Almost A Spinster (21 page)

With a frown, Nathan released her wrist and leaned back against his palms. He stared up at the cloudless sky above with a heavy sigh, the sound of a man resigned to something he had been avoiding.

“That is a fair statement, Maddie. It’s true I have been reticent in sharing much information with you. But if I am to demand more from you, I suppose I have no choice but to give you the same kind of history that I request. So you want to know of my family.”

Maddie relaxed back onto the blanket, no longer driven to run. She could see the pained expression in Nathan’s eyes and she longed to touch his cheek, to make him smile, to take that hurt away, even though it was not her place.

“Yes,” she found herself saying softly. “If you will share that with me, I would be honored to know more about you.”

“Honored,” he repeated, a humorless chuckle escaping his lips. “There is not much of that in my tale. My father was a gentleman’s son, but not a peer. My grandfather had little money, though, and high aspirations for his son. He wanted my father to have
more
to be
more
and my father danced to his desires until the day he slept in his grave.”

Madeline wanted so desperately to say something to comfort him, but she forced herself to remain quiet as he continued.

Nathan stared at the grass that peeked around the edge of the blanket. “My father became an estate manager, just as I am. But instead of settling into his duties, instead of being respectable, every moment he worked at being his employer’s lackey. He kowtowed and bowed and let himself be the brunt of every joke. If a peer said jump, my father’s immediate reply was to ask how high. He made a fool of himself every day. Every night he spiraled further into a drunken haze. I think he must have hated himself.”

Maddie nodded slowly. She could understand his father’s actions in some way. As someone who had always been within Society, but also far removed from its inner circle, she had often been tempted to play the fool for a moment’s attention. But she had resisted.

Clearly Nathan’s father hadn’t. And Nathan had been forced to watch it. Which certainly explained his rigid attention to the rules of interaction between peers and those who were not. And his dark feelings toward those with rank.

Including her when he discovered the truth.

“I am surprised you followed him into your profession,” she said softly, forcing herself to speak past the lump in her throat.

“I was lucky that a few of the men who were witness to my father’s actions recognized that I had talent or intelligence of some kind. It was suggested to his employer that I be sent to Eton with some of the other lads. For whatever reason, he agreed. And there are certainly plenty of boys there who are not part of the peerage. I thrived, though I never let myself play my father’s games.” His eyes grew dark and distant. “I kept myself at a respectable length from those who were above me. Even those who seemed to want to be my friend. It was better that way. Shortly after school was over, one of my classmates inherited the title of Viscount and I became his estate manager.”

“Yes, you and Lord Fulton are of an age, aren’t you?” Maddie murmured, thinking of the friendly, engaging Marcus Fulton. He had been kind enough to dance with her a few scant times at balls in the past, though she doubted she had ever stayed much in his mind. She couldn’t imagine Fulton treating Nathan as his poor father had been treated.

But she would wager that Fulton also made overtures to be Nathan’s friend. It was simply his nature.

“Do you
know
the Viscount?” Nathan asked, his gaze snapping to her face again.

Maddie blanched. Yet again, she had allowed her distraction to interfere with her reason. First, she had slipped up about her father’s expensive horse, now she had made a remark about Fulton that implied a familiarity. Her entire web of lies would unravel before sundown at this rate.

“I have-I’ve seen the man,” she said, avoiding the direct lie once more and hating herself for it.

Nathan nodded slowly, but she could see from his posture and expression that he was not fully satisfied yet. “Now I have shared a bit about my own past. So tell me about your family. What led you to taking a position as a lady’s maid if your family had enough money to afford an Arabian?”

Maddie bit her lip. “I-I-” she stammered. But there was nothing to it. The fact was that she had no more lies, no more ways to avoid the truth. The time had come to be honest with this man and suffer the consequences. At least she had experienced a few days with him that had changed her life. She could hold onto those things forever.

“Nathan-” she began, drawing a shuddering breath.

He leaned forward and suddenly his bare fingers stroked her cheek in a feather light touch. The air between them grew heavy and charged and all Maddie could do was stare into his eyes and blink foolishly.

“What are you so afraid of?” Nathan whispered.

“You,” Maddie blurted out before she thought. “Of what you’ll think of me, of what you’ll say, of what you’ll-”

Before she could continue, Nathan threaded his fingers into her hair and dropped his mouth to hers. All the words on Maddie’s lips, all the thoughts in her mind, drained in a startling lack of time. For that brief moment, Nathan’s touch was all that mattered. Feeling his lips move over hers, tasting his tongue as he gently, slowly took more fully, those were her life’s blood.

And this time, she knew it would be the very last time it happened. So she savored it. She refused to end it and she prayed Nathan felt the same.

#

Nathan recognized the moment when Maddie surrendered not just her arguments, but her body, to him. It was in the way she went weak in his arms. It was in the catch in her breath.

But mostly it was in her kiss. Suddenly her mouth was hot and sweet and ready, her breath in short pants, her tongue meeting his with less of the innocence she had exhibited the first time they kissed.

And Nathan was… lost. Washed away, yet again, on a sea of heady desire, overwhelmed by feeling. It should have been terrifying, since it represented everything he’d fought against his entire life.

Instead, it was right.

And he knew that this time nothing would stop him from doing more than merely kissing Maddie. He wanted to burn the memory of her touch deep into his skin. He wanted to make her shiver and cry out his name.

There were consequences to such a thing, of course. But he knew exactly what they were and he actually welcomed them.

