How I Met My Countess, page 14
This was sheer madness, that he knew. But it wasn’t the copious amounts of Notton’s ale that he’d consumed or this time in Hampstead, or even the fears of what he faced in the coming months that was driving him onto this reckless course—no, it was having finally discovered what it was to find one’s match, one’s heart.
Lucy Ellyson made him feel.
And Clifton found himself a man starved, hungry for the love she offered, delirious to discover her every secret.
They snuck up the back stairs and into his room, and when the door closed behind them, he paused and looked down at the starry-eyed woman before him.
Her dark hair fell down well past her shoulders, a tumbled mess of curls that enticed a man to run his fingers through them, to discover what they hid… .
But it was how she made him come alive that left him dumbstruck. The fire she lit inside him, not just with her kiss but also when she’d tried to cheat him at cards and he’d outwitted her, when she’d stolen glances at him when she thought he wasn’t looking, the times their hands had touched, and that unlikely spark ignited them both.
While he hadn’t noticed it before, he now saw that she was wearing the same gown she’d had on the night before, a pink silk, trimmed in black velvet. On any other woman it would have bespoken innocence. On Lucy Ellyson, the silk revealed in so many enticing ways her two sides—sensible and passionate, intelligent and fiery. And as he reached out and slid the sleeves down over her shoulders, bared them to his touch, to his kiss, she moaned, a hungry, earthy purr that said which side had prevailed this evening.
It was an invitation no man could refuse.
He continued to slide the gown down, slowly, letting his lips, his fingers explore every inch.
The taste of her skin was like some ethereal brew, something no man could ever bottle, and it filled him with a freedom from every constraint that had ever confined his heart.
She was his, his glorious, wondrous beauty.
And in his arms, she writhed with impatience, reaching for him, opening his shirt, pulling it and his jacket off at once. Her hands smoothed over his chest, over his belly, down to his trousers, her fingers tracing a line over his rock-hard manhood.
“Demmit, Gilby, please,” she whispered.
He obliged her by tugging her gown down the rest of the way, until it pooled at her feet. She arched toward him, her bared breasts rising up.
He took one, then the other nipple in his mouth, sucking hard on them, bringing them to hard peaks. She moaned again, this time louder, and he grinned, pulling her close and kissing her, pressing his tongue into her mouth and letting it slide over hers in an erotic dance. All the while, her hips rose and fell against him.
He swung her around and pressed her up against the door. One of her legs twined seductively with his, rubbing against him like a cat.
Letting go of the tangle of hair he’d been toying with, he reached between her legs, slowly parting the curls there to explore that very private part of her.
Her eyes fluttered open wide as he began, ever so slowly, to stroke her, explore her. Sliding first over the nub, and then around the wet, slick opening.
Her mouth fell open, but no sound came out as, in wordless amazement, she tried to catch her breath. Her body trembled and she clung to him. “I want … I want …”
He knew exactly what she wanted. Sweeping her into his arms, he carried her to the bed, tumbling into the deep, soft mattress in a tangle of limbs … and desires … needs about to be answered.
She was his.
His tonight. His always.
As they fell into the bed, Lucy reveled in the passion that enveloped her, much as the thick, soft mattress folded in around them, pressing them close.
She should have been completely mortified— her without a stitch, the earl utterly naked—but instead she basked in the sheer heat of Clifton’s glance, his unrepentant desire to explore every inch of her. His need for her only that much more apparent now that he’d shed his breeches and his manhood thrust out, erect and hard, pressing into her thighs.
As innocent as her experience with men might be, she hadn’t just set her mother’s birthday books aside; she had read them, memorized each print and wondered how such positions could bring the rapture the books described.
Hardly a proper gift from one’s mother, but right now Lucy was ever-so-thankful for her unconventional upbringing.
Now her body—awakened to this state of wild abandon by Clifton’s skilled touch—trembled with desire, craved for him to drive deeper between her legs, to fill her until she found the rapture, the release that was his to give.
