It was distracting—hell, she was distracting, moving about with such grace and poise. She only spoke when someone addressed her, but when she did Maxwell’s ear latched onto the sound, its notes resonating through him like the vibrations of a tuning fork. One evening after dinner, his mother gathered everyone in the music room for a bit of entertainment. Several of the ladies were coaxed into playing or singing, with Adelaide Burton thrusting Violet front and center at every opportune moment. For one song, Josephine accompanied her sister on the pianoforte, head lowered as she skillfully provided the music for Violet’s song. While everyone had been arrested by Violet’s clear soprano voice, Maxwell found himself riveted to Josephine—noting the way her brow furrowed as she followed the sheet music, the way her eyes danced while her fingers moved over the keys, as if she found joy in what she did.
When the music came to an end and the guests applauded Violet, Josephine had glanced up to find him staring. Instead of looking away as she had every other time she caught him ogling her, she’d sat held in the same thrall that gripped him. Those pretty, plump lips of hers had parted, and Maxwell could have sworn he heard her breath hitch through the clamor of applause and requests for another song.
Now, he sat in the library for the second night in a row, staring into the crackling fire he’d lit upon entering. He wasn’t certain why he was here, when he hardly ever spent time in this room. Typically, he would send a servant for the tome he wished to read and enjoy it in his room. But hope had drawn him here, the chance that he might get Josephine alone again prompting him to take up a silent vigil in the library.
It was madness, but he couldn’t resist the urge to see her again and explain himself. He hadn’t been out of society and away from normal people long enough to forget one important thing about women: actions like his often led them to believe the fault lay with them. Perhaps she assumed he hadn’t wanted the kiss, or had meant to play games with her. That she might assume this bothered him almost as neglecting to kiss her did. And so he sat, staring into the hearth and waiting for the telltale pad of soft footsteps alerting him to the presence of another.
She’d confided that she often read late into the night, which meant she might be finished with the first novel by now.
His theory was proven right a moment later, when the cracked door swung open to reveal Josephine, wearing the same dressing gown as before, her hair arranged in a series of neat braids pinned about her head like a halo. A few of those stray curls had fought their way loose, kissing her forehead and temples, and tempting him to pull on them and watch them stretch and spring. She held the book against her chest, and had her lamp lifted to illuminate her way.
He hoisted himself up with his walking stick and stood staring at her, struck dumb as his heart took up a rapid cadence in his chest.
“Oh,” she murmured, drawing up short at the sight of him. “I didn’t meant to disturb … I’ll just go—”
“Wait,” he called out, stumbling forward on unsteady legs. “Don’t go. I … I actually wished to speak with you.”
Biting her lip, she leaned against the door, making it click shut behind her. However, she made no move to approach him, watching him with wary eyes.
He resumed his place on the love-seat near the fire and gestured for her to join him. “It’s warmer over here.”
She hesitated only a moment before approaching, her movements stiff as she set her lamp on a nearby table and sank down beside him. That sweet, floral scent overwhelmed him, emanating from her as if she’d just rolled in a flowering meadow. He suppressed a groan when his mind became flooded with fantasies of her in a tub, water lapping at her breasts, one leg raised as she used a bit of toweling to spread fragrant soap over her skin.
Talking … he was supposed to be talking, not thinking about Josephine’s wet, slippery body in a steaming bathtub.
Realizing she waited for him to begin, he cleared his throat and set his walking stick aside, leaning it against the side of the love-seat. He angled himself so he faced her, his good leg bent on the cushion of the seat.
“I wanted to apologize for the other night. It was not my intention to upset or offend you.”
The tension in her body eased a bit, and she gave him a tight, forced smile. “There is nothing to apologize for. The other guests have been trading kisses under the mistletoe since we arrived. I was certain you couldn’t have been thinking of the impropriety of the situation when you brought it to my attention.”
He blinked, taking a moment to absorb her words and what they meant. She had decide to write off the moment as a bit of frivolity, despite the fact that he’d never given her reason to believe him a frivolous man. Perhaps in his youth he had been, but she hadn’t known him then. She couldn’t be mistaken about the gravity of the moment, which meant she had convinced herself it had been nothing more than a harmless lark.
That should be enough for him. He ought to force a laugh and tell her that she was right—he had simply forgotten they were alone in a dark room in the middle of the night, and being caught kissing her would create a monumental scandal.
For reasons he didn’t understand, that bothered him. He didn’t want to write it off or pretend that night hadn’t marked the first time in over a year he’d desired to be so close to another person.
Resting his arm along the back of the love-seat, he leaned a bit closer.
“I wasn’t apologizing for almost kissing you,” he said, his voice a low, grating rasp. “I was apologizing for not kissing you.”
Her eyebrows shot up, mouth dropping open in shock before she quickly collected herself. “Oh, I … I see.”
“I don’t think you do. It has been some time since I’ve been so near a woman.”
She nodded slowly, her grip tightening on the book. “Of course. I understand. You might have been so compelled with any woman who traipsed about your family’s home half-dressed in the middle of the night.”
