Trials of Artemis Page 12

  “This isn’t going to work,” she announced.

  “I assure you that it is,” he said solemnly. “You can trust me.”

  She looked back into his eyes and his confidence calmed her fears.

  Taking the towel he’d used earlier, he folded it and slid it under her hips, spreading her thighs open with gentle hands. "I haven't made it a habit to deflower virgins but my understanding is there can be a bit of blood." He paused, "That is provided, of course, that you are a virgin..." There was that vulnerability again that he rarely showed. A hope that she was his, that he was special to her.

  She ruthlessly suppressed any remaining fear and reached toward him. "Yes, but only because I can't seem to lure my husband to my bed."

  He smiled and lay down on her, his weight pressing her into the soft mattress again and the hardness of his cock pulsing against her inner thigh. He kissed her cheek and then stared down into her eyes as he guided himself into her. As he entered her she felt him shudder. He felt impossibly large and she almost told him again that he wasn't going to fit, but as he slid shallowly in and out of her she felt the tightness relax and the excitement low in her belly began to intensify. With each thrust he went slightly deeper until finally he gripped her hips and thrust fully into her. She felt a tearing pinch and squeaked in protest. He lay still on top of her and smoothed hairs back from her cheek. "Are you alright?"

  She nodded, knowing that there were tears in the corner of her eyes. "Yes, I'm fine."

  He kissed her again. The gentle, drugging kiss that made her forget everything else. After a few moments he started to move in her again and there was no pain. When she relaxed he quickened his pace and she felt a new aspect to the pleasures her body had experienced earlier. She instinctively tilted her pelvis and met his rhythm with her own, feeling a wild abandon beyond curricle racing or fighting. Her body began to pulse and she dug her nails into his skin from the intensity of the shuddering contractions that made her body quake. As she began to call his name he shouted hoarsely and after a final thrust he slumped forward, taking his weight onto his elbows above her and breathing heavily. His face was mostly covered by his dark, wild hair and she brushed it back to see his eyes. She didn't recognize his expression but decided that it was good. He leaned down to kiss her mouth and forehead before pulling rolling onto his back and pulling her on top of him. She tucked her head into the crook between his neck and shoulder while he ran his hands down her back and over her bottom. This aspect of marriage to him was, as she had suspected, quite pleasing.

  Gideon squeezed his beautiful, passionate wife's bottom and tried to get his breathing and galloping heart under control. Entering her tight, wet body had been one of the most amazing experiences of his life. When he had driven fully into her he had almost forgotten his concern about hurting her, as the whole of his being had sighed with relief and joy at finally joining. That first deep thrust had been accompanied by the thought "Oh, thank God." Then she had yipped in pain and it had felt like he himself had been stabbed. She had recovered quickly, once again a lush, demanding goddess. Just thinking about what it was like to be in her, he could feel himself hardening again, but it wouldn't do to cause her pain. He set her back on the towel and stood up to get the water bowl and assess how much blood there was. Seeing it smeared on his cock cooled his ardor for entering her again tonight. He cleaned himself off and then came to the bed to clean her as well. There was a small amount of blood on the towel and a bit more on her inner thighs and the lips of her cleft. He washed her silently while she watched him and the circumstance, which could have seemed awkward, was intimate and slightly erotic instead. Through her relaxation she signaled that he had full access to her body, and it was difficult not to start arousing them both again. After he set the bowl and towels aside she reached out for him, and he lay down next to her on the bed but she gripped him on his sides and pulled.

  "On top," she said.

  "You want me on top of you? I'm heavy."

  "I like it."

  As he liked it, too, he complied. She had spread her thighs and he settled into the intimate connection, his cock hardening and throbbing against her. She was running her hands through his hair again, then over his face and shoulders. It was both arousing and relaxing, and he thought it would be the better part of valor to sink into a nap rather than slide into her again as he intensely wanted to do.

  "Gideon."

