The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton (7 page)

Chapter 9

Though not the best manners, sometimes you have to hit and run.

N
ot a moment too soon they pulled the barn door closed. Agreeing in sign language, she climbed a ladder to a hay loft, Mr. Compton following behind, his body crowding her up the narrow wooden ladder. In case Joe proved incapable of fobbing off their pursuers, they burrowed into the hay.

It was dark and cool and the hay smelled fresh and sweet. They lay on their sides, Mr. Compton behind her with one arm draped loosely over her waist. They seemed cut off from the world, the distant melody of birdsong and their soft breathing the only sounds. She was acutely sensible of his beating heart, his chest pressed against her back.

A cacophony of barking dogs and flapping hens shattered the stillness, then a counterpoint of male voices. Celia strained to hear through the open window of the loft and sensed Mr. Compton angle his head for the same reason.

Her instinct had been good. A familiar, slightly exotic voice asked—rather rudely—if a man and a woman, scantily clad, had passed that way. Thieving Gypsies, they were. Celia smiled. The man had no idea how to manage Joe. Predictably he received no answer at all.

The other man spoke for the first time, revealing a local accent and a better notion of how to make friends and gain information. “Our hound lost the scent at the crossroads. Followed you then. There’s a half crown for you if you tell where they’rt.”

Joe hemmed and hawed. “Might remember for five shilling.”

“Three.”

“Four.”

A pause. “Four then, but only if your news is worth it.”

“The brass first,” Joe said. “I know where.”

Mr. Compton’s arm tightened, heavy and comforting. His whisper buzzed in her ear. “Stay up here and let me do the fighting.”

A moment’s silence as Celia imagined rather than heard the clink of coins.

“I were driving home. Met Farmer Thorpe coming from crossroads. Man and a lass in his cart. Never seen them before. Reckon they be the ones.”

“And where’s Thorpe’s place?”

“Over to Bracewell.”

Their release of tension was mutual and simultaneous. So were their movements. Somehow she was on her back in the hay and he lay over her. A flutter of excitement rippled under her ribs. His mouth came down on hers.

She’d never been kissed before. Bertram had too much respect for her to take liberties beyond a salute on the back of her hand. She had imagined it a static experience, a mere meeting of stationary mouths. Instead his lips were warm and firm and very alive, nibbling at her own, coaxing her to open and admit the hot mist of his breath. Initial uncertainty quickly turned to pleasure. What a lovely feeling it was! She moved her own lips in return.

Good heavens! His probing tongue came as a shock, but one soon adjusted to. Caressing inside her mouth, it set up a tingling that somehow shot to her breasts, her hardening nipples, down through her torso and lower.

More than the physical reactions, delicious as they might be, kissing Mr. Compton gave her a feeling of intimacy, of knowledge of the man at a deeper level than the little she knew of his real person, or the false one she’d invented.

Tarquin.
No, Terence. And her pleasure was marred by a twinge of genuine guilt, the worst she’d suffered, that she had robbed him of his identity.

She thrust aside such inchoate thoughts. Leaning back into the bed of hay, she sensed her whole body soften, almost melt with blissful sensation. Without conscious knowledge, she parted her lips, welcoming his invasion. Her entire body relaxed into openness, ready for whatever came next.

What came next was a banging at the barn door. With a muttered oath Terence pulled back onto all fours. She lay still, staring at him, her brain void of a single sensible thought. He settled back on his heels and offered a hand to pull her up, then brushed off her hair and shoulders.

With trembling fingers she removed a handful of hay that clung to the crown of his head. “More of a scarecrow than a pirate now,” she murmured.

“And what do you think you look like?” Pale golden rays from the late afternoon sun came through the window, caught the swirling dust and lit his features. He smiled at her with an unguarded expression, perhaps a tender one. Her heart turned over. She cupped his bristly jaw and gazed into his eyes, trying to read the message in their basalt depths.

Then the barn door opened to admit a bath of light. “You can come down now,” Joe said. “They’ve gone.” She lowered her hand.

