She didn't stiffen up as he massaged the back of her hand, nor did she quail as he turned it over and held her small, work-roughened hand in his. He pulled her gently to her feet, towards him as he pushed back his chair. She leaned forward even before he could rise, and in a moment, she was seated on his lap and he was raining kisses on her slim young neck, on her cheeks, and their lips met in a first, clumsy little maidenly kiss. He put a hand to the back of her neck and she opened her mouth to his pressure, slipping her arms about him, warming to his play quickly. Too quickly for the shy maiden she seemed.
"Lor', they warned me 'bout London, they did, sir," Abigail chuckled softly between kisses. "Weren't no diff'rent man any house a girl could work for in Evesham nor Birmingham, neither."
"At least the men are gentlemen, Abigail," he whispered. "The game's the same, city or country."
"I can't afford t' lose my position, though, sir," she complained gently as he slid a hand under her skirts and stroked his hand over her warm, incredibly soft and slim young thighs. "If'n I get turned out with no ref'rence, they's not a house in London 'd hire me, 'cept a bawdy-house."
"You do for me, like you do Mistress Harper, then," Alan said, thrilling to the way she was shifting her slight weight on his lap.
"She gives me two shillings a week," Abigail suggested coyly.
"I'll match it," Alan promised. "And on your next day off, I promise you a pretty new hat. A ride in a coach, a grand supper."
"Like a real lady, sir?" she sighed, parting her thighs so he could stroke her downy groin. She leaned hard into him in passion.
"One day a week, you can play the lady," Alan swore, too afire at that moment to care. "As long as we may play."
"You will be careful, won't you, sir?"
"Go lock the door," he ordered.
She was too young to need a set of stays, and had only thin, unsupported linen petticoats on under her sackgown. Alan had but to unbutton her down the back and gather her dress around her waist, and he was rewarded with soft, warm, tantalizing flesh under his hands and lips. Smooth young legs wrapped around his hips under his robe as he spread it to cover both of them. Pert young breasts that stood up proud as islets even flat on her back.
"Got t' hurry, sir, before the missus…" she pointed out as he licked and kissed and stroked her into flames, taking time with her mounting need as most would not. Pretty young house-servants were fair game for the sons, the fathers, the butlers and footmen. Too poor to be able to complain they were, mostly. Or too willing for the game to continue, as long as they didn't get caught, or turned up with a jack-in-the-box. Town servants would be turned out come summer, anyway, to spend several months trying to eke out an existence on what pitiful few pence they'd managed to save, until their families returned from summer homes in the country. London was full of part-time courtesans, willing servants such as Abigail. Some like Abigail, indeed, who were more than willing, if they could make some extra money on the side from it, get enough to eat for once, be rewarded with gifts of nicer clothing than most housekeepers begrudged them.
It was a quick, furtive sport, for the most part, done at the top of the stairs, across an unmade bed, in a rarely visited garret storage room. Fast, furious and rapidly over: that was what Abigail had grown used to. Not this langorous, incredibly sensuous stroking and kissing. Hands and lips touching her in places she had never known. Her breath came fast as she swooned with anticipated pleasure, with restless want, fear of discovery a spur to her abandon.
He entered her at long last, his member sheathed in a sheepgut condom, and she bit her lips and turned her face to cry out into the pillows. Experienced she might be at house-games, but still young and snug, reminding Alan of his temporary "wife" among the Creek Indians, Soft Rabbit. She'd been that hot and moist, that firmly gripped around his engine. And that wildly exuberant.
I may be Hell's own bastard with the women, Alan told himself as he drove deep into her and reveled in how she heaved her hips in synchronicity with him. Them that want to play. But never let it be said I left the little dears wanting for anything!
He held off his own explosion as Abigail clung to him like a squid, buried her face into his neck and squawled and mewed in climax, wishing she could scream out loud in ecstasy. Then she fell away limp and dragged him down atop of her, showering his face with weary kisses.
