Chapter Twenty-Two
L ater that evening, Sander handed Miss Fairclough a glass of brandy and lowered beside her on the settee rather than his usual place in the wingback chair. The winds had picked up in the afternoon that had branches tapping the windows. An ideal backdrop for Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
The fire blazing the hearth reflected the brilliant highlights in Miss Fairclough’s hair and matched the blood racing Sander’s veins. He searched his lust-filled brain for something to deflect the urge to take her in his arms. “I understand you received a package today?”
Her emerald eyes flashed. “I did, indeed. Papa sent Mrs. Fulhame’s book of essays.” Her calm tone seemed forced.
“And how is your doting papa?”
“Perhaps you should tell me?” she returned.
Sander frowned, confusion rippling through him.
She pulled a piece of vellum from her pocket and slapped it into his hand.
Setting his tumbler aside, Sander stood and moved closer to the candelabra. He unfolded the scrap and quickly glanced through it. A pike impaled his chest coated with fear and anger. He grasped the anger, snapping the missive in the air and glared at her. “He wishes you to marry my brother?” The absolute gall of the man had Sander irate enough to jump on his horse, bound for London, to beat the baron to a bloody pulp.
“You are missing the entire point, sir.” She jumped to her feet and waved out her hand, her annoyance grating over him. “You know very well, doting is the last thing my self-absorbed father is.”
Sander hissed in a breath through his teeth and let it out more slowly. “Was accepting the position as governess just an excuse for access to my brother?”
“Oh, for the sake of heaven.” She returned his glare, her vexation evident. “You big lummox. When you engaged my services, I was under the impression Lady Pender was still amongst us.” Her emerald eyes glittering with fury, she snatched the letter from him and stuffed it back in her pocket. “I cannot believe this—”
But he’d heard enough of his own dimwittedness. Without a thought for protocol, civility, decency , he had her by the upper arms and his mouth was crashing over hers. Waves of unfulfilled need tore through him, spiking his blood like an overindulgent drunkard.
Her shock gave him access to the warm, velvety confines of her mouth, her tongue scraped against his, and her arms crept about his neck. Pert breasts heaved against his chest and sent blood-hot surges of sensation straight south. A result with a disastrous outcome if he couldn’t manage to break away.
She moaned.
And he couldn’t. His arms went around her and tightened.
She seemed as hungry as he. She devoured as much as she was devoured.
His punishing kiss was returned tenfold. He jerked his mouth from hers and with fumbling fingers, attacked the buttons at her neck and parted the offending wool. He traced the fire-glowing skin he’d exposed with his tongue. It tingled with the alluring spice that was all her.
“Oh, my,” she whispered. Her hand slid from his neck to his shoulders and planted on his chest. “Stop, sir. Please.”
Each word was a dagger in his sternum, the third one finally piercing his lung. He would swear the oxygen hissed out of that sliced wound and a piece of his heart with it. “Forgive me, Miss Fairclough. Verda…” he finished on a whisper.
“You have an effective way of dissolving a disagreement, sir.” The husky tremor of her voice teased a smile from him. She was much less composed than she let on. She cleared her throat. “What of this brutish henchman Papa speaks of?”
“Bah! Gnash Denholm is as gentle as a child’s stuffed bear. Admittedly, he comes across more large and terrifying.”
“H-He’s not brutal, then?” Her small voice was a grip about his throat.
He guided her to the settee and lowered, pulling her down beside him. He grasped her hands. “Only if you count following the baron about town and bodily removing him from the tables he sits in on at the variety of hells he’s prone to visit.”
“That’s it?”
“Miss Fairclough, the only thing your father suffers from is acute embarrassment.” He leaned his forehead against hers, drawing in the soft, powdery fragrance of violets so out of place for the dead of winter. To his utter astonishment and relief, she did not pull away.
“Oh. That’s all right, then.” Again, the husky timbre breathed fire on the low-burning embers he’d barely banked.
He couldn’t have torn himself away for all the king’s jewels. He closed his eyes and touched her nose with his. A feathered caress that ignited the kindling that his skin resembled. The effect was instantaneous. He tilted his head. Let his breath mingle with hers. One of brandy and mint.
The tip of her tongue touched her bottom lip, but his mouth was so close, it brushed his as well, and he captured it, sucking it into his own mouth. The cock in his breeches joined the admiralty in its salute to her all-encompassing beauty. It had no care that she wore a dull, brown, woolen frock with its unadorned neck that covered, what he envisioned, enchanting breasts.
