Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Harry took another sweet from the basket that Agnes held between them. They had barely finished the tea before the carriage was readied, and now they were alone together on their way to Skelton.
Kitty had been invited to keep things proper, although Harry wondered how much propriety was necessary for a secret courtship.
Fortunately for him, Kitty had been feeling poorly.
Agnes had noticed her hesitation and reprieved her from her duties.
They had left quickly after, before the other household staff noticed and offered to take Kitty’s place.
It was possible, now that he considered it, Agnes had orchestrated the whole thing to be alone with him.
Perhaps she was a scoundrel in disguise.
His body heated rapidly despite the crisp late autumn air that chilled the carriage.
Warmth was everywhere. On his neck, his hands, and most definitely in his trousers.
“Are you feeling a bit warm?” he asked her, pulling his collar away from his neck in attempt to cool his body.
“A bit.”
“Can I ask you a question?” He needed to know just what to expect from the mysterious woman.
She nodded, her hands sat in her lap, a soft smile on her lips—a smile he wanted to drag his own lips across.
“Did you know that Kitty was feeling under the weather?”
The smile on her face expanded. “Are you upset?” She looked up at him as pink spread over the bridge of her nose.
“No. Not at all. Are you wishing for our courtship to progress more quickly?”
He expected her to blush more or look away, but she caught his gaze. “I wouldn’t mind that. Would you?”
“No,” he blurted. His body was speaking for him now, in full command of his words. “So if I move over to sit next to you, would you be agreeable to that?”
“I’d welcome that,” she said. Her expression was eager. Harry knew she meant what she said.
Harry didn’t need further invitation and moved across the carriage.
He gripped her leg, surprised and encouraged by his own boldness.
Maybe he did have the ability to seduce.
Before he could inch his hand up to its intended resting place, she grabbed it and placed it higher on her leg.
Right where he wanted it, or close enough.
Agnes turned to him, initiating another kiss.
Their lips met with more urgency this time. Their last kiss had been exploring and sweet. This kiss was just the beginning of more to come.
He inhaled the scent of lemon, still present on her lips from the tea that had become synonymous with comfort.
The sweetness of the cakes tingled on his tongue.
He slid a hand around her waist and pulled her to him.
It wasn’t enough. He needed more of her physical touch.
He lifted her onto his lap, straddling him.
The friction was delectable. Her breasts were level with his face. He thanked the universe for that and pulled down the bodice of her dress, placing kisses on the rounded tops.
Heat engulfed his entire body, and judging by her sighs, moans, and panting breaths, he surmised she felt the same. He had waited for a moment like this with Agnes for much too long. Every morsel of her touch was a feast for a starved man.
“Agnes.” He said her name between a breath. As if his call commanded her, she began to grind herself into his hardness.
He pulled down the rest of the fabric covering her breasts, and placed his mouth over one nipple, massaging it with his tongue. She rode against his cock harder and faster, not frantically, but in careful control of her own pleasure.
Being a man of order, he had to ensure he cared for her with proper symmetry.
He switched to the other nipple, but before he could do a thorough job, she pulled his head into her chest. Maybe he would suffocate between her breasts.
Harry didn’t give a damn, especially if that meant he could haunt her body forever.
Her gasps became faster and shorter, intermixed with deep-throated moans. He was a man—he was her man—able to get her off through pressure alone. A magic existed just between them. It had formed the moment she first said his name all those years ago.
He threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her head down. Pins fell onto the seat beside him. His cheek rested against hers while they sought pleasure in the contact. Their bodies were as close as they could be without stripping themselves of their clothing.
“Agnes.” He had no words except her name. Focus on how good this feels. Take your pleasure from me.
It was as if she read his mind. Her moans grew louder until she was part woman, part lioness. This was the Agnes he had come to know. Fierce and protective of her needs. He saw stars.
Moisture gathered under his placket. Blast. He wished he had brought additional handkerchiefs, or another pair of trousers.
Wound tight through years of a chaste marriage, Agnes had felt like a coiled spring ready to release under the faintest of touches.
But she had not expected Harry to come undone as quickly too.
He sat on his side of the carriage and sweat dripped from his face.
His open-mouthed panting proved he, too, was spent from the passion, but Agnes saw a shred of embarrassment as well.
She felt no shame. Since the moment they were in the carriage together, she had felt fullness in her body.
Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples were sensitive, and the ache between her legs was almost sore.
She might be inexperienced, but it had not kept her from wanting.
