by Lily Maxton
“I don’t—” She broke off with a low moan when he took the tip of her nipple between his teeth and bit down gently.
“Do you bathe in sugar every night?”
She giggled and his mouth curved against her breast. But she didn’t giggle for long when he tugged down the other side of her night rail and lavished the same attention to the other side. He broke away from her soft body only long enough to help her tug the garment over her head and discard it. He kissed the spot where her neck and shoulder met, the spot where her skin looked unbelievably pale and smooth, and then dug his teeth into it.
Damnation, there were too many things he wanted to do with her skin—bite, lick, suck, kiss, soothe. Every inch of it. Every hidden nook. It would take hours— No, days, weeks— No. Those times were too short. He would need a lifetime, and even that seemed altogether too finite.
He pushed her arm up and licked the hollow underneath, tasting a faint, pleasant trace of salt.
She gasped, but the note ended on a soft sigh, so he did it again, and then caught her whimper on his mouth.
She kissed him hard, desperately, her fingers burrowing into his hair. His own hands ached to touch her, so he trailed down over her body, tracing her curves. Heat shot straight to his cock when his hand brushed her hips and her thighs fell open.
For him.
Wanting him.
There.
He slid his hand into soft curls, his fingers cupping her mound. She was so hot. She was so wet. He dipped his fingers into the moist heat and she arched into him. Her breath came in little pants as he flicked his wrist and set a shallow, quick rhythm.
“Henry,” she said, his name a plea, a sob, a cry.
He rubbed the heel of his hand against her flesh as his fingers worked below. Faster. Harder. He’d been kissing her, but he drew back to watch her face, and even if he hadn’t felt her come around his fingers, he would have known the second she did—her eyes closed, her throat arched, and the elegant column moved as she swallowed. The moan that fell from her lips sounded like music.
He withdrew his hand and when she opened her eyes to look at him, he acted on pure impulse, pure hot want. He did something he’d never done before. He brought his index and middle fingers to his mouth and licked her from his skin—a subtle perfect musk.
Her chest rose with a deep inhalation. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded with desire. He loved that she didn’t look away from him. No coy glances. No maidenly blushes. Just her and her desire.
“Sweet, sweet Cassandra,” he said, his voice a low throb.
Their gazes remained locked as she held her arms out, and he went to her. He knelt between her thighs, where she cradled him like he was exactly where he belonged.
When he pushed inside her, when she drew him deep, he had the sensation that he was being pulled so far into her that he would be imprisoned in her heart.
And there, he realized, he would gladly stay.
But then she arched back, tilting her hips, and all thought fled. He surged forward; she pushed against him, and everything was heat and sound and touch—her body along his, her staggered breathing, the warm channel that gripped him. He grabbed her waist, pulling her higher. He didn’t want to take his pleasure first. He didn’t want to be too rough, but her nails were digging into his back, her voice was urging him—more, more, harder.
He liked that she wanted his roughness.
He drove into her as if she was the last woman he would ever make love to.
And he hoped she was.
He truly hoped she was.
Her trembling started when he was on the brink. Her muscles clenched and he shuddered, pushed deep, held still, and came inside her with a low cry.
Complete.
Chapter Forty-One
Later, much later, when the fire had died but the light in the room turned paler from the pre-dawn sky, Cassandra realized Henry had fallen asleep beside her. His breathing was soft and steady, and his eyes flicked under the lids.
His hair had fallen onto his forehead and she pushed it back gently, observing his face in sleep. The undamaged side was pressed into the pillow, the scarred side visible.
She wondered if their night together would cause him pain later. She’d noticed him rubbing his injured arm often, even when he hadn’t used it much. But then she remembered his face as he’d strained above her—his eyes closed and his head thrown back in wild abandon, giving every impression of an ecstasy that mere mortals had never reached.
Her lips curved in a satisfied smile. She rather thought he would think any future pain was worth it.
