Page 117 of A Foolish Flirtation

As it was Jeremy’s vigorous thrusts were shoving her forward with a distinct lack of ceremony. She was a little shocked by such rough treatment, but it was hard to protest when all she could do was moan and sink by degrees onto her elbows, pushing the bacon and tomatoes further and further across the surface.

“What would the servants think, Ballentine, if they walked in on us now, I wonder?” Jeremy’s words, a harsh rasp, penetrated her pleasurable haze, until she gasped with horror at the very idea, and, strangely, reached her crisis point in that same instant, shattering apart and collapsing with a soft wail into a tray of breakfast rolls.

Jeremy slammed into her hard one last time, and then planted deep, shuddering and groaning. He followed her down, breathing hard against the back of her neck. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Ballentine,” he wheezed at last. “Just give me a minute and I’ll set us to rights.”

Emmie lay there feeling stupefied. At least she’d avoided the eggs.

27

Emmie still felt somewhat dazed as she met with Mr. Penrose in her sitting room an hour later. At first, in the aftermath of their vigorous coupling, she had been enveloped in a euphoric haze. Jeremy had helped her upright, grabbed a napkin to brush the flour from the bread rolls off her chest, and been very tender as he had examined her elbows and knees and helped her to her feet, straightening the table into some semblance of order.

Then, as the fog had receded, she realized he had apologized again. That had given her a nasty jolt. Looking shamefaced, he said something about his ardor no doubt being due to an excess of self-restraint the previous night and given an awkward laugh. Then he had kissed her hand but did not meet her eye as he had escorted her to her own bathroom, as though she was an invalid instead of a perfectly healthy woman and willing participant!

Admittedly, she had been a little sticky and in need of a wash, but he had acted like he had done her some grievous wrong! Emmie’s crazy high spirits had plummeted back to earth as she shut the bathroom door on him and started unbuttoned her dressing robe.

As she went through her ablutions, she could not avoid concluding that she must have been at fault somehow for her bathing initiative. She must have put him under too much pressure with all that bossing around she had done, and now he felt guilty for what they had done this morning. She supposed it made some sort of sense.

That scenario she had created had been the problem. It had made him solely focused on her pleasure and not his own. That was why he had been so enthusiastic this morning, presumably. Was she not supposed to have enjoyed it? Suddenly, she felt horribly embarrassed by her own fervent response.

Presumably Viscountess Faris should have smacked his hands away and begged him to remember her sense of decorum instead of letting him paw and pet her like that at the breakfast table, let alone rut her over it afterward. Now she just felt horribly unsure of herself all over again.

Still thinking of it later that morning, she sighed, and Mr. Penrose looked up from his sketchbook in perturbation.

“It’s not the sketches,” she assured him hastily. “I just have a slight headache this morning.”

“Perhaps we should postpone our meeting, Lady Faris?” he suggested politely.

“No, no, I will be fine presently.” She forced herself to concentrate on the drawing in front of her, instead of Jeremy’s confusing conduct. This time, it was a sketch of her transformed bedroom. “Will it not be a great undertaking to add all these fake columns to the room?” she asked slowly.

“Not at all,” Mr. Penrose replied, looking sure of himself. “They will hardly present a challenge as they will not need to withstand the elements, being indoors.”

“And this marble effect on the walls? How will it be achieved?”

“Mere paint and lacquer,” he explained. “The technique is fiddly, but the final effect is well worth it, and I know a splendid tradesman I can book to achieve it.”

“And this large scallop shell above the bed…?”

“A wall painting. I will paint that myself,” he added with mock modesty.

“I do like it,” Emmie said truthfully, for the room did look pretty in its tones of pink and cream. Mr. Penrose had added a good deal more detail since their last conversation. She could see that he had added the mirror with the frame decorated with cupids and a red velvet chaise longue.

A chaise longue. Emmie felt her heart thud painfully. Had this idea been a terrible mistake? Would having her room done out as Venus’s grotto mean that Jeremy would feel compelled to be scrupulously gentle and assiduous to her forevermore? She gulped. “Yes, it is looking very fine,” she said aloud.

Mr. Penrose preened. “Yes, I thought you would be pleased,” he said with his customary self-satisfaction. “I did as you asked and took the Venuses of Vance for my inspiration.” He frowned. “The only reference that I could not trace was the cupid mirror.”

“Oh, of course,” Emmie replied without thinking. “That painting is in Lord Faris’s bedroom so you won’t have seen that one, but I think it must be his favorite.”

Embarrassed comprehension seemed to dawn on Mr. Penrose’s face. “I see,” he mused and instantly struck a line through a full-size statue of Aphrodite he had placed in the center of the room.

“Why are you removing the statue?” Emmie asked in surprise.

“She seems suddenly superfluous,” he said shortly. “We will have attendant doves, and perhaps a statue of Eros instead. They are the companions of Venus, are they not?”

She watched him sketch in a pair of Grecian urns and fill them with roses. “The dressing table will still need to be a focus of the room,” she reminded him, thinking of Jeremy’s preoccupation with her being sat at it.

“This is your dressing table here,” he said, gesturing to a vaguely penciled shape.

“I see.” She nodded, unable to think of a reason to completely change their plans at this late stage. No doubt Mr. Penrose had found her a far more troublesome client than the previous viscountess, she thought glumly. She could not say she blamed him at this point.