by Laura Martin
‘I should be getting back to my wife,’ Thomas said, emphasising the last word.
‘Surely there is no rush. In her condition Lady Hunter will be glad of a few moments’ rest.’
Mrs Peterson took another step towards him, moving around the ladder like a snake slithering effortlessly round an obstacle. Thomas planted his feet firmly on the ground, he refused to retreat any further.
A flash of white caught his eye from the doorway of the barn and Thomas surreptitiously focused his gaze over Mrs Peterson’s shoulder.
‘We haven’t had much chance to get to know each other, just the two of us,’ the married woman said. Her hand darted out and brushed an invisible speck of dirt from Thomas’s shirt, her fingers lingering on the soft material for far longer than was necessary.
Thomas glimpsed the figure outside the barn freeze and knew immediately it was Rosa. She’d come to find him and now realised he was alone in the barn with Mrs Peterson. If she ran, the speculation on her part would completely ruin his chances of ever convincing her to marry him.
‘I really should be getting back,’ Thomas repeated, sufficiently loudly for Rosa to hear.
‘Come now, don’t tease a woman,’ Mrs Peterson said.
Rosa hadn’t moved from her spot just outside the barn doors. It dawned on him she didn’t know he’d spotted her and had decided to see what unfolded between him and Mrs Peterson for herself.
Mrs Peterson raised her other hand and placed it on his upper arm, squeezing the muscle underneath her fingers. She’d taken a step closer to him and now there was only a couple of inches between their bodies. He smelled the sweet scent of lavender radiating from her skin. Despite her proximity, despite what she was offering him, there wasn’t even the smallest flicker of desire on his part.
He glanced up again. Rosa was still outside, still watching, thinking she hadn’t been spotted. There was the chance he could turn this encounter to his advantage. It would be underhanded and sly, but he hadn’t exactly been truthful with Rosa so far, so why worry about it now?
‘What are you suggesting, Mrs Peterson?’ Thomas asked, his voice completely emotionless.
‘I’m suggesting we enjoy each other’s company a little more. That you put those big muscles of yours to good use.’ Her body was pressed up against his now, her hips moving ever so slightly against his own.
Thomas grasped her by the arms and heard her moan at his touch, before the confusion blossomed in her eyes as he gently but firmly pushed her away from him.
‘I am sorry if I have ever given you the wrong impression,’ he said. ‘But I care only for one woman.’
Hurt and rejection flashed across Mrs Peterson’s face, but then she rallied and Thomas realised she hadn’t been deterred yet.
‘There is no suggestion that you don’t love your wife, Lord Hunter. All I’m proposing is a little fun, indulging in a little mutual pleasure between two adults. I’m sure you do not wish to trouble your wife with your desires in her condition.’
‘I do not wish to offend you, Mrs Peterson, but Rosa is everything I could ever want. She is beautiful and kind and loyal,’ he stressed the last word, stepping back from his friend’s wife at the same time. ‘I would never do anything to jeopardise my relationship with her, whatever her condition and whatever anyone else offers.’
The speech was entirely for Rosa’s benefit, listening outside the barn, and Thomas only felt a little guilt at being so underhand. If she would just see sense and agree to his proposal he wouldn’t have to sink to these depths.
Mrs Peterson recoiled as if she’d been slapped, an unattractive grimace taking over her delicate features.
‘I am sure this was just a momentary lapse in your dedication to your own husband and we will have no need to speak of it again,’ Thomas said, brushing past Mrs Peterson and striding down the length of the barn. He had to hide a smile as he caught a glimpse of Rosa retreating back into the inn before she could be found eavesdropping.
Chapter Twelve
‘Damn shame if you ask me—pardon my language, Lady Hunter.’ Mr Peterson gesticulated wildly as he spoke, almost knocking over the bottle of wine that stood on the table.
Rosa wasn’t sure what was a damn shame, she’d stopped following the conversation a few minutes earlier when it became clear Mr Peterson was completely drunk and not making any sense whatsoever.
‘I think it’s time we got you to bed,’ Thomas said with a grimace.
‘Oh, not yet, the night is young,’ Mr Peterson protested.
‘Your wife will be wondering where you are.’
Rosa thought she saw the inebriated man shrug his shoulders dejectedly.
‘I doubt it,’ he slurred. ‘Has more headaches than a dog that’s been kicked by a horse.’
Mrs Peterson had indeed sent her apologies she wouldn’t be present at dinner, pleading an awful headache. More like embarrassment, Rosa thought, then chastised herself for being unkind. She wasn’t sure exactly what she had witnessed in the barn when she had stepped out into the courtyard, but it had looked very much like Mrs Peterson propositioning Thomas and Thomas turning her down.
She watched as Thomas gripped Mr Peterson by the arms, manoeuvred him from his chair and took most of his weight before moving out of the room. Rosa followed behind, wondering if she should do anything to help, but not wanting to get too close to the stumbling feet and flailing arms.
Once Mr Peterson was safely deposited outside his room Thomas turned his attention to Rosa.
