Blythe’s breath bunched in her chest as the red ball sailed across the cornflower blue sky. Men ran, their arms outstretched and shirtsleeves pulling back from their wrists, but Julian out legged them all. He reached, his muscles straining against the white shirt linen, and even from the sidelines, the thwack into his palm was audible.
‘Well done, Ashford,’ someone cheered.
‘Better luck next time,’ Julian called to the retreating batsman. He bent and adjusted his boot, before standing and stretching his arms over his head and twisting slightly. As his body elongated, his shirt tail untucked slightly, and Blythe fancied she spied a sliver of pale skin between his hem and waistband. And not a strip of flaccid belly, either, like when her uncle over indulged at Christmas and his shirt buttons spread, but an indecent patch of skin, just below his hip, showing a delicate indentation of firm muscle… Her tongue tingled. He looked up, and from her shaded position across the expanse of lawn, she imagined he held her gaze, and she felt the caress of his sapphire eyes, and the warmth of a smile that could light a room.
‘Blythe!’ Yvette’s fingers snapped an inch from her nose. ‘I must have said your name five times. Are you well?’
‘Quite well.’ Blythe blinked fast, then forced composure as she turned to her friend, seated beside her on a picnic blanket. Yvette’s white lace parasol twirled in a lazy circle, flecking shards of sunlight over her buttercup yellow dress as she pushed her wide-brimmed hat back from her forehead and regarded Blythe with a bemused grin.
‘So,’ Yvette said as she bumped against Blythe’s arm. ‘Who is he?’
‘What? Who is who?’ she said in a rush, stumbling her words.
‘You haven’t taken your eyes off the field all afternoon.’ A light tease edged Yvette’s tone.
Blythe waved her hand lazily toward the match. ‘I’m simply enjoying the game.’
‘You? Enjoying cricket?’ Yvette raised an eyebrow.
‘I like the…’ Blythe fumbled for an appropriate word. ‘I like the pace of it all.’
‘Really? Because last week, you said cricket was duller than dishwater.’
Blythe bit her lip. She had said that, and she meant it. She did find cricket pointless and dull, but this afternoon, it wasn’t the game that carried her attention. ‘A girl can change her mind.’
Yvette’s curls shook as she tipped her head back and laughed. ‘Blythe Flintwood, you are the most delightfully stubborn woman I have ever met. You change your mind for no one.’
Blythe clasped her hands in the soft folds of her woollen skirt and stared hard at the grass by her feet. A ladybug inched its way along a green stalk before it separated its orange and black spotted shell and launched itself into the air. Blythe followed its lazy ascent, wishing she could escape this conversation with similar ease.
‘Fine. Keep your secret.’ Yvette crossed her arms and pouted. ‘But I will have it out of you. You may be as clever as Athena, but you are a terrible liar. Oh, look!’ Yvette pointed across the field, toward the pitch, where the sides were crossing paths as they traded places. ‘Father’s batting.’
Julian strode across the field to take his place in front of the wicket. He tapped the ground with his bat and readied himself, eyes fast on the bowler at the opposite end of the pitch. As the ball bounced before him, he lunged forward and swung hard. His biceps flexed against his shirt sleeves, his trousers stretched taunt across his thighs, and the willow clipped the leather and sent the ball hurtling into the air. Like a horse given free rein in an open field, he broke forward and sprinted down the pitch. Dark hair mussing with the exertion, he tapped the ground then lithely twisted, his shirt clinging to his chest and hinting at firm and defined pectorals beneath.
Blythe fanned herself with her hat. This was more than she could bear.
‘I fear I have had too much sun,’ she said as she pushed herself to her feet. ‘I am going inside to work on another painting.’
* * *
Julian’s muscles strained as he pushed the bat over the line, half a second before the ball clipped the wicket.
‘In,’ called Carlson, before adding under his breath, ‘Half your luck. If Wallace had fewer thumbs, you’d be out.’
