Simply Sinful (13 page)

Lady Amelia got to her feet. “There is little need for that. This house is full to bursting with aged relatives and hangers-on. And if you can’t even entice your husband to your bed, why should I worry about your pathetic attempts to lure another man into it? Mr. Howard will laugh in your face.”

Abigail averted her gaze from the vitriolic glee in the dowager’s eyes. She had never been a very good liar. Some part of her yearned to shock her mother-in-law into silence by confessing her sins. Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do that to James or Peter. And the knowledge that another man did find her desirable was still too precious to share with anyone.

“I’ll meet you in the hall, ma’am.”

Abby curtsied and made her way back up the stairs to her bedroom to pick up her favorite bonnet. If she was to be struck by God’s vengeance as soon as she entered the chapel, she intended to look her best.

Peter risked a glance at Abigail as she waved off Lady Amelia’s carriage from the front steps of the house.

“Lady Amelia doesn’t like you very much.”

She turned to him, a faint smile on her lips.

“No, she hated the fact that I had to marry James and she’s tried to make me feel inferior ever since.”

He took her hand, placed it in the crook of his arm and led her away from the house toward the gardens. Soft sunlight filtered through the golden-hued trees and the first fallen leaves crunched underfoot. He glanced down at Abigail. Her soft brown hair was braided in a coronet on the back of her head, giving her a studious and old-fashioned air.

“Despite her obvious dislike, she doesn’t intimidate you, does she?”

“She used to. But I realized that however hard I tried to please her, it would always be my fault that James hadn’t turned out to be the son she wanted. She has no idea of his true nature and why he hates his father so much.”

Peter chuckled. “I think James has turned out remarkably well considering, don’t you?”

She sat on a small stone bench with a view of the ornamental lake and arranged her skirts around her. “Sometimes I do, and then I catch a certain look in his eye and wonder if I really know him at all.”

“What do you mean?” Peter took the seat beside her and held her gloved hand.

“When he came back from the West Indies, he had changed.”

“In the sense that he was no longer a boy but a man?”

“It was more than that. One good thing was that he seemed to accept that he couldn’t change his nature. He tried to be honest with me about what he could offer within our marriage. He even offered to secure a divorce, which I refused. But sometimes I think he still wishes he was back in the past and that he’ll never be complete living here.”

Peter frowned. Yes, he’d sensed that about James too. A yearning for something, a search for yet another experience to block out or negate the past. Was that one of the reasons he was so attracted to him? That shared sense of loss and desire for completion?

“I know how he feels. Recently I have discovered a desire within myself to investigate my past.”

“Before you were kidnapped?”

“Yes. After the pirates attacked our ship I was unconscious for several days. By the time I woke up in the brothel, my memories had all but disappeared.”

Abby considered him, her head on one side like a curious bird. “You do not know your family?”

He managed a smile. “I don’t even know if I have a family or if Howard is truly my surname. Before I met you and James, I was intending to travel up north and see if I could find out anything about my relations.”

She squeezed his hand, her expression serious.

“You should do so. Everyone should know their family.”

He chuckled. “Even if they are old harridans like Lady Amelia?”

“James loathes her. It is one of the reasons why he hates to come home.” She shrugged. “The other being me, of course.”

Peter glanced around; they were concealed from the main house and the pathway was empty. He slid his fingers under her chin and raised her head until he could look into her somber gray eyes.

“That will change. Soon you will not have to worry about James seducing you. You will be the one doing the seducing.”

She moved closer, her light scent filled his nostrils and he bent to brush a kiss over her soft pliant lips.

“I didn’t go up in flames.”

Peter drew back to look at her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I didn’t go up in flames when I entered the church. I was wondering if God really would smite me down for committing adultery.”

He smiled. “I believe God gave us free will. We simply have to live with the choices we make.”

She held his gaze, no shadow in hers. “I am quite happy with my choices, are you?”

“Indeed I am. But then, I’m not the one who is married.”

“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten. You are a rake. You are expected to ravish married women.”

