Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“Your Grace!” Augusta snapped the book shut, her cheeks growing hot.
She was not a woman easily discomposed. But now, alone, in a library after midnight, caught reading the sort of book that would have had Reverend Leighton administering cold baths and extra prayers…
She felt mortification seize her so violently, that for a moment she could do nothing at all but stare at the flickering shadows cast by the lamp.
“Miss… Norton,” Hudson said, in a voice that was all smoke and velvet, “I do hope you’re not planning to burn down the library. The embers look positively mutinous.”
Augusta jumped up, nearly upsetting the low table in her haste. “Your Grace…” She ducked her head, clutching the book to her chest as though it were a shield. “I-I didn’t expect—”
“It’s your right,” he cut in, with a shrug that looked easy but wasn’t. “It’s a public room. Or as public as any room can be, at this hour.” He strode in, shutting the door behind him with a finality that made her breath catch.
She tried to hide the title as she returned it to the side table, but the gilded spine glimmered. Memoirs of a Courtesan. A French one, no less.
She saw his gaze catch on the words. “I was only leafing through it,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t quiver as much as her knees did.
Hudson crossed to the fire and took up the poker, stirring the coals into a brief, furious glow. “You might have chosen something less… educational.” The glint in his eyes made her want to slap him and kiss him at once. “But I suppose that’s one way to spend the evening.”
“I didn’t realize what it was until I’d begun,” she said, mortified by her own honesty, but unable to stop the words. “The volume was mis-shelved. I was looking for… for philosophy.”
He arched an eyebrow, the movement almost imperceptible but deeply infuriating. “That book contains a philosophy of sorts.”
She pressed her lips together, wishing she could simply vanish into the carpet. “I didn’t read much,” she lied.
“Of course,” he said, and this time she could not decide if he was mocking her or not. “But tell me, what was it then that made you blush so furiously?”
Augusta felt her blush deepen, rising from her chest to her cheeks in a single, treacherous wave. She tried to replace the book on the shelf but missed the slot and fumbled it, nearly dropping it on her toes.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, stooping to retrieve it.
Hudson’s boots appeared beside her, planted firmly on the carpet. “Miss Norton—”
She straightened, clutching the book, and found herself looking up at him. Too close. Far, far too close. She felt the heat of the fire and of him, the two tangling around her like smoke.
He reached out, one large hand engulfing hers, and for a moment they both just stared at the point of contact.
Augusta’s mind went blank, or perhaps just white-hot, as she tried to remember if she’d ever been touched so deliberately by a man before.
He did not let go. Instead, he gently pried the book from her fingers and set it on the table with his one hand. But his other hand lingered on hers, his thumb brushing her knuckles in a gesture so familiar, so unbearably intimate, that she wanted to bite his wrist just to see if he’d flinch.
“You don’t need to apologize,” he said quietly. “You’re a woman.”
She pulled her hand away, but the gesture cost her all of her resolve. “It’s not proper.”
He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “Miss Norton, if I wanted a proper governess for Cassie, I’d have let an agency send me an elderly widow with a face like a haddock and a moral code borrowed from the Inquisition.”
Augusta’s lips almost quirked up into a smile, but she stifled it. “You are mocking me.”
“I am not,” he assured her. “I am teasing you. Only because you’re doing such a poor job of teasing yourself.” His voice lowered, and his eyes darkened. “The book is just a book, Augusta. You’re allowed curiosity. Even especially a woman like you.”
She wished he’d stop saying her name that way, as if tasting it. She wished she could stop imagining how he would taste.
She tried to retreat, but he followed, trapping her between the bookcase and his body, not quite touching but radiating enough heat to make every hair on her arms stand on end. She had to tilt her chin to keep looking him in the eye.
“This is… inappropriate,” she whispered, and he nodded, his eyes never leaving hers.
He leaned in, just enough that she could smell a hint of brandy on his breath, the musk of his cologne. “If you tell me to go, I’ll go.”
She said nothing. She couldn’t.
He waited, and when she still didn’t speak, he reached up and cupped her jaw in one gentle hand. His thumb traced the line of her cheekbone, and she was glad for the solidity of the shelves at her back, because she might have collapsed otherwise.
