And still, higher and higher he went.
“Thomas,” she gasped as his hand brushed against the most achingly intimate part of her. “I think . . . yes . . . there,” she gasped, her hips bucking off the sofa, her thighs clenched in surprise. His fingers swirled over that place he somehow knew, though Lucy herself hadn’t the slightest clue what made that spot different. His fingers lingered there, slipping along that pleasure point with a pointed assurance. She felt the most amazing sensation coiling in her, like the harbinger of an electrical storm, the air snapping with fever. Her legs fell open, practically insisting on it in reaction to such a wicked, warm feeling. He could not mistake the invitation she was issuing, though she wasn’t sure she understood it herself.
The truth was, she didn’t know what she wanted.
She only knew she didn’t want him to stop.
And yet . . . even with that pointed invitation, she could feel him start to withdraw. His touch against her core became gentler. His mouth tipped downward, his smile faltering.
And then he was pulling away, sitting up to smooth a trembling hand across her chemise, pulling it down into proper place. “I . . . I am sorry. We can’t do this, Lucy.”
She struggled to her elbows, feeling the familiar burn of embarrassment, though it was a softer cousin to the acute edge of humiliation she’d felt back at the inn. “I want to. Truly.”
But he shook his head. “There are potential consequences to letting our passion run away with us. I can’t let you take the risk, not outside of marriage. And as you seem to be a rather determined sort of spinster . . .” His voice trailed off and he offered her a thin, strained smile, his jaw tense with a question he seemed to not quite know how to ask. “I don’t suppose you might consider more than just an offer for Heathmore?”
She sucked in a breath. “Are . . . are you proposing?”
“Yes.” At her stunned silence, he shook his head. “Maybe.” He swung his legs over the side of the sofa, sinking his head into his hands. “I don’t know.” The war being waged in his head was written clearly in the line of his shoulders.
She ought to be offended that he felt he must offer for her now, when it was clearly such a difficult thing for him to do, and when he had so recently mentioned his regrets over his fiancée. It was a fumbled farce of a proposal, but despite its poor delivery, his words still made Lucy hesitate and actually consider the possibility. And that, perhaps, was what surprised her the most. Even more than the surprise of the proposal itself.
She’d publicly sworn she would never marry. She still believed such an institution served only to bind and restrict women. She’d seen the effects of an unhappy marriage firsthand, in her parent’s own strained, unfaithful model. She’d seen the more devastating examples, too, in the haunted eyes and bruised faces of the women who too often dropped their children at the St. James Orphanage. And her own aunt had resorted to poisoning a friend’s husband, all to make a point against the sort of violence men wielded all too readily against wives.
But she’d had at least one positive example of marriage in her life as well. Her sister Clare was married, and quite happily so. She could see now there were benefits to be had.
More kisses, for one thing. She wouldn’t mind a few more of those.
Worse, she could almost—almost—believe this man wanted her. Wanted her just as she was, not as the sort of woman Society expected her to be. He didn’t have to do any of this. He’d delivered her an aching pleasure, meted out in slow, tortuous degrees. Touched her reverently, as though there was something between more portentous between them than a tumbling down cottage or a ten thousand pound dowry.
But was it real? That was the question, and to believe it took an uncertain leap of faith, one she was not at all sure she could manage. She felt nervous. Possibly even afraid. To agree to his offer would mean giving her body, her dowry, her soul to another human being, one that, in spite of the pleasure he kindled beneath her skin, might—in the end—only be interested in her dowry. Or worse, her property.
That seemed an awfully big sacrifice just to get him to kiss her properly again.
“Thomas,” she said, reaching out a hand to cup his face. “It was only a kiss.” Though that was not exactly true. She could almost imagine she still felt his touch, there where her skin burned beneath the damp cotton. Where would he have taken her, if only his gentlemanly senses hadn’t gotten the best of him? “A kiss I started this time, no less. Nothing to bemoan or regret.”
“It was more than a kiss to me.”
His hoarse voice tore at her resolve, weakening it but not quite breaking it. His proposal and all the fear that accompanied it made her breath feel knotted in her lungs.
That meant—had to mean—that it was the wrong decision.
Didn’t it?
She reached out and kissed him again, gently, once, on the lips, her mouth closed. And then she pulled away to meet his hazel eyes. “Still, I would not consider another sort of offer. I have no intention of marrying, as I’ve long said.” She tipped her forehead against his. “But that does not mean I do not hold you in the highest regard.”
He nodded, swallowing hard.
She tugged him down beside her and pulled the oilskin over them both. “You were right, I think. There is room on the sofa for two, if the circumstances warrant.” She closed her eyes with a tired yawn. If there were to be no more kisses, no more breathless moans, at least they could both be dry. “And these are unusual circumstances, are they not?” she mumbled sleepily.
He didn’t answer.
But thankfully, neither did he leave.
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
July 20, 1829
There is something about waking up to the promise of a new day that makes the world seem right. Heathmore might be lonely, but it is glorious on a summer morning, the moors bursting with color and bird life. I often try to take morning walks during this time of the year, and truly, I’ve never seen flowers like these anywhere else in England.
