“Are you all right?”
She turned onto her back and looked up at him. “I’m fine. Why?”
“You look tired.”
Her mouth quirked. “That’s hardly complimentary.”
Henry bent his head to her neck, noticing that her eyes closed as soon as he pressed his mouth to her skin. “I mean,” he said between kisses, “only that”—he caught the sheet in his teeth and tugged it downward—“you do not look as if you want to be importuned again.”
Frances smiled. “What a way to describe our lovemaking. Have I importuned you, then?”
“Of course not.” He stared shamelessly at her breasts. “Men are always willing to take more than women want to give. It’s not fair, but it’s the way of the world.” He wondered if she was too tired to let him taste her.
Her eyes opened at his words, glassy and distant. He had never seen such an expression on her face before. “That is not always the way of the world.”
He did not know what she meant, but it was hard to think too deeply. She had not covered herself, and as he watched, her nipples tightened into hard points. His mouth felt dry. He wanted to drink her in.
He turned on the bed, slid off the end and kneeled on the floor. With a quick tug on the sheet, he laid Frances completely bare.
She raised herself onto her elbows. “What are you doing?”
“Whatever you’ll let me do.”
Her cheeks blushed the dark, warm red of minium. Her lips were red too, from kisses, caresses. With her hair tousled, her skin flushed, her body laid out before him like a banquet of sensation, she looked magnificent. He wished he had a way to capture this moment forever. This was erotic and spiritual together. This was right.
Frances shut her eyes for a moment, looking as though she were trying to persuade herself into something. Then she opened them, a self-conscious smile on her face. “All right. I’ll let you do anything.”
“Really?” His cock grew fully hard.
“Oh, yes. Anything. Are you feeling creative? You may cut my hair, choose my clothes, bathe me in bergamot—ulp.”
Henry had tugged at her leg until she slid farther down the bed toward him.
“Those are all fascinating offers,” he said. “But not precisely what I had in mind right now.”
With his elbow, he nudged her knees apart. “Damned useful things, elbows,” he murmured, and Frances let out a shaky laugh.
He slid a finger within her, then another, and she sank back onto the bed, already trembling. One lick where she was slickest, and the tremors turned to shudders.
“Henry, please, please.” Her voice was faint, as though she wanted something she was afraid to ask for.
He could well guess what she wanted. His fingers moved within her, and she moaned. Surely she would fly apart at any second. Then he would slide within her, feel her inner muscles clenching at him. To give her pleasure was as sweet as finding his own.
He tongued her, drew on her, worked his fingers in her, waiting for her to crest so they could be joined.
But she slipped down instead, her body stilling under his touch. He tried to pull her up again, working his fingers and mouth harder—no, she gave a gasp, but her sleek wetness was drying up. He withdrew his fingers, plucked at her sensitive bud with them. Too late somehow. She was already paling and subsiding, her swollen flesh losing its arousal.
He could not bring her back to the peak, and he began to feel foolish trying. He sat back in a squat, realizing how much his knees hurt from kneeling on the wood floor.
Frances sat up, looked down at him from the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry.”
Her face looked pale. Her eyes and cheekbones were shadowed. Or perhaps it was only the angle at which she watched him, the light from the window striking her from above.
Henry clutched at the tangled bed sheet and pulled it around himself. This left no cover for Frances, but he didn’t care right now. Something had gone wrong, and likely it was his fault, and he didn’t want to face that reckoning with a bare arse.
He shut his eyes and thought of the most un-arousing things possible. Pus. Brussels sprouts and goat brains. Lord Wadsworth’s sneer.
That did it. His too-eager body succumbed to his control again, and he mustered a reasonable amount of calm as he creaked from the floor to his feet and sat next to Frances on the bed. Again, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She crossed her arms across her chest, covering as much of her nakedness as she could. She rubbed at her upper arms with her hands. “Well, not exactly. I suppose I am a bit distracted.”