  "Yes, love?"

  "Are you falling asleep?"

  He kissed her shoulder. "Perhaps, if you'll be quiet."

  "Then am I doing it wrong?"

  He rose up on his elbows to look down at her. She was worried now, he could see it in the tiny crease between her brows and the troubled look in her eyes. He kissed her on that tiny crease and smiled. "If you were doing it any more right I would probably burst into flames."

  "Then why aren't we… I can tell that you're...interested."

  His cock pulsed again. "Oh yes, I'm very...interested. But I don't want to hurt you." He stroked her cheek. "We have plenty of time."

  She gazed up at him, looking oddly serious. "Do we?”

  "Tomorrow isn't soon enough?"

  She seemed to give it serious thought. "Tomorrow is an abstract concept. All we really have is today."

  "Very well, you clever little vixen. I suppose this is what I get for marrying a woman who can read Greek. Philosophy in the bedroom." He rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him. "If we're going to do this then I want you to be able to stop if it hurts too much. Do you remember this from the book?"

  She gave him a triumphant smile. "Oh yes."

  He helped her to place her knees to the side of his hips and sink down onto his throbbing erection. She tilted her head back with a soft moan and began to move over him. As she found her rhythm he saw the flush bloom over her heavy, rounded breasts, bouncing with her movements. He thought it was very possible he would die from the pleasure of his new wife. His thumb found and stroked the pearl between her thighs to make sure she experienced her climax before he gripped her hips and drove up into her until he found his own release.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As Jack entered the drawing room on Gideon's arm before dinner, she felt herself flush as she spotted her childhood friend. She wondered how long it would be until she stopped feeling like she had just been discovered doing something naughty. But that brought thoughts of exactly what they had been doing upstairs, which made her face burn even hotter.

  Justin had changed into dinner clothes, which meant that either he had packed some, which she doubted, or her husband had ordered his staff to produce some for him from somewhere. They actually fit rather well, if a few years out of style. He bowed politely to them both and it made her smile, remembering how Sabre would lecture him on his manners. 'Even as a bastard you may have occasion to move in Society one day and it will reflect very poorly on me, indeed, if you cannot do so with aplomb.' Jack knew that Sabre had put in that extra twist about how it would reflect on her because Justin would do almost anything to help his half-siblings, and would be appalled to have his own behavior reflect poorly on them.

  How prescient Sabre had proven to be, now that Justin was here, making his bow to an earl and countess, preparing to eat at their table. Even the viscount had never allowed Justin to eat at table with the family. From what Jack had seen the viscount tried very hard to ignore that Justin even existed, which had been both boon and bane to the boy. On the one hand, it meant that Justin could do almost anything as long as he didn't run afoul of the viscount. On the other hand, it meant he didn't have the attention and affection of the person who meant the most to him. It was, Jack thought, a very strange and sad life to lead. And it was evident that without his half-siblings and the rest of the Haberdashers around, Justin had settled into less than what he had the potential to be.

  When entertaining, it was customary to chat in the drawing room until dinner was announced, and as the two friends hadn't uttered a word, Gideon
started the conversation. "Have you found your room satisfactory?"

  Justin nodded, "Yes, thank you, my lord. The view of the gardens is stunning and the room is quite comfortable."

  Jack suppressed the impulse to applaud him, as she used to do when he gave a particularly good answer as they played what Sabre called "Lord and Lady." It had been a game designed to prepare all of them for precisely this circumstance. And, as Jack recalled, she had always been abysmal at it. She had preferred to watch the others play. Justin with his earnestness, George with her sly wit, Sabre with her haughty arrogance, and Sam with her sweetness. On the rare occasions that they could press Robert and Charlie into playing with them, she had enjoyed Robert's smooth authority and Charlie's silly playfulness as well. Just then she had a terrible wave of nostalgia and missed her friends all the more acutely. She missed those innocent games with her friends and now, as she realized she still hadn't participated in the conversation, she also wished she had been more diligent in using them to improve upon the flaw in her character that made her silent in social situations. She searched her mind for something to say and blurted out the first thing she found, "We're having a ball. Next month. I do hope you can come."

