Title Sinful Tales of Desirable Ladies

by Lucinda Nelson

  “So?” She pressed, tilting her head slightly. “What were you like?”

  Henry had to think about this for a moment. He hadn’t forgotten exactly, but it was hard to believe what he’d been like before. He almost wondered if he’d imagined it all, given how different he was now.

  “I think people thought I was charming,” he said, though he didn’t have much conviction in his voice. “I had much less of a temper, and a great deal more patience.”

  Maggie didn’t interrupt. She just stared at him, with a soft furrow of curiosity between her brows. “I was more… open, I suppose?”

  “Were you witty?” She asked, with a quirked brow and a cheeky smile.

  “I’ve always been witty,” he answered, with a smile of his own. “I still am. Or don’t you think so?”

  “I suppose you’re witty,” she replied, her smile growing as she plucked at one of her cards, and then tucked it back in between her thumb and forefinger.

  “You suppose?” His smile grew into a grin. He knew that she was teasing him, which made this easier somehow. It lightened the moment and kept him from feeling like he was baring his entire soul.

  “Were you wittier before?” She replied.

  “I had more opportunity to display my wit,” Henry answered. “Because my mood was significantly better. Though it has improved as of late.”

  “Has it indeed?”

  His eyes twinkled with pleasure, like they shared a special secret that only they knew of. “It has,” he answered, in a deeper voice. “My life has been much improved recently.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I met a woman.”

  “I find it hard to believe that any woman could sway your mood.”

  “This woman is special.” She was more than special. She was funny and clever, headstrong and tender, vibrant and quick-witted. She was everything he’d had no idea he wanted. And needed. Maggie had come along and put him in his place. Forced him to stop moping around and get on with his healing.

  She’d made him brave again.

  But it was clear that Maggie did not want to talk about herself. She wanted to continue talking about him. “Then what has changed?” She asked, taking them back to their original subject. “If you were all those things before, then what are you now?”

  Henry leaned back in his seat. He disliked this question even more, because it forced him to think about everything he’d become over the past year. His smile slipped away. “You know the answer to that question.”

  Maggie leaned back in her seat too, regarding him with a steady eye. “I’m not sure I do,” she murmured, and it sounded like a confession. “Sometimes I think I understand you, and then sometimes I think that you’re still an enigma to me.”

  “An enigma?” He echoed, with a raised brow.

  She smiled and looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap with the cards still held loosely. “When I first came to Radingley, I thought of you as this enigma that I had to figure out. You were a mystery to me.”

  “And I still am?”

  “Sometimes. Like now.”

  “Why now?”

  “When you avoid my questions, you become a mystery again.”

  “I’m not avoiding your questions,” Henry replied.

  “But they do make you nervous.”

  Henry swallowed. How could she see him so transparently? It amazed him that she thought of him as an enigma, when no one else had ever come so close to figuring him out. She was circling all the things he wanted to keep hidden, constantly. Like his fear, his vulnerability and his self-doubt.

  With a sudden sense of conviction, Henry leaned forwards in his seat again, putting his forearms against his knees and linking his hands together. “Ask me again,” he said. “Ask me anything you like.”

  “You won’t evade?”

  “I won’t evade,” he promised.

  Maggie leaned forwards too, putting her cards face down on the small coffee table between them. “Tell me who you think you are now.”

  “I’m not sure,” he confessed. “I know that for the last year, since my wife left, I’ve not been my best self. I think that I’ve been intemperate and harsh. I want to become the man I’d been before, but I don’t think that can happen instantly. So, I suppose I’m just a man who’s trying.” ”

  It was the most forthright he’d ever been. It was terrifying, but it also felt good. Maggie blinked at him, as if she hadn’t expected this answer. “Ask me something else,” he ordered her, before she could muster a response.

  “Henry, I-”

  “Ask me,” he said again.

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Have you missed Alicia in the time you’ve spent keeping her at arm’s length?”

  “More than anything in the world,” he confessed, without taking his eyes off Maggie’s face.

  “Then why did you do it?” She asked, as her brows pulled together. “You said that you thought you’d disappoint her, but that can’t be all. I saw you when she was around. It was like you were afraid of her.”

  “I was afraid,” he murmured. “Every time I looked at her face, all I could see was Amelia staring back at me. It was like she was Amelia’s ghost left behind to haunt me. And I was afraid that if I let myself love her, like I loved her mother, I wouldn’t be able to cope when she inevitably left me.”

  “Inevitably? Why did you think it was so inevitable?”

  “Her mother left,” Henry replied. “Why shouldn’t she? But I don’t think that anymore. I can see that she loves me. That she’ll always love me. And that she isn’t as much like her mother as I once thought. She isn’t a ghost of her. She’s my daughter.”

