The Outcast Earl (7 page)

Right now, though, he was the one aching. Again. It had been years since he’d had to take himself in hand as much as he had today, but Abigail wasn’t going to be welcoming him with deliciously spread thighs any time soon. He’d be damned if he’d turn any loyal servant into his personal strumpet to relieve the ache from a woman who would shortly be his countess. He shoved down his pants and toed off his trousers, then slid his bare haunches onto the bed.

Once she was stretched out beneath him, he’d kneel between her legs and do all the things she would beg him to do. He grasped his staff a little roughly as he imagined how her plump breasts would gleam after he’d bitten and licked and sucked them. Farther down, he imagined her legs spread wide, his hands splayed on the backs of her thighs as he held her open for his tongue and teeth and lips. She’d be helpless to do anything but accept it, no matter how long he sucked her clitoris or nibbled on her labia or bit her inner thighs.

Abigail would be his wife by then—by the law of England and the Church, he’d not have to stop until he chose to do so. He could enjoy and indulge himself in her body as often and as intensely as he wished, and she could not walk away. In truth, he could make her cry, scream, plead, beg, but none of those reactions would satisfy him unless they were in response to a spectacular climax. By the time he was finished, she wouldn’t want to walk away. She’d learn to crave his attention, to seek him out.

He pulled on his cock, jerking it rhythmically as he imagined Abigail under him in their bed, welcoming his hard member into what would undoubtedly be a tight, hot pussy. He thought about how her muscles would pinch his cock, and as he squeezed his eyes closed to picture the moment, his muscles clenched and he pumped his hot seed up onto his stomach.

Afterwards, he lay back on the bed and frowned at the liquid pooling on his shirt. If he was going to jerk off with his own hand late at night for the next few nights, until Abigail joined him in the cold bed, he would need to be better prepared. Next time, he’d take off the damned shirt first. 

Chapter Three

In a considered attempt to avoid any additional confrontation or, Abigail inwardly admitted, threatened consequences, she asked for a breakfast tray in her room. As she ate, Annie and a waterman carried and poured hot water for a bath—one Abigail desperately wanted and needed.

She rarely slept well in new or strange places, and the previous night had been both new and strange. She’d woken well after eight o’clock, her hair ribbon still tied around her wrist.

Abigail dallied about, finally sighing in relief when ten o’clock arrived. Annie had reported that Aunt Betsy was still sleeping and that Dr Franklin was with her. Abigail turned from a last look out of her window and checked her appearance in the mirror by the door. Her back, while still slightly sore, no longer ached. She wasn’t limping, though her shins still hurt from the bruising and she had rewrapped her ankle with a tight bandage.

Still, those contusions were concealed by her thick stockings.

With Dr Franklin in the house and likely to appear at any time, Abigail thought, Meriden wouldn’t attempt awkward intimacies.

“Annie, if you could show me where the library—” she began, but then found herself interrupted by a knock at the door.

The maid hurried to open the panels and admit the doctor. He smiled at her, already adopting the paternally fond smile with which she suspected most of his younger female patients were acquainted. “Good morning, sir,” she greeted him, still steady on her feet. “How is my aunt?”

Franklin’s face creased with added worry. “The wound is clotting very slowly, so I’ll stay, though she’ll sleep a few more hours. We’ll have to battle through her waking up later in the afternoon, though I suspect she’s not going to give up the urge to clutch at her head until her senses return. I do truly hate to subject you to it, but I am hoping she’ll calm down for your voice?”

“I hope so. Of course I will be there, whether she listens to me or not,” Abigail said softly, anxiously. “I should have gone over earlier, I’m sorry—”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “Really, if she could do without sustenance, it would be much less painful for her to sleep until it heals a bit more, but I’m afraid to let her sleep overly much. No doubt she’ll need more laudanum this evening so she can sleep all night again. For now, I’m on my way to see Mrs Carlton about having soup broth and tea ready and waiting, and I must check on your maid. I understand she’s beginning to wake, and she’ll be in quite a bit of pain herself.”

Abigail nodded. “I want to go see Jenna but the earl is expecting me first. I believe he’s in the library. Are you going down?”

