“No,” she replied, shaking her head and wrapping her arms about herself and beginning to tremble as fear and cold made themselves known. “A man, I think from the little I saw but ... I can’t even be sure of that. You saw nothing?”
Benedict shook his head, his expression blank. “No. Nothing and I’d say it was a man, though they were more slippery than strong.”
“You hit him?”
Ben nodded. “Yes, to the stomach, nothing that would show but I’ll wager it hurt.”
Phoebe stood shivering, the gauzy material of her dressing gown sodden and clinging to her like a second skin.
“You’re freezing,” Ben muttered, averting his eyes as he crossed back to the bed and went to pull the bedspread off to wrap around her.
By the time he turned around, however, Phoebe had discarded the gown and it lay around her feet in disarray.
***
Ben sucked in a breath as the candle light illuminated her perfect form in soft golden curves and valleys. He was in turmoil, his nerves shot and his senses all on alert, and now Phoebe stood in front of him like temptation incarnate.
“What ...” he began, but the words wouldn’t seem to come. He was too stunned.
Someone had tried to kill him.
But more than that, worse than that ... he and Phoebe could never be. He remembered the disastrous conversation with Theodora earlier and knew that they could never be together. “Phoebe,” he began again. “I hardly think this is the time ...”
Phoebe ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, her body at once warm and chilled by the rain. Her damp skin pressed against his bare chest as desire exploded to life beneath his flesh.
“You nearly died,” she wept, clinging to him. “If I hadn’t come you could have died and I would have never known what it meant to be loved by you. It’s exactly the right time, Ben. Don’t you see? I don’t care about what comes next. If you were to die I wouldn’t care what else there was to come for everything I love most in the world would be gone. What will be, will be,” she said, the pleading in her expression only too visible. “For better or for worse, Ben. No matter if we have spoken the vows in church. I love you, you alone and forsaking all others. And I want you. Now. Tonight. Even if it is the only time we ever have.”
“Phoebe,” he whispered, his heart so full of love and misery that he hardly knew what he felt. “Love, she’ll never let me go. She’d drag both of our names through the dirt before she gave me up.”
“Then let her!” Phoebe cried and he watched in dismay as quick tears rolled down her lovely face, those big blue eyes filled with misery. “I don’t care, Ben. Let them say what they like about us, we’ll go away and be together and none of it will matter.”
“And what about mother, and Cecily, and the twins and Jessamy? They’ll all be tainted by the scandal, love. The girls will never find a decent man to take them and they’ll have to live with the gossip and the whispers.” He felt his heart break as she sobbed and laid her head against his chest. “I’d do anything for you, Phoebe. I don’t care for myself but I can’t destroy their lives along with my own. Not even for you.”
Phoebe nodded, though she didn’t look up at him. “I know,” she mumbled, her voice unsteady. “I know you wouldn’t. You’re too good, too honourable. I’m sorry.”
Ben sighed and wondered why life was so determined to break him. Wasn’t his father’s disaster enough for him to have dragged them all through? Why did the fates keep punishing him? What had he done to deserve such treatment?
“Don’t be sorry,” he replied, his voice rough as he tilted her head up to look at him. He realised too late that this was a mistake. There was such love and desire in her eyes, her lips a little parted to receive his kiss as she reached up on tiptoe for him. He was lost, too angry with the world, too miserable that he had made such a mess of everything to consider that this could surely only make things worse.
They didn’t seem worse as his mouth met hers. For the first time in longer than he could remember everything seemed to make perfect sense. He loved this woman. He loved her to distraction, beyond sense and rationality and what he ought to do. There was only here and now and Phoebe in his arms. For now at least, everything else could go to the devil.
“Take me to bed, Ben,” she murmured as he released her mouth to trail his lips down the elegant column of her neck. “You promised. You promised you would.”
“Yes, love,” he murmured. “Yes I did.” Lifting her into his arms he moved to the bed and placed her gently on the mattress before divesting himself of the now sodden drawers he’d fallen into bed in. He’d drunk too much tonight. Too full of misery to sleep without the help of a fair amount of brandy, but now he felt none of it. He was sober and awake and he’d never felt more alive than he did in this moment.
He smiled as Phoebe’s eyes roved over him with an appreciative air. His Phoebe, so brave and bold and fearless, more than he’d ever been. Though he was going to change that. He would find a way for them. A way to be together without hurting the people they cared for.
She lay back on the pillows, her blonde hair tangling into curls, the tresses damp and darker than usual, old gold in the light of the candles.
“You take my breath away,” he whispered, reaching out to touch her face.
She smiled and turned towards his hand, raising her own to press his hand closer, her lips, warm and soft, touched his palm. He knelt over her, feeling her hands on his waist, moving to his back, pulling him closer as he dipped his head and kissed her again.
Her mouth was a revelation, sweeter than anything he’d ever tasted, silken and warm and so desperately inviting. He pulled back, reluctant to leave but eager to taste everything she offered him. Nuzzling her neck he moved lower as she sighed, her fingers tangling in his hair as he found her breast. She sighed deeper and arched towards him as his mouth closed over her, teasing the tight bud of her nipple as it grew taut beneath his tongue.
