It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels

by Grace Burrowes

  Had Matthew not been watching his brother, he would have missed the expression that flickered through Axel’s blue eyes.

  “Nicholas, whose instincts regarding females are not to be dismissed, was correct, Matthew. Abigail has ghosts to exorcise at Stoneleigh Manor, and for me to proffer marriage now, when she’s again grieving, at sixes and sevens, upset, reeling, and not even in the best of health, would be to take advantage as the colonel did.”

  Oh, right. Love made sensible people too noble for their own good. “The colonel sought to exploit your Abigail, and then end her existence. You seek to cherish her and give her the rest of your life.”

  That fleeting, hopeless, besotted, resolute expression came and went again. Martyrs wore such expressions. Matthew felt a long, frustrated letter to his wife coming on.

  “I seek Abigail’s well-being and her happiness,” Axel said. “You will excuse me for abandoning you. I want to read up on hashish, on whether long-term use can lead to violent tendencies, or derange an otherwise sound mind.”

  “Love deranges an otherwise sound mind.” Matthew braced for a brotherly blow to the back of the head.

  Axel sliced another pear and added it to the silver plate in the center of the table. “And yet, love puts all to rights with the heart. How much longer can you stay?”

  Matthew wanted to stay as long as Axel needed him, but the vagaries of winter travel prevented that, as did a new wife in a delicate condition.

  “I should likely leave at the first of the week, weather permitting. Theresa reports all is well at Belmont House, but…”

  Axel rose and patted Matthew’s shoulder. “You miss your wife, and she torments you with cheery recountings of all going well and her spirits being sanguine. She’s staying busy, in other words, and dreaming of you. Investigate the upper shelves behind the desk in the library if it helps, but it won’t cure with what ails you. I predict a joyous reunion and, despite the state of the king’s highways, a very swift journey home.”

  Axel kissed the top of Matthew’s head, snatched up the plate of pears—and the violets—and sauntered off, likely to charm his lady through a long winter night.

  A tug on the bell-pull would bring the servants to clear the table—something the master of the household had forgotten to tend to. Matthew picked up his wine glass and the half-full wine bottle, and headed off to the cozy solitude of the library.

  Where he would write that letter to his wife, and that would help only a little.

  Axel balanced the violets and pears in one hand and tapped at Abby’s door, feeling… all manner of things. Hopeful, desperate, determined, worried. She had defended his botany in a stirring lecture to Nicholas, but she’d also defended her own intention to remain unattached—all for the best, surely.

  And then she’d invited Axel to come to her bedroom once again.

  The door opened, Axel stepped into Abby’s room, and that was that. No discussion, no scowling glance into the corridor, no firming of her lips that might mean impatience, rejection, ire, anticipation… Before he could put down either the flowers or the fruit, Abby kissed his cheek.

  “You gave me your key,” she said. “I forgot to thank you for that.”

  “The key to the glass house?”

  She took his offerings and set them on the bedside table. “To the glass house with all your experiments, the one with the cozy hearth, your most treasured records.”

  Axel’s most treasured recent memories too. He’d had a day to consider the significance of giving Abigail his key, a gesture apparently not lost on her.

  “I could think of no more pleasant, soothing, or solitudinous place for you to while away a morning.” Amid his hopes and dreams, his best work, his greatest acts of patience and faith.

  His treasured failures, many of which had been more illuminating and inspiring than his successes. As Axel slipped his arms around Abigail, he pushed aside the notion that she would be one of his failures, or he one of hers.

  She gave him her weight, fatigue evident in her surrender. “Make love with me, please?”

  “If you’d rather rest tonight, you should rest,” Axel said, nuzzling the curls at her temple. “You need not make any hasty plans, just because that knee-patting disgrace from the manse has decided to turn up puritanical, meddling, and bothersome. Your safety must come before all else, Abigail, and I will cheerfully remind the good pastor that ‘thou shalt not kill’ trumps the rest of the list handily. Putting a parishioner in the path of harm, merely because some committee of clucking, matchmaking biddies has—”

  Abigail sighed, which meant she pressed closer, and that purely deprived a man of spontaneous lectures regarding moral taxonomies.

