Before the Fire Page 9

  “Mayhap,” the earl allowed. “Can you describe it?”

  “Hmm.” She contemplated the question as she pursed her lips together and tapped her finger against her cheek. “It’s puffy.”

  “Puffy?”

  “Yes, puffy.”

  George stood up and walked over to his desk. He reached for the bottle of port and poured himself his third glass in the last hour. “Forgive me, Kane, but that is hardly descriptive.”

  She shrugged. “I’m a planabotonologist, not a poetess.”

  “Mayhap you can draw it for us?” Lady Julia inquired. At Kane’s grunt, she dismissed that option as viable.

  “I’ve got it!” the dowager countess beamed a few minutes later. She clapped her hands together. “We can travel to London, the three of us. ‘Tis still the height of the season, true enough, but we’ve a townhouse there to stay in.” Lady Julia shot to her feet and smiled eagerly at Kane. “My son and I can show you the glory of the London season by night and by day we can scour the libraries of botanical and agricultural societies in search of a book that might contain drawings of the plant your people so covet.”

  Kane brightened considerably. Libraries were an excellent idea. And then there was the notion of remaining at George’s side. She wouldn’t have to say good-bye to him just yet. She turned to the earl, beaming. “I’m willing if you are.”

  George ambled over toward the study’s window and stared pensively out of it. He watched the birds fly by and the insects buzz around the flowers. Odd that he’d never noticed such things before meeting Kane. After careful deliberation he turned around to face his mother and his lady, both of whom were waiting his decision on pins and needles. “On one condition,” he announced.

  Kane strode over to where the earl stood and smiled warmly up to him. “Anything, my lord. Name it.”

  George gazed down into Kane’s eyes and knew then and there that he couldn’t bear to live a life without her. “If we go, you go as my wife.”

  Chapter 12

  His wife.

  Kane had difficulty catching onto the full import of many of George’s sentences, but those were two words she well understood the significance of. He wanted to file for permanent companionship. She couldn’t believe her ears.

  The dowager countess cleared her throat delicately as she glided toward the study door. “I shall leave you two alone to talk.” She opened the door as gracefully as a queen and sauntered through it. “Oh and Kane,” she added with an endearing smile. “I shall be upstairs packing. Do not disappoint me in your answer, dearest.”

  The door closed shut.

  George mentally chastised himself over and over again. What was he thinking? As if a woman so lovely would possibly even consider binding herself legally to a disreputable earl such as he was. Kane was alive and beautiful, warm and intoxicating. She was perfection. And he was…well…not. And yet, he could not seem to close his mouth on the foot that was already dangling from it. “Would it be that terrible?” he heard himself quietly ask.

  Kane whirled around and regarded him through perplexed eyes. “Would what be that terrible?”

  “Being my wife.”

  “Of course not!” She threw her arms around the earl’s neck and hugged him tightly to her. “I’m crazy about you, George.”

  “Then marry me, my sweet. Become my wife, my countess.”

  Kane closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to spill of their own accord. “What happens when I leave, George? It will be harder on us both, I think.”

  George reached for Kane’s chin and drew it up gently to meet his gaze. “I would rather spend one day with you as my countess than fifty years with another woman in the same role.”

  Kane sighed at his words. How could she refuse him after hearing that?

  George bent his neck and kissed her softly on the lips. “Couldn’t you come back after you took the plant to your time?” He brushed his thumbs across the entrance of her mouth and nudged gently, indicating his desire for her to part her lips and accept his tongue inside.

  “I don’t see why not,” she whispered, waiting in anticipation for his invasion. “Egis must remain my first priority, but once he is cured, my life is my own again.”

  “Truly?” he prodded as he licked at her mouth.

  “Truly,” she whispered. “I hadn’t thought of the possibility beforehand,” she rasped, “but if you truly wish to marry me, then by your side is where I choose to be.”

  As a reward for her welcomed answer, George plunged his warm tongue into Kane’s welcoming mouth. She groaned, urging him to take what he would. He kissed her hard and possessively, branding and claiming her as his own. “Oh George,” she sighed when he released her tongue to nibble at her throat, “Take me to your bed. I beg you.”

  George nearly spilled his seed, so turned on was he by her words. His penis jutted out demandingly against his breeches, begging for release. “Kane,” he hoarsely protested, “I would not dishonor you by bedding you before marriage.”

  “You do not dishonor that which you love,” she argued breathlessly. Kane reached down between them and closed her palm around his stiffly erect cock. “I can feel how much you want me, George. Make me yours.”

  The earl sucked in his breath. He wanted nothing more than to claim her, than to ride her hard and long. The man who had invented the word chivalry was no doubt the same cad who had invented the word goal. “My love, I cannot in good conscience claim you as mine until we are wed.”

  Kane continued to stroke his swollen manhood, determined to share more with her heart this night than kisses. “Please Kane,” he croaked out hoarsely, “please stop.”

  “No, George. If you will not mate with me this eve, then you will at least go to sleep knowing more of the pleasures I will bring to your bedchamber each night.”