‘Shall we retire for the evening?’ he asked.
It was an entirely innocent question, asked with no guile or even a hint of ulterior motive, but Rosa felt a shiver run down the length of her spine all the same. This was the moment she had been anticipating and dreading in equal measure; the moment she and Thomas would step over the threshold of their shared room and decide exactly what the night held for them.
Rosa tried to stop the unbidden images that flashed before her eyes. Thomas emerging naked and glistening from the lake, Thomas pulling his shirt slowly over his head, his body slick with sweat after boxing. Thomas moving in closer to her in the carriage, his body flush against hers, his eyes heavy with desire and promise.
Rosa found herself nodding, not trusting herself to speak. Knowing her luck her voice would come out as a high-pitched squeak and Thomas would be fully aware of the trepidation she was feeling.
He held open the door for her, waiting for her to enter the small room before he followed behind her. There was a loud click as the door closed behind them and then silence.
‘I can sleep in the barn if this makes you too uncomfortable.’
Damn him for being so chivalrous. She would have no qualms about sending a man to sleep in the barn if he didn’t offer to do so with such good grace.
‘Would you unlace my dress?’ Rosa was gratified to see Thomas’s eyes widen. At least she could still surprise him, even if she was probably ten times more nervous than he about their sleeping arrangements.
She turned slowly towards the window, glad the soft candlelight concealed the worst of her blushes. She sensed Thomas step in closer to her before she felt his fingers on her skin. Gently he unclasped the fastening at the top of her dress, before letting his fingers drop to the delicate ties beneath, pulling to loosen and unlace. Again and again Thomas’s fingers brushed against her skin, each time sending tiny jolts through her body. His breath was warm against her neck and Rosa felt herself arch her back ever so slightly, letting her head roll back towards him. She swayed, knowing she should step away but not quite able to, and then as she felt his steadying palm against her lower back Rosa stiffened.
Even though her dress was loose and she wore only a cotton chemise underneath, it felt as though her chest was being held in a vice which was tightening second by second. A pain shot t
hrough her body and her breath came in short gasps.
‘Rosa?’ His voice sounded distant and faint in Rosa’s ears. ‘What’s the matter?’
Not now. This couldn’t be happening to her now. This wasn’t David, pressing her up against the wall, forcing his lips on to hers. This wasn’t David, lifting her skirts whilst she desperately tried to hold them down, silencing her protests with a rough hand over her mouth. This was Thomas, kind, patient Thomas. A man innocently unlacing her dress. A man who’d never once even tried to kiss her, not really.
She felt Thomas’s strong hands encircling her arms and allowed him to lead her to the bed. Gently he sat her down and rested a hand on her shoulder. Even this platonic touch made Rosa tense and she could only breathe properly again when Thomas retreated to the other side of the room.
After a minute or two Rosa had gained control of herself enough to realise Thomas was watching her warily, but had not tried to approach again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled.
‘Nothing to apologise for,’ he said, giving her a smile that would reassure even the most anxious worrier.
She waited for the inevitable questions. A panic attack was not the usual way to react when a man placed a hand in the small of your back. Especially a man she had spent so much time with.
‘I don’t know why...’ she started, but Thomas shook his head.
‘You don’t have to tell me anything.’
Rosa frowned. Normally Thomas wanted to know every last detail about everything. He was a man who liked to be in control and for him to hold back from questioning her must mean she had worried him. Or he already thought he knew what had occurred.
‘I wouldn’t have suggested we share a room if I’d known,’ he said after a few minutes.
‘Known what?’ Rosa was feeling more her normal self now and his understanding tone was beginning to grate on her.
‘What you went through with David.’
‘You don’t know what I went through with David.’
‘You’re right, of course.’
He capitulated so easily that Rosa felt her entire face crease into a frown.
‘My earlier offer still stands. I am happy to sleep in the barn.’
She was half-tempted to send him off to bed down with the horses just to wipe the understanding, commiserating look from his face.
She sighed. Thomas was being a complete gentleman, giving her space, not pressing to know why a man’s hand on her back made her turn into a shuddering idiot, and she wanted to punish him for being so nice.
‘No. We are adults and I am quite recovered now, thank you.’
He nodded, not moving from his position leaning against the wall next to the door.
‘But perhaps you could step outside whilst I finish undressing,’ she suggested.
He was out the door before Rosa had finished the sentence, closing it softly behind him and leaving Rosa to change in private.
As she slipped off her dress and brushed out her hair Rosa cautiously allowed herself to analyse her reaction to Thomas a few minutes earlier. David had done a terrible thing to her, that she knew. She’d known she would be skittish around men, had planned never really to get close to one ever again, but then her life had collided with Thomas’s. Thomas with the startlingly blue eyes, Thomas with the taut muscles and the protective nature. Thomas who seemed intent on rescuing her from everyone and everything, including herself. The number of times she’d wanted him to kiss her, wanted him to take her in his arms and pull her to him. It had surprised her after what had happened with David, but she couldn’t deny she was attracted to Thomas.
