Chapter Twenty-Seven
The moment Father stepped down from the carriage, every nerve in Bea’s body coiled tight. Mama followed, murmuring something about the lateness of the hour, but Bea barely heard her. All she knew, all she felt, was Nicholas at her side.
“We’ll just let you two say goodnight,” her father said blandly, already crossing the walk. It was shocking, really. An impropriety. It just proved how much her father trusted Nicholas to allow them a moment alone together.
But the instant the duke and duchess disappeared up the steps, the night took on a different weight. Quiet. Breathless. Charged.
Nicholas quickly pulled the door closed and turned to Bea.
She opened her mouth—she thought to thank him, or perhaps to apologize, or to demand why he had to look at her like that at the dinner table—but Nicholas moved closer.
And the world tilted.
He kissed her first.
Not politely. Not cautiously. Not like a man feeling out the edges of propriety.
He kissed her like a man who’d been holding himself back all night and had finally decided he’d had quite enough of it.
Heat flashed through her so fast her breath tangled in her throat. His hands framed her face, and her fingers clutched his lapels on instinct, pulling him closer, anchoring herself to the only steady thing in a world that suddenly felt as though it were pitching beneath her.
A sound escaped her, helpless, hungry, horribly honest.
And God help her, she kissed him back with everything she had been trying not to feel.
The taste of him—warm, intoxicating—hit her harder than the wine she’d drunk at dinner.
Her pulse stuttered wildly, her balance wavering despite the seat beneath her, as though will alone kept her composed.
Nicholas made a low, rough sound in response, a vibration she felt everywhere, and his hands slid from her cheeks down to her waist, pulling her sharp against him with a decisiveness that unraveled her.
She leaned into him without thinking, pressing so close she could feel the rise and fall of his chest, the heat of him searing through every fine layer of her gown. His scent—clean soap, warm skin, the faintest trace of brandy—wrapped around her like a spell.
He angled the kiss deeper, and her world tilted further.
Her hands went from his lapels to his shoulders, then higher, threading into the hair at his nape, knocking off his hat, fingertips sinking into soft, dark waves. He shuddered at her touch. Actually shuddered. The realization sent a bolt of power through her she hadn’t been prepared for.
“Bea,” he whispered against her mouth, half groan, half prayer.
Her name had never sounded like that before.
She felt the seat beneath her a second before she realized he’d pushed her backward, guiding her until she was pressed against the squabs and he was pressing her gently—but unmistakably—into the cushions.
Heat roared through her. Her body arched into his without deliberate will. The kiss deepened again, dizzying, desperate.
When she gasped for breath, he pulled back slightly, his forehead brushing hers, his lips grazing her cheek, her jaw, the vulnerable space beneath her ear.
Her eyes fluttered shut, knees weakening.
His mouth found a spot on her neck that made her clutch at him, a soft gasp tearing free before she could swallow it down.
“This is your fault,” she whispered, breathless, mortified by how undone she felt and how badly she wanted more. “You were absolutely irresistible tonight.”
He laughed, voice shaking. “I accept full responsibility.”
She tugged him back to her mouth with entirely too much confidence for someone trembling as violently as she was.
The kiss turned fervent again. Hotter. Hungrier. His hands splayed across her hips and guided her closer, so close she could feel the unmistakable evidence of how deeply this affected him.
A shock ran through her, lightning-quick and devastating. Her breath shuddered out of her. Her fingers tightened in his hair. Everything inside her spiraled.
And then—then—he shifted, pulling her up in one fluid movement until she found herself, skirts pushed up above her knees, straddling his waist.
The carriage swayed.
So did she.
He pulled her tight against his hips, and her head fell back. Heat flooded her, up her spine, across her chest, blooming in low, overwhelming places she did not dare acknowledge. Her heart thundered wildly. Her breath stuttered in her throat. She felt—
She felt everything.
“Nicholas,” she managed, though it emerged as a gasp, not a warning.
He froze immediately. Not pushing her away, but holding perfectly still, like a man poised on a precipice.
He tipped her head toward his, his forehead resting lightly against hers, their breaths mingling, both of them shaking.
“I’ll stop,” he murmured, voice hoarse, “if you ask me to.”
He meant it.
