Page 81 of My Own True Duchess
He’d not seen those before. Was this how Theo had felt when Jonathan had intruded into her formal parlor? Self-conscious and slightly dismayed?
“This is a beautiful house,” Theo said, pouring out, “though it needs some love and care. The present duchess is doubtless attending to what tasks she can, or she will when she returns. You prefer your tea plain as I recall.”
“Theo, right now, I don’t care for tea at all. I don’t want a perishing biscuit, and if you offer me an orange, I will pitch it through the nearest window.”
She set down the steaming cup of China black. “You will?” No smile, no naughty innuendo.
She put Jonathan in mind of Diana, trying to sort out shifting loyalties and changing circumstances. Careful, watchful, unsure. Perhaps the grand residence had daunted her, or perhaps the condition of that residence had failed to impress her.
Jonathan rose and took Theo by the wrist. “I will throw myself through the nearest window if I can’t have you in my arms, if I can’t kiss you for more than a decorous four streets in a closed carriage.”
He found the latch hidden on the underside of the biographical collection shelf and led Theo through a door disguised as just another bookshelf full of aging tomes. The little study was flooded with afternoon light, and the most private place in the entire town house.
“There’s another door,” he said, “at the top of the spiral steps. The latches are right beneath the sconces if you ever find yourself in here without me.”
Theo stepped into his arms, and all the troubles at The Coventry, all the debts piling up on Quimbey’s ledgers, fell away. Jonathan wanted to devour her, to fortify himself with the pleasure she could give him, but Theo was apparently of a mind to torment him.
She teased and hinted and implied, until gradually, Jonathan’s passion eased from roiling to simmering.
“You’re right,” he said, shifting back half a step so Theo could undo his falls. “Better to savor, to take our time.” Though they could do both—a heedless gallop followed by a leisurely trot.
Followed by another gallop.
“I have missed you,” Theo said again. “Missed you mightily.”
She stroked his rampant cock with a slow, cool hand, and Jonathan nearly spent like a randy stud colt.
“If you tell me that today is the day you demand to see me without all my clothing, I will survive the ordeal, but might I survive it fifteen minutes from now, Theo?”
Her smile was knowing and naughty. A lover’s smile. “Perhaps twenty.”
They were the most delightful, torturous twenty minutes of Jonathan’s life. Frustration and pleasure clawed for the lead in a race to satisfaction that Jonathan was determined Theo would win.
She’d chosen the sofa for this interlude, chosen to have Jonathan on his back, leaving her free to plunder his charms and his wits with her hands, her mouth, her breasts—and, oh, ye cavorting Cupids—her sex.
This was what he’d needed, a bout of lusty, loving pleasure, an intimate interlude to chase the troubles away and bring the joys closer.
“You have utterly slain me,” Jonathan said, stroking her hair. On the ceiling, somebody had painted a scene of fluffy clouds and golden doves, as if they’d known that this secluded chamber would earn top honors as a trysting place.
Theo sat up, her breasts rosy. She’d worn two chemises today rather than stays, and a dress that unbuttoned down the front of the bodice. A lock of hair cascaded over one shoulder to the lace frothing across the openings of her chemises.
Desire stirred, which should not have been possible.
“If you’re slain, then I am as well,” she said, stuffing a hairpin in her mouth. “A little slaying makes the day ever so much more enjoyable.” She tucked up the errant lock with a dispatch that amused Jonathan, considering her breasts were on display and he was still inside her.
She shoved the hairpin into her coiffure and patted her chignon.
So brisk after such a thorough loving, so Theodosia. The thought wandered into Jonathan’s mind that she might have already conceived his heir, and desire shifted to something vulnerable and precious.
“We will both be much slain following our nuptials,” Jonathan said. “A wedding journey this summer to the Lakes isn’t out of the question.”
Theo lifted herself away from him, an indelicate moment. He hadn’t thought to get out his handkerchief, but she withdrew one from her reticule, turned her back, and tended to herself.
Lying about like a happy satyr would not do. Satisfaction made Jonathan drowsy and content, but the line of Theo’s back, the dispatch with which she’d risen, and the way she twitched down her skirts created a niggling unease.
She remained by the window, looking graceful and composed, arms crossed while Jonathan put himself to rights. Was she giving him privacy? Already back to thinking of linens and larders?
“Shall we finish our tea?” she asked, gaze upon the garden.
