licked into the valley between them, kissing, his lips soft on her skin. He loosened her stays and freed her breasts, cupping them, one in each hand. Her nipples were dark pink, tight. Innes’s eyes were dark with excitement. ‘I told you,’ he said with a wicked smile. ‘I told you.’
He dipped his head and took her nipple in his mouth and sucked. She jerked, the drag of sensation connecting directly with the growing tightness between her legs. He sucked again, slowly, and it was like the tightening of a cord. He kissed her. He traced the shape of her breast with his tongue and kissed his way over to the other one. Sucking. Dragging. She moaned. Sucking. Tension. She said his name in a voice she hardly recognised.
‘What?’ he asked, sounding just as ragged. ‘Tell me what you want.’
‘I can’t.’
More sucking. Nipping. She clutched at his shoulders, for her knees had begun to shake. ‘Tell me,’ Innes insisted.
She felt as if her insides were coiling. She was so hot, and the heat was concentrated between her legs. There had been echoes of this before. She had forgotten that, but it had been further away, not like this, not so close. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, frustration making her voice tense, her fingers digging deep into his shoulders. ‘Innes, I really don’t know.’
She thought he would stop. Or he would tell her what it was. That he would give her the words. That he would simply act. But he did none of those things. He smiled at her, his mouth curling in a way that made her insides tighten even more. ‘Oh, I think you do,’ he said.
His hand slid down, between her legs, and curled into her, through her gown. Instinctively she tilted up. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do.’
He caressed her, the flat of his palm against her skirts, her skirts and petticoats flattened, rubbing into the heat between her legs, and she realised that was what she wanted. ‘More,’ she said, helping him, arching her spine. ‘More. No, less—no skirts.’
She pulled up her gown, her petticoats, shamelessly, not caring now, and put his hand underneath. Innes groaned. She pulled his face to hers and kissed him desperately. He groaned again. ‘Innes,’ she said, ‘Innes I want— I think I want— Innes, for goodness’ sake.’
He cupped her again, between her legs, only this time there was only the thin linen of her pantaloons between her and his hand. She was throbbing. There was a hard knot of her throbbing against his hand. And then he began to stroke her and the knot tightened, and throbbed, contracted and she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it, and for a few seconds she felt as if she were hovering, quivering, and then it broke, pulsing, the most delightful pulsing, making her cry out in pleasure, over and over, until it slowed, stopped, and she clung to him, her hair falling down her shoulders, panting, utterly abandoned, and for the first time in her life, utterly spent.
‘I didn’t know,’ she said simply to Innes when she finally managed to let go her grip on him, surprised at her utter lack of embarrassment.
‘Then I’m honoured.’
‘Palpitations. That is how one woman described it to Madame Hera in a letter I read yesterday. “He does not give me the palpitations I can give myself.”’ Ainsley covered her mouth, her eyes wide. ‘Good grief, does that mean that she...?’
‘I reckon it does.’
She laughed. ‘It is a whole new world. I thought the woman was talking about some sort of nervous condition. It’s as well I’ve not replied yet.’
‘I look forward to reading your reply.’
He was looking distinctly uncomfortable as he tried to arrange his coat around the very obvious swelling in his trousers. Catching Ainsley’s eye, he blushed faintly. ‘It’s at times like this I can see the merit of a kilt.’
Were there rules that applied to this sort of situation? ‘Should I do something to—to relieve you?’ she blurted out, then flushed bright red. She sounded as if she was offering to bathe his wounds and not—not... She made a helpless gesture. ‘I don’t know the—the form.’
Innes burst out laughing. ‘This is not a sport! Oh, don’t go all prickly, I didn’t mean— Ainsley, I would love you to relieve me, but there is no need. Well, there is, but I will— It will go away if we talk of something else.’ He stroked her tangle of hair back from her face, his smile gentling. ‘Your pleasure was very much mine, I assure you.’
Was he merely being nice? Polite? She eyed him dubiously. She had always suspected there was something missing even in the early days of her marriage before John began to find her body so repellent, but she had always been under the apprehension that the main event, so to speak, was a man’s pleasure. Not that John had taken much pleasure latterly. A chore. Then a failure. Though he had not seemed to have any such problems alone. She shuddered, still mortified by that discovery.
‘Ainsley, what is it?’
She was about to shake her head, but then she paused. ‘Palpitations. The woman who wrote to Madame Hera, she gives them to herself because her husband does not—cannot. There is something wrong with her husband, then, is there not?’
‘Ignorance, or perhaps he’s just selfish. Is this another of Madame’s problems?’
‘It made me wonder,’ Ainsley said, ignoring this question. ‘Would a man—a husband— If he cannot, with his wife, I mean, but he can—you know, do that...’ She swallowed. She did know the words for this, they had been thrown in her face. ‘Bring pleasure to himself. If he can do that for himself, but he can’t with his wife, then there is something wrong with his wife, isn’t there?’
Innes looked at her strangely. ‘I thought only women wrote to you?’
Ainsley managed a noncommittal shrug.
‘Do you mean can’t or won’t?’
Were they the same thing? She forced herself to think back. No. John had tried, and it had shamed him. ‘Can’t,’ Ainsley said sadly.
He touched her cheek gently. ‘Poor wife. And poor husband. Though I’d say the problem was most definitely his.’
August 1840, three weeks later
Felicity threw herself down on the bed, careless of the creases it would put in the emerald-green gown she wore for the Rescinding ceremony. ‘So tell me, since this looks like the only opportunity I’ll have to get you to myself, how are you enjoying married life?’
Ainsley, still in the woollen wrapper she had donned after her bath, was perched on a stool in front of the dressing table. Her hair ought to be curled, but it would take for ever, and in the breeze that would no doubt be blowing outside, it would probably be straight again by the time they reached the church. ‘We’re not really married. I like it a lot better than my real marriage was.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here until yesterday. I’ve been so busy. I’ve barely had a chance to talk to your Mr Drummond.’
‘I’ve barely had a chance myself lately, there’s been so much to do to get this ceremony organised, and when Innes has not
