Chapter Fourteen
I should have known better than to believe we’d be granted a quiet afternoon together. The moment we stepped into Edwin’s townhouse, Puck spotted Patches peeking his head out of the kitchen door and ripped the leash from my hand as he galloped down the hall in chase of the kitten. I cringed as clangs and yelps echoed from the kitchen.
Nancy exiled the dog to the yard.
After herding us into the front parlor, she pressed teacups into our hands and set a plate of seedcake in front of us on the table. Then she left us utterly alone, side by side on the settee.
Growing up, Edwin’s and my friendship had always been easy. He was quiet to my outspoken, cautious to my brazen. He shared the things he learned from his tutors—most of them boring—and once in a while, I teased out that rare treasure of a smile.
Now that we were adults, with a passion and awareness that simmered between us, friendship suddenly didn’t seem so easy. Should I have agreed to stay the night with him after all? He lusted for me rather than loved me, and the knowledge of that weighed heavy around my shoulders. I didn’t know what to say to him.
Edwin slipped his hand into mine, threading our fingers together. “You’re thinking.”
I mustered a thin smile. “Is it so obvious?”
Despite the worries still whirling around my head, the press of his skin against mine soothed me. I fought the desire to lean closer.
He had no qualms about closing the distance between us. He ran his thumb over my forehead, between my eyebrows. “When you’re considering a problem, you get a little wrinkle right there. Is it the wedding? I told you, you needn’t worry over it. This will be over long before Aunt Louise arranges a date.”
It’s for the better. This insanity between us couldn’t last.
“So you say, but I was fitted for a wedding dress today, and a frankly unflattering one.”
He laughed. “You looked darling.”
I glared at him.
“Very well, a bit like a doll dressed in someone else’s clothes, but I wouldn’t call it unflattering.”
“It had flounces.” My voice was flat, unlike the line of my wedding dress.
“Aunt Louise wouldn’t dress you in something unfashionable.”
“And ruffles.”
He frowned. “Aren’t they the same thing?”
“I’ll find a third word for them if it pleases me. It was horrid!”
He laughed. “Worse things could happen to you than a feminine wedding dress.”
“Name them.”
He cupped my chin. “I’d rather distract you from them instead.”
The moment his mouth brushed mine, I forgot my misgivings about the wedding dress. I leaned into him, threading the fingers of my free hand through his thick hair as I surrendered to the moment. He continued to claim my other hand, holding me as if he never intended to let me go. For the moment, I let myself pretend that was precisely what he wanted. More time with me, the same as I craved from him.
As he leaned me back against the settee, I went with him gladly. I dropped my hand to his broad shoulders, clutching him to me as he started to kiss his way down my neck. He paused to pay special attention to the hollow beneath my ear. As my toes curled, I moaned, arching into him.
A man yelped from the doorway, sounding like a wounded dog.
“Shut the door if you want privacy!”
Edwin lifted his head, glaring. “Isaac!”
The butler shrugged. He glanced at us, entangled on the settee, then opted to study the ceiling. “You have visitors,” he mumbled.
Edwin sat up, frowning. “Who?”
Without his warmth, I shivered. I adjusted my bodice one-handedly. At some point, Edwin had pulled it askew.
“Perhaps I should leave.”
He tightened his hand on mine. “Don’t. Please. I’ll sort this out quickly.”
“It will only take a moment,” Annabel said as she peeked around Isaac’s tall form.
The corners of her lips tipped up in a sly expression as she espied us. Edwin’s hair stuck up from where I’d run my fingers through it. No doubt I looked just as bedraggled.
She added, “Though if you’d rather be alone, we can come back in an hour or two.”
We?
The mystery was solved a moment later as Winifred wedged her way into the room. She nudged Annabel with her elbow and winked. “Aren’t they supposed to wait for the wedding for that sort of rowdiness?”
Annabel snorted. “As if you waited.”
Winifred’s eyes widened with innocence. Coupled with the lock of blond hair dripping onto her forehead, she looked almost cherubic. “He was stung by one of my bees. It was my duty to kiss it better.”
“If I am stung, will you kiss me better?”
Winifred winked. “That depends on where you’re stung.”
“Ladies,” Edwin interrupted, clearing his throat and standing. “How can I help you?”
