Hidden Paradise

chapter ELEVEN



Back at the house, Lou turned down Mac’s suggestion of more sex. He suggested a shower and lunch together, but they both knew what he meant. Besides, she should dress as a woman again. Her masculine clothes weren’t that comfortable and now she smelled of horse. She reminded Mac that she had a date with someone else—and was amused at his possessive glower—and no, she didn’t want to come watch him fence, because that was about as interesting as watching paint dry.

“Isn’t that what you’ll be doing, Lou?” He leaned against the sandstone pillar on the porch, idly slapping his riding crop against his boots, stubbled cheeks made even darker by the brim of his hat.

He looked so stunningly sexy in a non-PC way she had to look away and collect her thoughts. “Nonsense, this paint dried years, decades ago. Go have fun with the other boys. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Back in the house, two maids in modified historical clothing pushed a very modern housekeeping cart down the corridor. Lou smiled at them and entered the quiet of her own room. She wished she hadn’t started thinking about her dissertation. This room would be a good place to write, if she didn’t feel so frozen and, well, bored by the whole idea.

Another pretty cotton gown, clean stockings and linen awaited her, along with a list of the day’s activities. The fabric reminded her of old-fashioned wallpaper, but not in an unpleasant way, with its muted colors, stripes and stylized sprigs of roses. She remembered Mac saying she was like a rose, and how embarrassed he’d been by his spontaneity, and smiled as she tightened the drawstring of the gown.

She tied her hair back with a length of lace she found among the ribbons and odds and ends in a small wooden box on the dressing table and wondered if she’d caught a touch of sun from the morning ride. The scrapes from Mac’s stubble had faded a little but her face looked pink and excited. Did thinking about Mac do this to her?

She left the room and one of Rob’s footmen, the one who hardly spoke any English, directed her to the wing of the house still under restoration. Jon, wearing a pair of painter’s overalls, sat at a cheap wooden desk in a room that was stripped to plaster and lathe, the floorboards dull and uneven. Tables held containers full of samples in small plastic bags. She noted with ridiculous excitement that the room had electricity and a computer.

“Lovely to see you, Lou,” Jon said. He peered at her over half-glasses with a genial smile, his hair flopping onto his forehead. He had come into the business naturally, as the descendant of impoverished English aristocrats, brought up in a house like Paradise Hall. Last night, he’d told her he had probably wrecked his brain picking off layers of ancient, lead-filled paint in his bedroom as a small child. After that, it was the only profession open to him.

“I asked them to bring us some lunch and my partner, Simon, will join us,” Jon said. “Meanwhile, look at this little beauty from the small dining room.” He ushered her to the microscope. “This is our sixteen layers, with the original being the sort of mauve that was meant to aid digestion based on Goethe’s color theory. That’s the room we use for breakfast. Imagine seeing that paint color if you had a hangover. I much prefer the yellow.”

She admired shreds of the past preserved in small plastic bags and awaiting analysis or stabilization and storage; a strip of gorgeous red silk brocade from inside a chair found in the attic, pushed into the stuffing of the seat and as brilliant as it was over two centuries ago; discolored, dull pieces of wallpaper and fabric ravaged by time and damp and rodents; hinges and door handles, nails and other pieces of archaic, rusted hardware.

“What to do with it,” Jon said. “That’s the question. The boys can’t bring themselves to throw anything away, and it takes a weird sort of mind, like yours or mine, to appreciate this stuff. So it goes into storage. And sadly, much of the original decor of the house would be unpleasant to the modern eye. Oh, here’s Simon. And lunch. Delicious!”

A footman placed a large tray on one of the tables and Simon helped him push boxes of samples out of the way and arrange chairs. They sat and helped themselves to cheese, a sharp crumbling white and a smooth soft one that oozed delectably onto the china plate, fruit and freshly baked bread, a cake decorated with fresh flowers and a jug of amber cider.

“Oh, dear, did you miss breakfast again?” Jon said as Simon worked his way through a huge plateful of food. “He works so hard. We’ll take Lou to the blue room later, shall we? Although, it’s not very blue at the moment. Simon’s doing lovely work on the plaster and we’ll show you the paint color we’ve chosen. Very classical and elegant.”

Sometimes with upper-class Englishmen you really couldn’t tell, but Lou decided they had to be gay. Or…both had that same floppy brown hair, sleepy hazel eyes behind half-glasses. “Are you related?” she asked. “You look so alike.”

“We’re always being asked that,” Simon said. “Probably inbreeding. Don’t we have the same great-great-great-great grandmama?”

“I think so. We’re probably something like fifth cousins ten times removed. I should ask Nanny next time I visit.”

