“Oh, what animal is that from?” Abigail asked with interest.
“I’m not sure.” The bone was only a fragment. He held it up before placing it in another small glass jar. “Possibly a small mammal such as a mouse or mole.”
“Huh,” Abigail said, and straightened. “Are there other clues to the badgers that we might find about?”
“Sometimes there is debris in the earth dug up by the badger.” Alistair picked up his specimen satchel and strolled closer to the burrow hole. A movement in the dark depths made him stop and catch Abigail’s shoulder. “Look.”
“A baby!” Abigail breathed.
“Where? Where?” Jamie whispered loudly.
“See there?” Alistair bent his head near the boy’s and pointed the direction.
“Coo!”
A small black and white striped face peered from the burrow with another jostling for position behind it. The badgers froze, staring for a moment, and then abruptly disappeared.
“Oh, that was nice.” Helen’s voice came from behind them. Alistair turned to find her smiling at him. “Better anyway than the scat, I think. What shall we search for now?”
And she looked at him as if it were the most natural thing in the world to spend an afternoon with him. To share her children with him.
He shuddered and abruptly turned in the direction of Castle Greaves. “Nothing. I have work to do.”
He strode away, not waiting for Helen or the children, aware that his movement looked like he was fleeing from them, when what he fled from was far more dangerous: hope for the future.
AFTER THE WAY Alistair had so rudely cut short their afternoon ramble, Helen had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t go to him again. Yet as the hour struck midnight, she found herself stealing through the dim castle halls toward his room. She knew she was playing with a particularly hot fire, knew she was risking both herself and her children, and yet she couldn’t seem to stay away from him. Maybe, some rash, perpetually hopeful part of her whispered, maybe he’ll open himself to you. Maybe he’ll grow to love you. Maybe he’ll want you for his wife.
Silly, childish whispers. She’d spent half her life with a man who’d never truly cared for her, and there was a practical, hard part of her that knew when this thing with Alistair ended, she would have to leave with her children.
But it wouldn’t be tonight.
Helen hesitated outside his door, but somehow he must’ve heard her, though she hadn’t knocked. He opened the door, grabbed her arm, and drew her inside.
“Good evening,” she began, but he swallowed the last word with his mouth. His lips were hot and so demanding they were nearly desperate. She forgot everything around her.
Then he raised his head and pulled her toward the bed. “I have something to show you.”
She blinked. “What is it?”
“Sit.” He didn’t wait for her to comply but turned to rummage in the drawer of his bedside table. “Ah. Here it is.”
He held up a small lemon, no bigger than the tip of his thumb.
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”
“I had Mrs. McCleod purchase it last time she bought groceries. I thought…” He cleared his throat. “Well, I thought you might wish to use a preventative.”
“A preventative for… oh.” She felt heat invade her cheeks. Actually, since she was newly over her courses, she’d figured that she wasn’t fertile at the present moment. But since this was now her third assignation with Alistair, she supposed she would’ve shortly have had to worry about preventing a pregnancy. It was oddly touching that he’d thought—and acted—on the worry first.
“I’ve never… um, that is…” She belatedly remembered that she was supposed to be a respectable widow. Presumably she’d never have heard of preventatives, if so. In fact, the duke sometimes had used specially made sheaths, although not usually.
Alistair’s cheekbones had tinged a dark red as well. “I can show you. Just lean back.”
She realized what he meant to do and wanted to object. It was one thing to let him see her when they were intimate, but while he was still dressed and standing, it was… unseemly.
“Helen,” he said quietly.
“Oh, all right.” She lowered herself to the bed and stared at the ceiling. She lay horizontally across the bed, her legs hanging over the side.
She felt him push up the skirts of her wrap and chemise, the slide of silk against her flesh a soft whisper in the quiet room. He bunched the fabric at her waist, and then his hands left her. She heard him rummage in the side table again and then she smelled the sharp scent of citrus. She craned her head up and saw him holding the halved lemon. His eyes met hers, and then he knelt on the carpet beside the bed. She drew in her breath. His warm hand touched her legs again, and she realized he was urging her thighs apart. She swallowed and parted her legs.
“More,” he rasped.
She closed her eyes. Oh, God, he was so close to her intimate parts. He’d be able to see everything. He’d be able to scent her. She bit her lip and parted her legs still farther.
“Again,” he whispered.
And she did, widening her legs until her thighs trembled. Until the flanges of her sex parted as well, exposing her utterly to his gaze. She felt his hand slowly stroke up her thigh.
“When I was fifteen,” he said conversationally, “I found a book of anatomy that belonged to my father. It was most instructive, especially in regards to the female form.”
She swallowed. His fingers were combing delicately through her hair.
“This”—he spread his broad palm over her mound—“is called the mons veneris. The Mound of Venus.”
His fingers trailed down the inside crease of her thigh, almost tickling. She shivered.
“These are the labia majora.” He stroked up the other side.
Then something cold and wet trickled over her inner folds. She jumped a little and smelled the lemon, sharper in the air.
