by Jade Lee
Then the girl Marie came to her, taking her hand and tugging her forward. It was too much effort to resist, though her eyes sought out Brandon’s.
“Marie will help you, Scher. I’ll be back when you’re done. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand,” she returned pleasantly. And she did. But after he nodded to her and left the room, she felt her little interest in the world desert her. In her mind, she was back in her room at the playhouse, looking down at Kit. Gray-as-cheap-wax Kit. What her body did now wasn’t important.
Marie undressed her. Marie set her in the bath and washed her. Body. Hair. It mattered little. Except the warmth of the water, the food in her stomach, all combined to bring her slowly awake. Some of the cocoon of silence parted and she peered out—more aware than she had been in days.
By the time the bath was done, she was able to stand on her own. She could assist in drying her own body. She was even able to wrap herself in a dressing gown as she returned to her seat by the window. The late afternoon sun was lowering, lengthening the shadows, and painting patterns on the cobblestones. She heard noise from the taproom—the rumble of voices, the occasional spark of laughter. It was a sound she’d grown up with. The playhouse sounded much the same from her bedroom. It was warm and familiar and as soothing as the food and bath.
She took a deep breath, smelling mint again. Turning, she saw Brandon standing in her door. He appeared to have bathed as well. His hair was wet, his clothing wrinkled but clean. He wore dark pants and a white shirt, open at the collar. And no shoes. He came in slowly, shutting the door behind him without once taking his gaze from her face.
“How are you feeling, Scher?”
She liked his voice. It was cultured. Smooth without the thick-mouthed accent of the lower classes.
“Much better, Brandon,” she responded. “Thank you.” His expression eased markedly, and she felt her lips curve up in a smile. “Surely you were not so worried as all that. Was I really so sad a case that simple conversation relieves your mind?”
He crossed the room, taking the seat opposite her. “Scher, I have never seen you so lackluster before. It was . . . disturbing.”
“I think the food helped. I should have eaten earlier.”
He was up again in a flash, bringing over a tray of bread and cheese that she hadn’t even noticed. He set it on a nearby table. “There is more.”
“So there is.”
And because he so clearly wished it, she broke off a piece of cheese and ate it. She could taste it now, and she smiled because it was good. They sat a moment in silence. She chewed and found that she was still hungry. He relaxed back in his chair, watching her eat.
“Where did you go?” she asked. “I sent a message to your apartment, but no one was there. Not even Hank.”
“I have a home in a village a couple hours from London. It is sunny and quiet there. A good place to recuperate.”
She wondered if his wife was there. If she had tended his wounds, sat by his bed at night, and prayed that he would live to morning. She wondered, but she didn’t have the strength to ask.
“You look better,” she said instead. “Your wounds—”
“Healed. Though they still ache when I do too much.”
“Did you ride to London on horseback?” It was only now, thinking back, that she remembered how he had looked in the Green Room. And had he said something to Seth about his horse?
He smiled. “The bath helped.” He leaned forward, his expression sobering. “I am sorry I wasn’t here before. Michael only came this morning. I didn’t know.”
He didn’t explain what exactly he hadn’t known, but Scher understood. No one had expected what had happened, least of all herself. Not to Kit. He had been so alive.
She felt Brandon’s hand on her cheek, and she looked up at him. She hadn’t even realized her gaze had dropped away, but now she saw the concern in his face. The apology for not being here when it happened. And the question, of course. The same question that haunted her: What had happened?
“It was so sudden,” she said, speaking to his ear rather than his eyes. “He had a fever. The surgeon said to let him sleep off the drink. But then the cough began.”
His hand dropped from her face to settle over her hands. She had them clenched together in her lap and his warmth easily surrounded them all the way into her wrists.
“Maybe if I had called for a doctor rather than a surgeon, but I was busy, and Martha said he’d heal. I knew he was ill, but I didn’t think . . .” Her voice trailed away as guilt clogged her throat.
