by Emily Larkin
She heard. She became very still. Her sobbing shuddered to a halt.
“Isabella,” he said softly. “Will you marry me?”
He held his breath, waiting for her answer, hoping.
For a moment Lady Isabella stayed stiff and tense in his arms, silent, and then the tension seemed to melt from her. She began to weep again.
“Is that a yes?” Nicholas asked.
She nodded against his shoulder.
Nicholas released his breath. He leaned back into the corner of the hackney, drawing her with him. “Hush,” he said, and laid a kiss on her soft hair.
“I never cry,” Isabella sobbed, her face pressed against his waistcoat, her fingers clutching the lapel of his coat.
Nicholas uttered a shaky laugh. “You are now, my love.”
She drew a deep, shuddering breath and stopped crying. He felt the effort it took her.
Nicholas tightened his grip on her. He glanced out of the window. They were turning into Clarges Street. “I think your servants had better not see you like this. We can go to my house. There’s no one there. I gave everyone the night off.” Because I didn’t know what you would do when I found you. You might have turned your back on me. You might have hated me. And he’d wanted no witnesses to the man he would have been if she’d done that.
Isabella nodded. He released her reluctantly as she sat up.
“We’ve changed our minds,” Nicholas said to the jarvey as the man opened the door. “Take us to Albemarle Street, please.”
Isabella groped in her reticule and pulled out a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, folded the handkerchief and placed it neatly back in the reticule.
Nicholas held out his hand to her. Isabella hesitated a moment, then took it, allowing him to draw her into his embrace again. She relaxed against him, her head leaning on his shoulder. “I apologize,” she said. “I don’t normally cry.”
Nicholas stroked his fingers lightly down her upper arm. Mine. “No more apologies,” he said. “Let us agree that we both made mistakes.”
Isabella sighed. He heard a vestige of tears in that soft, shaky sound. “Yes.”
They sat in dark, swaying silence for a long moment, then Isabella said, “Are you certain? I’m much older than you wanted.”
“I don’t care how old you are,” Nicholas said firmly.
“But I’m almost thirty—”
“I don’t care if you’re almost forty.” He shifted on the seat, pulling her closer, bending his head to kiss her.
Their lips clung for a moment. Isabella tasted of tears.
The hackney jolted to a halt. Nicholas raised his head. Albemarle Street.
The major didn’t let go of her hand as he unlocked the front door. He drew her inside. Isabella glanced around. The house was silent, dark except for a lamp flickering on the marble-topped table in the entrance hall. A candle stood in a holder alongside the lamp. Major Reynolds lit it one-handed.
Ahead, a corridor vanished into darkness. To the right loomed the staircase. The major’s bedchamber was up there, somewhere. Isabella was suddenly nervous. Did Nicholas think that they—?
“This way,” Major Reynolds said, and the gentle pressure of his hand drew her down the corridor with him.
Isabella relaxed. Not his bedchamber.
The major ushered her into what was clearly a library. The walls were dark with books, the writing on their spines gleaming faintly in the candlelight. “There should be a fire laid,” he said. “Ah, yes . . .” He released her hand with what seemed like reluctance, touching his knuckles to her cheek in a light caress. “Have a seat while I light the fire.”
Isabella chose a sofa. It was upholstered in a soft fabric. Damask? She rubbed her fingers over it.
He asked me to marry him.
The rush of emotion was so strong that she had to close her eyes, squeezing back tears. He came back. He forgave me. Elation might come tomorrow; tonight there was just relief. Relief so intense that it took all her effort not to cry again.
Isabella let out a shaky breath. She opened her eyes and watched Major Reynolds light the fire. He was silhouetted by the candlelight. She saw the breadth of his shoulders, saw the muscled length of his thighs as he crouched, saw his profile. The best of men.
“Brandy?” he asked, straightening and turning to her. “I know it’s not a lady’s drink, but—”
“Yes,” she said. “Please.”