"Lor', sir, you're a terror," she shuddered, weak as a kitten. "Thankee… for takin' time, an' all? Can't say when I cared so much for it last. Oooh!"
Alan rose up on his hands to loom over her, and began to stroke into her once more, long and slow, delighting in her surprised look.
"Don't you be teasin' me, now, sir," she whispered, beaming an expectant smile up at him from the pillows. Her red hair had come half unpinned from under her mobcap, and she swiped a tress away from her face. "An' did I please you, too, sir?"
"Not yet, Abigail," Alan grinned, punctuating his remark with another, deeper and firmer thrust. "But you will."
"Oh, darlin'!" She gaped at his meaning, lifting her knees once more. "Hurry! Gallop away, fast as you like! I… oh… it feels so good! So… bloody… good!"
An hour later, she came back, asking if he wanted some more coffee brewed, since he could not go out for it. That was an excuse for another bout of "the blanket hornpipe." Nothing shy about this time, and they were bouncing across the bed and giggling in covert joy almost before she could set the tray down.
She returned in mid-afternoon with tea and a Cornish meat pasty, and had at each other again. It was too cold to go out for a meal at a two-penny ordinary, she assured him. They snatched another fifteen minutes of utter bliss, with her sprawled face-down on the side of the high bed and her skirts thrown up over her back.
It was almost a relief for Cony to come back from bis day off and putter around the rooms, ranting happily about how grandly he'd been received by the Chiswicks when he visited them. Cony was the one to brave the cold and fetch a meal from the handiest ordinary, though Abigail assisted in laying the table, and gave Alan a most fetching smile or two while Cony had his back turned.
"Wind's come more sou'westerly, sir," Cony opined finally as Alan prepared to turn in early that evening. "Snow stopped, an' h'it's turnin' t' rain, looks like. Be thawin' t'morro', thank the Lord."
"Filthy streets," Alan yawned, nodding by the fire with his feet up in the second chair and a blanket over his lap while he read a book about the recent war that was as factual as a Turkish rug merchant. "I'll try getting out to visit tomorrow. Set out my boots, if you would, and give them a daub or two of blacking. We'll coach where we're going as well.
"Aye, sir. That be all fer the evening', then, sir?"
"Yes, you turn in early, Cony. Enjoy a yarn or two with the rest for a change."
'Thankee right kindly, sir, that I will. Goodnight, sir."
All in all, a grandly satisfying day, Lewrie thought smugly as he drowsed by his fire with a book in one hand and a brandy in the other. His personal chronometer read eleven, the one he had "borrowed" from a Spanish brig off Cuba. Time to turn in, he decided.
There was a soft scratching at the door.
"Surely not," Alan whispered in delight, rising to open it.
Abigail slipped in and shut the door softly behind her, opening her arms to be enfolded and lifted off her feet. Her slippers fell off, and under her thin flannel bedgown, she was as toasty-warm as a bed of coals.
"Just wanted t' stop by an' see if you needed anythin' more tonight, sir," she said grinning. 'Turn your bed down? Warm the sheets for you?"
"Off for the night, are we, you little minx?" Alan chuckled, carrying her toward the bedchamber.
"If you wants, I am," she suggested, bolder with him now.
"I wants," Alan agreed. '"Deed I do!"
Chapter 4
"So you see, Sir Onsley, I thought it best if we came to you for advice regarding Burgess' future," Alan told his host. Admiral Sir Onsley Matthews was all tripes and trullibubs, fat as a porker before slaughter when Alan had served on his staff at Antigua, and now he'd been retired by a supposedly "grateful" Admiralty, had put on enough weight for three all-in wrestlers. He'd never been blessed with the brains God promised a titmouse, but he knew just about everybody who counted, and even in retirement controlled bags of patronage and "interest," the lifeblood of a successful career.