  And imbued him with a pressing need to get his clothes off.

  “Help me with my cuffs,” Axel said, stepping back and holding out both wrists, as a prisoner obliges one putting on shackles. “Did you enjoy your morning?”

  Abby undid his cuff-links and passed them to him for stashing in his watch pocket.

  “Your glass house is magic, Axel. I was fretful and upset when I sat down with Grandpapa’s journal, but I dozed off before I’d finished my first cup of chocolate. The roses form a sort of guard, with their greenery and their scent. I’m even comforted by the thought of their thorns.”

  “Interesting theory, that we value them for those thorns.” Axel’s waistcoat came next, then his cravat, and half-unbuttoned shirt.

  “Every image I’ve seen of a princess in a fairy tale has her tower guarded by thorny roses. Give me your clothes, sir.”

  Wives spoke thus. Do this. Stop that. Here, now. You mustn’t. Husbands complied, usually. Axel passed over his shirt, which Abby folded up on the chest at the foot of the bed. He might, in six attempts, have managed the same tidy result she achieved on a casual first go, such was the mystery of feminine domestic expertise.

  “Shall I take down your hair, Abigail?” She hadn’t had time to tend to that, apparently more focused on getting into her nightclothes.

  Those brisk, competent hands paused with Axel’s cravat stretched between them. “I’d like that.”

  Axel tugged off his boots and stockings, set them near the door, and took up a post by the vanity.

  “You did this for your Caroline?”

  “Occasionally, when she was weary. Like many couples, we had neither lady’s maid nor valet. Finances early in the marriage were occasionally constrained.” And always, Caroline’s first suggestion had been to spend less on the roses, though they’d quickly become a reliable source of income.

  Abigail took a seat on the vanity stool. “I am weary, but not as tired as I was when you kidnapped me from Stoneleigh Manor. The longer I’m here, the more I can see how unwell I’d become.”

  Axel extracted the first pin from the back of Abby’s coiffure. In his passing liaisons, this tending to a lover hadn’t come into it. Of course, he’d laced up the occasional corset, lent a lady his comb, and otherwise observed bedroom civilities. God help him now, he was positively wallowing in the pleasure of strutting about Abigail’s bedroom without his shirt.

  For she was admiring him in the mirror, tired though she was.

  “Sorry.” He had tugged a pin loose, and inadvertently tugged at a dark curl too.

  Abby leaned forward, resting her head on her folded arms. “To be tended like this… you can’t know, Axel Belmont. You have no earthly, heavenly, inkling of an idea how lovely your generosity is.”

  He had a wealth of ideas where Abigail was concerned, an herbal full of them. “I’ll send Hennessey with you to Stoneleigh Manor. She fancies herself a lady’s maid now, and Candlewick simply hasn’t need of same.”

  Drat the dratted damned dratting luck.

  Axel worked in comfortable silence, piling pins in a ceramic dish with cabbage roses painted into the bowl. When he’d finished taking down Abby’s hair, she sat up.

  “Does madam prefer a hundred strokes?” Axel asked.

  She studied his bare
torso in the mirror, a frank and female perusal. “Fifty, please.”

  He made it to seven-and-thirty, possibly. “That ought to suffice. One braid or two?”

  “I’ll braid it. You can use the wash water.”

  And no need for anybody to warm up the sheets, for Axel’s breeding organs were already anticipating what would happen in that bed. He strolled behind the privacy screen when everything in him clamored for a mad dash.

  Abby’s voice floated through the shadows. “I’ll miss you, Axel Belmont.”

  He braced himself with both hands on the sturdy porcelain washstand—more cabbage roses. Now would be a fine time to make further impassioned arguments against her leaving and in favor of holy matrimony to the nearest handy botanist.

  He dipped a cloth in the cool wash-water and wrung it within an inch of its life.

