It stood to reason that someone in her father’s family would live here, she supposed. But in the back of her mind, she’d always thought of it as a crypt more than a house. Memories died here. So did her childhood.
The carriage came to a halt, the horses shifting nervously as if they sensed it, too. Nicholas called for the driver to help raise the top panel. Daniel was quick to leap down, and took Temperance by the waist, helping her without waiting for the step.
“Miss Bourne,” Daniel said, his hand appearing in her line of sight, which was still limited to her lap.
“I have her,” Nicholas answered, his boots shifting into view. He laid a hand on her shoulder and leaned down to whisper, “Can you hold on another minute while I put up the hood?”
She nodded and took comfort in the rocking of the carriage beneath his feet, the jerk of movement as he freed the corner fastenings. Then at once, she was enshrouded in shadow, listening to the rain patter against the leather hood and the sound of Nicholas’s breaths.
He shuffled past her and leapt to the ground, turning with his arms extended. She lifted her face, needing the contact of his gaze.
“I . . . I’m not certain I can,” she rasped, her throat raw from holding back years of pain. Anguish that she wasn’t aware could ache this much after so long of being buried deep. But that was the problem, she supposed. She’d never had an outlet for all the hurt. They never talked about Mother or Father or their half siblings, or anything really. And oh, how she wished they would have done. If she’d had the chance to release the pain, she might have filled up the void with her own strength instead. Yet she didn’t have any right now.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll be by your side all the while. I’ll never leave you for an instant,” he promised.
Briar told herself she could do this, and that she didn’t need to be shielded, protected, or kept in the dark any longer. But she couldn’t move.
Her gaze flitted past him to see Mr. Cartwright holding an umbrella over Temperance’s head as he escorted her inside. The door was open wide enough for her to glimpse the banister she used to slide down whenever Ainsley wasn’t watching. Jacinda’s name was probably still carved into the bottom stair tread. Mrs. Darden had once tripped over Briar’s doll and spilled an entire pot of tea on the round Persian rug.
So many memories.
“I wasn’t expecting this either, but I know you’re strong enough to sit in the parlor and get to know your brother for one afternoon.”
She stuttered out a breath. “The last time I was in that parlor, my mother’s casket was there.”
Nicholas drew her exhalent in on a hiss, then let it out with an oath. “This was your home? I didn’t . . . Damn. I’m taking you back. No, wait, Blacklowe Manor would be closer.”
She nodded, willing to go anywhere. It didn’t matter. “But don’t tell them. Just say that I’m . . . suddenly unwell. I don’t want to spoil Temperance’s day. Even though I know it will disappoint her.”
He was only gone for a minute.
Then he was beside her, crooning softly as the first sob took hold, his arm a comforting brace around her shoulders. Pulling her onto his lap, he never stopped holding her, all the way to Blacklowe Manor.
Chapter 29
“Nothing hastily done; nothing incomplete. True affection only could have prompted it.”
Jane Austen, Emma
They made it to Blacklowe Manor, but it wasn’t a journey Nicholas would care to repeat anytime soon. The roads weren’t prepared to take so much rain at once, and it made travel treacherous on occasion.
On their dash inside, the paving stones were slick enough that Nicholas just lifted Briar into his arms until they were safely inside. The housekeeper was there to fuss over her immediately, whisking her away to a guest chamber before Nicholas could help with her knotted bonnet ribbon.
Pushing a wet hank of hair from his forehead, he stared after Briar’s retreating figure. He wished he’d had more time alone with her. She’d cried only briefly, until the driving rain had drawn her attention and nervous glances out the window as water sluiced over the sides, forging deep, wheel-eating runnels into the road.
“Not far now,” he’d said whenever they hit a rut, and he’d tighten his hold, hoping to reassure her. “Though there’s time enough to talk about what is pressing on your mind.”
And on your heart, too, he’d thought, wanting to alleviate the pain he’d glimpsed.
