The Viscount Made Me Do It by Diana Quincy

He groaned, his jaw stiff, tense. “You are asking me to behave in a dishonorable manner.”

“Isn’t it dishonorable to refuse a lady?” She nibbled on his earlobe. “Do you refuse me because I am not a lady?”

“You know that’s not it. Stop twisting my words the way you manipulate people’s bones.”

She bit her lip, frustrated and embarrassed. She was making a fool of herself. What an amateur seductress she turned out to be.

“I’m terrible at this.” Her cheeks burning, she pulled away. “I couldn’t seduce you if I tried.”

“Wrong.” He brought her back to him and cradled her face in his large hands. “You are the most beguiling woman I’ve ever met.”

She stared into his dazzling eyes. “And yet, here I am throwing myself at you, and you are unmoved.”

Heat flared in his gaze. “I am anything but unmoved. My body is . . . very moved.”

She put her hands over his as he cupped her cheeks. “Prove it.”

He shook his head, his eyes bright with desire. “You make it very difficult for a man to refuse you.”

She groaned. “Then don’t. My body is so hungry for you that I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“Shhh.” He kissed her gently yet thoroughly, pushing into her mouth, his tongue searching and stroking, dancing with hers. It was long, slow and deep. He tasted her as she tasted him. Without boundaries or constraint. Putting their mark on each other.

This kiss was unlike any other before. Deep, soulful, potent. Honest. An unspoken declaration of his feelings for her. Something that was best not put into words.

Breaking the kiss, he set his forehead against hers. “Are you sure?” he whispered, his breath sweetly humid. “I don’t want you to regret this later.”

“I’ve never been more certain about anything.” She paused. “Except setting a bone, of course. Or putting a joint back in.”

He laughed softly and kissed the tip of her nose. “I never realized how seductive a competent woman could be.”

“You’re about to find out. Unless you lose your nerve.”

He scoffed. “Only a fool would refuse your offer. And I’m no fool.” He removed her fichu, baring her décolletage, and bent to press his lips against her collarbone.

She melted into him. “Hurry. Before we lose our chance.”

He pulled back. Keeping his gaze on hers, he removed his shirt, pulling the white linen up over his head and tossing it away. “You said before that you hadn’t had the opportunity, back when you treated me, to touch my body as you would have liked. Show me now.”

She momentarily forgot to breathe at the sight of his bare chest, the ridges and contours, the dusting of hair across his chest, down to the flat plain of his belly, disappearing into the low waist of his buff breeches. “You still have too many clothes on for me to do that.”

His eyes blazed. “What a minx you are.” His hands went to the buttons of his breeches. He paused as if giving her time to change her mind. As if she would ever change her mind about the opportunity to see him in all of his glory.

She licked her lips. “Keep going.” Then she added, “Please.”

“Are you begging?” he asked hoarsely.

“Do you want me to get down on my knees?” She would. In a minute. If it meant feasting her eyes, and her hands, on all of the private parts of him that he kept hidden from the world.

“Perhaps.” He swallowed. Hard. “But not right now.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she didn’t care. Her eyes were glued to the movements of his long, clever fingers as he unbuttoned his breeches, one maddeningly slow button at a time.

He pushed the breeches down over his narrow hips and stepped out of one leg, flinging them off his one ankle with a few quick shakes.

She stared at him. “Oh my.”

The primordial display of masculinity was almost overwhelming. Almost. Griff stood still while Hanna looked and touched her fill. She slid her hands over the broadness of his chest, roaming to feel round biceps. Heat radiated off him. He tensed and shivered as her fingers fluttered over his skin.

She circled him, her fingers feathering over his shoulder blades, down to the small of his back and over firm, round buttocks. He possessed thick thighs and prominent calves. His male member was thick, long and hard.

Coming to stand before Griff, she closed her fingers around his organ and tried to imagine such a thing inside of her. How would it feel? She couldn’t wait to find out.