“Distracted.” Was she, now? When she’d stroked him to life, opened herself to his mouth and his most intimate touch.
Frances unfolded her arms, began gathering and twisting her hair from where it had spilled over her shoulders and down her back. Pins had scattered everywhere, and she slid from the bed to search out the small metal wires on the floor with one hand as she held her hair in a loose coil with the other.
So they were done, then. “Are you going to tell me what was distracting you?”
She kept picking up pins from the floor. Her hair was already restrained, a ludicrous pairing with her lush nudity. “It was nothing serious,” she said in a tight voice. “I was—”
A scratch at the door cut her off. “Mrs. Whittier?” a young-sounding female called.
Frances stood up as quickly as if she had a spring within her. “Yes, Millie?” She shot a warning look at Henry, and he felt a contrary urge to announce himself to their interrupter. Come back later, Millie. Madam and I are trying to fornicate.
Trying and failing. He clamped his mouth shut and looked at the wall as Frances began to pace around. Thick billowing sounds told him she was snapping out her rumpled clothes. She’d need help putting on her stays. Well, much luck to her.
The unseen Millie spoke through the closed door. “Excuse me, mum. But Lady Stratton says as she needs you right away. His lordship the ferrety-looking man seems likely to pop the question in front of everyone.”
“Wadsworth,” Frances said. “The man ruins everything.”
Was it Henry’s imagination, or did she not sound as disappointed as she ought?
“Please, mum,” Millie said, her slightly muffled voice now sounding panicked through the door. “Do come right away. Lady Stratton says you’re ever so good at keeping the man in line.”
Henry relented before the servant had an apoplexy in the corridor. “Help me get dressed,” he whispered, catching Frances’s eye. “Then I’ll send the maid in to you.”
Frances nodded at Henry, then called back through the door, “Of course, Millie. Tell her I’ll be there directly. And then come back to me, for I’ll need your help dressing.”
***
Considering how debauched they’d been this morning, Henry thought they looked respectable enough right now. Frances had donned a demure gown of blue serge—there was simply no hope for this morning’s gown, so crushed had it been by Henry’s fingers and their tangled bodies.
She might wear prim clothing, but he knew the truth.
As Henry had dressed, his light mood had returned. The world had opened for him in the last twenty-four hours, and only he knew its secrets. He knew what fires lay beneath Frances’s cool exterior. He knew how her lips parted when she reached her peak, how she gasped his name as if it were a prayer or a plea.
So he had not been able to bring her to climax with his mouth. What of it? They would have all their lives to try other things. He would make it his mission to find what brought her to ecstasy. He had never had such pleasurable orders before; it would be a delight to carry them out.
There was no one to see his wolfish grin. Frances was marching ahead down the stairs to the first floor and the drawing room. Her shoulders were straight and drawn slightly back, as if her heart was presenting a target. Do your worst, world.
He really felt as if the world could, and he would not be a bit bothered.
“Frances,” he said as they reached a landing. He had to stop her. One more turn of the staircase and they would reenter the public world. She would become a companion again, and as far as anyone knew, he’d be just another caller for Caro.
Surely they could not transform so easily. Had they not shared something irrevocable? Could they not promise the same?
She faced him, looking solemn. Those peach-black shadows still darkened her eyes.
“Frances, let us announce our betrothal today. Right now, even. In the drawing room.”
“Our betrothal? Are we betrothed?” She gave him a teasing smile. “You have never asked me to marry you.”
A finger of unease poked Henry’s spine. “Please, be serious. I’m in earnest, Frances. You must have known we’d never”—he lowered his voice—“never do such intimate things without being bound to each other.”
Her smile sank down into a crooked, twisted thing. “It’s not wise to take anything for granted.”
The words were a swift jab in the gut, not at all the response he’d expected. Henry could only gape.
You really are terrifying. For the first time, he thought so—because she batted his offer away as though it meant nothing.
He must have shown his shock, for she softened at once. “But you are right. I consider myself bound to you, quite tightly.”
