Discarding her gown, McHugh turned his attention to her shoes and stockings. He pushed her chemise up to find the bare flesh at the top of her hose. As his hand skimmed up her leg, she bent her knee and he kissed it. “Gi’ me the other knee, and I’ll kiss that, too.”
Unable to resist his playful teasing, she obeyed. He gave her the kiss, then lowered himself between her knees to remove her garters and stockings. Before she could demure, he untied the ribbon of her chemise and pulled it over her head.
He gazed down at her, a strange light in his eyes, and she shivered with pleasure from his praise and felt her breasts grow taut in response to the heat of that look. “I’ve never seen you naked, Afton. You are magnificent.”
Warmth washed through her, heightening her desire. “Return the favor, please,” she asked, groping for his waistband.
He groaned but let her have her way. When she had unfastened it, he helped her push his trousers down his hips. His shaft sprang free, swollen and fully erect, and she moaned. “Hurry, Rob. I need you.”
“Nay, lass. No hurrying this time.” He covered her mouth with his, breathing life and heat into her, then trailed kisses down her throat to one aching breast. He took the sensitive tip into his mouth and traced the perimeter with his tongue. She arched, writhing with pleasure as he drew her into his mouth, nibbling, licking and sucking.
She reached for him, intending to drag him into her, her hand closing around his velvet heat. He seemed to grow in her hand, and he twitched and groaned as if in agony. “Let loose, lass, or pay the consequences.”
Oh, she wanted to pay the consequences! But McHugh was in distress. She released him.
He was breathing hard. “Ye’re on the edge,” he told her, making it sound like high praise. “I’ve been there, Afton. I know how ye feel. But I’m not ready to finish this. Let me ease ye.”
He lifted her hips and his dark head moved lower. Parting the narrow folds protecting the very center of her, he found her with his tongue. She gasped! The sensation was so intensely intimate, so deeply erotic, that she closed her eyes, savoring the wild stroking that threatened her sanity.
Grasping tight to the shreds of her self-control, she held back. He was prolonging her agony, denying her what she wanted most—him, inside her. Every muscle she possessed grew taut and quivered with expectancy, then, when she was no longer able to resist, heat and light burst over her in a shimmering wave. She wept with the sheer miracle of it, and wondered dimly why McHugh was praising her.
“That’s it, lass. That will keep ye until ye’re ready for more.”
More? What more could there be? And yet for all the lovely heat and radiance washing over her, there was something missing. Something beckoning just out of reach. But she would trust McHugh to take her there. He had not disappointed her yet.
He began his rhythmic stroking again, building the heat until she was moaning. Desperate to please him as he’d pleased her, she laced her fingers through his hair and tightened them, pulling him upward. She kissed him, his cheeks, his chin, his throat, before trying to roll over him to the supine position.
“What are ye doing?” he asked in a startled voice.
“What you did to me,” she said between kisses.
He made a choked sound, close to a laugh, before pulling her back up. “Good God, but I love you, lass,” he groaned. “Not this time, eh? I want to please you. Tell me what you want.”
“You,” she demanded, all coyness gone. “Inside me.”
He sighed. “Sweet words, Afton. Ask me again.”
“I don’t want this to end, but I need it to,” she said.
“I know,” he admitted. “I know. We shall end it, then.”
And with that, he rolled over her again and fitted himself to her. His penetration was painless this time, eased by his patient preparation, but he slid into her slowly, lacing his fingers through hers and holding them against the pillow, clearly relishing every sensation. Feeling wonderfully wanton exposed to his view, she smiled up at him.
Her skin tingled and burned. The throbbing inside her intensified. When McHugh began moving, she matched his strokes, increasing in tempo until a blinding, shimmering heat burst over her. Then she was floating, drifting, powerless to fight the onrushing darkness.