Her body called to him, and he responded to the call.
“Are you all right, Harry?” She was no vixen, but she hadn’t thought her performance so abysmal. It had all been pleasurable for her. The noises that filled the carriage were proof.
“Quite all right,” he said. When he looked up at her, his eyes darkened with desire. Desire from the memory or desire from anticipation of more, she was not certain, but she hoped for both. “But I am in need of a bit of cleanup. Would you be able to part with that towel from the sweets basket?”
Agnes searched for the towel that had been knocked onto the carriage floor. “Oh . . . yes, here.” She shook the remaining crumbs from the towel into the basket before handing it to him. His face flamed red once again.
“This is not how I imagined the first time we were intimate—" He choked. “I mean . . . not that I imagined it . . . well, I don’t know. Do you want honesty or politeness?”
She laughed. She didn’t know that she would laugh like this considering what they had just done, but it felt right.
“Harry, just stop. You needn’t worry . .
.” She had imagined the same things, but she kept that to herself, unsure if the confession would alleviate his embarrassment or mortify him further.
“Would you mind averting your eyes while I clean myself up? I think I would expire if you watched.”
His thumb was tucked under his waist band, his other hand holding the towel just over his lap. An understanding of his discomfort became clear at once. “Oh, yes, sorry.” She turned to look out the carriage window, hiding her smile.
While he cleaned himself, she wondered if he had suspected that she was not as experienced as most widows. She didn’t owe him any explanation of her history, but she wanted him to know that this was the first time she had found pleasure with the body of another. It was her truth to give him.
“You must believe I’m well versed in these marital matters, but I assure you, I am not like other widows. While I’m not a virgin, passion is new to me. What we just did, I haven’t experienced anything like that.”
She hesitated before turning back to Harry, briefly making eye contact before she noticed he was still cleaning himself. She looked out the window again.
She continued, anything to fill the silence that followed her confession.
“Richard and I consummated our marriage only once. I trusted him, and at his request, I allowed him to take my virginity. He was my husband, after all, legally and in the eyes of the church. It hadn’t been discussed when I married him, but I didn’t want to remain untouched for the rest of my life. ”
Even as he approached his sixties, Richard had been a handsome gentleman, well-kept with a romantic smile.
As the visions of men in Whitechapel still tormented her dreams, she hadn’t expected that she would come to desire the marital duties between man and wife.
But still, Richard kept the adjoining door between their room locked until the fourth year of their marriage.
Nervous and shaken, he’d explained that their reputations and livelihoods were at stake if people suspected that they had a chaste marriage.
Agnes promised him she wouldn’t tell a soul, but he told her there would be ways for doctors to determine if she was being honest. “Also, Agnes, dear. You’re a terrible liar, and I admire that about you.
But it doesn’t help us now.” Despite his worry, Richard gave her a choice, and she said yes.
Harry’s voice was tender and reassuring. “Agnes, you were married. I’m not expecting you to be an innocent. You don’t have to justify your history.”
“I’m not trying to. I just don’t want there to be secrets between us . . . and I want . . .”
After more silence, Harry cleared his throat. “I’m finished. You do not have to avert your eyes any longer.” She turned back and smiled despite the nerves that raked through her from their exchange. Yet, the warmth in his face made her keep talking.
“I want you to know that what we have, it’s special.
The time Richard and I . . . consummated the marriage, it wasn’t pleasurable, but he was kind.
He warned me that it would hurt, and it did.
We were friends, but during the act, I couldn’t find that intimacy.
He had put up a wall, staring into the corner of the room until he completed.
I had no desire to repeat it after that. ”
Harry said nothing at first, and when he did, his voice came out quiet. “You didn’t desire romantic passion with anyone else?”
Her stomach churned as his questions brought her dangerously close to the memories of her childhood, never forgotten, but less haunting now. She wasn’t ready to share those with him.
What would he think to know she wasn’t just Lady Skelton, but a nobody—father unknown, mother surviving on her back?
Their courtship would be over, and she would be stuck in this carriage with him to Skelton Manor and back.
If she could show him the nice parts of her first, before he saw the ugly, maybe then he’d still want her.
“I didn’t know the good that could exist between two people,” she said.
It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth.
The complete truth was physical intimacy had always seemed dangerous to her.
Intimacy between men and women was dark and twisted, lecherous and punishing.
She had never wanted to expose herself to that type of misery even though she longed for a family of her own.
She remembered Richard’s message to her. It’s time to discover who you are.