“Kit was young and strong. You could not have expected this.”
Maybe. Maybe not. “He was in my bed. I sat with him and held his hand. But in the morning, he was gray. Even in that dark room, I could tell. Gray.” Like Pappy. Like her mother and her sister near their end. “I sent Seth to find you.”
“I’m so sorry, Scher.”
She shook her head. She knew there had been no reason for him to stay in London. Certainly not for her. She had already sent him away.
“When you were not home, I had to contact the earl. His family deserved to see him. I could not keep him in secret, in my bed. They deserved—”
“Nothing, Scher. Kit chose you. I’m sure he wanted to be with you.”
Scher bit her lip. It was true. Kit had said as much in one of his few moments of lucidity. Between coughs he’d said the last thing he wanted was to see his mother’s pasty face every morning. Or worse yet, the countess’s. After the tea party, his opinion of Lily had been colorful and heartfelt.
“But his mother deserved to know. To see him . . .” One last time. To say good-bye.
She couldn’t say the words aloud, but Brandon understood. He reached over and gently gathered her in his arms. She went willingly. Burrowing against his shirt, she listened to his heartbeat, felt his heat, and smelled the mint of his breath. There was nowhere else in the world so wonderful.
“I suppose Michael began issuing orders the moment he saw the situation. It’s what Michael does best: take over.”
She nodded. “After one look at Kit, he’d told me to say my good-byes. He knew. We both did.” He’d spoken simply, bluntly, and with the absolute force of an earl. “He said I would not be allowed near again. It would be too cruel to his mother.”
“Bastard,” Brandon snapped.
There was nothing more. The earl had taken Kit away, and then a few days later, she had received a cold note informing her of Kit’s death. She never saw the obituary that appeared in the newspaper. Logic told her that it would have been the topic du jour in the Green Room that night, but that had no place in her mind. A sob tore through her, harsh on her throat. Then she felt Brandon’s arms close about her as he lifted her up and set her on his lap. She curled into his embrace and let the feelings out. She cried as she never had before. She cried until she knew no more.
She woke hours later, still secure in his arms. Outside the window, the world was black. A storm was coming on, so the stars and moon were hidden behind clouds. Which left the eerie feeling that there was nothing beyond this room, nothing except her and Brandon in this chair together.
He’d been sleeping, just as she had. His head was set against the wall, cushioned by the edge of the chair. But somewhere between her awareness of the dark outside and the silence below stairs, he had come awake and was looking at her now.
She shifted her eyes to his and smiled. “You must be uncomfortable.”
“Not at all.”
It was a lie. It had to be, but she liked that he would hold her despite the discomfort. He must have read the thought off her face because he was shaking his head.
“I’m not lying, Scheherazade. Yes, my back may ache and my neck will not straighten just yet, but that has nothing to do with how I feel. To hold you like this is a comfort. I feel comfortable with you. It would take a great deal more than a crick in my neck for me to disturb that.”
She touched his face. How could
she not? He was holding her and expressing the exact peace she felt. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“No, thank you,” he responded. “Comfort is no small thing.”
She smiled, but it didn’t last. Her mind was waking, her body as well. And in this secluded moment out of time, odd thoughts surfaced. “Kit never held me. We didn’t touch like this. He wasn’t . . .” What was the word she wanted?
“Mature enough?” To his credit, it didn’t sound like a criticism.
“I was going to say quiet. Always moving, always doing.”
“He had energy. And he made you laugh.”
“Not just me. He made everyone laugh. Even as he was turning their lives upside down.” That had been the most consistent thought from the troupe. That he was a good fellow all around. Stupid about the playhouse, but a jolly, good fellow. High praise from the troupe players. “But he never touched me like you do. And he never looked at me like that.”
Brandon’s eyes shot up. “Like what?”
“Like your next breath depends upon mine.”
Brandon shifted his gaze away. His eyes fell on the banked fire.