She’d offered a watery laugh. “From our previous conversations, I believe you know that I speak on every topic, regardless of whether you want me to or not.”
Did she think that she could fool him?
He’d chided her softly without a word, but by pressing a kiss to the top of her head and expelling a sigh, willing to be patient.
“It is a common enough story,” she’d said after a moment. “Our father was unfaithful. He abandoned us. My mother died. And until today, I didn’t know how raw I still felt inside. You see, my family never talked about it. At least, not with me in the room.”
“Then I suppose it’s lucky that you are here with me, instead, and it just so happens that I have a pair of ears. I’m willing to lend them to you for as long as you like.”
She’d shaken her head at first and then, issuing a shaky breath, she’d wobbled a nod. “Might I also have the use of your shoulder and your arms around me?”
You can have any part of me you like, he’d thought, but had not spoken the words aloud.
Instead, he’d simply pulled her close and listened. And even after their journey, he still yearned to hear more, to learn everything about her childhood, her life, the dreams that she’d lost, the hopes she still had. To climb inside her head and hear every thought. To be inside her lungs and feel every breath. Inside her heart for every beat.
Looking down at the empty hall now, he didn’t like that she was so far away from him. He wanted to be at her side in case she needed his arms around her, his shoulder to cry upon, his lips to soothe away her tears.
He hated the futility of these urges. They made him feel restless, desperate.
A cold shudder raked through him like claws underneath his skin. After his marriage, he’d vowed to never become that needy man again, to beg for affection, to exist on the smallest shreds of attention. But now . . .
The butler handed Nicholas a flannel and he angrily swiped it through his hair. “Where is my mother?”
“Lord Edgemont,” Bartrand said, helping him off with his coat. “I’m afraid that her ladyship and the Countess Edgemont left with Mrs. Lake and her daughter early this morning to the Lakes’ hunting lodge.”
Which meant that Nicholas and Briar were essentially alone. And unless the rain let up soon, they would be stranded for the night. Unchaperoned. They needed to leave as quickly as possible, and before anyone was the wiser.
Or else the only way to save her reputation would be marriage. Society’s strictures would demand it.
He’d been led to the altar before for such a reason.
Nicholas strode to his chamber for a change of clothes, waiting for the usual dose of bitter cynicism to roil violently in his gut.
Strangely, it did not come. Though, perhaps he’d grown so jaded that not even this prospect affected him, or even left a bad taste on his tongue. Then again, perhaps after assisting Briar for these many weeks and being bombarded by the subject of matrimony, he’d built up a tolerance. It was possible, he supposed. Or perhaps after taking her virginity, he’d already resigned himself to the idea.
Still, those thoughts did not hit the target soundly, but were just shy of the blackened center ring.
Nicholas feared that the true reason was more complicated. That, perhaps, something else—or someone else, rather—had altered his opinion. Had made the idea of marriage not so terrible.
But then reality and experience intruded and his blood turned to an icy flood in his veins. Marriage was only for the needy and naive, for desperate fools and romantics
who believed in perfect counterparts and eternal love.
In other words, not a man who knew better. Not a man like him.
After donning fresh clothes, Nicholas found Briar in the gallery, her hands clasped behind her back as she studied his wedding portrait—the only one still in existence. Mother hadn’t permitted him to destroy this one. So it hung here, serving as a reminder, lest he ever forget.
Briar’s gaze did not leave the mismatched couple as he approached and stopped beside her. “She was lovely.”
He’d once thought so, too, but then he’d glimpsed underneath her disguise. Even so, as a young man, it hadn’t mattered that Marceline was cold and often cruel, barely able to tolerate him. He’d only wanted her to be his, and his alone.
“I wasn’t a good husband,” he said, needing Briar to understand, to strip away whatever naive vision she saw whenever she looked at him with that soft wistful expression. “I was young and awkward, too clumsy, not sure of myself at all. The combination made me”—he cleared his throat—“pathetic.”