Damn it, he was making a muddle of this. Now she thought him some ravenous beast, stalking the corridors at night seeking some helpless woman to debauch.
“No,” he said, biting out the word with a harshness he hadn’t intended.
He lifted the hand resting on the back of the sofa and gingerly touched her shoulder, running his fingers over the textured brocade of her dressing gown.
“No, I wouldn’t have been so compelled. I did not phrase my thoughts well, so allow me to be clearer. I have been cloistered away in this house for a year, but even still have encountered any number of women I might have felt such urges toward. But none of them tempted me. I haven’t kissed a woman in so long because I haven’t wanted to. Not until now … not until you.”
She stiffened beneath his fingers, but made no attempt to draw away or upbraid him for his boldness. “Why me?”
His touch traveled up her neck until he was stroking the gentle slope of her cheek with one fingertip. He nearly shuddered at the feel of her skin, like watered silk, his palms itching with the need to explore more of her.
“Because, of all the people in this house, you are the only one who seems to be able to look me in the eye without flinching away. Everyone else looks at me and sees an uncomfortable reminder of the realities of war. They see a dead man walking, a ghost. I don’t know what you see when you look at me, but whatever it is, it doesn’t frighten you. I haven’t been looked at that way since … well, before.”
He gestured toward his leg, though his words referred to far more than that. Her gaze flicked to his injured limb, then came swiftly back to him, her expression melting into one of understanding.
She relaxed, her face easing into the cradle of his palm. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, coming near the corner of her mouth. Releasing a shaky exhale, her eyes became heavy-lidded.
“I see a man who has been hurt, a man who does not belong in his surroundings. And I think I even see a part of myself in you. The same part that wishes people would see me as something other than the daughter of a whore
and a burden upon the family forced to take me in. Oh, that sounds so utterly ridiculous!”
When she tried to turn away from him, he took her chin in a firm grip and turned her back to him, easing ever closer. His knee touched her thigh, her enticing scent wrapping itself around him and pulling him in. His mouth watered for the elusive taste of her, and now instead of being afraid he felt as if he would die if he didn’t kiss her, and soon.
“It isn’t ridiculous. That is exactly how I feel when I look at you. I didn’t understand it until you described it, but you are right. I think it is why I wanted to be near you when I’ve spent every day since I arrived home from Crimea avoiding contact with another person. It hurts too much to know they no longer see me as they once did. As if I am now half a man.”
Her gaze lowered, taking him in from head to toe. Instead of concentrating on his injured leg as so many others did, she took stock of the rest of him—his chest and abdomen, his arms, the empty hand resting on his thigh. Then, she was looking into his eyes again, drowning him in prisms of sable, honey, and amber.
“You certainly appear whole to me.”
He became seized with the urge to lay her down, cover her with his body, and ravage her mouth until they were both forced to come up for air. Instead, he held back and let himself revel in the anticipation of the moment. It had been so long since he’d felt this way; he was like a boy again, anticipating that first sweet taste of passion. His hands shook as he cupped her face, tilting her head at just the right angle.
“I am not a good man, Josephine,” he warned her, leaning in to rest his forehead against hers as he had that night under the mistletoe. “I wasn’t one before I went off to war, and becoming injured and being forced to come home in shame hasn’t changed that. The first man to kiss you ought to be a better one than me. I am not wrong in assuming you’ve never been kissed?”
She shook her head, such a look of sadness coming over her face that he wanted to storm out into the world and hurt whoever or whatever had put it there.
“May I ask why not?”
Josephine brought both hands up to clutch at his wrists, closing her eyes. “Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been aware of the sorts of assumptions people make about me because of the way I look. I was sent to live with Adelaide just before my fourth birthday, and from that day she never ceased reminding me how low her expectations were. I was a sinful creature like my mother, one who had been born with immorality in my blood. I never had to do anything but exist for her to think me a liar, a cheat, a thief, and a wanton. As I grew older, I came to see that everyone else expected such behaviors of me as well. As a result, I’ve spent my entire life fighting against the prejudice and preconceived notions of others. That meant becoming a woman above reproach, and being the sort of person Adelaide could never find fault with—though she often goes out of her way to find fault anyway.”
“It meant never being kissed.”
She nodded, her nose lightly bumping his and her breath whispering against his cheek. “I don’t think I truly wanted it either. Until you.”
Closing his eyes, he dragged in a ragged breath. Instinct told him she wanted the kiss as much as he did, but having her confirm it only made his desire more acute.
“Josephine,” he groaned, moving his hands down to her shoulders and stroking the delicate wings of her collarbone with his thumbs. “God help me, I shouldn’t do this. But I want it.”
“So do I.”
Those words crumbled the last of his defenses, and he surged toward her with a strangled sound of surrender burning in his throat. He clutched her tight to him, his entire body thrumming like the plucked string of a cello. Despite the desperation tearing through him, he took her lips with as much care as he could manage. The last thing he wanted was to scare her away with the force of his ardor.
