“Big enough for two,” Piers said, making sure his tone wasn’t overly hopeful. “Or are you too sore?”
She scowled at him. “That’s none of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business. Here, come in and close the door. We don’t want to give poor Nurse Matilda any more shocks than she’s already been dealt in one day.”
Linnet walked in and closed the door. But she made no move to climb on the bed with him. “Come on, then,” he said, patting the bed. “Time for a private consult with your favorite doctor. Come tell me all about that nasty raw feeling caused by that seducing devil who took advantage of you.”
She laughed. “And I have to get on the bed to tell you about it?”
“How am I going to ascertain the injury until I do an examination?” he asked reasonably. “A close examination.”
“It doesn’t hurt that much. Besides, we can’t do that again.”
“Why not?” He held out his cane toward her. “Will you take that for me?”
She stepped forward and took the end of it, whereupon he jerked backward, reeling her in like a fish on a line. Linnet fell on top of him in a fluttering soft bundle of sweet-scented womanhood.
Piers’s arms tightened. “Damn, you smell good.”
“You smell like soap,” she said, sniffing. “Unpleasant soap.”
“Castor soap. We’re trying to cut down on hospital fever.”
“What on earth is that?”
“Fevers go around hospitals, and kill patients who weren’t even in line for a coffin,” he said, nuzzling her hair until he found a delicately shaped little ear. “This castle’s perfect because it’s got so damn many rooms that we can just stow most of the patients by themselves until their fever breaks.”
“I’d like to hire some village women to come in and read to the patients who are awake and not infectious,” Linnet said.
“Village women and reading. I see a problem there.”
“A village woman who knows how to read,” she said, not all that patiently. “I’m sure there are some. And another woman or two to entertain the children and perhaps work on teaching them to read.”
“Entertain? This is a hospital, or next thing to it. We’re not playing host to a traveling show.”
“The patients will get better sooner if they have something to think about. Why, look at Gavan.”
She shut her mouth, but Piers caught a tone in her voice that made him give her ear a little nip. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing. Gavan walked up and down the stables five times after luncheon. His leg is much stronger.”
Piers thought about her voice while he ran a hand over her truly magnificent bosom. “Are you sore?”
“Yes,” she said, a bit shyly, pink climbing in her cheeks.
“Want me to take a look and make sure it’s all in working order? It would be my pleasure.” And he meant it. Just in case she said yes, he kissed his way down her neck and onto the curve of her breast. Closer to the site of the problem, as it were.
“No,” she said, her voice sounding pretty definite.
But her hands were on his chest too, gliding over his shirt. He reached down and wrenched his shirt from his breeches to give her better access.
She pulled up his shirt with a charmingly greedy look. Then her fingers were running over his chest, leaving little trails of fire in their wake. Piers rolled to the side to let her explore as she would.
Linnet bent her head delicately, politely, as if she were a long-necked heron considering something in the water.
“Please,” he said, watching her, and was almost ashamed at the husky, needy tone in his voice. But not quite.
And particularly not after a small pink tongue curled over his nipple. A hoarse grunt escaped his lips. “Why do you have your eyes shut?” he made himself ask, forcing himself to think sensibly.
“You taste wonderful,” she said dreamily. “And you smell so good, just a little salty still, but like soap—not that awful soap, nice soap.” Small white teeth closed, nipped him, and his body instinctively arched toward hers, begging for what it could not have.
She was kissing lower now, on his belly, on the soft parts of his skin that no one had ever paid attention to before. Piers closed his eyes only to have them fly open when she said, “Hadn’t you better take off your breeches?”
He raised his head. “Take them off? We can’t do anything serious, Linnet. Your poor little twat cannot take another intrusion from—”
“This?” she said, stroking along it. “I’d just like to see it. Properly, I mean. If you have time.”
“Time?” he repeated, hardly believing his own ears. “I think, yes, I have time. Though perhaps we should put the latch on the door.”
So she got up and put the latch on the door, which meant that he noticed that her cheeks had gone a lovely rose color, and her eyes were sultry and a little wild. Her lust was like tinder to his, and he could hardly manage to shove down his breeches and smalls . . . but he did.
And lay back on the bed to see what she would do.
What she did . . .
She knelt and then relaxed onto her side, her lovely curves just before him, the straight line of her backbone going down to the curve of her hips, her arse.
“Globes,” he said, his hand running down to her hips and then behind. “Another word for buttocks. A more poetic one, perhaps.” His fingers were trembling.
Linnet had just been looking, but now she reached out and curled her fingers around him.
The sound that came from his lips was undignified to say the least. It was a carnal sound, and he thought Linnet’s face turned a little pinker. Fighting not to simply lie back and let her do her will, he ran his hand more firmly into the curve of her bottom, around the most delicious curve of all, between her legs.
She flinched.
“Very sore,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “I do apologize.”
Linnet’s eyes glinted with amusement. “But you wouldn’t take it back?”
Take back the most ecstatic sexual experience of his life, not to put too fine a point on it? “Never.”
She seemed to like that answer, since she shifted down in the bed, her head dipped, and her tongue touched him.
