Almost a Gentleman (37 page)

"Umm, yes, that would be nice."

Nice
. Astonishing what an erotic undertone a simple word could have, when she spoke it with her eyes veiled and her mouth curved like that. Her low voice was as mellow as the brandy he poured.

"Oh yes." She sipped it slowly, looking up at him over the rim of the heavy glass. He looked back steadily.

"You're trying to seduce me, Miss Browne."

"I haven't touched you, my lord."

"Not directly, no. No more so than the sun touches the budding corn."

"Wonderful the images you use to express things."

But they weren't merely images, he thought. They were the deepest truths he knew. The attraction he felt for her was entirely of a piece with the tropism of growing things to sun and soil and pure water.

"Well, here are some other images, if you prefer. Ruder ways to express the same thing. For I might also say that you're making me randy as a drover's dog. That you're making me primed, proud, prickstruck. Raking, rammed, rigid. Goatish."

"Goatish, eh?"

"No, I take that back, goats are too small. More like a bull."

"Yes, that's more you, I think. A longhorn, naturally."

"Come here, let me unbutton that. And you must unbutton me, too. Ah yes, good. You see, you've awakened the whole barnyard now."

"Ummm, I do see. Barnyard… yard—no, that's a nautical word. Yard… spar… mast. Still, it does seem quite a yard long, doesn't it?"

"You're seeing it from a flattering angle, but, certainly, if you wish. But not
yard
—I'm a man of the land, not the sea. What about
horn
? There's a word for you. Horn, staff, dragon. Prick, pike, stiff, and lance."

"Lance, I like that one. Very chivalric."

"Manhood."

"No, I don't care for it. Your manhood is all of you, not just
that
part."

"Indeed. Well then, my lady, where should your liege knight put this… this
lance
of mine?"

"Oh dear, must we speak of my body too? You know it's difficult for me. Well then, in my… pussy. In my quim."

"Yes, go on." Wonderful, he thought, that he could still make her blush.

"In my… oh dear, in my cunt."

"You're doing very well. Give me a few more words and you shall receive your reward."

"I was a proper young lady once."

"Nonsense. You were a schoolgirl once, making jokes with the other schoolgirls."

"Oh well, then. In my kettle. Kitchen. Oven. My penwiper. Pitcher. Pin-cushion. Needlecase. Spleuchan."

"Spleuchan??"

"There was a Scottish girl who came visiting our village for a few months. It's some sort of a… pouch, I think."

Pouch, pitcher, or oven, she could feel that he'd slid two—no, three—of his fingers inside of it. And moved another finger into the cleft of her buttocks, while his other hand curved around the bottom of her bum.

Her dress was in wild disarray; the bodice had slid down her shoulders and he'd lifted up the skirt around her hips. She glanced quickly over her shoulder, checking the pale green damask wall for a space where there were no paintings to disturb. Leaning against the silky fabric, she pulled him toward her, holding her arms around his neck. He lifted her up, propping a hand against the wall to steady himself. She raised herself a bit higher and then fiercely, suddenly, lowered herself onto… onto
whatever
one wanted to call it. Even—if one insisted upon it—his manhood.

He groaned and pressed his mouth into the hollow of her neck as she raised and lowered herself onto him. He could feel the muscles of…
what had she called it?;
he found that he'd forgotten every word and that he didn't care in the slightest. What he cared about was how tightly, how intensely, he felt himself caressed and embraced. She was so fierce, so hungry, and so strong, that he felt free simply to be made love to—to let go, if just for a moment, his constant burdens of obligation and duty. And so he merely held her, crying out repeatedly and letting her fuck him with her entire body—perhaps one could call it her
womanhood
—until she screamed her orgasm and he could hold his no longer.

They slid to the floor together then, helpless, spent, and all in a laughing, gasping, disordered heap, under the watchful protection of a never-slumbering household deity—the little boy still tightly holding his pail and shovel.

The only problem, Phoebe was to think from time to time during the coming days, was how quickly time passed when life was as busy and agreeable as she found it at Linseley Manor. David didn't spend as much time with her as he had at first, but this seemed somehow natural and reasonable. She was glad that things had become so relaxed and workaday: he had his tasks and obligations to attend to, while she rather enjoyed poking around the house and grounds by herself. She read in the library, wandered about the farm and fields, and galloped over the wolds, absurdly but comfortably dressed in the ill-assorted costume David had suggested, his son's old breeches allowing her to sit properly astride her horse.

