throat.
The heat between them danced across his skin. He opened his eyes thinking to see his jacket in flames, but saw instead his lover, her hair a tangle, her ivory skin flushed, her mouth open in joyous surprise. His tongue swept in and she returned the parry, as though she was starving, tasting him for the first time and could not get enough. He could kiss her forever, drink in her sweetness. Their coupling was so right, so thoughtless, really. He needn’t worry about position or mindless patter-she opened to him willingly and matched him each time he thrust. Then she rippled all around him, riding the crest of her orgasms, making quick cries between kisses. It had been like this from the first night, when she thought she was dreaming. Perhaps it was he who was dreaming now, for surely this was too ideal to be real.
But reality did intrude on this come-to-life fantasy, so he withdrew and spent on her belly. He lay pressed close, their heartbeats skipping between them. Her white breast spilled over in his hand, its nipple peaked and pink. The weight of his clothes was suddenly onerous-he should be with her, flesh to flesh. He’d taken her like an impatient brute, but judging from her lazy smile, she didn’t mind.
“I’m sorry I was so precipitous. I didn’t even remove my boots.”
She touched his scarred cheek. “We still have most of three hours.” Her voice was playful and sultry, even if she had reminded him how very fast he had taken her. How very fast she had brought him to completion. But it had been as good for her. Next time he would make it even better. He rolled away and tugged at his neck cloth, which had disentangled enough for her to mark him with a lovebite. She sat up and drew her shift over her head.
Her body was even more desirable than he remembered. She glistened with a sheen of perspiration from their lovemaking, and her scent, far from disturbing him, made him want to taste her all over, lick up each drop of moisture. He watched as she used the garment to wipe away the sweat and semen. If they had been on Jane Street, they could have bathed together, which reminded him he was overdressed for the occasion. He removed his wrinkled clothing, returned to the mattress and to his absolute astonishment, watched his cock recover some of its audacity.
He sensed her regaining her propriety, moving away from him both physically and mentally. Her face had lost some of its sly softness, as if she was awakening from a reverie. He meant for her to go back, for them both to go back where the world was as small as the bed they shared, and life was as simple as a good fuck. He would force her from her prudery, and with luck, would be on his way to Dorset with her in the morning. He tipped her back against the pillows and trailed his tongue from the hollow at her throat to her delicious hot slit. She would not say no. She could not say no. She was his, every inch of her, at least for a little while.
Chapter 19
Bay’s carriage rolled through the drive, the open fields of tall grass on either side flattened by the brisk wind. Ahead was a large stone manor house overlooking a gray-green sea. Storm clouds hung low on the horizon, promising to continue the bad weather that had followed them all the way from Little Hyssop. A few stunted black trees sprung up here and there along the lane, but mostly the green of the ground met the sky and the ocean as far as the eye could see. Charlotte took a deep breath, devouring the smell of salt air and rain. She was home for the first time in a decade, not all that far from the beach she played on as a child. Bay had promised her sailing and swimming, as well as days and nights of his masterful loving.
No, not loving. She mustn’t be foolish. Mustn’t make more of their mutual lust. And lust it was. It was as if she had shredded every admonition her poor mother had ever given her. “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.” So many sentences her mama uttered began with those words, or “a lady never…” A lady would never give her body to Bay with heedless abandon in coaching houses and carriage rides. A lady would never rest on a pillow on her knees as she took her lover’s member in her mouth. A lady would never feel jubilant as she cradled and suckled him to lose all control. A lady would not crave the taste of his enslavement. Charlotte was ashamed of her easy acceptance of every vice. But how essential it was to be led astray when Bay was doing the leading.
