Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Remmy woke up before the sun because his arm had gone numb. And his arm had gone numb because there was a head resting on it. A very heavy head with flaming red hair and—bloody hell—he’d actually done it. He’d made love to the woman he loved.
He could have her. He would have her, no matter how long it took to make a life for her, to make her love him. She’d not returned the emotion last night, but she’d given him so much else—her touch, her smile, her moans.
He wanted all of that for the rest of his life, and he planned it out as the sun brightened the window. A long courtship, hopefully not too long. He’d find her a position with a woman in London so he could have her nearby.
She began to stir as the sun seeped through the glass and crept across her cheek. Everything about her golden and pink and—ah, hazel as her eyes fluttered open, widened, lips parting.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said.
She pulled the blankets more tightly to her breasts. “G-good morning.”
“Timid now, are you?”
She shook her head, tangling the red silk of her hair.
God, he loved her. He gathered her up. She wriggled and grunted, but when he set her on his chest and stroked her hair off her face, her breathing settled, and a tiny pink smile curved her lips. Her eyes fluttered open, sleep-fogged and lovely.
She buried her face in his chest. “You should leave.” The way her lips brushed against his chest felt like the sweetest, hottest kisses.
He wrapped a thick shank of her hair around his fist and gently tugged, and she looked up at him. “Unfortunately, I hear the lark, that herald of the morn.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Romeo and Juliet, Act three, scene five. Paraphrased.”
She sat up, gathering the blanket around her bare chest. “Not that play. Remmy. Why would you quote that play? Now?”
“Don’t most women think it romantic?”
“It’s a tragedy.” She’d gone rather ashen. The dull blue shadows of the morning looked too much like those of a tomb. “Take it back.”
“You’re correct. It’s not the lark. It’s the nightingale.”
Like lightning, she grabbed a pillow and hit him in the face with it. “That’s the same play!”
He ripped the pillow out of her hand and tossed it to the floor, then tackled her, pinning her to the bed and kissing her hard.
She gave a little yelp, but then she gave in, her hands possessive at his nape, her mouth open for his feasting, and her body rolling to meet his. She was every bloody thing that mattered. And she was his.
Finally.
There was time enough to sink inside her.
He was already hard. He nipped her neck.
She gasped and pushed him away, wiggling out from under him and plopping off the bed.
She hurried to the window, clutching the blanket around her.
He groaned, slinging an arm over his eyes.
He could quote Shakespeare again, but he didn’t want to make her nervous.
He rolled onto one elbow, propping himself up. “I’m not going to be able to convince you to come back to bed, am I?”
“You must leave.”
He couldn’t help it. “I love you.”
Her lashes fluttered, her gaze faltered. “A-are you sure?”
“Of course.”
“B-but… I’m not…”
“Not what?”
“Lovable. You are the only one who’s ever… Who’s ever said that to me.”
“Said what?”
“I love you.” The smallest whispered words.
Hell. He left the bed and stalked toward her.
He grasped the blankets pooling around her feet, covering her body and bare, perfect breasts, and fashioned a toga from them, draped across her shoulder, tied around her waist. She watched with a laugh on her lips, merriment banishing shadows in her eyes.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “You’re the most lovable woman I’ve ever known. In fact, you’re a goddess.” He put his hands on his hips.
In the sunlight streaming in from the window, wearing a mess of rumpled sheets, her hair a fiery, tangled crown, she was more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen.
He bent at the waist and shoved a shoulder into her belly.
She yelped as he straightened, throwing her over his shoulder.
Her laughter bounced against his back where she bounced upside down.
Until he sat her on a little writing desk in a corner of the room where dust danced on sunlight.
She caught her breath, and he left her, throwing open the window to stick his head outside and inspect the climbing vines there.
He ripped two flowers from the vine and returned to her.
Carefully, he placed one behind each of her ears.
Pink, pretty blooms to match her pink, blooming cheeks.
“You are Titania, the fairy queen, and I would dedicate the rest of my piddly human life to serving you.” He tilted her head to the side and kissed her jaw.
“Adoring you.” He kissed the curve where neck met shoulder.
“Worshipping you.” He finally found her lips and made the kiss last, put all his love into it, tried to convince her to love him too.
