Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) (33 page)

“Progress.”

“It isn’t love.”

“Have I asked for that? If you are with child, we have some time before we’d need to confess the sin of a clandestine marriage.”

“That’s absurd.” She pressed his handkerchief to her eyes. “What if I’m not? We’d be married. A divorce or annulment would be a worse scandal than a secret marriage. And that’s supposing you could get one.”

“No divorce. No annulment.” He hesitated, and she had the impression that he discarded several thoughts before settling on what to say. “If we don’t marry, and there’s a child, the damage to Hester’s reputation might well be irreparable.”

“We can’t marry in secret.”

“I don’t see why not.” He shrugged. “I leave the choice to you.”

“I’ve never been able to deceive Mountjoy. He’ll know. He’ll take one look at me and know.”

“Then we’ll tell him.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it.

“Tell him what? That we must marry?”

“I’ll tell him I love you.”

“God, Fenris, no. No lies. Please. Besides, he wouldn’t believe you.”

She could see him try not to scowl and fail at it. “Why do you persist in coloring my every remark with the worst possible intent?”

“I promise you, Mountjoy will know if you lie to him. You can’t tell him that. No one will believe it.”

“I’ll tell him the truth, then.”

She sat down hard on one of the chairs. For several seconds she stared at her lap. “One duel is more than enough.”

When she looked up their gazes locked. “Lord, Ginny, how late are you?”

She swallowed hard, got up and paced to the sofa, and stared at one of the carved roses again. “Not very.”

“Not very? Marriages are made on less certainty than that.”

She pressed a finger on each of the petals of the rose in turn. “I’m sure I’m not. I mean to say, I’d feel something if I were, and I don’t.”

Fenris strode away. She presumed he was headed toward the door. Thank God for that, for she did not want him to see her break down. But he didn’t proceed to the door. No, he stopped near her. Behind her. “Ginny,” he said.

She jumped, because he was much closer than she expected. And now the chimney glass reflected back her face and his. Objectively, they made a handsome couple. Him with his dark hair and hers so pale in comparison. If one knew nothing about them, one might think they suited.

“I beg your pardon.” His voice was soft. Too soft. “I did not intend to startle you.”

She watched him in the glass. He was a man of great physical presence. “It’s nothing. It’s just I never thought I’d be in such a predicament as this.”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

Eugenia turned around. “There.” She lifted her chin so she could look him in the face. “Better?”

“Yes.” But now it was his turn to look away. He touched the carved rose. “How many petals?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. You were counting.” He lifted his head again and held her gaze. She’d rather have died than looked away from him when he so plainly meant to challenge her.

“Thirteen.” She turned sideways to him and swept a finger over the wood. One of the servants must have built up the fire, for the room felt unnaturally warm to her.

Fenris cocked his head. “Thirteen, you say? That seems an unlucky number. Are you sure you counted right?”

“Of course I did.” She seized on the change of subject. Anything but the possibility that he’d gotten her with child. That she’d been so stupid, so ignorant as to allow that to happen between them. Mountjoy would guess. He would, and she didn’t want him to think so ill of her.

“I wonder why the man who carved this wasn’t more careful.”

Thirteen petals. She counted again to be sure. “There’s no pride in workmanship these days.”

Fenris laughed and, blast him, she smiled back. He didn’t seem upset, and that was something. He wasn’t blaming her for this. He never would, either. No matter what happened.

In the space between breaths, her body provided a forceful reminder of how attractive a man he was. “I’ll write Mountjoy and tell him the piece must be replaced.”

“Why? You might call in a carpenter and have the carving
altered. Remove a petal from here. Or here.” He pointed in turn.

She leaned a hip against the sofa and crossed her arms underneath her bosom. The moment seemed so normal. Why, she couldn’t be pregnant. Not after so few encounters. Such things happened, yes, but not to her. Not to men like Fenris.

