Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Annabelle slept like the dead following her visit to The Leaf, but by morning her spirits were at an all-time low.
When she counted the money Mr. Harris had graciously returned her—minus his house cut, of course—she’d enough to buy back Lizzie’s necklace from the Lombard but not nearly enough to play tables anywhere else.
And then her father made matters worse. “Bella,” he belted from the stairs. “Mr. Finch is here to call on you. Annabelle!”
Her heart sank more. How was she to escape marriage to that awful man when she earned but pennies closing Mr. Harris’s books?
She’d felt invincible last night as Bartholomew Brown, because he was capable of anything.
Yet here at home, in her everyday drab dress, she felt utterly unable to affect her future.
She stared at the flamboyant gown Mr. Harris had made her wear home, no doubt borrowed from one of his ‘working’ ladies.
It lay draped over her chair in reproof, needing to be pressed.
She ought to be grateful Arthur had dropped her off a few houses down so she could slip inside last night unseen.
She should be grateful more had not gone awry, given what he’d demonstrated could.
She hid the dress deep in her garderobe, then made her way downstairs where she coolly greeted Mr. Finch.
Annabelle looked askance at the vase of inappropriate red roses the man had brought.
He did not ‘love passionately’ nor ‘desire her romantically.’ She kept her hands in her lap, wishing to tear her skirt fabric into bits, while her father fawned, as usual, all over Mr. Finch.
“Is that not delightful, Bella?” Papa nudged her with his foot.
“Quite,” she answered without hearing a word.
“Then I looks forward t’ accompanyin’ yer t’night, Miss Winthrop.”
“Accompanying?” she blurted, realizing she ought to have been paying closer attention to their conversation.
“T’ the Denbigh ball, m’dear. You’ve not forgotten, ’ave you?”
The lecherous man’s eyes perused her so liberally he made her shudder.
“When last I were here, y’ could talk o’ nothin’ else, miss.”
“Oh yes, the ball, of course. Forgive me, Mr. Finch, I feel rather poorly today. Perhaps I am coming down with something.” She pretended to sniffle. She would not accompany this man anywhere tonight or any other day. How had he possibly wrangled an invitation?
“Milord.” Papa’s coarse footman tromped in. “Mr. Harris is ’ere fer Miss Winthrop. Says he’s to take ’er fer a drive.”
Papa paled a shade more white as his guest’s face glowered red.
Annabelle took the opportunity to rise swiftly from her seat.
“Goodness, I’d quite forgotten Mr. Harris invited me.
I shouldn’t like to keep him waiting.” She scurried out without a glance back, forgoing spencer and parasol while her father’s voice boomed from the parlor.
“Annabelle Winthrop! You have not taken leave of Mr.—!”
But already she was out the door, on the front step, and grabbing hold of Mr. Harris, who’d been waylaid over the hedge by Lady Stanton.
He tipped his hat to both lady and pug as Annabelle hurried him toward his curricle.
As he helped her up she urged, “Drive quick, I beg, sir. Before Papa can snatch me back.”
Harris snapped the reins, his curricle tossing Annabelle directly into his lap. She righted herself by way of his thigh, which was embarrassing enough, until the weight of his palm steadied her own leg.
She stared at his hand in brief panic. “Must you … grip my skirts so?”
He squeezed her through her dress. “Oh I must. It is so very high up we sit, and the road so treacherously bumpy.” The devil curved his fingers slightly in, making Annabelle push him off.
His hand reappeared at her waist. “This better, miss?” He dug his thumb into the back of her stays, right where her laces ended.
“Mr. Harris,” she declared, “I did not leave the company of one man’s untoward advances only to be accosted by another’s!”
“Well, if we’re courtin’, ’tis me job to tease an’ flirt.” He threw her such a roguish grin she stuck out her tongue at him without thinking.
“Lord, but you are easily riled!” His laugh made him only more handsome.
“A gentleman flirts in a wholesome, not vulgar, manner, Mr. Harris.”
He removed his palm from her waist to take her hand in his lap instead. “This more proper? Whatever man marries you, miss, will have a devil of a time behavin’ himself.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Bella dear, the man you marry’ll struggle not to ravish you silly whenever and wherever he can.”
