Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The part of Sorcha housed in her body lay in a thoroughly rumpled bed, her back warmed by the muscular expanse of Bernard’s chest. His patience had risen to new heights in the past hour, while Sorcha’s appreciation for the outer bounds of physical ecstasy had undergone cataclysms and revelations.
The pleasure two people could bring each other was orders of magnitude greater than she’d imagined, provided one of those people was Bernard and the other was a woman he was intent on pleasuring.
He was a walking wonderment of inventiveness, an inspiration for fancies too intimate for words, but not too intimate for deeds behind a locked door in a sunny, private bedroom.
Some part of Sorcha not of the body purely floated, bobbing on a sea of warmth, lassitude, and relief.
She wanted to point and shout and laugh: I was right.
MacPhee was wrong. The bond between a man and a woman could be the consummation of a friendship deeper than affection, desire beyond words, and amazement of the body, mind, and soul.
She could love and be loved. She could aspire to joy rather than lecture herself about the privilege of hard-earned contentment.
With Bernard, she even looked forward to the spats and disagreements, because they would have them honestly and respectfully, without sulks and pouts and sneering insults.
“My lady is awake.” Bernard’s hand trailed over her hip. The caress wasn’t suggestive or even possessive, just a pleasurable stroke of his palm over Sorcha’s flesh.
“How can you tell?”
“My mind heard yours stirring.”
“Something else is stirring.” Nudging gently at her backside.
“If I don’t get out of this bed—when leaving present company appeals to me about as strongly as all the labors of Hercules combined with the tribulations of Job—you will soon be astir as well. The children will think we’ve been kidnapped by river pirates.”
She caught his hand and kissed his knuckles. “I want to tell you, ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave this bed,’ but I am also aware of all the times I felt very differently about a conjugal interlude. That I long for you to stay is delicious.”
Also a tad bewildering. The yearning for his continued company wasn’t exclusively carnal or even dominated by desire. Wrapped in Bernard’s arms, nothing between them, Sorcha felt safe and at peace. Deeply happy and whole.
When had she decided that life was a battle to be endured? Weapons always at the ready, sentries on alert?
Bernard patted her hip. “You wanted the marital bed to yourself, did you?”
“Desperately, especially after Jordy was born, but Barclay wanted more sons… The accoucheur opined that ninety days was the most any healthy woman should need to recover, and I had had an ‘uneventful delivery.’ I wanted to murder the man where he stood.”
Bernard climbed over her, caging her on all fours, though Sorcha remained on her side.
“I’m sorry. It’s for you to say how much time you need. I am a firm believer in spacing children and keeping their numbers manageable. There are herbs, you know, and French letters, and times when conception is more or less likely.”
And there were men like Bernard, who withdrew, found their pleasure without risking conception, and regarded that as a simple courtesy rather than an imposition.
“I’ve heard other women referring to those measures, but all I know of them is what my old governess managed to impart.” And none of that had been any use when Lord Barclay had decided to favor his wife with his pawing.
Bernard rested his cheek against hers. “I suspect I will still be composing sermons when I am an old man haunting the pubs in the City, reliving the glory days when I actually ran my own enterprise. My years as a vicar have left their mark.
“You were married to his lordship for seven years,” he went on.
“You became a mother twice over, a lady by courtesy, and then a widow. I would never want you to ignore that part of your life or feel you could not discuss it with me. Some portion of your spectacular fortitude was forged during that season. Those experiences matter to you, so they matter to me.”
He settled over her, a whole-body embrace, and she needed that from him. Seven years was a long time, but Bernard was right—those years hadn’t been all bad, and they were behind her.
“Will you tell me about your mother someday?”
He sighed and eased away to his back, though he took hold of Sorcha’s hand.
“Mama was a serpent. Is a serpent, rather, because wherever Lady Josephine Huxley dwells, she must disrupt others’ peace and interfere with their happiness.
She describes her meddling as consideration for the less fortunate, who—not being her ladyship—aren’t as gifted when it comes to knowing what’s best for them.
And through one astonishing coincidence after another, what’s best for others is generally no good for them at all but soundly benefits Lady Josephine.
She was an embarrassment and then a menace, and I am the worst of all possible sons because I am glad she has sailed for the Antipodes. ”
Sorcha took a turn blanketing her lover. “Might she return?”