  She realized that both of them seemed stunned. The first person she was going to invite to this nebulous idea of a ball was the nearly unacknowledged bastard of a peer? She had made the mistake of letting her genuine feelings run her mouth again, rather than putting a Society gloss over all her true thoughts and emotions. But if she were to choose who would be at her ball then of course Justin would be on her list. If she had her druthers it would be completely confined to her "Lord and Lady" playmates, save she supposed she had to add Gideon. Perhaps she should go back to the silence that had formerly seemed like such a bad idea.

  Justin flushed and looked at the earl, then back to Jack. "If I am able, then of course I would be most honored."

  Fortunately Dibbs saved them by announcing dinner.

  Their places had been set at Gideon's end of the table as Jack had requested, placing her in her usual seat and Justin across from her at Gideon's left. She remained quiet through the first course and fortunately her friend and her husband found an accord in conversation almost immediately. Their topics ranged from regional agriculture, including the proposed Importation Act, to the latest news from the Congress of Vienna. After pushing her peas around her plate while listening she finally said, "It's nice to hear the latest news after being out here without the newspaper."

  Gideon stopped and looked at her. "We take the paper. It's a day late from London, but we get it."

  "We do? Since we never read it at breakfast I assumed we didn't."

  He reached out to take her hand. "Yes, we do. I take it in my study. You may come by any morning you like to read it."

  She smiled at him, thinking this would be something else they could share.

  "Well," Justin said, spooning up some potatoes. "I'm glad to see that what they say is true."

  "What's true?" Gideon asked, turning his attention to his young guest.

  Justin looked from the earl to Jack as though not sure he needed to say anything. "That it's a love match."

  Gideon withdrew his hand stiffly from Jack's and picked up his fork again. "Yes, well, if you can't trust London gossip what can you trust?"

  Jack raised a brow at Justin and said tartly, "And what else did Samantha put in her letter?"

  Justin smiled down into his fish course and shrugged. "Some other things."

  "Gideon, I have to apologize for my sister. She is immature and intrusive."

  "Jack!" Justin exclaimed, ready to defend his ladylove.

  Gideon leaned forward slightly to catch the young man's eye. "Are you shouting at my wife?"

  Justin slinked down in his seat a bit. "My apologies, my lord."

  "So," Jack said briskly to divert them, "what were you saying about the Corn Laws?"

  That set them off into another fifteen minutes of debating agricultural issues while Jack wondered what other things Sam had mentioned that had made Justin smile.

  Gideon considered it lucky that Jacqueline's young friend was a rather well informed and intelligent conversationalist, otherwise there would be nothing stopping him from taking his wife back upstairs for another round of lovemaking, and it was too soon for that, certainly. He found that he couldn't stop touching her, although he tried to make it less obvious after Justin's comment. Just a tap on the arm or sliding his foot to intercept hers under the table. It began to feel like a game. The "how many times can I touch Jacqueline without anyone noticing?" game. He knew that she had entered into the spirit of it when she leaned forward to ask Justin a question and used that opportunity to set her hand on her husband’s knee. Being just as surreptitious, he took her fingers in his own and they spent all of the dessert course holding hands under the edge of the table. Fortunately the berry compote chef had served was easily eaten one-handed.

  After dinner Jacqueline insisted on withdrawing to leave them to their port, something Gideon resented both because it meant there would be a stall in his game, and he didn't fancy taking port with a wet behind the ears bastard pup. The more he chatted with the lad, the younger he assumed the boy to be. Not that there was anything wrong with being young per se, but undoubtedly they would run out of agreeable topics before long. And besides that, he didn't particularly care for port and he wanted his wife and really there wasn't anything wrong with either of those things, and what was the point of being an earl if you couldn't avoid what you disliked and have what you liked? His mind was clicking along on that track while his mouth was talking about agriculture when the young pup in question threw out an unexpected observation.

