Improper Seduction (7 page)
Read Improper Seduction Online
Authors: Temple Rivers
Christ, Jesus, what a feast! He growled low in appreciation.
He urged her beautiful pink cunny close to his face, caught the erotic female scent of her. He spread her nether lips with his thumbs and stared at the lovely folds, thought how sensual she looked from this position. He began by stroking her gently with his thumbs. She moaned and gushed in response, slick and wet.
He nuzzled the garden gate with his lips, spread her wide and delighted in the cream on her thatch. God, he was rock hard and ready for her. But, first, more exquisite torture for her. His cock jumped involuntarily between her lips as he proceeded.
He lifted her toward his mouth and feasted on that womanly dripping of her cunt, using teeth and lips and tongue until he felt her jerk and spasm as she came with his mouth fucking her pussy, with his pole jammed hard into her throat.
He withdrew from her lips and emptied himself onto her breasts.
They lay panting and drenched with sweat, their fevered bodies cooling as the fire died down in the cottage. When the light no longer filtered through the windows, she rose and silently put her clothes back on.
"He's like a bloodhound, I swear," she murmured. "I'll have to bathe, to wash up, before I – before ... "
"Don't," he ground out.
Her blue eyes darkened like a stormy sky. "He's not a bad man."
Thomas wondered if she believed the lie she told them both as he stared up at the wooden beams of the ceiling.
Sometime after she left him, he dressed and cleaned out the grate. He didn't want anyone to know she and he had spent time here, although he was aware that keeping secrets from below stairs staff was nearly impossible. And Chastity had said that Griffin had pointed her to this isolated spot. So the housekeeper knew, or suspected, something was going on between the lady of the manor and the stable master.
He tried to tell himself she was a quick piece of fluff, a tight and delightful ass with which to ease his needs. Nothing more to him.
When brutal reality set in, he realized he didn't want to leave Charring Manor, but how could he remain knowing that each night she'd go to the Baron, lie with him until he got a child on her.
Damnation! A child that ought to be his.
Fuck it all! He wasn't a man made for permanency. If he couldn't have the Baroness and let her husband have her too – and he knew he couldn't – he'd leave. There was a wide world of estates that needed good stable masters.
Desolation settled on his shoulders like a plough horse's load. How was he to give her up?
#
Bathed, perfumed, and dressed in a fine linen gown, Lady Chastity Charring waited for her husband. It was now after nine o-clock. They'd both dined alone in their rooms, and there was nothing left for her but to perform her duty.
She felt dull, inert, drained of all vitality – so different from when she was with Thomas. He seemed very fond of her, perhaps even admired her, but what did that matter? Surely he did not
love
her, and even if he did, she and the stable master had no future together.
She mused idly over the idea of returning to London with Charring. Briefly thought of taking another lover after this business of child birthing was over.
No, she thought. That wasn't worthy of her.
She'd betrayed her husband, it was true, but she felt something deeper with Thomas than she'd ever thought possible. Dare she think it was love? After all these years of denying herself a man to admire and respect – and yes, to have fun with – had fate given her a chance when it really was too late for her?
She was weary of this charade of a marriage. Perhaps she ought to confess, to tell Charring exactly what she'd been up to. He'd kill her, she thought. Not Thomas, though, because good stable masters were too hard to come by. He'd take out his retribution on her.
Any decent man would.
Chastity heard the sounds of voices outside her chamber, hurried, loud, frightened. What was going on? She glanced at the clock over the mantle. It was nearly ten.
Where was her husband?
She jerked open her chamber door to find her maid and Griffin standing close together with Samuel, Charring Manor's grumpy-faced butler, hovering near them.
"Baroness," Samuel ventured. "There's been a – an incident."
Chastity felt the blood drain from her face. Not Thomas, she prayed. God, not Thomas. She never gave a thought to the possibility that Baron Charring, Lord Oscar Lockham, had come to harm. He was vital and vigorous for a man his age, and he never took ill.