He grimaced. “It is not something I’m particularly proud of. In truth, just before I met you, I’d decided to change my ways.”

“And get married?”

“Who would have me?” He shrugged, offered her a guarded smile. “A man who works for a living and has no family to speak of?”

“A man of integrity and worth.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers, a strange feeling of warmth in his stomach. “Thank you for that. But I intended to curtail my amorous activities until I knew what I wanted.”

“And then you met James.”

“Yes, and then I met you.”

She touched his mouth, traced the curve of his lip, her expression serious. “I cannot believe you are the same man whose bed I crept into last night.”

“Why is that?”

He turned his head until her finger slid into his mouth and gently sucked on it. She shivered and moved closer.

“Because, here you sit, a veritable fashion plate of a London gentleman and yet under these fine clothes…”

“I’m naked?”

He stroked his hand down over her back.

“Yes, naked and different and…” She moaned as he kissed her hard on the mouth. Her hand slid into his hair to hold him close. He kissed her again, licked her ear and bit gently down on the curve of her throat.

“Naked and aroused, now, thanks to you. If you look down at my breeches you can see what you have done to me.” He took her hand, pressed it to the swell of his cock. “Does it please you that you can make me hard in an instant?”

“Yes.” She hesitated, her teeth teasing her lower lip. “All through the service this morning, I kept wondering if you wore those metal rings around your cock all the time. If you had them on in church.”

His cock responded with obvious enthusiasm and he shifted in his seat.

“No, not all the time and certainly not in church. I was half-erect simply sitting next to you.”

She’d reached for his gloved hand during the sermon, held it concealed in the folds of her skirts until it was time to stand for the last prayer. He returned to her mouth and kissed her again, more possessively this time. She let her hand lie in his lap, cupping his growing erection. He nipped at her lip.

“If our choices are made, and there is to be truth between us, I want my cock in you now. I want to slide you down over my shaft and thrust into you until I come.”

She shuddered, her breathing uneven. “Surely I cannot take you up to my chamber in broad daylight.”

“All you have to do is sit astride me. Your skirts will cover the opening in my breeches and as long as you don’t scream too hard, no one will come to disturb us, especially on a Sunday.”

He waited for her reaction, fascinated to see if she would allow him such liberties in public. Normally he wouldn’t risk such a public assignation with such a naïve partner. Perhaps Abigail’s direct approach to the mysteries of sexual intercourse was affecting him after all. In truth, it was a relief not to have to think of something clever to say to excite a woman who was as jaded as he was.

“Think of the delicious contrast,” he murmured. “The majority of our clothes chastely in place while our sexes join in naked, wet congress.”

She frowned, her attention fixed on his cock. “How is it that your words make me feel strange?”

“In what way strange?” He ran his finger along the appallingly high neckline of her gown.

“As if my body is melting. As if between my legs everything is swollen and wet and throbbing.”

He let out a slow, careful breath. “Abigail, you have no idea what you do to me when you say things like that, do you?”

She frowned. “Do I disgust you? I thought we were to be honest with each other.”

“You do not disgust me. You make me want to forget all about being a gentleman and simply fuck you.” He slid his hands around her narrow waist and drew her astride him. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders. He pressed on her buttocks until her sex rubbed against his cock. “Does this feel like disgust?”

“No, it feels…wonderful.”

Peter took one last wild look around and reached down to unbutton his breeches. His cock sprang free and caught in the bunched-up skirts of her gown. He slid his hand under her skirt and petticoat, found her sex and groaned.

“You weren’t joking about being wet and ready for me, were you?” He slid one finger deep inside her.

She looked down. “Is that what I was feeling? I wasn’t sure. I just felt empty as if I needed something.”

He added another finger. “You needed to be filled by my cock and my seed.”

Her mouth formed a perfect “oh” as he worked her, his thumb circling her clit even as his fingers scissored inside her. Her nails dug into the fine cloth of his coat as she rocked her hips in time to his movements. His cock pushed against her gown, staining and darkening the green satin until he roughly pushed the skirt aside. Her passage tightened about his fingers and he stilled.