His head fell back at the sweep of it, the liquid, hot touch of her. Still . . . “Linnet,” he managed.
“Yes?” She was looking at him consideringly. He wrenched his mind away from the possibilities she might be considering.
Cleared his throat. “I feel bound to mention . . .”
She bent forward, licked him again, and then her lips slipped around him like wet silk.
A hoarse cry tore from his throat.
“Yes?” she asked, looking up at him. Her eyes were bright with mischief, and dark with desire . . . She was the very picture of trouble.
“Most ladies, that is, women who aren’t paid for their time, don’t pleasure men in that particular way,” he said hoarsely.
A little frown crinkled her brow. “They don’t? Why not? You did so to me, and you told me that it was quite proper.” She reached out and ran her fingers swiftly up his length, as if a feather brushed there. “I like this part of you. Such an interesting shape, as if it were made for a kiss. See?”
And before Piers could do anything, not that he would have stopped her, she bent over again. Her mouth was tight on him, like delirium, like a fever in his blood, like . . .
“You don’t sound as though you dislike it,” she said, stopping again.
“Wretch,” he said, raising his head. “Don’t—”
“Don’t continue?” she said, full of mock sadness. “I was just starting to imagine what you might like. For example . . .”
She did it again, deeper, at the same moment that her hand curled tightly around the lower part of him. His hips jerked forward, and Piers realized that he had exactly five seconds to make sure that Linnet, delicious Linnet, knew exactly what she was doing.
“If you ke
ep doing that,” he said, his voice strangled. “I’m going to come. And that means my sperm will rush out and directly into your mouth.”
“Are they injurious?” She sounded curious, unafraid. Something in his body relaxed, some deep powerful caution in him.
“No,” he whispered. She was playing with her right hand too, touching his balls, rubbing him. Her hair glinted in the sun slanting through the window as she bent to him again—the silky hair of a princess. But no princess ever gave her lord such pleasure.
He could withdraw. He told himself to withdraw. He had never allowed a woman to perform such an intimate service, never.
But he couldn’t hold in the sounds erupting from his throat. His balls tightened, he arched toward her one final time. Her tongue gave a playful little twist, a caress that burned all the way to his balls and down his legs . . .
Piers lost himself as he never had before. His mind shut down like a box with a lid, leaving him no more than a man in the hands and mouth of a woman who was enjoying herself. There is no greater aphrodisiac, he thought dimly.
And stopped thinking altogether, because her hands . . . her mouth . . .
He forgot to withdraw. He forgot his name. He forgot he was a doctor. He forgot . . .
He forgot everything except for Linnet and the curve of her neck, and the wet warmth of her mouth, and that little hum that told him she was happy.
In fact, his mind was still completely blank when she crawled back up to him and said in a husky, lustful voice: “Now you owe me.”
Indeed.
Chapter Twenty-One
That night after supper they all retired to the drawing room for a postprandial brandy (for the gentlemen) and tea (for the ladies).
Linnet was having a hard time keeping herself within the bounds of ladylike behavior. She wanted to touch Piers, to speak only to him, to smile at him in unmistakable invitation. She was in the grip of ravening hunger, as if lust were the only emotion in her body.
Every once in a while a thought of the future—even, it had to be said, a pulse of anxiety—would float across her mind. After all, she had thrown away her virtue, her most precious possession. Her father would be horrified, even more so if he knew that Piers had promised to marry her only if she were carrying a child.
But one glimpse of Piers’s lean body, and her heart started beating high in her throat, and heat crept up her legs. She couldn’t hide the truth from herself: given the chance, she would throw her virtue to the wind again. And again.
It was like madness. It was like being drunk, as if she were drinking brandy with her tea.
After a few minutes in the drawing room, Linnet found herself wondering if perhaps Lady Bernaise had slipped brandy in her tea. Her ladyship insisted on dancing, taking the marquis as her partner and consigning Linnet to Mr. Bitts. Even when the waltz was over, she was remarkably gay, her eyes sparkling, her fan in constant motion.
Linnet looked down at her white gown and sighed. Lady Bernaise was wearing an exquisite gown, of lilac tissue caught up just under the bodice with ribbons the color of mulberries. Though it might be a misnomer to talk of a bodice, since her décolletage was so much in evidence that her breasts appeared to be decorated rather than concealed.
Piers was leaning against the wall, watching with a sardonic expression as his mother grew more and more outrageous, flirting with the young doctors, tapping them with her fan, laughing her throaty little French laugh.
Linnet caught his eye, and put her hand on the sofa beside her.
“You summoned?” he asked, a moment later.
Her whole body shivered as he sat down, his broad shoulder brushing hers. “Did your mother have too much champagne?” she said in a low voice, trying not to look too delighted that he had responded to her summons.
“I doubt it. I think she’s discovered a new pastime, which could be summed up as Torment the Duke.”
“Torment as in make him jealous?” Linnet asked, her eyes sliding to the duke. “I believe it’s working.” Piers’s father was sitting bolt upright, his eyes fixed on his former wife.