Donning a businesslike air, Annabel hoisted a rolled-up parchment nearly two feet long. “I brought the plans for the greenhouse expansion over. I know you haven’t signed the contract yet, solidifying the deal, but if we’re to make the changes before winter sets in, we need to order the materials. How do you feel about this layout?”
Mr. Craven had sent his wife on a business errand? That was…remarkably progressive of him.
As Annabel unrolled the parchment on the table, pointing to a section of the proposed greenhouse addition while Edwin bent to examine it, Winifred squeezed around the pair and sat next to me. She helped herself to Edwin’s teacup and sipped.
Making a wretched face, she replaced the cup on the table. “That’s horrid! Who doesn’t put sugar in their tea?”
Smirking, I pointed to Edwin and offered Winifred my cup.
“You’re mad,” she informed him before she sipped.
Although the tea was certainly lukewarm by now, she didn’t appear to mind.
“Shall I fetch another pot?” Isaac asked from the doorway.
Without looking at him, Annabel waved him off. “No need. We won’t be here long.”
“How is the cake?” Winifred asked.
“I haven’t tried it, but everything Nancy cooks is divine.”
Winifred helped herself to the cake while she waited for the pair to finish looking over the plans. I claimed the second slice. As promised, it tasted heavenly.
After asking for a slight change, Edwin straightened. Thanked Annabel for visiting, raising one eyebrow pointedly.
She giggled. “We’ll leave you two to your privacy. See you soon at your engagement party.”
The cake turned into a heavy lump in my stomach. I replaced the rest on the plate and dusted off my hands.
The moment the two women retreated from the sitting room, Edwin shut the door. He beckoned me closer. “Come, let’s finish what we started.”
I had no qualms about losing myself in his arms once again. As he closed his strong arms around me, I tipped my head back with a sigh. He barely touched his lips to mine before a knock at the door interrupted the moment.
With a noise between a grumble and a sigh, Edwin turned to open the door. “You instructed me to close the door if I wanted privacy. I want privacy.”
Isaac thrust a letter into Edwin’s hand. “I know what I said, but the messenger insists on waiting for an answer. It’s from your brother.”
“Your brother?” I frowned. “I thought you weren’t close.”
Edwin’s older brother, now the earl, was something of a degenerate—at least, he had been when Edwin and I had been friends. No thought of responsibility or consequence, his brother had cut a swathe through the disreputable women of London before and after his marriage. Considering Edwin and his brother were as different as night and day, I hadn’t thought them on speaking terms.
“We aren’t,” Edwin confirmed. He heaved a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “However, I consult for my brother from time to time on our ancestral estate. It’s better for his tenants this way.” Leaning down, he dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ll make this as quick as can be, I promise.”
“He should hire a steward,” I muttered under my breath as Edwin crossed to the writing desk in the corner of the room to read the letter and crosshatch his reply.
For a botanist, Edwin was a busier man than I’d expected. If I had had a cause to pursue—or a shelter to run—I might not have felt his absence so acutely. By the time he finished with the letter to his brother, someone else had arrived to claim his attention on some trivial matter, and another person after that. Each time, he cast me an apologetic look as he handled the matter. When the stolen kisses between visitors started to wear on me, I escaped into the fenced-in back yard to play with Puck instead.
Was this how most wives of the ton felt, cast aside? Edwin hadn’t invited me to help with his business—not that I knew the first thing about plants, which one visitor had brought to Edwin because of its apparently flagging health. However, I couldn’t help but feel a bit useless. I wasn’t accustomed to the feeling. Usually, I was the person sought out to fix problems. However, Edwin was courteous to his servants and Nancy handled any issues which arose, so there was nothing here for me to do.
“There you are.”
I glanced toward the kitchen door, my fingers buried in Puck’s fur. Edwin stood with his arms held loosely at his sides.
“I didn’t realize you usually led such a busy life.”
Edwin pulled a face. “I don’t. Most of my days are shut in with my plants. The world seems to be conspiring to keep me busy today.”
Turn them away. I couldn’t speak for everyone who had arrived—perhaps his brother’s letter, for instance, genuinely needed tending at that moment—but a plant wouldn’t get better instantly with Edwin’s care. Not to mention, there must be hundreds if not thousands of gardeners who could apprise the situation, regardless if the species of plant happened to be rare or not. It seemed selfish to ask him to stop his life simply because I was bored. After all, on a normal day, I would have myriad emergencies of my own to which to attend.
