by Brenda Novak
She hated the thought of him being with anyone else, and yet she couldn’t fault him for taking the prudent course, the course she felt he should take. “When?”
“We haven’t set a date. The duke has demanded that I make other arrangements for you first.”
She squeezed her forehead. She’d known this was coming but… so soon? “I see.” She swallowed hard. “Will I be taking Geordie with me?”
“If you wish. I would never attempt to deprive you of your brother, of anything,” he added.
“How long do we have before—”
“Maybe a fortnight, just enough time to make inquiries.”
“You’re thinking I should go to London?”
“That would probably provide you with the most opportunity.”
She tried to imagine herself in a bustling metropolis and couldn’t. She’d heard and read about London but had never been there. She hadn’t been much farther than Newcastle. “I would rather Geordie stay here if… if at all possible. He’s only just settled in, and he likes it so much.” She forced a smile even though he couldn’t see it. “Where else will he find a mentor like Mr. Grude?”
“Then I will respect your wishes, of course. And I will take care of him—I promise you that.”
She allowed her smile to fade. “Thank you.”
He spoke again once he was standing in the threshold of the door between their rooms. “I wish.…”
“Yes?”
“I wish things could be different, Rachel.”
It wasn’t easy to withstand the ache in her chest. She would never meet anyone else like him—and would measure every man against him. “That’s enough for me.”
“If only wishing were enough for me,” he said and left.
Rachel lay awake, listening to the noises she heard next door. The floor creaked. Something clanged as if the earl had thrown it. After an hour or so everything went quiet, but at that point Rachel couldn’t remain in bed any longer. They had a fortnight, maybe three weeks, at most. She had to be with him while she could.
Truman had just gone to bed when he heard the door open. He knew it was Rachel. The sound hadn’t come from the hall. He waited, wondering what she would do. Part of him hoped she’d change her mind and return to her own bed without engaging him—because if she’d come for the reason he guessed, he wouldn’t be able to refuse her.
“My lord?”
“Rachel…” He told himself to send her back to her room while he could think straight, but the only thing he got out was her name.
“The last time we were together, I… I wasn’t as aware of what was happening as I wish I would’ve been.”
He could hardly hear above the racket of his heart. “You realize what you’re saying.”
“You can’t offer me anything. I accept that. I just… I don’t want that single memory to be the only one I take with me.”
“If only I had the strength to make myself tell you to leave. This isn’t fair to you.”
“There’s no way to preserve my honor when the rest of the world thinks we’re lovers already.”
“You know better. That’s what counts.”
“I’m not sure it does, not if I’m spreading my legs for you every night in my dreams,” she said and her nightdress hit the floor with a soft poof.
Chapter 16
Truman knew he was only making their eventual parting more painful, but he couldn’t deny himself this one night. Not when she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Not when she was standing at his bedside already naked.
“I can barely breathe,” she murmured as he reached for her.
He groaned as her bare skin came into contact with his. “I’m almost afraid to believe this is real,” he responded and dipped his head to kiss her.
Her lips were warm and pliable. He could tell, as he had before, that she had little experience with men. There was nothing practiced or calculated about her actions. But he was pretty sure that was what he loved most: her emotional honesty, her lack of artifice. Katherine had behaved as if she were putting on a performance and expected him to be grateful for the sacrifice and effort it required. She’d never really seemed to feel anything.
Rachel was just the opposite.
“You taste like heaven,” he told her. “How I have longed to be with you like this, to feel welcome to touch you, to taste you.”
Her fingers slipped into his hair. She seemed eager to explore him, even the parts he wouldn’t expect her to be particularly interested in at the moment.
“I’ve heard it said that a pious woman, a good woman, is not supposed to enjoy what goes on between a man and a woman,” she said, kissing his brow, his cheeks, anything she could reach.
He was too wrapped up to do much talking, but this succeeded in gaining his attention. “Who told you that?” he murmured against her lips when they found his mouth.
“My mother.”
That didn’t say much about her father, but he didn’t point it out. “Do you believe it?”
Closing her eyes, she rubbed her cheek against his, driving him mad with the satiny feel of her skin and clean, sweet smell of her. “I don’t know. But if it is true, I’m more like Elspeth’s girls than I once thought.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her words, at her innocent attempts to become familiar with his body as her hands moved over his chest before circling around to his back.
“You like this?” He ran a hand down over her breast, cupping it in his palm.
Her tongue quickly wet her lips. “Too much. More than I should. I’m lost,” she finished simply.
With a laugh he buried his face in her neck. “No more lost than I am, dear Rachel. You have me so excited I fear I will embarrass myself.”
She caught his face between her hands. “How?”
He laughed again. “I hope you don’t have to find out, but just touching you here”—his finger touched the tip of one nipple—“and here”—his other hand slid down her stomach toward her core, where he wanted to touch her most—“makes me tremble with need.”
Her teeth nipped at his bottom lip. “Your heart is racing, my lord. Like mine.”
“Probably faster,” he conceded, meeting her tongue with his own as he took her mouth the way he intended to take her body.