She melted into the kiss, following the subtle nudge of his mouth urging her to part her lips for him. He gently prodded and explored, a heady tingle spreading from where their mouths touched, across his face and farther, to every corner of his body. A part of him he had thought destroyed sprang back to life, opening and unfurling from deep within. He guided her hands to his shoulders, his skin burning from the touch of her hands through the fabric of his coat and shirt. Wrapping his arms around her, he urged her closer, until she practically straddled his thigh. The little sound of surprise and pleasure she made at the sudden closeness sent another powerful wave of potent desire through Maxwell. He deepened the kiss, nibbling and tugging at her plump lower lip, his hands caressing up and down her back.
“Relax, darling,” he murmured against her lips. “Yes, just like that.”
She sank into his embrace, the last of her reticence falling away as her tentative kisses grew bolder. Her hands traveled, tickling up the back of his neck and into his hair. Her fingernails gently raked over his scalp, sending his heart crashing against his breastbone and more splashes of color and light dancing behind his closed eyelids.
Suddenly, even this much closeness wasn’t enough. He needed her flush beneath him, the lush curves of her body fitting against his solid planes. One hand braced at her lower back, he cupped her head and slowly lowered her to the cushions, easing his body over hers. He opened his eyes to find her staring up at him, her eyes heavy-lidded and glistening as if she were inebriated. He felt quite out of sorts himself, drunk off the taste and scent of her and desperate for more.
He reached for the belt of her dressing gown, and she stiffened, fisting the shoulders of his coat.
“Shh,” he urged, bending his head to nuzzle her neck as he worked the knot loose. “I just want to be close to you. Too many layers …”
Relaxing, she allowed him to open the robe, revealing a prim white nightgown buttoned to the throat. Through the thin cotton, he made out the succulent dark brown peaks of her nipples, hardened and begging to be taken in to his mouth. With a rough sigh, he lowered his head to her shoulder and fought for composure. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose his head and ruin her right here in the library.
Her movements snapped him out of his reverie, and he eased up to help her remove his coat. Josephine’s breaths came in swift pants now as she peeled the coat from his shoulders, then braced her hands against his chest as he worked his arms free of the sleeves. Once he tossed the garment to the floor, she began tearing at the buttons of his waistcoat. It fell into a heap atop his coat, then he came back over her, biting back a groan at the feel of her breasts against him—soft and full with the taut peaks of her nipples teasing him through his shirt.
One of her legs fell off the side of the sofa, allowing him to fit between her thighs. Her eyes widened with uncertainty as she felt the hard, throbbing bulge pushing against the placket of his trousers. Maxwell obliterated that uncertainty with another kiss, this time stroking his tongue along the seam of her lips. She opened to him, moaning as he stroked along the inside of her mouth, then plunged deep, seeking out more of her intoxicating taste.
“God, you’re so sweet,” he whispered between kisses. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”
He slipped a hand to her waist, skimming it up until he cupped the heavy underside of one breast. She arched her back, undulating against him in a mindless fit as he strummed one finger over a pebbled nipple.
“Josephine … I want to … but I can’t. Christ, I have to stop.”
He was losing control, his kisses going from sweet and seductive to ravaging. He sucked and bit at her lip, rasped his tongue against hers, devouring her like the delectable morsel she was. His hips surged against hers, seeking friction and pressure, the tension in his groin winding tighter and tighter until he felt he would burst if he didn’t sink as far and deep into her as possible.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, clinging to his shirtfront and raising her head to chase his retreating lips. “I never imagined … I never knew it would be this way.”
“It’s never been like this,” he murmured, pressing soft kisses to her che
ek, her chin, her neck. “It’s you, Josephine. You make me forget that I shouldn’t want this.”
“Why not?” she asked, then gasped when he circled his tongue over her thrumming pulse point. “Why shouldn’t you, Maxwell?”
Drawing on every ounce of his will, he drew back, bracing himself over her. Disappointment mingled with the desire clouding her eyes. Her kiss-swollen lips beckoned to him, nearly driving him back into the thoughtless abyss. Closing his eyes, he hung his head and took a deep breath.
“Because, I cannot give you what you deserve,” he whispered, refusing to meet her gaze for fear he would lose himself again. “I would want to give you my all … but there is only so much left for me to offer.”
Her hand came against his cheek, the softness of her touch making him long for things that had nothing to do with the physical. It made him want to lay his head on her breast and rest his burdens before her. It made him desire things he couldn’t have, not unless he wanted to doom this woman to a life spent with a broken man.
“I barely survive day to day as it is,” he said, kissing the center of her palm. “You should have a man who can brighten your world and make you smile, Josephine. Not one who darkens it.”
“I am no stranger to darkness,” she whispered, feathering a light kiss over his furrowed brow.
His face eased as she gave him more of those drugging kisses, her lips touching one eyelid, his cheek, his nose, his jaw. He didn’t want her to stop, but if he let this go on any longer, he’d forget all the reasons he must put a stop to it.
Gently prying her hand away from his face, he retreated and pulled her to a sitting position. He continued avoiding her gaze while pulling the sides of her dressing gown closed before retying the belt.
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