Improper Seduction (3 page)

The afternoon that the Baron left for London with another great flourish and much pageantry, Thomas heard Lady Rockham's maid speak to Cook about preparing a picnic basket for the Baroness, who felt in the need of quiet meditation in the gardens behind the manor. She wasn't to be disturbed. The maid murmured something about "womanly distress."

Although the day was chilly, the footman George carried blankets and the slight luncheon, along with a book, to the designated area, where Lady Rockham summarily dismissed him. After thirty minutes of waiting behind the shrubbery, Thomas made his appearance.

The garden terrace was the perfect place to begin his seduction.

She sensed him before she saw him.

Thomas could tell by the way her nostrils flared as she lay on her back, one arm thrown over her eyes to protect them from the clouded sun. She moistened her lips, but lay motionless. He dropped down beside her on the thick bed of blankets, one of which covered her from the waist down.

He played with the idea of letting his hand wander beneath that blanket, to touch her, caress her. Christ Jesus, she was a beautiful woman!

"You're staring at me, Thomas," she muttered without opening her eyes.

"How did you know it was I?"

"The mingled odor of horses and leather." She smiled lazily. "You've quite a distinctive smell."

"Hmmm." He'd expected the kind of flustering and blushes she'd previously shown, but this afternoon his lady was composed and calm. Perhaps she felt protected by her feminine condition. Ha, he'd take care of that.

"And, of course, no one else would be so bold as to approach me like this," she added.

"Approach you
like this?
What do you mean?"

Now she laughed, throatily and richly, her lips pulled back to show her white teeth. One middle tooth was slightly crooked, a small imperfection that seemed endearing. "You've been quite brash around me lately. With your language – your words, your demeanor."

"Have I? I meant no disrespect, m'lady."

"No? I quite think you enjoy watching me blush," she countered.

"Ah, there's that." He couldn't deny his forwardness.

"I was surprised his lordship left so quickly after arriving," he ventured. He wanted to probe, to confirm what had happened between the Baroness and her husband to cause his immediate return to London.

He was quite sure he already knew the answer to that, though.

She sat up quickly and turned those brilliant eyes on him. "I – I believe I have – displeased my lord," she murmured, although there was no regret in her eyes.

"So graceful a lady displease her husband? I can't imagine how. "

Her eyes slid away from his. "Oh, through no fault of my own."

"I see."

"Do you?" She peered upward into his eyes and he wondered what she saw there – a callow youth or a grown man? The notion she might not take him seriously annoyed him.

"Yes, there are ... biological changes over which one has no control," he explained logically.

She placed one hand on his knee, and he felt himself grow hard, his cock stretching in his trousers like a lazy cat. He saw her eyes drop to his lap, heard the sharp intake of her breath.

"I see." She threw his words back at him.

"Was the Baron's displeasure due to something –like this?" He inclined his head downward where her fingers tightened on his knee – so very close, but not nearly close enough, to his bulging dick.

"Yes," she breathed on a sigh. "Something – perhaps – like that."

A long silence continued between them while her fingers played with the fabric of his trousers, while his eyes took in the fragile loveliness of her features, and while her rapid breathing lifted the bodice of her dress.

"Could not a gentleman find a way to, uh, work his way around such uncontrollable and unforeseeable obstacles?" Thomas asked.

She glanced sharply up at him, her hand stilling on his knee. She pulled away, bent her knees, and clasped them through the thickness of her dress and petticoats. She shivered a bit from the cold and Thomas felt the warmth leave his leg where she'd seemed to heat him up from the inside out.

When she spoke, her voice held a bitter edge. "A
gentleman
could
not
work his way around such an impediment," she answered firmly.

"He could not? Or he
would
not?" Thomas asked innocently.

She shrugged impatiently and rose, pulling her cloak around her as she walked to the edge of the fountain. "What does it matter?"

He followed her. He couldn't
not
follow her. He sat beside her on the stone edge of the fountain while they both watched the water spout from a naked angel's mouth. Thomas wondered uncharitably if the angel's rather undersized penis offended his lady, or she was rather used to it.

