Chapter 30
My life flashed before my eyes. The moments long in the past, an enjoyable journey. Others more recent, awash with regrets. Those as I live and breathe them, while pleasant, would have been mired in dissatisfaction were they to end where they now stand.
I feel I must make some greater strides to achieve my purpose before I haven’t another chance.
––––––––
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I am. Thank you. I just need some rest.” After assuring her sister-in-law that she would ring if she needed anything, Fiona went to her dressing table and sat down with a sigh.
It had been all bravado, of course. She wasn’t fine at all.
It was nothing more than a veil of humor and nonchalance to mask the real terror that might have overcome her if she paused even for a moment that afternoon to think about how extreme their situation truly was.
And Ramsay—all Eve knew of it—had very little to do with her dejection.
Crumpky and his associates had been determined to track them down today.
To take her, even if it meant hurting or possibly killing Harry in the process.
And Harry! Trying to be light-hearted over the entire matter, she knew, but there was nothing amusing about it. How reckless she had been! How unconcerned when they had both been in very real danger!
While it had been one thing to toy with her own safety, it had been quite another to realize that he might have been harmed because of her willfulness. What would she do if he had been hurt?
What would she do if she lost him?
Truly lost him? This time, not just his company, his presence, or even his affections. What if she cost him his very life, and he was gone from this earth forever?
It didn’t bear thinking about.
Show a little respect for the peril we are in, won’t you? She remembered those words as she brushed out her tangled hair. Real peril. Death. Not theirs, but only because he had taken the deathblow before it could be theirs.
He risked everything for her.
Surely, that meant something.
She finished brushing her hair and rose, unbuttoning the sumptuous Worth floral silk taffeta wrapper she had donned after slipping out of her ruined day dress.
She slipped it from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor before untying the petticoats around her waist. Letting them fall as well, she bent to untie her garters, but a deep, pained rumble sounded from the shadows at the corner of her room, freezing her in place.
But a throaty baritone broke the silence then. “I beg you. Please, don’t stop.”
* * *
He’d snuck up to her room while the family was at dinner and the staff occupied serving them. He couldn’t wait until morning to assure himself that she had recovered from their afternoon or from Ramsay’s assault. That she hadn’t succumbed to hysterics or nerves.
No. He hadn’t thought either of those things, really. He just wanted to see her. To hold Fiona against him and feel life, her indomitable spirit cursing through her body.
He’d waited in her darkened room, a thief in the shadows when she had come up with Eve and disappeared into her dressing room. Watching silently as they spoke in whispers. Waiting to speak until he knew for sure she was alone.
But then she had brushed her hair before the mirror, those caressing strokes through her long dark tresses mesmerizing him, holding him to silence.
He imagined taking the brush from her, performing the task himself.
Running those silken locks through his fingers and around his body as he drew her into his arms.
So entangled in the fantasy he had been, she’d already begun to disrobe before he came to his senses.
Like some bloody voyeur, he watched, unable to move or make a sound as she shrugged her dressing gown from her shoulders.
Sensual arousal had burst into blood-boiling lust then as her wrapper slid down her body, revealing her undergarments inch by inch.
Undergarments that he never would have thought a virginal young woman like Fiona would possess.
But then, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything he had imagined might lie beneath her simple gowns was true and then some.
No chaste white cotton for his bold lass, no.
Her breasts thrust upward and held, cupped erotically by nothing less than a black satin corset tied with white strings.
The contrast highlighted her narrow waist; the white lace that trimmed the edges was innocence in conjunction with eroticism.
Each petticoat that fell was a revelation.
The outer, matching the day dress she had on earlier, silk trimmed in a wide, gathered flounce with piped scrolling.
Simple, like the military styling of her outer garments.
The next was white, diaphanous cotton gauze, ruffled and trimmed with purple and black satin ribbon.
The next gossamer batiste, so delicate it was nearly transparent.
When the last petticoat fell, he was treated to the full display.
The long black corset silhouetted the outrageous curve from breast to waist and over the rounded curve of her hips.
Below, her short knickers of layered batiste dripped sensually with black lace to mid-thigh.
Her black stockings molded to her firmly muscled thighs and calves.
The decadent white and violet scrolls of the clocking wrapped about her ankles and disappeared into the black and violet delicately heeled slippers she still wore.
She was sin and innocence combined, just as she was all spit and fire on the outside and vulnerable underneath.
Aylesbury’s blood pounded in his veins at the sight of her poised in the dim light of the single lamp.
But when she leaned over to untie her garters, hair cascading over her shoulders, giving him a perfect view of her cleavage swelling over the edge of her corset as she bent, the moan of pure animal desire that escaped him was beyond containment.
