“Don’t you know?” Hendrix asked. “He worked for Fitzgilbert.”
Asher’s lips parted. “My father worked for Gregory Fitzgilbert?”
Hendrix nodded. “That’s what the servant ledgers the old man keeps say. About twenty-five years ago or so.”
Asher blinked. Twenty-five years ago his father had worked for a man who didn’t allow servants with children. Asher had been parted from him for years thanks to that man. Even when his father left Fitzgilbert’s employ, there had been something separating them.
“Well, I’ll have to ask him,” Asher said, getting to his feet rather unsteadily. This information unsettled him and suddenly the tavern felt too close and hot.
Hendrix stood, as well. “It was good to see you, Asher.”
“And you. I look forward to speaking again.” He tossed some money on the table to pay for the drinks and then waved to Hendrix as he left.
But as he moved for his horse, he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that his father had worked for Fitzgilbert. And wondering if that fact would have any importance to the case.
Asher was still unsteady as he entered Stenfax’s study an hour later. Gray and John were there, looking over paperwork. Stenfax was nowhere to be found.
“Is that new evidence?” Asher asked, his voice sounding very far away to his own ears.
Gray looked up from the papers with a smile. “No. Dane and I were just going over some things for our canal project while Stenfax is spending time with Elise.” His brow wrinkled. “What’s wrong?”
Asher almost laughed as he sank into a chair at the desk. Almost. He didn’t because his stomach still felt sick at what he’d learned.
“Do you still know me so well?” he asked, stalling for time, though why he didn’t know.
Gray shrugged. “You have the same wrinkle to your brow you always did when you were troubled as a child.”
“Some things never change,” Asher mused. “Other things change drastically.”
John tilted his head. “What is it? You had your meeting with the servant, did you? Did something happen?”
Asher took a deep breath. “It went as planned. Hendrix will help. And I’d like to find him a new position if we can work on that. Fitzgilbert’s home is hellish, I hear.”
Gray pursed his lips hard. “No doubt that is true. Certainly, we can find the man a better situation. But if you got what you wanted, why look so…sick?”
Asher rubbed suddenly sweaty palms on his thighs before he said, “Hendrix told me that my father once worked for Fitzgilbert.”
Both Gray and John froze and stared at him. It was Gray who spoke at last. “When?”
“About twenty-five years ago,” Asher said. “I remember it. My father had to take work with a man who wouldn’t allow for servants with children in his employ. I was sent to my aunt and uncle in the country. My father wrote regularly, of course, but I missed him terribly. I was only five or six at the time.”
“But you didn’t reunite with him until you were…you were older, yes?” Gray asked, clearly searching for information shared decades ago when they were children.
Asher nodded. “Yes. He left this man…Fitzgilbert’s…employ fairly quickly. He wrote to me and told me that we couldn’t be together yet. He was very odd about it and I once heard my aunt and uncle whispering about safety. I thought he didn’t want me, truth be told. That he had started a new, better life.”
Dane was watching him closely. “When did he return?”
“I was eight. He showed up, thinner and gaunt, and said he’d lost everything. He was so hollow. And then we went and worked for your father, Gray. After a while, he got better, though I’d never say he ever returned to the man I knew before.”
Gray and John were staring at each other now and there was a world of communication flowing between them that Asher didn’t understand. But he could see it was serious.
“What is it?” he asked, his stomach flipping.
John shook his head. “It’s nothing…nothing yet.” His tone was distant. “I’ll—I’ll investigate it.”
“Investigate what?” Asher asked, looking at Gray again.
Gray forced a smile and shrugged. “Just investigate. Fitzgilbert is a never-ending source of information, it seems. And this connection with your father could turn out to be…” He trailed off, that troubled expression on his face again. “Important.”
Asher opened his mouth to ask more, but John cut him off. “So this Hendrix will contact you once there’s to be an exchange.”
Asher looked between the men, wanting to press more about their interest in his father’s relationship to Fitzgilbert, but it was clear they weren’t going to tell him more. Not yet.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “I told him to send his message here. I assumed I’d be here more than at home while we work on it. And you and I will be following the money together, John.”
Dane nodded. “A good notion. So now we wait.”
“And hope we didn’t miss the last exchange,” Gray said, staring off in the distance.
“If we have, then we’ll find another way,” Asher said, forcing his tone to be stronger than he felt. His mind turned away from questions about his father and moved instead to Felicity. To what she needed, to his driving need to save her from the past, from the worst possible future. “For Felicity, we have to. We have to.”
Gray’s expression shifted then, like he, too, was thinking of Felicity, and he nodded. “You’re right, Asher. We’ll find a way.”
And Asher prayed they could. Anything less was unbearable.
Chapter Thirteen
“Goodnight, Cora,” Felicity said as her maid went to the door. “Thank you for all your assistance.”
“You know I’m always happy to help.”
Felicity smiled at her. “Yes, you always have been. Whatever happens, I hope you know you will be well taken care of. If the worst happens.”
