The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,119

smoothing down the curls Agatha had been so glad to tousle. “Of course,” she said with a laugh. Agatha feared Penelope was laughing at herself: it was such a small and brittle sound. “Not being a mother, I forget how it is sometimes. You have to put your son first.”

Agatha nodded miserably. “It’s not the answer I’d prefer to be giving you, Flood.”

“I know.” Penelope’s smile began to crumble at the edges. She turned hastily away, taking up the wheelbarrow again and getting back on the road.

Agatha gulped a little and hurried to catch up. “Penelope . . .” she said.

“It’s alright,” Penelope said at once. “I’m just . . . I’d been hoping, that’s all. But I suppose . . . you can only have one queen in a hive.” She glanced over her shoulder, and her smile was almost back to normal. “I’ll ask you again next summer. Maybe you’ll be in a position to give me a different answer.”

“I hope so,” Agatha murmured, and fell in step beside the wheelbarrow.

The day was still beautiful, and before long Penelope was reciting pastoral poetry again, as always. She seemed to have shaken off the sting of Agatha’s rejection entirely. The bees hummed sleepily in spruce-and-lavender smoke, there was plenty of honey in the skep jars, and everywhere they turned, Melliton looked like a maiden decked out in her finest frock to meet a long-missed lover.

So why did Agatha feel so damn dismal?

Penelope barely waited until the household was abed before tugging on her dressing gown and slipping into Agatha’s bedroom.

She nearly ran right into the woman, who’d been in the act of reaching for the door handle. “Penelope—?”

Penelope wasted no time. She all but yanked Agatha’s mouth down to hers.

Agatha gasped against Penelope’s lips, but something of the shorter woman’s desperation must have caught her in its tendrils, because soon her hands were sinking into Penelope’s short hair and her fingertips were almost painfully tight against Penelope’s scalp. Her mouth opened, dark and hot and hungry as the kiss deepened. Penelope welcomed the little sparks of pain, as they kept her distracted from the larger cloud of hurt and worry that stormed in the center of her breast.

She’d known the affair was doomed from the start. This may not be the last night, but it certainly felt like a last night. Something had changed, and it was no use pretending otherwise. The sliver of hurt that had slid into her heart from today’s denial was an injury that she would be a long while recovering from. If she ever did.

The fear made her move, had her backing Agatha up hard against the bed and following her down into the blankets. Skirts tangled up knees and calves—Penelope tugged insistently at Agatha’s hem, until she felt the other woman’s hands close soothingly around her wrist. “Hold on,” Agatha whispered.

Penelope froze, trembling.

Agatha gently worked the linen out from under them both, tossing her own nightclothes aside and then slipping Penelope’s over her head. Penelope shivered in the chill air—it was supposed to be halfway to summer, but she felt as cold as winter in her bones.

And then Agatha tugged the bedclothes up around Penelope’s shoulders, and over her head, and pulled the whole pile down to her long, soft self: blankets and sheets and Penelope and all.

Lack of sight descended on Penelope like sweetest relief. Everything was taste and touch and sound—the sweet weight of Agatha’s breast beneath her hunting hand, the soft sigh warm from her lips, salt from the day’s long walk in the sharp hollow at the base of her throat. Penelope tried to touch her everywhere, carving Agatha’s shape into her memory: the curve of her hip and the softness of her belly, the long line of muscle in her calf. Agatha welcomed all of it, yielding softly to Penelope’s grasp, tilting her head back on a gasp when Penelope’s mouth began moving lower, spreading her thighs so Penelope could reach between.

She cursed when Penelope pressed hard where she was most sensitive, and arched up instantly into that stroking caress. Penelope was in no mood to be delicate, and soon was pumping two, then three fingers into Agatha’s cunny, the scent of arousal curling around her like smoke and setting her own nerves afire like lines of powder. She sucked in a breath, sank her teeth into Agatha’s shoulder, and thrust harder.

“Yes,” Agatha breathed. And: “More.” Her fingers scrabbled at Penelope’s shoulders, and she pressed her heels into