“I am not stopping,” Ash said. I am falling in love, all over again.
Della turned her head to regard him, some confusion in her gaze. “I would rather—”
He silenced her with a kiss, and with forays north of her knee that ended in a delicate exploration of her most intimate flesh. He asked questions tactilely—May I? and Like this?—and Della answered with sighs and subtle movements of her hips. By the time he had two fingers hilted in her heat, she had set up a slow, demanding rhythm.
There being a shortage of hands in such a situation, Ash used his mouth on her breasts, counterpointing her undulations and ignoring his own rising desire. Amid the sheer loveliness of being intimate with Della came the thought: At least I’m good for this.
He shoved it aside like the serpent in paradise that it was.
Della unraveled on a soft, happy groan, her body clutching at his fingers as she held him in a fierce embrace. She did not ease her grip on him until long moments later, when she lay back, her chest rosy, her skirts rucked to her thighs.
“Gracious days, Ash Dorning.” Her smile was dreamy and sweet. “If you applied yourself to Greek as you did to the housekeeper’s lessons, you would have taken a first, I’m sure.”
He removed a handkerchief from his pocket. “This next part isn’t something the housekeeper had to teach me.”
Della watched while he unbuttoned his falls and brought himself off in a few quick strokes. That she was observing, half naked and replete, made Ash’s pleasure that much more intense. When Ash had tidied himself up and stood to rebutton his falls, Della propped herself on her side and stroked a finger down the length of his softening cock.
“You have surprised me, Ash Dorning.”
That she would be so bold surprised him—and delighted him. “Pleasantly, I hope.”
“Wonderfully. That thing you did with your thumb…” She rolled to her back and rested her forearm across her forehead, as if she’d had too much cherry cordial. “I have become the greatest admirer of your right hand in all of Britain. I am quite fond of your mouth too.”
Ash finished buttoning himself up, and in defense of his best intentions, he drew Della’s skirts down over her knees. He used a watering can to rinse off his fingers and returned to the sofa to find Della sitting up, her bodice once again modestly tucked and tied.
“That was not what I had planned,” she said as Ash took the place beside her.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you. On our wedding night—” He’d withdraw, and use sheaths, and generally ensure no baby resulted. The thought was a trifle lowering, but then, he’d have a wedding night with Della, and that was not lowering at all.
Della interrupted him by taking his hand. “That was better than what I had planned. I hadn’t realized… Well, suffice it to say my Greek education will benefit from further association with you.”
“You’d like to nap for a bit, wouldn’t you?”
She shifted to curl up on the sofa with her head in his lap. “I would like to tear the clothes from your body and swive you witless. Had planned on it, in fact.”
Ash stroked her hair, not quite sure what to make of her plans for him. The sense of vague unease returned, along with a worry that Della was inordinately eager to consummate their engagement. Perhaps Chastain had shaken her confidence. Perhaps she was simply that most delightful of women, a lusty lady.
They were to be married, and at that moment, Ash was content to stroke Della’s hair and plan his interview with her brother.
Chapter Eight
“Now see here, William.” Torvald Chastain drew himself up to his full height—five inches less than William’s own six feet—and rocked back on his heels. “Your mother and I don’t mind a bit of high spirits. Wild oats, drunken tomfoolery, that sort of thing. But tearing off to Gretna Green with the Haddonfield girl exceeded the bounds. I could not keep the general contours of the situation from your mother, and she will be some time getting over the shock.”
Papa’s lecture hadn’t changed in the fortnight since he’d interrupted the best fun William had had since the fourth time he’d been sent down from university. Papa had broken the unspoken rules by allowing Mama to learn of William’s excursion with the Haddonfield girl—though Lady Della was quite long in the tooth as girls went—and Mama had been merciless in retaliation.
“Clarice don’t want to marry me,” William said for the thousandth time as he propped an elbow on the mantel. “She never has.”
Papa laced his hands behind his back. “Did she say that?”
“She don’t have to say it. She don’t like me, and I ain’t too keen on her either.” Clarice pretended to be shy, but William knew her type. She would hoard her marital favors and make him beg and wheedle until he lost patience with her games. Then she would sulk and pout and try to make him feel guilty. Breaking off the engagement was the only gentlemanly thing to do, and if Clarice had a brain in her Frenchie head, she’d admit it.
But she didn’t have a brain in her head. She had an abacus where her heart should be and parents who knew damned good and well she wouldn’t do any better than a baronet’s son.
“Her charms will grow on you once you’re married, believe me, lad.” Papa opened the humidor on his desk and withdrew a pair of cheroots. “Your mother and I were nearly strangers until the wedding night. We found our way forward nonetheless.”
So why am I an only child? William had never asked that of either of his parents. They weren’t an affectionate pair, but they were allies. Witness, they’d ganged up on William regarding this marriage, and now Papa had broken male ranks to help load Mama’s scolding-cannon with heavy shot.
William accepted a slim Havana from his father, held a spill to the hearth fire, and lit his cheroot. “Clarice won’t let me smoke,” he said. “She don’t even let me kiss her.” Not quite the whole truth. Upon the occasion of their engagement a month or so ago, Clarice had allowed William under her skirts.
But only the once, and she’d refused to permit him even a peek at her bubbies. She had turned her face from him and endured his lovemaking with a martyred air.
Hell of a way for a fellow to plight his damned troth, with the lady acting as if he was late to choir practice and wearing dung on his boots.
“Clarice is playing hard to get,” Papa replied, propping a hip on his desk. “Your mother was the same way, but she wanted her own household and her own pin money. I daresay she wanted a child. She reconciled herself to her situation with eventual good grace. Clarice will too.”
“I won’t reconcile myself,” William said, blowing a smoke ring and watching it waft across Papa’s study. “You can drag me to the altar, and I’ll stand beside Clarice as mute as a marble statue. I’m already in disgrace for that bit with Lady Della. Backing out of the wedding won’t cause any more scandal.” The scheme with Lady Della had almost worked, damn the luck. Another quarter hour, and even Papa would have agreed that William had to marry the earl’s curvy little daughter rather than la-di-da émigré Clarice.
Della Haddonfield didn’t put on airs. She was a fetching little heifer, too, not a dried-up Frenchie nun, and Della, whatever her faults were, had a temper. William adored gaining the upper hand with a woman who had a temper. Della had bigger bubbies than Clarice, too, and William had a fondness for a bouncy pair of bubbies.