The Earl and His Virgin Countess (8 page)

“Madame will see you now,” the liveried footman announced, waving toward the stairs and up to the first floor of the house. “Second room on the right.”

“Thank you.” Andrew climbed the dark, wood-paneled staircase to the sitting room. Tapping lightly, he waited only a second before opening the door.

Sarah glared, but, too well-bred to do more than that, she curtsied prettily before bowing her head. “Milord.”

“Madame.” He nodded his head before turning his attention to Miranda, currently ensconced on a chaise lounge in the corner by the window, with her elevated ankle under a blanket. He winked, reveling in the blush that quickly covered her cheeks. “Miranda.”

“Andrew,” she whispered, a secretive smile forming on her lips.

“Milord, please be seated.” Sarah indicated the chair next to Miranda. “I have ordered some tea.”

“Thank you, tea is much appreciated.” Feeling he had given her the respect due, he turned his attention to Miranda. “How is your ankle, my dear?”

“Much better, milor…Andrew. Thank you for inquiring.”

Clearing her throat, Sarah commanded his attention. Once she had grown past her dislike of him, he thought they may become great friends. He liked her already. “My niece filled me in on a few items. She tells me though you tended to her injury all evening, you didn’t take her maidenhead.”

“Sarah!” Miranda sat straight, disrupting the pillows around her on the chaise.

Andrew raised his hand to calm her, picking up one frilly lace pillow, which had fallen to the floor. As she was literally surrounded by pillows he had no idea where to place it and finally gave up, placing it on the window seat behind him. “She is correct. I didn’t take advantage of the situation,” he replied.
Even though I wanted to
.

Sarah nodded with approval. “She also informs me you were not aware of the betrothal agreement.”

“I was not.”

She leveled her keen brown gaze on him. “How can this be so?”

“I wish I knew, exactly—”

Sarah interrupted, thumping the carpeted floor with the cane he hadn’t been aware she held. He doubted she needed the thing for the purpose of walking, but more for effect. “This is not to be taken lightly. You must investigate how this lack of knowledge happened.”

“I have already put my solicitors on it, but would request your help in the matter. It would appear Miranda’s brother is well aware of the agreement and has, over the last few years, increased the amount of the allowance required to maintain Miranda’s standard of living.”

“Bollocks! The amount given to me to pay her bills has decreased.”

“I assumed as much,” Andrew replied drily. Another nail in the already nearly sealed coffin against Miranda’s brother. Exhaling forcefully, he rubbed the tension from between his eyes. Lack of sleep, anger, and unsated sexual needs did not a clear mind make. “What can I do to help you?”

“I ask you to call for her brother. I doubt if I do so he will come, but if you were to say his poor sister has decided to marry someone else….”

Andrew rose and strode to the window behind him, staring out at the busy street below before turning back to look at Sarah.

“That might get him here rather quickly.”

“You intend to marry my niece?”

His eyes never wavered from hers. “I am most earnest.”

“And you, Miranda…you still wish to become his countess?”

“More than anything in the world.”

Sarah nodded, walked to the pull cord, without the use of the cane, and pulled once for a servant. “Very well. I want nothing more than to see Miranda happy, and, somehow, you have convinced her you are the man to do it. And the gentleman I see standing before me does indeed seem to be up for the job.”

She wrote out a letter then sanded and sealed it before giving it to the footman. “See this placed in Daniel’s hands by nightfall. You can return with him on the morrow, though I suspect he will be leaving on horseback first thing in the morning.”

Miranda shifted on the chaise. “Your plans, milord?”

“I have sent one of my men to the church at Windenshire. He has a letter for the chaplain with directions to begin the reading of the banns on Sunday. As today is Thursday, there is no reason to believe Daniel will be there to hear them.”

“I can’t believe Daniel would steal from you,” she said in a small, broken voice. Her fingers fidgeted with the lace on one of the pillows.

