“Will you save me,” she half laughed with a mix of madness and desire, “if I promise to play billiards only with you?”
“Hellion,” he chuckled against her throat, “don’t you even think of playing with another man’s stick. Not to mention playing with his—”
“Giles!” Her palms framed his cheeks, and she silenced him with her lips.
Her back formed an instinctive, feminine arch as the last of her reserve gave way. The pleasure of her breasts against his chest sent the remainder of his blood to his groin.
He remained upright by sheer will.
His fingers cupped the curve of her ass, her plumpness every bit as delicious as he’d dreamed. He shifted so his hard length pressed into her belly. She whimpered, turning a delightful shade of pink, ardor innate with the promise of complete surrender.
He could have fallen to his knees and nestled between her legs with greedy thanks.
He learned her mouth, listening for the soft moans and quickened breath that betrayed her body’s preference.
She liked when he tilted back her head. She liked when he slid his tongue along the edge of her ear. She loved to kiss with passion. He slid his hand into the cleft between her thighs; she offered no resistance. Her shield had fallen. She’d gone beyond flame; she danced in open fire.
He shivered. She answered with a full-body shiver of her own.
“Say my name,” he said against her skin.
“Giles.”
“Again,” he said.
“Giles.” His neck muffled her voice.
“I cannot wait. Marry me. Marry me as fast as I can procure a special license.”
Immediately, she stilled.
He stroked her hair as tension snaked through her limbs. Then, she began to tremble—not with desire, but with bone-deep fear.
A wave of self-contempt, cold and acute, swept through his body.
Hell. No gentleman would grind himself against a lady. Out of doors, as well! He clenched his jaw—a reflexive steeling of his own.
Devil take him, he had gone mad.
Carefully, he moved his hands to her waist. “I am sorry,” he forced, “I shouldn’t have—”
“No.” She clung to him. “I—I wanted you to kiss me.”
Of course, she would say so, now. He’d practically savaged her. He’d treated all that burgeoning, beautiful passion like mud beneath his boots.
No gentleman indeed. He was an animal. A brute. A bastard.
“I am sorry.” He touched his forehead to hers. “You deserve better.”
Her trembling grew worse, but he held tight.
“Shh, hellion,” he whispered against her hair’s soft tickle. “The fault is mine.”
“You don’t understand…”
“I do,” he assured. “I may be a brute, but even a brute knows a lady would never—” He paused because Katherine was visibly quaking now—a full body shake that would have shattered him had he not already felt the weight of his wrong. “Shh,” he encouraged again, “I’ll just hold you, I promise. You have nothing to fear.”
“Stop.” She lifted her face and her hollow eyes met his. “You really do not understand. You’ve no need—” She hiccupped and then wiped her cheeks. “There is something I must tell you.”
“Anything.” Her look of misery made him want to retch. “You can tell me anything.”
She was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper. “I was in love.”
“Yes,” he said around a glass shard in his throat. “I know.”
“No.” She shook her head back and forth. “You don’t know. I—” Her voice dropped even further. “I…I anticipated my vows.”
“But, of course, you—” He ceased speaking abruptly. A strange sense of unreality weighted the air. “You don’t mean you were looking forward to your vows, do you?”
She swallowed. “No.”
Lady Katherine had anticipated her marriage vows. He’d half expected such a revelation. The expectation did not ease his response. Hidden behind a solid mask of indifference, his thoughts turned lurid.
Which man had led her to ruin? Had her lover—or lovers—satisfied?
And then, the most chilling question of all, had there been a consequence to her actions? Another bastard like himself, this one cruelly abandoned?
He’d experienced this very same chill once before. The encore performance had different players, true, but the stage directions remained the same—eyes, pleading for understanding, a silence so loud he thought he might have gone deaf, and, at the center, crystallized hopes frozen in the moment of their death.
A twitch in his jaw escaped beneath the mask.
She covered her lips and stepped out of his frozen embrace. She took one step back, and another, and then his hellion disappeared. In her place stood a woman of haughty reserve.
“I’ll have Markham make arrangements for your journey.” Somehow, her tonelessness contained deadly accusation. “You will not have to speak with me again.”
The internal howl returned—a flash of his mother’s skirt, disappearing behind a door. Without Katherine, he’d be shoved back into the night where those wretched hounds prowled. There would be no bloodline. No justification. No warmth. No laughter.
He. Could. Not. Lose. Her.
He grabbed her upper arms. She gasped.
“No,” he managed.
“No?” she repeated.
“No. This is not ruined. You are not ruined.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Her eyes blazed. “Of course, I am not ruined.”
“But you said—” he started.
“I am not a virgin.” She wet her lips. “But am I a ruin just because I shared one act of love with a man I had loved all my life?”
He tried to make sense of her words. One act of love.
“The vicar’s son.”