His attention dipped, oh so briefly, and it was as if he’d physically touched her, leaving behind nothing but heat. “That won’t alter the fact that the piece was carved with a thirteen-petaled rose.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He was standing near enough now that his shoulder brushed hers. Purely accidental, but with the contact, her awareness of him as a thoroughly male man blossomed. “Shall we burn it at the stake?”

She laughed, and his eyes, his beautiful, soulful eyes, darkened. Desire slithered through her. She refused to acknowledge the reaction, but that didn’t change the fact of her experience. “I wonder how bad the case is?” She touched the carved wood. What if they had been unlucky? Knowing Fenris would marry her mattered more than she could say. “How many thirteen-petaled roses are carved onto this sofa?”

“Thirteen?”

“Heaven help us if that’s so.” She summoned a smile, but it felt as pale as the violets he’d given her.

“Should we count them?”

Eugenia shook her head. “Too dangerous. Thirteen. Unlucky number.”

He nodded gravely and stroked his chin. “Might we omit the number? Skip from twelve to fourteen, for example. Or invent a number. Huberteen, perhaps?”

“Huberteen.” She smiled in spite of everything. “Would that mean huber takes the place of three?” She counted roses carved into the left side of the sofa. “…two, huber, four, five…”

He put his hand over hers and pressed gently down. Her pulse jumped. She didn’t dare move for fear she would
betray herself to him. “Don’t tempt fate, Ginny. Not again with all those unlucky flowers.”

The moment her reply formed in her brain, the ill-advised words left her mouth. She wanted them back, but she’d let them free and they hung in the air, accusing her of unintended meaning. “I never took you for a superstitious man.”

He touched his medallion, rubbing a finger over the metal surface. “That proves how little you know me.” He took the disc between thumb and forefinger. “I believe utterly in the power of this, for example. If I believe in that, why shouldn’t I believe in the possibility of ill luck if we discover there are thirteen thirteen-petaled roses carved into this sofa?”

“My point precisely.” A wave of disbelief crashed over her, panicking her. She
was
late, just not very. It wasn’t unusual for her, and she hadn’t any symptoms at all. Pregnant women fainted, didn’t they? They were ill in the morning. “It’s too dangerous to proceed.”

Fenris gave her another long look. “Think of all the ill luck that must have befallen the previous Dukes of Mountjoy.”

“What ill luck?” One of his fingers moved over the hand he’d trapped on the top of the sofa, caressing her first finger. “After all, the title did not die out. And Mountjoy found Lily.” While she was trying to put her world right again, he set his hands on either side of her face. “I’d say that’s good luck, wouldn’t you?”

“Ginny,” he whispered.

From the moment he said her name like that, with such longing, she was lost.

“Lily married the man she ought to have.”

She fisted her hands at her sides. “You deserve the same. Marriage to a woman who loves you.”

“My dear.” He smiled, laughter threatening there. “I deserve you. What’s more, I believe you deserve me.”

Then he kissed her.

At first he was gentle. Tender, even. Hardly the sort of kiss that might happen between lovers, which they were not. Her body betrayed her. She opened her mouth under his,
and his kiss turned carnal. Sinful. Soul-stealing because, Lord, he kissed as if he thought she were the most desirable woman alive, and how could any woman resist that?

She swayed toward him as desire engulfed her. They ended up with him sitting on the sofa and with her straddling his thighs. The back of his head rested on the sofa, and his hands were underneath her skirts, lifting them, and then, heavens, his fingers were so clever. She braced her hands on either side of his head, and they kissed some more and then she drew away, and she said, “We can’t. Fenris, we can’t.”

“I want inside you.” He briefly closed his eyes. “I’ll withdraw.” He slid one hand to her bottom, and from the movement of his other hand she guessed, correctly, it turned out, that he was freeing himself from his breeches, because a moment later, he drew her forward and his cock was at her entrance. “Yes?”