The sighs and the soft noises she made were a delight and a torment, driving him on, demanding he hurry and linger at one and the same time.
He moved farther down the bed, pausing for just a moment to return to her mouth and steal another kiss from lips that were rosy from kissing already.
If she was shocked by the path he was taking, she made no demur, her limbs pliant for him, her eyes full of curiosity and such trust that he thought his heart would break.
“I’m so in love with you,” he whispered against her skin. The words came out harsh with fear and wonder as the feeling swept over him all over again. Such power that feeling brought, the force of it made him feel strong enough to conquer the world, and yet totally helpless against it. There was no denying it, no pretending it wasn’t so ... He was hers, heart, body and soul till his days were done.
“Ben,” she gasped, arching beneath him as his tongue found her most delicate skin, hidden beneath the sweet, blonde triangle of curls. He liked the sound of his name spoken like that. She sounded breathless and on edge and desperate for him. There could never be enough of that sound, he thought as he settled to pleasure her, determined to make her cry it out louder while the storm still raged around them.
She seemed quite happy to give him what he wanted, her cries increasingly breathless and ragged as he tormented the tiny peak of her sex until she was clutching at the bedclothes, her body taut with need as her own storm broke over her, his name as powerful as the thunder that shook the world as she came for him - shattering beneath him and lying boneless and sated, dark-eyed with reverence.
Chapter 22
Or scorn, or pity on me take,
I must the true relation make,
I’m undone to-night :
Love in a subtle dream disguised,
hath both my heart and me surprised, - Ben Johnson
Phoebe came back to herself and found she was laughing. She wasn’t quite sure why, but it was perfectly wonderful. Ben stared down at her with amusement and such love in his ey
es that it only made it more deliciously absurd and she pulled him to her, murmuring his name and wishing the night would never end.
The storm outside raged on with ever more fury, and yet it seemed a friendly thing to her now. The thunder that crashed outside and the lightning that split the skies so ferociously seemed to rage for them, to scream against the unfairness of it all while they were left with one, perfect night in a desperately imperfect world.
Ben pulled her into his arms and she relished the weight and warmth of his body as he settled over her. She gasped as his body slid against the slick skin between her legs and he captured her open mouth as his hands moved over her, both reverent and demanding. As he moved her legs further apart with his knees, she complied happily, needing what came next, wanting to join herself to him in any way possible.
This was their promise to each other, she knew that. He was too good, too honourable and he would never take her unless he was committed to their future, to finding a way past the madness and the unfairness of life to a place where love could win, and not only survive but prosper.
Perhaps they’d fail, perhaps Theodora would win in the end and she would take his name, but she would never have this. She would never have him, his heart, his soul. That was hers and hers alone and she would hold onto it with everything she had.
She drew in a breath as he pushed into her just a little, the feeling both incredible and overpowering.
“Hush,” he murmured, growing still as his breath fluttered over her, hot against her skin. “Relax,” he said as he stroked his hand over her thigh, up her side, “Oh, God, love,” he groaned and he took his weight from her, raising himself on his arms. “You feel so good. I want to be inside you so much.”
“Don’t stop then”, she muttered, smiling as he huffed out a breath of laughter.
“Trying to be gentle,” he gasped as he eased into her a little more.
The sensation of fullness was incredible, almost too much as her skin began to protest a little and she experienced a tremor of doubt. But then he moved, harder and deeper and so fast that there was no time to do anything but exclaim and cling to him.
“Sorry,” he whispered, kissing her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
But she wasn’t sorry as he continued to move, joining them together with an intimacy so profound that she couldn’t imagine how men threw this away on any woman who came their way. It was too precious for such careless behaviour.
Any further thoughts, profound or otherwise were lost to her after that. She’d become all instinct, a bundle of nerves and sensations that were lost to the pleasure of him as the feelings heightened and grew. There was nothing but this. They’d become deaf to the world outside, too lost to the gathering storm they were building themselves to pay any heed to lightening that lit the room like daylight, or thunder that shook the old building to its foundations.
Phoebe just held on as the feeling grew and pulled her further in, trusting her own instincts and the man who murmured endearments as his voice became ever more ragged. She gasped as he cried out, calling her name as they clung together and she followed him blindly into the pulsing heart of pleasure.
It took a little while for her to come back to herself, too pleased and lost in the sated, heavy-limbed languor of the afterglow to want to return to the real world. But Ben was there so she forced her eyes open, smiling with a sigh of deep contentment at the anxiety in his eyes.
“Lovely,” she murmured, blinking up at him as he drew in a breath and then shook his head, laughing slightly. “What?” she asked, trying to focus and wondering what she’d said now.
“Nothing at all,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “Only that I can’t be without you now, my dearest love. I can’t bear the thought of it.” He sighed and rested his head against hers. “Whatever shall we do? Oh God, Phoebe, I can’t bear it.”
Phoebe reached up and stroked his face, not knowing the answer any more than he did. “We’ll find a way, Ben. We will because we must.”
