She’d never been pleasured in such a way. She’d hardly envisioned it—hadn’t known what to envision if she’d been given the chance.
In a feast of passion, William and Harriet collapsed on the thick, mossy patch of grass. Harriet burrowed her face against William’s, her fingers busy unlatching his pants. Suddenly, her hand gripped his throbbing member, thick and veiny—so warm and strange, yet altogether wanted. She broke the kiss and gazed at William, lost in the emotion of it. “Is this what you want?” she murmured.
It was.
William rolled her onto her back. She linked her arms over his neck, gripping him as hard as she could as he slipped inside her. He made love to her, grunting, moving slowly and then faster and faster. Harriet felt fully folded into him, unable to imagine anything but skin and breath and the lust, bumping away in her chest.
He frequently dropped his head against her chest, kissing and licking her nipples, before drawing his head up and gazing at her, aghast, fully alive. When Harriet had the strength, she forced herself to look back at him, to stare into his eyes. She felt just as she had that evening in front of the Marquess’ mansion—as though they were the only two creatures in the world.
When it was over, William turned to his side and lay beside her, drawing his hand across her breasts and then holding onto her side. He drew her tight against him, dropping little kisses across her neck and cheek. She felt she was moving in slow motion. Her eyelashes crept across his beard. She dropped her face against his chest, never wanting to flee from this moment.
But as the minutes ticked away, both understood that they had to return to the garden party, so as not to be discovered. William helped Harriet to her feet. They both staggered a bit, laughing nervously as they fixed their clothes back into place. Harriet shoved each breast back into the light pink fabric, turning her eyes to the ground.
“I hope next time, I get to take that black cape off of you,” William said.
Harriet’s cheeks burned. “I can’t believe you found me.”
“It’s like I was looking for you all this time,” William returned. “And yet you were always here.”
Harriet linked her hand with his as they wandered through the last bits of the forest. When they spotted the first stone walls of the gardens, however, she faltered, fear overtaking her. William noted it immediately. He dropped her hand.
“I think we should go back in separately,” Harriet said. “Otherwise, they might suspect …”
“I’m ahead of you,” William said. He took several steps ahead of her, giving her a last wink. “Until we see one another again.”
Harriet waited several minutes, trying to force herself to breathe. Inhale, exhale. She felt as though breathing was a new thing she was having to learn in her newfound adult life, as she took one risk after another. In the wake of losing her virginity for the first time, she felt as though her skin was glowing, as though her heart might erupt from her body—as though every emotion she had spilled from her.
When she stepped back into the garden, she discovered that the others had been joined by her mother and father, along with Zelda and Renata’s mother and father. As was his custom, Harriet’s father was in the midst of a hilarious story, one that caused them all to fall into uproarious laughter.
Although Harriet hadn’t caught the tale, she, too, found herself giggling as she fell back into her chair. She felt the watchful eyes of Zelda and turned to match her gaze for a single second before dropping it. For whatever reason, she sensed that Zelda could see all the way through her.
“There she is, my darling daughter,” Lord Arnold said, giving Harriet an enormous grin. “I arrived and they said you’d taken some sort of walk by yourself. I wondered to myself if you’d ever join us again, or if you’d taken up some kind of séance in the woods, never to be seen again.”
“Father, you know I can’t resist a platter of biscuits,” Harriet said.
“That’s a lie,” Zelda blurted. “You haven’t touched them at all.”
“Come, now, Harriet. You don’t wish to be rude to your hosts, do you?” her mother said.
Harriet gave Zelda a rueful glare. “Getting me into trouble, are you?”
“I’m sure it’s not the only thing you’re up to,” Zelda said.
“Always up to something, isn’t she, my Harriet? Although she’s terribly close-lipped about it,” her father said good-naturedly. “Regardless, I wanted to interrupt your little garden affair this afternoon to announce something. I’m organising a party next week. A grand ball. It’s been nearly two years since we held anything of the like, and I suppose it’s high time. Don’t you?”
“Marvellous!” Renata cried, drawing her palms together. “You always do hold such wonderful parties, Uncle.”
Harriet turned her eyes towards William. She simply couldn’t help it. She was completely drawn to him, body and soul. He gave her a very slight, almost impossible to read smile back. Yet, Harriet felt the heart behind it: this next party, surrounded by so many people, they would be able to have a proper conversation. She would be able to tell him everything. And, in turn, he could tell her just why he’d been in the Marquess’ estate that night, lurking in the shadows.
They were two souls, hungry for the same thing. Finally, they would be able to unite fully.
