My Fair Groom (The Sons of the Aristocracy) (14 page)

Chapter 17

The Earl and an Innkeeper Redux

Sarah Cumberbatch watched the revelry in the public room, amazed at how many people had come to celebrate Angus McElliott’s birthday. The taproom was just as crowded, the noise level higher there than out where she stood. As she scanned the crowd once more, she realized she hadn’t seen Gabriel Wellingham since she’d left his room earlier that afternoon. Bobby had mentioned he would be returning for the night; apparently the earl was afraid his room might be let to someone else if he left the grounds.

A frisson passed through her lower belly just then, reminding her of the afternoon with the earl.
I cannot continue to see him
, she thought just then, realizing after a moment just how ridiculous the vow sounded even to her own mind. Gabriel Wellingham was an earl. If he wanted her, she would make herself available, if for no other reason than ...

I am fond of him
.

The simple thought had her straightening where she stood.
Margery was right
. How could the barmaid know, though? How could someone simply look at her and know that she felt affection for the Earl of Trenton?

“A penny for your thoughts, my lady.”

Sarah inhaled sharply as she turned to regard the devil himself. “My lord,” she answered automatically. At his suddenly raised eyebrow, she swallowed. “Gabriel,” she said quickly. “How does the evening find you?”

The expression on the earl’s face changed from one of happiness to one more quizzical. “I am ... well,” he replied uncertainly. “But I will be much better later. When we’re ... alone ..  . again,” he stammered, as if he had suddenly lost his nerve – and his confidence. “These are for you.” A bouquet of spring flowers suddenly appeared in front of Sarah, the cacophony of colors and scents a delightful surprise.

“They’re beautiful,” she breathed, her eyes directed at Gabriel’s before she suddenly glanced around the room, as if she was afraid someone might have seen the earl giving her the flowers. But the patrons of the Spread Eagle had their attentions on Angus and the antics of his brother, who was taking turns at dancing with Margery and then with his wife.

“I missed you,” Gabriel whispered, leaning in just a bit so that his words could be heard above the din.

Sarah gave him a nervous glance. “I have ... responsibilities here,” she said as she indicated the room.

“I understand,” Gabriel replied with a nod. “Would you be missed if you left this room right now, though?” he wondered, his cock hardening at the thought of Sarah beneath him at that very moment.

Her breaths coming in short gasps, Sarah stared at the earl for a moment.
How can I allow this to happen again?

How can I not?

“Not a bit,” she said with a shake of her head, realizing he was expecting her in his room that very moment.
I shouldn’t do this. I should give him my regrets. I should lock myself in the office. I should ...
Sarah turned and began climbing the stairs, leaving the surprised earl to watch her swaying derriere as she did so.

“Would you like an ale?” the inn owner asked the earl as he held out a mug in Gabriel’s direction.

Gabriel gave one glance at the stairs and turned to regard Mr. Bristow. “I’ll take one to my room, if I might,” he said in response. “I believe I shall retire now.”

The innkeeper’s eyes widened. “Now?” John Bristow countered, surprised. “I apologize, my lord, but the noise will be a bit loud for some time.”

Smiling, Gabriel took the proffered mug and slapped a hand against Mr. Bristow’s arm. “It won’t bother me a bit,” he replied before turning to climb the stairs. He had to be careful not to take them two at a time.

Outside his room, Gabriel leaned one ear against the door and listened for a moment. Rapping a knuckle three times against the recently painted wood, he opened the door and peeked around the edge. Sarah, holding her bouquet above a glass vase, glanced in his direction before lowering the stems into the water. He had a passing fantasy of her holding those flowers at their wedding. Of her dressed in a simple gown. Of her hair wound into its messy bun at the back of her head. Of her glancing at him as she did just then.

Anticipation.

The feeling was palpable. Gabriel leaned against the door until it shut. He reached back, never taking his eyes off of her as he turned the key. “I want you,” he whispered, the words sounding as if they were said by someone else. He didn’t wait for a reply, but took the three steps that separated them, wrapped one arm behind her back and the other around her head, planting his lips over hers in a kiss that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but what he intended.

Possession.

Sarah gave in to Gabriel’s kisses, her breaths short as one of his hands removed the pins from her hair and the other slid across her back and to the side of a swollen breast. She inhaled sharply at the sensation, her lips breaking with his.

He used the opportunity to press his forehead against hers, his lips a mere inch from hers. “You are mine,” he whispered hoarsely. “You will stay in my bed for the entire night,” he added, keeping his breaths steady until he felt her nod against his forehead.
The rest of our lives
, he wanted to stay. But now was not the time to be thinking of forever. Now he wanted her naked, naked and beneath him so that he might worship her body with his lips and tongue.