Lady Rockham suddenly turned hard eyes, brilliant as gemstones, on him. "How old are you, Thomas?"

She'd surprised him and he'd thought himself far too old for that element. "Old enough," he vacillated.

She arched a delicate eyebrow and waited for a proper answer.

He lifted one shoulder and looked off toward the shrubbery. "I've passed the age of majority."

He saw by the expression on her face that this time he'd surprised
her.
"What?" He laughed robustly. "You'd thought me an infant!"

The statement roused another smile from her.

"I ask again," he pressed, "a gentleman could not, or
would
not?"

Her silence spoke volumes.

"Perhaps, then," he finally responded after a long pause, "What you want is not a gentleman at all."

"Whom should I want, if not a gentleman?"

"Someone who will give you what you truly desire."

Chapter 6

What you desire.

Thomas made the words sound so innocent and yet so sensual. What
did
Chastity desire? The place between her legs throbbed with swelling, discomfort, and heat. She wanted something – someone – to relieve
that,
she thought. Something other than a warm cloth applied to her mound.

"You've begun your courses and your husband is unhappy that he cannot lie with you." Thomas said the words flatly, with no inflection, as if the fact made no difference at all to him. As if, she thought, he were talking of the horses during mating season.

"You speak as if I'm one of your mares – in heat," she said hotly.

"There are practical considerations, of course," he continued in the same professorial voice as though she had not spoken so frankly.

She thought she hated this tone of Thomas.

"When a mare is in heat, she is ready for the stallion. When a woman has her courses, she cannot get pregnant. There is no biological reason for ... sexual congress."

She gasped audibly and felt heat rise from her bosom to her cheeks.

So clinical, so logical, she thought, feeling herself on the verge of tears. The emotion was simply because of her monthlies, she told herself. That's why she wanted to scream and cry like a child withheld a pretty toy.

Otherwise, she'd never weep in front of a stable master. Never allow Thomas to speak to her so candidly. Never,
never
find herself wanting to fling herself into him arms for comfort.

He stood and held out his hand for hers, spoke with the same calm solemnity. "Let me show you."

She followed him grudgingly, allowed him to lead her back to the blanket, force her to lie down. He set her cloak aside, but pulled another thick cover from the basket and laid it over her body.

Then he sat beside her, reached toward her cheek and traced the tear she hadn't known had fallen. Her nose felt nippy as well as her ears. She became aware of the distant sounds of birds in the trees, and far away the shout of a man, a laborer in the fields, she supposed.

But inside this bubble of quiet and secrecy there were only she and Thomas.

He removed his jacket and flung it beside his previously discarded hat. He wore only his coarse cotton shirt and trousers.

Lifting the bottom of the blanket, he carefully removed her boots, set them aside, and gently massaged her cold toes inside the thin stockings. She closed her eyes and let the tender stimulation warm her – warm more than her feet, she realized.

When he'd sufficiently ministered to her feet, he covered them with the blanket and tucked in the edges. "Better?"

She nodded, her eyes still closed. She allowed herself to
feel
him rather than see him, focused on the sense of touch rather than sight or sound.

She felt the rustle and dip of the grass beneath the blanket as he slowly lowered his large body until it covered hers. Her eyes flew open to stare into the eerie light blue of his own. "Wh – what are you doing?"

"Shh," he murmured, placing a long forefinger over her lips. "Don't speak, just relax."

She tensed, held her body so stiff she could almost feel her bones turn to stone.

"Relax," he urged again. "I won't hurt you."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. Take a deep breath and blow it out slowly." She did. "Ay, and then another."

Chastity felt her body gradually relax beneath his weight, almost felt drowsy, and as the sun peeked in and out from behind the clouds, felt herself warm, her limbs go boneless. The weight of him on her hips did not feel oppressive as it did with Oscar, but comforting – secure. She felt the cramping of her loins ease a bit.

