The Decline and Fall of Rowland Graves Read online

  “Your sister certainly seemed to know something!” he said, gesturing wildly in the dark.

  “I don’t know how she could have found out, Love!” Elinor pled, ignoring the nimbus of danger rolling off of him to stand close, her dainty hands coming to the lapels of his coat.

  He could smell her light perfume, feel her wrists nearly trembling against him, and was overcome with shame. It was time to get himself under control. Rowland couldn’t hiss and spew venom this way in the presence of his little dove; she didn’t deserve it.

  “I’m sorry, Angel,” he schooled his voice into a semblance of composure and circled her shoulders with his arms, pulling her close. “It isn’t your fault. I’m only upset at what has happened, not at you.”

  His apologies were spoken low against the silken cloud of her hair, and his hands stroked at the tresses, at her neck and shoulders. The very presence of Elinor Barlow was a soothing bastion to which he could cling, could maintain his sanity at a time like this. She was a balm to keep his jagged edges smooth. He’d come to need her so very badly.

  “I … I simply think I hate her sometimes, Rowland!” She sniffled against his collar. “I know! I know I should never say something so wicked, but … but it seems she wants me to be unhappy! She must have said something to Father! Why, Love? Why has this happened to us?”

  Her sobbing was spiralling out of control now, and it appeared to be his turn to calm her. It wouldn’t do for someone to discover them alone together this way, and that was just what would happen if they weren’t quiet.

  “Shh, Elinor. Please.” He lowered his voice, hoping to prompt her to do the same, and drew partway out of their embrace to look down into her eyes. They gleamed wetly in the moonlight from the window. “We’ll figure out a way, Dove.” He attempted to reassure her—reassure them both, truth be told—and tilted his face to brush his lips over her forehead at her hairline.

  “The wedding isn’t until next year.” He said the word with disgust now that it meant someone other than himself marrying Elinor. “Perhaps you can speak to your father? Convince him you don’t wish to marry Dunning?”

  She looked up at him then, as though the idea had never occurred to her.

  “Yes. Yes, of course I will!” He watched a whisper of a smile return to her face in the dim light. “Father is reasonable, Rowland. He must listen to me! He would never want me to be unhappy.”

  Watching hope fill her up again, hidden away as they were in this quiet, remote corner of the house, made something stir within him, as well. He lowered his face and brought his mouth against hers. The tiny whimper of expectation he received in response nearly buckled his knees.

  Yes, how could anyone ever want you to be unhappy?

  She parted for him, offering up the slightest tease of her tongue, just as she knew he liked to be baited into pursuit. He chased her back into her own mouth, tasting and nipping.

  Perfect. So Perfect.

  In the midst of perfection, though, some dark thing twitched and coiled at the base of his spine. His pull at her mouth became more insistent.

  We’d better rectify this situation, hadn’t we, Graves? We’d bloody well better or else …

  A low growl rumbled up from somewhere deep in his throat and he realised he was backing her towards a low dresser that stood against the wall between two windows. When her backside came against its edge, the increased demands of his kisses muffled her startled gasp.

  “Rowland …” Her voice had a disoriented edge as she pulled away. It was as might be expected; he couldn’t remember ever giving into his urges with her this way.

  “I can’t stand it, Love,” he said, taking her face in both his hands.

  “What’s that?” She looked up at him with wide eyes in the darkness, voice and body tight. “What can’t you stand?”

  “Dunning! The thought of him even touching you!” He leaned in to wrest a further series of bruising kisses from her.

  She was breathless when they broke it off. His hands were on either side of her on the dresser now and she bent back at the waist to catch her breath.

  “Oh, Rowland! I would never—”

  “If your father marries you off to him you’ll have to!” It was becoming more and more difficult for him to keep his voice down.

  “Please! I will never!” Her insistence begged him to believe. “I only belong to you, my love!”

  Rowland inhaled through his nose at those words, teeth clenching together under the tightening of his jaw. His hands came together at her waist and caught her up.

  “Yes, Elinor,” he said, with a low crackling of threat in his tone for anyone who dared take his angel from him. He hoisted her up to sit on the edge of the dresser. “You do belong to me.”

  The ferocity of his next kiss, his handling, startled a clipped moan out of her. Rowland devoured it along with every other beautiful little whimper and gasp that followed.

  Her hands were at his shoulders to steady herself, lest she fall back against the wall under his forceful claims. His mouth was on the moving column of her throat, the rising flesh of her breast at her neckline. She accepted him though, rough hands and all. Elinor always accepted him, any way that he came to her. Her knees were pressing in at his hips, and he snarled with some discomfiting new sense of possession.

  She belongs to me. Me!

  He clawed at skirts and petticoats, gathering endless fabric over her knees. He had to be inside her. To feel her. To know.

  She was soaked when he found her with his fingers, and she pulled her lower lip between her teeth to hold back her sounds of want at his touch. His free hand was tugging at his breeches and shirt, shifting them out of the way so his aching, steel-hard need could pour out heat between them. They needed to be joined together. Now.

  Ask her, Rowland. You always ask first.

