An Affair by the Sea, page 14
“No, I’m not Captain L’Amour, and have no wish to masquerade as him in this of all moments. If we’re to finally make love, we do so as our true selves.”
Her pulse skipped. “And who are you, exactly?”
“John Sharp, solicitor from London.” He kissed each corner of her mouth before settling a long, sweet kiss in the center. “I am pleased to formally meet you at long last.”
“No,” she murmured against his mouth.
He lifted his lips a fraction. “No, you’re not pleased to meet a solicitor from London?”
“I haven’t done so. You are John Sharp, London chef.” She smiled as she kissed him. “I am very pleased to meet you, and have been so since the moment you came to my rescue.”
“Even though I wasn’t actually the man of your dreams?”
“You’re much better than my dreams.” She wrapped her arms about his neck. “You’re real.”
“Let me show you how real.” He scooped her up and into his arms.
She held on tight. “Where are you taking me, John Sharp, London chef?”
“To my bedchamber, posthaste. Or do you prefer yours?”
“I don’t know what I prefer,” she admitted. “I imagine you’re going to tell me there’s One Right Recipe for lovemaking?”
“There is a traditional order of events, particularly when taking virginity into account, yes.”
“Then let’s not do it.”
“Let’s not make love?”
“Let’s definitely make love. But let’s do it all out of order and write our story our way. If the first step is to choose a bedchamber, then I choose…the dining room.”
“The dining room doesn’t have a bed.”
“And yet you implied quite convincingly that you would have been perfectly capable of ravishing me at my supper table, had our privacy been assured.”
“I’m capable,” he assured her. “I just don’t think—”
“Good.” She kissed his jawline. “Don’t think. Just ravish.”
At first she thought he would not do it. That John Sharp, London chef, might be constitutionally incapable of deviating from whatever he perceived as the One Right Recipe for deflowering a virgin.
But then his mouth trapped hers, hungrily. He turned from the corridor leading to the bedchambers, and carried her back to the supper table. His elbow grazed a wall. Her slipper tumbled from her foot when it banged against a bookshelf. Neither of them noticed or cared. All of their attention was centered on the promise of this kiss, and the passion blooming between them.
Nor did he stop kissing her when he kicked an offending chair away in order to set her on the far edge of the table, away from their abandoned dessert plates.
He hiked up the hem of her skirts to her thighs and settled his hips between them. The worn muslin of her gown pooled between her legs, yet it was not softness that she felt rubbing against her. The hardness of his shaft jutted against the fall of his trousers, its stiff length nestling perfectly against the apex of her thighs.
She wrapped her legs around his hips to draw him even closer and reveled in the sensation of his rigid shaft stroking against such an intimate part of her body. Her tender flesh seemed to pulse, to swell, to want. She could not stop the urge to rub against him as they kissed. The heady friction made her breath quicken and her body hunger for even more.
His hands were at the cording between her shoulder blades, loosening the ties until her gown slipped from her shoulders, exposing her bosom straining against a ribbon of her whisper-thin shift just above her stays.
“What’s next?” she whispered breathlessly.
“Next, I take off every stitch of your clothing. And mine,” he added.
“Then don’t,” she begged. “Make love to me with our clothes on. I don’t want to wait.”
He lifted her breasts free from her chemise and lowered his head to take one into his mouth. She gasped with pleasure at the sensation of his hot mouth suckling one breast whilst his expert fingers played with the nipple of the other.
A pressure began to build inside of her. Pressure she had only previously relieved with her own fingers late at night when she was alone with her imagination. She wasn’t alone now. Instead of her fingers slipping into the slickness between her legs, she rubbed that part of herself against the length of his shaft, grinding faster and harder until her legs spasmed against his hips and the climax tore through her.
Before the pulsation could fully cease, he lifted his mouth from her breast. She mourned the loss only briefly. He dropped to his knees before the table and lifted her skirts to place his tongue exactly where she wanted him most.
Pleasure flooded her anew. She threw her head back to tilt her hips toward him. The pressure was right back as though it had never eased, tempting her closer to the precipice anew. All of a sudden, there it was: the edge, sending her tumbling into the stars as his hungry mouth swallowed a second climax every bit as powerful as the first. More so, because of the direct contact and new sensations.
She tried to commit every single nuance to memory. From now on, the best stories would not be the ones she made up, but the stolen moments she had spent with John. Nothing would ever surpass it.
She curled her fingers around his collar and tugged him back up to her. “I want you to feel as you have made me feel. What can I do?”
“We’ll do it together.” He loosened the buttons of his fall and his shaft sprang forth, tall and erect.
Before she could reach for it, he slid her gown up to her waist and nestled between her thighs just as they had done when they were fully clothed. This time was even better. Skin-to-skin, hot flesh to slick dampness.
He thrust his fingers into her hair and kissed her as though he drew life from her very lips. This time, it was he who stroked against her, rubbing the full length of his shaft against her core gently, then demandingly, until her body quickened again with wanting.
Only when she was impossibly close yet again to the precipice did he slide his shaft down and nudge the tip within her.
