Chapter Thirteen

A s soon as Alice drew him into her spartan room and shut the door, she looked at it through the eyes of a future earl and gave in to nervous babbling.

“It’s not fancy, nothing like the room I grew up in. Actually, the room I grew up in is along the hall, but Mrs. Georgie didn’t want me to stay in it as it is entirely changed. She thought it would make me sad, but I don’t mind any of this. Not even this plain bed.”

Alice circled the room, pacing from door to window to bed and back again. While she spoke, Adam stood in the center, his gaze following her movements, although his eyes had darted to the bed at its mention.

“I am glad not to be playing the part of a governess anymore. The family was kind, and the Beasley girls were attentive enough most of the time. But I lacked the temperament and patience. And at times, I—”

“Alice,” he said, his voice soft and sensual. “Come here.”

She swallowed and joined him, toe-to-toe on the floor that had no carpet, and she knew for herself how cold it was under foot at night.

“We don’t have to do anything at all. I am simply happy to be with you again.” But one of his hands was stroking her arm and the other her back, sending waves of desire pulsing through her.

“I want you,” she said, glad she could be completely honest at least in that regard. “I am no longer a governess with a reputation to uphold, and being a widow has some benefits. I am ... autonomous.”

He cracked a smile. “That’s a good word for a city, but I have never heard a woman describe herself as such.”

“Independent, then. Free to make my own decisions. And at this moment, I choose to be with you. As long as you recall I am not a virgin, nor a simpering innocent.”

“I don’t give a damn about deflowering virgins. I care only whether there is any other man in your heart.”

“There is not.”

“Am I ? In your heart, I mean?” Adam looked both sensually sure of himself and achingly vulnerable.

She leaned closer and kissed him. “You are.”

It didn’t take long for them to be naked and under the covers. Alice’s body knew what was coming and had never wanted to join with a man more. So why was he slowly driving her mad instead of sweeping her under him and plunging inside her? Richard had never taken his time.

First, Adam rose above her and settled between her legs. Leaning on his forearms, he dipped his head and took her lips under his again. The weight of his tall, firm body was a teasing torment in itself, and she couldn’t help lifting her hips trying to get him to engage.

“Patience,” he said. “You certainly don’t have that governess temperament.” He feathered kisses down her neck, making her arch into the pillow to offer him more.

Biting her lip, eyes closed, she decided to endure whatever manner of swiving Adam wanted. To her delight, it entailed him kissing and nibbling his way across her bare skin, side to side and always downward. Each of her breasts was treated with deft attention, the likes of which she’d never experienced. Even her nipples were tasted and flicked with his tongue until she could barely breathe.

When Adam went lower, she held her breath, staring down at him, fascinated, terrified. At the last moment before he touched her core with his mouth, she started to scramble for his shoulders to stop him.

“Easy,” he said, as if calming a wild horse. “Shh,” he added, and then blew across her curls.

She froze. What new magic was this? Everything in her world was now focused on the smallest part of her body.

Delicately, he parted her petals and blew again.

Dear God! She moaned, which became a groan when that skilled tongue of his touched her sensitive nubbin. She brushed her hands across his head but gave up trying to move him or to stop him.

Letting her arms fall to either side of her, she settled back and allowed his ministrations. At first, he was satisfying her needs, but then, when his tongue strokes became slower, she realized he was teasing her.

“Beast,” she muttered.

He chuckled and kissed her inner thigh.

“Are you ready for me, Lady Alice?”

That made her laugh in return, a relaxing release because the rest of her body was tense and tight.

“I am, and you know it, Lord Diamond.” She knew what came next or thought she did.

“Let me make sure.” His mouth was back upon her, but this time, he wasn’t teasing. Every lick and suck were deliberate, intended to drive her mad, she feared. When he inserted a finger into her passage, she gasped.

In seconds, he had tongued her to a frantic frenzy. Alice couldn’t hold still, nor could she stay silent. Her body, which seemed coiled like a spring, suddenly unfurled, starting low between her hips where his finger now stroked inside her and surging in a spiral of release while a keening sound of pleasure escaped her lips.

“Now, you’re ready,” he murmured.

Before she could understand what had happened — what had just happened? — Adam settled his arousal at her slick core, looked her straight in the eyes, and entered her.