Her head spinning, as much from the lust she’d felt since the earl had demanded her presence in his room as from the sensations he was creating with his artful kisses and caresses, Sarah gave in and allowed Gabriel to pull her gown from her body, to undo the ties that held her corset closed in the front, and to remove her chemise.

At some point, her fingers moved to his buttons, undoing the row of his topcoat followed by the longer row of his waistcoat beneath, followed by those that held up the fall of his breeches. His manhood was suddenly pressed into her belly, its throbbing tip leaving a moist trail in its wake.

But her feet suddenly left the floor as Gabriel lifted her into his arms, turned, and lowered her to the bed. He moved so that he followed her down, his lips covering first one nipple and then the other, his tongue laving across each until Sarah’s soft gasps turned to mewling. Moving lower, his lips caressed the soft skin beneath her breasts all the way down to her belly, sending skitters of pleasure coursing through  her flesh. Sarah nearly wept when he wrapped one arm beneath her knee and lifted it so that his lips could suckle the milky white skin of a thigh. And try as she might to anticipate where his lips might next touch her, she cried out in surprise as his tongue suddenly delved into the moist folds of flesh between her thighs, and she cried out again as it brushed across her womanhood.

Even before her arcing back could lift her torso from the mattress, Gabriel had a hand over one of her breasts, a nipple poking between two of his fingers as he held her down. When his lips finally closed over the red nub his tongue had teased to its most sensitive fullness, he suckled gently, sending a shock wave of sharp, intense pleasure through her lower body. Sarah  cried out one last time, her fingers diving into his curls so that she might hold his head back just a bit from her womanhood. Gabriel’s tongue reached out one last time and made contact, the touch sending a myriad of sensations coursing through her entire body.

Gabriel watched as Sarah’s body gave into the orgasm, watched as her torso arced up and her swollen breasts lifted, as her hands let go of his head and fell to the bed, boneless. Smiling, he moved his lips to her other knee and planted a kiss there, feeling even more satisfied when her body seemed to react as if he had restarted the orgasm with a simple kiss.

His cock so hard he thought it was about to burst, Gabriel moved above her body, and slowly, very slowly entered her wet haven. The spasms of her orgasm seemed to pull him into her – he found he couldn’t pull out and so simply allowed himself to go deeper until he could go no further. And then suddenly her legs were wrapped around his back and his sac was pressed against her quim.

Gabriel had thought he could hang on, could hold out until he was sure she had felt every ounce of pleasure possible, but his own orgasm had already taken hold.

Within seconds, every nerve ending seemed to erupt in a cascade of intense pleasure. His back tensed, and his seed was propelled deep inside her. He knew he had made some sort of sound as his body was suddenly taken from him, but even his ability to hear seemed to have left him. Deafened, boneless, and exhausted, he lowered himself onto Sarah’s body, his head landing in the space above her shoulder. The last thing he remembered was Sarah’s arms wrapping around his back before his world went completely black.

Chapter 18

A Misstep Leads to a Mistake

Monsieur Girard regarded his students with derision. Just what could Lady Julia be thinking in expecting the young gentleman to learn the steps to the English Country Dance in just two week’s time? The man seemed to have been born with two left feet and an attitude closer to that of the young bucks he was hired to teach when they were in their teen years. Although, to the man’s credit, he actually seemed to
know
the steps. When he was in the company of the earl’s daughter, however, Mr. Comber was suddenly unsure, moving quite nicely for several beats and then stumbling or double-stepping or otherwise ruining the dance so that Lady Julia would be forced to stumble or double-step or otherwise move aside in order to protect her dainty feet from being trod upon.

Poor girl!

Whatever had made her decide it was important for this man to learn how to dance?

“Monsieur Comber, I do believe you were nearly successful in that last attempt,” the dance master spoke with what sounded like true praise.

Lady Julia’s eyebrows arched up, displaying her surprise at Girard’s comment, but she held her tongue and inhaled as if to catch her breath.

“You don’t believe him,” Alistair stated, obviously offended by her reaction to Girard’s comment. He lowered his voice. “For once, he was actually right. I
almost
had it that time.”

And he had.

But somewhere in the last eight counts, his eyes locked on one of Lady Julia’s delicate collarbones and followed it to the hollow of her throat. The rhythm of her pulse, quite visible beneath her fair skin, wasn’t quite in time with the music. Worse yet, his manhood was responding in ways that would make its presence known in short order.

