My Lady's Pleasure (11 page)

The only penis she had ever seen was Jeremy’s, but she somehow wasn’t surprised that Barnes’s was different. It was larger, but he was the larger man. She reached out and took it in her two hands, feeling the veins running up its sides. This cock was somehow definitive, purposeful. She stroked its underside with one hand and, with the other, reached for his balls, which were taut and tight to his body.

The hair at the base of his penis was redder than the hair on his chest, and covered the point of the V shape his sharply defined stomach muscles made as they tapered down at his hips. She traced those lines up with her hands, and her eyes followed until she looked him in the face. His eyes, bright with desire, held hers. His large hands covered her small ones, and then moved up her arms to her shoulders, and then down to her small, firm breasts. She felt a tingling in her nerves and a sensitivity in her skin as goose bumps rose.

Barnes kissed her between her breasts, and at that moment their urgency broke through the calm, and they let their passions loose. They kissed deeply, greedily, each seeking to close the distance between them. She felt his hands, rough and hard, on her back and buttocks and thighs as she stood up, and she felt completely surrounded. She was hot, she was drenched, she was salty with the residue from the tennis, and she wanted him inside her as badly as she had ever wanted anything.

He put his hands in the crease where her ass met the backs of her thighs and lifted, his natural strength amplified by his desire. She briefly felt the air cool on her pussy as he opened her thighs, and then she wrapped her legs around his waist and he was inside her. For a long, tantalizing moment he held her still and they both felt the fit, tight and strong.

“It’s as though you were made for me,” he said a bit hoarsely.

“Perhaps I was,” she said, and smiled at him.

Entwined in front of the window, by the light of the reddening sunset, they made love. She cleaved to him, her arms on his shoulders, her thighs on his hips, and he slowly rocked her back and forth, starting small and slow. She arched her back and tightened her ass to feel him better, and feeling him brought her almost instantly to the brink. She relaxed again to recover herself, and he started moving her faster and harder against him.

She was so wet that he moved effortlessly in and out of her, and each time he thrust in, she felt a pressure deep inside her, where the tip of his cock was touching a part of her that had never been touched. The sensation was new, and powerful, and intimate, and she stopped him with her legs while he was deep inside. With him fully buried, and her clitoris hard against the base of his penis, she rocked her hips from side to side, the movement reverberating from the lips of her cunt up through his shaft, and dispersing through her entire body.

And then she lost control, and no force on earth could have stopped the pulses of all-encompassing pleasure from tearing through her. She moaned, low and long, and it was that moan, combined with the feel of her orgasm, that made him come. He held her like a vise against him as he erupted inside her, his orgasm peaking just as hers was subsiding.

He remained standing, and as her thoughts returned to her, she wondered that he could stand holding her, apparently effortlessly, seemingly forever. He put one forearm under her and held her to him with the other. Their sweat and their heartbeats mingled for a few moments, and then he set her down on the window seat. His softening penis glistened with her juices, and a small bead of semen hung on its tip. She took the drop on a fingertip, and ran the finger down his chest, tracing a line in the already damp hair.

He smiled at her and turned to collect both his clothes and hers. He handed her trousers and blouse to her, but she shook her head.

“I think I’m going to want a bath before dinner,” she said, and walked to her wardrobe for her dressing gown. As she wrapped herself in it, she actively wondered what she should say to him. She was still coming down from her high, and somehow, with Barnes, words didn’t seem quite the thing anyway.

“I won’t be at dinner,” said Barnes, “and I’ll be gone most of the morning tomorrow. I’m going to look at an estate in Romsey. Lord Chiltenham is thinking of buying it, and wants my opinion as to what might be made of it.”

“Oh,” said Georgiana, eyebrows raised. “It must be a fine thing to have one’s opinion solicited by such a man as Lord Chiltenham.”

Barnes looked as though he were about to demur, but then a grin broke out on his face. “It is at that,” he admitted, “it is at that.”

“Well, I hope it is all an estate should be, and that you have fine weather for your journey,” Georgiana said rather stupidly.

“May I come to see you when I return?” he asked, with a straightforward frankness that appealed to her.

“Yes” was the only answer she was able to give, and she gave it. They walked to the door, and he opened it. He kissed her softly and left.

After he was gone, Georgiana rang for Hortense and asked her to draw the much-needed bath. When she stepped into it, she thought a bath had never felt so good. She luxuriated in the big claw-footed tub and let the water’s warmth penetrate her tired body. The exertion first of the tennis, and then of her interlude with Barnes, had exhausted every muscle she had.

“Hortense!” she called, and her maid came into the bathroom. “Could you let Lady Loughlin know I won’t be coming down for dinner? I can’t bring myself to get dressed and face the company.” Knowing that Barnes wouldn’t be at dinner made the prospect of that meal much less compelling.

“Certainly, my lady,” said Hortense. “Shall I prepare a tray for you?”

“Just some tea and toast. I find I’m not hungry.”

When Hortense returned with the tray, she found her mistress already asleep. She left the tray on the night table and tiptoed out.

G
eorgiana slept soundly and long, and woke up refreshed, just in time for breakfast.

As she dressed and ran through the previous day’s events in her mind, she found she was not without misgivings. Her liaison with Barnes was quite different from her relationship with Jeremy Staunton. She and Jeremy were social equals; she and Barnes most certainly weren’t. And there were things about the man himself that gave her pause. She felt as though she were seeing only what he wanted her to see, that she didn’t know the whole man.

She was glad to meet Lady Loughlin on the stairwell as the two were going down to breakfast. She had resolved to tell her friend all, and seek her advice.

