A Secret Proposal

by Valerie Bowman

  She turned this time so he wouldn’t see her smile. It was working, her plan to make him jealous. Perhaps if she pushed him just a…bit…more. “I must marry one of them.” She shrugged. “I have no choice.”

  “That’s not true and even if it is, I won’t allow you to.”

  Oh, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop the smile that provoked. “I don’t see what say you have in the matter,” she countered. And then, just for good measure, she marched up to him, planted her hands on both hips, tilted her head back, and stared him straight in the eyes. “Besides, what do you intend to do about it?”

  “This!”

  He pulled her into his arms, hard. Yanked her against him, then swept her up, tossed her across his shoulder, and in three long strides, laid her on the bed. Then he followed her down, and ripped her chemise away with one hand. Amelia shuddered. Oh, God. She’d done it. Made him jealous enough to do this. And it was…magical. She lay there naked to his roaming, assessing gaze and all she could think about was how badly she wanted this to happen. Wanted him to make love to her.

  His mouth found hers. He kissed her, savagely, passionately. And Amelia clung to him, fit her naked body underneath him, wanting to rip at his clothes until he was nude too.

  She squirmed beneath him, tugging at the top of his breeches. He moved away long enough to pull off his coat and toss it to the floor. She helped him with his cravat and his shirt. He stopped for a moment to shuck both boots and Amelia waited in breathless anticipation. He still had on his breeches, but otherwise, they were both naked. He pushed her back down to the bed. His blue eyes hard, intense, and the feel of his smooth hot skin beneath her fingertips made her shudder again. She let her hands roam over his bulging muscles. Oh God, what life in the boxing saloon had done to him. He was positively gorgeous. Big, hot, and male, and when he pushed his hips against hers she couldn’t stop her moan. She never wanted it to end.

  His mouth never leaving hers, he moved his hand down her thigh. His bare hand on her naked skin made her gasp. No one had ever touched her like this and just the memory of how she’d touched herself the other night, thinking of Thad doing it, made her even more wet. Here he was with his hand only inches from where she’d imagined it. She whimpered with longing. Touch me, she silently pleaded.

  Thad’s hot rough hand moved up the outside of her thigh as if he already owned her and she shuddered, pressing her full breasts more firmly against his bare chest. Oh, why hadn’t he discarded his blasted breeches? They were only in the way now. She longed to reach down and unbutton them but she wasn’t that brave, not yet, and Thad would do it, in his time.

  It had worked. What Lily Morgan had told her had worked. She had only to make Thad jealous enough to push him over the edge and incite his passion enough to make love to her and even though Mama was next door, she didn’t care. Mama couldn’t stop them now. Nothing could. This was going to happen here, tonight, and she’d no longer be ignorant about the secrets of a wedding night. No matter that no wedding had been involved. This was the fun part. Nothing frightening about it in the least.

  Thad’s hand made its way to the space between her thighs. He rolled to his side slightly to take his weight from her and have a better angle at which to touch her. She parted her trembling thighs and kept her eyes tightly closed. “Yes, Thad, touch me. There.”

  And he did. One warm, insistent finger came to part the hot crevice between her legs and he pressed into her, making her groan, “Thad.” He quickly covered her mouth with his, sucking his name away into his mouth.

  “Amy,” he murmured. “You’re so soft. So warm. So perfect.”

  “I want you, Thad.” She shuddered again and so did he.

  His finger came up to play with her. He nudged her in little circles in that perfect spot between her legs. The spot she’d only found recently when she’d been thinking of him. The spot that made her long for him and weep for him. His finger pushed, prodded, tugged, circled, and soon she was lifting her hips off the bed, begging him not to stop. A fine sweat had broken out on his forehead and Thad’s lips moved down to her throat and then her neck and then her breasts. She was lost.

  His ravenous mouth tugged at her nipple, and that in conjunction with the torture of his finger on her most intimate spot, made her beg him not to stop. Her head tossed fitfully on the pillow and she fell, catapulted over the edge, calling his name, her fingers digging into the tightly bunched muscled skin of his taut back.

