A Lady Awakened (17 page)

“You’ll dress yourself first, I hope.” She glanced down his body. “I have no taste for anything exotic.”

“Naturally I will.” He pivoted away from her to go after his clothes, and also to hide the triumph that must be suffusing his every facial feature. He would make her forget her troubles, in the ways that suited her best.

And so he was attentive to her modesty, and her strict sensibilities, as he laced the corset and tied the petticoats and sat her in the low-backed chair at the dressing-table, book open before her, to fasten the hooks of her gown. But halfway through the fastening he stopped. He’d parted her hair and put it forward of her shoulders on either side to be clear of the hooks. The gown fell open to the left and right, baring a triangle of skin above the corset. Pale, smooth skin with an elegant ridge of backbone down the middle. Perhaps there were more effective ways to distract her than merely dressing her hair.

He hesitated, fingers playing at the next open hook. She might be angry, and rebuke him. But she might not. He glanced in the mirror at her downcast eyes. Then, fluid as grain poured from a bushel, he sank to his knees and pressed his lips to her spine.

He might as well have prodded her with a hot iron. “What are you doing?” she said, her voice dashing to the upper end of its register. Distracted, beyond any doubt.

“I’m unhooking your gown. Don’t panic.” He eased the black bombazine down just past her shoulders. “And while you read, I intend to kiss along your backbone, from the top of your chemise to the nape of your neck. That is the whole of my plan.” He touched his mouth to the place where the parting in her hair began, for illustration.

“It’s a poor plan.” Over her shoulder, he could see her face in the mirror, tight-lipped and severe. “You’d do better to plait my hair. You’re liable to work yourself into a state.”

Miracle of miracles, she hadn’t actually said
no
. He gripped the chair-seat at either side of her, and drifted down some four inches to fix her with a second, softer kiss. “I’ve just been satisfied. Remember? A
state
is unlikely.” A black, black lie. “Now tell me this: have you thought of your business concerns since I began?” Her face gave him the answer. “Very good, then. Relax. Take a few deep breaths. Read.”

She sat perfectly still, deciding. He set his mouth at the top edge of her chemise and stayed there. He felt her rib cage expand and contract, and then, as she picked up the book, he could feel the words resonate in her body at the same time they came to his ears. “
To understand the mode of procuring from a given quantity of land, the greatest possible proportion of such vegetables as are necessary for human food, the food of animals, or for
other purposes connected with human wants, is the great desideratum in agriculture
. I don’t think you’re paying attention.”

“Of course I am.
Desideratum
. Can you please relax?” Her shoulders were rigid, and halfway up to her ears. She smelled of lilacs again.

“
To obtain this desideratum, it is necessary to study with accuracy …
” She put the book down. “Mr. Mirkwood, I think this may be the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

But how could it be, when he’d coaxed her so quickly away from her preoccupations and back to her affronted self? “You haven’t given it a fair trial.” Still gripping the chair with one hand, he unpinned his gold watch from his waistcoat with the other, and flicked it open. “Allow me ten minutes.” He reached past her to set the watch on the tabletop. “I’ll stop the very second you tell me it’s time.”

“I cannot read while I’m watching the clock.”

“Then you’re not as accomplished a lady as I supposed. But perhaps you can forgo the reading for these ten minutes. I’m sure I’ll pay better attention afterward anyway.”

She closed her eyes. Through her vibrant muscles he could feel her warring with herself, casting about for some response that wouldn’t be plain surrender. “Five minutes,” she said.

Haggling. He could do that. “Seven.” He flexed his fingers on the chair.

“Six.” One small crease appeared in her forehead.

“Seven and a half.” He breathed the words next to her ear.

Her eyes snapped open, all coffee-colored impatience. “You’re supposed to go lower, to meet me. Six and a half, you should say.”

“Eight,” he murmured into her shoulder. “And I’ll go lower, to meet you, any time you like.” He flicked his tongue across her spine and caught the little shock that went charging up from her tailbone to the base of her skull. When he lifted his head to look in the mirror, her cheeks were red and her chin was down, all fierce attention leveled on his watch.

