Harriet had thought about this moment for days—ever since that kiss in the abbey ruins. Well, all right. At first it had been in the vague nature of idle musing: what would it be like to make love with a man like Quinton Burnes? Not that she had first-hand knowledge of the act with any man as yet. However, at twenty-seven she was ready for such, was she not? Lately, whenever he had been near—merely in the same room—her mind would drift to a kiss or a touch and her body would respond. Then it was no longer “a man like…” Instead her desire focused on him and tonight she could not, would not deny it any longer.
Was she in love with him?
This thought had crossed her mind often enough in the last few weeks, but she invariably tried to put it aside as irrelevant. It was simply out of the question for Harriet Mayfield to lose her heart to Quinton Burnes. That was not in the plan at all.
“Are you having second thoughts?” Quint asked softly as he closed door between her sitting room and the bedroom. “It is all right if you wish to,” he said, pausing in the act of shrugging out of his coat.
“No. Are you?” She had turned up the lamp on her bedside stand and it spread a soft glow over the entire room.
He tossed the coat on a bench at the foot of the bed and, closing the distance between them, slipped his arms inside her robe to fondle her breasts through the thin fabric of her nightgown as he kissed his way from the hollow of her throat to her lips. Her hands tugged at his neckcloth and shirt buttons.
“Your maid?” he asked.
“Dismissed before I went up to Phillip’s room.”
As she often did, she had prepared for bed before joining the children to bid them good night with their bedtime stories, prayers, and good night hugs and kisses. She relished these evening rituals with the children more than ever now. So she had appeared in Phillip’s room with her hair already in its long, loose night-time plait, held in place by a single blue ribbon. She wore a lacy cotton nightgown, over which she had donned a blue silk robe, tied at the waist. She had been surprised and embarrassed at having Quint see her in such dishabille, but what could she do—other than brazen it through? Now it had come to this.
“I would not have you the object of gossip, Harriet.”
“I thank you for that, kind sir,” she whispered, sincerely moved by his consideration. “I think we are safe this night.”
“May I?” he asked, lifting her braid off her shoulder and loosening the ribbon that bound it. He ran his hands gently through her hair and bent his head to drink in the smell and feel of it. He slipped the robe off her shoulders and it pooled at her feet. She heard his sharp intake of breath and saw sheer hunger in his eyes as he gazed at the way her breasts mounded under the fabric of her gown, the nipples clearly outlined. He reached to cup them in his hands, his thumbs tweaking the nipples and sending bursts of feeling flooding through her.
She struggled to pull his shirt free of his trousers, desperate to feel, to touch the warm bare skin beneath. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir,” she muttered.
“One moment.” He quickly ripped the shirt tails loose and then tossed the shirt over his head and on top of his coat.
Marveling at the expanse of golden muscle and a dark V of hair in the lamplight, she could not resist repeated caresses from his waist to his shoulders.
“And now who has whom at a disadvantage, my dear?” he breathed against her ear as he shimmied the hem of her gown over her rump, pulling her closer, so that she felt the full evidence of his need pressing into her belly. She fumbled ineptly with the buttons on the fall of his buckskins.
“Allow me, love,” he said. Having effectively rid her of the nightgown, he deftly stepped out of his shoes and pulled off the buckskins.
They stood simply staring at each other for a moment.
“My God, but you are beautiful,” he whispered.
“You are not so bad yourself, my lord,” she said with a soft laugh. “I am thinking a Greek hero comes to mind.”
“Come, my little bluestocking—into the bed.” He tossed back the covers and nudged her onto the bed, but before joining her, he stepped across the room to the washbasin, where he grabbed up a towel. Returning, he pulled her close and effectively demonstrated that previous kisses were but a sampling of what this man was capable of.
With his hand, magic fingers, tantalizing lips and tongue, and words of encouragement, he not only played her body like a finely tuned musical instrument, but he led her into triumphs of ecstasy in playing his. Somewhat to her chagrin when she thought about it afterward, in the end she had been reduced to a begging mass of incoherence.
“Please, Quint. Yes! I want— I want…I need—”
And when he entered her, she welcomed him eagerly, lifting her pelvis to give him better leverage, losing herself to everything but this act and this man. Then, suddenly, he stilled. He just stopped.
“No.” She wanted to scream, but it came out a whimper. “No, Quint. Don’t stop. Please.”
Slowly, he pushed into her again, watching her face closely as he did so, kissing her tenderly as he picked up the pace again. Then it was she who stilled as she felt a short burst of pain.
