by Lucy Ashford
‘I see,’ she said, ‘that you haven’t taken much notice of the doctor’s orders, Mr Hamilton. I thought you were told to rest.’
He went to close the door before looking, like her, at the scattered papers that had given him such a pounding headache. ‘Just a little light reading.’ He gave a faint smile.
She nodded, but her answering smile was tense. ‘You wished to speak to me?’
He gestured her to a chair and he sat, too, by his desk. ‘I did intend to rest.’ Hell, his head was pounding again. ‘But I felt I had to talk further with you about our conversation last night. I realise there’s only a week left of your contract, but I wanted to emphasise, Miss Blake, that I feel you’ve done an exceptional job.’
‘Ah, the school.’ She spoke calmly, but he could see the apprehension in her eyes. ‘As I’ve told you a number of times, you really made rather a mistake in hiring me.’
He was watching her gravely. ‘I think that as ever, you underestimate your own capabilities. I understand, Isobel, that you might need a little more time than some people for written tasks—but where teaching young children is concerned, that’s perhaps no bad thing, because it means you can sympathise with them. As far as I’m concerned, the school has been a great success—’
He broke off, aware of the way she was looking at him. She said quietly, ‘Even after what happened to you yesterday?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Even after yesterday. There will always be fools and bigots around—and those men have been dealt with.’ He realised he was fingering his bruised jaw. Damn it, I should have shaved, I must look like a ruffian myself.
‘Isobel,’ he went on, ‘there was something else I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I have an apology to make.’
Chapter Nineteen
Sometimes Isobel thought she was hopeless at reading people—yet in that moment she could almost feel the heat of some nameless emotion blazing through Connor with a strength that frightened her.
He reached from his chair to take her hand, and immediately she felt a treacherous surge of exhilaration stealing through her veins. Even when he let go, she felt the longing for him pulsing silently through her.
‘I hope,’ she said as lightly as she could, ‘that this apology of yours doesn’t involve the signing of yet another contract?’ She was trying to put up a bold front, because right now Connor Hamilton was breaking down every single one of her defences, leaving her as exposed as if he’d flayed her.
He said, ‘Soon I must return to London.’
Oh. Was that it? She felt, stupidly, as if she’d just been pushed off a cliff edge. ‘But of course. Duty and business call you back there, no doubt.’
‘Partly that. But first of all I need to apologise for what happened seven years ago. I need to apologise for turning my back on you.’
She was staring at him, wide-eyed.
He went on, ‘After the forge was destroyed I stormed off, bearing what I imagined was a huge burden on my shoulders. But leaving Gloucestershire turned out to be the making of me. Whereas you, Isobel, were left alone with your father. Left, in other words, without anyone to turn to.’
She felt herself struggling. What was he trying to say? What was he trying to do? Soon he’d be off to London, no doubt for longer this time. And for her the pain of missing him would be worse than ever.
‘And what precisely,’ she replied, her voice still light, ‘could you have done for me? Let me guess.’ She pretended to think. ‘I know! You could have dressed me up as a boy, Connor. And then, I could have ridden to London at your side and got a job in one of those iron foundries you talk about, making—girders? Is that the right word?’
He couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Girders. And rivets and bolts. And you wouldn’t have stood the heat and the noise for more than a few minutes.’
I would, thought Isobel blindly. I could have done anything, Connor, if you’d been there with me.
‘So.’ She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t work in a foundry. I couldn’t have worked as a clerk for you, because I can’t even spell. So what, I wonder, am I good for?’
And she was suddenly utterly shaken and was glad she was sitting down; because the way he was looking at her made her heart kick at her ribs and then ache almost unbearably. There was nowhere to hide from him here. She was, she guessed, being betrayed by her tainted blood, her father’s blood; she felt scraped raw by the shame of her own appalling weakness.
And she just couldn’t stop looking at his mouth. Couldn’t forget the yearning his lips had awoken in her that had never really died out and still she felt the searing shame thudding through her veins. She crossed her arms in familiar defence and bowed her head—only to look up with a jolt as he said at last, in a low voice, ‘What are you good for? Oh, Isobel. You’re worth far more than the way I’ve treated you.’
And she was shaken to her core again—because he looked utterly crushed. He was in despair. Only his emotion wasn’t directed at her, but at himself.
She said, faintly, ‘You were kind to my friends, Agnes and Joseph Molina—’
‘Of course,’ he interrupted harshly. ‘Of course I was—and my reasons were completely selfish. I was a bastard to force you into this job. I’ve been a selfish bastard all my life.’
Whatever she expected, it wasn’t this. ‘No! You care for all your workers. You care for the Plass Valley children. Most of all, you care for Elvie, you’ve done so much for her...’
He stared at her and she felt suddenly chilled by the depth of bitterness and self-recrimination in his eyes. ‘It’s my duty to care for her,’ he said, ‘because it was my fault that her father died.’
She felt herself freeze with shock. Stunned, she managed at last, ‘Miles Delafield died of a heart attack, Connor. No one was expecting it, no one could possibly be blamed...’
‘I could,’ he said flatly.