Chapter 26
Harriet remained at Zelda and Renata’s after her parents and William took their leave. She felt a bit wild with adrenaline, unsure of how to exist in her bedroom alone. Although Zelda and Renata knew very little of her current personal affairs, she still felt an impossibly enormous desire to remain on with them, as though she was just 16 years old and they would spend the evening gossiping themselves to sleep.
It grew chilly as the sun set. Harriet shuffled in after Zelda, listening as Renata mumbled away about Hayward. It was her optimistic hope that they would be engaged before the end of summer. Both Zelda and Harriet forced themselves to respond in manners that sounded similarly dream-like. “Of course he’ll ask you,” Zelda said, rolling her eyes back playfully. “You’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him.” “If he doesn’t ask you,” Harriet chirped, hardly hearing herself, “then it’s clear he doesn’t see what a gift you are in his life. And therefore, not worth it.”
Upstairs, the girls gathered in Zelda’s bedroom. Renata began to unbutton her dress, allowing it to fall in a heap at her feet. Zelda’s eyes turned back towards Harriet, filled with curiosity. Harriet frowned, tilting her head.
“What is it? You’ve been looking at me strangely all day.”
“You’ve been acting strangely all day. I’m simply trying to figure out what’s going on in that head of yours,” Zelda returned. Her string-like arms turned to the back of her dress, unbuttoning.
Only Harriet remained fully dressed. She placed herself at the edge of the bed, crossing her ankles near the floor. “I haven’t been acting strangely. I’m just not wonderful in groups. You know that.”
Zelda snorted. “It’s all because of William Abernale, and you know it,” she said, arching her brow. “You turn to jelly in front of him.”
“I don’t,” Harriet murmured, casting her eyes to the floor.
“Zelda, you’re being terribly hard on our Harriet,” Renata said. She unlatched several clips and pins from her hair. Her curls cascaded down her back. “It’s not as though William has eyes for anyone but you, Zelda …”
At this, Zelda rolled her eyes once more towards Harriet as if to share a private joke. Harriet hadn’t the energy for it. She blinked around her cousin’s bedroom, gazing at the finery. The music box, the vintage mirror which echoed back their glowing cheeks and hair, the collection of jewellery. In the far-back corners of her mind, she felt herself counting just how much people like Oliver could gain from the finery in her cousin’s home—along with her own. Her lower back ached.
“I don’t know what it is about this thief,” Renata continued. “Do you actually believe it could be a she, the wa
y William said? Perhaps he got it wrong.”
Zelda shrugged. “Perhaps a woman is the only sort of person organised enough to rob from the evil men of this land.”
“Organised!” Renata scoffed. She dragged her fingers across her curls, shaking them out. “I can’t imagine thinking that someone who broke the rules of this land is organised … Villainous, perhaps …”
“No. I refuse to believe that.”
Zelda’s eyes glittered strangely. Harriet had the sudden, creeping suspicion that there was something lurking behind them; as though she understood precisely what Harriet was up to. Zelda was altogether too clever for her own good. Perhaps she’d put together the information regarding Harriet’s intense fatigue, alongside her moral compass …
“What do you think, Harriet?” Renata asked. “You’re being so quiet.”
Harriet sniffed. “I just can’t believe William was out so late, so far from his home. It’s dangerous on the streets at night. I’ve heard rumours about what happens south of the Thames. Men—selling corpses to doctors. Little children, picking up chamber pot soil. And then other men stealing the small amounts of money from these children. It’s a sort of jungle, operated without rules…”
Zelda and Renata blinked at Harriet as though she was an animal in the zoo. Renata’s face broke into a strange grin. “You sound like you’re telling a story, Harriet. I’ve never heard half of those things. How on earth could you know what happens south of the Thames?”
Harriet shrugged, but Zelda’s eyes continued to burn into her.
“I just heard some things from my father, is all.” Harriet sighed. “It exhausts me to think of all the wealth we have, knowing that people are out there dying on the streets …”
“Well, perhaps we should organise something,” Renata said, smacking her hands together like a child. “I’ll, of course, be rather busy with wedding preparations. But after that, we should put together a sort of food drive. I imagine Hayward would allow something like that …”
“Allow?” Zelda asked, her voice taut. “Do you hear yourself? You haven’t even been asked …”
Renata and Zelda fell into another anxious round of bickering. Harriet leapt from the bed and took long strides towards the door. She suddenly felt that if she remained in that room another moment more, she might suffocate. She gripped the handle and turned quickly towards her cousins, uttering, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” before rushing out the door.
When Harriet arrived home, she felt oddly pregnant with the secret of her affair with William. Her mother hardly blinked up at her when she appeared in the foyer, although Harriet felt strangely as though she was wearing a target on her chest.
