“Perhaps a little,” she said, trying to keep any hint of innuendo out of her voice, “on the long carriage ride to Lulworth.”
“By all means. If you can bear it.”
She nodded her thanks.
Maybe this trip would be easier than she thought.
Then, before he left the room, he raked his hand through his hair, dispersing his silken curls into an even more tempting disarray.
Her mouth went dry.
Or maybe not.
Chapter Eight
John left Catherineand headed straight for his bedchamber. It had taken everything in him not to press his mouth to hers and bend her over his desk. He had no idea how he would manage a whole carriage journey. It didn’t help that, with more familiarity, she revealed herself to be just as honorable, intelligent and formidable as she had seemed that night in the Tremberley gardens. In conjunction with her beauty—well, he was in a sorry state indeed.
He shouldn’t have made her calling him John a condition of their working together. He shouldn’t have insisted on it in her drawing room at Halston Place and he definitely shouldn’t have forced her to comply in his study. He couldn’t help that the prospect of his Christian name in her mouth gave him pleasure, just as he couldn’t change the fact that every “Your Grace” from her felt like a rejection. She had asked him to call her Catherine in response and he had felt a lightness fill his chest. He had called her Catherine so many times to himself, in his own head, that addressing her by that name had felt almost unbearably intimate.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had received that boy’s letter this morning, which made clear that, in addition to being breathtaking and redoubtable, Catherine Forster inspired devotion in those closest to her.
There was also her charity towards her old nurse—it showed actual nobility, a quality that he knew from experience, few of the aristocracy truly possessed.
He had stood there in his study, clenching his fist to stave off his impulses, assheremained perfectly calm, talking about history books. She imagined she might get somereadingdone on this trip. Meanwhile, he was wondering if he would be able to keep himself from proposing a series of indecent acts before they cleared the city limits.
His trunks were packed and loaded in the coach already. The footmen would have taken care of her luggage as well. They needed to leave now if they hoped to reach the inn by nightfall. They should be driving out of the city at this moment but he could not enter that carriage without taking care of himself first. Otherwise, he knew they would enter that enclosed space and he would be at her feet, promising her anything for a few more minutes of what they had shared in those gardens.
John undid the falls of his breeches hastily and took himself in hand. His cock was already erect and seeping, his hand coming away wet with his own seed. He swore at the state of himself. He couldn’t believe that he was so swollen and bothered from merely speaking to her for a half hour. How did she do it?
He imagined Catherine sitting on the desk in his study and rolling back her skirts to reveal the tops of her stockings. He stifled a moan at the mental image, even though he knew no one would hear it. While he needed this release, sound still felt like too much of an admission. He desperately wanted to be able to resist her—but, in his mind, he was entering her. They were finishing what they had not even had the chance to begin that night. She was encircling him, taking all of him into her. Her bewitching blue-black eyes met his own as she clenched over him. He pumped himself into the roughness of his own fingers, closing his eyes to better imagine that it washerundoing him. He could feel his orgasm starting to build and he bit the coverlet, stroking harder. In his mind, he was taking Catherine’s fingers into his mouth as he thrust into her, laving the ink stains with his tongue. Suddenly and almost without warning, he came explosively into his own hand.
He stifled another groan—but this time it was not a sound of pleasure he was suppressing. He swore aloud.
John had imagined a release would help him keep his composure during the long journey ahead. But instead he could feel himself stirring once more as fantasies of Catherine continued to play through his mind. If anything, with these fevered thoughts, he had made it worse. He was very uncertain indeed that he would be able to hang on to the little control he had left.
*
Fifteen minutes later,they were clattering along the streets of London and John had to admire Catherine Forster’s ability to read in a moving vehicle. It would have made him nauseous but she clearly knew what she was doing. She had entered the carriage only moments after him, with a small trunk, which turned out to be full of papers and little pencil nubs and the books she had taken from his study. She had settled onto her side of the carriage with a great air of contentment. When he had tapped the roof and their vehicle seized forward, she hadn’t even looked up from her page, which she still studied now with seemingly unbreakable concentration, making small notes on a piece of paper. She bit her lip when she read, worrying the skin with her teeth, and occasionally brought the end of her pen to her lips. Periodically, she uncorked a tiny inkwell and, with a grace he found damnably impressive, dipped her pen and made a note in one fluid motion. She didn’t seem to notice he was there at all. And she wore no gloves.
He looked out the window, resentful even though he knew he had no right to be. He wasn’t paying her to talk to him. Still, he wanted to speak to her. He just had nothing to say. Eventually, after searching his mind, he found something that felt appropriate—even safe.
“I am hoping we will reach the Crown Arms tonight. There, we can sleep, and, hopefully by tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have arrived at Lulworth.”
“Yes, you said this in your study.” She did not look up from her book.
He cleared his throat, trying to cover up his embarrassment. “I believe there is another inn at Lulworth. We can stay there when calling on your nurse.”
“Indeed.” She finally looked up at him. “We could hardly stay with Martha herself. She lives in a one-room cottage. Hardly fit accommodations for a duke.”
“Trust me, I’ve stayed in worse.”
Sometimes worse was better, in fact. He remembered a night he had spent in the barn with a maid at Tremberley. He had been fifteen. He could have brought her into the house, of course, but then his friends would have plagued him. They had spent the whole night literally rolling in the hay. She was married now to the local butcher. He remembered his shock at seeing her in town the last time he had been there. She had been touting two little children and had been as comely as ever. He had given her a saucy tip of his hat and she had replied with a chaste little smile, the type a happily married woman gives an old lover.
To distract himself, he tried to remember that night in the hayloft with the now-butcher’s wife. Instead, his mind kept transposing Catherine into the scene instead, her silver-blond hair splayed over the straw, her refined mouth asking for more.
He failed to suppress a sigh.
“Are you a nervous traveler, Your Grace?”