* * *
And he told her. He told her how last summer, in London, they’d had almost more orders than they could cope with and Miles and Connor were busy from dawn till dusk—only then trouble arose at their foundry in south Wales.
‘I knew Miles was close to exhaustion,’ he said, ‘but I left him in London in charge of everything and went to Wales to sort out the problems there.’ His eyes were almost black with suppressed emotion. ‘By the time I got back, five days later, Miles had died. They told me he’d been working all hours of the day and night, without me there to help him—and it was my fault.’
She realised it was now quite dark outside and above the wooded hills in the distance a pale moon was rising. The two candles on Connor’s desk cast flickering shadows on the strong lines of his face, etching the pain she could see there. The dreadful hurt, the guilt.
‘How could you have known,’ she whispered at last, ‘that Miles was going to be taken ill?’
‘I should have known. I knew before I set off for Wales that he was doing far too much.’
Isobel couldn’t help it—she put her hand over his. ‘Wouldn’t he have done that anyway, Connor, whether you were there or not? And your journey to Wales. If you’d not gone there, what would have happened?’
‘We would have lost an important contract. And over a hundred of our Welsh foundry workers would have lost their jobs.’
‘Then you had no choice,’ she said firmly. She withdrew her hand. ‘Miles would have known that. And Miles might, sadly, have suffered his heart attack anyway.’
He gave her a ghost of a smile. ‘Such pearls of wisdom. It’s no wonder the Plass Valley children listen to your every word.’
Suddenly she was acutely aware that they were here alone in his private domain and it was getting late. His words had been light, but his eyes blazed into her, scorching her. She could feel the all-male strength of him only inches from her, and it was up to her to put a stop to this. Now.
‘I’m quite good a
t talking, Connor,’ she reminded him. ‘I used to turn up at the forge—remember?—and plague the life out of you. What’s this for, Connor? Why are you doing that, Connor?’
‘You didn’t plague me,’ he said quietly. ‘Isobel, you must have had an abominable childhood, but you never complained.’
‘I was fed. I was clothed and had a roof over my head—there were even servants all around, until my father stopped paying them and they left.’
‘Your father—God, Isobel, you don’t resemble him in the slightest!’
‘Now, how do you know that?’ she tried to joke. ‘Give me some money, and see how I take to the card tables. And how do you know that if I had servants, I wouldn’t hound them without mercy? I simply haven’t had the opportunity to be a typical aristocrat!’
‘You wouldn’t be anyway,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t be.’
She was silent a moment, looking down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. ‘When we met,’ she said at last in a low voice, ‘at the midsummer fair, I believe you despised me. Didn’t you?’
He rose to pace the room before turning to face her. Isobel saw his eyes were filled with—what? Regret? Compassion? Desire?
‘I think I was blind,’ he said quietly, ‘not to see you as you really are.’
Her heart hammered. So who did he think was the true Isobel Blake? She said, ‘Perhaps you were actually right, in your low estimation of me. Have you thought of that?’
And then, before he could think what to say, what to do, she rose to her feet. ‘Connor, I need to leave, for your sake. Having me here in your home isn’t doing you any good at all. It’s making you enemies—you see how they attacked you?—because not only do people dislike your school, but they hate me, on account of my father, and they will hate you, too.’
‘Damn it, Isobel!’
He was clenching his fists while her eyes flew wide open.
‘Damn it,’ he went on, ‘I will not let you push me away! You—yes, you—are doing me all the good in the world. I cannot bear to let you go. I will not let you go.’ And, with his eyes never once leaving hers, he leaned forward and gripped her by the arms.
She tried to ease herself away, but he only pulled her closer. He was warm and strong and solid—he was Connor—and it was shockingly easy to pretend that they were different people and that this really could mean something...
A path which could only lead to absolute disaster.
‘Don’t let yourself in for more regrets.’ She did her best to speak lightly. ‘You weren’t perhaps so very wrong in your opinion of me in the first place, you know.’ Her heart and lungs were bursting to say, But you are wrong, you don’t know me, nobody does! But she just couldn’t. She couldn’t afford to open herself to the lacerating hurt of his inevitable rejection.
He was still gazing at her, his eyes dark with emotion. ‘And what do you think is my opinion of you, Miss Blake?’
She laughed. ‘The correct one, I imagine. Now, listen—this is so foolish. You were injured yesterday and the doctor ordered you to rest, and you must be hurting everywhere...’
Her voice trailed away as he reached out to put his hand under her chin and tilted it up so her eyes were forced to meet his. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I do hurt. Everything hurts. But you can make the hurt better. You can make me better.’
And in that moment she felt her breath grow ragged and she realised that she needed what was happening far too much. She needed him. Her body remembered his lips against her skin, remembered how he had kissed her throat, her bared shoulders, her mouth. Those memories of pleasure came in an almost painful rush, making her breasts achingly tight and heavy beneath her confining gown, making her legs hopelessly weak.
‘I need you,’ Connor whispered.
And she surrendered.
* * *
He pulled her to him and he kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss—he kissed her with all the roaring, pent-up desire he’d been feeling for this woman for what felt like a lifetime.
