“It’s freezing,” he scowled. “You are going to catch a chill if you remain in there much longer. Get out.”
“I really do not think–”
“Out,” he commanded, unfolding the large white towel Emily had set on the edge of the tub and holding it out in front of him like a banner.
Clara bit her lip. The water was rather cold.
“Close your eyes,” she said. “Do it,” she insisted when Thorncroft merely stared at her. She now knew why he wasn’t accustomed to having others tell him what to do – no one told a duke anything – but she was not about to bow and curtsy and scrape herself into his good graces.
“I am not going to ravish you, if that is what you think.” His mouth thinned. “Housemaids with saucy tongues hold little appeal to me.”
So he still thought she was a housemaid, did he? She started to correct him, only to change her mind at the last second. What did it matter if she was a servant or the daughter of a baron? Her title did not define her. Only her actions could do that and she did not want any differential treatment simply because she was a lady. Not that Thorncroft was likely to give it to her.
“The thought never crossed my mind,” she lied. “And if you do not close your eyes I am never coming out of this tub and you will be responsible for my untimely death.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth she wished she could swallow them back in. How could she have said such a thing, especially knowing what had happened to his wife and son? But aside from a nearly imperceptible tenseness in his face Thorncroft showed no reaction.
“Hurry up,” he said as his eyes slid shut.
After waving a hand in the air to test and see if his eyes were really closed, Clara emerged from the tub and tip-toed quickly over to Thorncroft. The air was colder than she’d been anticipating and she trembled as she snatched the towel out of his arms and wrapped it around her body. No sooner had she tucked the corner beneath her left arm than his eyes opened, revealing a flicker of disappointment when he saw she’d already covered herself.
For someone who claims I hold little appeal he certainly seems interested, Clara thought with a tiny little smile as she lifted her arms and squeezed the excess water from her hair. Left unbound it nearly reached her hips; a tangled mess of tawny gold curls that would take forever to run a comb through. Before she could step back Thorncroft’s hand shot out and he grasped one of the damp tendrils, lifting it off her shoulder and rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. He stared at the curl completely transfixed, as though it were a priceless piece of gold instead of a plain strand of hair.
Clara felt her stomach do a slow, lazy loop before the muscles clenched and tightened. She remained perfectly still, a rabbit frozen before the hungry jaws of a fox as water dripped down her bare legs and pooled on the floor.
“Thorncroft?” she whispered uncertainly.
He lifted his head sharply, revealing the conflicting emotions running rampant across his tortured countenance. “Who are you?” he rasped. “A fairy princess sent from the woods and the wild to torment me? I don’t want you.”
Clara bit her lip. “Then what do you want?”
“This,” he groaned as he gathered her in his arms and pressed his mouth to hers.
He lost control. It slipped through his fingers like a dangling rope, leaving him helpless to resist the temptation standing before him. The temptation in the form of a tawny haired nymph who had done what no other woman before her had managed in seven long years.
She made him want.
For too long he had kept himself in a prison of his own making. A prison designed to keep him from feeling any emotion other than darkness and loneliness and despair. And then Clara had come along with her brazen tongue and her funny way of looking at the world and her brilliant blue eyes he would gladly drown himself in a thousand times over if it meant just one more taste of her lips.
He had tried to resist. Tried to repress the ardor that snarled and snapped and grew inside of him like a living beast. Tried to remind himself that she was an innocent who deserved more than what he was capable of giving. But he was only a man, a man with weaknesses and desires and needs like any other. And what he desired – what he needed – was Clara.
She was all soft rosy curves and glowing skin and damp hair. His nostrils flared as he inhaled her flowery scent and with a groan he deepened the kiss, demanding everything she was willing to give.
In the stream he had showed restraint. In the stream he had displayed patience. Now he only wanted to take, and keep taking until the passion raging inside of him was finally sated.
When her lips fell open he swept his tongue inside the sweet cavern of her mouth without hesitation. She arched into his embrace, her small hands slipping beneath his shirt and pressing directly against his warm, pulsing flesh. He could feel his heart beating into her palm, its rhythm erratic and volatile as his thoughts. Need clenched inside of him like a fist, squeezing the very breath from his lungs. When she answered his kiss with a hesitant flick of her tongue against his bottom lip that need exploded like a firework, lighting the sky in a vibrant array of sparkling colors.
One hand fell to her derriere and gave a deep, teasing squeeze while the other closed around her left breast. Her head fell back, exposing the slender column of her throat as he passed his thumb over her nipple, exploring its jutting hardness through the soft cotton towel. Then his mouth was at her throat and he was suckling her neck as though her skin were made of finely spun sugar. Clara gasped and writhed, nails creating tiny furrows in his chest as she kneaded him like a cat. A tiny mewling sound escaped her lips. Aroused by the sensual sound of her desire he growled and lifted his head while simultaneously tearing her towel away, leaving her completely exposed to his savage gaze.
Bloody hell.
Beautiful did not do her justice. No word he could think of did. She was the first blossom after a hard winter. She was the sun after a cold night. She was a drop of rain after a long drought. She was the first gasp of air after swimming up from the deep. She was everything he could have ever wanted… and more than he could have ever dreamed.
