God, how he loved her for putting up with him.
When he had felt her tears against his neck, it was as if they entered his veins and coursed throughout his entire body, healing the last scars of his heart. She was crying for him, emotional for him.
She was happy with him.
It seemed a miracle. He would always value her love, but he thought he valued her happiness more. When she smiled, his entire world was painted in new colors. And when she whimpered...well.
That did something else to him altogether.
He spanked her, biting back gasps as each spank resulted in a tensing jerk at his cock. What a magnificent new activity to add to their repertoire. Between spanks, he teased and laved her nipples with his tongue, biting down now and again so that she squeezed around him even harder. He would have loved to do this for hours, spanking and caressing her and feeling her bear down around his organ, but he wasn’t going to last more than a few minutes.
“How does that feel?” he asked, spanking her again. “How do you feel, Aurelia?”
“I feel...at your mercy,” she gasped, still holding her luscious breasts. “I feel as if I’m going to explode.”
Did she have any idea that he felt the same way? His hips began to move against her in slow, measured increments. Her breath shuddered. She reached for him, but he made a warning sound.
“What are your instructions?”
“Oh please,” she cried. “Please let me hold you.”
He moved in her a little more. “You are holding me. Quite satisfactorily, I might add.” He fastened his lips over each nipple, exploring and sucking until she jerked against him. “Come for me, little grasshopper. My wonderful good luck charm. I want to feel you come.”
He caught her moans, drank them up in an encompassing kiss as he gave her a few final spanks and then clasped her against him. She wriggled and squeezed so expertly that he was hard pressed not to shoot inside her at once. He could see the signs of her impending climax, her stuttering pants, her wild gaze.
“Come for me,” he ordered, pulling her down harder upon his rod in quick, blunt jerks. “My beautiful love. My naughty wife.”
“Ohhh,” she cried, her exclamation resounding in the curtained window seat. She shuddered, fondling her breasts, bucking on his cock. Her walls clamped him in a rippling, delicious pressure.
He went off at once with a guttural groan, pressing her down so hard on his cock he worried he might injure her. But she only smiled and laughed with pure pleasure. He would always remember the first time he’d heard her laugh, the short, guilty burst of merriment when he’d flipped his fork into his forehead. To hear her laugh now with such abandon—as he gave her a rough rogering, no less—it made him feel replete.
When she collapsed against him, he held her hard, basking in her scent and her voluptuous femininity.
She loves me
, he thought.
And she accepts me just as I am.
He pulled her head back, threading his fingers through her hair, and gave her a deep, forceful kiss, communicating all the eager love he felt. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve such happiness,” he murmured against her lips.
“Well, that’s simple. You gave happiness in return, and taught me how to feel it too.” She paused, gazing up at him. “I did make you happy just now, didn’t I?”
He burst into his own merry laughter. “I think the answer to that is obvious, you little imp. Quite obvious.” He moved his still-hard cock within her sheath.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my.”
“Oh my, indeed. I believe I could go again, if you’re up for another ride, Lady Townsend.”
Over the sound of her soft giggles, he heard hoof beats in the courtyard. Not one horse, but a team, and the rattle of a coach. “What the devil?”
He shifted without disengaging her from his lap, so they could both look out the window. A grand, gilded traveling carriage wound around the front entryway led by a team of four, with two groomsmen at the front and two at the rear. They wore gleaming white and gold livery and smart red caps that matched the horses’ harnesses. He squinted at the ornate coat of arms on the side of the carriage. “Who would be coming to visit us at this hour? Do you recognize the crest?”
“Yes,” said Aurelia with a soft moan. “I recognize it well. That’s my father’s carriage. I think we’d better save the ride for another time.”
Hunter thought his wife was probably right about that. “Bloody hell,” he said, lifting her from his cock and helping her to her feet. He had the distinct feeling this wasn’t going to be a friendly visit.
Apparently the Duke of Lansing’s sphere of influence spread to the country shires after all.
A footman tapped at the door a few moments after they’d made themselves presentable, and handed Hunter a note. He flicked it open and scanned the contents.