“You’re not just a governess. You’re a woman, above all. And you deserve to read things that are… adventurous. To want things. To enjoy them.”
She swallowed, her throat dry as a salt flat. “It isn’t proper,” she managed, her protest sounding weak even to her own ears.
His mouth curved. “We established that. It’s after midnight, Augusta. We don’t have to be proper.”
She felt the world tilt. The only thing holding her upright was the pressure of his body, so close now that she could feel his racing heartbeat against the thin linen of her nightgown.
“I was… I was only a little curious,” she said, the words escaping before she could stop them.
His eyes turned molten. “If you’re curious about pleasure, Augusta…” His voice was hoarse. “I could teach you a thing or two that those pages never will.”
She should have recoiled. She should have turned and fled the suffocating intimacy of the stacks. Instead, she felt a traitorous pulse thrumming between her thighs, a rhythmic ache that mirrored the frantic beating of her heart.
Augusta’s gaze traced the hard line of his jaw and the piercing blue of his eyes. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. Her lips parted of their own volition, and he smiled widely, hungrily.
Then he claimed her mouth with his own.
There was no tentative beginning, no soft inquiry. It was a collision of heat and hunger. His mouth was a command she was all too eager to obey, tasting of dark intent and a desperation that made her senses reel.
He pressed her back, and the sharp, unforgiving edge of the bookshelf bit into her spine, but the sting only served to ground her in the sheer, overwhelming reality of his touch.
His hands slid upward, his palms rough and hot against her cheeks before his fingers dove deep into her hair, gripping the strands to tilt her head back. She let out a soft, broken whimper against his lips, her body turning to liquid fire.
Every point of contact, his chest against her breasts, his thighs pinning hers, ignited a new fuse.
For the first time in her life, Augusta wasn’t thinking. She was simply feeling, coming undone in the beautiful, terrifying storm of his embrace.
His tongue traced the seam of her lips, and she opened to him, helpless, greedy, the taste of brandy and salt and him a revelation. Her hands found his waistcoat, her fingers digging into the fine wool as if to anchor herself in the moment.
She felt him smile against her mouth.
“Look at you, aching for me,” he purred, his voice dropping to a rough, commanding whisper. “Beg me to stop, or I’m going to completely devour you.”
Then he deepened the kiss, his hand sliding down to the nape of her neck, holding her in place as if she might otherwise fly apart. She was acutely aware of the wetness pooling between her thighs, and her body pressed into his.
A moan escaped her lips when she felt an unfamiliar hardness press against her.
“Whisper it to me,” he murmured, his breath hot and ragged against her lips. “Tell me how good it is. Tell me you’re all mine right now.”
The involuntary press of her body against his seemed to awaken something in him, and he pressed her into the shelf, his hands sliding over her hips.
She reached blindly behind her, her fingers bumping against a small statue that tumbled to the floor. The sound of it shattering was like a bucket of cold water. She jerked back, gasping, her hand flying to her lips.
Hudson stepped away, just far enough to let air back into the room, but his eyes never left her face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked uncertain. “That was—”
“No,” she said, her voice shaking. “It was my fault. I…”
He shook his head. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“We shouldn’t,” she said. “It isn’t right.”
He let out a long breath and then nodded, his jaw tight. “I know.”
She folded her arms over her chest, as though they could shield her. “I should go.”
“Yes,” he said. “But, wait.”
She paused halfway to the door.
He reached toward the shelf, taking something. The book, she realized, and her cheeks grew hot again.
He looked at the cover, then at her, and pressed it back into her hands. “Keep it. Finish reading it if you want. Curiosity is not a sin, Augusta.”
She could have argued but didn’t. She simply nodded, clutching the book so tightly the edge cut into her palm.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
As she slipped out, she caught a glimpse of him standing by the fire and staring into the flames as if searching for answers in the smoke.
She walked back to her room on legs that threatened to give out at every step. In the dark, she pressed the book to her heart and tried to make sense of what she’d just done.
She knew only that she wanted more.