Then again, it had been selfish of Edwin to ask me to put my matters on hold for the duration of our engagement, too. Perhaps I had a right to be selfish if I wanted his attention for the afternoon.
Since he had sought me out, I held out some hope that he felt the same. Even so, I stood as he approached, tilting my face up to meet his. “If your afternoon is too busy, I can go home.”
He caught my hand in his, again threading his fingers through mine as if we belonged together, joined in this way. He examined our intertwined fingers, holding our hands between us. “Please don’t. I want you to stay.”
I gathered my courage to ask him to instruct Isaac to inform that he was not at home for the duration of the day, but as I opened my lips, my breath gushed out instead. If he had asked something like that of me, I often wouldn’t be able to comply. Not only that, but it would irritate me that he didn’t understand that I had a life outside him. He had a life outside of me. That shouldn’t surprise me.
He cupped my cheek, leaning down to steal another kiss. The contact was brief. When he lifted his head, he said, “The rest of the afternoon is yours, I promise.”
I glanced up at the sky. The sun hadn’t yet begun to set, but it would in an hour or two.
“Take tea with me?” Edwin asked.
I nodded. I detangled from him to pat Puck on the head. “I have to go in now, boy. I’ll see about convincing Nancy to let you back in.” Perhaps if we hid Patches for the duration, he wouldn’t chase the cat and therefore be banished out into the garden again.
Claiming my hand, Edwin led me into the house once more. The kitchen staff paused in their work until a stern word from Nancy convinced them to ignore their lord’s presence. As Edwin steered me through the humid, fragrant room—was Nancy baking again?—he said, “Mary and I will be taking tea shortly. Is anything ready for us?”
Nancy wiped her hands on her apron. “Give us thirty minutes, and we’ll bring up something special.”
Something special? I craned my neck, trying to discern what surprises they had in store for tea time, but Edwin toed me out of the room.
“You’d best make it an hour, then.”
When we reached the corridor, he paused to sweep me into his arms. As the world tilted sideways, I wrapped my arms around his neck. He loped toward the front of the house and the staircase there, calling to Isaac. “If you disturb me, the house had better be on fire.” He paused at the foot of the stairs to add, “And I’d prefer you didn’t light the house on fire.”
I heartily hoped Isaac had never taken him so literally.
As Edwin started to mount the stairs, I protested, “I can walk.”
“You can,” he agreed. “But you’re much easier to kiss this way.” He proved as much by leaning down, lingering on my mouth as he continued to climb the steps. At the top, his foot caught, and he stumbled a pace before he righted himself.
I held him tighter. Breathless, I chided, “This must be why everyone doesn’t walk around in this manner.”
Laughing, he leaned down to capture my lips again. The sweet, light kiss quickly grew urgent. He strode swiftly to his bedchamber and kicked the door shut behind him. It rattled in its frame as it shut. I broke the kiss, glancing to the door as the echoes of the noise rippled through the air.
“Was that necessary?”
“Entirely. I finally have you all to myself.”
He set me down on the bed, kneeling at my feet as he bent to remove my slippers.
“We have tea in thirty minutes,” I protested.
He ran his palms over my ankles and calves, moving up and taking my dress higher as he went. His eyes were dark with desire to match the husky edge to his voice as he murmured, “I’m not hungry anymore. Are you?”
Biting my lip, I shook my head.
“Then it can wait.”
He leaned forward as his hands migrated up the outer edges of my legs. He searched out the tops of my stockings. My thighs quivered as he slowly traced the edge, searching for the ribbon to untie them. When he found it, he painstakingly pulled it free.
“This is going to take longer than thirty minutes.” I meant the comment to be joking, but my voice sounded full of anticipation instead.
When he smiled, my stomach flipped. A more handsome man I’d never found, especially when that smile was only for me. I leaned down, cupping his cheeks as I kissed him. Finally, I have you all to myself. I shared the sentiment. In fact, I surrendered to it. For now, he was mine and only mine.
His thumbs rubbed tantalizing circles on my inner thighs as I conquered his mouth. He let me take the lead, moaning as I deepened the kiss. Empowered, I threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled him closer. My breasts crushed against his collarbone as he pushed my skirt up my legs, nestling the fabric around my hips. He ran his hot palms up and down my legs, making me arch and squirm.