The major poured them both generous portions. He handed her a glass and stood looking down at her. Firelight flickered on his unscarred cheek. “Drink,” he said.
She did, no sip but a mouthful, and then a second one. The brandy burned down her throat and took up residence in her chest, warm. As the warmth spread, the urge to cry faded.
Isabella released a deep breath. She felt herself relax. “Thank you,” she said. “I needed that.”
Major Reynolds sat beside her, so close their thighs touched. He took her free hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. “When would you like to marry? I confess that my preference is for sooner, rather than later.”
Isabella leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “There is the problem of Harriet.”
The major sighed. “Ah, yes. Harriet. I’d forgotten about her. Is she still with you? Hasn’t she gone to her aunt?”
“Harriet’s aunt has emigrated to America.”
“Ah . . .”
She didn’t need to elucidate; he understood the problem. Harriet was penniless and homeless and needed someone to look after her.
Major Reynolds swirled the brandy in his glass. “What would you suggest?”
“Well . . . there is a Mr. Fernyhough—”
The major uttered a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a laugh. “Fernyhough.”
“What?”
“His name came up a few days ago. I wondered who he was.”
Isabella told him, while Major Reynolds traced light circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. She explained about the affection that existed between Harriet and Mr. Fernyhough, and about Colonel Durham’s refusal to countenance such a marriage. “If Mr. Fernyhough weren’t obligated to the colonel, he could take Harriet to Gretna Green and marry her,” Isabella said. “But he’s supporting a widowed mother and a number of brothers and sisters, so he daren’t.”
“I see,” the major said. His voice was thoughtful.
“I asked my brother if he had a vacant living, but he doesn’t.” She nestled her cheek on Major Reynolds’ shoulder. Such a nice solid shoulder. “We must find Mr. Fernyhough a new living. A good one. And then he can marry Harriet.”
Major Reynolds was silent for a moment. When she looked at him she saw that his brow was furrowed in thought. “I have a feeling there’s a vacant living on one of my brother’s estates,” he said slowly. “I wish I could remember . . .”
“We’ll find one,” Isabella said. “Whether your brother has one or not.”
“We will?” The major glanced at her. She saw a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“And how can you be so certain?”
“Because . . .” She paused, struggling to find the words to describe how she felt, the certainty, the knowledge that everything was going to work out. “Because three weeks ago I would have said this was impossible.”
“This?”
“Us.” Being together like this, loving each other. “And two days ago I would have said it was even more impossible.”
“Ah.” The sound was almost a sigh. “Yes.” His fingers flexed around hers.
“If this can happen, then anything is possible. We’ll find Mr. Fernyhough a living.”
The major uttered a soft laugh. “Yes,” he said. “I believe we will.” He put down his glass and turned to face her. “Isabella . . .” One of his hands still held hers in a tight clasp, the other reached to touch her cheek lightly.
Isabella caught her breath. That half-smile on his mouth, the dark int
ensity in his eyes, were familiar. He’s going to kiss me.
He did, dipping his head, touching his lips to the corner of her mouth.
Isabella reached out blindly, trying to find somewhere to put her glass. The major took it without lifting his head. She heard a faint clunk as he placed it on the table.
His mouth moved against hers, his tongue touched her lips lightly, a question.
Yes. Isabella kissed him back.
It started gently, but quickly became something else, something intense, almost urgent. He tasted of brandy, he tasted of Nicholas. Isabella clutched him to her, her fingers digging into his arms. Don’t leave me ever again.
She was trembling, panting, when at last they broke apart. Major Reynolds’ eyes glittered blackly. “Isabella . . .” His breathing was ragged.
Don’t stop. She said it aloud: “Don’t stop.”
His laugh was unsteady. “Isabella—”
“Not yet,” she begged. “Please don’t stop.”
Nicholas exhaled a shaky breath. I should take her home. But instead of drawing back, he bent his head and kissed Lady Isabella again.