  George’s mind whirled with a million different possible scenarios. Each one was more riveting and provocative than the last. “What do you mean?” he managed to squeak out.

  Kane reached for the buttons on his breeches and undid them faster than a data transfer through the brain’s synapses. She tugged on them demandingly, giving gentle care to his aroused manhood all the while. George’s erection sprang free, proving to Kane that her man was big all over.

  “What are you going to do, my dear? Why are you dropping to your knees? Surely you cannot presume to – oh.”

  She did presume to.

  When Kane had first described what it felt like as a brain imploded due to BV-5, George had no notion of what she was talking about. Suddenly he knew. Suddenly it was if the heavens had opened up and the answers of the universe had poured forth. George’s brain was going to implode. He was certain of it. As certain as he was of the fact that Lady Harriet would have benefited vastly from this electrolysis procedure Kane had advised him of.

  “Oh Kane,” he choked out as he allowed the pleasure of her intimate kiss to tremor through his insides.

  Kane swirled her tongue around the head of George’s rigid erection, lapping up the salty taste of his pre-ejaculate. She parted her lips and urged the whole of him into her mouth, taking him to the root of his manhood and back, over and over again. She sucked and sucked, growing more and more aroused herself as she felt him grow tauter, closer to the brink of his completion.

  She reached for the delicate sac that lay tightly nestled against his groin in a thatch of dark curls and massaged it between thumbs and forefingers. She rubbed gently, kneading until George groaned. “My God Kane,” he muttered as his breathing grew more and more labored. “You best stop. I’m close to spilling my seed.”

  “Do it,” she begged as she took a breath. “Give me all of you, George.” She resumed her sucking, stroking him back and forth with her throat and mouth.

  Kane picked up her speed, taking him in and out, faster and faster. She was relentless with her sucking, taking George to heights of pleasure he hadn’t thought possible. He wanted to stop. But it had been so long. Far too lon
g. And never, ever like this.

  And then he burst.

  “Oh Kane,” he growled as he shot his hot essence into her mouth.

  She continued to suck at the head of his penis, not stopping until he was semi-flaccid, and she was certain she’d missed nothing. She halted only then, placed a last lingering kiss on the head of his manhood, and slowly rose to her feet.

  Kane gazed into George’s eyes and smiled invitingly. “And that’s only the beginning. Think about that tonight in the lonely bed you deprived me of.” She winked mischievously and sauntered away.

  George’s eyes widened. He grew immediately erect—again. Through labored breaths, he opened his mouth to call out to Kane.

  But it was too late. She was already heading through the study doors.

  The earl scratched his head and smiled contentedly as he watched his future bride take her leave. Apparently Kane had never made the acquaintance of the cad who had invented the word chaste.

  Thank God for small favors.

  * * * * *

  The Countess and Dowager Countess of Blackmore sat next to each other in the Blackmore carriage, the earl sitting morosely across from them. He frowned as he watched his mother and wife prattle on about something or another. They were conversing of the season awaiting them in London, carrying on like two school gels off to their coming out.

  “We’ll have to stop at the modiste’s upon our arrival to have new gowns cut. I’ve an eye for fashion, daughter. You’ll be all the rage, what with those long blonde tresses and your fashionably blue eyes.”

  “Do you really think so? I do wish to make a good impression upon George’s friends.”

  The earl’s ears perked up at that admission. “Do not concern yourself over it, madam wife. I’ve no care for what society’s gentlemen think of you.” At Kane’s nod, the earl returned his gaze to the country road rolling by outside of the carriage’s confines.

  Four days.

  George and Kane had been wed for four long and agonizingly sexless days. They married the morning Kane had originally intended to leave Blackmore, then the trio departed for London immediately thereafter. The earl had thought nothing of it at the time, assuming he would claim what was legally his at an inn along the way.

  But the earl had neglected to take the matter of his wretched luck into consideration. Each and every night since their journey began, every inn that the trio had stopped at en route to London had been overcrowded with only a single room to spare. Ever the gentleman, the earl had forsaken his marital rights and allowed his mother to share the single chamber with his wife. George had slept with the damned horses.

  Tonight, at long last, the earl would take his countess to their bed. They would arrive at the Blackmore townhouse by mid-morn. And then tonight he would learn all there was to know of his wife’s body. He would kiss all the places he’d dreamed of kissing since he’d first laid eyes upon her naked glory. He would ride her slow and soft, then fast and hard. He would make her scream out his name in ecstasy only to be taken there yet again. He would…

  Damn. He was getting hard again. A common and painful occurrence these past four miserable days.

  George stared gloomily out of the carriage window and indulged in an unabashed state of woeful pity for his sorry self. His attention was currently riveted on two frolicking pups at play in the meadows beyond the carriage window. One pup, the obvious gentleman, was attempting to mount his lady pup from behind.

  She was having none of that sport.

  With each of the gentleman pup’s ill-fated attempts, the hellion lady pup would nip at his heels and throw him off of her backside. George shook his head in empathy. He knew exactly how the poor whelp felt.

  “Don’t you agree, George?”

  George blinked, clearing his head of his self-pitying contemplation. “I beg your pardon, madam?”

