Tessa marveled at the patience and skill with which Joseph had approached her struggles to be intimate. Of course, she knew very little of the lovemaking habits of other couples, but in her mind, she thought she had possibly been shown the very worst of sex by Captain Marking and the most glorious by Joseph.
Still, there had been one thing he had not thought of that she thought might, possibly, make the enterprise more... Well, one thing that she hadn’t been able to remove from her mind for many weeks.
“Joseph?” she asked when the carriage left the bricked streets of the town and bounced onto a tree-lined country lane. “May I tell you something that I like?”
He opened one, interested eye. “Yes,” he said slowly, suggestively.
She narrowed her eyes. He would indulge her, she knew, whatever it was, but he would make hersay it. So much of sex with him wastalkingabout it.
“I like it...” she began, feeling herself blush. She couldn’t look at him. She gazed out the window.
“Yes,” he drawled, still reclining on the seat. He lazily closed his eyes.
Her heart was pounding, a reaction that he, undoubtedly, discerned. She cleared her throat. “...that is, Ilikedit when we were in Vauxhall Gardens, and you chased away those young men, and your accent—that is, the way you spoke—sort of...changed.”
Joseph opened the lone eye again. “Changedhow?” he asked.
But perhaps she could notsay it. She made a noise of frustration. “Don’t bait me, Joseph, you know I am damaged and fragile and just... er, learning.”
“You are not damaged or fragile and you know more than most women who have been married all of their lives.” Both eyes were open now, although he was staring at her with half-lidded casualness. “You’re being shy on purpose, but if you want me a certain way, I should like to hear it.”
She tipped forward and stared at her purple leather boots. “Your voice was, er, rough? It was, not the voice of a gentleman. That is, you spoke in a way that I’d never heard—from you.” She could feel herself blush to the tips of her ears, but she pressed on. “It was as if... It was the way I assume you spoke before you were educated? Before you were a gentleman. When you were in Greece, perhaps, with Falcondale. When you were—” She lost heart and trailed off.
“Oh,thatvoice,” he teased slowly, and then he sat up and snatched off his hat.
“I knew it,” he drawled. “Trevor accused me of imagining it, but I’ve known it all along.” He tossed his hat to the opposite seat and grabbed Tessa in the same movement. He pulled her into his lap, tickling and dipping her back. She yelped and then slapped a hand over her mouth, mindful of the driver.
Joseph kissed her hard—once, twice—and then dropped his lips to her ear. “I knew the gentleman’s pretty daughter harbored some fantasy for the strapping servant from belowstairs.”
Tessa laughed again, squirming in his lap. “It’s not true,” she said. “I’d not even heard your original accent until you fought off those men at Vauxhall Gardens.” She broke free enough to kiss him, a quick buss of her lips, but he captured her mouth in a long, slow, languid kiss. She let out a little sigh, sinking in.
“I don’t believe you,” he declared when she finally broke away. “I saw a spark of interest in your eyes the very first time I mentioned the upstart story of my upstart life. On that first walk at Berymede. Admit it. It excites you.” He dipped to nuzzle her ear, and she shivered.
“Well, perhaps it is a little true,” she consented. “Did no small part of you fantasize about seducing the gentleman’s daughter?”
“Believe me, love, there’s a very large part of me that fantasized about it, and still does,” he whispered in the other voice, the voice she’d heard only at Vauxhall. He surged against her, and she made a little whimpering noise.
“But is that what you want?” he growled into her ear. “Now? For our last beautiful bit of your beautiful body? In this carriage?”
She was breathing hard, her hands clinging to fistfuls of his jacket, but she shook her head. “You’ve said it’s only a twenty-minute ride.”
“Want the full hour, do you?” he asked again in his other voice.
She laughed and slid from his lap, straightening her dress. “If the cottage interests us, it will be very poor form to turn up with my hair undone and your cravat ruined. You’ve said the sellers are sentimental? Very poor form.”
“Tonight then,” he said.“Love.”And he retrieved his hat and rested it over his eyes, resuming his slouch.
Abbotsford Cottage was a fourteen-bedroom, Elizabethan-style manor house with ballroom, nursery, music room, detached servant’s quarters, and walled garden with fountain. It had two high towers (no longer in use but architecturally striking), an arcade wall of arches, and a circle drive paved with crushed stone.
It was, in Joseph’s view, as striking as Berymede, if not lovelier. This should not be a priority, he knew, but it was.
“Oh, Joseph,” Tessa breathed as their carriage crunched up the drive. “Joseph, this is far, far too much.” But her voice sounded awed and wistful and grateful.Thishad also been a priority. That Tessa would love it.
“Not bad for a stable boy, I submit,” he teased.
“Stop, I wish I’d not said anything.” Her eyes had not left the house.
“You will not wish that after tonight,” he promised but she had slid the carriage glass to the side and leaned from the window, craning for a better view of the house.