“Lord Lorne will see her prosecuted for hanging felonies if she tries. Should that fail, the secondary line of defense is to commit her to an asylum for hysterical females. She has caused more harm to innocent people than you can possibly imagine. Destroying the dreams of young lovers was her particular specialty, and no, I do not accord her any lenience because her own youthful dreams where Lord Jerome were concerned came to nothing. Lord Jerome, as far as I am concerned, had a lucky escape.”
From Bernard, this was a tirade. Sorcha cuddled down to his chest and listened to his heart. Slow and steady.
“I want to know what she looks like, Bernard. If she did come back, she’d try to wreck your happiness and possibly mine and the children’s.
You must find a likeness, or draw one, and we will show it to the staff.
We’ll explain that she’s a mentally unbalanced former parishioner, and any sighting of her is to be reported immediately.
Do the same at your office and with your domestic staff. ”
Bernard’s kiss was sweet, leisurely, and thoughtful. “Sound advice. You don’t think I’m fanciful to be so skittish where she’s concerned?”
Well, yes. Maybe a little, but then, meddling matrons were two a penny in Mayfair. “I am skittish, too, in many regards. We learned to be skittish for reasons.”
Sorcha remained draped over her lover, breathing in synchrony with him, desire humming along as a pleasant ache.
“We should get up,” she said, moving not one inch. “Showing you the house doesn’t take half the afternoon.”
Bernard trailed a hand over her back. “I am loath to leave this bed, but I will treasure the memories we’ve created today, just as I treasure all the time we spend together.”
Gallant, and honest, an attractive combination. “You don’t view me merely as a good set of hips.” Not the riposte his lovely little speech merited, but an inordinately comforting truth.
“Let it be said that your hips could inspire me to odes and panegyrics. Notwithstanding the aforesaid, you don’t view me as another randy vicar to be dismissed when he’s provided a predictable service.”
Stupid, stupid boardinghouse widow. Sometimes Jordy’s word was the right one. “Nothing about the service was predictable, Bernard, and I treasure all of the time I spend with you too.”
He seemed to subtly relax at that pronouncement. Sorcha pushed off him, climbed to his side, and looked at the clock. One hour of her life, and yet, everything had changed, and for the better.
The uncertainty was still there, but muted and marginally appeased.
“The sight of you…” Bernard muttered, flipping back the covers and slogging to the opposite side of the bed. “Your braid is still tidy. This should qualify as some sort of miracle. My thoughts will never be tidy again, and I am hard put to care. One should get dressed…”
Sorcha loved his muttering, his magpie mind, his lean, muscular back. She loved him, and this did not terrify her nearly as much as it should have.
They assisted each other to dress, and Sorcha had just shoved the last pin into the coronet she’d fashioned with her braid when a piercing scream rent the air.
Bernard, tidily attired, cocked his head in the midst of smoothing the last wrinkle from the bed’s quilt.
“That is Bridget,” he said, “and she’s setting up quite a racket.”
“She’s terrified rather than angry,” Sorcha said as the screaming went on. “Hurry, Bernard. She’s never screamed quite like that before.”
Bernard was out the door in the next instant, Sorcha right behind him.
“Sorcha, for pity’s sake, tell that child to cease her caterwauling. Bridget, quiet this instant.” Cousin Coraline’s hand drew back.
Bernard caught her by the wrist, his grip firm enough to be effective, and manners be damned.
“We can’t find Jordy,” Bridget bellowed. “Tell her, Cousin Bernard. We must find Jordy.”
“And you,” Bernard said, dropping Coraline’s hand and kneeling before Bridget, “were making exactly the sort of noise that would have summoned Jordy from hiding, if he’s able to heed your call. Correct?”
Bridget sent a fulminating glower at Coraline. “Cousin Coraline said we mustn’t holler, because ladies don’t raise their voices, but I am not a lady, and we can’t find Jordy. If he thinks I need help, he’ll come no matter what.”
Bernard took Bridget’s hand and rose. “Sound logic. Jordy is a loyal brother, and he would come to your aid if he was able to. Who saw him last?”
Sorcha, waiting at the top of the terrace steps, remained silent, though Bernard would not have given much for Coraline’s chances had Bridget been slapped.
The older girls stood in a half circle around Bridget, while Gilchrist and another young woman—the Greer governess, perhaps—remained halfway up the steps, looking worried.