She had meant to say “don’t.” She had meant to say “no.” Instead she had watched in a languorous stupor as Bay packed her belongings in a valise by candlelight. He carried it off before the Pig and Whistle locked its doors, with precise instructions to meet him the following day. He had obviously never doubted for a minute that he could convince her to join him, the devil. She found herself on Mr. Trumbull’s doorstep the next morning, stammering that she had been summoned back to London again to see her sister. She rode the mail coach three towns over before Bay met her in the courtyard of the Grasshopper Inn. Even though she knew not a soul, she was as veiled as a freshly made widow. Bay had tossed that veil and the cap under it out of the window of his coach almost immediately. When she delved into her case when they stopped at the first of several inns on the journey to the coast, she had been irritated to discover that he had somehow misplaced all her other caps. But he had purchased her a lovely straw bonnet, telling her the blue ribbons were an exact match for her eyes, so she was on her way to forgiving him.
He had been restless the past hour, shifting in his seat as the driver bumped along a winding path along the cliffs, almost as if he were as nervous as she was. He had spoken about his house with pride, and she could see he had every reason. She counted numerous gables and chimneys on the Jacobean facade, noted the many-paned mullioned windows. A high stone wall covered in ivy and climbing roses sheltered his grandmother’s garden at the east end of the house. Somewhere in his luggage were Mr. Trumbull’s cuttings. Bay had been most particular wrapping the stems in wet cotton batting at each stop.
They had not passed another dwelling for some time, driving down a spit of land surrounded by the sea. Bay had hopped down from his dry perch, braving the weather to unlock the gates at the end of the drive. The carriage pushed forward a few meters, then Bay locked them back up “to discourage the random visitor,” he said. Somehow Charlotte felt trapped, not that she wanted to risk her reputation and venture off the estate. There had been a village a mile or so back much like the one in which she had grown up, the Smugglers’ Rest Pub proclaiming the previous pastime of some of the citizenry. Now that the wars were over, most free traders were forced to earn an honest living, depleting the little community. Bay had given Charlotte a very brief history of his section of the Dorset coast during their trip.
As a boy, Bay had a fascination for the local smugsmiths, which his grandmother had firmly squelched. His house itself had once been owned by a prominent family who had dabbled in the trade over the centuries. He’d watched the lights on the water for hours from his bedroom with his grandfather’s spyglass. Things were now staid and settled, although there was still some remarkably good brandy in his cellars. He’d promised Charlotte a large tot of it once their feet were on the flagstone floors of Bayard Court.
The short journey had not agreed with her. She’d been queasy off and on for days. The roads were rutted and muddy, and the inclement weather had not helped, necessitating the closure of the carriage windows. She was trapped in the still air of Bay’s carriage, although the scent of him-starched linen and vetiver and sex-was very pleasant. Charlotte had seen the sun shine for just one day in two weeks, and she had spent part of that day in Bay’s arms with the curtains closed.
Her garden would be a shambles when she returned. Before she left Little Hyssop, she had pressed some money in Mr. Trumbull’s arthritic hand, asking him to hire one or two of the local boys to work in both their gardens for the next month. The produce from her vegetable patch and fruit trees was to go to the poor. Richer by six thousand pounds, she could order hampers from Fortnum & Mason to fill her belly for the rest of her life.
Six thousand pounds for thirty days. Two hundred pounds per day. The sum was inconceivable, but Bay had assured her he wouldn’t miss a single sovereign. Judging from his house, he was ridiculously rich. She wondered why he had gone into the army. As a baronet and only son, surely he could have stayed home and left the fighting to others.
And then she remembered Anne and his illegal marriage. Bay had gone off to get himself killed. Charlotte shivered. She hoped that woman was far away, her schemes for Bay thwarted by his loyal retainers.
Charlotte and Bay dashed from the carriage under an umbrella provided by a windblown Mr. Frazier. Mrs. Kelly beamed a welcome to them in the wide flagstone foyer. Evidently Charlotte had been forgiven for her earlier behavior and was now in the housekeeper’s good books. Making his excuses, Bay disappeared with Mr. Frazier almost immediately, leaving Charlotte to tour the house without him.
If Jane Street had been lovely, Bay’s true home was one hundred times more impressive. Intricate Jacobean
