Once Upon a Scandal (34 page)

“You’ve been awfully productive with that ax,” she said.

“I’ve been trying to keep myself busy.” He turned to face her. “Apparently, I’m quite good at smashing things.”

“A man of many talents. Even more than I’d suspected.” She undid her cloak, setting it beside her on the settee, as he committed every moment to memory. No matter what happened between them, he’d been given this one day.

“Is it a worthy talent, do you think?” He approached her cautiously. “The ability to take something whole, knock it from its foundations, and break it apart?” He wasn’t speaking about firewood anymore.

“I suppose it depends,” she said, “on whether or not the pieces can be put back together.”

Her words hung in the air, as the tea he’d promised was forgotten. Jane looked as vulnerable and uncertain as he’d ever seen her.

He knelt on the floor at her feet. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that. I’m terrified, actually, even though I said I’d not admit to fear.” He reached up, folding her hands into his, his touch as gentle as he could make it. “I would give everything I have left, everything I am, to know the answer.”

When she withdrew her hands, his head bowed. “I understand,” he said quietly, looking away as he began to pull back. But her hand on his chin stilled him.

“No, you do not,” she said, raising his eyes to hers. “That tree you struck down? I think for the whole of its life, from sapling to maturity, it has longed for this moment and the chance to warm you. And if there was pain as it was broken apart, so be it.” She touched her fingers to his brow then, tracing down the curve of his whiskered cheek. “Its sacrifice was willingly made.”

He caught her hand, pressing it to his lips. “I hope to God that tree is a metaphorical one. Because I can’t keep you out of my heart. You are rooted there. And if I lose you, the pain will never leave. I’ll spend the rest of my days wishing I’d had the courage to tell you.”

“To tell me what, Benjamin?”

He took a deep breath, because once it was said, he would no longer be able to pretend otherwise. “That I love you. That your honesty and bravery made me want to stop living a lie. That without you, I will never be whole.”

Her head tilted to the side, her eyes soft, but for several long moments, she said nothing. And it was agony, the waiting, not knowing if her next words would destroy him. With each beat of his heart, he became more certain they would.

“When Mr. Wiggins came to my house today,” she said, her voice hesitant, “I thought I’d lost you forever. And it was the greatest pain I’ve ever felt. That I’d left you without saying goodbye.”

Her words felt like hammer blows. “You’ve been given this chance then,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ve known all along that I don’t deserve you.” And it was true. It was right and just that his sins not be forgiven.

“No, you don’t understand,” she said, clasping his hands. “I love you desperately. And I don’t care if either of us deserves anything. I want to be with you, no matter the circumstances. If that can’t happen, you must tell me. So I can run back through that maze of corridors, find my coachman, and escape into the night.”

“You do realize your coachman has long since left and that you’re stuck here until morning?” His heart was pounding wildly. Love. She’d said the word and could not take it back. “Not that I plan on letting you out of my sight, ever again.”

Her smile seemed to light her from within. “That would lead to shocking improprieties.”

“One can only hope.” His tone was teasing, but he had never been more serious. “We are two people without a past. But together, we can start again. If you will let me, I promise to love you, every day, for the rest of my life, with all that I have.”

“You’ve already willed me most of your possessions,” she said, one finger tracing his lips, sending a shaft of heat through him. “Have you forgotten it already?”

“Then take my heart … ”

Discreet reserve in a woman, like the distance kept by royal personages, contributes to maintain the proper reverence.—
Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

“Does your heart come with the rest of you?” she asked, staring up at him through her lashes. “Not that it isn’t a lovely organ, beating so constantly. But I think I would miss your eyes. Not to mention the wonderful things you can do with your lips and your tongue.”

Surely, she’d not meant that the way it sounded. “I do have a well-deserved reputation for wit.”

“And modesty, too.” She smoothed a strand of his hair. “But I was thinking of another skill set entirely.”

At that, his thoughts scrambled. Because she’d just moved closer, pressing against him.

“It’s really quite unfair, how you’ve kept those skills to yourself,” she continued, trailing her finger along his cheek. “When I would be your most attentive student ... ”

His body all but begged for her touch. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Will you?” Her hands were at his shirt, unhooking the buttons, slowly slipping it from his shoulders, until his chest lay bare. “Tell me then, how does this feel?” She leaned over, kissing down the length of his neck as he gasped.

“Like heaven.”

“And this?” She flicked her tongue along the nub of one nipple, teasing it, pulling it into the heat of her mouth as he shuddered with desire. It was raging through him, tensing every muscle.

“Like I’ve never wanted anything more.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t talk each thing through,” she whispered, eyes sparking. “I find I learn things best when I’m shown them.”

His heart skittered, as if loosened from its moorings, free from tethers. The two of them were alone together. No one else for miles.

“Then let me show you what you do to me.” He grasped one of her hands, flattening it against his heart. “Do you feel that?” She nodded mutely. He trailed her hand across his chest, her fingers leaving a trail of goose bumps in their wake. “Do you see what your touch does?” How seductive her smile was, not a hint of shyness, her mouth a revelation of enticement. He placed her forefinger on the pulse at the base of his neck. “Watch how my body responds to you.”

Moving slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, he began unbuttoning the neck of her traveling gown. So prim it was—high-necked and starched, almost severe in its styling—so very different from the clothes she’d worn as Lillianne. But devastating all the same, especially as her throat came into view, and then the edge of her chemise, and then the curve of her breasts.

