White Lace and Promises (33 page)

Grey awoke with an aching head and he longed for his morning coffee. But he didn’t want to arise—he wanted to linger. He buried his face in her neck, seeking the salty sweetness of her flesh with his lips, his tongue, moving lower until he came to rest his head on her left breast. Her hands threaded into his hair, caressing his scalp, easing the ache. Her heart beat beneath his ear. Its steadiness comforted him, as did the soft warmth of her body.

Her nipple grew erect against his cheek. He slowly turned his head, took it into his mouth and drew lazily upon it. She shifted her position and touched his cock. All the blood rushed from his head to fill his erection. His headache eased with each rapidly increasing heartbeat. The urge came to suckle her harder, but she’d been sensitive earlier. He resisted it and contented himself with gently licking the stiffened peak.

She placed her hand on his shoulder, pushing him back. He lay on his back. She moved over him and straddled his thighs. She positioned him at her wet heat and sheathed him in one move. Her tightness encased him, clenched in upon him. He drew his breath in and grasped her hips, pulling her down more firmly while pressing his own hips upwards. Pale light had begun to creep in through the cracks in the drapes. She was touching his stomach, her hand playing over the line of dark hair. He watched, transfixed as she trailed her hand lower and scissored her fingers over the spot of their joining.

He thrust upwards, rapidly, several times, rocking her body, her breasts bouncing. Raw hunger flashed through him. She touched her nub and rocked against him. In vivid detail came the memory of the afternoon, during their courtship, when she had done that in his carriage. Making herself come for his pleasure—and hers. He’d been bone-hard for her for days. Afterwards, he hadn’t been able to get enough of her.

Now he was fucking her in earnest. The sucking caresses of her orgasm came. She threw her head back, moaning and riding his upward strokes. And she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, there in the pale, grey light. The spasms began deep inside him, erupting out in jets of seed into her tight, hot cunt.

She laughed softly, running her hands over his chest and stomach. She was still in the mood to play, but he was spent, at least for the moment. He caught her hands and pulled her down to him. She cupped his face and kissed him, long and lingeringly, twirling her tongue about his.

After a time his erection faded and he slid from her body. She lifted her head and made as if to move away. He held her fast, burying his face in the tresses that fell over her shoulders. “Don’t leave me, Beth. Be patient with me. Never leave me.”

She caressed the side of his face and pressed her lips to his head. Bone-deep contentment spread through him. Here, in this moment, in this bed, the world was far away. He wasn’t the owner of Sexton Shipping. He was just her lover. Her beloved. This was what he had wanted from her. A respite from the pressures of his life. But he needed this to stay in a separate space. Available to him but not ever present. He couldn’t take her increasingly constant pressure to live up to her expectations. He couldn’t help what he was, the position and life he’d been born into. Others depended on him. He could never let them down. She was encroaching into areas of his life where she had no business being.

And it was becoming intolerable.

But he would think of what to do about it later. Now, in these moments, he would just love her.

* * * *

Only half aware of what she did, Beth rolled in the large bed. Rolled right into cold wetness. The scent of sex and seed and the pleasant relaxed languor in her body recalled the night just past. Her eyes popped open and she looked around at the dark wood and forest green furnishings. Grey was gone. She touched his pillow, smoothing over the impression in the cool linen.

He hadn’t waited for her. Her heart sank and tension quickly replaced her satisfied languor. She arose and dressed in her nightclothes and pulled his dressing gown on.

Will stood nervously in the hallway—waiting, she presumed, to tend to Grey’s chamber.

“Is Mr Sexton still at home?” she asked, acting as though it were a perfectly normal occurrence for her to be emerging from her husband’s chamber.

“No, ma’am, he went to his offices.”

All the soft feelings from the night before vanished. Couldn’t he have spared her one morning? Just a few hours to talk over the things that still stood between them? She nodded to Will and noticed that he scuttled away quickly, disappearing into Grey’s chamber.

She went to her own chamber.

Miss Fairchild paused in the act of making Beth’s bed. “It was very alarming to find your bed empty this morning. I had no idea where you had gone.”

“I was in my husband’s chamber.”

Miss Fairchild’s eyes widened. “But Mrs Sexton, if you sleep in his chamber, the servants will know that…well, you have been with Mr Sexton.”

Beth lifted her brows. “Do you think they don’t know we sometimes lie in the same bed?” She laughed. “Goodness, we’re not English blue-bloods.”

Miss Fairchild pressed her lips together and stiffened her spine, then gave Beth’s sheets a smart, swift snap.

“Why are you making the bed, Miss Fairchild? Let the girls do that.”

“I did not want them to know your bed hadn’t been slept in. I sent them away, saying you had a headache.”

He hadn’t even tried to come home early last night. Then he’d expected to bed her—and she had let him. God, she had more than let him. She’d begged. Even with all that lay unsettled between them. What was the matter with her? Didn’t she have
any
pride? She tapped her bare foot on the carpet. A tremor of pure emotion shuddered through her and she fisted both her hands. Oh, bollocks! She glanced at the frost lingering on the window. Yes, she wanted to be outside, in the frigid air. “Well, leave the bed be. I want a walking dress readied. I think I shall take my nieces skating today.”

* * * *

“Aunt Cornelia is so vexed with Aunt Nellie for telling you.” Joshua’s words blew large plumes into the chilly air. “Time may not repair that breach.”

The little body in front of Beth almost slipped on the icy pond. She caught Amy and steadied her.

“Be careful, darling.” She shot a glare up at Joshua. “I don’t want to talk about this. Amy, Charley, do you girls want some roasted peanuts?”

“Yes! Yes!” they piped in unison, jumping up and down with their dark honey-coloured ringlets bouncing and their brown eyes bright with joy above rosy cheeks.

