Chapter Seven
The soft chime from the silver carriage-style clock on the mantle announced the eleven o’clock hour, and Cornelius jerked awake from his light doze.
Temporarily disoriented, he looked about the room.
What the devil had happened? He glanced at the fire, that had died down significantly since they’d arrived at Penelope’s St. James’s Place townhouse two hours earlier.
When he peered at the sofa where she had been during tea, but the sofa was empty.
“Penelope?”
With a groan, he pushed out of the wingback chair he’d fallen asleep in and stood.
After grabbing his cane, he went off in search of her.
Eventually, he located her in the library on the main floor.
“Penelope? Is all well?” The sound of his voice was overly loud in the hushed space.
The room was dark, for she hadn’t lit any of the candles, but there was something cozy and inviting about the atmosphere.
“I’m not certain.” She seemed so lost that protective instincts rose within him. “When I realized you were asleep, I decided to let you continue since you looked so peaceful. The lines of strain had been erased from your face. You need more of that, I’ll wager.”
“I’ll agree with that.” With measured steps, he came further into the room.
“So you came down to be with your books, because books are safe, they’re comforting, they never change.
” That was one thing he remembered about her from before she’d married.
Never did she go anywhere if she couldn’t carry a book.
“Yes.” As she nodded, a few strands of hair escaped their pins to frame her face. “And they never disappoint me. In books, I can always find an escape when life becomes too much for me.”
Though he agreed, he said, “Yet ignoring everything is no way to live.”
“Neither is bedding anything in skirts.” One of her eyebrows rose in challenge.
“Touché.” There was something exhilarating at being routed by a woman.
“We all have our ways and reasons for avoiding truths that life force us to face.” He watched her, wondered if she would kick him out and so she could hide.
What was it that she wanted above everything in life?
Would she tell him if he asked? In the dim illumination from a sconce burning somewhere in the corridor, she was an ethereal goddess.
“Ah, Cornelius. If only we could stay the way we were before everything happened to color and shape our lives.”
He frowned. “Then we wouldn’t be the people we are today. I’d rather have the experiences and learn the lessons than to stay na?ve.”
“I suppose, though I can’t help but wonder if those experiences worked to break us, where if we were still na?ve, we’d never know the difference and would remain happy.”
“Yet happiness after hard-won victories is even sweeter because we know what we worked for in order to achieve it.” Not knowing how to interact with her when she was in such a mood, he came closer. “Perhaps we should return to the drawing room.”
Penny shook her head. “Will you tell me how you were injured in the war?”
He snorted. “Which time?”
A frown tugged at the corners of her kissable mouth as she drew a fingertip along the spines of the books on one of the shelves.
“I realize it was probably a time in your life you wish to forget, and I respect that. I just couldn’t help but notice you don’t seem to need the cane all that much. It’s a bit of an accessory. Why?”
God, she was perceptive, and his respect for her rose.
“You are correct. The damage to my ankle, though serious, doesn’t truly prevent me from walking, but I do need the cane for support now and again.
Was knocked off my damned horse by a ball to the shoulder that went through the fleshy part.
It’s the injury that ended my military career.
” He tightened his hand on the head of the walking stick.
“The cane provides me with a bit of security and strength I sometimes don’t believe I have without it. ” Would she think him too flawed?
“That’s understandable.” Penelope didn’t look at him but continued to move her hand along the books.
The flash of pale skin in the barely there light that highlighted the two silver rings on her right hand caught his attention.
One rested on her forefinger and the other on her fourth finger.
Of the two, he recognized the smaller one, for he’d given it to her before he’d left England for India that last night they’d had together.
Why had he not seen them before? And more to the point, why did she still wear his after all this time? Had she always done so, or had she pulled it out after he’d dropped by the bookshop that first night?
“Whenever I thought of you over the years so very far away in India, I assumed you were quite brave and incredibly noble to risk your life to fight for your country.”
