Chapter Twenty
The maid needed to leave.
Now.
Scarlett was soaked to the skin, embarrassed, and terribly, terribly aroused after being held so close by Malcolm.
As Malcolm helped her to her room, the maid kept cooing over her and asking how she could assist.
All she wanted was for the girl to be gone.
“Do you need a doctor, miss?” she asked as Malcolm lowered her onto the edge of the bed.
What I need is for you to leave.
“Perhaps that might be best,” Malcolm said.
The sound of his voice at this moment was too much for her to bear. She felt herself flush hot underneath her very cold clothing.
“You must go to the hall and tell Mr. Jensen to call for Mr. Barrington. He should come quickly. And you’ll need to wait for his arrival so you can direct him to our location.”
Scarlett’s heart rose in hope. Would it be possible to be alone with him? Here? If it were, it would be worth every indignity she had just suffered.
The maid’s gaze slid between the two of them. She was aware, of course, that she was playing the role of some sort of chaperone, and that was part of her function. To shield Scarlett from indecency.
“Miss, does that suit you?” she asked nervously.
“Yes, please,” Scarlett said. “I do think I need a doctor. I am in great pain.”
This statement, of course, was false. She was in no pain now that she was seated. As she had said so not five minutes before. But she hoped the girl had not retained that detail.
“Very well. Of course. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She bowed and bobbed off.
Thank Christ.
The girl left the room. Scarlett heard her tread on the stairs and then the door below close.
“You need to change your clothes,” Malcolm said. “I’ll wait in the hall.”
“There is no need. I’ll change behind the screen.”
“Miss Perkins, that’s … I-I can’t possibly—”
“Please. I’d rather not be alone.”
She expected him to protest further, but instead, he nodded. He crossed to the door and closed it.
Her hands were shaking. And when she tried to stand, she winced.
“Here,” he said, catching her in his arms.
She buried her head into his shoulder, and he swore.
“Scarlett,” he said, his voice full of warning.
“I won’t be able to undo my corset. Not alone.”
“Damn. I shouldn’t have sent the maid away. I just thought—”
“No, I’m glad you did. I wanted her gone.”
His silence indicated to her that he had felt the same.
“I don’t mind you helping me,” she continued. “I’d rather you than her. And you’ve already seen me.” It was true, she thought frantically.
Once more, to her surprise, he nodded.
With careful fingers, he undid the buttons on the back of her dress, and then the one above her petticoat.
He shucked off the wet garments and then he undid the laces of her corset.
It all dropped off, leaving only her chemise and her stockings.
She wasn’t bold enough to remove her chemise, but she quickly removed her wet underthings.
“Scarlett.”
Ignoring that warning, she gestured toward the screen. “My dressing gown, please.”
He moved away from her and then returned, draping the smooth fabric over her shoulders.
She shrugged it on.
“Please, sit,” he said, guiding her to the bed.
She did not resist. She sat on the edge of the bed and gazed up at him.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I should wait outside.”
And yet, he didn’t move.
“Or you could kiss me again.”
“That is not—I should not.”
“What is the difference between right now and last night?”
“I-I don’t know. We might be caught.”
She shook her head. “Everyone is down by the pond or in the hall. The maid won’t be back for an hour at least. We’re all alone.”
“Damn you.”
She raised her brows. “Do you mean that?”
She had no idea where her confidence came from. She had never been one to speak boldly to men. She supposed, however, it was because she felt he already knew her intimately. And so, after all, he did.
“No. You are just making it very difficult to be honorable.”
“I think we left honorable and proper somewhere around the time you spilt between my thighs in your sleep.”
He swore, harshly and indecently.
And then he was kissing her, pushing her back onto the bed.
She kissed him back, showing him how much she wanted him to be doing exactly this.
She realized that his clothes were wet, too, and that he must be cold.
But her expression of worry for his health couldn’t make it to her lips.
He groaned into her mouth, and she felt his hardness through his trousers.
And yet, they did not do more than kiss. They just let the heat between them build, savoring the pleasure of exploring. When she let her tongue skirt to his lower lip, he growled, and then met it with his own. Which elicited another groan and an attendant increase in wetness between her thighs.
Finally, when she could take it no more, she reached down and touched his cock through his trousers.
He jerked back. “Scarlett.”
“You’ve touched me—can I not do the same for you?”
To her disappointment, he moved away from her. “I do not—I do not know what you want.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.”
“I want you to ruin me.”
