Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) (27 page)

And as he moved aside another folded petticoat, he found the little wooden horse he’d whittled in haste the night of the treasure hunt. She had kept it.

He couldn’t think what that meant. It was just a bit of wood. Luke picked it up and ran his thumb over the small, crudely fashioned figure. So Rebecca had kept something of his. He shouldn’t let that thought run away with him, should he?

Lifting the next petticoat, he halted again. There was the ruby and pearl necklace that had completely escaped his mind since she’d found him in the bulrushes.

What the devil was it doing among her things, and why hadn’t she mentioned it to him?

He took it, curling it in his large fist. If she found it gone from her drawer, she’d have to ask him about it. Luke grinned and shook his head. Perhaps the wench thought it was stolen.

Knowing her low opinion of him, she had no doubt labeled him a thief now too. But it was interesting that she did not turn him in.

“People are starting to talk about all these missing items,” said Diana as she handed around the plate of biscuits. “It is all very strange.”

“Yes, and we all know what is being said about it,” added Justina.

They all looked at Sarah, who was poking the fire savagely.

“The colonel has a certain reputation,” Lucy muttered, “but no one has ever accused him of being a thief before. Even if he has disappeared for the past few days and we don’t know where.”

Becky sat straighter. “The
colonel?
Who on earth would think him capable of that? It’s ridiculous.”

Now all eyes swung to her, including those of Sarah.

“I mean to say,” she swallowed, “he’s made some mistakes in his life, to be sure, but he would not steal. Who says such a thing?”

“Mrs. Kenton, for one.” Lucy bit into her biscuit.

“That wretched busybody!” Becky was almost lifted out of her chair in outrage.

“But so many things have gone,” Lucy pointed out, wide-eyed. “Someone must have taken them, and as Mrs. Kenton says, it is sure to be a stranger.”

“Well, then,” Sarah exclaimed tartly, “it could just as easily have been Mr. Charles Clarendon.”

Every gaze swung back the other way now, to Diana. She flushed vermilion.

“He
was
gambling every evening in the tavern,” Justina pointed out.

“Oh, stop,” Becky cried. “We are becoming worse than Mrs. Kenton with our gossip.” She refused to believe that either man was responsible, but she did not know what to think. If Charles Clarendon was accused, it would look badly on Diana. If the colonel was found to be guilty, it would be very unfortunate for Justina and Sarah.

And Becky, the only one of the Belles who knew about the ruby and pearl necklace, was torn in the middle.

Having sat through the rest of the book society meeting with a mind far too distracted to listen, Becky returned home to find a delicious supper laid out, complete with candles lit and wine poured.

Her useful man had been at work again. It still surprised her. Perhaps he never would stop surprising her.
If
only
it
could
always
be
good
surprises
, she mused, thinking again about the necklace.

“Your father ate early and took himself off to bed,” the colonel told her when she saw that only two places were set. “He seems to have exhausted himself today.”

Confused by that—for her father could hardly be exhausted by an afternoon beside the fire—she sat in the chair he pulled out and said, “I will check on him later. Perhaps Dr. Penny should come out to examine him. He has seemed rather distant lately, and his moods are up and down like a rowboat in a storm.”

“Did you enjoy the book reading today?” he asked, sitting opposite.

How strange it was, she mused, to sit and eat with him at her table, as if they were an old married couple. “Yes.”

“I don’t suppose I’ll ever be invited back.”

She chuckled. “Only if you are needed to scare off Miss Elizabeth Clarendon again.”

He smiled. “Always glad to be of service.”

Rain pelted hard at the windows. It had not let up all day and only added to her general sense of restlessness. Becky tried to enjoy the food he’d set before her, but even that could not keep her interest for long. She pushed a Brussels sprout around her plate and fidgeted with the stem of her wine glass while gazing at the man before her. He ate with that gusto now familiar to her, his head down and elbows on the table. Not at all mannerly. Yet tonight she felt no desire to correct him.

He eyed her plate. “You’re not eating your sprouts.”

She cleared her throat and wound her fingers together under the table. “Sarah is a very sweet girl.”

“She is.”

“You must be very proud of her.”

He frowned. “’Tis my brother who raised her.”

“But still, she is
your
daughter.”