  "I think the most important thing in marriage is what you bring out in each other."

  "Pardon me?"

  The boy had slouched down in his chair as befitted the coze of after dinner drinks, and now stared down into the port glass he had barely sipped from. "What you bring out in each other." When the earl remained silent the boy looked up again. "I don't know you, my lord, I can't say as to what effect Jack has had on you. But I can certainly see the effect you've had on Jack."

  "I've.. had an effect?" Gideon looked into his own glass and realized he was already on his second serving and well on his way to claiming a third.

  "You confuse her. Fluster her."

  "And is that... good?"

  "It remains to be seen, my lord."

  Gideon decided that he would stop at two glasses and set to swirling the liquid at the bottom of his glass as he contemplated the boy's words. It took a great deal of guts to tell a peer that you weren't sure you thought much of how he was treating your friend. Provided it was just friendship and not something more fueling the boy's courage.

  "How long have you known Jacqueline?"

  "All my life."

  "And how would you describe the nature of your relationship?"

  At that the boy looked up and smiled at him. "She's one of my sisters."

  "One of?"

  "All the Haberdashers are my sisters."

  "Haberdashers?"

  The boy looked confused. "The Haberdashers. Sabre, Jack, and George."

  "Not Samantha?"

  That made a laugh bubble up out of him. "Of course not."

  "What's funny about that?"

  "Have you ever seen Samantha try to shoot a gun?"

  "Of course not."

  "If you do I suggest you take cover behind something."

  "The Haberdashers is a shooting club?"

  The boy tilted his head to one side as though considering Gideon's limited knowledge of the Haberdashers. "I suggest you ask Jack about it."

  Gideon began to feel out of sorts over this Haberdashers business. "Why do they all use boy's names?"

  Justin shrugged. "Ask Jack."

  "Do you never call her Jacqueline?"

  "No one does. Except you. Sam calls her Jackie."

  After a moment Gideon said, "Well,
that's all very interesting but I think it's time to rejoin my lovely wife."

  Justin nodded and set his barely touched glass of port aside. Well, at least they had a distaste of port in common.

  Jack lingered in the drawing room reading a book of Greek plays that Lara had been kind enough to fetch for her. She had been so proud of how Justin comported himself at table that she knew just how a mama bird felt the first time her baby bird flew. Later she would write letters to Sabre and George to tell them all about it, knowing they would be jealous that they hadn't been here to witness it. But meanwhile it was her lot to wait and see if the men rejoined her for after-dinner entertainments. It wasn't terribly long before they did, seeming perhaps a bit more out of sorts than they had been before she left them. Sadly they didn't have a fourth for whist and after a short discussion of potential entertainments the group broke up to make an early evening of it. She insisted that Justin take the book of plays up to his room with him since she knew he wouldn't trouble anyone with a request. And besides, it couldn't hurt for him to practice his Greek.

  Chapter Twenty

  Once they were upstairs she and Gideon went to their separate dressing rooms to ready themselves for bed. They hadn't discussed what the sleeping arrangements would be and Jack was a bit nervous of what she would do if he seemed to avoid her, but he reappeared while she was brushing out her hair and sat on the bed watching her.

  "What is this young man's last name, anyway?" he asked. "I assume it isn't Bittlesworth."

  Jack laughed. "Oh my goodness, I didn't introduce you."

  Gideon shrugged. "By the time it seemed I wasn’t going to thrash him I'm sure the moment had passed."

  "Well, my apologies that I let your bad manners inspire my own. His name is Justin Miller."

  "And his mother?"

  Jack paused. "Sibyl Miller. She was a maid at the Bittlesworth's estate."

  "Where is she now?"

  "She died of a fever within a week of when Justin was born."