A Baron for Becky (21 page)

When his hands
fumbled at her sash, she drew away. “You first, Hugh. I want to
see. Keep still.” He shook his head, but made no further protest,
not moving while she tugged off his coat and unbuttoned his
waistcoat. She slipped her hands under the edges and ran them up
his chest to his shoulders, pushing the waistcoat so it slipped
backwards.

She could feel
his warmth through the fine linen of his shirt, and her own heat
rose. His breath shortened, but he continued to obey her command to
keep still, letting her slide the waistcoat off, then circle him,
pulling the shirt from his waistband.

She ran her
hands up under the fabric, revelling in the feel of his hot, bare
skin, but when she started to gather the material to lift the shirt
off, Hugh trapped her wrists against his firm torso, caging her in
a gentle, but inexorable, grip. He swooped in for another searing
kiss.

This time, it
was Hugh who drew back, reluctantly, pulling her lower lip gently
between his teeth and echoing her sigh.

“Turnabout is
fair play, Becky. My shirt stays until your gown goes.”

She nodded,
turning obediently so he could undo the sash. “You will need
scissors, Hugh. The gown was a little large, and Her Grace’s maid
sewed it to fit after I put it on.”

In a rosewood
box on a side table they found a vanity set with a set of
sharp-bladed scissors. The maid had used fine, almost-invisible
seaming to shape the cloth over Becky’s breasts, but Hugh quickly
found the long tacks that reduced the diameter of the gown at the
sides, and sundered them with eager snips.

She trembled
when he drew the gown over her head, his hands brushing her sides
and her arms. He threw the expensive garment over the back of a
chair, never taking his eyes from hers, and reached for her stays,
but she stepped back.

“The shirt,”
she croaked.

He obeyed,
standing still while she slipped the braces over his shoulders then
pulled the shirt gently, tenderly, until it slid from the
pantaloons and she could lift it up and over his head.

She was
prepared, or she would have gasped. As with his face, smooth skin
on one side contrasted with seared and puckered scars on the other.
Show no disgust. Nothing but polite interest. In truth, she was not
disgusted, but compassion would not be welcomed, either. He would
take it for pity.

His eyes were
wary, the lust banked embers for the moment.

“Your
breeches?” she suggested.

“Your stays
first.”

Fastened
loosely at the base to accommodate her spreading belly, they were
so tightly tied at the top that he cursed and retrieved the
scissors to cut the laces. He tossed the stays after the gown, and
stood for a moment, stroking her breasts through the chemise,
running his thumbs over the hard nubs of her responding
nipples.

“The breeches,”
she insisted.

“You do it.”
His body quivered slightly, like a hound waiting the command to
course the hare.

Her own hands
fumbling, she undid the buttons on one side, very conscious of the
fabric that strained over the evidence of his arousal. Her own
breath was shuddering in her throat as she undid the other side.
His fall dropped, and what was underneath sprang free, straining
upwards, hard and ready. She swallowed.

Her passage was
readying for him: heat, swelling, liquid. Almost, she touched the
proud jut, but she diverted her hands to unbutton the waist and the
breeches dropped. He kicked them off, not looking down.

The scars
covered his left side from his cheek to his knee, pitting and
knotting his shoulder and upper arm, his torso, hip and thigh.
Becky traced them with both hands, her fingers exploring the ridges
and hollows.

“A cannon shot.
Is that right?”

“Yes. A ball
designed to break apart on impact. I was lucky to survive.”

“I am lucky you
survived, Hugh. Very lucky.” Her exploring hands had reached his
hip. She let one drift around to cup his firm buttock, and the
other cross to brush against his shaft.

“They don’t
disgust you?”

Focused as she
was on his arousal and hers, she took a moment to understand him.
“The scars? No. They do not. Your one-eyed soldier there? Decidedly
not!”

Hugh caught
Becky to him again, another insistent kiss, his hard length pressed
into the swell of her belly, then demanded, “The chemise.”

He helped her
draw the garment over her head and sent it after her stays and
gown. He sank to his knees then, smoothing reverent palms over the
swell of her belly.

“Beautiful,” he
said. One hand tended lower, and she pressed against it urgently as
he slid practiced fingers in exactly the right places. “Beautiful,”
he said again.

Then he surged
to his feet, and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the bed.
“We will take our time, Becky.” His calm voice was at odds with his
wild, intent eyes. “With my body, I thee worship.” The words of the
vow he had made scant hours ago.

“Worship me
quickly, Hugh. We’ll go slowly next time.”

Afterward, as
they lay in one another’s arms, she returned to the topic of his
injury, tracing the scars that decorated one hip.

“Is that
what... Is that why...”

“Why I can’t
father children? No, nothing so heroic. I had mumps.” He’d never
talked about it before, but somehow, it was natural to tell
her.

“A confounded
illness I should have had in childhood. Dear Lord, it hurt. My cods
swelled up like pumpkins. My throat too, and under my arms. But my
cods were the worst. I wanted to die. But slowly everything went
back to normal. The doctors said I’d never be able to... rise to
the occasion again. And if I could, I would certainly never be a
father.”