"That's the way," he encouraged her in much the same way he'd gentled one of the horses that had gone anxious. "Am I too heavy for you?"

She shook her head, afraid to speak. His breath feathered over her face with a clean, masculine scent, warm and inviting.

They lay for long moments. She had no idea of the passing of time, but knew that her body felt wonderful, mindlessly disembodied and heavenly drifting. The padded ground beneath her provided sufficient cushion. The faint sun kissed her cheeks.

How long could he hold himself off her, she wondered? She opened her eyes to find him examining her face. "Thirty," he whispered at her ear, "I'll be thirty at my next birthday."

A full decade set them apart! A lifetime. Chastity nearly laughed aloud, but she didn't want to interrupt this delightful mood. 

"I could be your mother," she finally protested, although that wasn't the truth.

He chuckled and nibbled at her ear, sending a delicious shiver racing down her spine. "I don't think of you as my mam." He paused and looked into her eyes again. "Not in a single way."

She swallowed audibly. "Well, then. That's good, I suppose." She frowned. Why had she uttered those inviting words?

It's very good." He rubbed his nose against hers. "Are you warm enough, now?"

She pushed ineffectively at him. "Yes, quite, so now you can – you can get off me. It's late and time I made my way back to the manor." She heard herself stumbling for words, the confusion and conflict in her voice

"Oh, I don't think so. I'm not quite finished with you." He pulled one corner of the blanket aside and insinuated his hand beneath it. She felt the gentle caress of his fingers against her hip.

"Oh, don't – you can't – you shouldn't – "

"I will. I can. I should," he replied. He placed his wide palm on top of her clothing directly over the mound between her thighs. How had he found the exact spot so unerringly? The warmth immediately suffused her body, the pressure and weight almost medicinal.

"You still suffer from your cramps, do you not?"

She nodded, never taking her eyes from him as his hands and fingers cupped her through the layers of her clothing. He increased the pressure and somehow the comfort ratcheted upward to pleasure.

"Oh," she heard herself say softly as from a distance. "Oh, my."

"Indeed," he replied and stroked her firmly beneath the blanket, through her clothing, under the pale afternoon sun.

Chapter 7

The first thing Chastity did when she returned to the manor was order a very full, very warm bath filled with her most pleasant scent. Marianne looked askance at her when she returned from the gardens and sent George to bring back the items she'd left there, but said nothing.

Asking the maid not to disturb her for at least half an hour, Chastity lay back in the bath, relaxed gradually under the fragrant and steamy water. Her hair was piled on the top of her head and she felt tendrils dampen and stick to her forehead and the back of her neck.

She felt wonderful.

In fact, she felt considerably better after having left Thomas. Her cramps were nearly gone. What magic had he woven merely with the weight of his body on hers – the heat and the heaviness of it.

She soaped up, enjoyed the slippery slide of her fingers over her hot flesh, the curves and contours of her body. She knew she was a beautiful woman, even at her age. Why, then, had she allowed marriage to Charring diminish her opinion of herself? One afternoon with Thomas had restored her respect.

One dangerous afternoon with Thomas, she reminded herself with a tiny shake of her head. She must not be foolish in this exploratory dalliance. She was a lady, he a stable master. Moreover, she was married, and he a young – not so very young, her wicked imagination contradicted – unschooled and untitled man.

Oddly enough, Thomas did not sound unschooled or untitled. With her he spoke and behaved as a gentleman.
Some
of the time, she reminded herself.

Underneath his rough exterior he often seemed like a gentleman to her.

She slid her fingers lower and thought of Thomas – his broad shoulders, the rough scrape of his beard on her cheek, the tickle of his breath at her ear. Her other hand grazed her nipple. She felt ... swollen, both inside and out and an overwhelming desire to be filled.

"Surely the water's cold by now, m'lady?" Marianne entered hurriedly with a large towel to dry her off.

Chastity stepped from the bath as the maid stirred up the fire and added another log to the fire. Marianne returned with her clean night clothes and helped her address her womanly needs.