She gaped at him in shock.
“An’ if y’ keep lookin’ at me like that I’m liable to kiss yer.”
She shut her mouth and trained her gaze forward, her hand in his palm suddenly sweating.
Two hours later Miss Winthrop had neatly reconciled Harris’s books; he had to admit, this arrangement was suiting him nicely.
“Is it true, sir?” she asked in the quiet of their drive back.
“Is what true?” Harris trained his eyes on the road, rather than stare at her too much.
“That you always … bed a girl before you hire her?”
Blood rushed to his face. “Where the devil’d you hear that, miss?”
“From one of your … staff.” She blushed crimson.
“Which staff?” He lashed back. “Were it Tom? Or bloody Janie, me house madam?”
“J-Janie.”
“The nerve o’ that woman,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Miss Winthrop remained silent and Harris began to feel like a lout, even though bedding girls was anything but awful. Hell, it was the opposite of awful.
“I do it t’ make sure they suit,” he finally told her.
She shifted in her seat. “I’m afraid I do not understand, sir.”
Harris wasn’t sure she could handle the truth, but he didn’t want her thinking worse of him than she already did, thank you very much, Janie.
He cleared his throat. “Me mum were a harlot, Miss Winthrop, same as Jasper’s.
We grew up as brothers, though we’re not blood.
But without no dad, raised only by whores, well, I understand women differently than most men. ”
“I make no assumptions of you, Arthur,” she told him. “You are an enigma to me.”
He snorted, debating his next words. “Not all women can prostitute themselves, miss. Nor should any woman be forced to.” He might as well tell all.
“When a girl approaches me t’ work at The Leaf, I’ll not hire her if she’s not able t’ sell her body t’ men.
And there’s only one way t’ know if she can.
So I sleep with her once, as test. An’ if she don’t suit, I find ’er employment elsewhere. ”
“Elsewhere?” She sounded shocked. “You mean you—?”
“I don’t send her t’ no poorhouse, if that’s what you think.”
“No, Arthur, I only … I am surprised you’d take such interest in—”
“I ain’t Finch, miss,” he bit back. “What he does t’ girls is beyond…” But he wouldn’t go there. “I find ’em positions, most often in service, in houses like yer own, or Jasper’s.”
“Oh.” She again fell quiet. “I take it you have slept with a great many women then.”
“You askin’ me t’ supply you with a number?”
“No.” She again blushed prettily. Ridiculous, how pretty. “I meant only that you must be quite experienced.”
Harris kept his mouth shut.
“Arthur…” She hesitated. “Is bodily congress truly all that terrible for women and all that wonderful for men? Because if this is true, then marriage is a fate more cruel than I—”
Harris could contain himself no longer. He cupped her cheek in his gloved hand and kissed her full, sweet lips so urgently her amber eyes flew open.
“I can assure you, Bella”—for necessity, he adjusted his seat—“if done right, the act is just as wonderful fer woman as it is fer man, as God intended it. An’ anyone what tells you otherwise knows nothin’ o’ lovemakin’.”
For the remainder of their ride, Miss Winthrop perched stock-still beside Harris, while he sat atop his curricle thoroughly inflamed. She was a great many things, this lady, but a fool she was not. He’d put nothing past her anymore. Nothing.
Stealthy as a cat and sleek as a kitten, he thought as he pulled up to her address and watched her enter her father’s house. She was unskilled and untrained, but Annabelle Winthrop had courage in abundance.
Which in his world, was no small thing.
“Down, boy!”
Mutton promptly sat, something Milton’s wife had been trying to get the wolfhound to do for the past half hour. He was enjoying Elizabeth’s attempts.
“Why does he listen to you and not me?” She pouted, looking every bit a baron’s wife in her red ball gown, his diamond necklace matching her wedding spectacles. Milton was eager to show off his Baroness tonight at the Denbigh ball and further his social goals.
“You’ve not mastered the right tone,” he told her. “Come!” Milton ordered, and the dog trotted right over. “Now call him to you.”