Cora’s face fell. “Don’t speak so, my lady. I have faith and so should you.” She shifted as if she realized she’d gone too far. “Pleasant dreams.”
She shut the door and Felicity’s smile drifted away. “My dreams are never pleasant,” she muttered.
“Perhaps I can help with that.”
She spun around to find Asher standing in the entrance between her sitting room and her bedchamber. The last time she’d seen him was earlier that night at Stenfax’s. He’d left supper immediately after they’d eaten, saying he had to catch up on his work now that he was in London.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, moving toward him a step. “How are you here?”
“The how is simple,” he said, not yet moving into the chamber, though she could see him leaning like he was waiting in desperation to do so. “Servants know the servant tricks.”
She stepped another step toward him and pressed her hand against his chest. She could feel his heart beating fast beneath her fingers.
“You—you are no servant,” she whispered.
A slight shadow fell over his face, but he said, “Funny, because I am here to serve.”
She gasped as she looked up at him. When they left the country, she had assumed their passionate connection would be abandoned. After all, she had been the one to drive it up to this point, and it wasn’t as if she could just step down the hall anymore and knock on his door.
But he was here. And they were alone. And she wanted him so desperately.
“If you want to give me something,” she said, holding his gaze, “I have a request.”
He finally moved into the room and gently drew her closer. Into his embrace. Against his chest. And she shook with the power of that.
The power of him.
“Anything you desire,” he whispered.
“I want you to take me,” she said, her hands beginning to shake when he froze. “Stop holding back. I know you’ll never stay, so I just want you to give me this.”
He was breathing heavy and his hands tightened around her waist, bunching
a handful of the material of her robe in his fist. “You’ll regret this, Felicity.”
She shook her head. “You keep telling me how I’ll feel, but I won’t. I won’t regret it. Because I understand the limitations. So, please. Please, Asher. Won’t you do this for me?”
His eyes squeezed shut and he went perfectly still, frozen in place like her words had put some kind of spell over him. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, only see the struggle working over his expression. She waited, hardly patiently, but silently, for him to reply. To step away or finally bind them together in the way she’d always dreamed.
His eyes came open and he stared at her at last. His gaze was dark and hooded, focused and far too seeing. Then he slowly nodded.
“Denying you has been like denying myself breath,” he said softly. “And whatever my hesitations, I can’t do it anymore. I…can’t.”
Her heart began to throb. She’d been telling him, telling herself, that this was what she wanted for so long. And yet now that he acquiesced she felt terror as much as excitement.
“Have you changed your mind already?” he asked, his voice gentle as he searched her face.
“No,” she breathed. “No, I want you. But…but no one has taken me since…since him. And I’m…” She met his stare and saw understanding and kindness and gentleness and everything opposite of her late husband. In that moment, she didn’t hesitate to tell Asher anything. Everything. “I’m afraid.”
His lips pressed together, his emotions playing out across his face in dark shadows. Then he nodded. “I understand. And I want so much to erase that fear. At least a little. I want you to feel that passion, sex, can be something to celebrate.”
“I know you can. Only you can. And I’m going to let you.”
She stepped back and untied her robe with shaking hands. She wasn’t bare underneath as she had been before when she came to him. Somehow standing before him in her night rail felt more intimate. Like she was a bride waiting for her first night with a husband.
Only this first night was not going to be filled with pain or fear. She knew he would make it special and right and beautiful.
He stared at her, his face taut, his gaze heated and focused, and then he caught a great gulp of air and whispered, “How have I resisted you this long?”
“Incredible strength of character?” she said.
He lifted his gaze to hers and laughed. The sound lightened the air between them and she found herself smiling as he moved toward her, caught her in his arms and kissed her. Both their smiles faded as the kiss deepened and her fingers tightened around the lapels of his jacket. His tongue traced hers, tasted hers, swirled around and around in her mouth until she was dizzy.
Luckily she didn’t have to keep herself upright. He held her steady as he backed her toward her bed. She didn’t resist. She didn’t want to resist. She wanted him, and this and nothing else mattered in that moment.
Her legs hit the mattress and she gasped, parting their lips momentarily. He smiled at her again and then slid his hands beneath the straps of her nightgown. He never broke the stare between them as he slid the scraps of fabric away and let the cotton pool around her bare feet.
She had been naked in front of him before. Several times, actually. But everything about this time felt different, and she blushed as he slowly looked her up and down.
“I’m forever amazed by how beautiful you are,” he mused, almost more to himself than to her. “It’s like I convince myself I’m mad when we’re apart, but when I see you it’s better than I remember. And there is nothing more I want than to take you.” He let his eyes slide to meet hers. “But I want to ask you one final time—is this truly what you want?”
A flutter or worry stirred in her stomach, but she slowly nodded. “It is,” she admitted. “This is what I’ve always wanted, Asher.”
He drew a long, deep breath and then shrugged out of his jacket. She reached for him, unfastening his shirt as he struggled out of his boots. She pushed the shirt away and swallowed hard. She was always stunned by what she found beneath his clothes. Such perfection. Such male goodness. Such temptation.