Franklin creased his lips. “Why don’t I have a look at your ankle first, Lady Abigail?” he proposed. “Then I can report to the earl myself that you’ve recovered from your ordeal.”

“An excellent plan,” Abigail agreed immediately, moving to sit in a chair.

The doctor fetched a footstool and Annie brought a second chair, and, in a moment, her feet were up and Franklin was removing her slipper. “Have you known the earl long?” she asked when the silence stretched uncomfortably.

Franklin tested the rotation of the ankle and bent it forward and back, pressing his fingers into the joint through the stocking. “After the Siege of San Sebastian in 1813, I couldn’t continue in the war. Meriden was seriously injured in the initial assault, and wanted a personal physician skilled with war injuries. He knew the old doctor here in the village wasn’t going to help him regain the use of his hands and arms so he suggested to me that I sell out and come here. I’d already sewn him up in a field hospital in Spain, twice, and we managed well enough—that scar on his cheek is what’s left of the second time. Old Doc Fitchley was actually happy to have me buy his practice.”

Abigail blinked as she absorbed this narrative, hardly daring to breathe unless she forgot even one word.

“There’s nothing wrong with his arms,” she finally murmured.

The doctor looked up and patted her on the leg. “Not now.” He smiled with a touch of pride.

Abigail laughed, but then turned with a startled cry as her door flew open without so much as a polite knock.

Unperturbed, or perhaps simply accustomed to Meriden’s apparent bad manners, Franklin simply stood. “Ah, there you are, Meriden.” He pursed his lips and picked up his bag. “I’m afraid I delayed her too long for you to wait patiently. That’s the way of it with one’s wife, of course, they’re forever distracted by running the house or by the wee ones in the nursery or other ladies coming to call. In this case, she was just on her way to see you but I’m afraid I asked for an inspection of her ankle before she attempted the stairs.”

The words flowed past Abigail, who was struck by how intensely the earl watched her. Franklin’s words seemed to distract him, though, because he asked, “And how is the ankle?”

“The ankle is much improved,” the doctor reassured him. “Though it would be prudent of her to avoid strenuous use for a few days—no waltzing, long walks in the garden or straining to stand on her toes.” Franklin went on to describe his intentions for the afternoon and obtained Meriden’s assurance that the earl would also be available to help if needed.

By then, Abigail was distracted. She had known he had been injured in the war, but hadn’t realised the extent of the damage. And his arms? He had carried her last night, and she could have sworn his hands had been working perfectly when they had clenched on the back of her scalp.

Before she realised it, Meriden had drawn her arm through his and escorted her into the corridor, where Franklin bade them farewell. Abigail paused and for half a second considered following Franklin, but Meriden firmed his capture of her arm by drawing it closer to him and escorted her towards the stairs. “You can visit her after we conduct some unavoidable business,” he assured her.

“I didn’t forget,” she said after a brief moment. “I wouldn’t have been late, either. I was just leaving the room—”

“You need not apologise,” Meriden returned. “I am the one who reacted to what I presumed was your deliberate dismissal of our appointment. If anything, I shall be obliged to beg your forgiveness for my lack of manners.” He paused. “I should have knocked.”

Abigail’s mouth quirked. She noted to herself that he had deliberately not apologised for his lack of faith. “I suppose only time will demonstrate that, in general, I am quite reliable?” she asked coolly, slowing as they reached the stairs.

An odd expression passed over his face, but then his eyes sharpened and he returned her direct gaze. “You have no trouble with making yourself heard, do you?” he murmured.

Raising an eyebrow in enquiry, Abigail simply smiled. “I am my mother’s daughter in some ways,” she finally said. “While you do not know her well, I assume her reputation is legend even here in the shires.”

Meriden returned her raised eyebrow with a strangely familiar arching of his own, then, in a clear bid to disrupt her cool self-confidence, bent down and picked her up in his arms. He immediately headed down the main stairs. The uprooting produced the desired effect—Abigail clutched at his coat with all the decorum of an upturned child. “I can walk now,” she finally gasped, fighting back the surge of warmth forming between her thighs and spreading upward through her groin to her stomach.