She gasped as his fingers finally found the most sensitive part of her. “The compulsion to feel you inside me is”—she had to take a breath—“overwhelming.”
Kissing her even deeper, he slid a finger into the warmth that awaited him. When she gasped and arched as if she’d take more, take all of him, he feared he’d lose control.
“Ah, Rachel, you have created such desperate urgency.” He felt like a schoolboy, not a man who’d been married and even fathered a child.
She held his hand in place as if she feared he might remove it. “I love you,” she said. “I think I have loved you since you walked into my shop that day.”
Those words sucked the air out of him, made him realize that he couldn’t take what he was about to take. He had no right. She was giving everything—her body, her heart—and he was sending her away within a fortnight.
“Dear God,” he muttered and dropped onto the mattress beside her.
“What is it?” She sounded confused. “What’s wrong?”
He lifted his head so he could see her in what was left of the firelight. “I can’t go on. There is no honor in this. What if you were to get pregnant?”
“I don’t know. We-we would each do our part? You would pay for the child. And-and I would raise him?” She slid her small hand around his erection, causing every muscle to tighten in need.
He stopped her before she drove him beyond his ability to resist. “Where? I could never let you go to London knowing you were carrying my child. Yet I couldn’t expect my wife to tolerate having you here, knowing that I will probably never want her as I want you.”
She froze for several seconds, then pulled out of his grasp. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have com
e.” Yanking the bedsheet up to hide her nudity, she leaned up, probably to search for her nightdress. But he tugged that thin covering back down. “No, let me look at you,” he said. “Let me memorize every detail.”
He’d said he was only going to look, but he couldn’t help touching her too. As he ran his hands over her soft skin, her eyes grew heavy lidded, her lips parted and her nipples grew taut.
Unwilling to leave her so aroused, he nudged her knees apart and began to kiss every place that he’d touched.
“My lord, what are you doing?” She was obviously shocked, but he’d expected that reaction. He heard her catch her breath as he moved lower, and once he found what he was looking for, she anchored her hands in his hair as if she could scarcely let go. “Oh my!”
“There are ways to… minimize the risk,” he explained, closing his eyes and nuzzling her as he took in the musky scent.
“But… it’s unnatural, is it not?” she whispered. “Surely I’ll go to hell.”
“After what you’ve been through, I doubt a benevolent God could begrudge you this small pleasure,” he said and hooked his arms beneath her knees so that she wouldn’t wiggle away before he could show her what she’d been missing.
Rachel had never felt more wanton. Not only was she moaning and writhing, thanks to the earl’s ministrations, she couldn’t help crying out as he brought her to the very pinnacle of pleasure. But that moment was unlike anything she had ever known! And even though, in some dark recess of her mind, she feared she might be embarrassed by her behavior later, he seemed to enjoy her lack of control. He seemed to encourage it, to thrive on it.
“Again,” he breathed, almost before the spasms could subside, and she felt the warmth of his mouth and the pressure of that suction drawing the pleasure back, carrying her higher. This time he seemed more possessive than before. He claimed her as if he had every right, as if she belonged to him, and sent her spiraling right back into ecstasy. But as good as it was, she craved more than what he was giving her, wanted him to join with her.
Drowning in both need and sensation, she gasped his name and that seemed to snap his restraint. With a growl, he covered her as if he would have her, as if he could no longer deny himself, whatever the cost. Sliding his hands beneath her again, he tilted her hips up to receive him—was only a fraction of an inch away from pushing inside her—when he cursed and buried his face in her neck instead.
“Do it,” she urged as her hands gripped his buttocks. “Now.”
He answered with a groan of frustration. “I can’t.” The words sounded harsh in her ear but she understood the purity of the intent behind them. “I will not let you take such a risk, not when I can’t give you more than… than this.”
Knowing what it cost him to make such a sacrifice, she clung to him until the intensity of the moment subsided. Then she thought she should leave. She guessed it might make his recovery easier. But every time she tried to get up, he pulled her back into the warmth of his bed and his embrace and told her not to go quite yet.
“You’ll only drive yourself mad,” she told him, but eventually the tension in his body eased, and he fell so deeply asleep she didn’t want to move for fear she would disturb him.
She could have nodded off too. She’d been up most of the night. But she didn’t want to waste one second of their time together. Knowing she might never have this opportunity again, she was far happier watching him sleep.
She must’ve succumbed to exhaustion at some point, however, because the next thing she knew it was morning, and the sun seemed especially bright. When she felt the earl stir, she couldn’t help wondering how he was going to react to what they’d done—and what they hadn’t done. But she never got the chance to find out. Someone startled them both by banging on the door.
“My lord, Mr. Linley asked me to bring you word that he has fetched Mr. Tyndale from the mine, as you required. They are in the parlor.”
Cringing at the sound of the housekeeper’s voice, Rachel dared not move for fear she’d give her presence away.
The earl seemed far less fearful, of course. He rubbed his face and yawned before opening his eyes. “Thank you for alerting me,” he said. “I’ll be right down.”