  It was all he could do to rasp out the words as he traced his fingers through the moisture between her thighs.

  “Is this what you want, Elinor?”

  “Yes, Love,” she said, “but wait.”

  “Mmm?” He couldn’t even form proper words.

  Wait for what?

  “Let me,” she said, and he felt her soft fingers circling his base in the dark, guiding him.

  His Elinor brought him to her own wet entrance and he nearly came unravelled as she nudged the blunt tip where it was meant to go before releasing her hand. She leaned back a fraction of a degree, inviting him to bring them the rest of the way. Rowland didn’t need her to ask him twice.

  With a slick push he was home, her walls clasping at him in affirmation. He could not go slow, not be gentle on this maddening night. Immediately he was thrusting, ploughing into her. She drew her knees apart wider, telling him with her body that his fierce claims could be acted out this evening without regret.

  She accepts the basest side of you, Rowland. You must do everything in your power not to lose her.

  His hand was at the back of her neck, his forehead pressed against hers as his hips and thighs worked, delivering his cock over and over into her delicious, clutching heat. He felt her bottom scooting closer to the edge of the dresser, hips tilting, seeking.

  Greedy man. Let her enjoy this, too.

  He brought his thumb between them, circling the pad amongst the slippery folds just above where he was moving, splitting her in two. His angel felt so impossibly perfect around him, and each time his thumb shifted back and forth across that firm little kernel of pleasure, he felt her grasp at him from inside.

  Forcing himself to slow his movements, Rowland concentrated his efforts now on increasing the frequency of her helpless, delicate spasms, delighting in the way they rippled over his flesh.

  Her tightly restrained noises of pleasure were increasing in pitch and desperation, and it was all he could do to keep his motions deliberate and not pound into her like a madman.

  Then: she was silent. Her body clutched at him in a pronounced series of fluttering contractions. Once. Twice. A third ti
me, and she held him, clenched from within, her head falling back in the darkness, rolled under by her own release.

  He leaned in to kiss and lap at her collar bone, tasting the salty thin sheen of sweat there, the movement of his hips taking up its mission in earnest once again.

  “Tell me,” he said, gripping her at the hips now for leverage.

  He heard her swallow, wetting her throat again.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me you belong to me.” The desperate need to hear it when the fact was already so plain was disturbing.

  Her hips were sliding further off the dresser.

  “No,” she said, her voice a low tone he couldn’t remember hearing before tonight.

  Her legs were coming down now, feet reaching for the floor, and he felt himself dislodged.

  “Elinor, what—”

  “I don’t want to tell you, Rowland,” she said, the rasp of desire unmistakable now. His angel had never spoken to him this way. “I want to show you.”

  She pushed him back with her palms and, baffled, he stepped away, erection standing straight out from his body, demanding to know what had just happened.

  “I don’t understand, Love,” he said with a shake of his head and a small, meaningless gesture of hands.

  What is she on about?

  “I want to show you that you’re the only man I will ever belong to,” she said, stepping towards him. “That every part of my body and spirit is yours, the way it will be for no other.”

  He could see her flushed skin and parted lips in the cool light of the moon, and wanted to pull her into a fast embrace at such words, though he still didn’t understand.

  Elinor gave him no time to do so, however, and sank to her knees in a broad puddle of fabric. Before more questions had time to form on his lips, one of her pale hands was gripping his still eager cock and he watched her lean close.

  The light in the room was barely enough for a body to move about by, but he knew her blue eyes were intent on his face from the way her neck was tilted up. There were light, feminine strokes along hot, hard flesh and he balled his hands into fists at his sides, his certainty still tumbling end over end at this bizarre turn of events.

  “Every part of my body, Rowland …”

  She dipped her head and he felt …

  Rowland gasped.

  He felt a warm, soft tongue being drawn along the underside of his cock.

  “… even the lips I say my prayers with.”

  She took him into her mouth, the hot, sweet luxury a contrast to the cool air of the room. He nearly collapsed at the sensation.

  And those words. Such sinful words from his perfect angel. They were enough to make a man spill everything he had right on the spot. He fought for control.

  Elinor, his innocent dove, was suckling at him now, pulling, doing maddening things with her tongue and teeth.

  From where had this come? He had never asked her to indulge him in such an act. Wouldn’t have been able to even speak of a thing like this in front of her. Certainly she let him taste her, from time to time, but this … This was different. She …

  She was easing her lips further and further down the length of his shaft. He wished there was more light, couldn’t imagine what her lovely face must look like, jaw parted, working. Rowland was straining, losing his grip. He’d need to pull away soon, before he lost himself.

  A hand was tugging, kneading at the loose skin of his scrotum now. The tip of her nose came to just brush against his body, and he felt her palate and the back of her throat closing in around him. Subtle shifts of her tongue while all else was still were sending him into lightning-quick flashes of freefall he couldn’t control.

  No, Rowland. Don’t do that to her.

  He jerked his hips back.

  “Elinor, wait! No! You don’t want—”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Her hands were at his hips and, in a single swift move, had him buried to the hilt down her lovely throat.

  This is some mad dream! I’ll wake in the morning and this entire dinner will have never happened!

