Page 31 of The Widower Without a Will
“I do not recall that it took you so long to declare your love to Lady Preston.”
But he had already been engaged to Lolly before he fell in love with her.Even if they had not anticipated an actual wedding, Martin had had every right to fall in love with Lolly.And besides, he had been young and his idea of love had been simple.
Having loved Lolly for twenty ensuing years, Martin could look back and see that what he had considered love before their wedding had merely been the seeds necessary to grow into deep, layered, intense love.
Perhaps—perhaps!—a few of those seeds were germinating between him and Mrs.Bellamy.But Martin knew better than to give them any light or water.
She was not for him.
“Lolly was Lolly,” Martin replied.“Come now, old man, surely we do not want to turn into boring gossips.What do you think I should do about the wheat?”
Maulvi frowned at him.“It is not gossip if it is your own heart at stake, sir.”
“My heart is safe and sound,” Martin promised.“Now, have we put enough food stores away that I need not worry about a bad crop?”
Maulvi let the topic drop.But when the Widow Croft came in to tell Martin he had visited long enough, the old man asked his common-law wife, “Is it possible to have two loves of your life, do you think, dear Rebecca?”
She grinned at him.“Sure I do, for I had Mr.Croft and now these last forty years, I’ve been blessed with you.”
Maulvi looked at Martin as if he had won an argument.But Martin’s concern was not that it was impossible for him to love again; he knew only that it couldn’t be with Mrs.Bellamy.
AsSeptemberbledintoOctober, evening came sooner and sooner—and Martha grew ever more eager to retire to her bedroom, where she could wait for Lord Preston’s knock.She made a ritual of changing into her dressing robe, brushing out her hair with a hundred strokes, and dabbing on perfume from her dwindling supply.She always had time to remove her stockings to greet him with bare feet on the hardwood floor, but he never kept her waiting long enough for her to light the candles beside her bed.
That they did together, sometime after their first kiss by the door and their four-footed steps to the mattress.
He loved her long hair.Some nights—usually after their first bout of lovemaking—he sat her up and ran his fingers through her hair as if they were the brush.“It’s terribly thin compared to what it used to be,” Martha said self-consciously on one of their first nights together, and Lord Preston objected, “It is beautiful as it is.So silver, like Rumpelstiltskin himself spun it!”
She had never thought of it that way, so she let him keep on admiring it.
He loved her hands, too.Almost always, he greeted her first by bringing one hand at a time to his lips and kissing each fingertip, his eyes locked on hers.It made her feel like a queen.Once, she curtsied—and he pulled her to her feet and thrust his tongue inside of her right there beside her closed bedroom door.
When the full moon came, they left the candles unlit and tied back the curtains so the room flooded with moonlight.Hidden in the shadows—knowing he couldn’t see her drooping breasts or sagging stomach—Martha climbed atop Lord Preston and rode him as if she were a twenty-year-old harlot.She even placed his thumb on her nub, earning herself the loudest orgasm of her life.
“You’ll wake the household,” he said as she spilled into his arms in the aftermath, but there was a smile in his voice instead of a scold.
“You have turned me into a lusty creature,” she replied, taking his earlobe in her lips to drive him a little crazy.
“Ihave turnedyouinto a lusty creature?My dear Mrs.Bellamy, you are the one who demanded I consider your point of view.”He emphasized this by pulling her closer against his body.
She wanted him to call her Martha, but she hadn’t yet found the courage to ask for it.It was such an intimate gesture, far more significant than finding mutual pleasure in each other’s bodies.
If he began calling her Martha, it suggested she expected they would always be in a position for him to be so familiar.And on the other hand, if she asked him to call her Martha and he declined, she would hardly be able to face him again.
She wished she had an in-between name, like he did with Preston, but she was not a woman blessed with honorary titles and Christian names that stretched on for days.Another reason she didn’t want to bring it up: perhaps the courtly ladies of London did not ask their lovers to use their first names, and Martha’s request would only serve to remind him of all the ways she did not fit into his world.
She pacified herself by kissing him deeply for a little while.With one hand fastening her hip in place against his groin, he threaded fingers through her hair.They were spent and tired, so this kissing would lead to nothing but the warm feeling that had her sleeping through the nights.
Eventually, however, even the kissing came to an end, and this time, Lord Preston withdrew, nestling his cheek on the pillow close—but not close enough—to her face.“The cold is going to come before we know it.”
She snaked her feet between his.“We can keep each other warm.”
“Yes.”Smiling, he pushed some errant hairs from her brow.His hand rested on her neck in a lazy, possessive curl.“But I am a little worried about your travels.Wouldn’t it be better to arrive at your niece’s before winter makes the roads dangerous?”
They had not mentioned such practical things in weeks.Martha rolled onto her back, looking to the canopy above her bed for the right reply.“Her name is Georgina.”
He withdrew his hand.“Do you think you should write to Georgina again?Perhaps your last note got lost in the mail.”
Though the possibility had occurred to Martha, too, she did not want to admit to the necessity of writing again.“It is not a simple thing to take in another family member.You may forget what it is like for us common folk, but our houses are not made of endless rooms and the hearths aren’t filled with coal.Taking me in might mean the family goes hungry this winter.”
