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His erection brushed against her belly. That firm ridge leapt at the contact. He sat on the bed and pulled her so she covered his body with hers. The mattress sighed smoothly under their combined weight. The rough pads of his fingers were on her, sighing down her skin. He pulled her closer still.
“God,” he breathed in her ear. “I want you to ride me.”
Jenny stilled in confusion.
He looked up; her bafflement must have been written on her face.
His hands grasped her hips and he showed her his meaning. He angled her body with his hands and gently brought her to his hot, thick member. His hands took hers, and he pulled her down. She stretched around him as he guided her down the rounded head of his penis, down further, filling her with heat.
“Jenny. Say my name.”
“Gareth.” She squeezed him, deep inside her, as she spoke.
His hands moved again to her hips and he exhaled, his eyes fluttering shut.
And then he showed her his meaning again, guiding her up and down. His hands on her hips set the rhythm. They found a beat together. Warmth coalesced where their bodies joined, and then slick heat.
He surged into her, his hips slapping against her thighs. When she came apart in a flood of light, he groaned. Then he, too, shouted, thrusting into her.
When she finally slumped against his chest, Jenny ran her hand through his sweaty hair. Her body glowed like some kind of incandescent star. She pulled herself off him; his hand caught hers, and brought it to his mouth. He placed the gentlest of kisses against the blue veins of her wrist.
“You see, Gareth? No science necessary.”
“Science.” He turned to face her. “Observation is good for one thing. Really, Jenny. I thought you were ruined.”
“What ever do you mean by that? I was. I am.”
He snorted. “Then how is it you’ve never ridden a man before?”
She shook her head in confusion.
“And how, exactly,” he asked, “did you become Madame Esmerelda?”
GARETH FELT Jenny’s hand stiffen where it had been stroking his chest.
“Why do you want to know?” Her words crept out, wary and low.
Why? He wanted to uncover every unknown thing about her. Every secret of hers pulled at him like hidden string.
He shrugged. “I am naturally inquisitive.”
“The story doesn’t paint me in the best light.”
“Jenny, I met you when you’d garbed and painted yourself as a Gypsy. You couldn’t say anything that would worsen my opinion of you.”
She blew out her breath, and Gareth winced as he realized what he’d said.
“I mean—”
She put her hand over his lips. “I know what you meant.” There was a current of amusement in her voice. The light was fading fast. Her hips cast lengthy shadows down the bed.
“When I was eighteen,” she said, “the older brother of one of my schoolmates fell in love with me. Or so he claimed.”
“A lord?”
She shook her head against his shoulder. “You do me too much credit. A mill owner’s younger son. He said he could never marry me, but that his love would never die. Et cetera et cetera and so forth.” Her hand trailed the et ceteras down Gareth’s abdomen. “So I ran away with him.”
“You loved him?”
“No. But I wanted to be loved, you see. I should have known better. You said it once. Everyone lies. Even then, I knew that. Immortal love? Of course he was lying.”
“Then why run off?”
“My future had been much on my mind. I felt trapped. I knew I’d need to make my own living. I could have tried for a position as a governess, but my references were not precisely stellar.” A sniff, to indicate the statement drastically understated the truth. “And I had no family. So the best positions—even the middling ones—would have been closed to me. As for the worst ones…Well, if I had to sell my body, I didn’t want to care for children alongside everything.”
“You could have married. Most women do.”
She snorted incredulously. “You recall I have no family to speak of. No dowry.”
“Farmers. Clerks. Surely there are men willing to overlook a few defects of your birth in exchange for a good wife.”
“A good wife? Me? To a farmer or a clerk or the like?”
Gareth considered this. On the one hand, he couldn’t imagine Jenny marrying a straightforward fellow like White. She’d have tied him in knots within seconds. On the other hand, in Gareth’s experience, Jenny’s knots had proved to be…fun. “Well, aside from your recalcitrance. And a few other, um, minor character defects.”
She rolled her eyes. “Gareth, you really have no notion what this world is like. The school I attended was in the business of turning out ladies. I learned how to curtsy properly. I learned the correct way to pour tea. I was drilled in my accent and taught just enough conversational French to start a good argument, but not so much that I would be able to do anything so gauche as to win it. I learned watercolors and a few rudimentary piano pieces. I did not learn how to milk a cow, or how best to promote laying among broody hens. What use would I have been to a farmer?”
There was the use Gareth had just made of her. There was the sense of playfulness that made him want to tug her close and hold her tight. There was her sharp intellect and her unflinching insistence that Gareth treat her with respect.
“I lacked the birth to match my education and the skills to match my birth. No, marriage was not an option for me. I ran away with the man because he seemed a pleasant enough fellow. And besides, he swore his undying love. I’d never experienced love of even the short-lived variety before. It seemed a rare treat.”
Gareth knew how this story was going to end. It would end with Gareth wanting to punch the man. Even though he knew—not in his gut, but in one uncomfortable corner of his rational mind—that one day, he too would have to leave her.
“He brought me to London and set me up in a dull, unfashionable part of town. And two months later, he cheerfully handed me a silver bracelet and wished me well. I was…furious. You see, I knew his love would die. I just expected that its life span would be closer to that of a dog than a—a—”
“A dung beetle?” Gareth suggested.
She smiled at him and, thank God, snuggled closer.
“What did you do?”
She shrugged. “I had no desire to continue along the path he’d set me. Being a mistress is quite boring—there’s no challenge, nothing new to discover. And at that point, any position I could obtain as a governess given my preceding conduct would have been unsavory indeed. I figured—everyone lies. Why shouldn’t I?”
“You could have—” Gareth paused. What could
she really have done? As a man with a solid education, she could have become a clerk. As a woman, though…“You could have made hats?”
“I’d have ruined my eyesight in short order, while starving myself on too little coin. Lodgings and food are dear in London. I had nobody to vouch for my character. And besides, I wanted more than that. I wanted independence. I wanted people to look at me with honor, as they’d never done—” Her voice trembled. “Do not lecture me for trying to have a tiny portion of what you’ve always known.”
Gareth shut his eyes. He’d thought more knowledge would reduce her power over him. But it wasn’t working that way. What he felt…
He didn’t have a word for the images she’d conjured up in his head. Some unnameable emotion accompanied them. The thought of Jenny, betrayed at eighteen and deciding to show them all up, made him ache down to his bones. Whatever this nameless feeling was, it seeped into his soul like dirty black water, biting as the Thames in winter.
She hadn’t curled up like a pill-bug, or hidden herself away like some fragile creature. She’d rejected the usual options and found a choice that afforded her everything she wanted.
“The best part of being Madame Esmerelda,” she said, “was that I had to learn everything—gossip, of course, but finance, industry, even science. It’s much easier to foretell the future if you’re aware of the present. Before then, nobody had ever expected me to know anything.”
He’d expected familiarity to breed, if not contempt, at least indifference. It didn’t. It bred respect.
“Tell me,” he whispered against her shoulder. “You told me you learned everyone lied when you were nine. How did that come to pass?”
Twilight had passed. He could feel her breath in the expansion of her chest against the palms of his hands, hear it soft and sighing in his ears. But the visible line of her shoulders had faded to an indistinct silhouette, rising and falling with each exhalation.
“When I was very young,” she said, her voice quiet as the sound of still water running, “I was brought to school. I was distraught and confused as only a four-year-old child can be. The instructor tasked with my care told me if I stopped sniveling and was good, my mother would come for me soon.”
