“You do not have any wood,” Lily noted.
James shook his head. “No,” he said quietly.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Suddenly self conscious, she ran her fingers through her hair, knowing it must look a mess.
She’d tried a simple braid while James was outside, but her hair was still damp, the strands impossible to coerce into any semblance of order, and so she left them undone, letting the tangled curls dry by firelight. She dropped her chin, glancing down at her blue muslin gown. It was frightfully wrinkled, the fabric pulled taut in some placed and bunched in others. She bit the inside of her cheek and fought the urge to roll her eyes at herself. Well done Lily, she chided silently. Certainly the best way to seduce a man is to have your hair a mess and your dress twisted up around your ankles. Heavens. She wasn’t very good at this, was she? Not that there was a book written on such things. Or, if there was, she had never read it.
“Stop it,” she said as she lifted her head and realized James was still looking at her with the same forceful intensity, his eyes shimmering pools of dark in the soft glow of the room.
“Stop what?”
She gripped the armrest, frustrated that nothing was going as it should. “Stop staring at me as though… well, as though…”
“As though you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen? I cannot,” he said softly. “Not when your cheeks are flushed and your eyes are heavy with sleep and your lips are still wet from where you touched them with your tongue.”
The butterflies went crazy. Lily went pale. For a man who so rarely speaks, she thought dazedly, he certainly knows how to put the right words together. And for once, for the first time she could ever remember, she was the one who couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “I… I…”
Sliding out of his boots, James stepped forward. “I have tried to deny it, but you have felt it too, haven’t you? In the ballroom, and then in the study.” His expression bemused, as though he himself couldn’t quite believe what he was saying, he shook his head. “You are without doubt the most antagonizing woman I have ever met… and the most desirable.”
He was coming closer, Lily noted. Close enough for her to see his face without shadow. Close enough for her to touch. Close enough for him to reach out and gently, so gently as to barely be felt at all, cup her jaw and tilt her head up. His fingers threaded through the curls that framed her face and she leaned into his hand, helpless not to rub her cheek against the calloused skin of his palm. “T-thank you?” she managed to squeak, not certain if he was paying a compliment, not certain if she remembered what he’d said at all.
James growled low in his throat. It wasn’t an angry sound. More of a frustrated surrender, although what he was surrendering she hadn’t the faintest idea. “You should stop me,” he said huskily. His mouth hovered a hair’s breadth above her own, so close she could see the dark line of stubble on his chin. Their eyes met, their gazes held. For an instant Lily forgot to breathe, and when she finally released the air trapped in her lungs it came out in a rush.
“What if I do not want to?” she whispered.
Something flashed in James’ eyes. Something dark. Something dangerous. Something so thrilling Lily felt her toes curl. “Then heaven help you,” he murmured before he lowered his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER NINE
Lily was burning up and it wasn’t just because she was rolling around on the floor in front of the hearth, although that certainly had something to do with it. James was igniting flames inside of her… and he was setting her on fire.
Shadow and light reflected off his skin in equal measure as he settled himself beside her, resting, Lily could not help but notice, on the left side of his body. She laid flat on her back, one arm crooked behind her head, the other wound around James’ waist as though it were the most natural thing in the world to mold her body against his.
He was kissing her slowly, his mouth moving with lingering softness over her lips, occasionally drifting lower to suckle the curve of her jaw or higher to tickle the sensitive bud of her earlobe.
In the past, Lily’s kisses had always been stolen in the dark; a quick, almost painful mating of lip and tongue that left her mouth bruised and her heart feeling oddly hollow. Never in a hundred years had she imagined kissing could be like this.
James took his time with her, as though she were a fine wine meant to be sipped and cherished, not a rough shot of brandy to be quickly swallowed. His fingers were tracing an ever lengthening path down her body, starting from the flat plane of her stomach and moving down along the curve of her hip before reversing direction and gliding back up towards her breasts. Never truly touching where she ached for him most, and before long she was arching into his hand, silently begging for something she could not name but desperately wanted.
The kissing continued, filling her with an ache so keen she would have done anything to satisfy it. As though he could sense her growing frustration James murmured low in his throat, a soft, soothing sound that did little to alleviate her growing passion. She opened her eyes.
“Would you just hurry up with it?” she snapped before she quite knew what she was saying. Silence followed and she could feel her cheeks growing warmer. Now was not the time for talking, let alone barking orders. Oh, why couldn’t she just be quiet and let what was going to happen bloody well happen? Because you are an impatient hussy, she scolded herself, and you are going to ruin everything if you don’t keep your trap shut. He is kissing you, is he not? Remain calm! Easier to think than do, especially when it felt as though her entire body was being consumed by flames of desire. In hindsight she supposed it was a very good thing they had not kissed in the study, for instead of Sarah walking in on her sitting by herself in a dark room, she feared her friend would have interrupted something much more scandalous.
Why James was going through with it now when he had run before she did not have the faintest of ideas, nor was she about it question his reasons. All she knew was it felt heavenly, and despite the wrongness of it all it felt so right, and she really did want him to hurry.
