Pleasures of the Night by Heather Boyd

Chapter 23

Teddy had never known such happiness in his life. Eugenia was a widow, not a wife. The minute they were underway, he scooped her up from her seat and placed her firmly on his lap, straddling him, laughing as she squawked in surprise. He wrapped his arms tight about her and bent his head to rest against hers. “I feared I’d never hold you again.”

She wriggled on his lap to loop her arms about his neck and clung to him. “I was right,” she cried out softly. “I was right. He was not the man I loved and married. I’m free. I’m saved.”

Teddy crushed her to him even tighter. “Thank God!”

She kissed his cheek. “I really can do as I please now.”

The carriage curtains were still down from when they’d arrived and the intimate atmosphere was now charged with relief, and something more, too. “Are you all mine tonight, madam?”

“Most certainly, sir,” she promised. “Do anything and I’ll likely beg for more.”

Teddy’s fingers caressed her cheek and then dropped down to cup her breast. “I’ll kiss you all over if you let me.”

Eugenia silenced him with a passionate kiss, seemingly more than ready to return to the way things had been between them for yet another scandalous night. And then there would be many more after that. Nothing would stop them being together now.

She broke the kiss suddenly. “We’ll need to wake early tomorrow and get that imposter out of my life forever, though. I dread to think what he’s accomplished, strutting around using Robbie’s name while we’ve been gone.”

Teddy rubbed her back and then set his fingers to encircle her middle. The gift he’d given her was fastened about her waist. That made him smile. “We cannot travel at a reckless pace with Mrs. Bagshaw in the carriage tomorrow. But I agree, we should waste no time returning to London.”

Teddy eagerly awaited the moment when Wharton set his foot to Bagshaw’s backside and propelled him back to the gutter where he belonged. But Teddy also wished he could be the one who got the honor. If he could be there to see the imposter get his comeuppance, that would be enough.

Eugenia moaned as the carriage rocked her sex against his hardening cock. He tightened his grip on her hips to incite her passions higher.

However, Eugenia seemed distracted and flicked a curtain back briefly to look outside at the passing houses. They had already reached a better class of neighborhood. “Where are we bound?”

“To an expensive inn. To celebrate,” he promised with a smile.

“To make love?” she asked with a shy smile.

“We will have to be somewhat circumspect there,” he warned.

She pouted. “Surely we will not have to pretend to be brother and sister again.”

“No. I have another idea for tonight,” he swore to her. “A Mr. and Mrs. Hais will break their journey at this inn.”

“Hais?” Eugenia climbed off him and resumed a seat on the opposite side of the carriage. “I thought we were done with disguises?”

“Not quite,” he admitted. “I’ve learned to use a vast assortment of false names when I travel. I posed as a groom on my own carriage just last month to avoid a matchmaking mama cornering me. The groom wearing my clothes had a good laugh when she found him instead of me sitting in the carriage with his feet up on the seat.”

“Ingenious.” Eugenia laughed but then quickly sobered. “I am sorry Robbie died, you know.”

“I know, and I’m sure Mrs. Bagshaw understands that, too,” he hastened to assure, leaning forward to take her hands in his again. “But he died a long time ago and you’ve no cause to feel guilty over his death. He had your love, and that is a precious thing indeed.”

Eugenia stared at their joined hands a moment before looking up. “Robbie never told me of his plans to bring his mother to live with us.”

“Given what we both just saw of where she lives, it’s understandable he’d want to. They’d have both had a very different life in Hastings with you.”

“They’d have been away from Regis,” Eugenia whispered. “I think she’s afraid of what Regis might do if he returns to Dover after the unmasking.”

Teddy sat back. “If all goes well, he won’t have a chance to bother her again.”

“He’s been a nuisance all his life and he might just try to punish her for helping me escape a marriage with him, and the riches he must think he could claim through my connection with Lord Wharton.” She looked up at Teddy. “I’m going to help her move somewhere Regis can never bother her. She is family, after all.”

It was an admirable ambition but helping others was not always easy. “Get to know her first. I suspect Mrs. Bagshaw senior will not find it as easy becoming accustomed to living in higher society as you have.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Who says I’m comfortable in society?”