  “I’ll worry about you, madam.”

  Silence, then the sound of Abby flipping covers back and batting at the bedclothes.

  Axel tried again. “I’ll lecture your staff at length on the matter of your safety. You will eschew solitude, please, until my investigation has concluded. You will rest frequently, napping in the middle of the day if you so choose, and fashioning menus with your cook that appeal to your tastes, however eccentric or unusual those might be.”

  He added toothpowder to Abby’s toothbrush, and regarded the desperate, besotted fool in the mirror who silently pleaded with him to shut his stupid mouth.

  When his teeth were quite clean, the fool recommenced lecturing. “You will do with Stoneleigh Manor as you please, and I will provide you detailed sketches of some ideas I’ve been cultivating for your conservatory. The space has potential, despite the neglect of its previous owner.”

  A shadow moved behind him. When he turned, Abigail stood to his left, her arms crossed, a single braid over her shoulder.

  “Even your back is beautiful, Axel Belmont. I’d love to sketch you without clothes. Start my own erotic collection.”

  She broke his heart, over and over. “I would not object, provided you allowed me the same privilege.”

  Axel expected her to flounce off to bed, though he wasn’t teasing. He did not know how to tease.

  Abigail held out her hand. “Before I leave, we’ll lock ourselves in the glass house, and have a sketching session.”

  He’d move a bed in there first. “I am your servant in all things.”

  Her aroused servant, though Abigail wasn’t shy about her desire. She stopped Axel halfway to the bed and kissed him free of what few wits he still possessed. When he peeled out of his breeches, she unbelted her robe and shrugged—what an elegant, devilish movement—out of her nightgown.

  “You jeopardize your health and my sanity,” Axel said, lifting her onto the bed. “But how lovely, to be naked with you.”

  That last part just slipped out, and got him Abby’s hand fisted in his hair, holding him still for another kiss as he bent over the bed.

  The lovemaking did not go according to Axel’s plan. He’d intended gentle, measured, respectful intimacies with a woman new to passion. He’d been determined to savor and cherish, to add a warm and sweet memory to their small store of shared encounters.

  He’d not intended to be cherished, to close his eyes the better to feel Abigail’s hands mapping his back, his shoulders, his chest. He’d not planned on her touch reorganizing his awareness of his own body, so he became a creature confused by lust and tenderness in equal abundance.

  And she touched him everywhere. Put him on his back and got friendly with his stones, his cock, his thighs and belly. Then the nuzzling began, and Axel nearly spent from the feel of her braid teasing about his parts.

  “You have been at my books,” he said. “The ones behind the desk.”

  Oh, what a woman could do with the tip of her braid and two inquisitive lips. “I love books. I want to be on top.”

  Axel loved books passionately right about then too. “I’m the academic sort, you will have noticed. I esteem a liberal education.” He guided her to her chosen perch, then endured the mortal pleasure of Abigail Stoneleigh learning how to indulge herself with a man so willing to accommodate her, he nearly lost consciousness restraining his own passion.

  She leaned forward, flushed and disheveled from her exertions. “When do you have a turn?”

  “Any more of a turn, madam, and I’ll be the one needing to nap in the safety of the glass house.”

  She swooped in for some more kissing, a skill for which she had a precocious aptitude, particularly when her tongue and her hips synchronized.

  “I want you to spend this time,” she said, pinning Axel’s wrists to the pillow. “You said it yourself. The law provides a period of grace, when a new widow is not accountable for sharing her favors. I want that grace.”

  She wanted his soul. “Abigail, that is not wise.”

  “I will not entrap you. I’ve read the draft of your women’s herbal, and certain tisanes…”

  He rolled them rather than roar out that any child of theirs would be his greatest treasure, conceived in love and reared with every advantage—including legitimacy, by thunder.

  “You ask too much,” Axel said. “And yet, you ask not nearly enough.”

  Abigail was primed to fly, fast and high, and he took advantage of her arousal. When she was keening against his shoulder for the third time, her teeth scoring his flesh, Axel withdrew and spent in a great, shuddering mess on her belly.