Head on one side, he looked at her through the candles. “Yes.”

“And
I
adore her.”
Hopefully
he
will
think
that
a
good
thing
, she mused.

He did. His eyes glistened in the mellow candlelight.

“And she is quite like you.”

“Is she?”

“You know…stubborn, likes to get her own way, determined.” She paused and dabbed her lips with the napkin. “Possibly cheats at games…”

He laughed. “She is like me, ain’t she?”

Oh, she loved to hear that laughter in her house.

“Eat your sprouts,” he said.

So Becky picked up her fork again and finished her sprouts.

It was four days since she’d taken him home with her and put him in her brother’s bed. Every night when she went to her own room across the narrow landing, she thought of him lying there, sleeping. He was a loud snorer, as her father had observed at breakfast the first morning. But Becky didn’t mind the snoring. At least she knew where he was and that he was asleep.

Her reputation, such as it was, would be irreparably ruined if Mrs. Kenton ever got wind of his presence in her house. A bachelor, sleeping across the hall. No one but her father could possibly believe it was innocent. Even
she
couldn’t.

With his reputation, why on earth had he not tried her door? She left it bolted, of course, but she’d fully expected him to try. Had lain awake frequently during those past three nights, wondering why Lucky Luke didn’t try that notorious luck.

That night, she decided to leave her door unbolted.

* * *

Every night, he’d suffered unbearable temptation before finally getting off to sleep. Then he dreamed heavily of her, waking eventually in a sweat, the quilt bunched under him. What could he do? Her father was at the end of the hall, oblivious, it seemed, to the danger. Evidently the major had too much on his mind. Or he trusted Luke. And his daughter.

That was an awful lot of trust to place on the shoulders of a beautiful young woman and a scoundrel like Lucky Luke.

That night he lay awake again, just as before, staring up at the rafters, listening to Ness snore like a bear at the foot of the bed.

It was still bloody well raining. The earth surely couldn’t take much more water. It was sodden already. With dull thoughts about the weather, he hoped to drift off.

Closing his eyes, he let his mind practice those dance steps the Book Club Belles had been teaching him. It was all coming back to him now, but he was still clumsy as an inebriated camel. He’d have to try not to embarrass Sarah too much and then he—

His door clicked.

Or had he imagined it?

Luke opened his eyes, turned his head, stared through the dark.

A flash of white proved there was someone in the doorway, in a nightgown, looking in.

He hitched his torso upright, resting on his elbows. “Rebecca?”

A breath passed and then another. He thought she would close the door again and she did. But not until she’d come into his room with her candle. The door was shut behind her and the bolt slid across. Whatever she had in mind for him, she didn’t want to be disturbed.

Barefoot, she approached his bed.

“I waited five years for a kiss from you before,” she muttered. “I’m not going to wait another five years for you to come to my bed and ravage me.”

Luke had to wait a moment, make sure she was real, not a figment of his lusty imagination.

“Well?” she demanded. “I gave up waiting for you to come to me, so you’d better move over and let me in.”

“Or you’ll shoot me?”

“Precisely.”

Ness wisely leaped off the bed and wriggled under it.

Luke had nothing to protect himself from her.

So he had no choice, did he?

* * *

Luke swung his legs off the bed and stood before her, stark naked. It was a good thing he did that once she’d put the candle down or she might have dropped it.

Before she could say anything, he was tugging her nightgown down over her shoulders, not even waiting to properly loosen the laces. He sat on the edge of her brother’s bed and pulled her closer as the linen drifted down over her breasts.

He had not said a word, but apparently he approved of this escapade. If the sight of that enormous rearing manhood was anything to take into account.

His lips went directly to her left nipple while his hands tore her nightgown the rest of the way over her hips and then left it to fall to her ankles. Her heart raced as she touched his hair, buried her hands in its darkness, pulled his head closer still to her bosom.

“Rebecca,” he groaned as her nipple popped free of his lips. “I told you no more of this until our wedding night.”

“You were just being difficult and sulking,” she chuckled, clasping his head again, directing his mouth back to her puckered, aching nipple. “As if that has ever bothered you with your other women.”

He growled something indecipherable and lifted her astride his lap. His hands slid up and down her spine and she arched like a cat, appreciating his firm strokes.

