Loving Lucy (15 page)

The look he gave her was frank and tender. He wasn’t even trying to hide his love now, and she respected him for it. She knew what he said was important to him, and knew better than to argue. He came over to the bed and took the tray away. After he’d put it outside the room, he came back to her. “You’re not to worry. We’ll think of something.” He fetched a bowl of warm water, then sat on the edge of the bed and gave her that wry smile she was learning to love. “I’m afraid it’s that time again.”

It was what she was waiting for. This was her chance, and she was determined upon it. Lucy rolled on to her front, let him pull down the bedcovers and lift her night gown, she heard him wring the cloth out in the water and dab at the wounds on her upper back.

Then she held her breath to brace herself against the inevitable sting, and turned over. Instead of bathing her wounds, his hands now cradled her breasts. Delighted her ploy had turned out so well, Lucy smiled up at him.

As though scalded, he pulled his hands away, dropped the cloth and closed his eyes. “No, Lucy.” he breathed, his voice hardly higher than a whisper.

“Yes.” She reached for his hand. “Please, Philip.”

He opened his eyes and with an effort, looked only at her face. When he would have drawn the covers back up over her, she stopped him. “Philip, I want you to make love to me.”

“No Lucy. You don’t know what you’re asking, I can’t do this.”

She had no patience with that. “Of course I know. I want to know what it
should
be like, and who better than you to show me? And - and there’s something else.” He stayed silent, looking at her face. So she went on, and tried to explain. “Philip, I’m in love with you.”

He shook his head. “Delayed shock. You want a man to be kind to you, and I was.”

She still held his hands tight in hers. “No, I thought of that this morning, but it started when I saw you in Mr. Chumleigh’s office, before this happened. I can’t explain - perhaps it’s because I’ve seen so little of you in recent years. But I realised then how much I’d missed your company - and there was something else I didn’t want to admit.” She paused, trying to find the words to persuade him. “But now I do. I love you Philip, please believe me. I think I’ve loved you for years, but when my mother poured venom into my ears, I did as I was told, and ignored the empty feeling when I didn’t see you any more.”

When he looked at her he saw an appeal, and his own love reflected there for him. This couldn’t be true; he’d made himself think of her in a different way, hoped for her friendship, nothing else. But what he saw in her face finally convinced him there was something else for him, something more. He’d seen that expression on his own face in the mirror too often to mistake it. He could bear it no longer. “Lucy my love.” He leaned forward and kissed her.

This kiss felt right. Lucy released his hands and put hers around his neck, relaxed into the kiss. He lay next to her, held her, kissed her again and again. Each kiss was more passionate, more needy, and she responded. It shouldn’t be this easy, but it felt right, as nothing before ever had. His hand slid up from her waist to her breast, and she sighed with pleasure. He couldn’t deny her this. He couldn’t deny himself.

Sensations Lucy had never felt before, thrills passed through her at his touch, and when Philip bent his head, kissing her throat and her breasts until her nipples hardened with her need for him, she was sure she was in heaven. He drew back, sat up but when she reached for him he smiled and pulled his shirt off over his head, then unbuttoned his pantaloons and slid them down his body, taking off everything else at the same time. She pulled off her nightgown and cast it aside. She thought he was beautiful, his strong body shaded with dark hair, on the backs of his arms, on his chest, and she longed to feel him next to her.

He paused, looked at her, and she revelled in his gaze on her because he so obviously took such pleasure from it. “Lucy if you have any doubts you must say so now.” His voice wasn’t entirely steady. “Because if I touch you again I won’t be able to stop.”

For an answer she took his hand and put it on her stomach, holding it there with her own. He didn’t move for a moment, just looked at her, trying, she thought, to make sure she really meant it before he lay down next to her and took her into his arms.

They lay together for what seemed like forever, and he caressed her, smoothed his hands over her. Everywhere she felt her need for him. He stroked her body, kissed her, told her, “You’re truly beautiful, my love, my dearest love,” before he moved over her and entered her with insistent but gentle pressure.