As though he could sense the direction of her thoughts James paused in his kissing and nuzzled the curve of her neck. “I want to rip all the clothes off your body,” he whispered against her warm skin, “and thrust inside of you so hard you scream my name.”
“Oh,” Lily breathed.
His smile was quick to reveal itself and even quicker to retreat; a mere flashing of white teeth that never quite reached his eyes. “But that would be screwing, not lovemaking, and a woman like you is deserving of the latter.”
Leaning towards him, she sat up on her elbow. The bodice of her dress brushed against his shirt and without thinking she reached out to toy with the starched edge of his collar. “A woman like me? And what sort of woman do you suppose I am?”
James did not hesitate in his response. “A woman who knows exactly what she wants.”
If only he knew the half of it, Lily thought with the tiniest of grimaces. Again she succumbed to a deep, uncomfortable sense of guilt, but she pushed the feeling aside. She was doing what was best. After all, it wasn’t as though she had twisted James’ arm to get him down on the floor with her. He’d made that choice all on his own, and soon enough they both would pay the consequences.
“I do,” she said. “I do know exactly what I want.”
“And that is?”
She sat up straighter, reached behind her, and began to pluck at the stays on her dress. Her gaze steady on James, she allowed the tiniest, most cat like of smiles to curve her lips before she whispered, “You. I want you.”
Her gown slithered down to her waist. James’ eyes darkened with lust. He swallowed hard, his adams apple jerking in his throat. She felt an answering pull somewhere deep inside. A pull of need and desire she’d never felt before. Wordlessly he held out his arm. Lily fell into his embrace, and they both were lost.
Lily was a virgin.
No, James corrected himself
roughly, Lily had been a virgin.
Now, courtesy of him, she was not.
The evidence was there on one plump ivory thigh, a stain of crimson where there should have been only pale, flawless cream. The evidence had also been there during their lovemaking. A tightening of her mouth when he first pushed into her. A flicker of pain he had mistaken for pleasure. A cry he took for a moan. So many signs… and yet he’d still taken her on the floor like some rutting beast, deflowering her with all the finesse of a wild animal.
Disgusted with himself, James rolled away and sat up to face the fire as he fumbled with his clothes. The flames had all but sputtered out, casting the room in shadow and allowing a chill to creep into the air. He felt Lily stir behind him.
They dressed in silence. He found one of her stockings by the edge of the hearth and pushed it silently towards her. She pulled his shirt from beneath the winged chair and held it out, not meeting his gaze when he took it from her. It wasn’t until James was attempting to button his shirt that he made a sound. It began as a low growl of frustration as he clumsily attempted to secure the buttons with one hand and ended with a snarl that was more befitting a wolf than a man.
“Let me,” Lily said softly.
He turned from the fire to face her, rising up on his knees, still attempting to shove the buttons into place. “I do not need your help.”
“Yes,” she said, and this time she lifted her eyes to meet his, “you do.”
Staring into those shimmering pools of amethyst James felt a deep sense of shame descend upon him. Shame that he could not do a thing so simple as button his own shirt. Shame that he had taken Lily’s innocence. Shame that he was no longer the man he had once been. It filled him with anger, all that shame, and he reacted the only way he knew how: with deliberate cruelty.
“This is your entire bloody fault, you know.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly, but her voice remained calm. “It is my fault you cannot button your shirt?”
Another growl, this one more ferocious than the last. “If it were not for you and that damn dog I wouldn’t even be here! And I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t…” But he could not form the words. He surged to his feet. Lily followed suit, albeit with an elegant grace he could not help but admire despite his anger. She’d donned her undergarments, but her dress must have been too difficult to put on by herself for it was still draped over the back of a chair. Her hair was loose and tangled, the dark curls spilling over her shoulders like a stream of black ink.
“Please leave Mr. Betram out of this. He did nothing wrong. Now if you would hold still, I can help you with your—”
“I DON’T NEED YOUR DAMN HELP!” He kicked out at a small end table, striking one of the slender legs. It cracked in half and the table, unsteady to begin with, crashed to the floor. Lily crossed her arms.
“Well I suppose that is one way to get firewood.”
James spun away from her to brace his arm across the mantle of the hearth. His chest rose and fell with the force of his breaths, even as a flicker of confusion gave him pause. Why wasn’t Lily running from him in horror? Any other woman he knew would have fled screaming by now, snow storm or no. He’d taken her virginity on the cold hard floor, blamed her for something that had been his own decision to make, and yelled at her with all the tact of a miserable old bear. Yet still she remained, composure in place, not a hint of hysteria in sight. “I wasn’t always like this, you know,” he said gruffly after a long, heavy pause.
“Moody and temperamental? I find that hard to believe.”
“No.” Frustrated, he turned and jerked his chin to the left. “Like this.”
