Chapter 17 #3
She wanted to show him she was not hurt, and she wanted to assure herself that he had not been harmed, and she wanted to assuage this keen buzzing that swarmed every nerve, like a hive of bees.
She’d told him she could not be with him, when what she wanted with every fiber and granule of her being was to be with him.
She pulled him against her as she fell backward onto the grass and there was no finesse in her, no calculation, no cunning. She wanted him to cover her, she wanted him to fill her, and she wanted to possess him completely.
“Inez.” He held one arm around her, supporting her against the earth, and the other he dragged down her breast and belly. “Darling.”
“Joseph.” She gave his name back to him, a promise on his lips.
She was in the grip of a frenzy. Her blood pounded as it never had.
There was one need driving her. She thought with the edges of her mind that it might be the fright urging her on, the response to that soul-cleaving moment of fear she might die and never be with him again.
But she had him now, all the weight and strength and beauty of him here in her arms, and she wanted him fused to her so completely that he could never be taken away.
“Ye gods, Inez,” he murmured against her lips as she tore at his breeches, yanking the flap free, and sliding her hand around his manhood, already erect and rearing.
“You want me,” she said, and almost laughed with the heady promise of relief to come soon, soon. “You want me.”
“Dear God, I do.”
He stretched out over her and she rucked up her skirt with one hand while tugging him close with the other.
His hot palm on her leg as he slid up the skirt of her petticoats, then her shirt, oh, it was glorious, glorious.
She was wet and ready and full of want for him and he slid into her as clean as a cartridge sliding into a gun.
“Inez,” he breathed.
“Please. Joseph. I need you.”
She felt no shame in begging. She felt no shame in her legs laid bare to the world and the rest of her still clothed—she was still wearing her hat, for pity’s sake—while Joseph was inside her and she wanted this, him, and nothing else, ever, but the scent of his desire and his heavy breath in her ear and the hot weight of him pushing into her, and the pleasure, Lord in heaven, the pleasure that made white flashes dance behind her eyelids and made her feel her feet were in a fire.
He was fierce in his thrusts in a way he had not been before, as if he were seized with the same desperate need for their bodies to join, to find this solace and assurance in one another though the sun beat down on the treetops above their heads and the soft grass tickled the backs of her knees and the birds went on with their chatter not caring that the humans were coupling in a kind of frenzy.
His abandon elated her, his need ignited her, the twist of his lips in an agony of passion drove her to a primal ecstasy.
She had no time to warn him, nothing but a gasp of “Oh, Joseph,” before the climax felled her like a gunshot, slamming her down and pressing through her as if she’d been run over by the wagon.
“Inez—ah—” A strangled sound escaped him and he went stiff and still in her arms, his body arched like a bow, and she hummed with pleasure at the pulsing that was new and deeper and better than anything she’d ever known.
She lifted her legs to wrap around his waist and hold him inside her so they could have this throbbing joy, this arc of completion together, and dimly she realized that this sense of fullness was because he had joined his pleasure to hers and they had reached the peak together, truly joined, truly one.
With a groan he withdrew and rolled to the side, a hot thread of liquid trailing over her leg. She could have sobbed and screamed because the pleasure was less now, it felt hollow, and what she wanted was to hold him forever and to know that she was with him and she was home.
She lay with her eyes closed, feeling the tide wash out of her slowly, leaving the salty taste of regret.
She was apart and a single entity again, just Inez, not something more.
The straw of the grass poked at the backs of her shoulders and rump, and something crawled over her neck. She slapped it away.
“Inez. God. I’m so sorry.” She felt a cloth at her thigh, at her entrance, Joseph dabbing at the sticky trace of his need and his passion and his pleasure in her. Erasing the evidence as if it had never been.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again. “I spilled inside of you. I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t—” He fell silent. “I should have— I should not have done that.”
A tear squeezed out beneath her eyelid. She willed it away.
“It is all right.”
“But a babe.” His voice was ragged. He was not touching her any longer. She still felt him, felt her skirts move as he tugged them over her legs, as if he could not bear to look at the bare and tender parts of her that had craved and cradled him.
“I cannot leave you with a babe,” he said.
As if a babe were an unwanted litter of kittens. Or a leaking roof. Something regrettable and to be avoided.
