Diary of an Accidental Wallflower

by Jennifer McQuiston

  His mouth blazed a trail of promise down the side of her neck, and though she might have liked to close her eyes and lean into the weight of it, she turned and wriggled in his arms until she was facing him. The crisp hair on his chest chafed against her breasts, but it was a sensation she welcomed. Craved. She might have liked to take a moment to look, to savor this first glimpse of his nude body. But they were far past such easy perusals now, and so she lifted a hand to his chin, reveling in the masculine texture and shape of his features.

  “Only you,” she whispered. No one else. She knew it beyond any shadowed doubt. The words had begun to assemble in her mind, even before he’d given her this gift. This was the elusive emotion he’d spoken of in the library, the hurtful, terrible thrill of it.

  Love. No title, no grand mansion, could compare with this.

  And she’d been a fool to fight it so long.

  She tipped her forehead against his, welcoming the thin sheen of sweat she could feel there, soaking into her own skin. To her mind, the discovery was as significant as the knowledge that his mouth had just wreaked havoc on the most intimate parts of her body. It was evidence of his struggle, his care with her. His own denied release.

  “Show me,” she whispered.

  She could feel him shudder. He was contemplating retreat, though she could see it was something his body fought. “Clare, we do not have to do this.” He shook his head. “I am content to have shown you this small piece of it.”

  “Well I am not content.” She reached down and touched him, running her fingers across the heated, velvet length of him. This time he did not pull away. Indeed, he pressed his body more firmly into her palm. “I want to know the rest of it,” she whispered. “All of it.”

  For a moment she thought he would deny her.

  But no . . . he was moving. Kissing her again. His stubble scraped the vulnerable skin of her jaw, but she welcomed the discomfort of it, proof of his intent. He tasted of whisky and sweet, dark heat, and she wanted more of both.

  She could feel his hands shake as he dragged the damp, clinging chemise toward her head. It surprised her to realize it was still on, bunched as it had been about her waist. She lifted her arms, willingly casting any last shreds of modesty to the winds. His hands skimmed her shoulders, her ribs, her belly, raising gooseflesh in anticipation of what he might touch next. He uttered a soft groan as his hands came up to brush against her bare breasts. “God, Clare. You are so finely made.”

  Impossibly, she believed him. Believed that someone could find her beautiful. Desirable. Just the way she was. There was no pretense left, no fashionable clothing to hide her flaws. It was in the heat of his gaze, the visible pulse at the base of his throat. She believed him.

  She believed in herself.

  She reached a hand down to unhook her stocking from her garter, wanting only to be skin-on-skin with this man who had stolen her heart with his infinite patience, his quick mind, his refusal to be someone he wasn’t. But his hand stilled her progress.

  “No. Leave them on,” he said hoarsely. “Give me this, and I’ll show you anything you want.” He followed the command with a kiss, open-mouthed and eager, his body pressing down into hers until she gasped from the sweet friction of it.

  The scent of his heated skin—sharply masculine, salt and sweat—only ravaged her senses more. She lifted her stocking-clad legs over his hips and pressed up to meet him. His breathing had turned ragged now, and that sheen of sweat had transformed into droplets beading on his perfect forehead. “Last opportunity for sanity,” he growled. “Do you want me to stop?”

  She shook her head.

  And miraculously, he obliged. The pain was fleeting, a nuisance that pulled her from the moment for the briefest of seconds. And then he was filling her completely, holding himself still above her, protecting her from his weight.

  That place inside—the place that had so surprised her before—clenched in approval. She exhaled and shifted her hips experimentally beneath him. “Don’t stop here, either,” she warned.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He tipped his mouth to hers, cupped her face in his hands, and began to move against her. His motions were slow and controlled at first, though she could feel the leashed passion beneath his skin. She could feel herself rolling toward it again, that place where she would be undone, but his pace was not enough to tip her over the edge.

  “I will not break, Daniel,” she whispered, arching up against him.

