The Lady Courts a Marquess (Ladies of Seduction #2)

Chapter Fourteen

“W ould you care to go for a walk?” After a rainy day filled with both exciting news and much reflection, Kitty had woken the next morning to a clear blue sky and a newfound sense of determination. Because Mara was right. She did deserve to love and be loved. Unfortunately, the person she wanted to do both of those things with was currently staring at her as if she’d sprouted a second head overnight.

“A walk?” William repeated, lowering his coffee. He was reading the newspaper in the conservatory, his preferred room to take his breakfast whenever they were at Radcliffe Park. Bright and airy, with a wall of windows that extended all the way up to the domed ceiling paneled in imported teak, it was the most recent addition to the manor, designed by William himself.

Gliding her fingers across the shiny green leaves of a potted orange tree, she wandered up to the table and leaned her hip against it. With the intention of making William’s tongue wag, she’d paired her boring black mourning dress with a seafoam shawl and matching tourmaline necklace that dipped low into her cleavage. Her hair was swept off her neck and away from her face in a style she knew he preferred, the blonde curls held in place with pearl studded combs. A subtle streak of kohl along her lash line, a dab of beeswax on her lips, and a spritz of floral perfume on the inside of her wrists had completed her toilette.

“Yes. I thought we might walk through the peach orchards. They should be blooming. We can bring a picnic basket with us.”

“A picnic basket?”

Was there an echo in the room?

“A wicker box that is typically filled with different cuts of meats, cheeses, and bread,” she provided helpfully. “Usually paired with a blanket to sit upon.”

“I am aware of what a picnic basket is , Katherine.” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he met her gaze with cool, unreadable eyes as dark as his coffee. “What I don’t know is why you would have any interest in bringing one on a walk. Or going on a walk to begin with, for that matter.”

“I walk,” she said defensively, crossing her arms.

“To the shops. From the carriage to the theater. Across a ballroom.”

Oh, why did he have to be so bloody difficult ? Her first instinct was to snap at him. Or to turn on her heel and make a dramatic exit. But after reminding herself why she was there in the first place, she did neither. Mostly because she was determined to find a way to make this marriage work even if it killed her. And a little bit because William was right. She really did detest walking for the sake of walking. But she knew that he liked it. Along with riding horses. More than that would be pure speculation. Because the sorry truth was that she really didn’t know her husband as much as she should have.

But she was ready to learn.

“Come with me,” she implored, touching his arm. “I should like us to spend some time together. If you don’t want to go to the orchards, then we can go somewhere else. We can go anywhere you’d like.”

His bicep tensed beneath the light grip of her hand. “The peach orchards are fine. I’ve been meaning to take stock of our inventory since we lost three dozen saplings to blight.”

And business , she added silently. Walking, horses, and business.

But there was more to William than that. More than the gruff front he was presenting to her this morning. There was the side of him that had kissed her in the moonlight. The side of him that had given her a lilac bloom. The side of him that had defended her against a monster. The side of him that had refused to give her up, even when giving up would have been easier than holding on.

“Wonderful,” she said, striving for a cheerful tone. “I’ll gather a few things and meet you in the hall.”

*

The path to the peach orchards was winding and slick from the previous day’s rain. Twice, Kitty almost fell, and twice, William caught her, holding onto her waist just long enough to ensure she had her balance before taking his arm away.

“You can turn around and go back,” he remarked as they approached the crest of a deceptively steep knoll where the first rows of trees began, tucked in between two sloping hills to ensure protection from the wind. “I can assess the saplings on my own.”

“Go—go back?” she said, struggling to pull air into her burning lungs. Sweat was pouring down her face and she’d lost all feeling in her toes. Her beautifully constructed curls were hanging in a limp tangle and she was fairly certain she had kohl smeared across her nose. Anyone who found walking, particularly walking through natural terrain, a suitable hobby was clearly deranged. It was torture. Pure, absolute torture. Why, she would have rather been the last person to hear about a new silhouette design being unveiled at Madame Bouchard’s than this! “Why—why on earth would I do that? This—this is so very enjoyable!”

She tried to pair her words with a valiant smile as she looked at William over her shoulder. Instead, the smile turned into a pained grimace when her ankle turned and she went sliding sideways with a screech, her arms spinning wildly. He caught her with a curse and this time, he didn’t let her go, but rather held her pinned against his chest, his brows a jagged, stormy line above flashing brown eyes.

