Improper Seduction (2 page)

For one indecisive moment, Thomas wondered if he'd erred in judgment. He'd always been good at sensing a woman's interest in him – high or low born. It was an instinct he had, to be able to see or feel or smell the underlying attraction. Lady Rockham had been sending him subtle signals for over a week.

He inhaled the frustrated need for sex that emanated from her as strong as the wild lilacs that grew beside the stables. Felt the steam of it like water on a hot stone. Saw the uncertain darkening of her eyes, the hesitant nibble of her bottom lip with small white teeth.

He was not mistaken. Lady Rockham wanted to lie with him.

The only real question was whether he was willing to compromise his very enjoyable position at Charring Manor to fuck the lady of the house.

Chapter 3

"False pretenses," Chastity repeated indignantly.

Thomas nearly laughed aloud at her amazement, but quickly smothered the smile with his hand. "Well, m'lady, the mare
was
ill
earlier. A bout of colic or some such, I'd say."

Something about Lady Rockham made Thomas abandon his false accent, his low-bred drawl. Something about her brought out the gentleman in him. Something about her brought out the devil, too, he mused, and clearly that overrode every other proper feeling when she was this near to him.

She tilted her chin in the air a fraction, then looked calmly at where his hand cupped her left elbow. She arched one elegant eyebrow. The gesture was more scathing than a proper verbal set down.

The gentleman in him rose to the occasion. He dropped his hand.

"If Ginger is not here, and she is no longer sick, why did you send for me?" Her eyes, blue as a summer's day or a calm, clear lake, held his longer than necessary. She seemed to be asking something else of him. The scent of a woman in heat flooded his senses.

He smiled gently, letting her play out the scene as she would. "I seem unable to help myself," he confessed. "I wanted – I wanted to – "

"To what?" She snapped impatiently.

Ah, the heat was very near the surface, and if he wasn't mistaken, Lady Rockham very near the edge.

"To do this," he murmured. He leaned forward, bent down so that his sigh gusted at her ear and fluttered the fine loose hairs at her temple.

He didn't touch her – not with his hands – but he let his breath say it all as his lips moved slowly from her ear to her temple, her forehead to the dainty upturned tip of her nose. Her eyes widened and her breath hitched, but she didn't move away, didn't slap him as she should've done.

His mouth stopped a fraction of an inch over hers. He felt the sharp intake of breath and the tremble of her bottom lip. She quivered like a leaf in the wind though she hadn't yet felt his hands upon her flesh.

Christ, he swore he could smell her sex, wet and aroused between her thighs. The urge to throw her down on the clean straw and fuck her mindlessly almost overtook him. He pulled himself back from the precipice, spoke carefully now, mindful of his words, for one misstep there would send her running.

"What do you want, Lady Rockham?"

Her eyes were closed, but at his words they flashed open. She blinked furiously several times as if awakening from a particularly slumberous dream. "Wh – what?"

Lady Rockham was a purebred, not a lowly maid to be tumbled carelessly in the barn. He reined in his hard-won self control. Her wide blue eyes, wild as cornflowers, stared at him while she shook and his breath eased into her mouth.

"What can I give you?" he rephrased the question. "For I should like very much to give you something splendid."

He allowed his forefinger to trace the delicate dent in her chin before he stepped back.

Her bosom heaved and a fine sheen of moisture appeared on her upper lip.

"I must be about my business, now," he said shortly, and with the control of a monk, executed a short bow, and left the stable.

#

Chastity nearly groaned aloud. What had just happened? How had mere words and veiled innuendo made her heart race and her blood pound through her veins? He'd lured her here – for something nefarious, she was sure, although he'd barely touched her. In fact, had she imagined the entire scene?

Then he'd changed his mind. She'd seen the moment in his eyes, the instant he reversed his decision to seduce her.

Why?

Her breasts felt swollen, the nipples prickling against her bodice, aching for release. Her drawers were damp. After nearly thirty-nine years she now understood what happily married women had slyly hinted at during women's private conversations. Her body was preparing itself for
him
– for Thomas – for his entry, and in such a way as it had never done for her husband.

