Beneath him, Eugenia was writhing, broken words rasping from her throat, nails biting into his back.
His balls drew up, ready to give her everything he had.
At just the perfect moment, she whispered, in a tone of greatest surprise, “I can’t hold back any longer, Ward.”
“For God’s sake,” he groaned. “Don’t.”
She gave a ragged moan and clamped around him with her arms, her legs, her cunny. Every part of her tight and warm and holding him.
“Ward!” she cried, her convulsions shaking both their bodies, as if they were one.
Hips pumping, Ward let himself go, heat roaring up his legs, up his spine, blinding him to anything but the pleasure blasting through his body.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Eugenia sprawled on top of Ward in a sweaty heap, trying to catch her breath.
“What were you called as a child?” he asked, his voice rough and satisfied.
“Eugenia. What were you called?”
“Teddy. You had no pet name at all? No one ever thought you were an angel or a duckling?”
“None. I don’t like that sort of comparison. I’m the opposite of an angel, I’m afraid, and always was.”
“Are you indeed?” He waggled his eyebrows, treating her to a fine display of false surprise. “You, Eugenia Snowe, savior of disobedient children all over England, are not angelic?”
“I’m a savior of their parents. I’m sure there are many children who devoutly wish that Snowe’s would go out of business, leaving them free of a governess.”
“It’s true that they’d almost certainly prefer to make mud pies than cakes.” Ward ran a hand slowly down her back and over the curve of her bottom.
Eugenia was coming to the pleasing realization that Ward’s boast had not been a hollow one—it seemed he did possess the stamina of an eighteen-year-old when it came to repeat performances.
He raised his head and pressed a kiss on her mouth. “You are the most formidable, exciting woman I have ever known.”
Another kiss, on her nose.
“Definitely the most beautiful.”
A kiss on each eye.
“The best lover I’ve ever had. Ever.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, kissing him back.
“And the evening isn’t over,” Ward said, leaning back, his fingers laced under his head. Which put all those muscles in his arms on display, she couldn’t help noticing.
“I should return to my room,” Eugenia said, not moving. “I’m afraid one of the children will have a bout of sleeplessness and come looking for comfort.”
“I locked the door.”
“Even so . . . what if they knocked?”
“What if they did?” He rolled over on his side, head propped on one hand.
“Ward! You can’t let your brother and sister know that—that we are lovers!”
“I’ve no intention of telling anyone. If either of them knocks, I’ll go to the library and you can stay here. I like the thought of you sleeping in my bed.”
She gave him a rueful smile. Rational thought was starting to steal back into her mind. How long did affaires last? Surely one day at most when children were in the house.
He read her thought. “No,” he said. “Not yet. I still want you, and you want me.”
Undeniable. But . . .
His expression changed; he leaned over her, eyes sober. “Eugenia Snowe.”
“Yes?” She was obviously a hussy at heart, because the only thing she really wanted to do was pull him into just the right position to start all over again.
“I want you to sleep the night with me.”
“It’s not proper,” she said. Did that mean he merely wished to sleep? His body seemed to be . . .
A smile touched his lips. “I don’t care. Do you?”
She tried to think about that. She hadn’t realized how long Ward’s lashes were. They were warm brown with gold tips that touched his cheeks.
“Yes, I do. I decided as a child that I would be the most proper person in any room.”
His eyes softened. “I’m afraid you’ll have to give that up, angel.”
“I’ll call you Teddy,” she warned.
“If you stay for two weeks, a mere fortnight, I’ll let you play ‘most proper person’ every day. For a while.”
Eugenia laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Propriety,” he said, kissing her cheekbone. “It’s nothing more than an act, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
He finally settled his groin between her legs and Eugenia let out a little moan, her hands curling around his shoulders.
“Think about the royal duke’s chamber pot.” But before she could bring it to mind, he dived into a kiss so hungry that Eugenia’s fingers clenched in his hair. They kissed for long minutes, caught somewhere between lust and satisfaction.
“Were you thinking of the chamber pot?” Ward asked huskily, pulling away.
“What?” Eugenia breathed, running her tongue along the generous curve of his lower lip.
“Everyone uses one.”
He was propped on one elbow again, which left a hand free to caress her breast. Eugenia tried to understand what he was talking about. “Are we discussing the mounting block on your carriage?” she asked.
“Propriety is nothing more than an empty game,” Ward stated. “All those ladies sitting around in drawing rooms, pretending that they don’t sweat, or piss, or break wind, are merely playing.”
Eugenia rolled her eyes. “What is your point?” She kept her eyes on his but her hand stole down his front, caressing his taut stomach and then lower.
“Haven’t you ever been to dinner when the chamber pot was behind a screen, in the corner?”
“Alas, yes.” Eugenia edged closer, feeling a restless surge of energy that had everything to do with the hard length throbbing against her middle.
“I was perhaps fifteen the first time I was bid to join the adults at dinner,” Ward said. “I remember hearing a lady—I’ll spare you her name—disappearing behind that screen and the most extraordinary sounds soon after.”