He grunted when she touched him so intimately. She moved her hands to cup his balls, feeling the rough-hewn, yet soft-to-the-touch skin that encapsulated them.

“Touching you as I please would start with something such as this,” she said, her pulse a thumpy, whooshing sound in her ears.

He startled her by moving suddenly, swiftly. “Let’s get this gown off you.” He took her into his arms and gave her another long, hungry kiss. “If recent history tells us anything, it’s that we risk being interrupted before we get to the main event.”

“We don’t want that.”

He paused, eyeing her dress. “How does this come off?”

She loosened the front ribbons which tied high on her waist under her breasts. “Once I untie these, the gown goes off over my head.”

He assisted her in quickly dispensing with all of her clothing and then turned to pull the counterpane off his mother’s bed. Kissing her deeply he helped her recline on the bed, never taking his lips from hers.

“You do not know how much I’ve dreamed of this,” he said as he kissed his way down her throat, continuing until his mouth closed over the tip of her breast.

“I have some idea.” She arched up into his mouth. “I have fallen asleep many nights dreaming of you.”

“I have no intention of putting you to sleep today.” He moved down lower, over her belly. “I’m going to put my mouth on you.” He touched the exquisitely sensitive place between her legs.

“You are?” She propped herself up on her elbows to better see him. “Why?”

Instead of answering, he showed her. It was a curious sensation. His tongue felt wet as it tickled her intimate folds. But then warm pressure began to build in her belly.

“Oh. Oh!” She fell back against the mattress. All of her nerve endings down there were coming alive. And dancing. His breath was hot on her as he did things with his tongue and mouth that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. But it felt wonderful. His tongue stroked up and down. Moved in circles. He added suction. Everything inside her clenched, and she forgot how to breathe.

He moaned against her. She felt the vibrations of that sound deep inside of her. His hands were roaming. Over her stomach, cupping and squeezing her buttocks, tugging on her intimate hair.

His fingers moved inside of her, curled inside of her. It was dizzying. As was Griff’s single-minded devotion to seeing to her pleasure. He seemed to truly be enjoying himself. Hanna squirmed. Her body tingled all over. Tension and anticipation built to an almost unbearable point.

He moved abruptly, coming up over her. His body pressing into hers. “You’re ready.”

“Oh yes.” She felt his hands between her legs and then something else. Him. She felt stretched but not in pain exactly.

He watched her. “All right?”

She kissed him eagerly in response. He pushed farther into her. There was slight pain. Some discomfort. But the overwhelming sensation was that of feeling satisfyingly full.

He began to move, stroking in and out of her.

“What do I do?” she asked, eager to get this right.

“Just do what you feel.” His voice was strained as he moved inside of her. “Turn off your brain. Let your body take over.”

She tried to do as he said. To stop thinking and just focus on the feel of him inside of her. On the warmth of his body pressing her into the mattress. She got caught up in the rhythmic motion and began to move her hips in a way that allowed him to find a deeper seat within her. He groaned and moved faster. Soon they were both moaning. Lost in their own needs. And each other’s. Hanna couldn’t form a thought in her head if she tried.

She felt his finger down there, playing with the bundle of nerves. “Oh! That is nice.”

He smiled and kissed her deeply, urgently. Delicious tension began to ratchet up in her body. Tighter and tighter. Like a toy being wound up. Until the tensity was almost too much to bear. Her body quivered, on the precipice of something she didn’t fully understand. Until something snapped. The tension released in a cascade of sensation, waves of pleasure, that just kept coming and coming.

Griff pulled away to the bottom of the bed, spilling his seed into the bedclothes. Through her own contented daze, Hanna watched in fascination as his seed pumped out of him in milky-white spurts.

He rejoined her on her side of the massive bed, pulling her into his arms. They were quiet for a time, breathing in short heavy bursts, hearts pounding in unison.

“Well?” he asked after a little while. “Was it what you expected?”

“Are you asking for a performance assessment?” She snuggled against him, basking in the afterglow of being joined so intimately with him.

