Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

T hey made it back to the Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy mansion without incident, which didn’t surprise Izzie in the least. What sort of fool would attack a convoy of ironworkers armed with pickaxes and sledgehammers?

Of course, a man with a gun would change the balance of power considerably. But Izzie thought it noteworthy that, up until this point, none of the attackers had brandished a firearm, which seemed curious for a group smuggling those very weapons.

Izzie said as much to Archibald as a series of footmen filed into their bedroom with cans of hot water for her husband’s bath. “It’s enough to make me wonder if Mr. Cooper and his friends were really the ones responsible.”

“He’s denied any involvement. In fact, he claims to have no idea who you are,” Archibald noted. The final footman exited the room, closing the door behind him, and Archibald peeled off his shirt. “Not that I’m much inclined to take him at his word. He’s also refused to reveal the buyer of those stolen guns.”

Izzie removed the coat of her traveling costume. The tear was right along a seam, meaning it could be mended. She wondered if she would be able to wear it again, or if the mere sight of it would make her shudder. “I can’t imagine what they would want with me, now that Cooper and MacDonald have been arrested. It’s not as if I know anything about the men they were working for.”

Archibald was unbuttoning his trousers. “Ah, but do they know that? They weren’t there in the dark walks. They might believe you heard more than you really did.”

Izzie followed suit, removing the long skirt of her traveling costume and draping it over the back of a chair. “That’s the question, I suppose. Did the three assailants who were captured this afternoon reveal anything useful?”

“I’m given to understand that they did not,” Archibald said, removing the last of his clothes and stepping into the tub. “They were reportedly of a similar ilk to the men who attacked you in Lady Waldegrave’s garden—local delinquents well known to the magistrates but with no appearance of being part of any higher criminal order. All three say they were hired by a man with dark hair. This man appears to be of a somewhat higher social standing. They reported that he was well-dressed, and his hair was styled with pomade.”

“That could be the man who tried to drag me into the carriage. The one who gave me this.” Izzie gestured to the welt that had formed over her cheekbone.

Archibald’s expression darkened. “What I wouldn’t give for five minutes alone with him.”

Izzie smiled as she removed her stays. “Five minutes. You could probably accomplish what you have in mind in five seconds. He wasn’t much of a physical specimen, although he was stronger than me.”

“The only information the men who were captured had about him was that he called himself George Smith.”

“Which isn’t much of a lead even if it is his real name.”

Archibald hummed in agreement. “You can’t think of anyone else who could be behind… Izzie! Wh-what are you doing?”

He seemed to notice for the first time that she had been undressing alongside him. Tossing the shift she had just pulled over her head on the floor, she climbed into the tub behind him. “Washing your back,” she murmured as she took the sponge from his hands.

“Washing my… You don’t have to do that.” He promptly undermined his own words by groaning with pleasure as she went to work.

“I’d like to,” she said honestly. “Just look at you, Archibald! I enjoy your appearance from the front so much, I don’t spend nearly enough time admiring your back.” She made an appreciative sound as she soaped some bulging muscles in his shoulders that she was fairly certain she did not possess. Truly, her husband was a magnificent specimen.

He sounded dazed as he protested, “I’m sure I’m not… smelling… like a rose.”

She cooed as she ran the sponge down one of his arms. “You keep saying that, but really, you don’t smell so bad. Besides, you’ll be completely fresh in five minutes.”

“Still, I wouldn’t want to get you all—” Whatever he had been going to say was cut off by a groan as Izzie lay aside the sponge and started soaping his hair. She massaged his scalp, scouring it with her nails. Archibald’s head lolled to the side, and she was pleased to see an expression of bliss on his face.

She rinsed his hair, then went to work massaging all those glorious muscles in his back. By now, he was making helpless sounds of pleasure.

She took up the sponge again, reaching around to soap his chest. She scooted forward so her front side was pressed flush against his back. His breath was coming in short pants, and she could see the tip of his erect cock breaking the surface of the water.

Once she was finished washing his chest, she set aside the sponge and began soaping up her right hand in a deliberate fashion. “Is there anywhere else you could use a rub… I mean, a scrub?”

Archibald’s only answer was a groan.