“Kit was . . .”
“A jolly good fellow.”
She felt his laugh as a hitch in his breath, a slight jolt in his body, but otherwise all was serene in the cradle of his arms. “Yes,” he said. “A jolly good fellow. The world needs more like him.”
She closed her eyes, allowing her mind to drift into silence. She knew the lift and lower of his breath, the heat from his body, and the sweet smell of mint. Since the moment the earl had carried Kit away, Scheherazade had felt as though she were cocooned in cotton, insulated from the world and unable to communicate with it. She still felt cocooned, but the place was larger. Her space of peace was now this room, this moment, and Brandon was very much part of what kept her alive here.
Alive. She was alive, and she hadn’t felt so in such a long time. She tilted her head such that her lips were near his neck, so her nose could be right against his skin.
“Touch me, Brandon,” she said. “Please touch me.”
His breath stopped. His hands froze. She knew he was holding back his reaction, keeping his thoughts apart from her.
“I think sometimes I died with Kit,” she continued, not really thinking of her words but just letting them spill forth.
“You’re not dead, Scher. You will feel again.”
“I feel now. With you. Because of you.”
“You will regret it tomorrow.”
She pressed her lips to his neck. He was warm, his skin slightly rough. She brushed her mouth back and forth, feeling the texture against her skin, knowing his pulse hammered just beneath the surface.
“No, I won’t. I will think back on it and remember what it was like to be alive.”
Then she reached up and tugged his head down to her. He resisted, his muscles giving way in jerks. But she kept the pressure firm, never wavering in her intention. In the end, he gave in with a groan.
His mouth took hers, kissing her with the fierceness she remembered. He needed her, and when he kissed her like that, her every sense came alive. Within moments, she felt her own desires heat, her own needs surge.
He plundered her mouth while she clutched him tight, anchoring herself to him. The kiss went on forever, and when they finally broke apart, she pressed her face to his shoulder and gasped for air. And while she struggled to contain the pounding of her heart, he lifted her up. In a single abrupt movement, he tightened his grip on her and stood up from the chair.
“Brandon!” she gasped, surprised.
He looked down at her, his eyes in shadow but his expression clear. He stood there a moment, holding her suspended in the air. She understood what he was thinking, what he was asking.
“Don’t stop, Brandon. Make me feel everything.”
He didn’t answer. He searched her face. And then in two long strides, he took her to bed.
Chapter 21
Brandon was not a small man. That was Scheherazade’s first thought as he knelt alongside her on the bed. His body was tall and lean, his muscles sinewy. What softness she’d noticed before had been whittled away by his recent injuries. That left him a man of stark contrasts.
He was large beside her, his body hard, and yet when he touched her face, his hand shook with the effort to be tender. She looked into his eyes and saw a focused intensity, a fire that burned for her alone. But when he leaned in to kiss her, she found his caress almost leisurely. The brush of his lips, the touch of his tongue was slow, casual, and too light.
She lay on the bed in a dressing gown that had once been her mother’s. It was plain cotton worn nearly gray with age. If it ever had lace, it was long gone now. Beneath it was an equally serviceable sleeping gown. Which meant she stretched out beside Brandon in attire that would be better suited for an elderly matron.
He didn’t seem to care. Her hair was a wild tangle about her face. He leaned in, kissing her forehead and eyes, using his nose and his fingers to push away curling strands of her brown hair. She gripped his shoulders, wanting him to return to the kisses of before, the thrusting tongue and demanding possession, but he did not. He inhaled the scent of her hair and tasted the shell of her ear, but he did not take her as she’d asked.
“Brandon,” she said as his breath heated the hollows of her ear. She arched her neck and pushed her body harder against him. He still wore all his own clothing, but at least she could feel the thick heat of him below. “Don’t be delicate with me.”