“My lady, your father the duke awaits us downstairs in the front drawing room.” He turned back to his wife, watching the way she threaded her fingers together. “Everything will be fine, my love. You remain here while I meet with your father. Clement can help you compose your appearance, and stay with you until—”
“No,” said Aurelia. “I won’t let you face him alone.”
“But it’s undoubtedly my head he wishes to gnaw off.”
“He shall have to gnaw my head off too then.”
“Really, all this talk of heads being gnawed off,” he muttered under his breath.
“I believe you mentioned it first. Ah, here is Clement.”
The lady’s maid had spent many years in the Lansing household but her loyalties lay solely with her mistress. She moved into the room with brisk efficiency. “We’ll have you ready in no time,” she assured Aurelia. “And then you can go down on your husband’s arm.”
Hunter squeezed his wife’s hand and took himself off, leaving her in the woman’s capable care. He went to his rooms down the hall and had his valet freshen his appearance, and put on a newly pressed waistcoat and coat. His man configured a flawless, starched cravat knot within half a minute, which was one of the reasons Hunter paid him so well. After a quick glance in his looking glass, he met his wife outside her door. She looked pale and tense, the very image of the woman he’d married, the woman who had spent her early life under a tyrant’s hand.
“What if he’s here to take me away from you?” she asked.
“He won’t.”
“But what if he tries? He’s very powerful.”
Hunter placed a finger atop her lips. “No one is powerful enough to take you away from me. I’d never allow it. I’d fight him until my dying breath.” He moved his finger and pressed a kiss to her mouth instead. The rough embrace gentled to a tender exploration, and then he pulled away and smiled down at her. “Trust me. Everything will be well.”
He truly believed that, but he still proceeded with some trepidation toward the drawing room. The Duke of Lansing sat ramrod straight on a chair in the center of the room, attended by their household butler and his own stone-faced valet.
Aurelia stopped a few steps into the room and dropped a low curtsy as her father rose from his seat. “Papa. You should have said you were coming. What a joy to welcome you to our home.”
Her father screwed up a look that was not quite a smile and held out a hand to his daughter. “Come and give me a kiss, dear Aurelia.”
It pained Hunter to watch their stilted interaction, to include the air kiss she bestowed upon his jowled cheek. He determined then and there that he would be the exact opposite sort of father, and tumble about with his sons
and
his daughters, and greet them always with smothering hugs.
“Now,” the duke said in a commanding tone. “You must run along and leave me alone to talk with your husband.”
Aurelia took a couple steps back, but then stopped. “Anything you wish to say to my husband, you can say to me as well. We keep no secrets from one another.”
At that, the duke’s eyebrows snapped together in an almost comical fashion. Lansing scowled at Aurelia, but she held her ground, much to Hunter’s satisfaction. It was time for him to enter the fray. He moved toward Lansing in a manner of exaggerated ease. “Will you have some refreshments, Your Grace? We are not quite to the dinner hour.”
“I want no refreshments,” he said gruffly, sitting down again. Hunter led Aurelia to a nearby divan and settled beside her. Lansing glared at both of them. “I want a word with you alone, Townsend. Send your wife away.”
Your wife.
Not his daughter? Hunter took her hand. “As my wife already informed you, anything you have to say can be said in her presence.”
“Not this.” The duke glowered again at Aurelia. “It is impertinent to remain when you’ve been asked to leave.”
“I wish her to stay.” This time, Hunter’s reply was edged in steel. “Say what you must say. I assume from your demeanor this is not a friendly call.”
“I wish it were a friendly call,” the man blustered, “but your continued disgraceful activities preclude it from being so.”
“Papa,” Aurelia said sharply. “I do not think—”
Hunter held up his free hand, the one not clasped in Aurelia’s. “Let him speak, my love.”
“You call my daughter your ‘love,’” the duke sniffed. “It pains me to see such guile. My dearest Aurelia, I have it on the most confident word that your husband recently attended a debauched event in the company of low companions.”
“The masquerade at Lord Wroxham’s estate?” she asked. “I know he attended that event, because I was with him.”