Briar laid a hand on his arm. “We are all uncertain at times. I’m sure she understood and loved you all the more for it.”
He shook his head, biting down a bitter laugh as he stared at Marceline’s pitiless violet eyes. “Ours was not a love match. As I mentioned before, I was not her first lover. Only I wasn’t aware of it at the time she stole into my chamber late one night and kissed me while I was asleep. And when I awoke to find her beneath the coverlet, she permitted my advances. Endured my hastened, inept attentions. Then, weeks afterward, she claimed that she was with child. We married by special license.”
“And was she?”
He could hear the sound of his teeth grinding together, the creak of bone on bone. “My brother’s child—another fact I learned later.”
Briar stepped in front of him, forcing his attention to her soft wistful expression, to the welcome and understanding he saw in her eyes. “You know about betrayal as well, then.”
He nodded and took her hand, pressing their palms together, fingers catching. “According to what she’d confessed the morning of the accident, she and my brother had planned my wedding from the start. You see, Mother had handpicked James’s wife, Catharine, but he’d always loved Marceline. So in turn, Marceline spent years acting as Catharine’s friend, doting on her, sharing confidences, making it impossible for her to see the truth. Then, when Marceline discovered she was with child, James came up with a plan to keep her near him and watch his child grow.”
Briar gasped, her wispy brows threaded. “That’s despicable. To use you. To toy with your affections. Your own brother.”
“Yes, well, we all have our sordid tales. The things that were once raw but now are covered in calluses.”
“No wonder you abhor the very idea of marriage.” She launched herself at him, her arms wrapping tightly around his waist, vibrating with fury. On his behalf.
A startled puff of air left his lungs, the void giving way to a sudden conflagration of joy and wonder that left him shaken.
“I hate what you suffered,” she hissed, vehement. “Absolutely despise it! I want to take away every single one of those days for you. If I were a surgeon, I would cut it out of your memory and burn it so that it was nothing more than ash.”
“You’re rather violent. Remind me to keep sharp knives out of your reach,” he said, attempting to make light of it. To ignore the firestorm burning inside him, hotter than a thousand sparks, more intense than a thousand stars. He held her with equal ferocity, lips pressed to her temple, heart thudding in swift, panicked beats.
“And the courtesans you mentioned once . . .” She lifted her gaze to his. “You sought them out because of how Marceline had made you feel?”
He didn’t intend to respond, but felt an involuntary nod when she took his face in her hands. Then she rose up on her toes and began to scatter kisses all over him.
“You could have been clumsy with me. We could have learned together. I would have loved all your awkward fumbling, because you would have been mine. All mine. And I wouldn’t have shared you.”
He growled in response, capturing her mouth in a fierce kiss. Reprimanding her for saying those tender things. For wanting the gawky, callow young man he’d once been. For making him wish to go back in time to make that possible. But she deserved so much more than him. She deserved everything he wasn’t capable of giving her.
He broke free, pressing his forehead to hers, gripping her hips, letting her feel his hard, unrelenting need. “I have to deliver you to the housekeeper. She is the only one who can act as chaperone.”
“Let me love you first.” She smiled, not playing fair as she nibbled her way along his jaw. “Show me how to please you without wrinkling my dress.”
Her adept little fingers started flicking open his waistcoat buttons. And he, pathetic fool that he was, didn’t stop her. Instead, he took her by the hand and hauled her through the nearest door—a small sewing room with a quilt stand by the windows, where beads of water scattered prisms of sunlight into the room.
The rain had stopped. The garden below already appeared dry, soaking up the shower like a sponge. The roads would be clear soon.
She giggled when he pulled her eagerly to him. “A hedonist to your very core.”
“Yes, and had we more time, I would take you to bed, tie you up, and do terrible, wicked things to you.”
A tremor quaked through her as she panted into his mouth, pausing her attempts to pull his shirtwaist free. “Can we not still pretend?”
