A Common Scandal Read online

  “I’m about to spend my life intimately acquainted with it. I’d like to refer to it as something other than ‘that bit there.’”

  He smirked, a knowing slanted curl of his lips. Amelia felt his smirk in her cheeks and her toes and everyplace in between. Nate’s hand wrapped around hers, tightening her grip on him, and stroked it with her. “I call it my cock.”

  She tried the word out, stroking again, firmly. “Cock.” Just saying it made her feel warm and liquid with desire.

  Her eyes were lowered, watching their hands working him in tandem. “It’s not a proper word,” he muttered. “No nice girl would say it.”

  “Lucky for you I’m no nice girl.” Amelia squeezed again, loving that she could make him come undone this way. She’d never tire of him, not ever.

  “Lucky for me, indeed,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “Amelia...” The low, animal sound of her name on his lips made something hot pool low in her stomach. Her breasts, her thighs, every inch of her seemed to be drawing in, tense and ready for his touch.

  “Perhaps you should help me with my skirts now.”

  “I do love a woman who knows what she wants.”

  “You,” she said. “I want you. I always shall.”

  Tenderness momentarily replaced the lust in his eyes. He helped her drag her skirts and petticoats free as she shifted onto her knees. When she settled onto his lap again, his cock—what a glorious word—nestled right between her thighs, against her sex. She sighed and shifted against him. He slipped into the slick warmth of her, teasing her entrance but not quite there yet.

  Suddenly Nate stilled, reaching up to capture her face in his hands. “Amelia, our first time together, while sublimely pleasurable, skipped over quite a few important steps, and I don’t want this to go by before I’ve had a chance to do it right.”

  “Oh?” she panted. He was nearly inside of her and she ached with wanting him, but he seemed set on talking. “We seemed to accomplish quite a bit, but you’re the expert. You’ll have to tell me what we left out.”

  He nudged her chin up until her eyes met his, sea-colored and so brimming with emotion that her voice caught in her throat.

  “I never told you I love you.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I believe I ordered you to marry me, rather than asking you properly.”

  “Well...”

  “I love you.” He leaned in and kissed her lips, softly and gently, drawing back enough to see her eyes. “Will you marry me?”

  Nate was shockingly efficient at drawing her emotions out of her. Here she was, made too tearful to speak by his words, by the earnest, gentle expression in his eyes. She nodded instead, and made some vague sound of assent. It might have been enough for him, except years of Genevieve’s training chose that moment to assert themselves. When accepting a proposal of marriage, a young lady should make a firm and enthusiastic reply, so the gentleman is left in no doubt of her wishes. She was fairly certain when accepting a proposal of marriage, a young lady ought not to be straddling the gentleman in a carriage. She was also fairly certain her skirts should not be rucked up around her thighs, with the gentleman’s cock poised to enter her. But it was the spirit of the thing that mattered, not the niggling details.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I will,” she said firmly and enthusiastically, before pulling him in and kissing him. As his tongue pushed into her mouth, he shifted his hips up and he slid into her, forcing a moan from her that he swallowed down. “And I love you, too.” He kissed her again, sweet and lingering, even as their bodies were locked together so intimately.

  For a moment, she held still, uncertain what to do, how to move. The first time, she’d been underneath him and he did all the work.

  “I’m not sure how...”

  Nate’s hands closed over her hips, dragging her up his length and pulling her back down. “Like that. And let the carriage help.”

  “Oh...” She moved over him experimentally a few times before finding the way of it. And the rocking of the carriage most definitely helped. Every sway and bump seemed to vibrate along her sensitive flesh, a sensual counterpoint to Nate’s movements under her. She wove her fingers behind his neck, bracing herself against him as her body began to spiral tighter, quite beyond her control.

  “Amelia,” Nate whispered. “You feel amazing. It’s about to take you, isn’t it?”

  She whimpered, grinding herself against him. “Yes, nearly.”

  He slipped a hand between them, touching her right above where they were joined. She gasped. “There?”

  “God, yes, just there.”

  “You’ll have to be quiet, Amelia,” he said with a grin. “Or else the coachman will hear you. Can you be quiet?”

  “Please...”

  “Remember, darling, quiet.” He pressed harder, as the carriage hit a bump, and she fractured around him. She wasn’t quiet, not at all, but Nate kissed her as she cried out, muffling the sounds she made.

  When she fell limply against him, he gripped the back of her neck and buried his face in her shoulder as he thrust up into her. His own growl of pleasure was lost in the fabric of her sleeve.

  They swayed against each other for several long moments. “Well,” Amelia finally murmured. “That was the most enjoyable carriage ride I’ve ever taken.” She eased up enough to separate from him. He reached between them to tuck himself back into his trousers. When she settled back down on his lap, all the improper bits were put away. For now. He handed her his handkerchief, that she might put herself to rights.

  “We have to get married right away.” Nate sighed, dropping his head back to look at her. “Or else I’m liable to take you on the parlor floor in the middle of tea, or something equally scandalous.”