Eight minutes it was, then. He kissed her, and kissed and kissed and kissed her until he knew that narrow path of skin, and the knobbly scaffolding underneath, the way he knew the lines on his own palm. He knew her scent, and he knew her taste, and he knew which vertebra put a catch in her breath when he brushed it with his lips. He could learn her whole body by mouth, if she would but let him, and distract her all out of her mind.

He tightened his grip on the chair-seat. Her skin had grown warm, and her muscles pliant, and his hands, his intractable hands, were every moment threatening to loose themselves and steal up to settle on her thighs. How well they would fit there, his thumb and middle finger arcing to compass her, his forefinger tracing elegant patterns, his palm discerning the knot of her garter through her layers of dress.

Someone was breathing harder. He was. He did that. And someone was breathing more softly, the slow, languid breaths of a person half-drugged. He glanced up at her reflection and a jagged bolt of desire shot through him. She’d closed her eyes—so much for the watch—and her face was unfurrowed, supple with pleasure, the face of a woman just waiting to be taken.

He could—No. He wouldn’t. She didn’t want that. But the longer he kept at this, the likelier he’d be to forget the fact. To forget himself. He unclenched his hands, one, then the other, from the sides of her chair, and began to fasten her gown.

Her eyes opened, hazy with confusion. She looked down at the watch. She looked up at his reflection. “It hasn’t been eight minutes.” Possibly the sweetest words she’d ever said to him, and absolutely no help at this moment.

“No. But I’ve done as much as I think I ought.” Planting his hands on her chair again, he levered himself up. “Excuse me.” If this were any other woman, they’d be on their way back to bed. Instead he’d have to shift for himself, possibly the minute he got home—but was that allowed? Hell. Even when things went the way he meant them to, this bargain managed to make his life difficult. He went out to the sitting room and sank down on the sofa.

T
HE WOMAN
in the mirror was no woman she recognized. Cheeks flushed with pleasure. Hair tumbling in wanton waves down either shoulder. Eyes empty of all but mindless acquiescence.

Martha pivoted away from the image. She would not be that woman. Weak. Susceptible. Forgetting every vestige of principle the minute a man—a disrespectable man at that, and not even two weeks acquainted!—put his mouth to the back of her neck. A lady of purpose couldn’t afford such frailty. Men ran roughshod over one’s prospects as it was. They didn’t need encouragement.

Over her shoulder she consulted the mirror again, this time with determination. Gradually her eyes came to look like her own eyes, brimming with unreadable thoughts. Her mouth let go its softness in favor of a firm line. She put her hair back behind her shoulders.

They’d established a way of managing, she and Mr. Mirkwood had, and she wouldn’t muddy it with fleshly weaknesses that could benefit no one. She stood, caught up her book, and followed him out to the sitting room.

He slouched in a corner of the sofa, one arm flung across his face. His state was unmistakable, even from this distance. That distraction business had been a bad idea indeed.

She advanced to a spot near his knee and cleared her throat when he didn’t uncover his face. “Are you ready to hear more of Humphry Davy?”

“Not so near, if you please.” With his free hand he made a flicking motion, as if to rid himself of a housefly. “If you will go sit in your chair you may read whatever you like.”

One was not without sympathy, everything considered. She sat and paged through the book. Perhaps Mr. Davy had outlined a lecture on uses of manure, or some other topic suitable for settling a gentleman’s state.

“Before you begin, Mrs. Russell, may I clarify one point of our arrangement?”

She looked up. His elbow bent just over his brow, and beneath the shade of his arm, his eyes were on her. She nodded once.

“If I find myself with needs beyond what we’ve agreed to …” He touched his lips together and consulted the bend of his elbow as though to find the right words there. “Am I permitted to take relief elsewhere?” His eyes came to her again.

Every ounce of blood in her body rushed to her face, roaring past her ears on the way. “With other women, do you mean? Absolutely not. How can you even ask that, when you know the dangers of disease, and of—”

“No.” He held up a hand, his gaze steady on her. “I’m not referring to other women.” His fingers flexed.

“Oh.” She couldn’t blush any harder, but she could drop her attention to the carpet, and speak in the voice of some faint-hearted stranger. “Well, no. You can’t do that either.”