He caught her lips with his and kissed her again, deeply, thoroughly, and Lucy grew more bold, meeting the sally of his tongue with her own, thrilled to find that she could leave him as breathless as he left her.
He touched her again, his fingers slowly stroking her, and the fire, that irresistible yearning, began to take over her senses.
She writhed and stretched, aching to feel more, to feel him.
Her fingers ran down his back, caught hold of his hard ass and pulled it closer to her, even as she ran her foot down his leg, winding hers around his, opening herself up.
Over her, Clifton stilled, and Lucy’s lashes flew open.
He gazed down at her, his eyes so very dark, but it was evident he was hesitating.
No, no, no, she wanted to cry out. This will never do.
Not with her body racked with longing, in a frenzy for release.
She knew she wasn’t thinking straight, hadn’t been since he’d taken her in his arms in the garden, but this was hardly the time for him to shake off the effects of Notton’s brew and discover his honorable side.
No, that would never do.
“What is it?” she whispered, her fingers stroking his back again, urging him closer.
“Lucy, I—”
She pressed a finger to his lips to stop his words. At worst he was about to cry off or, even more frightening, he was about to declare himself.
And she knew she’d probably kill him over the former and give him her heart over the latter.
Both disastrous considerations.
“Sssh,” she whispered, kissing his lips, nuzzling at his neck. “I know, I know.” Then she paused, looked directly into his eyes and smiled, a wicked, enticing tilt to her lips that was about the only useful thing her mother had ever given her.
Besides those French instructional manuals.
“Please, Gilby,” she said, her voice throaty and full of passion. She rocked her hips up against him, let his manhood slide between her legs. “Love me. Please, I beg of you, take me now.”
His answer was a kiss, deep and hard, while his arm slid beneath her, hauling her close, raising her hips so she was completely open to him.
“You are mine, Lucy Ellyson. Mine,” he said, in a dark, dangerous voice. “Mine always. Never forget it.”
Lucy opened her mouth to promise, but it was then that he entered her, taking her innocence in one quick stroke, fulfilling his vow.
She gasped at the brief flash of pain, but it faded quickly, for he seemed to have known what was to happen and began again to kiss her, his thumb rolling over the hard nub of her nipple, his mouth moving down to suckle the other one. All the while his body moved inside her, at first with slow, even strokes, then, when she moaned softly, her hips rising up to meet him, he began to move faster.
He filled her, inflamed her, made her insides molten as she eagerly matched him stroke for stroke.
She arched back, let him drive into her as she clung to him and found herself getting closer and closer to her release.
The room, the moonlight, everything whirled around her dizzy vision as she found herself pulled and tormented.
Clifton’s thrusts grew harder, more frenzied, and Lucy welcomed them, for they only drove her higher until suddenly she was there—one moment she was on the precipice, and the next she was tossed over the edge, her body exploding with pleasure.
“Oh, yes! Oh, yes,” she called out, arching upward to get every last inch of him inside her, to be filled completely.
And as she rose up, he thrust hard into her and groaned deeply, his body shuddering as he found his completion.
His mouth opened as if he was going to say something, but he hadn’t the breath to form the words, so lost was he in his pleasure.
But Lucy knew exactly what he was going to say.
Mine. Never forget it. You are mine.
And she knew it now that she would always be his. Marked this night by his lovemaking, her heart etched now and always.
Some time later, Lucy found herself awakening from an all-too-short doze. Beside her, Clifton slept.
Between Notton’s brew and the last few hours spent in vigorous lovemaking, the man was lost in a deep, contented slumber.
Glancing at the window, she saw the slight hint of light starting to illuminate the sky, the moon having gone to find its rest some time ago.
It was nearly dawn, and there was little time for her to get home before she was missed.
Lucy slipped from the bed and began to gather up her clothes, dressing quickly and slanting smile-filled glances at the man in the bed.
