Chapter Eight
“Get in the carriage.”
Eliza stared at the gleaming black vehicle that had materialised beside her on the street, its door held open by a coachman in immaculate livery.
She had been walking, alone, for once, having slipped away from Beatrice’s watchful eye on the pretence of visiting a bookshop, and now William sat inside the carriage, one arm braced against the open doorway, his grey eyes dark with intent.
“I cannot simply get into a carriage with you,” she said, though her feet were already moving toward him. “Someone will see. Someone will—”
“No one will see. I have been following you for three streets, waiting for a quiet moment.” His voice was rough, urgent. “I promised you tomorrow. It is tomorrow. Get in the carriage, Eliza.”
She should refuse. Every rule she had ever been taught, every warning she had ever received, demanded that she refuse.
A young lady did not enter a gentleman’s carriage unchaperoned.
A young lady did not allow herself to be alone with a man, especially not this man, especially not after what had passed between them in that corridor.
She got in the carriage.
The door closed behind her. The vehicle lurched into motion. And suddenly she was alone with William in a space that felt impossibly intimate, the velvet seats, the drawn curtains, the dim light filtering through gaps in the fabric.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Nowhere.” He was sitting across from her, his posture tense, his hands gripping his knees as though restraining himself from reaching for her. “We’re simply driving. Circling the park. No one will notice, and no one will question.”
“And if someone does notice?”
“Then I will tell them I was showing you my new horses. They are exceptional horses. People often request demonstrations.”
Despite the racing of her heart, the trembling of her hands, the near-painful awareness of his proximity, Eliza felt her lips twitch. “Do people often request demonstrations while hidden inside a closed carriage?”
“People request all manner of things inside closed carriages.” His voice dropped. “As I suspect you are about to discover.”
The air between them changed. Thickened. Eliza could feel her pulse in her throat, her wrists, other places she did not care to name.
“You said you would offer me something real,” she whispered. “Something I could hold you to.”
“I did.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, bringing his face closer to hers. “I have thought of nothing else since I left you last night. What to offer. What I am capable of offering.” He paused. “I find I am not capable of much. My history has left me… limited. But I can offer you honesty.”
“Honesty?”
“I want you.” The words were stark, unvarnished.
“I want you more than I have ever wanted anything. I want to touch you, taste you, learn every inch of your body until I know it better than my own. I want to be the one who teaches you pleasure, the only one who ever teaches you. I want to ruin you for other men, so that when you think of desire, you think only of me.”
Eliza’s breath had stopped somewhere in her chest.
“That is… not a respectable offer,” she managed.
“No. It isn’t.” His grey eyes held hers, unwavering.
“I cannot offer you respectability. I cannot offer you a clear conscience or a spotless reputation or the approval of your family. What I can offer you is this: I will never lie to you. I will never pretend this is something other than what it is. And I will never, ever take more than you choose to give.”
“What is this, then? What is it?”
“I don’t know.” The admission seemed to cost him something.
“I have never felt this before. I don’t have a name for it.
I only know that when I am not with you, I am thinking about being with you.
And when I am with you…” He exhaled slowly.
“I feel more alive than I have in fifteen years. Perhaps ever.”
The carriage swayed gently, the sounds of London muffled by the curtains and the velvet interior. They were alone. Truly alone.
“Show me,” Eliza said.
His eyes darkened. “Show you what?”
“What you want. What you have been imagining.” Her voice was trembling, but she forced herself to continue.
“I have been imagining too, you know. Since the ball. Since before the ball, if I’m honest. I dream about you, William.
I wake in the night aching for something I don’t understand.
I need…” She swallowed. “I need to understand. I need you to teach me.”
For a long moment, he simply looked at her. She watched the war play out across his features, restraint versus desire, propriety versus hunger.
Hunger won.
He moved across the carriage in one fluid motion, settling beside her on the velvet seat, his thigh pressing against hers through layers of fabric.
