Christ.
His voice trailed off and he sank into his seat. What the bloody hell was wrong with him? He sounded like Tristan blathering away to Tabitha. Besides, no woman wanted to hear about haunted privy closets. Especially not a woman about to discuss contract terms for an affair.
Displeased at his lapse, Jasper straightened the stack of parchment and examined the tip of the quill. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
Silence greeted his words, and he glanced up to see her staring at him. “Ada? Is something wrong?”
She smiled ruefully. “I’m sure you already think me quite mad, so this won’t sound so very strange…but now you have mentioned a ghost, I wonder if I might inspect the privy closet. I am an avid reader of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels and find such matters fascinating. This is something else my father would strongly disapprove of, so I am rebelling in several ways today.”
In another woman he might have suspected nerves, perhaps a waning desire to proceed with the contract. But it seemed his blathering had provoked her to confide in him, to share an interesting fact few people knew. That trust, fledgling though it was, boded very well for their affair.
Jasper nodded and stood. “Come with me.”
The hallway was too narrow to walk side by side, so he went ahead and cautiously pushed open the privy closet door. When certain there were no rodents or other wildlife, he gestured for Ada to stand in the doorway and peruse the room. Personally, he couldn’t stand it; even with bright sunlight outside the room remained shadowed and icy cold. To the right was a short wooden bench with two roughly hewn circles cut out, and the faint trickle of stream water running underneath sounded downright eerie, like chains clinking in a dungeon.
“Oh my,” breathed Ada. “I swear every hair on my arms is lifting. No wonder there is room for two, no one would dare come in here alone. It’s chilly. Unnaturally so…”
He’d never been a man to offer comfort by touch, yet his hands rose to gently rub her bare arms. What was it about this woman that urged such behavior in him? He could hardly blame the damned privy closet; it had started prior to this moment. “Better?”
Ada surprised him once again when she leaned back against his chest. With her head resting on his shoulder, the light citrusy scent of her hair teasing his nose, and her rounded backside pressed firmly against his groin, his only thought was how perfectly they fit together. Like he’d been fashioned exactly for her convenience.
Jasper stifled a groan as his cock began to harden.
He wanted to fuck this woman. Needed to fuck her. Taste her honey in his mouth, feel the tight clasp of her wet cunt, hear her unbridled cries of pleasure as she came. Did she know it? Was that why her hips circled and rubbed against him, tormenting him with layers of fabric while promising her luscious curves unclothed?
“Ada…” Jasper growled. It was almost impossible to be a gentleman when every instinct urged him to brace her against the wall and take her so hard and deep that she would never move again without thinking of his cock buried inside her. “You dare to tease me?”
She shuddered. “No. I wrote a list.”
“Of what?”
“Of the things I would like you to do to me.”
“Did you indeed?” he murmured in her ear as he caressed her arms again, deliberately allowing his knuckles to brush the side of her breasts but not touch her nipples, which now jutted lewdly against the bodice of her modest yellow gown. He yearned to know their color, before and after he’d pinched and sucked and bit them.
Ada moaned, then clamped a hand over her mouth.
“No,” Jasper said sternly, hating that she’d been taught to suppress and deny desire. “You may not stifle yourself. In fact, a clause in this contract shall state that every moan, every whimper, every orgasmic scream belongs to me. I will hear your need, Ada, when you beg for ease because the ache is unbearable. And I will hear your pleasure when you come. Do you understand?”
She quivered, her breathing ragged. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Good. Let us return to the kitchen table and attend to this contract.”
Chapter Three
Gilroy had barely touched her, and she’d turned into a shameless wanton. Leaning against his broad chest. Rubbing her backside against his cock. Moaning so loudly she could scarcely believe the sound had come from her own mouth. What would happen when he undressed her and took her to bed for the first time? When he made her beg for ease?
Ada sat on the wooden chair, her trembling knees grateful for the respite. After waiting so long, the sheer anticipation coursing through her body at the wicked pleasures she would soon be experiencing was a little unnerving. Thank heavens the duke would write the contract—even holding a quill felt like a challenge right now.
He took a seat opposite her, both too close and too far away, before setting a piece of blank parchment in front of him and flipping the lid from the inkpot. But he wasn’t as cool and calm as he appeared; the way his voice had rasped in her ear and the thick bulge that strained the fabric of his perfectly tailored trousers put paid to that.
“So,” Gilroy said eventually, picking up the quill. “Tell me of your list.”
Gulping air in an attempt to soothe her racing heart, Ada reached for her reticule. First, she perched the spectacles she always wore to read small print on her nose, then she unfolded the list of suggestions that Ruth and Martha had helped her to write. Gracious. Even as bold as she’d been thus far, it was difficult to share things so personal and intimate. What if Gilroy didn’t want to do them?
“I…ah…I’m not sure where to begin.”
“Allow me to prompt you with the preamble. A contract between the Duke of Gilroy and Miss Ada Blair, commenced on August second in the year of our Lord 1814, for the purpose of an affair. The two aforementioned parties shall be lovers for one month; the affair conducted in a discreet and confidential manner, including sexual acts or preferences specified below and any others mutually agreed upon. At the end of said month, the parties shall amiably end this agreement with no further requirement or responsibility from either. Are you satisfied with that?”
“Yes,” Ada nodded quickly, and he wrote the words, the sound of quill scratching parchment overloud to her ears.
“Good. As I said, the first clause will be mine. Miss Blair shall not stifle herself in any way during the agreed affair. She will make her needs, desires, and pleasure plain, and is free at all times to decline or halt an act.”
She blinked back tears at the words. Even cloaked in formal language, he offered freedom. It seemed an unlikely location for something so momentous, this small, abandoned cottage with its exposed beams, narrow hallway and eerie privy closet, but finally she had the opportunity to be her true self. To make choices and decisions.
Yet as Ruth and Martha had counseled her, all involved must be willing and eager.
“As are you,” Ada blurted. “Free at all times to decline or halt an act, I mean. Pleasure should be for all, not one.”
Gilroy inclined his head, his blue gaze heating. “An accurate and excellent sentiment. Beg pardon, Miss Blair, but I must pause to inform you how fetching you look in those spectacles. Do you wear them often, or just for reading?”