Page 146 of A Much Maligned Miss

Caroline laughed and changed direction. “I would never treat a beast in my stables in such a fashion,” she tutted, walking over to him and catching hold of his hand, which he used to tug her toward him.

Instead of smiling at her playful words, he frowned. “What is it?” Caroline asked, climbing into the bed, and pulling his head into her lap. “What did I say? I was merely extending your equestrian metaphor,” she said, brushing the hair out of his face.

“Yes, I know, but I did not like the idea I might be part of a stable.”

She gazed down at him. “I don’t think I—?”

“One of many horses,” he explained, avoiding her eye.

“Oh! I did not mean to infer that. You would, of course, be my one and only prized stallion.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Your one and only,” he echoed lightly, when she had fully expected him to fasten on the “stallion” epithet.

“My one and only,” she confirmed. He tipped his head up and she read his invitation quite clearly, leaning down to place a firm kiss upon his mouth. She felt suddenly touched that he should feel insecure about such a ridiculous thing. “Silly boy,” she murmured, caressing his face. “Why would I want for another, when I have you?”

She kissed him again, lingeringly this time, and he reached up to catch the back of her neck, holding her firmly in place. They kissed slowly and sweetly for a good while, Caroline relaxing against him and making happy noises in her throat.

“Fuck,” he whispered against her lips. “You know how it affects me when you do that.”

“When I do what?” she asked lightly, fondling his ears.

“You know full well.”

She laughed. “You may as well admit you liked being fussed and fawned on.”

“I do not!” He sounded so indignant, she had to muffle her laughter.

“Yes, you do. I don’t think you had enough maiden aunts to coo over you as a baby.”

“God, Caroline, that sounds revolting! Are you trying to put me off?”

“Does it? But you like it so much when I treat you like a good boy,” she pointed out, peppering noisy kisses over his brow.

“I don’t want to be fawned on like a…like a pet pug!” he objected, but she noticed he turned in to her attentions rather than away from them.

“I think you do,” she teased. “I think that is your deepest, darkest, secret desire, Gervaise.”

He was quiet for a couple of heartbeats. “How utterly ridiculous,” he objected strenuously. A bit too strenuously considering he was lying there so passively in her embrace.

“I think you like being my good boy,” she whispered. “I think you like it just as much when I scold you for being bad.” He looked rather stunned, and Caroline gentled her hand as she ran it through his hair.

He cleared his throat. “Caroline, I do not know how it is that you keep exposing things from the depths of my soul, so deep that even I am unaware of them, but you do.

“You mean like your penchant for stern instructresses?”

“Yes,” he agreed fervently.

She laughed. “I don’t know why you are so shocked by it. It is just the other side of the same coin after all.” He settled more comfortably against her, and she rubbed his chest in circles the way he liked it.

Since he had given up smoking, Gervaise was a good deal more demanding post-coitally, but Caroline found she did not mind it. “I think you need to be a little less acerbic in your dealings with the vicar,” she said tentatively. “Reverend Ryland looked like he was going to burst into tears when you joined us in the drawing room after dinner.”

He gave a murmur of disagreement. “I have already forgiven the Tavistocks and the Pebmarshes at your insistence,” he pointed out. “Therefore, you must allow me to mete out punishment to the Rylands for at least another twelve months.”

“Twelve months?” she echoed. “It has already been a full year since Mama died.”

“It has,” he agreed. “But need I remind you they made your life a misery for twenty-six years, Caroline? Reverend Ryland should be grateful I do not demand Jeremy replace him with our own Canon Petrie, who is superior in every way.”

“Canon Petrie is retired and very happy living in his nephew’s household,” she reminded him. “They even let him adopt a cat, a very fat ginger one that dozes with him in his favorite armchair.”