His eyes were so beautiful, glazed with lust. For her. She put her forearms on his shoulders and sank down. She fell into his lovely eyes, and he pushed up, filling her, making himself fit. She drew breath. Nothing, nothing was as sweet as his cock inside her.

“Jesus.” He threw his head back. “What you do to me.”

Her world became nothing but the physical sensation of his sex filling her. At one point, he put his hands on her hips and took control of the tempo. A slower motion that brought her deliciously, perilously close to orgasm. He was so good at this, and if she’d possessed the power of speech just now, she might have told him so. But all she could do was clutch the top of the sofa and match each thrust and withdrawal.

There came a point when she rocked forward, and his mouth opened on a groan that pulled at every sensitive point in her body. His next thrust was deeper and slow and exquisite, and her desire gave way to raw need. She reveled in what was now a brutal shove inside her.

He slid to the edge of the sofa, and she made some incoherent sound of protest until she realized he was getting them both onto the floor. The moment her back landed on the Kidderminster carpet, his weight was planted on his
hands, above her shoulders, and he flexed his pelvis forward and her body poised on the edge of orgasm.

She couldn’t think of anything but him and the fit of his body to hers. She held him tight, bent her knees, and his next thrust went deeper yet. She was afraid she would never reach the peak. Fenris slowed, and she held him tight, and he said, “Ginny.”

She opened her eyes and saw him over her and my God, he was inside her and her body was rushing madly toward heaven. Fenris was inside her. “Please. Fox. Please.”

“Ginny. I—”

“I don’t care,” she said, because at that moment she didn’t. When he withdrew completely she sobbed once, pure frustration.

“I can’t come in you again, for God’s sake.”

“I hate you.” He was right. She knew it, but it didn’t change her physical frustration.

“Tut-tut. I shan’t leave you unsatisfied.”

He slid down and put his mouth on her, and within seconds she was right there again, her body hovering at complete destruction, and he was going to take her away from everything but her body, her reaction, and oh, God, he did. He did, and she stayed there at the very peak for longer than she would have believed possible.

Somehow, when the pure selfish loss of herself began to recede, her befuddled mind managed to recall that he had not had any completion. Not fair. Not fair when he’d brought her such physical joy. She pushed his shoulders, and he obligingly slid away from her, on his back, one arm over his eyes, the other gripping his still erect cock.

“Poor, poor man.” She sat at his side, gaze on his pelvis. He lifted his arm and watched her until she pushed away his hand and curled her fingers around him. “I suppose your lovers tell you all the time how beautiful your cock is.”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I pay them to say such things—Ginny.” He sucked in a breath.

“You don’t pay me, so I assure you they mean it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“I seem to recall, my dear, that you are good with your hands.”

“Am I?”

“Refresh both our recollections if you’re not certain. Put some detail in the vagueness of your recall.”

She bent over him and took his prick in her mouth. That was wonderful, hearing him groan, the feel of his hands cradling her head and then the arch of his hips and his push forward, the pulse of his cock when he came. Salty tang. The tremble of his hands on her head.

When he was done, when she’d taken her time looking at him and remembering that he was as beautiful here as everywhere else, she sat back, her fingers still lightly around his member, softening now that he’d released. “I want to do that again.”

Fenris opened his eyes, and there was a wicked gleam there amid the languor of his repletion. “You have only to tell me,” he said. “And I will oblige you at any moment of the day or night.”

Three days later. The home of Admiral and Mrs. Padget.

A
T THE PARLOR DOOR
, F
OX KEPT WALKING AND, ALAS
, spouting nonsense at Eugenia. He’d not heard from her since that afternoon at Spring Street, and he was in a dark mood. Now he was here, as was Eugenia, and his mood was not appreciatively different despite his having her in front of him. He stopped himself from saying something monumentally unwise and instead settled on the inane. “Admiral Paget has a collection of carvings you might like to see. They’re quite beautiful. Come with me, Ginny.”