Married to the Viscount (20 page)

“You stopped,” he said in a guttural voice. “Don’t stop. Let’s play together.”

When her pleasure-drugged brain finally absorbed his command, she returned to stroking his thick “thing” that felt almost alive in her hand. Then he lost all restraint. His mouth branded her everywhere—ravaged her breast, sucked her throat, plundered the hollow of her ear. But all her attention was focused on the wicked finger that drove inside her over and over.

As she tugged his aroused flesh, too, she half-consciously matched the rhythm of that hot, searching finger. Then he was thrusting two fingers deeply inside her, and his thumb was pressing her throbbing flesh, making her whimper and twist in a search for more of that exquisite excitement building between her legs.

When he increased his rhythm, she increased hers until their hands moved in tandem, their bodies slick with sweat, their breaths mingling in urgent gasps. A strange roar sounded in her ears, growing with each of his strokes until it pounded louder and louder and…

“Yes, Abby, yes,” he rasped against her ear, “like that…oh, God…you’re such a wild little thing…my wild rose…my wild darling…”

The word “darling” pushed her over some edge where the roaring erupted into a scream. It was hers, a shameless cry pouring out of her as light burst behind her eyes and her
body went taut. Wave after wave of pleasure vibrated through her, catching her off guard, making her cry out again less violently.

Then his flesh jerked in her hand, and he gave a cry of his own, hoarse and guttural. It turned into a repetition of her name as a pulse shivered along the length of him and his “thing” went limp. Unsure of what she’d done, she yanked her hand out, but not before feeling a sticky wetness inside his drawers.

He rolled quickly off her to lie gasping at her side. “Good God, woman,” he said after a moment, “you’ll be the death of me yet.”

A pleasant lassitude was stealing over her, but she fought it back in her worry for him. “Did I hit your war wound again?” she whispered. “I know I felt blood—”

“Not blood.” A strangled laugh spilled out of his mouth. “That was my seed. If you can call it that.”

Confused, she rose up on her elbow to look at him. “But I thought we didn’t—”

“We didn’t.” His breathing was slowing to normal, but his eyes still smoldered. “It means we pleasured each other separately, that’s all. You’re still chaste, at least in the strictest sense of the word.”

She didn’t feel chaste. Now that she knew she hadn’t hurt him, she felt wonderful. Like a woman, his woman. Of course she wasn’t, but what they’d done felt too intimate to be merely pleasuring. And he’d called her “darling.” Did he realize that?

Dropping back onto the bed, she snuggled close to him. Tentatively, she laid her hand on his chest, and he sucked in a sharp breath as if the slight weight wounded him. Yet he didn’t push her away.

“Spencer?”

“Yes, Abby.”

The cool distance in his voice gave her pause. Please, no, not the lofty lord again. She wanted the Spencer back who said sweet things to her about needing her beside him.

But she soldiered on. “I didn’t mean for our playing to go so far. But I’m glad it did.”

He said nothing, merely stiffening beneath her fingers.

Fear banished her enjoyment, but she wouldn’t relent, determined to find out how far he would withdraw now that he’d had his pleasure. Forcing a teasing note into her voice, she asked, “So when will we be playing again?”

He uttered a low curse. Setting her firmly aside, he sat up to throw his legs over the edge of the bed. His spine was rigid as iron, and when she touched his back, he flinched. She dropped her hand, her stomach churning with disappointment.

“We can’t play again, Abby,” he choked out. “It’s too…difficult.”

“Difficult? How?”

“Makes things complicated.”

Her heart sank. “Not for me. So it must ‘make things complicated’ for you.”

“Exactly.” He rose, still refusing to look at her. “Because if we keep playing, I’ll want—” He broke off with a curse. “We just can’t, all right?”

Then he faced her, and his eyes widened at the sight of her spread out on the white counterpane. His gaze dropped to her open nightdress, which still left one breast exposed, then further to the rucked-up hem she hadn’t bothered to pull down, the one that bared her legs to the tops of her thighs. Desire flared in his face as he raked his hot gaze over her.