Alistair tried to concentrate on something else, raising his eyes so they followed the line of her jaw to her earlobes. When that didn’t help the situation, he allowed his gaze to wander over her eyebrows, down her pretty nose, across her high cheekbone, along her curled lashes.

His own pulse, suddenly pounding in his ears and reinforcing the rhythm of hers, made it impossible for Alistair to dance to Monsieur Girard’s metronome. Instead, he took the double-step to match his pulse and nearly collided with Lady Julia.

Her shoulders visibly sagging, Julia nodded. “Then, please, let us hope you can get through the entire dance without making a mistake
this
time,” she whispered in reply.

Frowning, Alistair regarded his dance partner for a moment. “Yes, milady,” he responded curtly.
The hour must be nearly over
, he hoped. One more attempt, and he’d be free to return to his duties in the stables.

But, for once, Alistair found he didn’t want to return to the stables. He wanted to continue gazing at the pretty porcelain-skinned young woman standing before him, her blonde hair swept up in an elegant bun with spiral tendrils adorning her temples. He wanted to be undoing the buttons down the back of the mint green gown she wore. He wanted to remove her gloves and her stockings and her petticoats. He wanted to be doing far more than just gazing at her. And his hardening cock was about to become a testament to his sudden wants.

“Really, there’s no need to use that tone, Mr. Comber,” Julia replied in a hoarse whisper.

Later, when he had a chance to analyze exactly which words could bring him back to the here and now and bring his cock into sudden submission, Alistair would realize
those words
, said with such direct precision, would do the trick quite nicely.

For they did.

But rather than accept her gentle prodding for what it was and let the comment pass, Alistair straightened. His gaze, only a moment before one of appreciation, was suddenly hard. “There will be no
satisfying
you, will there, milady?” he ground out between clenched teeth.

As if she’d been slapped across the face, Julia took a step backwards, her entire body wavering until she was able to straighten her frame and take a quick breath. “Well ... I ... I
never!
” she exclaimed, her eyes shooting daggers. The word ‘never’ was emphasized by the sudden stomp of her right foot onto the ballroom floor.

Alistair could feel the impact through the floor boards and found himself impressed that her dance slipper could cause such a thunderous
thump
. He even wondered for a moment if she’d broken her foot in the process, but he quickly found his voice. “And
that
, my lady, is your problem,” he retorted with a hint of menace, the volume of his comment deliberately kept low so it couldn’t be overheard by the dance master.

Julia reeled at his response.
How dare he?
How dare he speak to her as if ... as if she were some recalcitrant child? And just what did he mean with the comment?
I never ... never what?
she wondered. Even before she had considered the obvious meaning, she found herself curtsying, for the rake had suddenly stepped back and was bowing to her. Before she could give him a response to his impertinent statement, Alistair had turned on his heel and was making his way out of the ballroom and, presumedly, back to the stables.

Well!
Good riddance,
she thought as she realized she’d been holding her breath and suddenly gasped for air. She dared a glance at the dance master. Monsieur Girard stood at his usual spot, one hand rubbing the side of his face while his eyes seemed to be studying the ballroom ceiling.

Julia wondered if the man had overheard their exchange, and decided the emptiness of the room had made their words quite audible to anyone who was therein.

Damnation!

Lowering her eyes to the floor where Alistair’s feet had been only a moment ago, Julia took another steadying breath before returning her attention to Monsieur Girard. “Thank you for your time today, Monsieur,” she said with a forced smile. “Same time tomorrow?”

The dance master quickly hid his look of shock. “As you wish, my lady,” he said with a nod. “If you’re sure Mr. Comber is of a mind to continue the lessons,” he added, the tone of his voice suggesting he didn’t think the young gentleman-to-be would return for a another lesson.

Julia gave the man a brilliant smile. “Oh, Mr. Comber will be of a mind, I assure you,” she replied sweetly before giving Monsieur Girard a deep curtsy. “Potter will see you out,” she added as she spied the butler standing at the ballroom door. She hurried to make her own escape from the ballroom, nodding to Potter as she passed him.

At first she thought to go to her bedchamber, the thought of being able to punch her mattress in lieu of Mr. Comber giving her a feeling of
satisfaction
. But when she noticed how bright the day seemed as she walked past the open door to her mother’s salon, she decided instead to head for the back garden. A bit of fresh air would do her good, she thought, and the sun would help to raise her spirits. At some point, she would have to face the groom and beg forgiveness.

Although, for the life of her, Julia couldn’t think of what she had done wrong.