  She smiled, playing with the hair behind his ear. “I wouldn’t stop you, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s the problem.”

  “You should know by now, Nate, I’m a walking scandal. I always will be.”

  “And God, do I love you for it.”

  She ran a finger along his jaw and began to toy with his collar. “What do you say to a long walk through the park?”

  “You want to take a walk? Now? It’s starting to rain.”

  “There’s a lovely path along the Serpentine.”

  “The Serpentine.”

  “And a clump of bushes that are nearly impenetrable. Especially in the rain.”

  “Impenetrable.”

  “Nearly. Unless you know the way to get behind them.”

  “And I take it you do?”

  She raised her eyes to his and nodded, biting her lip. Nate’s eyes darkened with lust. “You’ll get wet.”

  “Do you promise?”

  He chuckled. “What will we tell your parents when we turn up back home looking like bedraggled wanderers?”

  “Tell them I dragged you into some dreadful adventure.”

  “They’d believe that, most certainly.”

  She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “What do you say, Nate? Shall we go find another adventure?”

  Nate reached up to bang on the roof of the carriage. “Stop here. Miss Wheeler prefers to walk the rest of the way home.”

  They were laughing, hand in hand, as they tumbled out of the carriage and disappeared into the park.

  Epilogue

  Six months later—The Arabian Sea, off the coast of India.

  The ocean breeze was warm and damp, making the stray wisps of Amelia’s hair curl against her face. She swiped them away before shielding her eyes and gazing eastward toward the horizon. The deck of the Angelica was abuzz with activity as the sailors prepared for their arrival in port.

  “How much longer until we get there?”

  Nate looked up from his chart and squint
ed against the sun. “By tomorrow morning, unless the weather changes unexpectedly.”

  “I’m so excited. India. I plan to buy so much cloth, there won’t be room in the hold for your cargo.”

  “I’ll leave it to you to explain that to Julia.”

  “Oh, no, I’d never cross that woman in a matter of business.”

  Nate chuckled as he slid an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I can scarcely believe it. You’ve finally met someone who intimidates you.”

  “When it comes to Julia and profits, I confess I’ve met my match.”

  Julia had them on a tight schedule. A week in Bombay, three days to unload and reload cargo and four more for Nate to conduct meetings with local merchants. Then they were headed around the tip of India and up the coast to Visakhapatnam. Amelia might not be able to pronounce it yet, but she couldn’t wait to visit it. After that, it was back to sea as they sailed for Kuala Lumpur. They’d stay there long enough to refill their stores and do any necessary repairs to the ship before starting for home, with a brief stop off at Sri Lanka on the way.

  As much as she loved traveling, she’d be glad to get back to London to see Mother. Beatrice had lived to see Amelia’s wedding, and then she’d surprised everyone and lived on. Her doctor said her weakened heart would never recover, but he couldn’t say with any certainty when it would give out. She carried on, weak and fragile, but happy. And now that her sister was firmly back in her life, Amelia had no reservations about leaving for extended periods of time. Beatrice had her loving husband and her affectionate sister, who came to sit with her nearly every day. She was in good hands while Amelia accompanied her husband on his business trips abroad.

  Julia’s role in their newly merged shipping empire was still a secret, but the hiding was soon to come to an end. They expected to pick up several more lucrative clients on this trip and once news of the business got out, there would be no denying the success of their partnership or Julia’s abilities, especially not with Nate there to vouch for them. Lord Hyde was still uneasy at the prospect of his daughter becoming gossiped about not for who she was marrying but for the fortune she’d earned, but Julia was tired of living in the shadows. She was prepared to claim her role in the business, and—unbeknownst to Lord Hyde—she’d purchased a small town house for herself where she planned to set up an independent household. Lady Julia Harrow was about to give London Society a greater shock than Amelia Wheeler had ever done.

  Nate turned his attentions back to his navigational charts and Amelia turned her attentions to him. Her handsome husband was never as alluring as when he stood braced on deck, the wind in his hair, the sun warming his golden skin. She loved to watch him work on the ship. She’d loved it even more as they’d passed into tropical waters and the weather had grown hot, forcing him to shed his coat and roll up his shirtsleeves when he worked. Just the sight of those tanned, muscular forearms could weaken her knees.

  He wouldn’t always captain a ship. There was far too much work in the London offices, never mind the Portsmouth, Marseilles and Lisbon headquarters, to allow for it. But there would always be a need to meet with new clients in far-flung corners of the world, and since Julia wouldn’t step foot on one of their ships, those trips would always fall to Nate. Amelia didn’t mind in the least. On this, her first voyage, she’d already been to so many places and seen so many things. While another Season dragged along back in London, she had been prowling exotic foreign cities, seeing amazing sights, eating outlandish foods and generally having a marvelous time.