‘If he had more fingers, I’d have stopped at the other end of the pitch.’ He spun the bat’s leather wrapped grip in his hand. His gaze flicked across the lawn, past the fielders staggered across the grass, to the hillock where the smattering of house guests lounged on picnic blankets beneath the beech trees. Yvette, sitting alone, waved before cupping her hands around her mouth. Her voice carried, but the wind snatched the shape of her words.
‘Did you hear what she said?’ Julian asked.
‘I thought she said, “you’re in a fix.” Is that the sort of thing she’d say?’
Julian laughed. ‘Hit a six, you dolt. I thought I was the old one.’
‘You know what they say about age?’ Carlson asked.
‘Hmmm?’
‘You’re only as old as the woman you—’
‘Feel, I know, I know. I’ve heard the joke before,’ Julian snapped.
‘Not the F word I was thinking of, but either will do. And you, my friend, might be the youngest man on the field.’
Was that praise? Admiration? Julian tried to ignore the perverse lick of pride that ran through him. He’d always been on the outer with men like Carlson. It was why he’d stayed away from London. But as the man regarded him, he had the undeniable sensation of being part of something, some club. And, as Blythe’s fake protector, he needed to maintain the façade. Not for himself, of course. But for her.
‘Tried to catch her for myself but you beat me to it,’ Carlson continued. ‘Although I’d keep a watch on her. Henderson was eyeing her as well.’
‘You didn’t tell him about her and I, did you?’ His light hold on the bat nearly slipped.
‘I didn’t mention names. Just said she was spoken for. Told him to keep his distance.’
Julian tapped his bat against the dirt. Wallace ran along the crease with a slight wobble, and when he bowled, the ball bounced once, then went wide. Julian stepped aside, idly rolling his bat. Carlson caught the wayward ball and launched it back down the pitch.
‘Mind, Henderson doesn’t have a snip of gentlemanly conduct about himself. I don’t think he’d put off a hunt even if old Bertie asked him to.’
Julian tried to focus on Wallace as he first jogged, then ran forward, his arm arching over his head, but Carlson’s revelation put a jolt of fear through him. How many men did he have to fight off? The ball came in and smacked hard into his shin pad. The dull pressure spread and quickly dissipated, but the uneasiness of Carlson’s words hung.
‘That’s me out,’ he said with a manufactured smile, partly chiding himself for losing sight of the ball, but also relieved to be able to get away.
Back on the sidelines, Julian scanned the small crowd as he ripped off his gloves and threw them on the grass. He crouched down and fumbled with the fastenings of his shin-guards, and as he did so, scanned the spectators, in the hopes of maybe catching a glimpse…
Yvette was still sitting on the rug, some damned spare heir stretched out beside her. His aunt hovered behind with a chaperoning eye. But no Blythe. Not with Yvette. Not anywhere.
On a trestle table, set up in the shade, the staff had laid out afternoon tea. Lemonade, cakes, sandwiches. The guests began to dribble towards it as their light laughter caught on the warm summer breeze. Julian threw his shin-guards onto the ground, beside his gloves. Where was Henderson? He was usually impossible to separate from a spread. Fear licked his stomach, one part protective, one part possessive.
‘Yvette,’ he called, forcing his voice steady. ‘Where is your friend?’
Yvette waved a lazy hand. ‘She went inside to find another painting.’
Was it wise to leave the grounds so abruptly to hurtle his way through the house and up the stairs? Probably not. But he felt that as Blythe’s protector—even her pretend one—he had an obligation to keep more than just Carlson from her path.
For not the first time in his life, Julian cursed the word gentleman under his breath. No one would have dared to consider Penelope or Yvette in such a way, but things were different with Blythe. As much as Yvette accepted her as an equal, others did not see her as such.
To a man like Henderson, that made her fair game.
And she was his, dammit.
As far as they knew, anyway.
Julian rushed into the attic, the door banging shut behind him. ‘Blythe? Are you here?’
The only reply was a startled squawk, and a sniff.