“I half expect you to jump up and write notes in that ledger of yours.”

She pressed her lips against his chest. “That would be difficult.”

“Why?”

“Because it would be impossible to find the words to describe how truly spectacular copulation is.”

“It is.” He pressed a kiss on the top of her head. “Particularly with you.”

“Do you mean that it’s not this way with every partner?”

“It’s never been this good for me. Between lovers, the levels of attraction are different. The depths of connection vary. Sometimes two bodies fit together particularly well. As we did.”

“So you are saying that I was competent?”

He ran a hand down over her curvaceous bottom. “More than competent.”

Her eyes caught on the place where he’d spent himself. “What will the servants say when they find the bedclothes are a mess and find evidence of”—she gestured to the sheet—“of what went on in here?”

“I’ll summon my valet. He’ll clear everything away and come up with some excuse.”

“Is he trustworthy?”

He nodded. “I’ve known Felix practically all my life. He’s had a lot of practice covering up for me. I managed to get up to some mischief before my parents died.”

“I wonder how many times we can do that again before my brother returns.”

He chuckled, kissing her gently. “We cannot remain absent. For all we know, he is already back and turning the house upside down searching for you.” He drew her closer. “Just a few more minutes and then we have to go back out there.”

“Ugh,” she buried her head into the crook of his arm. “I detest the real world.”

Lying in bed next to Griff after being as intimate as two people can be, Hanna felt profoundly different. Fundamentally changed in a way she couldn’t quite describe. Being alive felt more precious. Sweeter. But also more bitter. Her world had changed, but the world beyond these doors had not. Everything within her was different. Yet everything outside—the rules, the expectations—remained unchanged. It didn’t feel possible.

But it was.

“Come now. We have to get moving.” Griff reluctantly put Hanna away from him and rolled over to the far side of the bed, putting enough distance between them so that he couldn’t touch her. Otherwise, he’d be tempted to go back to bed and make love with her again. Everything in him wanted to repeat the extraordinary experience.

“I suppose you have the right of it.” But she made no sign of getting up. Instead she rolled onto her stomach and slid her hands under the pillow, snuggling deeper into the mattress.

“You are not supposed to be making yourself comfortable,” he admonished, his eyes nonetheless glued to her smooth, bare back.

She groaned. “Just a few more minutes.”

A knock sounded at the door. Over his shoulder, Griff shot a look of alarm at Hanna. She scrambled into a seated position. Her eyes round, she snatched up the bedclothes to cover herself and scooted toward the opposite edge of the bed.

For a second, he just stared at her. She was radiant with her hair loose, her shoulders and arms bare. Anyone who caught sight of them would easily surmise what they’d been up to. The knock came again. Slightly more insistent this time.

“Who is it?” Griff barked.

“Felix, my lord.”

Relief filtered through him. At least it wasn’t the brother. My valet, he mouthed to Hanna. “Go away.”

“Mr. Zaydan has been spotted returning from his ride, my lord. He should be here in about ten minutes.”

Hanna’s full eyebrows shot up. She bolted off the bed, still clutching the bedclothes to preserve her modesty until they got tangled and she just dropped them and hurriedly reached for her clothes. Griff could not help admiring the pretty curve of her arse, the shapely legs.

“What is your point?” he snapped at Felix while he watched Hanna.

“I thought you might want to say farewell, my lord. As Mr. Zaydan and his sister are meant to depart.”

“Yes, excellent point.” He and Felix played out the charade even though they both knew precisely what the point was. To warn them. To ward off catastrophe. How had his valet known where to find him? Whatever Griff paid him, it wasn’t enough. “Thank you, Felix. That is all.”

“Very good, my lord.”

Hanna had her dress on. “At least we have a few minutes to put ourselves to rights.” She tied the ribbon at her waist. “Thank goodness your valet didn’t come in through one of those secret entrances. Your servants are always coming out of the walls.”

