A glow lit Hebe’s face. “I agree. Unlike the wonderful accuracy of Stubbs, this is all about emotion. I feel that although the window is broken and the ambience is sorrowful, she is well-loved by her owner. The floor is clean and the hay plentiful. She is merely exhausted and…perhaps aware of the finiteness to life. Perchance her name is Lydia and she has hauled ale carts all day.”
Ernest smiled and sipped, would now view it differently through Hebe’s bright blue eyes.
With ease, the champagne slipped down his gullet and he sighed with gusto at the eventful day.
The Burford Sweepstakes had been won by a mere nose between himself and Sir Henry, and he suspected that clever Lord Jack had just stretched his neck at the right moment.
But the feeling… Such elation had coursed and to be able to share it for once, with someone who cared about the animals, who appreciated their fragile bones yet passionate nature; it had clotted his throat.
Hebe’s plait had untangled without her burgundy ribbon; the bonnet and spencer abandoned in the barouche. One crinkled curl brushed her bosom, and he reached out to smooth a stray hair from her nape.
“Oh, is it a mess? Ribbons never seem to hold it; they just slip off.” She cast a mock glare, lips curved upwards. “Or someone removes them.” And she took two steps to the gilt mirror; a great tall piece with carved curls, flounces and swirls, it looked to have been filched from Versailles – probably had been.
She placed her champagne down and tutted at her fallen coiffure.
Strolling to stand behind and gaze over her shoulder, he admired her beauty, the way her dress sparkled a pale grey, resembling moonlight behind a cloud.
She tutted again and pinched her cheeks. “I’m so pale.” And tutted once more. “And thin.”
“Is that what you see?” he murmured, likewise placing his glass to the chest of drawers, watching her reflection.
Peering closely, she scrunched her nose and nodded. “Hmm. And dark shadows beneath my eyes.”
No casting for compliments lay in her self-criticism; she genuinely thought it to be the truth, and Ernest glowered, hoped that Mr Locke was being prodded day and night with pitchforks by the devil’s minions.
So he placed hands to her shoulders, slipped them down her bare arms.
She shivered.
Although seduction had truly not been in mind when he’d made his invitation, now unsated desires bit at his skin like gnats. The glory of the day pumping his veins with passion.
“That is not what I see,” he whispered. “For I see pearlescent skin.” He reached around to trail a finger across her decolletage. “I see slender silkiness.” With his whole palm, he stroked from breast to thigh. “I see eyes both courageous and tender.” His other hand caressed her cheek. “And I see,” he growled, “a beautiful, valiant woman I so yearn to…” His grip firmed on her waist and he dragged her back to his body.
HEBE GULPED.
Scorching temptation seared a trail wherever he touched.
“Lord Ernest…” Was that her own voice? It belonged to some sultry temptress.
“Do you not think,” he whispered, hand lingering upon her hip, “you ought to forego the ‘lord’ and just call me Ernest?”
No, she did not. That was her last frail barrier between them. If she called him Ernest, she would imagine too much, allow too much.
“I…” And then she watched in the mirror as he kissed the skin between her neck and shoulder, a light peck but it curled her toes. He nibbled and her skin shivered. He glanced up, eyes sharp over his spectacles, teeth lightly grazing. “Ernest,” she breathed.
His hand tightened before his mouth rose, kissing her throat then ear, that palm now covering her bosom, so gentle in its caress.
A ratcheting tautness rose within her, breath catching, and a moan escaped, a hitherto unbeknown moan, as she watched his thumb abrade the crest of her breast, raking the thin linen.
Her body bucked without permission, her derriere brushing Lord Ernest’s fierce arousal and she stilled, tensed.
“Hebe…” Lips trailed her nape and fingers deliberately tugged at her skirts. “I’ll not hurt you. Ever.”
And with his words, her body softened for she knew them to be the truth.
He pressed his hips back and forth – she’d assumed for his own pleasure – but as his hand discovered the bare skin of her thigh and as the other tugged down the shoulder of her dress, she found herself responding to the rhythm, realised it also heated herself to molten.
“And I see,” he rasped, the bodice peeling down to reveal her stays, “such exquisiteness.” Then his fingers were dipping inside her chemise, caressing and brushing, stirring her into wanton motion.