They sighed at the same time.

Alice couldn’t help a lopsided smile. But when he started to move, her smile slipped. From her brief experience with Richard, the swiving was nearly finished. For the first time in her adult life, she was enjoying it and didn’t want it to end.

Putting her arms around him, she held on as Adam set the pace. When he slid a hand along her leg and raised her thigh, she hummed at the new sensation of his shaft going deeper.

Opening her eyes, Alice couldn’t help watching his handsome face changing as he passed through the stages she had just experienced, until it was obvious he was going to spend. Before he did, eyes closed, gritting his teeth, he released her thigh and slid his hand between their heated bodies.

When he caressed her sensitive bud again, she moaned.

“I cannot possibly,” she said in answer to his touch. She had done something so incredible once, Adam could not possibly expect her to do it again.

“You can,” he said. “You will. Close your eyes and let go.”

Doing what he said, Alice stopped fighting it. As before, she was sent to a dizzying height by her own muscles releasing the tension that had grown within. A moment later, Adam drew out of her and spent upon the bedding before collapsing in a heap on his stomach, his head turned away, groaning.

For some reason, his utter exhaustion, as if she’d worked him a like a plow horse, tickled her, and she started to laugh.

After a moment, he spoke into the sheet.

“What are you laughing at, woman?”

That sent her into another fit of giggles. It felt like bliss to be in bed with him, after he’d played her body as well as she played the violin. Even better!

“I am ... happy,” she said. “That is all.”

“That’s everything,” he said, finally turning to look at her. “You deserve to be happy.”

“Do I?”

Alice wasn’t so sure about that. Her mistakes had cost everyone.

“I should get dressed and make an appearance. I wouldn’t want anyone to think we were doing ... anything.”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe you went from answering to Lady Beasley to now answering to your former staff.”

“I am not,” she defended herself. “But they have been good to me, and I have responsibilities here. You can stay and rest but do come down fully dressed.”

He grinned at her.

“And try not to look like that ,” she pleaded.

“Like what?”

If anything, his expression became even more smug. Turning her back on him, she rose and dressed under his watchful eyes, but soon, his eyelids grew heavier. Adam was asleep before she left.

In a single bed that might have once belonged to the missing groom but had been placed in a guest bedroom on the second floor, Adam lay down after a plain but tasty supper. Before that, he’d eaten for the first time with a gardener and a cook, discussing the land and the strong community of people in the neighboring town where both had been born. They’d even played a few hands of whist.

In a room without another stick of furniture except the bed, not even any curtains, he thought about Alice. She’d been a little edgy all evening and too quiet, perhaps embarrassed by what they had done.

Moreover, she had refused to come to bed with him or to let him return to her room for the night. They’d had a brief discussion in the hallway in loud whispers.

“I don’t want the staff thinking I have become as common as a barber’s chair.”

“I thought you said they were friends, not staff,” he had pointed out.

“Don’t mince words,” she’d said. “I have tried hard to redeem myself —”

She broke off.

“Redeem yourself? From what exactly?” he prompted, wishing he could see her face better. But she was in the shadows, as was he. Everyone was given a single stubby candle, and no oil lamps burned in the passageways. It was as if they had literally returned to the Dark Ages.

“From nothing really,” Alice said quickly. “I suppose from marrying the wrong man,” she added, but he knew it was something else. “I don’t want anyone thinking I am loose with my person, that’s all.”

“Of course not.” He thought of the reputations of his sisters and didn’t press the matter, despite knowing a widow had more freedom than any other female, at least in his class.

Thus, he had gone to bed alone, surprisingly able to fall asleep quickly since he’d traveled many miles and then had the best swiving of his life.

Naturally there was no way to know short of asking, which he wouldn’t, and perhaps he was being a vain arse, but he thought Alice had been surprised by her climax. It was rather satisfying to think he’d brought her to a heady finish such as she’d never had before.

As he’d told her, he had no interest in deflowering a virgin, yet seeing the look of shock on her face when she spent not once but twice made him believe her the most innocent woman he’d ever tupped. Certainly, she was the least experienced widow he could imagine.

