Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Louisa did not know what made her do it. No thought had entered her head about doing something as wild and rebellious as moving closer to David – and she certainly had not considered anything so scandalous as kissing him!
But that had not mattered. Her entire being wanted him, wanted to be closer, and now she knew he had attempted to act honourably, that he had wanted to marry her…
“Yes, I wanted to marry you. I asked your father’s permission, and he said no.”
Though David was evidently surprised at first at her sudden kiss, his surprise did not hold him back for long. Louisa gasped as his hands grasped her shoulders pulling her closer, and the kiss became deeper, more passionate than even she could have imagined.
She loved him. Louisa could no longer deny it to herself, no longer pretend that her heart did not long for him.
She loved him.
“Oh, Louisa,” David murmured.
And then the reality of what she was doing hit Louisa as though she had fallen off a horse. What did she think she was doing – kissing David Nelson? Kissing him like this, his tongue teasing along her lips, desperate for entrance?
Forcing herself away from him, Louisa rose from the sofa, slightly astonished that her legs were still able to carry her, and staggered across the room.
“No,” she mumbled. “No, we cannot – ”
“Cannot what?”
Louisa turned to look at David, his eyes hazy with desire, his arms still out as though he was still holding her.
He wanted her, and he did not understand, she could see that. Confusion was etched across his face and she could barely explain it, only that what they were doing was wrong, surely.
Young ladies did not go around kissing gentlemen!
“Louisa?” David rose to his feet, stepping towards her.
Louisa’s heart was already pattering painfully, increasing with every foot he closed between them.
Because it wasn’t just any gentleman she had been kissing. It was David. David Nelson, the boy who had lived in the doctor’s grange at the left side of the park. David, the boy she had giggled with at the back of church.
David, the young man she had waved off to university with tears brimming but unspilt, knowing she had no words to explain her affection, a feeling she did not at that time entirely understand herself.
David, the man who had kissed her. Who had, unbeknownst to her, asked her father for her hand.
There was no one like him.
“I do not understand,” said David quietly.
Louisa reached for the door handle. She could not do this, could not remain here. She could not simply stay here with him, the man who had meant so much to her, who still meant so much to her.
The storm raged around them, keeping them here, keeping her mother away, and Louisa turned the door handle and slowly opened the door, heart still racing.
She could not do it. She could not stay.
“If you want me to go,” said David quietly, his eyes not looking away from hers. “I will.”
He was close now, almost too close, and yet not close enough. It took every inch of control within Louisa to prevent her from kissing him again, for succumbing to the desire welling in her – desire she knew she had to fight.
“I will love you,” David whispered, “no matter what you decide.”
Louisa blinked.
“I will love you no matter what you decide.”
Had she ever met a gentleman so loving, so devoted? Was she really willing to throw it all away – for the sake of decorum?
Louisa shut the door quickly and kissed David full on the mouth.
If he was surprised, he did not show it. David’s arms were around her instantly, pulling her closely to him, encircling her with his affection, and it was David, David as she remembered, the only man she had ever loved.
“Oh, Lou,” he murmured. “Lou…”
“David,” she whispered, her eyes closed, all her other senses drinking him in.
His passion pushed her up against the door, his mouth worshipping her until she could only cling to him.
Eventually the kiss ended. Louisa blinked up into the eyes of the only man she would ever kiss, if she could have it her way, for the rest of her life.
“Love me,” she whispered.
David blinked. “I…I beg your pardon?”
Louisa swallowed. The words had definitely come out of her mouth, even if she had not intended them to, and now they were out there in the open, unable to be taken back.
“Love me.”
She knew what she meant by that; something dark, and wonderful, and passionate. Something that ladies like here were not supposed to know about, not supposed to understand.
A depth of closeness that was only supposed to be enjoyed by those who had exchanged vows in a church.
But she wanted more than that – more than what Society deemed was appropriate, and Louisa was certain in this moment that she would never regret it. Never regret giving David precisely what he had wanted all that time ago.
“Do…do you mean…”
Louisa nodded, not taking her eyes from David. Well, they had played by Society’s rules, had they not? David had asked her father’s permission and been denied – why, she could not tell. Her Father and David had always got on well, she had thought.