  Amelia lay there for the next few minutes, breathing heavily, shuddering, shaking, little pings of pleasure still zipping through her body. But even she was not so ignorant as to believe they had just made love. She knew enough to know that while she’d just received unbearable pleasure, Thad was still very much unfulfilled. Breathing heavily and shaking, he’d restrained himself and he was in pain. She knew it.

  She reached for him. She briefly ran her fingers against the hard bulge in his breeches and he groaned and rolled away.

  “Thad… You promised. I want you to make me yours.” She ran her fingers up and down his hard, hot length.

  His breath came in fast pants.

  * * *

  In his entire life, Thad had never been subjected to torture like this. Amy had just come in the most arousing, wonderful sexual experience of his life and now her little fingers were working at the buttons on his breeches, reaching for his rock-hard cock. He felt physical pain. He didn’t want her to stop but he wished to hell she would.

  No, he didn’t.

  The air around them smelled like the lily-scented soap of her hair and musky odor of her arousal. The combination made him groan.

  “Let me touch you,” she whispered and he was helpless to say no. God damn it he wanted to feel her fingers around him. Now.

  The buttons on his breeches came apart in one long ripping motion and he sprang free. Her hand moved to wrap around him. He groaned and buried his face against her soft shoulder. He wanted to lick her. The insistence of his raging hard-on made it so damned difficult to think. He let her touch him, stroke him, for five, ten torturous seconds. She rubbed him up and down, showing no mercy. Had he been a bit younger, a bit less experienced, no doubt he would have spilled himself all over her delicate, tormenting hand. Instead, he allowed her to cup him, stroke him just long enough to make him want to make love to her more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life.

  But. He. Couldn’t.

  She moved down, down, down, as if she were about to kiss his cock. If that happened he’d be lost. He quickly pushed himself away, putting some space between them.

  Her blue eyes were cloudy, questioning. “What’s wrong?”

  He rolled off the bed and stood there, his breeches unbuttoned, his bare chest rising and falling with the effort to control his aroused body…his raging emotions. “Amy…we can’t.” He backed away from her.

  Her pretty face was filled with confusion. She pulled up the sheet, covering her beautiful nakedness. “What? We…nearly did.”

  “I know, but I just can’t…” He turned away from her, buttoned his breeches, and reached for his crumpled shirt that lay on the floor.

  “Why not?” she asked quietly from behind him.

  He turned to face her again. “I told you. I gave you my condition. I have to stop this. Now. It’s gone too far already.”

  “But Thad, you promised to spend the night with me.”

  His breathing remained ragged. “Surely you know by now that a wedding night can be a heaven or a hell.” He didn’t turn around, not wanting to see the recrimination in her eyes. “Unfortunately, it has a great deal to do with your groom and you insist upon choosing a man who will make it a hell for you.”

  Amy’s voice was strained. “So that’s it. You’re just going to walk away?”

  He clenched his jaw. “I never should have agreed to this in the first place.” He glanced back. She didn’t understand, but he couldn’t do it. The guilt, the awful guilt that had been riding him for three y
ears, wouldn’t let him. He’d only be ruining her. And it was not as if he could have her. He could never have her. Even if her mother would accept him, he had nothing to offer Amelia but a black reputation. What would they do? Run off to Gretna Green? If they did that Amelia would be ruined forever. No, he had absolutely nothing to offer her but shame.

  He turned to face her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, trying to memorize her gorgeous face.

  Amelia snapped her head to the side as if she’d been slapped. And Thad grabbed up his boots and his discarded clothing and strode out the door.

  CHAPTER 15

  Amelia stared out the rain-splashed window of her bedchamber, hugging her pillow to her chest. They’d been back in London for two days now and Hannah had spent a great deal of that time attempting to cheer her.

  “Wouldn’t you like a nice shopping trip to Bond Street?” the maid asked. “The weather’s sure to clear soon and you still need that blue ribbon for your bonnet.”