She traced her fingers along his chest, dragging across his muscles as he let out a low sound of pleasure and possession.
“Unbutton the trousers,” he ordered.
She smiled up at him, loving the dark desire in his voice. Loving the tremor of need that so matched her own. Whatever else had separated them in the past, whatever would eventually part them in the not so distant future, this existed. This desire and this night. No one would ever be able to take it away.
Slowly, she glided her fingers down to his waistband. She found the buttons along the front and, one by one, loosened them. She slid her hands into the fabric, hissing out pleasure as her palms brushed over his muscular hips. She pushed, the fabric catching on his erection before it came free and pooled beneath his bare feet.
He stepped out, kicking the pile of clothing away, and she looked at him as he had looked at her, drinking in the perfection of his body, anticipating what he would do with that body. There was fear and excitement mixed when she considered it.
“You’re trembling,” he whispered.
She looked down and found her hands were flexed at her sides and were, indeed, shaking. She clenched them, trying to force that tremor to stop.
He reached out and took them in his, lifting them up to brush his lips across first one set of knuckles, then the other. “Think of me if you can, not him. And if you want me to stop, I will do so. No matter how much I want you, no matter how far we’ve gone.”
She blinked. She didn’t think he would be able to make that promise, let alone willing when she had already acquiesced. But of course he would. He was Asher. And this was why she loved him.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “But now I want you to stop talking and love me. Just touch me and love me and don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”
His lips parted, as if he were surprised by that request. Then he nodded and folded her into his arms. He kissed her again. Slow and passionate, gentle, and as if he had all the time in the world, all the time in both their lives, to claim her. She knew that wasn’t true, that it would very likely only be tonight for them, but she sank into the fantasy nonetheless and went soft and limp in his arms.
He gave her all the support she needed, holding her up when her knees would not, making her shake with desire and need and all the pleasure that coursed through her body.
It felt like that kiss lasted forever, yet it was over too soon when he lifted her onto the bed and took a spot beside her. He dragged his fingers through her hair, spreading blonde locks on the pillows all around them as he wordlessly looked at her face like he was memorizing every angle and line of it.
She shifted beneath his focus, her heart beginning to pound. How much could he see? Would he judge her for what was in her heart if he knew how twisted and broken she was?
To stop him from doing just that, she reached up and cupped the back of his head, drawing him down to kiss her once more. He did so, the kiss quickly deepening, becoming more purposeful. Slowly, he rolled to cover her and she stiffened beneath him as images of another man filled her head.
He must have sensed that in her response, for he drew back and looked down at her. “Stop?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she whispered.
“Slow, then,” he said, sliding his hands up and down her sides gently. “And not until you’re ready.”
She nodded, and sighed as he lowered his lips, not to her mouth this time, but her neck. He sucked gently, awakening every inch of her flesh as he kissed her, tasted her, helped her relax away from memory and into the reality that she was with Asher. At last.
He brushed rough whiskers across her breast, making her back arch against the gentle abrasion, making her breath catch before he caught one sensitive nipple between his lips and sucked until her vision blurred.
“You deserve to be worshipped,” he murmur
ed against her skin as he glided his mouth to the opposite breast and repeated the action there. “And pleasured until you are weak with it.”
“I don’t want to be weak,” she gasped as the very pleasure he spoke of mobbed her. “I know how dangerous it can be.”
He drew back and moved so that his face was just inches from hers. “Is that what you fear? That surrender will make you weak, open to pain?”
She nodded, hating herself for giving so much even as she hated herself for holding so much back. He held her gaze a long moment and then rolled off of her, onto his back. She reached for him with a desperate gasp, dragging her fingers across his chest.
“Please don’t!” she cried out, knowing her desperation and her weakness was clear. “Don’t go.”
He leaned up on his elbows and slowly shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere, Felicity, I assure you. But I’ve been thinking of this all wrong. I thought you were trying to control me, but it was never me. I’m not certain it was even the situation we find ourselves in. What you want is to control you. And I support that wholeheartedly.”
She blinked. “I-I don’t understand.”
He caught her hand and slowly drew her closer, pulling her over his body partially. He leaned up to kiss her once more and then rested back on the pillows. “I don’t need to take you. You need to take me.”
She swallowed, looking down the length of his body at the cock that now curled against his stomach, still ready. Still tempting.
“Can you…do it in this fashion?” she asked.
His lips pursed and she saw a flash of anger in his eyes. Toward her husband, toward the past. Not toward her. Then he nodded. “Oh yes. There are so many ways to do this. And I think you’ll find this one to be most pleasurable.”
“How?” she asked, heat flaming in her cheeks. She felt so foolish in this moment. So inexperienced, just like a virgin on her wedding night, though she was far from that.
“Astride,” he suggested, and her eyes went wide.
Of course. Of course that was how one would do this. She pushed herself up and slowly glided one leg over him, opening herself as she positioned her hips over his. His cock nudged her but she didn’t take him in yet, just settled over him with a deep breath.
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