“It might be a bit more complicated than that,” Piers said. “You see, my father divorced her on the grounds that she was a—”
“Oh, I see,” Linnet breathed. “Do keep your voice down, Piers. Your father will hear you.”
“And?”
“If I understand you, she is flaunting her independence: as a trollop she may take pleasure from whomever she wishes, including young men. Though of course she’s not really a trollop.”
“It looks to me as if the Honorable Bitts has become the leading contender,” Piers said. “Who would have thought the man had such a courtier turn in him? Though I suppose he comes by it honestly, being the son of a viscount or some such.”
“But would she—” Linnet whispered.
“Never,” Piers said calmly. “My father knows that too. My mother loves to flirt—she is French, after all—but she was a devoted wife, to my father as well as to her second husband.”
“What was he like?” Linnet watched, fascinated, as the former duchess delighted Mr. Bitts by sitting down at the piano. The other two doctors clustered around as well.
“They can probably see straight to her navel,” Piers remarked. “And to answer your question, Maman’s second husband was an excellent spouse. An antidote to my father, certainly: solid, not too bright, thoroughly civilized. Unfortunately, also headless, after the Revolution caught fire and he refused to leave his estate, insisting that his peasants weren’t as angry as everyone else’s.”
The duchess was singing now, her eyes sparkling and her fingers flying over the keyboard.
“What a charming tune,” Linnet said. “And she’s singing in English!”
“There would be no point otherwise,” Piers said dryly. “My father’s French isn’t good enough to catch the words in her own language.”
Linnet listened more closely. “A lascivious wench was she,” caroled the duchess merrily.
“Marvelous!” Linnet exclaimed, giggling. That was a song worthy of her aunt or mother, though she could hardly say so to Piers.
“My father isn’t quite so amused,” Piers said, nodding.
“I feel as if I’m watching a play.” Sure enough, the duke was scowling so fiercely that the resemblance to his son was unmistakable.
“I had the same sensation last night. If we were in a box in the theater,” Piers said, “it would be rather dark.”
“And?”
The duke’s lower lip was jutting out, and he was tapping his fingers on his knee.
“I would put my arm around you,” Piers said, “risking public censure.” He did just that, pulling her back into the depths of the sofa.
Linnet looked up at him. “I suppose if I were very, very tired after some unexpected activity during the day, I might rest my head on your shoulder.” And she did.
Piers’s fingers traced little circles on her bare arm, making it hard to think about the drama unfolding before them. Lady Bernaise finished her song and got up from the pianoforte with a flutter of skirts. The Ducklings clustered around her.
They were all laughing—indeed, they were convulsed with laughter.
“Dear me,” Piers said, “those actors shouldn’t forget that they have an audience—to wit, us.”
But just then, his mother obliged, her light voice coming through the laughter perfectly clearly. She had her fan open, and her eyes glittered dangerously over the edge. “I have always thought, Mr. Bitts, that a hard man is good to find.”
Linnet choked back a laugh, but Piers was looking to his father. “She’s brought the old lion out of his cave with that witticism,” he said into her hair.
Sure enough, the duke was on his feet. The doctors scattered like chaff in front of him; he slipped his hand under the lady’s arm and towed her out of the room before Linnet could do more than blink.
“What a shame,” Piers said, not moving.
Linnet tried to sit u
p. “We should—”
Piers caught Kibbles’s eye and jerked his head. In a second the Ducklings were gone.
“The entertainment is over,” Piers said mournfully. “Only you and I left in the darkened theater.”
“Where is your cousin?” Linnet asked, suddenly realizing the marquis was nowhere to be seen.
“Prufrock pulled him out of the room a few minutes ago. A patient must have shown up with a broken limb, since that’s Sébastien’s speciality.”
Linnet relaxed against Piers’s shoulder, letting him pull her closer, and then tilted her head up to examine the ceiling. There was nothing much up there to examine, but it did give Piers the chance to dust kisses over her neck.
“Mmmm,” Linnet hummed, deep in her throat.
“I love it when you do that,” Piers said, raising his head to drop a kiss on the corner of her mouth.
“Do what?”
“Make that little sound in your throat that means you’re willing and able.”
“Are you implying that I’m easy?” Linnet asked, nettled.
“Are you implying that I wouldn’t respect you if you were? After all, you’re not the one who just extolled the virtues of hard men,” he pointed out. “That was my mother, the woman whom I have the most reason to honor.”
“I’m not easy,” Linnet said stubbornly.
“I, of all men, know that.” He nuzzled her ear. “But do you think that perhaps you could do an imitation of an easy hussy later this evening?”
Linnet found herself trembling. Piers was holding her tightly, and licking—he was licking!—the edge of her ear. “That is a very strange thing to do,” she said, avoiding his question.
In answer, he nipped her ear lobe, and a little pulse of fire went straight to Linnet’s thighs. “Very strange!” she managed.
“All this hair of yours is in the way.”
“As for tonight,” Linnet began—but the door opened.
It was Prufrock. “I apologize for interrupting, but his lordship the marquis has requested your assistance.”
“Tricky operation?” Piers asked, still nuzzling Linnet’s ear.
Linnet tried to sit up straight, but he didn’t let her.