An Experienced Mistress (19 page)

She answered by pushing herself back against him, taking him eagerly in. His hard, solid length was a satisfaction unto itself, a primal happiness.

She told him that she’d always been willing for him. Was this position his way of exacting absolute proof? She crouched on her hands and knees like an animal, yet she didn’t feel debased. On the contrary, she felt shameless, meeting Will’s long, slow strokes with pure abandon.

Her swaying breasts felt heavy and full. Will, reaching around her, cupped them in his hands, even as his movements inside her became less gentle. His fingers grazed her nipples, then he pinched one, hard, making her cry out, her muscles clenching with the painful pleasure. She heard him groan as her sex tightened around him.

In this position, he penetrated her deeper than ever before. He seemed to plunge farther with every thrust, and the thrusts came faster and faster. “Will, oh God,” she cried, overcome by the passionate assault.

His hand reached down again to graze across her belly and then the molten core of her pleasure. Desire flashed through her whole body with the force and heat of an electrical storm.

“Gen. Come for me now...” he said near her ear.

As if in obedience, she screamed out her sweet release—as though she came completely apart around him. He held her, one arm encircling her hips, as if to keep her together. Overwhelmed, she put her head down on top of her forearms on the floor.

Will leaned over her panting body.

“Ah, darling.” His fingers caressed across her open, trembling lips. “I love seeing you like that.”

Inside her he grew harder and huger than ever. He began moving within her again. She groaned. He kissed and then bit the nape of her neck, like a lion with its mate. While one of his hands caressed her breasts, the other came around to explore the inner curves of her derriere, sparking a whole different set of sensations. In this position, she was completely vulnerable to wherever he wished to touch her.

Soon she cried out again with every thrust that filled her, almost like a desperate chant. “Oh, God, Will, oh, God.” She shuddered on the precipice of another climax.

He pulled out of her, leaving her suddenly bereft, and turned her nearly prostrate form over to face him. “Maybe we should go to bed.”

“You will kill me,” she gasped. She wasn’t sure if he stopped out of concern about the hardness of the floor, or because he wanted to drive her out of her mind. If he meant the latter, it was certainly working.

Will laughed. “Not likely.”

He gathered her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he rearranged her so that she straddled him, his cock hot and glistening between his belly and hers. He took her face in both his hands and kissed her deeply.

Genevieve felt under the influence of some foreign narcotic. His hands on her hips, he lifted her up and guided her so that she was impaled on his towering shaft.

“I can’t.” She trembled all over.

“Shh.” He guided her up and down again. After a few strokes, her muscles found their strength. He knew her body better than she did, it seemed. Instinctively, she fell into the rhythm.

Will’s eyes were closed, his lashes long and dark against his cheeks. His forehead and chest glowed with a fine sheen of sweat. Lust raged through her once more. How was it even possible? Would anything quench it?

“Oh yes,” he gasped as she rode him faster, harder. “That’s it. Oh, sweetheart.” His face was suffused with desire. She wanted to make him feel completely transported, transformed with pleasure.

She contracted her muscles around him, squeezing him even tighter, the way she’d done involuntarily before. He gave a choked gasp. His hands on her buttocks gripped her hard.

Then he let out a harsh cry as he went over the edge. Genevieve tumbled with him, the blinding heat of her climax rushing upon her as a shock because every fiber of her being had been focused on him.

“Oh, darling.” He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. His cheek rested against the top of her head.

After a few moments he slid out from her, getting up to dispose of the sheath she hadn’t realized he’d had a chance to put on. He came back to bed and lay next to her, pulling her to him so her head rested on his shoulder.

She let her body meld into his, feeling his deep contented breaths rise and fall beneath her in a rhythm of profound peace. For a while time seemed to sidestep around them and leave them alone as they lay together.

Genevieve started and opened her eyes to find the bedroom pitch black. She’d fallen asleep. She sat up and groped around on the night table for the candlestick and matches.

When she lit it, she turned around to see Will looking up at her. “How are you?” he asked.

“Never better. I think I could become accustomed to nights like this.”

“I see,” he murmured.

Genevieve decided she only imagined the undercurrent of uncertainty in his voice. She asked, “How often will we get to see each other, now that you know the truth about me? More than once a week, I hope.”

He frowned. The hum of contentment that had vibrated between them went suddenly silent.

“Gen,” he said. “Are you in love with me?”

What kind of question was that? Why was he asking it? She couldn’t read the expression on his face. Genevieve felt like she floundered, as if she’d dipped her toes in the edge of a pond and found herself submerged to her ears.

She knew the honest answer. But what did he want to hear?

As long as their connection was based upon physical pleasures, she imagined he’d want to continue it. But how would he react if she loved him? What right did he have to even ask her such a thing, if he had no feelings of commitment himself?