She certainly did.
But sorrow pierced her when she realized this was the only night with him she would ever have. Unable to keep her hands still, she smoothed her hand gently over his forehead, over his cheek, memorizing the lines of his face.
He stirred. His eyelids cracked open, and then he was suddenly grasping her hand in his, staring up at her in something like wonder.
Her heart squeezed. “Henry?”
“You touched me.”
“Well, of course I—”
“I mean after the fire, someone caressed my face. It was you.”
Heat rose to her cheeks. “I thought you were unconscious.”
“I was,” he said. “You pulled me back.”
“Is that possible?” she asked, searching his face, a twinge of wonder warring with despair.
“I don’t know.” He was silent for several seconds. “You touched me,” he repeated, smiling suddenly. “That long ago. Did you like me, Cassandra?”
The teasing note in his voice was too much to take in. She pushed up abruptly, and his face turned more guarded.
“Cassandra?”
Several awful moments passed before she found her voice. “I think I should go,” she whispered.
“Go?” He shook his head, seeming to realize she didn’t simply mean leave the room. Now they were both sitting up in bed. “You can’t go.”
“I already told you I was leaving,” she pointed out. She was having trouble meeting his eyes, so she stared down at the rumpled bedclothes instead, and all the memories of their lovemaking rushed back in. She should have left when she’d had the chance.
“That was before,” he said with a wave of his arm.
“Before we swivved?” she asked, borrowing his own phrasing. “Even more of a reason.”
“That’s no reason at all,” he burst out. “And if I hear another word about my future wife— Damn it, I want to marry you, Cassandra.”
Her heart lurched and she stared at him in shock. “Marry?” Had he lost his mind? “That’s absurd, Henry. A marquess can’t marry a servant.”
“Don’t you mean a duke? Or nearly so. I can do whatever I want.”
“And I’m certain everyone will accept it, no matter how outrageous,” she said sarcastically, to hide the bewildered pain fluttering in her heart. “You’ve said it yourself—I’m only your housekeeper.”
He swore under his breath. “I didn’t mean it.”
She wished she could believe him. “You meant it.”
He pushed his hands into his hair, looking more undone than she’d ever seen him. The muscles in his back flexed, drawing her gaze even now. “I meant it then. I certainly don’t feel that way anymore. How can you think I would?”
“How can I think years of breeding and snobbery could be changed in a few months?”
His lips thinned. “Do you have so little faith in me?”
Her chest ached. She didn’t know. She wanted to have faith in him, wanted to desperately. But there were things that were bigger than them. All she could think of when she imagined them marrying was the people who would scorn her. He was such a prideful man. He was so used to being envied, so accustomed to the best of everything—and there were untold numbers of women who were better suited, who would never embarrass him. If he married Cassandra, was it so farfetched to think one of them, or both of them, might end up miserable?
; “I know you think this is what you want,” she said softly, fighting the urge to either flee or break into tears. “And you’re used to having things your way. But if you’d actually take the time to—”
“Don’t speak to me like I’m a fool,” he said harshly. “I know it won’t be easy.”
“It will be harder for me,” she whispered.
They both knew it was true. Oh, some ridicule might be directed his way, but she was the vulnerable one, the lowborn one. She was the one who would take the brunt of whatever vitriol was thrown at them. She was the one who would be trapped in a world she wasn’t meant for, or prepared for—she could dress in all the fancy gowns she wanted, but it wouldn’t change the wear on her hands from years of scrubbing pots and tending her younger siblings.
“You think it won’t be just as difficult for me?” he shot back. “Do you think it pleases me to feel this way for a servant?”
She drew back as if he’d struck her.
He must have realized what he’d said—for he opened his mouth, lines of contrition in his face. “No, that’s not what I—” He shook his head.
Maybe he truly hadn’t meant the declaration to be as damning as it sounded. Maybe he’d only spoken in the heat of the moment. But it was too late. His words only brought all of her fears into harsh relief.