I like to think Heathmore is misunderstood. A spinster of a cottage, with its hidden secrets and slightly sagging roof and stiff, upturned chin, bravely facing the wind.
Like me, it is starting to feel a bit old and creaky.
But like me, I have to believe there is strength below its crusty surface.
Chapter 19
Thomas jolted awake, his arms full of soft, feminine flesh. Lucy was pressed against him, one arm draped over his chest, her body rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm. His body was more than a little enthusiastic about the discovery.
His heart, however, was conflicted.
She’d refused his offer of marriage, but then pulled him down to sleep beside her.
Christ, but could she be a more confusing mix of emotions?
He scrubbed a hand across his face. How long had they slept? The peat fire had burned down to little more than ashes, and a faint, gray-pink light flooded the room through the windows, signaling the approach of dawn and the end of the stormy weather. He looked down at her cheek where it nestled against his bare chest, following its subtle curves and hollows in the predawn shadows. The oilskin had slipped off during the night, leaving a smooth pale shoulder bared to his gaze. She looked utterly disheveled, her hair a wild golden tangle about her peaceful face. He ought to get up. Fetch more fuel, stir up some breakfast.
But he didn’t want to shatter the spell.
God, but she was beautiful. The sort of woman a man would happily wake up to every morning, if given the chance. He breathed in, inhaling the warm, familiar scent of her. The novelty of waking up next to a woman was not lost on him.
The impossibility of waking up next to this woman nearly was.
It felt . . . right.
He had no more eloquent word for it than that. He wanted to lie like this for hours. He wanted to wake her with kisses, pull her chemise up higher until he reached greater treasures. He wanted to protect her. To push her to reconsider his
offer of marriage. Show her the potential benefits to be found in such a union, instead of simply posing the question.
But he knew it was an illusion. The dream of a lifetime, dangled just out of reach.
Last night he’d nearly lost his head over this woman, and she very nearly lost her innocence. It had taken every bit of willpower in his bones—and some, no doubt, provided by divine intervention—to halt their reckless path. He’d offered her marriage, and not because he felt compelled to do so by Society’s dictates. After all, no one had witnessed her compromise, and he stopped himself before anything truly regrettable happened.
He’d offered her marriage because he wanted more.
More breath sighs, more mind-robbing kisses. More, more, more.
And he might be a man with his share of personal regrets, but his history—and his sister’s tragic example, as well—had shaped him into the man he was. He was not someone who could compromise an innocent and leave her to deal with the consequences. He was no longer a randy young peer, stumbling about clubs and bawdy houses, ignoring his responsibilities.
For both of them, more needed to mean marriage.
But last night she’d made her intentions clear.
I have no intention of marrying, she told him.
Which meant she’d enjoyed their kiss but had no notion of following the proper path to where those kisses ought to lead. And if there was one thing he’d learned about Lucy in the short time he’d known her, it was that you tried to force her hand at your own—and the world’s—peril.
He shifted, trying not to wake her. But it turned out she slept like the dead, which was a good thing, considering the degree of calisthenics it required to extricate himself from their tangled sleeping arrangement. Finally, he was free of her sleepy hold and shrugging into his dry shirt. He watched her as he fumbled with his cuffs, feeling at once protective and helpless at the sight of her. One pale leg was curved upward and her chemise had rucked up around her hips, giving him a hint of garter ties and expensive silk stockings, wholly unsuitable for cliff-top trekking through Cornwall. Did she understand the dangerous game they played? The consequences of casually dabbling in desire?
And yet . . . his interest in her was more than carnal. More than casual. How long had it been since he’d felt such human contact? It felt as though he had been waiting for this his entire life. But she wasn’t his to protect if she didn’t want to be.
Neither, in fact, was Heathmore Cottage.
Aside from the question of funds, she would be an entirely capable mistress for Heathmore. In the course of the last few days, he’d seen the unusual strength in her, the kindness and even the patience she showed to Lizard Bay’s grizzled, eccentric residents. She might have kissed him madly, but he’d also seen her apply that same unfettered passion toward trying to solve the problems of the world around her.
He smiled to himself. Had Miss E somehow known all along her niece was the right choice to protect Heathmore? He supposed he hadn’t trusted either of them enough to know their own minds. And that was a mistake he needed to correct.
He scribbled Lucy a note with paper from his satchel, then replaced the oilskin over her sleeping shoulders and tucked the letter where she would be sure to find it.
Then he turned toward the door, picking up his satchel and slinging it across one shoulder. Perhaps, if her heart was in the right place, Heathmore’s future might actually be safe in her hands. And he could start, he supposed, by showing her some of it.
LUCY WOKE SLOWLY, her face turned toward the cold hearth. For a moment she hovered on the edge of uncertainty, unsure of where she was.
She breathed in, catching the dueling scents of musty air and snuff. The fire was out and sunlight flooded the floorboards beneath the parlor window. She was at Heathmore Cottage, the knowledge of which sent her heart jumping in a glad little rhythm.
But just what she was doing at Heathmore was something she still needed to sort through.