“You have a nanny?” Lou said.

“Oh, dear, yes,” Jon said. “She was invaluable when we restored the kitchen at my house to its Edwardian glory. She knows all the family stuff. Mummy’s too busy with her charities.”

Lou shook her head. “You are such a cliché.”

“But we’re not gay,” Simon said.

“Only a little bit,” Jon amended. “We do like girls.”

“Now, don’t put our guest off her lunch. I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear about our perversions.”

Lou spluttered over a mouthful of cider. They both looked at her with identical benign smiles.

“The thing is,” Simon said, “we work together, we’re in and out of each other’s houses, we like each other’s company. Naturally people think we’re a couple. We even sound and look alike. And some women like that sort of thing.”

“Double the pleasure,” Jon said. “Are you interested, Lou? Because I’m sure we can fit you in.”

“So to speak,” Simon said. “Maybe after the blue room is painted—”

Lou could barely contain herself as she patted the neckerchief at the top of her gown dry. “Did Peter put you up to this?”

They exchanged glances. “Dear me, no. We thought of it ourselves,” Jon said. “Peter hired us for restoration work because we’re the best.”

“At everything we undertake,” Simon added meaningfully.

Lou looked at them both, owlish and earnest, and tried to fight back a giggle. Yes, of course some women would find them attractive. Some men, too.

“The emphasis is of course all on the lady’s pleasure,” Jon said primly. “No playing with each other’s winkles.”

“Oh, a little. Sometimes,” Simon said. “Some girls like that. We can give a demonstration of our extraordinary prowess, Lou, anytime.”

To her astonishment, he produced a BlackBerry and consulted it. “After I’ve finished the blue room, we’re pretty much free. I think we’re both recovered from Sarah—such a greedy girl, all those orifices begging for attention all the time. Quite exhausting. But if you need a reference, I’m sure she’ll—”

“Thank you,” Lou said, “but I don’t think I’ll take you up on it.”

“Alternatively, you could observe,” Jon said, and Simon nodded in agreement.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Simon said. “You don’t even have to announce your presence to whichever lady requests our expert services. We have a very lovely screen—early-eighteenth century, and someone had the foresight to cut holes in it, probably for a very similar occasion—so you can stay hidden. Sometimes that’s jolly good fun.”

“Oh, yes,” Jon said. “May I help you to a slice of cake, Lou? Simon, dear, do ring for the footman and he’ll bring us some tea. Or coffee. Whatever you like, dear, we’re happy to oblige.”

“I’ll have some tea, please,” Lou said with as much seriousness as she could muster. She was trying to let go and embrace the Twilight Zone that was Paradise Hall, but this was a lot to wrap her head around. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

“Ah.” The two of them looked at each other, nodding, like mirror images.

“Mac,” Jon said. “Now, I’d let him play with my winkle anytime he wanted.”

“Except, I don’t think he wants to,” Simon said. “He is so deliciously macho. Well, I’ll just give young Master Rob a ring—” he brandished his BlackBerry “—and after we’ve had a nice cup of tea we’ll visit the restoration on the blue room.”

* * *

SHE SPENT THE REST OF THE afternoon with Jon and Simon and then, during the period she’d come to think of as the sex break, sitting beneath the shade of a huge cedar tree, reading and napping. She let her mind wander into pleasant erotic fantasies of Mac, Mac and another man, which was rather appealing, and a threesome was something she’d always been interested in—but who could be their third? Her shifting dreams wouldn’t settle on one distinctive set of features.

She didn’t sit next to Mac at dinner. He wore those clingy knit evening trousers again and she refused to let herself stare at him. Sometimes pleasure delayed was better. He flirted with the other women and now and again looked down the table at her with appreciation and longing.

As the ladies left for the drawing room, the men stood. Mac brushed against her and pushed something into her gloved hand. It was a note. She concealed it in her fan and, while the other women chatted and drank tea, moved close to a candlestick to unfold and read it.





Wait for me in your bed.



Naked.



Mac





P.S. I like those earrings. Keep them on.





She smiled and tucked the tiny note away.

* * *

Well, where the hell are you, Mac?

She’d arranged herself like an odalisque on the bedcover and he had yet to show up. A modest pile of condoms lay ready next to the bed. Outside, thunder rumbled and a flash of lightning flared in the room and she saw something at the window. Rain slashed down, infusing a cool fragrance into the air.

She froze for a moment as the window rattled and then swung open. A figure stood there, dark and still, on the small stone balcony, before stepping into the room. He was naked, with a dark red dressing gown that billowed around him, and that he flung off as he strode across the room, bringing the scent of the rain and the storm with him.