She sat in her chair before the easel, by the window, but unlike the day before when her face had been full of life, today her expression was pained, her eyes misty with tears. He crossed the room in quick strides and grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Why are you upset. Did someone hurt you? Did Henderson—’
‘I have no idea who you are talking about.’ She firmly pushed his hands from her shoulders. Julian stayed static, still reaching. He straightened his whites and loosened his collar button as embarrassment mixed with relief.
‘Henderson is a rogue,’ he explained. ‘Worse than Carlson. He expressed an… an interest in you. I wanted to ensure he hadn’t found you. When I saw you crying, I thought…’
All the sadness left her face, and her eyes brightened. ‘That’s very kind of you. No one has watched out for me for a very long time.’ She gestured to the painting on the easel. ‘It’s this. It’s so damaged. I don’t know how to start.’
‘What about your sponges, and your magic potion?’ His breath stilled in his chest as his heartbeat returned to normal. Well, not normal. But into a slightly different rhythm, the one he now associated with having her close.
‘This one is different. Cleaning won’t help. I need to remove the lacquer and then repaint some sections.’
Julian moved to stand behind her, curious about the painting, and its condition. Like the landscape, it had a grey pall over it, but also mixed with a slightly sickly-looking yellow tint. Some of the paint had cracked, distorting but not quite fracturing the image of a beautiful woman, naked, in repose, while her lover stood before her. Even though he’d never seen the work before, he recognised the couple instantly. Venus and Mars, the eternal clandestine couple, enthralled by each other’s bodies, before their discovery and entrapment in Vulcan’s net. It had probably been collected by one of his forebears and sent up here by his parents as part of their obsession with morality.
‘If you don’t know how to restore it, you don’t have to,’ he said.
‘It will die if I don’t,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not that I don’t know how, I do. But it takes more than just potions to restore a painting like this. You have to understand it. To feel it. To know the intentions of the artist, otherwise you are likely to distort their vision and replace it with your own. But when I look at this, there’s so much that I don’t understand.’
She looked so bereft, staring into the flaking slivers of the painting, as if trying to dredge inspiration from an empty well, and from a deep, slightly dark place inside, Julian felt that wildness, long pent up and dormant, begin to rouse. Innocence and confusion swirled in her crystal green eyes.
Beginning at the small indentation at the base of her skull, Julian made one slow, trailing stroke along her nape until he buried his finger in the bunch of her lace collar, then circled the small swell of her vertebrae. The sun lit small wispy hairs, their frail erections catching light as bumps coursed over her, down her neck, and along her exposed forearms.
‘You don’t understand what she’s feeling?’ he asked, his finger inching up, then back along its journey again.
‘I do. I mean, I have. I know what down there can feel like. But her expression. The way she looks at him. And he at her. I don’t know what that’s like.’
'It’s different when someone helps you find pleasure. And when you give it in return. It’s more than just sensation and feeling. There’s a reason men hunger for paintings of Venus or Danae. It’s not to see a woman conquered. It’s to see her ascendant. The satisfaction of sharing that moment is transcendent.’
He splayed his hand, curving around her delicate neck. Catching her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tilted her face up. ‘Would you like me to show you what it’s like? Would you like me to help you understand?’
Her gaze held his, her eyes a forest of uncertainty and want. From his position, he could take in the lovely, long line of her, and her tongue that flicked between her teeth, making her lips glossy, and the slight gap in her bodice that revealed a hint of her breasts restrained beneath her corset and her chemise.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, her eyes still locked on his. ‘I would like that very much.’
‘Would you like to move away from the window?’
Her eyes flicked to the painting, then outside to where a few house guests dotted the lawn, likely engaged in their own dalliances and diversions. ‘I would like to stay here.’
‘But we might be seen,’ he said, even as a delicious shiver rattled through him. Already half hard, he rubbed himself between her shoulder blades, savouring the heavenly connection. He released his hold on her chin to slip his hand down her bodice, and she held her pose, her stare unflinching.
‘It’s unlikely we’ll be noticed, all the way up here,’ she said. As he brushed his palm over her nipple, she half closed her eyes and gave the smallest moan.
‘But we might,’ he said. He gave her a light pinch.
