Chapter 4
At Long Last, Lust
April.
Harry pushed back from her desk in her aerie. It was good to be able to sit close to a desk or a table again, to feel not so unwieldy and tired all the time, but work was impossible.
She needed relief.
Hypatia was a month old today, and despite her fears, Harry had not yet dropped her. Now she even had the confidence to pick Hypatia up from the basket or the cradle on her own—she didn’t have to wait for someone else to pick the baby up and hand her over.
And Hypatia’s crying didn’t give Harry a fearful twinge in the chest the way Thomas’ tears did. Harry understood frustration. Harry knew the distress of not being able to express what was in one’s mind.
And she had become quite good at puzzling out why Hypatia was crying. There were only eight possible reasons—too hot, too cold, wet clout, soiled clout, hunger, exhaustion, loneliness, and grumbly tummy. How wonderfully simple babies were. How silly she had been to be afraid of this part.
But when Hypatia became a girl with opinions . . . and then a woman who might judge . . . but Harry wouldn’t think on that, right now.
Catherine and James had returned to Middlewich weeks ago. They were no longer necessary. Harry was well, and besides, Thomas was adequately distracted by the baby. Maybe he was too distracted. As might be expected, Thomas doted on Hypatia in the most fawning manner possible.
Harry wondered why she had once thought it trying when Thomas had instead doted on his wife.
And she chafed at her involuntary chastity. She longed to be with Thomas again, in that way. To be husband and wife, in every sense. But the sternly blushing Alasdair had told her she must wait two months.
Harry clenched her teeth. One more month to go. She might combust from need and burn Sommerleigh to the ground. When the Drakes all went up in flames, that would show Alasdair.
Harry got up from her chair and went down the stairs to her bedchamber and told Smythe where she was going.
“Shall I come with you, my lady?”
Yes, Smythe should come. That would keep Thomas from insisting on accompanying her.
But Harry needn’t have worried. As she and Smythe stood in the front hall, bundled against the April chill, waiting for the carriage to come round, Thomas appeared at the library door. He was holding Hypatia in one arm.
“Why aren’t you working?” he asked in a loud whisper. “Where are you off to?”
“To Alasdair’s—” Thomas held up a finger in front of his lips, so Harry lowered her voice. “To the surgery.”
“Is everything all right? Do you feel well?”
He was worried. About her. The questions were so like the Thomas of old, Harry went all peculiar and achy inside.
She nodded.
“Good.” He smiled. “Be sure to stay warm.” He turned and went back into the library with their daughter.
Thomas had accepted Harry’s nod without protest or further investigation. He had not niggled at her. He had not demanded to come with her.
Seething with something she didn’t like one bit, Harry pushed her way out the front door, not waiting for Whitson to open it, not even caring the carriage had not yet arrived at the front of the house.
“Are you going to walk to the village, my lady?” Smythe followed behind.
“Of course not. I’m in too much of a hurry. But where is the blasted carriage?”
The carriage came round the corner from the stable yard just then and pulled to a halt as Harry danced with impatience.
“The village surgery, quickly,” Harry ordered the coachman and climbed the steps into the carriage.
As the carriage rocked down the lane towards the village, Harry addressed Smythe. “Once we get to the doctor’s, you can come in or stay in the carriage. It’s all the same to me. But I think you would prefer to stay in the carriage.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Alasdair was not out on a call. He was right where he should be. And he was alone.
Harry did not mince words as she flung herself into his surgery. She did not even untie her muffler.
“I want to know what Thomas and I can do. In bed. Now. Not a month from now.”
A startled Alasdair got to his feet and a blush began to stain his cheeks.
“No stammering.” Harry wagged her finger. “Tell me. In plain, vulgar language.”
The doctor did not seem to know what to do with his hands, finally putting them behind his back.
“Medical practice is to tell husbands and wives to abstain for at least two months.”
“Why?”
The blush deepened. “Damage from the birth. Ye yerself had some small wounds when Hypatia was born, and those need to heal completely.”
“But there’s no bleeding now. No pain or stinging, even when I soak in the bath. Am I not healed already?”
“Nae, my lady.”
“So I am to have nothing inside my channel, is that it?”
“I—”
“But otherwise, everything else a woman has—breasts, button, bottom—and anything on a man’s body, it’s all fair play?”
Alasdair’s mouth dropped open. “B-b-button?”
“I don’t know the medical name!” Harry was shouting now. She was sure her face was as red as Alasdair’s.
“If ye mean the glans clitoris, the most superior and most sensitive area of the woman’s genitalia, I suppose . . .”
