“I can’t,” Lathan panted and dragged her back to her feet and into his arms. She happily fell against him. He brought them back down, lowering his body over hers as his mouth covered hers. She parted her lips, and he slid his tongue inside.
Her body trembled. The ache between her legs spread to her belly, reducing her to a quivering bundle of incoherent need.
Lathan slipped a hand between her legs.
Of their own volition, Francesca’s hips shot up.
Parting her folds, he toyed with the nub, and then he slid a finger inside.
Francesca moaned against his shoulder, and then she began to move, lifting in time to his strokes. And once more, each touch drew her to a frenzied place of yearning she’d never been and feared she’d never recover from, but an edge she so desperately wanted to hurl herself over. Her thrusting grew more frantic, more desperate, as she searched for some surcease to the aching throb between her legs.
Then he stopped, and Francesca cried out. “Don’t you dare stop, Lathan H—”
He swallowed the remainder of that directive with his kiss, and her orders dissolved into a little sigh.
Parting her thighs, Lathan lay between them and slid into position. He slipped inside, wringing a gasp from her, and there should likely be some fear at the length of him… and the mechanics of… them together. But Francesca was incapable of focusing on anything other than the slow drag of him inside, the gentle cadence he’d set, that same contradictory blend of bliss and torture as before. Her sodden channel slicked the way for him.
She forced her eyes open so she could see him in this moment.
His eyes were clenched tightly shut. A sheen of sweat glistened on his skin. Several strands of hair hung over his brow, and she tenderly brushed them back. “I have never felt like this,” she said softly. Her words brought his eyes open. And I never will again.
His eyes darkened. “Nor have I, Francesca.”
Selfishly, she wanted more from him and of him in the moment. Reduced to only feeling, she didn’t bother with lying to herself about what she sought—more.
But those yearnings were mobbed by desire as Lathan reached between them and stroked her, and all regrets were lost to the rising eddy of pleasure.
Leveraging himself onto his elbows, Lathan thrust deep, filling her with his enormous length and weighting her eyes shut.
Francesca’s breath came hard and fast at the exquisite feel of him inside her.
Lathan touched his lips to her temple. “I’m so sorry—”
“It didn’t hurt.” A dazed smile toyed at the corners of her lips. “I always thought it would, and everything any young lady is ever taught says that it is, and yet, I don’t feel any real pain.” Francesca moved her hips experimentally, drawing Lathan deeper inside and pulling a low groan from him.
She frowned and struggled up onto her arms. “Unless… do you suppose something is wrong with me? Because perhaps it should hurt? Only—”
Lathan’s entire body shook.
It was a moment before it registered.
“Are you laughing at me, Lathan Holman?” she chided. Catching the lobe of his ear lightly between her teeth, she bit him.
A hoarse chuckle rumbled in his chest, her own reverberating under the gentle shake. “I’d never dare, Francesca.”
She adjusted his spectacles. “You’re certain? Because it seems as though you might—” Her words ended sharply as he began to move inside her. “Oh, my,” she said breathlessly. “I…”
He moved once more. Thrusting. And retreating. Thrusting. And every nerve, every shred of who she was, was reduced to those movements, their movements together.
“I can’t…”
“What?” he asked and then suckled the tip of her breast.
Francesca keened. “Lathan.” That was it. Nothing more.
“You can’t what?” That question rasped against the oversensitized tip of her breast, the sough of his breath cool against her scorched skin.
“I… I can’t remember what I was saaaaay—” She wrapped her arms tight about him and forgot words or questions and focused only on meeting his every stroke. His every glide. The ache at her center pulsed and throbbed as her body climbed upward to that same precipice he’d dragged her moments ago… a lifetime ago?
Lathan thrust deep, touching her to the quick.
Arching up, she wrapped her arms tight about him. Her entire body went taut, and she splintered into a thousand shards of ecstasy right there in Lathan’s arms.
His thrusting grew more frantic, and he pumped deep, wringing every last bit of pleasure her body had to give from within every corner of her being.
On a gasp, Francesca sank against the table.
Lathan withdrew and spent himself in a shimmery arc upon her belly in long, rippling waves, groaning and panting her name over and over. “Francesca,” he rasped one final time before collapsing atop her.
She held tight to him, stroking small, slow circles over the scars he carried.
A contented smile formed on her lips. “That wasn’t on my list,” she said weakly against his chest. Francesca smiled lazily up at him. “But it should have been.”
He grinned. That boyish half smile instantly died as he abruptly sat up.
Her heart started. “What is—?”
“You deserve better than this. A bed,” he said, his words rolling together in ways that they never had before. Jumping to his feet, he fetched a towel and proceeded to clean the remnants of his seed from Francesca’s belly. “I should have taken you abovestairs.” A blush suffused his cheeks, and he briefly paused in his ministrations. “Not taken you, that is… that is… carried you. I should have carried you and made love to you in a bed. If I was going to make love to you.”
Warmth settled in her breast as she watched him clean himself.
He bent to reach for his shirt, but she caught his wrist, stopping him. Francesca crooked her finger and placed her face close to his. “I preferred this,” she whispered against his mouth. She would prefer it more if their lives were linked in every way.