How different from before! This was no violation, no unwanted invasion but a sought for and welcome thing. Lucy sighed with happiness when she felt him begin to move inside her and kissed his neck. He turned his head and looked at her, a trace of anxiety in his gaze. “Does it hurt? Should I stop?”

She shook her head, smiled. “I love you Philip.” This urged him to greater exertions to bring her that bliss which was her birthright.

A warmth within her grew and grew until she cried out, and she heard him say, “Lucy! Sweet love, I’ll take care of you, let me look after you now.”

“Yes, yes, Philip. No one else, only you.” Then, beyond words, she cried out in the ultimate ecstasy.

Only it wasn’t quite the ultimate. He had enough self control, enough love for her to increase her joy, keep her on that plateau of delight for a little while longer before achieving his own release, crying out her name as he reached his ascendancy, pulling away just before he lost his seed inside her.

It seemed to Lucy that stars exploded around them. Then she opened her eyes and met his blue gaze with a wondering one of her own.

He slid to one side of her and gathered her up; careful even now not to let his arms rest on the worst of her wounds. He knew where they were; nobody better.

“Oh Lucy, never like that, never before,” he whispered, and kissed her tenderly.

She smiled at him, but said nothing, completely beyond words.

She felt herself drifting into sleep, but forced herself awake only to hear him tell her; “Sleep if you want to, my darling. I’m not going anywhere.” She felt the covers gently drawn up around them and she let herself slide into sleep in his arms.

***

Lucy woke to a wonderful feeling of safety, Philip’s arms still around her. She didn’t know how long she had slept, but she guessed not long. She lay listening to the sounds outside; the cries of the ostlers, constantly busy with the coming and going of the horses in their care, the sound of hooves on cobbles, the inevitable shouts of the vendors, a sound she hardly noticed she was so used to it.

But this was different somehow, a new beginning, a new awakening. She felt fresh. She leaned over and kissed his chest, felt him move.

“Sweetheart?” She heard his soft voice and looked up to receive his kiss. They looked at each other, smiling. “I can’t regret this,” he told her “Even if it never comes again, I will have had this.”

“It will happen again,” she said. “Until you’re tired of me.”

“That will never happen.” He kissed her again. “More than I ever hoped for,” he said, his lips against hers.

“I didn’t know I could feel like that,”

“Like what? Tell me.”

“So happy - all over.” she said,

She made him laugh. “I’d like to make you feel happy all over again. But first - I really should look at your wounds. I never did bathe them properly for you.”

She smiled and turned on her stomach for him. Philip sat up among the rumpled sheets and looked. “You have the most delectable bottom. I tried very hard not to notice it.”

She laughed. “Well now you can notice it all you like.” He touched her very gently, the lover’s touch so different from the nurse’s touch of yesterday. “They’re healing well. I think we can leave them to get better on their own now.”

“Will they scar?”

“I don’t know. Not on your shoulders, but perhaps here.” He touched the top of her legs lightly, then let his hand move up to her bottom. “Delectable,” he repeated, and bent to kiss her there.

She laughed and turned back on to her side. “They feel much better.”

“Perhaps I should kiss them all, but to keep you with me I’ll do it one at a time, perhaps at the rate of one a month.”

“Do you really think you could put up with me for that long?”

“For the rest of my life,” he assured her. He gazed at her face, all the love he had for her on open display. “You know I’m going to ask you to marry me? Is it too soon? Would you like to wait?”

She was mildly surprised. “Ask? Don’t you expect it now?”

“I have no right to expect anything from you. Only what you’re prepared to give me. I shouldn’t have done this, I know it, but - “

She waited for a still moment. “That’s why I won’t say yes immediately. I won’t have his child take the title.”

“It might be mine. I tried to make it less likely, but there’s always a chance.”