She thought of the ladies of Dark Lane, how they knew a child meant lost time at work and lost income, another mouth to feed. If the bearing of it didn’t claim a woman’s life, it was a claim on her time and her heart and her body ever after.
Then she thought of Derwa, the bright-eyed dervish who was the child of Eyde, the Duchess’s dresser.
Eyde, who had begun as a maid in Penwellen, this very house—and unless Inez presumed incorrectly, had been cozened by Joseph’s cousin, the former baronet, who planted the babe and then turned her off.
Inez had heard Joseph tell the story of how his sister turned up on the doorstep of his lodgings in Oxford with fire in her eye, holes in the soles of her shoes, and a Cornish maid with a belly.
When he told it, it was a great lark, and only later had Inez understood the miles the two young women had come alone, seeking safety, because Reuben who had planted the babe would not claim paternity of it and Amaranthe, knowing what her cousin was, would no longer stay in his house.
Eyde, despite her babe, had found employment in Amaranthe’s household, and now, with her daughter of Cornwall and her husband of Wales, she was in command of the wardrobe of a duchess and was the top of the heap at Hunsdon House, even commanding the butler, who was as green as a butler could be but a willing lad nonetheless.
And Derwa was the companion to Hunsdon’s half-sister, and the child had a mane of bright curls and an exhaustingly inquisitive nature and the energy of the sun at noontime but lasting all the day.
“Inez,” he said quietly. “Speak.”
Speak, and tell him she would be glad of a babe, to have evidence of his love and desire for her that she could hold to her heart?
She would cherish a Derwa, an exasperatingly beautiful daughter with her father’s relentless curiosity, or a son with his father’s tousle of hair and animated expressions and ability to soothe the spirit of others with his calm, steady nature that ran as deep as a well, and as pure.
She would weep if she spoke what was on her heart.
She struggled up on one elbow, only now feeling how the fall from the cart, short as it was, had rattled her bones.
“I am taking a tea,” she said to the ground. She fixed her gaze on the fallen log not far from her elbow and the tiny orange-red caps of mushrooms that clustered across it. The edges shed black strings that looked the eyelashes of a weeping maiden.
“I learned the recipe from one of the innkeepers along the road,” she said. “It is meant to…keep my courses regular.” Keep her from catching a babe, that was.
“I see.” His voice was quiet. “So you are already…taking precautions.”
“As have you.” A thread of hurt laced his voice, and she lifted her gaze to meet his, surprised despite herself.
“Not enough.” His mouth twisted, and he pushed himself to his feet. She saw again how powerful he was, strong and graceful and so robust. She had felt that power surging against her, and yet she had felt his tenderness, too.
“It is good,” he said roughly, and held out his hand to help her up. “If you are being careful, too. Since I have not the self-control I thought I did.”
“I wanted you,” she said swiftly. “I wanted…” That, she nearly said, but that could mean nothing more than a tumble in the soft grass of the riverbank and not the melding of hearts and souls that she had felt.
It seemed she had been the only one who felt it.
He tossed out talk of her being his lady, but he never said the words wife or beloved or mother of my child.
Perhaps that was not what he meant by lady.
Perhaps what he meant by that status was being his housekeeper still and the companion of his nights, but now with the legitimacy of marriage lines on the record of the parish to show that the lust he felt for her was sanctioned by God.
She swallowed the bitter lump in her throat. Thank heavens for that innkeeper and her tea, because if there was a babe, Inez would not have the freedom to walk away if she wanted. To simply leave, taking the broken shards of her heart with her.
Joseph walked to retrieve his hat and slapped it against his legs to shake off the dirt. Then he looked over the field and put a hand above his eyes, shading out the sun.
“That looks like Thaker in the wagon already, out searching for us. Arthur must have run straight back to his stall and his oats. Whatever I’m paying that man, it isn’t enough.”
He turned to her and stilled as he caught the expression on her face. “Inez. I’ll find the fool who did this and hold him accountable. I won’t let anyone hurt you. All will be well.”
They looked at one another, and she didn’t answer, because she knew, despite the hand he extended and the warm sun of the day and the echo of pleasure that still ran through her like the hum of bees, he couldn’t promise that he would not absolutely shatter her heart.