Surely, people should be able to guess that she was no longer a virgin. Surely, this was a powerful, life-altering situation in her life—one more enormous than, say, growing a few inches taller. Certainly, it was on-par with getting the woman’s monthly flow …
Yet, as she had done this privately, with no one else’s knowledge but William, she had no one to whisper to about it. She felt even more isolated than before—even wilder than she had prior when her only secret had been the robberies. Giving a small wave to her mother, she hustled up the steps to her bedroom and collapsed on her bed, gripping the comforter hard, until her knuckles ached.
Whatever she’d been earlier that morning, she was no longer. And she had to sit with this information, stare at it in the face, feel everything that it did to her, without reprieve. Her assumption that William was surely not swimming in such panic at home was surely truth.
She was alone and entirely grown, a woman on the brink of the rest of her life. Yet at this moment, as darkness descended fully over London, she had nothing to do but gaze into it, wondering how she could ever be brave enough to continue.
Chapter 27
William took the following week off from his ordinary schedule of thieving from the rich. Now that he knew Harriet had similar inclinations—had even been the reason he’d started his own scheme to begin with—he felt a bit blown-over with emotion, unsure of how to proceed.
He wanted only to dance with Harriet, to feel her body close to his. He wanted to gaze at the glow of her breasts, bulging over her corset, to feel her eyes flickering up at him. The way she looked at him, he felt she wanted to give him everything. And in many ways, deep in the woods, she already had.
It was difficult to know what was swirling behind those eyes, especially now that William knew Harriet was given to secrecy. She was a far cry from any other woman in London, a different breed. He found himself staying up nights thinking of her, almost guiding his mind to dream up the vision of her after he closed his eyes.
How? How could she possibly exist? This creature who’d been given nearly everything—the only daughter of a Duke, born to an impossibly normal mother, to a world of tea parties and garden parties and grand balls.
How could she possibly have such a mind of her own?
On the evening of Duke Arnold’s party, Thomas arrived at William’s dressed immaculately, his shoulders pulled back as he stretched his long legs towards William’s door. William watched him from the foyer, similarly dressed, smirking a bit at his friend.
Thomas was far easier to read than Harriet. What he wanted in this world was simple. He yearned for the love of a good woman, for the kind of set schedule of courting, engagement, marriage, a proper estate, and a whole passel of children. The honesty of this warmed William’s heart.
“Are you quite ready, my good sir?” Thomas said, speaking in an overly pompous manner.
William struggled not to roll his eyes but delivered a sterling smile. “My good sir? Are you going to act like this all evening long?”
“Perhaps,” Thomas shrugged. “It depends on how well it works with Tatiana.” He moved his head a bit closer to William’s, muttering, “I heard tell that she likes a higher-class of man. The sort of man who takes himself more seriously. And as she’s been a bit cold to me as of late, I’m pulling out a new selection of tricks.”
Once inside the carriage, Thomas turned his attention to William’s romantic life. “And what of you, William? I dare say Harriet would take a spin with you around the ballroom. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. It must be your foreign nature. The fact that you were gone for so long. As though you have this extra set of skills, of knowledge. As though you want something more than the balls and the parties and the …”
“Thomas. This endless diatribe of words you’re spewing …” William said, half-teasing. “It’s going to make my head ache even prior to having a single sip of wine.”
When the Duke’s estate appeared before them, William took a sharp breath. In the greying evening light, the house looked remarkably regal, surrounded with lines of blustery trees. Carriages pulled up outside the imposing set of steps, which led to the two-storey double doors.
This was a separate entrance to the ordinary, everyday one, which added an element of difference to the evening. William adjusted his jacket and stepped his boot upon the damp soil outside the carriage. Thomas ambled after him. As they strode towards the steps, they joined the sea of Londoners—gowns stretching behind beautiful women, the fabric bouncing, and men lining themselves alongside, drawing their hands across the small of their backs.
Already, the music swirled out from the double doors. The sound of it was strangely nostalgic, lined with history from years and years of balls and parties and fine galas. People seemed to step quicker, already diving into the dance steps. Thomas burst up beside William, huffing.
“You’re walking so quickly, William! I’m going to be altogether too sweaty before I even see Tatiana …”
“Then slow down,” William said, side-eyeing him. “If you can’t keep up, that is.” He felt a dangerous edge to his own voice, proof that whatever happened that night—he was strangely up for it. He wanted passion, emotion, excitement. He felt he could burn down the entire world and all its evils, if only he had Harriet by his side.
&n
bsp;
A Ravishing Beauty in Disguise: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 21