  Amelia shook her head. “No, thank you, Hannah,” she answered in the same drone-like voice she’d spoken with since they’d left the Lexingtons’ country house.

  Hannah braced her hands on her hips and made her way toward the door. “I’m off to the kitchens, then, to get you a spot of tea and some cakes. I’ve never known you to turn down a tea cake.”

  “Very well,” Amelia replied noncommittally, still staring unseeing into the gray beyond the windowpane.

  As soon as Hannah left, Amelia plopped back against the other pillows on her bed and let out a long sigh. What was wrong with her? Why was she acting like a lovesick schoolgirl? And that’s exactly what she was acting like. She’d seen enough lovesick schoolgirls during her time at Miss Harris’s to know what one looked like. Pathetic. Entirely pathetic.

  How had the entire time at the house party gone so wrong? Oh, she supposed her plan to further her acquaintances with Bartholomew and Stanford had gone according to plan, but her plot to spend the night with Thad had entirely backfired.

  She’d spent enough time with him to know she wanted more, of course. But he’d rejected her. Even after her idiotic attempt to make him jealous. He’d made her feel things she couldn’t explain, couldn’t put to words, and then he’d just walked away, without so much as a backward glance.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Oh, how could she ever face him again? She was an idiot. A child. She’d been playing a game that was far beyond her experience and now she was paying for it. Dearly.

  She considered Lily Morgan’s words. How to make a man jealous. It had seemed to work, but then Thad had just…walked away. Lily might have been right. Perhaps marrying an old man wasn’t the best choice, but what alternative did Amelia have? And besides, Lily had married Lord Merrill, hadn’t she? So she should know as well as anyone that sometimes there wasn’t a happily ever after.

  But the worst part? Amelia realized now that she didn’t just want Thad to spend the night with her. She was in love with him. Helplessly, hopelessly, unfortunately in love with him. He couldn’t be her husband. She knew that. But he could be her lover and he’d even refused to be that. Perhaps after she married Stanford and nature took its course, one day she could be a rich widow with a handsome lover. Thad.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. Was that the only option for them? The only hope? Thad didn’t have a title, he had a blackened reputation, and he would be the last man in the kingdom her mother would allow her to marry, the very last. She buried her face in the pillow. Why did she have to want him so?

  * * *

  Thad had always prided himself on working hard, but when he returned from the house party he threw himself into his duties like never before. He spent his mornings going over the ledgers, seeing to the saloon, and dealing with the people who worked for him. He spent his afternoons boxing anyone who would take him on until he was exhausted, sweaty, and often bloody. Then he’d wash up and go out on the town for a night of drinking. A long, long night of drinking. He wanted to take a woman home with him. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d so wanted to take a woman home. Being with Amelia at the Lexingtons’ had ignited a fire in his loins that he was hard put to extinguish, but every woman who ended up with him toward the end of the evening, batting her eyelashes at him and rubbing her lacking chest against him, seemed like so much flash and falsehood compared to Amelia. And when he closed his eyes and tried to imagine being with anyone else, Amelia’s sweet, pretty face loomed in his memory, torturing him.

  So he remained alone. Instead, he drank himself into oblivion and went home to promptly sleep it off until the next day when he did it all over again. But he was haunted. There was no question about it. Haunted by his encounters with Amelia and the old guilt that came back to ravage him on a nightly basis now. The morning Paul had died. He couldn’t be with Amelia without telling her the truth and it was the one thing she didn’t seem to want from him. Every time he’d attempted to tell her the story, she’d stopped him, shied away from it. It would be painful for her to hear it but she had to. If there was going to be any future for the two of them—not that there should be, not that there could be, damn it. But he had to tell her the truth. She deserved to know it. Deserved to know who she was trusting. And what he’d done.

  And that was exactly why he’d walked away from her that last night. It would have been so easy, so easy and perfect to make love to her then. And he’d wanted to, God knew how badly he’d wanted to. But he just couldn’t. Not with the secrets that rode him. Not with the guilt that gouged him.