Her limbs were long and graceful, her breasts high and rounded. A tiny waist gave way to curvy hips that all but begged for a man’s touch before narrowing down to elegant calves and small, dainty ankles.
He wanted to kiss every inch of her. Wanted to run his fingers through every silky curl of hair. Wanted to hear her gasp his name as he delved deep into her satin core… and hold her nestled against his body until dawn broke across the sky.
“Thorncroft?” There was a note of shyness in Clara’s voice when she spoke his name, but she met his drugged gaze without blinking, her stubborn chin lifted with pride. This was no trembling miss standing before him, but a daring fairy queen demanding he answer for his sins.
“I…” Thorncroft swallowed hard, forcing saliva down a throat that felt dry as dust. “I apologize, Clara. I shouldn’t have–”
“It’s alright.” A lovely blush tinted her cheeks. “I wanted you to kiss me again. But I have never… that is to say…” Her blush intensified as her gaze darted over his shoulder to the neatly made bed.
I have never made love before. Thorncroft finished her sentence in his mind and added in a self-directed curse for good measure. What the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t, he decided darkly. Or at least not with the part of his body that mattered. If he were, he would have excused himself from the room the moment he saw Clara was still in the bath. But instead he’d decided to push his limits; torturing himself with the sight and smell of her until he lost all sense of reason.
“Here,” he said gruffly after bending down and retrieving the towel from the floor. “Cover yourself.”
“Thank you.” In the awkward silence that followed she grabbed the towel and wrapped it tightly around her body, holding it pinned in front of her chest with a closed fist. They both looked in opposite directions, leaving Thorncroft feeling as green and inexperienc
ed as a young school lad as he struggled for the right thing to say.
If only he had never kissed her… for this time he had done more than kiss and he was damned if he didn’t already want to do it all again. It was bewildering, this compulsive need he had inside of him to touch Clara. To taste her. To know her, both inside and out. He had never felt like this about another woman before.
Not even Katherine.
He had loved his wife, completely and without question. Of that there was no doubt. Not in his mind nor in the minds of anyone who had ever seen them together. He had loved her quiet nature, her shy smile, the way her entire face lit up whenever he entered the room. And when she died… when she died he thought that love he’d had inside of him had died along with her. But as he looked at Clara he wondered if it wasn’t quite as dead as he’d been led to believe.
“I will leave you to get dressed. A maid will be in shortly to assist you. There are dresses in the armoire” – he nodded towards a heavy mahogany wardrobe standing against the far wall – “and if you need anything else you have only to ask.”
She fiddled with a long coppery curl. “Perhaps we should take a moment and talk about–”
“The doctor will wait for you downstairs in the drawing room,” he interrupted. “Regardless of his diagnosis, you are welcome to stay here tonight. I will arrange a coach to take you anywhere you desire in the morning. Are you hungry?”
“Am I…”
“Hungry,” he repeated when she trailed off. “If you are, dinner will be served promptly at seven o’clock in the dining room. A maid can show you the way.”
It will be easier this way, Thorncroft decided, ignoring the pang in his gut as he watched the confusion play across Clara’s expressive face. Easier to remain distant and dismissive than to get too close.
Getting too close meant running the risk of feeling and feeling meant pain and heartache and loss. There was something between him and Clara. Call it a light. Call it spark. Its name did not matter and he would not deny it. But he would do everything possible to dim it, for even if he gave in to temptation a third time an irrevocable fact remained. A fact he had chosen to ignore until this very moment.
Thorncroft was a duke and Clara was a servant. A stunningly alluring servant, but a servant nevertheless. There could be no future between them. At least not a future where she was anything but his mistress, shamed in the eyes of society and ruined in the eyes of any man who might have her after he was done.
His hands clenching into fists at the mere thought of another man touching her, he abruptly turned and stalked out of the room before he did or said something they would both come to regret.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The doctor was a pleasant man in his mid-sixties by the name of Mr. Bellows. After examining Clara’s wound and making her stare directly into the flame of a candle while he studied her pupils through the lens of a magnifying glass – something she found most peculiar – he declared her sound of both mind and body, although he did advise several days of rest.
“You never know with these bumps to the head,” he said as he slid his magnifying glass back into a black bag and snapped it shut. “If you experience any dizziness or bright spots in your vision or memory loss, you must send for me at once. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Clara said obediently.
He made a harrumphing sound under his breath. “A young, healthy girl such as yourself should not have any problems, but one can never tell. What did you say your name was again?”
“Clara Witherspoon.”
“Witherspoon… Witherspoon…” He scratched his chin. “Why does that sound so familiar? Do you have any family in London?”
“Not that I know of. May I stand up now?”
“Yes, yes,” Mr. Bellows said with an absent wave of his hand. “Do whatever you like. Except for riding. Or excessive walking. Or traveling by coach.” He peered up at her through glasses so thick they gave his watery brown eyes a rather bug-like appearance. “Bumpy things, coaches. Rattle a person’s teeth right out of their head if they aren’t careful. Have a lovely evening, Miss Witherspoon. I will see myself out.”
