Lady Scandal (17 page)

“Would you bring your conversational skills to my mouth?”

He raised his head to murmur, “Aye, my lady.”

With one last lingering kiss to her core, he drifted up her body and nudged her lips open. Acquainting her with her own flavor, he seduced her all over again.

As her tongue chased his, Zeus stroked his hand down her cleft and smeared her essence over his shaft. Fisting the thick column, he placed his crown to her curls and glided along her swollen folds, skimming over the entrance and the tiny nub he’d coaxed earlier, until he heard her breath catch, felt her teeth sink into his tongue.

Knowing he’d found the place and pressure, the exact nuance between tantalize and tease she needed to gain release, he continued caressing her with his cock and (once he’d retracted his tongue) charming her with words and whispers. She writhed beneath him, and just when concern over her injured leg prodded him, she whimpered once and melted into the settee. Her moan of sublime satisfaction breezing past his ears.

Recognizing how being with this woman made him richer than possessing any amount of money or property, Zeus inched his fingers from his excessively patient erection and spread her open. He eased inside the snug, welcoming passage that rippled around him, pausing once in place to bring his face to hers.

Resting on his elbows above her, his body shaking with the continued effort of restraint, Zeus stared into her eyes. “My lady, my
wife
.”

At her nod, he thrust home, past the final resistance and into her heart.

“Juliet?” Wivy’s voice intruded some time later, reluctantly it sounded to Juliet, through the locked door. A trio of sharp raps followed. “Juliet! I so regret disturbing you, but we have visitors. More precisely,
you
have visitors.”

“Visitors?” The man beside her roused himself to murmur. She saw his eyes blink open to startlingly swift realization of their surroundings.

Ensconced snugly in his arms, Juliet had been watching Zeus sleep. Awash in the aftermath of his physical loving, in the surety of their emotional bond, she’d been unwilling to succumb to the lure of slumber.

Moonlight angled in from the open windows. The storm’s fury totally spent, the ground sated—as was her curiosity about the male form, for the moment—crickets echoed her contented feelings, merrily chirping their welcome to another night. Another night which heralded another day, neither of which she need fear any longer. Not now that her Marriage Scheme had come to a splendid conclusion.

But would Zeus share in her certainty? Or would he have regrets? Would he decry what they’d just done? Now that he’d “slept” on things, would doubts creep forth, stealing into the mind of this proud warrior she hoped to claim as her own kingly knight forevermore?

Nay, for he smiled and pressed a tender kiss her cheek. “My lady? It appears as though we have our first guests to welcome.”

It did indeed.

His actions and words easily banishing any speck of pitch-kettledness, Juliet slowly eased herself upright. Toward Wivy, she called, “Guests? At this hour?”

Turning to Zeus, who hadn’t budged from his sprawled position behind her, Juliet felt her dratted cheeks heat. “We certainly aren’t dressed to receive callers, now are we?”

Giving her nude form an exaggerated leer, Zeus quipped, “We certainly aren’t dressed at all.”

“Aye!” Wivy responded in the midst of their mirth. “The vicar. I wasn’t going to disturb you, but he insists he must be on his way soon and he refuses to leave without seeing you.”

“The vicar?” That was unpredicted.

“Arranged by Mr. Hastings. Come to perform a wedding, dare I hope?”

A wedding?

“Tell him we’ll be down directly,” Zeus answered loudly before she had a chance to.

His countenance completely solemn, only the glint in his eyes betraying the laughter they’d just shared, Zeus stood and bowed before her, in all his naked majesty. “My lady?” He rose and held his arm toward her, palm up. “If you’ll have me?”

Forever.
Heart pounding ferociously at the commitment she was about to make, confident in her decision as she’d never thought to be, Juliet placed her hand in his. “I’ll have you forever, Zeus Jupiter.”

“Minx. That stays between us.” After giving her hand a squeeze, Zeus released her to snatch his buckskins from the floor.

“Ah…” His head whipped to and fro. “My shirt? I seem to recall displacing it earlier. Have you any idea where it got off to?”

Remembering exactly where he’d left it, where she’d first inhaled his strong scent, Juliet pointed toward the screen. “I do indeed.”

Zeus quickly retreated that direction. But, lovely man, he took the time to retrieve her dress as well and toss it to her before donning his own attire.

“Perhaps…” she said archly, tugging her dress overhead and immediately proposing once she emerged, “I could interest you in another exchange?”

His face turned speculative and he paused in his efforts to stuff in his shirt. “What would you have of me? You’ve already stripped me raw.” Though he didn’t seem to mind overly much, given how one side of his mouth quirked upward. “Turned my expectations and my life on their ear since I stepped foot into your shaky, sodden abode.”

“Oh how you go on,” she teased, unable to subdue the spark of pure joy that flashed through her knowing she could. Tease him, that was. “I’ll grant you blind obedience in public…” Juliet let that dangle temptingly between them, “
if
I can call you Zeus Jupiter in private.”

