Page 23 of How to Seduce a Viscount (Wed Within a Year #3)

N o good could come of playing out domestic fantasies with a woman who could rouse him with a glance, send him over the edge with a touch or scorch him with a word.

A woman who would leave him. They’d promised themselves only a short time.

Despite those promises, Wren Audley had become a fixture in his life and in his home, to the extent that brandy would never taste the same and he would never look at the chair or the carpet in the library without thinking of her as she’d been last night—neck arched, snowflake-colored tresses cascading, her head thrown back in abject pleasure.

He may have to replace the furniture if he was meant to survive this.

He’d certainly never step foot into the guest chamber and not think of her bleeding and pale on the bed.

But that seemed non-unique. He couldn’t stop thinking of her whether she was in a room or not.

His attraction to her had transcended proximity. She’d taken up residence in his mind.

Luce looked up from where he stood at the long dining room table polishing silver to watch her with Mrs Hartley, selecting china and glassware for their supper with the vicar and his guests.

Today, she wore one of her new ready-made dresses, a garnet wool that she managed to wear without needing any corsetry, the curves beneath the gown undeniably her own.

His hands had traced those slight curves, cupped the perfect apples that were her breasts.

She caught him staring. She met his gaze and gave a knowing smile that indicated her thoughts were aligned with his.

‘Do you prefer the Wedgwood with the Etruscan pattern or the blue?’

The question shot a bolt of domestic premonition through him.

One night of loving and here he was imagining her, seeing her in his home as his hostess, as his viscountess, as someone permanent when he knew he had to give her up for the game, for her own good.

He’d fallen for the one woman he couldn’t keep.

His conscience mocked him. My dear boy, it wasn’t just one night of loving that brought you here. That was just the sharp relief that brought the depth of your desire into focus. You’ve been thinking of her nonstop for weeks now—long before she was in your bed.

Perhaps the old adage was true that when one saved a life one felt responsible for it. He flashed her a smile that betrayed none of his inner turmoil. ‘You decide.’

‘We’ll use the blue, Mrs Hartley. It sets a more traditional tone, I think.’ She smiled back, hidden meaning dancing in her eyes. ‘Which is the mood we want to set for the evening. It is Lord Waring’s first entertainment in residence. We must lead as we mean to go on.’

We. Such a short word but a powerful one.

She’d dropped that word into the conversation with ease, as if the two of them hosted dinner parties all the time and all else that was implied in it.

That they were together, a single unit acting in harmony.

‘Thank you, Mrs Hartley.’ Luce dismissed the housekeeper with a polite nod, wanting the dining room to himself.

‘You are very welcome.’ The housekeeper gave his rolled-up sleeves a disapproving stare. ‘We have footmen to polish the silver. Rowley and the others can do it.’

‘They certainly can, Mrs Hartley. However, time is short and their efforts are needed elsewhere if we mean to receive the vicar with a modicum of decency.’ The abbey was staffed to take care of a single bachelor living quietly, not hosting dinner parties.

Luce had not planned to hire more staff until…

until he brought his bride home at midsummer, whoever she might be.

His gut twisted at the prospect. He could not imagine—did not want to imagine—another woman sitting in Wren’s chair, touching Wren’s velvety throw.

Mrs Hartley pursed her lips in concession. ‘It would be best if word of such efforts on your part didn’t get out. It wouldn’t do.’

‘I understand, Mrs Hartley,’ Luce replied with the gravity the response deserved. Rank and file was everything to servants who took pride in knowing their place and doing their jobs.

Mrs Hartley exited and Wren came to stand beside him, giving his arm a playful punch. ‘You will give that dear woman an apoplexy. The viscount polishing silver!’

‘It must be done.’ Luce grinned. ‘Do you know what else must be done?’ he growled wickedly at her ear, his hands at her waist. ‘This.’ He kissed the tender pulse beneath her ear.

‘And this.’ His mouth dropped to trail kisses along the line of her jaw, breathing her in.

She smelled of summertime—strawberries and roses, the soft sweetness of the berry, the feminine sophistication of the rose.

‘You smell good.’ Luce nuzzled her neck.

‘Is this the soap you got in town?’ He’d buy all the shop had.

