Page 44 of The Reckless Love of an Heir (The Marlow Family Secrets #4)

She stared at him for a moment more as he watched the pulse of her heartbeat in the artery in her neck.

He bowed his head and kissed the place, wishing the neck of her gown was not so high, so, he might kiss her shoulder and her clavicle, then her breast. He needed to feel the softness of her body after so many days of facing the hard realities of life.

He kissed along her jaw, his hand still holding a fistful of her dress and petticoats, with her hand clasped over his.

‘Henry.’

‘Yes or no?’ he asked. ‘May we progress?’

She let his hand go, answering in silence .

He lifted her skirt and undergarments higher. Her body arched upwards to enable it. She was as reckless and foolish as he was. He had only discovered that this year. She was his match.

The material left bunched above her hip, his fingers tackled her cotton drawers, searching for skin as he imagined his lips kissing her inner thigh. In reality his fingers stroked across cotton as he kissed her mouth.

When his fingers found the slit in her drawers, he intruded gently, pressing through the cloth and into the silky, moist haven of her body. Her muscles jolted and her fingers clawed into his shoulders as she broke the kiss. ‘Henry…’ She was uncertain now.

He did not want her to feel uncertain. ‘Tell me to stop whenever you want to.’

He kissed her jaw as his fingers stroked in and out of her in the rhythm of a liaison.

She tilted her neck, offering it up to his adoration and her breathing became deeper and ragged as the sensations he must be introducing her to took hold.

He used his thumb, brushing it over the sensitive bud of skin, as his fingers continued invading her, he curved them so that he stroked her more intimately internally. Her breath kept catching with little sharp pants of sound when he did something different

She was beautiful in every way. Perfect.

Then, when his fingers were deep inside her, she reached Eros’s agony of bliss, her body throbbing about his intrusion, as the moisture of her release spread across his palm.

Lord, he hoped, prayed, she would not tell him to stop now. His throat was parched, and his desire a desperate beast.

‘Susan… May I? May we…?’ Her eyes had been shut, they opened as he moved over her, sparkling with the residue of the ecstasy. Those were the sensations he craved.

He knelt on the ground between her legs and unbuttoned his flap. Then with them both still fully clothed he leaned over her, his hands either side of her shoulders.

Her hands held his upper arms, reminding him of the gentle unique grip of Susan’s hand when he escorted her anywhere.

‘May we?’ he whispered.

She nodded.

He pressed inside her. Damn. It was heaven. Warm. Tight. Slick. Heaven. He moved gently at first, and then more swiftly, his pace becoming firm as well as quick as he dropped heavily against her.

Susan’s hands clawed into the material of Henry’s black morning coat, her body rocking in a resonance of his movement.

What was she doing? This was madness. They were in the garden.

Anyone might walk past or look from a window and see.

Her heart raced – ached. This was something for a marriage bed.

They had not even taken off their clothes.

But why would they, when they were so exposed?

As her body rocked from his invasions, she tilted her head back, looking at the house. Beyond the cloud of roses she could see some of the upper windows, which meant if anyone looked out of those they would see them.

She did not stop him. He needed this. She knew the moment he began kissing her he was seeking this comfort. No words would have helped him, but this… She had longed to hold and help him and if this was the only way she could.

She was insane. Reckless. As he was being reckless. Only this time he was being reckless with her. His upper body lowered, and his cheek brushed against hers, his hair tickling her skin, as his hips continued to lift and fall .

One of her hands clasped his hair, with a need to hold on to something as she felt as though she would fall. The sensations teased and tormented as he withdrew and pressed back in, in a swift pattern.

She had not been able to fight the pleasure his fingers created, the sensations still danced through her nerves and pulsed in her blood. But she was sore.

He breathed hard near her ear as his body moved, and at last the soreness began to ease.

The emotions she had discovered before sweeping up again.

Her legs lifted so her thighs pressed against the side of his as he moved, and her hands moved to his shoulders and pressed into the fabric of his black morning coat.

He withdrew a little and played a game of short sharp pulses of invasion near where she was more sensitive. Her fingers clawed more firmly into the material of his coat, as her thighs lifted higher and clasped about his hips.

‘Oh.’ A ripple of deeper sensation spun in her middle and down to the place he invaded. He thrust deeply into her, striking his pelvis against hers.

His head lifted, and his gaze clung to hers as she tried not to cry out. She would break apart. ‘Ah.’ The breaking came as an even stronger sudden flow of sensations.

She swallowed the pleasure down from the back of her throat as after three more pulses, he sighed into the air with an animalistic gravelly note, rubbing his groin against her as she felt him throbbing inside her.