It seemed she was going to say more, but a shout from the drawing room below interrupted her. There was a crash of something heavy being broken, like a china ornament or a vase thrown against the stone of the hearth. Or against Wadsworth’s head if Henry was lucky.
“Good Lord.” Frances sounded worried. “Wadsworth must have proposed already. He’ll be in an almighty rage. Quick, Henry, go downstairs and find your flowers. Be ready to give them to Caroline, as if you’re calling on her. Hurry. No one must suspect anything about us.”
She shoved at his chest, then pressed herself against the landing wall, as if her dark blue dress could possibly vanish into the green and white plasterwork on the landing.
Henry planted his feet. “What is wrong? There’s no need to lie, is there?”
“It’s just for today,” she said in a ragged whisper. “Please. I don’t want Wadsworth to say anything to you.”
“Wait.” He shook his head. “Why? Do you think he will insult you?”
“Probably, but I don’t care about that.”
“Then you think he will insult me. Frances, I don’t care about that either. But if you do, let’s go back upstairs until he leaves.”
“I have to go in. I’m sorry. Caroline has asked for me; she will need me.” Her eyes met Henry’s, wide and panicky.
Not what one expected to see when a woman agreed to marriage.
So. She was ashamed of him. And this was what happened when one showed a woman one’s every weakness: it became magnified. Now it was seen by two, not just one.
Henry had seen a hot air balloon launched in France. It had been punctured by a vandal after its thrilling flight. The hollow bag writhed and twisted as the heated air escaped, and it was left a sad ruin of fabric on the ground, unwieldy and useless.
It just came to mind, all of a sudden.
“If you think it best,” he said over a roaring in his ears as loud as a balloon turning itself inside out. “We won’t make an announcement until you’re ready.”
“It will be soon, I hope.” Her hands knotted together. A foolish use for fingers when one had ten at one’s command.
“You don’t know, though?” Henry’s near-sleepless night suddenly weighed on him. “Frances. Do you regret it?” Me?
“No!” Her eyes flew wide open, and she reached a hand toward him. “Oh, he is coming.”
She pushed past Henry and fled down the stairs toward the drawing room. Heavy footsteps pounded within the room, and the door slammed open just before Frances reached for its handle.
Wadsworth flung himself through the doorway and almost walked into Frances. He caught himself in midstride just outside of the drawing room and stared at her, dumbfounded.
She froze, blinking back at him.
Henry must have made a noise, for the viscount’s eyes flicked up toward the stairway. Henry realized at once that he had blundered; he should either have drawn back out of sight or followed immediately behind Frances as if he’d just come to call. Instead, it was abundantly clear that he’d been admitted into the personal apartments.
Damn it. This was exactly the type of “announcement” Frances wanted to avoid.
Wadsworth’s face was red over the high starched points of his cravat. His eyes narrowed, flicking from Henry back to Frances, and Henry recognized the signs of a baited animal ready to lash out.
He was more than willing to lash back right now. Spoiling for it, actually. Too little rest and too much uncertainty would roughen any man’s edges, and it hadn’t been long since Henry had stopped fighting for his life.
He knew just how to get the fight he wanted from Wadsworth.
He imagined that he was strolling down Piccadilly, a malacca cane in his hand, as his feet found the stairs and carried him to the doorway of the drawing room to stand at Frances’s side. He assumed an expression of delight, as of one old friend encountering another in an unexpected place. Such nonchalance would infuriate Wadsworth.
“Wadsworth,” he said as smoothly as if they were meeting at the counter of a tobacconist’s. “Good afternoon to you. And how go your affairs today?”
Twenty
Henry was not wrong in comparing Wadsworth to a wounded animal. The man’s nostrils were flaring. He looked like a beast that had lost a very hard race—and a bit of blood too.
“Eavesdropping, Middlebrook? Perhaps all those years in the army stripped you of your good breeding.”