She loved him. That much she knew.
And he loved her. He’d proposed to her. Promised to come back to her.
“It cannot be, Goosie,” she could hear her father saying. “He is from another world.”
“Who is to say we can’t find our own place?” she whispered. As she went to slip out of the room, she spied the flower he’d picked for her the night before. A token of this glorious night.
Retrieving the wilted blossom, Lucy left, making her way quietly down the back stairs. Somewhere in the inn Mrs. Turnpenny was rousing the maids to answer some pounding at the front door, and Lucy escaped as only an Ellyson could, without being caught.
Navigating the still streets and keeping out of sight, she was all the way home, feeling quite smug, when she carefully opened the door to the kitchen, plotting the rest of her course … up the back stairs and into her room and no one would be the wiser.
At least so she thought.
That is, until she closed the kitchen door and turned around and found her father sitting at the table with a pot of tea in front of him and a look that could have sent an entire brigade scrambling for cover.
“Lucy Louisa, what the devil have you done?”
“I-I-I-,” she stammered and stopped when he held up his hand to stave her off.
“Don’t tell me. I know demmed well what you’ve gone and done.”
She stood her ground. “He loves me, Papa. He wants to marry me. You’ll see when he comes this morning. He’ll ask for your permission, and I beg of you to give it.”
“He won’t come,” her father declared.
“Of course he will, why wouldn’t he?”
A shiver of gooseflesh ran down her arms. There was something about the set of her father’s brows, the line of his jaw that said he knew more to this business than she did.
“He will,” she insisted, though she didn’t feel as sure as she had a few moments ago.
Her father raised his hands and revealed a packet of papers, bound in blue paper and tied with a gold ribbon.
The air rushed out of her lungs, out of the room. She didn’t need to see the seal to know what her father had before him.
Orders.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “It is too soon. He isn’t ready.”
“Actually, he is quite ready. You’ve seen to that. And if all is going according to plan, the earl and Mr. Grey are being roused as we speak.”
The knocking on the door. Mrs. Turnpenny’s strident cries demanding to know who was calling so early.
That had been for Clifton. Even as she’d gone tripping out the back, he’d been awakened and his orders relayed.
She turned to the door and began to open it, her hand trembling so badly that she could barely hold the latch, yet she had to catch him, to follow him.
But her father crossed the room and closed the door before she could escape.
“It is too late, Goosie. He’s gone. By now he will be in a carriage going to the coast. You cannot hope to catch him.” He paused and looked at her. “His orders are to get to Dover without a moment’s delay, for they must catch the evening tide.”
She shook her head, even as she sank into the chair beside the door. “No, this cannot be. Whatever have you done?”
“What is best for you, Goosie.”
“And if he doesn’t come back? Have you thought of that?”
Her father’s brow furrowed deeper. “That is exactly why he is leaving. I won’t have you left a widow. Where would you be then?” He rose from the table and shook his head. “You’d be at the mercy of his world, and that is a fate I will not allow.”
But as Fate was ever a fickle, wily creature, it was exactly the state Lucy Ellyson Sterling found herself in years later.
Lost and lonely in a world she didn’t belong to.
Chapter 9
London, seven years later
Not one to stand on ceremony, Lucy Ellyson Sterling, the Marchioness of Standon, shook off the recollections of her past and pulled the bell at the door before her. She hoped, nay prayed, that whatever matter this summons to meet with the Duchess of Hollindrake was for, it would be less unsettling than running into the Earl of Clifton.
He’s changed, Mariana, she would have told her sister.
But Mariana was gone now, as was her father. Lost to a fever that had swept through their quiet village, taking so many with it.
Taking everything Lucy had known. Upending her life.
As much as Clifton had. For he hadn’t come back to her. Hadn’t written. Not even when Malcolm had been killed.
Lucy pressed her lips together and willed the moisture in her eyes not to give way to tears.