“Why do you ask?” she said with her best attempt at a light tone. “Do you want to marry me, is that it?”

His visage darkened. His was angry again, and this time she had no idea why. “I asked because I wanted to know. Obviously.”

“I love being with you,” she said. “I love our time together.”

“I see.”

Her attempts to find solid ground had failed. “Do you not feel the same?”

He seemed unreachable. “I am not sure what I feel anymore about our time together.”

My God, what about what just happened between them? Didn’t that count for anything?

Or was it what she feared all along...anything he said in the throes of passion was not to be taken seriously? All of the true feeling lay in
her
heart and not his? But how could she have read the situation so wrongly?

Genevieve tucked her knees into her chest and hugged them, like a porcupine balling itself up for protection, quills pointed out every which way. She certainly felt like a mass of prickles.

“You do too know what you feel. You’re just not saying it yet.” Her shaking voice annoyed her. She spoke louder to keep it steady. “How dare you make love to me like you did and then decide you want nothing to do with me?”

“I never said that.”

“You never said anything! You are asking me how I feel, while you yourself apparently feel nothing.”

“I never said that either.”

Then what do you feel?
Her mind almost screamed at him. She couldn’t understand him at all. How could he be so passionate at one moment, so cold and unfeeling the next?

Ah, but she had known a man like that before, hadn’t she? This was Adam all over again. Perhaps all men behaved like this. She should have known better, should have protected herself.

She remained in her porcupine pose. “I want you to leave.”

His eyes filled with pain. Under many circumstances, her heart would have gone out to him at that look.

This wasn’t one of those circumstances. He could feel bad all he wanted, and what difference did it make? The bottom line was, now that he knew she wasn’t a mistress, he had no particular place for her in his life.

“I didn’t want things to be this way.”

“Get out.”

She watched him dispassionately as he pulled on his clothes. She wished he would hurry up so she could have a good cry in peace and get on with things. So this was how it ended.

When he was dressed he came over and attempted to touch her. She pulled away from him. She’d embarrassed herself enough already. If he meant to throw her over, she wasn’t doing him the favor of soothing his conscience about it.

“I will come by in a day or so, when we’re both feeling calmer.”

“What for?”

“Gen...”

“Do not call me that.” Naked under the blankets, Genevieve shivered even though the room was fairly warm. “If you have to talk to me again, you can call me Miss Bell.”

Will’s mouth curled. “Very well. Have your own way.” He picked up his hat. “Good night,
Miss Bell
.”

Chapter Fifteen

All the way home, Will told himself that Genevieve had behaved very badly.

For a while he’d felt as though his emotions were not to be trusted. He set them aside, as though his heart was sealed up in that damned Egyptian embalming jar his mother had been so delighted to give him.

After making love to Genevieve, he came so close to admitting that it was still possible for him to love, to offer himself up.

He’d asked her in the plainest of terms whether she truly cared for him. Her answer seemed also quite plain. She did not.

And then she grew angry at him for being less than amorous.

Are you going to ask me to marry you? She’d teased him. She obviously found such a notion laughable.

Perhaps she was right to do so. A young person like Daisy might find it romantic to fall in love with someone poor, but Will easily imagined the ways that would make life difficult. It had taken nothing more than a long absence to cool Violet Tudbury’s ardor. Social barbs and snubs would surely be enough to weaken any woman’s affections.

Will shook his head.

His big mistake had been to make love to her again. What in God’s name was he thinking?

And the way he’d done it, taking her on the floor, shamed him to the core—too intimate, too raw. The emotional pitch of the evening, coupled with the sight of her nude body, had pushed him to an extreme...but it had been wrong.

Yet it felt so right. More than right. He couldn’t deny that with her, he just had one of the most profound experiences of his life. The tenderness and wild sensuality between them was like nothing he’d ever imagined.

Which was precisely why they shouldn’t have done it.

By the time he reached the front door of his townhouse, Will was in a foul mood. He banged open the front door and was surprised by the sight of two figures embracing in a dark corner of the parlor.

“What the Devil,” Will began in a loud tone.

To his complete shock, Babbage turned around to face him.

The man looked sick with embarrassment. He’d stepped in front of the woman in some instinctive gesture of protection. “Mr. Creighton,” he said, but he didn’t seem to know where to go from there.

“Oh, Mr. Creighton, we’re ever so sorry, sir, but we didn’t expect you home at all tonight!” his female friend chimed in.

Will squinted in disbelief toward the woman. “Mrs. Tate?”

She stepped forward out of the shadows. She was, indeed, Genevieve’s maid Flory.

“It’s my fault, Mr. Creighton, sir,” she went on. “This was all my doing, so I hope you won’t blame Maurice—I mean to say, Mr. Babbage. He told me it wasn’t fitting to be down here. It was just my foolish fancy.”