She stroked her soapy fingers across his stomach, which had gone stiff as an iron plate. She made her voice teasing as she whispered, “Any places that are feeling very, very dirty?”

She slipped her hand beneath the water, finding him easily enough. Smiling against the back of his neck, she began to stroke her hand up and down his length. “Oh, my. It seems like you could use some help with this.”

His voice had grown breathless. “You don’t ha… don’t have to…”

She giggled against his neck. “You keep saying that, too. You’re normally very observant, so I’m not sure how it has escaped your notice that I like making love with you.”

A strangled moan was as much response as Archibald could manage.

The soap dissipated quickly in the bathwater, so Izzie slipped around Archibald in the tub, straddling him. He groaned as she lined him up with her entrance. “I also enjoy driving you out of your mind,” she said conversationally as she slid down the length of his cock. “It’s becoming my favorite hobby.”

She enjoyed the way her exceptionally brainy husband’s eyes went out of focus and the fact that she seemed to have rendered him speechless. Smiling, she looped her arms around his shoulders for purchase and began teasing him with slow, deliberate strokes. “Do you like fucking me in the tub, Archibald?”

His whole body jerked as she said the naughty word. Being an upstanding sort of man, he tried not to use that sort of language in front of her. Not that he always succeeded when she was doing to him… what she was doing to him right now.

But, based on the pulse his cock gave inside of her, it roused him exquisitely to hear it on her lips.

She decided a little torture was in order. “I love fucking you. I love the fact that you can’t resist me. I love teasing you until you get a cock-stand, and then I love how embarrassed you are about it. I love opening up your trousers while you’re trying to apologize and making you feel good. I loved fucking you on your desk, with all your workers on the other side of the door. Do you think they all knew what we’d just done by the look on our faces? Because you walked out of there with the loose-jointed stride of a man who’s just reached his pleasure? Do you think they all elbowed each other and grinned as soon as we were gone, because they knew I’d just made you come?”

Her little speech was having the predicted effect. Archibald had seized her hips and was doing most of the work for her, sliding her up and down his cock with quick, rhythmic strokes. He was so lost to the pleasure he looked almost drunk.

Izzie continued, enjoying herself. “I want to fuck you in the carriage. I want to fuck you on that same garden bench where we had our second kiss. I want you to pin me down and toss up my skirts and take me in the moonlight. I want to fuck you in the dark walks at Vauxhall. We can pretend it was the first night we met, that we bumped into each other unexpectedly. And you aroused me so much with your kiss, I just had to have your cock.”

He was pumping into her desperately now. His entire body had hardened to stone. Izzie knew he was getting close.

She leaned forward and brought her lips to his ear. “I want to suck your cock at a crowded party behind nothing but a potted palm. I know you would try to decline that one, but we both know I could tease you until you got hard, that I could drive you so far out of your mind that you would be begging me for sweet, sweet relief. I hope someone would come along and catch us, would see the look of pure bliss on your face, and notice me kneeling at your feet. It wouldn’t be that scandalous. We are husband and wife, after all. But they would titter, and the gossip on everyone’s lips that night would be what a lucky fellow you are.”

His big body was trembling beneath her. “Izzie… Izzie! Oh, my God, I… I…”

His hips bucked up out of the tub as he came. She clung to his shoulders as he pounded into her, making sounds of pleasure that were more animal than human.

Slowly, his strokes slowed until he collapsed, boneless, against the back of the tub, cradling her against him. She laid her head on his chest and enjoyed listening to the pounding of his heart as it gradually slowed back to its normal tempo.

After a few minutes, he shook himself, then rose from the tub in one smooth motion, lifting her up with him.

“Archibald?” she asked as he gently set her down and dried them both with a towel. “What are you doing?”

As soon as they were dry, he scooped her up in his arms and strode toward the bed. “Taking my revenge.”

“Your revenge?” she asked as he lay her down upon the counterpane. “That sounds… intriguing. What do you mean your…”

He pressed her thighs open.

“Your…” she added weakly as she felt his warm breath between her legs. “Your…”

As his tongue found that little pearl between her legs, her head fell backward, her question forgotten. And, indeed, Archibald had his revenge.

Three times.