Oh, Mariana, how he looked at me! As if we were barely friends, as if he’d never loved me. As if I was the last person he ever wanted to see.
What had he said? He’d come to Hampstead to thank her father for all he’d done?
And not one word for all she’d done to ensure that he came home? No thanks to her?
Arrogant, ungrateful bastard.
To give herself something to do other than ordering her carriage after the earl and running the man down in broad daylight, she reached for the bell again and would have given it another good yank if, to her surprise, Mr. Mudgett, the duke’s former batman, hadn’t opened the door just then.
“There you are, my lady,” he said in that familiar curmudgeony voice of his. Then the man glanced over her shoulder, his thick brows furrowing together. “Brought the child along, have you?”
Lucy flinched. For unfortunately, as dear as Mickey was to her, he was not all that beloved throughout the Sterling households.
But when she’d agreed to marry Archie Sterling, she’d wrenched a promise from him that she would not have to give up Mickey—that he would never be taken from her. Ever. And so the boy had remained with her, no matter how deplorable the Sterlings found the scandalous situation.
Lucy Ellyson Sterling and that child.
“Ever consider leaving him at the wayside, would you now?” the man asked, looking past her like a watchman instructed to guard against the barbarian horde. Or small, rambunctious lads.
“Of course not, Mr. Mudgett,” she answered, trying to sound not the least bit put out by his less than charitable greeting.
“Well there, you might as well come in and join the lot of them.”
“The lot of—” she began to ask until she saw what he meant.
The marble floor was carpeted in luggage— hatboxes, trunks, traveling bags and cases. And standing on either side of the entry were the other two dowager Lady Standons, Minerva and Elinor.
She didn’t know why she was surprised to see Minerva, for hadn’t Clifton said as much …
“The lady just sent me packing with a flea in my ear.”
Yet here was Elinor as well, and from their corners across the way, neither of the ladies looked none-too-pleased at her arrival.
Lucy glanced back at Mr. Mudgett to see if he had any explanation for this. All three of them? Summoned here? But to what end?
Oh, this didn’t bode well at all. She should have known that running into Clifton had been just a harbinger of the disaster yet to come.
Before she could map a plan on how to meet the coming apocalypse, her entire party came trooping up the steps like the loyal companions and servants they were.
Mickey arrived first, tumbling into the foyer and immediately setting off Elinor’s collection of dogs, who yapped and barked with excitement.
“Dear God, not the child,” Lucy heard Minerva mutter under her breath.
True to form, Mickey couldn’t just enter the house and take his proper place. No, he looked around until he found the quickest route to trouble.
“Aunt ‘Nirva!” he called out, making a beeline for the lady, wrapping his arms around her waist and giving her a big hug. He glanced over his shoulder and winked at Lucy.
Little devil, he knew how much Minerva hated having children underfoot, let alone one attached to her.
But before Lucy could pluck him to safety, for Minerva looked to be in a mood—not that she wasn’t most days—Mickey was off.
“Tia!” he cried out as he spied Elinor’s young sister across the way. Pushing off Minerva and leaving the lady teetering to find her footing, he bolted over the trunks like a little monkey to gain a spot next to his old friend.
Once again Elinor’s terriers set up a deafening cacophony of yips and barks.
Not so much that Lucy couldn’t hear Minerva’s muttered complaint. “At least the dogs can be put on a leash and sent to the stables.”
“Mickey!” Tia exclaimed, her pretty, fresh face brightening with a wide smile, until a nudge from her sister brought a renewal of her previous composed stance. The girl drew a steady breath, then said in even tones, “How nice to see you again, Michael,” holding out her hand to him, instead of the hug and kiss he expected.
He stared first at the outstretched hand, then glanced over at Lucy, puzzled by the change in his old friend. Sadly, it appeared that Tia had grown beyond joining Mickey in his exuberant rambles of going fishing in the pond and merrily chasing Elinor’s dogs about the meadow.
