by Jade Lee
“Of course,” the lady answered.
“Then I’ll take charge of Mr. Morrison.” She gripped him under the arm and lifted. He obeyed quietly, having no strength to do anything else.
Rachel stepped forward. “I’ll summon my carriage—”
“No need,” interrupted Penny. “I can call for it. You make sure Mr. Bingley gets home to his wife.”
“Of course, Miss Shoemaker. It was a pleasure meeting you. And, Samuel,” she added with a bright smile, “I must thank you again for keeping my party lively.”
She meant it as a joke, and Samuel took it as his due. He was the court fool. Entertaining was what he did and would likely have to do for many a year to come. After all, parties were the only way he would find food. And with that thought in mind, he drained the brandy in his hand. It would likely be the last he had for a very long time. Then he turned to Penny, a little startled to see the look of cold disgust on her face. For a moment, he thought it was directed at him. It should have been. But instead, she was looking at the marchioness.
“We’ll be leaving now,” she said curtly.
Rachel nodded to them. Then, mindful of his role as Penny’s escort, Samuel offered her his arm. She took it as regally as any queen, and together they walked through the gauntlet of intrigued stares and superior snickers. Samuel kept his face calm—as did Penny—and eventually they made it outside.
“Damnation,” he cursed. “We forgot to call for the carriage.”
“No matter,” she said, not slowing her pace at all. “We shall walk.”
“Penny—”
“Hush, Samuel. I am determined to walk, and so you may accompany me or summon the carriage for yourself. I’ll not ride in that woman’s carriage again.”
Her tone was sharp enough to surprise him. “Has the marchioness offered you some insult I didn’t notice?”
“Insult to me? No! But imagine her thanking you for making her party entertaining.”
He winced. “She was joking.”
“She was not. At least not fully. How many of them in there see you as a prancing dog? ‘Tell me about my watch, Morrison.’ ‘I hear Warwick is in the suds again. Do you think he’ll recover?’ ‘Do you recall the weather three days ago?’ Blimey, but they were dreary. And you call them your friends?”
He blinked at her, startled to hear the defiance in her voice. Was she really defending him? When he had just proved to everyone of the ton how inadequate he was at supporting a family?
“That is the role I play at these things,” he said honestly. “I am invited because I entertain.”
“But you call them your friends!” she snapped.
“Well, they are. Some of them. Not all, but some I like quite well.” He slowed, turning her to look at him square on. “I wanted to take you to a ball. To dance with you and see how beautiful you were in a gown made for the very wealthiest among us. And you were, you know. Stunningly beautiful. Up until Carl gave me that facer, I was the envy of everyone there.”
She snorted, but he could see that she was pleased by his words. Reaching up, she touched his face. “Samuel, will you walk with me?”
“Of course.” Then he frowned at the streets. This was not the way to the dress shop. “Where are we headed?”
“To your rooms.”
He swallowed at that, but she kept her expression steady.
“Penny…” he began, not knowing what exactly he wanted to say.
“And as we walk,” she said firmly, “I should like you to explain what happened. If you would.”
Of course he would. He could deny her nothing. But still it was hard to expose his failing to her. The event was so new.
He patted her hand and they began to walk again, their steps slow. Fortunately it was early enough by ton standards that there were still people about. That gave them the illusion of safety and respectability. Though he did keep a wary eye out for footpads.
“Samuel, what happened?”
“I invested in two factories. They made furniture. Good, sturdy, cheap furniture such that could be created in a factory and shipped throughout England, perhaps onto the Continent. Nothing that required art or decoration. The one made desks and chairs. The other made tables and bed frames. Nothing elaborate. Just simple and cheap.”
“And now they have both burned down.”
He nodded, his spirits turning morose. “We have had problems aplenty. The workers didn’t understand, always wanting to put time into making the things lovely.”
She smiled at that. She would, of course, being an artisan herself.
“But that wasn’t the purpose of this furniture. No man should have to sleep on the floor or squat on a rock in his own home. I thought to make simple, affordable furniture. For everyone.”
“So you had problems?” she prompted when he fell silent.
He nodded. “A shipment of wood went awry. Someone fouled the paint. That sort of thing. Annoying, certainly, but we got it sorted out. Had the mischief makers arrested, in fact.”
“Then things went well?”
He nodded. In truth, he hadn’t paid that much attention. The Season had started and all appeared to be running smoothly. “I hadn’t heard of any problems. The first load went out to the stores a month ago. Sales were just as expected.” His brother had checked on that. Greg was very careful with that sort of detail. Usually Samuel checked things out at the beginning. Greg followed through to make sure it all went as it ought.
“So it was doing well.”
“Expected the first profits—”
“On quarter day.”
He nodded. It was the day he had meant to propose to her. Now he hoped that he would spend the day free of prison.
“Damned timing, isn’t it?” she asked. “Are you sure you caught all the mischief makers?”
He glanced at her, startled anew by her intelligence. “Of course we did. Or rather, I thought we did.”