She felt herself flush hotly with embarrassment. Thomas couldn't possibly know what she'd felt during those few moments in the stable. On the other hand, he looked like a man well used to handling, not only horse flesh, but women.

In fact, she imagined he'd had many women in his short life. He couldn't be more than twenty-four or five. How could he be so young and so devilishly old?

Good grief, she was old enough to be his mother!

Not quite, that wicked voice inside her chanted. Not quite at all, my lady.

Chastity spent the night tossing and turning in her bed, her fevered breasts tender, the delicate flesh between her legs swollen and aching. She'd been unable to release herself from the pitched state Thomas' breath – his touch – had brought to her. Finally, she'd taken a dampened cloth, folded it into a square and squeezed it between her legs, firmly pressing the cool cloth at the most sensitive spot.

The coldness offered her some respite from the discomfort, and she finally slept, only to fall into vivid dreams of calloused hands roaming her naked skin, rough caresses over her breasts and between her legs. She woke to her hand clutching the mound between her legs as a throbbing pulse vibrated beneath her palm like a wild heartbeat.

And she woke to find she'd begun her courses.

Could that have been the source of her strange ailment, not Thomas at all? She felt both relief and guilt. Although she had heard that certain men enjoyed conjugal rights during their wives' menses, Charring certainly did not.

In fact, for the few months of their early marriage days, he'd refused even to be around her during her "tainted time of the month." They'd stayed in the London townhouse at the time and he had spent those five or six days at his club rather than endure her company.

She wrinkled her nose in irritation. "Tainted time," indeed – his exact words. Why should something so universal to all women, so
necessary
to human existence, be unclean?

There was, of course, no broaching her husband on such a delicate matter. He would be displeased that he was unable to share her bed for the next several days, but he would manage, she imagined. Didn't men have ... ways to relieve that kind of discomfort?

She found herself humming merrily as she arose, despite the mild cramps in her loins.

Chapter 4

Baron Charring, Lord Oscar Rockham, arrived the next morning and the household went instantly into a flurry of bustle and panic. The Baron had arrived, and nothing must be out of place.

At his preference, Chastity and the servants greeted him as he stepped down from his brougham. They were lined up like chess pieces in front of the grand steps that led to Charring Manor's palatial entry.

Chastity rather thought Charring considered her and the staff very much like the soldiers he'd commanded during the Crimean War when he was a much younger man. Oh, yes, he relished ordering them all about. Well, one thing he could not control was the beginning and ending of her menses.

She smiled again at the idea of her frustrated husband.

As he approached her, Charring bowed abruptly, then appearing to reconsider, touched his dry lips to her cold cheek. After the Baron entered the manor, Chastity followed along with the senior upstairs servants. No one had spoken a word thus far.

He handed his gloves to Samuel the butler and shrugged out of his greatcoat. "Be sure to have all the fires roaring, Samuel – in every room. I should not like to take a chill simply because I chose to grace the northern properties with my presence."

"My lord." Samuel bowed and stepped from the room while Charring turned to his Countess.

Chastity's smile felt frozen on her face as her husband reached for her hands. Now that only she and he remained in the high-vaulted entry, he deigned to show a modicum of affection. "I find myself weary from my travel, my lady. I shall rest and prepare myself for you. Please come to my chambers within two hours."

The request for her presence in his private sanctuary was more a command than an invitation. Those damned soldiers, she thought, then sighed heavily. Should she inform him now or later that she was indisposed? Later, she decided.

No reason to have his lordship in a dither any longer than necessary. And he was very much like a spoiled child when thwarted. She suspected he might even extend his visit to get his way.

Her husband was not a cruel or demanding man, she decided, simply – unaware. Disinclined to think of others' needs, particularly his wife's. In the Baron's world women were a necessary inferiority. They were to be respected and protected, but certainly not indulged.

