For half a beat, Joseph lost track of the story. He cocked his head. The atmosphere in the room, the energy in the air, had changed. They hadn’t touched, but something passed between them. A wave, a current. He longed to follow it with his hands.
“Right,” he said slowly, eyeing her.
There was a high shelf lined with hats behind her head, and he leaned forward and grabbed it, propping himself over her. She looked up to see his face.
“We left the carriage,” he repeated, “and stomped through the mud of the alley to this door. When we were inside, I shucked out of my outer coat and stooped immediately, down on one knee. My first duty in this room was always to pull Trevor’s muddy boots from his feet. Later, I would return to clean the leather and polish them. He wouldn’t wear them into the house until I had cared for them. I kept a clean pair here for that very purpose. I’d knelt at his feet and pried his filthy boots a thousand times.
“But this time,” Joseph went on, his voice low, “Trevor said to me, ‘We’re all finished with that, Joe.’”
“He calls you Joe?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“May I call you Joe?”
You may call me whatever you like, he thought, but he said, “Yes. Although I like the way you say ‘Joseph.’”
She blushed. “But what did the earl mean?”
“Well, this is what I asked him. I can still hear my voice asking, ‘What d’you mean?’ And Trevor said, ‘No more pulling my boots. No more cleaning my boots. No more service for you of any kind, ever again.’
“And I was devastated. I was only seventeen, but I struggled to rise from the floor like an old man. I actually thought I might bloody cry. I said, ‘Are you sacking me, my lord?’ Only very rarely did I invoke his title, and when I did then, my voice broke. I was ready to take my treatise and fling it into the mud outside.”
“Oh, Joseph,” Tessa whispered. She raised her small, perfect hand and rested it on his chest. Joseph stared at it. He wanted desperately to take it up and press it against his cheek, to nuzzle her palm, to kiss her fingertips. It had been years since he’d thought of this story, and he was surprised to feel a welling of emotion, almost as raw as that rainy afternoon, years ago.
“His opinion of me,” Joseph said, trying to make her understand, “was so much more important than any other of my ambitions.”
“And what happened?”
Joseph shrugged. “He told me he was terminating my employment. He said no boy with talent equal to mine should be wasted cleaning his boots. He told me Piety would hire someone else to look after him. And then, he told me I should clear out of my room in the servants’ quarters and take a family room on the third floor. He said, ‘You will devote yourself to your studies full time. You will be like a . . . like an annoying relative who freeloads off of my hospitality and will not leave. Only we both know you are not terribly annoying, and certainly you have earned your place in this house. You’ve been toiling here, largely unpaid, since you were a boy. And that says nothing of the great debt I owe your mother for her years of service to mine.’
“And then, as I was trying to sort through the magnitude of what he’d said, he added, ‘In a year or two, we will send you off to university, so I might as well get used to someone else looking after me now. To break him in.’”
Tears welled in Tessa’s eyes, and she blinked. “But what did you do?”
“I knew Trevor well enough to not belabor the point or overblow the gesture. I said something like, ‘But surely I will pull your boots once more? Now? We’re flooding the boot room. They’re filthy, Trev.’
“And I’ll never forget. He said, ‘No, you won’t. That part of your life is over. Take the paper you’ve written and show it to Piety. Tell her the changes she and I have been planning begin today. She will show you your new room. Supper is at eight o’clock.’
“And then he handed me the treatise and turned away. I did not argue. And I have not worked as a servant since that day.”
Tessa breathed in a hitched breath and wiped a tear from her eye. The hand on his chest curled in slightly, her fingertips digging in to his lapel. He felt her touch all the way to his lungs. He looked from her hand to her.
“It’s hard for me to envision you working as a valet,” she said.
“I preferred ‘man of all work’ at the time, I believe,” he joked.
Tessa held his gaze and then looked bashfully away. She saw a boiler hat hanging beside her on a peg, and she reached out and ran a finger along the smooth bill.