  Lady Julia tssked as she shook her head in disapproval. “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said?”

  “No,” he admitted as he returned his line of vision to the country lane, “I haven’t.”

  Lady Julia sighed. She turned to her daughter-in-law and cast her a knowing, woman-to-woman look. “Pay no heed to your lord husband, Lady Kane. I’m certain he’ll fare better once he’s in his bed and, uh…” She coughed discreetly. “Rested.”

  * * * * *

  “Thank-you, Brantly.” George accepted the note the butler of his London townhouse had placed in the silver salver with a curt nod. Brantly inclined his head politely and made for the library door.

  George ripped open the seal and scanned the note’s contents.

  Dear George,

  The dowager countess and I have gone to London proper to acquire a new wardrobe. Your mother tells me that we are expected at the Giddings’ ball tonight

  “Damn,” George muttered, “I thought I’d been made to endure the last of Lady Irma’s picking of the nose.”

  and so I have made a concession and will not commence my search of the libraries until tomorrow. Lady Julia expects this shopping business to take up a large part of the day,

  George snorted. More like all day knowing his mother.

  so we will no doubt have to wait to be alone together until after the ball ends tonight.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  I look forward to our time alone tonight more than I can say.

  As do I, my love.

  Though I am unable to be with you until then, know in your heart that you occupy my every thought.

  As do you, my sweet.

  May the goddesses bless you,

  Your Permanent Companion (Wife),

  Your damned right it will be permanent.

  Kane

  P.S. Lady Julia has heard rumors that George III will be in attendance tonight. I’m quite excited, as I’ve never met a daft king before!

  George laughed as he shook his head in humor. Tonight couldn’t possibly arrive soon enough to suit him.

  Chapter 13

  “Oh goodness, George,” Lady Julia mumbled in abject horror, “you told the truth on that score, did you not?”

  The Earl, Countess, and Dowager Countess of Blackmore watched from across the ballroom in fascination, and not a little nausea, as Lady Irma Giddings discreetly delved her glove-clad finger into the uppermost cavern of her left nostril and dug.

  “Heaven have mercy,” Lady Julia mumbled, “the chit is actually inspecting her ill-gotten booty.”

  George winced. “I shudder to think what treasures one would have found sticking to the marriage bed every eve.”

  “For the love of Saturn’s rings,” Kane murmured, simultaneously mesmerized and disgusted, “I’ve never seen anyone do that before. It’s…it’s...”

  “Unseemly,” George offered.

  “Horrifying,” Lady Julia added.

  “And about to make me faint for the first time in my life,” Kane choked out, “if we don’t go take in some air.”

  Ten minutes later, the Earl, Countess, and Dowager Countess of Blackmore returned to the ballroom, all of them looking better for their wear. The dancing chamber was spectacularly aglow with hundreds of lit candles cascading from the walls and overhead. Gold and crystal chandeliers hung decorously from the ceiling, giving the room a regal air. The liveried servants were donned in their best finery, strolling throughout the crowded ballroom offering champagne and wine to the hundreds of guests in attendance.

  Kane surveyed the ballroom with a sense of dread, realizing that she hadn’t the slightest notion of how to proceed. None of the dances she was seeing on display at the Giddings’ ball had been injected into her memory cells. She felt like a droid without a processing unit, or as George would have said, a lord without his port.

  The earl grabbed three glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing servant and proceeded to hand two of them over to his wife and mother respectively. “Is something amiss, my sweet? You look as pale as a ghost.”

  “Ah, George!” an unfamiliar male humanoid voice
boomed out. “’Tis good indeed to see you back in London for the season!”

  A handsome man, or one who would have been handsome had he not donned one of those insufferably unattractive powdered wigs Kane loathed, strode toward the earl’s group of three. The man looked to be roughly her husband’s age, perhaps a year or two younger.

  “Alex!” George called back in greeting, “’Tis good to see you again as well.”

  Kane decided she would like Alex on the spot, for George obviously liked him and her husband was a very good judge of character.

  “Come Alex, I should like for you to meet my wife,” George boasted.

  The handsome man came forward and smiled warmly down to Kane. “Alex, this is my wife, Kane Blackmore, my new countess. Kane, my oldest and closest friend, Lord Alexander Hamilton, the Marquess of Asherby.”

  Lord Asherby bent over Kane’s hand in greeting, then smiled radiantly down to her once more. “You are as lovely as the rumors making their way throughout the ballroom have claimed, my lady. Please do me the honor of calling me Alex.”

  Kane nodded, smiling back to George’s friend. “I would be delighted, Alex. Tell me, though, what a marquess is?”

  At Alex’s furrowed brow, George coughed discreetly into his hand. “It is just another of those titles we spoke in length of, my love.” George turned to his friend and shrugged unapologetically. “She heralds from a land without aristocracy.”

  “Oh really?” Alex inquired, genuinely intrigued. “Where from?”

  “Houston,” Kane provided before her husband could say otherwise.

  “Houston?”

  George coughed again, louder this time. “Do not concern yourself, Alex. ‘Tis in the Americas.”