"Damme, Mister Lewrie, but yer concern for the welfare of a colleague does ya credit," Sir Onsley heaved with deep breaths as he lolled in his wing chair, one foot up on a hassock-a foot wrapped in hot, damp cloths, to alleviate the agonies of the Admiral's latest bout of gout. "And these bona fides, Mister Chiswick, sir, shew much the same enterprise and pluck as I've come to expect from our Alan. Like bookends, you are, lads. Hewn and carved from the same hearty oak!"
"You're too kind, Sir Onsley," Burgess remarked, sitting prim and nervous on the edge of his chair by the roaring fire. He wore his best pale blue "ditto" suit, with a plain, long-skirted older waist-coast, and clutched a black cocked hat across his knees. His own glass of brandy sat untouched on the side table.
There hadn't been much enthusiasm shown for his efforts to get a position so far, and the Chiswicks had prevailed upon Alan to see if he had any influence with anyone at all, a task Alan had happily undertaken because it would allow him to see Caroline almost every day.
"Devil I am, young sir, devil I am," Sir Onsley maundered. "I say no more'n the plain truth. I'm a plain old tarpaulin hand meself, not given to pissin' down some young'un's back for no cause."
Oh, spare us, Alan almost groaned! Sir Onsley's flagship Glatton hadn't stirred from her moorings once in a full three years' commission, and had been rumored to be hard aground on a reef of beef bones. It had been his small ships and tenders to the flag that had done the dirty work against the French, Spanish and Dutch and had reaped Sir Onsley a princely one-eighth of their prize money, which had sent him home rich as Croesus to a place on the Board of Admiralty, where he'd drowsed the last three years of his career away.
Still, he was a useful old stick, Alan thought, and kept his expression respectful and admiring. Who knows, Alan might actually have need of his good offices in future, slim as that chance might be now there was peace, and nine-tenths of the Navy laid up to rot.
"Been to Sam Hood about this yet, Mister Lewrie?"
"Not yet, Sir Onsley," Alan replied. "I did write to him, just a short note. No reply so far. I doubt he recalls me, fond as he might have seemed after Turk's Island. I'm sure he passed it off as one more half-pay officer looking for employment for himself."
"There's devilment afoot still in this world, young sirs," the old admiral warned them, laying a thick, be-ringed finger to the side of his rather large and drink-veined nose. "Losin' this war's encouraged the Frogs no end. Their Navy showed rather well in the East. I know not why the nation feels so secure. All I hear up in the House of Lords is deficits and bankruptcy, hand-wringin' and budget-cuttin'. Meantimes, they're over there on the Continent just diggin' like the furtive rats they are, looking for an openin' to throw us over for good and all, damme their blood. And heroes such as you pair sit on the beach, twiddlin' your thumbs, instead of being allowed a chance to stop their frightful business wherever it emerges."
Alan stifled a yawn, covering it with another sip of brandy. He paid court to the Matthewses at least twice a fortnight when they were in London, to keep his low rent on his set of rooms, and to lay his ear to the ground for any hint of great affairs that could help him prosper. He'd heard this screed, chapter and verse, too many times before to rise to it this time. He nodded sagely, though, which Sir Onsley took for much the same hearty approval as earlier.
"Lewrie there's a nacky one, the sort of young feller who knows I speak the truth," Sir Onsley pointed out to Burgess. "By God, Mister Chiswick, sir, if Alan'll speak for you, that's good enough for me. I can't promise you an easy place. I'll not say more now. Too many plans afoot at the moment. But a place, I can promise you, and there's my word on't for sure!"
"That's marvelous, Sir Onsley!" Burgess gasped. This interview had seemed the last slim thread of hope to save him from bringing in the sheaves for his uncle Phineas, and Alan had privately assured him it was bound to be disappointing at the end, but suddenly here was this word of assured employment. "As a serving officer, sir? Pardon me if I inquire at least a little."