Joseph swallowed hard. He thought of kissing her then. Dipping down, lips on lips, just a taste. For now. Until . . . until he could do it properly. Until they weren’t surrounded by boots and umbrellas. Until she was ready.
His brain scrambled for the next correct thing to say. “Being a servant, I’m guessing, is not so very different from being a mother.”
She smiled at this, still studying the hat.
Joseph said, “For example, if it is a cold day, you must stand ready . . .” he plucked the hat from the peg “. . . with a hat. To keep bare heads warm.”
Gently, he settled the hat on Tessa’s head. She giggled but did not duck away. It was too large and dropped over one eye. She shoved it back.
“If a ride is in order, you are ready with gloves.” He plucked a pair of fine leather gloves from the shelf and tucked them under his arm. He held out his hand. Smiling cautiously, Tessa reached out. Joseph took her hand and began to work the large, soft glove onto her fingers. She turned her hand, helping him slide it on. Her skin was soft and warm, her fingers nimble. The only sound in the room was the rustle of leather and the sound of their breathing.
When one glove was on, she was ready with the other hand immediately, holding it out. He slid the second glove in to place.
“And if it is very cold and wet,” he said, taking a greatcoat from a hook, “you’ll need this.” They locked eyes again as he slid the heavy coat around her shoulders.
The coat enveloped her and he stepped closer. The heavy wool would easy wrap around them both. She licked her lips, and Joseph felt his pulse all over his body.
Casting around for any excuse to touch her, he took up the lapels of the coat and joined the collar loosely beneath her chin. His hands brushed her face and she sucked in a little breath. She raised her face, smiling at him. He ran a thumb along her cheek a second time, never breaking her gaze. Her mouth was open, just a little. He tugged the collar, the slightest possible tug, and she stumbled closer still.
He scanned the walls; he was running out of garments in which to drape her. In the back of his mind, he thought, this was possibly the strangest seduction in the history of the world. He was putting clothes on her body instead of taking them off. They were in a bloody boot room, for God’s sake. He almost laughed, almost gave up and laughed at his own feeble attempt, but before he could pull away—
She leapt up and kissed him.
One moment she was staring up at him, the next she was against him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her lips pressed against his.
The hat fell off, the coat dropped. Behind his neck he could feel her peeling off the gloves.
For the blink of an eye, Joseph froze, not believing. And then he growled and scooped her into his arms.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tessa had kissed, perhaps, dozens of men in her lifetime.
Beaux and suitors, men she met at balls, men who had plied her with flowers and poetry and jewelry. Some she enjoyed, others were more like conquests.
But no kiss, not in all her twenty-three years of kissing, ever compared to the kiss that she . . . she . . . seized in the boot room of his earl’s cellar.
And seized it, she had. She’d listened to his story, she had stood very still while he touched her fingers and her wrist and her face. She heard the rise and fall of his breath and the low, crackling register of his voice. She had witnessed his restraint.
Restraint was something about w
hich she also had a fair amount of knowledge. Old Tessa or New Tessa or the Man in the Moon, she had always known when a man wanted to kiss her but held himself back. She’d known when they were too chivalrous or too afraid or when they simply did not know how to go about it.
Clearly, Joseph Chance knew how to do it.
Whether he was afraid or chivalrous or some other reason, Tessa could not say, she only knew that she wanted him, and he wasn’t initiating, and this would be up to her.
“Tessa,” he breathed when she dragged her mouth from his to suck in a breath.
She turned her face, offering her cheek, and he came down with a growl, dragging a raspy line of kisses along her jaw. The roughness of his whiskers and his labored breath, so very close to her ear, plunged her into a pool of sensation. She closed her eyes and dropped her head.
They had kissed at Berymede many times, and Tessa had enjoyed those kisses, but she had also kept herself just a little bit removed.
Well, her mind had been held back, even while she quite enjoyed being in his arms. Her mind hovered just north of the baby growing inside of her and just south of her ultimate goal of getting Joseph Chance into bed, the sooner, the better.