With a hand on each little back, Beth ushered them off the ice and away from Joshua. He’d lain in wait for her here—he must have. Still trying to sort out what to do about herself and Grey, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with Joshua today.

Grey’s distance from those closest to him was something she could no longer abide. He understood nothing about family or truly being a part of the lives of those around him. How could such an intelligent and shrewd man be so blind? She understood far less how he squared such behaviour with his strong sense of honour and responsibility.

However, knowing Grey now brought a disquieting truth she couldn’t hide from.

She couldn’t have children with him.

The thought saddened her but she knew it was true. She would bear part of the responsibility for bringing their children into this world. She knew what it was to be neglected, to feel unwanted. Unloved.

Even more importantly, she now knew she had belonged. They had lied to her. How much worse it was, knowing she really had belonged but had been denied acceptance. She wouldn’t inflict that on a child of her own.

Yes, Grey loved his son. She knew he would love their own children. But a child had to be shown love in tangible ways. It took time and the presence of a parent in their lives.

If he wouldn’t change his ways with Jan and prove himself worthy of being father to more children, she would have to bolt her door against him. It would be the only way.

“Good morning, ma’am.”

The voice shocked her out of her thoughts. They had arrived at the vendor. She gave the money to the man, then waited while he sacked some peanuts.

“You have to relent, Beth, else you’ll break her heart.” Joshua’s words grated on nerves that were already stretched to near-shattering.

“I am going to break her heart? Ha! She’s broken mine several times over.”

“You just don’t understand her. She has certain set ideas. She loves you—she always has.”

The vendor handed her the sacks and she took them with a smile and thanks. As she handed them to the girls, peanut scent wafted up. Sudden, strong queasiness assailed her and her vision swam as she swallowed several times.

Joshua touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

She laughed. “Yes, just a little woozy from the heat.”

“The heat?” He frowned.

“Yes, from the fires.” She waved at the little brazier by the peanut vendor’s feet. What a ridiculous statement. The air was so chilly those fires couldn’t make a difference.

Joshua studied her for a moment, his eyes tender. “Are you happy here in your new life, Beth?”

“Yes,” she said, trying to smile brightly.

“You look pale.”

“I’ve just been overtaxing myself.”

“You must take care. You know how prone you are to the quinsy.”

She had been feeling weaker lately. Those painful swellings under her jaw and a slight fever in the evenings. Her skipped courses. All ominous signs that tonsillitis loomed in her future. But she’d been trying to retire early and eat properly. “I shall be fine, Joshua.”

“Is Sexton treating you right?”

“Goodness, do you see the way I live?” She swept her hand over her shimmering velvet blue pelisse with its ermine trim. “He’s treating me very well indeed.”

Joshua made a wry expression. “You know what I mean. Does he neglect you?”

She rolled her eyes. “My marriage is none of your affair.”

He took her gloved hand.

She jerked it back. “Joshua!”

“God help me, I love you, Beth—I have loved you since you were a child. And you are not happy. It shows in your eyes.”

“I am happy, Joshua, leave me be.”

“Beth, it’s not too late.”

“Oh Joshua, not now. I can’t—”

“No, Beth, hear me out. We can gain our freedom. It won’t be easy but once it is done we could still go to Indiana together. You believed in my dream once.”

His eyes glowed with fiery idealism. A weak, overly idealistic man who still clung to boyhood dreams. He had always been that way. When he’d seduced her, he’d been no more emotionally mature than she had been at eighteen. In the interval since, he’d progressed little. Yes, he could be manipulative, but now she doubted he realised it. He’d always been given whatever he wanted by his mother and Mrs Hazelwood. It was ingrained in him to use his charm to get his wishes fulfilled. She doubted he’d been on a fiendish campaign to rend her young heart in two—he’d simply been as a child himself, unable to keep from reaching for the candy jar so near to him.

Another thing occurred to her. “There’s war in Indiana. You can’t go there now.”

“The war won’t last forever.
We
can go there when the war is over.”

She sighed. “Joshua, please don’t do this. Everything has changed now.”

“I can’t help it, Beth. I realise what I’ve lost and I don’t want to accept it.”

For the first time, she realised he had no power over her. He had ruined her, broken her heart, and yet she no longer hated him. A grudging compassion welled within her. He’d made a frightful disaster of his life and he would have to tidy it up on his own. She couldn’t help him. She had her own problems to sort out. On impulse, she touched his cheek. “You
must
accept it. We are over. We have been since you asked Annie to marry you. You made that decision. You must live with it.”

He put his hand over hers and pressed it closer to his cheek. “You don’t realise how much I love you. How much I want to make things right. I’ll work hard to make it up to you, see if I don’t. Just give me a chance.”

The clatter of a passing carriage jolted her to awareness of where she was. She pulled her hand away. “I was yours once and you didn’t want me. Now you’ve convinced yourself that you love me merely because you may not have me. But if you had loved me you could never have so callously put me aside to begin with.”

“What?” He gasped and sputtered. “Of course I loved you.”

“Not enough.”

His face contorted. “You can’t believe that, Beth.”

“I don’t believe it, Joshua—I know it.”

He put his hand to his chest, over his heart. “I am going to die, Beth, simply die. How dare you say I never loved you?”

She shook her head. “We’re cousins now, nothing more. I love someone else.”

He paused, his thickly lashed, coffee-brown eyes gazing at her over his spectacles, their expression unusually serious for him. “Yes, I know you love him. Or you
think
you do. But I am not convinced he loves you so well. I won’t leave until I am certain you are truly all right.”

He was going to be trouble. She just knew it. Her throat began to ache and burn.