“Do you see?” she asked, bitterness choking her voice. “Do you see why it won’t work?”
“All I meant,” he said slowly, tightly, “was that it would be easier to marry an aristocratic woman. Not that I wanted to.”
“But that wasn’t what you said,” she whispered. She had to whisper. She had a feeling if she raised her voice at all, it would be a tremulous, broken thing.
He opened his mouth. Closed it again. He looked more lost than she’d ever seen him.
Her heart clamored violently, but she didn’t speak. She knew she couldn’t stay—there was no point trying to convince him how much she cared for him.
He stared at her for a long moment. She could actually see it—the moment he closed himself off, the moment he decided fighting her would be useless. She hadn’t thought his capitulation would feel like such agony.
He drew away from her, turning his back. The small distance between them seemed an untraversable gulf. “I’ll give you severance. Write me if you need anything.”
Then he strode across the lush carpet to the door that opened on his private dressing room. He shut the door behind him with a little more force than necessary—the only thing that signified he might not be as composed as he wished to appear.
Cassandra heard that door closing like a period jabbed at the end of a sentence, or a gunshot to the head.
Done.
Chapter Forty-Two
A fortnight later, Henry was finding London rather tedious. The ton was starting to trickle in from their country estates, and at first, the highlight of the hour was his scars. He would be spotted by acquaintances—at which point there would either be gasps, or less perceptible but still noticeable eye-widening when his scars were inevitably noticed. Then some whispering behind female fans, or hushed male discussion, and then a scrambling for composure if he approached.
His impressions were in white—the whites of their eyes as they darted—to his cheek and then back, stoically, to his gaze. But eventually they returned to the scars. Like bloody magnets.
Cassandra had seen all of his scars—even the worst ones—and she’d never looked at him like they did—this darting, flicking perusal, taking him in, in pieces. Cassandra looked at him…him…as a whole man.
He wished, with a desperation edging on panic, that he could stop thinking about her.
And then, like the icing on the cake, news of Appleby filtered in, and Henry was, again, right in the middle of the gossip. The ton had split into two main camps—the ones who saw Appleby for the bounder he was and clapped Henry on the back for packing him off to the magistrate. Then there was the second camp, the aristocrats who thought Henry had done something reprehensible for attempting to have a peer arrested.
When he remembered Kitty’s bloody lip and black eye, Henry’s blood boiled.
As he sat by himself at a table in the darkened corner of White’s, staring fixedly at that morning’s copy of the Times, he was aware of the whispers and glances sent his way. But as much as this reality was his world now, his mind kept spinning back to one thing—Cassandra Davis.
She was somewhere in London. Every minute of every day, he was achingly aware of that fact, even though it made him feel like the worst sort of pathetic fool.
She’d thrown him over. He’d wanted to marry her, and she hadn’t even been willing to contemplate it. If she expected him to get down on his knees and grovel, she would be waiting a lifetime. No matter how much he cared for her, he wouldn’t sacrifice his pride like that. Not for anyone.
He regretted what he’d said about not being pleased she was a servant, but he was only being honest. He didn’t want to stand against his parents. Even if making them livid was Margaret’s favorite pastime, part of him still remembered them as those beneficent, absentminded gods he’d wanted to please so badly. Nor did he want to be trapped under the magnifying glass of society’s eye. He was, anyway, because of his position, but it had always been for things other people envied—beautiful mistresses, wealth, power. It would be different to be trapped there for something they would mock.
That he was willing to brave all those things to marry her, that he wanted her so badly…shouldn’t that be worth something to the obstinate woman?
Obviously not.
He’d tasted bliss in her arms, pure, searing joy. He’d awoken, ready to start a life with her, looking forward to the future no matter how difficult it might prove to be, and she’d practically bolted for the door.
His hands clenched around the broadsheet he’d been reading, so tightly the parchment crumpled.
