What a Woman Desires

by Rachel Brimble

  She laughed. “Without me, Mama, and Jane here? My God, Thomas, they’ll think they are on holiday.”

  Damnit. His excuse was as flimsy as the petticoats he imagined she wore onstage.

  “We’ll have a moment’s reprieve from everything that needs to be decided, that’s all. I’ll introduce you to Adam, and hopefully his wife, Laura. She is such a lovely woman and her fervor knows no bounds. Please, Thomas. We can return to Marksville the next day. If you do this for me, I’ll know without doubt you are truly supporting me.”

  He clenched his jaw. “There should be no doubt of that regardless.”

  “You more than anyone knows what it’s like to have the liberty of living the life you were made for. If you see my liberty is in Bath, then maybe you’ll help me find a way to stay there while giving you everything you need here. There has to be a way to resolve this seemingly impossible situation so we are both happy. There has to be.”

  He frowned, hating the sincerity and truth in her words. He’d be a selfish bastard to deny her the life she wanted. Yet . . . “But this is your home.”

  She laughed, the sound shrill in the garden’s quiet. “No, it’s not. That’s what I’m afraid you, Jane, and the tenants will never understand until it’s too late. Don’t you see? If I stay here, I run the risk of ruining people’s lives. The tenants will expect direction, debate, and guidance on issues I have no experience of. What if I make mistakes that are catastrophic for their futures?” She stood and turned around in a circle, whipping off her hat. She held her hand to the back of her neck, her eyes bright blue as she stared at him. “Being a landowner is not who I am. The social climbing, the entertaining and fine dining . . . I despise it all. I’ve been here less than three days and already I feel suffocated. The walls are closing in on me and I can’t bear it.”

  His heart thundered. She looked like a rabbit caught in a snare.

  She vehemently shook her head. “I escaped because I hated it here. I ran away with the first person I thought held the chance of taking me away from this place and all it stands for. I cannot do this. I can’t be the woman you or anyone else needs me to be. Why won’t you accept that?”

  Her voice cracked and he immediately strode forward and enfolded her in his arms. She leaned her head to his chest and took a shuddering breath. “I can’t breathe, Thomas. I can’t breathe talking to Papa’s friends.” She lifted her head, her eyes boring into his, wide with passion and persecution. “I can’t breathe when already they pretend to joke and laugh about marriage, babies, and me being mistress of the manor. There is no joke. This is real.”

  He took her face in his hands, protectiveness for her roaring through him. “Listen to me. You are stronger than this. You made the decision to leave Biddestone and you did it. You didn’t come home, begging for your father’s forgiveness after his rejection as a million and one privileged daughters would have.” He gently shook her, willing her to see how he admired her. Wanting her to admire herself. “Baxter dragged you down; then your parents kicked you while you were there. You stood up and you will keep standing.” He stared, his gaze maddeningly drawn to her mouth. “I’ll come with you. I’ll come to Bath.”

  The worry slowly left her eyes and shone bright with relief and happiness, her beautiful lips stretched into a wide smile. “You will?”

  He smiled. “Yes, how can I not meet your request to do things your way? If you want me to see your life so badly, I’ll come with you to the city.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Thomas. Thank you. If you can just see what I love! I cannot leave the play indefinitely and for you to be there to see—”

  “It will be for one night only.” Despite his unwillingness to see her in Bath, he could not let her forget for a moment where he belonged. “I belong here with my family.” He inhaled and drew his hands from her face to her shoulders and upper arms. He held her. “But I’ll come and see your life as you are willing to see mine. Then together—”

  “We’ll see what can be done.” She smiled. “That’s all I ask.” She lifted onto her toes and pressed her lips to his—before immediately pulling back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . .”

  Time stood still.

  Every beat of his heart echoed her name in his head, and his common sense fled on a wind of change. “Yes, you should.”