“Thank you, Joe,” she said, once they’d returned to the barnyard. “You saved us.” And gave his beefy arm a grateful squeeze.

“They’ll be right busy in Bracewell. Half the folks there are Thorpes.”

“That’s very clever!”

“We are most grateful for your assistance,” Terence said, holding out his hand. “We should be on our way.”

Joe ignored the hand. “I have coin now.”

“That was clever of you, too,” Celia said, “to make them pay you for false information.”

“I’ll give you three shilling,” Joe said. What a kind man, she thought, determined to reward him well once she had the means. He pulled the coins from his pocket and offered them to Terence. With his other hand he grasped her lower arm. “Three shilling and I keep the woman.”

Well, really! He didn’t even offer the full four shillings. Was that all she was worth? She couldn’t believe she’d been so mistaken in her gentle giant.

Terence seemed less flabbergasted than she by this turn of events. He stepped forward and pulled her away from Joe. “The lady is not for sale.”

Joe grinned. They already knew he enjoyed a negotiation. “Three and sixpence,” he offered.

“I’m afraid I am unable to oblige you, at any price.” Terence drew her close. He sounded as disinterested as Tarquin Compton refusing a glass of wine offered by a footman.

“Three and six and the boots.”

“No.”

“And more cheese.” Joe’s brow wrinkled with pain as Terence shook his head. “Four shilling then.”

“I’m sorry, but Celia is my woman and she stays that way.” She felt a little thrill of joy at being so claimed, at the sinewy strength of his arm about her waist.

His staunch refusal baffled Joe. He applied his powers of persuasion to her instead. “See what I have.” A sweep of his arm indicated the scope of his riches which were, to a country fellow, quite considerable. Come to think of it, they were quite considerable to her, too, her worldly value being precisely nothing. Half seriously she contemplated his offer. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d accepted a proposal for mercenary reasons.

“You can have the chickens for your own,” he coaxed.

Bertram had proposed to her because he had four sons to care for. A handful of chickens was a less burdensome gift, but still required attention. Why did men never offer her anything that came without responsibilities?

She looked at Joe’s ruddy complexion and rotting teeth, thought about kissing him, and shuddered. She breathed the odor of the sheep that she guessed sometimes shared his living quarters. When she accepted Bertram Baldwin’s proposal he hadn’t been a handsome man, nor was he young. But he did bathe.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” she said softly. “Thank you, but I don’t love you and I don’t believe I could.” She leaned into the shelter of Terence’s less earthy embrace.

Joe’s eyes shrank, slitted and blue in the florid folds of flesh. They surveyed the dandy’s trim figure, lingering below the waist. He no longer looked friendly. When compared to the farmer’s beefy shoulders, barrel chest and massive thighs, Terence, even at some inches over six feet, seemed puny. “You’ll be better with me. He’s but a small man, happen with a tiddly little pillock.”

Celia clapped a hand over her mouth; though unfamiliar with the phrase, she guessed its meaning and intent. Terence gave a snort of laughter. Immediately she knew that was an unwise reaction.

“I’ll fight you for her!”

Showing no sign of a very sensible terror at the prospect of engaging a man who outweighed him by several stone, Terence bent his knuckles and studied his fingernails. “You’d better get out of the way, my dear,” he said in a bored tone.

With a bullish bellow Joe charged. Considering and abandoning the idea of getting between the combatants, Celia stepped back, shut her eyes, and resigned herself to the demise of Tarquin Compton, alias Terence Fish, and her own future as Mrs. Joe.

A crack, a groan, and a crash followed in quick succession. When she dared look she saw Joe flat on his back and completely still.

“My goodness! How did you do that?”

Terence rubbed his knuckles. “I am an extremely skilled pugilist.”

“I had no idea. Did you?”

“Not until just before I hit him. Did I never mention to you that I was in the habit of boxing?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Odd.”