Henry ignored this clumsy sally and replied with maddening cheer. “Oh, you do recognize good breeding when you see it? Judging by your own actions, I didn’t realize that about you.”
“I suspect there’s much you don’t realize about good society.” Wadsworth’s eyes narrowed. “For example, you must not know that a gentleman doesn’t accompany a lady upstairs into her private apartments.” His breathing still came a bit fast, but save for the dishevelment of his carefully pomaded hair, he was shrugging back into his sharp, ambiguous urbanity. “Unless you do know that, and you are not a gentleman. Or this person is not a lady. Which is it?”
Frances lifted her chin and glared at Wadsworth, looking as though she was preparing to stomp on a rodent.
What a tableau they must make, the three of them standing in the doorway of the drawing room. If Wadsworth would but put a shawl over his head, they could perform an amateur theatrical for the other… Henry counted… seven men, plus Caro, who were watching them, transfixed.
They were all getting a dramatic performance today, though they had probably expected nothing but the usual pleasantries and flowers and dainty sandwiches. Already they had seen a vase thrown. Shards of majolica and scattered daisies lay before the drawing room’s marble fireplace, and the carpet was dark with water.
Henry was very aware of the stillness of his right arm—the arm that ought to draw Frances within its cradle, the arm that made Wadsworth think him weak. But he could fight with society’s tiny, barbed sentences as well as he had once handled a bayonet. “I’m unsure who you would call a lady or gentleman, Wadsworth. For your own sake, I hope you define a gentleman by blood rather than behavior. Otherwise, by all rights, you ought to relinquish your title to someone more deserving.”
He raised an eyebrow, calculating just the right insouciant lift as a spring within him began to coil up tight and tense. Eager energy began to flood him—the desire to fight and wound, to vanquish, to prove himself. Frances was unsure of him for some unknown reason. She need not be. He’d prove it.
“And how do you define a gentleman, Middlebrook?” Wadsworth’s face had turned a dark violet. “I should say it was one who knew his betters.”
Whispers broke out in the
drawing room, nothing but a distant buzz in Henry’s ears. He peered closely at Wadsworth’s face, then tilted his head and stepped back. With a nod, he held his thumb up to the side of the viscount’s face.
“What?” Wadsworth’s livid color had begun to drain, and his lips looked oddly bloodless. “You have no reply?”
“Oh, don’t.” Henry let his posture sag, his face transform into a portrait of misery. “Don’t let yourself calm down, please. Why, you had turned the exact shade of Tyrian purple; it was a marvelous effect. That’s the color that used to be worn by all the Caesars of Rome. Ah, there you go—you’ve taken on that rare shade again. Hambleton? Crisp? Have you seen Wadsworth’s face? You ought to have waistcoats made in this color.”
Wadsworth’s brows yanked into an angry vee. When he opened his mouth to speak, Henry smiled pleasantly. “Since Tyrian purple used to be saved for royalty, Wadsworth, I suppose you’d consider it an appropriate shade for yourself. Did you know the dye comes from the mucous of snails?” He turned from the sputtering Wadsworth to Frances. “Did you know that? You do know the oddest things about people.”
Her eyes caught his, and she managed a faint smile. “I did not know that, Mr. Middlebrook. But I admit that nothing you tell me about Lord Wadsworth would surprise me.”
“The kitten has claws,” Wadsworth murmured.
“Heaven save us from such manners.” A woman’s voice. Through the drawing room doorway, Henry saw Caro stand from her flower-caged seat and thread through the room toward them. “You three are excellent at attempting courtesy without succeeding at it. But I suggest you either come in to the drawing room and be genuinely polite or take a little time to drown your prickly tempers in a brandy bottle.”
To Henry’s surprise, Wadsworth shot Caroline a cool look. “And who are you, madam, to dictate my behavior? Naught but the daughter of a vicar, aren’t you?”
Clearly some wall of courtesy had been broken along with the majolica, but Wadsworth was no tactician. This was fratricide: hurting one’s own allies.
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