by Fiona Miers
“It’s all right, ask me.”
She was wringing his white handkerchief in her hands now.
“It’s not a question, so to speak, more... a request.”
Oliver frowned and the problems she may be facing piled up inside his head. Did she need money? Somewhere to stay? Should he be challenging her attacker to a duel for her?
“Would you kiss me?” Sarah words all came out in a rush.
Oliver was sure he had misheard her. There was no possible way someone who had gone through what she had obviously been through tonight, would ask for such a thing.
“I’m not sure I heard you correctly, Sarah.” His tone was light, but his heart thumped against his ribcage in acknowledgment of the truth. A marriageable virgin was asking him for a kiss. As an unmarried gentleman of the ton, he should be grabbing his cloak and running for the safety of his estate.
She blushed at his question, red heat flushing up from the place the cloak met her neck, all the way up to the roots of her golden hair.
That affected Oliver more than the tears and something inside him melted. A blush could not be faked and showed a real depth of emotion that had been lacking in every woman Oliver had ever met.
“I know I must look an absolute mess, but I cannot have tonight’s experience be my only memory of intimacy between a man and a woman. Would you please help me to forget? Help me to make a new memory?”
She all but whispered the last part of the sentence and Oliver felt his tenuous grip on his control slip. Before he knew it he was cupping her face with both hands and bringing his lips down on to hers.
He would have moaned at the feel of her soft lips beneath his, but he swallowed the sound down. She was like touching the finest silk, and drinking the most expensive whiskey. It was a heady feeling indeed.
Feather light, he told himself. She may have asked for this but she was an innocent, she didn’t need to see or feel evidence of the burning desire that was gripping him.
Oliver moved back from the sweetest lips he had ever kissed and Sarah almost toppled forward.
He dropped his hands down to his sides, his lips and hands tingling from the contact with her skin as though he had been stung by a swarm of bees.
“Thank you,” Sarah whispered, lifting her hand and running her fingertips over her swollen lips.
Ducking her head shyly she added, “That was what my first kiss should have been.”
Despite Oliver’s attempt to distance himself from this beautiful, marriageable female, he was touched by her words. He’d never kissed a virgin before, had never understood the allure some men had to them. But looking at Sarah’s beautiful face, knowing he was the first person she had happily been touched by made him more pleased than it should have.
“My carriage will be here any minute and it will take you around to the front of the house, and you can go from them.” Oliver found solace from his overwhelming feelings in the instructions. He felt bereft to part from her and could not quite understand why. He knew it was better to sever the tie sooner rather than later, and yet knowing something and wanting to do it were two different things.
His carriage pulled up outside the gate, bearing the crest of the Lincolns.
“Oh, is that a Ducal crest?” Sarah’s voice sounded stunned.
“Yes, my brother.” Oliver heard the lie leave his mouth and grimaced. He still occasionally forgot that he was now Lincoln and his father and brother were both gone. Easy to do considering he had spent twenty-five years in one situation and only eighteen months in the other.
Before he could correct her, she was dancing happily on the spot in front of him.
“Oh. Thank you so much, Oliver. For everything you have done for me. I really have no idea how I could have managed without you.”
She held out her hand to him and he automatically picked it up. Instead of allowing him to kiss her fingers as was proper, Sarah bowed down, turned his hand over and pressed her soft, warm lips to his palm instead.
Oliver was shocked into immovability. It was only last week he had lain with a woman and yet the feel of Sarah’s kiss on his gloved hand felt more intimate, and oddly more arousing, than anything he had done with that other woman.
“Go.” With one more backwards glance at her saviour, Sarah tucked Oliver’s cloak around her and slipped quickly into the carriage.
Whereas Oliver took a deep breath and exhaled just as slowly. He felt like he’d been in a fight and come out the loser. His arms and legs ached and he had to wait for his carriage to come back anyway. He inclined his head at Charlotte, turned on his heel and headed towards the male-only den. Whilst he waited, he could plot all the different ways he could destroy Patrick Millington.
Two
Sarah’s mother climbed into the carriage when it stopped outside the house. She took one look at Sarah and pulled her onto the seat next to her.
“Lay your head on my shoulder Sarah, and we will discuss this when we get home.”
Sarah nodded and let her head fall onto her mother’s shoulder, the nights events racing through her mind as they drove through the London streets.
When they arrived back at their rented town house, her mother excused herself and went to change into her night gown. Sarah went up to her own room, took off her ruined gown, laid it on the bed and called for a bath. If the servants minded the timing of her request, then no one said anything, and that was how her mother found her when she stepped back into the room.
Her mother stepped into her room and stood before the tub, her chin lifted and worry lines marring her forehead as she appeared to prepare herself for the worst. “Sarah, now tell me. What happened to you tonight?”
Well, quite simply… “I was attacked.”
Her mother’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead making her look quite silly. She sank onto the bed with one hand at her throat as she stared at the ruined gown. An evening gown, Sarah knew, that they had saved years to pay for. Sarah was only getting one season, it was all her family could afford, and destroying her prettiest ball gown wasn’t a good beginning.