She nodded. He was already following her logic, thinking through the possibilities with an eye to sabotage. After all, if someone wanted to destroy the factory, he might start small: fouling the paints, misdirecting the supplies. But when that didn’t work, he would have to take more drastic measures. Perhaps to the point of setting the factory ablaze.
“I have to see the ruins,” he said to himself.
“What?”
“The fire. There are signs when a place is deliberately set ablaze. Every fire takes a predictable, logical path. The science is relatively simple once you learn the basic principles. There are ways to tell if the blaze was an accident or a deliberate attempt at sabotage.”
He looked up at the sky, thought about the time, his remaining coins, and the different ways to travel to his destination. His brother and Carl would want to join him. They were equal investors. Not that solving a crime would save any of them. The factories were destroyed, but perhaps there would be satisfaction in seeing the guilty caught and punished.
“I will have to leave in the morning,” he said to himself. “Greg won’t be up before then. And it will give me a chance to apologize to them. And to Max.” He sighed. “Poor Max will have to leave London.” He didn’t know who would mourn that more—himself or the boy. Damn, he had loved having them here. His mind spun off on what he might say to the boy to make things better. To Max, to Georgette and Greg. At least the little girl was too small to understand. Though she would realize when everyone had to up and leave for the country. It was all his fault—
“So you set the fire then?”
He frowned. “What?”
“I’m looking at your face, Samuel. I can see you feel responsible. But if you didn’t set the fire, then how can it be your fault?”
“I’m the smart one,” he said honestly. “They invested because I said to.”
“And seems to me they took a risk right alongside you. Not all businesses work out, you know.”
He kicked at a stone, his mind spinning beneath the onslaught of guilt. This investment would
have made all of their futures, Penny’s included if she had accepted his suit. Now…
“Stop it!” she snapped, pulling his face to hers. He hadn’t even noticed that she’d stopped, but now she stood directly in front of him and her eyes were practically blazing with fury.
“You’re not a trained dog, like those blighters at the party think. You’re not an all-knowing god, like you seem to think. Just like I’m not a queen, you’re not a knight errant. You’re just a man, Samuel. A good man with a good heart. But that doesn’t keep you from making mistakes.”
He looked at her, saw that her eyes were hot and her breath short as she grew furious on his behalf. He saw that she was beautiful in her clothing, but all the more amazing because she understood his thoughts without him even expressing them. When had he last known a person—man or woman—who could know what he was thinking and talk to him so clearly?
Never. Except perhaps the one tutor when he was a boy. Never in his adult life, and never a woman. Not until Penny. “I would have married you,” he whispered. He wanted her to know that. “I would have showered you with gifts, given you and Tommy everything you wanted. I would have done that for you.”
She said something under her breath. A curse, he thought, except that why would a woman curse after he said that? He couldn’t reason it out, especially since she didn’t give him the time. She stretched up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
He wanted to hold her off. He wanted to be an honorable man. If he couldn’t marry her, then he shouldn’t…
But her mouth was insistent and her body was warm. He felt her arms slip around his torso and her breasts press against his chest. So he gave in to temptation. He tightened his hold, he bent her slightly backward, and he plundered her mouth with all the desperation he had burning through him. He poured it all into her, and she took it and turned it into passion. Within a second, he was rock hard.
“Penny!” he gasped, breaking off the kiss and knowing he was a few breaths away from doing things to her that were certainly not in the chivalric code.
She twisted slightly, bringing her lips to his ears. She spoke softly, but with a determination that rang through her words and her body straight into his.
“I have French letters,” she said. “And I want you to be my man. Tonight.”
“Penny,” he murmured, trying desperately to hold on to his better judgment. “I cannot—”
“I’m not some bloody queen,” she huffed. “Now take me to your rooms or I shall strip you naked right here in the street.”
She wouldn’t, of course, but one look in her eyes told him she was in earnest. She would absolutely attempt to seduce him right here on the street.
“You are the most amazing woman.”
“And you are the strangest toff.” She gripped his ear and pulled him close. “Now take me to your bed.”
So he did.
Chapter 21
Penny was not an impetuous woman. She did not make decisions lightly. She weighed them in her mind, thinking through possibilities, testing the feel of the decision in her gut long before she acted. This decision—the one that made her what everyone already thought of her—came so easily she wondered if she was lying to herself. Was it really so easy to step into sin?
Yes, she realized. Yes, when the heart was in love. So she walked calmly with him to his flat. She had already headed them in that direction anyway with this thought in mind. And when he took her inside the building to the two rooms he let on the top floor, she felt a sense of inevitability settle around her. They had been headed here since the first day that he’d rescued her bag of likes from Cordwain.
“Penny,” he began when he’d finished lighting the candles.
Lord, would the man never stop talking? She waved him to silence as she took in her surroundings. Clutter. That was what she saw. Books, bizarre bottles, a mishmash of odd toys or tools or she didn’t know what.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t clean,” he mumbled as he grabbed a pile of papers off a bench and dropped them on top of a tray of something that…well, she didn’t know what it was. An experiment of some sort, she supposed. And a failed one at that.