Eugenia snorted and hid her face against his shoulder.
“It sounded like a waterfall,” Ward continued. “Yet all the guests sat there and made insipid conversation while pretending not to hear anything. It was at that moment I decided that I had no interest in polite society—or any society.”
“Is that why you have never attended balls and the like?”
“Exactly,” he said, nipping her lower lip. “My point is that you shouldn’t worry about propriety, Eugenia. Stay with me.” He rolled on top of her. “My body is at your service.”
She let out a startled giggle.
“Take me,” he said, his voice dropping. “I’m yours. No one will know. As far as the world is concerned, you are generously paying me a visit until a new governess can be found. Miss Lloyd-Fantil assured me that she would send someone as soon as possible.”
“Oh, Susan,” Eugenia said a bit crossly. “She thinks—”
“I like her,” Ward interrupted. “Give me a fortnight.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “The court case is approaching frighteningly quickly. I need you to help with the children’s instruction. What if they are summoned before the House of Lords?”
“That is most unlikely,” Eugenia said. She considered. “Although it would be well to prepare them for the possibility, however remote.”
“My solicitors tell me that they might ask Otis, in particular, about his father’s wishes.”
Eugenia’s mind fell into chaos because Ward had slid down, just enough to kiss her breast.
Why shouldn’t she stay? No one knew she was here. No one would care, her mind prompted her. She was a widow.
Squirming under Ward’s attentions, she felt alive.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, the words escaping on a pant. “I promise to . . .”
Ward had never expected ratio
nal thought to work.
He didn’t need logic. Eugenia’s breast was luscious and perfectly rounded, her nipple a small, ripe cherry. He kissed her until her legs were moving restlessly under him, her hands slipping over his back and shoulder, skating lower.
Then he moved up to take her mouth with a needy moan. She tasted like woman and desire and everything good in life. Slipping one arm around her slender waist, he pulled her tightly against him, loving the way her curves slipped into his body’s hollows.
They were made for each other, like Adam and Eve.
He took in a ragged breath and rolled over, bringing her with him so he could run his hands over the silky skin of her back, over her arse, curving inward. “I want you,” he said in her ear. His hand slipped between her legs.
His fingers slid through wet folds and air whooshed from Eugenia’s lungs in a strangled moan.
Ward reached over and grabbed a French letter—pink ribbon this time. Eugenia slid backward, waiting, her teeth biting into her lush bottom lip so hard that he could see a mark.
“I want to taste you first,” he said, tying the ribbon.
“No,” she choked. “Now, Ward, now!”
“Or what?”
She shook her head, and the fog of desire cleared from her eyes. “Or I slip this knee toward the middle of your body?”
“Stay a fortnight,” he commanded.
“I shouldn’t,” she mumbled. Ward pulled her over him and rubbed her in all the right places.
“Yes, you should.”
Eugenia’s eyes flew open. “Are you trying to blackmail me?” Her tone was outraged, and pink popped up in her cheeks.
Ward couldn’t hold in his laughter. “Would it work?”
“No!”
“I’m begging you. See . . . ? I’m begging.” He flipped her over, pulled her legs apart and slid down until his head was close to the pinkest, sweetest part of Eugenia’s body.
A cry broke from her lips the moment he licked her. Ward found himself smiling as he loved her until her legs were shaking.
He moved up, positioning himself in just the right place. He let go with the full force of his being, dimly aware that he’d never before made love with this wild, keen concentration, his hips thrusting in tandem with his pounding heart.
He kept just enough presence of mind to note the way Eugenia was whimpering, her hands pulling him closer, crying his name over and over until the word dissolved into a scream.
She was as passionate as he was, wild, clawing his back, her body convulsing in pleasure. He savored every moment, then set her on top of him and watched as she braced herself, found her rhythm, laughed down at him.
And rode him until her body convulsed again, driving him to lose control. A rough shout broke from his chest and he gave her all he had.
“A fortnight,” he said, his voice not more than a rasp.
Eugenia turned to look at him, and her lush lips turned up at the corners. She tried to answer, cleared her throat, tried again.
“I’m too tired to depart directly,” she whispered.
“You are exquisite,” he breathed, running his thumb along her lower lip.
She smiled, eyes drenched with pleasure. “I’m partial to you as well.”
They fell asleep wrapped together like puppies.
Or lovers.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Thursday, May 28, 1801
Eugenia woke in her own bedchamber to the sound of Clothilde pulling back the curtains. She sat up, blinking.
She didn’t feel like a fallen woman. Though she had certainly played the part, not least when Ward escorted her to her chamber at the crack of dawn.
“Good morning, madame,” Clothilde said. “I have brought your breakfast tray. Will we return to London today?”
“I promised Mr. Reeve I would stay until we can provide him a new governess. Probably a fortnight.” Eugenia scrambled out of bed. “There will be a hearing in the House of Lords in a few weeks, and the children have a great deal to learn before they are suited for polite society.”
“Ruby is mystified by the two of them,” Clothilde said, ringing the bell to order a bath. “Two of our governesses they’ve had, and still they do not wash behind their ears.”
