Page 53 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

She began to laugh and the moment between them that could have been terrible was beautiful instead.

‘You do not have a hankering for heirs?’ She asked this gently.

‘I don’t because I already have them in Oliver’s sons. Two estates, two boys and more than enough money to see that Juliette is well provided for as well.’

He sounded as if he genuinely meant it and the emptiness that had always been inside her as a result of her inability to bear a child was filled instead with something else entirely. Acceptance perhaps and relief. When his fingers began to move again she shut her eyes and enjoyed the feeling until the clock in the corner rang out the hour of four and she knew she should leave before too much longer.

But he turned her into him and this time he was neither gentle nor temperate. No, this time he kissed her in a way that had her accepting everything he was seeking and more.

He had seen her off into his carriage, her clothes, hat and coat all again in place and her hair retied into a knot at the nape. The hour of five was already upon them and to be seen in the daylighthours alone in a coach after an entire night out would be ruinous for any woman.

He could not accompany her, either, for the very same reason.

A hidden affair. An illicit coupling. A sensual escapade that he could barely believe had just happened. He was almost thirty-three and he had never once in all his life felt like this. Breathless. Yearning for more. Wanting it with an ache.

They were now in a place that set them aside from the normal world, a place of veiled secrecy and clandestine emotion. There was an excitement to it as well as a thrilling fear of being caught.

He looked at his left hand and saw the paleness of his skin where his ring had sat for so many years. He had taken it off a week ago because it did not feel right to wear it, given the thoughts he was having about Wilhelmina. Gretel’s sickness was a part of the equation too, the guilt of her passing still in him, the idea that he may not have done enough for her in her life, may not have loved her as he should have even though he had tried his very hardest.

He had placed his ring in her glory box, the one sent with her to Elmsworth on her marriage to him, full of things that had never been taken out, baby clothes, a small knitted blanket and toys that she had held dear as a child: a felt bunny, a leather ball stitched together in red wool, a rattle for teething with both a pink and a blue ribbon tied around the handle.

Dreams and hopes in their tangible form. Aspirations that had never come to pass.

Perhaps it was all these things that had made him think he was not a man meant to be a husband, that his one foray into marriage had been so loss-filled he never wanted another one.

He looked out into the early morning light, a pink sky rising in the east. He missed Wilhelmina already, missed who he became with her, missed the sensual heat of sex. For the firsttime in a long while his hands felt warm and they did not shake. He wondered what would happen next between them and he also feared what might not.

Willa could not find sleep even though she had had very little in all of her long and wondrous night with Phillip Moreland.

She felt different, that was the trouble. She felt fulfilled. Her fingers went down to the place between her legs, feeling the wetness as a gift. She had not bathed. She wanted to keep the scent of him with her for as long as she was able. She wanted him in her again, filling her, heating her, making her whole. Her hips moved up and down in rhythm as she pleasured herself, quietly and with intent. The Earl had released something in her that could not be stoppered, a primal hunger that could be fed only by him.

When would they meet again and where? Today? Tonight? She would like to make love in the sunshine outside in green fields or in his carriage on the way to a public ball where he might lift her skirts and come into her. Unseen by others. Known only to them.

Her release came quickly with these thoughts and she held herself still as her body throbbed into ecstasy. And then she slept.

The next night she dismissed all her staff early. He came to her just as the darkness turned and she led him to her room without speaking. She wore only a cream satin slip, which he removed within a few seconds and then they were on her bed, desperate for the taste of each other.

It was different this time. Fervent and reckless, as if the hours they had been apart all had to be accounted for in pounds offlesh and in heartbeats, and when he sank into her finally he groaned in a way she had not heard the night before. Like a wounded animal. Like a man who was uncertain of his fate.

‘You are like a drug, Wilhelmina. A drug I cannot stop wanting.’

And she felt the same way about him. Theirs was not the quiet gentleness of a pairing with all the time in the world. No, they tore at each other without boundaries, with a carnal need that could only be assuaged by the body of the other. Only when she felt him deep inside her was she complete, holding him there until release throbbed between them and they were still.

She did not wish for words tonight, and when he tried to speak again she placed her fingers across his lips and stopped him.

‘Just now. Just us.’ And he was quiet, the dark blue in his eyes brushed with lust.

This was how she wanted it. Knowing each other without a past or a future, finding delight in every touch and every kiss. Understanding that the pain of making love held a message too, in the slick wetness of their coupling. He was not always gentle and she was not always kind, and when he left three hours later she watched him from her window and wondered exactly who she had become.

A different woman. A freer one. A brazen mistress who relished everything that he showed her and was ashamed of nothing.

One hand cradled her stomach as if inside things were changing, as if the dry and barren woman she had always been had a new beginning, and all she could feel was hope.

Phillip sat in his carriage and swore.

He wanted her again the minute he had left her, the surge of sex so very welcome after years of nothing.

Perhaps that was why he felt like this? Never satisfied. Restless. Desperate. To have her again and to understand in the act of plunder there was also an undercurrent of a need so great he could not bear it.