"With the East India Company," Sir Onsley nodded. "I'm on the board. I'm privy to certain… nay, it'll be discovered to you later. I should think at least as a lieutenant, Mister Chiswick. Tell me now, and tell me true if you're a mind for it. And a heart for it. It'll be damned hot and dusty duty, halfway round the world and like as not it'll be sickness, bugs and flies, and God knows when you'll lay eyes on your dear family again in this life. But 'tis a duty like as not'll confound our foes better than anything you'd accomplish in a lifetime of regular soldierin'. Are you game for it?"
"I am indeed, Sir Onsley!" Burgess piped up. "Lead me to it!"
"ToppinM" Sir Onsley shouted back, wincing a little at the end as he moved his gouty foot and suffered a spasm of agony. "I'll speak to the Board tomorrow. Leave me your bona fides and all that to show them. Irregular… skirmisher… Indian fighter. Just the sort of lad we need. Mister Lewrie, I do believe Fate sent you to me with young Mister Chiswick's plaint at exactly the right time."
"And grateful I am you could do my friend a service, Sir Onsley," Alan replied, flat aback at this energetic development. He had not seen the old twit that bombastic, or awake, in years. And Alan could hardly wait until they could get back to St. Clement Street to tell the rest of the Chiswick family. Most especially Caroline. She would be impressed to no end that it was Alan's influence and connections that had turned the winning trick for her brother.
It would disappoint her, though, that he would have to sail around the world, into that land of pagan Hindoos she had feared so much, where Burgess would be exposed to so many cruel diseases and chances to die a young, untimely death. Matter of fact, Alan wondered if he'd done Burgess much of a favor at all. Sir Onsley was sober enough to not let slip what sort of devilish danger this new duty was, but it didn't sound like anything Alan would want a part of, not if he had at least five minutes' warning, and a head start. Some new wrinkle on what Lieutenant Lilycrop of Shrike had termed "war on the cheap," dreamed up by some crystal-ball gazer, map reader and quill-pusher who had no idea about what life was like outside his own doorway, much less how deadly it could be for the men on the shitten end of the stick a world away.
"Mum's the word, my lads, until you hear from me by letter," Sir Onsley cautioned. "But stand ready to shift yourselves at a moment's notice. No man is to hear word of this appointment."
"Mum's the word, my lads, until you hear from me by letter," Sir Onsley cautioned. "But stand ready to shift yourselves at a moment's notice. No man is to hear word of this appointment."
"You have my solemn oath, Sir Onsley," Burgess promised proudly, which oath Alan had to chorus as well.
"Damme, but Caroline is going to kill me," Alan sighed once they were in a hired coach on their way home. "I had no idea things would turn out like this, Burgess."
"I shall be forever in your debt, Alan," Burgess assured him, taking his hand and giving it a hearty squeeze of gratitude. He was all but piping his eyes in joy at his sudden salvation from civilian dullness. "Don't fear what Caroline thinks."
"Well, he didn't make it sound like Canterbury Fair, you know. God, what have I gotten you into? If anything happens to you, and it sounds hellish like it might, I'll never forgive myself. And neither would your dear sister," Alan objected.
"You've given me the world, Alan!" Burgess said with a catch in his voice, his face aglow like a martyr promised crucifixion before sunup. "Oh, 'tis fine for Governour to farm and pore over the accounts. He's set up with a vicar's daughter in the county. But for me, Alan… you remember when you took me aboard your frigate during the siege as a guest of the wardroom?- Just the smell of a ship…"
"Foul as they smell," Alan drolly pointed out.
"The smell of distance," Burgess waxed lyrical. "Of adventure in faraway places. Hemp and tar, salt and spices…"
"Pea-soup farts and rotting cheese," Alan said, scowling.
'To lay eyes on the East Indies, to live a life of new things to taste and smell, my God, how wondrous it's going to be!" Burgess went on in his rapture. "Oh, it'll be hard, I know. And it'll like as not be dangerous. But the chance for glory! More'n most people'd ever suspect! You must know, I'm not cut out to be a farmer. Before the Revolution, I'd half a mind to run off and trade with the Cherokee over the Appalachians. To see what there was to see, cross mountains and rivers, all the way to the other ocean. And now you've given me my chance, Alan. I'll break free. Now I'll know what you felt as a sailor. You do not know how much I've sometimes envied you your life as a Sea Officer."
