Chapter 11
The magistrate coming to deal with the major would need to wait. Edward had unfinished business to settle.
He caught up with Tabby, quick little thing that she was, outside his guestroom. He pulled her in the door and turned the key behind them.
“What if I want to leave?” she asked, just as breathless as he was.
“You don’t want to,” he said, kissing her neck.
She had her hands against the door and hiked one leg over his hip, her stockinged foot tracing the back of his thigh most pleasurably.
“Do you think the men who pay for my courtesan services will enjoy an embrace like this?” she asked, her voice altogether too seductive to be entirely serious. “If the duchess is unwell from carrying your child, perhaps I might be called upon to entertain the duke?”
Oh, she was too much. Edward bent down and threw her over his shoulder, earning a cry and delighted laughter. She knew what she was doing when she wound him up. But would she like the outcome?
Edward tossed Tabby onto the mattress. She wore an expression of surprise and something else.
“There won’t be men who pay for your services,” he growled, climbing in after her. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” His cock was harder than ever before in his life, and he was ravenous for his little pickpocket. A few nights on their narrow mattress wouldn’t be sufficient.
Edward looked down at her pretty gown, one he’d bought for her, and rage consumed him. He’d outfitted her and trained her for other men, but there would be no others, not for so long as he lived!
He took her hems in hand and yanked until they tore.
“Edward!” she cried. “Have some respect for the tailoring!”
“I’ve spent years being careful with my precious clothing, and I’ll not see you so dependent on your armor when your skin is all I need,” he said, rending the fabric to her waist.
He gazed with possessive fury upon her smallclothes, the bit of Tobias that Tabby refused to give up. Someday he’d dress her in lacy drawers just to torture her. Oh, the fun they’d have.
“Take down your smalls,” he bit out. “If you want me, take them off.”
For his part, Edward yanked off his boots and tore open his falls. When Tabby’s smalls went sailing to the floor, he knew he’d have her yet.
Gesù, she was stroking her cunny. How pretty she looked spread on that grand bed, her stockinged legs flung apart, and ruined dress hiked up to expose the place he wanted her so badly.
Edward stopped briefly to kiss and lick that perfect cunt and then settled over her. His coat proved too restrictive, so he peeled it off, sending it to the pile of their things on the floor.
“The Buckskin Breechess will be most displeased with the way you’re treating the clothes she’s made,” said Tabby, placing a cool hand on his heated cheek.
Edward’s eyes closed reflexively, and he turned his face to kiss her palm. That clever little palm that had stolen something very dear from him.
“I said before, down in Leontius’s study, that the major’s shot took my heart,” said Edward, stroking his love’s short hair and observing her. This would be the most important conquest of his career; he couldn’t foul it up. “But it was gone long before the major fired.”
“Was it?”
Edward nodded, directing his bare cock to Tabby’s entrance.
“You’re a very bad girl, Tabitha,” he said, tugging the bodice of her dress down to expose her small breasts. “You stole something from me, did you not?”
“I swear I didn’t do nuffink, yer lor’ship,” she said teasingly as he sucked a nipple. Her breathy exhalations and fingers in his hair had his cock jerking, begging to push in.
“Oh, but you did, my love.”
A gasp. So she’d heard his endearment. But would she accept his feelings and plans?
Edward looked into Tabby’s eyes and found they looked watery.
“What’s this, my girl? Not sadness on this happiest of days?”
“Why’s it happy?” she asked, brushing a stray tear away.
Edward pushed the barest inch into Tabby’s channel and then paused.
“I thought I might tell you how I feel.”
“And what of how I feel!” she exclaimed, the tears finally coming. She poked at his waistcoat, clearly overcome with emotion. How well she looked like this, enraged and demanding. But he loved how she looked at all hours of the day, so why should this be any different?
“You got the duchess with child, but you’ve been so careful with me!” she groused. “Why is she having your baby when you only spend on my belly or in a letter!”
Edward was shocked. Tabby wanted his baby? But then, it was a day of surprises, mostly involving people upset at the breeding he hadn’t done.
He seated his shaft inside her channel and let Tabby have the full length of him. “You want this cock? All of it? And my spend?” he asked, working himself a little deeper just so she’d feel how serious he was right now.
“Yes,” she said, sniffing.
“And you know that there may be consequences?”
Her eyes darted to his, questioning his meaning.
“A baby,” he explained.