“You fit there as well as I do,” he promised with a wink.

To him, Eugenia seemed a natural part of the tapestry of London. Not a leader by any means but an accepted part. The longer she moved in society, the more she would belong. Just like he would.

“She could live at Albemarle Street.”

“Regis could easily discover her there alone,” Teddy warned.

“I’ll go with her.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Would you really leave Wharton’s protection, and your cousins, too?”

“I have considered it for a while now,” she admitted. “I also thought it would be more discreet for us to meet there instead of slipping away together and running the risk of being caught kissing in the closets.”

“I worry about that, too.” Teddy huffed. “But you’d miss your cousins, surely?”

“After this past week, I know I’d miss you more if I couldn’t see you,” she promised. “You could call on me there, at Albemarle Street, without having to pretend you just happened to bump into me.”

Teddy nodded. “I want to be with you whenever I can, but I also do not want you to do anything you would regret.”

“I assure you, I regret nothing about you, sir, or ever could.”

It hadn’t ever been easy to see Eugenia. His busy schedule of travel would continue. They’d been lucky so far to sneak off together at some events, but that wouldn’t always be the case. He didn’t want to lose their intimate connection, but he also didn’t want to be without her company in society, either. If she left Wharton House and there was an enduring scandal over Regis’ claims and her pretense of being a spinster, Eugenia’s name might be dropped from any number of hostess guest lists.

Of course, marrying her would prevent that from happening.

The carriage rolled to a stop outside a prosperous-looking inn and Teddy alighted to secure their best pair of rooms. The name Mr. and Mrs. Berringer rolled off his tongue instead of the lie he’d originally intended to tell of their names here.

Once spoken, though, he couldn’t change it. Here, they would be known as husband and wife. Here, he would make love to a woman who said she didn’t want to be a wife to him or anyone.

But did she feel differently now?

He was sure of his own feelings on Eugenia’s place in his life. He loved her and wanted marriage now. Yet, not too long ago, Teddy had intended to spend this one season without committing himself to any woman.

But somehow, he was committed. His happiness had become wrapped up in Eugenia’s completely.

He led her inside, fighting a smile, and upstairs to a pair of pleasant rooms. Eugenia frowned as the innkeeper’s wife addressed her as Mrs. Berringer, but requested dinner be served to them in two hours, here in their chambers instead of below in a private dining room.

When the doors closed, he stood rooted to the spot.

Eugenia’s gaze rose slowly to meet his.

It felt like an eternity since they’d been alone in the same room when it was only days, really. He didn’t quite know how to start again.

But Eugenia must have, because she rushed across the room and flung herself into his arms.

“My love,” he whispered.

Eugenia pulled his face to hers and kissed him soundly. “My darling man. How I have missed you touching me!”

With her fingers already in his hair, her body rubbing against his, Teddy decided that discussion of the future could wait until after they’d made love—if he really needed to say anything more. They belonged together, and he would not deny his attraction to her.

Teddy wrapped his arms about her body, ran his hands up and down her spine as they kissed with increasing urgency. As ever, they seemed in perfect harmony in matters of pleasure. Eugenia whipped his cravat away, just as he started on the buttons of her gown.

He peeled the fabric from her shoulders roughly, and her gown fell to the floor under their feet. He shrugged off his coat and waistcoat with her help and kicked off his lower garments, too as she removed her undergarments in a hurry.

Eugenia stepped back until she hit the wall. Her eyes were full of mischief and desire as she waited for him to follow.

Damn if seeing her standing there wearing nothing more than his gift of a chain about her waist didn’t decide him on how they’d make love. This was not the time to worry about the niceties of lovemaking and foreplay.

“Beautiful, as ever.” He wanted her now.

“Come here and take me in your arms again,” she said with a husky edge to her voice.

He crossed the distance between them in two long strides and swept her up against him, so her feet no longer touched the floor. Her slim legs wrapped around his hips immediately.

“You’re so soft and warm against my skin,” he told her.

Eugenia looped her arms about his shoulders and tousled his hair. “You’re hard where it counts,” she whispered, dropping her eyes to where his eager cock already nudged against her curls.

Teddy framed her face. “I want you just like this. Here against the wall.”