Long minutes passed, minutes when he was oblivious to the world, blind and deaf to everything except pleasure: the pleasure of her mouth, the pleasure of his hands tangling in her golden hair, the softness of her lips, the smoothness of her skin, the tiny sigh she uttered when he kissed her throat, her fingers clutching his coat, the building intensity of his arousal . . .
Stop this. Now.
Nicholas drew back, releasing her. He stood abruptly and walked to the fireplace. He stirred the fire with the poker and tried to gather his control, tried to drag enough air into his lungs to breathe properly again.
When he had regained some semblance of control he turned back to Isabella. She was sitting on the sofa, watching him, her eyes dark in the firelight.
As he watched, she shivered.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
Nicholas held out his hand to her and she came, rising to her feet, walking to him. He took her hand firmly. Mine. “Here,” he said. “Take this armchair.”
But Isabella preferred to sit on the rug before the fireplace, gypsy-like, with her legs crossed under her. Nicholas sat at an angle to her, his legs stretched out, leaning against the leather armchair, holding her hand, watching the firelight cast shadows over her face, over the column of her throat, the hollow of her collar bone.
The earrings swayed gently from her earlobes, ruby and pearl, barbaric in the firelight. He reached out with a finger and touched one.
She glanced at him and smiled. “You like them?”
“Yes.” He liked the rosettes of pearls fastening the robe across her breasts even more. They gleamed against the dark red. Unfasten me, they begged.
He curled his fingers into his palm and tried to ignore the rosettes. I should take her home now. But there was deep contentment in sitting with Isabella like this, in quiet closeness, in firelight and shadows. He searched for a topic of conversation, something that would take his mind away from those glinting pearls. “Have you found a home for the last kitten?”
“I’m keeping her,” Isabella said. “She purrs whenever I pick her up. I can’t give her away.”
“What will you name her?” What had she named the black one? Ah, that was it: Boots. “How about Puss?”
Isabella grinned at him. “I thought of that. But no.”
The most beautiful thing about her face, Nicholas decided, was the crookedness of her lower teeth. Without that she would have been too perfect, untouchable; with it she was . . .
The shaft of desire was intense. The sense of possession was equally fierce. He tightened his grip on her hand. Mine. “What then?” he asked.
“Something beginning with M.” Isabella touched her fingers to her forehead. “She has an M, right here.”
Nicholas thought. “Martha.”
“No,” Isabella said, showing her teeth again in another grin.
“Matilda. Mary.” If she grinned at him again he was going to have to kiss her. He focused his gaze on the fireplace. “Er . . . Minerva.”
“Minerva!”
“I have an aunt called that,” Nicholas said, risking a glance at Isabella. She was still grinning. He swallowed and looked away again. “How about . . . Methusela?”
Isabella laughed.
The sound drew his head around. He couldn’t not look at her. And having looked at her, he couldn’t not lean towards her and kiss her.
They kissed for long minutes until the pain of arousal made Nicholas draw back. “Isabella . . .” He was trembling. I have to take her home. He turned his face away from her and dragged air into his lungs.
“Don’t stop,” Isabella said. She touched the back of his hand with light fingers.
His laugh was unsteady. “I have to.”
“No,” she said. “Nicholas, please don’t stop.”
The tone of her voice registered: low, as breathless as he was, and oddly serious. He turned his head and looked at her.
“Please, Nicholas,” she said in that same serious tone. “Don’t stop.”
“Isabella . . .” He halted. She knew what she was asking. He saw the knowledge on her face.
Nicholas cleared his throat. “Why?” Was she giving herself to him as an act of penance? He tensed, ready to refuse.
Isabella removed her fingers from the back of his hand. “Because I want you,” she said with her frank honesty. “I want all of you.”
I want all of you, too.
Nicholas released the breath he’d been holding. I should refuse. She deserves better than this. He thought of wide beds, of clean white linen.
“Please, Nicholas.”
And so he reached for her, knowing that this time he wouldn’t stop. He kissed her mouth, her throat, the hollow of her collar bone, and then he undid the pearl rosettes and the red crêpe robe fell from her shoulders.