She ran her fingers over the dark hair of his chest and lower, following the slender line that wandered down over his flat, taut stomach. All that power under her hands. She felt his muscles shifting, affected by the kiss of her fingertips.

How much he wanted her. And she wanted him. It was sheer, red-hot desire. When her hand reached his manhood, he took his mouth from her again and leaned back, resting his palms flat on the bed behind him, his eyes watching her.

“What do you call this?” she asked softly, stroking that fine length and amazed to see it grow ever thicker and taller. “I know men have names for it. All different. What do you call yours?” Becky knew he was the one man she could ask who would tell her. He would not be bashful about it.

One side of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “Tallywag. Todger. Cock. Naughty Nick. Breeches baton. Sausage roll.”

She laughed and he glanced nervously at the door. “It is very fine,” she whispered, caressing the darkened head. “And what are these called?” Her other hand cupped his sac. It was very warm, surely the size of two goose eggs, she mused.

Abruptly he grabbed her around the waist. The next thing she knew, she was on her back across the bed and he was over her, his cock pressed against her thigh. “Don’t play with me, wench.”

“Why not?”

“This is no game.” He kissed her chin, her throat, her breasts.

She writhed, filled to overflowing with excitement. “Oh, hurry!”

He paused. “More commands, eh?”

“Yes.” Becky reached for his cock, but he slid out of her reach and put his mouth to her body again, licking his way down to her belly button, where he kissed her until she laughed again and had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from waking her father.

“And what do
you
call this?” he whispered hoarsely, slipping further down and kissing her between her thighs.

She bit her lip. “I don’t call it anything.”

He ran his tongue over her roused flesh and she gasped, lifting her hips.

“Cherry basket,” she moaned. “That’s what you called it.”

“Pussy,” he whispered. “Kitty. Muff…”

And then he eagerly devoured her again, as he had done before, but even more urgently until she wanted to scream.

Becky’s eyelids drifted shut and she clamped her teeth down hard on her tongue to keep the sounds of her wicked delight from exploding into the room.

His lips and tongue left no part of her neglected.

But just as she melted into the quilt, he stood again and looked down at her. “Better go back to your room, Rebecca.”

She objected at once, naturally, but he was determined to resist.

“You want the rest, you’ll have to marry me,” he said. “This old soldier is a reformed man and he wants a wife this time.”

She sat up, frustrated despite the wonderful sensations he’d just sent coursing through her. “You’re supposed to be lucky, Luke.”

He ran splayed fingers back through his hair and laughed huskily. “I still am. Only my definition of luck has changed. I found you. I want to make sure I keep you, make you happy.”

She stared.

“And make you my wife,” he added, his voice low, deep, full of yearning.

While she was still speechless, her heart galloping madly, he tucked her back into her nightgown, lifted her in his arms, and carried her back to her bed across the hall. His leg didn’t seem to hurt tonight, she realized much later, as she lay alone and stared out at the moonlight.

She must be good for him.

He was savoring her, just as he’d once promised he would.

* * *

The next morning when she rose to make breakfast, Becky found that Luke and his dog had gone.

“They must have left very early, m’dear,” said her father. “Even before I was up. And you were late rising this morning! Most unusual for you, m’dear.”

“But where did he go?”

“Back to the manor, I expect, although I heard him say yesterday he had clothes to collect in Manderson.”

Of course, the new garments for which he’d been measured. Tonight was the opening dance at the assemblies. With everything going on last night, she had not thought about dancing. She wasn’t thinking much about clothes that day either, but rather about his body without them.

When she went into the back parlor to look for her sewing basket, Becky realized that Lucky Luke was not the only thing missing from the house that day.

Her mama’s music box, which she had left on the sideboard yesterday, and in which he’d taken such an interest, was also gone.

The beat of her heart picked up an unsteady pace as she thought of all those things that had gone missing lately and of the chatter at the book society. Pulse galloping, she flew upstairs and tugged open her drawer. The necklace was no longer where she’d left it.

Yes, there was a thief in their midst and she could no longer deny it.

“Papa!” She ran to find him at once. “Papa, the music box is gone.”

“It cannot be, m’dear. You must have misplaced it.” He tucked his head back behind his newspaper.