28. Here, Have Some Meat （part 2）

28

Here, Have Some Meat (part 2)

Her slippered feet racing away were all he heard of her retreat.

Warrick stared at the harpsichord where he’d refisted his hands in front of him—likely not the best of ideas for his newly soothed muscles, but good God.

Trembling, he dared to glance down, past the keyboards, to the area between his falls. Where his penis rose, stiff and proud as a pike, thrusting noticeably against his loose-fitting trousers.

What the deuce just happened?

He’d been lost in playing. Surrounded, enthralled… Then utter chaos had rained down.

Minutes Prior…

Prim, back so suddenly.

Questioning him about the music. Touching him. Confusing him. Prompting his confession about the raging parts. Then she’d thrown her arms about his neck and hugged him to her? Fiercely so.

The overt affection startled him. Comforted him. Aroused him.

He pulled back, attempting distance between them. Not easy when his lower half—none of it—wanted to cooperate.

Every second of the past few minutes pummeled him higgledy-piggledy, his spiraling thoughts too overset to even remember the order in which everything had occurred.

Confused and desperate, his mind still hearing the echo of angry notes, his body foreign to him given her sudden proximity and ministrations tending his hands, he’d sought distraction. “You were gone a while.”

“It’s brisk but calm out. I enjoyed a stroll before venturing to the market. Crossed paths with a friend I haven’t seen in an age. We found a sunny bench and rambled.”

Rambled? Despite the gnawing in his hands and forearms, the uncomfortable pressure growing in his groin—did he feel the approaching need to piss?—he bit down on both lips to prevent a chuckle.

But when she stroked over a particularly painful spot, a groan loosened them. Freed his lips and the chuckle.

Her motions paused. Then resumed. “What about that amuses you? That I would have friends?”

“Nothing of the sort. A ramble .”

She peeked at him from beneath her bonnet, then released his hand to stand, looking rather flushed. He watched as she removed both it and her cloak. Dropping back down to his side, she picked his arm up and drew it even closer, her actions happening as though she touched him every day of the week. “Why would you laugh at the notion of me enjoying a coze with a friend?”

“Mayhap because you do not know what else ‘rambling’ entails.” His teeth clamped against his tongue when a moan threatened. Her deliberate touch? Threw him in alt.

“Enlighten me? I would share in the jest.”

“Ah…any randy young Englishman knows to ‘ramble’ about when he’s…mmm…”

He wanted to kiss her cheek. And so, so much more.

’Tis a foolhardy notion. She is comfortable with you now, would you change that? Now that you are stranded together, currently reliant upon her for food and canine care?

The reminder grated.

When he remained silent, she ventured, “For a gentleman to go rambling means looking for a light-skirt?”

“Aye. Yes.” Yes , another groan, when part of his palm unclenched. As though to counter it, his stomach contracted. She didn’t seem upset. If anything, found the new meaning as humorous as he, given her dimpled smile as she kept her gaze rapt upon his hand.

She’d worn a soft sage-colored dress today, revealed to him once she removed her cloak. And that wasn’t all he saw for the first time. Really , truly saw, he realized.

Her breasts.

Good God Almighty! Her breasts…

This close, with his arm dragged into her lap, his other clasped tight around one leg of the bench, to keep himself from toppling full-on into her? This close, by damn, the woman had a magnificent pair of breasts. Where had she kept them in the country? In a trunk?

How had he not fastened his attention there before now?

Blazes, but he’d always been drawn more to a woman’s sass and spirit than the handfuls—or mouthfuls—of flesh upon their chest. But now?

The tip of his tongue swept over his top lip. He quickly ordered it back in. Couldn’t be salivating over Prim’s nipples while staying at her uncle’s home.

Aphrodite Primrose. Aphrodite…

Goddess of love. Of lust too, mayhap?

His, certainly. Lust threatened to swamp him.

Saliva gathered in his mouth and he swallowed hard.

Hard. Like another part of him, by blazes.

At some point during her tending, the scent of her hair filled his nostrils. Some light floral thing, combined with her . Aphrodite, prim and stubborn and beautiful and vexing and more alluring than any female he had ever known.

He heeded the urge to caress the fine hairs on the back of her nape. But then the need to move his hand and place his lips there bolted through him.

Once, and only once—disregarding dream-induced mania of the morn several prior—had he felt a similar stirring. And that sensation had departed as soon as it arrived, leaving him startled. And hopeful. And doubtful it had even existed.

But during the intervening months—three, if one were counting—no other interest, or movement, from the limp, lackadaisical area.

Until this week, with her . Until now .

And it wasn’t departing .

Not even close.

“The fingers have stopped contracting,” he babbled, needing her to leave. Needing to release her nape, draw his hand back where it belonged, but unable to do so. “Thank you. You may go now, see to your groceries and the butcher’s delivery.”

“If your hands are feeling better, then I can help you get situated in the kitchen. I will?—”

“Nay, take your leave now.”

“Not quite yet.”

“I said leave .”

On and on, until he ended up near growling at her, with everything in him. If she saw what had happened, spied his stand? She would be gone before he could catch her.

“Get out!” Sensing her exasperation, seeing her attention falter from his arm and glance toward his lap, panic assailed. He shoved her forward, head toward her crossed legs, and climbed atop the bench, cursing silently at the clumsy effort, until finally, finally being quit of her.

