If He's Sinful (33 page)

It was not until they had cleansed themselves and were regaining their strength in each other’s arms that Penelope began to feel a little uneasy about her behavior. She loved Ashton and believed what they shared was but one way to express that love. Yet she had heard that many men did not believe ladies were capable of such passion. Did she demean herself in Ashton’s eyes by reveling in their physical joining as much as he did?

“Ashton?” She stroked his hair.

“Yes?” Ashton idly fondled her breasts as he licked her throat, his sated body already stirring with renewed interest.

She swallowed nervously as she struggled to decide the best way to ask her questions. “I have heard it said that a true lady does not, well, she does not—”

“Enjoy making love?”

“Aye.”

“That, my sweet, passionate Penelope, is the sort of nonsense that has ruined many a promising young marriage.”

The relief she felt was almost overwhelming. “Truly?”

“My word on it. ’Tis foolishness such as that which causes even good men to set up mistresses.”

“Ah.” Penelope was pretty sure that was not the only reason. Some men just felt it was their right to have as many women as they wanted no matter how warm their bed at home.

Ashton moved so that she was neatly pinned beneath him. “I like my passionate Penelope.” He slowly moved against her, mimicking the act he fully intended to indulge in once more before he had to leave. “My sweet lover.” He almost grinned at the way her breathing grew a little uneven and she blindly parted her legs a little more so that he could continue his play with more ease.

“I am not sweet.”

“Oh, but you are.” He kissed her. “Purely sweet.” He circled each of her nipples with his tongue. “And here? Raspberry tarts.” He continued to torment her breasts with playful kisses and gentle nips. “At first I feared this was wrong, that I was allowing lust to rule me as it had ruled my father.”

“Nay, Ashton—”

“No need to try to soothe my fears again, love.” He drew the hard tip of her breast into his mouth and suckled her. “I have never felt like this or acted like this and I am almost thirty. I was temperate in all things and did not find it any great trial. My father was behaving like a rutting goat by the time he was eighteen.” He kissed his way over to her other breast and gave it the same treatment.

“Eighteen?” Penelope struggled to keep her mind clear for he had never fully explained about his father and she believed it was something she needed to hear.
He better hurry up, though
, she thought.

“Yes, and he never stopped, not even after he married my mother.” He began to inch down her body, one slow kiss at a time. “I thank God that she finally locked her bedchamber door against him nine years ago.” He moved past the place he intended to feast upon in a moment to kiss his way down her leg and was certain he heard a murmur of disappointment. “At best guess, it was a year later that he caught the pox.”

“Oh, Ashton. Thank God your mother was spared that.” Penelope knew it was only the brief cold slap of his words that gave her the ability to utter such a complete, coherent sentence. As he kissed his way up her other leg, the wild need only he could awaken in her was already returning.

“He did not stop his rutting until shortly before he died so God alone knows just how far and wide he spread it.” He traced the shape of each of her hipbones with his tongue. “He finally brought his ravaged body home so that the family he had so shamed and ignored now had to suffer through his increasing insanity. Then, one night, he ran naked from the house, screaming that there were mermaids in the pond and he would have one. We could not catch him in time. He flung himself into the water. By the time Marston and I caught up to him, he had drowned.”

“Oh, I am so sorry for you.”

He propped himself up on his forearms and looked at her. “Do not be. He was no father to any of us. Ever. There was a touch of sadness at lost chances, something I believe we all suffered, but no more. What I am trying to say is that, at some point, it finally sank into my poor, stunted male brain”—he grinned when she laughed—“that I was letting that fear control me so I cut myself free of it. And this is not wrong. What we share is beyond words.”

“Aye, it is.”

“And I mean to revel in it, including gorging myself on the sweetness of you.” He bent his head and slowly licked her.

Twice he took her to a shattering release. To Penelope’s astonishment, she still ached to have him deep inside her and she murmured a complaint when he urged her up onto her hands and knees. She did not think she had the strength or the patience for any more games.

“Grasp the head board,” Ashton said, not surprised by how rough and thick his voice was for he was shaking with his need for her.

Penelope did as he said and gasped when he joined their bodies from behind. Shock over the unusual position faded quickly, burnt away by desire. Her last clear thought was to wonder just how many ways one could do this.

They were both dressed and ready to go downstairs before Penelope found the courage to ask, “Ashton, you have told me that you have no imagination and that you were temperate, so how is it that you know so much about, well,
this
.” She blushed and waved her hand toward the bed.

He grinned and then kissed her. “Books.” He kissed her again. “And beautiful inspiration.”

“Books? There are books written on such things?”

“Yes, and they are the fabled pirate treasure of every boy who reaches the age to start thinking on women.” He saw the shocked look on her face and laughed.

“Boys will never change,” she muttered and followed him downstairs.

“Shopping?” Penelope looked at her aunt then her uncle and then back again.

Argus nodded and tugged Darius close to his side. “I decided to take the older boys out to a tailor I know. He does fine work and is not a thief, never pricing his clothes far beyond reason. So we are off to get these brothers of yours and Darius here measured for some new clothes. Septimus is coming along to help.”

Penelope looked at each of the boys and Septimus, who was not much more than a boy himself. She could see their eagerness. Argus had undoubtedly insisted Septimus go so that he could also get a few new clothes. It would certainly make up for the young man’s meager wages. She did not have the heart to deny any of them just because her pride pinched over the fact that she had never been able to give them such a treat. That, she knew, was not her fault. She looked at her aunt Olympia, who stood holding the hands of Juno and Paul.