“Sh. Hang on, my love,” he murmured, moving gently until she was writhing beneath him and demanding more from both of them. Suddenly she felt an explosion of bliss within herself. A few moments later, she felt him go rigid, and, to her surprise and regret, she felt him withdrawing from her. A split second later she realized he was spilling his seed into the towel.
He rolled to her side and they lay entwined, both spent, for several moments.
Finally, he said, “That was amazing.”
“Yes. It was. I had no idea it would be so wonderful.”
He rose on one elbow and glared at her. “Good God, Harriet, you might have told me!”
“Told you what?”
“That you were a virgin.”
“Why on earth would I tell you such a thing as that?”
“A man likes to know these things when he beds a woman.”
“Well, now you know,” she said, gazing at him open-eyed.
He sighed. “Now I—Ahah! I knew it!” he exulted.
“Knew what?” she asked, bewildered.
“Your eyes. They are blue. Really, really blue. Not gray. I knew they would change color when you made love.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Harriet, my sweet, are you not aware that your eyes change color with your emotions? Rather like the weather, really. The grayer, the more foreboding; the bluer, well—”
“Ridiculous,” she said again, but not so forcefully this time.
“I’m sure the children know this—probably instinctively. I’ve seen them studying your face for how they should react to something you’ve said.”
“Well, of course. That is how real human beings interact,” she said, “not like soldiers who behave like automatons—all that ‘yes, sir, no, sir’ stiffness.”
“And you know this from your vast experience of army life, I take it?” He tickled her ribs, thus bringing her fully and reluctantly out of the afterglow of their lovemaking. He flicked off the covers, saying, “I’d best not be discovered in your rooms in the morning, let alone in your bed.”
“Goodness, no,” she agreed.
He then totally surprised her. She watched as he went, stark naked, across the room to the washbasin, where he proceeded to dampen a cloth and unashamedly clean himself. He then dampened another cloth and returned to her, where he gently and thoroughly cleaned away from her body any perceivable residue of their night’s activity. She lay in silent wonder as he performed these ablutions, but he did them with such tenderness and care that later, when she thought about it, she knew that it was at that moment that she knew—yes! she was in love with him.
“Move over,” he said, nudging her. “Remove your ever-so-loveable self from the middle of this bed. Let us see the damage.”
“Wha-a—?” she cried, but she moved.
“Harriet, I told you I would not have you the object of gossip. Not in this house. What happens when the maid sees blood on your sheet?”
“Blood on my sheet?” she asked blankly. But there it was: two bloody smudges against the whiteness of the bedsheet. “Oh.”
“Oh, indeed. That is what happens when one deflowers a virgin. If I’d known—”
She sighed and grabbed the damp cloth from him. “Do save the lecture. Get another wet cloth and a dry towel too. I doubt any male of the species knows how to clean properly.”
He rolled his eyes at her and did as she instructed as she began scrubbing furiously at the small bloody spots on the sheet.
When he came back, he leaned over and kissed her soundly. “I did not do such a bad job on you, did I?”
Embarrassed, she squeaked out a “No,” and kissed him back, equally soundly.
“Here now. That could keep us here ’til noon—and caught for sure.” He set about helping her scrub.
“I think it will dry completely by morning,” she finally said, pulling on her nightgown. “Thank you for helping me.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” he said, pulling on his buckskins. “In my next life, I shall be a washerwoman.”
“What a waste that would be,” she said, admiring the way the muscles of his upper torso worked as he donned his shirt.
“Good night, Harriet.” He lifted her chin with a finger to kiss her softly. “Or is it morning?”
“Morning.”
“I hope you will not be harboring regrets about this.” He sounded unsure of himself as he stood at the door.
“No, I will not,” she said firmly. “However, it would never do for this to become a habit, would it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, grinning, but when she cuffed his shoulder, he added, “No, no. You are right, of course. Still—”
“Incorrigible,” she muttered and closed the door, then stood leaning her head against it for several moments. “What have you done, Harriet Augusta?” she whispered aloud. “It was all right—sinful, perhaps, but inconsequential—for an unmarried woman to dream of such, but you broke the rules.”
As she turned back to her bed, she spotted his neckcloth lying on the bench. She grabbed it up and pressed it to her face, savoring the smell. Careful to avoid the damp spot in the middle of the bed, she lay cradling the piece of cloth that still held a bit of the essence of him, the smell helping her recall—happily—nuances of what had just transpired. She fell asleep smiling.
* * * *
Quint too went to sleep with a smile on his face, but the next morning he awoke thinking, How stupid was that, Burnes? And here at Sedwick too, where it had always been not just a rule, but almost a sacred law: no taking advantage of female employees. Well, Harriet was not an employee, was she? But he knew that was splitting hairs.
