Chapter Fifteen
Her breath caught. He was asking her to trust him, to be his lover in this place where they could keep the world out, where others wouldn’t dictate whether or not they could be seen together. It was a chance to answer the question she’d posed for herself at the station in London just this morning: what could they be if they had a chance to just be Jasper and Fleur, removed from the circumstances of their association? Her body thrummed with the innate recognition that she wanted to know. She wanted to know that answer very much.
‘If you dare, I dare,’ she breathed, the realisation settling on her that she dared more than trusting him, she dared her heart, she dared a testing of the feelings she’d not yet been willing to name. She was falling for Jasper Bexley, the man. She could not keep shoving that knowledge to the side.
He moved into her, hands at her waist, his mouth hovering inches from hers as he whispered, ‘I dare.’ He sealed it with a kiss, claiming her mouth with his. This was not like the ravenous kisses they’d shared before in her office or at the Harefields’. This was unhurried, but no less heated for it. The slow burn that spread through her body carried its own brand of intoxication, its warmth searing away opposition in its wake until it was impossible to not want this, to not want him.
All the reasons why this would be a poor idea were obliterated with the stroke of his tongue against her lips, the press of his body against hers, reminding her of the possibilities between them, not the problems. He made her hope—perhaps she did deserve a second chance—it was a wild, reckless hope, full of moonlight’s magic and none of daylight’s realities.
Her hands reached for his neckcloth, moving to untie it. He chuckled against her mouth, his own hands disengaging to reach for hers. ‘Tonight, I want to be with you in a proper bed, without worry of discovery hastening our lovemaking. We have all night; I want to make the most of it.’ It was a promise of pleasure, a pledge of protection. He would not take her here, out of doors.
All night.
The prospect sent a delightful tremor through her even as the thought came to her that he’d also want things in exchange—not merely physical passion.
I want to be with you in a proper bed.
She was ready to give that, ready to feel the comfort of being with another. He’d want the things that went with it. He’d not said he wanted to have her in a proper bed, bedding her like some archaic medieval lord, but that he wanted to be with her. He was asking for her trust, for her presence in a way she’d not given it to him before. This was going to be a deliberate act of lovemaking, not the outcome of spontaneous, riotous emotions, which could be excused in the morning.
And I want it. With him, came the warm thought.
Upstairs, his bedroom was lit with a single lamp that bathed the space in a soft light, a welcoming light. Covers on the tall, carved oak four-posted bed had been pulled back and Jasper’s robe had been laid out. The small intimacies sent a shiver of anticipation through her, a reminder that lovemaking was a domestic act, a large intimacy full of smaller ones.
‘Shall I play the maid tonight?’ Jasper whispered at her ear, his hands already working the laces of her gown, making it a rhetorical question. He pressed a kiss to her neck and she let the warmth of him seep into her skin as he continued his slow seduction. He undressed her with his hands, his mouth dropping kisses to welcome the newly bared skin.
She gave an appreciative sigh as he pressed a kiss to her back. ‘You are remarkably good at undressing.’
‘Not undressing,’ he murmured, his hands unfastening petticoat tapes. ‘Unveiling.’ The word was punctuated by the soft landing of her petticoat and the silent fall of her crinoline cage shortly after. The last of her undergarments gave way. She was entirely nude, entirely free to feel him against her skin—his chest to her back, his hips to her buttocks, the hard length of him making itself known through the fabric of his trousers as it butted up against her.
His hands cupped her breasts, kneading them gently, thumbs brushing over her nipples in languid strokes, his mouth at her ear. ‘Have you ever seen Michelangelo’s sculptures The Slaves?’ he whispered. ‘They are statues cut from marble, but they are not entirely finished, on purpose so that it seems as if the marble is a chrysalis the figures are emerging from.’
He nipped at her ear. ‘What makes them magical is the sense of effort, of energy one senses when viewing them. It’s as though the statues are actively struggling to be free of the marble, the way a baby chick struggles to pierce the membrane of an egg, or a foal struggles to be born.’ He blew gently into her ear. ‘Unveiling you is like that, Fleur. Each piece of clothing discarded releases you.’
Yes, yes, to all of that, her heart sang. To be free. The clothes were just a metaphor. It was the world she was being freed from. Here in this chamber, naked with this man, she need not worry about the newspaper, about the pressures of being a woman alone in a man’s world. She needed only to be herself. She turned in his arms, catching his mouth in a kiss of her own. ‘Let me give you that freedom, too. Let me release you from your marble chrysalis,’ she whispered, her hands working loose the snowy folds of his cravat, carefully setting aside the gold stickpin.
She undid the buttons of his waistcoat, unfastened the links at his cuffs, liking the domestic feel of helping a man—her man. ‘Have you ever considered why it is that a woman must be undressed from the back but a man is always undressed from the front?’ She slid him a coy glance as she pulled his shirt tails from the waistband of his trousers.
‘Are you going to tell me?’ He nuzzled her neck, his mouth teasing her as she worked.