“You heard Franklin,” he answered. Now
he
was the imperturbable one. “No unnecessary strain on it. And it’s no trouble to carry you.”

At the bottom of the stairs, he did not return her to her feet, but carried her through the great hall, past two footmen and a maid, and past a set of doors open wide. After depositing her on a chaise at the dark end of a long room lined with walnut wood cabinets and panelling, Meriden returned to close the doors, and deliberately locked them from the inside.

“Are you still afraid I will run away?” Abigail inquired, sitting up and settling her hair and dress, even as she held back the urge to breathe rapidly and ask him to return her to his arms. “Or worried someone might see us alone?”

“I’m hardly concerned with the proprieties, seeing as we’ll be man and wife soon enough,” he replied. “And, if anything, I’m simply determined that no one interrupt us when I’m kissing you, as I’m sure to be doing soon.”

Abigail smothered a disbelieving laugh with a less-than-elegant hmph.

“Don’t you believe me?” he asked smoothly, stepping closer. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m here because you asked me to be here. I believe you said we had unavoidable business.”

“Ah.” He nodded wisely. “The unavoidable business is that I am going to kiss you. I assumed you would prefer the relative privacy of the library over any revealing embraces in the gallery or, most shocking, in your bedchamber. Or mine.”

“So you could kiss me?” Abigail was honestly open-mouthed, then held up a hand to ward off any further encroachment. “You scheduled this tryst last night,” she reminded him primly. “Before you carried me off to your sitting room.”

“Ah, yes, my sitting room.” He paused, clearly recalling something pleasant. Then his eyes refocused on her. “That interlude was so enjoyable that I’m afraid you’ll be forced to endure some daily, or even hourly, version of the same encounter,” he returned smoothly, his fingers entwining with her raised ones.

Abigail swallowed, her eyes widening as he settled onto the chaise alongside her legs, essentially trapping her between his body and the sofa.

“I had assumed,” she answered hesitantly, “that we would discuss how a marriage between two reasonable but spirited people could be managed without creating friction and conflict on a regular basis.”

Meriden took her other hand in his and met Abigail’s eyes. He smiled, a small expression, but one that conveyed meaning. Abigail saw clearly that he had every intention of taking her mouth with his again, and possibly more—the unknown caused her heart to beat faster in anticipation. Would she dislike his touch or enjoy it? “Ah, the answer to your dilemma is obvious,” he almost whispered, releasing one of Abigail’s hands to cup the side of her face and tilt it upward. “We’ll each do our duty, and when there is crossover or conflict I’ll consider both our opinions and render a verdict.”

Abigail’s breathing had already slowed and her mouth was beginning to open for him, but his words at least partially dispelled the compelling invitation to intimacy that his eyes and voice were issuing. “In other words, you’ll do as you like.” She blinked.

“I’ll accept responsibility for difficult decisions, and what comes of them—good or bad,” Meriden corrected, lowering his head until their lips touched.

Abigail’s disbelieving hmph was cut short when the earl advanced the kiss, pushing his tongue past her opening lips. Unlike during their previous encounter, Meriden pressed insistently until Abigail tipped her head against the velvet back of the sofa. Helplessly, she shivered as shock waves of warmth spread down her spine.

A part of her mind tried to dispassionately assign this kiss to the manner of a self-important, self-serving nobleman, but deep in the pit of her stomach, Abigail knew it was somehow different from the kisses of the selfish men in London. It was different because, she realised, every movement was deliberate and constrained. Meriden was certainly claiming her mouth with his tongue, and was using his teeth to nip her lower lip, but he did so with dedicated attention and focus.

She made a soft noise in her throat and clutched his shoulders, arching towards him.

He must have interpreted it as the sign of welcome it was, because he slid his hand down from her cheek and over her neck, then paused. Almost against her will, Abigail’s inner focus shifted downward, anticipating the path of his palm down her spine.

When she made no physical objection, he drew away. She blinked, and drew a quick sharp breath as she realised Meriden was watching her closely, then stilled and waited. It was as much a sign of acquiescence as she could muster at the moment, and he accepted it, sliding his hand down until his palm passed over her nipple and he cupped her breast in his hand then squeezed it gently.