Chapter Nineteen
Rob propped himself on one elbow and looked down at Afton. She was so bloody beautiful that it made his heart ache. Dark lashes fanned out over flushed cheeks in perfect little crescents. Her coral lips, still swollen from his kisses, were slightly parted, as if waiting for his return, and the glorious copper tangles, still damp from the physical demands of their lovemaking, framed her face.
Afton was no Maeve, so refined that she could not bear the smallest display of need from her partner. Afton invited it. Provoked it. Her passions ran as deep and strong as his. He wondered if she’d been aware that she had wept when he’d come into her. She’d wrapped her legs around him and chanted the sweetest tune he’d ever heard. Yes, Rob, yes, yes…
He wanted to remember her this way. He would save this image to call forth on those distant lonely nights in the Highlands, when he needed to chase the desolation away. This one perfect moment was all he would have of her then. That, and a lifetime of regret that he could not offer what Afton Lovejoy deserved.
She stirred and murmured something that sounded like his name. Her lashes fluttered, then opened, the sensual lethargy still simmering in her eyes. She smiled up at him, touchingly vulnerable.
“Ah, there you are.” He grinned.
She smiled back and reached up to run her finger along his cheek. “Here I am. How long have I been asleep?”
“An hour or two.” He smoothed her hair back and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She stretched and pulled the blanket a little higher. “Why did you not wake me?”
“I was watching you. Did you know you make little sighs when you turn over? Or that you say words in your sleep? Not sentences, just single words. Like Rob and please, and want.”
A deep pink washed her cheeks. “I cannot imagine—”
“From that pretty blush, I’d have sworn there was nothing wrong with your imagination. Or your memory.”
The mantel clock chimed twice and then fell silent. “Two o’clock?” She struggled to sit up. “I’ve been gone too long. I must get back before Aunt Grace comes looking for me.” She pushed the blanket away and began groping for her clothes. “I hate to leave you this way, McHugh, but there is food and wood enough to last you the day. I will come back tonight.”
“I can’t stay here, Afton. I’ll see you home and then find Douglas. He was going to rent a room for me at an inn down by the river.”
“But the salon would be more private,” she argued. “Who would think to look for you here?”
He shook his head. “If I am found here, Afton, it would not go well for you or your family. There would be no keeping your secret then.” He sat up and retrieved her chemise from the tangle of clothes on the bare wooden floor.
She took the soft white lawn and dropped it over her head before shaking the wrinkles from her deep blue gown. “How will I find you?” she asked over her shoulder.
“You won’t.” He pulled his trousers on, steeling himself against the pain. “You know this—” he gestured at the bed “—was the last of it, do you not?”
She turned to face him, her expression unguarded and raw with pain. “Aye.”
He prayed she was not remorseful for letting him make love to her. “About tonight…”
She turned away from him, busying herself with her buttons.
“Afton, it was the most amazing gift anyone has ever given me,” he said. “But it only makes the inevitable end more difficult.”
She nodded, scooping up her stockings and garters.
“I’d only make you miserable. In a very short time, you’d come to resent me.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. She turned to him, her face composed now, and her eyes r
eddened but dry. “I’ve always known I could never measure up to Maeve. And I could never bear living in her shadow. It would break my heart to wake up each day, knowing you will always love someone else.”
“What?” He could not comprehend her words. Was she saying that she could not be with him because of his love for Maeve?
She pushed her bare feet into her shoes and shrugged into her cloak. “Your undying love for your wife is legendary.”
“Maeve? No, Afton. You do not understand. It is my fault. I thought—”
“No,” she interrupted, waving him to silence before stuffing her stockings and garters into the inside pocket of her cloak and heading for the door. “Do not pity me, McHugh. I do not regret any of this. How could I have loved you and not given myself to you?”
Loved him. Afton loved him? A bittersweet joy washed over him. He wished he had not wasted so much time fighting his feelings for her. Holding the blanket clenched around him, he stumbled after her. “Afton, listen to me. You were right. I was the worst kind of coward. I was afraid to love you—afraid of failing you, too. Of losing you. I never loved Maeve.”