#

The stable master suspected Lord Rockham would want to inspect his latest acquisition of horse flesh as soon as he'd settled more pressing needs. Likely, bedding his wife was first on his list.

Thomas thought well of Lady Rockham, he admired her spirit and courage, and beyond her obvious beauty, he observed something rare, but fragile about her. The thought of the Baron's clumsy hands on her made him scowl.

Certainly it was time to visit the village and find a willing wench to ease his own needs rather than dwell on the gentry's goings on.

The sun was nearly set when the Baron sent word for him to come to the manor house. Thomas made his way through the kitchen, bussed the Cook Mary Jones on the cheek, and slapped the kitchen maid on the arse. She giggled and danced away, holding a pot of soup for the stove.

Mary glared at him. "Don't be messin' with me girls, Tom."

Thomas placed a hand over his heart. "Just funning, Mrs. Jones. You know me heart beats only for you."

He heard her laughing as he climbed the stairs and met the footman who led him to his lordship's library. Thomas schooled his face before he entered after a rap on the door and the command to enter.

He had no great liking for the Baron, although he'd been considered an important officer in the Crimea and was affable enough to the servants and his other employees on the estate. No, Thomas' quarrel with Lord Rockham was the way he treated his horses. And he figured a man who'd treat his animals poorly harbored a cold, mean heart.

He'd seen the man go into a deadly rage when one hapless stallion failed to clear a fence set too high. The former stable master had warned the Baron that the horse had a sprained fetlock and shouldn't be forced to jump for another week.

When the horse balked and Lord Rockham had tumbled to the ground, he'd risen slowly, brushed himself off, and calmly said. "Put him out of his misery."

The stallion was one of the most beautiful horses Thomas had ever seen, sleek and tall, with a proud carriage and wonderful high step. He'd been bought for stud for the Baron's mares, not for racing or jumping.

Thomas would never forget the careless destruction. He wondered how such a man would treat other flesh that he owned. He wondered how he treated the Baroness.

Now, as his lordship entered the stables, Thomas saw that Charring was in a black mood. He knew instinctively that his wife had displeased him.

Thomas couldn't say how he knew, but as with the women in his life, he had an instinct for such things. Sexual frustration rolled off his lord like black angry clouds.

"Where's the stallion?" Lord Rockham asked abruptly, slapping the side of the horse he was inspecting.

"This way, m'lord."

"He's a fine one. He'll sire good horse flesh." The sight of the stud seemed to put the Baron in a better mood.

"Indeed, m'lord."

"Humph," muttered Lord Rockham. "Would that women were so biddable."

Ah, then it was Lady Rockham giving him grief. Good, Thomas thought. He admired his lady's spirit."

"Bitches are constantly bleeding."

What?

"Ought to go into heat like the mares. Keep the whole situation uncomplicated."

Thomas felt the blood boil up in the veins at his neck, felt his muscles contract with the urge to lash out. The man spoke of his wife as if she were a mare to be mounted?

"They're dirty like that," the Baron continued, clearly forgetting that he spoke to the stable master. But then who would he speak to of such intimate matters?

"Dirty, m'lord?" Thomas ventured.

Charring wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Blood, can't bear the smell of it, the slippery feel of it." He stopped speaking abruptly, stared at Thomas with a thunderous frown, cleared his throat. "I'll be leaving in the morning, Thomas, but I'll return in a few days."

Thomas nodded. "Certainly, m'lord."

"She should be finished with the damn mess by then."

Chapter 5

Thomas estimated he had three days in which to seduce Lady Rockham.

It would not be an easy task. Although heat smoldered beneath that fair skin, Chastity was, after all, a true lady. She would not betray her husband easily.

He told himself that she
wanted
this – this seduction he planned. She was lonely. He could tell that by the frequent pensive look on her face. She was frustrated. He knew by the heady sexual fragrance emanating from her body whenever he passed. He doubted another male could tell, though, thank Christ for that, or she'd have all sorts of unsavory fellows caterwauling about her.