Author's note: Indeed hell hath frozen over.
Sorry for the long delay. I appreciate both your patience and the many comments and emails. Thank you!
To recap, our cast of characters:
Eliza Lockhart - governess, female main
William Grayson, the Earl of Rockdale - Eliza's employer and lover, male main
Caroline Stanley - Rockdale's cousin, daughter of Lord Pelham, angry with Rockdale for messing up her plans to marry Viscount Atherton
John Willoughby - Rockdale's secretary, fancies himself in love with Eliza and trying to save her from the cruel earl
Mrs. Biddleton - Rockdale's former housekeeper
George - Rockdale's former footman
Simpson - Rockdale's butler
Sally - A maid in Rockdale's household
Again, thanks to the ones who have been so encouraging and supportive. It's because of you that I'm posting when I might have given up.
It's not the greatest plot line or most well-written story, but I've learned a lot along the way. I certainly never intended to start and never finish, but life has a way of happening.
And as always, I love your comments, votes, favs, and emails!
Much love,
Emmeline
*****
Chapter 17
Caroline Stanley sat cross-legged on the bed in her guest chamber and nibbled at a fingernail. Feeling ignored was a rather novel experience for her. She huffed out a breath that ruffled the limp curls falling out of her lackluster coiffure.
It appeared that she would even be forced to ring for a maid to come help her undress for the night as the dreadful woman had not apparently remembered or cared to come.
Upon opening her eyes this morning, she had expected to be promptly sent packing by Cousin William, most likely after receiving another scathing dressing-down for her rash trip to Verity Hall. Instead, except for the servants, no one had said a word to her the entire day. The entire day!
Admittedly, she had hidden away in her guest chamber for the majority of the time, uneager to return home and face the wrath of her father and mother. Boredom and loneliness had finally compelled her to stiffen her spine and creep downstairs for dinner in a borrowed evening dress, grudgingly provided by the beast of a maid.
Caroline had been utterly flummoxed to be the lone diner at the immense table, with the clink and tinkle of the silver and china the only conversation apart from the subtle murmurs from the servants. She forced herself to hold her head high though she had felt quite ridiculous, wondering if perhaps the staff snickered at her outside the door.
After dinner Caroline had drifted into the salon, feeling sure that Rockdale would appear any moment, effusive apologies spilling from his lips, eager to make amends for his boorish behavior the night before. Instead, she had sipped her tea in solitary silence, interrupted only by the tick of the mantle clock and the occasional hiss and crackle of the fireplace. At last, she had grown weary of sitting alone and retired to her room without a soul seeming to notice or care.
Now, she brooded in her guest chamber and plucked broodingly at a loose thread at the sleeve of her borrowed gown. It felt odd to be wearing a frock of Cousin Williams's dead wife, even if the gown had surely been a lovely one in its time. It was sorely out of fashion now with puffed sleeves gigantic enough to hide a small child.
And thinking of hidden children...perhaps Rockdale's absence had something to do with his young son, she mused. She had been immensely relieved to learn from a maid that the young lord had been located, although Caroline wished someone would explain where the boy had been found and why he had been gone.
Caroline sighed and idly wished she had been brazen enough to have sought out Mr. Willoughby. Her cheeks heated, remembering the shameful way she had asked, no demanded, the man to kiss her. She swallowed hard, lips parting as she recalled their breath mingling when his open mouth had moved over hers.
Mr. Willoughby wasn't a large man like Cousin William, but his arms had felt unexpectedly strong and muscled when they had encircled her. Her heart beat faster remembering how he had pushed her up against the wall and pulled her wrapper open, exposing her body.
She fanned her face with her hand. Good heavens! The encounter had not at all been the sweet experience she had thought to control. She would never forget the way John's heated, hooded eyes had traveled down her partially naked body. She shivered and her stomach clenched.
Perhaps she should not have been such a coward when he brashly had offered to demonstrate other ways of kissing, Caroline thought, dreamily tracing a finger over her bottom lip. She pursed her lips with a moue of regret, knowing she would likely never have another opportunity to find out. Her parents would be even more overbearing once she was sent back to London.
In the end, Caroline struggled out of the heavy dress on her own and gave it a heartfelt kick across the floor. A naughty thought crossed her mind, causing a giggle to erupt. Putting out the light, she climbed into bed unclothed, the bedcovers cool against her bare skin.
She shivered, imagining a man sharing the bed with her, climbing atop her as Lydia insisted they did. Somehow the faceless man morphed into John Willoughby's handsome face.
Her hand glided over her breasts, then down across the expanse of her abdomen and stomach to the sensitive soft folds of her woman's mound. The more she remembered Mr. Willoughby's kiss, the more she curiously ached between her legs. Her old nanny had staunchly insisted no proper lady touched her private areas unless she was bathing, but Caroline reasoned Nanny had undoubtedly never been kissed breathless by an attractive man who had nearly torn open her wrapper...
Carolina's breath hitched as her fingertip slid inside and teased the sensitive flesh inside. She eased her thighs apart to better touch herself, delving deeper and feeling a strange slickness that eased the passage of her fingers when she glided them around and down.
She bit down on her lip remembering the very male look upon John's face when he had stared at her naked breasts...almost as though he had been fevered with passion... Fevered with passion for
her
, Caroline Stanley, the boring and proper daughter of Lord Pelham.
But she hadn't been proper last night, Caroline thought with a ragged laugh, moving her fingers faster as the tingling sensations intensified.
Wanton. That's what she had been. Something a lady should never be. Her hips arched up in a rhythm that her body seemed instinctively to know.