A slow smile twisted her lips as she adjusted her position. The tip of his cock came to rest against her warmth. He’d denied himself the pleasure of this on the journey to Dover, but now he had no reason to hold back.

With one slow thrust, they were as one again.

Eugenia let out a gasp, yes, as he reached her limit and drew back, only to thrust again.

Teddy closed his eyes, buried his face in her neck and got lost in the wonder of her passionate responses.

Eugenia gasped as she crawled toward the pillow on the large bed, her body damp and trembling from exertion. “Sir, you go too far.”

“You goaded me to do it, and you enjoyed every wicked kiss, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” she admitted sheepishly. She collapsed, wrung out from yet another explosive orgasm thanks to her lover’s wicked tongue. Except she had never imagined his licking her bottom would drive her so quickly toward her second peek. “I need a moment.”

His lips brushed the base of her spine. “I agree.”

Thaddeus rose from the bed, and Eugenia rose to watch his muscled form retreat to the washbasin. He lathered his hands, soaped his face, and then rinsed his skin clean. When he finally returned to the bed, swaggering across the bare boards naked, swinging his cock suggestively, she couldn’t help but laugh at his antics. “You are impossible.”

He dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “I am a man in love. Utterly without shame, too.”

While Eugenia blinked and tried to accept his claim of love, he climbed onto the bed, over the top of her, and flopped down onto what she was already considering his side. He was an expressive man. He hid nothing of his desires or his feelings, it seemed, when they were alone. But it was difficult to believe he had fallen in love with her, too.

“You said you loved me,” she whispered.

“I do.”

“Are you certain?”

“Absolutely. I wanted to tell you before, but then at the same time, I learned about Bagshaw.”

She turned to look at him. “You thought you shouldn’t love me?”

“Yes.” He struggled to get under the covers and then pulled her tight against his side. “I wanted to shout out my joy when Mrs. Bagshaw declared you a widow and not a wife. Thought it would have been bad form and cruel to be happy to know her son’s demise was in fact true.”

“I’m glad as well.”

But that felt wrong to say out loud. Meeting Mrs. Bagshaw had reminded her of what she’d almost had so many years ago. A chance to have a home and a family of her own. Children. To be loved and adored and worshiped, and always respectable.

She didn’t need all of those things, but to be free to love again was a heady joy. To be loved by someone, too, well…she’d not expected that at all yet. But she did have such strong feelings for Thaddeus. She just wasn’t sure if she should repeat them when she was quite unsuitable to be his wife now she was scandalous. She was hardly a proper candidate to become a duchess if he even wanted to ask her to marry him one day.

Which he hadn’t hinted at, save for that one time when they’d talked about how well-matched they were in passion.

She rubbed herself against him now and earned a chuckle and a kiss.

“Can you be ready to leave before six o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“Yes. I suppose you’re eager to get on with your errand for the duke, too.”

“The duke can wait. It never was urgent that I go there. But I wanted to give you a good reason to accept my assistance out of London, so you wouldn’t refuse my company. It was a long way to travel alone, and I couldn’t bear the idea of further separation. And what if Regis had followed you all the way to Mrs. Bagshaw’s house? If he’s as cunning as your mama-in-law makes out, you’d better be prepared and well-defended when you see him next. He could be dangerous.”

“He wouldn’t touch me,” she replied.

“A husband has the right to do anything he wants with his wife, short of murdering her, which some men have gotten away with.” He glanced down. “What would have been his if we couldn’t have disproved his identity? What would he have taken from you?”

“Albemarle Street is leased in Wharton’s name, but my possessions there would have passed to him, and the little money I had saved up.” She sighed. “And Wharton has mentioned a desire to settle a dowry on Aurora, and me, too, though I have fought against the idea all along.”

“I hadn’t heard that you had a dowry.”

“It seemed unnecessary. I wasn’t looking for a husband myself. I’d hoped to see Aurora make a match first.”

He nodded. “Did you inherit property from Robert?”

“I don’t know. I suppose Mrs. Bagshaw’s house might be mine unless there’s another male relative somewhere who takes precedence. Nothing, of course, can go to an illegitimate brother. I’ll enquire about any estate when I know her better. She might not like the question asked too soon. She’s a proud woman, and Regis has already taken so much from her. I’ve no interest in taking from her, too. She’s already lost her son.”