He molded his lips to hers, exploring her mouth with sensations exploding on his tongue. Heat infused his skin and he pulled back and yanked at the fastenings of his waistcoat. He glanced up, catching those sensuous green eyes, reflecting the fire. “Verda?” he whispered.
She licked her lips again, sending another surge of lust plowing through him. “It’s just like I’d dreamed… Sander.”
Waistcoat forgotten, and with a harsh moan, he took her mouth once more. And not so gently. He wanted to crawl inside her, let her push his haunting past from his mind. The past. He jerked back, his breaths rapid, his heart pounding painfully against his ribs.
Concern filled her eyes. Not disgust. Not anger. Not mirth. She grasped his hands. Hard. Their strength sunk into the depths of him. “What is it, Sander? Tell me.”
His eyes snapped to hers, but he quickly pulled away. Turned from her. Shoved his hand warmed by hers through his hair. “I’m not who I seem.” His voice sounded so raspy, he hardly recognized it as his own.
Her arm slipped around his shoulders, her head rested on his upper arm. “Because you believe you killed your father,” she said. Her matter-of-factness startled him.
Slowly, his gaze met hers. Dark, luminous pools he would give his life to fall in and drown. “How did you know?”
“I heard you talking to the earl.”
His eyes squeezed shut. Pain manacled his chest.
“Please—” Her beg etched through a crack.
“I had to save him. Father hated him.” He glared at her, implored her to understand. “There was no one else.”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” she said with a small bitter smile. “I’m not offended. I’m not even shocked.”
He stilled. She was right. He speared her with a sharp look. “Why not? Why are you not offended or shocked?”
Her arm fell away, leaving him with a cold that burrowed deep despite the blaze across from them. She stared into the fire and he thought she didn’t see the fire at all. After a moment, she shook her head then turned and faced him. “You did what you had to do. That’s heroic,” she said firmly. “Not villainous. Besides, I think there is more to the tale.”
He took her face in his hands—how could he not?—stared into her eyes. “I’m no one’s hero.”
“I beg to differ.” Her breath caressed his lips. “You’re your brother’s hero. Whether he says it aloud matters not. You’re Miss Docia’s hero. I saw how you hugged her, and she’s tough.”
In that moment, something changed in Sander. The restriction stealing his breath loosened.
Her eyes fell to his mouth and she licked her lips.
“And you? Am I your hero?”
“I have no need of a hero,” she said primly, clearly teasing him.
“Oh, how desperately I want you,” he growled. Desperately want to marry you.
“I want you too.” Her fingers crept to his with a touch as light as air.
He brought her hand to his mouth. Silky, smooth, and scented like spring. Her other arm circled his neck.
Breathless with anticipation, he waited to see what she desired from him. That wait was interminable. Forever. Even as she leaned forward and feathered his lips with hers. But when the tip of her tongue dampened his lips, he opened his mouth and let her in.
Control was underrated, but he clung to it as if it were his last grip with sanity. She deserved his name, not just his bed. Her hand remained in his, and the restraint in not pressing it to the front-fall of his breeches would likely destroy him.
He pulled away slightly. Her lips were swollen. Moaning, he worked his lips to just below her ear. The violets brought to mind a springtime day in a meadow full of the purple petals and the clash of her flaming hair amid the clusters. He licked the erratic pulse in her neck.
“Might I touch you?” he whispered.
“Only if I am allowed the same privilege,” she whispered back.
His fingers worked more of the buttons down the front of her gown. “Oh, yes.” He peeled the wool from her shoulders and set his lips on the soft, creamy skin he found there. The sensation released some of the intensity in his tightly coiled muscles. He tugged at the ties of her chemise and drew it down to reveal a swell of her breast.
Her breath hitched, stilling him.
Her hands flattened on his chest.
The muscles there twitched.
She tugged at his cravat, then parted his shirt. She leaned in and kissed him at the opening, singeing his skin. “You smell of… the crashing sea, the blowing winds, the… bracing air. All that I crave—”
The long clock in the entryway bonged and she jumped.
Her spine jerked ramrod straight. “Oh, no,” she whispered. Her horrified expression was a direct jab from Gentleman Jackson himself. “You must think me the worst sort of harlot—”
“Never.” He adjusted and tied her chemise back in place. “Please. Don’t. Not a word. This is my fault.”
She shoved his hands away, glaring at him. “Is it? Do you believe me fickle of mind? Destined for Bedlam?” She poked him in the chest, one curved nail jabbing him. “I must return to my chamber, sir. In the event Master Noah needs my assistance with Master Julius.”
