Her lips opened and he saw her surprise—the final confirmation that the American had kept his arrival from her.
“I knew before I booked passage on the damn ship that it was you. And I found you the moment I landed—went to Calhoun’s raucous tavern and made a fool of myself looking for you. I heard you, dammit. I heard you singing, and I knew it was you. And still, there was enough disappointment that you’d fled me and our life, that I believed them when they told me it wasn’t you, I believed them.” He looked away again. “It wasn’t disappointment. It was fear. Fear that you might not return. Fear that you might not want to. Fear of where we are, now.”
Silence fell, and then, “Caleb knew who you were?”
“He knew I was after you. He hid you from me. . . . Not before I broke his nose,” he added, evoking the one moment of light in the darkness.
Her eyes went wide. “You were the toff.”
“He never told you.”
“No.” She shook her head, and he could see the shock in her eyes as she added, softly, “It never occurred it was you. I had . . . admirers. We had a signal.” She paused, lost in thought. “I left the stage when men became too . . . forcefully interested.”
He wanted to murder someone at that, but he swallowed the rage. “You didn’t know it was me.”
She shook her head. “He never told me. If I’d known, I would have . . .”
His gaze found hers in the fading words. “What would you have done?”
The summer breeze was the only movement around them, her skirts whipping about her legs, clinging to them. To his, as though her clothing knew the truth she denied. He took the touch, a piece of her he could thieve.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” she said, and he clung to that honest uncertainty. She didn’t say she would have ignored him. Didn’t say she’d have sent him packing. “You were the past, and I wanted nothing to do with it.”
“You left me,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “You left me here, to live in the past, frozen in time, full of regret, and you took yourself off to the future.”
“Full of regret because you could not win me,” she said softly. “I was always a prize, Mal. Even when I was punishment.”
That much was true. He would take a lifetime of pain with her for a moment of pleasure. He pressed on. “But you didn’t find the future, did you?”
“Because I am not freed for it!” she argued.
Perhaps it was the memory of the past that made him say it. Perhaps it was remembering the way he’d ached for her. The desperation he’d felt. The desire to find her. To win her again. It did not matter. “For every moment I do not free you, Sera, there is an equal one in which you do not free yourself. You think I do not see you? I have always seen you. You have always been in vivid color for me. Glittering sapphire on the first night you found me. Emeralds and golds and silvers and red—Christ, that red. I am obsessed with that red. The red of the afternoon you came here. The red at Liverpool’s garden party, when you stood like a goddamn queen and watched me ruin us like a goddamn fool.” He stopped, cursing into the wind as he tilted his head back with the memory.
“We weren’t ruined then,” she said.
“No, we weren’t. We were ruined long before.”
“Before we even met.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he watched her, as he considered what to say next. “Don’t think for a second that I haven’t seen you since you returned—that I haven’t seen you in equally vivid color. In slate and amethyst and lavender and today, in aubergine.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Don’t.”
“Last night, you told me I consumed you. You think I am not consumed as well? By our past? You think I do not see that you ache for it? For what we were once promised?” He paused and looked toward the trees, and then, soft as silk, “You think I do not mourn, as well?”
He reached for her, then, taking her by the hand with firm, unyielding resolve and pulling her into the trees. Into the clearing they surrounded, where a beautiful little garden was hidden away in a golden pool of light.
He let her go, watching as she moved to the monument at the center of the clearing. To the stone angel there, seated on a platform etched with two simple words. Beloved Daughter.
Silence stretched forever, until he could no longer bear it. She crouched, placing her fingers to the letters. “You did this.”
“I came to you after it was done,” he said. “My hands still frozen from the cold. My boots covered in snow and dirt. I came to tell you that I wished to start anew. You were asleep, but no longer at risk. I told myself there would be time to win you. To love you.”
She looked over her shoulder, urging him to go on.
“You slept most of the next day. And the day after, you were gone.”
She nodded, tears stealing her words, harnessing them at the back of her throat. “I had to leave.”
“I know,” he said. “I think I half expected you to be gone when I returned. But when I discovered it—that my mother had given you the money to run—I went wild. I banished her from the house; I never saw her again.” He approached, coming to his knees next to her. “It might be best I did not find you in those days. I am not sure I could have won you then. Your sisters saw it in me. They sent me east when I should have gone west. Calhoun, too, hiding you from me like a bone from a dog. And they all might have been right.” He reached for her, one large, warm hand finding purchase at her jaw. “I wanted you. Desperately. I wanted this.”
Her tears were coming in earnest now. She closed her eyes, the pain of the memories and the moment etched upon her like stone. “I am haunted by Januaries.”
“I know,” he said. He was, as well.
“I had to leave.” She ached, beautiful woman. And he wanted nothing more than to stop it.
He pulled her close. “I know.”
“I’ll never have her. And never another.”
The words devastated him. “I know.”