“If I am Titania, does that make you Bottom? You certainly possess a nice one.”
“I’m pleased you noticed. Yours is quite fine, as well.” He squeezed it, wishing to do away with the sheet, needing skin against skin right here at this desk, her bent over it, him driving into her from behind.
But she was sliding off it, wandering away from him, the sheet trailing behind her like the long train of a court gown. “My parents are coming today. This morning.”
“Then let us dress. We’ll meet in the music room and wait for their arrival.”
She nodded, distracted, and he slipped out of her room into the quiet hallway. He met no one on the way to his chamber where he washed and dressed and saw in the looking glass that he was grinning like a besotted fool.
The sun spilled into the music room in a glorious pink-yellow wave, and he sat at the pianoforte, closed his eyes, and let the music come. She was going to choose him. And she might even love him. Even if she could not yet say it. She would one day.
He heard her footsteps and opened his eyes. She greeted him with a soft smile and sat on the bench beside him.
He kissed her shoulder. “This is a pretty gown.” It was pale green and fluttery and made her seem so very touchable.
“Thank you. I got it in Paris. I have another in a different color.”
“You have discovered a love of frippery, haven’t you.”
She shrugged and smiled and blushed prettily, and he kissed her shoulder again, his fingers still dancing across the keys.
She left the bench and curled up in a chair, opening her sketchbook and setting a pencil to an empty page. She watched him as her hand moved deftly across the paper. “Stay still.”
“I’ll try,” he said with a little musical flourish.
“Not like that.” She laughed.
He froze. “Like this?”
“Exactly. Do not move.” Her hand curved and slashed, and her face flew through every expression to match her movements. “I haven’t done portraits in years. I settled into landscapes.”
A portrait had been what she’d won the competition with. “Why?”
Her hand paused. “I don’t know.”
“Are you enjoying sketching me?”
“I rather am.” She seemed to glow. Happiness suited her, and the fact that it was possibly Remmy who made her so happy, well, that suited him.
“You may sketch me as much as you like,” he said.
“And once we’re married, you may sketch everyone at the theatre.
You can sketch our actors and actresses, and we’ll put the sketches in the playbills.
Everyone will love it.” Her sketches might bring in more people than his exploits had.
And he’d have to find a replacement for his exploits because those stopped now.
“When we’re married?” The words floated across the room, taking up the space where the music used to be.
He stopped playing. “Of course. That’s what I want. Although you deserve a better proposal. I’ll do it again. With more finesse next time.”
She sat silent and still.
“What’s wrong?” When she didn’t look up from her notebook, when she didn’t even move, he went to her side and knelt in front of her. “Tell me.”
She wrote on the paper instead, and he watched the curves of her letters as they took shape, gained meaning.
Three choices.
Beneath that she wrote three more words.
Companion.
Tilbury.
Remmy.
He stood rather too abruptly, and the world spun. Three choices, and he was just one of them. He somehow made it to the window and grasped onto the sill as the room continued to spin.
She was his everything and he was just one of three.
“Remmy,” she said softly.
He lifted a hand to cut off whatever she’d been about to say, but when she laid her hand on his back, he bit his tongue to let her speak.
“I think,” she said, a hefty pause between each word, “I want to choose you. In fact, the odds are decidedly in your favor.”
“How’s that?”
“You are two of the three options.”
Ah yes, he was the consolation prize for spinsterhood, too.
He pushed away from her, away from the window. “If you’re not going to choose me, choose something better than a life of celibacy.” He sat back down at the piano, trying not to act like a pouting child. He wasn’t pouting.
He was breaking. He’d given her all he was. And it wasn’t enough. He held his hands above the keys, but no songs came, so he let them drop, barely heard the discordant notes.
She sat next to him. “I want to choose you.” She set her hand on his arm.
“Then do. We’ll tell your parents when they arrive.”
Her hand dropped off his arm and into her lap. “I’m scared. I followed my heart once and it… it broke everything. My mother did not talk to me for six years. I have not known my sister. I lost my father’s love, if I ever had it. And they… they do not approve of…”
“Me.”
She swallowed.
“They want someone like Tilbury.”
“Yes. And you are… so very bright and loud and… and…”
“Naked?”