Chapter 28 #2
Douglas caught a glimpse of Sarah as he turned to put more wood into the fire. He watched her walk along the graveled path, her skirts swinging.
“Good morning,” he said pleasantly, spearing the shovel into the ground, clasping both hands on the end of the handle and leaning against it.
She looked straight at him, then smiled slowly, sending heat straight to his groin. She took in his appearance from the top of his head to his toes. The fact that he’d shed his shirt earlier hadn’t meant much to him at the time, but it did now. He was—conveniently—halfway to undressed.
“We have servants, Mr. Eston,” she said, her tone very measured. There was, however, a twinkle in her eye, and her voice trembled slightly.
“Not for this, we don’t,” he said. “No one works on my diamonds.”
She nodded, fixing her gaze on his chest. Suddenly, most of the heat he was experiencing was being generated by his body and not the furnace.
“Can Alano not assist you?”
“Do you think I need assistance, Sarah?” He almost flexed his muscles, then, but restrained himself.
“I should think you would want help,” she said.
Her gaze had not moved from his chest. She was really making this difficult.
“Blame Mrs. Williams,” he said.
At that, her gaze lifted to his face. “Mrs. Williams?” she asked, clearly confused.
“I believe Alano is smitten,” Douglas said. “At least that’s my thought after seeing them together this morning.”
“Mrs. Williams?”
“Do you object?” Surely she wasn’t that much of a snob. In fact, he hadn’t thought her a snob at all despite the fact she was the daughter of the Duke of Herridge, a man very much impressed with his status in life. Look at how easily she’d taken the news of Douglas’s past. “Alano is a good man.”
“I’m sure he is,” she said quickly, “but Mrs. Williams is not in the first flush of youth.”
He began to smile, understanding. “She’s not dead, either, Sarah. She has a right to love and lust along with younger people. So does Alano. Or do you think such feelings disappear after a certain age?”
She looked wide-eyed at him, as if she’d never given it any thought.
He left the shovel speared into the earth and walked slowly toward her.
“Lust doesn’t just disappear, Sarah. It might go to ground a bit, but it never truly goes away.”
“Really?”
How very proper she sounded. How very English. But her stormy gray eyes were now as soft as dandelion down, and her cheeks were colored pastel pink. She was biting her bottom lip, and he wanted to ask her to let him do that, instead.
“Truly,” he said, reaching her. “And lust has another enormously interesting component. It renews itself. Constantly.”
“Really?” She was evidently so lost in that thought that she didn’t seem to notice he was steering her toward the observatory.
“Most assuredly. I can guarantee it, as a matter of fact. Before seeing you, I was basking in the warmth of my thoughts of last night. Now that memory isn’t at all sufficient.”
“It isn’t?”
He knew that he would fall apart if he didn’t have her. Now. He would cease to live, and the man he’d known himself to be—resilient, intractable, focused—would simply falter. Or he would crumble to dust.
When they reached the doorway, she looked up at him, her features aware and alert, as if she were trembling on the edge of a great discovery.
“Oh, Douglas, it’s the same with me,” she said softly, almost unmanning him.
He hesitated, needing to be with her, but holding himself away at that last little bit of moment.
His mind, forever urging caution and prudence, was not silent on this occasion, but his body overruled his sense, reacting silently and powerfully in a burst of heat that filled his cock and made it rock hard.
“Let me show you how it can be,” he said, and led her into the darkness of the observatory.
It was the sound like pebbles Sarah heard first, a clink, ping, clink against the tile sides of the observatory.
She pressed her palm against Douglas’s bare chest as he raised his head from their kiss.
They looked at each other.
“What is that?” she asked.
She could suddenly feel the silence, as if the absence of sound had created a hollow space around her. She looked toward the slightly open door. Suddenly, a whoosh of heated air flung them both against the curved wall.
The air was suddenly black. Chunks of bricks thudded against the side of the building as loud as if God Himself were hammering the observatory.
Douglas swore, and pulled her deeper into the building, but the explosion wasn’t the only danger.
A fireball scorched through the grass and licked at the doorway.
He reached up, tore the linen from the ceiling, then stood on one of the shelves and began opening the roof.
The wheel had evidently been oiled, and it swung open easily.
He reached down for her. “Come on, Sarah.”
In a moment of sickening clarity, she understood. They were in grave danger and must escape the observatory.
However, she was never going to fit in the opening with her hoops. Reaching below her waistband, she tore the tapes of her hoops, pulling at them until they were free. She stepped out of her hoops, grabbed the material of her skirts, and scrambled up beside him.
He made a step out of his interlinked hands, and she put her right foot against his palms, holding on to his shoulders as he gave her a boost. The opening wasn’t large, but she could fit. Could he?
“I’m not leaving until you promise to be right behind me,” she said.
“Not only right behind you,” he said, “but right next to you.”
She peered out the top of the observatory. The fire was racing through the fields to the west, but they could still escape to the rear of the building.
A moment later, he boosted her up even farther. She pulled herself up with both arms, elbows striking the copper of the roof.
The tile was rough on the side of the building, abrading her fingers as she grappled for a handhold. The small iron ladder built into the curve of the roof was a godsend, however, and she managed to hold on to it, lower her legs, and fall into the grass, thankful that it had grown so high.
Douglas was right behind her, and she hugged him when he landed next to her. He stood and caught her up in his arms a second later.
She didn’t have a chance to protest, because he bent his head and kissed her, silencing her as he carried her from the flames.