His hands clenched into fists at his sides at thoughts of that being the case.
Thea Fitzroy was a continual surprise to him. She was more responsive, and more open with those responses, than any other woman Julian had ever known. To a degree that his normally unshakeable control evaporated like mist every time he was with her. He craved Thea’s responses. Hungered for them. For everything she had to give him. So much so that he found himself pushing her to her limits, time and time again.
He could spend hours just watching her as she climaxed beneath the caress of his hands and mouth. Enjoyed touching and pinching her breasts, the way her nipples became elongated and swollen from those ministrations. The swell of that ruby-red nubbin peeping out from amongst her red-gold curls. The arch of her hips as he thrust his fingers rhythmically into her tight channel, his thumb pressing against and stroking her nubbin as it throbbed and pulsed like a small cock as she came.
Damn it, his cock was once again a throbbing ache as he thought about the delights to be found in those visible responses of Thea’s body. As for those breathy groans and whimpering cries she gave as she came…!
Fuck!
He had to have frightened her off with his insatiable demands. His commands, as he controlled and ordered her pleasure. He had thought she welcomed those commands, her responses even more intense during the times he controlled her, but perhaps he had been mistaken?
For the first time in many years, Julian had no idea how to proceed.
Did he go to Latham House again, demand she give him an explanation for her behavior in not so much as letting him know she had changed her mind and would not be joining him after all?
Or did he leave it a few days, giving her time to think again, after which she would perhaps be the one to seek him out?
Julian entered Blackmoor House several hours later with most of the contents of a decanter of brandy inside him, having spent those hours at his club in brooding contemplation of Thea Fitzroy’s behavior. The more brandy he drank, the angrier he became as he considered all the delicious ways in which he would punish Thea when next he saw her for having reduced him to this state.
He now gave a pained wince as he found his daughter in the hallway in great agitation as she issued instructions to his butler.
Instructions which ceased the moment Amelia saw Julian and instead launched herself into his arms, the flow of her tears instantly dampening the lapels of his jacket. “Thank goodness you are here, Papa!” She sobbed all the harder as she clung to him.
It took a few seconds for Julian to clear the effect of the brandy from his head enough to be able to answer her. “What on earth is wrong, Amelia?”
“George has sent me a note explaining why we cannot meet this evening after all and… Oh, it is too awful, Papa!” She trembled against him.
Julian’s mood was such at present he would take great delight in punching young Somersby on the nose if the younger man had cold feet and had decided he could not marry Amelia after all. His daughter’s upset certainly seemed serious enough for that to be the case.
“Brandy in the library, if you please, Bradford.” He could not imbibe any more himself this evening, but Amelia certainly seemed in need of some form of fortification.
She pulled out of his arms. “We do not have time for brandy just now, Papa. I must go to George. To Lady Thea—”
“What the deuce does George’s aunt have to do with your upset?” Julian scowled his displeasure.
Having spent the past two hours looking at the bottom of a brandy decanter, to the detriment of his now aching head, he did not welcome so much as hearing mention of her name.
Nor, he hoped, had she allowed the awkwardness of the situation that now existed between the two of them to color her judgment concerning the marriage soon to take place between her nephew and his daughter. It would be most unfair of Thea to have involved anyone else in their affair.
Or end of it, he reminded himself sourly.
Amelia gave him an impatient glare, her temper more than a match for his own, even if her blonde locks and blue eyes were all her mother’s. “Lady Thea is the problem, Papa.”
“What has she done?” His nostrils flared as his own temper rose. He really had not thought Thea to be so small, or so petty-minded, as to endanger the happiness of the young couple in order to spite him.
“She did not do anything. It is all the fault of the stupid man driving the carriage—”
“What stupid man? Really, Amelia, you are making no sense whatsoever.” Julian’s head was aching in earnest now.
He also did not appreciate having this conversation out here in the hallway and in front of his butler. Bradford had been with him for years, was stoic in his loyalty to the Remington family, but even he must have his limits.
The expression on the elderly man’s face said that Amelia’s near state of hysteria might be one of those occasions; all the household staff had been slavishly devoted to Amelia since the time of her birth, none of them able to bear to see her in the least discomposed or distressed.
“Calm yourself, Amelia,” Julian instructed firmly. “We will go into the drawing room, where you can explain yourself in a ladylike manner,” he added as his daughter seemed about to continue arguing.
“Please have the carriage brought round anyway, Bradford,” she told the butler before following Julian into the drawing room.
He closed the door firmly behind them. “You cannot go chasing all over London in search of your erstwhile fiancé—”
“I am not chasing all over— George is not my erstwhile anything!” His daughter stared at him incredulously. “What on earth would make you think such a thing? Are you foxed, Papa?” Amelia looked at him searchingly, her nose wrinkling as she sniffed the air in search of the smell of alcohol. “You are!” Her eyes widened accusingly.
Immediately making Julian feel as if he were the child rather than the parent. Not a feeling he relished in the slightest.