“We haven’t discovered where the money went. If he has used it to make much-needed repairs, or to better the lives of your servants, I have no reason to care that he used the resources. If they were for more selfish reasons, I will be less able to look away.” Andrew crouched before her and grasped her hands in his. “He has taken a great deal of money from you. Not me. And he has created a situation where I might unwittingly have married another.”

“But he is my brother.”

“That is the only reason I am not on my way up there to smash his face with great force.” Unable to stand the sadness on her face, Andrew leaned forward and kissed her temple. “I promise to take into account your love for your sibling, no matter how misplaced it might be.”

“Promise?” Her misty eyes met Andrew’s.

“Promise. I just don’t have to like him.”

“Fair enough.”

The smile, though tentative, told him she trusted him to take care of the situation with care. Her happiness had suddenly became very much intertwined with his. Wolfe had told him when he’d met his fiancée, Wolfe had said almost immediately no other woman would compare. Yet, for Andrew and Miranda, it hadn’t been so simple. He had nearly walked out a couple of times, Miranda’s intense hostility and hate toward him palpable. After the incident in the maze, he never would have given her a second chance for a 1Night Stand liaison, had he known it was her. But once he had known the reason behind her feelings, he’d understood completely. She’d had years to build hostility and discontent with him, while he’d had less than twenty-four hours to reconcile his conflicted feelings of a beautiful masked lady with amazing boxing abilities. But it bothered him he could have lost her without knowing she had been his to lose.

The door clicked softly and Sarah left them alone. Andrew gazed into Miranda’s eyes, only to have her throw herself at him and kiss him. Although taken by surprise, he caught her easily and, ensuring the care of her ankle, he pulled her tight.

His little virgin vixen had a hidden fire he planned to stoke at every opportunity. Maneuvering to sit on the chaise beside her, he allowed her the lead on the kiss until her hand trailed down his back, and over his hips to his thighs.

Pulling away, he stayed her touch. “I can’t take much more.”

“I simply want to touch you the way you have touched me.”

“And I promise you may touch me anywhere your heart desires, once we are wed.”

“Is a special license an option?” she asked, biting her plump lower lip, leaving him breathing hard. Damn, if she brought him low already, as a virgin with no experience, what would she do when he awakened her sexual side to its full potential?

He stood, praying desperately for strength. “You said in the carriage just this morning that, should we marry, you wanted it to take place in the church on my lands, before your friends and those who have been less than kind to you through the years. Though I personally would have told them to take a jump in the nearest river.”

“Yes, but they never believed I was promised to you. I want them to see us wed so they—”

“Can eat crow? That I do understand.”

“Is that petty?”

“I think it’s human nature.”

She reached forward and rested a warm palm on his upper thigh. “Four weeks seems a very long time.”

“Right now, it seems like an eternity,” he said between gritted teeth.

“Let me touch you. It’s terribly unfair that I feel so unprepared for our wedding night. You are so much more experienced in giving pleasure, as you demonstrating amply well last night. I know next to nothing.”

“That is the way it’s supposed to be for well-bred ladies.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” Her fingers worked closer to the growing bulge in his pants. Images of her wrapping the, dainty digits around his hard cock dropped the last bit of argument he had formed. He gripped her wrist, and a whimper of protest escaped her lips. She evidently believed he would prevent her exploration. But he placed her hand over the prominent bulge and she gasped.

“It’s so—hard.” She traced the outline of it through his britches. “Is it always like this?”

“Around you, yes.”

“What about when you aren’t around me?”

Could he remember that time less than twenty-four hours ago? “Then it is soft and slightly smaller.”

“It grows then?”

“For you, yes.”

“Take it out so I can see it.”

“It is called a cock, and, no, your aunt might be back any moment.”

Apparently not listening to a word he’d said, she worked the buttons of his pants. “She shan’t come in, that I can promise.”

He went to argue, but she slipped a hand inside and wrapped it around him. All coherency fled. The soft palm added just enough friction and, when she squeezed, small beads of sweat broke over his forehead. His balls tightened with the need for release. Finally, he had to lock his knees to prevent them from knocking.

“Like velvet,” she murmured. “I hadn’t expected that.”