Lathan scoffed.
Francesca didn’t allow him whatever cynical response he was intent on. “Every lady loses her virtue in a bed.” Someday, when she was the lonely wife of a proper lord, she’d recall this one morning of passion she’d stolen, and tears pricked behind her lashes. “I like being different than all the others.” She blinked wildly to keep those drops from falling, refusing to let sadness into the moment.
All of the tension slipped from his frame, and Lathan worked his gaze over her. “You are unlike anyone I’ve ever known, Francesca.”
Her heart skittered ten thousand beats as he kissed her, kindling a new wave of desire.
Nothing could break this moment. Nothing—
Knock-knock-knock.
Except, that… That could.
Chapter 14
He wasn’t expecting anyone.
His brother would be at their mother’s. And there was no one else who would know of his presence here.
Except…
The Home Office.
Lathan frantically drew on his garments.
He braced for the familiar rush of hope and joy at the prospect of the Home Office seeking him out. But this time, for some reason unexplainable to him, that did not come. After all, restoring his honor and reassuming a role of importance within the organization was all he longed for.
Wasn’t it?
Knock-knock-knock.
This rapping at the front door came more insistently, choppier and more desperate.
And not at all the form of announcement any member of the Home Office would ever dare use.
Touching a finger to his lips in an attempt to manage the impossible—silencing Francesca Cornworthy—he hurriedly finished donning his garments and then turned to a wholly unaffected Francesca.
“Are you expecting company?” she asked conversationally as she guided the chemise over her head.
Good Lord on
Sunday, the woman had no discretion. “Quiet.” If ever there’d been even a single doubt that she was a spy of some sort, this moment effectively quashed the mere idea.
He should have known better than to, one, issue this woman directives. Or two, expect that she’d obey them.
“Are you?” she pressed, and at least this time, she made a modicum of an effort to drop her voice.
“Do you believe I’m expecting company, Francesca?” Lathan helped Francesca into her gown.
“Well, I don’t really know. Mayhap one of your brothers.” Her voice came muffled, but still damningly noisy.
“Shh,” he repeated. “It was a rhetorical question,” he said on a hushed whisper as her head poked through the top of the gown. Several strands of hair hung over her eyes, and she blew those auburn strands back.
“I despise rhetorical questions, you know.”
“I would expect you would,” he said dryly.
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.
The hammering intensified, bringing an end to their repartee.
Then it stopped.
Lathan and Francesca stared at each other. “Mayhap they’ve gone?” She didn’t let him answer her question. “Or mayhap they’re stranded, too?” She chewed at a nail. “Perhaps we should see if they also require help.”
Let someone else in… someone who’d infringe on the little time he had with her? “This isn’t a goddamned inn, Francesca,” he quietly snapped.
Any other woman would have worn a hurt, stricken expression. Francesca lightly rapped his knuckles.
“Ouch.”
“You’re being rude, Lathan.”
Yes, he was. “Either way, whoever was there is g—”
There came a noisy rattle as the determined visitor jiggled the door handle.
Lathan and Francesca froze.
His entire body went on alert. “Stay. Here.”
Mayhap she heard the edge of steel in his tone, or mayhap it was an inherent understanding of danger that everyone ultimately possessed, but Francesca fell silent.
Fetching a gun from within the cabinet, Lathan started for the door.
Francesca’s eyes formed wide circles.
Knock-knock-knock.
As Lathan stepped out of the kitchen, closing the door carefully behind him, energy hummed through him. With one hand, he kept his pistol behind his back, pointed at the floor, and his gaze on the frosted windowpanes, careful to keep himself out of the interloper’s line of vision.
Just as a man pressed his forehead against the glass.
Cupping a hand over his brow, the stranger squinted.
Even with the icy film upon the window, Lathan caught the crimson uniform, the gold epaulets upon the balding man’s coat.
And he knew.
He froze, contemplating the panel for a moment. More specifically, contemplating not opening it.
And yet, that would only rouse suspicions and would alter nothing. It wouldn’t change the fact that one day soon, Francesca would have to leave. And that he would go back to living the same miserable, lonely existence he hadn’t even known was miserable or lonely… until her. Because of her.
Pressed against the oak panel, he ducked his head slightly and stared out at a lone clear streak in the glass. Four men milled about the courtyard.
The older gent had given up at the door and now spoke to the younger men in matching uniforms.
Finely clad men, at that, and having spent so much of his earliest years surrounded by his parents’ elegantly attired staff, he recognized the men outside as precisely what they were.
Servants.
His stomach fell.
It had been inevitable. Of course a lady who’d gone missing in a snowstorm would have a search party out looking for her. Only, Lathan had not allowed himself to dwell on that inexorability until it had come literally knocking upon his door.
For a long moment, he thought to leave the party out there, none the wiser to his and, more important, Francesca’s presence.
“…’round back perhaps?” the lead servant was saying, his nasally tones carrying to Lathan.
’Round back, where they’d spy a pair of imprints in the snow, one larger and clearly his, the other smaller and belonging to a woman.
In the end, the decision was made for him.