“Darling,” he said as he pushed her back from him. She rolled until she lay flat. He followed but not as close as she wanted. He touched her hair with his one hand, stroking and playing with her curls, while he nuzzled the curve of her neck. “I have wanted this for so long, you do not expect me to rush now that it is here, do you?”
She did want him to rush. She wanted him to overpower her, to take her, to overwhelm her senses until she was swamped in what he did to her. But in this, he would not comply. She touched his chin, tilting his face so that she could look at him closely. He returned the look, his eyes serious, his expression open. Waiting. In the end, he arched a brow in query.
She had no words, no question. She knew the answer without even looking. He wanted her to choose, to touch, to enter into this as fully aware as he was. Her hand stroked across his cheek then fluttered past his mouth. His nostrils flared at her caress, but he didn’t move, and in time, her fingers fell away from his face.
“Yes,” she said. She wasn’t even entirely aware of what she was saying yes to. Hadn’t she already told him to take her? But perhaps this yes was to her fuller participation, to her meeting him as a partner in this act rather than an overwhelmed girl.
She smiled and stretched her lips to his. They met without deepening, their flesh touching, moving, caressing without tongues. And the restraint sent a shiver of awareness throughout her entire body. In that one moment, she felt every inch of his body as just outside of her touch, just beyond her reach, and yet so tantalizingly near that she ached.
She extended her tongue, touching his upper lip with just the tip. She felt his mouth curve in a smile as he opened enough to meet her just beyond his teeth. Their tongues touched, teased, dueled, but never penetrated either of their mouths.
She wended her fingers into his shirt, unfastening the buttons by touch alone. But she could not reach all the way down, and when she tugged, he lay too heavy on it for her to pull it free. In the end, she gave up, choosing to brush her fingers across his chest instead. The texture of his skin was soft beneath the coarse dusting of hair, and his nipples were tight knots that were so interesting to her. Especially when he shuddered at her stroke.
Their mouths were still touching ever so lightly, but now—at last—he leaned forward, rolling into dominant position as he deepened their kiss. He pushed his tongue into her mouth as she opened to him. Her hands were crushed against his chest, so she maneuvered them around his ribs to his back. But
his shirt pulled tight, restricting her movements, and she whimpered her frustration.
He didn’t seem to care. He was too intent on possessing her mouth, and she was happy to let him. For a time. Until the moment she surprised him by pretending to bite down. He drew back a bit and she stole the opportunity to thrust her tongue into him.
She liked this game, she thought. She could play this with him forever. Or rather, for a little bit longer. Or not so long because soon she was clutching his back, drawing him closer to her while he used his higher position to take her mouth in the domination she’d craved at the beginning.
She could feel the hammer of his heart against her chest. Or perhaps it was her own as her breath was speeding up, her body heating unbearably, her legs growing restless as she clutched at him.
His shirt was an annoyance now, and she tried to tear it open. She couldn’t, but finally her need broke through the haze of his kiss. He rolled back with a gasp and yanked off his shirt while she lay panting. How pretty the light was as it played across his skin, golden red from the fire embers and shifting as his muscles clenched or relaxed.
He pushed her robe off her shoulders, but there was the larger issue of the gown beneath. He abruptly levered himself upright and circled her calves with his hands. He made a long caress of lifting her gown off her. She had to lift her hips to help him as he pushed the hem over her knees, up along her thighs, and over her bottom. Then he slid his hands underneath her gown to press into her lower back helping her to lever upright.
She did what he wanted, sitting up and raising her arms overhead. His fingers stroked along her sides, his thumb rolling over ribs and breasts as he maneuvered the gown upward. He paused a moment while she sat there with her arms ridiculously lifted, fabric bunched at her neck and face. His thumbs rolled back down over her breasts to tweak her nipples again. And again.
“Brandon,” she gasped. “Brandon!” Then when he showed no desire to finish his task, she hauled off her gown, tossing it aside before shaking her hair out of her eyes. Then she glanced at Brandon, only to see that he sat mesmerized by the sight.