She could feel that truth vibrating beneath his skin, see it in the strain tightening his jaw, the fear and desire warring in his eyes.
She should stop this. She should climb off his lap and move away before her body gave away every last secret she possessed. He did not yet know her secret. And when he found out, he might well hate it. It was unfair of her to continue this.
But when his hand slid, slowly, reverently, along the curve of her waist, when his thumb brushed the narrowest part of her stays with breathtaking tenderness…
Something inside her simply gave way.
Her fingers skimmed his rough cheek, then curved around the back of his neck. She drew him closer until his breath ghosted across her parted lips.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered.
He stilled. Completely.
Then—very slowly—his hands moved again, tracing the line of her waist, her back, her hips with a kind of worship that made her body tremble against his. He kissed her again. God, he kissed her—slow and deep, as though savoring every moment.
Sensation built—too much, too fast, too startling—and the carriage seemed to shrink with every breath they shared. The night outside disappeared. The house. The city. The world.
There was only this.
Only him.
Only the dangerous, impossible, world-altering truth that she wanted him with a ferocity she had never known.
He broke the kiss first—barely—pressing his forehead to hers again, both of them gasping.
“If you’ll regret this tomorrow,” he said quietly, “tell me now.”
She stared at him, chest heaving, lips swollen, pulse racing, every nerve alight.
Regret?
Tomorrow?
No. God, no.
But she had done something unforgivable. Something that would come crashing down the moment his Bow Street Runner discovered the truth, if he discovered the truth. Guilt flickered up, sharp and panicked. She had to say something, tell him some truth, even if it wasn’t everything.
“For so long… I thought…” She swallowed, unable to look away from him. “I thought you only wanted to win.”
His jaw tightened. “Win what?”
“Me. My father’s approval. Your political future.” She tried to laugh. “All of it.”
The pain that crossed his face was brief but unmistakable.
“You are not an obstacle,” he said softly, squeezing her hips. “You are the only part of all this that feels real.”
Her breath hitched, and something molten and terrifying and wonderful unfurled inside her.
The truth—her truth—landed with the force of a blow.
All evening—no, for days now—touchstones kept clicking into place.
Him listening, really listening. Him noticing her thoughts, her moods, her passions with unnerving accuracy.
Him taking her to Parliament. Him defending her with the sort of boldness she had never expected from a man who spent half his time charming political opponents.
Piece by piece, all of it slammed into her at once.
She wanted him. She’d known that for days.
Not because he was handsome or charming or wicked or persistent.
But because he had seen her. Defended her.
Asked her what she thought. Asked her what she believed.
Treated her mind like a marvel instead of a nuisance.
A fierce ache bloomed low in her chest, a mix of wanting and wonder and dread. Because beneath all of this heady, impossible feeling, there pulsed the sharp thorn of her secret.
Her caricatures. Her mistake. The Bow Street Runner he’d hired. The reckoning barreling toward her with every passing hour.
She swallowed hard.
Her lips brushed his again, soft, aching. A whisper of a kiss that felt far more intimate than all the breathless, hungry ones before.
“Nicholas,” she whispered again.
His hand slid up to cup her cheek, thumb stroking just beneath her eye. “Beatrix,” he murmured. The name was like a caress across her skin.
That was when she knew they were seconds—seconds—from crossing a line they could never uncross. And she couldn’t let that happen until he knew the truth.
The knowledge hit her like cold water.
She tore her mouth from his, chest heaving, her fingers gripping his coat as if she needed it to keep from completely collapsing.
“I want to, but… We—we can’t—” she managed, voice cracking with conflict. “Not tonight. Not yet.”
He stiffened instantly. “Jesus, Bea. I’m not planning to take you in the back of your father’s coach. I just want to touch you.”
She closed her eyes. Oh, God. She wanted that too, so much.
His deep voice rumbled against her throat. “Just let me touch you a little longer. Lie back for me. Let me kiss you until you’re trembling and wet and begging for more.”
The way he said it—low, rough, threaded with restraint that was rapidly fraying—should have terrified her. Instead, it sent heat flooding through her, pooling low and deep until she could hardly breathe.
“Nicholas…” His name crumbled into a sigh as he moved her gently off his lap and onto the soft carriage seat, where he knelt before her, not with reverence, but with a hunger so raw it made her stomach swoop.