The minutes passed slowly, with low murmurs and soft whispers as they unfastened each other’s clothing and laid it aside. His tailcoat first, and her cream silk slip. His neckcloth, her petticoat. His waistcoat, her half-stays and stockings. Nicholas removed his linen shirt, baring his torso to her, and then gently, slowly, peeled off her thin chemise. “Lie down,” he whispered.
Isabella obeyed. She lay naked on the rug. Nicholas looked at her in wonder. She was Venus, pale and golden in the firelight. His hands trembled as he touched her, skimming over that smooth skin. Like warm silk. And then he bent his head and kissed her, tasting her mouth again, tasting that firelit skin.
He touched her with his fingers, with his lips, with his tongue, learning her, worshiping her: the weight of her breasts as he held them cupped in his hands, the soft gasp she uttered when he took those rosy nipples in his mouth, the way her muscles fluttered beneath his hand as he stroked down her belly.
Arousal flushed her skin. She was quivering, trembling. “Nicholas, take off your breeches.” Her hand was at his waist, trying to find the buttons.
“Not yet,” he said, capturing her hand, kissing the palm, placing it above her head. He bent to kiss her breasts again, her belly. The faint fragrance of her arousal went straight to his groin. His cock was painfully hard, painfully hot. He squeezed his eyes shut, struggling for control—not yet—and then opened them, seeing pale skin gleaming in the firelight, the dip of her waist, the rich curve of her hip, the golden curls at the junction of her thighs. “Not yet,” he said again, and slid his hand down her inner thigh.
Isabella caught her breath. She trembled.
“Not yet,” he said a third time, whispering the words, sliding his hand back up the smooth, silken skin of her thigh.
He explored with his fingers, finding his way through those soft curls, stroking and teasing, delving inside her, watching arousal take hold of her, feeling the heat and urgency build, listening to her breathing become fast, become ragged. She arched against his hand. “Nicholas.”
He lower
ed his head, inhaling her scent—and gave in to the temptation to taste her. At the touch of his mouth, she broke, pleasure shuddering through her. He almost broke, too, muscles clenching in his chest, in his groin. His cock strained in his drawers, hot and aching.
He rose on his elbow, reaching for her, holding her tightly. Isabella clung to him, her face buried in his shoulder. Her lips were parted. He felt her breath against his bare skin, felt her tremors ease. “Nicholas . . .” She swallowed. Her voice was steadier, firmer: “Nicholas, I think you should take off your breeches right now.”
He laughed, a shaky sound, and released her and climbed to his feet. He stripped off his remaining clothing while she watched. His cock lunged free, desperately eager. He stood still for a moment and let Isabella look at him. Her eyes were wide as she examined his groin.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Isabella swallowed. “May I . . . ?” She reached hesitantly to touch him, her fingers brushing over the sensitized head of his cock.
Nicholas almost climaxed from that light touch. He captured her hand. “Later.” When his control wasn’t so precarious.
He stretched his body on the rug alongside her. Her hair lay tumbled, a golden spill in the firelight. The ruby and pearl earrings gleamed at her ears.
“I’ll try not to make it hurt, but the first time—”
“I know,” Isabella whispered, touching his scarred cheek with a fingertip. “Don’t worry about it.”
The words made him pause. “You know?”
“Parlor gossip.” Her cheeks colored slightly.
Nicholas uttered a laugh. He bent his head to kiss her, brushing his lips lightly over her temple. “Parlor gossip? You discuss lovemaking with your friends?”
“Not now.” Her breath hitched as he bit her earlobe gently. “My first Season. There was curiosity among some of the girls.”
He laughed softly, and kissed his way along her jaw until he found her lips again. He deepened the kiss, losing himself in the taste of her mouth, stroking a hand down her body, pulling her close, fire-warmed skin to fire-warmed skin, and then he raised himself above her, in the darkness, in the firelight. Take it slowly.