He tugged on his breeches, skip-hopping as he did so. “Grand houses do have many secret doors. The idea being that servants should vanish through them when members of the family appear.”

“Why?”

He buttoned the fall front of his trousers. “To stay out of the way, I suppose.”

“For a woman used to normal-size homes, it is a bit disconcerting to have people suddenly appearing out of nowhere.” She paused, her gaze skimming the walls. “Are there any in here?”

“Just a priest’s hole. But it leads to nowhere.”

“Truly? Where is it?”

He crossed over to one of the two pilasters framing the door. “Here.” He popped it open revealing a space just large enough to conceal a grown man. “I often hid in here as a boy.”

She came over and peered inside. “There’s something in there.” She reached for the object. “It’s some sort of ledger.”

Griff stared at the worn brown leather book in her hands. “That’s it.”

“What?”

“My father’s journal.”

She peered down at it. “Are you certain?”

“Absolutely.” His palms sweating, he took the book and returned to sit on the edge of the bed. He recognized his father’s familiar writing as he turned the pages. He went directly to the last entries and read the passages. Then reread them. He felt the blood drain from his face.

“Griff.” Hanna sat beside him and laid a hand on his bare shoulder. “What is it?”

“It’s Norman.” He stared, disbelieving, at his father’s words.

“Dr. Pratt? What about him?”

“My father wanted to replace him as head physician at Margate.”

“He did?” She edged closer to read over his shoulder. “Why?”

Griff read further. “Father doesn’t say specifically. It somehow involves me, though. He writes that he is alarmed by what he’s learned about Thomas’s something or the other, and that Norman must be brought to account.”

“Thomas’s what?”

“I don’t know. He scratched out the word after my name.”

They studied the entry together.

“Can you think of anything of yours that Dr. Pratt accessed?”

“Nothing comes to mind.” A chill skittered up his spine. “All along, Norman has acted as if Father had a secret that needed protecting from the world. But what if he was desperate to go through my father’s papers because he knew they might contain damaging information that could ruin him and not Father?”

“You believe he was trying to find the journal.”

“It’s possible. Even if Norman managed to search these rooms in the days after the funeral, he wouldn’t have known about the priest’s hole.”

Griff felt uprooted by yet another damming revelation about the man who’d been a surrogate father. “These disclosures about Norman upend everything that I thought was true about my life. What is real? What is a lie? If Norman is some sort of monster, what does that make me? He did raise me.”

Hanna wrapped her arm around his waist. “You are a good man. A decent man.” Her breath was warm on his shoulder. “Who you are is a reflection of your parents, not of Dr. Pratt. Your parents raised you for the first fifteen years of your life. Will you ask Dr. Pratt about this?”

“He will just lie again.” He set the journal down. “But I will ask, just to see what he says.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with why your father made the unexpected trip to Ashby Manor?”

“I’ve no idea.” He massaged his temples. His thoughts were jumbled after uncovering yet another lie from Norman. “It’s possible the two are completely unrelated.”

Hanna climbed into his lap and wrapped her arms around him, hugging Griff hard. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her sweet scent. How could he lose Hanna when he needed her most? “While I did not kill my Mother and Father,” he confessed, “I do bear some responsibility for their deaths.”

She made a sound of protest, but he stopped her. “Please. I need to speak on this. Norman never allowed me to talk about my parents.”

She pressed a kiss against his cheek. “I’ll listen for as long as you need.”

“When I slipped out to meet Selina, I left a side door unlocked so that I could get back in when I returned. I’ve always believed the killers got in through that unsecured door.”

“Have you been carrying around this guilt all of this time?”

His throat felt jagged. “Yes.”

“You don’t know for certain that the killers came in through that door.” She pressed her cheek against his. “Even if they did, you were a young boy getting up to mischief, which was perfectly normal.”

“That’s what Norman said when I confessed to him about a year after we buried my parents.” But it didn’t make his guilt any easier to bear. “He said it wasn’t my fault even if the killers did come in through that unlocked door.”