Gad. Alone now, balanced upon the bench, still staring at the offensively tantalizing area, he scratched his sore fingers through his hair, pressed palms to his eye sockets.

Are you not overjoyed? That erection you woke to was every bit as real as she is.

Maybe this shouldn’t be such a surprise; he’d always been drawn to her.

But what continued to surprise is how his groin stayed stirred—and not the stirring of an impending piss. Nay, most definitely the mating sort of stirring. The urge to frisk an attractive female. Though since her abrupt and irked departure (albeit, deservedly so), his prick had started to soften.

Yet even now, the outline was discernible as more than a pile of useless flesh taking up space within his trousers.

When Mercury whined and placed his grey-tipped muzzle next to Warrick’s seat on the bench, ’twas an easy thing to lower his hands and stroke the back of the dog’s head. “I know, Mercury. I am as full of wonder as you. Now? Now it comes back? When I am not in any position to make use of it?”

Of course, this couldn’t have happened in London where hiring a dove would be the work of a minute.

’Tis not some nameless doxy you want wrapped round ? —

Nay, he had to be on the quaint, quiet environs outside of popular Bath, surrounded by neighbors of Arbuckle’s who would no doubt report any nefarious infractions he might dare commit. Why could they not be in one of the sought-after crescents in town center? Where he could find a venturesome widow, could easily hire or pay a lass for the use of her body?—

You wouldn’t anyway, knave, and you know it. Not wanting anyone but ? —

He snarled, roused Mercury to growl back and almost laughed at his predicament.

Her presence had made his cock stand and salute; thoughts of her kept it near waving.

Something he should be rejoicing over, shouting his thanks to the heavens, only instead, the realization wrought agonizing worry. Because if Prim knew he had a working pizzle, given the shadows of her past, how wary she was of men—titled men, in particular—doubtless she’d flee back to the Ballenger estate.

And he didn’t want her to go.

Needed to spend time with her. ’Twas a compulsion. Like walking again.

So with her gone from the room, his troublesome thoughts and the dog for company, Warrick set himself to “standing from sitting”. Two hundred or more ought to suffice for tiring his twanger. Rather than return to his room, risk “stumbling” into her on the way, given his uncomfortably roused condition, he used the harpsichord as both brace and balance.

Beautiful old instrument. Wasted on Satan’s spawn.

Somewhere around 137, long after she had called the dog to her side and pounded up the stairs, he realized that mayhap he rejoiced prematurely. Perhaps he needed to give things a trial, to discern if all parts really were, in fact, working again.

As if you would pay a whore for the privilege of riding your cock? When you have never paid before. No, but neither had he gone two and a half years without. Without knowing if he ever would—or could —again.

And now that he was closer than ever before? The thought of testing intimate “things” with anyone other than the proper governess under his roof— do you not mean her uncle’s roof? —seemed unpalatable in the extreme.

Blast it.

“That was no help at all.” Frustration goading his ire, Silas shut the front door after answering the knock.

After staying out of sight, Viola now joined him. “What did you learn? I could not hear beyond murmuring.”

“Let us return to the food; never pays to leave things boiling when one isn’t about, and I will share.” Silas placed one hand about her waist and guided her toward the kitchen where they had been jointly preparing their dinner. What a marvel, that: a lady doing without servants and without complaint. Definitely didn’t remind him of a certain complaintive lordling still occupying his house, and quite likely, to no avail or success at all.

Once they reached the kitchen, Silas resumed slicing the potatoes and pork that would soon be joining the carrots in the pot. Vi busied herself choosing the herbs she would add.

“Well? What did your butcher friend tell you?”

And thank goodness they were friends, having known each other for decades, and the other man circumspect enough not to inquire why Silas now hid in another home, not his own. Though likely Lowe had his suspicions, given the wide grin and raised eyebrows when he pointed toward the opaque door before taking his leave with an apology for not having more information to share. An apology—and a decided wink.

“Nothing usable, I’m afraid. Claimed Warrick was already at the open kitchen door, twine leashed about Mercury and saw the man approach. Hailed him over, accepted the delivery with his thanks, but not much else. Did not stand nor move to place the package inside, only held it while they blathered a few moments more. Lowe said he was hesitant to delay leaving lest it rouse ‘the gent’s’ suspicions.”

Damn it all. He had anticipated learning more—especially after paying to feed the vexatious interloper. At least Mercury would enjoy the fresh meat, he knew, and damn his disordered thoughts for not thinking of that sooner. Likely by now, supplies had been running disconcertingly low.

“ Is he walking, do you think?” Vi asked over her shoulder, liberally applying salt to the bubbling water before she came to get the platter of chopped pieces from him. “Perhaps overly tired from his efforts? Or…lazy?” She whispered the last, as though even considering the man might be labeled such was a blade to the heart.

He laughed. “Whatever he might have been two years ago upon our initial acquaintance, he is not lazy now. Not for the better part of this year, by my reckoning. I had hoped pushing him through circumstances would allow me to see, to know for certain what progress he might yet gain, but I am now thoroughly questioning that decision.”

Coming back to where he still sat at the table, Viola placed her arms about his shoulders and a kiss to his cheek. “As to questioning decisions, that is something I, too, have been given much thought.”

“Do you seek to distract me from my onerous thoughts?”

“Not intentionally, but I do have an idea to propose… A potential change to our own current circumstances.”

Given how much joy playing at house and hearth with her afforded him, he could not decide if a surprise—a change of any sort—warranted glee or dread.