And she kissed him back. He was aware of her lips yielding; he registered anew the softness of her mouth, the suppleness of her slim body clasped against his as she flung her hands around his broad shoulders, as she adjusted her stance to let his thigh press between her legs. He kissed her and kissed her, allowing her only the occasional gasp for breath, and he heard as well her tiny moans of desire and they drove him wild.
Their mouths still locked, he found himself stumbling with her towards the wall until her back was pressed against it and he briefly stopped kissing her to fumble with that tantalising line of tiny, tight buttons running from her waist up to her neck. She flung back her head and gasped as he pressed his mouth to her silken throat, then he shoved aside the delicate silk slip beneath her gown and found her high, rounded breasts. Pressing his lips to their sweet upper curve, he caressed one tender nipple until it hardened to his touch.
She was arching towards him now, her fingers digging into his back. Her breathing was jagged; she was gasping his name as he pulled her closer, his mouth finding her lips again and delving with his tongue deeper, deeper into her softness. And then he was sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her through to his bedroom, where he laid her down very carefully then said, ‘You do want this, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Please, yes.’
* * *
Please, yes. His gaze was steady on hers as he slid off his shirt, his boots, his breeches. The sight of his sleek, rippling chest made her heart thud with fresh desire, because he was all male, all muscle and sinew and long limbs. He was beautiful.
He was Connor and she’d never wanted anyone else. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequences, she wanted to have this one night with him to remember. He sat on the bed beside her, his gaze still on her, and she reached out to touch the long, dark bruise along his ribs. And the thought of the pain it must have caused him wrenched her heart. She reached to kiss his skin there, licking at the slightly salty taste, and then he was putting her hands aside, but only to slide her gown from her shoulders, along with her silk slip.
She gasped and caught her lower lip between her teeth as his strong hands began to trail a tender path from shoulder to waist to hip, melting away her fear and creating a new and delicious tension in her as he pushed down her clothes and tossed them aside. Then he was pulling her close again and she gasped as she felt the silky, satiny hardness of his arousal against her stomach.
He was kissing away her low cry, while his hands continued to explore her curves; he was stroking her, teasing her, cupping her breasts in his hands, circling their stiffened peaks until she was moaning with frustration. She tangled her fingers in his thick dark hair, reaching for his kiss, finding herself wantonly pressing against him, her thighs loose.
He caught her wrists and moved away. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Not yet. Isobel, I want you to remember this for ever.’
Then he was lowering his head to her breast, alternately biting softly and sucking until she was writhing and helpless, her whole body spinning in a gathering vortex of need. She cried out in protest as he lifted his head. ‘Connor...’
Her own hand, she realised, was sliding with a will of its own down his chest to his taut abdomen; and further, then, to the silky line of dark hairs that led to his pulsing manhood. He gave a low, husky laugh then kissed her mouth, his tongue parting her lips almost roughly and delving deep. And she yielded to him, saying with her kiss what she could not say with words, as she let her legs instinctively wrap around him.
He is healing me, she thought, suddenly feeling his hardness nudging between her thighs. Healing me of my past...
There was a sudden brief moment of pain and she froze, almost afraid. But then she was gasping, wanting more, because his hand was down there between her legs, finding the little nub of pleasure there and coaxing it with his fingertip. And she opened to him like
a flower, awash with longing, exalted by the sensations pouring through her. She was moving by instinct now, joining his powerful rhythm; and as the heat built in her body, she could feel it in him also and the wild pleasure pounded through her. At last he thrust hard one last time and she gasped out his name and was tumbling over the edge, whirling in a star-filled void where she was alone except for Connor and her fierce, fierce joy.
‘Isobel?’ His voice came as if from far away. ‘Isobel?’
‘Mmm?’ She sighed. He had gathered her close and her naked breasts felt soft and vulnerable against his hard chest.
‘Isobel.’ His voice came again, harsher now. ‘This is important. Didn’t you care what people thought of you? Why haven’t you tried to defend yourself, against those stories about you and Loxley?’
She drew away a little, cold again. ‘I found it easier to say nothing after a while. Since nobody at all believed me when I told the truth.’
‘But I was the first just now. As I guessed I would be.’ His voice was almost hoarse with emotion. ‘Yet you allowed those—those lies, about you and the Viscount—’
‘They weren’t all lies!’ She was pulling herself up now. ‘I lived with him for two whole years and so my reputation naturally was ruined. And you’re right—tonight has all been a terrible mistake. For me and for you.’
Feeling suddenly sick with dismay at what she’d allowed to happen, she stumbled from his bed and started pulling on her frock with fingers that just wouldn’t work.
‘Isobel.’ He’d risen, too, was reaching for his breeches and shirt. ‘What happened in London—you were so young. To move in with Loxley—it cannot have been your fault. But tell me how it happened. Don’t I deserve the truth?’
She stared up at him, aware of her heart fracturing into more and more pieces with every moment that passed. ‘Very well, then. As you already know, I was just eighteen when my father took me to London. During my calamitous coming-out, my father despaired of ever finding a rich husband for me. He was ill by then—quite how ill I didn’t realise. Anyway, during a drunken night at one of London’s lowest so-called gentlemen’s clubs, he decided to auction me.’