James had taken a long ride through Hampstead Heath, stabled his horse at his family’s town house, and walked back to his rooms. The day was unseasonably warm and he had ridden hard enough and long enough to have sweated through his shirt. He was clammy and wanted nothing more than a hot bath. And then he would make his daily call to the Lovelock house and be told that Mrs. Lovelock was not at home to him.
Catherine was waiting for him in his rooms. She wore a drab cloak, a plain and stained muslin dress, and a brown wig. She had been seated by the fire but stood when he came in.
He had not seen her in almost two months and had not received a letter from her in over a fortnight. His whole worldview shifted in an instant at the sight of her.
“Catherine!” he exclaimed and crossed to her, his arms extended to embrace her.
She raised her palm to stop him. He halted three feet from her, allowing his arms to come down to his sides, even as he longed to crush her to him. He grinned.
“I’m glad to see you, I can’t even say. Are you well? You look well.”
She nodded.
“You used the key?”
“Key?”
“Enfield let you in, then? Good man. He recognized you, even in your disguise, eh?”
She turned to look at the fire. “He let me in, and he went out. He said to tell you he would be back to dress you for your dinner.”
“Hang the dinner.” He stepped closer and grabbed one of her hands. “Oh, Catherine, thank you for coming.” He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. She pulled but he held the hand fast. He was not letting go of the one piece of her that he now had in his control. He turned her fist over and uncurled her fingers and flattened her hand. He kissed the hollow of her palm.
“Kate,” he whispered and kissed her palm again. He felt some tension go out of her arm. He looked at her face and saw that her mouth was partially open and her eyes looked lost. Then she seemed to come to herself and she curled her fingers closed.
“Let go, Jamie.”
He released her hand. She took off the brown wig and laid it in the chair and unpinned her golden curls so her hair went down her back. He thought she might put her face up for a kiss, but she walked away from the fire, shedding the plain cloak and a pair of patched shoes on the way out of the drawing room. In the small stone-floored hall between his bedchamber and the drawing room, she pulled the coarse dress over her head and left it on the stones. He followed her, feeling himself harden.
Once in his bedchamber, she untied her petticoat. She wore no stays and no hose, so once she pulled her chemise over her head, she was naked. She had not once turned to look at him since she had started undressing, and she did not turn now. She went to the bed, and he thought that she would lie down there and he would be afforded once more the glorious sensation of looking at her completely naked body and the privilege of coupling with her.
But no. She walked to one of the posts at the foot of the bed, grasped it, and leaned over.
In all the times that they had pleasured each other at Sommerleigh, she had never taken such a position. He had made excruciatingly slow love to her once from behind, the two of them lying on their sides, his hands on her breasts, her arms pulling at the backs of his thighs, pulling him into her. They had both been sore, he remembered, from some very vigorous and extended copulation the night before, and he had thought that entering her from behind might spare her some discomfort. He did not think she had felt any pain that night as her moans were unchanged and she had arched her spine and pushed back into him, seemingly as hungry for him as ever. Although she had sneezed several times that night, they had not repeated the position. James had missed seeing her face as she climaxed.
But now, he only cared that she was here and wanting him. He went to her and leaned into her and ran one hand down her back and over her beautiful round bottom. Her feet were slightly apart. He let his hand slide off her buttock and felt between her legs. She was wet. She shuddered with his touch but said nothing.
“Catherine,” he breathed and kissed her neck and used the other hand to cup one of her breasts, even as he stroked her widening opening. She took one of her hands off the bedpost and reached behind her and grabbed his cock through his breeches. He thought he would explode with excitement.
“Yes,” he said, “yes.” And he let go of her and unbuttoned the fall of his breeches. No time to take his boots off, the rest of his clothes, it was enough that he was ready and that she was naked and ready. No, not quite enough. He found a cushioned stool and kicked it over to her. “Get on the stool, Kate.” And she had looked down and stepped up on the stool.
She stayed silent as he entered her. He should have known that something was amiss with that. Where were her groans, her little screams, her soft mews? Even her panting was absent. But he was lost in his own pleasure, the warm silk of her sex, her small body under his, the feel of her breasts swaying under the impact of his thrusts. He reached out to hold her breasts and used them to pull her back into him as he pushed into her, deeper still. When he took his hands from her breasts and slid them down her flanks, he had been meaning to use one hand on her slit, to touch her pearl, to contribute to her pleasure, but instead he found both of his hands on her hips, pulling her more forcefully, more quickly, onto his shaft. He lifted one of her legs, as she was still too short even while standing on the stool and he wanted his cock to have complete and unfettered access to her . . . hot . . . wet . . . sweet . . . cleft.
“Uhnnnnnh.” He arched his back slightly as he spilled inside her, overcome with pleasure. She didn’t move, still holding the bedpost. He lowered his arm and let her leg relax back to the stool, even as his member slid out of her. He leaned over her and kissed her once on her white back, between her shoulder blades.
“You,” he breathed, “didn’t sneeze.”
“No,” she said.