“Katherine, that’s enough. Return to the house before you seriously injure yourself or worse.”

“I’m—I’m fine ,” she gasped. “Just... just a tad winded. We must be at a different elevation.”

“You’re wearing slippers.” The both looked down to where the toes of her satin dancing shoes were peeking out from beneath the dirt-covered hem of her dress.

She’d worn them—against Emily’s advice—because they showed off the trimness of her ankles and the embroidered swirls on the side paired perfectly with her shawl. But she’d dropped her shawl several yards back and the poor slippers were so filthy that the delicate lines of blue thread were nearly impossible to discern.

Kitty lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know these are my most comfortable pair of shoes.”

“Are they?” William challenged, his mouth forming a superior male smirk. “How many blisters do you have?”

Too many to count.

“It’s like walking on a cloud. If you’ll release me, I’d like us to continue. Surely we must be almost there.”

Please, please let us be almost there.

His smirk fading into a frown, he studied her intently for a moment, his thumbs making absent-minded circles on the curve of her hips as he continued to support her exhausted, blister-riddled feet.

Had she ever noticed the tiny flecks of gold in his irises before, she wondered? Or the blond curl that refused to stay with the rest and instead dropped low over his temple in a rakish wave? Or the line of sun-kissed skin above the fold of his cravat? Surely she had. She’d known this man intimately, in any manner of positions. But perhaps blind passion was just that—blind. And while she knew what William looked like, had she ever stopped to truly appreciate how all of his different parts made up the whole of who he was?

His eyes were from his mother’s father, the only person in his family that he’d ever spoken of with any sort of genuine affection and whose portrait hung in his study.

His hair was a touch long because he had a habit of getting too involved with whatever business project he was working on and skipped his weekly sessions with Stevens.

His skin was tanned because he loved being outdoors on the back of a horse, or in an open carriage, or hiking through the Godforsaken wilderness to take inventory of fruit saplings, a job that could have easily been relegated to one of their five gardeners.

“Yes,” he said finally, relinquishing his grip on her waist to pick up the picnic basket he’d dropped. “We’re almost there.”

They resumed walking in measured silence and when the peach orchard was at last within sight—approximately eighty-seven years after they’d started their journey—Kitty wasn’t ashamed to say that she shed a tear.

“There,” said William, pointing toward the left. “Those trees are the most mature and will give us the best shade. Pick whatever one you like.”

The orchard was beautiful, Kitty acknowledged grudgingly as she chose one of the older trees whose twisted, gnarled branches had spread out over time to create a natural canopy for their picnic. Peach trees dressed in green and adorned with pale pink flowers stretched out in orderly rows as far as the eye could see. Lush strips of grass dotted with yellow dandelions bisected the rows and bees and butterflies, their wings flapping busily, flew from bloom to bloom, filling the air with a pleasant kind of buzzing. Altogether, the vibrant landscape was a far cry from the dingy, dirty streets of London and the lovely serenity was almost—almost—worth the walk.

A light breeze tickled the loose tendrils at Kitty’s nape and helped dry the sheen of perspiration on her forehead as she helped William unfold a large, checkered blanket before sinking gratefully onto the soft fabric in a muddled heap of aching limbs and sore toes.

“Here,” he said, taking one look at her and reaching into the basket. “Drink this.”

She tried her best not to guzzle the tart lemonade he poured her, but she wasn’t completely successful. It felt like liquid gold going down her parched throat and the little moan of pleasure that spilled from her lips was the same sound she made when she came, a tiny detail that did not go unnoticed by William if the sudden flare of heat in his gaze was any indication.

They had not been together since the night he had told her that he’d give her the moon, but not a divorce. His father’s passing had kept them both busy in different ways and while she had secretly yearned for William’s touch in the quiet night, she hadn’t sought it out. Stubbornness was a difficult trait to quell... but she was going to do her damned best to try.

“Better?” he asked, crossing his legs out in front of him. The tan breeches he wore clung attractively to his thighs, showcasing rigid lines of muscle courtesy of all his rigorous proclivities. And the sizable bulge between his legs was also worthy of appreciation. But as tempted as she was to run a hand along his leg, Kitty forced herself to still her arm.

Desire, lust, passion... those were not the areas where their marriage was falling short. If anything, they were almost too good at making love, at giving in to their baser instincts and using their bodies to distract themselves from their real problems.

Trust, honesty, vulnerability... that was what they needed to work on.

For once, sex would have to be secondary, as disappointing as that was.