‘I have my opinions.’ She slid her hands beneath his shirt along the warm planes of his chest, wanting to feel him before she saw him. He felt good, warm and solid to the touch. What exquisite musculature he had. She undid his shirt, button by button, outlining her premise. ‘I think it’s about power, about self-sufficiency. A woman cannot help herself, even in a pinch. In an emergency a gentleman can dress himself. But the wealthier a woman is, the less likely she is able to perform that simple daily function for herself.’
Fleur finished her unbuttoning and pushed the shirt from his shoulders. She’d not been wrong. He was spectacular. ‘You look even better than you felt,’ she breathed. It was a bold comment, but it pleased him. She watched his eyes darken, his desire growing. He reached for her, but she staved him off with a shake of her head. ‘I am not done. You are not free yet. Almost.’ She promised, ‘Soon.’
‘Hurry,’ he said in a husky whisper.
Her hands dropped to his waistband. ‘Do you think that is how your sculptures felt? Hurry. Free us.’ She pushed his trousers over lean hips, her sense of anticipation growing, heightening at the sight of his arousal. He kicked his trousers away and she stared in awe at what she’d unveiled. Such masculine beauty had lain beneath those clothes, a beauty that was at once both rough-hewn and smooth-carved, a body that fulfilled the contradictions she’d perceived in him that first day. She could not help herself. Fleur reached a hand to trace the musculature at his hip where the sinews tapered down towards his groin. She’d not seen such definition before.
‘That’s the iliac girdle.’ He gave a juddering breath as her fingers feathered over his abdomen.
‘And this?’ She closed her hand over the length of him, feeling the hot pulse of him, his member hard and solid within her touch even as his breath came in shaky gasps. ‘I believe we’ve not been formally introduced.’ She loved that this was driving him wild, testing his restraint.
‘Phallus.’ He murmured the word against her mouth. She could feel him smile as he kissed her.
‘You’re free now.’ She let him dance her back towards the big bed with its inviting turned-down covers. They were both free. The newspaperwoman and the Marquess had been left on the floor, discarded shells from which Jasper and Fleur emerged. She laid back on the bed and pulled him to her, cradling him between her legs. Her body was wet and hot and wanting and his answered. There would be time later for exploration, for lounging in one another’s arms. This was not Harefield’s garden. There’d been no time then, no unveiling. There’d been only sensation, combustible and bright like a firework and just as fleeting.
He came into her and she let the feel of him fill her, let it purl through her as she gave a slow arch of her back in response, savouring him, welcoming him. The old urge came to close her eyes, to fall into the sensation, but he would not have it. ‘Stay with me, watch me as I watch you,’ he murmured the instruction, his hips moving against her, setting an easy rhythm. ‘Don’t leave me. Tonight we are together.’ Yes, and for now that was enough. For now that was everything.
She fastened her gaze on his topaz eyes, locked her legs about his hips and took up the rhythm with him. There was wildfire in his gaze, encouragement in his words, adoration in them as his body worshipped hers until restraint broke and they were lost together, gasping and crying, desperately seeking the culmination that waited just beyond them. Then she was there, they were there, on the shores of ecstasy, and she was coming apart, eyes wide open as a climax rippled through her body, gaze transfixed on him in his most vulnerable, most complete moments.
Watching him was a mesmerising experience. It left her breathless to see this powerful man wild and undone with her, because of her, his pleasure a mirror of her own, as was his satisfaction and completion. Yes, despite the undone, deconstructed, bone-shattering quality of their lovemaking, there was also a sense of wholeness, rightness. She wanted to drift in that rightness for ever. Rightness was rare. Nothing had been right or whole for her for a very long time.
She curled into him, fitting her body against the curve of his, her head at his shoulder, her hand at his abdomen. She could feel peace come to him as his breathing settled and slowed. There was a sheen to his skin, testament to their efforts. Their bodies told the truth better than words in those moments and she was content to be quiet, content to let her hands wander idly over his body.
‘Clavicle,’ he murmured, half asleep.
‘And this?’
‘Trapezoid.’ His body became a litany of words. Pectoralis major, the ticklish spot beneath his arm. Serratus anterior. Rectus abdominus.
‘That’s amazing.’ Her hand came to rest low on his hip on the so-named inguinal ligament. ‘How do you know so much anatomy?’
He chuckled, lacing his fingers through hers. ‘If I could have been anything I’d have been a scientist.’
‘Hmm.’ She gave a drowsy, considering sigh. ‘That makes sense, I suppose. It explains why you knew about the stars tonight and the anatomy. Why? What do you love about science?’
‘Science is precise, dependable. The same efforts get the same results. There are guarantees. Hypotheses are testable. Results can be confirmed. There are sureties not found elsewhere. What about you? If you weren’t a journalist, what would you be?’
