They blinked at one another over the next course of the best British beef. He was starting to feel guilty just having a good dinner.
“But he does get to stay in the parish poorhouse as a single man,” she added, “and that keeps him from being a beggar on the street.”
She sighed, her bosom rising and falling under his gaze, and it was a beautiful thing to watch.
“Wealth is the key to freedom in Britain.” Miss Sudbury said the words half to herself, half to him.
“Indeed.” To that, he agreed. He was not unaware of the benefits he enjoyed by having been born on the right side of the blanket in his particular household.
However, it was time to turn their conversation back to the path of more pleasant niceties. For selling one’s wife for cheap, along with one’s child, hardly made for an aphrodisiac to love-making.
To that end, he told her of the last horse race he’d attended, correctly choosing the winner, of a ballet he’d seen in which two dancers collided on stage, and lastly, of a play in which the main actor forgot nearly all his lines, then drew out a flask, downed it, swore excoriatingly, and stomped off stage.
They were both laughing when he was done, and he felt vindicated as a good dinner guest who’d earned his place at the table, especially after his earlierfaux pas.
“The meal was superb,” he told her, wiping his lips and setting his napkin beside his plate after a dessert that had been meant to dazzle and had succeeded.
A platter of sugar biscuits and meringues artfully arranged around a tooth-cracking pastillage sculpture of a massive pineapple had been only the beginning. It was followed by small cups of the richest custard and then, lastly, ratafia cakes which melted in his mouth so easily, Jasper had eaten three.
“Thank you,” said Miss Sudbury.
Despite the many courses, she’d done her fair share of enjoying the desserts, and he admired a woman with a hearty appetite in all senses of the word.
“Although, as I had nothing to do with it,” she continued, “I shall send your approval back to my sister’s cook.” Then quietly, she added, “However, Icancook, in case you were wondering.”
Her soft words surprised him. He hadn’t been wondering anything of the sort. It never occurred to him she could do so, nor that she would need to. Yet she seemed to be trying to impress him with her domestic abilities.How strange!He couldn’t imagine any other lady of his acquaintance ever uttering such a low phrase or letting him picture her for one moment in the harsh environment of a kitchen.
However, the image of Miss Sudbury, chopping vegetables or stirring stew, her soft curls sticking to the damp skin of her forehead and neck, appealed to him in an entirely visceral way — especially when he imagined her in nothing but an apron barely covering her full breasts and only the apron strings across her bare back, tied in a bow at her waist with the long ends draping down over her lush buttocks.
Swallowing the lump of desire in his throat, he rose to his feet. Moving swiftly around the end of the table, he drew out her chair, taking a moment to glance down her décolletage. Naturally!Wasn’t that why women wore the fashion they did?
With her amethyst-colored bodice stretched tightly across her breasts, it left a dark and dangerous valley he longed to explore.
“I think that’s a fine skill,” he said, his tone suddenly husky.
Drawing her to her feet, he thought her the most alluring female he’d ever known.
“Perhaps some time, you can show me what you can cook.”
Her lips parted questioningly, as her gaze sought his, trying to determine his shifting mood perhaps.
With a groan, he slid his fingers into her perfectly coiffed hair and held her lovely face still. Lowering his mouth to Miss Sudbury’s, he claimed her luscious lips, trying to remain gentle, but feeling voracious, wanting to taste her —all of her!— at once.
She didn’t protest. If she’d so much as gasped, he would have withdrawn immediately. But she touched his tongue with her own before leaning into him.
Releasing her sweet cheeks, Jasper swept his hands down her back and took hold of her other ones, her soft, rounded nether globes. With his palms, he tilted her hips against his strained breeches so she could feel his arousal.
Her frank innocence, which she yielded willingly to him, was his undoing. She would probably let him take her on the damn table exactly as he’d fantasized. Sucking her lower lip between his teeth, he heard her make the softest mewling sound and wanted to fall at her feet.
The feet of a vicar’s daughter.
Damn him for a shameless satyr, a hell-hound of the first order!
He lurched back as if she were the hottest flame.
“I apologize. That was not well done of me.” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to figure out which way his thoughts and his body were going next. He’d never felt so torn in his adult life. If she were any other woman, he would not have stopped. Moreover, he wasn’t at all sure why he had.
All he knew was he felt, perhaps for the first time, like a scoundrel. And he didn’t like it one bit. Worse, she seemed utterly willing to let herself be ruined by him. Her lack of self-preservation simply didn’t sit well. That was probably the true reason why he’d felt the need to stop.