Freezing at the sound, Fiona looked straight at him, though he didn’t think she could see him in the darkness. He also couldn’t bear to have her performance come to an end.
“I beg of you,” he rasped out. “Please, don’t stop.”
“Harry?”
He stepped from the shadows. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“I-I thought you went home.”
“I could not.”
* * *
She’d never been so surprised in her entire life as she was when Harry emerged from the darkened corner of her room.
Her first impulse was to snatch up her petticoats and cover herself, but she resisted the urge.
She had done that once before, and she wouldn’t do it now.
This was her room, after all. Instead, she laid her hands on her hips and squared her shoulders as if she hadn’t a care.
But she couldn’t stop the questions that raced through her mind.
How had he gotten there? When? What was he doing there? But then she saw the look on his face, the raw hunger more voracious than it had been in the alley that afternoon. It held the answer to one question, at least. She voiced it, anyway, wanting to hear the answer for herself.
“What do you want, Harry?”
Her voice was breathless, unwittingly provocative. He smiled wolfishly, raking his eyes down her half-clad body. Her flesh burned under his gaze but oddly rippled with gooseflesh in its wake. As he drew closer, every nerve in her body tensed.
Fiona knew she could deny many things, but not this. Never this.
When he was but a hair’s breadth away, he reached for her, running a palm over her corseted ribs. She drew in a deep, fortifying breath and heard his catch as well as his eyes returned to the swell of her breasts against her corset.
“You are every man’s fantasy,” Aylesbury whispered huskily. “Where did you get this?”
She licked her lips. “Paris.”
“Vive la France.”
He lifted her hair from her shoulder, letting the length through his fingers before running them up her bare arm and over her shoulder to tease the sensitive flesh behind her ear. He leaned closer to her, his roughened cheek brushing hers as he bent his head and inhaled deeply.
Her heart began beating like the big drum from Mr. Sousa’s brass band. Pounding so hard that her head swam dizzily. She swayed toward him but steadied herself.
“Wha–what are you doing in my room, Harry?”
He chuckled softly, his breath tickling at her neck.
“Nothing nefarious, I promise you. I merely wanted to assure myself that you were well. I never imagined...” His fingers continued upward, burying themselves in her hair.
“You are magnificent, my love. I had imagined what you might be hiding beneath those proper gowns, sure it would be something sensual. If I had known just how erotic, I never would have been able to stop myself from having you the other night, Pembrooke or no.”
He cupped her breasts in his palms, his fingers caressing the bare flesh swelling above the satin edge and lifting even as his mouth descended.
His lips brushed, teased along the border until she raked her fingers through his hair, urging him closer.
His tongue dipped into the crease of her cleavage as he fondled her breasts, then squeezed.
..no, the top hook of her corset came undone, then another.
His tongue grazed through the widening chasm again, and she shuddered with pleasure.
Two more hooks, and he tugged at the ribbon holding her chemise, freeing her breasts to his hungry gaze.
Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her to him roughly and lifted her to him so that he could feast on the bounty now displayed.
He nuzzled the valley between her breasts before turning to catch one sensitive nipple between his lips.
Fiona cried out shortly, catching her lip between her teeth to stifle her impassioned cries as he drew deeply on her flesh. She held him fast against her, as if he could get any closer, but it wasn’t enough. Her body knew what power he possessed now, what bliss he could bring, and she wanted more.
“Harry.”
Lifting his head at her whispered plea, he met her gaze with eyes so dark she could only gasp at the emotion there.
It wasn’t the turbulence she had seen at the Onslow ball that darkened them to the deep indigo she saw, but raw emotion, carnal hunger, and her body trembled with a rush of wantonness to answer the plea she saw there.
“Oh, Harry, yes.”
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, pushing the counterpane aside to deposit her on the white sheets.
“You look like a luscious chocolate presented on a white pillow,” he said roughly. “Delectable.”
Fiona couldn’t stop the blush that crept up her cheeks and ran her palms over the sheets self-consciously. “I chose the black only because I...”
“Shh,” he murmured with a roguish grin. “Don’t ruin the fantasy.”
Harry never took his eyes off her as he went to the door and locked it with an audible click that she thought sounded her doom.
She only wished he’d hurry up about it.
But he took his time and slowly worked the knots of his tie loose as he returned to the side of the bed. He tossed the tie aside, devouring her with his eyes, stoking the fiery desire within her without even touching her.
If he continued disrobing at such a leisurely pace, Fiona was certain she would explode before he even laid a finger on her.