“I certainly hope so!”
“You aren’t just saying that because the duchess is in a breeding state?” he asked. “Her husband was very actively involved in seeding her on the same occasion, so this might be another of his boys.”
Tabby sniffed, not convinced that the great Dick Stone’s seed could be supplanted by that of a duke and husband. He’d need to take a different tack.
“What of what I want?” he asked with a rough thrust.
“Jellied eels and a good meat pie back in London?” Tabby asked hopefully. “No more of this strange country food?”
“We’ll be back in the capital soon, my darling, but no, that’s not all I want.”
Tabby ran her hands over Edward’s sides and abdomen, trying to get under his waistcoat and shirtsleeves.
“Have I not been a good boy?” he asked.
She raised her eyebrows at him, composed and sure even as she took his every thrust.
“You told me that if I was a good boy and went downstairs to face my destiny, you’d make it worth my while.”
“I have little that I could give you,” she said in that straightforward way that never failed to set his heart skipping. “I brought some roasted nuts in my bag just in case. I could share them with you.”
“You don’t need to share your food with me. In fact, I want something much dearer.”
“Do you now?” she asked, drawing him closer for a kiss.
She had to know what he was stumbling towards. But she was going to make him say it, ask it of her. Tabby would make a perfect marchioness, damn any who would doubt her!
Edward ran his thumb over her left nipple contemplatively. “I’d like your heart.”
Tabby smiled. “I think I have a need for it, don’t you?”
He kissed her, his impudent girl. “What if I need it more?”
“Can’t I convince you to take something else?” she asked with a smile. Why hadn’t he noticed until now that her dear cheeks looked fuller?
“I can think of plenty of things I’d like to claim,” he said, settling closer and slowing his strokes so they might talk for ages while languidly making love.
“But you’re so ravenous and I have so little, sir,” she said in a small voice that made his cods feel fit to burst despite their slow pace.
“Then perhaps a trade,” he proposed.
Tabby squinted at him, a look he’d seen on many occasions before. He laughed, recalling their companionable adventures. Oh, the adventures they’d have together from now on!
“You see, you have this wee little finger here,” he said, pinching a thin digit on her left hand.
“But I like that finger!” she shrieked, squirming as if truly scared.
“Yes, but I’m afraid that I like it more,” he said, kissing it tenderly and then nipping the skin. “Much more.”
“You said it would be a trade. What do I get in return?”
“Well, I admit it’s not anything too grand.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Dick Stone.”
“Oh, this isn’t Dick Stone talking,” said Edward, rolling them so his back was to the bed and Tabby could ride his cock as she liked while he admired the way her lithe body moved over him. “It’s Edward.”
Tabby rolled her hips. “And what does Edward offer?”
“As I said, it’s not much. It was truncated — cut — in the past—”
Tabby gasped and looked at him with wide eyes, which darted to where they were connected. “I didn’t realize!”
Edward lightly slapped her hip. “Not that. You know you’ve got the whole of me.”
“Have I ever.”
“It’s just that you told the major something about family and then rushed to protect me,” he said, settling his hands at her waist. “If you do that again, I’ll have your little arse.”
“Promise?”
He growled and bucked up into her.
“So you’ve got a short something somewhere, my swell cove, best lay your cards on the table and see if it’s a winning hand.”
“My name. My surname. Stone.”
She stilled.
“It’s just that I’ve a surname, and it isn’t the best, but seeing as yours came about for sad reasons, maybe I could give you mine.”
“It is sad to remember me mum drowning in porter when I have to use it.”
“That’s the thing!” interjected Edward. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“So I could be Stone and you could take my name? We could trade?”
“Well, I was thinking we could both be Stone. From now on, we could both…”
Tabby leaned closer as if drawn forward by his whispered words. He pulled her hips so she rolled over his cock in the way he’d always love.
“I rather need a viscountess. And if I’m going to put a baby in you anyway, I wondered if you might be willing to suffer through the humiliation of being Viscountess Netherwallop.
You wouldn’t have to support yourself if you were that awful wife you feared.
I wouldn’t need an awful wife at all if I had you.
“You are my equal — nay, my better — in spirit, loyalty, and courage,” he continued.
Her face was impassive as he made his offer. And then he realized he’d said nothing of his heart. He really needed not to foul this up!
“There’s also a problem I’ve discovered.”
“Hmm?”