“Do you want this?” he growled.
“Yes,” she panted against his cheek.
“You’re absolutely certain?”
In answer, she thrust her hips forward, impaling herself on his jutting shaft. They gasped in unison. Him, in pleasure. Her, at a sharp stab of pain followed by a not-unwelcome sense of fullness.
“This is definitely not the next step,” he informed her as he tilted her spine back toward the supper table in order to feast upon her nipples as his shaft stroked within her.
She propped herself up on her elbows, determined not to miss a single erotic moment of the moonlit sight before her. The rhythm of his hips as he drove within her. The glistening of her hard nipples, wet from his mouth and straining for his touch.
It would not hurt when the holiday was over, she assured herself. He would be gone, but she would have the memory of joining as one with the man she loved to cherish forever.
The man she loved.
Her inner muscles spasmed with the realization, ebbing and flowing like the waves crashing on the shore outside the window. His body jerked against her, pulling her deeper into uncharted waters. He withdrew all of a sudden, fumbling for a clean napkin to spend himself into as he shuddered against her.
When the cloth fell from his hands, she pulled him to her. He kissed her thoroughly, then scooped her back into his arms and carried her straight to his bed.
She didn’t leave his embrace for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER 20
The evening of the ball, Allegra’s stomach fluttered with conflicting emotions. Unlike the first ball, when her cousins had dressed her like a royal princess, tonight Allegra would be attending as…well, Allegra.
She had not seen her cousins since the night Uncle Townsend tossed her from their lives. She’d thought about haunting the round tables at the entrance to Siren’s Retreat, but as much as she yearned to see Portia and Dorcas, Allegra felt no such draw to run into Uncle Townsend.
She’d hoped the girls might put in an appearance during her morning hours in the rented music room, but that hadn’t happened, either. No doubt Uncle Townsend had forbidden them from stepping anywhere near the assembly rooms if there was any chance of Allegra being inside.
Or worse, perhaps Portia and Dorcas had a humorless new chaperone. One that would sniff her nose at the thought of crossing paths with a poor relation. Young ladies had their reputations to consider.
Even if no one knew Allegra had spent the past several days in John’s apartment—and slept every night in his bed—her presence was unlikely to lift Dorcas and Portia’s social standing.
What if that night at Mrs. Oswald’s soirée was…it? The last time she would ever see her beloved cousins? What if they were already betrothed and gone, or if Uncle Townsend had packed them off to Scarborough or Yarmouth, or decided to try their luck in Bath?
Might this have been his plan all along? To encourage Allegra’s spinsterhood until the last possible second, and then abandon her without any means to travel to London to claim even her reduced portion of the trust?
Strong arms wrapped around her from behind. “You look beautiful.”
“I do not, you flatterer,” she scolded him, turning to give him a kiss.
She was dressed in the same unflattering hodgepodge she’d been wearing when they’d first met over a month ago. The look of heat in his eyes stole her breath. He was not flattering her, she realized.
John had told her he’d wanted her at first sight. He’d been too far away for her to gauge his interest in that moment—or perhaps she’d been too busy flailing and shrieking whilst trying not to trample him—but there was no denying the truth glimmering in the intense gray eyes before her.
He wanted her. He’d proven it time and again over the past several days and nights. It didn’t matter what she was wearing or not wearing. Whether her hair was brushed or an early-morning rat’s nest. When he looked at her, he did not see aging-spinster-in-rags. He saw her.
Glittering diamonds and flounces of silk wouldn’t change a thing. He didn’t think she needed any adornments to become beautiful. He looked at her like she was the beautiful thing all along.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She did not trust herself to speak, so she kissed him instead. Long and hard and a little bit desperate, as if she could make this moment, this embrace, this look in his eyes, stretch on forever.
But of course she could not. The night—and the ball—was not about her, or even about them. She would not see him for hours once they arrived at the assembly rooms. Tonight was about John Sharp, London chef, taking over the kitchens to cater one of Brighton’s biggest season-starting events, in front of the very people he yearned to impress.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He tapped his lapel with confidence. “I have the recipes right here.”
While Allegra had been pouring her emotions into the rented pianoforte each morning, John had spent those hours at the bedside of the Old Ship Inn’s injured prior chef, Mr. Young, taking painstaking notes about the preparation of every dish, the location of every item in the pantry, the temperament of every worker in the kitchen, likely even the proper number of breaths to take whilst whisking up a roue.
The book was large enough to distend his coat a full inch, none of which detracted from John’s breath-stealing handsomeness. If, heaven forbid, a parsley sprig should appear past its prime on one of the plates, John need only alight from the kitchen and smile at the party to send the female half swooning, parsley forgotten.
It was too bad that he would be shuttered away for the entirety of the ball. Allegra did not at all mind his good looks setting female hearts a-flutter. When the music ended, he would be coming home with her.
Er, to his rented apartment, that was. This was not his home or hers. But until her birthday a fortnight from today, they could make believe.
She looped her arm through his. “Shall we?”