  She was moving now, bobbing, drawing him in with an eager suction, hands stroking over him in time with the efforts of her mouth. Then came her moans. Feminine, muffled mewling over the impossibly hard girth stretching her lips apart.

  Every part of my body, Rowland …

  You’re the only man I will ever belong to.

  He bit back a roar as white light exploded behind his eyelids. His balls rose up, tightened. The pulsing began and he couldn’t stop it.

  Every bit of love, frustration, fear, and joy spilled in hot waves down the back of her throat, and she drew from the tap, accepting, swallowing, devouring. Elinor tugged at him still, her small, slick fist milking him for every drop, and he shuddered under her touch until he had to pull away, to stop her when it became too much.

  Rowland staggered backwards to the small bed in the room, knees giving out just as he sat back. His angel was on her feet, coming to him, standing between his knees, kissing him before he had a chance to catch his breath.

  “I love you, Rowland,” she said when they settled, her hands at his shoulders.

  “And I love you.”

  The words they said were the same as they’d been for months now, affirmations of love. But the rest?

  What world was this? That his quiet little dove could give him such a gift? If this could happen, what else?

  Perhaps this was a world now where inconvenient engagements could be broken off, wriggled out of with enough finesse.

  Yes.

  He and Elinor would be together. He was sure of it.

  * * * *

  “But Mrs Barlow, that’s terrible! Let us go to my grandfather at once! Something must be done!”

  “I cannot go to him!” Judith grasped the fingers of Margaret Ellery even tighter, and allowed her voice to crack just enough. “Don’t you see, Mrs Ellery? That’s why I’ve come to you. I cannot have such a shameful thing be known about me, about my sister. What it would do to Father to hear it! Or my sister’s fiancé?”

  Her voice was a whispered hiss that matched the light breeze along the garden’s tall yew hedges, but the chill in the air didn’t cool the few hot tears rolling down her cheeks. Thank Heaven this was a secluded area.

  “But what can I do?” the young woman asked, shaking her pretty amber ringlets in confusion.

  Look at her. Can’t be more than a day over eighteen. Easy enough to steer in the right direction.

  “Go to your grandfather,” Judith said, “Tell him what I’ve told you, only let him know that, for the sake of a family’s reputation, the women involved don’t wish to have their names mentioned.”

  Young Mrs Ellery drew her hands towards herself, shoulders slumping, eyes taking a particular interest in a bit of lace on her apron, a look of scepticism furrowing her otherwise smooth brow.

  “Please,” Judith continued, wondering to herself whether actual hand-wringing might be too much. “If you can only convince him to write a letter.”

  “A letter to whom?”

  “To the Fellows. At Oxford. This can’t be allowed to continue, and perhaps if word is sent from someone they respect, like your grandfather, they can put a stop to it before it goes any further. Before any other women are … are …” She punctuated her plea with a few more well-placed tears for full effect, refusing to repeat the scandalous words she’d already planted in Margaret Ellery’s ear.

  “Oh yes, of course!” the young woman said, bravery welling up as she pulled Judith in for what she likely thought of as a comforting embrace. “Why of course he can send a letter. Quite right, Mrs Barlow. I’ll tell him this evening, I promise—after dinner—and see that the letter is sent off myself. We’ll set things right, you’ll see. He’ll never be in a position to do it again.”

  Oh, I suspect that will indeed be the case, Mrs Ellery.

  After much clasping of hands and further sniffling reassurances, Judith was able
to shed herself of the earnest Margaret Ellery and make her way back through the manicured garden. The carriage stood waiting for her in front of the house, just where she left it.

  Her eyes were dry by then, and her cheeks cooled. David, the coachman, sat up straighter at her approach before hopping down from his seat to open the carriage door. Judith had the presence of mind to favour him with a sideways smile and a wink entirely too warm to be given by a respectable woman to one of her household’s servants. The young man coloured and shut the door behind her, before climbing back into place to take up the reins again. She smirked.

  Entirely too useful, that one.

  Her maid, Lucy, who she’d insisted wait for her in the carriage while she’d taken care of the whole business with the young Mrs Ellery, was leaning against the far interior wall, eyes closed, lips parted ungracefully. Judith decided to let her sleep, preferring quiet for the ride home.

  As the wheels jounced her over the surface of the road, she rotated the small emerald ring she always wore on the middle finger of her right hand in that way she always did when her thoughts blotted out all else.

  Her sister was far too innocent to be paddling around in the waters of intrigue. Not if she thought she’d be able to hide her splashings from Judith. When Graves had stormed out of the dining room after dessert that evening, it was completely obvious where Elinor was headed when she excused herself only moments later. Obvious to Judith, at least.

  She hadn’t found them in time to catch the pair in the act again, but after a methodical opening of door after door, she’d discovered everything she needed to know in the darkened guest room at the South end of the hall. The scent on the close air in the room alone was enough to make clear what had to have taken place within its walls.

  So, she’d thought, as she’d fingered the rumpled linens at the edge of the bed that night, an engagement to another man isn’t enough incentive for you to leave off, is it Rowland Graves?