“Now who is the hedonist?”
“I suppose I am. I just want to feel you all the time.” Her hand slipped inside, splaying over his abdomen, drifting up and over, everywhere she could reach. Then she lifted the linen shirt and pressed her face against him, inhaling deeply. “Your skin has so many different, glorious textures . . . and your scent makes my pulse race. Part of me wishes I could make clothes out of you, just so I could wear you next to my skin all day long.”
“Disturbing notion,” he lied. The truth was, he wanted to do the same to her. Clearly, they were both mad as hatters.
She pressed frantic kisses over his flesh, drifting down to the waist of his trousers, nipping his hair with her teeth, robbing him of breath. “Well, we are in a sewing room. I could make quick work of you, stitch you into my chemise.”
He couldn’t respond. All at once, he was overwhelmed by that terrifying sense of desperation. He wanted to be rid of it, wanted to spit it out, but it wouldn’t come. It clawed up his throat, strangling him, a tight knot lodging there.
Tenderly, he took her face in his hands and brought her mouth to his, hoping that she could untangle him. Then, not so tenderly, he kissed her, delving deep, shuddering with the violence of these feelings. He would die if he couldn’t get this out of him. He knew nothing about untying knots.
The way she clung to him, greedy whimpers rising from her lips, told him that she understood. I’ll untie it for you. I can feel it now. We’re so close, just don’t stop.
He turned, pressing her back to the door. Gripping the lush curve of her bottom, he bunched her skirts up and out of the way, lifting her against him. And her sweet moan filled his mouth as she arched into his hand.
She was wet, his fingers drenched. He pulled them into his mouth and closed his eyes, tasting her nectar on his tongue, wanting more, wanting to take his time, to feast on her for days. But the knot of this thing inside him wouldn’t wait. It was only growing larger, immense. He was afraid it would be trapped in his throat, in his chest, until his last breath.
Freeing his cock, he positioned the thick head at her swollen slit. Trembling from the rawness that tore through him, he drove into her slick, tight heat and swallowed her gasp. Yes, love. Yes.
Fully impaled, he went still, savoring the sweet clench surrounding him. He was already so close to losing himself.
“Never stop. Promise me,” she ordered, nipping his bottom lip. Her eyes were blue-g
lazed with passion, hooded, her hips hitching in tiny spasms, urging him onward.
But he couldn’t promise—he still couldn’t speak. The knot was even bigger now, wedging deeper with every new thrust, every frenzied kiss.
He was choking on it, neck arched, close to surrender.
“Briar,” was all he could say. And so he said it over and over again until she understood everything. She answered him by crying out his name in return.
Her body convulsed, gripping violently. And he was barely able to wrench his flesh out of her, and spill in thick pulses against her thigh.
* * *
He held her against him stiffly, his arm an unbreakable band around her waist. When his breath rushed out in a guttural groan, punctuated by her name, it sounded like a declaration.
A pledge.
Smiling, Briar let her head fall against his shoulder, her body thrumming where they were just connected a minute ago. “I don’t like it when you leave me.”
She knew she sounded insane, but she couldn’t seem to help it. More than anything, she wished to keep part of him next to her. Locked inside her. Always.
He kissed her temple, rasping the tails of his shirt against her inner thigh. “I can’t take the risk of spilling my seed inside you again, not like the first time.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that. I just assumed that you . . . being a rake and all . . . Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured with a blush, feeling woefully green.
He set her down carefully, his gaze not meeting hers. Then taking a step back, he folded the end of his shirttail in on itself before tucking it in his trousers. “That was a mistake. I should have taken better care.”
A mistake. Ouch. That pinched her heart a bit. She splayed her fingers over it like a shield.
Then as another realization settled in, her hand drifted down to cover her flat midriff. A spike of worry lanced through her. “And if I’m carrying your child?”
Ten Kisses to Scandal (Misadventures in Matchmaking) Page 28