Then he’d laid a hand on the small of her back, the most innocuous of touches, and it was as though she’d been back in the kitchen of David’s family home, petrified that someone would discover them, petrified someone wouldn’t before it was too late. Maybe it was because David had always touched her there, his intimate little reminder when they were in public that they were bound together.
Rosa shook her head. She didn’t want to think of David or the damage he’d inflicted on her. True, there would always be a reminder, the small life that was growing inside her every day, but Rosa knew that was a positive, something good that would come out of something bad.
She slipped into bed, propping herself up on the fluffy pillows, and waited for Thomas to re-enter the room. She would have to give him some sort of explanation as to what had occurred, but she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell him.
* * *
Thomas paced up and down the corridor outside their room, his fists balling and unballing as images of a faceless scoundrel accosting Rosa hurtled through his mind. He knew exactly what that little episode in the room had been about, exactly what had happened to her.
Over the last few weeks as she’d revealed parts of her story to him Thomas had managed to piece together much of what her life must have been like in England. The overbearing mother, the kind but downtrodden father, the dull existence of a well-bred young lady stagnating in the countryside when the London Season was over. Cue the entrance of a slightly older man. A man who should know better than to dally with a debutante. A man who should be interested in protecting a woman’s reputation, not ruining it.
That was where Rosa had always skipped part of the story. He’d heard how she’d waited for a proposal that had never come, how even when presented with a pregnancy the so-called gentleman had not stepped up and married the woman he had ruined. But Rosa had never spoken about what had actually happened between her and this young man.
Now he was wondering if it had been entirely consensual. Given her reaction to his touch he rather thought not.
After ten minutes had passed Thomas knocked quietly on the door and waited for Rosa’s command to enter. She was already in bed, the covers pulled up almost to her chin, and Thomas had to stifle a laugh.
‘I can close my eyes whilst you undress,’ Rosa suggested, her voice a little uncertain.
Thomas shook his head, kicking his boots off and then falling into the very upright and very firm chair that stood on one side of the bed. Rosa had placed a blanket and pillow to one side for him, but even with these he doubted he would sleep much. Maybe he would be better off in the hay with the animals.
‘What did you think Mr Peterson meant by his comments at dinner?’ Rosa asked, her voice unnaturally shrill. Thomas could sense her nervousness even from this distance and weighed up how best to put her at her ease.
‘I get the sense Mrs Peterson isn’t as attentive a wife as my good friend would hope for.’
He smiled at Rosa, seeing her weigh up his answer.
‘Why do you think that?’
This was too easy. She was just giving him the opportunity to divulge the little meeting with Mrs Peterson in the barn, the meeting she had witnessed but didn’t know he knew that. It was exactly the chance he’d been waiting for—the chance to show he was trustworthy, the sort of man she would want to marry.
Thomas opened his mouth to reply, but found the words catching in his throat. Now didn’t seem like the right time to deceive Rosa. After what he’d found out about her relationship with David he couldn’t quite palate his underhand plan to get her to agree to marry him.
‘I saw you in the barn,’ Rosa said softly.
Thomas remained quiet.
‘I heard what you said.’
‘It was the truth.’
‘We’re not married. It wouldn’t have been a betrayal if you had taken up her offer. She’s a very attractive woman.’
Thomas shook his head. ‘It would have been a betrayal. Peterson is my friend. And we may not be married, but I hold you in much too high a regard to even contemplate any other woman.’
As the words left his mouth Thomas found he actually believed what he was saying. They wer
en’t just the honeyed words to seduce her into marrying him, he actually did hold her in high regard not to want to hurt her in any way.
‘And Mrs Peterson is not an attractive woman. Beauty comes from inside, cruelty and jealousy overshadow any skin-deep prettiness.’ He looked at Rosa, took in her soft features and warm smile. ‘You glow when you stand next to any other woman, Rosa, you outshine them all.’
He could see the now-familiar blush blossoming on Rosa’s cheeks. He loved that blush...that signal that something he’d said or done had affected her in such a primitive way.
She shifted in bed, her hair falling around her shoulders and across the bedclothes, and Thomas found himself wishing he was sitting there next to her, close enough to touch her, to smell her. There was something so strong about Rosa, but tonight he had caught a glimpse of her vulnerable side and he wanted to wrap her in his arms and protect her from the Davids of this world.
Physically shaking himself, Thomas momentarily closed his eyes. This wasn’t what all this was supposed to be about. He wasn’t actually supposed to be seducing Rosa, for his entire adult life he had managed to resist the allure of attractive women, Rosa should be no different. Why then did his whole body thrum with excitement as he imagined slipping into bed next to her?
‘What happened with David?’ Thomas asked, surprising himself with the question. He was an inquisitive man, a man who always managed to make people tell him what he wanted to know, but the last thing he wanted was to hurt Rosa by making her retell a painful experience.
She sighed and for a moment Thomas thought that would be the end of the matter, but then she started speaking, her words quiet and measured.