She felt him press the curved, slick lemon rind to her flesh. He slid it slowly through her wet folds. “These are the labia minora. But here”—he circled the top of her cleft with the lemon and then, abruptly and shockingly, pressed down—“is a problem.”
“A problem?” she squeaked.
“Mmm.” His voice had deepened to a near growl. “This is the clitoris. It was discovered by Signor Gabriele Falloppio in 1561.”
Helen tried to contemplate his words while he continued to press the lemon so exquisitely against her. Their meaning kept slipping away.
Finally she found her voice. “You mean… you mean no one knew of its existence until 1561?”
“That is what Signor Falloppio thought, although it does seem a little, well, unlikely.” He emphasized unlikely by tapping sharply with the lemon. She gasped. “But there is a further problem besides that one. You see, another Italian anatomist, a man named Colombo, claimed to have made the discovery two years prior to Signor Falloppio.”
“I think I feel sorry for these gentlemen’s wives,” Helen muttered. She was hot, the constant pressure of the cool lemon making her anxious. Aroused. She wished he would just finish and come make love to her.
But Alistair was obviously in no hurry. “Rather you should feel sorry for the wives whose husbands do not believe in the existence of the clitoris.”
She squinted at the ceiling. “Are there men like that?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” he murmured. He finally took the lemon away from her sensitive flesh, but now she felt contrarily bereft. “Some doubt there’s such a thing at all.”
And he slid the halved lemon slowly into her.
She gasped at the sensation. The cold citrus, his warm fingers. He twisted inside her, did something, and then withdrew his fingers, leaving the lemon inside.
“There are those who doubt that a woman feels any sensation at all when stimulated here.” He drew his finger up through her folds again until he tapped once more on her clitoris. “I think they are mad, of course, but a scientist always tests his theories. Shall we see?”
See what? Helen thought, but had no time to say, because before she could speak, his mouth had replaced his finger, and she had no way of speaking after that.
All she could do was feel.
He licked carefully, delicately, through the flanges of her sex, as if he wanted to taste every drop of the spilled lemon juice. And when he reached the top, he licked around her bud, in tighter and tighter circles until she was clutching at the sheets on either side of her in trembling ecstasy and had raised her knees to press against him. He took her legs and casually slung them over his shoulders without lifting his mouth from her. Instead, he held her hips more firmly, keeping her from arching away from him. He narrowed his tongue and darted it into her channel, and when she thought she might simply disintegrate from the sensation, he moved up again. He took that sensitive bit of flesh between his lips and sucked on it, gently and persistently.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t escape his determined lovemaking. She was moaning and panting, unable to control the sounds coming from her mouth. She’d tangled her fingers in his long hair at some point, and that lifeline was the only thing holding her earthbound. She tugged anxiously, inarticulate with need, for him to stop or continue—she didn’t know which, and it did not matter.
Nothing was stopping him.
Until light exploded behind her closed eyelids, and pure, almost painful pleasure radiated out from the center he still ministered to. She gasped, feeling tears welling in her eyes.
Feeling as if she’d touched heaven.
He continued to lick softly as she quieted, and then he rose, standing by the bed, examining her almost dispassionately as he shed his clothes.
“I don’t believe I shall ever taste a lemon and not think of you,” he said conversationally. He stripped his breeches off, and his penis rose, monstrously erect before him. “Think of this.”
He prowled up her spent form, his arms on either side of her, his weight making the bed sink beneath her. He took off her wrap and chemise as easily as undressing a doll, and she only watched him, her lids lowered lazily. He shifted and tugged her until she lay on the bed properly, and then he spread her legs again, as wide as he could. He lowered himself onto her.
She flinched slightly at his touch, her flesh still sensitive.
He bent his head until his lips touched her ear. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I must be in you now. I can no more refrain than I can stop breathing. Gentle.” He said this last because the head of his penis had nudged her entrance. “Relax. Just … let me.” He pushed an inch or so inside.
She breathed rapidly. She’d never been this sensitized. She felt as if a feather’s touch would make her shudder. And what he was introducing inside of her body was no feather. He slid a little farther in. She was very wet, but she was also swollen, ripe with arousal. She turned her head and licked at his jaw.
He froze. “Don’t—”
This time she carefully tested her teeth against his skin. No matter how casual his words, he was on a razor’s edge—she could tell by how stiffly he held his body—and a wicked part of her wanted to send him over that edge. Wanted to drive him to the brink of insanity.
She scratched her nails down his back.
“Helen,” he rasped, “that isn’t wise.”
“But I don’t want to be wise,” she whispered back.
That did it. Whatever thread that had held him snapped. He lunged, driving his length into her softness, pummeling her, thrusting into her, panting and uncivilized.
She wrapped her arms about him and held on as he plunged and writhed above her, watching him, watching his strong, scarred face. Even when the edges of her vision blurred and pleasure began to sweep over her in hot beats, she still forced her eyes open, watching, watching.