“And how is your sister, is she doing well?” She’d bring the conversation around to a topic she was more comfortable with.
“She is.” This, at least, he could be happy for. “And she is engaged to a gentleman who owns the estate adjacent to Secours.”
“Your mother must be pleased.” Ah, she would not know of his loss.
“We lost our mother a little over a year ago. She lived to see Adelaide happy though. It happened quickly. She did not suffer but it came unexpectedly.”
Upon hearing this she finally turned to meet his eyes, hers genuinely sympathetic. “I’m so sorry Chance. When you spoke of her before, I knew that you loved her.”
Chance smiled sadly. He had loved his mother. “I did. Very much.” Losing the last of one’s parents left one feeling somewhat unrooted, rather like one of the cuttings he’d brought over to Aubrey’s house before he’d replanted it.
“Did she know the nature of your marriage? That you had been compelled?”
“Thank the heavens no. She lived to see Adelaide happy. She was at peace. I believe the only thing that grieved her was Hannah’s health. She loved her but had been hopeful she’d become a Grand’Mere someday.”
“Your wife was lucky, it seems, then. She had kind in-laws and a husband who would not force her to do anything that would compromise her health further. Friendship is a firm basis for a marriage. It sounds as though yours was not an unbearable one. For either of you.”
“It was as good a marriage as could be expected.” Aubrey had spent years in an unbearable marriage—married to a pious villain, Harrison Bloomington. Chance would murder her husband himself if the bastard was not already dead.
Chance did not wish to diminish the hardship she’d endured, but he could not help but make himself very clear, “Marriage to anyone but you would be unbearable.”
She let out another small cry, again, as though she did not want to know how he felt.
Chance turned her so that she could not look away. “I’m not playing games, Aubrey, Love. I’m not going to give up.”
She closed her eyes but this time stepped closer to him and buried her face in his chest. This was almost more than he could take.
“Come with me to Secours. Meet Adelaide and see my home. Mon Dieu. I beg of you.”
She was shaking her head. “I-I cannot.” And then she tilted her head back and met his stare with regret. “I am to travel to meet Richard’s family at Season’s end. He is planning on announcing our engagement there.”
Chance wasn’t certain he’d heard her properly. He simply stared into her eyes and wondered if the horror of her announcement showed on his face.
“Do you love him?” He finally managed.
She dropped her arms and stepped back, lifting them again to hug herself. “He has been very good to me. I feel great affection for him.” And then twisting the sword in his heart. “I do.”
It was Chance’s turn to step away. “Are you engaged now, then?” Her announcement made no sense, and yet, it ought to have. She spent a good deal of time with the bounder. All the while Chance had been toiling in her garden.
“It is not official. His mother wants to meet me first.” She raised a fist to her mouth and did not meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Chance. I tried to tell you. I’ve moved on.”
He had nothing to lose now. He’d already lost the one thing in his life that mattered.
“I love you, Princesse. Don’t do this. Don’t make this mistake.” He’d taken hold of her shoulders again. “Don’t make both of us pay for this for the rest of our lives.”
Finally, she met his gaze, her emerald eyes shining with tears. “If only I’d known.”
He held her close again, though, and could feel the need, the desire thrumming off her body. This time he would not allow the opportunity to pass.
It might be the last one he would have.
Winding his arms around her, he drew her soft figure against his hard one and before his lips even found hers, she’d melted into him.
She tasted like an erotic dream. How many times had he dreamt of holding her again, of exploring her mouth with his tongue? Would she make the same little sounds of satisfaction she’d made that night they’d been together? Would it feel the same for both of them?
She did.
It did.
Except it was so much better but also so much worse. God, he could not imagine saying goodbye to her forever. Not again. Not when he’d come so close.
“Please,” he begged the word against her lips. “Think it over. My mistake tortured me for two years. Your mistake would torture us both forever. And you. Tell me you do not feel this fire between us. Tell me we are not meant to spend what remains of our lives loving one another.”
Her head dropped back and his lips dragged along the tender skin of her jaw, her neck. “We are fated for one another, ma Princesse. It was in the tea leaves. The love. It was not meant to be at the time, we both had to wait. Tell me that was not the answer you were given. You’ve been mine since the day I caught you staring out the window. Ma Princesse, Mon Aubrey. Please, don’t decide yet. I beg of you.”
She trembled in his arms. With all of his emotions spent, he held her tightly, silently, and awaited her answer.
“I love you.” He would tell her again and again if she would hear him.
She choked on a sob and then allowed another to escape. God help him if he’d lost her. God help them both.
And then, “I will think about it, Chance. But I can make no promises.” Her voice sounded thin, almost a whisper.
“But you will think some more.” His heart could beat again. “That you promise me.”
An almost violent shudder ran through her. Chance knew it was not only confusion. It was not only sadness. It was passion. It was desire. And God help him, it was love. “But I need time to think. It will hurt him. He knows nothing of us.”