Any kiss had the potential to evolve into sex, and if she could possibly maneuver it, she had known every kiss must try. Most things she had done at Berymede had had some ulterior motive, kissing included. She hadn’t been entirely sure what she’d done to spirit Captain Marking from kissing her to . . . what he did to her, but if she could possibly compel Joseph to repeat it, she had known she must.
In the last eleven months, as she’d lain awake missing Joseph, she wondered how, if he did come back—really back, all the way to her arms—how would she manage intimacy with him?
And now that it finally happened—well, now that kissing had happened—she felt tenuous . . . relief. She felt no fear, at least not of the kissing. And she wanted to continue kissing very, very much. When she thought about it (her brain was not entirely analytical in the moment), she would describe herself as ravenous to kiss and kiss and kiss.
When she’d launched herself at him, she’d cinched her arms around his neck—the fastest, surest way to catch him and hold him. Now, her hands roamed. She wanted his hair, his tousled, sun-streaked hair, and she dug her fingers in, sliding it between her fingers. His cravat was stiff and unyielding, ironed to parchment, and she crushed it, her fingers greedy.
He laughed against her mouth, seeking it out, kissing her again. She kissed him back, playing her fingers along his collar like she was unwrapping a gift, yanking at the unyielding cravat. After three tries, the stiff linen gave way and her fingers found bare neck. She opened her hand like a fan and reveled in the warm bronze skin.
“Tessa,” he repeated.
He said her name like the word yes. An affirmation. An agreement. A pledge. He’d caught her around the waist, but now his hands inched slowly upward. He held her like she was a pillar, palms flat, fingers splayed, like he was carefully balancing her upright. When his hands were at her ribs, his fingertips grazed the sides of her breasts. When he moved up, the hollow of his palm slid perfectly over the curve of her breast. Here, he paused, allowing the warmth of his hands to seep through the wool of her dress. She fought for lucidity in the swirling sensation of the kiss, forcing herself to think about his hands on her body. She waited for the fear, and nothing happened—no recoil, no immobility, not even the slightest tremor of alarm. She felt only heat and closeness and the gentle strength of Joseph’s large hands.
More, she thought—her pervading thought. She fell forward. More of him, closer, more of his hand on more of her body.
Finally, after what felt like months, when she was out of her mind with need, he ever so slowly contracted his fingers, testing the shape of her breast.
Tessa made a little whimper and bowed her body forward. Her hands dropped from his neck and clasped his shoulders. She dug in, feeling the rock-hard muscle beneath his coat. The fine wool was a frustration, thick and cool with heavy seams, a separation. She slid her hands beneath his lapels, roving over his chest and to the muscle-knotted trapezoid of his shoulders. She squeezed again, feeling the actual muscles. She sighed; he was so very strong and yet restrained. She delved deeper, reveling in the power that she knew he would never use against her.
“Tessa, you will be my undoing,” he rasped, leaving her mouth to breathe, dragging his face across her cheek and ear and hair. He staggered, just a little, and pulled away to glance around. There was a bench against the wall and he stooped suddenly, lifted her, and pivoted the two of them. He fell onto the bench with an oof and pulled her in his lap. He dropped against the wall behind him, laying against a curtain of coats and scarves. His face was a mix of caution and hope and need.
Tessa laughed and fell against him, kissing his neck the way he had kissed hers, devouring the warm skin, rough with an emerging beard. Joseph groaned, and his hands went to her hair, holding her against him as she nuzzled and breathed him in, as she said his name into his ear.
The stiff fabric of her dress snagged against the buttons of his coat, and she never hated it more. It felt like a shroud. Her hair, so tightly constricted in the tight knot of a bun, began to slip free, and she was glad. His hands dug in to the loose waves.
“I hate this bun,” he said. “I’m sorry, Tess, but I hate it so very much.”
“I hate it too.”
“May I . . . ?” His fingers began to work through her hair, massaging it free.
She didn’t answer. Words left her. She could only kiss him. She slid into the swirl of sensation where there was no detested dress or bun, no Old Tessa or New Tessa.