  He gripped her waist and brought her body roughly against his. He looked deep into her eyes, asking the question and seeking permission. The desire in her eyes, the soft pant of her breath was all he needed. They were alone and unattended. Alone and unobserved. He wanted to steal this moment to feel her lips against his a second time. To kiss her how she’d never been kissed before and have her remember it.

  “You are a woman in your own right. Do you know how powerful that is? You have managed all alone and you will do what is good and right here too. I believe in you. Now you need to believe in yourself.”

  He covered her mouth with his and, after a moment’s resistance, she leaned against him, her hands smoothing up his arms to grip his shoulders. Heat and need swam between them on a powerful wave, crashing and flowing, taking them deeper and deeper into each other. Thomas growled into her mouth as he surrendered to the inevitable arousal that shot on a flame through his body.

  She tasted of strength and fortitude, edged with the soft scent of woman and feminine wisdom. Fear for his family’s future seemed futile when her tongue claimed his and the spark was lit. He took and he possessed—fell deeper, knowing he had little chance of climbing out of the unending well of feelings he had for her. His brain told him to stop, to pull back and halt such a monumental mistake as kissing a woman so very far out of his reach. He tried and good God how he failed....

  His kiss was as powerful and intensely sexual as Thomas himself. Monica gripped his biceps and held on as her knees weakened and her heart thundered. Every cell in her body screamed for his ministrations, to have him take her right there in the open air and to hell with everyone she wanted to avoid at the house. She needed this man. Had admired him for too long to stop this moment. The sweet, sweet joy of being kissed by him—not as before, not as if she were created in porcelain, but as a whole, feeling, and sexual woman.

  Her nipples tingled and her center throbbed. She pulled her mouth from his to catch her breath and wantonly tipped her head back, exposing her neck as an open invitation. He tensed beneath her fingers and she sensed his hesitation.

  Thomas, please.

  She needed to feel she wasn’t wrong and useless in coming to Marksville, but she was real and capable. She needed to feel like the person she had become through her trials in Bath, and not the naïve, trusting girl she’d left behind five years before.

  As though reading her thoughts, he emitted a low, guttural moan before pressing his warm lips firmly against her throat and along the exposed breadth of her neck. Her arousal soared and she sighed his name. If she didn’t fear his disgust, she would demand he rip open the buttons hiding her skin and feast lower until he took one of her aching nipples into his hot mouth....

  As abruptly as he kissed her, he stepped back.

  Their breaths joined in sync and Monica didn’t doubt her eyes were as equally wild with desire as his. He closed his eyes and blew out a breath between pursed lips as though calming a fire deep within. “We have to stop. Your mother, the master’s funeral . . .” He opened his eyes. “You’re needed at the house.”

  Monica stepped back, her heart racing. “How can you think of the house at a time like this?”

  He snapped his eyes open. “We have to. Don’t you see that?” His voice stormed with anger and resentment. “God knows I could kiss you for the rest of my days, but we have to stop anything from beginning between us.”

  “Why?” Frustration burned like a ball of fire in her chest. “Do you not ever want the chance to discover what pleasures there are throughout the rest of the world?”

  He glared and stepped back farther, his cheeks darkening. “All I want is to keep hunger an
d poverty from me and my family. Something you and yours will never understand.”

  Monica narrowed her eyes, his insult slashing deep across her heart. “How dare you? I have told you of my struggles and still you stand in front of me as though I were born in a royal palace rather than in a home with parents colder than ice during a cruel, hard winter.” She clutched at her skirts, her face hot and her body trembling. “You will come with me to Bath, Thomas, and by God, I will ensure you see what is possible beyond this village.”

  “Nothing will ever become of us, so why kiss each other? Why touch and look as though there is any possibility we will be lovers. You know as well as I the prospect of you marrying for anything less than elevation is a concept too far.”