“Much,” she said, finishing the lemonade and smacking her lips together with an audible pop . “Are you hungry?”

“Starved,” William said, but he wasn’t looking at the picnic basket... and the hungry glint in his eyes had her pressing her own thighs together beneath the folds of her skirts.

Perhaps they could talk after he ravished her, she reasoned. Surely there wouldn’t be any harm in that. Except it would be the same pattern they’d repeated again and again, and wasn’t that the definition of lunacy?

“Good.” Her stare slipped to his groin and she gritted her teeth. Blast it, this was going to be harder than she’d thought. “I’ll—I’ll get out the plates.”

*

Bemused, William watched his wife prepare their picnic meal with all the focus of a French chef. To the best of his knowledge, Kitty had neither cooked nor plated a single piece of food during their marriage. He wasn’t even sure if she had a hand in menu preparations. But to look at her now, one would almost be tricked into believing she was creating a culinary masterpiece comprised of slabs of hard cheeses, thinly sliced pieces of smoked ham, and a variety of fruits.

“Do you need any help?” he asked, his head canting to the side as she placed a fig atop a pile of cheese and it promptly rolled off to the side.

“No, I can manage.” She waved him off with an irritated flick of her wrist. “Stay over there. Far over there.”

Eyebrows rising, he did as she asked. Kitty had been acting strangely ever since she’d arrived at Radcliffe Park. Yesterday, after returning from a visit with her sister, she had complimented his tailcoat out of the blue. And today she’d wanted to go on this walk and have a picnic, of all things. An activity he vaguely recalled bringing up when he’d first courted her and one that she’d soundly dismissed.

“You want me to eat? On the ground? With the ants? Isn’t that what they invented tables for?”

Now here she sat, on a blanket in an orchard, making a meal fit for a king... or a marquess. Her slippers kicked off to the side, her hair tossed over her shoulder, her blue eyes—brighter and bolder since she’d accidentally wiped the kohl from her lash line—narrowed in concentration.

Truth be told, he preferred her like this. William knew that Kitty took great pride in her appearance, in her elaborate hair styles and her opulent gowns and her glittering jewelry—all the things she hadn’t been able to have before they were married. But while most women used clothes and accessories to enhance their appearance, he was of the opinion that the dresses, the curls, and the necklaces merely competed with Kitty’s natural beauty. There wasn’t a roll of silk fabric or a diamond on earth that could compare. She was as she had been the first night they met: an enchanting creature without equal.

Which was going to make letting her go that much harder.

“Here you are,” she said, all but thrusting a plate at him over the top of the basket.

But instead of reaching for the artistically styled oval of meat and cheese, he grasped her wrist, his long fingers easily encircling the slender, birdlike bones. His thumb sought and found her pulse, its rapid flutter revealing that beneath her wall of composure resided a tempest of lascivious yearning as hot and wild as his own.

The plate fell to the ground, sending grapes rolling across the blanket when he yanked her forward and she tipped onto her knees, her lips forming an o of surprise. Then her cheeks heated, those gorgeous blue eyes went dark, and he could have sworn she mumbled “to bloody hell with it” right before she flung herself against him with such power that they both went toppling backward off the blanket and into the grass.

Mine was the only thought that reverberated through his head when he fastened his mouth to hers and drank in lightning. Because that’s what Kitty was—lightning in a goddamned bottle. Impossible to contain but glorious to behold.

Tasting her with greedy licks of his tongue, he grasped her hips and centered her over his pulsing manhood, rucking up her skirt and petticoat. She slowly dipped her pelvis, grazing her velvet heat along the swollen length of his staff, and he saw stars as an explosion of lust-filled fire shot straight into his veins. His fingers tangled in her hair, golden ribbons curling around his knuckles when he deepened the kiss, demanding she give him more. Demanding she give him everything . If this was to be the last time they made love, he needed the memory of it sustain him for a lifetime. He needed it to brand his fucking soul.

Her nails skimmed across his chest as she snatched his shirt open, then busied themselves with the buttons at the front flap of breeches while her mouth—her hot, heavenly mouth—began a long, wandering descent along the contracted lines of his abdomen.

He sucked in a breath when she traced the outline of his cock with tiny, lapping flicks of her tongue and expelled it on a jagged hiss when she took him between her lips. Lifting himself up on his elbows, he watched with shuttered eyes and clenched fists as her gorgeous head bobbed up and down, taking his generous girth as far into her mouth as she could manage before circling the rounded tip already damp with semen.