Under all this pride and anger was a truth he could barely acknowledge. He’d been prepared to continue arguing with Cassandra that morning, arguing until, by slow degrees, he persuaded her. But then he’d caught a glimpse of something in her eyes that had stopped him. Something that had looked a lot like misery.
His stomach had hollowed out. If being with him caused her an ounce of pain, he knew he had to let her go. He cared more for her happiness than his own. He hadn’t ever cared about another person quite so much. He didn’t think he ever would again.
Which was why he didn’t try to find her. He didn’t seek her out. She was gone, and he simply had to muddle through his empty life without her.
The horrible truth of that realization caused a depth of despair that made him want to howl at the moon like some wretched beast. He refused to give in to the impulse. Instead, he held fast to his pride and anger, drew them around him like a heavy winter cloak. They were much easier emotions than despair.
His morose thoughts were interrupted as someone wrenched the broadsheet from his grasp so roughly that it ripped, and he was left clutching two chunks of parchment. He stared through the empty space where the newspaper had been. Appleby filled it, looking irate.
Henry wasn’t surprised—he’d expected them to cross paths at some point. He hadn’t, however, expected the meeting to be so dramatic. The man flung Henry’s newspaper to the floor and ground it into the parquet with his boot.
“Appleby,” Henry said, lifting his eyebrows. “Are you practicing for a career in the theater?”
Appleby’s face turned mottled. “Don’t mock me, you bastard!”
Henry was aware of faces turning toward them. “Are you casting doubt as to the legitimacy of my parents’ marriage? I assure you their names are in the parish register.”
Appleby’s hands balled into fists. Henry really should stop goading him, but he was idly interested in how red Appleby’s face could turn.
“That magistrate questioned me like a common criminal,” the other man gritted out.
“A pity you weren’t arrested,” Henry
said.
“It was humiliating.”
A flash of true fury went through him. “You should have thought of that before you abused one of my servants,” he said acidly.
“She was only a maid,” Appleby responded furiously. “And you’re one to talk.”
The look of pure hatred Henry shot him would have silenced a smarter man.
Appleby was not, it turned out, a very smart man. “Running around with that housekeeper. She must have a gold cunt to rattle your brains like this.”
Henry shot to his feet, his heart pounding furiously. But instead of his anger turning white and hot and violent, it turned cold. A sense of brutal calm descended on him. Deliberate, ruthless purpose.
He couldn’t very well murder the earl in front of half the aristocrats in London, no matter how much he itched to tear the man apart. But he’d had more than enough of this piece of refuse.
Appleby would answer for his insult to Cassandra.
“Name your second,” Henry snarled.
Chapter Forty-Three
Mr. Earlywine was nearing his seventieth year, but he moved with the alacrity of a younger man, except for his trembling hands. He could no longer hold a quill steadily enough to write, or at least not write very legibly. He stood next to her at the desk, reading aloud from a German text which she had her own copy of, following along silently. He’d verbally translate the passages to English and Cassandra would scrawl out the translations.
At the moment she didn’t do any translating, but she was becoming more fluent in the language with each passing day, and Mr. Earlywine had mentioned the possibility of doing her own translations in the future. He seemed to like her, enough to take her on as a sort of protégé instead of regulating her to merely scribe work.
She should have been happy.
She was happy.
In a manner of speaking.
She worked with Mr. Earlywine for most of the day. In the evening, she would go to her youngest brother’s small dwelling in Cheapside, where she was staying until she found a place that suited her.
Unfortunately, Marcus was far more perceptive now than he’d been when they were children. There was something a little too searching in his eyes when he gazed at her. He’d always been the most sensitive of her brothers. She loved all of her siblings, but Marcus was the youngest and she was the oldest, and she remembered how he’d followed at her heels as a toddler, and how he’d run to her with his hurts and his problems, even before their mother. It was difficult not to have a special fondness for him.