“I intend to take Juno and Paul out for a wander.” Olympia softly instructed the children to stay where they were and, grabbing Penelope by the arm, dragged her to the far end of the room. “If that little darling’s mother spent any of Quintin’s money on that child’s clothing, I will eat my shoes. I saw Juno’s things and they are little better than rags. I suspect the woman bought that one pretty dress just to drag her here.”

“I know,” Penelope muttered, “yet the mother was dressed quite exquisitely and warmly. But, Aunt—”

“No. Do not argue. You have been consistently and monstrously robbed. Argus and I agreed that we all should have kept a closer watch on this place and you. ’Tis bad enough that the rogues in our family feel free to leave you with the burden of raising their children, especially when you began this when you were little more than a child yourself. Consider this an apology for that unforgivable neglect. And they are our family, too. Now, we have already told the other boys that we shall take them out on the morrow,” she said as she led Penelope back to where the others waited near the door.

Before Penelope could even think of a reasonable protest, they were all gone. That left her alone with six little boys. Not even Mrs. Stark was around, having left the house an hour ago. The woman’s daughter was still too sick to be left alone all day. Penelope had also hoped to have a woman-to-woman talk with her aunt, but that would now have to be arranged for later.

She sighed and collected her sewing. When she stepped back into the parlor, she found the younger boys already gathered there playing a game or reading a book or drawing. They were being amazingly well behaved and she had to wonder what promises her aunt and uncle had made to them to get such a result. For a moment, she wanted to complain, her pride ruffled by the apparent usurping of her place, but good sense intervened. She ruled in the matter of the boys and she knew it. She had made a family for them. If, now and then, aunts, uncles, cousins, or wayward fathers wandered by spreading their largesse, she would not let it trouble her, but share in the boys’ joy over whatever gifts they got. She would, however, make certain that the boys understood that not every visiting relative would be so open-handed, if only because they could not afford to be, and that not every father would include every child in his attention and generosity. Her family was mostly kind, loved the children they bred no matter which side of the blanket they were born on, and were generous, but they could also be unintentionally thoughtless. She would not let her boys be hurt.

It was not until it was time to begin cooking for the evening meal that Penelope ceased her work. She stretched as she stood up, a little astonished by how much work she had accomplished in a few hours. Her mending basket had only two items left in it. Penelope then grimaced, knowing it would quickly fill up again. She turned to the boys and was about to ask Conrad and Delmar to come help her in the kitchen when the dog growled.

“How bloody cozy,” sneered a familiar voice, which rapidly built a hard ball of fear in her belly.

Penelope slowly turned around to face Charles and had to struggle to hide her shock. He looked terrible. His clothes were a mess and she suddenly feared for TedNed, whichever of the twins had stayed with her while his brother went with Olympia. The footman would never have let Charles into the house without a fight. The fact that Charles had obviously won that fight was astonishing. Charles also looked ill, his face flushed and his eyes gleaming with a too bright light. Penelope prayed that was from the excitement of a hard-won fight.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Where is my footman?”

“Bleeding on your steps.”

“Bastard. What do you want?”

“Everything you have, you useless little bitch. My mistake was in thinking I would enjoy a bit more than your lands and money, have a little taste of what you have been giving Radmoor so freely. That little game failed and I suddenly figured out why. That bitch Cratchitt brought Radmoor to you, planning to cheat me on being the first. Everything has gone wrong since then. I should have just killed you the first chance I had years ago.”

He lunged and grabbed her by the arm. All the boys and the dog moved forward to protect her, and Penelope felt the muzzle of Charles’s pistol push hard against her temple. Pressed against him as she was, she could feel the hard shape of another pistol inside his waistcoat. He had obviously come well armed.

“You brats stay right where you are or I will shoot this bitch.” Charles glared at the snarling dog. “That mongrel, too. God, how I ache to shoot that little cur. Now, back away. Faster, faster. You do not wish to make me feel threatened, do you?”

Penelope suddenly noticed something else about the man holding a gun to her head. He smelled bad. Charles never smelled bad. Perhaps the only good thing she could ever had said about Charles if someone had asked was that he was always clean. It had almost been an obsession with the man. But now, there was a nose-wrinkling odor about him. Even his breath was foul. A heartbeat later she knew what it was. Charles was indeed ill. Very, very ill.

“Charles,” she said in as calm a voice as she could muster, “you are not well.”

“I know I am not bloody well,” he yelled. “I am sick. Hell’s teeth, I think I am dying. And ’tis all your fault!” He aimed his pistol at Killer. “And that thrice-cursed cur!”

Her cry of alarm was drowned in that of the boys. The shot fired so close to her head left her ears ringing. Penelope realized she had closed her eyes and slowly opened them. There was no bleeding corpse of a dog to be seen, and if the fury in the expressions of the boys was any indication, none of them had been hurt, either. The boys took one unified step toward Charles, and Penelope silently cursed when her captor pressed the muzzle of yet another pistol against her head.

A movement near the fireplace revealed the homely face of the dog peering out from beneath a chair. Penelope suspected that was where the beast had ended up when Jerome had flung it out of danger. He had obviously been honing his skill. She was just wondering if the child had enough skill to remove Charles’s gun from his hand when Charles cursed. The muzzle of the pistol began to tremble against her temple. Penelope’s heart leapt into her throat so quickly she almost choked.

“I do not know which one of you little bastards is doing this, but you had better stop it right now,” Charles said, his voice a hard, cold snarl. “Ere you finish playing that trick, I will have shot her or you could make me shoot her by accident as I struggle to hold firm to my pistol.” The pistol grew still. “Now back up again, you little abominations of nature. Cod’s body, someone should have been sent out to drown your kind at birth ere you could became a plague on the rest of us.”

“We may be abominations, sir,” said Delmar, never taking his eyes from Charles as he took a step back, “but we would never attack women and children and never live fine and high off what is not ours.”