“Mac.” She rose, holding out her arms to him, and met him halfway. “Just like you told me, you’re a romantic.”

“Almost scraped my balls off on that damned ivy,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t do that for just anyone, Lou.”

Drops of cold water flew from his hair and clung to his legs and arms. He folded her against his damp, cool body and pulled her into bed, where they were swaddled in cotton and down, scents of lavender and bergamot, the musky smells of arousal.

“You’re cold.” She ran her hands over his chest, enjoying the spring of hair and the hardness of his nipples beneath her palms, feeling his body chill against hers.

“Warm me up, Lou.” He leaned in for a kiss.

She’d never met a man who wanted to be kissed so much, whose mouth and tongue became pursuer and pursued, whose kisses could range from playful to carnal and back. He tasted of coffee and toothpaste and sex as they twined together, limbs tangled, his cock rubbing against her thigh, her hip, her belly. She straddled his thigh briefly, riding him, and he reached down to dip his fingers into her.

“So wet. Like satin. Gorgeous.” He lifted his fingertip to his mouth and licked, savored. “Want to taste yourself, Lou?”

She took his fingertip into her mouth as avidly as she’d taken his cock earlier that morning, and sucked the remnants of her musky juices, while he hummed with pleasure and lowered his other hand between her thighs. He zeroed in to the right spot with unerring precision and she opened wide for him. One finger, two, delved inside; his thumb flirted with her *oris, nudged and circled and flicked.

She took her mouth from his finger and blew on it. “I’ll come.”

“Maybe.” He played her, up on one elbow now to watch her face and follow her reactions. “If I let you.”

“I’ll come if I do this with my breasts.” She raised both hands to her breasts and stroked and pinched her hard, sensitive nipples.

“Do it, Lou.” His mouth nipped her neck. “So sexy. I love watching you touch yourself.”

She anticipated the moment when he’d take control and delay her orgasm. How close would he let her get? She toyed with tricking him, stealing an orgasm from under his nose and as she thought of that potentially delicious moment she tightened around his fingers.

“Uh-oh. I think you’ve had enough.” Sure enough, his finger and thumb withdrew. “Hands off your tits, Mrs. Connolly. You should be ashamed.”

“You’re so mean,” she whimpered, delighting in their playful exchange.

And then his fingertips, shiny and wet and fragrant, were in her mouth, followed by his tongue, greedy and licking and sucking, his chin scraping against hers. His thigh dropped over hers, holding her legs open wide, her sex exposed and needy. Laughter vibrated in his chest as her hips moved, begging for attention.

* * *


Mac

SHE LIKED HIM TO TALK DIRTY and she shivered with pleasure when he pulled her mouth from his and asked her roughly if she wanted to be f*cked. Her eyes were wide, face flushed, her chin abraded from his stubble.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed, squirming beneath him. He had her wrists in his hands now, fragile and pale, the knobs of bone touching and vulnerable.

“Yes, what?”

She burst into laughter. “Now?”

“Very funny.” He lowered himself over her. Shit, the condom. He’d almost forgotten. He reached for the foil package and tore it open. “For that, you get to put it on me.”

“Yes, O master,” she replied with a flutter of eyelashes, and tipped the condom onto the palm of her hand. He’d never found a condom sexy before, just a necessity, a gesture that combined courtesy with common sense. He didn’t think he could get any harder, but when she touched him, stroking and smoothing the condom on his dick, he caught himself making a pathetic little girly whimper and she looked up at him, eyes shining with amusement. But he was beyond embarrassment now, torn between wanting to watch her slender fingers on his sheathed dick and wanting to plunge inside her.

Question was, who wanted whom the most? Who could hold out longest? He lowered himself onto her, nudging her thighs apart with his hips, stroking his cock down that sweet wet cleft. She gasped a little and squirmed, her hips tilted to receive him. He moved back.

“Meanie,” she said, and nipped at his shoulder.

“Yeah, I can be real mean.” He lowered his mouth to her nipple, sucked and swirled his tongue. Her wrists, held tight against the pillow, tensed. “Should I tie you up, Lou? Couple of neckcloths should do it.” He blew on her nipple. “Make you put on those breeches and tie you up and flip you over and f*ck you in the ass?”

“Oh, Mr. Darcy, and I thought you were so masculine.”

“I am,” he growled, and nudged his cock at her again. “Feel that?” This time, he pushed inside her a little and she was so warm and luscious he couldn’t bear to withdraw, but he did.

She sucked in a breath. “You want me to beg?”

