Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
A s if in confirmation, a rumble of thunder rattled the roof. A moment later, the noise of the downpour redoubled.
The corners of Keynsham’s mouth turned upward. “You are quite correct, Miss Talbot. It is a perfectly dreadful afternoon. And as you know, my gig is open. And you have already been soaked through and chilled once today. I agree that it might not be wise to venture out until the rain stops.”
She felt as though she couldn’t breathe. “No.”
“After all, I must consider your health.” His hands were on her upper arms. He pulled her closer. “Indeed, you are still rather chilled. It will not do for the future Lady Alford to have a hacking cough on her wedding day." He bent and placed a gentle kiss on the corner of her lips. “It will not do at all.”
She turned her head a bare half an inch and their lips met properly. He deepened the kiss. She heard herself gasp. Her hands found the back of his neck again, pulling him down to her. He kissed the hollow under the corner of her jaw.
Shivers of flame skittered over her skin, and any lingering chill seemed to disappear as her body melted against his, molding into his warmth. His fingers moved to the back of her head. “Dear me, Miss Talbot,” he said, into her ear. “Your hair is still wet. There is no quicker way to catch cold than to go about with wet hair.” Deftly, he began pulling out hair pins.
She hadn’t realized that such a small thing could send sparks of pleasure flew from her scalp through her body. The damp lengths of her hair tumbled down onto her shoulders. He lifted them away from her skin so that he could kiss down her neck, and every sense ignited. His neckcloth smelled sweetly of ironed linen. Heat uncoiled at the base of her spine, spiraling upward and through her body, like a curl of smoke from a burning ember.
They were to be married in only a few days. If this were wrong… surely it was only a little wrong.
His warm lips moved along her collarbone, teasing half inch by teasing half inch, and her breath caught as the desire in her lower belly burst into open flame. She longed to feel his heat all over her. But there was too much fabric between his skin and hers. She tugged his shirt loose from the waist of his trousers and ran delicate exploratory fingertips over the smooth, hot skin of his stomach.
“Celia.” He caught her mouth again with his. The room was silent in the stormy spring twilight as he rained kisses down her neck, her shoulders and the upper slopes of her breasts. Her hands slipped higher under his shirt, and she felt his intake of breath rush past her own lips. She could feel the unfamiliar hardness of him, pressing against her hip.
He moved back. “There is a line that we must not cross—yet. Because there is, of course, a risk.”
“Yes, I… understand.”
“But we may…” He pulled her closer again. “That is…”
All she knew was that she wanted more and more of him. She reached for him and found his mouth with hers. His fingers were behind her back, loosening her gown. The fabric slid off first one shoulder and then the other. His hands were shaking slightly. When she saw that, she knew that this was just as important to him, too. The lingering doubts in her heart began to melt.
They sank into the luxurious depths of the featherbed, and for a long blissful moment they simply held each other close. She buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. He stroked her hair. “I feared that this would never happen.” He kissed the top of her head. She raised her face to meet his, and the heat of the kiss caught her off guard.
She pulled him closer, filled with a longing that she couldn’t name, tugging again at the hem of his shirt. Gently, he pushed her chemise up, and at last, she felt his skin against hers, like two fires joining together. His head dipped, his mouth found the sensitive peak of her breast, and she gasped. She hadn’t imagined that her body was made for such pleasure. He sucked at the puckering skin, his intake of breath a shock over the heat of her flesh.
At the light touch of his fingertips on the soft skin of her inner thigh she moved involuntarily toward him. But he took his time, tracing a random lazy path up one thigh and down the other, never touching the place in her core that had begun to tighten and heat and ache for him.
She reached again for his waistband—wanting to feel every inch of his skin against her own—but he pushed her hand gently away as his fingers continued their leisurely exploration. Soon her breath was coming in shaky pants, and she could do nothing but cling to him, waiting for him to give her what she wanted.
There. Her body jerked as he brushed over her molten core and the tight bud of desire above it. That was what she’d wanted, without knowing it. But his fingers skated away again and she whimpered aloud in frustration.
She felt him smile against her skin. It was as unexpected and intimate and new as all the rest of this. She was still marveling at being able to feel a smile when his fingers dipped lower, found a slick heat, and dragged it back up over that secret nub.
Her mind went blank with pleasure as his fingers circled exactly where she wanted them. Her hips pushed towards his hand, seeking something more… a relief from the ever-increasing tightness inside her. Everything in her seemed to focus. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t do anything but feel. Every sense in her body seemed concentrated in that one place.
He sucked the tip of her breast back into his mouth, and the two sparks joined into a fire that raced over her skin and set her alight. She writhed beneath him, begging wordlessly without knowing what she was begging for.
His thumb found that aching nub again and worked it slowly. But this time, his finger slipped inside her. She gasped as it began a slow plundering of her slick channel. Shivers and flame raced over her skin. She bucked against his hand, fearing that the pleasure itself would tear her apart. It felt as though she were struggling against an onslaught of sensation, her body overwhelmed by something that she couldn’t name.
And then his teeth scraped her taut nipple, and she came undone. The earth itself was gone, and she seemed to go flying into a vast starry sky full of ecstasy. Her muscles spasmed tight while her nerves let go, and she was helpless in the grip of pleasure.
When she came back from wherever she had gone, he was still stroking the already throbbing bud between her legs. “I… I…” She had no words to describe what had just happened to her.
“Celia.” He nuzzled her neck as his hand kept up its gentle torture. She heard herself whimpering. Her core seemed to wind even tighter. She was moaning aloud. Another merciless wave of pleasure bore down upon her. Heat rolled up her and she flew out of her body again.
Afterwards, he held her close, kissing her hair and her face as she drifted back into herself. “We cannot do—well, the rest of it—until we are married.”