At last a shuddering breath escaped him. He took a step forward and hope leaped in her heart, but all he did was pull down her hem and draw the gaping edges of her nightdress together. “In future, it would be best if we hold any discus
sions between us somewhere other than your bedchamber. Or mine, for that matter.”

While she still stared at him, shocked that he could put what they’d done behind him so easily, he scooped up his clothes and headed for the door. “I’ll see you at breakfast,” he said.

Then he was gone.

She’d cried so much already tonight she’d thought she had no tears left. She was wrong. They boiled out of her unchecked as she turned her face to the pillow.

How could he do this—be one man one moment and another the next? He’d called her “darling,” and he clearly desired her. Yet he could thrust her aside as if she were…were a mere nuisance.

She fisted her hands against her throbbing eyes. That was the problem—he saw her as an impediment to all his grand career plans. He wanted her physically, but he didn’t think she could be what he wanted in a wife.

Maybe he was right. She wasn’t sure if she
could
be a wife to the officious viscount.

But there was another man beneath that façade, a man who desired her and cared so much for her that he’d swallow his pride and apologize for his mistakes. She could be a wife to
him
, oh, yes. And she wanted to be a wife to him, to have him speak to her in his old comfortable way, to have him share with her his hopes for England as he’d done before.

She lay back on the bed to stare up at the canopy. She wanted to unearth the buried Spencer, the man she’d sworn to be a wife to. She wanted to resurrect the Spencer who was kind and passionate and…and…

And who might be happy married to her. Because she now knew for certain that she wanted that gentleman for her own. She wanted to be that Spencer Law’s wife until death did them part.

But bringing such a thing to pass might be tricky. For some odd reason, he insisted on clinging to his old aristocratic ways while he was in England. And he had this strange idea about marriage interfering with his ambitions. After tonight’s ball, he was probably even more convinced that she wouldn’t make a good viscountess. He might tolerate her ineptness to avoid a scandal, but he’d never tolerate it in a real wife.

So if she wanted to remain married to him, she’d have to assuage those fears. She’d have to teach herself how to be the right kind of wife. She’d learn the waltz and all those stupid titles and every silly rule of deportment in creation, whatever it took to become the elegant viscountess he thought he required. She’d show him that a wife could be an asset to his career, not to mention a handy thing to have about the house.

Yes, she would put her “naive American optimism” toward making herself indispensable to him, and she’d win him. Because naive American optimism beat out English cynicism any day.

A short while later, Spencer lay in his bed cursing himself soundly. Had he completely lost his mind, to agree to her “playing”? Bloody hell, if they ever played like that again, he wouldn’t stop until he’d buried his cock so deep inside her that their marriage would be one in truth. Then there’d be nothing he could do about it.

Except make love to her every night, dine with her every day, touch her whenever he wanted, dance with her…

And watch her adoration turn to resentment and then hatred when months passed with no children. No babes in arms, no chattering boys, no mischievous girls. A lifetime chained to him with no children to occupy her while he spent his days at Parliament or the Home Office.

Because thanks to the iron fragments that had peppered his groin all those years ago, there would be no children from
him. Although most of the iron had been removed and his privates were only slightly scarred, every doctor who’d examined him had voiced the same concern. A fragment had sliced through some crucial part of his anatomy, and although everything worked fine, they doubted he could sire children.

At first it hadn’t bothered him so much. What randy young soldier wouldn’t like to rut whenever he pleased without fear of consequences? And after the war, when his busy career had given him time for only the occasional mistress, he’d enjoyed himself without concern. But when year after year had brought no by-blows, the reality sank in. His seed might as well be water for all the good it did. And if he couldn’t sire children, he could never sire an heir.

Or give his wife something all women wanted, her own little babes. So he’d sworn to remain a bachelor. Until Nat had engineered this insane marriage to Abby.

If only…No, it was out of the question. Abby of all people would want children, and she deserved to have them, too. He refused to deprive her of that. With her dowry restored, she could make a real marriage, especially if she went to a well-populated American city like New York where her Senecan blood wouldn’t matter so much. She could find some nice fellow and have all the babies she wanted.