But he would know, by God, he would know soon enough. Chance twisted the ring on his finger, the one he’d retrieved from the corner of his chamber. Mr. Richard Cline would know when Aubrey walked down the aisle and became the Duchess of Chauncey in the eyes of God and the law.
“I will wait until the end of the Season for you to decide, and for you to tell him.” He could not drag this out longer than that. If she did not know by then…
This time there was no laughter as Chance mounted the majestic but gentle horse and then assisted Aubrey up to before him.
All of the pain he’d caused them both, and yet he could not change the past. Even if he could, he would not.
She rested her cheek against his chest and in the ten minutes it took them to return to her home, her hand never left his.
He brought the horse to a halt and dismounted and then helped her to the ground.
“Send for me when you have made your decision.” There was nothing more that Chance could do. His cards were on the table. All he could do was wait to see how she chose to play hers. Would she gamble on him knowing they could win the prize of a lifetime, or would she take her losses and walk away?
Chapter 22
Chance
The first day of waiting Chance did nothing but second guess everything he’d done since returning to London.
Should he have left her alone? Had the entire mission been driven by his own selfishness? He’d wondered in the beginning if he had inflated his feelings over time.
Having held her the day before, having felt as though all the colors of the world were brighter when he was with her, he knew that was not the case.
He yearned to plan their life together. He wanted to know her dreams and then be a part of them. But she needed to trust him again. Her love needed to be stronger than her fear.
Restlessness drove Chance on the second day. He went riding and on impulse made a visit to tattersalls where he discovered the perfect horse for her. He itched to purchase the gentle mare and have her delivered along with everything she would need for her care but refrained.
On the third day, he spent the afternoon with Hollis, in the man’s study, consuming a good percentage of the contents of his liquor cabinet.
Before the first week passed, he was jumpy, irritable, and not at all his normal disarmingly charming self.
He longed for the fields of Secour, even if she did not go with him. At least that way he’d have something productive that he could do.
But to have her with him… To take her to the cliffs, the beach, to teach her to ride, introduce her to Adelaide…
He alternated between feeling optimistically confident and devastatingly hopeless.
After waiting for ten days, without hearing a word from her, he broke.
He would not go to her, but he returned to her garden, to the hot house more specifically. He could work there. He’d completed the actual construction, but he’d not done much to put it to use. The long worktable remained pristine and all of the tools he’d purchased hung on the wall, still gleaming and shiny.
The task had ironically planted something inside of him. He wanted to learn some horticulture alongside her. Together they could plant, and together they would watch the blossoms burst out in color.
God, she had him imagining children, grandchildren, growing old together.
He dismissed all of the what ifs as he closed the iron gate behind him.
Moving dirt, pulling weeds and replanting some of the shrubs he’d recovered might make him feel like he fit into his own skin once again.
It was almost over. This interminable waiting would be over in three days.
He’d counted on the physical labor, but not the hot, wet heat, that had settled upon all of London earlier than usual. Before the midday sun, even, he’d stripped off his shirt. Perspiration dripped down his face, but he didn’t allow himself to stop and rest. Working like this made him feel better than anything he’d tried since he’d last seen her.
The pain, the discomfort. It gave him something other than Aubrey to focus on.
He lifted a cloth sack of soil onto his shoulders, carried it inside the small but sweltering building, and threw it onto the ground with more force than was necessary.
“I hope you weren’t thinking of me while you did that.”
Chance held himself still for a moment before turning around to face her.
By the circles under her eyes, and the tightness around her mouth, he wondered if she hadn’t experienced some of the same anguish he had. But she should not have! She wasn’t the one waiting.
But then her gaze left his face and trailed along his chest to the top of his breeches. She licked her lips and twin patches of color appeared on her delicate cheeks. He knew that look.
He’d seen it before.
She wore her hair up in a loose chignon and her gown was a simple one although it revealed a hint of creamy flesh at her décolletage.
“How are you?” He’d craved her and now she was here. A bead of sweat appeared above her upper lip.
“I miss seeing you.” Her eyes hadn’t left him. She wrapped her arms around her front. “The flowers are beautiful. The shrubs… everything.” And then, “I… can’t stop thinking about you.”
It was all the encouragement he needed to cross the room so that he stood only inches away from her. “Aubrey.” Her name emerged sounding strangled.
God, but she might as well have strangled him these past few weeks. “Have you decided?” The Season was not over yet but surely, she had to know. She had to know if she loved him or not. She had to know her own feelings.
“I’m scared.” But she licked her lips.
“What are you afraid of Princesse?” He peeled one of her hands away from where she clutched at her own arm and then led her to the bench and lifted her so that she was sitting, facing him.
“This.” She trailed a finger down his chest, sending lightning bolts of desire straight to his groin. “I loved you, Chance, and it was wonderful. But afterward, the pain was just as great… worse, even.”
Chance pushed himself between the folds of her dress, standing between her legs now.
“We never had a chance.”
She nodded.