  A fine sheen developed on Maggie’s lashes, and she gave him a watery smile. “I’m glad you see the truth of that, but you don’t see all things clearly.”

  Henry tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “I asked you who you are now, not who you have been over the past year. You’ve changed, just as you said. When I first arrived here, you were intemperate and harsh. But you’re not like that anymore.”

  Henry blinked. She was right. He’d been losing his temper less since he’d started spending time with Alicia again, and since Maggie had stolen into his heart. He was kinder, more patient. More like the man he’d been before.

  Henry started to smile, then he leaned back in his chair and picked up his cards. “I think I might be winning,” he replied.

  Maggie grinned back at him and picked up her own cards. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  They shared a warm look across the table and resumed their game.

  Chapter 30

  Miss Magdalene Riley, Daughter of the Baron of Brambleheath

  Henry and Maggie spent every moment they could together after that. Being with Henry was like… like being woken up. She saw everything differently because of him. Unlike the other men in her life, who’d wanted to keep her in a box, Henry wanted her to understand the things he understood.

  He wanted her to be unashamed. To learn how to laugh in the face of other people’s opinions. He encouraged her to develop a keen, political eye, so that she could remark on things that were otherwise known as ‘the business of men’.

  Sometimes they’d sit down together in the evenings, and he’d tell her about ideologies and philosophical theories that she’d never even heard of before. And he spoke with such passion that sometimes all she could think about was kissing him.

  Henry never laughed at her when she didn’t know something. He never belittled her or even expressed surprise. Instead, he’d patiently lead her through it, almost seeming thrilled that he could be a part of enlightening her.

  But it wasn’t a one-way street. Henry wanted to know what she thought too. He’d pose her a question of ethics, to challenge her sense of morality. Questions that no one else had ever asked her before. Like her position on war, expansion and poverty. And when she argued with him, he seemed truly invigorated by it. He resp
ected everything she had to say, and he listened.

  When they were done debating, he’d always lean back in his seat, smiling from ear to ear, and shake his head. “Remarkable,” he’d say, every single time. And as he said it, he’d look at her with such warmth and intensity, as if she were a miracle he’d just stumbled upon.

  With every night that passed, they came closer to kissing. On the third night, he didn’t seem able to contain himself any longer. He made a move to kiss her when they were sitting on the rug by the fire one evening, but something in Maggie had made her stop him. She’d put her hand up between them and touched his lips. “Not yet,” she’d whispered.

  He’d understood and kissed the tips of her fingers to show her that he wasn’t angry, but she regretted it the moment she went to bed and felt the cold sheets wrap around her.

  She should be in his arms.

  And yet she was still afraid that he’d hurt her.

  Since then, Henry hadn’t tried to kiss her again. In fact, he’d kept a courteous distance, which frustrated her. Her mind was certainly on board for taking things slow, but her body didn’t agree in the slightest. It wanted him as close as it could possibly get him.

  “Maggie!”

  The sound of her name being hissed drew Maggie from her thoughts. It was the evening. She’d been walking towards her bed chambers after a day spent with Henry in the gardens when Joseph had emerged at the end of the hall.

  Maggie had been avoiding Joseph. She and Henry hadn’t exactly been subtle about the time they were spending together, and she was sure that Joseph knew by now. She’d been feeling so wonderful that she didn’t want to risk having a run in with her brother. He’d just make her fears that Henry would hurt her even worse.

  She wanted to preserve her decision to give Henry a chance. Figure him out for herself. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Doing that meant she had to nurture and protect her courage, to keep it from wavering. And that meant avoiding Joseph.

  So when Joseph saw her and started heading for her, Maggie darted around the corner, and then quickly around the next. The benefit of Radingley was that it was so grand that getting lost, or evading someone, wasn’t too difficult. Especially when the person doing the evading knew the house as well as she did. She’d spent every moment she had to herself exploring it when she’d first arrived.

  Maggie planted her back against the wall, hoping to hear Joseph’s footsteps fade away as he went down the wrong corridor.

  The trouble was that her brother knew her very well. And he was gaining on her. “Maggie!” He called again. “I need to talk to you!” She could hear the barely bridled anger in his voice and already suspected what he had to say. He wasn’t happy about her and Henry.

  His footsteps were still getting closer.

  Before he could round the corner and find her, Maggie ducked into the library, closing the door carefully behind her. It was dark inside, which suited her purposes just fine.

  She could hear his footsteps just outside the door. She prayed to God that he’d keep walking…

  But he didn’t. She heard his footsteps go silent. He’d stopped.

  With wide eyes, Maggie lunged behind a row of bookcases and hunched down low. She heard the door swing open. “Maggie,” he rumbled. “I know you’ve been avoiding me.” She heard the floorboards creak under his feet as he headed towards the bookshelves. She closed her eyes and waited with bated breath.