Nathan shifted every part of his concentration onto Maddie’s touch. She had slipped her hands up the rough fabric of his jacket and was clenching at the fold of his lapels, pulling him closer. Her breasts flattened against his chest and he felt her heart pounding against his own.

Slowly, gently, he detangled one hand from her hair and glided it down her back, tucking her even tighter into the curve of his body. When she scooted to her knees and their hips touched, she let out a hiss of breath that caused sensation to multiply. He could feel her touch, taste her in every pore and nerve of his body. As if she had, with one passionate kiss, overtaken a piece of his soul.

One he relinquished freely.

As their mouths mated, Nathan lowered her onto the soft blanket, covering her body with his and reveling in the feel of her length beneath him. It had been a long time since he felt the pleasures of a woman’s heat against his own, and certainly he had never been with a woman who inspired such deep and passionate emotion, as well as desire.

Pulling away, he stared down into Maddie’s brown eyes, dilated with desire, her lips swollen and pink from his, her cheeks flushed. God, how he wanted her. But not on a blanket in the open. Not in some hurried fashion where he couldn’t insure she felt nothing but pleasure.

“Maddie,” he said softly, beginning to pull away as he knew he should.

She grabbed his shoulders with a wild shake of her head. “No,” she pleaded. “Not yet. Just a little while longer before-”

With a deeper blush, she cut herself off and Nathan groaned. She had no idea the pressure she was putting on his ability to remain a gentleman. She wanted more and he wanted nothing else than to give her more. Take more.

He shut his eyes. “Very well, Maddie,” he whispered, lowering his lips to hers to brush a light kiss across them. “Just a taste of what I’ll give you later, when we are alone. When there isn’t anything separating us.”

Her eyes widened, but before she could speak he brushed his hand down the front of her plain gown. She shivered as he let his fingers glide over the rise of her breast and felt the pebbling effect on her nipple beneath the fabric.

“Nathan,” she moaned, part question, part plea.

“Shh,” he soothed, cupping her and feeling his erection swell. “Just let me, Maddie. I swear to you I won’t take anything from you…” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Yet. Not here.”

She hesitated for a moment and he saw a thousand thoughts rush through her mind before she nodded. “Y-Yes. I trust you.”

He dropped his mouth to hers, continuing to massage her breast as he plundered her lips. Soon, Maddie began to lift her hips to his, little breathless moans gasping out between kisses as she surrendered to the pleasure of being touched for the first time.

With that thought thrilling him, Nathan let his hand sweep lower, gliding over the curve of her stomach, across her hip, down to her thigh where he caught a handful of cotton skirt and began to ball it up. Lifting, he slipped his hand beneath and rested his palm flat on the warm silk of her stocking-clad knee.

Maddie bucked at the touch and her hips rolled up to grind against him, eliciting an unbidden moan from his lips that broke their kiss and send starbursts of pleasure to explode before his cloudy vision.

A great shiver wracked her body from head to toe. Her eyes grew wide as saucers and she blinked at him a few times before she whispered, “Oh.”

When he reached the top of her stocking, she let out another shiver when skin met skin. How he wished he could see the flush of her flesh, watch the damp desire coat her, see her breasts arch up as he slid his finger to the crease of her thigh and hip. But there would be another time for that in the future. For now, he had to be satisfied with
feeling
her reactions and seeing them reflected in her expression.

There was plenty of satisfaction in both when he finally brushed his fingertips across the cleft between her thighs. Pink heat flushed Maddie’s cheeks and her eyes fluttered shut as she let out a broken moan. Her legs clenched ever so slightly, just enough tension that it limited his movements.

But he was gentle, he went slowly, although it pained him to do so. Stroking, opening, coaxing, he touched her. When his fingertips grew wet with the evidence of her arousal, her thighs slowly began to unclench and her eyes opened on a sigh.

Maddie sunk her teeth into her full lower lip and tilted her head to examine his face closely. “Show me,” she finally said, so low that he hardly heard it.

He met her stare, not allowing her to look away. Then, without saying anything, without breaking the gaze, he glided one finger into her tight, clenching sheath. Her hips jolted at the intrusion and she expelled her breath with a gasp. Her back arched as he gently curled the digit, dragging it in and out of her body with a steady, smooth rhythm.

He watched every moment, every reaction, with bated breath. He loved how her legs shook as she neared completion. The way her body clenched around him made him rock hard for her. But it was the expression in her eyes that drove him to give her ultimate pleasure. Her face was entirely open, her stare trusting.

Finally, she clenched the blanket in her fists and let out a low, strangled cry of pleasure. Her hips bucked, shivered and then she collapsed, weak on the wrinkled blanket. Reluctantly, Nathan withdrew from her still quivering sheath and smoothed her skirts back over her legs. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to her lips. One she returned with the same amount of passion as he still felt coursing through his veins.

Maddie opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Thank you,” she whispered and he thought there was the faint hint of tears there.

He frowned. “It’s only the beginning, Maddie. There is so much more. And I will show you, but not like this. Not when it’s secretive and hidden and-”

Maddie interrupted him by flinching and rolling away. She got to her feet, smoothing her skirt as she did so. Nathan looked up at her with growing concern. What in the world made her look so forlorn, made her shove her trembling hands behind her back? Made her unable to meet his eyes.

“Nathan,” she began, her voice cracking. “There is something you should know. I should have told you from the beginning.”

He stood up and stepped toward her. “Then tell me now. There should be no secrets between us.”

Maddie sucked in a pained breath. It was clear she was struggling with whatever confession she felt driven to make and Nathan’s heart began to pound ever faster as he waited.

She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, another voice interrupted.