“Come!” she said sharply, but the dog laid his head on his paws, dropping to his haunches. “Mutton, come!” She stomped her foot, but the hound only looked at Milton as if to ask if he should humor the lady?
She sighed. “Oh, I give up, you lump.” She scratched Mutton behind his ears. “You love your master, don’t you? You love only him, I know, you dear, sweet lummox.”
Milton jealously wished his wife would scratch his ears with such affection. Though she’d warmed to him again. In bed, at least.
Elizabeth straightened her shoulders. “I suppose it is time we present ourselves to the world, sir.”
He laid her wrap about her shoulders. “You’re not anxious, are you, Lizzie? Your sister will be there, and the Duchess, of course, as well as Lady Stanton and any number of distinguished guests you’ve met before at these affairs.
“I shall be fine, Milton, except that I shall be scrutinized now as wife, rather than be allowed to fade into the background as mere wallflower.”
“I doubt you were ever a wallflower, Elizabeth.”
“How little you know, sir,” she grumbled.
“I know you’ve been an obedient wife and left your drawers in your room as instructed, haven’t you, Lizzie?”
She blushed. “I have followed my husband’s wishes, yes.”
“I am glad to hear it.” He spoke low into her ear. “Because I intend to put you at ease on our journey there.”
By the time he bundled her into his carriage, her blush had spread deliciously to her slender neck, a sight he appreciated for a moment before he embarked on full seduction.
Milton patted his lap in invitation, “Come, Lizzie, let me prepare you for the ball. But draw the curtains first. I do not wish to share you with half of London. I want my wife all to myself.”
As she loosely pulled them shut he admired her equally slender wrist. He admired everything about her since she’d refused to beat him with his ruler.
Elizabeth’s strength of will amazed him, though it was her surrender he wanted right now.
Her diamonds caught slivers of light from the now muted streetlamps the carriage passed, while that tiny crease of ever-present consternation he adored marred her lovely brow.
“Are you playing coy, dear? I promise a most satisfying ride.”
Leaning back against her seat, Elizabeth shyly shook her head. The world was shut out, the carriage lulling them like a cradle. Milton savored this reprieve, just the two of them alone, before society should wreak its havoc, as it always did.
“You will disturb my coiffure Ginny worked so hard to achieve, sir.” She worried her lips with her teeth.
Nervous. That’s what’s amiss.
“Elizabeth.” He tried the same tone he used on Mutton. “Come.”
Her breath hitched, but she obediently settled atop his lap, wreaking an altogether different sort of havoc on his loins.
He raised her skirts, lifting her to straddle him. “Better,” he murmured into the valley of her breasts, adjusting her knees so that her legs more comfortably parted. Her bosom rose rapidly, breaths fluttering in her chest like some bright, exotic bird, poised for flight.
“Milton, you mustn’t rumple my dress, not on a night as important as—”
“Lizzie, luv,” he purred low in his throat, “I’ll not mess a hair on yer head.”
She tried to say more but he stopped her with his finger. And then he pushed that finger slowly into her mouth.
“Undo my fall,” he ordered, and she did, even as he slid his finger lasciviously between her rosy lips. His other hand slipped below her skirts to her hot, ready center, where he dipped into her heat, mirroring the motion at her mouth, stroking her at the same steady pace.
Elizabeth whimpered as she palmed his stiffening cock. His hands now shifted her hips, positioning her over his hardened prick, then seated her onto his length. Her breath stuttered as he leaned forward to gently steal a kiss. He pulled her lip with his teeth, then licked her cheek.
“God, Lizzie.” Milton groaned his pleasure. “Ride as slow or fast as you like. Drain me of all seed. I wish to feel every squeeze, feel your lovely cunny milk my prick dry.”
He slipped the finger he’d had between her legs between her lips, and she suckled so eagerly, so sincerely, he nearly came right then and there.
Milton controlled himself, letting her guide their sensual, slow ride.
He leaned his head against the seat as she consumed both his finger and cock, finger and cock, undulating and alternating her body between the two motions as the carriage rocked across the cobblestones. Until he was not sure where flesh ended and heaven began.