  The last dregs of his restraint vanished and he swept her arms over her head, pinning her wrists to the mattress. His breath was a storm in her ear, and he moved as a man possessed, his rhythm primal. She turned herself over to it, trusting him to know what she needed and to be willing to take her there.

  As her world exploded in a muffled cry of relief, he found his own release, her name an anguished groan on his lips. Though the room was still spinning, she kept her eyes open, watching him fall apart with her. There was no perfect man to be seen, his features contorted in a mask of animal pleasure, sweat dripping from his body.

  But he had never looked more perfect to her.

  She floated back slowly, lost in the remnants of her own pleasure, floating on an insensate cloud. Dimly—though he must be every bit as tired as she—she realized he somehow still possessed the presence of mind to reach out a hand and extinguish the lamp.

  He pulled the still-damp blanket over them, and Clare felt herself shifted, gathered against him. “Are you content now?” he whispered against the curve of her ear.

  She nodded.

  And then she slept like the dead.

  Chapter 29

  Daniel came awake with a jolt.

  For a moment he lay still, unsure where he was or what had wakened him. He blearily sorted through the habitual sounds of the crickets skittering about their pail and the clock tower striking some early morning hour in the distance. The sun had found its way through the room’s single window and was poking at him with its usual insistence.

  But that was where the familiarity ended.

  For one thing, he was lying in his bed, not hunched over his notes at the table.

  And for another, rather than a pounding head, this morning it was his muscles that ached like the very devil—a side effect, no doubt, of last night’s exertions and sleeping with a warm, restless body curled around his own. He turned his head and caught his breath. Clare lay on her stomach, her bare skin dappled with beads of light. The blanket had slipped down, and he could see the elegant curve of a shoulder, the lovely bump of her vertebrae.

  His attentions wanted to focus lower on her body, to areas that had brought them both such pleasure last night. It would be the work of a moment to kiss her into wakefulness. But he paused, arrested by the sight of her face as she lay sleeping. Her lashes were a sooty smudge against the pale arc of her cheek, and he could see the faint flutter of movement beneath her lids. If he was not mistaken, there was a new bruise on her throat—in the perfect shape of his teeth. He reached out a hand and smoothed a gentle finger over it, feeling both regretful and possessive of the mark. But his perusal was interrupted by a sharp rapping at the door, and he suppressed a groan as he realized what, precisely, had awakened him.

  “Dr. Merial, are you awake?” Mrs. Calbert’s wheedling voice reached through the wood. “I’ve an urgent message for you.”

  He cursed low beneath his breath as Clare began to stir. “I’ll just bet you do,” he muttered to his intrusive landlady.

  And it probably involved a request to help her remove her clothing.

  He scrubbed a hand across his face as another knock echoed through the air like a gunshot. Clare came fully and regrettably awake.

  He lifted a finger to his lips, encouraging silence.

  She sat up, eyes wide in alarm, blanket clutched to her chest. “But . . . someone is at the door,” she hissed.

  “If we are quiet, she will move on.” He kept his voice to a low whisper, and bent to press a kiss against her b
are shoulder. “Mrs. Calbert does this regularly.”

  “Mrs. Calbert?” She pushed a fistful of hair from her eyes. “Your landlady?”

  “Have you met her?” Daniel asked, surprised.

  “I’ve had the misfortune, yes. She’s the one who slammed the door on my foot last night.” She began to pull frantic fingers through her hair.

  Unconcerned himself, given the strength of the door’s lock, Daniel propped himself up on one elbow and lifted a hand to her thick chestnut strands, letting them sift through his fingers. Her preoccupation with her hair told him that she had not realized the blanket had slipped down beneath her breasts, but only a fool would point that out.

  “Dr. Merial?” came the voice again.

  “What does she want?” Clare moaned.

  Daniel chuckled. “The same as you, I would imagine. Only you’ve actually found a way into my bed. And acquitted yourself well, I might add.”

  Her cheeks turned an enthusiastic shade of pink. “Do not make such jokes, Daniel.” She swatted at his wandering hands, then tried to loop her snarled hair into a coil at the nape of her neck, only to then fumble for a way to secure it. He contented himself with watching her fitful progress, but as his eyes appreciably traced each pale, sweet curve, a thought occurred to him.

