the closed door. “We have probably been in here quite long enough for today, but I will take a look at those deeds myself as soon as I am able.”
Afterwards, he would try to decide how many of his suppositions were the truth, and if or when he should share them with James.
“You seem very distracted, my dear.”
Bethany pulled her attention away from her thoughts of Julius to now smile at her uncle. “I am feeling a little tired this afternoon, that is all. Perhaps I am getting a cold.”
Her uncle frowned his concern. “We should not have gone riding in the icy weather this morning if you were feeling unwell.”
“I felt perfectly well then.” Bethany’s problem was certainly one of temperature, but she was feeling far too hot rather than cold. A heat that had been intensifying since the moment she first touched Julius’s bared cock. Since leaving him, she had not been able to stop thinking of that and the eruption which had occurred from its tip when she stroked that swollen and throbbing flesh.
“Bethany?”
She physically started at the sharpness of her uncle’s tone. “Perhaps, because I was enjoying our ride together, I stayed out too long in that cold…” It was a feasible excuse for her lack of appetite. It was still only early February and not long since they had a snowfall that had remained on the ground for several days.
“Of course.” Her uncle smiled at her warmly. “I suggest you take yourself up to your bedchamber and climb into bed. I will have Lacey instruct one of the maids to bring a hot drink to your room. Perhaps a nap before dinner will set things to rights. If you feel any worse, I shall send for Dr. Harrington. Never fear, my dear, we shall have you feeling better very soon.” He gave Bethany’s hand several comforting pats.
Bethany doubted that very much, when she knew her only malady was the unsatisfied arousal created by Julius.
An arousal she believed only he could assuage.
Chapter Eleven
“Your uncle told me you were feeling unwell and so were unable to join us for dinner this evening?” Julius grimaced to show how much he had not enjoyed the experience of having to dine alone with the older man.
Having knocked on Bethany’s bedchamber door a minute or so ago and been invited to enter, Julius now approached the bed where she was sitting propped up against the pillows reading a book. She was wearing what looked to be a fine cotton night rail adorned with Brussels lace at the cuffs and neck. Her loosened hair was a golden cloud about her shoulders.
Bethany closed and then placed the book on the table beside the bed as she smiled up at him. “I am not in the least unwell.”
He frowned his puzzlement. “Your uncle said you were.”
“Because that is the reason I told him I would not be joining the two of you for dinner.”
“Your face is flushed,” Julius persisted.
A slight smile curved Bethany’s lips. “That, and my having missed dinner, are both completely your fault.”
His eyes widened. “Mine?”
She nodded. “The flush on my cheeks is caused by my arousal from the two of us being together this morning,” she told him with an honesty that made his cheeks feel warm. “I did not come down for dinner for the same reason. Because sadly, unlike you, I have absolutely no idea how to go about alleviating the uncomfortable throbbing between my own thighs.” The blush deepened in her cheeks, but her gaze made no effort to shy away from meeting his.
This was something else a mother might have explained to her daughter, Julius realized.
Except Bethany had been motherless since she was nine years old, and he had no idea if Henrietta Metford had been an emancipated mother, in any case. Even if her beloved brother had lived, Julius doubted this was a subject Bethany would have broached with him.
This young woman, Julius acknowledged with admiration, was a warrior.
Afraid of nothing and no one, least of all of voicing her sexual frustration.
“Have you tried touching yourself?” he prompted gruffly.
She nodded. “It only seemed to make the ache worse.”
“Then you could not have been doing it right. How did you— Never mind.” Julius dismissed the question when he realized by asking it, he was only fanning his own desire as he thought of those slender fingers between Bethany’s parted thighs as she sought to give herself relief. “You have been suffering this frustration since we parted earlier?”
“Yes.”
And