  But before he discovered her, she heard another voice. A voice that was velvety and deep. “Is everything alright?” Henry asked. “I heard you calling for your sister.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, my Lord!” Joseph blurted out quickly. “I was just looking for her. Thought I’d spotted her in the hall, but I must have been wrong. I was just heading to bed.”

  A beat of silence passed. She tried to picture what the two men were doing. She imagined that Henry was standing in the doorway, opposite from Joseph, with a quirked brow.

  “Sorry to have disturbed you, my Lord,” Joseph went on. Maggie heard his awkward footsteps fade away. She listened for a second set of footsteps, wondering if Henry would leave too. She thought about showing herself, but was too embarrassed. Hiding behind a bookcase like a child.

  She’d wait until he left and pretend it had never happened.

  But several moments passed in absolute silence. Maggie frowned. Perhaps he’d left with Joseph, and she just hadn’t heard. Just as she decided to inch out from behind the bookcases and check, she heard the floorboards creak again. She sucked in a breath and flattened her back against the bookcase behind her so abruptly that a book fell off the shelf and landed on her head.

  “Ow!” She exclaimed, closing her eyes and wincing in pain. When she opened her eyes again, the footsteps had stopped, and Henry was standing in front of her with a curious expression, holding a candle.

  “Is it not a bit late for reading?” He asked. “And with so little light?”

  Maggie knew he was teasing her, but was too mortified to smile. Her cheeks blazed red, and she thought about how she must look. She was sitting against the bookcase with her knees upraised, and her arms wrapped around them, rubbing at her sore head.

  “I was hiding from my brother,” she mumbled. When she tried to stand, Henry put his hand out and shook his head. Instead of helping her to her feet, he sank down onto the floor and sat opposite her, with his back against the other bookcase.

  “I gathered that,” he said, as he started to smile. “Might I ask why?”

  Maggie grimaced. “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  Indeed he did. His expression was patient, and by taking a seat with her on the floor he’d made it clear that he didn’t have any intention of moving anytime soon. But Maggie was nonetheless reluctant to share the truth with him. She didn’t want him to know that Joseph disapproved of their relationship so adamantly. “It’s nothing really,” she assured him.

  “You’ve mentioned before that your brother has warned you against spending time with me. Might I be correct in thinking that you’re hoping to avoid his wrath, given that you’ve been spending quite a bit of time with me? He’s no doubt noticed.”

  Maggie’s lips parted to deny it, but she didn’t want to lie to him. “Perhaps,” she muttered.

  Henry nodded slowly. “I expect he’s still looking for you. Shall we stay here a while?”

  Maggie blinked at him. He wanted to stay here? On the floor in a narrow corridor, between bookshelves, in an unlit library late in the evening? “If you’d like to,” she replied.

  In answer, Henry put the candle on the floor beside him and picked up the book which had fallen on her head. He squinted at the cover, and then burst out laughing.

  “Shhh!” Maggie lurched forwards onto her knees, so that she could reach him, and covered his mouth with her hand. She could feel him smiling against her palm. “He’ll hear you and come back,” she warned, in a whisper.

  Their eyes met and held. He had such incredible eyes. So stark and bright. They made her stomach feel like it had been liquefied. Slowly, she took her hand away from his mouth. “What’s so funny?” She asked.

  “The book,” he whispered in response, as he gestured to the cover. Maggie lowered her face towards it so she could get a closer look. It was a medical journal on the properties of the cranium.

  At first, she was perplexed. But when it dawned on her, she had to laugh too. A book about the cranium… had fallen on her head. “Shh!” Henry said, smiling as he covered her mouth this time.

  Maggie pulled his hand away, but didn’t let go of it. She liked the feeling of his warm palm flush against hers, and their fingers half tangled together. “Very funny,” she conceded.

  Henry wasn’t smiling anymore. He was staring at her. The intensity of his gaze made her smile vanish too. The silence felt so heavy, and he felt so close. But his closeness didn’t frighten her. Not this time.

  She watched his hand lift between them, before his fingert
ips softly grazed her lower lip. Her breath trembled out of her, brushing against the skin of his fingertips.

  “Have I ever told you…” he whispered, as his eyes lowered to her mouth. “How captivating you are?”

  Maggie was frozen, staring at his mouth just as he was staring at hers. She knew what was going to happen. She asked herself if she wanted it to and tried to summon her good sense.

  But all she could think was yes. She wanted it.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  She felt him drawing closer, his fingertips sliding away from her lips and down her chin. It followed the path of her neck to the hollow of her throat, which made her breath catch audibly in her throat.