It took her a moment to realize that he had almost no furniture. A table and a bench. Presumably there was a bed in the other room. Everything else was in piles.
“This is why you bought a factory to make furniture,” she mused.
He shrugged. “I don’t entertain. No need to have much.” He stepped close to her, stroking the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. “Penny, we don’t have to—”
She kissed him. She was tired of all the thoughts. His head, her head, all the words that spun around and around. It was exhausting. She had made her decision, so tonight—to make this a perfect night—she would end it in his bed.
She pressed her mouth to his, she teased his lips with her tongue, and she pressed her body against his. He grabbed her tight, hauling her hard against him, but he didn’t immediately dive into her kiss. There was a reluctance that she understood.
“I wanted this to be our wedding night,” he whispered against her lips.
She stilled, pulling back slightly as she looked into his eyes. He had said that before, but she thought it was a result of his shock. Now she looked into his eyes and saw that he was earnest. That he had planned on the when and the how to marry her.
“Penny, answer honestly. Would you marry a man who might be headed toward debtor’s prison? One who had nothing, not a groat to his name?”
Her mind was scrambling for an answer, but her body was already doing it for her. Before she could even formulate the words, her head was shaking, no. No, she wouldn’t put herself or Tommy at such risk. Whole families disappeared into debtor’s prison, never to come out. She would not marry a man who put them in such peril. She just couldn’t.
He dropped his head to her forehead, despair already in his face. “I’ll find a way, Penny. I swear it.”
Then she found the words. She knew what she needed to say, and so she cupped his face and pulled his gaze back up to hers. “I won’t marry you, Samuel, but I will love you. I do love you. And because of that, I will bed you.”
“No—”
“Yes.” She stepped backward, and her fingers found the buttons of the gown. This was one of Helaine’s designs. It had the buttons along the side, and so it was awkward, but easily undone without help. She unfastened the dress, and let the gown fall open. The shift was part of the design, and so there was nothing to stop the reveal of one breast to his gaze as a triangle of fabric fell away.
She looked up then, a little uncertain as to his reaction. One glance reassured her. He stared as if mesmerized, but his fingers jerked as if wanting to touch, but still holding himself back. And his eyes, Lord, his eyes stared at her with such hunger. He wasn’t looking at her breast, but at her face. And she could not mistake the desire in his eyes.
Then she shrugged her other shoulder out of the dress. The fabric slipped down over her arm, revealed her other breast before catching on her hips. A shimmy next, and the dress pooled at her feet. She stood before him in stockings and slippers. Then to make sure he absolutely understood, she looked him in the eyes.
“I’m sure, Samuel. I have been for a while now.”
He took a moment—a long moment—when he studied her face, then let his gaze travel the length of her. Then he just shook his head in wonder.
“You make everything in me grow silent. Everything. Silent with awe.”
She didn’t know how to answer, so she didn’t. She just felt the way her blood simmered in her body in response to him. The way her nipples tightened and her legs grew weak. This man—this brilliant, mad toff—was looking at her as if she were a goddess. And—
Her mind stuttered to a stop and she squeaked in surprise. Faster than she thought possible, he had closed the distance between them, scooped her up, and now was carrying her to his bed. She was lifted in his arms, well able to kiss him. She did so as soon as sh
e could capture his face. And he returned it with a thrust that left her breathless.
She didn’t know what she expected at this moment. She had heard any number of stories from her married friends. She certainly didn’t expect to be lowered reverently to his bed. She didn’t know that he could do that without breaking the seal of their mouths. And she also hadn’t expected the sudden power in her very gentle toff.
He possessed her mouth with a kind of command, just as his hands began to possess her body. She couldn’t explain it with words, just that this time when he stroked her body, she felt it as a caress and a brand. When he shaped her breasts, she felt the exciting touch of passion, but she also felt as if he was laying claim to her. When his fingers pinched her nipples, she gasped as fire shot to her womb, but she also felt as if her nipples where his to tweak, to brush, to suck. And he did all of those things while her body gloried in his possession.
So caught up was she in the sensations that she didn’t even realize when he left her mouth and her neck. He’d been kissing her, stroking her skin with his tongue, but when his mouth found her breast, she began to gasp with such hunger. Her skin was on fire, her legs restless, and her back would not stop lifting and lowering as she ached to have him closer. Deeper.
He was sucking on her nipple, drawing it into his mouth, pulling on her strongly. Each pull had her lifting off the bed, each stroke of his tongue had her toes curling in delight. And when he nipped at her tip, she cried out. Oh, God, she never wanted it to end.
She tried to touch him. His face was tucked away from her, but she stroked his hair, flowed her fingers down his neck.
“Take off your clothes,” she gasped. “Please.”
He lifted off enough to shuck his shirt and cravat. She saw pale skin turned golden by the firelight. He was a lean man, but she saw muscles gloriously defined, corded and strong. She stroked across his torso, knowing the feel of him already, the scent that was him, and the power that lay in his frame.
“All of you,” she said as her hand tugged at his trousers.