‘Does it meet with your approval Mr Lover-of-all-things-winter?’ she teased. ‘I would have thought it too summery for you.’

‘But not too summery for you. It suits you perfectly.’ He gave her a wicked look and hoisted her up to the table. ‘Do you smell this good everywhere?’

To his ever-lasting pleasure, Wren spread her legs and drew her skirts back, her mischief matching his wickedness. ‘Come find out, if you think you can before Mrs Hartley returns.’

He knelt, his hands at her parted thighs. He breathed her in. ‘My dear, have you ever climaxed on a fifteenth-century trestle table used by monks?’

‘Am I about to?’ She leaned back, bracing herself with her hands, her eyes dark with excitement. The scent of feminine arousal mixing with the soft strawberries in the space between them.

‘You most certainly are,’ Luce whispered wickedly and put his mouth to good use at her strawberry scented core.

Open doors, returning housekeepers and wandering servants all ceased to be a priority at the first lick of his tongue.

Wren dug her hands into the walnut surface of the table, a moan escaping her despite her efforts for silence.

What servants couldn’t see, they could still hear, but she was very close to not caring about that either.

This was a delicious payback for last night when she’d mouthed him with the brandy.

Yet even in the midst of such ecstasy, the nasty reminder intruded.

There would be a price for this pleasure.

Every day she withheld her secrets she was betraying him, and he would hate her for it.

Her heart pounded a single message in every beat.

Tell him . Tell him . But how could she betray the earl?

To tell would be to fail in her final mission.

Luce flicked his tongue over the secret centre of her pleasure and a primal groan purled up her throat.

She thumped the flat of her hand on the table, begging for obliteration that would take her past the doubts in her mind.

She was beyond control. Beyond caring who heard her.

Dear heavens, he was a master at this—driving her to the edge of completion and then drawing her back until all she wanted was the release that taunting her on the horizon of her desire.

Her body was a riot of sensation. A contradiction of wants.

She wanted him to hurry yet she wanted him to linger.

She wanted him to give her release yet she wanted him to extend this decadent limbo for as long as possible.

She could endure this pleasure yet she could not endure it.

She would surely die if she could not claim that pleasure soon…

And then he set her free. His own breathing laboured.

His hands gripping her thighs hard as he let her claim release, let her soar among the clouds, her face raised to the timbered ceiling and its blackened Tudor beams. Her eyes closed as her soul roamed another realm.

A realm that only pleasure could access and to which Luce was the key.

She moved a languid hand to his head resting at her thigh and tangled her fingers gently in his hair.

‘Luce,’ she whispered his name as if that one word was enough, as if it contained all meaning necessary to convey the emotions of the moment. This had been both worshipful and wicked, pious and profane.

He looked up from his intimate crouch, an enviable, self-satisfied smile on his decadent mouth. ‘I believe the answer is yes, to both questions.’

‘Yes,’ she sighed softly, ‘I do believe you’re right.’ She would have liked to have remained there on the table until every last echo of pleasure had passed but that would have been too long.

‘Mrs Hartley is expecting me to go over the menu for tomorrow night.’

If she didn’t go to Mrs Hartley, Mrs Hartley would come looking for her and Wren would rather not be found sitting on the table, her skirts askew and her cheeks flushed.

She drew her skirts down and whet her lips. ‘Do I look ravaged?’

‘Only I would know.’ Luce leaned forward for a kiss, something soft in his eyes.

‘It will be our secret,’ he whispered at her ear. ‘You can think about this when the vicar sits down to supper. Then you’ll smile and the vicar will ask you why you’re smiling. You will have to make something up, of course.’

‘Lie to the vicar? How wicked.’ Wren wrapped her arms about his neck and drew him close, intent on a little mischief of her own.

‘Maybe I’ll tell him the truth,’ she murmured, ‘that the day before, Lord Waring pleasured me most thoroughly with his mouth at this very table and it was so divine I cannot stop thinking about it.’

Luce gave a primal growl. ‘You minx. You’d give him a fit before the first course.’

She tapped him on the nose. ‘Will I do it or not? Now you have something to think about as well while you polish the silver.’

She’d levelled the pitch with her parting remark, but knowing Luce would also be distracted in his chores did not make discussing menus any easier. The domesticity of the chore in fact inspired further distraction.