Lansing’s brows snapped even tighter, and a flush spread across his face. Hunter imagined those brows tangling into a squirming knot and almost dissolved in laughter. Instead he squeezed his wife’s hand and somehow managed to keep a straight face.
“There is so little to do out here in the country,” Hunter said. “You must forgive us the occasional masquerade ball.”
“I am very disappointed in you.” The duke directed this remark to his daughter. “A masquerade such as the one your husband attended is no place for a well-bred lady.”
“I assure you I was not the only well-bred lady there.”
“That is not my point.” The duke banged the tip of his cane against the floor.
Hunter regarded him with warning in his gaze. “I would ask you not to take that tone of reprimand with my wife.”
“How about I take it with you then?” the duke barked. “What do you mean, taking my daughter to such a licentious gathering, particularly in the company of your no-good friends?”
“What do I mean?” Hunter repeated the duke’s words in an equally hard voice. “Perhaps I’m trying to make up for a decided lack of fun in her childhood. Perhaps I enjoy seeing her smile and make merry. Perhaps she demanded to go.”
“Never. Not my Aurelia. She was taught right from wrong.”
“She was taught to see impropriety and dissolution everywhere, even when it didn’t exist. She was taught that laughter was offensive, and smiling unladylike, no doubt by you.”
“The Lansing line has always been ruled by propriety. So was the Lockridge line until you came along, a bitter disappointment to the parents who gave you life, who depend on you to maintain the family’s honor—”
“Stop, Papa. Please.” Aurelia came to her feet and glared at her imposing sire. “I’ll not allow you to say such things to my husband. I’ll not allow you to insult him here in our home.”
“I am trying to make him stop insulting
you
, daughter. He’s insulting your honor and the honor of our family.”
“No,” she said, holding up her hands. “You’ve interfered enough. How could you know he was at Wroxham’s masquerade? How many spies are doing your bidding? You cannot continue to monitor his behavior as if he were your child. He’s a grown man. You must call off your informants and respect his privacy.”
“Don’t you want a civil, kind husband?”
Aurelia turned back to Hunter and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I do have a civil, kind husband, and I trust him completely. He has a care for my happiness, which you never did.”
Hunter wanted to pull her into his lap and kiss her. He would have, except that it would disprove her claim that he was civilized, and Lansing looked rather on the edge of a major apoplexy.
“Your daughter has the right of it,” he said instead. “You must let us make our own way. Perhaps your interference has served some purpose, but I assure you, Your Grace, that it is no longer necessary. I have been reformed of my hellion ways.”
“How can you say so?” he said. “I have it on authority that Wroxham’s party was the very vilest of routs. Are both of you so mired in depravity that you consider such activities mere country amusements?”
“We are not mired in anything but wedded love,” said Hunter. He looked hard at the duke, infusing each word with stern import. “I am deeply in love with your daughter. Her happiness is my entire world. So you may believe I would do nothing to threaten it. Not now, not ever.”
“Yes, Papa. So call off your spies,” Aurelia added with such heat that Hunter finally cracked a smile.
“There, there, my dear,” he chided softly. “He is still your father. You mustn’t be disrespectful. He was trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need his protection any longer.”
He leaned closer, so Lansing couldn’t hear him. “Naughty Aurelia. Remember that disrespectful girls get spanked.”
She gave a little snort of a giggle through her nose, then both of them were laughing like children, muffling their merriment with their hands. The duke stared at them as if they’d taken leave of their senses, which perhaps they had.
“Your mother will be greatly disappointed to learn of these changes in you,” he said, wagging a finger at Aurelia.
His wife lifted her chin. “I’ll be mother to my own children soon. I’m a married woman, for goodness sake. I think it’s high time she let me grow up and be my own person. You too, Papa.”
Mother to my own children
, she had said. His children.
Their children.
Hunter gazed at his wife with unbridled adoration. She wasn’t a mouse anymore, and what a fierce, wonderful mother she’d be.
“My dearest love,” he said, taking her in his arms. “You are brilliant.” He kissed her hard, caressing her belly where, perhaps, a child already grew. He was so charmed by the idea, he barely noted his father-in-law’s outraged gasp. The stodgy old aristocrat struggled to his feet.