The thought of Abby in another man’s arms hit him like a blow to the chest, and he pounded the bed in futile anger. By God, it wasn’t fair.
He
should be the one marrying her, caring for her…being teased by her.

He grasped at straws, frantic to find some way to keep her. Perhaps she wouldn’t care about his sterility. She might not even mind adopting a child. That would be the same as having her own, wouldn’t it?

Like hell it would. Spencer groaned as his stepmother’s image swam into his head. Someone else’s children were
never the same—who knew that better than he? Women always wanted their own. Abby would, too. He just couldn’t give them to her.

Perhaps he’d have been better off if the iron fragments hadn’t missed his cock. Being able to bed any woman he wanted but not sire children seemed a mockery of his manhood as surely as if it had been destroyed.

But then he wouldn’t have had tonight with Abby.

For a moment he savored the bittersweet memory of her hand wringing him dry. Hot, wild Abby…dampening beneath his caresses, tightening around his fingers, crying out her release as she brought him innocently to his.

And asking why he refused to do it again.

Bloody hell, what a mess. Now that she knew how much he desired her, she would expect it to lead to more. He’d convinced her to stay, but at what cost? He might have been better off letting her go back to America and brazening out the scandal.

But he wouldn’t be brazening it out alone. Evelina and her mother would have to suffer it, too, especially once society began speculating about Abby’s departure. Someone would assume that Nat’s disappearance and Abby’s disappearance meant something, and before he knew it, they’d be linking Nat to Abby again.

So she had to stay until Nat came back. Which meant he’d have to cope with his obsessive physical attraction to her.

There was only one way to manage it—throw himself into his work, squiring her only to the most important functions. She’d made friends of Lady Clara and Evelina—let them entertain her. Because if he were the one to do it, he’d soon find himself “playing” again, and that mustn’t happen.

He must follow the same time-honored rules parents used to keep randy suitors from debauching their daughters. But since Abby clearly wouldn’t enforce the rules, he’d have to.

Very well. No more private encounters. No more being alone with her in a room or carriage or any secluded place where he could seduce her. No more touching her, except when absolutely necessary, and then only in public.

Most importantly, no kissing. No kisses of any kind. Not if he wanted to keep this marriage a sham one.

Chapter 13

If your employer is deficient as a host, it is your duty to guide him. Otherwise you will spend all your time covering up his errors.

Suggestions for the Stoic Servant

T
he afternoon after the ball, Abby surveyed Spencer’s dining room with an assessing eye, praying for something, anything, to be wrong with it. No such luck. Like all the other rooms, it was in perfect order. The man’s staff was just too competent. She hadn’t found a room yet that wasn’t artfully arranged and immaculately kept. The silver had nary a pit, the sideboards were polished to a high sheen, and even the crevices of the fluted columns bracketing the doors were devoid of dust.

Heavenly day. How was she supposed to make herself indispensable to a man who had everything, including an efficient army of servants?

Especially when he wasn’t even around to notice her efforts. A frown creased her brow. Spencer had left the town house long before she was even awake. Oh, she knew he had an important job saving England or whatever he did at the Home Office, but he’d been here for breakfast yesterday and the day before—why was today any different?

Because the silly man was avoiding her.

She touched the high neck of her day gown as she had several times already, putting her finger on the spot where he’d left his mark last night. Warmth flooded her insides. Spencer did desire her even if he was trying to ignore it. And his desire was one thing to commend her as a wife. Now she needed others.

In Philadelphia she would have impressed a man by making his favorite dish when he came courting. Maybe she should find out what Spencer’s favorite dish was.

She sniffed the air. Maybe she could also do something about the house’s faintly antiseptic smell of cleaning agents and vinegar. Cut lilacs in the vases would help. Or dishes of potpourri. A smile crept over her face. Yes, she could find orange peels in the kitchen and jasmine in the garden. And even if it proved too early for jasmine, there was always the Mead—