She stretched, testing her limbs, sorting through the acute silence of the house. The rats, it seemed, had scurried back to their daybeds. The ghosts, too, had retreated, the unearthly moaning sound having been tempered by the dawn.
Both good things, she could allow.
But where on earth was Thomas?
She placed a hand on the cushion beside her. The fabric was not warm, suggesting he must have left some time before. Her cheeks heated as she recalled the kiss from last night and the proposal that had accompanied it.
Had he awakened to regrets, and then left because she had refused him? But how could she have reacted differently? She couldn’t think of marriage and imagine herself in anything besides a sort of prison. Bedlam itself could scarcely strip a woman’s freedom, her choices, any more effectively. And in spite of his inarguably honorable proposal, it was clear the man was still tormented by thoughts of his former fiancée.
She couldn’t help but feel a burn of jealousy at the thought.
She closed her eyes with a soft, confused sigh, only to realize that something was poking her neck. She sat up, fumbling at her neckline. Her hand closed over a folded piece of paper.
Sitting up, she unfolded it.
I trust you’ve had a good sleep, given that you proved nearly impossible to wake. I will be back shortly. Stay inside, if you would. I have something important to show you when I return.
—Branston
Warmth spread through her. He’d not left after all. And though his signature was impersonal, the notion that he had something important to show her sparked her curiosity. But he expected her to stay inside, did he?
Silly man, to expect she might be the sort of woman to follow orders.
She dressed hurriedly, though she supposed the sentiment of modesty was a bit odd when his mouth had been on her breast last night. Next, she shoved the sofa back to its proper position, though it took a good deal of nondemure ladylike cursing and grunting to move the heavy item back into place.
“There, now,” she said, collecting the cups from the hearth and carrying them toward the kitchen. “No evidence of indiscretion to be had.”
Although the memory lingered.
So, too, did her smile.
But as she stepped into the kitchen and took it in properly in daylight, her smile faded. The parlor might be put to rights, but the kitchen was still a mess. The cupboards were all but bare, and several of the cabinet doors were hanging by their hinges. The pump, while functional, was rusty, and wouldn’t budge for her when she tried to get a bit of water from it to wash the cups.
She set the unwashed cups down and faced reality. Her empty pockets were a problem she couldn’t precisely ignore, but they weren’t even the worst of it. She had no idea how she was going to deal with the reality of owning a falling down house, but neither did she know even the most basic facts about how to take care of herself.
Take her walking gown, for instance. She’d been wearing it since she left London because she’d not known how to properly pack, much less tackle the terrifying chore of laundry. She flushed, recalling how last night she’d not even known how to start a fire or heat water for tea. And her rumbling stomach told her she had no idea how to fill her belly this morning either.
Perhaps she should accept Thomas’s offer to buy the property and return to London.
It might truly be the best—the only—option available to her.
It would hurt to lose Heathmore and this connection to her aunt. She felt as though she was slowly discovering who Aunt E had been, through the diary entries and the memories of Lizard Bay’s residents, but the fact was, even if she sold the property, she would still have those. It would hurt, too, to return to London and face her mother and the tatters of the Season she had ruined. But it would hurt more, she suspected, to be the one responsible for destroying the cottage her aunt had loved.
And she would surely destroy it, out of financial neglect and stupidity, if nothing else.
Thomas, at least, could afford to inve
st in its upkeep, though she still didn’t quite understand why he wanted it so much.
She drifted back to the parlor and looked up at the hint of new slate peeking through the rafters. It scarcely mattered why he wanted it, she supposed, only that he did. She needed to stop distrusting his motives and put her faith in the man he’d shown her he was.
The man who’d patiently waited for her to come around and accept his offer of help.
The man who’d held himself back last night from her impulsive dash toward wantonness.
The man who’d offered her marriage, instead of heartbreak.
It was clear he cared about this house. The parlor gleamed with spit and polish, and the evidence of what he’d try to do by way of external repairs was impressive. The half-finished roof must have cost several hundred pounds of slate alone.
Opening the front door, she stepped outside, intending to get a better look at the half-finished roof and sort out whether she had a prayer of being able to fix it herself. But as she looked out over a glittering green ocean, the view from the front door made her forget her reason for going outside.
She gasped out loud. This . . . this, finally, she remembered.
A memory rushed in, of holding her aunt’s hand and stepping out into a glorious morning. She remembered staring agape at the ocean, and Aunt E squeezing her hand and warning her to hold on tight so as not to tumble over the edge of the cliff. Together they’d hunted for eggs along the scrub grass, hens scattering in the wake of their treasure hunt, loudly clucking their consternation. The descendants of those half-wild hens looked warily at her now, peeking out from the narrow curtain of grass and reed.
Suddenly realizing where she might find breakfast—though still having no idea how to actually go about preparing it—Lucy stepped closer to the edge, shielding her eyes against the glint of sun off the water down below. She stopped near the edge and looked out, awed to silence, the eggs forgotten.
Well. Had she just been wondering why Thomas might want the cottage so much? She supposed he could desire the place for the view.
The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior Page 23