  Could his landlady have seen Clare come into his rooms last night?

  But no . . . Mrs. Calbert’s voice outside the door sounded hopeful, not suspicious. And he knew she would never have let such a clear transgression of the rules go unimpeded.

  Somehow, he found a hairpin lodged in the wrinkle of the bedclothes. He handed it to Clare like an olive branch. “You know you haven’t a prayer in the world of repairing your hair and clothing to something approximating a preravishment state,” he whispered.

  She looked down and gasped, then abandoned the effort to contain her hair and jerked the blanket up, making him regret the confession.

  “Dr. Merial?” Mrs. Calbert’s voice rang out again. More suspicious now.

  The latch rattled once, twice.

  Clare bolted from the bed, the blanket fisted in her hands. Her movements had the misfortune of pulling the bedclothes away from Daniel’s own nude body, but as her eyes skittered across his bare chest, he could tell that, in spite of herself, she was admiring the view.

  “This won’t help return me to a preravishment state either,” he teased. Indeed, beneath her hot gaze, his body was already stirring with interest, in spite of the racket at the door.

  She tore her eyes away and tripped to the corner of the room like a frightened horse. “If you don’t help set me to rights,” she hissed, bending down to scoop her dress from its damp heap on the floor, “everyone will guess the moment I step from this room.”

  “Guess what, precisely?” Daniel asked softly. “That I love you?”

  She whirled around to face him, the dress clasped tight in her fists.

  He shrugged. “I think it’s likely, yes. And I would have them know.” He chased the confession with a smile. She cared for him. She must. Last night she had eagerly turned herself over to intimacy—indeed, she had been the one to pursue it. But even in the heat of the moment, she’d still not said the words he wanted to hear.

  The hue of her cheeks deepened. “Daniel—” she began.

  But the sound of the door scraping open pulled his attention away from the frightening flare of uncertainty he’d seen in her eyes.

  Oh, bloody fecking hell.

  His thoughts raced back on his actions last night, when he’d shut the door. Locking the door was an ingrained habit, but he had been so stunned to see Clare standing in his flat removing her wet things that he’d been close to paralyzed. He might trust the lock to hold, when properly engaged. It hadn’t occurred to him to question his ability to remember to turn the key.

  Mrs. Calbert stepped inside, clad in a flimsy wrapper and night rail. She gave the air a suspicious sniff, but then her eyes fell across his nude body and her mouth fell open.

  “Ooooh, Dr. Merial,” she breathed. “Are . . . are you waiting for me?”

  Daniel narrowly resisted covering himself. He could think of far more pleasant things than being laid out for Mrs. Calbert’s unwholesome perusal, but he knew Clare could use any bit of diversion he could provide at the moment.

  For now, his landlady’s attention was focused squarely on his . . . er . . . greeting.

  And for a change the frogs were the least of his concerns.

  “Mrs. Calbert,” he coughed. “I . . . ah . . . I believe our original agreement stipulated that your tenants could expect some measure of privacy.”

  “It wasn’t locked.” Mrs. Calbert licked her lips, her gaze still focused too low for comfort. “And I did knock first.”

  In the shadowed corner of the room, he could see Clare jerk her dress over her head, and he breathed a sigh of relief she would at least be spared that indignity. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Daniel reached for his trousers. He shoved one leg in, then the other, fighting the urge to hop in the opposite direction as his landlady took a step toward him.

  “I’ve brought you a letter.” She held out an envelope. “The courier tried to sneak in without announcing himself.” She frowned as he found his shirt, though whether her disapproval was due more to the courier’s infraction or his disappearing nudity, it was difficult to say. “That is against the house rules, you know.”