Please, she thought hazily. Please let me sit on your lap and be held and be desired and be close to you and to not be afraid, not of my future or my past.
She slid her hands up his arms and clasped either side of his face, holding him in place. He chuckled and widened his legs. She slid lower into his lap, dropping into the notch formed by his legs. The proximity felt urgently right, her hips pressed against him, and she squirmed to nestle in. Joseph groaned. She’d jostled from his mouth and she rose up to recapture it. He groaned a second time and slid a large palm down her spine to cup her bottom. She gasped at the pleasure of the new closeness.
Her hair, now entirely free from the bun, fell over her shoulders and down her back. It tickled her cheek and stuck in her collar, a waterfall of blonde over the two of them. She shook her head, trying to toss it back. Joseph gathered it loosely, wrapping the thick weight of it around his hand and then gently propping it over a shoulder. It uncoiled, fanning out, and he strummed it through his fingers, following it to her waist. He toyed with the ends, and she loved the feel of his hand. He’d never seen her hair loose and down, not even at Berymede. Her hair had always been a vanity, and even as she transformed into the New Tessa, she couldn’t bring herself to cut it. Now she reveled in the feel of Joseph bobbing his fingers against the ends.
When the last of it slid through his fingertips, his hand delved lower, feeling the roundness of her hip, then lower still to her thigh, hooked over his leg. She relished it all, kissing him with her mouth while her body burned beneath his touch. Her brain floated above them.
She was just about to slide her hands beneath his coat again, to peel it off perhaps, when Joseph’s fingers skated down her leg and grazed the leather of her boot at the ankle.
It was a light touch, more pressure than a touch, but something about that contact caused her brain to hitch, then seize, then plummet from the misty heavens back to the dim, musty boot room on earth.
She went very still, sucking in a labored breath and holding it. She waited. The overloaded senses of touch and taste receded like a wave, while sound and sight crashed over her. His breathing was so loud. His hands were too big and too . . . everywhere. Clasping her bottom, wrapping around her ankle.
Before she could ask him to stop, he moved two fingers upward, the slightest graze, from the
top of her boot to her stockinged ankle, just inches beneath the hem of her dress, and panic bolted through Tessa like a runaway horse.
“Wait . . .” she heard herself yelp, and then, “No.”
She pushed from his lap.
Joseph’s hands flew back as if she’d combusted in his arms. His face was frozen in horror and guilt.
Tessa’s panic flared, leaping inside her like a shooting flame, and then, almost as quickly, it dissipated. It sank slowly, deflated and powerless, like a limp sail. In its wake, the terrible feelings of regret and confusion and anger. Resentful, bitter anger. Captain Neil Marking had packed her with latent panic in the same way he packed a musket with powder. She’d been cocked to explode all along, sabotaged against loving touch.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly, clapping her hands over her face. “Don’t stop. Please.”
“Don’t stop?” Joseph rasped.
She peeked at him.
He was sprawled on the bench as if he’d been blown there by a strong wind.
“You’re standing across the room, Tessa,” he panted. His voice was hoarse. “Granted, it is a small room. Hardly an ideal room for a romantic encounter, but I was enjoying it.” He exhaled quickly, like he’d just cheated death. “I’ve . . . I’ve overstepped, Tessa. Forgive me. Tell me how I’ve frightened you.”
“No,” she said immediately. She thrust her hand out with one finger raised like a governess. “No. It’s not you. It was never you.”
Her brain thrummed with conflicting jolts of desire and fear and frustration. She wanted to scream, but what did screaming solve? She wanted to sob against his chest, but she’d cried enough at Vauxhall. She’d needed tears that night, but now crying seemed like a regression.
“Give me a moment, please.” She turned away.
Tell him, tell him, she thought. Tell him something, anything.
She wanted to talk even less than she wanted to scream or cry. She was loath to reveal a single, excruciating detail about Captain Marking and the night that Christian had been conceived. But how much of her struggle with Joseph Chance was because of what she did not say? She glanced over her shoulder. He looked as if he was slowly dying of a gunshot. He was owed some explanation.
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