And so now, holding her round the waist with one arm, he used the other hand to rub her sex. It took perhaps half an hour before she would shake in his arms and sneeze. He had thought to lay her on the bed and use his mouth on her pearl or on her oh-so-sensitive breasts and nipples, but when he had moved to pick her up, she had held tightly to the bedpost and had shaken her head no. Still looking away from him, she had said through clenched teeth, “Don’t . . . stop.”
So, he had stayed there behind her, standing. He had whispered endearments in her ear as he had fingered her, telling her how beautiful she was, how he had missed her and how he had wanted her, how his life was meaningless without her.
Finally, she had said, with a strained voice, “Hush.”
At last she had hung her head, her legs had quivered, and she had sneezed.
He thought he would have been hard again, ready to take her once more before Enfield returned and this time to do it on the bed, properly, face-to-face, kissing her mouth, looking in her eyes, touching her breasts, trying for the magic of a simultaneous climax. To make love to her instead of fornicating with her.
But he was curiously flaccid.
Perhaps he had been bent over for too long. He took his arms from Catherine and straightened his back, stretching.
As soon as his arm had moved from her waist, she was off the stool and putting on her petticoat.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” he said and caught her arm and lifted her face up with his other hand.
Her eyes were flat, her lips compressed together, her jaw tight under his hand.
“What’s this? Kate, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
“No, Lord Daventry, I hurt myself.” And she broke away and went back to tying her petticoat.
“No, Kate, please, come into the bed.”
“Why?” She turned to him, her voice angry, her brows knitting together. “You had me and I had you.” She put the chemise over her head. “Where is my dress?”
“I won’t tell you until you help me understand.”
She stared at him, then turned on her heel and went into the hall between the bedchamber and the drawing room. He followed her, feeling like a puppy, pulling up his breeches and buttoning his fall. She found her dress in the passageway on the stone floor and slid it over her head.
He was desperate and elbowed past her and snatched up her shoes and the cloak that lay on the floor of the drawing room.
She ignored him and walked to the fire and began to pin up her golden hair.
“I have your shoes, Kate, and your cloak.”
She shrugged. “I have walked barefoot before, although not through filthy London streets. And it’s a warm day.”
“Kate, you must tell me that you will—’
“You must stop calling me Kate and acting like some lovesick boy.”
The tone was so cold. The words so harsh, so close to James’ fear that she would never be able to see past their age difference. That he would always be a boy to her.
It was worse than a slap in the face.
He put her shoes and cloak down on the chair next to her wig and left the room.
She had come to James’ rooms to see him one last time, she told herself. To say goodbye in person since he had stopped writing to her. He must have realized, finally, that there were too many stumbling blocks to a love affair between the two of them. Too many, even without his knowing her weakness, her shameful past, her fear of herself. She was glad to have been spared having to confess any of that.
But she knew it was a test. She was testing herself.
And she had failed. And she had known she would.
She had wanted to see if she could be in the same room with him, alone, with all that had gone between them, and not succumb to her own desires. If she could just be with him. The answer was no. His mouth on her palm had sent shock waves through her body. It had been enough to answer the question.
After all these years, where was her wisdom, her control? Gone when she was with him. She was still the same weak girl but now in a middle-aged woman’s body. She had learned nothing.
She knew James would never injure or humiliate her, but she also knew, deep in her groin, that she would have been willing to debase herself out of lust for him. She was just lucky that he was her beautiful boy Jamie and not a degenerate like Roger Siddons.
And that is why she had taken Roger’s preferred position for her in the bedchamber—the position of a mare, standing and leaning over. She had wanted to be reminded that James held the same power over her that Roger had.
And that pleasure and devastation were the only things he would be able to give her.
James had been different from Roger, of course. He had touched her before he had penetrated her. That had not been Roger’s way. And James had not held her hair and pulled her head back as Roger had.
And after James had spent inside her, he had wanted to tend to her, to bring her pleasure. And she perversely had not let him stimulate her the way he wished. She had wanted it to be as difficult as possible for him to arouse her. As difficult as possible for him to bring her to a climax.
And as he had leaned over, holding her, touching her, he had said sweet things to her that tore at her heart. She had been forced to shut him up. And then, finally, she had released. And for the first time in many years, she had felt filthy doing so.
Of course, it had been a test for him, too. An unfair test that she had designed for failure. There had been no way for him to succeed once she had failed her own test. He was a young man. Of course, he would do what young men did. Rut his way to happiness.
But there could be no happiness for her with James. There was only heartbreak. She had hoped to avoid it. Too late.
The next day she retched again. She had vomited every day for several weeks. She thought she had been eating too much rich food, drinking too much chocolate. Or that her strong stomach was weakening with age. She had denied what her body was telling her.
She counted on her fingers. She went and walked by the River Thames and thought of Ophelia.
She came home and began the necessary arrangements for Arabella to go to her sister Mary in Wales. As soon as possible. Mary and her husband had a trip planned to Cornwall and Bath and Arabella could join them on their travels. Arabella would fuss about missing the Season, but it must be done.
