The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

“No other woman would do this to me. Ah, Helen, kiss me again, or shave me first, then kiss me, and don’t stop.”

But she didn’t kiss him or shave him. She laughed and stood beside the bed, her hands on her hips. “Oh, no. This is retribution, my lord. Remember when you tied me down? This is revenge.”

“Ah, if I flick my wrist inward, will my bonds slip away?”

“No. I don’t know how to tie a knot that would do that. I fear that you are completely at my mercy, my lord. No escape for you unless I allow it.”

He thought he would expire of unrequited lust at that very moment. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Will you beat me with a bundle of hollyhocks?”

She gave him a brilliant smile. It was then he noticed that she was wearing a thin silk nightgown, just a single layer of soft silk that was thinner than the film of sweat on his forehead. It was pale cream. He watched her ease one strap off her very white shoulder.

He gulped and felt himself respond, instantly, fully. “What level is this?”

“I haven’t assigned it a level yet. I must conduct the experiment first, then evaluate my results.” The other strap fell off and the gown slowly slipped over her breasts to fall to her waist. “Perhaps it will prove not to be an efficacious discipline. Perhaps you will simply close your eyes and fall asleep again. Perhaps even snore.”

“I am dying here, Helen.”

“That’s good. Just be patient. Just let me tease you a bit more into oblivion.” She looked down his body, came down beside him, and began kissing him.

He arched up, sucking in a roomful of air, his heart speeding up so fast that he knew he would embarrass himself if she continued. “Helen,

you must stop. It is true that I am not a very young man, that one would expect me to have gained more control by my thirty-third year of male life, but it isn’t true. You must stop or I will leave you and that isn’t a good thing to do to a beautiful woman who also happens to be your wife.

“Stop, Helen. Ah, your mouth is so very warm—” He groaned and heaved at the straps around his wrists. They gave just a bit.

She stopped then, and he wanted to weep. His brain was fogged, his eyes were filmed with lust and monstrous need. He saw her stand by the bed again, saw that creamy silk nightgown slip over her hips and pool at her feet. She was all his, this beautiful, devoted woman. He wanted to breathe his last breath with her beside him.

“I am so full of feelings for you, Helen, that they are all jumbled in my poor brain. Just know that I have waited for you all my life. And finally you jumped me in the park and saved me. I love you, Helen. You won’t ever forget that, will you?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I will never forget. You will not doubt, ever, that I worship you to the ends of my very extremities? That I would do anything to make you happy?” She leaned down and touched the knots on each wrist.

In an instant, his wrists and ankles were free and she was on top of him and he was inside her, and he wondered even as he lost what little control he had, how many decades a man could survive such pleasure without crumbling into dust.

“It is at least a Level Nine,” she said into his mouth. “At least.”

And he wondered what a Level Ten could possibly be.

31

Eight Months Later

Shugborough Hall

JORDAN EVERETT HEATHERINGTON slid into his father’s hands in the middle of a Wednesday night, howling loud enough to make the physician in residence laugh and rub his hands together. “Well done, my lady, very well done indeed. And you, my lord, my congratulations on the birth of your son, although I thoroughly disapprove of you being here, in this very room where your wife has labored long to do her duty by your line. But you did insist, and thus I had no choice in the matter.

“However, pushing me out of the way to receive your son in your own hands is highly irregular. I disapprove. You might have dropped him. And then where would you have been? Your son should have been received by my hands. No, none of this is done. I do appreciate you allowing me to remove the afterbirth, not a pleasant thing to do, but as a physician, I had no choice.”

Lord Beecham looked down at his son, looked at the physician, and shouted, “Flock, come in. Ah, yes, there you are, lurking over there by the door. Do take Dr. Cool ley downstairs and give him a glass of Lord Prith’s newest concoction.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a mixture of mashed apples and champagne. I believe he calls it appagne. He wanted to create something special for the blessed event. He has been working very hard at it. I hope he is still conscious.”

“Eh? What is that you said, my lord? Appagne?”

“You will discover soon enough, sir.” Helen watched her husband carefully hand his son to the waiting midwife, who was crooning to him even before she held him close.

“My love,” Lord Beecham said, as he sat down beside her. “You are brilliant, perhaps even more today than you were yesterday.”