Sander was dumbfounded. Speechless. Mortified that she doubted his desire.
“After the debacle with Mrs. Lyall, I feel it imperative he can find me if there is a need.” She stood and wobbled as if her knees were about to give out.
He stood too and finished tucking her securely into her drab, woolen frock. “I fear the only one destined for Bedlam, Miss Fairclough, is me.” He completed his task and grasped her upper arms. “You are much too good for me, but I find the idea of not having you too horrific to contemplate. Come, I shall walk you to your chamber.”
Tension eased from her shoulders and she smiled. “Thank you. It is a long walk and quite frightening at times. One never knows when a ghoul will appear from the shadows.”
“I am not a ghoul.”
“Specter, then.”
“No.”
“Apparition.”
“In your dreams, Miss Fairclough.” He grabbed the candelabra and met her at the door.
“That is my greatest fear,” she said softly.
Sander paused, facing her, frowning at the tone. “What?”
“That you are an apparition in my dreams.” Her dramatic sweep from the library and up the stairs had him hurrying in her wake.
*
Cold air outside the library went far in cooling the heat searing Verda’s body. The urge to stop and press her legs together to keep an unseemly moisture from seeping onto her thighs nearly felled her. Only the fact that Mr. Oshea followed so closely saved her from such humiliation. Her nipples were hard beneath her dress and the thin silk of her chemise did not deter the desire of wishing it was his fingers or—she swallowed hard—his mouth to ease the traitorous wantonness she couldn’t seem to stem. How mortifying , she chastised herself. Yet it was difficult to muster any guilt.
Blast it, she was nine and twenty. Firmly on the shelf and quite proud of the feat. Marrying the Earl of Pender was as desirable as latching on to the Duke of Rathbourne. A thought that sent chills over her skin, and not in a pleasing way.
The long walk to her chamber was companionable, considering she’d lost her head and wanted to strip Mr. Oshea to his small clothes. She’d been rendered half-naked herself in the library. She shivered with the lust that had kidnapped her senses. She just needed to keep the sentiment to the forefront of her mind—it was just lust .
They reached her chamber and Mr. Oshea pushed through the door without so much as a by-your-leave.
“What are you doing?” she hissed. “You’ll wake my maid.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he shot back. “I’m just going to stir the fire—” His eyes went to the bed and he pulled up. His thumb flew out, pointed in that very direction. “Who the devil is in your—”
Slowly, the lump rose to sitting. Lizzie rubbed her eyes. “Oh, miss, you’re back.” She blinked and pulled the covers to her chest. “Er, sir…”
“What is your maid doing in your bed?”
Before Verda could stop Lizzie, she blurted out, “The lizards, sir.”
Mr. Oshea lifted a brow at Verda. “Lizards?”
“A whole family of them,” Lizzie went on. “The mistress has nightmares, you see.”
“That’s enough, Lizzie. Mr. Oshea has no interest in my dreams.”
His mouth quirked at one end. A mouth that had tasted as delicious as it now looked. A mouth she envisioned as most skilled. In ways she couldn’t begin to imagine but oh-so-wished to experience. “Ah, but I have every interest in your dreams, my dear.” The low deep intonation raised the hair at her nape.
Exactly what she feared.
“Noah’s welcome to Stonemare gift, I take it?”
Verda’s lips compressed.
“I’ll speak with the lad on the morrow.”
A step forward put her nose nearly to his chest. She lifted her finger, almost touching his. “You’ll do no such thing.” She glanced at the bed, but Lizzie had snuck away, the little coward. “I can handle my own conflicts, thank you very much.” She dropped her hand and moved to the fire, took up the poker herself, and prodded the embers before tossing on another log. “Besides, Noah has since apologized.”
Silence filled the space and she glanced at him over her shoulder.
Her words seemed to take him aback. Inside, she melted like hot butter in an iron pot. “Oh, my.” She went and stood before him. “You are unused to anyone looking out for themselves, aren’t you?”
His eyes closed, then opened. The swirling gray was no match for the storms beyond the windows.
“I think we are alike in this,” she said so softly, he likely didn’t hear. She took his hand, brought it to her lips, then laid her cheek against its back side. “I don’t need saving, Sander”—funny how quickly she’d adjusted to his given name—“but I thank you. No one’s ever wished to save me before. It’s a nice feeling.” She lowered his hand and let go. “Quite nice, indeed.”