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“No need to rush,” the earl assured as he walked jauntily toward the door. “I’ve heard about the Kama Sutra, but never seen an original copy.”
“Rogers will show you to the library.” Bristol nodded to the butler, that gentleman having just returned with the dessert.
The earl’s humor faded as he turned to Elizabeth. “Make sure you don’t overindulge or misbehave in some other way in my absence, gel.” He didn’t wait for her to respond before exiting the room.
Because he knew, Elizabeth acknowledged heavily, having already warned her that she would answer to him later for her disobedience in regard to the gown she was wearing this evening, that she would not wish to do anything else this evening that might add to that punishment.
Sterling waited only long enough for Rogers to serve the dessert, and then shut the dining room door behind him after he and the earl had left the room, before rising agitatedly to his feet.
His hands clenched as he paced the room. “How can you even bear to be in the company of such an ill-mannered and disgusting creature, let alone share a home with him?”
“The answer to both your questions is a simple one, Your Grace,” Elizabeth said softly. “It is that I can do no other when the terms of my husband’s will leave me no choice in the matter if I wish to remain living with my son. I will withstand anything to be allowed to do that,” she added in a hard voice.
“Even live with a man as grotesquely disgusting as the Earl of Whitlow?”
She nodded. “Even that, yes.”
“Did your husband dislike you?”
She gave a start. “I beg your pardon?”
Sterling glared his impatience. “Your maternal feelings are to be commended, madam, but surely your husband could not have been blind to his father’s…coarseness and ill-treatment of you.”
Her lashes lowered to cover those magnificent violet eyes. “I do not think he was, no.”
“Then why in hell did he— I apologize.” He abruptly broke off.
Truth was, Sterling wanted to continue to curse and swear. Worse, he wished to hit something. Someone. Aspecificsomeone.
It frustrated him enormously that Thomas Marshall had placed his wife in such an untenable situation after his death. She was known to have come from an impoverished family, and as such, their social situations were vastly different. But Marshall had still chosen to marry her, and not because she was expecting his child. Their son, Christopher, had not been born until a full year after their elopement.
Sterling made a mental note to send instructions to Stanley to look more closely into the matter of the contents of Lord Marshall’s will.
His thoughts ceased as he glanced sharply down to where he felt the lightness of fingers on his arm through the material of his jacket. A barely felt touch—Elizabeth’s touch—that nonetheless seared his flesh and caused the blood to course hotly through his veins.
“Do not concern yourself on my behalf, Your Grace,” Elizabeth pleaded softly. “Until his arrival a week ago, I had managed to escape the earl’s company for almost the three months of us residing in Cornwall. I am sure I shall manage itfor several more months once he becomes bored and returns to London.”
Sterling’s nostrils flared. “And do you intend to play the same game of hide-and-seek for the next seventeen years, until your son reaches his majority?”
Her expression became bleak. “If necessary, yes.”
Sterling hated even the thought that such a young, vibrant, and beautiful woman should have to live this way. “Perhaps you will remarry and escape your father-in-law’s clutches that way?” Sterling realized he hated the thought ofthateven more than her continuing to live under Whitlow’s roof.
Unless the gentleman Elizabeth married was him.
Surely he could not be thinking in such terms on so short an acquaintance?
Perhaps not, but the thought of Elizabeth married to another man was certainly abhorrent to him.
Dear God, how did any man survive wanting a woman as much as he now desired Elizabeth? When just her close proximity, the light touch of her warm and gloved hand through his clothing, could make his heart pound and his cock throb?
A delicate blush colored Elizabeth’s cheeks as she looked at him. As if she were able to read his thoughts.
Lord, Sterling hoped not, because at this moment, he was contemplating bending Elizabeth over the dining room table, throwing up her skirts, finding the slit in her drawers, and releasing his erection. He could even imagine the deep sigh of heartfelt relief he would give as he thrust his cock into the wet heat of her pussy from behind.
His cock leaked precum into his drawers as he almostfeltthe walls of Elizabeth’s channel closing about his hardness. Imagined the way her sheath would suck his cock deeper, and then deeper still, as he grasped hold of her hips and beganto thrust wildly inside her until they were both gasping and groaning from the fierceness of their combined release.
Sterling had bedded many ladies of the demimonde during the past sixteen years. Those ladies were always beautiful, always gracious, their lovemaking sensual, and they always gave theappearanceof reaching a sexual climax. But Sterling had never fooled himself into believing those responses were genuine. Or that he wouldn’t be forgotten the moment the next gentleman paid the necessary price and took his place between the lady’s thighs.