And he had gone away, likely as a mark of respect for her father. He had stayed away after her father had died, again, showing respect.
Well, there was no need for them to hold back now, was there?
Excitement leapt in Louisa’s heart, along with something a little warmer just below her stomach. When he kissed her…oh, she would do anything for David to kiss her.
Kiss her all over.
The thought alone made Louisa’s cheeks flush but she did not look away from the man she could now admit, at least in the privacy of her own mind, that she loved.
“David, I want you to…to love me,” Louisa said softly, her voice barely over that of a whisper. “Love me, David.”
It appeared he did not need much further encouragement. Pressing her up against the door, David kissed her again and Louisa gave herself up to the kiss, wrapping her hands around his neck, bringing him closer.
How did this happen, exactly? How did one’s body suddenly feel as though it was it, and not the logs, that David had set ablaze? How was it possible to feel this tingling warmth across her entire body, every inch of it – even places that Louisa had barely paid much attention to?
“How I’ve missed you, Lou,” David moaned as his lips moved from hers and started a trail of kisses down her neck. “So much…”
Louisa’s back arched against him, so desperate was she to feel everything to take in every sensation that David could offer her. Was this, perhaps, what they might have shared in that Winter Garden if she had had the courage – if she had known what it was she was missing?
His lips brushed her collarbone and Louisa gasped his hands moved from her waist to her buttocks, drawing her nearer.
“David,” she breathed. “I…oh, David…”
It was all Louisa could do to stand, it was almost impossible with all these sensations rushing through her.
“I cannot – ”
And the connection was broken. David stepped back from her, raising his hands as though she was pointing a gun at him, his face a picture of concern.
“I have no wish to force you, Louisa,” he said in a jagged voice, his breathing heavy.
Louisa swallowed, trying to catch her own breath. “No, ‘tis not that, I just meant…I can barely stand. With you kissing me.”
A slow smile crept across David’s face. “By God, Louisa, I…I have to be careful. Months of careful abstinence – ”
“You mean you never – ” Louisa halted herself before she said another word, her cheeks heating rapidly.
The last thing she wanted to do was know whether David had ever…in all the months that he had been alone, away from her that was, was he actually…alone?
Or had he decided to find refuge from the frustrated passions they had been unable to share in the arms of another?
David looked serious. “Louisa, this last year – ”
“I don’t want to hear it,” said Louisa quickly. Oh, the last thing she needed was to hear how he had betrayed the potential they had not been able to share by kissing another woman!
“This last year I have been forced to bury down my passion for you,” said David quietly, not looking away from her. “Bury it down deep inside myself but with you in my arms, the two of us here, alone…God, my desperation to know you, all of you…”
It appeared he could not continue, but Louisa did not need him to. She understood him; understood him perfectly.
He had not returned into her life quite as she had expected, but whether David was truly an Archduke or not, he was hers. All hers. She knew that now, and would never permit anything to separate them. Not her mother, not Society’s rules…
Nothing.
Without looking away from David, Louisa’s hand moved across the door and found the handle. She turned it, allowed it to open as she stepped nervously forward.
“Well then,” she said shyly. “Come with me.”
It appeared David did not need further encouragement. He was by her side the moment Louisa stepped through the door, his fingers intertwining with her own, and she hardly knew how she would walk, such love was brimming up in her whole body.
It did not matter. In a swift movement that made Louisa cry out in surprise, David had swept her up in his arms and lifted her off his feet.
“David!”
“You cannot possibly know,” he said cheerfully, his heart beating quickly, Louisa could feel it in his chest, “how much I have wanted to do this.”
“David, what are you doing!” Louisa giggled, her own heart now starting to race alongside his as he moved towards the staircase. “You cannot possibly think you can carry me up the stairs?”
David raised an eyebrow. “You doubt me?”
Louisa looked up at him. He was a handsome man, but then, she had always known that. It had been he who took a long time to realise just what was between them.
“Absolutely,” she whispered with a teasing smile.
He bowed his head to kiss her, just briefly, a snatch of a kiss that made Louisa ache for more, before he stepped forward and up the first step.