But Audrey felt more than protected every time she walked into the cottage down the path from the house. Every time Jude touched her, she was protected, even if his passion wasn’t exactly safe.
“My lady?” Ursula pressed.
Audrey realized she’d been standing there for too long, lost in her thoughts. “I’m sorry, I must be tired,” she lied. “I’m sure I’ll be more myself tomorrow.”
Ursula nodded. “Is there anything else you need, my lady?”
Audrey shook her head and smiled as her maid curtseyed and began to leave the room. But at the door, Ursula turned. “My lady, I do like Lionel, but you know sometimes these things cannot be.”
Audrey swallowed. “Why?”
“Outside forces, mistimed events, anything can keep us from what we desire.”
A frown pulled Audrey’s lips as her maid held her stare perhaps a moment too long. Was her servant talking about herself, or trying to send her a message about Jude?
Audrey said nothing, but nodded slightly, and Ursula smiled gently. “Good night, my lady.”
“Good night.”
Audrey sat down on her bed and stared at the shut door. It seemed everyone was bent on discouraging her to render aid in the search for her sister. And then there was the issue of Jude. Clearly there would be much shock if the world at large found out about her affair with him.
Which was why she had to be very quiet as she lit her candle, slipped from her room and went to the old backstairs she had been using to go to Jude at nights. They were very dark, and even the candlelight didn’t help her much as she felt her way down the coiling stairs and found herself in the back hallway.
As she eased down the hallway, she heard the sound of voices from the kitchen, where it sounded as though the staff had gathered to chat. Their laughter occasionally spilled into the hallway. She clenched her teeth as she slipped past and scurried on further, all the while praying she hadn’t been spotted.
But as she started down the pathway toward Jude’s cottage, her tension bled away. No servants chased after her, so she was in the clear and could instead think about the man who was waiting for her.
She crested a low hill on the path and smiled for below her was Jude’s cottage, the light shining from his windows, welcoming her in. Welcoming her home.
She stopped on the path at that thought. The cottage wasn’t home. And yet, she felt more comfortable in those walls, in that small space, then she did in the manor left behind her.
And perhaps that was because Jude felt like home. He always had, from that first moment she’d met him, a slightly gangly young man whose dark blue eyes had made her insides quiver. Jude, her best friend and confidante. Jude Samson, the man who had touched her so deeply.
And she wanted him to be the only one who ever did. Because she loved him.
The recognition of that fact meandered its way into her mind, without fireworks or shock. She stood stock still in the road and just…knew. She loved him. And she wanted him. Not just for an affair, but for the rest of her life.
But would he allow that? Or even want it?
Well, she’d have to explore that question even as she broke her promise and investigated her sister’s disappearance. With a shaky smile, she forced herself to continue on down the path. As she got even closer, she saw Jude stand up from that chair outside the cottage. He smiled at her and she returned the expression, quickening her step to get to him.
He rushed to meet her, and when they did it was like she hadn’t seen him for months. She launched herself at him and he caught her, dragging him to her, kissing her deeply as he guided her into the house, into his lair and into his bed.
He said nothing as he stripped her robe away, tugged her nightgown over her head. He did the same with his undone shirt and trousers, pressing her to the bed with naked skin on skin.
“I’ve been thinking of having you for hours,” he whispered, his mouth hot on her neck. “What do you do to me?”
She pulled away to look up at him. The feelings she’d experienced on the path were multiplied as her eyes met his beautiful blue ones and she saw not just his passion there, but everything else he had come to be to her in the past seven years. She saw his beauty and his friendship and his advice, and her love was only solidified by it all.
She wrapped her arms around him, reveling in the heat of his skin against hers. “What I do to you?” she murmured. “Oh, Jude, it’s nothing compared to what you do to me.”
She drew him down, and as he kissed her, he entered her. He smiled as he found her wet and ready. With his kisses deepening, he began to take her with short, shallow thrusts meant to bring her body to fever pitch in just a few moments.
It worked, and she realized that was because he had come to know her body so well. Like a master craftsman with an untouched piece of wood, he had carved pleasure from her, making a permanent imprint on her soul, her heart.
She began to shudder, the pleasure at once too much and not enough. She reached for more, arching and crying out beneath him as her world shattered into pieces all around her. She felt his pace increase, heard the strain in his voice as he cried out and then his body was gone, withdrawing to ensure there was no baby created by their joining.
She opened her eyes and watched as he squeezed the last drop of his essence from himself. How she wished she could feel that release inside her. That his last moments of pleasure weren’t stolen from her.
She leaned up and drew him back, smiling as he collapsed next to her and curled his body around hers. She cuddled into his arms, smoothing her fingers along his skin as she watched his face slowly relax in relief and pleasure spent.
Yes, she most definitely loved him. And soon she would have to decide what to do about that fact.
Chapter Fifteen
Audrey took a quick peek at the man lying in the bed beside her. Jude had fallen asleep after their swift and powerful lovemaking session. The sheets were tangled around his legs, so she saw just a hint of muscular hip and thigh in the fading candle and firelight. She reached out and stroked the skin, eliciting a grumble-groan from him in his sleep.