“I’ll take that risk, if you agree.” She took his hand and looked up into his face, trying to make him see how sincere she was, that she wasn’t to be moved on this decision. “It’s not just your title, it belonged to my father. I can’t risk the child of a man like Geoffrey Sanders inheriting what my father once held, and now you. The two men I love most and the one I hate most! No, Philip, it won’t do. If I’m pregnant, I’ll go away in the time honoured fashion, perhaps to take the waters at Spa. Then I’ll come back. I have enough money to see that the child is well cared for, if there is one, so even if it is yours it won’t suffer.”

“Lucy. Can’t you forget its parentage? I’ll care for it; I don’t care where it started. And what if it’s a girl?”

She smiled. “There’s no way of knowing that, is there? A girl or a boy can be adopted at a later date. People will talk, but they won’t be able to prove anything. If it was a second child, I might consider your offer, but not for the heir. I won’t have that man’s progeny celebrated. You must see how much I would hate it. I don’t think I could live with that, not after what he did.”

“But you won’t do this alone.” he said, sure of that, at least.

“Thank you. It’s more than I deserve.”

“Fustian.” He pulled her up into his arms. “It’s a selfish gesture on my part. I want you, Lucy; I don’t want anyone else to have you. If you feel you have to do this, then I won’t argue, but I will insist that I’m there in some capacity to help you.” He kissed her, forestalling any argument. “And I’ll still be asking you to marry me, right up until the moment you say yes. Won’t you marry me now? Give me the right to care for you? That would void the contract for sure, but it would give me the right to deal with it for you, stand by your side while it’s sorted out.”

“No, Philip. If I had a child in wedlock, it would have a claim to the title, everything my father cared for.”

They looked at each other in perfect honesty. “Yes. You’re right, of course.”

She could live with that. She had been afraid he wouldn’t want her, would consider her, as Geoffrey had said, soiled goods, but it didn’t seem to matter to him. His kisses were sweet, everything the possessive Geoffrey’s weren’t; his lovemaking considerate and tender until passion took him and he could take her with him.

With relief she kissed him back, and put her arms around him, running her hands over his smooth strong back. He drew back and looked at her. “But if you’re not with child, will you marry me then?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Soon?”

“Yes Philip, as soon as you like.”

“I’ll hold you to that. I love you, Lucy.” He paused. “Do you know how often I’ve said that to you?”

“No.”

“Every time I saw you, in my heart.”

“Then I have a lot of catching up to do.” She put up a hand to touch his face. He moved his face into her hand and kissed the palm. “I love you, Philip. I know it, perhaps I always have.”

He swept her up then, making her gasp in surprise and excitement as she felt him harden against her leg, and kissed her deeply, with the passion only a man in love is capable of. She moved her leg around him, so she was sitting astride him, and he pulled her up, his hands under her delectable bottom. It was easy for him to slide inside her then. She kept her eyes open this time, watching him look at her in that special way, feeling his warmth, his humanity.

They took their time. Enough they were together, as one. His movements were slow and his gaze never left her face. She found she had more control this way and moved with him, hearing his delighted ‘mmm’ of pleasure as she did so. She leant forward, smiling, to kiss him languorously on the mouth, and then leant back so she could watch him loving her. He obliged. He looked at her, touched her, took her breasts into his mouth, ran his tongue deliciously over her nipples. The combination of sight and sensation sent her into a spiral of rhapsodic bliss, the feeling of him inside and outside her body, loving her, urged her to forget, to remember only this, only him.

Lucy looked down at his dear face, and saw her joy reflected there, knew she had made the right decision. This man was made for her and she for him. “Philip - Philip my love, my only love, my dear heart!” She broke off with an “Ah --” of pure sensation when he pushed hard inside her as a response to her words, to bring her as much pleasure as he was feeling, to love her to the extent of his being. He pulled her down for a kiss, and she trembled, cried out as another peak hit her, to be followed by another, until she was helpless in his arms. Then he drove hard inside her, feeling her silken welcome, before he too felt his passion rise and then with a convulsive jerk he drew out of her and let his essence go to waste outside her body. They seemed for a short moment, an eternity of moments, like one person, one feeling.