Clenching his jaws, he managed, “What, dare I ask, did you expect?”

“I expected something sharp that would cut my maidenhead.” She grinned up at him then faltered. “You don’t seem to be enjoying this. When you touched me, I enjoyed it very much. What am I doing wrong?”

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to relax, all the while delaying his release. Releasing a clenched fist, he caressed her cheek. “You are doing everything right. I am fighting my need to make love to you. In doing so, it may appear I am in pain.”

“Oh.” Satisfied, she went back to what she had been doing.

He, meanwhile, died a slow, excruciating death with every stroke, payment for every sin he had ever committed through his life coming due. Nerves nearly snapped, and the natural instinct to wrench up her skirts and dive into her nearly undid him. Instead, he held onto his baser instincts by the finest of threads. She wanted to explore his body, eager to see what the male anatomy looked like. And, if this allowed for an easier, less frightening wedding night, then it would be worth it. Or so he kept repeating to himself.

Think of England.

Not helping.

Think of crops and rotations.

Not that either.

Think of
—

Her tongue touched the tip of his cock.

Fucking hell!

“What are you doing?” he croaked.

“I wanted to taste you.” She licked her lips like the cat that got the cream.

“Why?”

She pouted, and he wanted to take that bottom lip into his mouth and suck on it. “Because you did something similar to me; it seemed only reasonable that I would do it to you.”

“Your thought process might be the death of me.”

“But it is done, is it not?”

“Oh, it’s done.”

“Good.”

The joy in her voice, as well as the enthusiasm, forced him to change his tactics. He’d gone about things all wrong. If he wanted her to learn about him then showing her what pleased him made a hell of a lot more sense. Everything she did, he wanted more of. Closing his eyes, he fought the need to grab her hair and push his cock deep into her throat.

Instead, he lifted his arms and gripped behind his neck. Intertwining his fingers, he held strong where he stood. She licked and sucked and explored the slit where his seed seeped out. Finally, she took him between her lips and deep into her mouth.

Fireworks exploded behind his closed eyelids, and he threw his head back with a load groan. “Hell!”

Only when his balls tightened did he step back, yanking his pants up. Looking at Miranda nearly completed his undoing.

Beaming up at him, she said, “That was quite nice.”

“Nice?” She’d nearly brought him to his knees, and she called it
nice
?

“I would like to do that again.”

“So would I.”

“Honestly?” Her face lit up like an eighteen-candle candelabra.

Leaning in, he kissed her. Words couldn’t express what he wanted to convey, and a sudden fear consumed him that those feelings might be akin to love.

Miranda had ceased listening to her brother twenty minutes earlier. After dragging her out of her bed, he’d thrown her dressing gown at her and demanded she meet him in the library downstairs. Although her ankle might not have been as swollen as before, the ugly purple and blue bruises showed it hadn’t yet healed. She had hated to call the footman from his rest, but as he arrived dressed and by her bed within moments, it seemed a good guess all the servants were up.

Daniel said nothing as they helped her into the room with the aid of two more footmen. Unlike her husband-to-be, who had easily lifted her weight, the poor footmen, being much smaller in stature, hadn’t even attempted to carry her, but offered her their shoulders. When she was finally settled, a maid placed a shawl over her lap for modesty and the servants all vacated the room. Leaving her the soul focus of her brother’s wrath.

“How did you get here so fast?” she finally broke from her musings to ask. But once the words had slipped past her lips, she remembered she wasn’t supposed to know he would be arriving.

His look told her he thought she might be addled. “Did you expect me to simply allow you to marry a man when you were contractually bound to another?”

“You make me sound like a piece of chattel,” she mumbled, though not loud enough for anyone to hear. She wondered when her brother had become so pompous. They hadn’t been close, but she had rather liked him before this.

“Do you love this new man?”

Did she love him? She wasn’t sure. She had been so infatuated with being his countess and, like most girls in the village, she’d had a teenage crush on him. The only difference being she’d genuinely believed she would be his countess one day, while the others could only dream.