Babbage and Genevieve’s maid. How long had this been going on? Did Genevieve know about it?

But of course she did. She and her maid were practically family to one another. Both of them probably laughed about Will’s ignorance of the situation, just as they’d no doubt laughed about his being taken in by Genevieve’s so-called lessons.

“It is very generous of you to try to take responsibility for this, Mrs. Tate, but it is also misguided. You are a woman and Babbage is a man. It is hardly as though you could have forced
him
.” Good God. How old was the woman, sixty? Was it normal for women her age to carry on in this way? Perhaps it was. He had no idea. “Mrs. Tate, I think it’s best if you leave. My coachman will take you back to Hertfordshire.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Creighton. I’m staying with an old friend in Town.”

“Then he will deliver you there.”

Will rang for the coachman, and it seemed an interminable time before Flory was finally on her way. “You let me know if you are in need of anything, Mr. Babbage,” she told the butler, touching his arm in passing. She gave Will a faintly challenging look. “Good night.” Neither man answered her.

When the door clicked shut, Babbage cleared his throat.

“Mr. Creighton, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize and to tender my resignation.”

“What?” The look on his butler’s face, as though the man were about to be hauled out in front of a firing squad, jarred Will to his senses. “Oh, for God’s sake. Sit down.”

Will himself flopped down in the nearest chair, feeling his antagonism drain away. After a moment’s hesitation, the older man perched on the edge of another chair.

“You are not going to be put out,” Will told him. “Good Lord, Babbage, you’ve been with this family longer than...well, longer than I have, actually.”

“Yes, sir, but in light of this situation—”

“Enough.” Will held up a hand. He’d experienced a strange and confusing night, but about this particular situation he found some clarity. “This has taken me by surprise. But in all your years of service, you’ve never done anything scandalous before. You’ve never even so much as—stolen a spoon, or what have you, as far as I know.”

“That is very understanding of you, sir. But your father will likely insist upon my termination, once he hears of this incident.”

“Well, we’re not telling him about it,” Will retorted.

The butler’s eyes widened, and then his features relaxed. “I appreciate that, sir.”

Will’s mind reeled back to Flory. “So you and Mrs. Tate are...romantically involved.” The idea of Babbage being intimately involved with anyone was still difficult to grasp. “How long has this been the case?”

“Nearly as long as you have been visiting Miss Bell, sir.”

Will remembered the night that Babbage had insisted on driving the carriage out to Genevieve’s cottage, when the coachman fell ill. Flory had brought him in for tea. Had that been the beginning of their attachment? He recalled how both of them jumped to their feet when he and Gen had gone downstairs.

“I must say, I never imagined you as a Lothario.” Will had assumed, without ever thinking about it, that the butler would always be as self-denying as a monk. Now that Will did think about it, he could imagine that Babbage’s life might have been lonely.

The butler looked down modestly. “Mrs. Tate was very friendly to me from the first...and I found her very difficult to resist.”

“I see. But what are your intentions toward her? Do you think you will marry her?”

Babbage cleared his throat. “I will be perfectly frank with you, sir. I don’t know for sure whether Mrs. Tate would like such a serious commitment. But for my own part, yes, I hope it will lead to that.”

“Well, I am glad to hear that, at least. I would be very disappointed if you weren’t intending to do the honorable thing.” Will felt horrible as he said this, thinking of the mess with Genevieve. She was at fault for deceiving him, he told himself, but the thought rang hollow.

“Nonetheless,” Will went on, “you must know that you absolutely cannot be making love to women in my parlor. I mean, it’s just not done. Not by butlers, in any event.”

“Am I to understand, then, that I am still allowed to see Mrs. Tate?”

“Yes. When it’s your day off, mind you.” He didn’t like it at all, but neither could he bring himself to dictate the private life of a man who was older than his father, even if that man was in his employ.

“That’s very kind of you, sir.” Babbage’s face broke into a smile.

“Just one thing. I hope you will be as discreet as you’ve always been.”

“Yes, sir,” said the butler, but he looked a bit confused.

“I mean that I do not think it would be right for you and Mrs. Tate to discuss either my or Miss Bell’s private affairs.” Will wondered if it was even possible for them not to. As intimate as Babbage and Flory obviously were, it would be hard to keep secrets.

“Oh, I see, sir. You need not worry in the slightest. I am not a rumormonger, and Mrs. Tate refuses to discuss any but the most general facts about Miss Bell. She is old-fashioned that way.”

The older man sounded very proud as he talked about his sweetheart. Good Lord, the old fellow had it bad. The man practically beamed.