  His words opened the wound of his rejection wider and deeper. “You think I left with Malcolm for elevation? I don’t care for class division or money, but I do care for a life away from ancestral obligation. Something you, Thomas Ashby, hold in the highest regard above all other. It is not I who is afraid of us, it is you. You choose to cool the passion between us purely because of my family name.” She shook her head and laughed, the sound high-pitched and laced with hysteria. “From now on I will not think of anything or anyone past my family, either. Since I came back, I have started to believe they might love me, moreover, they might need me . . . something you clearly find insufferable to utter aloud.”

  His jaw was a hardened line and his eyes stormed with dangerous fury. “You know nor care nothing of my feelings toward you. This is about you just as it was when you left the first time.”

  She flinched. He still thought her leaving as the most selfish course of action she could’ve taken. Monica glared, her breasts rising and falling as her anger became rage and her hurt became strength. “Maybe I didn’t think about anything or anyone except fleeing Marksville, but your judgment will never taint the best decision I ever made.” She lifted her chin and looked past him toward the house. “But that is in the past, and now I think only of what happens to Jane and the tenants, including you. Every single one of you haunts my mind constantly. My responsibility to you all is paramount, whether you choose to believe it or not.”

  A flash of shame or apology flitted in his gaze before he blinked and it was gone. “Good, because our kiss is evidence emotions are running high. We were seeking comfort. Nothing more.”

  The knife blade struck cold and hard in her heart, but Monica stayed perfectly still. He swiped his hand over his face, before staring directly at her. His eyes were a storm of blazing passion she could neither decipher nor understand. We’re seeking comfort . . . nothing more. Is that what I’m doing? What he’s doing?

  Unable to bear looking into his beautiful blue-green eyes a moment longer, Monica smoothed her hair with trembling fingers. “I should go back. Lord only knows how angry Jane will be with me for leaving her alone.”

  “You go ahead and I will follow on behind as soon as I feel it is safe to do so.”

  “Safe to do so?” She huffed out a laugh. “There is no reason anyone should suspect—”

  “Even so, I won’t risk anyone thinking less of you.” He stared into the distance. “You will be fighting a war in which neither of us knows its strategies or battle cry.” He faced her, his expression somber. “I want to be your knight, not slayer. We must be a joined unit, working for the people here and in the village. We cannot be seen as—”

  “Lovers? Close friends?” She glared. “It is you who thinks less of me. It is you who finds the prospect of us unacceptable in this narrow-minded place, just as you always did. I thought it was only Mama with such archaic views, but clearly you share the same opinion of what is right and who should belong to whom.” Her body shook with frustration and a horrible sense of disappointment. “I actually feel sorry for you, sorry you feel honor bound to stay in a place that clips the wings of a man like you.”

  His face darkened to a dangerous shade of red. “And what do you perceive as a man like me? A man willing to fight for his family’s future? Who will not stand by and let a woman he cares for be taken down like a lamb to the slaughter? Do you not want restitution for what is yours? Marksville belongs to you. It’s yours. Yet that means nothing to you.”

  She stared as the truth of just how far apart she and Thomas stood became as clear as cut glass. “I’ve told you before, it is not your job to protect me. I can do that well enough myself. If you feel incapable of helping me without protecting me, then I will face whatever comes alone. I am my own woman and have every intention of staying that way.”

  With his kisses still cruelly tender on her lips, Monica bent down and snatched her discarded hat from the ground. She straightened, tossing him a final glare before running back to the house. With each yard she covered, her anger and repulsion against everything in Biddestone spread like poison through her veins.

  Instead of hurting her, it made her more determined to find the antidote to her survival sooner rather than later. Thomas had been right when he said she was strong. She was a survivor, and now with his cowardice and compliance revealed, Monica was more certain than ever she needed no one but those she loved in Bath.

  Thomas had just made her decision about the future incredibly easy. All she needed to do was wait for the reading of the will and that would provide the next decision she had to make. As far as she knew, Jane could’ve been mistaken about to whom their father had left the estate. If he had done the right thing, the entirety of Marksville would be her sister’s.