Sera stayed rigid in his embrace for an age, her cheek pressed to his shoulder, her hands at her side, her only movements the little breaths that seemed wrenched from her. Wrenched from him, as well.
And then she gave herself to him, collapsing against him, giving him her weight and her pain and her strength and her sorrow. And he caught her and held her, and let her cry for the past—the past for which he, too, had ached.
The past that, together, they finally mourned.
His tears came as hers did, from a deep, silent place, filled with regret and frustration and an understanding that there was no way to erase the past. That the only possibility for their future lay in forgiveness.
If she could ever forgive him.
If he could ever forgive himself.
And so he did what he could do, holding her for long, sorrow-filled minutes, until she quieted, and their tears slowed, and they were left with nothing between them but the sun and the breeze and the past. He pulled away enough to look at her, enough to cradle her face—more beautiful than he’d ever seen it, tearstained and stung with grief—and look deep into her eyes.
“I was late, Angel,” he said, the words coming on a near beg, unashamed. “I’ve always been too late. I’ve always missed you. I had no plans to come to Highley for the summer. I was headed to search for you again. I will never stop missing you.” He took her lips, the kiss soft and lingering, a salve.
She had always been his salve.
He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers, loving the long exhale of her breath, as though she’d been waiting for years for this moment. And hadn’t he been waiting, as well?
“Don’t make me miss you today,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes at the words, and for a moment he thought she didn’t feel it. The keen, unbearable need, as though there was air and food and them, now. Here.
And then she opened her eyes, and he saw it there. She needed him, too.
They needed each other.
&nbs
p; He lifted her into his arms, and carried her home.
Chapter 22
Marriage on the Mend? Maybe!
They did not speak on the ride home, and Sera was grateful for it, grateful for the chance to stay in Malcolm’s lap, the scent of him consuming her, fresh earth and spice, encircling her along with his strong arms, like a promise. She knew there was no possible way that he could make good upon that promise.
Promises were never theirs to offer.
Not even now, wrapped in each other, the movement of his horse beneath them the only reminder of the world beyond.
She turned her face to his chest, loving the warm strength of him there, loving, too, the way he pulled her closer and pressed his lips to her temple, whispering words there that were lost to the wind.
She did not care that they were lost—they were better there, because if she’d heard them, she might have loved them. And she might have loved him. But there was no room for that. Everything she had ever loved had been ruined. So she knew better than to let herself fall into the emotion again. They had loved each other at the start, and it had been a battle nonetheless. It would always be a battle between them. Always a game. And never enough.
But that afternoon, as they had unlocked their past and confessed their sins and their regrets, it did not seem to matter that love was not their future. Instead, all that mattered was that each somehow understood the other.
It was that understanding that spurred them toward Highley, Malcolm choosing the back entrance to the manor house, helping her down from the horse and following her without speaking and without hesitation, taking her hand and leading her through the kitchens, ignoring the servants pretending not to notice them as they took to the back stairs and down the long, wide, dark hallway to his rooms. To their rooms.
All without speaking, as though giving voice to words would give voice to the rest—the doubt and fear and the fight and the world beyond. But there, in silence, as she entered his bedchamber and he closed the door behind her, there was only the two of them. Alone, finally. Together, finally.
Just once.
She walked to the center of the room, her heart pounding, knowing that she should speak. Knowing she should remind them both of who and where they were and what the future held.
Except when she turned to face him, his back pressed to the closed door, his gaze unwavering, she did not want to speak. She only wanted to touch. She only wanted to love.
Just once.
And so she reached for him.
He was already coming for her, but he didn’t do what she expected. He didn’t take the lead, did not set her aflame with his kisses and steal her breath with the passion that too often consumed them both. Instead, he went to his knees, bowing his head to their joined hands—a knight pledging fealty to his queen.
And there, on his knees, he pressed kisses to their entwined fingers, and whispered her name until she could no longer bear it, and she took his face in her hands, tilting him up to face her, staring deep into his eyes before joining him, kneeling before him.
He kissed her then, his fingers threading into her hair, scattering hairpins as he rained kisses over her cheek and jaw and lips, eager for her, following one kiss with another, another, another until she was meeting him caress for caress, drawn to him, starving for him.
The kiss was beautiful and honest—nothing frantic or angry. A meeting of lips, a quiet silken slide of breath. Her name. His. Her sigh. His. He lifted his lips from hers, just enough to whisper, “I love you.”
And, for the first time since the start of their time together, she let it come, let him wrap her in it. They shared the twin aches of their sorrow and pleasure, past and present, and she took everything she’d ever dreamed. And he gave it to her, as though they had never shared another life.
And it was glorious.
His fingers tightened at her waist, pulling her to him. Or perhaps she was pulling him to her. For all the days and weeks of chasing, of battle, of pretending not to want him, of him pretending not to want her, it was a gift to meet in the middle, here, on their knees, in their rooms.