“Please tell me why I cannot.”

“Because I’ve purchased the rights to your seed. All of it. What if you were to spill the bit that would have made my child?”

“Not likely.” He shifted about on the sofa. “I think I need to do it.”

“No. The discomfort is a trial you shall just have to bear.”

“I think I need to do it this minute.”

She looked up from the carpet. His free hand was fingering the first button of his trousers, and his eyes were still on her. Was he teasing her, or was he in earnest? No matter. She would tolerate neither. “I’ve said you cannot. Now put your hand somewhere respectable while I read.”

“You make things worse, you know, when you speak to me that way.” He sat up, finally dropping the arm from his face. “I’ll just go into the bedroom for a few minutes. You can read through the door if you like.”

“No!” She threw down the book and rose to block his path. “For Heaven’s sake, get ahold of—” No. “For Heaven’s sake, what is the matter with you?”

As quick as a striking cobra he caught her hands and pulled her down on the sofa beside him. “This.” He pressed the back of her hand to where his condition announced itself through his trousers. “This is the matter with me. But it’s easily remedied.” His eyes glowed with unadulterated purpose. He’d be good for nothing until he’d had his relief.

“Oh, very well.” His parents, or his governess, had fallen down badly when it came to acquainting him with self-denial. “We can go back to bed, and finish reading afterward.”

“Too much delay. You take an age to undress.”

That stung, surprisingly. She’d never supposed he might decline such an offer.

He turned her hand to cup her palm to his bothersome part. “You could help me.”

Help him? What fresh indecency was this? “I haven’t the first idea how.”

“Fastidious Mrs. Russell.” He spoke caressingly, and idly he was caressing her fingers, too, as though to seduce the hand away from her control. “I’ll show you what to do.”

What choice did she have? If she refused, he would almost certainly go home and disport himself regardless. “I’ll do it if you will end by giving me the seed. I needn’t undress for that.” She rose. “And tomorrow you must take me to call on your laborer families.”

“Laborer families.” He was striving to contain his smile, like an unseasoned gambler who’d just turned up a royal flush. “By all means.”

I
F SHE
hadn’t already consigned her soul to perdition, she was surely booking its passage there now. She lay flat on her back, overdressed for the occasion, and let him take possession of her right hand.

“We’ll proceed gradually, shall we?” With his thumb and first two fingers he held her at the palm, and grazed her knuckles against his pertinent part. Thin, fragile-feeling skin slid about under her touch, but this was nothing new. In her marriage she’d learned more than she ever cared to know about the properties of the male organ.

“You implied there was some urgency to this. Am I to conclude you were deceiving me?”

“Do you know there are men who’d pay handsomely to be scolded so? You might consider that, if you ever find yourself in want of a profession.” He wrapped her hand round the appendage and pressed it with his own.

“You didn’t answer my question. And you need not introduce tasteless subjects.”

“Pardon me. I’ll converse with as much gentility as I can, while showing you how a man pleasures himself.” He shifted her hand to a place higher up and gripped over it again. “And as to the question of urgency, perhaps you’ve felt enough now to judge for yourself.”

There was nothing, really, one could say in reply to that. Urgency throbbed formidably in the palm of her hand.

He took her fingers to the end, where he’d begun to be damp, and drew them through the wetness, one by one. When he squeezed her hand over him again her fingers slid and he drew in a sharp breath. He guided their two hands up and back, slowly, and up and back again. “You see how it’s done.” He closed his eyes and spoke in a near whisper. “Not so hard, is it?”

“Not so difficult.” Since these distinctions mattered.

“No. Not difficult at all.” His hand tightened on hers and he made the movement faster.

She stared straight up at the canopy. This was four hundred kinds of wrong. He ought not to have involved her. She didn’t want to hear his unchaste breaths, or to notice the way his hips moved. With brazen vigor they moved, as though he pushed into a greedy lover instead of one dumb hand clasped in another. She didn’t want to notice that.

The crisis must come soon, surely. Already he sounded near to immolating himself in lust. And finally he did roll toward her, came up on one elbow, and let go her hand.