He growled. He groaned. He grinned full-out. “For blind obedience, I’ll suffer through it.”

“You’re such a dear!” She watched him tug on his Hessians, forgoing his woolen stockings in his haste. A glance toward her discarded pale pink one had her cheeks heating all over again. “Now where did my slipper get off to?”

She required that and her crutch in order to retrieve her undergarments strewn between here and yonder and the corner where she’d hid—and first glimpsed heaven: Zeus’ chest. Pity he’d had to cover it up. But the tingly, tender sensations between her nude thighs reminded her
she
still had much to cover up as well.

“You won’t need your slipper,” he informed her, and proceeded to gather her in his arms, ignoring her shriek as he advanced straight toward the door.

“Zeus! We can’t go down like this!”

“Why ever not?”

“You skipped your waistcoat and tailcoat and I’m still…still
in my altogether
under my dres
mpfth
!”

His kiss muffled the protest and made away with her breath. “It matters not,” he said when he raised his head. “Because directly upon completion of our abbreviated nuptials, you’ll be acquainting me with your bedchamber—and before you remind me, I know it leaks. I’ll shove the bed into a dry patch tonight and climb on the roof tomorrow for an inspection, after I dispatch someone to the village with a handful of coins to procure us some real and hearty food.”

Gracious, he was already taking charge. How wondrous!

Balancing her against his chest, he unlocked the door and opened it a few inches for Henry who
mewwed
a quick thanks and flew through the crack, fluffy tail held high. “Now
you
,” Zeus hefted her in his arms, such a delightful, protected feeling, “you behave. Or else.”

Kicking her bare feet in a show of pure unconcern, Juliet wrapped one arm behind his neck and placed her lips to his ear. “Or else what?”

Zeus eased the door completely open with one elbow, sliding her carefully through before imparting, “Or else I’ll tell the vicar exactly what you
aren’t
wearing under that pretty dress.”

“Zeus!”

Epilogue

Juliet. Memories. Home.

“What’s that you’re concentrating on? More modifications to the building plans?”

Zeus had wondered how long it would take his bride of two months to ask. He’d made a great show of preparing the nib, uncapping the ink and sighing in audible satisfaction upon the completion of each word.

He tugged her onto one leg and leaned back. “Your first official reading lesson, which just happens to coincide with my lesson in Revised Values.” Though they’d covered individual letters, life had intervened since he’d made his promise, kept him from honoring it as soon as he’d wished.

Between spending nearly every waking moment together, and waking her in the middle of the night to create more of them, plus paying off creditors, visiting tenants and working with Olivia and her man to secure the necessary workforce to adequately improve the ramshackle estates, “hectic” hardly described the past few weeks.

Glorious weeks.

Inhaling the delicate scent of the bounty in his arms, Zeus extended one hand to slide the foolscap toward them. He put his finger beneath the first word. “This one, I believe you know?”

After studying it a moment, she looked at him in surprise. “That’s me. Juliet.”

A broad grin widened his cheeks. “So it is.” Allowing his finger to track each word, he read, “
Things I Value—Juliet. Memories. Home.
It’s a far cry different from my previous list.”

“I approve!” She slung her arms around his neck. “Care to share the former?”

“Mum was on it, of course. So was Amherst, as were time and money.” But time with his bride, jointly discussing how best to spend his money, had swiftly led to a revelation: Neither of those was worth spit unless he splurged them on things that mattered.

“Want to hear my list? Then you can show me how to write it.”

She scooted off and stood over his shoulder while he dipped the pen and prepared to inscribe her words. “I await your pleasure, my dear,” he prompted when she remained silent.

“My husband.” He wrote, adding
Zeus
in parentheses when she requested it, saying that was definitely one she wanted to learn.

“Henry.” He penned with a smile, glancing over at the ball of fluff sleeping (and shedding) atop yesterday’s waistcoat.

“Wivy, Jacks and our other new friends and servants.” His pen flowed as she dictated. He knew how she missed those companions who’d remained near Duffield while they’d traveled to London to meet with the architect who would oversee the construction of their new home at Amherst.

“Our…little…Jupiter.”

The second her words registered, the ink smeared. The J lurched off the page. Zeus dropped the pen and snared his wife. “You’re with child?”

Roses bloomed on her cheeks. “I believe so.”

He stood and whirled her around in a circle that encompassed the entirety of their rented rooms. “You’ve made me the happiest of men, my lady. But if you think any son of mine is going to carry a blighted name such—”

Her lips at his ear stopped the tirade. “Would you agree to James? Or Jane?”

“Aye, I would.”

“Then put me down, Mr. Tanner, and I’ll trade you my two stockings for your shirt and buckskins.”

About Author Larissa Lyons