“Tell me what happened,” her mother demanded as the colour drained from her face.
Sarah related what had happened to her, right up to the point that Oliver had put her in his carriage. She left out Oliver’s kiss at the end of the night. Her mother didn’t need to know everything after all.
“And you have no idea who this ‘Oliver’ is? Are you sure he can be trusted not to talk about what happened tonight?”
Her mother was wringing her hands as she often did when she was nervous. Sarah sighed, knowing her mother could fret until she had a headache, but what was done was done now.
“I don’t know who he was, Mamma, but he seemed to be a gentleman. I don’t think he would tell anyone about something that wasn’t really my fault. He was the brother to a Duke, I think.” She wasn’t totally sure on all the details. Everything around the time of Oliver’s kiss seemed to be a little fuzzy.
“You think?” Her mother all but screeched.
Sarah grimaced. Whether her rescuer was a brother to a Duke was hardly a detail that one should forget.
“Mamma, I’m sorry, I’m still a little shaken up.”
Her mother jumped up and reached out to her, concern written in her sad blue eyes.
“Don’t be sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted like that, but you know if someone finds out... You know you’ll never make the match we were hoping for you.”
Her mother accompanied her words with a reluctant shrug.
“You say he was trying to... ahh... undo his breeches?” Her mother turned beet red in embarrassment.
“Yes Mamma. That is how I managed to get away from him, because he had to let go of me for a minute.” Sarah told her mother this in a matter of fact tone, trying not to be overly emotional about it. She was still in shock and could not believe that a man had really tried to force her to couple with him.
“And... ah... you know what he was tryi
ng to do?” Her mother looked down at the carpet on the floor. Was her mother really wanting to talk about this now?
“Yes Mamma.” She had a few married friends in her town and she had coaxed the bare facts from them. She knew he had wanted to put that male part of himself in her female parts. It sounded horrible, in truth.
Her mother’s head shot up, a mixture of alarm and surprise showing on her once beautiful face.
“How?”
Sarah shrugged, washing her breasts for the hundredth time that night. They still felt unclean.
“I asked Mary for some of the details.” Mary was one of her married friends and quite a gossip. “And Mamma, I have to say, it sounds horrible. Do I really have to do that when I marry?”
Her mother blushed so red that Sarah was afraid she had finally done what she always thought was going to be her greatest achievement, rendering her mother mute.
“Time for our tete e tete, then.” Her mother sat down on the bed again and Sarah sunk lower into the warm water, giving her mother her full attention.
“It does sound horrible when described, I suppose, but it is how God designed us to make children. Therefore, it should be a natural thing between a husband and his wife.”
Really? She didn’t think so.
“But doesn’t it hurt?”
Sarah thought back to her conversation with her friend Mary. She didn’t say it had hurt, but the look on Mary’s face had not inspired confidence.
Lady Collins blushed again and Sarah smiled up at her. Goodness, her mother was almost forty. Sarah would have thought that she had outgrown blushes by now.
“It does to start with because your body will not be used to it, but if your husband is careful with you, and loves you, it can be quite... ahh... enjoyable after a while.” At this last revelation her mother dropped her eyes to her hands.
Sarah’s head swung around to her mother’s face, she almost sputtered. “Enjoyable?” Then reminded herself that her mother had more knowledge on the subject than she had.
Sarah digested this new information carefully. Thinking of her future spouse, she could only picture one man. If Oliver was her husband, he would be careful, she knew. And if her mother was correct, then the experience’s pleasure largely depended on the man.
“Then we’ll have to choose well, Mamma,” Sarah told her mother, with a smile, finishing the embarrassing conversation, more for her mother’s sake than her own.
“I’ll leave you then, Sarah. Take rest and sleep well.”
She smiled at her mother as she moved towards the door.
“Thank you Mamma. Good night.”
The door shut with a soft click and she stood up carefully, shivering slightly as the now cool water ran down her body.
Sarah stepped out of the tub, dried herself with the towel left by the servants and stepped closer to the fire to warm her as she put on her night gown.
Sarah fell asleep as soon as her head hit her pillow, too emotionally worn out to stay awake any longer.
*****
Sarah spent most of the next day thinking about what she really did want from her life and the person who she might share it with. What sort of man did she really want to marry? Which man did she have to marry to give her siblings a future?
Dressing for another ball the following evening caused excited butterflies to flutter around Sarah’s belly. Her lady’s maid coaxed her naturally curly hair into the ringlets that were loved by the fashionable ton and pulled her laces tight. Sarah had a decent bosom, neither too small nor too big. Looking down at herself, Sarah observed that her bosom seemed to suit her body shape and she thought they were quite pretty, as far as breasts went. Hopefully her future husband would feel the same way.
Her gown tonight was a pale pink, matching her slightly darker skin beautifully. She knew that the paler the skin, the better as far as the ton was concerned, but living in Somerset they had many functions out of doors and she never bothered to cover herself completely. She could only hope that her future husband wouldn’t find her complexion a problem. Sarah smiled to herself at the thought of meeting Oliver again and tried not to be too hopeful that he would attend the same event she would be attending. He had said he had no wish to be married, so did that mean she would never see him again? Generally, only those interested in matrimony attended balls. She suppressed another grin and pulled out her reticule. It was time to leave.