“We deserve a chance.” He dropped a kiss along the tender skin of her jaw, and she tilted her head so he could trail his lips downward. “Let me love you, Princesse. Give us a chance?” He edged her sleeve downward. Ah, And the other. His lips trailed the gentle curves of her shoulder, her arm. She did not to stop him.
With another tug, her breasts were free.
“Chance,” she cried when his lips opened over one dusky pink tip. It was as though she’d fallen into a trance. As though she’d been fighting something inside of her and finally surrendered.
This woman was everything he’d ever wanted. She’d invaded his soul.
“Let me love you.” He murmured.
Her breasts fit perfectly in his hands. He kneaded the one and used his mouth to pull at the other. Uniquely feminine flesh puckered and stiffened.
God, he loved the feel of her hands in his hair. And then they moved to clasp his arms, pulling him up so that he could kiss her properly.
She didn’t say a word, but only made little mewling sounds, and moans.
“Let me make you feel good.” He spoke against her skin.
He loved the sounds of her moans. They reminded him of a night long ago. Chance lifted the hem of her skirt until the material puffed around her waist atop the table.
Unable to contain himself, he knelt before her, and then pressed his open mouth onto the skin just above her knees, inside her thighs.
She trembled but clutched at his shoulders. “Let me…” He breathed as he traveled his lips toward her center. “Forever.”
“Yes,” she was gasping. She’d gone most of her life without knowing pleasure.
Chance pushed her knees wide at the same time as he slid her to the edge. By now she was arching her spine, her head thrown back, and she clutched the table tightly.
When he dipped his head once again, he discovered heaven. Flesh the color of roses, swollen with need. He pressed a kiss there first, and she pulsed beneath his lips. Her entire body pulsed, throbbed, demanded.
And Chance could not deny her.
Instead he relished that her soft thighs embraced his face. He kept one hand on her buttocks and the other low on her abdomen.
Her wetness surrounded him, both the salt of perspiration on her legs and the sweet taste of her desire. He’d drown in her. Chance swept his lips along the seam of her entrance before dipping it inside. He wanted her writhing at his touch. He wanted her mad for him. He lowered his hand and used his thumb to excite her more. It felt like a dream, savoring her, being so completely enfolded by her. He alternated between reaching inside with his fingers and then loving her with his mouth.
Her muscles spasmed at the same time her legs tightened around his neck. She bucked, she gasped, and after a few tremors ripped through her, she collapsed, exhausted.
Sated.
When she lifted one foot to the edge of the table, revealing creamy thigh, ankle and calf, the pastel sage cotton of her gown ruffled at her abdomen. Chance wondered that he’d never known a woman with more sex appeal than his Princesse.
And she didn’t even know it.
She raised one arm to cover her forehead, her eyes. Her throat moved, as she swallowed hard.
He would not allow her to retreat into her doubts again. In one quick moment, Chance lifted himself onto the table.
She moved her arm and her eyes flew open wide. “Will it hold us both?”
Chance slid so that he lay beside her. “I hadn’t foreseen this particular use, but yes. I’ve become quite the craftsman this spring.” He rested one elbow on the table, holding his head so that he could stare at her.
She’d turned and held his gaze, and then surprised him by raising her hand to touch his lips. She drew her fingertip along the moisture remaining from his feast.
“I haven’t.” She closed her eyes. “Not even close. With Richard. We haven’t.”
Chance hated that she struggled with her decision. “This doesn’t come along often. This… what you and I have.”
She nodded.
“You love him. You are not in love with him though. You cannot be. You could not give yourself to me if you were.”
Again, she nodded but then squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t bear the thought of hurting him. He is a good man. He has been very good to me. When you were not here… “
“You will hurt him more if you marry him while wanting another man.”
Again, he watched her swallow hard.
“Did you come out here to tell me your decision?” His heart raced as he uttered the question for the second time.
“I need to speak with him.” Why the hell did she have to be so non-committal?
“Damnit!” his fist landed on the table shattering the quiet around them.
“I’m sorry. I cannot simply change my entire life in the matter of a few months without considering everything that’s happened.” She pushed herself up to sit and a single tear escaped from the corner of her eye.
“I know. Damnit. I know.” He’d been so fucking patient! Did she not realize what she was doing to him? How long would she make him pay for his mistake? Another week? Until the end of summer?
A lifetime?
He turned away from her. “If I don’t hear from you in three days’ time, I’ll leave for Secours without you.” He couldn’t do it any longer. He couldn’t look at her. When her hand dropped onto his arm, he flinched.
“I’m sorry, Chance. I’m so sorry.” She sounded as tormented as he felt. So why then?
He didn’t move until he’d heard her footsteps disappear. When he finally deigned to turn around, he paused and then, in a one violent motion, kicked the table over.
Three days.
A small bark sounded from the doorway. Lancelot did not appreciate such commotion. The dog waddled into the room directly to the turned over table. There, he lifted one leg and relieved himself on Chance’s workmanship.
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