When Mrs. Poulson’s steps faded, Rachel hopped out of bed. “I’m sorry. I-I fell asleep.”
He watched her pull on her nightdress and head to her own room.
“You will sleep in my bed from now on,” he told her before she could reach the door.
She gaped at him. “Don’t you think that will be… tempting fate?”
His gaze felt like a caress when it fell to her breasts, and that caused a corresponding tingle.
“I will have as much of you as I can—while I can,” he said simply.
Her body grew warm, as if he were already touching her. “Yes, my lord.”
“And if I choose to give you gifts, to… do what I can, you will take what I offer, regardless of the cost.”
She felt her face heat as he got up, completely naked, in front of her. A respectable woman would glance away, but she’d grown brazen overnight. Remembering every kiss, every touch, she made no effort to hide the admiration or the longing that had brought her to his bed in the first place. “Don’t bother giving me expensive baubles, my lord. You are the only thing that matters to me,” she told him and fled.
After being singularly devoted to finding Katherine’s killer for the past two years, unable to think of anything else, Truman couldn’t concentrate on his conversation with Mr. Tyndale. Maybe he’d been dealing with the mystery for too long, had begun to despair of ever finding the answers he sought, but his heart wasn’t into yet another interview, even after what Rachel had told him about Wythe and Cutberth acting “secretive.” That could be nothing, so what would he find that he hadn’t found already? He’d followed up on so many false leads—and this one didn’t seem to hold much promise. Maybe Cutberth had played him false by trying to start a union behind his back, but that didn’t make him a thief. If he’d sold the Bruegel paintings, where was the money? Why was he still working at the mine?
Linley, sensing his distraction and probably attributing it to his having just got out of bed, took the lead, which allowed Truman to stand off to one side and gaze out the window as his mind wandered back to what had so recently transpired in his bedroom.
I love you. I think I’ve loved you since that day in the shop.
He’d made a mistake allowing Rachel into his bed last night. After what she’d been through, of course she felt like she loved him. He was the only stable thing in her world right now. He should never have given those emotions a physical aspect, should never have taken advantage of her innocence.
But she created such hunger in him. Even now, he felt a certain amount of frustration that he hadn’t been able to completely possess her since that one brief encounter—when her virginity had come as such a shock. He couldn’t give her up too soon, wouldn’t give her up.
“I-I haven’t noticed anything strange, Mr. Linley,” Tyndale said. “Mr. Wythe seems quite satisfied with Mr. Cutberth’s work.”
Mention of his cousin finally drew Truman’s attention to the conversation, especially when Linley, looking somewhat ill at ease, cleared his throat. “I’m not asking how Mr. Stanhope feels about Mr. Cutberth,” Linley explained. “I’m asking what you think.”
“Me? But I’m just the Fore-Overman. Surely the steward would be better able to assess Mr. Cutberth’s performance, given he deals with him on a more regular basis.”
“You work out of the same office, do you not?” Linley asked.
He twisted his hat in his lap. “Yes, sir.”
“I would say you have had more than enough opportunity to observe how he behaves, who he talks to, when he comes and goes.”
“Indeed, but…” Tyndale’s words dwindled off as he glanced toward the door.
Giving up his vigil at the window, Truman turned and stepped closer to him. “Is something wrong, Mr. Tyndale?”
“No! No, of course not.”
“I assure you that we are quite alone. As you know, Wythe is now living with you.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see Mr. Stanhope.”
“Who then? You seem concerned that you might be overheard.”
He adjusted his waistcoat. “Not really, sir. I just… I wondered if Mrs. Poulson was about. That’s all.”
“My housekeeper.”
“Yes. She visits us quite regularly, you know.”
“I see. And she carries tales of what’s going on at Blackmoor Hall, does she?”
When he didn’t answer, Truman knew it was true. He should’ve been able to guess she would. Mrs. Poulson had always been devoted to Wythe, had been supremely unhappy when he’d had Wythe move to Cosgrove House.
It made Truman uneasy to have such a high-level servant so devoutly loyal to someone else. He would like to be able to rely on his own staff. But Wythe had saved his life. Truman couldn’t be thankless enough to sack Poulson.
Mr. Tyndale lowered his voice. “They seem to be… close.”
“Indeed.” Truman gestured toward the door. “Mr. Linley, would you please find Mrs. Poulson and keep her occupied while I have a word with Mr. Tyndale?”
“Certainly.” Linley nodded to the Fore-Overman before he left.
“Now you can rest assured,” Truman said once the door was closed. “Tell me, has my housekeeper done something to upset you?”
“No.”
“Mr. Tyndale?”
“She has a sharp tongue, my lord.”
It was easy to tell the Fore-Overman didn’t appreciate being in his current position. “Meaning?”
“She has quite a bit to say about Miss McTavish.”
“And you find that… offensive?”
“I’ve always had a soft spot for Rachel,” he admitted. “I knew her father, of course. He was rough around the edges. I’ll give you that. But he wasn’t always so bad, not before life got the best of him. In the end I felt sorry for him. And I feel even sorrier for his daughter. The poor girl has had a hard life.”