“Wait, this will make it even better.”

He lifted her again, turning her around to face the lake and slowly lowered her down onto his cock. He set his teeth as her tight passage gradually gave way to the pressure of his thick shaft. She whimpered as she came to rest against his groin, his tight balls tucked neatly under her buttocks.

“Is the lake man-made?”

Peter moved his hand until it cupped her mound, rubbed his fingers over the swollen bud of her clitoris.

“What?”

He increased the pressure and felt her twitch around his cock. “Is the lake natural or man-made?”

“It’s man-made, diverted from the River Roding.” Abby gasped as Peter continued his slow torment of her sex. “Why are you asking me this now?” Her heart threatened to burst through her bodice as he touched her. She glanced down at her dress. She looked immaculate. No one would realize that beneath her skirts, Peter’s cock filled her and his hand played idly with her sex.

“I am just making conversation, Abigail.” He nuzzled her neck. “Don’t you think it is a beautiful day to be sitting out watching the swans on the water?”

“Yes.”

She wasn’t as expert at concealing her feelings as he was. She wanted him to move, to either end or increase the sexual tension coursing through her veins. She tried to rock her hips but he wrapped an arm low around her waist until she went still.

“I could sit here all day.”

“Like this?” She tried to breathe normally.

“Why not?”

“Someone might come by.”

“As we have already agreed, what would they see? A man and a woman sitting together watching the sun on the lake. They would never know that my cock is buried deep inside you and that my thumb is slick and wet over your beautifully swollen clit.”

His hand moved from her hips. “Of course, if you weren’t wearing such an appalling gown, my other hand would be cupping your breast, my thumb working your nipple in the same rhythm as I circle your clit.”

“My gown is not appalling.”

He flicked her swollen bud, making her jump. “All your clothes are appalling. The first thing I intend to do when we arrive in London is take you to a modiste I know and make James buy you a whole new wardrobe.”

“I am not going to London.”

She sounded breathy, quite unlike herself. Quite soon, if he didn’t do something more definite with his cock, she was going to become even more unladylike and start to writhe and beg and plead.

“Yes, you are. You will enjoy the experience with both James and me to guide you.”

She shuddered at the thought of James and Peter and climaxed, her breath coming in choppy gasps as Peter murmured his encouragement in her ear. It took her several moments to realize that his cock was as hard as ever and remained buried inside her.

“Aren’t you going to…?”

“Come?”

His fingers returned to play with her clit and she stifled a gasp.

“Not yet. As I said, I am enjoying the scenery too much to want to exert myself.”

He resumed his gentle stroking on her already-over-sensitized flesh.

“Did the thought of James make you come?”

She stiffened. “Why would you think that?”

“Because he is your husband?”

She swallowed hard. “I imagined him, standing here, watching us.”

His finger stilled on her clit. “And did he approve?”

“He was smiling.”

His fingers resumed stroking, one circling the place where they were joined. He sounded huskier, more intense. “Then mayhap we should assume we have his blessing.”

“Do you think he would enjoy seeing us together, like this?”

“Aye, I think he would. How could he not? After all, he wishes us both to be happy.”

Tired of waiting for him to move, Abby brought her feet up onto the edge of the stone seat to give herself some leverage.

“I don’t have time to sit here all day, Peter.”

She braced her feet, realized she could then slide herself up and down over his shaft. He groaned, his hands grasping her hips, helping her balance as if he couldn’t stop himself from aiding her. She tried to speak through the growing pleasure.

“That is much better, I can feel every inch of you.”

“You are such a resourceful woman, Abigail.”

His breath hissed out between his teeth as she found a rhythm she liked and worked herself over him. His fingers returned to torment her clit, sending her over the edge into a shattering climax. He started to thrust upward, his remaining hand forcing her down onto him, leading her into another orgasm and the hot explosion of his own.