“You mean your missing arm? I assumed you lost it in the war, but I suppose you could have been born without it. Some people are, I hear.” Lily shrugged, as though they were discussing something as benign as the weather instead of his crippling defect. “I am happy for you that you had it as long as you did, to be quite honest.”
“Happy?” James said incredulously. “You are happy?”
“Yes. Imagine if you only ever had one arm. You never would have been able to experience life with two. Although perhaps that would have been better.” The faintest of smiles lifted her mouth on one side. “I imagine you would have figured out how to button your own shirts by now.”
Was she… laughing at him?
No, not laughing, James realized. Accepting. She was accepting him, one arm and all. The concept was so foreign – not to mention unexpected – that he quite simply could not think of anything to say.
“I fear I am quite tired,” Lily said, interrupting the silence before it could stretch into something bordering on the uncomfortable. “Would you mind stoking the fire while I ready for bed?” Without waiting for a response she headed for the bedroom, only to hesitate with her fingers curled around the knob. “You will sleep with me, won’t you? For body warmth,” she said quickly before he could manage a word. “I would hate to catch a chill. Come along, Mr. Betram.”
With a groan and a mumble the old beagle surged to his feet and waddled after his mistress, leaving James staring after both of them in slack jawed astonishment.
CHAPTER TEN
28 days until Christmas
The Winswood Estate
“Sarah, I need to speak with you at once.” It was only half past ten in the morning when Lily marched into her friend’s foyer and handed her cloak and hat to a servant, but she did not think for one moment that Sarah was still abed. Thanking the maid who had taken her outer garments, she proceeded down the front hallway and into the music room without invitation.
As predicted (from many other early morning visits just like this one) she found Sarah sitting behind the pianoforte, her fingers hovering in tense anticipation above the ivory keys and her face scrunched tight in concentration.
“I cannot play this one sequence of notes,” she complained without looking up. “The bridge is particularly difficult, but Devlin talked me into doing a recital before Christmas Eve dinner and I have to do it perfectly.”
“Where is that husband of yours?” Lily asked before she collapsed into a chair and propped her feet up on a cushioned footrest. The room was warm courtesy of a crackling fire, and she rolled up the sleeves of her light yellow morning dress to mid forearm. The other fireplaces in the sprawling manor must have been going as well, for on her way up the long, twisting drive she’d noted smoke spiraling from all four chimneys, the plumes of gray standing out in sharp contrast against the clear blue sky.
It was a lovely day, last night’s raging storm only evident in the thick blanket of freshly fallen snow. If she tried hard enough Lily could almost imagine yesterday had never happened at all, until she moved a certain way and the soreness between her thighs said otherwise.
She and James had woken at first light and left the cottage as dawn was cresting on the horizon. He brought her back to where he found her and they parted ways without a word.
No promises spoken. No betrothals made. Just one long, lingering look that instantly heated her cheeks and caused the breath to stutter in her lungs. When Lily returned home – sneaking through the servant’s door around the side – everyone had still been abed with the exception of the cook, who had taken one look at Lily’s disheveled appearance, rolled her eyes, and slipped silently back into the kitchen.
She’d bathed her face and chest in cold water, exchanged one set of clothes for another, and set off at once for the Winswood estate which was only a brisk walk down the lane in the opposite direction of where she’d gone the day before.
If Sarah thought it was odd of her friend to show up before breakfast without a carriage or even a horse, she made no mention. Then again, Lily’s eccentricities were well known, especially to Sarah. Adjusting the skirt of her rose colored morning dress, the blond played a few more notes before she turned the sheet music over with a huff and stood up. “Devlin is in London on business. He left directly after the ball, and should be home by the end of the week
. Do you want tea and scones? I believe Cook just made fresh ones.”
“That would be lovely.”
Sarah waited for the refreshments to be brought out on a silver platter before she sat down across from Lily. She raised her eyebrows. “Well?” she said expectantly. “What is it you have to tell me?”
Selecting a scone, Lily bit into warm dough, not realizing she was half starved until she wolfed down the first scone and started on the second. “Why do you assume I have something to tell?”
“Your mother came looking for you yesterday afternoon. I told her you were upstairs changing, and that we were going into town for a bit of shopping.”
Relief washed over Lily like a wave, only to be followed by something distinctly less comfortable. If her mother believed she had spent the day and night with Sarah, then her reputation would not be ruined as she feared… except her virginity truly had been lost. The irony of it caused her to laugh, and Sarah’s expression grew tight with concern.
“Lily, what is it? I can tell something is bothering you. I did not want to say anything at the ball, but you have been acting very odd as of late. Is this because of your father?”
Yes, it was because of her father, but not in the way Sarah meant. Lily took a deep breath. She needed to tell Sarah everything, if only so someone else could share her burden. It was a selfish thing to do, but then hadn’t she already proven that she was, in fact, quite selfish? Taking a sip of tea to settle her stomach, she told her friend everything in a rush, beginning with Mr. Guthridge’s visit and ending with that very morning when she and James parted ways without a word spoken between them.
The Risqué Resolution Page 6