaned low in his throat. “Because now there is nothing to stop me from taking you completely.”
Her eyes glittered deeply blue. “Except me.”
“Would you stop me, Pru?” He gazed at her intently. “Do you want to stop me?”