The clock on the mantel chimed the hour like a harbinger.
Ding…say yes!
Dong…say no!
Outside she could determine the muffled clatter of a carriage winding home in the lateness.
Ten o’clock. On a Wednesday. Already some lights in the street were out and the transport that had brought him to her door was departed. At his request?
Who indeed might know if she were again to say yes? And freedom was found not only in the choice of a good book and a night alone. Another few moments and the maids would be finished. Easy to dismiss them to their beds and then to go to hers. With him. The very idea of it made her heart beat faster.
‘I am not the kind of woman to depend on this sort of arrangement, my lord. The freedom I spoke of today is important to me.’
‘I am not looking to shackle you into something you might live to regret.’
At that small set-down she reddened. Of course he would not be interested in a more lasting relationship. Still, she could not quite let it lie.
‘Why are you here, then?’
‘Because I like you.’
She sat speechless, for such a simple and uncomplicated reason negated all the more tangled arguments that spun around in her head.
He liked her? No expectation for anything different, no change or carefulness involved in maintaining a facade that might keep him happy? The admission was suddenly as freeing as the way he had conceded his argument on property rights, his lack of malice so unlike her dead husband that it had made her almost dizzy with the contrast.
And now an offer of more, and nobody else’s business save her own.
A clever man and a private man. A man who kept the world at bay so very easily.
Could she enjoy him without fear of all the other ties that drained a relationship in its never-ending complications? Simply be? Simply step into his arms and be?
‘I would not expect promises.’
The smile he gave her back melted her heart.
‘Of course I did not mean that you were even suggesting anything like that—’ She clamped her lips together to stop the babble further.
‘Bea?’
‘Yes?’
‘Be quiet.’
She began to laugh. ‘It is just that I should not wish you to think I was easy.’
‘Lord.’ His expletive was vexed as he removed his glasses and laid them down on the small table next to the sofa and when his hand reached out towards her the ring he wore on his finger glinted in the light, a soldier’s insignia engraved in gold.
‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man…’ The small ditty turned in her mind. What else had he been? When his thumb traced a line from her wrist to her elbow she took in a breath and leaned back, the warmth from the fire on her face and the heat from his touch lighting a fervour more intemperate even than the naked flame.
‘It cannot be here,’ she whispered as his touch skimmed across the bodice of her gown.
‘Then where?’
‘Upstairs. If you give me time to give the servants their leave to retire.’
His fingers stilled and pulled back.
‘It should just take me a moment.’ But he did not answer as she stood and scurried from the room.
After dismissing the staff for the night, Bea stopped in front of the mirror above the mantel in the dining room and met her reflection.
Fervent. Excited. Basked in promise.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Do not hope…’
The thin line between her eyes reappeared and although her dimples were attractive there was much more on her face that was not.
‘Just enjoy,’ she said more softly before taking a breath and opening again the door to the blue salon.
Chapter Nine
Her chamber smelt of flowers and of lemon soap. The floorboards beneath his feet were slippery with polish and the rugs covering them thick. His hand reached out to the bed that he could just make out in front of him, a large square of light grey with some sort of pattern on the eiderdown.
More flowers, he decided as his thumb skimmed the outline.
Suddenly he felt nervous, his lack of sight here in an unknown room more worrying than he had thought it would be. He was careful to lift his feet when he stepped around the chest at the foot of the bed.
‘The fire has just been stoked. It should be warmer soon.’ Bea sounded almost as nervous.
‘Do you have any wine?’ he asked as he sat down on the bed, the mattress squashing under his weight.
‘Not in my room,’ she replied. ‘I could go downstairs and get it…’
He stopped her merely by catching at her arm and pulling her on to his knee.
Better, he thought, his body beginning to rise with the promise of it all. Much better, he amended, as the warm softness of breast came against him.
He had locked the door as he had followed her through and when the bells of London pealed the hour of eleven he was glad.