“Perhaps you decided to give it up when you became a clergyman. Fighting is not a suitable occupation for a man of the cloth.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Shall we leave, or do you think we should do something for poor Joe?”

“Poor Joe tried to buy you from me. I shouldn’t feel too sorry for him.” He bent over and felt the fallen farmer’s pulse, eliciting a faint moan. “He’ll be fine. Let’s go before he wakes up.” He picked up the sack containing the wonderful, precious food.

Chapter 10

However much you’ve learned from books, reality can still surprise.

C
elia had spent quite a lot of time over the past year feeling sorry for herself. But real hunger and not knowing where her next meal would come from lent perspective to her misfortunes. There were many people in the world—and she’d seen hordes of them in India—far worse off. She and Mr. Compton savored each bite of their meal, and prudently refrained from wolfing down every crumb. Enough remained for tomorrow, even though she felt pleasantly full and reasonably clean.

Terence wandered downstream in search of another trout pool. Whoever would have imagined the elegant man about town would be such a competent countryman, or such a brilliant fighter? Shamefully, she’d found the moment when Joe crashed to the ground exciting.

And then there was the kiss. Neither said one word about it as they trudged another hour or two over the hills in the long summer evening. Nor over bread and cheese. Yet the knowledge of that intimate encounter hung heavy between them. She’d found herself staring at his lips as he bit into an apple, and recalling their texture against her own. Perhaps it meant little to him; after all he must have kissed many women and it wasn’t as though she was a beauty. Of course he couldn’t remember any of those others. She tried to remember if she’d ever heard any whispers about Tarquin Compton’s amorous exploits. The fact that she couldn’t meant he probably didn’t dally with ladies. He probably consorted with women of the demimonde, beautiful and alluring.

Perhaps he had been carried away by proximity and would have kissed any woman with whom he’d been buried in the hay. Worse still, he might have felt he
had
to kiss her, because they were betrothed.

That line of thought was likely to make her feel sorry for herself again. Looking for something to divert her thoughts, she remembered the novel. What could be better than to curl up on the ground under her blanket and follow the adventures of Francis Featherbrain, which must surely be about to improve after a slow start.

He goes for a walk. Yawn. He meets the vicar’s wife. He walks and talks with the vicar’s wife. Even Celia’s life hadn’t been this dull. Surely
something
would happen soon.

The vicar’s wife wears scarlet fringed petticoats. Now that was unusual.

Oh my goodness
! And scarlet silk garters! Celia’s eyes popped as she read the consequence of this discovery: “I put both my legs between hers . . .”

Celia’s knowledge of mistresses wasn’t confined to the forbidden gossip of well-brought-up English virgins. Although it was a fact she’d been frequently told to forget, she’d shared a house with her father’s native Indian consort. The nature of her upbringing had made her informed about relations between a man and a woman, yet she couldn’t help being fascinated by the details. She felt a thrill of recognition at reading about the lady’s “coral bud of sensuality.” It came as a disappointment to discover that the youthful protagonist merely dreamed the encounter. She began the next chapter eager to discover if young Mr. Featherbrain managed to “swive” outside of his imagination.

Peter Aretin, whom she assumed was the author, was no master of English prose. As she read about Francis’s enrollment at Eton, his lodgings, and his study of the Latin classics, she quickly became bored and skipped to where he became interested in his landlord’s daughter and a maidservant. To the former he promises marriage.

Don’t believe him!
she wanted to shriek.
He may swear eternal love but he has been spying on you while you undress. There’s only one thing he wants from you.
She was right, of course. Over the poor girl’s protestations he sat her on the edge of a table and . . . oh dear! Amazingly she ended up enjoying it
. Her critical period arrived sooner than I expected. A tremulation possessed her whole frame—her eyeballs rolled as if convulsed, and her eyelids quivered, shook, opened and shut . . .

Celia tossed aside the book in disgust. The villain had seduced the unfortunate girl with promises that must surely be false. Featherbrain was a gentleman and never going to marry the daughter of a tradesman. And then, when the girl had very sensibly resisted his blandishments, he’d taken her against her will. To Celia’s mind the encounter was very close to ravishment, despite the girl’s eventual pleasure.