But she was gone before he could finish. Cursing, he dressed hurriedly and went to the window to look out at the street. There was no sign of Afton. He would have to follow and make certain she arrived safely back at Mrs. Forbush’s house. But first, he needed to make certain that she knew where to find him if he could not come to her.
He opened the small letter box on the shabby escritoire and removed a paper, pen and the little ink bottle. “My dearest Afton,” he wrote, “Please come to me at the White Lion in Holburn. We must talk. R.M.”
He propped the note against the crystal orb in the center of the table. If he did not catch her tonight, she would find his note tomorrow.
Afton slept badly, and came down to breakfast midmorning with a headache. Her memory was saturated with McHugh—his slow touch, his deep sigh, his sure knowledge of her body. His firm answer to her question.
How will I find you?
You won’t.
Her wistful sigh drew a curious glance from Aunt Grace, and a look that said they would talk later.
When Dianthe excused herself to write a letter to her friends in Wiltshire, Afton pushed her teacup aside and went to look out the window at the gently falling snow and the icicles forming on the eaves. Oh, how she missed Auntie Hen and their home in Wiltshire. How she wished life were as simple again as it had been when she was small.
How she wished McHugh had never married Maeve or set foot in Algiers.
A slender arm went around her shoulders and Grace gave her a warm squeeze. “Afton, is something amiss?”
“Hen…”
Grace nodded, her smoky eyes glistening. “I miss her, too. And today is the final day. December 31. Tomorrow we shall have to go to the authorities and tell them about Henrietta. But, Afton, she will still rest in peace. She would not want you to put yourself in danger. And tomorrow you will have to go to the authorities. I can arrange for you to speak with Lord Barrington, if you prefer.”
Afton dashed her tears away with the back of her hand. “I am in so deep now that I am afraid I will not be able to stop.”
“Whatever do you mean? How deep are you, Afton?”
“Over my head. I have learned things I do not wish to know, and I am afraid of what it will bring. And I have done things….” She sighed and turned away from the window. “But never mind. I will find a way out.”
“Afton? Where were you so late last night?”
She waved away her aunt’s concern. “At Auntie Hen’s salon. With…” She sighed and shook her head. Aunt Grace would have to know. “With Rob McHugh.”
Grace touched her forehead thoughtfully. “I see,” she said. “Do you love him?”
She nodded and tears filled her eyes. “But last night he said that nothing could come of it.”
Frown lines appeared at the corners of Grace’s mouth. “That does not sound like McHugh. I find it difficult to believe that he would…and then turn his back on you. Is he still angry over Zoe’s fortune-telling?”
“It was not like that, Aunt Grace. He has known for several days now who I am. At first he was angry, and I was afraid he would expose me, and then we agreed to help one another. We…I hoped I could take whatever he could give, but I find I cannot bear to be his second choice to Maeve.”
Grace began to pace, her head down and her finger still pressed to the center of her forehead. “I do not care what the ton says, Afton. From my observations, I do not think McHugh adored his wife. I knew the lady Maeve, invited her to one of my Friday salons and did not find much admirable about her. She had a vile temper and an overdeveloped sense of refinement. She was a parvenue, you see, by virtue of her marriage to McHugh. And ’twas common knowledge that she had a lover, though she had sense enough to be discreet and keep the man’s identity a secret. No one could ever guess who had the courage to wrong McHugh.”
Maeve? The legendary Maeve? Afton thought back to her conversations with McHugh. She could not recall him ever declaring his love or devotion, but neither could she recall him denying it. Was Aunt Grace right? And if so, why was McHugh so determined to keep her out of his life? Ah, yes. Madame Zoe. The cause of his family’s deaths and of his imprisonment.
“Have you asked him if he is pining for Maeve? You are superior to her in every way, Afton. If Glenross cannot see that, he is blind.”
She nearly smiled at the sight of her aunt trying to look stern when she was not much older than Afton herself. “I believe you might have a prejudice in my favor.”