“Yes?”
“Aye, it should be safe. But the entrance and the channel cannae be touched.”
“All right.”
“And because of the location, I dinnae think . . . ’tis so close . . . cleanliness is an issue, too, of course, that is, I dinnae recommend . . .”
“What?” Harry supposed Alasdair’s over-modesty might be charming to some, but right now, she just found it infuriating.
Alasdair hunched his shoulders, looking like he’d rather be headed to the gallows.
“Penetration of the anus.”
Oh.
Harry and Thomas had never done that. She didn’t know men and women did that together. Of course, Thomas must know they did. He must have done it. Why had he never suggested it? She must remember to speak to him about it. Later. For next month.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, now diverted by the idea and whether she would like it. “Do men like it?”
“What, my lady?”
Alasdair was being so obtuse. “Buggery.”
Dark scarlet. The doctor could not be any redder. “I dinnae ken, my lady. ’Twas nae something discussed in my medical training.”
“That’s all right. I’ll ask the earl.” Harry rubbed her gloved hands together, eager to leave. “So nothing inside me, between my legs, neither front nor back. Is that it? The only restrictions?”
Alasdair nodded. “And tell yer husband to be gentle.”
Harry snorted. “The man has handled me like a porcelain vase for months.”
“He might forget himself. So, please remind him.”
Harry suddenly realized she had been quite impatient and rude to her friend. Alasdair couldn’t help his inexperience. Her unsatisfied appetites were not his fault. She must do something to make it up to him.
“I heard my sister Arabella wanted to come to Sommerleigh last month,” she said, looking at the wall over Alasdair’s shoulder. “But the duchess kept her away because it wasn’t suitable with her being still unmarried.”
Alasdair sat abruptly and busied himself with some papers on his desk, shuffling them, not looking up. “Is that so?”
“But perhaps when Hypatia is older, Arabella will come to visit. And we’ll have you to dinner.”
“Aye.” The paper shuffling became more chaotic.
“Thank you. And goodbye!”
Harry was out the door before Alasdair could stand and bow. She had gotten what she came for and done a good deed, besides. She had given the doctor a dinner to anticipate.
Now to get her husband alone.
It turned out to be much simpler than she had thought it would be. When she and Smythe arrived back at Sommerleigh, Thomas was still in the library, standing up at a table, holding Hypatia, reading a book of accounts.
Immediately upon entering, Harry said, “Let’s take Hypatia to the nursery together.” Then she noticed Thomas’ tailcoat and cravat were missing.
Half-undressed already. Good.
Thomas looked up. “Was everything all right at the surgery? Are you all right?”
Harry came over to him and peered at the familiar face of her daughter. Hypatia was awake and looking at her father with blue eyes that matched his, but when Harry leaned closer and said, “Yes, everything’s all right,” Hypatia looked at her mother and waved a fist.
“Good. Just went to say hello to Alasdair, eh?”
Harry captured the baby’s tiny fist in her hand and repeated herself, “Let’s take Hypatia to the nursery.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you afterwards.”
One of the many nursemaids was happy to take Hypatia from Thomas’ arms and coo over her.
Harry grabbed Thomas’ hand and led him out of the nursery, to the narrow, winding stairs that went to her aerie, to her own room with its own bed and its own lock and key.
A place where no one dared disturb the occupants.
A place where she had shared a great deal of bodily pleasure with her husband, once upon a time.
“Let’s,” she said and tugged his hand.
Thomas shook his head and said, “We can’t,” but Harry was ready with her argument.
“This is why I went to the surgery. I asked Alasdair what we can do. He says it’s all right as long as you’re not inside me, you don’t touch my entrance. And you’re gentle.”
Hunger flickered in Thomas’ eyes, and Harry knew she had won.
But her husband didn’t move. “He really said that?”
“Yes.” Harry reached out with her free hand and firmly stroked the shaft that was already hardening behind Thomas’ fall. “And he never said I had to be gentle.”
A few strokes more and Harry was lifted and carried up the stairs.
A fumbling with keys and they were inside the aerie and when Harry had her feet under her once more, she shoved her husband up against the closed door.
“You’re mine for the next hour.” She grasped his cock again.
Thomas groaned. “I don’t think it will take that long.”
“Good. We’ll have time for two. For each of us,” Harry said as she went up on her toes, pressing herself against him. Then, to be clear, “Four.”
Thomas chuckled and squeezed her bottom with both hands. “Yes. I follow.”
“You want me?”