  Daniel stifled a snarl. “Yes, Mrs. Calbert, I am well aware of the rules.” He took the letter from her hand and tried to guide the persistent woman back toward the door. If he could just keep Clare shielded from view, they might yet escape this mess. “I shall endeavor to make sure it does not happen again. Now, if that is all—”

  But Mrs. Calbert was twisting in his grasp, her eyes narrowed on something just beyond his shoulder. She stepped around him and headed for the table. “Are those . . . frogs?” She tapped a finger against the glass bowl and the amphibians exploded to life, splashing their objections.

  She shrieked and jumped back a foot. “Dr. Merial!” Her voice ascended a hysterical notch. “There is a firm policy against pets!”

  Daniel’s hand tightened against the edge of the door. “They are not pets, Mrs. Calbert, they are part of an important scientific experiment.”

  “Experiment?” She whirled to face him, one stern finger already wagging in the air. “Has this anything to do with the opium?”

  “There is no opium, Mrs. Calbert, as I have already—”

  “Dr. Merial.” Her voice raised in a screech. “I have overlooked a good deal these past six months, distracted as I’ve been with poor Mr. Calbert’s passing. You’ve a fine face to recommend you, and I’d hoped your character followed suit. But you cannot just—” Her objections choked off as her eyes darted somewhere to Daniel’s left. Her cheeks, always ruddy, even under the best of circumstances, turned scarlet. “You’ve brought in a girl?”

  Daniel felt a bolt of protective anger. His first instinct was to defend Clare, but as he reached for an appropriate descriptor for what she was to him, he realized he wasn’t sure. No matter what he hoped for—no matter, even, after all that had passed between them last night—she had not yet consented to marry him. “Not the sort of girl you are thinking,” he ground out. “Miss Westmore is a respectable young lady.”

  “Respectable?” Indignation flared in Mrs. Calbert’s voice. “I saw her last night. A respectable young lady does not skulk about Smithfield after dark. A respectable young lady does not sleep in a room with an unmarried gentleman. A respectable young lady does not—”

  “Need to hear anymore.” Clare stepped forward. With her hair a wild tangle about her face, she admittedly looked the furthest thing from a proper lady. The furthest thing, too, from a wallflower. She lifted her chin, those hazel eyes flashing. “Especially not from someone who sneaks into her tenants’ rooms clad in her nightclothes.”

  “How dare you!” Mrs. Calbert’s eyes bulged. “Why, I ought to call
the copper. Have you arrested for trespassing.”

  Clare raised a perfectly arched brow. “An excellent idea. And when he comes, perhaps you can explain what became of the twenty shillings Dr. Merial left in your charge, when only five made it into Meg’s hands.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mrs. Calbert sputtered, though she looked less sure of herself. “Any reasonable body would have considered that payment for taking such a terrible woman in. Why, it’s a wonder I’m not in the poorhouse, the piddling income I get for my trouble.” She began to edge toward the door. “But I am done with your sort of trouble, Dr. Merial. Frogs and whores and God knows what else, going on behind locked doors. I won’t have it in my house. I expect you to be gone by noon.”

  The door slammed shut behind her.

  “Bloody hell.” Daniel rubbed a hand across his temple. “God, I am sorry, Clare. She should not have said those things about you.”

  “There is no need to be sorry.” She released a shaky breath. “Truly, I’ve suffered far worse at the hands of friends this week.” She bit her lip. “I am sorry for what I have done to you, though. I have gotten you tossed out of your rooms. Where will you go?”

  Daniel hesitated. “I am sure Lady Austerley will put me up for a night or two.” Though the thought of accepting such charity made his throat tighten. “And there is nothing to apologize for. You were correct to point out the hypocrisy. Mrs. Calbert has fifteen extra shillings lining her pockets, a week’s rent paid in advance, and she’ll probably have a new tenant installed here by dinner.” He looked down at the letter in his hand. As its significance began to register in his addled brain, it occurred to him that only one client ever sent messages directly to him here, at his Smithfield address.

  Urgent, Mrs. Calbert had said.

  He tore open the envelope, and as he skimmed the hastily penned note, the floor seemed to tilt out from beneath him. It took a tentative touch on his arm to jerk him back to reality.