“Oh. I see.” He must mean… “No. I—I suppose not.” She was light-headed and heavy-limbed, a warm bundle of satiation in his arms. She could have gone to sleep… but she didn’t want to waste a moment with him.
“You sound as though you are disappointed.”
“Well, I…” Married . It still seemed impossible that she was to have any sort of future that was not merely survival. “You really do wish to be married on Monday? You were not… joking?”
“ Joking ?” He chuckled into her hair. “I grant you that I am not always serious, but that is not at all the sort of thing about which I would joke. No. Monday is to be the day—as early the morning as possible. Do you suppose that they would do it directly after matins? Perhaps at dawn? Although, of course, we will have the wedding breakfast as well.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Her heart sank. “The wedding breakfast.”
He laughed and rolled onto his back. “Try not to sound quite so dismayed! You will have met my sister by then—and Lady Sophronia, of course. And I am certain that you will like my friend Captain Grenville and his wife. He has been with his ship for several months, but is due back in London in a day or two.”
He thought a moment. “I do not think that you will meet my second cousin, Harry—Viscount Montfort, however. He was meant to have returned to London last week but was unavoidably detained—or so he writes. I suspect that he is staying away out of a wish to avoid my mother’s hysterics over the ball. At any rate, I have a small circle, but I believe that you will like my friends.”
A nervous knot was forming again in her stomach. “But your mother…”
“My mother will have to adjust her thinking—or not, as suits her.”
“But… will she not believe that I am marrying you out of… well, self-interest? After all, I have nothing. Or at least—nothing besides the house. And I cannot even claim that.”
He propped himself up on his elbow and frowned at her, puzzled. “Wait a minute. What house?”
“Talbot Hall.”
“Talbot Hall?”
“My grandfather bought it for my father when he married. But he made the title over to me—in trust, the solicitor said. That is the reason why my father could not use it as security for the money he borrowed. I was too shocked by all of it to ask the solicitor any sensible questions.”
She pulled a pillow to her chest and clutched it tight. The knot in her stomach was getting worse.
“It sounds to me as though you did ask sensible questions.” Keynsham was frowning. “And you had never been told of this before? Why not?”
“I suppose that my father did not wish it.”
He frowned. “Your father was more like my father than I realized. Both of them kept ruinous secrets, and gave no thought to their children.”
“I went to see the solicitor because I learned that my father had been killed on a different road than the one thatWilkes had told me he died on. He had been going to London, and I wondered whether I was the reason for his journey.” She turned onto her side and stared at the window. She ought to be happy. Why couldn’t the ghosts of the past—discontented, dishonest, and malicious—leave her alone?
“Celia. You are not the reason that your father died.” He touched her shoulder. “There is something strange about this story. I do not understand why Wilkes was the one who gave you the information.”
“He said that I ought to go through with the marriage—to honor my father’s wishes.”
Keynsham was silent a moment. “I shall write to my solicitor and ask him to communicate with your father’s solicitor. It will be a simple enough matter to resolve any outstanding matters about the house. Even a poor viscount has advisers who can sort out legal papers.” He was silent a moment. “In fact, it may be best to come to an understanding with Wilkes.”
“An understanding ?” She jerked around to face him.
“He is a businessman—well, after a fashion. He has a price.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that there is some amount of money that will make him go away. All we have to do is learn what it is.”
“Money!” She was shocked. “But he would have murdered you! He has tried to kidnap me!”
Keynsham ran a fingertip along her jawline. “And I would pay any price to know that you will be safe. It appears that he is pursuing you because your father owed him money. Very well; I shall look upon this as repaying the debt. After that, he will sink away into whatever hole he inhabits, and we need never think of him again.”
But Wilkes didn’t forgive anything: not a bad business deal, not a broken promise… and certainly not the daughter of the man who’d cheated him, and who’d injured his pride by running away rather than marry him.
“You do not agree?”
“I… I think that there is more to it.” She struggled to put it into words. “I believe that the reason he spent so much time with my father is that he—he wished to become him. He emulated his clothes, his speech, his mannerisms. Wilkes wanted to be the village squire himself. It is not simply the money.”
“People always say that it is not the money—but nine times out of ten, it is the money. In fact, I would wager that it is more like ten times out of ten.” His eyes glinted. “If there is one thing that I have learned from dealing with my late father’s creditors, it is that.”
“And you have trouble enough already, with the debts that your father left!”
“Ensuring that you are safe and happy is not trouble .” He leaned closer and kissed her. “It is what I wish to do. Besides, you must remember the half-built houses that we found the day that Wilkes chased us out of London. Well, I invested in the project. I cannot wait to show you the changes that we have wrought in the place. And there are rents coming in already—enough that I have applied to discharge the mortgage on one of the estate’s farms.”
His grin reappeared. “And now that Fate has succeeded in bringing us together, I believe that she will shower rewards upon us.” He rolled onto his back and addressed the ceiling. “Do you hear that, Fate? We are to be married! You may cease to plague us with separations, misunderstandings, gun fights, thugs, and everything else in between! It stops now!”
“No!” She clutched his arm. “Do not say it aloud! If there is such a thing as fate, you are tempting it.”
“Shh!” He kissed her. “You are superstitious. You have had to spend too much of your life worrying. But from this moment on, we shall lead the most blissful life that any two people have ever led.” He pulled her closer. “Indeed, I have an idea—several ideas, in fact—about how to make a start on that bliss immediately.”
His talk of fate had stirred up old fears… fears that she was not destined for happiness, and that if she dared to want anything, it would be snatched away. The doubts that she’d tried to banish were back and swirling in her mind.
But then his hand began to slide up her thigh. His mouth found hers, and everything else disappeared in a haze of desire.