In the morning, practically bouncing out of bed, Adam felt happier than he had since the awful instant he learned she’d left Bath — perhaps happier than he had ever been. More than that, he felt a peaceful joy because she hadn’t sent him away. Quite the opposite, they had finally consummated the intense attraction between them.

Not only was he eager to do it again, he wanted to do it with her for the rest of their lives. He’d awakened to the absolute knowledge that Alice should be his and his alone. After all, everything was different now. They were on an even footing socially, and thus, he no longer need worry about what people would think if he came home with a governess in tow.

He found her in the kitchen, seated on a stool, drinking tea. The cook was nearby, stirring porridge over a massive cast iron, wood-burning cookstove. Next to it was the ubiquitous Rumford roaster set in its brick housing in the wall, and on the other side, a bread oven.

“Good morning, Mrs. Georgie,” he greeted the older woman first, hoping for a goodly portion of breakfast. She looked over her shoulder with a friendly nod. “And good morning to you, my lady.” Adam wanted to restore Alice to her rightful place, even if only by showing her the respect of her title.

“Good morning.” She still had that slightly wary look upon her face, which she’d worn ever since they’d swived. “Did you sleep well?” she asked him.

“I did. Thank you.” Adam took the other stool. “I would say I slept like a baby, but I can recall my youngest sister as a baby awakening every few hours. Bri fussed and cried and woke up the entire household.”

“Bri?” she repeated. “An unusual name.”

“It is short for Brilliance,” he told her.

The cook glanced over her shoulder again, and her expression mirrored Alice’s.

“Do you not know any of my sisters?” Adam asked.

“I don’t,” Alice said. “Lady Beasley mentioned you have two older ones and two who are younger. The older ones were probably out in society before me for I do not remember meeting them.”

“Probably so. They are Clarity and Purity, both with husbands and children.”

He saw her exchange a look with Mrs. Georgie.

“And your other two sisters?” she asked. “Are they out in society yet?”

“To tell you the truth, I have lost track of whether Bri and Ray, short for Radiance, have been presented at court already.”

Another wide-eyed exchange.

“In any case,” Alice said, “I am sure I have not met any of them. While I doubt whether any of them would remember my name, I am certain I would remember any or all of theirs.”

Then she changed the subject. “Are you ready for some tea and porridge?”

While porridge wasn’t his favorite way to start the day, he agreed to a bowl of it.

“The weather is fine. May I take my mug and bowl outside? And will you join me?”

With an encouraging nod from Mrs. Georgie, Alice rose to her feet, her mug in hand, and accompanied him out the door and onto the back terrace. Unfortunately, there was no furniture. They sat together on the granite steps leading to the gardens.

“You have a lovely home.”

That made her laugh. “A spartan home at present, but I agree.”

After another moment, he asked, “What do you intend to do?”

Alice cradled her cup in her hands. “About what?”

Was she being obtuse? “About everything?”

“Thank you for the clarification. I am enjoying a little peace and quiet, or I was until you came along, all curious and handsome.”

It was his turn to laugh.

“Truly,” she added, “those are unsettling traits. In answer, I can honestly say I do not know. I cannot sell if I wanted to, as it must go to my heirs. And yet, it is doubtful I shall have any children. Moreover, if the roof starts to leak or any other calamity, there won’t be anything left for them to inherit.”

Adam thought she was too young to make such an assumption about her fertility. But on the other point, he wondered if he could offer assistance.

“One of my brothers-in-law is a solicitor. I wonder if there is some clause in the will that allows you to sell due to hardship. I cannot believe you are forced to let an estate like this crumble away. It would be better to sell while it still has a good roof. You could pay these people any wages owed to them with the profits.”

Alice shrugged, not looking inclined. “I would hate for them to lose this home with no way to earn a living.”

“And you, too, I imagine. You would hate not to have it to come back to.”

“I have always liked Stonely Grange. I cannot imagine not having it. I was thinking of asking in the town if there are any wealthy families nearby who have been looking for tutors and—”

“You wouldn’t?” Adam couldn’t hide his surprise. “Anyone hereabouts will know you as Lady Alice. And I do not care if this is the year of Our Lord 1851, titled ladies cannot be governesses or tutors. It is simply not done.”

“How else can I make money?” she asked. “How shall I survive?”

“You can marry me, and then you won’t need to worry about it.”