The ball was an even bigger crush than had been anticipated and within minutes of entering the hot room, Sarah found herself seeking the calm of the outdoors. Too many sweaty people in one place could not be good for the constitution, she was sure. Her need for a wrap around her shoulders was making her doubly warm. Her back was still visibly scratched from Millington’s foiled attack, and Sarah knew it was best to avoid questions by covering herself.
“Mamma, I need some fresh air.”
Her mother nodded and fluttered her fan. “Just stick to the balcony.”
Sarah hid her smile with a nod and made her way out the open doors to breathe once again.
*****
Oliver spent two minutes in the crowded ballroom and knew instinctively that she was here, but not in sight. Walking towards the balcony his pulse sped up and when he stepped into the cold air, his breath caught in his throat at the sight of her.
All he could see was the back of her curled blonde hair and lovely white dress, yet his heart was hammering and his belly swirled with unfamiliar feelings. He was excited, yet nervous.
Why did this beautiful young woman affect him so much? It was an exceptionally uncomfortable feeling and yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself wanting to be near her.
He swallowed and took a breath, forcing the word from his throat. “Sarah?” Oliver called out her name as clearly as his nervous body would allow, and walked onto the balcony behind her.
She visibly jumped and whirled around to look at him. Her hand came up to rest between her breasts in surprise, drawing his gaze to the plump flesh there. Arousal shot down his belly.
“Oh goodness Oliver, you scared me.” Her beautiful face transformed as she smiled up at him and Oliver blinked as though he was in a dream. He felt like he’d been clobbered over the head, his brain swimming in wonder, as though he’d just consumed a bottle of whiskey.
She was breathtaking. Had he really thought she was only pretty? Flawless skin, glorious golden hair and the most kissable lips he had ever had the misfortune to feel. She obviously didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, because she put her hand around his elbow and pulled him further away from the ballroom. It was the only, and last, place he wanted to be.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d see you tonight. You said you’re not on the marriage mart?” She laughed happily, as though telling a joke, but Oliver heard the question behind the statement.
She had no idea how hard Oliver had struggled with himself over the question to seek her out or not. He had chosen the lesser of the two evils. He could deal with the torture of seeing her healthy and well, worrying that she wasn’t, was a torture he hadn’t yet been able to endure.
“I wasn’t planning on it, to be honest, but I needed to make sure you were feeling a little better after your dreadful experience last night.”
If only she wasn’t so beautiful. It would make it so much easier.
Oliver knew that his attendance at more than one ball in a week had already been cause for speculation. He only had a few years left until he had to marry a lady to produce an heir to the dukedom, but he shuddered at the thought. He had always planned to marry someone he wanted, someone he cared for. But since he had inherited the title, his new responsibility as the title holder meant he was obliged to marry someone who would be a good duchess. Someone who had the appropriate training and breeding for the position. Oliver’s back teeth ground together at the thought. When had he started thinking about women as though they were horses?
Sarah flushed prettily, the blood giving her cheeks a healthy tinge that made her glow a
ll the more. Oliver stifled a groan as blood flowed to his groin.
“Thank you, I really do appreciate it.”
Sarah lifted her gaze to meet his and Oliver had to fight the urge to pull her into his arms for a real kiss. That light touch of his mouth on hers from the night before had only whet his appetite for her. He had thought of little else and now that she was so close, he was aching for another taste.
“It was no bother at all.” He patted her hand lightly, striving for a paternal type of reassurance and removed her small hand from his arm. He turned his back on the gardens and leaned against the banister at the end of the balcony.
“Since we have already discussed my lack of interest in a marriage partner, tell me, is there any gentleman at whom you have been looking?” He gestured widely towards the ballroom and watched her closely.
It had been a long time since Oliver had felt comfortable with another person, any person. And to be this comfortable with a woman to whom he was attracted, ... well it had never happened before!
“I haven’t been looking, to be honest. After the other night, I’m not sure I trust my own instincts.”
She smiled sadly and Oliver clenched his hands into fists at his side. Damn that Patrick Millington.
“Well, tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll recommend someone.” The words were out of his mouth before he even thought to halt them. God, he was stupid and a glutton for punishment, it would seem.
She smiled at that, although the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I need someone with, well...”
“Money,” he sighed, finishing her sentence for her and feeling disappointed despite himself. For once, he wanted to be wrong about a woman.
“Yes, unfortunately.” Sarah sighed just as heavily as he had and leaned back against the railing beside him.
Oliver looked up from where he’d been staring at the ground, confused by her words. Sarah had just admitted to something to which most ladies would openly admit, but yet sounded so sad about the fact.
“Why unfortunately?” He tried to keep his tone light once again. This may be one of the only times he got to hear her real opinion. He knew that as soon as she found out who he really was, she would doctor her opinions accordingly.