Still, he made his way toward her. “I have been thinking about the carriage.”
“H-have you?”
He nodded. “I was very selfish. I thought I would return the favor.”
She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see,” he said, his torso now between her knees at the edge of the bed. He reached for her shoes, removing them slowly. Then, he roughly grabbed her by the waist, pulling her forward until her bottom was on the edge of the bed. She yelped.
“Brooks!”
“Lean back,” he told her. She hesitated, nervously searching his face for some sort of explanation. He sighed. “Trust me.”
Slowly, she leaned back. Brooks grabbed hold of her skirts, lifting them around her hips to reveal a pair of shapely stocking-clad legs. He took one ankle and lifted it, kissing the inside of her calf and thigh. His lips came close to her center, then he abruptly pulled away, switching to the other leg.
“Brooks,” she whispered, lifting herself onto her forearms, looking down at him.
He knew he must have been torturing her. He was torturing himself by taking his time, but he wanted to make this memorable for her. He carefully hooked her legs over his shoulders, leaning forward and kissing around the delicate folds of her sex. She squirmed beneath his touch.
Slowly, he licked the length of her, tasting her wet heat. She gasped as he used his tongue to explore her, the tip of it dipping in and out of her delicate folds. When he finally touched her most sensitive spot, she moaned. He took her between his lips, gently sucking.
“W-what are you doing to me?” she breathlessly asked, throwing her head back. He continued to devour her, slipping two fingers inside her and sliding them in and out in a steady rhythm. She moaned again, her hips jerking upward toward his mouth. He could tell she was close.
“Brooks… What is…”
He felt her intimate muscles contract around his fingers. She whimpered, covering her mouth with her hand as she looked down at him. Their eyes met for a moment before she threw her head back once more, removing her hand from her mouth and crying out with full force.
When her climax subsided, he hastily stood up, unbuttoning his breeches and pulling his hard length free once more. He grabbed her by the hips and thrust himself inside of her, closing his eyes as he did, overcome with lust. Her mews of pleasure eventually drove him over the edge, and when he finished, Brooks fell onto the bed beside her, out of breath. He turned on the side of his head to look at her. She was staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide with wonder, her chest rapidly rising and falling.
“Do you forgive me yet?” he asked.
August turned and looked at him, grinning mischievously. “A few more of those, and perhaps I will.”
He raised his brow. “Is that so?” He yanked her toward him, and she giggled as he nuzzled her neck. “If that’s the case, then we must get you out of this dress.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Although their physical intimacy grew the day and night of their wedding, August still had the feeling that Brooks was hiding parts of himself from her. After making love for the first time in bed, August noticed multiple long, thin scars across her husband’s back.
“What happened?” she asked, her eyes full of concern as she lightly traced the wrinkled and discolored skin with her fingertips. Brooks moved away from her so quickly that she thought she might have hurt him. He reached for his shirt, deserted haphazardly on the floor at some point, and quickly pulled it over his head.
“Nothing for you to worry yourself over, darling,” he said, turning back around to face August. He bent over her naked form, pressing a kiss to the center of her crinkled brow. When he pulled away, she looked up at him, displeased with his answer.
“But Samuel—”
“Do not ask me again, August,” he said, his voice low and full of warning. They stared at each other for a moment, and then he climbed into bed with her. She crossed her arms, pursing her lips as she did.
After he snuffed the candle on the bedside table, she turned on her side, folding her hands between her head and the pillow and closing her eyes. If he did not want to open up to her, she would not open up to him. But then she felt his firm body slide behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close. He began to kiss her neck, and she knew she could not resist him, even if he had only married her out of duty.
August still recalled the night he visited her bedroom on Park Street. She told him she loved him that night. He had yet to say those three words in return, not even after he came inside her that evening. But August already knew that love and lust were two separate things, and she wasn’t sure she could settle for her husband’s desire alone.
Now he was nuzzling his face against her neck, his hot breath and soft lips filling her with want once more as he reached for her breasts. He gently squeezed them, and she felt his manhood grow hard against her back as he ground his body against hers.
August shivered as he brought one of his hands from her breast to her thigh. He carefully wrapped his hand around her knee, lifting her leg to allow him better access to her wet heat. He positioned himself at her entrance, and she moaned as he slowly thrust inside her, filling her to the brim.
“Brooks,” she whispered. “This feels…” She could not find the right word. None could do the sensation of having her husband make love to her justice. But it wasn’t making love, was it?
“Amazing?” Brooks tried to answer for her. She made a slight whimpering noise as he continued to slide in and out of her, maintaining a steady and pleasurable rhythm. With one hand still holding her by the knee, his other drifted from her breast and down her stomach until it found the bundle of nerves just above where their bodies joined. He lightly stroked her there while simultaneously kissing her neck and whispering sweet words that filled her up until she thought she might burst.
