It was too early to begin dinner, but John couldn’t bring himself to write one more polite note of thanks. He pressed his face to the damp, chilly pane of his bedroom window, eying the rapidly approaching dark clouds. Lemeston, and the French fleet were firing upon the town. This morning’s unseasonal thunder had sounded like cannon, as if the Channel had overflowed its banks all the way to Lively St. Thus ended a few glorious drizzling hours during which water had dripped into the bucket in his parlor no more than once or twice a minute. “I think that would be best,” he said quietly. She hopped off the table, not looking at him. But he’d been born into service he could not idle while others worked. Perhaps it would be kinder to leave her to polish alone. Two hours he was trapped here with her, polishing this bloody kitchen to a shine. He began to apply tallow to her boots, to keep off the water. Its dreadful consequences lasted longer than any momentary satisfaction. The rewards of not dallying with the neighbor’s housemaid were likewise self-evident and innumerable. Take, for instance, the virtue of caring properly for one’s boots: warm, dry feet, and money in one’s pocket that one was not obliged to spend on new boots. It was fortunate that virtue was its own reward, as few other rewards seemed to accompany it.īut he was only sulking. John took up one of her boots and wiped away the streaks of excess oil gleaming on the surface, feeling a self-indulgent pang of disappointment. She sighed, letting go of him with a sad little nod. Neither of us could afford the damage to our reputations if somebody walked in and saw us.” You work in a respectable house, and I am seeking a position, perhaps in a household with maidservants.
That only startled me, and gave me a moment to think of what we’d be doing. I’m not saying this because you’re a virgin. If he wasn’t careful he’d say that too, and she’d die laughing at him. The ruffle of her cap lifted and settled, wisps of hair at her temple moving as if someone had blown on them. The underside of her pointed chin was sinfully soft. But she said, “You’re not so bad yourself.” She hooked a foot around his legs, pulling him towards her, and Lord, he wanted to go. It was plain on her face she didn’t know what the word meant. “So what you’re saying is I could have any man I like.” It was worse than aqua vitae for loosening the tongue, and a man did and said things he’d never have dreamed of in a less fuzzy-headed state. Christ, I can’t believe I told you I’d-” He couldn’t repeat it. So square-toed that she assumed he must be calling her a trollop. “And what kind of girl am I, pray?” She crossed her arms over her chest. And now to find she’d waited all this time, for him ? She’d made no bones about thinking John a square-toed stick-in-the-mud. A grown woman, and a strikingly appealing one. She might remind him of a spitting kitten, but she was two-and-twenty. “I’m sorry I didn’t bed half a dozen strapping young lads to make this moment more convenient for you,” she hissed. She glared harder, those tip-tilted eyes narrowing. “I don’t-I just-I’m not taking a girl’s maidenhead in a kitchen, for Christ’s sake.” His voice rose alarmingly.
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His skin had hummed and prickled delightfully under her fingertips. He spent half his life with his hands in other men’s hair, but he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched his. It was a mistake his scalp was still sensitized. He drew back, her fingers sliding from his hair and falling into her lap.
“I may be a virgin, but I’m not ignorant. She’d never felt anything like this wild pounding of her blood, spreading from her heart down her arms and into the soles of her feet and there, there between her legs. Pengilly’s, he’d… It was hard to imagine him doing anything so undignified, but of course he must. He’d what ? Really? But there was nothing he could mean but frigging himself, was there? So when he’d gone upstairs after he left Mrs. He ducked his head, leaned in and growled-there was just no other word for it-in her ear, “I brought myself to completion this morning, thinking of taking you.” She tightened her fingers on his neck for balance. She had a dizzy fancy that he wasn’t looking at her so much as letting her see right into him. His light brown eyes stared into hers from too close.
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