I pulled back on a gasp. “Edwin.”
He grinned, his smile turning lascivious. “I adore it when you say my name like that.”
“Like what?” I asked as he bore me onto the bed with his weight.
He claimed my lips, thrusting his tongue against mine in a weak parody of the pleasure to come. It made me ache. When I broke away to run my tongue along the underside of his jaw, he fisted his hand in the coverlet. “Like you can’t wait until I’m inside you.”
His husky voice, coupled with the rough feel of his skin beneath my tongue, drove me wild. I sucked on a tender spot on his neck, then moved up, arching my hips against him as I kissed a path to his earlobe. When I took it between my teeth and flicked my tongue, he swore under his breath.
He wedged his thigh between mine, using it as leverage to brush against the sensitive bud at my apex. Pleasured rippled through me and I fell back onto the mattress, moaning. Edwin leaned down to deliver the same treatment, circling his tongue around the hollow behind my ear in the way I liked so much. Although we’d had only one night—and a morning—in each other’s arms, he had made it his mission to learn precisely which spots on my body made me squirm and moan in pleasure. That studious nature of his was put to good use.
“Edwin.” I dug my fingers into his muscular shoulders.
I felt the satisfied rumble in his chest before I heard it. “There it is again.” He captured my mouth, drawing out the kiss as he trailed his palm along the contours of my waist. When he reached my breast, he brushed his thumb over my hard nipple. I thrashed in the throes of the teasing touch through my bodice.
Running my hands over his body as I went, I retracted my hands from his shoulders and sought out the buttons on his jacket to undress him. Edwin broke away, catching my hand and delivering a hot, open-mouthed kiss to my palm. The searing contact set me on fire, alight with the desire I found mirrored in his eyes.
“You first,” he whispered, only two words. He was losing his eloquence as urgency overtook him. Frankly, I was surprised he was still of a mind to say anything at all.
My will to protest dissolved as he started to kiss his way up my bare arm. He lingered in the crook of my elbow, making me shiver before he continued his path. When he reached the bottom edge of my sleeve, he slipped his hand beneath by back in search of the buttons on my dress. I arched, helping him.
One by one they slipped free as he kissed my neck. When the dress loosened enough, he guided it down my arms one sleeve at a time, then shimmied down my body to pull the fabric over my hips. Cool air surrounded me in his wake, raising gooseflesh and making me even more sensitive to the brush of his fingers as he passed my dress over my ankles and pooled it on the floor. The moment the muslin fell away from his fingers, he returned to the bed, pressing me into the mattress as he claimed my mouth. I spread my legs in welcome, easier done now that I had only my knee-length underdress to cover me.
Edwin stoked the fire in me. When I tugged on the lapel of his jacket, he let me strip it from his shoulders and toss it away. His cravat came next, baring more of his throat for me to lick and kiss. I loved the way his moan vibrated through him from the inside out when I did that.
His fingers made fast work of my stays, which he discarded near the foot of the bed before drawing my underdress down my arms. The fabric ensnared my arms, pinning them to my sides as he bared my breasts to the air. Grinning, he took advantage of the position to run his tongue around my areolas.
“Edwin!”
“I could grow accustomed to you saying my name that way if you’re not careful.”
He stole my retort and my breath as he returned to his task, laving my sensitive skin and rolling the tip of my nipple on his tongue. I thrashed, aflame. The ache between my legs built to an insistent throb. It wasn’t appeased by rubbing against him. I craved more of him.
As if he heard my thoughts, he continued to work my shift off my arms and torso, over my belly and down my legs. He chased it with his mouth, pressing kisses to the new skin he bared. When he reached my navel, visible over the line of my drawers, he paused to dip his tongue into the indentation. I felt the contact as an echo between my legs. Moaning, I arched against him, trying to convince him to continue. He tongued the edge of my drawers instead, teasing me.
Tangling my fingers in his hair, I urged him up for a scorching kiss. That made my desires known if the way he thrust his body against mine in response was any indication. He dipped his fingers into the slit in my drawers, seeking out the part of me that needed him the most. The moment he brushed his thumb over my apex, I bucked into his hand. My clit was swollen and sensitive, my body ready for the invasion of his fingers.