  If it was, Monica’s future could remain in Bath . . . and it would only be Jane’s decisions that Monica would do everything in her power to support.

  Chapter 10

  Monica burst into the house and made for the parlor, heedless of the clusters of people in the hallway. She walked into the room and relief washed over her that the mass of guests had thinned since her disappearance. Only a few remained, which meant there was smaller a number for her to disperse as quickly as politeness would allow. She found the fortitude to pull on a gracious expression and glanced toward her mother where she was seated upon the chaise. Monica smiled softly and relaxed further to see Mrs. Seton and a few female friends of her mother’s helping her to tea and cake.

  Scanning the room, she spotted Jane at the window talking to a young, smartly dressed man; his black suit and hat were pristine, and his hand hovered at her sister’s elbow. Monica frowned. Was this one of the gentlemen whose attention Jane had said she either welcomed or rejected?

  Monica strode confidently across the room, her cross words with Thomas adding fuel to an already burning need to vent some of her authority and show she was not the same woman who had lived at Marksville before.

  As she drew closer, she studied the gentleman’s profile. This was not a man she remembered as being a family friend or associate of her father’s. She moved beside Jane and cleared her throat. “Jane? Has anything needed my attention in my absence? I got caught up in conversation with—”

  “I am perfectly able to handle things alone, Monica. I have done so for many years.”

  Monica didn’t flinch under the sting of her sister’s words because, not only were they deserved, she knew Jane well enough to surmise from her body language that indeed, the gentleman smiling so sweetly at her could well be an unwelcome presence.

  She turned to face him and offered her hand. “Thank you so much for coming today. I’m Miss Monica Danes, Mr. Danes’s eldest daughter and Jane’s sister.”

  “Ah, I have heard much about you.” The stranger took her gloved hand and bowed. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I am Dr. Nathanial O’Connor. I have attended your mother for the past year or so.”

  “Ah, yes. Jane mentioned you to me. It’s very nice to meet you, Doctor.”

  He bowed. “And you, too, Miss Danes.”

  She stared for a moment longer before smiling widely and relaxing her shoulders. “I’m sorry, you just seem so young.”

  His brown eyes glinted with amusement. “Not
so young, Miss Danes. Let’s just say I owe any youthfulness to my parents’ genes rather than any special care on my part.”

  Monica laughed, warming to the young doctor. “Well, I’m glad to meet you. I would be grateful if you could come back to the house sometime tomorrow so I can hear your prognosis of Mama’s condition. She is—” Monica glanced in her mother’s direction, sadness weighing on her heart. “She is in a worse state of mind than I could’ve possibly feared when Jane wrote to me asking me to return home.”

  Jane touched her elbow. “You do not need to bother Dr. O’Connor unnecessarily. He comes to see Mama once a week unless we have need to call for him.”

  Monica frowned at her sister. “But surely the doctor won’t mind—”

  “I won’t mind at all.” The doctor turned to Jane and ran his gaze gently over her face. “I am more than willing to serve your family at any time, Miss Danes. You know that.”

  Monica noted the admiration in his gaze and a smile played at her lips. The doctor clearly had an interest in coming to Marksville past Mama. She covered Jane’s hand with her own. “I need to be clear about things, Jane. How can we make decisions together if I only know half the story? Bath is not far away, but even in the short time I have been here I already feel like a ship bobbing around in the ocean. If Dr. O’Connor can bring me up to date with Mama’s sufferings—”

  “That’s right.” The doctor touched his forehead in a gesture of forgotten memory. “You are quite the stage success in Bath, are you not, Miss Danes?”

  Monica turned to Dr. O’Connor and dipped her head. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but I’m thrilled you think so.”

  He smiled, his eyes shining kindly. “I often have need to go into the city and I could not fail to be apprehended by the notices around the theater. I’m ashamed I didn’t recognize you the minute you spoke to me.”