How could Terence—Mr. Compton—possess such a dreadful book? Was it really his?

Of course it was, hence his peculiar demeanor when he’d found her reading it before. He’d known exactly what it was. She ought to get rid of it, bury it in the ground perhaps. And yet . . . it intrigued her, despite, or perhaps because of the crude unfamiliar vocabulary and exact descriptions of private acts. Reading it made her feel hot and needy and damp between the thighs. She had enjoyed “critical periods” through her own ministrations, but reading about them provoked by the attentions of a man made her hungry for knowledge.

One thing was certain. She couldn’t let Terence know she’d been reading the book. Her face burned. Having buried it in the bottom of the sack, under the food, she walked the short distance to the brook. A little cold water on her glowing cheeks wouldn’t go amiss.

It felt good on her feet, too, sore from two days walking barefoot. She left her blanket skirt on the bank and wore only her shift, now a little grimy. She’d like to rinse it but recoiled from being left with only the blanket for coverage.

The shallow water ran swift, throwing up spray as it divided about the larger rocks in the streambed. She amused herself hopping from stone to stone, tickling her toes in the foam. Rounding a gentle curve that had been concealed by a stand of bushes, she stopped dead.

She’d had occasion to admire Terence’s bare chest. Nothing had prepared her for the sight of the whole man in his naked perfection, standing in midstream. Breathless she watched the contours of thighs and buttocks clench as he bent to scoop water between his palms. Then the muscles of his shoulders and back came into play as he raised one arm and splashed water down its length, rubbing the armpit and shoulder with circular motions of the other hand. He repeated the motion on the opposite side and her throat went dry.

Her feet clung to a damp boulder but she couldn’t retain her balance and she teetered, arms flailing. She tried to do it quietly and managed to remain upright, but made the tiniest splash as one foot landed in water. He turned to face her.

Hastily he lowered his hands over his groin but not before she was able to confirm, with some surprise, that Joe had been correct. Tarquin Compton, though unusually tall, had a tiddly little pillock. Not that she had any basis for comparison, but based on her recent reading she would have expected it to be larger. Stammering and blushing she took to her heels, floundering back upstream and out of sight and giving him, she feared, a good view of her retreating bottom.

Terence already knew Celia had beautiful legs and when she’d removed his boots he’d seen her shapely behind. It looked even better bare, firm cheeks revealed by the movements of her shift as she ran away. He wanted to call her back.

W
hen Joe had insulted his manhood he hadn’t been bothered since he knew it wasn’t true. This was an item of personal knowledge that apparently survived memory loss. Besides, he’d checked at the first opportunity.

But being caught shriveled by a cold water bath, he wanted to assure Celia it wasn’t always like this. Especially when the sight of her had him rapidly regaining length and girth. He repressed the urge to chase her, absurd since an innocent like Celia wouldn’t even understand the significance of what she’d seen. Surely she wouldn’t. She’d have no reason to think ill of him.

He needed to face a fact that had become obvious since the kiss in the hayloft, a kiss that might have led to something more had they not been interrupted: he desired her. More than that, he found her extremely appealing. And if that was so, perhaps their engagement was a real one and there was no nefarious ulterior motive involved in his pursuit of her. And yet, there was still the mystery of his name and background. The ache from his assailant’s blow prickled in the back of his head, not enough to hurt, merely to impede his powers of reason. It was time, he decided, to find out a little more about his betrothal and his past relations with Celia. Even if it meant holding a conversation on an intimate subject when all alone with a woman he wanted to bed.

As well as washing himself, he’d rinsed out his fine knitted drawers, a task he performed with no sense of familiarity whatsoever. However he loathed the feeling of soiled linen and hoped the garment would dry overnight. He spread it over a bush and pulled his calf-length pantaloons over his bare arse.