‘I’ve never given it much thought,’ Fleur confessed. ‘Perhaps because being a journalist isn’t too far from what I might have been. I’ve always liked writing. I may have fancied being a novelist like Mrs Radcliffe at one time, but writing for the newspaper is close enough and it gave me a chance to...’ She didn’t finish her sentence, didn’t let the words be with Adam slip out. She didn’t want Adam here tonight in this bed with them, between them. Tonight they were free. Just the two of them.
‘To use my writing for good,’ she amended hastily. ‘News promotes literacy both through reading and information. It also promotes social access, a gateway to participating in the world instead of letting the world happen to you. Wherever there is a newspaper, people have access to information, to reading.’
She gave a little laugh. ‘I don’t mean to pontificate. The news is off limits tonight.’
Sweet heavens, there were so many things they shouldn’t talk about here in bed and she’d nearly broken all those rules. Perhaps it would be best if she stopped talking and turned the conversation back to him.
‘How interesting that you are a mar—err...uhm...man who likes science. What else do you like? I want to know everything about you.’ She snuggled back down beside him, aware that she’d almost made another conversational mistake. He did not want to be the Marquess tonight any more than she wanted to be Adam’s widow or a newspaperwoman. Yet for those rules to hold, there were limits to their conversation. It was a sobering reminder amid the pleasure that tonight was a fantasy. They weren’t as free as they thought.
He’d been free with her last night, at liberty to be himself and she with him. But now that night was ending. The first tentative fingers of morning were stretching across the floor while Fleur slept in his arms, exhausted at last. Such nights didn’t happen often for him. Even with the occasional mistress, he must always be the Marquess, sex was more of a performance than a pleasure. But not last night. Last night with her, he’d been himself. He did not want to waste a moment drowsing even if it was only to stay awake to watch her sleep and to remember, to savour.
It had been exquisite to hold her in his arms, to know that she was with him when they’d found completion. He’d lost himself in the emerald depths of her eyes as assuredly as he’d lost himself in the pleasure of a jointly achieved climax. Even so, lost as he was, he’d been conscious enough to protect her from any repercussions—both times—because talk had led to more lovemaking and then more stories.
He’d told her stories of his boyhood growing up here at Rosefields, stories of his father and the adventures they’d had, fishing in Rosefields’s streams, hunting grouse—which he far preferred to hunting elk—in the dales, hiking the hills amid the brilliance of autumn foliage and in the spring amid the purple heather. ‘I wish you could see Rosefields in the autumn,’ he whispered, knowing she would not hear.
‘And at Christmas,’ he added, thinking of the evergreen boughs that would drape the mantels and lintels and the Yule log that would crackle in the hearth, the house crowded with villagers and tables groaning beneath Christmas delicacies. She would like that, all the children running around. Fleur was a caretaker. It was what she did with her news stories. She used news as a means of caring for people, of connecting them to their world, of broadening their horizons, and she used it as a tool by which she could advocate for them. He’d rather loved her impassioned impromptu speech earlier about what a newspaper could do. Weren’t those the very reasons he championed a free press? It was something they had in common in the real world.
He stretched with a groan, aware that the morning was full upon them. It would be a difficult day for her. They were going into Holmfirth to speak with some people about the dam. It would take her back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, to a place that held only sadness for her. He’d rather stay here at Meltham where there was happiness, where there was this bed and where obligations and memories did not intrude.
She stirred in his arms, her hair a tumbled auburn cloud against the pillow. He thought she was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen. ‘Is it morning already?’ She groaned and opened one eye. ‘How long have you been awake?’
‘A while, sleepyhead.’ He gave a lazy smile.
‘You should have woken me.’
‘You needed the sleep. We have time.’ Their eyes met, a bit of the night leaping between them.
‘Time for what?’ she teased.
‘For this.’ He rolled her beneath him, his manhood morning ready for her. He might not be able to guarantee how the day played out, but he could make sure it began with a good morning and it could end with a good night.
It did not take long for morning desire to run its course and, though he would have liked to have stayed abed with her all day, duty called for them both. They helped each other dress, taking turns playing valet and maid. He brushed out her hair and sat on the bed watching her braid it into a twist. This was what it would be like with a wife, he thought. He would be privy to these little intimacies, things one could only learn about another by observing them, absorbing them, over time. Osmosis, a scientist might call it. It was another kind of unveiling, the revealing of layer upon layer until all was peeled back.
When she was done, Jasper went to her, putting his hands on her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her neck. He loved kissing that neck, loved breathing in the scent of her where she dabbed her perfume. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror over the dressing table.
She reached a hand up to grip his. ‘Yes.’ She paused and sighed. ‘But I hate to leave this. Last night was beyond words. Not just the pleasure, Jasper,’ she tried to explain. He nodded. He knew what she meant. He did not think there were words for it.
‘We will come back. Our room will be here for us, waiting.’ He squeezed her hand in assurance. ‘We can have more.’ If they were careful. It would be too easy to let the practicalities of the day ruin the magic they’d created last night. With luck, the spell would hold. Magic. Luck. Spell. He laughed at himself. These were not the words of a scientist. But neither was love. He’d best tread carefully here or he’d forget himself entirely.