He was a little wary about seeing her later. In his experience, women were funny about sex. They could be extremely shy and coy—and Harriet had been a virgin, for God’s sake!—or they could become rather triumphant and possessive, sending little secret smiles and manufacturing surreptitious touches. All of which he had found annoying or vastly amusing on previous occasions. But here—at Sedwick?
He needn’t have worried.
Harriet was among the last to arrive for breakfast that morning because she and Maria had waited for and assisted Phillip, who, under protest, had been carried down to the dining room door by the footman Heller. Then Maria handed him his crutches and Heller held the door for the three of them to enter. Others at the table applauded as Phillip took his seat; greetings were exchanged; and Harriet and Maria filled plates at the sideboard for themselves and Phillip.
Suddenly everything seemed very normal, even routine. Except for the fact that Quint found it hard to keep his eyes off Harriet. That she sat directly opposite him, on Phillip’s right, made it no easier. She wore a cheery yellow cotton day dress with a print of orange flowers and green leaves. It had a deep square neckline trimmed in white lace that allowed a hint of that luscious cleavage and elbow-length sleeves ending in white lace. She wore simple gold earrings and a gold locket on a chain. Her hair was swirled in tight braids atop her head, but he kept seeing its near-black mass spread across a pillow in lamplight.
He forcibly turned his attention to the other females at the table and was glad to see that Maria too no longer opted for the dark colors of half-mourning. She was dressed in a pink cotton print with small purple and white flowers and a large purple sash about the waist. A purple ribbon held her brown hair in place. His mother still usually appeared in more subdued colors, and she did so this morning. Sylvia Hartley, as always, followed the dowager’s lead.
Oh, yes, Harriet was by far the more delectable feast for the eyes.
However, his attention to the women’s attire had triggered something in the recesses of Quint’s mind. He looked at Phillip in a gray jacket over darker trousers and shook his head in thought.
“Phillip, do you by any chance own proper evening wear?”
“‘Proper evening wear’?” the boy repeated blankly.
“Whatever for?” the dowager asked.
“Mother,” Quint began patiently, “If I am not mistaken, in your schedule for the house party, there are two formal dinners and, of course, the culminating ball.”
With a clatter, the dowager dropped a forkful of egg onto her plate. “Good heavens, Quinton! Surely you are not suggesting a child—a mere schoolboy—be a presence at this party. Why I would be the laughingstock of the ton. I will not have it!”
Quint drew in a deep breath and looked toward the ceiling. “I suppose we could send out notes that the hostess—the Dowager Countess of Sedwick—is suddenly indisposed.” His mother looked stricken at this.
Others at the table seemed suddenly fascinated by whatever was left on their plates, not quite knowing where else to look during this colloquy between Quint and his mother. Phillip, as Quint had established earlier, sat at the head of the table, which when there were so few in attendance was shortened. The dowager sat at the opposite end, and others were spread about as suited them.
Quint went on in a calm tone. “It has always been my understanding that the tradition of the Sedwick house party in the autumn was established by the third earl to ingratiate himself with King George the Second.”
“Yes, that is so,” his mother agreed, “and it continued every year until four years ago when—when her sister put a stop to it!” She pointed a trembling finger at Harriet.
Harriet half rose in her seat, but Quint raised a hand to stay her. “I am sorry, Mother,” he said. “That is simply not so. It was your son, the noble Winston, who decided that Sedwick could no longer afford that extravagance. Decided wisely, I might add.”
“B-but we are having it now?” She seemed on the verge of tears.
He sighed. “Yes, Mother.”
“But, truly, you are not serious about including a child at such a gathering, are you, my dear? It is simply not done.”
“Not only is he to be included, he is to host this event,” Quint told her.
“He is what? Now that is beyond enough!” She stood, rigid with anger.
“Just hear me out before you fly too high into the boughs,” he said patiently.
She sat back down, her hands clasped before her on the table.
He went on. “This tradition began as a hunting party sponsored by the Earl of Sedwick. If we are going to pick up the tradition again, I see no reason to substitute a surrogate for the real thing.”
“Surrogate, indeed,” she snorted. “You know very well that you as the minor earl’s legal guardian and I as Dowager Countess of Sedwick are perfectly acceptable as host and hostess.”
“Probably,” he conceded. “And it will be equally or more acceptable if the host is the earl himself and the hostess is his grandmother, the Dowager Countess.”
She slumped in defeat. “Why are you doing this?”
“I want it known immediately and emphatically that the Seventh Earl of Sedwick is one Phillip Burnes and that, young as he may be, he has considerable backing that he could call upon should the need arise. Although many of the most powerful men of the realm are in Vienna trying to divide up Europe, there are a sufficient number of them left in England—and on your guest list—to fulfill my purpose.”