"Just as long as you do come back a chicken-nabob," Alan said, realizing there was nothing he could say to dissuade Burgess from making a total fool of himself. "And when you do fetch home all those diamonds and rubies, better tote along a small sack for me as well. I mean, damme, who'd have thought old Sir Onsley would have a place for you? I warned you going in, it was a slim hope, a clerking position at best. This, though… well, maybe you should think about it…"
"I'd have never forgiven you, for certain, if that was all I could aspire to," Burgess cracked, thumping him on the knee. "Damme, you should be glad for me, Alan. Glad as I am."
"Well, if it pleases you, Burge, there's nothing more I can say," Alan surrendered. How could he tell him he thought the lad was not cut out for desperate doings, any more than he was cut out for farming? How do you tell a friend you think him too starry-eyed to prosper?
"Alan Lewrie, I should despise you!" Caroline hissed at him harshly, once the celebration had begun. She took him by the hand and led him to sit with her on a ratty older sofa away from the others, who were singing and mixing a large bowl of lemons, sugar, hot water and gin for a gala punch.
"Caroline, I swear I had no idea…" he began. It was the first time he'd ever seen her angry at anything or anyone, and it was most disconcerting to be the target of her anger.
"This… this hush-hush adventure you've gotten poor Burge into," she whispered. "No word of what it was? No inkling of how much danger there'll be?"
"None. Only that he's to keep mum and be ready to be received in a few days, one way or another," Alan told her sadly, feeling just a trifle sheepish under her hot glare. "I was all amort that the old fool'd offer anything at all, much less something like this, I tell you truly. And Burgess didn't have to accept it so quickly, either. He could have asked for a few days to think it over, but no, he had to just leap up and go all shiny-eyed over it. Don't take it out on me, I beg you, Caroline. I did what Governour and your mother bade me. I used what influence I could. How was I to know it'd turn out like this?"
"But so far away from us," Caroline insisted. "With the chance we'll never see him again in this life! Oh, I know it isn't your fault, Alan, but… you must see how frightened I am for him. He's always been so…"
"Unprepared for how cruel life can be?" Alan whispered back.
"You recognized it, too?" she gasped, taking his hand and wringing it like a washcloth, pressing his hand to her troubled breast, surely unaware in her bereavement of what she was doing.
God Almighty, Alan thought, feeling his innards lurch at the touch of her. I could spend the rest of the day like this!
"He'll go under, sure as Fate, I know it," she said, weeping softly.
"It's what he wants, Caroline," Alan told her. "Better one chance at an adventurous life than drudging on a farm and feeling trapped. He told me as much. God pity him, he envies me all the shit… sorry… I've been through. All the exciting and exotic places I've sailed. And he may prosper. I've seen others do so, in the Navy. God help me, I prospered, and I didn't know a futtock shroud from a horse's fetlock when I first began."
"But you're the sort of man who does prosper, Alan," she told him, lowering her hand, and his, to her lap before her mother noticed. "If only I knew there was someone as courageous and steady as you to look after him out there in India, or wherever he's going to be."
"Me?" Alan tried a smile. "Mine arse on a bandbox! I'm not as steady as you think. No one is, outside their memoirs."
"Well, I think you are," she whispered. "So sure and capable. As you were when I first met you. When you organized us into your ship to escape Wilmington. Momma in her vapors and poor Daddy half out of his mind with grief, and poor me so weak and helpless."
"I never thought you weak and helpless," Alan assured her. "I have always considered you the most resourceful and clever of females, Caroline."
That softened her up right smartly.
"Say you forgive me. Please," he beseeched.