Waiting until she heard the front door open and close, Clara sprang to her feet and walked briskly across the parlor. Contrary to Mr. Bellow’s warning she felt perfectly fine. Fine enough to hop in a carriage and leave at that very moment if she was so inclined. The problem was that she was not so inclined. In fact, she had already made up her mind that she wanted to stay for as long as Thorncroft would have her.
Heavens knew it wasn’t proper and if Lady Irene discovered she was here instead of formally accepting Mr. Ingle’s marriage proposal she would have her head on a platter, but Clara could not ignore the unshakable feeling that this was where she was meant to be.
Call it fate. Call it whimsy. Call it luck. All she knew was being kissed once by Thorncroft may have been an accident, but being kissed twice… that meant something.
She was sure of it.
The devilish man was still trying to pretend he did not feel the same way, but at least now she knew why. Or at least she could give it her best guess. Perhaps he wasn’t yet over the death of his wife. Or perhaps he was afraid of falling in love again. Whatever the reason, she was capable of being patient for as long as it took for him to acknowledge there was something special between them. Something worth exploring. Something worth knowing.
And she wasn’t leaving until she found out exactly what that something was.
“What are we having?” Clara asked brightly as she stepped into the formal dining room. “It smells heavenly.”
If Thorncroft was surprised by her attendance at dinner, it did not show in his expression. Then again, nothing did. The man was certainly skilled at hiding his feelings. She would give him that. Aside from a faint flicker in the depths of his stormy gray eyes they might have been strangers for all acknowledgement he gave her.
“Miss Witherspoon. I am glad you could join me. Please, be seated.” He rose effortlessly from his chair and walked down the length of the long table to pull out the chair at the opposite end, his footsteps muffled by the thick Axminster carpet.
He had changed into formal attire, Clara noted. Gone was the white linen shirt and dark blue trousers. In their place he wore a crisp cravat secured with a silver lapel pin, a satin waistcoat, a black jacket complete with tails, and tight-fitting breeches that hugged his muscular legs in all sorts of delightful ways. Candlelight flickered across a jaw freshly shaved and he’d styled his hair – or more likely had it styled for him – so it fell on either side of his temple in loose, silky waves.
Suddenly feeling self-conscious in her borrowed dress that had been made for a woman slightly taller and fuller than she, Clara fought the unfamiliar urge to tug at her skirt and tighten the simple coiffure pinned to the nape of her neck. At Windmere she never cared if there was dirt under her fingernails or stains on her clothes. Her stepmother and stepsisters looked down on her no matter how she dressed, which was why she had stopped fussing over her appearance long ago. If she had a smudge of dust on her cheek then so be it. Except now, standing before Thorncroft in a room more elegant and richly furnished than any she had ever stepped in before, Clara could not help but be vividly aware of her shortcomings.
With his tailored clothes and snowy white cravat and boots that had been polished to a high gleam Thorncroft was every inch lord of the manor while she… she was a country bumpkin. There was really no other way to put it.
She sat in the chair Thorncroft pulled out for her and watched as he returned to his own seat some fifteen feet away. With six candelabras between them it soon became apparent that it would be difficult to look at him while they ate dinner, let alone hold a conversation.
Biting her tongue for the first part of the meal – fresh green peas soaked in cream and tiny pink shrimp sautéed in butter sauce – Clara found she could no longer stand the tense silence by the time the third course was brought out. Plucking up
her plate of roasted fowl, she marched determinedly to the opposite end of the table and sat directly to Thorncroft’s right, plunking her plate down on the thick linen tablecloth with enough force to lift both of his eyebrows
“Is there something you require?” he asked, pausing with his fork in midair.
“Only a bit of idle chatter. I find dining in silence rather depressing, don’t you?”
He set his fork down on the edge of his plate with a deliberate click. “I find dining in silence a welcome respite from being forced to discuss topics which hold little interest with people I could care less about.”
Clara’s bright smile wavered ever-so-slightly. “That is very unfortunate. I often find I have the best conversations with the people I have the least in common with.”
“How wonderful for you,” he bit out sarcastically before he lifted his knife and fork and resumed eating, his gaze locked on the table.
“Yes. It is.” She was quiet for a moment as she considered the best way to break through the armor Thorncroft had built around himself. It was thick, to be sure, but not impenetrable. Their time together upstairs had shown her that. Beneath the cold, heartless exterior was a man capable of great passion. She only needed to find which strings to pull to set him free.
“Do you want to make love to me?”
Thorncroft choked on a piece of roasted duck.
“What – what did you say?” Eyes watering, he lifted his glass of dark red port and took a long, hefty swallow. Biting back a smile, Clara lifted her glass of water – she’d politely declined any spirits – and spoke over the curved rim.
“I said do you want to make love to me? I only ask because it seemed like you wanted to when we were upstairs, but now you are acting as though we’re strangers.”
“Because we are. And this is not a topic of conversation to be discussed over dinner.”
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