Provocative in Pearls (36 page)

“You did not stay in Oldbury long,” he said. “With the travel both ways, it could not have been more than four days.”

“I stayed long enough to order my cousin’s property packed away. Long enough to banish the bad memories from my father’s house, as you advised. Also long enough to learn that Mr. Albrighton has arrested four men for being in league with my cousin. Cleobury, of course, was beyond his reach. I assume the House of Lords will try him soon enough.”

She had also stayed long enough to be very sure she did not want to stay forever.

She had needed to see how that life would be before she rejected it. Michael had not been a factor at all. As soon as he walked into her chamber at The Rarest Blooms, she had known that there could not ever be a marriage between them, not even a practical one.

She could have embraced all the rest, though. She knew that she could when she walked through that house, and met with Mr. Travis. The problem, however, was that if she were Verity Thompson again, she could not be Hawkeswell’s wife and lover.

She had concluded almost immediately that she could not live without him. If she tried, there would be no joy, no contentment, no passion. Since she would always love him, and never love another man, there could also be no other marriage, even if she were free.

“The House of Lords will deal with Cleobury,” Hawkeswell said. “The evidence is damning.”

“Mr. Albrighton found two bodies. The ones who disappeared onto the hulks were fortunate. The later ones were not.” She looked up at him. “Michael told me to thank you for harrowing hell for him. He was very moved that you would bother, and thought it very noble of you.”

“I did not do it to be noble.”

She stretched up and kissed his cheek, then feathered her fingers on his lips. “No, you did it for me, because it mattered to me, even though you wondered why it mattered. I also know why you left us alone together, Grayson. A man must have to care for a woman a great deal to turn his back and not see, not know, when he wonders.”

“Care enough to be a damned fool, you mean.”

“You missed nothing that day except the joy of two old friends meeting, and a woman explaining that her husband is the finest of men and that she is very happy in her marriage.”

He moved his head so he could look down at her upturned face. “Did you really say that?”

“I did. I would have told him about the pleasure you give me, but I thought that inappropriate. I confess that I implied that you often see me naked.”

He laughed. “You are a shocking woman.”

“I did not tell him some things that I wanted, though. Not then, and not on our journey north. Not because they were not fit for his ears. I did not tell him because I should not speak of them to anyone before you. I want to tell others, though. My friends here, and yours. Michael and Katy. Everyone who will listen.”

“What things were those?”

She kissed him again. “I want to say that I am in love with my earl, that he gives me much more than care and pleasure. That he moves my soul and awakens my heart and makes me smile. Won’t our friends find that amusing, Hawkeswell? I ran away from a marriage and fought to be free, and now I am grateful that you are stuck with me.”

He did not laugh. He did not even smile. He turned his body so he could look at her directly. She could see his surprise then.

“I am not good with these kinds of words, Verity. Not when it matters.”

“I expect not. However, you are eloquent with your actions, Hawkeswell. Offering Verity Thompson her life back was the most loving act that I can imagine. I want you to know that you are not a damned fool. You are all that I want, and I am proud to be your countess.”

He lifted her hand and held it to a long kiss, then moved the kiss to her mouth.

“I had accepted that I would love you in vain, Verity. That although you reconciled to the marriage, your heart would always be rebellious, and you would always regret your life not being the way you thought it was supposed to be. So you have made me the happiest of men with your words.”

He embraced her closely and they shared a special kiss, one poignant and heartfelt. She savored it, and felt a breeze of freedom blowing away the remnants of old hurts and resentments and questions in her heart.

She nestled in his arms, her head on his chest, in a sweet silence. It was, she decided, a timeless moment that she would make sure she remembered forever.

They may have stayed like that an hour or only a few minutes. She did not know. The intensity of the emotion did not lessen, but she accommodated it so she did not fear it disappearing if she moved.

“I suppose we will have to find someone to replace Bertram,” she said.

“I expect so.”

“Mr. Travis could do most of it, I am sure. Contract the work and such.”

“He would not have time to work the lathes, then. He could not machine the bits.”

The topic drifted away into the night. She let it go. Another day it could be found again.

“I’m told that a young man named Michael Bowman has the skill for replacing Travis in machining those bits, if we decide we trust him with that secret,” he said. “Perhaps he could take over some of Travis’s duties, and Travis could do most of Bertram’s. If there are major decisions, he can leave them to us.”

“It is one solution.”

“A solution that you favor, I think.”

“It would mean visiting Oldbury at least several times a year, to see how things are going there.”

“I do not think that would be too inconvenient.”

She tightened her embrace. Love flowed until her heart ached. He was giving her back her home yet again. She would be a steward of her father’s legacy, the way it had been intended.

She had not realized that once it took root, love could grow and propagate, even after you thought it already filled you. But it did now, as they sat in front of the fire. She felt her love deepening and branching then and there, and it moved her profoundly.

“Hawkeswell, do you think the servants are well gone, above and below?”

“I expect so. Why do you ask?”

“I thought it would be better if they are, if I have wicked things in mind.”

He laughed. “Please tell me that you do.”