“Rector.” She folded her arms across her waist. “Not that it’s any concern of yours. Virtue,” Katherine continued with an angry huff, “is more than a lack of carnal knowledge.” Her shaking had stopped, but the anger in her eyes did not abate. “How does carnal knowledge hold up against hypocrisy? Callous disregard for your fellow man? If you ask me…”
Her mouth kept moving, but he ceased to hear.
Find the wound. Stem the—hell. This flow could not be dammed, not while a legion of screeching devils silenced his reason. But if he did not force his way through the tide, he’d lose everything.
And this time there would be no reprieve.
Try to understand. A soft, feminine voice emerged from the depths of memory.
“Katherine,” he interrupted.
She stopped speaking.
“Did he—did he use force?”
“An act of love, I said.” She looked away, and a deep blush infused her cheeks. “At least on my part.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Cartwright did not understand when I tried to explain, either.” She laughed a mad little laugh. “Though he was perfectly willing to overlook my unnatural enthusiasm until he decided he preferred his mistress.”
“Unnatural enthusiasm?” He frowned.
Her evergreen gaze fixed on his, in a strange mix of challenge and pain. “Septimus’s words.”
“But he—”
“I seduced him,” she interrupted. “And he was so distraught by our mistake, he fled my unnatural presence so he would not be tempted again until we wed. Only, he never returned.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “I judge myself far more harshly than you could ever judge me.”
Pain. He heard pain. A howl that matched his own. She turned to leave. He grabbed her arm.
“Release me.” She yanked back.
“No.”
“No. Is that all you can say? No?”
“Chandler,” he swallowed, “took what you gave—and then called you unnatural?”
He felt her blanch as if he, too, had paled.
“Yes,” she said.
; “Ah, hellion.”
“I was to blame,” she whispered. “If I’d been good. If I’d been proper…”
He eased his grip on her arms and lifted one hand to cup her face. “Stop this, Katherine.”
“Don’t,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Don’t pretend you understand. Don’t pretend you see me as anything but unnatural. I’ve always known I wasn’t good. Not on the inside.”
“But you are good.” He ran the back of his hand down her cheek in a gentle caress. “Virtue is more than a lack of carnal knowledge.”
Her lips trembled, but she didn’t pull away.
“There is no shame in desiring the person you love,” he continued. “And I don’t see you that way—I don’t see you as unnatural.”
“What do you see?” she challenged.
Shame filled her gaze—not her own shame, but a response the tarnished, unworthy-of-his-presence image she expected him to create.
The image he likely would have created, if he didn’t need her—body, soul, and heart.
His mind filled with thick white nothing like the mists that cloaked Bromton Castle, and she emerged. Fog and shadow. Beauty. Defiance. Determination. A broken being, stumbling through her world, stripped of the smug superiority cloaking many of their peers.
He did understand. He understood all too well.
“I see my future,” he said softly.
…
His future? Was he determined to make her cry? “You cannot believe I deserve you.”
“Shh,” he crooned. He drew her so close, his silk waistcoat warmed her cheek. He traced comforting patterns on her spine—his touch even more tender than before. “You deserve better than me.”
She shattered. Again.
“You hate me,” she said. “I told you you’d hate me.”
“No,” he said. “I—I don’t hate you.”
She turned her face into his neck, inhaling a scent so calming and so real. “But you no longer wish to marry.”
“I’ve said nothing of the sort,” he replied.
“You—you would take a tarnished bride?”
His silence lasted a very long time. His breath skimmed her ear, and she took reluctant comfort in the solid curve of his shoulder. Where words failed, his heat and scent consoled.
“I won’t lie,” he said. “I wish I could have been your first.”
“You will leave, then,” she said with a shiver.
“No,” he replied. “I will not.”
She drew back to search his face. His features were penciled canvas, form in want of being filled.
“Why?” Her voice was hoarse. “Why would you stay? How could you understand what I did when you do not believe in love?”
“Did I say I didn’t believe in love?” he asked gently.
“Do you?” she countered.
He sighed. “You”—his eyes turned soft, as if she were an adored but puzzling child—“make me want to believe.” He ran his fingers down her cheek. “You could teach me to believe.”
Ah. What a clever man he was. Who could resist such a soulful plea?
“Surely, you’ve known something of love,” she said.
“Friendship, yes. Esteem, yes. Love? No.”
“What of your parents?”
“My family gave me pride and honor. But love? Definitively not.”
She searched his eyes and found only truth.
“And I must confess, I come to you as a tarnished groom,” he smiled, rueful, “my virtue has also been marred.”
She snorted.
“What do you say?” he asked. “Will you accept me, sullied virtue and all?”
She’d been so sure of his rejection, so positive he would rush to be gone.
“Please marry me,” he said. “You are the only one who can make things right.”
She cupped his cheeks. She had believed he would cast her aside. Instead—remarkably, unthinkably—he had drawn her close. She lifted herself to her toes and kissed his cheek.
“I’ll depart for London in the morning and return just as soon as I can procure the license.” He paused. “By your leave, of course.”
“Giles,” she said, “I’d be delighted to marry you.”