His hand came up to cup her face, tilting her head back, and she saw the question in his eyes, one last chance to refuse, to retreat, to protect herself from what was coming.
She did not refuse.
He kissed her.
It was different from the corridor, slower, more deliberate.
Where that kiss had been a wildfire, consuming everything in its path, this one was a controlled burn.
He explored her mouth with devastating patience, learning the shape of her lips, the taste of her tongue, the small sounds she made when he did something particularly effective.
And he was so effective.
Eliza had not known kissing could be like this.
Had not known that a mouth could communicate so much, tenderness and hunger and claim all tangled together.
She found herself clutching at his coat, his shoulders, anything she could reach, trying to pull him closer even as he maintained his maddening control.
“Patience,” he murmured against her lips. “We have time. Let me…”
His hand slid from her face to her neck, tracing the line of her throat with feather-light fingers.
She felt the touch everywhere, in her chest, in her belly, in the growing ache between her thighs.
When his fingers reached the neckline of her gown, hovering at the edge of her décolletage, her breath stopped entirely.
“May I?” he asked.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
His fingers dipped beneath the fabric. Just slightly. Just enough to trace the upper curve of her breast, to feel the pounding of her heart beneath his palm. The sensation was so intense, so shockingly, overwhelmingly intimate, that she gasped aloud.
“Tell me what you feel,” he said, his voice rough.
“I feel…” She could barely form words. “Hot. Everywhere. Like my skin is too small for my body.”
“That’s desire.” He kissed her jaw, her throat, the sensitive spot beneath her ear. “That’s what wanting feels like, when you stop fighting it.”
“I have never…” She broke off as his thumb brushed across her nipple through the thin fabric of her chemise. The sensation was electric, shooting from her breast to her core with devastating precision. “Oh, William.”
“You have never what?” His voice was dark, knowing.
“Never been touched like this? Never felt your body respond to another person?” Another brush of his thumb, and she arched into his hand without conscious thought.
“You’re so responsive, Eliza. So perfect.
I could spend hours just doing this, learning what makes you gasp, what makes you moan, what makes you… ”
His hand closed more fully over her breast, and she did moan, a low, desperate sound that she had never made before in her life.
“Yes,” he breathed. “Just like that.”
The carriage swayed. London passed by outside, unknowing, uncaring. And Eliza was drowning; in sensation, in want, in the devastating expertise of William’s hands and mouth.
He kissed her again, deep and thorough, while his hand continued its exploration. He found the peak of her breast and rolled it between his fingers, gentle but insistent, and she felt the sensation coil down through her body to settle between her legs in a pulse of need.
“William.” His name was a plea.
“I know.” His forehead pressed against hers, his breathing ragged. “I know what you need. But if I give it to you here, if I put my hand beneath your skirts in this carriage, I won’t be able to stop. And you deserve better than that for your first time.”
“My first time?”
“The first time you come apart.” His voice was rough velvet against her ear. “The first time you shatter from pleasure. I want it to be somewhere I can see you properly. Somewhere I can take my time. Somewhere I can worship you the way you deserve.”
The words, come apart, shatter, and worship sent shocks of heat through her body. She did not fully understand what he meant, but her body seemed to understand. Her body was aching, clenching around an emptiness she had never noticed before, desperate for something she could not name.
“When?” she gasped.
“Soon.” He kissed her again, softer now, gentleness returning.
“I am going to propose something to you, Eliza. Something that will shock you. Something that violates every rule you’ve ever been taught.
” His grey eyes met hers, serious and intent.
“But not here. Not now. I need you to think clearly, and you cannot think clearly when I’m touching you like this. ”
“I don’t want to think clearly.”
“I know.” A wry smile curved his lips. “Neither do I. That’s precisely the problem.”
He withdrew his hand from her bodice, slowly, reluctantly, and she felt the loss like a physical pain. Her body was still thrumming with unspent need, her skin still tingling where he had touched her.
