Kate Pearce - Educating Elizabeth

"The first time we met, my dear, when I brought you home in my carriage, I wanted to pull you into my lap and make love to you."

His words made her draw back. "But you didn't even know me! How could you have considered such a thing, even if it had been possible?"

His long fingers captured her chin. "I hesitate to remind you of an unpleasant event, Elizabeth, but at the time I thought you were a prostitute. I thought you would be willing to do anything I told you to." His mouth hardened with apparent regret.

His fingers freed the last button on her bodice and slid beneath the corset to splay possessively over her breast. She shuddered as he allowed his thumb to tangle lightly with her nipple. "And as for making love in a carriage, my dear, you are just about to find out if it is indeed possible."

A long while later, Gervase opened his eyes and looked down at the top of Elizabeth's neatly coiled hair. She had fallen asleep in his arms after he had shown her just how easy and how enjoyable it was to make love in a coach. He had loved her fierce concentration when she climaxed and the way she clung to him afterward.

Her flushed cheek lay against his chest and her fingers clutched the silver buttons of his waistcoat. He shifted across to raise the window blind to check their progress. Even in the gathering darkness, he estimated they were passing through Woodford Bridge, a small hamlet about five miles from their destination.

His cock jerked as he moved back, reminding him he was still buried deep inside her and that he would need little encouragement to begin enjoying her again. He slid his hands between their fully clothed bodies and her eyes opened. She smiled sleepily as he touched her bunched-up petticoats and crumpled skirts.

She made a small sound as he grasped her hips and began to lift her away from him. He froze as his instincts roared to set her back down on his stirring flesh.

Her dreamy gaze focused on him. "It feels a little strange to be so decently clothed and yet so intimately joined underneath."

He couldn't restrain the instant upward surge of his hips but he managed to master his ragged control and pulled out of her. He swung her around to sit on the seat beside him and fought to fasten his tight breeches over the urgent swell of his shaft.

She watched him without a word, her arms wrapped around her upper body, her skirts in a froth of disarray. When he was decent again, he pulled her to her feet and stood her between his knees. She placed her hands on his shoulders against the rocking of the carriage as he buttoned her bodice and straightened her skirts.

"Gervase," she said as he handed over her bonnet and gloves and guided her into the seat opposite his. "You were still inside me when I woke up and I did not think to prepare myself..."

She blushed as he took in her meaning and fought his own disbelief. How could he have been so careless? Despite his lessons, she was not an experienced courtesan or a married woman who knew how to handle such matters. She could scarcely have imagined he might choose to ravish her in his carriage.

"When do you expect your monthly courses?"

He watched her struggle with the indelicacy of his question and try to form an answer. "I believe I will bleed on Monday." She gave him a rather tremulous smile. "That is good news is it not? Angelique said that was one of the safest times to make love."

Gervase smiled back as he envisioned a weekend of staying inside of her without fear of her breeding. His body stirred again in sensual anticipation. "Yes, my dear, that is very good news indeed."

When they turned into the long driveway that led to his house, he allowed her to pull up the blinds that covered the coach windows. The carriage slowed as the coachman negotiated the twists and turns of the elm-tree-lined graveled drive. Lights appeared and disappeared in the mist filled darkness as the carriage began its final descent.

"Oh, Gervase." Elizabeth breathed. "It is beautiful."

Gervase took up a position at the other window as Diable Delamere Hall came into view. Moonlight shimmered off the formal lake beyond the circular driveway and laid a silvered pathway to the majestic front door. His father had remodeled the front of the house in the classic Greek style and its gracious white columns and pediment reflected back the moonlight, giving the house a pale, almost unearthly glow.

When Gervase came around to help Elizabeth out of the carriage, she pressed her fingers into his sleeve to prevent him from moving. She stared at the mansion's ghostly façade. "It feels as if the house is floating above the mist. Is it often like this?"

Gervase shrugged and then urged her toward the steps as a bevy of servants descended to deal with their luggage. "I suppose it is. I've not had time to visit for a long while."

She squeezed his arm as they entered through the massive oak front door. "Then it is obviously time that you did." She came to a halt and gazed up at the massive hammer beam ceiling that rose thirty feet above their heads. Ancient tattered banners hanging from the beams stirred in the draughts and antique weapons gleamed against the lime washed walls.

The duke steered Elizabeth up the shallow wooden staircase. "The original house is much older than it appears. It was begun at the end of the fifteenth century." He gestured behind him as they ascended until they reached the minstrel's gallery. "This would have been the great hall when the house was built. My father decided to modernize the house and slapped a new frontage on it."

From his tone, she deduced that he had not been totally in favor of his father's renovations. Before she could ask, he stopped in front of a bedroom door and opened it for her with a flourish. "This suite connects with mine next door but I thought we should keep up appearances."

She looked around the faded elegance of the silk-lined room and took in a slow breath. Her senses reached out and tentatively embraced the ancient aura that surrounded her. This was a home. This was a place to make babies and watch children grow, a place to rejoice and a place to mourn. She'd never had a real home and yet she recognized its essence instantly.

She turned to say something to Gervase, who remained beside the door. She realized that he probably wouldn't share her feminine appreciation of the beauties and sense of love that she ached to embrace. He folded his arms across his chest as if to protect himself from whatever he had seen or guessed at in her eyes.

She managed to smile. "The room is perfect. I will enjoy sleeping here."

He crossed the space between them in three easy strides and pulled her against him. "You will not be sleeping here. You will be in my bed and you will not be sleeping much there either."

She slid her hands up his arms and locked them around his neck as he drew her into a kiss that seemed destined to last for the rest of the night. She responded to him as eagerly as she imagined the previous occupants of this room had reacted to the other magnificently endowed members of the Diable Delamere male line.

"We will dine first, and then retire to bed," he ordered with a smile. "I'm quite certain you will wish to have an early night."

Gervase awoke with a start as the hoot of an owl echoed across the silent sky. He turned his head on the pillow and gazed at Elizabeth, who lay curled against his side, one hand across his chest, the other trapped below his hip. The moonlight brought out the hidden glint of gold in her brown, curling hair and gilded her lips with silver.

He let out a long, slow breath and slid his hand up to her bare shoulder. She smiled in her sleep and moved closer, her nose nuzzling the crisp black hairs on his chest. The owl had woken him in the middle of a dream and he could still recall the textures and scents of it. He had been at peace, holding his son in his arms as he slept.