Tonight, he was hers for the taking. Eliza’s greedy hands encircled the hard length of him.
Mark throbbed with desperation against her palms. He seemed surprised by his lust and overwhelmed at the sight of her on her knees for him. Eliza found his need arousing. She felt empowered to bestow this gift to him, as only she could.
She doubted the prim daughters of bankers and dukes would love him so brazenly.
Emboldened, Eliza drew him into her mouth. She relished the taste of him against her tongue and moaned with pleasure as he swelled between her lips. Mark’s fingers cradled her skull, cupping her hair. Urging her closer, he begged her to take him deeper.
She worshipped him with her mouth as she worked him with her hands. Sir Mark van Bergen was a tantalizing combination of decency and desire, and he writhed on the squabs as she sucked him. He gasped and panted. He thrust and pleaded. He praised her as he rushed headlong toward his climax, and then sobbed her name—“Eliza!”—as he spent.
It was the most erotic thing either of them had ever experienced. Her cheeks flamed as she wrung every last shudder of satisfaction from his body.
Soon, Mark’s fingers softened in her hair. He began to caress her and whisper endearments that were beyond her comprehension, yet she sensed love and gratitude in his touch. She hoped that he felt appreciated in return, for pleasuring him had been her delight.
He pulled her into his lap with trembling hands. His chest quaked against the bodice of her frock. He closed his eyes and struggled for breath, and Eliza was sure she’d never seen a more handsome man than this one, enveloped in ecstasy.
He recovered his composure before they arrived home. Together, they put his clothes to rights, his fingers tripping over hers, laughing at their sudden shyness. They were lovers now. Everything had changed between them, and neither knew how to navigate this new facet of their relationship, for the emotional connection they shared had grown physical.
Would it be nurtured, treasured, and allowed to bloom in their hearts? Or would this interlude be banished to the backs of their minds, a shameful and half-forgotten episode when both of them had lost their heads?
Only tomorrow would tell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
She and Ann Cooper took tea in the drawing room, as was their custom whenever the lady visited Green Street. Eliza poured from the teapot and managed the delicate china cups and saucers. She stirred the sweetened, milky brew before taking a sip exactly as Mother had taught her.
Her mother had believed in neatness, cleanliness, and good manners, though Eliza never understood why they must put on airs. She thought, perhaps, that they waited in readiness for her father to call or to claim her, but that never happened. Yet even at their poorest, Mother scrubbed and tidied their ramshackle rented room, which she paid for by taking in mending and washing until her beautiful hands were blistered, chapped, and bloodied.
Eliza hadn’t known the comfort of a warm fire or a gas mantle for many years, yet she remembered the lessons Mother had taught her and the sacrifices she’d made to retain some semblance of civility amid the unruliness of Seven Dials.
Now that Eliza lived with Mark, giving tea to his sister and accompanying him to the theatre, she was grateful for Mother’s careful instruction. She could hold her head high and be a credit to the woman who’d raised her.
She nibbled cream-filled puff pastries—‘profit rolls’, as Ann called them—as the afternoon sun streamed through the drawing room windows. She drank fresh tea brewed in clean water and wore a frock of buttercup-yellow cotton lawn. As she smiled at something Ann was saying, Eliza couldn’t help but marvel at how far she’d come since those dingy, dangerous accommodations of her girlhood.
The conversation turned to the topic of how she intended to spend her remaining days in Mark’s company. Did she hope to find employment? Oughtn’t she to be proactive and build her savings before striking out on her own? Would she rather look for lodgings somewhere quiet, affordable, and respectable for a young lady living alone?
Eliza considered these options, though none of them appealed to her. She wanted to stay with Mark, to take meals with him and find pleasure in his arms. She longed to spend every spare moment with him, even if it meant ruination—but could she risk becoming a rich man’s kept woman?
“I’m not meant to be idle…” she mused aloud.
“What woman is?” Ann replied. “There’s no such thing as a lady of leisure. We are too busy overseeing, doing, managing, planning, raising our children, supporting our husbands and families.” She placed her teacup on the table to offer, “I could help you learn how to keep this household going. Mark would appreciate the initiative, I’m sure, and you might put your knowledge to use in the future.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dare to interfere in the running of things ‘round here,” said Eliza. “The staff would never listen to me anyway. In the hierarchy of this place, I’m on a level with Jenny, the housemaid—lower, really, because I couldn’t evengeta job as a housemaid.” She grinned ruefully. “Pearson would never hire me, though he does fetch my magazines.”
She and Ann laughed at the thought of the starchy old butler doing Eliza’s bidding when he once might’ve crossed the street to avoid her.
“You’re a voracious reader,” said the lady, “but why bother with periodicals when Mark has plenty of books on his shelves? Haven’t you ever read a book?”
Eliza shook her head. “The parochial school only taught us to read, write, do maths, and say our prayers. They knew we’d be leaving at twelve years of age—if we were lucky to last that long—in order to find work. Nobody would waste a whole book on me.”
She and her mother had sold every scrap of print they’d come across to keep food in their bellies during the lean times. Yet Mother told her stories she had remembered from her youth, so Eliza had never felt disadvantaged without a library.
Ann Cooper rose to retrieve a cloth-covered tome from the corner bookshelf. She seemed intent on enlightening Eliza and broadening her horizons. “Try this one to start.”
The book was thick—hundreds of pages, surely. She would never finish it. “It’s too much to read in one sitting.”
“Don’t think of it like that,” Ann argued. “It has chapters, places to stop and start. Much like stories in a magazine, you can read a little bit each day until you reach the end. Mark doesn’t read much because his eyes are too tired after a long day at the Bank, butyoucould read aloud to him. It shall be good for you both.”
Was his sister playing matchmaker, or merely trying to improve her mind?
