Page 24 of An Earl, His Valet, & Their Wife

Pausing outside her door, he balanced the parcel on his hip and rapped his knuckles on the heavy oak. Moments later, Molly opened the door.

“Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Hunter,” said the maid cheerfully. “Are you looking for Lady Whitmore? She’s writing a list of books she wants to purchase from Hatchards, so I’m off to repair and press some hems.”

Gerard grimaced. “Now, Molly, remember those gowns will be meeting their eternal rest verra shortly.”

She giggled. “Not a moment too soon, sir. I’m stalking deliveries downstairs like a hound in hunting season.”

His lips twitched. “Then we are in accord, Go on, then. Dinnae burn yourself with the iron, but feel free tae scorch the fabric.”

The maid bobbed a curtsy, her shoulders shaking with laughter, and hurried down the hallway. Gerard then sauntered into the chamber, his gaze fixing on Katie. She sat at her little desk, tapping a quill against her cheek.

“My lady,” he said gruffly. “I come bearing gifts.”

The countess dropped her quill and leaped to her feet. “For me? They look like books! Are they books?”

“Aye. In commemoration of your new position, I thought perhaps a nice wee treatise on housekeeping. Plus, the Bible, a book on etiquette for young ladies, and another singing the praises o’ regular doses of Cheltenham water.”

Katie’s emerald gaze narrowed. “Gerard Hunter. Are you…teasing me?”

In the split second when their eyes locked, the temperature in the room seemed to soar from warm to inferno, every sense attuned and heightened until he could scarcely bear it. But far worse, his damned wretched mind—which reminded him fifty times per day how Katie sounded when she came, how heavenly the scent of her well-pleasured cunt slick with seed was, and what it felt like to hold her silken hand in his—sent an urgent message to his cock.

Take her. Own that sweet virgin arse.

He cleared his throat then swiftly marched forward and placed the parcel on her desk. After using her letter opener to cut the string binding it, he gestured for Katie to begin unwrapping. “Some titles tae begin your collection, ’tis all.”

The countess gasped and attacked the crisp brown paper with the enthusiasm of a child in a sweet shop before carefully, reverently, lifting up each book. “The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole! Clermont by Regina Maria Roche…how did you know I wanted these ones? The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe! The Horrid Mysteries by the Marquis of Grosse! Hooray! Hmmm, what have we here. OH MY GOD.”

Gerard couldn’t help a reluctant grin as Katie snatched up the precious copy of Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon and hugged it to her breasts. “That one first, then?”

“How did you get this?” she shrieked, twirling on the spot. “It’s sold out everywhere. I’ve been desperate to read it, but Mother forbade me because she is quite convinced she’s a character alongside Lady Jersey and society is about to come crashing down around our ears. Yes, the author is anonymous, but everyone knows Lady Caroline wrote it and apparently the savagery toward Lord Byron and the ton is too delicious for words…enough to get her barred from Almack’s…oh, Gerard…”

Her genuine bubbling delight, and use of his given name, flooded him with a satisfaction so deep that Gerard rocked on his heels, his chest practically puffing out with pride. Once again, his instinct for gift purchases had been successful.

Except seconds later, Katie flung herself against him. Almost instinctively, his arms closed tightly around her, a bad mistake, for the Countess of Whitmore fit perfectly. Her head rested on his shoulder, and she was so warm and sweet-scented as she burrowed against his chest and wriggled in her joy.

Gritting his teeth at the overwhelming temptation, his control hanging by a thread, Gerard attempted to hold himself still. To keep the embrace collegial, as though they were two friends meeting in Hyde Park. Naturally, his body refused to oblige, and his cock began to harden. In fact, the more he willed the erection away, the stiffer and longer it became, until it was a steel rod between them. Lewd and unmistakable. Etching itself against her belly.

Katie made a sound of surprise. Yet his limbs seemed to be frozen, the beat of his thundering heart surely as loud as the hooves of a galloping racehorse. And she wasn’t moving either.

Let her go.

Abruptly Katie whimpered, her hips circling and tilting so his engorged cock slid across her mound. A jolt of pure pleasure slid through him and he groaned in fierce need. Never in his life had he hated fabric, but right now his trousers and her gown, petticoat, and chemise were preventing a raw, frantic joining.

LET HER GO.

Somehow Gerard wrenched away, even as his body bellowed a protest, desperate to spread the countess across a bed, over a desk, against a wall. To grind, to rub, to suck and fuck until she screamed his name to the heavens. Katie immediately swayed and stumbled against her desk, the copy of Glenarvon falling to the floor with a thud. They both stared at it, their swift, ragged breathing unusually loud in the silence of the bedchamber.

How had he lost control so badly? Been so close to betraying Michael?

Bloody fucking hell.

“Forgive me,” Gerard rasped, mortified by his conduct. “I overstepped. Ye are the Countess of Whitmore, I am your husband’s valet. A servant.”

Katie glanced up, her cheeks scarlet. “Don’t you dare. We both know you are far more than a servant. But it is me who should ask forgiveness, hurling myself at you like that. I was quite overwhelmed with the wonderful gifts.”

Gerard scowled at the calm and reasonable reply. She should be slapping him. Yelling for assistance. Demanding his head on a damned platter. Instead, the Countess of Whitmore just looked disappointed that he’d not ravished her.

How could that be? She was Michael’s wife. A wellborn lady far, far above him. And he’d been agonizingly close to doing something that could never be taken back.