Becky snuggled
closer, one hand tucked under his shoulder, and the other running
soothingly back and forth across his hip.

“I was 21; well
22, by then. I bought my commission, and went off to kill myself
for king and country. I can’t tell you how grateful I was when the
little fellow first poked his head up again.”

“He’s doing so
now,” his wife observed, chuckling. His wife. The first time had
been a little rushed; they had not even removed their stockings!
This time, he would make sure he took his time. Ladies first. That
lesson had served him well all these many years.

“Shall I show
you worship, Lady Overton? Shall I pay due reverence to every inch
of my wife’s beautiful body?”

“It means
‘worthy,’” Becky said. “I find you worthy to be my wife.” At his
quizzical look, she flushed slightly. “My father’s scholarly
interest was the medieval church. Sometimes he would set bits from
the ancient prayer books for my Latin translation exercises.”

“With my body,
I find you worthy,” Hugh agreed. He found her breasts worthy for
quite some minutes, then shifted to find her thighs worthy, and
then her nether lips and the sweet bud between them, until she
stiffened, her high-pitched, wordless cry becoming a long
ululation. She lay limp, exhausted, but as he entered her and began
to move, she roused again to return thrust for thrust.

Later, much
later, while they ate a cold supper, still cuddling, feeding one
another a bit at a time, he finished the story.

“I never
expected to be baron. My family are not prolific, but my
grandfather had two sons, and my father the younger. I am an only
child, but my uncle had two sons and a daughter. Then, five deaths
in the family in one year, and suddenly, I am Baron Overton.”

“So you
married,” she prompted.

“I hoped the
doctors were wrong, though none of my mistresses had ‘taken,’ but
to increase my chances, I married a widow who already had children.
She had a daughter, and she was with child again.” He was silent,
then. Had Aldridge told her how Polyphemia had died? Probably not;
he seemed to have kept his counsel about everything else. It wasn’t
important. No pasts, she said. He did not need to tell her.

“I was married
four years. With all the women I have bedded since my illness, four
years of marriage, and more women in the three years since, my seed
has not taken root once.” He felt inside the loose robe she had
donned to cup her rounded belly. “This is my one chance to give the
barony a future. Thank you.” The kiss of gratitude he gave her
deepened, and they abandoned their supper.

Chapter Sixteen

They were married on
Friday, and spent Saturday quietly at home in the apartment with
Sarah, except for a walk in the park in the afternoon, where
several of Hugh’s friends were delighted to be presented to the new
Lady Overton.

Sarah was
cautious at first, but by late afternoon, sat on the parlour rug
with him, laughing as they played at spillikins. Becky, who had
begun to fall in love with him during their week of courtship,
tumbled a little deeper as she watched him with her daughter.
Particularly after last night.

Aldridge had
been kind, courteous, and skilled. Hugh was those things, but also
grateful. He treated her with respect, and not just in bed. He took
her out in public and proudly introduced her to the wives of his
friends. He needed her—not just the baby, but her, Becky, as
chatelaine and mother to his children, to reassure him when he felt
ugly or off-balance, to give him an heir to save the title.

The vows they’d
exchanged thrilled her. To love and to cherish, forsaking all other
as long as they both shall live. She repeated them silently to
herself over and over through the day. And ‘Rebecca, Lady
Overton.’

She reminded
herself again and again, love was not part of their bargain. He
would give her and Sarah a home and respectability. She would give
his daughters a mother and him the child in her womb. If she were
foolish enough to fall in love with him, she would not burden him
with that knowledge.

Aldridge had
given Becky the deed to her daughter’s apartment to her as a
wedding present. “I promised you the town-house,” he apologised,
“but questions would be asked if you owned the town-house where The
Rose of Frampton lived.” The solicitor that Aldridge hired secured
the apartment and a substantial sum of money to her name,
persuading Hugh, at Aldridge’s direction, that her marriage
settlement should give her the atypical right to continue to own
property.

On Saturday
evening, Lord and Lady Overton went to a dinner party at the home
of the Earl and Countess of Chirbury, where Anne (as she insisted
they called her) introduced Becky as ‘a friend of mine from the
Southwest counties. Her daughter and mine are of an age.’

On Sunday, they
attended church at St George’s, in company with the Chirburys. The
Duchess of Haverford herself greeted them outside, showing her
public approval of the new wife of her son’s best friend, even
presenting Lady Overton to His Grace, who was making one of his
rare appearances at Sunday services.

Aldridge was
not at church, but in the park, riding with his
chère amie
,
as a husband scornfully pointed out to a wife who thought she saw a
resemblance between the new Baroness Overton and the Merry
Marquis’s Rose.

Later that day,
Aldridge and his mistress strolled in the pleasure gardens at
Vauxhall, in plain view of half the
ton
, and Lord and Lady
Overton attended a musical afternoon at the home of Mrs Wakefield,
a
protegée
of the Duchess of Haverford.

On Monday, the
Overtons, after a quiet day at home, joined the Chirburys in their
box at the opera. Aldridge, in his own private box with the
infamous Rose of Frampton, caused something of a stir when he and
his mistress passionately embraced halfway through the second act,
then left the theatre abruptly.