It tore through her like lightning—violent and glorious and endless. She bucked against his hand, her body seizing in pleasure so sharp it was near pain. He did not stop his ministrations, but drew her out, dragging her body through every trembling peak.
“Too much,” she gasped, but her body betrayed her, still grinding against his hand.
He leant in close, brushing her ear with his lips. “Give me another,” he murmured. “One more. Just one.”
With a ragged moan, her body clenched again. She was not even sure where she was any longer, except that her legs were spread as wide as she could make them, and perhaps one was over his shoulder now as she shattered all over again.
When she opened her eyes at last, she found him watching her, his eyes bright and his mouth parted in both hunger and mirth. One of her legs was indeed hooked over his shoulder.
“And to think,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her thigh, “that was just the first favour.”
Chapter 13
The front door had barely clicked shut behind Lottie when her mother’s voice rang out like cannon fire from the upper landing. “Seven o’clock! Seven o’clock in the morning, and you are dressed like a stable boy, Charlotte Tolliver! Do you intend to attend tonight’s ball as a young lady or a cavalry officer?”
Lottie, cheeks still flushed—though she told herself it was from the brisk wind—paused in the act of tugging off one mud-slick boot. She glanced upward to find her mother framed against the balustrade in a Turkish morning wrapper of improbable paisley, a lace capatop her head, and a shawl trailing down one elbow. She looked, in short, like a dowager empress caught in the throes of theatrical ruin.
“You know I ride astride, Mama. It is rather difficult to do so in a ballgown. I will look the perfect lady tonight.”
Her mother pressed a hand to her stomach. “I do not like this, Charlotte. Riding of a morning. What if you had fallen? What if you had died? Worse—what if you had been recognised?”
“I was wearing a hat, Mama,” Lottie offered. “Briefly. I lost it in the wind.”
Lady Tolliver gave a strangled sort of groan and descended the stairs in a flurry. “I amthisclose to sending you back to your Aunt Belinda, Charlotte. Do you have any notion how many countesses and dowagers I must flatter to keep your name even marginally palatable? Your sister is a duchess! And yet here you are, covered in mud and smelling of horse sweat!”
Lottie winced as she tugged her second boot free. “It is only a bit of fun, Mama.”
“A bit of fun? A bit of fun! You vanished before dawn! Alone! If word gets out—and itwill, Charlotte, it always does—do you know what they will say? That you have been compromised, that you are unmarriageable, that the Tolliver name is a joke!” She clutched at the balustrade for emphasis, as if society itself were about to come crashing through the floorboards. “I am not asking for sainthood, Charlotte. I do not expect miracles. But you might, at the veryleast, refrain from ruining your prospects before the Season has even begun. Do you think titles and wealth shield us from scrutiny? That having one sister in a veritable palace somehow makes you immune from ruin?”
Lady Tolliver made a sound like a wounded pheasant. “If I have to retire to Bath before the week’s end, it shall be onyourconscience. Do youknowwhat happens to young women with tarnished reputations? They are pitied. They become the eccentric aunt at Christmas dinners and spend their lives knitting under a blanket with no callers but the curate and his dog!”
“That does sound rather lovely, Mama.”
Lady Tolliver recoiled as if struck. “Lovely?Lovely? My dear girl, you may as well grow a beard and take holy orders!”
Lottie sighed. “I might consider holy orders, if not for my strong attachment to pleasure. I’ve half a mind to become ascandalous hermitess—somewhere warm, with obliging footmen and no corsets.”
“Heaven help me! You will dono such thing! You will go upstairs this instant. You will bathe until you no longer stink of horse sweat, you will allow Millie to curl your hair, and you will attend tonight’s ball wearing the pale green silk that cost me three weeks of my nerves! And you willsmileat any titled gentleman who so much as looks in your direction! Preferably, Lord Marston—Ido not care if he bores you insensible—he has seven thousand a year and no mother to interfere!”
Lottie widened her eyes innocently. “No mother to interfere? How dreadful. I do enjoy a good maternal interrogation. Nothing says romance like being asked about my dowry and the width of my hips for childrearing.”
Lady Tolliver’s eyes bulged. “You jest now, but you will not be laughing when you are thirty and unmarried, Charlotte Tolliver!”
At that moment, the fourth daughter, Marianne—the rather bookish one who is strategically ignored—strolled in with a novel under one arm and a biscuit in her mouth. “You do realise, Mama,” she said, softly as she chewed, “that if you shout at her too loudly, it only encourages her?”
“I amnot shouting,” Lady Tolliver said, absolutely shouting. “I am attempting to instil some sense ofdutyinto a daughter who seems determined to plunge headlong into disgrace!No onelistens to me in this home!”
Lottie crossed her arms and leant against the banister with exaggerated patience. “If I were Benedict, I should be applauded for riding at dawn.”
“You arenotyour brother,” Lady Tolliver snapped, still looking ridiculous in her Turkish morning wrapper. “Benedict is aman. He may be a fool, but at least he knows his place!”
At that precise moment, the door swung open and Benedict Tolliver—first son and heir, who has thus far been largely absent from the Tolliver tales—staggered into the hall with bloodshot eyes. He reeked of brandy and his boots were covered in mud as if he’d walked the last mile home.“One of the grooms is crying again,” he announced hoarsely, dropping his coat onto a hapless footman, “I thought we agreed, Lottie—no rides before sunrise unless you are being chased by the French.”
“Jasper Deverell is not French,” Mari replied mildly from her perch on the settee.
Lottie looked between her elder brother and younger sister with narrowed eyes. She would belt them both if they continued.
“Thank God,” said Benedict, sinking into a chair with a groan. “Though I’d say he could seduce an army if given the proper uniform.”