Will realized he was jealous. He’d felt it since he walked in the door. Well, just because his own personal life was going badly was no reason why other people shouldn’t enjoy theirs.

“Mr. Creighton, I do want to thank you again for your, ah, extreme generosity and understanding. I promise you there won’t be any more—unfortunate incidents like this one.”

“I’m not worried.” Will clapped him on the shoulder. “Now I think I should get some sleep.”

But he didn’t get any sleep that night.

****

Early the next morning, though he would have preferred to stay home brooding, Will rode with his brother and sister in a carriage to Surrey. They were all turned out rather splendidly for the occasion, which happened to be, of all things, a wedding.

Robert Tudbury, cousin to Daisy and Violet, was getting married to a young lady they had met once or twice, at her father’s country estate. Will’s parents had gone out a couple of days before, because his mother had been enlisted for help and advice in the matter of flowers. “And the main thing I shall have to say about flowers,” she’d told her family, at dinner the Sunday before, “is the more, the better.”

The wedding was scheduled for the morning: eleven o’clock. So Will had gotten up and dressed at what felt, given his restless night, to have been an ungodly early hour. Why one couldn’t hold weddings at, say, three o’clock in the afternoon, when everyone was well-rested, was beyond his understanding.

“Oh, dear,” his sister Katy fretted as the carriage pulled up to the large stone church. “I hope I look smart enough.”

“You look quite well, Katy,” their brother Stuart said. “Any better, and you’d make the bride jealous and ruin her day.”

Katy giggled. “Not that I care for myself how I look, but I do want to be appropriate—out of respect for the occasion,” she added in a more grown-up tone.

“Of course.” Will exchanged an amused glance with Stuart when she wasn’t looking. Katy was so much younger—having been something of a surprise to their parents—that to Will and Stuart she was almost more like a beloved niece than a sister.

“There you are!” Their mother was at their side as soon as they emerged from the carriage. “Not a moment too soon. Katy, come with me, I need your help. These servants didn’t understand the concept of a ‘carpet of flowers’—not at all! A few strewn daisies are not a carpet!”

“A carpet?”

“For the wedding-party to walk on. Come on now!” Their mother whisked the girl away.

“Excellent to see you, Mother,” Stuart said after her.

“What the Devil was that all about?” Will asked.

“It’s so they will have a happy path through life,” a voice supplied. Will and his brother looked around to see Daisy Tudbury peering up at them from under a giant beribboned bonnet.

“Miss Tudbury. Delightful to see you,” Stuart said.

She smiled, but Will noticed that under the rim of her hat, her eyes were red.

“Miss Tudbury, are you quite well?” Will asked.

“Oh, yes. I just...” Her eyes darted to Stuart again. “It’s nothing.”

“Stuart, Mother’s trying to get your attention,” Will said.

Stuart darted a glance over to where Mrs. Creighton and Daisy carried flowers by the armload and scattered them on the lawn in front of the church. “No, she isn’t.” Then his face brightened. “Oh, wait—yes, so she is. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Tudbury.”

Several coaches had pulled up to the church by now, and people milled about, greeting one another before they went it to sit down. In all the bustle, Will hoped people wouldn’t notice that he and Daisy were having a private conversation. With Stuart’s departure, Daisy’s wan smile disappeared as well, and she looked miserable.

Will asked in a low tone, “Daisy, what is it?”

“It’s my vicar.”

“Yes, what about him?” For a wild instant Will imagined that her parents had him murdered.

“Well...he’s not
my
vicar anymore.”

“Oh. That is difficult. So you have decided to break things off with him after all?” He felt terribly sorry for the girl. “I know it’s hard, but you’ve made the right choice. There was just too much difference between your stations...It would never have worked out between you.”

Daisy stared at him as if he was mad. “I did not break things off with him,” she sputtered, seeming indignant that he could suggest such a thing. “How could I? I love him.”

“Oh.”

“He broke things off with me.”

“You’re joking.” What kind of idiot vicar would leave a wealthy, beautiful woman?

A dire suspicion entered Will’s mind. He asked in a still lower voice, “Daisy, you are not in trouble, are you?”

She straightened up so sharply that for a moment he thought she would slap him. Then she forced a laugh. “I cannot imagine what you’re suggesting. But I assure you I am in no trouble whatsoever.” She sniffled. “I am broken-hearted, that is all.”

“I beg your pardon. But I don’t understand. Why did he break things off?”

“Because he says I’m too young and too frivolous. I was showing him a gift I made for my friend—I embroidered an eyeglasses-case, and it was ever so pretty—and he said that she hardly needed it, as she was quite wealthy already. I was very vexed because I had worked so hard on it. I told him that was not the point at all, and we had a terrible row.” Daisy sniffled again. “And he told me I was too involved in fripperies to be a real servant of the Lord.”