From the corner of her eye she saw Thomas standing several steps down on the long winding staircase. Their eyes met and she saw her own relief mirrored on his face. She cried out and clapped her hand over her mouth. He must've been very worried about her to venture into the manor, to have the temerity to ascend the staircase. She supposed the upheaval caused his audacity to go unnoticed.
"Baroness," Samuel intoned, urging Griffin to take her arm, "Baron Charring has suffered a – a fall, an accident in his bedchamber. I've sent for the doctor, but I'm afraid, my lady, that it is too late."
She gasped, locked eyes with Thomas again and watched him retreat down the stairs.
The next several hours were horrific. The doctor pronounced the Baron dead from a fall he apparently sustained as he returned from inspecting the newly tilled acreage to the south of the estate. He had slipped on a wet stone and hit his head very hard.
Such a silly thing, really, Chastity thought, to take down such a large man. She didn't know how to feel about his death, but the tears came naturally to her. She might've mourned for someone she truly loved. He was a good man, she reminded herself, as guilt flooded her.
After the doctor left, Marianne fetched a dosage of laudanum the physician had left "for her nerves." She took it because she knew otherwise she'd never sleep. All the while she thought of Thomas and what the baron's death meant for the two of them.
And guilt branded her again like a hot iron.
She slept late the next morning, awakening only when Marianne brought her tea in the early afternoon. "You must eat something, m'lady." The young girl's face was bleak with worry. "You must try to go on."
She nodded, too ashamed of the girl's assumption to speak.
"There's arrangements to – to be taken care of," the girl ventured. "Shall I send Griffin to see you?"
This, at least, was something to do. "Yes, send Griffin. I – I'm sure she'll be – a comfort."
It was Griffin who told her the next morning that Thomas, the stable master, had left without a word of notice within an hour of the Baron's death.
Chapter 15
Six Months Later
Chastity still wore mourning and looked more lovely than ever in the severe black waistcoat and skirts. However, she looked thin and the smudges of blue beneath her eyes nearly matched their vivid color. Both spoke of grief and pain.
Pain that
he
had caused her.
Thomas was received at the front door of Charring Manor, handed over his gloves and hat to Samuel without a blink. Griffin stood at the bottom of the staircase, and if she were surprised at his somewhat elevated status, she did no more than lift her brows and follow him as he was led into the main parlour.
Lady Rockham had her back to the door, but turned as Samuel announced him.
"Your Grace, the Duke of Somerset, my lady."
She turned slowly and the perplexed look on her face terrified him. Would she welcome him back or renounce him for the cad he'd been when he fled? He told himself he'd done it for her – that the Baron's death meant nothing to the two of them, altered nothing in their status or their relationship. She was still the lady and he the stable master.
Part of that was true. He could never come to Chastity in the way he wanted as long as he remained in that position.
"I've returned," he said needlessly, and for the first time in her presence he felt his youth compared to her maturity. He nearly squirmed like a schoolboy.
She lifted one finely-shaped brow. "So I see."
He inspected her thoroughly, raked hungry eyes over her body. "You're too thin," he snapped. "You've lost weight."
"I lost a husband," she countered coolly.
"Ay."
"And – and a lover." She stumbled over the last word. "You should have left me word, Thomas. You should have told me your plan. You should
not
have broken my heart."
"I told myself it was lust – a hearty passion for the desires of the flesh." He reached her, cupped one hand under her elbow, the other around her cheek. "I'm a poor liar."
She smiled. "I know."
"I've come back to tup a wife," he warned, "not a mistress. Nor the lady of the house," he interrupted when she opened her mouth to speak. "I want to lie with you, feel you writhing in ecstasy beneath me, moaning my name while I use you – soft – and hard."
"Is that all?"
"No, I want to wake up to the sight of you every morning."
She swallowed hard and he sensed her eagerness as he dipped his mouth to hers, plundered the sweetness therein, and began to tumble his future wife to the floor.
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