Thea Fitzroy deserved to have her bottom spanked for the depths she had reduced him to today. For the depths he had allowed her to reduce him to today, he corrected impatiently.
He eyed his daughter coolly. “Perhaps if you were to explain yourself properly instead of these histrionics, I might better understand the problem?”
She gave a shake of her head. “Lady Thea was struck down by a carriage this afternoon and—”
“What?” Julian was so taken aback by this explanation that he had no time to hide his reaction. Or a desire to do so. “Is she hurt?” he demanded as he reached out to grasp the tops of Amelia’s arms. “Is she—is she dead?” Oh dear God, no…
The things he had thought when Thea failed to arrive at the house earlier today. The accusations he had leveled at her inside his head as he sat at his club drinking brandy in order to “drown his sorrows.” Adding to those accusations just now when he had thought she had said or done something to end Amelia and George’s engagement.
None of it true.
She had not abandoned him or their affair. Instead, she had been struck down—injured? killed?—by a carriage.
On her way to meet him?
Julian knew with certainty that was the case.
Thea did not even have the energy to groan as consciousness slowly returned to her. And along with it the pain. Her body hurt. Her head throbbed. To such a degree Thea did not dare brave to look at even the flicker of candlelight she could detect through the thin membrane of her eyelids.
Her heart hurt too.
Because she knew without a doubt that her nonappearance this afternoon would lead Julian to think she had changed her mind about continuing their affair.
What had he thought of her when she did not arrive?
What did he think of her now?
She had no idea what had happened. One moment she had been standing on the pavement, excitedly flagging down a cab, her heart aflutter with the anticipation of seeing Julian again, and the next she had lost her balance and was fa
lling into the path of an oncoming carriage.
She had no time to scream as she fell beneath the horses’ hooves and was struck several times, one of those blows to her head, which was when everything had gone black.
She appeared now to be lying on something flat and soft and covered in crisp sheets. Her own bed at Latham House?
The flickering candle seemed to imply it was nighttime. Hours after she should have met Julian at the house where they were to continue their affair.
Tears pricked her eyes and escaped her lashes, burning as they trickled down to her temples and dampened her hair.
“She is awake at last!” a familiar voice cried out in excitement. “Thea? Does it hurt? Where does it hurt?” One of her hands was lifted from the sheet and raised to rest against the warmth of a cheek. “Oh, please, Thea, will you not open your eyes and speak to me?”
Amelia.
Dear Amelia, to whom she had become so close during these weeks of arranging the wedding together.
Did that mean Julian knew of Thea’s plight too? Did he care that she had been hurt? And even if he did, what could he do about it? Their relationship was clandestine, secret. Even if he cared to do so, he could not come to her—
“At least give Lady Dorothea the opportunity to reply to one of your questions before you bombard her with another, Amelia,” a second voice—a voice Thea had last heard issuing her instruction, commanding that she come for him—remarked gruffly.
Julian!
It hurt to open her eyelids, hurt even more to turn her head, and her disappointment was extreme when the only person she could see in her bedchamber—she was indeed safely ensconced in her own bedchamber at Latham house—was Amelia. The younger woman was standing beside the bed, clutching Thea’s hand in her own, as she gazed down at her with an expression of happy relief.
Thea had to have imagined Julian being here.
She had wanted to see him so badly, to explain why she had not gone to him this afternoon as she had said she would, that she had to have conjured him up in her mind.
Of course he was not here.
There was no possible way, no explanation he could possibly give, for wanting to be in the bedchamber of the young widow whose only known connection to him was his daughter was to marry her nephew.
“There is a maid waiting outside the door, Amelia. Perhaps you should go and ask her for a jug of cold water for Lady Dorothea. I am sure she must be thirsty.” Julian spoke to his daughter gruffly as he stepped out of the shadows at the back of the bedchamber, having eyes only for Thea as she lay so white and still beneath the bedclothes, her long red hair loose and flowing over the pillows beneath her.
Her face seemed to become even paler as she turned in the direction of his voice, her eyes unfocused, and the darkest green he had ever seen them.
From a concussion? Latham had told him earlier that the doctor believed Thea had no broken bones, but that a concussion was a possibility. That the vicious kick Thea had received to the side of her head from a horse’s hoof might even result in brain damage.
Julian could not even bear to think of such an outspoken and brave young woman as Thea becoming a drooling idiot who did not even know who she was, let alone anyone else.
“Amelia?” he prompted again when his daughter made no move to do as he suggested.
“Oh. Of course.” She reluctantly released Thea’s hand to cross the bedchamber and step out into the hallway to talk to the maid Latham had earlier instructed should be positioned there in case his sister had need of anything.
Julian immediately took advantage of his daughter’s absence to quickly cross the room and take Thea’s hand into his own.
Her eyes widened. “You are real…”
“You recognize me?”
She frowned at the question. “Of course I recognize you.”