Grace’s housekeeper knocked politely on the open door. “Beggin’ your pardon, Mrs. Forbush, but this has just arrived for you. The lad said it was urgent.” She placed an envelope on the breakfast table and left the room.
“It is from Barrington,” Grace said as she broke the seal and opened the envelope. She scanned the lines and then sat heavily. “Oh, Afton!”
She hurried to Grace’s side and took the envelope from her hand. “What is it?” she asked.
“McHugh.”
Heart racing, Afton unfolded the paper and read the few lines.
My dear Mrs. Forbush,
Please be advised that Robert McHugh, Lord Glenross, was arrested this morning for a series of murders, most recently that of Lord Kilgrew. He has been taken to Newgate to await trial.
If your niece was hoping to make an alliance with the McHughs, either with Glenross or his brother, I would advise against it. Please give her my condolences. I will come by later this afternoon to give you the details.
Yrs., Barrington
Afton refolded the paper and gave it back to her aunt, a plan forming in her mind. “Do you know Lord Auberville well enough to request him a favor, Aunt Grace?”
“Yes.”
“Please ask him to arrange for me to visit McHugh at once,” she said over her shoulder, already heading to her room to change. “It is urgent, and McHugh’s future depends upon it. My future, as well.”
The instructions for Afton’s visit arrived within the hour. Since McHugh was considered extremely dangerous, he was being held in a private cell in the hold for the condemned below ground level. She had not been granted an interview in a visitor’s room and Auberville had not been able to intervene. If she wanted to see McHugh, she was told, she would have to go to his cell. Auberville sent a small vial of strong scent and a list of items she would be able to take inside.
She was grateful she had begged Grace to wait in the coach. Afton hadn’t been prepared for the search of her person by a prison matron. As humiliating as that had been, the vulgar comments about her being McHugh’s high-priced “flash girl” were even worse. She was asked for money at every turn, but denied her request to buy McHugh better accommodations. She was told that he was considered the most dangerous prisoner in Newgate, and he was not to be allowed outside his cell, even if the prison was on fire.
Accompanied by two burly guards, sh
e was led through a series of corridors and down a flight of stairs underground, the odors growing more vile with each step. Daylight never penetrated this part of the prison and darkness settled in on her despite the lanterns hung on hooks at intervals. She was guided through two locked doors into a large central room where the smell of excrement, unwashed bodies and fetid straw assailed her. Through the gloom, she could make out a row of cells lining the walls. The chill here went straight to the bone and she noted that vapor rose in the air from every breath. Bile rose to her throat and she quickly uncorked the vial Auberville had sent her. She held it beneath her nose while one of the guards used a long stick to drive the prisoners away from a row of cells.
“You! Stand back,” the other guard ordered Afton. He went to the cell farthest from the door and banged on the iron bars. “Stand away, face against the wall,” the man shouted over the howling of the prisoners, “or this’ll be the last o’ yer visitors.” A minute later, he signaled Afton forward.
He unlocked the cell, pushed her through the door and locked it again so fast that she had no time to accustom herself to the gloom. There was no light in the cell, and now Afton understood why Lord Auberville had told her to bring candles and a tinderbox. “McHugh? Rob?” she called, her heart pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe. Silence stretched out for a long moment, then a slight scraping sound carried to her from an unseen corner. Dear Lord! Had they put her in the wrong cell? “Rob?” Her voice wavered. “Are you here?”
My God! Was that Afton’s voice in this god-forsaken hellhole? He turned and stepped out of the corner and peered into the dimness of the cell. “Afton?”
He heard her quickly stifled gasp when he moved into the light. He must look like hell. He hadn’t gone with the constables easily. It had taken six of them to subdue him, and he was certain he bore the marks. When they’d thrown him in the cell, they’d stripped him of everything but his shirt and trousers. Coat, jacket, vest and boots—all gone now, along with his watch and chain. He did not want her to see him this way. “Get out, Afton. Guard!”
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