How often did she think of him during those years? He nodded. “I looked forward to your letters. Sometimes, they were the only things that kept my spirits up.”
That prompted a soft smile that turned the blood in his veins molten. “I adored writing them. It helped to think that you might enjoy my little stories and a taste of home.”
He did, more than she would ever know. “Weymouth made you quit?”
“Yes, well, he and my mother. She said it was scandalous to write to a man who wasn’t my husband.
” Finally, Penny met his gaze. The same desire and need in her eyes were what currently coursed through his veins.
He caught his breath. “That was a difficult time in my life when I only had sporadic updates from my brother about you.”
Damn, but he wasn’t nearly good enough for her.
Not then. Not now either, yet the attraction between them was still far too strong to be ignored.
It fairly crackled in the air. “I’m sorry.
Fighting was everywhere, and then it wasn’t, but in the worst of it, I thought of you, as you looked that night in the hedge maze, and I used that image as a distraction.
” He cleared his throat. “Still do, truth be told.”
“What?” Shock and perhaps interest flickered in her expression. “Are you disappointed in how I am now?”
“God, no. In fact, you have been a delightful surprise at every turn.” Because he couldn’t stand to remain parted from her, Cornelius closed the distance between then, rested his cane against the shelf, tugged her into his arms, then kissed her with a hunger that had been brewing for a long time.
Uttering a tiny sigh of surrender, Penny melted into his embrace with her arms looped about his shoulders, and as she layered her body against his, she kissed him back with a hunger that matched his.
The moment he slid his hands down her back to clutch the tempting curve of her arse, all pretense of politeness vanished.
His tailcoat was the first piece of clothing to fall to the floor, quickly followed by her shawl, then his waistcoat.
Between each garment, he kissed her as if it were his last night on earth.
When her pink gown slid to the Aubusson carpet, he knew a moment’s pause, berated himself for a fool, that he shouldn’t do this, but then she yanked the shirt tails from the waist of his evening breeches, and the thought flew away.
Her stays were no match for his determination; neither was her petticoat, and as his cuffs, collar, and cravat preceded his shirt to the floor, Cornelius was nearly lost in her and he’d barely done anything other than kiss and caress her.
By the time he’d laid her down on one of the low, leather sofas, his hands were shaking, which was odd because he wasn’t exactly a novice at taking women to bed.
She looked up at him with round eyes, and the blue-gray was dark with desire, so any lingering hesitation disappeared. Then she lifted a hand, hooked her fingers around his nape, and drew him closer, and that unspoken attraction flared all the more.
“Dear God, how you manage to make me lose every last shred of sanity so quickly, I’ll never know.” Those were the last words he spoke for quite some time, for his concentration on her face and form was intense.
His hands were beneath the hem of her shift while he manipulated her pebbled nipples with his lips and tongue.
The gentle skate of her fingertips along the planes of his chest and over his back was as erotic as anything anyone had ever done to him.
When she arched her back and the outlines of her erect nipples were shadows beneath the thin fabric, it was all he could do not to come prematurely.
Once more, he claimed her lips, and with each meeting of those two pieces of flesh, the passion between them grew.
Perhaps this was merely a search for an outlet from everything that had happened this week, but he didn’t care.
As his hardened length twitched at her hip and she continued to explore his chest and back with her fingertips, he gave himself over to the moment.
Perhaps if he bedded her, rid that tension from his system, he could let her return to her life and he could go about his.
Yet even as he entertained that thought, he knew that taking this first step would send him tumbling down a path without anything to break that fall.
And certain pain at the end, for if her brother found out what he’d been to do her—with her—over the past few days, that would be it for him.
I will worry about that later.
Then he concentrated on seducing the marchioness by dragging his lips down the side of her neck.
At her collarbones, he licked the hollow between them, and when she tried to caress him, he tsked his tongue.
Catching her wrists in his hands, he shoved her arms above her head as she met his gaze in the darkness.
“Claim me.”