But it was apparently not the sale of the shop that astounded the other woman. ‘The Marquess of Cannock?’
‘Yes?’ drawled a deep voice as the shop door closed on a tinkle of bells. ‘You wanted me?’
‘Mr Dunton? You are the Marquess of Cannock?’
‘Dunton is a family name,’ Lucian said smoothly.
‘Good,’ Dot stated. ‘So long as you do right by her.’ She stomped off to the back room. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
They stood there alone and Sara watched Lucian’s gaze wander over the shop and its contents. Was he already wondering whether she could put this behind her, become the sort of Marchioness he thought he needed?
‘We’ll have tea, shall we? Then I must talk to Dot and then go and see if I can find Mrs Ingram, who might be interested in taking over the shop. I can always lease it if she doesn’t want to buy.’
‘I’ll take it,’ Dot said, coming through the curtains with a vast tea tray borne in front of her. ‘Have to rent it, mind, don’t have the sort of money to put down to buy it.’
‘You, Dot? But you’ve never taken any interest in the money side, or the orders.’ In fact, Sara was not certain just how literate the ex-dipper was beyond basic reading and writing.
‘Oh, not the bookkeeping and ordering. And not the things you do out the front, but I can carry on looking after the teas and keeping the place in order. But I’ve got a niece, well, the daughter of a cousin really. Nice lass, well brought up, her father’s a farmer and could afford an education for her. Went as a governess and was doing all right, by all accounts. Then the grown-up son of the house made a nuisance of himself, the slimy little...worm, she slapped his face—and she got the boot, with no references neither. She’d make a good job of this, I reckon, and all she’s doing at the moment is moping at home in Dorchester helping her ma.’
The temptation to simply hand the keys over was considerable. Sara owed Dot a great deal and she trusted her judgement—if she said this young woman would do well, then she probably would. But Dot’s pride would never allow her to take a gift of that size, not for herself or for her young relative. Sara would have to be more subtle.
‘We’ll form a partnership,’ she said. ‘I will be a sleeping partner and you and your niece will be the active partners. I will get my man of business to draw up an agreement and if your niece can come down from Dorchester in the next few days I can show her everything she will need to do.’
Dot dumped the tea tray down on the table and took off her apron. ‘Oh, bless you! She’s been that much of a worry to me, I can’t tell you. I’ll go down to the receiving office and get a message sent up to her by the next post. I’ll miss you, Sara love, but it’ll be a joy to be able to do something for our Laura, bless her.’
‘Why not make her a present of it?’ Lucian asked when they were alone.
‘Because Dot would not accept it, it would hurt her pride. This way I can gradually ease back and let them take over, but they will feel they are working for it.’ She shrugged. ‘Which they will be. But that is a weight off my mind. The shop is popular with residents as well as visitors and I would not have liked taking that away from them.’ She poured tea and nudged the cake plate towards Lucian. Despite having picked at her breakfast she was not at all hungry.
‘What is wrong, Sara?’ Lucian’s voice was gentle as he pushed the cakes aside and lifted his hand to lay the back of it against her cheek. The gesture was so tender that she closed her eyes against the sudden urge to weep. ‘You are pale, there are dark shadows beneath your eyes and you do not look as though you slept. Surely you were tired enough?’
‘It is just a reaction, I suppose,’ she said with a smile and let her cheek press against his fingers. ‘I did sleep, but I had bad dreams, very confusing and full of fog.’
‘You are not having second thoughts?’ It seemed the question was dragged out of him and, just for a moment, she wondered if he wanted her to say yes and call this off and free him.
Have faith, Sara told herself. Trust Lucian, trust yourself. We can make this marriage work. ‘Absolutely not,’ she said and twisted to catch his caressing hand in her own and kiss it.
‘Sara, how long will it take Dot to get to the receiving office and back here?’
‘Half an hour, I would guess, because she will need to write the message and that will not be quick for her. Then there will be any amount of discussion about how long it will take and how reliable the post boy is, to say nothing of talking to anyone she encounters along the way.’
‘Excellent.’ Lucian got to his feet, turned the key in the front door, flipped over the Open, Please Enter sign to Closed and went to the door to the balcony. ‘Come along.’
‘Lucian, you can’t mean—not out here?’ But she was already feeling pleasantly flustered and warm in all the right places and when he banged the door closed behind her and turned that key, she did not protest beyond murmuring, ‘Outside in the open?’
‘No one can see us unless they are out to sea directly in front of us and even then they would need a telescope to see anything untoward.’ He unfastened his falls and sat down in a rattan chair with no arms. ‘And all they would see is you sitting on my lap, after all.’ His eyes were alive with wicked intent and unfastening his breeches had released the evidence of considerable desire.
She was wet for him already, and hot, and so, so ready. Sara lifted her skirts primly, settled astride his knees and then, with a bold rummage amidst the petticoats, took hold of him in a manner that was most definitely not prim. She gasped with the pleasure of touching him, so strong, so male, so aroused by her, for her, and he growled, deep in his chest, and strained up, pushing within her circling grasp. Sara wriggled, the leather of his breeches rubbing, coarse and exciting, against the bare skin of her legs above her gartered stocking. The space was tight and her hands tangled with skirts and the flap of the falls and the tails of his shirt and she growled in her turn with desire and frustration and need until she had placed the hot, smooth head just where she wanted him.
They both went still, looking deep into each other’s eyes, holding their breath, holding the moment until, unable to bear it any longer, Sara sank down, taking him, enveloping him, hard and almost, perfectly, too much.
‘Ahh.’
Almost too much, almost too big, too male, too... Lucian. And perfectly so. She held still, letting her body adjust, soften around him, embrace him, while she leaned forward and lay against his chest and let him hold her safely on the perilous brink of bliss.
Then she began to move, slowly upwards, rapidly down, making him gasp and throw back his head, his face a mask of intensely controlled pleasure on the brink of pain. Riding astride had given her thigh muscles that let her rise and fall to pleasure them both, forcing the urgent rhythm. Lucian let her lead until suddenly he caught her around the waist with both hands and held her still as he surged up, taking control, wringing gasping cries from between her lips as her vison began to blur.
‘We don’t have to be careful now,’ Lucian ground out.
‘No.’ She clung on as the pleasure mounted, twisted and broke over her like a breaker on the rocks below as he pulled her to him and shouted his release against her lips.
* * *
Lucian came to himself to find Sara limp on his chest, her head nestled against his shoulder, her lips tracing teasing patterns on his neck. Faintly the sound of voices and laughter drifted down to them.
‘Lucian, it is people on the library balcony we can hear—do you think they could have heard us?’ She sounded almost too sleepy to care.
‘Seagulls,’ he murmured,