He nodded and turned her in his arms, pulling her back to his chest and wrapping his arms around her. “Sleep now, love,” he whispered. “I’ll wake you early enough to go to your room.”
She felt the touch of his lips to her shoulder and was too warm and pleasantly tired for even such troubling thoughts to keep her from sleep. So she let herself drift, content to be here at last, in his arms, where she belonged.
***
Ben watched the first lightening of the skies behind the curtains, the stillness of the coming morning almost overwhelming after the fierce storms of the night.
Glancing down he watched the light illuminate the sleeping woman in his arms and felt his heart catch. Oh God, what had he done?
And yet he found it hard to regret any of it. He’d had lovers aplenty in his time, though they’d been guilt-ridden, speedy couplings in recent years. Once he had gloried in the decadent side of life, but after his father died he only returned briefly to his old haunts as a matter of desperation. When the need to feel another’s touch was too much to be fought any longer, he’d retrace the paths he had followed so gleefully in his youth. But now he always left feeling guilty and shamefaced.
He didn’t feel that now. He couldn’t. Being with Phoebe, with a woman he loved with his whole heart was a revelation so stunning that he didn’t know how to process it. He only knew that if his actions should ever cause her harm he would despise himself.
Terror wound itself round his heart like a briar and it pulled tight as he realised she could even now be carrying his child, and there he was with his first foot on the scaffold. But surely now Formby would believe him? He would believe that someone had come to his room last night with the intention of murdering him? Though he would have to convince Phoebe to keep her mouth shut. He knew only too well she would allow her own character to be destroyed in order to save him.
It was both a horrifying and heart warming thought.
She stirred in his arms and he smiled down at her, watching with an ache in his chest as she blinked up at him, still sleepy and hazy yet.
“Good morning,” he murmured, kissing her nose and making her smile as she wound her arms around his neck. Oh, how he wanted this, wanted it to keep, forever.
She didn’t answer but sighed and buried into his neck, clinging to him and making desire burn all over again. Knowing it was madness, but knowing too he was powerless against this press of emotion filling his chest, he allowed her to pull him back to her.
They fitted together so flawlessly, the slide of his flesh against hers an exquisite creation, sublime in its perfection.
“Yes,” she murmured, her hands gliding down his back. “Oh, yes please.”
Even if time had been on their side he’d have been hard-pressed to fight the tide of desire that swept over him. The pleasure of being inside her became too irresistible to deny as the climax pulled him down.
He muffled his cries, his face pressed into her hair as she gasped and clutched at him, too aware now of the precariousness of her being here.
Looking down at her as the ecstasy left her eyes darkened and lazy he wished they could stay here all morning, all day, forever. But none of those things were possible.
“It kills me to say it, love, but you have to go back to your room.”
She nodded, her eyes growing sad now and he hated himself for it. “One day,” she said, her voice firm and full of confidence as though she had heard his unspoken wish. “One day we will stay in bed all day and scandalise the staff. Perhaps we’ll even send them away for a week and never get up at all,” she added, grinning at him.
He laughed, admiring the spirit and determination that had once terrified him so badly. For he had known even then that she would set his world on its head. He hadn’t realised, though, how desperately grateful he would be for it.
“We must speak to Mr Formby,” she said as he forced himself to leave the comfort of her arms and get out of bed.
“We will do nothing of
the kind,” he replied, his voice brooking no argument, though he knew the idea that she would heed that was a forlorn hope indeed.
“Oh, Ben,” she exclaimed, though she kept her voice low. “Do you really think my reputation matters when your life is in danger.”
“Yes!” he replied, trying to tamp down on the fury that she could possibly believe otherwise. “I will see Formby and explain it all. But there is no need to say you were here.”
“But of course there is!” she persisted, sliding out of bed and going to pick up her dressing gown from the damp pile she’d left it in last night. “How much more convincing if we both saw him ... or her!” The sight of her bare bottom as she reached down to pick it up from the floor was so distracting he almost forgot to remonstrate with her.
“W-what ...? No!” he said in a rush, pulling his shirt over his head and regretting the sight that met him as he emerged, her lovely figure disappearing beneath the delicate material of her dressing gown.
She shivered as the damp gauze covered her skin and then scowled at him. “Ben, for heaven’s sake, don’t be foolish,” she said, sounding truly irritated. “I won’t let your manly pride send you to the scaffold or get your murdered!” Frustrated on too many counts his temper was too near the surface for such a tone.
“Damn it, Phoebe! Just once will you do as you’re told!” he exploded, glaring at her as she stalked towards him.
“You really haven’t learnt much have you?” she said with a snort of disgust, before kissing him on the mouth and heading for the door.
“Wait!” he hissed, fighting with one foot in his trousers to dress and follow her at the same time but he stumbled and ended up sitting heavily on the bed. Phoebe just paused in the doorway and grinned at him, blowing him a kiss.
“I love you,” she whispered with a saucy wink, before slipping out through the door and away from any further argument.
Benedict cursed and then stifled a bark of laughter. “Well damn,” he muttered. God save him from independent, stubborn, infuriating, heart-stealing females.
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