“This just seems so extraordinary,” she said in a resigned tone, but perhaps she was coming around. Quint saw Harriet and Maria exchange brief little smiles.
“It will be all right, Mother. Trust me,” Quint said. “You may start a new trend. Besides, Maria and I will be there to support you and Phillip.”
“Maria?” Lady Margaret squeaked and looked up in shock. “But she is only a child too. You really are determined to have the whole of society laughing at me.” She buried her face in her hands.
“She’s of an age with Phillip,” Quint said. “I’m guessing he will appreciate the support of at least one person his own age, eh, Phillip?”
Phillip, clearly overwhelmed, nodded and mumbled his assent.
“Surely you do not mean to foist such young persons into all of the activities I have planned for my adult guests,” the dowager said.
“No, that would not be fair to Phillip and Maria,” Quint said. “I would ask them to attend the two formal dinners and serve in the receiving line before the ball. They will excuse themselves when you give the signal for the ladies to withdraw at dinner and after the first dance at the ball. If he wishes to do so, and his leg permits him to do so, Phillip may accompany me during the hunting.”
“Oh, jolly good,” Phillip said.
“I see that you have planned this out in quite some detail,” his mother said, “and I must wonder that you never once thought to consult me.”
Having discussed most of this with Chet before, Quint glanced at him now, but got only a rueful shrug and a look of sympathy in response. Quint reached for his coffee cup and took a drink before answering his mother. “As I said, Mother, I want it known that Sedwick will not be taken advantage of with impunity—and several of your invited guests are just the people to ensure that the word gets out.”
His mother grimaced. “Politics! You are just like your father—using a party to play some political game or another!” Her tone was resigned, and Quint knew he had won the day.
* * * *
Harriet was perplexed by that scene at breakfast between Quint and his mother. He seemed genuinely concerned about a threat to Phillip, but he was not being forthcoming about it. She noted, though, that before they had all departed the breakfast table he had charmed his mother into sending for the dressmaker and tailor this very day to see to formal attire for the two youngsters.
Maria, of course, was thrilled at the turn her and Phillip’s lives had taken. The two of them joined Harriet in the music room after breakfast.
“My first ball! And I am but fourteen!” Maria exulted as she twirled around the middle of the room.
Phillip, who shared the piano bench with Harriet, said petulantly, “I do not want to host any dinners or stand in a silly receiving line either.”
“The penalties of being the first-born male,” Maria taunted. “One feels so-o sorry for the duties you must fulfill.”
“My leg probably won’t be mended.”
Harriet patted his arm. “It should be. Or well on its way. You will do well. Both of you. Come now. Let’s do that duet—the one with all the trills.”
“All right.”
Maria took a seat nearby and pretended to be an appreciative audience.
Later in the day, Harriet made a point of tracking down Quint and finally found him in his usual haunt, the library, though not behind the desk as usual. He was stretched out on a couch, an open book face down on his chest, his eyes closed. She immediately started to retreat.
“Don’t leave,” he said. “I’m not asleep, though Mr. Wordsworth and Coleridge have been doing their best.” He sat up on one corner of the couch and patted the cushion next to him.
She took a nearby chair.
“Like that, eh?” he asked.
“I prefer not to be tempted just yet.”
“‘Just yet,’” he mused. “All right. I can live with that. Maybe.” He paused. “I assume you have something on your mind.”
“I do. I am wondering about what you said at breakfast. Have you some reason to believe Phillip may be in some sort of danger?”
He did not answer immediately and when he did, he seemed rather unsure of his response. “Not directly, so far as I can determine. I am sorry if I worried you. There has been a recent financial development relating to the estate, but, frankly, it is not something one need trouble a woman with.”
She thought she might have been able give him some information about that “recent development” until he raised her hackles with that comment about not troubling a woman. “You might be surprised,” she said and abruptly stood. “But if you think Phillip faces no harm—?”
He stood too and took a step toward her. “He will be fine. I shall see to it.”
She looked up at him. “And Sedwick?”
“I am working on that. Do not worry that pretty little head of yours about it.” He bent his head to kiss her, but she quickly sidestepped out of the way.
“I have something I must see to,” she said hastily, and left.
She was fuming. How dare he? How dare he turn into one of those arrogant men who treat women as brainless toys? Truth to tell, though, she was as furious with herself as she was with him.
She could not hold onto that fury for long, though.
Two hours later it had to be put aside, for Sedwick Hall welcomed the arrival of the young earl’s great-grandparents and their full entourage.