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.
John had rebuked her afterward, but she had been the one to stop their passionate embrace, not him. Yes, he had chastised her with words but his eyes had been hungry for more, and even she, as an innocent, had seen that and understood it.
A low moan keened from her when the wave of pleasure crested and spilled over. Hand still lodged between her legs, she rolled to one side, gasping as little shocks of sensation rolled over and through her.
She smiled sleepily, deciding that wantons, even newly decided ones, had much more fun than proper ladies.
***
Simpson paced impatiently from one end of his bedchamber to the other. Confound that maid, Sally! She was supposed to have come to his room at the exact time he had specified. She knew he found lateness unacceptable.
"I refuse to go look for her," the butler muttered. Blast it all, this was the night he had finally decided to bed the red-haired maid right and proper. He fair itched with the need to see her unclothed and spread over his bed, every inch of her delectable body his to savor for an hour or two, not the stolen few minutes they normally had in the afternoons.
He grimaced. Perhaps the dratted girl had changed her mind. And who could blame her? She was younger than he, but damnation, she had seemed to enjoy his attentions well enough, especially when he parted those smooth, freckled thighs and feasted on her pale, pink center. His cock twitched, envisioning those red curls spread open for him.
A soft, rapid knock had him spinning around and dashing for the door. He forced himself to stop and straighten his dressing gown before easing the door open.
"You're late!" he hissed, his eagerness quickly overcoming his need to present a front of cool displeasure.
Sally started to speak, but he grabbed a firm hold of her arm and with a cursory glance up and down the hall, jerked her inside the room and shut the door. The girl panted as though she had been running, and her eyes were wild.
Bloody hell! She must be having second thoughts about coupling with him. Simpson considered briefly of offering reassurance, but his feverish need and stiffening cock voted for haste.
"Lemuel," she gasped as he tugged on the tie to her wrapper. "I must tell you what—"
"Later," Simpson dismissed, pushing her protesting hands out of his way and spreading the garment open wide. She was gloriously nude beneath, just as he had instructed. "Good girl," he muttered and drowned out the rest of what she was attempting to say by covering her lips with his open mouth.
It was the first time he had kissed her this way, and he felt her go very still. He took advantage, deepening the kiss and simultaneously shoving the wrapper off her shoulders.
Moving quickly, he scooped Sally up and carried her a few steps over to his bed. Her small fists beat against his chest as he laid her down and finally released her mouth.
"Samuel, you must let me speak!" She grabbed hold of one of his ears for emphasis when he dipped to sample at her breasts.
"Ouch!" He scowled down at her. Damn the girl, but she was ruining his vision of how the night was supposed to unfold. "What is it then?" he growled.
Sally pushed him back and sat up, her gaze troubled. "I'm late because I nipped down to the kitchen to retrieve a plate of pastries Cook had left for me. I had thought we could..." She shook her head. "That doesn't matter. But when I was coming down the stairs I saw Mrs. Biddleton and George in the kitchen!"
Simpson stumbled back from the bed. "What! You should have told me immediately!"
"Well, I tried, didn't I?" she retorted, glaring at him. "The worst part is that George was carrying the governess over his shoulder, and she looked...as though she...as though...she was dead!"
