Page 20 of When the Marquess Needed Me (The Rake Chronicles #4)
Chapter Eighteen
W ith Beatrice Salisbury on top of him, his bollocks completely spent, Leith felt, at once, like a much older and younger man.
Like he had died and been reborn at the same moment.
He could not remember having ever done something like this—tupping on a stone bench in Vauxhall, of all places—and having enjoyed it.
More than enjoyed.
Indeed, he was aware, in a distant, primal way, that something within him had been knocked loose by all that pleasure. And by the wild, indecent Miss Beatrice Salisbury.
And he feared the consequences.
For now, though, he pushed those disconcerting emotions down.
Because Beatrice was dismounting him and, if he didn’t work fast, his French-lettered cock was about to be on display to Beatrice and any curious passerby. Not that there appeared to be any of those.
Working quickly, he pulled off the letter, and flipped over the placket of his pants.
At least this way, Beatrice wouldn’t be confronted by the sight of his disappointing cock after she had just given him the orgasm of his life.
The only problem, he realized, was that he was holding the French letter. And that he had no idea what to do with it.
He looked down at the thing. It was indecently filled with seed. He had dealt with many of his own French letters in his life and they were seldom this full.
Usually, he disposed of the thing as quickly as possible, but there was no place to do so here. He couldn’t lay the thing down without it getting seed all over the stone bench.
Which he supposed would not be the first time for this particular stone bench at Vauxhall. Nevertheless it disgusted him all the same. He found he could not lay it down.
And the bloody fireworks were still going off overhead.
He heard Beatrice’s musical laugh, and he looked up, irritated and embarrassed by his predicament.
But her smile was so kind, her face so much more open and mirthful than it had been when they met only a few days ago, that gap between her teeth both sweet and tantalizing, that his gruff words died in his throat.
“Do you need a handkerchief?”
“Yes, please,” he said, sounding, he was sure, completely ridiculous.
She handed him a length of white fabric from her reticule. Happily, he noticed, it was not too small of a handkerchief.
He tied the letter and wrapped it in the handkerchief and shoved the lot in his pocket. God willing, there would be no dripping . The thought made him shudder.
“I am sorry about the mess,” Beatrice said. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose we could have tossed it into the hedgerow, but that hardly seems sporting.”
“It’s no matter,” he said. “And it’s certainly not your fault.”
It was he who had created such a tremendous spend within the French letter. He was a beast.
“I am the one who made the mess.”
“Yes, but I incited it.” She held out her hand to him. “Come, we must not leave Sally and Charles any longer.”
She had taken his hand, briefly, when they were kissing by the hedgerow.
Had he ever held hands with a woman?
For some reason, he couldn’t remember a single instance, although it couldn’t be true that he hadn’t.
It was a simple thing.
He saw his friends hold hands with their wives all the time. And it never failed to make him feel something—first, yes, irritation, but, if he were honest, not just that.
He had never understood it, even if part of him had thought it seemed like one of the only appealing parts of the marital state.
The easy wordlessness of it.
Catherine was always reaching across the table to take John’s hand when his father was mentioned or when he said protective things about their young son, Griff.
Henrietta would take Trem’s hand when the subject of his young orphaning came about. Or when he felt some gentleman of the ton was looking at her too closely and he grew possessive.
And Olivia and Monty held hands the most. Leith always took it as a symptom of their long separation. Of how glad they were to have found each other again—and how they might fear, he imagined, being pulled asunder once more.
“Come on,” she beckoned.
It felt consequential somehow. Weighty. To take her hand here.
But he did it anyway. He couldn’t resist.
And it felt good. Almost as good, although in a totally different way, as their robust coupling on the bench.
They walked out of the garden and down the path, back towards the noise and the revelry. The nearing noise didn’t bother him as much as it once had. Their contented silence warmed him and made his distaste for the place more tolerable. It helped to know, too, that she also didn’t care for much of what surrounded them. It made him feel less alone.
The fireworks burst forth in a passion above them and then stopped altogether. Their stilling mirrored the peacefulness he felt inside of himself.
When they reached the main pavilion, she didn’t drop his hand.
He considered it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.
And, after all, what was the problem with it? Compared to what they had done on the bench, it was nothing. And they were at Vauxhall, a place of permissiveness. If he could hold his mistress’s hand publicly anywhere in London, it was here.
When they approached the supper box, they found it empty.
He turned to Beatrice and saw her worried expression.
“I am sure they haven’t gone far.”
Beatrice, he was learning, was very solicitous about the well-being of her maid. It was unusual, but so many things about her were. At least to him.
“Shall we look for them?”
“It would be unlike Sally to stray far.”
He turned towards the dance floor in front of the orchestra and saw a flash of a familiar color. Yes, it was Balfour livery.
“Ah, there they are.”
Sally and Charles were dancing. It was, of course, not strictly the done thing for their servants to be so flagrantly enjoying themselves, but he couldn’t see any practical reason for his objection. Especially since the last thing he would have wanted was for Sally and Charles to have been within earshot of what they had just been doing.
They made a handsome pair, too, whirling around in the waltz with as much elegance as any lord or lady in Mayfair.
“Well, at least they are enjoying themselves.”
He turned towards Beatrice, expecting to see her amused smile. But, instead, she had a little frown and a furrow between her brows.
“You do not need to worry about Charles,” he said, thinking she might be concerned about the man taking a liberty. “He is a good-hearted lad. I’d trust him with anything.”
She shook her head. “I am worried about Charles. Just not in the manner you mean.”
The music had slowed, and Charles had caught sight of them. He gestured to the boy.
He had a large smile across his face. In a very gentlemanly fashion, he escorted Sally through the throngs, protecting her from the flailing limbs of the other revelers.
For the first time, Leith noticed that this Sally was a very pretty girl indeed.
“Apologies, my lord. Miss Sally only wanted to dance.”
“Vauxhall Gardens is the best place on earth!” exclaimed his dance partner.
“How much champagne have you had?” asked Beatrice, her voice in a low hiss.
“Only five or six glasses,” said Sally. “I’d dearly love another.”
Beatrice looked like she was ready to strangle the girl. Really, it wasn’t becoming behavior for a servant.
Charles, however, couldn’t stop beaming at the girl.
He was looking at her like—well, Leith didn’t like to reflect on it. But the expression on Charles’s face looked awfully similar to how he feared he had looked at Beatrice during their recent…encounter.
He cast up a silent prayer to the gods that he, somehow, had managed to look more dignified than his manservant did right now.
Although that seemed somewhat unlikely when he would have had his breeches around his ankles and his cock inside of her.
“I do feel a bit faint,” the girl said. “Bea, there are two of you!”
Sally held out her hand as if tracing the second Beatrice with her fingertips.
“Dear God, how many glasses did she have, truly?” Beatrice demanded of Charles.
For the first time, the boy’s sunny demeanor was punctured. “I—I wasn’t keeping count.”
“She’s foxed,” Beatrice said to Leith. “We need to leave. Immediately.”
“I’ll never recover from the disappointment,” he said, dryly.
Thankfully, she chuckled.
But the truth was, as they drifted away from Vauxhall on their boat, he did feel a bit wistful.
He had never enjoyed a trip there nearly as much.