Springing into movement, Lathan tucked his pistol into the waistband of his trousers and drew the door quietly open. The quartet proved themselves rot guards or protectors. Not a single one looked over where Lathan stood on the front porch. “May I help you?” he asked in frosty tones, and the group spun to face him.
The eldest of the group, a man of middling years, stepped forward as their leader. “Good afternoon, sir,” he called. His booming voice echoed and bounced around the early-morn sky. “My name is Lewis.”
“I said, may I help you?” Lathan repeated.
The servant stopped several paces away and doffed his hat. “I’ve come at the behest of his lordship, the Marquess of St. James.”
St. James.
Lathan knew of the nobleman.
Wealthy, powerful, and heavily involved in Parliament, he was a model gentleman. “I don’t know the marquess,” he said flatly. Which stood as a truth on a technicality. He’d never shared any personal exchanges with the man. His father, however, had. Lathan’s gaze snapped over to the men who’d resumed their search of his front gardens. “I’d advise your men to not overstep any more than they’ve already done.”
The old servant called out a single command, and the trio immediately fell into line. Well-heeled they were.
Lewis cleared his throat. “A carriage was en route to the house party of Her Grace, the Duchess of Sutton, when the roads became impassible.”
Lathan folded his arms. “And?”
“And there was a woman inside a carriage. A young lady.”
He kept his expression even. “Who was left to her own devices by the duchess’ servants?” Lathan made a tsking sound. “I daresay that is hardly proper protocol for a servant.”
“I don’t disagree,” the older man said, straightening his shoulders. “The marquess’ servants are well trained and wouldn’t make such a mistake. This particular member of the duchess’ staff, however, did.”
“And now you find yourself scouring the countryside for a lost lady?”
“Precisely. We’ve been tasked with finding the lady and taking her to the duchess’ estates.” Lewis glanced past Lathan’s shoulder, and for one terrifying, horrifying moment, Lathan feared Francesca had defied him and had her face even now to the damned windowpane.
Discreetly, Lathan shifted and slid himself into the servant’s line of vision. The old servant stared at him with a piercing gaze.
He didn’t believe Lathan.
That realization would have unsettled another. But Lathan merely flashed a cold, taunting smile. “Unfortunately, the young woman did not find her way here. Alas, it is cold, and I’ve matters of business to see to. I wish you the best in your search.” He’d turned to go when Lewis called out.
“In the event that you do come across the lady,” the servant murmured, “his lordship has a servant stationed at the inn, awaiting word.” He withdrew a card embossed with fancy gold lettering spelling out the marquess’ initials. “I know the marquess would be very grateful and willing to pay a sizable reward for the return of his betrothed.”
Unmoving, Lathan stared without so much as blinking at the card Lewis proffered.
A humming filled his ears.
This moment was oddly not unlike the same shock he’d been dealt by the bullet that had slammed into his waist and knocked him on his face.
She was… to be married. To a marquess. A man he knew of. A man whom Lathan’s family kept company with and would represent an eternal link between Lathan and Francesca and her husband.
Oh, God.
Every muscle in his stomach went taut to the point of pain, and he welcomed that distraction.
“His betrothed
?” he echoed blankly, making himself take that card and making a show of studying it. Because he couldn’t look at anyone, certainly not this man, and reveal the torment running through him.
“The future Marchioness of St. James. Yes, sir.”
This was where Lathan was to say something, else he’d rouse the suspicion of the flinty-eyed servant more than he already had.
Only, he couldn’t feign anything in that moment.
Numb… empty, inside and out. Woodenly, Lathan entered his cottage and pushed the door shut. He leaned against the panel, unable to make himself move.
At some point, just as he’d anticipated, Francesca had abandoned the kitchens. She sat as he’d never before seen her, forlorn, her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped about them. Her eyes… stricken.
Or mayhap, even across the room, hers were windows into the tumult in his own heart and mind.
Dimly, he registered Lewis calling out directives to his fellow servants. Then came the trod of their horses, and then they galloped off at last, leaving silence.
“They were looking for me.”
It wasn’t a question.
It was a statement of knowing about the people who searched for her. Anger simmered to life, a welcome replacement to the pain and shock of before. Hardening his features, Lathan pushed away from the door. “Indeed,” he said on a silken purr. “The marquess is very concerned about you.”
Francesca didn’t blink for several moments. “The mar…?”
“Come, should I suspect there are several marquesses scouring the countryside for you?” An all-consuming hunger to hunt down and tear apart both the real and fictional marquesses sent vitriol coursing through his veins. With a calm he didn’t feel, he strolled over to Francesca. “I refer to the Marquess of St. James. I trust it shouldn’t be so very difficult to remember the name of one’s future bridegroom.”
Francesca paled. “Oh.”
That was it? “Oh?”
He waited for her to say something more, to deny it. When she still neither confirmed nor denied, he took an angry step toward her. “Are you to be married?” How was his voice so calm? How, when the same red-hot jealousy that had snaked through him at the moment of Lewis’ revelation reared to life, an ugly vicious serpent spreading its venomous envy?
The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel (The Brethren Book 5) Page 14