He exhaled. Deeply. Thoroughly. And then drew her solidly into his arms.
Chapter Eight
After little more than a day in the city, Bromton had achieved his primary goals: one, a carefully folded special license, and two, an exquisitely fashioned betrothal ring. He patted his waistcoat pocket, satisfied by the soft crackle of parchment.
All in all, he’d accomplished everything he’d intended to accomplish. He had amended his will, opened credit accounts in Katherine’s name, and planned a surprise he hoped would make his bride feel more at home when she moved.
He had not, however, intended to find himself in his current circumstance—standing on the steps of a modest townhouse in an unfamiliar part of Town, staring down a lion-shaped knocker while dread looped knots inside his stomach.
For anyone accustomed to living amongst the monied ton, the modest dwelling would not have elicited remark. No ornamentation accented the brick, nor was there any architectural extravagance that declared the home to be a residence fit for, as the former marquess would have said, of a family of consequence.
Yet, it was of decent size, was it not? Perfectly respectable for an artist and his wife. His heart slammed against his ribs.
…Just not for a marchioness.
He lifted his hand to the knocker. His fingers hovered and then fell before touching the shining brass. He should not be here. He should go, at once. Even if his mother were to grant him entrance, which was not guaranteed in the least, he hadn’t any idea what he wished to say to her, and, of course, nothing at all he wished to say to her new husband.
An awkward, hot, and listless sensation rose in his body—a sense he did not belong. He wasn’t unfamiliar with the sensation. From youth, the uncomfortable heat had risen beneath his collar every time he’d come close to his mother. Since her declaration, the heat had been an almost constant presence. He closed his eyes, making a willful effort to recapture the calm sense of purpose he experienced when he held Katherine in his arms. But creating a sense of belonging without Katherine at his side proved futile.
Perhaps his desire to show his mother the license and ring, thereby proving someone wanted him, had been the folly that had carried him here. And just how did he expect his mother to respond? Just because Katherine had come to see him as something less than contemptible, did not mean his mother would finally recognize his value.
Then again, Katherine’s esteem was entirely built on his lies, wasn’t it?
He shuddered. He should have known better than to come. He swiveled on his heel and faced the street. A muted strain of feminine laughter rose above the sound of clacking carriage wheels and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.
Immediately, he shrank.
Once again, he was a small child, hiding in the shadows of Bromton Castle’s breakfast room, listening to his mother laugh while the artists she’d invited to paint the grounds told amusing tidbits in foreign accents. On mornings like those, he’d grappled with a yearning so strong it had become a prayer: See me. Smile at me.
She had not seen him, of course.
And not one time after the day the marquess declared Bromton too old for a mother’s attention had she deigned to grant him her smile. “Giles” had disappeared. To her, and to everyone else, he’d become Strathe. Until the marquess had died, of course. Then, he’d become Bromton, or, simply, Marquess.
He hadn’t any true complaint until she’d damaged her social standing with her marriage. She’d provided proper introductions and presided over some of the ton’s most exclusive events. In short, she’d carried out the duties of an aristocratic mother to perfection. But interactions between them had been as formal as a presentation to the queen. She would curtsey before they spoke.
Curtsey.
Never agai
n had he felt his mother’s embrace. Not even after the marquess was no longer there to offer protest.
A yellow hackney rattled to a stop in front of the steps, horses bobbing their heads as they settled in for a rest. The sound of his mother’s laughter grew more distinct, traveling like a spider up his spine, touching each vertebra. Damnation. Had he not indulged in pointless reflection, he would have been gone by now. Nothing good awaited him here. They’d each said their piece in anger and accusation, and their relationship had then met its proper end.
His mother emerged from the carriage. He was unable to descend the steps, look away, or, for that matter, breathe. His muscles iced, rendering him still.
She appeared younger than the near half century she’d lived. Younger, in fact, than the last time they’d spoken.
He frowned, counting back the years—why, she couldn’t have been a year older than Julia when she’d given birth to him. Startling, that thought. Although it should not have been surprising. She’d been the marquess’s third wife and the only wife to bear a child who’d survived past infancy.
His frown had not faded when she turned.
Her laughter died. Saying nothing, she held his gaze, her own expression gradually reforming into a wary mask of defiance. Looking into her oddly hued eyes was like looking into his own, except her eyes reflected back a monster.
His heart lodged in his windpipe. Such a mistake.
“Bromton.” Another Goddamned curtsey.
“My lady.” He managed a curt bow.
She raised one brow in an expression he, too, had perfected. “Mrs. Blackwood will do.”
He’d never call her Mrs. Blackwood. She’d whored herself in order to propagate the title, broken him into pieces with the truth, and now she wished to make a mockery of both their sacrifices by refusing the honorific?
Mama!
He clenched his teeth.
How could she have retreated, leaving a helpless child in the marquess’s dark world? How could she have saddled him with the full weight of the Bromton name and then leave to make another life, erasing him yet again? Had she heart enough only for herself?
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