“Good morning, Paulette,” Georgiana said. “You’re looking well.”

Lady Loughlin was indeed looking well, happy and robust.

“Oh, I thrive on company, and we have it in abundance,” said the mistress of the house, laughing. “The only fly in my ointment is poor Freddy. For my part, I must admit I’m happy to have him home again, but his father is not of my opinion.” A momentary frown flashed over her face. “I daresay he’s coming ’round, though,” she continued, smiling again. “He was a shade less angry this morning than he was yesterday evening.”

“I haven’t seen him this morning,” said Georgiana. “Actually, I haven’t seen anyone. Where are they all? The house seems empty.”

“After yesterday’s match, everyone seems to have decided that tennis is quite the thing. Gerry challenged Alexandra to a match, so the poor girl is at it again. Most everyone else is in the gallery, watching age battle beauty.”

“The smart money’s on beauty,” said Georgiana. “Miss Niven is an excellent player.”

“Don’t count Gerry out. He’s a wily old creature, and if she’s got an Achilles’ heel, he’ll find it.”

“I certainly couldn’t find it, but I wish him luck.”

The two women walked companionably into breakfast, and took tea and what was left of the kippers and toast.

“Are you horrendously busy this morning?” Georgiana asked.

“I don’t have a thing, my dear,” answered Lady Loughlin. “I did all the planning ahead of time, and the house should run like clockwork, even if I were to drop dead on the spot. Do you have something in mind?”

“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Well, fetch your bonnet when you’ve finished your kippers, and let’s go for a walk. We can try the labyrinth. It’s perfectly private.”

This suited Georgiana admirably, and the two women set out directly after breakfast.

As they walked across the grounds, Lady Loughlin asked Georgiana if she had been through the labyrinth already.

“Mr. Barnes showed it to me, but we didn’t go in,” she said. “He said he was afraid we’d never get out again.”

“Oh, rot,” said Paulette. “It’s not that difficult, and he knows it like the back of his hand. He was just trying to be mysterious.”

“Mrs. Sheffield was with us, and I suspect he didn’t want to prolong the tour,” said Georgiana rather ungraciously. But it was not the kind of slight to ruffle her hostess, who agreed with her friend’s assessment of her guest.

“I imagine you’re right. She has a way of making people want to limit the time they spend in her company.” And then Lady Loughlin’s expression changed, and she said slyly, “You, on the other hand, have a way of making people want to spend every spare moment with you.”

Georgiana reddened, and looked at her friend in surprise, not sure of the implications of this remark.

They had by this time reached the labyrinth, and Lady Loughlin stopped just outside its entrance. “That is what you want to speak to me about, isn’t it, dear?” she asked more gently. “Mr. Barnes’s spare moments?”

In the novels Georgiana was fond of reading, people’s jaws were always dropping when they were astonished. She hadn’t thought it really happened until she felt her own chin drop almost to her chest. “You mean you know?” she asked after a moment.

“Oh, dear, the whole house knows. It’s very difficult to keep a secret at Penfield.”

“But . . . how?” Georgiana spluttered.

“I don’t know the details,” said Lady Loughlin. “I never do. But I take it Barnes was spotted going into your room last night. And since Little Eddie saw the two of you in the peacock pavilion the previous day, the servants’ hall put two and two together. I’m afraid the cat’s out of the bag.”

Georgiana was speechless, and her friend led her into the labyrinth, giving her some minutes to absorb this information as they progressed into the maze.

The absorption didn’t go well. Georgiana had been prepared to empty her heart, to tell her deepest secrets to this woman who was her friend. She loved Paulette, and thought much of her judgment. But now this conference, far from being a heart-to-heart, was an exercise in damage containment. Everyone in the house knew of her intimate affairs! Georgiana was mortified.

Her distress was written plainly on her face, and Lady Loughlin felt for her young companion.

“Oh, my dear,” she said with compassion, “it isn’t as bad as all that.”

“Isn’t it?” asked Georgiana, almost in tears. “Isn’t it as bad as ever it could be?”

Lady Loughlin stopped, put a hand on her friend’s arm, and turned to face her. “I have a question for you. It’s an impertinent question, no doubt, and you are under no obligation to give me an answer. But it’s a question you need to answer to yourself, if not to me.”

Georgiana was all attention.

“Are you ashamed of what you have done?” Paulette asked her. Georgiana was silent as she thought about this. She was uncertain of her feelings for Barnes. But she was certain that women should have the same kind of sexual freedom that men enjoyed, and she would not—no, she would not—be ashamed of exercising it.

“No,” she said, quietly but firmly, “I am not ashamed.”

Paulette nodded, having been almost certain that this would be Georgiana’s answer. As they resumed their walk through the maze, she said, “If you are not ashamed, then you should not be distressed.”

“But there are things that, while not shameful, one would not want the whole world talking of,” said Georgiana.

“Certainly there are, and when the whole world
does
talk of them, one is likely to be discomposed. But not distressed, my dear. Reserve your distress for situations that merit it. I understand that you are upset—with good reason. And I hereby give you license to be annoyed, but not distressed.”

Georgiana had to laugh, and she thought there was a great deal of sense in this. While she would have preferred to keep her affair with Barnes private, that was no longer possible. Since it was public, she would hold her head high. She would not be cowed by criticism she knew to be unwarranted. She would hold firm to her principles.

She felt the flush that had come over her when Paulette told her the news begin to ebb, and as they wound their way through the labyrinth she found she was able to tell her hostess all about her feelings for Barnes with relative equanimity. By the time they exited the maze—Lady Loughlin was as good as her word, and they had no navigational trouble—the women were talking of other things as though nothing had happened.