“Tomorrow evening,” he said, rearranging her clothing with gentle hands, restoring her to some semblance of propriety. “There’s a ball at Lord Henderson’s. Will you attend?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me in the garden. At eleven o’clock.
There’s a folly at the far end, a small temple, barely visible from the house.
No one goes there during parties; it’s too far from the festivities.
” His voice dropped. “I’ll explain everything then.
And if you agree to what I’m proposing…” His eyes darkened.
“If you agree, I will give you what your body is begging for.”
Eliza swallowed. “And if I don’t agree?”
“Then I will walk away.” The words seemed to cost him. “I will leave you alone to find a respectable husband and have a respectable life. I will never bother you again.”
“Is that what you want? To walk away?”
“No.” The word was raw, honest. “Walking away from you might actually kill me. But I won’t trap you, Eliza. Whatever happens between us, it will be your choice. Fully informed, freely made. I will not be the man who ruined you through deception or manipulation.”
The carriage was slowing. Through the curtains, Eliza could see they were approaching the street where she had been walking.
“I should go,” she said, though every fibre of her being wanted to stay.
“Yes.” He caught her hand before she could move, raised it to his lips, and pressed a kiss to her palm that she felt all the way to her toes. “Tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. The temple in the garden.”
“I’ll be there.”
She opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement, smoothing her skirts with hands that trembled. When she glanced back, William was watching her through the carriage window, his grey eyes intense with something that looked almost like desperation.
Then the carriage pulled away, and she was alone on the street, her body still burning, her mind still reeling, her heart pounding with a mixture of terror and anticipation.
What have I done?
The question echoed through her mind as she walked, slowly, trying to compose herself, back toward her aunt’s house. Her lips were swollen. Her bodice was slightly askew. And between her thighs, there was a persistent, shameful ache that refused to fade.
She had let him touch her. Had begged him to touch her, in fact. Had moaned and gasped and arched into his hands like a wanton, like the ruined women her mother had warned her about.
And she had agreed to meet him again. In secret. In a secluded temple where no one would find them.
She knew what would happen there. She was not so innocent that she couldn’t piece together the implications, the ‘something that will shock you,’ the promise of what her ‘body was begging for.’ He was going to propose an arrangement.
Something improper. Something that would compromise everything she had been raised to value.
And she was going to say yes.
She knew it already. Had known it, perhaps, since the moment he first looked at her across the Worthington ballroom. Whatever he offered, however improper, however dangerous, she was going to accept.
Because the alternative was walking away from him. And that, she realised with terrifying clarity, was simply not something she could do.
The house was quiet when she returned.
She slipped upstairs to her room, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it, breathing hard and trying to force her racing heart to slow.
Her reflection in the mirror confirmed her fears. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips were red and slightly swollen. Her eyes had a wild, unfocused quality that she barely recognised.
She looked like a woman who had been thoroughly kissed.
She looked like a woman who wanted more.
This is wrong, she thought, pressing her hands to her burning cheeks. He is seducing you, just as he has seduced countless women before. You are not special. You are merely the latest.
But even as she formed the thoughts, she could not quite believe them.
Because the way he had touched her, reverently, carefully, as though she were something precious, had not felt like seduction. It had felt like worship.
And the way he had stopped, had pulled back when every line of his body was taut with need, had not felt like the behaviour of a man who took what he wanted without regard for consequences. It had felt like restraint. Like respect.
He could have taken more, she realised. I would have let him. I was so lost in sensation that I would have let him do anything, and he knew it. And he stopped anyway.
She crossed to her bed and sat down heavily, her legs suddenly weak. Her body was still thrumming with unspent desire, a restless, urgent need that she did not know how to satisfy. She pressed her thighs together, trying to ease the ache, and found that it only made things worse.
This is what he meant, she thought. When he said my body was begging. This is what it feels like to want something so badly you can barely think.
She fell back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling, her mind churning.
Tomorrow evening. Eleven o’clock. The temple in the garden.
She would go. She would hear his proposal. And then she would make a choice, a choice that would determine the course of her entire life.