He slept deeply and she supposed he had earned it after a day filled with high emotion and equally extraordinary passion. But was it deeply enough for her to enact her plan?
There was only one way to find out. She pushed the sheets off her body and carefully sat up. The bed moved a little as she exited it and she froze, watching for any twitch of recognition from Jude. He moved his mouth, but his lids didn’t so much as flutter.
Relieved, she gathered up the robe he had stripped off her earlier and wrapped it around her naked and still tingling body. Once again, she took a side glance at him before she slipped out of his bedchamber and back into the main area of the house.
The previous day she had seen letters on an escritoire by the fire, and that was where she went now and stood looking for anything of interest there. Many of the papers had been cleared away, but in the corner was a small basket he had carefully labeled To Respond, and she pulled the stack of correspondence out.
She flipped through them in the dimness, finding most to be requests for payments on monthly accounts, minutia of Edward’s various estates and even a note about a servant dispute. Nothing that had to do with her sister one way or another.
With a frown, she sat down hard in the chair before the desk. She leaned back and shifted as her back came in contact with something hard covered in fabric.
She stood up and turned to find that this was where Jude had rested his jacket at some point before her arrival. It was draped over the wooden back of the chair, and the hard thing had been something in his pocket pressing against her.
She looked around. Through the open bedroom door, she could see part of the bed, and the lump of sleeping Jude beneath the covers hadn’t moved since her departure.
But did it follow she should dig through his pockets? She had already violated his privacy by looking through his letters, but she could jus
tify that better. After all, they were sitting in a stack out in the open. But reaching for the object in his pocket felt more like snooping.
But she did it anyway, drawing out a flat item with hard edges. She moved to the fire to see it better and as she turned it over, she gasped.
It was a portrait. A portrait of her.
“What are you doing?”
There was a tug on her arm and she swiveled to find Jude now standing behind her, his eyes wide with both betrayal and horror to find what she had in her hand.
“I think the question is,” she said, holding up the portrait so he could see her painted face on the canvas, “what are you doing?”
* * *
Jude snatched the portrait from her hands and she surprised him by yanking it back, pressing it to her chest as she stared at him in confusion.
“Why do you have this?”
He swallowed hard. “I—it—” he stammered.
She looked at the image again. Her voice barely carried as she said, “I don’t understand.”
He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you?”
She stared at him and back to the portrait. Her hands had begun to shake. “This is the portrait from my mother’s home in London. The little ones like this were all displayed in the case there after they were painted.”
He nodded, unable to find words. She shook her head and whispered, “Mine disappeared four years ago. Mama made me sit for another when she couldn’t find it, I remember it well.”
She looked to him once more, her dark brown eyes demanding answers. His shoulders rolled forward. “I—”
The tendons of her neck were visible and she trembled as she whispered, “You took it?”
He managed to jerk out a nod with great difficulty. “Yes.”
She looked down. “And you just happened to have it with you here and now? Just happened to have it in your jacket pocket?”
“No,” he said, and her eyes went wide.
“Then how—”
He held up a hand. There was no other way but the truth now. She was too intelligent for any other course. “I carry it with me always.”
Her breasts lifted rapidly and he tracked the motion despite the precariousness of his situation. He couldn’t help it. When it came to the desire he felt for this woman, there was no such thing as control.
“Why?” Her voice cracked.
He tilted his head. “Why do you think, Audrey?”
Her lips parted but before she could respond, there was a sudden pounding on the door. Their eyes locked, and Audrey gasped and all but ran to his bedroom. He watched her hide behind his door and he frowned before he called out, “Just a moment.”
“Hurry!” called the female voice of the intruder, and the heat left Jude’s cheeks as he grabbed for his own dressing gown and tied it before he opened the door.
He found a maid panting at the entryway, though her eyes dilated and drifted over him as he stood with the firelight framing him.
“Oh my, I’m sorry, Mr. Samson,” she said—purred, really. “But I’ve been sent down by the house.”
“What is it?” he asked, casting a quick glance behind him at his chamber door.
“Lady Woodley needs a doctor and they said you would fetch him.”
Behind him, he heard Audrey make a small sound of dismay and fear, and he cleared his throat in the hopes he could cover it up. But the maid had already begun to smile at him knowingly.
“Oh drat,” she said. “I guess someone else had the same…” She touched his chest peeking through his robe. “…had the same notion as I did.”
“Your mistress is ill,” he snapped. “This isn’t the time for such foolishness. Have them be sure my horse is waiting. I’ll dress and come straight away.”
The maid nodded and Jude slammed the door and hustled into the bedroom to collect his clothing.
“My mother is ill?” Audrey said, her eyes blank as she stared at him. “They will be looking for me soon, if they haven’t already.”
He nodded, buttoning the trousers he’d just pulled on and shoving his feet into his boots at the same time. He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.
“That’s why you have to run as fast as you can to the house, Audrey. Go up the backstairs—the servants will be busy with your mother and getting me out the door.”