He joined her whenever he could, and of course they ate together and made love as often—and as variously—as possible.
We shall make love in every conceivable way
, he'd told her. Well, they wouldn't accomplish
that
in the brief time left to them, she thought, but they'd make quite a respectable beginning.

It would be better, she thought, if she could only stop counting the days. But that was impossible in a household so occupied with preparations for the Plough Monday festivities.

"Only six days left, my lord," Mrs. Oughton announced after breakfast on Tuesday. "And the gentry will be arriving the day before, of course, so I shall have to have all the floors scrubbed and all the linens in the guest bedrooms laundered before then. Not to speak of seeing to the damask tablecloths and velvet runners for the banquet itself. I want to hire some girls from the village to help, if that's all right with you. Mr. Neville says we can afford the extra fees, even with what we're paying the gang of fellows cleaning the chandeliers in the Great Hall."

"Well, if Mr. Neville says we can afford it, then we can." David grinned. "And I'm glad we decided to clean the chandeliers; last time I looked, they had about a century of hardened tallow stuck onto them."

The chandeliers were large rough wheels of wrought iron, each a yard across and suspended by chains from the Hall's high, vaulted ceiling. They were a practical design, as David pointed out to Phoebe. "You see how those iron cups are affixed to catch the dripping wax from the candles. Well, at least they
would
catch the wax if they weren't full to overflowing. Wonderful that they'll be clean for this year's celebration."

Of course, the extra help—maids and mechanics both—needed to be fed. Which led to some consternation on the part of Mrs. Yonge, who had quite enough to do in preparation for the banquet. There would be roasts and hams, stews and stuffed poultry, pies and puddings. And overflowing pitchers of cider, ale, and mead.

"Could you use a bit of help preparing the pies?" Phoebe asked shyly. "I always enjoyed making pie crust when I was a girl."

She hadn't donned an apron for years. It would have caused a scandal among the
ton
if Lord Claringworth's exquisitely dressed wife had been caught anywhere near an oven or pantry; Phoebe had never even entered the kitchen of their Mayfair establishment. But the rules of the Polite World weren't observed so strictly at Linseley Manor. And anyway Mrs. Yonge was desperate for the help.

The crust of her first pie was a bit tough, her second a little overcooked, but her third was quite creditable. And by the end of the afternoon she'd actually produced enough nicely browned meat and mince pies to earn some sincere, although rather astonished, commendation from Mrs. Yonge.

"She obviously didn't believe I had it in me," she told David that night in bed, "but I knew I'd finally get my knack for it back. I en-joyed it so thoroughly, you know, that I hardly noticed the bothersome little girl with red hair—the one who insists upon staring at me from under the table."

"I wish she wouldn't," she added quietly.

"But it's only because Susan admires you so much," he said. "She told me that you're the prettiest lady she's ever seen, and that it's her dearest wish to receive a kiss from you."

She could feel her body go tense within his embrace.

"Yes, yes," he said softly, "I understand, don't worry. I told her she was right: you're the prettiest lady
I've
ever seen as well. But then I made it very clear that you've been ill and couldn't kiss her yet. And that she mustn't bother you until you were absolutely well."

"Thank you," she said. He'd probably done the best anyone could do without making a fuss about it. For it wouldn't be fair to expect a three-year-old to understand that the long, wistful, meltingly sad glances she directed in Phoebe's direction might constitute a bother.

And since Phoebe would be gone so soon, she supposed that it didn't really matter that David had tacitly encouraged the little girl to hope for a kiss she'd never receive.

"There will be a lot of children at the play on Monday," he said. "I hope it won't be too difficult for you."

She kissed his shoulder. "It won't be easy, but I think it's best that I do see them. I can't avoid them forever, you know."

He laughed, stroking her flat belly as though he hoped to find a bulge starting up there. "Well, no. I should hope not."

Only five days, she thought, staring into the darkness as he drifted into sleep. Five days until she had to tell him the truth, blasting his hopes every bit as completely as she would have to disappoint little Susan's desire for a kiss.

Oddly, though, as the weekend drew near, she found herself less distressed by the sight of her small admirer than she had been at first. In fact, when she went to the kitchen—the pies were done now, but she was helping chop the ingredients that Mrs. Yonge would stuff into three dozen fat geese—she found herself mildly disappointed if the child wasn't there. When she
was
around—usually playing under the table with her doll—Phoebe would nod formally to her, and Susan would nod back quite solemnly, as though to signal that she understood that the pretty lady had been sick and was not, on any account, to be disquieted.