She had not put it to herself that way until this moment. But it was true. It was what she wanted.
“I can’t do that.”
Disappointment threaded through her. “I would expect nothing of you. After. You must know that now.”
“That is not why I cannot.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Christ, Scarlett, I want to.”
“Then what is your objection?”
“It is not honorable—”
“I thought we had dispensed with honor.”
“That is not the only reason.”
“Then what is the other reason?”
God, he was handsome. He looked made for sin and sinning.
She had never been particularly ardent in her religious feelings.
But she understood that all the sermons she had heard in her lifetime about temptation and chastity and a woman’s virtue had been warning her about a man who made her feel this abandoned.
“You say you want me to ruin you. That suggests that you haven’t-you have never-bedded a man before.”
She frowned. “Of course not.”
To have done so would be an immense disgrace. He had to know that, of course. She was slightly affronted that he would even think it of her, despite their current circumstances.
“You deserve to have such a thing be a pleasurable experience. And I fear I do not have the … experience to make it so.”
For a moment, her mind stuttered. And then she realized what he meant. “You have never bedded a woman before?”
“Ah. No.”
That possibility, she had to admit, had not occurred to her. She had long accepted as fact that almost all men in her world, particularly those who had attained a certain age, had bedded at least a few women as a matter of course.
She did not understand why his lack of experience should matter to her.
In fact, she found it rather—arousing. She liked the idea that she wouldn’t be alone in her inexperience.
Perhaps, even, she had sensed it from him, and that was why she found herself capable of being so bold.
They felt as if they were in the same place. Equals.
“I don’t mind.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t that simple. It can be—uncomfortable for a woman. I wouldn’t know how to make it less so.”
“I may be an innocent, but I know of the pain that is supposed to attend a woman’s loss of virtue. I was engaged once, after all. I have been told of it. And I have married friends, of course.”
Something flickered across his face. But then it was gone.
“I am not the right choice for such a gift, Scarlett.”
“Well, perhaps you do not have the power to influence my choice. Perhaps, I choose you anyway.” She reached forward and put her hand on his chest.
The gesture was very similar to the one she had made last night, before they had kissed in the entryway. Except for this time, she leaned in and kissed him.
Thankfully, he returned her kiss. Soon, he was against her again, as hard and provoked as he had been.
“Perhaps,” he said, breaking the kiss, “I can do for you what I did before. In the closet.”
It wasn’t what she sought. But it could do for the present. She felt so hot and needy underneath her thin chemise.
“Please.”
He pulled back her robe and then slipped his hand under the hem of the garment.
He opened her with his fingers, and she gasped. She was so wet for him that his fingers slid easily over her once more.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Is it-is that right?”
“Yes,” she repeated, but then his hand slid over the center of her pleasure. “There. Yes. There. Right there.”
He kept stroking her, firmly but gently, and she found her breath quickening.
But she didn’t want to only receive pleasure, she realized, even from within it. She wanted to give it as well. She reached out and touched his cock through his trousers again.
He jerked back. “Scarlett.”
“Let me. Please.”
This time, when her hand returned to his trouser front, he didn’t object. She stroked him as he stroked her. It felt so good to touch his throbbing hardness as he touched her so intimately. His little intakes of breath made her feel powerful.
But it still wasn’t enough. “I want to touch you. To really touch you.”
“You are,” he panted.
“No. Take it out.”
She expected him to refuse, but to her surprise, he didn’t.
Even as her body screamed in objection when he took his hand away from her core, she was glad.
Because he undid the placket of his trousers and the tapes of his smalls.
And then he was there before her—bare and large and hot and pulsing for her.
Scarlett stretched out her hand and palmed him. She had never touched a man like this before, so she had no idea what would feel good to him. So instead, she just stroked him gently, mimicking what he had been doing to her.
“Ah—” He gasped. “Dear God.”
“Did I hurt you?”
She realized then that her hand was damp. It was his seed, just a little of it. She recognized it from what he had left between her legs on their first night.
“No. The opposite.”
“Touch me again.”
He obliged her, and she kept stroking him. He cried out, and so did she. Thank God the lodge was empty.
She ratcheted up higher and higher yet and she knew her climax was near.
“You are going to make me—I am going to—”
“Yes, darling, please.”
The darling thrilled her.
She came hard, her core clenching and unclenching in fierce waves of pleasure.
And then, to her surprise, he jerked beneath her fingers and filled her hand with his hot, copious seed.
Never in her life had Miss Scarlett Perkins felt so powerful.