She nodded and her hands came out, soft against his forearms, shaking as she murmured, “Please hurry. I can’t lose her too.”
His lips parted and he nodded before he darted through the cottage to the front door. As he ran up the hill, he found himself praying he wouldn’t be too late. He’d done so much already, he couldn’t let Audrey down.
Not again.
* * *
Audrey slipped into her chamber and was about to remove her robe when she gasped. In her hurry and distraction, she had forgotten she had only put on her robe down at Jude’s cottage. She was naked.
“Damn,” she snapped, tearing the robe off and rushing to her wardrobe to open the drawer where she was fairly certain her maid kept her night shifts. She dug through them, trying to remember which nightgown she’d been wearing. She had all kinds of ones with pretty laces and ribbons. Would Ursula recall and note she looked different?
She was about to find out, for there was a light knock at her door. She yanked a random nightgown over her head and slammed the drawer just as her maid entered the chamber.
“Lady Audrey,” Ursula said, her voice not betraying anything, though Audrey thought certain her maid cast her an odd look. “Your mother has developed a very high fever, my lady. Mr. Samson is rushing for the doctor, but I thought you should know.”
Audrey tried her best to look surprised at what should have been new information to her. She didn’t have to pretend concern. “I will go to her straight away.”
She rushed past her maid and down the hall to the chamber her mother had always called home. Without knocking, Audrey entered the room to find her mother’s longtime maid Fran leaning over her. As Audrey entered her view, the older servant’s face lined with concern.
“Oh, my lady,” Fran said, and motioned her over.
Audrey caught her breath as she took what felt like a hundred steps to her mother’s side. When she reached the bed, she sat down next to her and reached out to press a palm against her mother’s forehead.
“Mama,” she murmured, troubled by how warm her mother’s skin was. “I’m here now.”
Lady Woodley opened her eyes slightly and smiled. “Oh, goodness, I told Frannie not to trouble you, Audrey. The doctor is only a precaution, after all.”
“You’re burning up,” Audrey corrected softly. “We should have called for Dr. Dunbar yesterday.”
Her mother sighed and her eyes fluttered shut, like holding them open was too difficult. “You are probably right.”
“Well, Samson is getting him now,” Audrey soothed. “Fran, will you fetch a basin of cool water and a cloth?”
From the corner of her eye, the maid bobbed out a curtsey and rushed from the room, leaving Audrey with her mother. She frowned down at her face. She was terribly pink and the fever worried Audrey.
But she smiled regardless in an attempt at showing strength when her mother had none for herself. “You woke me from the most wonderful dream,” she lied.
The dowager opened one eye. “Did I?”
They exchanged a brief smile and Audrey knew she recognized what she was doing. As children, she and Claire used to regale their mother with tales of their fantastical dreams. She would go along, “believing” every wild detail.
“Yes,” she continued. “I was in a fairy kingdom and I think I was daughter of the king.”
“Of course you were,” Lady Woodley encouraged.
Audrey nodded as Fran returned with the water and cloth. She prepared a cool compress and continued her story as she rested the cloth on her mother’s brow. “Yes. There was a dragon too, who had one of the princesses in the tower. And so I fought my way to the top
of the tower to rescue her.”
Her mother sighed. “Isn’t princess-rescuing the province of princes?”
Audrey shrugged. “Well, I guess I loved the princess more.” Her mind drifted to Jude. She still didn’t fully understand why he had her portrait in his possession, but the idea he carried it with him always made her heart pop down into her belly. “No, wait, I had a prince there with me. We fought the dragon together.”
The dowager didn’t open her eyes, but she smiled. “A prince you can fight alongside to slay dragons sounds like a fine character, indeed. I hope he came out of your dream with you.”
“Oh, he’s out there somewhere,” she murmured. “Now rest, Mama. Jude will be here in no time.”
But even as she soothed her mother with gentle words and soft touches, her mind wandered. To her worries about if Lady Woodley would be all right, and to the continued questions she had regarding Jude.
* * *
While the rest of the servants who were still awake had been relegated to the kitchen to await the fate of their mistress, Jude paced in the hallway outside her door. He could hear the murmurings of the doctor’s low voice inside, but couldn’t make out the words.
Still, Dunbar’s tone seemed…concerned.
The door opened and Jude straightened up as he awaited someone to exit the room. And he was not disappointed, for Audrey stepped into the hall, a basin in her arms and a towel draped over her arm. At some point during their wait, her maid had brought her a plain dress to put on and pulled her hair back.
She looked like an angel, but the circles under her eyes and the drawn expression on her face let him know that circumstances were serious.
She met his eyes and without saying a word, set her bowl on the table near the door and crossed to him. He opened his arms to her, holding her to his chest and pressing his lips to the top of her head gently.
“Tell me,” he whispered when she had stayed silent in his arms for a few moments.
“Her fever is high,” she whispered as she pulled away a fraction. “Dr. Dunbar is concerned it could be an infection of some kind, taken a strong hold due to how tired she has been. Since Claire left, Mama has been so much weaker. I know she doesn’t eat or sleep well and that has left an open door to this illness. Damn my sister!”
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 119