“I think you should move faster,” she said, her voice catching. “Your pulse is beating so quickly, but your hands are taking an eternity.”

He’d have laughed if he weren’t so caught up in the beauty opening up before his eyes. The oil lamps flickered, casting a wash of gold against her skin, bared now to the light. Her breasts exposed to his gaze.

His undoing.

“Jane … do you know what will happen if I touch you further? I will strip all your clothes away, mine as well. And I will drive my body inside you, as hard and as far as I can, until I drive my way into your heart. I won’t be able to stop.”

Her eyes met his, naked with longing. “Don’t you know you’re already in my heart? And that I don’t want you to stop?”

He swept her up in his arms then and moved to his bedroom, kicking open the door, laying her on the soft coverlet set over a bed of down. The fire he’d stoked earlier was still burning, but it was nothing compared to the heat coursing through him. Because she was stripping off her gown and chemise, shimmying out of her stockings and slippers too. And then she was bare, all creamy skin and soul-shattering curves.

God above. “You are a masterpiece. I … ” He stumbled over the words. “Are you certain?”

She merely nodded, her teeth biting into her lower lip.

Slowly then, so as not to scare her, he stepped out of his clothes, peeling away each layer, until he, too, was naked before her.

Her eyes had gone wide at the sight of his arousal, just the slightest hint of fear. And it was crushing to think he could frighten her. “Shhh, don’t be scared,” he soothed, as he lay over her, flesh upon flesh, the sensation so incomparable he laid his head into her shoulder, just for the chance to breathe her in.

“You are the beautiful one,” she said, her voice threaded with need. “And I’m not frightened. I’m anxious.”

He smiled against her skin. “They are not the same thing?”

“Not at all. Not to my mind.”

“Tell me the difference then.”

“I have been frightened I would never see you like this,” she said, the blush across her chest unmistakable, for all her bold words. “But I’ve been waiting to feel you like this for so long, it has made me anxious.”

Her hands were pulling at his hair, lifting his head to center it over her own. Her eyes were eager, her lips soft as she joined their mouths. She was heat and need and pulsing desire. Suddenly, he could not get enough. Her breasts rounded against his chest. His legs tucked between her hips. His hand sought the nub at her core, rubbing along it, tentatively sliding a finger into her, then two, as her body began to writhe.

Each sensation stole his breath, magnified by emotion in a way he’d never known. As he kissed her, mouths melding, he pulled his fingers away from the heat of her, easing the tip of himself into her slick folds, shuddering with the need for restraint. It had never been more important that a woman find pleasure in his arms.

He’d made only the slightest movement when she thrust her hips against him, breath hissing from her lips, a moan caught in his mouth. He could feel the tension in her, a coiling of pain. But when he tried to pull away, to protect her from it, she held him fast, hands at his hips, pulling him against her once more, forcing him into a slow, pulsing rhythm.

And he was powerless against it. He wanted her so badly, had from the moment that began all of this. So he moved against her again, groaning at her heat, her scent, at the way her body clung to him. Marveling as her own breath became more fevered, her excitement palpable, rising with his. Their bodies moved in tandem, sweat between them, each thrust closer to the crest. Only when she cried out did he allow himself to do the same, throbbing into her, shuddering with his release.

• • •

Much later, Jane was still nestled in his arms.

“You’re marvelously creative,” she said, her voice drowsy, her head upon his shoulder as she burrowed closer.

“That’s because I have you as my source of inspiration,” he said, trailing his hand along her side, exploring each curve and hollow. He couldn’t seem to stop touching her. He wanted to learn every inch.

“Do you know, I’ve just remembered something.”

“What’s that, my love?” Another thing he couldn’t seem to stop doing. Saying that word. It was such a miracle. He’d bared his soul, and she’d not run screaming into the night.

“You never did make me your tea.”

He smiled up at the ceiling, the room gone dark now. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too many talents at once.”

“Such conceit,” she said, yawning. “It’s a good thing certain parts of you recommend themselves.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me which ones?” But as he peered down, he noticed her eyelids were slipping, her lashes crescent shadows against her cheeks. “No, I can see that will have to wait until morning. The list will be far too long.”

“It might even take a lifetime,” she sighed. “You can’t ever leave me if you want to hear them all … ” She nuzzled closer, her voice fading now. “Remind me to tell you about the grapes … ” And with that, she was asleep.

“Don’t you realize I can’t leave you?” he whispered, so as not to wake her. “You hold my heart in your hands, remember?”

April, 1816

Valladolid near Castile-León

Enjoying her breakfast out of doors at half past two in the afternoon, Sophia Middleton turned her face towards the sky, basking in the warm Spanish sunlight. For too long, she’d been kept from this, her magical estate set amidst olive trees, high in the hills above Castile-León. She and Stephano, her second husband, had been blissfully happy here before the wars began and death tore them apart.

But the wars were done now. After the second treaty of Paris, Louis of France was back on his throne. Napoleon had been exiled to the remote island of St. Helena, and English Society was once more spreading its wings, flying off by land and sea to climes denied them for the better part of a decade.

Calling for a snifter of brandy—it was the afternoon, after all—she settled into the tiresome correspondence she’d done her best to ignore, piled high on a silver salver. Why did people persist in writing her when she didn’t like the majority of them?

Still, one letter, more than two months old, earned a smile. It was from Lady Tremayne, usually based in London but traveling now in Greece.