His head hung down, and he breathed heavily near her ear.

What had they just done? Guilt stamped down as soon as the sensations had gone.

Stupid. Reckless.

What about Alethea?

He withdrew from her body and tumbled onto his back beside her, his legs still tangled up with hers. He huffed out a sigh.

They lay still, as she looked up at the orange-streaked sky. The sun would drop below the horizon at any moment. Her parents would be leaving and looking for her.

Birdsong swelled around them, a loud chorus of sound as the birds sang to the last moments of sunlight.

‘I suppose we ought to go back in,’ he said to the sky.

She sat up, untangling her legs and brushing down her dress, then stood as he buttoned his flap.

Still sitting on the ground, he leaned over and brushed the back of her skirt.

‘Is it stained?’

‘No. No one will know.’

But she knew, and she must ride home in the carriage with Alethea knowing how disloyal she had been. But if she had not been disloyal to Alethea she would be disloyal to herself, and Henry? With either step she would hurt someone. What a mess.

He stood then and before she could turn to go back to the house, his hand curved about the back of her neck and his lips pressed over hers. ‘Thank you,’ he said when he broke the kiss. Then he said, ‘Your spectacles.’

He turned and picked them up.

Her hands shook when she accepted them and put them on. It felt as though she had stepped back into herself. All the enchanting sensations his caresses had engendered had disappeared, leaving her standing on a barren island.

‘You go back inside first. I will follow in a few moments.’

She nodded.

He seemed so matter of fact. How many women had he done this with ?

Warmth flooded her cheeks when she turned away. She did not even say goodbye to him, her mind was too muddled.

When she walked into the drawing room she was certain she must be as bright a pink as the roses in the garden, and that everyone in the room must know she was different.

The hands of the clock said she had been out of the room for less than an hour – her life had changed entirely in less than an hour.

No. It had not. She had to find employment, just as she had planned, only now she must find it quicker.

Henry walked in as she heard the carriages on the cobbles in the courtyard, arriving to take everyone away and leave the family to their grief.

He shook hands with the men, and shared a one-armed masculine embrace with Harry and Uncle Edward.

He did not look at her, and if he had, she would have looked away. If she caught his gaze she would blush the colour of a ripe strawberry.

She hugged Aunt Jane when she said goodbye and held Uncle Robert’s hand for a moment. His eyes looked so empty. Then she hugged Christine and Sarah, before saying her goodbyes to Henry’s wider family who were also leaving. Through all the goodbyes, somehow she managed to avoid Henry entirely.

Her father held her hand when she climbed into the carriage. She sat beside Alethea, her heart heavy and her hands shaking. She held the edges of her shawl and pulled it tighter about her shoulders.

What had they done? He had never been more reckless, and nor had she.

None of her family spoke in their short journey home. Probably because it had been an emotional day for all of them – yet for her… Such a day .

As soon as they reached home, Susan excused herself and retired to her room and her bed.

As she lay in the dark, in the comfort of her childhood bed, she could not escape the memory of this evening. The perfume of the blades of grass and the rose petals that had fallen there and were crushed beneath her clung in her hair.

Her fingers touched where Henry had invaded her body. She was sore still. Yet her senses seemed to hum the tune of his rhythm.

A slight knock struck the bedchamber door, and it creaked as it opened.

‘Hello.’ Alethea became a dark shadow rushing across the room. ‘May I sleep with you?’ she said, as she moved the covers aside.

Susan did not reply; the question had not really been a question.

‘I feel miserable.’ The mattress rocked when Alethea lay beside her. ‘I told Henry after dinner that I understand.’

Guilt was no longer a little sharp thrust of pain but a spearhead wedged in Susan’s side that twisted about fiercely. ‘Understand what?’ she asked.

‘That he cannot propose to me while he is in mourning, and therefore we will have to wait until next year before our courtship can progress.’

Susan bit her lip to stop herself from speaking.

‘He was so quiet I think he would have liked to speak with me in more depth but we were surrounded by people in the drawing room and so he could not. He is so upset, though.’

‘Yes. I know.’ The image of Henry’s eyes and the emotion they displayed, came to her mind’s eye.

‘I wish I could do something for him,’ Alethea said .

Something . The word struck Susan. She had said that to Henry, then they had done something that comforted him.

Nausea turned over in her stomach. Alethea would be so angry if she knew?

Alethea carried on whispering, talking about Henry and his family, and the others who had attended today.

Susan whispered acknowledgements in return, but her mind was occupied by Henry – wondering what he was doing and thinking now.