As my body clenched around his fingers, Edwin shuddered with desire. “Mary,” he whispered next to my ear. He started a lazy rhythm that I rolled my hips to match as he kissed his way down my body once more.
This time, when he reached the line of my drawers, he peeled them away and left them with the rest of my garments on the floor. I quivered, legs spread wide as his breath teased my center. All thoughts of modesty melted in the path of my need for more. When he pressed his lips to my inner thigh, I gasped. Instead of moving up, where I needed him most, he kissed his way down to the line of my stockings.
I threaded my fingers through his hair in protest. “Edwin!”
“Patience.”
“I don’t have much of that.”
With a laugh, he nipped at my skin, then soothed the sting with his tongue. “You never have, love.”
He worked his way lower in a maddening trail, chasing my stockings down my legs one by one and replacing them with hot kisses along the way. When I was completely bare in front of him, he kneeled beside the bed and hooked my knees behind his elbows, using the position to haul me closer. The breath gushed out of me as he gave me what I needed most.
With lips and tongue, he laved at my sensitive inner flesh and drew me closer to my pinnacle. It took only a few moments before I was rocking into his mouth, begging him for release. Flashing me a wicked smile before he took a long lick, he obliged. The moment he latched onto my bud and sucked, I saw stars. He didn’t stop there, but built up my pleasure again until I hovered on the brink once more.
This time when I reached my peak, I wanted him there alongside me. I used my grip on his hair to urge him up, back to me. Somehow, while he’d been driving me mad with pleasure, he’d managed to work off his boots. One less article of clothing for me to worry about.
Our mouths met, tongues tangling. Tasting myself on his tongue made me want to make him writhe with pleasure. Wordlessly, I urged him onto his back and worked free his waistcoat buttons. He shucked the clothes quickly as I moved lower, treating him to the same wicked teasing as he’d given me. He moaned my name as I tongued his navel. I unbuttoned his fall swiftly and guided his erect shaft into the open air.
Previously lovers had always seemed to enjoy my tongue, but I’d never tried to pleasure a man in the same way. Tentatively, I leaned forward to lap at the thick tip of his manhood. He fell back on the bed, boneless. I took that as encouragement. I took my time to learn the shape of him, where each of his most tender spots resided. With each strangled moan or roll of his hips, I grew bolder. By the time I took his crown into my mouth, his hands were fisted in my hair, now falling free around my shoulders. I ran my tongue along the ridge on the underside of his manhood as I wrung out his pleasure.
Tightening his grip, he guided me away. His eyes were dark with desire as he leaned on one elbow to look at me. With his hair disheveled and his breeches only partially removed, he looked thoroughly debauched. I liked the look.
I ran my tongue across my lips. His gaze followed the movement.
“I want to pleasure you the way you did me.”
“If you do, this will be over far sooner than I’d like.” The rough edge to his voice rekindled my desire for him. I divested him of the rest of his body, then climbed up to kiss him.
He took full advantage, wrapping his arms around me and rolling until I rested beneath him. The weight of his body drove me wild. I spread my legs willingly, inviting him closer. As he settled the tip of his manhood between us, he paused. He kissed me once more, lingering as he cupped my cheek. As he lifted his head, he brushed his thumb across my lower lip. His gaze glimmered with an emotion I couldn’t name.
“Say my name again, the way I like.”
“Edwin.”
He slid home. I arched to meet him halfway, overwhelmed by the exquisite friction between us.
“Edwin. Edwin.”
Each time I spoke his name, he thrust again. So I continued. The name poured faster from my lips as I clasped his biceps, feeling the delicious play of muscles beneath my hands. As I tightened around him, on the edge, I wrapped my legs around his waist and held him close. He followed me into bliss, his arms trembling as euphoria blanketed us both. As he fell against the bed, he rolled to pull me to rest on his chest.
For the longest time, neither of us spoke. As his heartbeat slowly returned to normal, I couldn’t help but think this was precisely where we were meant to be.
Edwin ran his hand down my back and over my hip to rest on my rump, possessive. “It seems a waste to put on clothes again.”
My stomach grumbled, letting him know precisely what I thought of that notion.
Chuckling, he kissed the top of my head. “But I suppose there’s plenty of time to take them off again later.”
Perhaps…at least, for the duration of our engagement. We might have only five days left. For some reason, I wasn’t looking as forward to our parting as I’d thought I would. At least I still had him for tonight.