‘Yes,’ she breathed, then slid her hands along his waist, holding him at the hips. ‘We might.’
What a fantastical thought. The barest of silhouettes, engaged in an amorous encounter, shielded by the angle of the shadow. To show all those leachers that she was not for them, she had chosen him. And reckless, the idea was wholly reckless, but it awoke the most delicious desire in him. He had loved his wife, had loved her body, but he couldn’t remember even once engaging with her outside of the bedroom, and certainly never like this. He felt like a different man, who rather than moving through life with stoicism and caution, instead let passion and impulse guide him, and with a relish, he handed over control to his baser instincts.
No, not base. Divine. Because that’s what shared intimacy was—heavenly beyond compare.
Julian pinched her again, and she seemed to melt against him. ‘Untie your skirt and loosen your waistband,’ he ordered.
‘Should I remove my skirts?’
A mirage of her sitting in only her corset, stockings and chemise surged into being, and Julian thought he’d lose all control right then. Faced with the actual visage, he didn’t know how he’d stop himself from spending immediately.
‘No. We’ll go slow. Just your buttons for now. And, when you’re ready, mine.’
Blythe leaned forward, her back arching. Julian pushed the small shell buttons at her waist through their loops. Her torso expanded with an exhalation as the tightness eased. The small, gaping triangle revealed her petticoat ties, and with a steady deliberateness, he tugged the bow loose.
‘Your drawers?’ He slid his hand beneath the soft cotton fabric, expecting to find another barrier, but his fingertips instead met soft skin.
‘I’m not wearing any.’ She spoke at the same moment he made the discovery for himself, and loosening her skirts a little more, he revealed a wicked triangle of flesh, and the lush indentations of her bottom, and just a hint of her cleft. ‘I enjoy the feeling. The freedom.’
‘You are naughty. My fake mistress is ever so intriguing.’
Julian pulled her against him, her back nestling into a small supportive groove created by his thigh and the chair. He wanted to show her so many things, take her in so many ways. As he buried his hand amongst her skirts, she gave the breathiest of whimpers, and as he tickled one finger through her soft, entangled hair to slip between her thighs, her whimper became a small groan. When he flicked over her already firm nub, she cried out with painful ecstasy.
Bracing one hand against the chair, he loomed over her, his finger stroking slow, then faster, then slower. When he sunk two fingers into her, so sumptuous and wet, she tipped her head back and brushed against his hard, straining cock. She cried out with erotic abandon, a shuddering moan vibrating through her body, its little tremors caught by his.
‘It feels good, to share pleasure, doesn’t it?’ he asked, his voice something between a grunt and a whisper. She half opened her eyes and nodded, but as she bucked against his palm, he wondered if he asked her or himself. He’d locked himself off for so long, and right now, he couldn’t imagine why, because feeling her grind against his hand as she angled her body so that he could thrust deeper, and as she stuck one boot against the windowsill and let her thighs fall as wide as her skirts would allow, he could not imagine a more sublime thing to do with another. How had he forsaken this?
‘Julian, I feel like I’m falling.’
‘Don’t fall yet, don’t let it overtake you,’ he said as he slowed his strokes. ‘Unbutton me. And will you… will you take me in your mouth?’
With her seated on the chair, and him slightly bent as he buried his fingers in her cunny, his crotch was perfectly aligned to her mouth. His back would likely give him hell later, but right now all he felt was the most thrilling promise of ecstasy. With deliberate movements, she unfastened his buttons, then tugged his trousers and his smalls just low enough to release his cock.
‘I haven’t ever before,’ she said as she stroked a finger along his shaft, level with her face. He jerked under her touch. ‘What if I don’t do it right?’
‘Men are not so complicated. Just be careful not to scrape your teeth.’
She started with her tongue. With selfish pleasure, Julian stopped his caressing and straightened, just so that he could fully take in the sight of her perfect, smart mouth, and her witty, sharp tongue as it explored the shape of his knob. She kept her eyes downcast in concentration. His breath bundled, and when she pressed her tongue flat against him, he exhaled with a needy moan to rival hers. A small droplet formed on his tip, and she swiped it away, her eyes slightly widening in surprise.