Julian’s breath left him in a sigh of relief. “I had feared— We had all feared—” He gave a shake of his head. “You stumbled while out shopping and were trampled upon by the horses of a passing carriage.”
“I was on my way to you.” Her fingers tightened about his hand. “I do not know what happened but—but please believe I was on my way to be with you.”
“Shh,” he soothed as he sat down in the chair beside the bed his daughter had recently occupied, leaning forward to bring their faces closer together. “Now that you are awake, I will not be able to stay long. Your brother only consented to it at all because Amelia insisted on staying with you and I offered to keep her company for a while.” And damned frustrating he had found it too, to almost have to plead with Latham to allow him to stay with the woman he—
He what?
Something had shifted inside Julian earlier, when he believed Thea to be dead. The effects of the brandy he had consumed had evaporated completely, and he had felt a melting, and then a painful shattering of the barrier he had long kept about his emotions.
He had grieved at the thought of never seeing Thea again. Of never being with her again. Of never seeing those beautiful green eyes light up with mischief when she teased him, or with indignation when he teased her. Or the way they darkened with desire when he made love to her.
He had felt her loss even more deeply than the intensity of emotions that consumed him during their lovemaking.
He had trembled in reaction when Amelia informed him that Thea was injured but not dead.
Quite what all those emotions meant, he had no idea. For the moment, he would settle for being relieved to have Thea alive and awake and pleased to see him.
He squeezed her fingers with his. “We shall be together again once you are well enough.” Now that he knew Thea had not abandoned him, he could temper his impatience.
Her eyes were once again awash with tears. “I do not know what happened. I was excited, yes, distracted, looking forward to being with you again, but I… I remember now! Someone jostled me from behind.” She became agitated. “You must have thought I had let you down. That I was a coward who says one thing and does another—”
“Shh,” he soothed again. “I could never think that of you. You are one of the bravest women I know,” he assured her. “You have to be to have taken me on and survived the experience,” he added teasingly.
Inwardly, Julian did not feel like teasing at all. Thea’s comment, of someone jostling her from behind, had set a jingle of alarm bells ringing inside his head.
It was not uncommon for the streets of London to become crowded. Nor was it unusual for accidents to happen within those busy streets. On its own, the accident was upsetting but not worrisome.
Except…
The man Julian always had keeping an eye on Jennifer had not sent in his weekly report for several weeks now, meaning that Julian had no idea where or what Jennifer had been doing for those same weeks.
Again, on its own it was not too much reason for concern. Jennifer had resided in Italy for many years, and the delivery of mail between the two countries could not always be of a regular nature.
But the approach of Amelia’s wedding, Thea’s accident, the feeling that she had been jostled from behind, coupled with the lack of reports from his man in Italy, were now cause for great concern.
“Remy?”
A smile curved his lips as he realized, by the glow in Thea’s eyes, that she had used that name deliberately to draw his attention back to her and away from the thoughts that were making him frown. “Not here,” he drawled huskily. “And certainly not now,” he warned as the closing of the bedchamber door heralded the return of his daughter.
He gave Thea’s fingers one last reassuring squeeze before releasing them and standing to step away from the bed as Amelia returned to Thea’s side with the jug of water.
Tomorrow, or even tonight when Julian returned to Blackmoor House, he would travel to Italy himself to see why he had not heard from his man in Rome. If Jennifer had broken their agreement…!
The thought of her being anywhere near Thea or Amelia was enough to send a c
hill piercing through Julian’s heart.
Chapter 10
Thea’s thoughts churned back and forth in rhythm with her pacing of the confines of her private parlor.
It had been ten days since her accident, and she was heartily tired of being fussed over and cosseted. Nor had she been allowed any visitors apart from her brother, Daniel, her nephew George, and Amelia. Or allowed to leave the house in order to visit her closest friends, although they had all sent letters and flowers to wish her a speedy recovery.
To add to her misery, Julian had disappeared on business the day after her accident, and discreet enquiries to Amelia had revealed his daughter had no idea where he had gone or when he would be returning. Except that it would obviously be before the wedding next month.
Thea had not seen or heard from Julian again before his departure. Although her brother had given her several curious glances whenever the duke happened to be mentioned in conversation. But if Julian’s presence in her bedchamber that night had led Daniel to suspect there was more to their relationship than he had previously thought, he had not questioned her openly about it.
For which Thea was grateful.
She and Daniel had remained close as brother and sister, despite the fifteen years’ difference in their ages and their respective marriages, and she would not like to have to lie to him. To tell him the truth was also out of the question.
Especially as Thea was no longer sure what that truth was.
Surely if Julian had cared for her at all, he would not have just gone away on business without so much as a letter or a visit to tell her he was going and when he would be back.
His concern the night of her accident had seemed genuine enough, but perhaps it was just the concern of one person for another, in regard for Amelia’s future aunt by marriage, rather than that of a lover?
He could certainly be in no hurry to resume their relationship if he had just disappeared on business without sending so much as a word to her of his going.
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