As the pleasure built in August’s lower stomach, she held onto the feeling as long as she could, not wanting the steady climb to her peak to end. When it finally did, she cried out, her legs shaking as she became like jelly in Brooks’s hands, which began to deftly roam across her torso and breasts, gently kneading and squeezing in all the right places. His climax came not long after hers.
She remained quiet as he slipped out of her, leaving nothing but warm dampness behind. If she wasn’t so content, she might have felt empty. He kissed her shoulders. “I think I could fuck you all night long,” he murmured against her skin.
August felt herself grow cold. “Is that all you want of me?”
Brooks must have felt her growing sadness. He forced her to face him. “Surely you don’t believe that.”
She looked away, not sure what to believe. Brooks pulled her closer, holding her tight against his frame until she felt him fall asleep beside her. Perhaps he could learn to love her, she thought. She would be a good wife, and he would learn to love her eventually. She smiled to herself, hopeful for the future, and finally fell asleep.
* * *
Brooks awoke early the following morning, his wife still tucked against him underneath the crook of his arm. He listened to her gentle breathing, admiring the slight tilt of a smile playing at her lips. He considered waking her using his lips alone but then decided against it at the last minute.
He had used her enough in the past twenty-four hours, unleashing months of pent-up desire. Even he could admit he was attracted to August from the moment they met, but that didn’t change the fact he had never wanted a wife.
But now he had one, sleeping soundly beside him, the soft curves of her naked figure so enticing that he had to force himself away from her, lest he wanted to spend all morning in bed. He exhaled deeply, running his fingers through his hair, already mussed from sleep and sex.
Quietly, he crept out of bed, carefully lifting the bedclothes so as not to disturb his sleeping wife beside him. She shifted slightly when his feet hit the creaking floorboards beside the bed. He carefully stood, tiptoein
g across the room and gathering his clothes.
Some air, he thought, would do him good. He quickly dressed, took one last look at August’s sleeping form, then left, gently shutting the door of their bedroom behind him. He walked down the hall, heading for the backstairs.
Brooks knew his way around Hart House intimately from frequently visiting as a child and later as an adult to see his sister after she married Swinton. He took the stairs to the ground floor, opening the back service door and slipping into a small courtyard.
Hart House, a two-story brick house surrounded by trees and green shrubbery, was small compared to Linfield Hall. The quaintness made Brooks all the more fond of it, and he found himself reminiscing about his sister Lucy and how she ran around the small garden in the back as a child and then later hosted tea parties for her neighbors when she was older.
There wasn’t a day that passed that Brooks didn’t think of his sister. Despite the cruelty of their father, he never broke his daughter like he had his son. It wasn’t until she lived at Hart House for a year that she started to change. The effusive girl he once knew became withdrawn, even when he visited from town. Whenever Brooks pressed Swinton for an explanation, the insufferable man only laughed it off as nothing.
Brooks knew now he should have pressed harder. He hadn’t discovered the number of miscarriages she faced during her two years of marriage until later, once she already died. That was what drove Lucy’s melancholy, and Swinton said the local physician prescribed her laudanum for her nerves. One evening she took too much and…
That was where the reminiscing became painful, where Brooks refused to think anymore. He walked through the garden at Hart House, leaving through the iron gate at the back of the gray stone wall that ran the perimeter. Behind the house was a small meadow, which, if he crossed, would take him to the road that led to the nearest church.
The sun was just barely above the horizon as he approached the churchyard, and birds had just started singing from the treetops. The church itself was quiet, and Brooks walked across the line of graves in the yard until he found his sister’s. He picked up some dried flowers resting on top of her headstone, reducing some petals to dust between his fingertips.
“You must be wondering why I’m here,” he said after a moment. Brooks was not a religious or spiritual man, and he knew his sister could not hear him, but he felt like talking to her anyway. “Especially after I told your wretched husband I would never speak to him again after we buried you.”
Brooks paused. He had been furious at Swinton. Why hadn’t Swinton told him about Lucy’s plight? Brooks had always been able to cheer her. He protected her from their father for twenty years, and he could have saved her from this if he only knew about it.
“I would not say I have forgiven him, but he did come round Dover Street looking to reconcile,” Brooks continued. “I suppose we are speaking now, though his actions remain gravely disappointing for someone I once believed to be one of my best friends. He’s just like Charles in that regard. Surprisingly, I find myself liking Rutley more than both of them as of late.”
He shook his head, realizing he hadn’t come here to tell her about his childhood friends that used to gather in the old forester’s lodge at Linfield. “Truthfully, Lucy, I’m here on my honeymoon. Swinton lent me the house while he’s in town with his aunt and cousins. Hard to believe, I know, me being married, but I swear it’s true.”
Brooks thought of August back in their room. He smiled slightly, wondering if she was still sleeping. Perhaps he would have the chance to wake her with only his lips after all.
“I think you would like her,” Brooks said, taking another dried flower petal between his fingers. He watched the dust fall to the grass beneath his feet. “She is Lord Bolton’s illegitimate daughter. You must be shocked, of course, but you must have known if I ever did marry, it would not be to some fine society girl. She’s from the country in Hampshire. Her name is August.”