  There were more trips in the offing. Short ones to Oslo and Algiers, and longer voyages to New York and Buenos Aires. Amelia intended to be there at Nate’s side for all of them. When she thought back on her life a year ago, expecting to soon marry a dull man with a title and live out her existence making small talk in a London ballroom or ordering new draperies for some obscure country estate, she could hardly believe this was real. It was the life she’d dreamed of, first as a girl and then as a woman, the life she’d never thought to have. And it was made all the sweeter because the love of her life was at her side for all of it. Nate had been her partner in adventure as a child; it was really no wonder he’d become the partner in the adventure that was now her future.

  “There’s a glint in your eye that makes me uneasy,” Nate said, straightening from his charts. “What are you thinking of?”

  “Always expecting trouble from me.”

  “Usually getting it. But seriously, what is putting such a look on your face, Amelia?”

  She stepped into the shelter of his body and his arm came up around her. “I’m only thinking how very happy I am.”

  She tipped her face back to see him. He smiled, and those eyes—the eyes that matched the sea glass he’d had fashioned into the unusual wedding ring on her left hand—glowed with joy. “I like to hear that.”

  “Are you as happy as I am?”

  “Amelia, when a person gets everything they never even dared to hope for and then a great deal more, words like happiness begin to feel insufficient.”

  “We are the luckiest people alive, aren’t we?”

  Nate laughed. “Well, I like to think my years of struggle and hard work had something to do with it, too. Not just luck.”

  “Yes, yes, of course that. But I meant you and me. That we found each other again after all these years. Don’t you think it was a remarkable stroke of luck?”

  He curled a finger under her chin. “I’ve been drawn to you since we were children and I suspect I always will be, like true north on a compass. I would have found my way back to you one way or another.”

  “And you’ve always been my true home, Nate. The first person who loved me exactly as I was, even when I was a wild, untamed creature.”

  “A woman as glorious as you should never be tamed.”

  “You couldn’t, even if you wanted to.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You think I don’t know that? I’ve been adept at getting out of your way since we were children. Sometimes I think that’s why you married me. You’d have eaten any other man alive.”

  “Leave it to you to spoil a wonderfully romantic moment.”

  “You don’t like romantic moments.”

  She reached out to finger the open collar of his shirt. “Your romantic moments have grown on me a bit.”

  He flashed her a wide, white grin. “Have they?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She hummed, running a finger along his collarbone. “Along with some other parts of you.”

  He rested a hand on her hip, giving her a subtle but deliberate caress. “All your parts have grown on me.”

  “Now look who’s the wild one.”

  “I’ve never claimed otherwise.”

  She moved closer, sliding her arms around his waist, pressing her body along the length of his. “Good, because I like you when you’re wild. A little wildness makes life worthwhile.”

  “Well, then, you’ve got a worthy life ahead of you with me at your side.”

  Nothing had ever been truer. With Nate at her side, her life was so very worthy—full of passion, adventure, friendship and this deep, abiding love. She leaned up to press a kiss to his lips.

  “Indeed, I do.”

  * * ***

  Look for the third book in

  THE GRANTHAM GIRLS series,

  A RELUCTANT BETROTHAL, in September 2016

  Acknowledgments

  From Ship’s Cook to Baronet: Sir William Reardon Smith’s Life in Shipping, 1856—1935 by David Jenkins was invaluable for insight into the British shipping industry in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

  Thanks to Alissa Davis, my editor at Carina Press, for helping to turn this series into something I’m very proud of.

  As always, many thanks to Anne Fo
rlines, who reads everything first. When she tells me I kept her up all night reading, I know I’ve done something right!

  When I started writing again several years ago, I wasn’t alone. I had a community of people supporting me. Some have gone on to become real-life friends, others remain a username on my computer. They all made a difference. Without them, I wouldn’t have accomplished any of this.

  To Anne, Sara, Rocky, Jenn, Lucy, Jennifer, Tracy, Eleanor, Sue, Anya, Rachel and Shannon, thanks for the cocktails, the viewing parties, the potlucks, the trivia nights and the searches for a restaurant in New York big enough to seat us all but quiet enough that we can hear ourselves talk.

  Other online friends have become writers, too, and have provided much-needed advice and support along the way. Thanks to Ellis Leigh, Brighton Walsh, Angel Lawson, TM Franklin, Alice Clayton, Leisa Raven, Kira Gold, Rebecca Grace Allen, Mary Whitney and so many others. We made quite an army!

  Also available from Amanda Weaver

  and Carina Press

  A Duchess in Name

  Coming in September 2016

  A Reluctant Betrothal

  About the Author

  I’ve loved romance since I read that very first Kathleen E. Woodiwiss novel at fifteen. After a long detour into a career as a costume designer in theater, I found my way back to romance, this time as a writer, where I get to combine my love of writing and my love of pretty, old dresses.

  Although I grew up in Florida, I transplanted to New York City many years ago. Now I call Brooklyn home, along with my husband, my daughter and two cats who drive me mad.

  Don’t miss news about the next Grantham Girl book! Sign up for my newsletter: eepurl.com/bvgkEv.

  You can also catch all the latest news at my website: www.amandaweavernovels.com/.

  I love connecting with readers. You can always find me on Twitter, live-tweeting award-show red carpets and talking about my cats: bit.ly/1Zkf6MF.