  He’d spent the last three years trying to atone for that guilt. To be worthy of the second chance at life he’d been granted when it had been ruthlessly ripped away from his friend. But Thad wasn’t worthy, just as his father had always told him. And he never would be. And that’s why, even when Amelia had called in the favor he’d promised her, even when his code of honor insisted that he fulfill his duty to her, it was, in the end, the one thing he couldn’t do. He wasn’t fit to be in her presence, let alone touch her. And Amelia would be much better off once she realized that.

  It was frustrating, to be sure, to know that she insisted upon listening to her idiotic mother and marrying one of those old men, but young ladies of the ton did it all of the time. Didn’t they? Yes, he had to weigh the benefits of staying in her life and meddling, against the detrimental effect of his presence in her life and it was clear. He was more trouble than he was worth. Amelia deserved better, much better, and perhaps she would find it one day, the same way Lily Morgan had. Didn’t Amy realize that she was actually picking an old man because she wanted her marriage to be over quickly, didn’t want to fall in love? She was sabotaging her own happiness, her own life.

  Blast it. Again, none of his business. It was none of his affair who Amy Templeton married. And he intended to keep it that way. Even if he had to drink himself into oblivion every night to believe it.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Amelia, I’d like to speak with you in the salon.” Mama’s voice cut across the breakfast room. “Now.”

  The oatmeal she’d been eating lodged in Amelia’s throat. She nearly choked. “Y-yes, Mama.”

  What did Mama want? She sounded disapproving, but Mama always sounded disapproving. Had she heard rumors? Had someone seen Thad leaving her room at the house party? Amelia said a brief prayer. Oh, please. Anything but that. She exchanged a nervous glance with Hannah who was passing through the room.

  Amelia let her spoon drop into her nearly empty bowl, stood, and followed her mother’s ramrod-straight back out of the room, through the corridor, across the foyer, and into the rose salon.

  Her mother motioned for her to take a seat on the sofa at the far end of the rug.

  Dutifully, Amelia complied, swallowing audibly.

  Her mother turned to face her, her fingers laced together. She paced back and forth in front of Amelia.

  “Yes, Mama?” she prompted, unable to stand the suspense a moment longer.

  “I have some wonderful
news,” her mother began. “But I didn’t want the servants to overhear because it’s not quite settled yet.”

  Was that the hint of a smile on her face? Amelia turned her head slightly and watched her mother through narrowed eyes. “What is it, Mama?”

  Yes, it was a smile. Amelia was sure of it now. Well, at least more of a smile than Mama had ever displayed.

  “The Duke of Stanford paid a call upon your father today. He’s interested in making an offer for you.”

  Amelia’s breath fled from her lungs in a long rush. Stanford? Was about to offer for her? She braced her hand against the arm of the sofa. Why was she dizzy all of a sudden? This is what she’d wanted. What she’d hoped for. So why did she feel…so numb?

  “Yes, Mama,” she answered woodenly, fighting back the tears that had sprung up at the backs of her eyes.

  “You’ve done us proud, Amelia,” Mama said. “I’m ever so pleased with you.”

  Amelia bit her lip and fought the tears even harder. That made her feel numb too. The words she’d waited her entire life to hear fell on her ears like raindrops on the muddy road. No sound. No reaction. No…anything.

  A knock at the door interrupted their conversation. At Mama’s call, the butler opened the door. “Mrs. Templeton, the Marchioness of Colton and Miss Annie Andrews are here to pay a visit.”

  Mama had to ask the poor man to repeat the names twice. “Oh, very well, show them in. But give me a moment, Litton. I’m not about to turn a marchioness away from the door, but I particularly detest Lady Colton. I’ll just be off to the kitchens to see to the tea.” She turned to her daughter. “You entertain them for a bit, Amelia.”

  Moments later, after Mama had safely stolen away, Lily and her sister, Annie, were ushered into the room.

  Amelia stood, waiting for her guests to sit before she reclaimed her seat on the sofa. “I must say I’m a bit surprised you’ve paid me a visit, Lady Colton.”