"Oh, Alan, I do forgive you," she relented, and gave him a wee smile, sad and wan though it was. "He'll not have to purchase this commission. Which shall please Uncle Phineas. If it comes to fruition. There is a possibility it may not, isn't there? There's many a slip t'wixt the cup and the lip. Pray God they may choose a more experienced officer in his stead!"
"Which would crush poor Burgess, though," Alan sighed. "And he'd be right back where he started. I know you can't stay in London hoping much longer. He'd be back to counting sheep. It would kill him."
"No, we can't," she agreed. "I must own to you, Alan, that I hoped you would be here. That we might regain our acquaintance. Your letters meant so much to me. Your… memory. Oh, pray do come to see us down in Surrey! Now that we have had a chance to speak almost daily, and to be together like this, I remember all over again how much I have delighted in your companionship. I would so enjoy you being our guest in the country. When the weather is better. And we could write each other in the meantimes. Could we not, Alan?" she suggested sweetly.
"Nothing would give me greater delight as well, Caroline," he told her. "I've never known anyone I like talking to more than you."
"Come take a cup of cheer, you two!" Governour ordered from the far end of the room. There was no more privacy for them. Caroline wiped her face quickly with a handkerchief from her sleeve and put on a happy expression for her family.
"We must dine together tonight," Mrs. Chiswick insisted, half gone on a large glass of gin punch already. "It'll be sad even so, knowing my little Burge will be going off among the heathens, but we'll know he's doing something for King and Country. As he did so nobly during the Rebellion." She stifled her fears-almost.
With your shield or on it, like the Spartans, Alan thought grimly. Why don't they all fall down bawling instead of acting so proud, he wondered? God knows, I'd be into the sackcloth and ashes by now.
"And our benefactor, Alan Lewrie," Governour proposed. "He must be guest of honor tonight!"
They raised their glasses and toasted him, making him feel even more a total fool than he had a moment before.
"Make no fuss over me," Alan suggested. "And I wouldn't feel right, anyway. Spend your time with Burgess. Sir Onsley didn't say when the summons would come. Besides, I cannot."
"Alan!" Caroline cried in sudden disappointment.
"I have a dinner invitation already that I cannot break," he told them, setting his glass down. "But I hope you shall let me treat you to supper another night, once we've learned what Burgess is down for. Would you allow that?"
Caroline saw him down to the first floor, and dismissed the house's servant to help him on with his watchcoat herself, tugging his collar snug about him and smoothing the fabric to lie flat.
"I wish you could have stayed, Alan. I begrudge every minute you are away from… from our family, now we're reunited," she said, with a hitch in her voice. "I… we feel so much gratitude, and admiration for you, for so many things you've done for us."
"I could not, not tonight, Caroline. I fear for him, too, and I couldn't have sat there with him."
"I understand," she replied softly. "I shall do my weeping in private, too."
She raised her arms and he took her in his arms, holding her snug and safe, stroking her back as she almost gave way to her emotions, whispering "there, there" to comfort her if he was able and secretly enjoying the closeness, and the feel of her slimness against him. How tiny her waist was, how neat her breasts felt. How sweet and clean she smelt: her hair and her slight hint of Hungary Water scent.
Caroline peeked over her shoulder to see if any of the servants of the lodging house were about, then turned her face up to his and closed her eyes. With an offer like that, Alan could not turn it down.
He kissed her. As gently and as shyly as he had just that once years before. Her lips parted just a little and her clean breath mingled with his. Then her eyes flew open and her arms locked behind his neck, pulling him down to her and there was nothing shy about it.
"I must ask your forgiveness once more," Alan muttered, shaken to his core by this entrancing creature all over again as she fell away slightly, dropped back from tiptoe and leaned back to regard him with such a smile of wonder and delight.
"Mine arse on a bandbox, Alan Lewrie," she said, grinning, and then whispered with secret glee, "Between us, I pray there shall never be anything to forgive."
"My God!" he gasped.
"All the English ladies tell me it's most improper to be quite as forward as I am," she added, laughing. "I'm but a crude rustic from America, don't you know. Do sup with us tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. Spend your every waking moment with us. With me. I would enjoy it so awfully much, before we're parted again."