The invigorating sea-salt air whipped tendrils of her hair from her bonnet on the short stroll to the Old Ship Inn, but Allegra did not mind. No one would see her behind the piano, and besides, John liked her hair a little wild. He said it reminded him of how she looked after a good ravishing, and made him want to do it all over again.
She absolutely intended to let him. Tonight, she would ravish him.
“I wish I could give you a kiss for good luck,” she whispered.
“I don’t need luck when I have the secret to success right here in my pocket,” he murmured back. “But not a second passes when I don’t wish I were kissing you.”
They were welcomed through the doors and ushered into their respective posts without delay. Guests would not arrive for two more hours, but John was needed in the kitchen to begin the preparations.
Allegra crossed to the pianoforte at the far end of the empty ballroom. Two extra hours of music sounded like heaven. Or at least a way to take her mind off her uncle and away from her worries about the future.
Soon enough, lords and ladies in coattails and extravagant gowns began to arrive. Allegra held her breath and kept a close eye on the door. When Dorcas and Portia burst into the room, she leapt up from the bench at once, startling the milling guests.
Her cousins bounded over to her, threw their slender arms about Allegra, and held on tight.
“I’m so sorry,” Portia sobbed.
“Don’t cry,” Allegra said in alarm. “You are not to blame.”
“He’s my father.”
“And mine,” Dorcas added. “Though we left him two streets back when we ran ahead in the hopes you would be here.”
“You ran off and left Uncle alone in the middle of the street? He will not be pleased.”
“He’s not alone. He’s with our suitors.”
“Your suitor.” Portia’s eyes swam with tears. “Father has granted Mr. Voss’s petition for Dorcas’s hand, but refuses to accept Mr. Mayhew’s plea for mine.”
“Perhaps he’ll come around,” Allegra said, though she did not think this to be likely. Only men in possession of titles or money need apply, preferably both—and Portia’s smitten sailor had neither.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” Dorcas said.
“I would never leave you if I could help it,” Allegra assured her, though that was only partially true.
Her cousins were long aware of her plans to seek independence upon her thirtieth birthday. Uncle Townsend had merely beat her to it, sending her out on her own before she had the means to support herself.
“Here he comes.” Allegra shooed her cousins away. “Hurry, before he catches you talking to me.”
Too late for such precautions. Uncle Townsend was already storming this way, his face florid.
Allegra dropped onto the bench and launched into Portia’s favorite reel. It was not yet time for dancing—that would be after supper was served—but her cousins needed a distraction. They side-stepped their father and stepped onto the parquet with their beaux.
Beau and would-be beau, anyway.
Uncle Townsend paid them no heed. His angry footfalls headed straight toward Allegra.
“I must request you cease all communication with my daughters at once,” he seethed.
Allegra’s heart skipped, though her fingers did not falter. “You cannot mean to excommunicate me from my own family. The three of you are all that I have.”
“I can and do intend exactly that,” he snapped, his blue eyes enraged and…beseeching? “Promise me, Allegra. Just until their vows are spoken and the girls are safely married. And I as well. Mrs. Oswald has agreed to make me the happiest of men, but she wants to see our daughters settled before the banns are read.”
“You’re going to marry Mrs. Oswald?”
“I hope to.” He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and let it out slowly. “We’re living on credit. We have been, for some time. Not only can I not afford to give my daughters multiple seasons, I cannot give them a proper one at all. This is it, Allegra. Their one chance, and mine, too.”
Her lips parted in wonder. Uncle Townsend was not furious, but frightened. For himself, and his children.
“You must have resented me for not offering you a season, but it was not within my power to do so. Any penny spent on you was a penny taken away from Portia and Dorcas. It wasn’t fair to you, perhaps, but life isn’t fair.”
“A lesson I learned very young,” she murmured.
“Dorcas has garnered the affection of a gentleman with a thousand pounds a year. It may not be riches, but she shall not want. As long as their betrothal results in marriage.” He gave her an icy look.
“I would never sabotage Dorcas’s happiness,” Allegra said hotly. “Or Portia’s.”
“Portia.” Uncle Townsend sighed. “If I thought there was any hope of you talking sense into her, I would allow you to try, but we both know what kind of influence you would be on the matter.”
“She and Mr. Mayhew are in love.”
“Exactly,” Uncle Townsend said bitterly. “Since when has love been a currency capable of paying the creditors? She must be practical.”
“So that you can marry an heiress?”
“What choice do any of us have? I cannot invest money I do not have—”
“You could sell a few of your jewels.”
“It’s paste,” he hissed. “All of it. The gowns aren’t paid for and neither are the boots on my feet. It’s why we’re here. My trustee stipend paid for two months at Siren’s Retreat. That has to be long enough. We cannot show our faces back in London unless there’s coin in my pocket to settle our accounts, and we are running out of time.”
“You could let your daughter marry the man she loves,” Allegra said softly. “Once you have wed your wealthy widow, surely there can be no fear of Portia starving in an alley.”
Uncle Townsend curled his lip. “I don’t know why I bothered trying to reason with you. Of course you refuse to understand. All I ask is for you to stay out of their way. If you love your cousins, you will not ruin their chances—or mine.”