‘In my mouth?’ she asked.
‘Like the frescoes of Pompeii,’ he said. She flashed him the most scandalous grin, then opened her mouth and closed her lips around him.
Every inch of him felt so thoroughly roguish, so unfettered and free. He fumbled through her skirts to slide his hand between her thighs again, and her beautiful, warm tightness encased his fingers. In their desperation to touch, to give, to take, they were all awkward, hedonistic angles, stretched limbs, curved spines, arched necks. One hand gripped the back of the chair, bracing his slightly bent body, as his other hand stroked between her slit, then plunged inside her, his thumb rubbing her warm nub. Her moan shuddered through his cock, and he angled closer, pushing himself deeper.
‘That’s it.’ He thrust into her mouth, all while fucking her with his fingers, her delicious wriggling and groans reverberating through him. ‘That’s good. So fucking good. Do you feel how amazing it is to both give and take?’
Her eyes opened, her pupils dark circles almost blotting out her irises as she held his stare. As she sucked, he remained entranced by her steady gaze, and her soft pink lips encircling his hard shaft.
‘Sweet mercy, Blythe, I’m going to spend. If you don’t want me to finish in your mouth, you need to stop right now.’
Her eyes fluttered, before she closed them, but she did not move, only continued her steady attentions, and the realisation that she wanted this, wanted him to finish inside her drove him on, unrelenting, unshaking toward his release. Her moans, audible and visceral, cascaded, each little stuffed gasp high and wanton, and as he stroked her throbbing cunny, so wet her hair was soaked, he released, and the thumping pleasure shuddered through him, and he cried out so loud his echoes bounced off the wooden beams, as if he was voicing satisfaction for them both. As the last of his orgasm began to fade, Blythe jerked against him in ever demanding spasms until finally she freed his cock from her mouth and gave an animalistic groan. Her softness tensed around his fingers, and one hand clenched his shirt while the other pushed against her forehead, until with a final gasp, she slumped against him.
Julian removed his hand from her skirts and tucked himself away. A thin sheen of sweat made her cheeks, with their light red flush, glow in the sunlight. He inhaled her scent from his fingers, before biting his thumbprint and stamping her taste in his memory.
He wanted to kiss her, had to kiss her, like he needed to seal the moment with something more than their mutual satisfaction. He knelt, bringing his face equal to hers, and palm cupping her cheek, drew her close. With panting, breathy brilliance, their mouths met, and Julian snaked an arm around her waist and drew her as near as he could without toppling her from her chair. He’d never tasted a woman after that before and her flavour was depraved salt, desire and the slightest hint of sweet tea.
‘Have I enlightened you, Miss Blythe?’ he asked as he stroked a matted curl from her forehead.
‘I don’t know what I feel. I feel…’
Julian bit down the arrogant words he wanted to offer. Satiated. Satisfied. Properly corrupted.
‘Connected,’ she said, then accepted a kiss he hadn’t realised he’d been offering. ‘I felt like I was part of you. And you were part of me. I couldn’t tell you where one of us ends and the other begins.’
She rested her head against his chest. He encircled her body in his arms and held her steady. Her breathing stilled. She began to fidget.
‘You want to return to your painting?’ he asked, reluctantly releasing her.
She gave a hesitant nod. ‘Please.’
She barely acknowledged him as he left. No wonder men like Carlson insisted their women had no other interests but them. But just as he reached the door, licking the wound of his hurt pride, she called him back. Hand on the frame, he turned.
‘Would you like me to bring this to your room when I am finished?’
He’d never sleep again. ‘Take it to your room. I’ll have one of the staff hang it. And next time you visit, it will be there for you. Like your own place here.’
Her smile, beautiful, genuine, devoid of any hint of modesty or deportment, lit her face, and the room, even him, and the fullness of her attention seemed more precious because of its previous absence.
‘I know just the place,’ she said, then returned to her work.