He found her seated under a tree, those long legs folded primly and covered. But something had changed. She no longer looked like a prim governess, nor an ungainly girl. Under the worst of circumstances, clad in a grubby chemise and a blanket, uncombed hair rioting over her shoulders, she looked like a siren, made to lure him to his doom.

Taking a deep breath, he wrestled for control. To take advantage of her under these circumstances would be highly dishonorable. He was certain she had no notion of the effect she had on him. He sat down near her, one leg folded beneath him, the other bent against his chest.

“That was a rather awkward encounter,” he said, hoping his voice projected tranquility and reassurance.

“It’s all right,” she said in a small voice. Her gaze darted back and forth between his limbs and the ground. Naturally she was embarrassed. It was up to him, as the man, to take the lead and put her at ease.

“We find ourselves in an unusual position. Traveling together like this has thrown us into an intimacy that isn’t normal or proper for an uarried couple,” he said, seeking the right note: sensible, cool, restrained. She nodded, her eyes now fixed on a spot next to her knee.

“I’m sure in the past we were always chaperoned, or at least there were other people nearby. A kiss under those circumstances can’t go too far. You probably don’t understand what I’m talking about, but we must be careful we don’t let nature take its course.” He feared he sounded like a pompous idiot. Better that than a blackguard.

“We never kissed.”

That took him aback. “Never?”

“No,” she said. “You always treated me with the greatest respect.”

Instead of relief he felt an irrational indignation. “I do not believe it shows any lack of respect to kiss the woman one is to marry. The woman one purports to love.” He frowned. “It sounds to me like I was—am—a prig.” Perhaps he was going to be a parson, after all. Or perhaps, whatever his motive in lying to her, he had some sense of honor.

She looked up and her gray eyes were huge and bright. “I wanted you to kiss me,” she said.

An invitation he ought to resist. Just one kiss, he reasoned. To refuse would be to insult a lady.

Leaning over he put one hand to her chin. Her wide, plump mouth opened. Kissing, like all lovemaking, improved with familiarity and practice. Last time he hadn’t known what to expect. Now he knew her to be both inexperienced and willing. So he took her mouth gently and firmly and was stunned by his own reaction at her eager response to his invasion.

“I’ll give you a thousand kisses,” he croaked just before he completely lost his senses and toppled her to the ground.

Any notion of gentlemanly restraint faded. Somehow they stretched out on the straggly grass, mouths devouring, bodies straining against each other. He cupped a breast, firm beneath his hand and he felt his erection swell as his thighs straddled her hip. Pushing aside the linen shift, questing fingers found plump peachy skin and a taut nipple. She gasped at the touch and thrust her chest forward, begging for his caress. He obliged her by taking first one nipple and then the other in his mouth and sucking hard, eliciting further pleasured moans. Her hands cradled his head and tugged it back to her lips. “Kiss me again,” she said greedily.

“A thousand kisses,” he repeated, “and then a hundred more,” and recognized the origin of the sentiment. The fact that a student of the church knew the erotic poetry of Catullus was a reflection that could only distract him for an instant. His brain emptied of anything but Celia’s kisses, her soft strong flesh under his hands, his raging desire to possess her, and her keen response to his attentions.

Getting rid of her “skirt” was laughably easy, a most convenient fashion. Then he pulled back onto one elbow and pushed up the too-short chemise. Reverently he stroked the deep curve of her hips and brushed her smooth belly, feeling the gentle ripple of muscles at his touch. Her responsiveness fascinated him. Her pelvis lifted in invitation or command and he felt his cock leaping in reply, straining against cloth. He placed his palm over her mound of Venus, sensing its contours through the reddish-brown curls, pressing against his hand. Her breath came faster. A delicately inserted finger found her wet. A little more foreplay and she’d be ready, ready to take his swollen, aching cock into her hot quim.

Her hot, virgin quim.
Damn, damn, damn.

With supreme effort and a growl of pain he rolled over a full turn and landed three feet from her.

“What?” Her exclamation combined confusion and indignation as she struggled to a sitting position.