"You'd be scandalized," Alan gawped. "Governour would run me through!"
"I trust to your gentlemanly nature, Alan. And to your sense of decency. What harm to my good name could you ever do me?"
God help the poor mort, Alan thought. If you only knew I had no sense of decency, you'd run screaming behind your momma's skirts!
"Lord knows, I'd think of something. Sooner or later," he admitted at last. He tried to pass it off as a jape.
"I would trust to the affection you already show for me," she said with such a solemn little face it almost made his ears ring. "As I trust how admirable I hold you in mine."
One more quick kiss, and then he had to go, out into another freezing cold afternoon, but warmed right through by her regard and the feel of her lingering upon him.
"Damme, she's the sweetest, dearest young thing!" he said to himself as he trudged along the street, dodging darting youngsters, mongers and traders. "Oh, if only… what? Christ on a cross, Lewrie, you're cunt-struck! Next thing you know, you'll be thinking of asking for her hand! And haven't I done enough to her family already?"
"Dear Alan," Lady Delia cooed as he entered her morning room and took the preferred hand to kiss. She stroked his face with a hot-house rose she'd been toying with.
"Delighted to see you again, milady," he told her soberly.
"Do be seated and break your fast with me, sir," she said. She turned to her servants and told them they could depart on their errands. Once the door was shut, she was out of her chair in a twinkling, into his arms and raining kisses and endearments upon him. Devil a bite of roll or sip of tea he got until they had fallen into a swoon across her soft bed in the other room, strewn their clothing to the winds and slaked their lusts with the frenzy of rutting stoats.
Lewrie lay back on her soft pillows, panting and grinning, so pleased with the world in general, and his lot in it in particular. A young girl in love with him he'd half a mind- merely half a mind so far-to pursue with fantasies of wedded bliss, tender and succulent young Abigail to roger all over his suite whenever he wanted her, and Lady Delia Cantner to top the bargain off. For as long as his luck was in, he'd not shed a tear.
Of course, if he went down to Surrey and pursued Caroline, he would have to give up all this, he pondered as he got his breath back. Well, Abigail was merely a convenience, nothing more, and her delight was in her obvious hero-worship and her talented young body. She'd play the game with another lodger, get her couple of shillings for her troubles from another man. Lady Delia, though. That was fun, he had to admit. Part of it was the covert glee of covering old Lord Cantner's lawful blanket, sneaking and taking their pleasure as they just had, with the servants out of the way, and playing the "Merry Andrew" the next moment, a devoted family protege when the stupid old colt's-tooth was around. Nothing lasting there, either, ecstatic as it was. He knew if he begged off, Lady Delia would have another admirer gnawing on her magnificent breasts as quick as she could change her dress. There were legions of them waiting in line for a chance at her. Affectionate as their relationship was, it was not love, not the sort of Jove that Caroline's eyes promised. And he was getting a little jaded with simple sex, Alan thought. Once his grandmother died, and he inherited, he'd have enough to care for the lovely Caroline in the manner she deserved.
"I have seen so little of you these past few days, my chuck," Delia crooned, sliding a thigh over him. "Those beastly friends of yours have kept you from me."
"I believe you just made up for it, m'dear," Alan chuckled.
"Not a jot of it," she promised. "And did you secure your friend a place at last?"
"That I did," Alan replied, expressing his doubts he'd done Burgess any favors. Lady Delia had put out some feelers for him as well, though with his lordship out of the country, there was little direct she could do without his presence.
"So the task is ended." She beamed. "And you may begin to pay attention to me again. How delightful. It's rare enough to have Roger out of the house, much less over in Holland, so I may be with my darling lad. I thought I would die of happiness to know that we'd have so much time free of interferences. Then the weather, and those Chiswick people… Did you miss me, Alan? Tell me you did. Tell me how much you did," she teased lazily.