“I’m glad you found her.”

“So am I,” Eugenia said and then shuddered. “Imagine if she’d been left to be pestered by that scoundrel Regis.”

“We’ll deal with him together,” Thaddeus promised.

“Wharton could have him charged or insist upon some other punishment for his crimes of theft.”

“Given what we heard of him, that is possible, too,” Thaddeus agreed, kicking his feet out of the blankets. “Pretending to be someone else speaks ill of his honesty and character.”

Eugenia sat up, face flaming. “I am ashamed of myself. I was wrong to forget Robbie. He was a good man, and I loved him with all my heart once. I should have been his widow proudly instead of pretending I’d never met him.”

Thaddeus was silent behind her. She turned to look at him. He smiled and moved a tendril of her hair from her cheek. “You didn’t mean to do it, and I believe that.”

She shook her head. “I hid his existence from my cousins. It has taken me too long, but I must embrace who I really am. Eugenia Bagshaw, a wicked widow. I need to look forward again, but also remember the past.”

Thaddeus rolled to his side and resting his head on his hand. “What will you look forward to?”

She sighed. “Endless parties, maneuvering to curry favor, dull dinners with too many handsome bachelors who know I’d never expect a marriage proposal if they seduce me.”

“Widow’s do have more freedom, Eugenia. There will be parties, but perhaps the kind of invitations you’ll get now might never have come the way of a Miss Hillcrest. Maneuvering to slip away with a lover after dinner for a stolen kiss or caress will be a great deal easier, and highly desired by many men. I’ll have my work cut out for me keeping my place in the front of the line.”

“You’ve nothing to fear,” she teased. And then took a steadying breath before announcing, “Loving you has been the highlight of my life.”

His eyes lit up with surprise. “You’ve been mine, too.”

A blush suddenly warmed her cheeks, and she looked away. Admitting her feelings a second time for Thaddeus had not been as hard as she’d feared it might be. Now that was done, they could go back to their affair again.

Thaddeus suddenly rolled out of bed to pour a glass of water for himself. He came to the end of the bed with it, his face serious again. “I have to leave you behind early tomorrow morning. I should not travel back to London with you in the carriage, so I’ll ride on horseback and go ahead. There’s no telling where Wharton might have positioned men upon the road, and I have my errand for the duke to explain where I am coming from.”

“I feared you would decide to do that,” she told him. “But I do understand why you wish to avoid any scandal that might force a marriage between us.”

“Better to decide to marry than to have the decision made for us. I will be at Wharton’s at three o’clock on Sunday, which is approximately when I hope your carriage might arrive back in Town. I’ll speak to the coachman and make sure he knows what is expected of him to time the arrival perfectly. No diversions. No delays for any reason. I want to be there with you when you face Regis again.”

“I want you there, too. We’ve come so far together.”

“Thank you. I want to be there for other reasons as well. It could be an ugly confrontation, given all we heard yesterday from Mrs. Bagshaw about Regis.”

He went to his traveling trunk, where he rummaged around. He returned with another delicate object glittering in his hand. “A chain for your ankle, to match your necklace.”

She smiled in surprise. “It’s beautiful. Where did you get it?”

“From the same merchant where I bought the longer chain.”

“Is there more to come?”

His eyes narrowed, but he was smiling. “There might be. I’m not sure I should tell you about the others just yet.”

She admired the chain about her ankle and the one around her waist. By wearing Thaddeus’ gifts there, hidden beneath her clothes, she would always have a token of his regard and secret love.

She caught his face and kissed him soundly. “Tell me about the others when you’re ready.”

He nodded. “When Regis is well and truly out of your life once and for all.”

Thaddeus dove back onto the bed and placed a kiss on her ankle over the chain he’d just given her. When he continued kissing, moving higher with each one, and she didn’t ask him to stop. His kisses always aroused her and left her wanting so many more. She’d set aside her desires for the man she’d come to love once and wouldn’t do without him again.

She guided his head between her legs, trembling at the first lick of his tongue across her quim. The most wonderful thing about her lover is that he did just that.

He loved her…and she never wanted their affair to end.