Page 66 of An Earl Like You
“You do,” was all he said to her flustered query. “In the best way. Shall we eat?”
They ate ham and bread spread with chutney, a specialty of the cook. They nibbled on strawberries and finished the champagne. As if determined to lighten the mood, Hugh told stories of his youth, including some pranks he and his friends got up to at school. Eliza told him how Sophie and Georgiana had become like sisters to her at Mrs. Upton’s Academy, including how Sophie had nearly been dismissed on her first day for trying to teach Eliza sums with a pack of cards.
When Angus came back, with Willy at his heels, Hugh got to his feet. “Shall we have a walk?” he asked Eliza. She nodded, and they left the boy plundering the remains of the picnic and the dog stretched out on the grass.
In the distance, far down the hill, London lay quiet and neat from this perspective. Eliza shaded her eyes and looked toward Greenwich, but the sun was too dazzling. Today everything was dazzling, and so far removed from her previous life she couldn’t even remember what things looked like from Greenwich.
“Shall we turn into the wood?” Hugh suggested as she blotted her brow. “Is the sun too hot?”
“Yes, let’s.” Gratefully Eliza followed him into the shade of the copse. They walked until a narrow brook cut off their path, and then followed it upstream, the ground rising beneath their steps.
“You ought to have warned me to wear sturdy boots,” said Eliza after a while, breathing hard as she climbed over a fallen beech, its upper branches now drowned in the rushing stream.
Hugh laughed. “Perhaps I like you flushed with exercise. Take off your pelisse.”
“Oh, I’m notthatwarm,” she began to say, but he stepped up behind her and put his hand on the small of her back.
“You will be,” he whispered, his cheek against hers. His other arm came around her shoulders and tugged loose the ribbon of her bonnet.
She went up in flames every time he touched her. Eliza reached for the buttons. “What do you plan to do?”
He lifted the bonnet from her head, giving him better access to her bare neck. “What will you allow me?”
Anything. Everything. She thought he knew that, but it did give her a feeling of power that was wholly new and exhilarating. She turned out of his loose embrace and stepped away, peeling off her pelisse as she did. “It depends how you ask, I suppose...”
He followed, hanging her bonnet on a low branch of a convenient tree. He tossed the pelisse over it, and Eliza felt her nipples harden as his eyes fixed on her bosom. “Should I beg?” He fell to one knee. “Shall I worship at your feet?” His eyes gleaming, he took hold of her ankle.
Eliza blushed. “Worship seems unnecessary.”
“Is it?” His hand slid upward. “Men worship all manner of things, most of them unworthy. Let me show you something that will cause you to sing alleluia.”
“What?” Nervously Eliza glanced around. There wasn’t another soul to be seen, but still—they were outdoors, where anyone might walk by and see him, on his knees before her, with his hand—now both his hands—under her skirt.
“Now, now—you’ll have to trust me.” Gently he pushed away her hands when she made a weak effort to shove down her skirts as he raised them above her garters. “Do you?”
“Yes, but—” She jumped as his palms glided up her thighs until his thumbs reached the slit of her drawers.
“Good.” With a searing look, he pushed her skirts up even more and pressed his mouth to the spot where his fingers were. Eliza gave a loud wheeze, and he laughed softly as he nudged her legs apart—spreadherapart—and kissed her again there.
She had no idea what he did, but it almost made her fall over. She slumped back against the tree, her arms behind her trying to hold on to the bark. Light, delicate, so teasingly soft and wet... she knew he was using his tongue on her and she should be mortified and yet she only let her knees fall apart so he could do more of it. By the time he got to his feet and gathered her close, she could barely stand.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he whispered. Shaking, Eliza complied. He lifted her against him and then he was inside her. Eliza sucked in her breath. Hugh gripped her bottom with one hand and tilted her hips, pushing deeper.
“Don’t let go,” he growled. He shifted, setting one foot on a prominent root of the tree, and Eliza instinctively raised her knees around his waist. Now Hugh’s breath hissed between his teeth, and she felt a wild euphoria that she could elicit such desire in him.
He moved slowly, one arm braced on the branch by her head and one hand under her hip, holding her, supporting her, moving her as he willed. Eliza clung to him, her every sense alive and taut—they were out of doors, with Angus and Willy nearby, but when Hugh looked at her with that heavy-lidded gaze, she thought she might combust if he didn’t make love to her immediately, even against a tree in St. John’s Wood. She grew weak when he touched her, but when he looked at her as if he couldn’t wait to have her, Eliza was discovering she became a wanton, wicked woman without shame or modesty. And she reveled in it.
Her head fell back as her body began to tighten. Incoherently she urged him on, trying to move in time with his thrusts. Hugh groaned, his mouth coming down hard on hers. “Look at me,” he commanded, his lips against hers. “Open your eyes, Eliza, and look at me...”
She forced up her eyelids, hardly able to breathe. His hair fell around his face in inky waves, his eyes smoldered like coals, his grip on her was almost painful, and she came with a great gasp of joy. A wild grin lit Hugh’s face as he moved, harder and faster, and then broke. For a moment his full weight fell against her, pinning her to the tree so the bark bit into her shoulders and snagged her hair, but Eliza held him tight, bliss coursing through her veins.I love you, she thought fervently.Even if you never say the same to me.
“I love you,” he whispered, his voice ragged.
Eliza jerked, thinking she must have spoken aloud. “What?”
“I love you,” he repeated, beginning to smile. “Did you not hear me the first time?”
“No, I—” She stopped before she could say something stupid. Instead she threaded her hands into his hair and pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard, her mouth open, her heart bared. He kissed her back, his hands rough on her. “I love you, too,” she told him shyly.