“I must teach them the rules of address, how to bow and curtsy, how to comport themselves in adult company. And I must teach Lizzie to be herself, not a character from a play.”
“Ruby says the little girl is trop dramatique,” Clothilde said, nodding.
Eugenia had been longing for a new challenge—and now she had one. Her days would be full, and her nights . . . blissful.
She poured herself a cup of tea and sat on the bed, as the tray occupied the only chair. “Have you noticed that this house is strangely lacking in furniture, Clothilde?”
“It is the same everywhere,” her maid reported. “Mr. Reeve bought the house with some furniture, by all reports, and has made no changes. Six bedchambers do not have a stick in them. And, madame, no maids live in.”
“None?”
“Not a one. They come from the village every day. Mr. Gumwater considers women in the house to be a nuisance.” She wrinkled her nose. “I have met others of his type.”
“The kitchen help is all male?”
Clothilde nodded. “Monsieur Marcel, the chef, is from Languedoc, not far from one of my aunts. He has no kitchen maids, not a one. All the same, his bread is magnifique. As good as my mother’s, madame.”
Eugenia felt another surge of happiness. Perhaps she would go to the kitchens and ask if Monsieur Marcel would try a few of her ideas. She had imagined a chocolate cake with a strong ginger flavor. Or a lemon tart with bits of rind to give it extra piquancy.
“I’ll take the children downstairs for their first baking lesson today. Is Monsieur Marcel the sort who will dislike children in his kitchen?”
“No, no,” her maid said. “He is a true Frenchman, so I am sure that he loves children.”
Never mind the fact that Clothilde herself frowned on anyone under the age of ten, owing to their propensity to get dirty.
Eugenia was just out of her bath when a footman delivered a note from Ward.
~Would you like to have Lizzie and Otis at dinner?
She scrawled her reply below his sentence, folded it, and sent it back.
~Absolutely. We must begin instruct them in table manners and polite conversation immediately.
He wrote back.
~I fear that you’ll moan while eating chocolate soufflé—which I have requested for this evening.
She began a new sheet of foolscap.
~The presence of your siblings in the dining room should prevent you from lunging across the table.
Her writing was neat and ladylike, his slanted and fast.
~All I can think about is whether you are having a bath.
An image of his bath leapt to her mind: water glistening on strong, sleek legs, running down the wide arc of his shoulders. She swallowed hard, hesitated, and ignored his provocation.
~Will Otis bring Jarvis to the table?
His answer:
~Would that pose a problem?
~No society, polite or otherwise, allows rodents to share the table.
~Jarvis is required to remain in his sack when outside the nursery.
Apparently Jarvis went where Otis went. Eugenia shuddered at the thought. The sack would have to stay out of sight at all times. Under the table.
~I might give the children their first baking lesson, if you approve?
~Perhaps when the time comes Otis can simply present the assembled Lords with a cake, thereby proving my fitness as a guardian.
Eugenia considered how best to answer, but in the end, she didn’t.
She had the sense that Ward disapproved of the cake baking, for all he kept a jesting tone. He disliked it on principle, as if she were teaching his siblings menial labor.
A short time later, she collected Lizzie and Otis and took them down to the
kitchen—because whether their older brother approved or not, thanks to Snowe’s Registry, the ability to bake a credible sponge was a calling card in polite society.
Monsieur Marcel had yellow hair and a magnificent curling mustache. Eugenia nodded her head and introduced herself in his native language, which earned her a beaming smile and a flourishing bow.
To her surprise, Lizzie stepped forward, bobbed an awkward curtsy, and asked in fluent French what he was cooking.
“I am contemplating the evening’s meal,” the chef responded.
“Contemplating?” Otis echoed, also in perfect French. “Why do you have to think about it?”
Eugenia choked back a laugh. Before her eyes, Lizzie and Otis took over the baking lesson, following directions more or less adroitly at the same time they asked questions.
“How did you come by such excellent French?” Eugenia asked Otis, while his sister watched the chef whisk together eggs and sugar with impressive speed.
“We lived in England only four months of the year,” he explained. “We stayed in Paris during the winters, but we also went about France in the wagon.”
That went some way toward explaining how Lady Lisette and Lord Darcy had never been recognized in their theatrical career.
When the cake was in the oven, they all sat down at the kitchen table and Monsieur Marcel told Eugenia how difficult it was to manage a kitchen with only one knife boy. “Not even a scullery maid!” he said, shaking his head so vigorously that his mustaches trembled.
“You placed miracles on our table last night, given such difficult circumstances,” Eugenia said warmly. “I shall do my best to persuade Mr. Reeve to hire adequate help.”
“It’s not the master,” the chef said. “It is Mr. Gumwater.” He glanced at Lizzie and didn’t elaborate, but his shrug spoke volumes.
“Did you know that your head looks as if it’s covered in snails?” Otis interjected.
“Otis,” Eugenia said, “one never makes remarks of a personal nature. Please apologize to Monsieur Marcel at once.”