He paused again. If the vicar came out the church’s front door, he would think Brooks was unwell—and perhaps he was. “I am just rambling now,” he said, smiling down at his sister’s grave. “The truth is I’m not sure how to be married, Lucy, no matter how thrilled you might be to hear this news. I did not propose because I wanted to but because I had to.”
And Brooks was sure August understood as much. He couldn’t even figure out if he loved her not. “I already feel like a failure of a husband,” Brooks muttered. “And can you blame me? I have only had failures as examples—Father, Lord Bolton, Swinton.”
He pursed his lips, tears welling in his eyes. He quickly blinked them away, then reached out to put one hand on the top of Lucy’s headstone. He closed his eyes, standing there silently for a few moments before pulling away and heading back toward the house.
* * *
When August woke the next day, she found herself alone. She reached behind her for Brooks but only found emptiness. Sighing, she got out of bed, putting on her nightgown and wrapper and then pulling back the curtains covering the windows.
The windows of their room overlooked the garden and a meadow after that. In the distance, August could see a road that probably led to the nearest village. Looking around the room and frowning, she wondered where Brooks was.
August walked toward the bedroom door, opening it and peering outside. Seeing no one, she stepped out of the room, leaving the door open behind her and wandering down the hall, looking inside the other bedrooms out of curiosity. Upon finding the largest one, she suspected it might have belonged to Swinton. August stood in the doorway, wondering if Brooks’s sister once slept there as well.
Pulling her wrapper tighter around her shoulders, August searched for signs of Lucy. She knew so little of Brooks’s younger sister but wished that wasn’t the case. His mother said a long illness took her, but August had no idea what it could have been. Lucy looked like the picture of health in the portrait downstairs.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, August stepped inside Swinton’s room. She walked toward the bedside table, opening a small drawer and looking for any hints of who Lucy might have been when she was alive. When August found nothing, she scanned the room again, her line of vision landing on a small writing desk underneath one of the windows.
She walked toward it, opening the drawers and searching through them until she found a collection of old letters in one of them. Beneath the letters was a small leather bound book.
August ignored the letters and took the book, opening it and skimming through the pages, which contained neatly handwritten text. Each entry was dated, and August realized right away what it was: Lucy’s diary.
A sudden noise startled her. She quickly closed the book and put it back in the drawer on top of the letters. After shutting the drawer, she turned around and left the room, going out into the hall. She nearly jumped when she saw Brooks standing in front of their room. When he turned and noticed her standing there, he smiled
“There you are,” he said, walking toward her. When he realized what room she had just come out of, he narrowed his eyes. “What were you doing in there?”
August immediately shook her head. “Nothing,” she replied. “I only got turned around and thought that was our room. I went downstairs to ask Mrs. Godwin when breakfast would be ready.”
“What time did she give you?”
August blinked. Brooks stared at her, looking perplexed and having no idea she was lying. “An hour,” August finally said. “She said it would be ready in an hour.”
Brooks nodded, then reached for her hand, gently pulling her back down the hall toward their bedroom. “Good,” he said. “We can accomplish much in an hour.”
August arched her brow. “Accomplish?”
He did not answer, only guided her to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. When he turned to face her, she giggled at the mischievous look on his face. Even if her husband did not love her, he certainly wanted her. “Where have you been, anyway?” she asked as he
slinked toward her. “You weren’t here when I woke up.”
“I went for a walk,” he replied, kissing her neck. He slipped her wrapper off her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground.
“You went for a walk?” August echoed incredulously. “How far did you go?”
Brooks chuckled, sliding a hand from her waist up to her breast. “Does it matter? I am here now. I would like to focus on being here.”
August thought about protesting, but her husband’s skillful ministrations with his hands and tongue quickly distracted her. She forgot all about his absence that morning after they finally tumbled onto the bed together, both of them completely naked.
But August did not forget Lucy’s diary next door. After they finished, she watched her husband dress, biting her lip as she studied the scars across his back. When he turned and looked at her, she smiled brightly at him, pretending that nothing in the world could bother her at that moment, not even her husband’s secrets. He smiled back, walking toward her to press a gentle kiss to her lips.
* * *
August and Brooks returned to London a week later. While they were gone, Mrs. Brooks had her son’s belongings moved out of his old bedroom and into his father’s former room, which had remained untouched since his death. August immediately noticed her husband’s displeasure over this decision, seemingly made without him while he was gone.
“I’m not sure why you are so upset with her,” August said later when they were alone. Mrs. Brooks’s old bedroom had become August’s, and she and Brooks laid in her new bed together the night after they returned to town. Brooks came through the adjoining door between their two rooms soon after they retired for the evening. August thought he would have grown tired of her by then, but she happily accepted that he had not.
“I do not like my father’s room,” Brooks replied simply.
“Why?”
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