All around them, the world continued to move. Soft, fluffy white clouds rolled lazily across a sky of brilliant blue. Birds fluttered from tree to tree while butterflies danced from branch to branch, mesmerized by the nectar contained within the pink flowers that would be round, ripe peaches come late summer. The earth turned. The breeze blew. But here, in the middle of an orchard, time stood still.

It stood still when Kitty cupped below his shaft and gently squeezed while she took him deeper. It stood still when his control threatened to snap and he dragged her up his body to sit on his stomach as a siren would in a pool of seawater, her head thrown back, her mane cascading over her shoulders in a pool of shimmering gold. It stood still when he ripped feverishly at her bodice, tearing delicate lace and tiny pearl buttons. It stood still when she touched her own breasts, pleasuring herself with a low, throaty purr while his vision blurred at the edges.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, when the thread of his control had been cut to a single tenuous cord, he took her under him, raising her little feet on either side of his neck as he quenched his thirst with her wet quim. On a cry, she tilted her hips higher, offering her slick folds to him on a table set with green grass and wildflowers.

“William,” she gasped, writhing from side to side. “William, I can’t take much—”

“You can,” he growled, his voice vibrating against her clitoris. “You will .”

The inside of her thighs trembled when she came, her heels digging into the corded muscle on his back. Before she had begun her descent he pushed her ruthlessly over the edge again, using his hand and tongue in wicked tandem.

Mine , he thought again when her legs quivered and then dropped, limply, to the ground. Shifting onto his haunches, he took himself in hand, stroking rhythmically from base to tip as Kitty lay sprawled before him with her eyes glazed and her lips parted. His breathing quickened when he approached his own release, his cock still wet from her mouth and his own arousal, allowing his palm to move rapidly up and down the marble flesh. Then his breath stopped altogether when her pupils sharpened and she sat up, staying his hand just as he reached the precipice of his own aching desire...

*

It was a good thing they were outside, Kitty thought absently as she curled her fingers around William’s throbbing cock. Were they in the house, surely the curtains would have gone up in flames by now. The things he’d done to her with his tongue... on a delicious shiver, she glided her hand up his chest and then around his neck, pulling herself upward. Grass tickled her knees as they came together for another drugging kiss, the sensation paling in comparison to the lick of fire that shot through her when she arched her hips and took him inside of her.

Inch by decadent inch, Kitty filled herself with William... the power of controlling their passion nearly as intoxicating as the passion itself. A half smile curved her lips when she began to lift herself up and he snarled like a savage dog, his broad hands encompassing her entire waist as he yanked her back down.

She gasped, her thighs clamping around his torso, her nails scratching across his shoulders. They began to move seamlessly together, each instinctively sensing what the other wanted exactly when they wanted it. Beyond the hazy, erotic pleasure of lovemaking they often struggled to have a civil conversation, but under a canvas of endless cerulean, with sunlight dappling their skin and the sweet scent of flowers mingling with the musky perfume of desire, their bodies were poetry in motion.

William splayed his hand across the small of her back and then dipped lower, sliding under her bottom to bring them even closer, his possessive hold undulating with the restless rhythm of her hips. A rhythm that began to increase in tempo as they both soared toward the peak, her mewling whimpers drowned out by his harsh, heavy breaths.

“Come for me now ,” he ordered and for once, Kitty obeyed without question, sobbing out his name into his neck as she convulsed around him, her delicate muscles tightening like an iron sheath around his phallus. He joined her in ecstasy a mere half breath behind, his heartbeat a thunderous roar against her breast as he clutched her to his sweat-slicked body, his chin a heavy weight on her shoulder while a shudder racked through him.

Dazedly, Kitty noted she was still wearing her dress, the bodice torn beyond repair and her drawers ripped through the middle. Shoving her wrinkled skirts below her thighs and her hair out of her eyes, she lay down beside William when he stretched out on the blanket, his clavicle forming the perfect nook for her cheek to nestle into as her index finger made a series of lazy swirls across the broad expanse of his chest while her heightened senses gradually returned to their natural state.

For an indiscernible length of time, there was only the soothing sound of nature. Birds calling. Bees buzzing. Wind whispering through the branches. There was a sense of... of fullness in her that she was hard pressed to describe. Of ease. Of calm. Only when she truly put her mind to it did she realize what it was.

Contentment.

Pure, utter contentment.

And then, with six little words, William brought it all crashing down.