“I never thought I’d agree with Dr. Pratt, but he has the right of it.”

They were interrupted by another knock on the door. “Mr. Zaydan has returned, my lord.” Felix’s muffled voice again. “He is in the house and asking after his sister.”

“Thank you, Felix,” Griff said. To his regret, Hanna shifted off his lap and came to her feet.

“I must go.”

“I will send word if my runner discovers anything of interest regarding who stole my mother’s jewels.”

“I would also care to know how things go with Dr. Pratt. If you want to share that with me.”

He wanted to share everything with her.Griff rose, his chest sore at the thought of losing her. He might very well see and speak to her again—the matter of the jewels remained unsettled—but they would not, could not, risk sharing any more intimacies.

He took Hanna into his arms and kissed her deep and slow. Until they were both out of breath again. “Good-bye, Lady Bonesetter.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Thomas.” She gave a sad smile, but then mischief glinted in her eye. “At least we managed to get to the good part this time.”

He pressed one last kiss against her lips. “We did, indeed.”

“Maybe now you will have one more fond memory of Ashby to temper the difficult ones.”

He hated that she’d already relegated herself to his past. “You . . . and this”—he gestured about the room—“shall be the very best memory of all.”

“Where were you all day?” Hanna asked her brother. Anything to keep her mind, and the conversation, far from Griff as they rumbled back to Town in Mrs. Rutland’s carriage.

Rafi stared out the window. “I was riding.”

“For six hours? You left at nine o’clock this morning and did not return until after three in the afternoon. Almost too late for us to return to Town.”

“I guess I got caught up.”

“You truly are the worst chaperone ever.” Not that she had any complaints. But Rafi was behaving in an odd manner. “Where did you go?”

Rafi squinted at her. “What do you mean where did I go? I just told you that I went riding.” He paused. “And I stopped to take a break, and I guess I fell asleep.”

“You napped for six hours?”

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Hanna made a skeptical sound in her throat. Her brother was hiding something. But Hanna didn’t care what it was. Thanks to Rafi’s absence, she’d enjoyed the most glorious afternoon of her life.

Leaning back, she closed her eyes and replayed her time with Griff. The vision of his naked body imprinted in her mind, and she enjoyed revisiting it. And coupling with him. And the clever things he’d done with his tongue—

“Stop!” Rafi rapped on the carriage roof, jolting Hanna out of her musings. “Halt!”

“Why are we stopping?” She peered out the window. A woman on horseback in a smart riding suit with military details trotted nearby. Hanna squinted for a better look as the carriage came to a stop. “Is that Lady Winters? What’s she doing here?”

“She lives in the neighborhood.” Rafi opened the door.

“Where are you going?”

“It would be rude not to say hello. We are acquainted with the lady.”

She stared at him. “Courtesy does not require that you stop a speeding carriage just to say hello to a woman you met once. She probably won’t even remember you.”

But he was already out of the coach and striding in the direction of Lady Winters, who brought her mount to a stop. Rafi took hold of the horse’s bridle, stroking its forehead and cheeks, as he beamed up at Lady Winters.

Hanna could not hear their conversation, but Griff’s Selina smiled and chatted with Rafi. She was certainly being polite, considering that she was a countess and Rafi was a simple merchant. Not that Rafi was simple. He was smart and an excellent businessman. He practically ran the family export business. Their older uncles often deferred to Rafi when it came to making major decisions.

Rafi finally stepped away from the horse and waved Lady Winters on. He stood watching her ride away for a moment, then turned back and rejoined Hanna in the carriage.

“What was that?”

“What?” He responded as if waylaying a countess in the middle of the countryside was the most natural thing in the world. “I just wanted to say hello.”

She laughed, realizing that her brother was completely besotted. “She’s way above your touch, brother. It’s time you came back to earth.”

Rafi just smiled, crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. Within minutes, he was snoring. Which was strange for a man who claimed to have napped all afternoon.