“Yeah.” He stroked up and down her cleft, lingering at the hard ridge of her * and lowered his head to her moist, parted lips. Her tongue flicked and tangled with his and she made a deep, surprised sound in her throat as her legs quivered against him. He moved his mouth to below her ear, to the moist fragrance of her neck and the tickle of her hair.

“Stop teasing me,” she said. “F*ck me now.”

He slid inside her and she cried out in surprise, tightening on him so that he had to stop and growl out how good she felt, fighting for control. He still held her slender wrists, his hands dark against her skin that almost matched the cream of the pillow.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” he asked, conscious once more of her pale fragility.

Her breasts rose and fell, round and plump on her slender torso and he bent to kiss them, and then her armpits, burying his nose in the fragrant wisps of hair to snuff her scent.

She giggled. “Tickles.” She wrapped one long leg around him, foot planted on his ass, and drew him forward. “Now.”

Oh, now, absolutely now. Now as they joined and plunged and surrendered to each other but he wanted to please her, hear her cry out and shudder under him; now roll her over so she sat astride him and he clasped her to him and kissed her, drowning in her mouth, her scent, her taste.

* * *


Lou

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN JET LAG OR something else, but she found herself suddenly wide-awake, confused by her surroundings, her heart thudding fast. She sat up, eyes adjusting to the dark, and reassured herself. Yes, she was at Paradise Hall—and a clock struck three, answering the next question; and this was Mac beside her; and the muscles of her legs were a little sore from riding, and from her enthusiastic lovemaking. The sweet scent of rain drifted in through the open window. Everything was okay, wasn’t it?

Or was it? What was she doing, throwing herself into such an intense emotional experience when she’d come here to find Julian? This increasing closeness with Mac, whatever else it might become, had the potential to cause trouble, she was sure of it. Before she became more entangled with him, she should end the relationship. As great as the sex was, she really couldn’t continue anymore. The intensity scared her. This wasn’t what she needed right now.

She didn’t think, with his history, that he’d be particularly upset.

* * *


Mac

OUTSIDE, THE RAIN CONTINUED AS a gentle patter. Mac stood, looking down at her. She looked vulnerable and innocent in sleep, sheets beneath her chin in her fist, one long, pale leg exposed. He wanted to kiss her and tuck her in and make sure her feet were warm enough. Every woman he’d ever known had been very fussy about the temperature of her feet in bed. He rearranged the bedclothes over her, and she gave an annoyed grunt and that leg emerged again. She’d probably bite his nose off if he tried to kiss her.

He retreated into the bathroom, wondering if the sound of running water would wake her, but she was in exactly the same position as before, deeply asleep, when he emerged. Seated at the desk in the room, he drew a sheet of paper toward him and viewed with distaste the quill pen, which had proved a natural enemy when he’d tried it before, scattering random blobs and ripping into the paper. He settled for the rather primitive pencil and scribbled a note.





Lou, bathhouse at 4?





Love,



Mac





Love? Just a figure of speech. His ex-wife Jennifer still signed her emails that way when she reported on Rosie. It was an English thing.

He considered leaving the note on Lou’s pillow, but folded it and left it on the table instead. He’d already made one grand romantic gesture of climbing the ivy into her room; two in one night might be setting a precedent he’d find himself unable to fulfill.

With great caution, he sat on the bed and leaned to sniff her sleepy, sweet smell. He didn’t think he’d ever met a woman he quite liked smelling as much as this one. Sometimes he felt like a dog sniffing at her, wanting to bury his face in her warm, fragrant spots. He kissed her cheek, the only part of her face visible beneath the bedclothes.

She rolled toward him, the sheet falling away, and smiled. “Julian,” she murmured, and her eyes flew open, her expression fading to disappointment when she saw him.

Shit, this wasn’t what he wanted to hear or see. What had happened?

Neither of them said anything for a long, awkward moment and he had the sensation of something precious slipping away, leaving him empty and angry.

She had her thinking expression on again. This wasn’t good.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” she said finally.

“You’ve been thinking in your sleep,” he said, trying to make a joke of it.

“The sex is great but what I feel—what I could feel—for you scares me. I think we should back off.” She lay her hand on his arm. “You’ve been terrific. So generous.”

“So terrific and generous I’ve scared you off?”

She looked away. “Maybe. You’ve really helped me put things in perspective.”

She patted his arm and looked at him with such sweetness and reason he wanted to— Well, he wasn’t sure what he wanted. Stomp out in a masculine rage, cry, tell her he wasn’t that crazy about her, anyway… Not true and she would know it. Instead, he said, “Glad to have been of service.”

“Don’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t do this, Mac.”

He got off the bed fast. “Sorry I can’t compete with a dead guy.”

He didn’t want to look at her face and he wanted to get out before she saw his.