  That much, he had planned, more or less.

  As he hung over her, panting, mind for once without an opening thesis, supporting statement, or even a single corroborative detail, Abby brushed his hair back from his brow.

  “I have something to say to you, Axel Belmont.”

  Tell me you can’t leave, tell me you want to stay. “I’m not in any condition to take myself out of earshot.”

  “I am proud of you. Proud that Oxford would offer you your pick of the fellowships. Grateful to you for your generous hospitality, and your efforts on my behalf. You have done nothing less than save my life, and I will miss you for the rest of my days and nights. When you grow that thornless rose, nobody will toast your success more sincerely than I.”

  He buried his face against her shoulder, lest she watch a grown man struggle with tears. Her fingers winnowed through his hair, her words scraped across his soul.

  Gratitude, pride, good wishes… all very lovely. Very precious. For years, he’d longed to have an intimate companion who appreciated what his science meant to him.

  God damn the timing, the thorns, the fellowships, all of it.

  “Thank you for those kind sentiments,” he said, pushing up onto his arms some moments later. “Stay as you are, and I’ll tend to the mess I’ve created.”

  Axel left the bed, but as he twisted a wet flannel halfway to oblivion, he also began composing a reply to the Oxford committee’s offer. Only a draft of course, for a man who’d advised an empress regarding one of the most renowned botanical collections in the world, knew that each cut of the drafting knife had to count, and with all his hopes and dreams hanging in the balance, each stroke of the pen had to count too.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Be careful,” Abby said, making no effort to keep her voice down. “They are lawyers, and you are confronting them with irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing.”

  Axel drew on riding gloves that Abby suspected would do little to keep his hands warm.

  “I will get answers from them, then put them out of business, madam. They will be relieved I stop there, considering the harm their mischief caused you.”

  She loved it when he called her madam. “If it starts to snow, you come straight home. Ivan can slip, the same as any other horse.”

  Around them, grooms put three horses under saddle, else Abby might have kissed her love on his way.

  “Take the key,” Axel said, passing Abby a small, familiar object. “You are not to spend the entire day at Stoneleigh Manor. Face down a few demo
ns, let Matthew have a look around the place, confer with your staff and plan your renovations. Collect up the pipes for Ambers in case he takes a notion to leave before April, but don’t tire yourself out.”

  Axel had slept with her previous night, the most glorious, restful, sweet, hours Abby had spent in a bed, ever. She twitched at his scarf, simply as an excuse to touch him.

  “You have a clear aptitude for sharing a bed, Professor. I am well rested.”

  She was ruined, having learned just how delightful a night spent with an affectionate man could be. Axel had wrapped her in a warm embrace. He’d rubbed her back, massaged her scalp, tucked covers around her just so when her shoulder might have taken a chill.

  He’d also awoken ready to pleasure her with a leisurely loving, her back to his front, before he’d stolen away into the pre-dawn darkness.

  “You are… You be careful too, Abigail. No disappearing up to the attics unescorted, no investigating the cellars without Matthew. I’ve told him not to let you out of his sight, and I expect your cooperation.”

  And yet, Axel would not stop her from taking yet another step in the direction of returning to Stoneleigh Manor, nor did Abby entirely want him to.

  She saw Axel to the mounting block—no good-bye kisses with Matthew standing at her side—and settled aboard her mount, determined to make a start on turning Stoneleigh Manor into her home.

  “I want to change the name of my property,” she told Matthew, as he climbed on his gray. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “We must ponder possibilities, of course. A few bottles of wine might aid our endeavors. Will you marry my brother?”

  This much Abigail knew: If Axel asked, she’d be tempted to say yes, and that would not be fair.

  “He has waited years for the letter sitting folded on the desk in the library, Mr. Belmont. He has worked endlessly, earned the respect of his peers across the realm and across the world. A university appointment would be acknowledgment of academic achievements most men could not attain in three lifetimes.”