“Oh, yes, my love. I have spent hours in dreams about all the wicked things we do. Things I could never imagine wanting with any other man.” She knelt on the sofa and kissed him aggressively, and let her fantasies have their way.

He lifted her skirt high and she climbed on his lap, facing him. “This is perfect,” she said. “It is just as I pictured in one dream. Only I woke up before—well, before I wanted to.” She parted her shawl and worked the buttons of her pelisse dress. “Isn’t it convenient that this dress opens in the front?”

“Even more convenient that you have nothing on beneath it. It is no wonder that I love you. You were plotting this from when you woke.”

“I was hopeful.” She parted the dress as much as she could, so her breasts were exposed to his gaze. “Touch me. Touch me the way I dreamed. Touch me and tell me that you love me, and I will tell you too. We will say it again and again today and forever, because love makes the pleasure so joyful and perfect.”

“I love you, Verity. You make me joyful because you are perfect.”

He told her he loved her again while his palms caressed her breasts and thighs. He told her again between deep kisses full of need and barely restrained fury. He told her right after he entered her, while relief and contentment drenched her and desire began its wonderful climb to freedom and madness.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. He grasped her hips and moved in her. Sensations intensified, and within them tiny shivers foreshadowed the ecstasy to come.

“This is so exquisite,” she muttered into the crook of his neck between muffled cries. “You fill all of me, in every possible way. My senses and my heart and my body. You fill me completely, Hawkeswell.”

She knew, as their fevered pleasure swept them away and their joy merged and the knowing deepened, she knew that this was how it was supposed to be.

 

 

Look for it in Fall 2010

 

 

 

Look for it in Spring 2011

 

 

And don’t miss the first novel in
Madeline Hunter’s stunning quartet.
Read on for an excerpt from Audrianna’s story . . .

 

 

 

Now available from Jove Books

A
n independent woman is a woman unprotected
. AudriAnna had never understood her cousin Daphne’s first lesson to her as well as she did today.

An independent woman was also a woman of dubious respectability.

Her entry into the Two Swords Coaching Inn outside Brighton garnered more attention than any proper young woman would like. Eyes examined her from head to toe. Several men watched her solitary path across the public room with bold interest, the likes of which she had never been subjected to before.

The assumptions implied by all those stares darkened her mood even more. She had embarked on this journey full of righteous determination. The shining sun and unseasonably mild temperature for late January seemed designed by Providence to favor her great mission.

Providence had proven fickle. An hour out of London the wind, rain, and increasing cold had begun, making her deeply regret taking a seat on the coach’s roof. Now she was drenched from hours of frigid rain, and more than a little vexed.

She gathered her poise and sought out the innkeeper. She asked for a chamber for the night. He eyed her long and hard, then looked around for the man who had lost her.

“Is your husband dealing with the stable?”

“No. I am alone.”

The white, crepe skin of his aging face creased into a scowl. His mouth pursed in five different ways while he examined her again.

“I’ve a small chamber that you can have, but it overlooks the stable yard.” His reluctant tone made it clear that he accommodated her against his better judgment.

An independent woman also gets the worst room at the inn, it seemed. “It will do, if it is dry and warm.”

“Come with me, then.”

He brought her to a room at the back of the second level. He built up the fire a little, but not much. She noted that there was not enough fuel to make it much warmer and also last through the night.

“I’ll be needing the first night’s fee in advance.”

Audrianna swallowed her sense of insult. She dug into her reticule for three shillings. It would more than cover the chamber for one night, but she pressed it all into the man’s hand.

“If someone arrives asking questions about Mr. Kelmsley, send that person up here but say nothing of my presence or anything else about me.”

Her request made him frown more, but the coins in his hand kept him mute. He left with the shillings and she assumed she had struck a bargain. She only hoped that the fruits of this mission would be worth the cost to her reputation.

She noted the money left in her reticule. By morning she expected most of it to be spent. She would only be gone from London two days, but this journey would deplete the savings that she had accumulated from all those music lessons. She would endure months of clumsy scales and whining girls to replace it.

She plucked a scrap of paper from her reticule. She held the paper to the light of the fire even though she knew its words by heart.
The domino requests that Mr. Kelmsley meet him at the two swords in Brighton two nights hence, to discuss a matter of mutual benefit.

It had been sheer luck that she even knew this advertisement had been placed in
The Times.
If her friend Lizzie did not comb through all such notices, in every paper and scandal sheet available, it might have escaped Audrianna’s attention.

The surname was not spelled correctly, but she was sure the Mr. Kelmsley mentioned here was her father, Horatio Kelmsleigh. Clearly, whoever wanted to meet him did not know he was dead.

Images of her father invaded her mind. Her heart thickened and her eyes burned the way they always did whenever the memories overwhelmed her.

She saw him playing with her in the garden, and taking the blame when Mama scolded about her dirty shoes. She called up a distant, hazy memory of him, probably her oldest one. He was in his army uniform, so it was from before he sold his commission when Sarah was born, and took a position in the office of the Board of Ordnance, which oversaw the production of munitions during the war.