Hours lay before them. Hours and hours and hours. He had never before made love with a woman who knew the limitations of his sight and the relief was all-encompassing. No need to demand the candles be snuffed out or the worry of what might happen should he fumble or lose his way.
Here and now he could just be, just run his finger along the side of her face and feel her breath, her heart, the beat fast and then faster as his thumb skimmed the line of her throat, satin-soft-smooth and slender.
‘Not as cold as last time,’ he whispered as a log fell into place in the growing fire.
‘And a lot more comfortable,’ she returned, his touch determining the deep indents in her cheeks as she smiled.
Outside the wind was louder and the first spits of rain hurled themselves against the glass and for a moment he felt like a green boy, wanting her but not quite knowing how to begin, the hardness of his need pushing between them.
‘I should take my hair down,’ she said, the words halfway between a question and a statement and he felt her arms rise to do it.
‘Let me.’ His fingers ran over the silken thickness and found the hidden pins. One by one he removed them and she sat perfectly still as, clip by clip, her hair began to fall, undone and tousled, until there were no strands left up.
Beatrice sat and waited, her body coiled into tight expectation. When this was finished what would be next? Each clip marked time, loosening promise, bringing the moment nearer when his fingers might reach for other parts. With the candles still burning on the bedside table everything was so…very visible. She wished she had thought to snuff them out, to leave only the fire-glow, so kind to the many faults beneath her clothes.
And when the last of her hair fell between them his fingers traced the shape of her nose and her brow and the angled line of her cheeks.
A picture. He was forming a picture.
‘I am not beautiful.’ Better to say it before he thought it.
He only laughed and brought her hand to his own face. ‘Close your eyes and feel me,’ he said, and she did so, the shape of his nose strong, his cheek marred by the scar, his chin rough from the lateness of the day where he had not shaved since the morning.
No picture but parts. Warm. Real. For a second she knew just exactly what it was he felt and was wondrous. Opening her eyes, she saw his amber glance waver.
‘Kiss me,’ she said, wanting the sense of control that she had never felt with Frankwell. Her tongue ran across her lips and she pushed against him.
The dam of restraint broke completely and his mouth came down, seeking, breathing, hot and needy. She felt his hands on the side of her face and on her neck and the heat of him was like a magnet, like a centre, like a place she could not get enough of, her own tongue dancing against his, seeking an entrance, tasting and challenging, the ache in her belly a fiery red.
She could not breathe without him, she could not exist alone, her hands threading through his hair and feeling another scar bigger than the one on his face, longer, more dangerous.
Cradling her hand, she brushed the heaviness of her breasts against his fingers.
‘God,’ he said and then repeated it. ‘You are a witch, Beatrice-Maude. I swear that you are. One kiss and I am a youth again starved of any finesse and restraint.’
‘I do not wish for restraint,’ she returned, the result of her words showing as a flush on his cheeks. For suddenly she just did not. This was not love but lust, and the full rein of such an emotion should not be pegged in by time or convention. Putting her hands against both sides of his shirt, she ripped it open. Just ripped it, exposing the bronzed and defined muscular chest of a man who was beyond beautiful.
Hers again! She was not careful as her fingers found his nipple and her mouth followed.
All the control that he had perfected across three years of anger broke free. This was nothing to do with what he could see or could not see. This was only about feeling and taking and the shirt that hung in tatters on his shoulders felt like a flag of freedom, a banner to release him from a heavy burden.
He could not believe how he felt, the meticulous detail of hiding his sightlessness so all-encompassing that it left little room for any other emotion. Until now. Until this minute. The shock of her teeth upon his nipple sending passion through every pore of his body.
More!
He bundled her hair in his fist and kept her there tasting until he could bear it no longer; with a quick movement he gathered her in his arms and laid her back on the bed, holding his hand against her as she went to move.
‘My turn now.’
He could almost imagine he saw the smile upon her face.