Just once.
He tilted her chin up and set his lips to her cheek, to her ear, and following the ridge of her jaw to the column of her neck, following it down to the place where it met her shoulder, leaving soft, welcome kisses in his wake. His tongue swirled there until she sighed, her hand coming to his head, finding the soft hair there, holding him to her.
He lifted his head and took her lips again, long and slow and sinful, as though they had spent a lifetime kissing and had another lifetime to offer. She met him kiss for kiss, breath for breath, until he sucked her lower lip between his teeth, biting gently before following the little sting of pain with a devastating lick of pleasure.
She gasped at the sensation and he released her, kissing across her cheek to her ear, where he took the lobe between his teeth, sending a thrill through her. “Mal,” she whispered, the first word since he’d lifted her onto his horse and brought her here, home. He stilled at it, then—dear God—he trembled, as though his name in that moment, on her lips, gave him immeasurable pleasure.
Which was possible, of course, as it gave her the same.
“Say it again,” he said.
She did, whispering his name against his lips before it was lost in another wild kiss, this one accompanied by his hands working at the front fastening of her riding habit, shucking it to the floor as he consumed her with the caress. He lifted her with him as he came to his feet, turning her in one fluid motion, releasing her lips only to settle his own on the back of her neck, sending chills through her as his fingers found the long line of buttons at the back of the dress.
He began to undress her, her name a litany on his lips, as he loosened the frock with quick, efficient movements, until it came away in a glorious release, falling to the floor in a pool of linen and lawn. He set to work on her corset then, pulling the strings with long, fluid movements as his tongue swirled patterns across her skin, and then that, too, was gone, followed by her drawers, until she was left in her stockings and nothing else.
She should have been embarrassed when she turned back to face him, but the supreme pleasure on his face was like nothing she’d ever witnessed, and all she wanted was to bask in it. To bask in him.
He reached for her, his hand hovering a breath from her skin, his gaze transfixed on her bare body for what felt like an eternity. Finally, she whispered his name, unable to keep the pleasure and pride and self-satisfaction from her words.
His eyes shot to hers.
She smiled. “Are you planning to touch me?”
He swore, harsh and wicked in the quiet room, and moved with impressive speed, lifting her, carrying her to the bed and laying her on it, staring down at her wicked wanton intentions as he shucked his coat and cravat and pulled his shirt from his trousers, sending it flying across the room.
He followed her down after that, pressing her into the soft mattress, his chest warm and wonderful against hers, the crisp mat of hair there teasing her in all the places that had been constricted for a day. For a lifetime.
She opened her legs wide, eager to feel him between her thighs again. It had been so long. He found space there, hard and perfect at the notch of her thighs, and he gasped at the sensation, his eyes sliding closed at the pleasure there. Sera’s, too, closed, and she lifted her hips up to meet him, her body aching for him. Asking for him. As though it knew where he belonged.
He let himself meet her movements. Let himself match them for a heartbeat. Once. Twice. They pulsed together. They rutted. The word, filthy and erotic, whispered past as the movement made her ache with need, and she found she could not stop herself from opening her legs wider. “Please,” she whispered, “Mal.”
He caught the words with his lips. “Anything you wish. Ask.”
She tilted her hips to him.
He understood. Pressing into her. Thrusting. The hard ridge of him making wonderful promises.
She couldn’t stop herself from leaning up and catching his bottom lip in her teeth, sucking at it until he groaned his pleasure. She released him and pulled back, as much as their nearness would allow, and asked him for the only thing she’d wanted since the moment they’d met. “I want my wedding night.”
The words were out before she could imagine their impact, on them both. He froze above her, the truth of the statement, the promise of the moment, the memory of the past, all of it was there, between them, hovering.
She couldn’t stop herself from continuing. “We married, but I was never your bride, Mal.”
It was too late for it, of course. She was no blushing virgin, and had not been that night, either. But she wanted him, nonetheless. She wanted the night, with the hope and the promise and everything she would never have.
She wanted the fantasy.
He opened his mouth to speak, and she was instantly terrified of what he might say. So, instead of allowing it, she slid a hand up into his hair, playing at the nape of his neck as she lifted her hips to his, rocking against him once, twice, a third time before he growled his desire.
“Give me that night,” she whispered.
Perhaps if she had that, she could find the courage to leave.
She pushed the thought from her mind as she took his lips again, mirroring his long and slow kisses, the ones that made her willing to do anything for him. It was a glorious, heady feeling, knowing that he would soon do the same for her . . . until he tore himself away and pushed off her, moving to the edge of the bed and sitting, back to her, ribs heaving with exertion.
No.
He wasn’t going to leave her. Not after the afternoon. Not after his confessions. Not after undressing her and spreading her across the counterpane, making her ache for him. She scrambled to her knees behind him. “Mal?”
The Day of the Duchess Page 25