Chapter 11
Fiery leaves escaped their branches to cling to West’s soaked frame as he stumbled through the forest. His lungs burned at his clipped, slippery pace. The oppressive rain poured through gaps between the canopy, leaving every inch of him drenched.
At his sides, his hands clenched into impotent fists. There was no one to fight, to hit, no one, save himself. And his fingers did not itch for a fight. No, they longed to trace the gentle swell of Bella’s hips beneath her damp dress.
It was impossible—their situation. Clearly, he could not be trusted alone in her presence. Every time she offered him a crumb, he tried to snatch the entire loaf. And each instance left them both devastated.
But the mere thought of leaving, returning to town, leaving her, left his gut churning. Too selfish to leave. Too in love to stay.
Fingers clasped his elbow. West whirled around to find those dark eyes boring into him.
“Bella, I—”
“No, Miles Weston. It is my turn,” she insisted, voice tight with fury.
West’s chest ached. He deserved this—this and so much more. She’d never chastised him for his crimes, not truly. He nodded. “Say your piece.”
“As if I need your permission, you infuriating arse!”
He waited a moment for her to continue, then raised a brow when she did not.
“Ugh!” Bella stamped her foot with a little squelching sound.
“You keep deciding for me. I ask you to go, and you insist you’ll stay through winter.
I request a singular breath to gather my thoughts, and you pack to leave the county.
” Her cheeks flushed beneath the droplets that danced between her freckles.
“If you do not want this—want me—then that is that. I’ll not beg. Even when I had nothing, I had my pride. But then you kiss me like you might die if you do not, and I cannot account for it.” Bella’s eyes searched his for a breath, two.
Every time he’d convinced himself he was sparing her heart—that the denial of his own was somehow noble—he had broken it instead.
She’d handed him the small, tender pieces of her soul time and again, and instead of trusting the words and actions of the most capable woman he’d ever met, he thought he knew better.
Bella’s fingers tangled with each other. “You may speak now.”
His breath caught while he searched for a beginning. “Lord, I am an infuriating arse. But, Bella, you must know— Surely you must— I love you. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I’ve known what that meant. This situation—our stations—it is impossible, but my feelings have never wavered.”
Bella’s damp lashes fluttered. “I— What?”
“You’re a lady, and I’m… me.” West gestured to his rain-soaked frame. “A stable master’s son.”
“The title may have mattered while Father was alive, but he is gone. And as soon as you learned of it, you ran off.”
“Your brother had returned. You were recovering. You no longer needed me to watch over you.”
“I never needed you to watch over me. I wanted you.”
“You…”
“Wanted you. Yes, I’ve always wanted you, you daft fool. But I never know if you will be there.” The soaked cotton of her dress clung to her arms as she wrapped them around her ribs. Strands of her hair clung in wet clumps across her forehead and throat.
“Bella… I— May I touch you?”
At her nod, his hands fell to her shoulders before he pulled her against his chest. She slotted there against him as though he were carved from her contours. Perhaps he was—made precisely for her.
“I thought— I did not want to take advantage of you after your injury. Not the way I did after Draycott’s first attack.
It nearly destroyed me when I realized I had pressed for too much while you were frightened and vulnerable.
You were right to hate me for it. But I could never live with myself if I repeated my mistake. ”
Bella jerked her head free. “Is that truly how you see it—our night together? A mistake?”
West shook his head. “It was the best night of my life. But that does not change the fact that it never should have happened. I never should have pressed you.”
A tiny fist met his bicep—surprisingly sharp. “Oh, you… you… pudding-headed lout!”
“Pudding-headed lout?”
“You are a simpleton, Miles Weston! My faculties were perfectly intact. I asked you to kiss me. I undressed you. I touched you. You were the first choice of consequence I ever made. And it was absolutely perfect until you ruined it the following morning.”
Well-worn memories, tinged with the devastation he’d wrought, rewrote themselves. This new light through which to view them left West’s breath trapped in his chest. “I— But we—”
“We could not have been together—not then. You were right about that. But you made something precious into something tawdry—a mistake. It was not a mistake. It was a beautiful dream I could have carried with me. But you took that from me.”
A knot lodged itself in West’s throat. “Bella…”
“I’ve had so few choices in my life, Miles. My course was charted for me from the moment I was born. And you took that one from me.”
“Bella, I— I thought I was doing right for you—or as right as I could after I’d taken advantage of your fright.
Or that was what I told myself—that I was protecting you.
Perhaps I was sparing myself the agony of hearing you call it nothing.
It would have destroyed me. But then I...
That’s what I did to you. It wasn’t nothing. ”
Her dark eyes softened, and she pulled herself back into his chest with a grip on his shoulders. “It was everything.”
“It wasn’t a mistake,” he agreed, solemn as they rewrote their history. “And I never should have left you last spring.”
“You shouldn’t have,” she whispered into his chest.
“It nearly killed me to do so. But I was so afraid you would send me away.”
“So you sent yourself away?”
West tangled his fingers in her damp curls. “I’m a pudding-headed lout and a simpleton, remember?”
“And an arse.”
“And an arse,” he agreed. “I’ve been assuming—about what you want. I want to be with you. In whatever way you’ll have me. For as long as you’ll have me. There’s never been anyone else, Bella. Do you suppose you might choose me just one more time? I swear I won’t give you cause to regret it.”
Bella tipped her head back, catching his gaze. Wordlessly, she pulled away from his chest, leaving ice in her wake.
Then, slowly, she trailed one hand along his shoulder, sliding a single finger beneath one of his braces with a gentle but definitive tug. She took one step backward, two.
“Come,” she murmured, before pivoting on her heel and continuing along the sopping, barely there path toward the dower house—West trailing after her like a dog on a leash.
“Bella?”
“Stop talking,” she ordered, boots squelching in the mud as they reached the clearing.
Miles’s warm hand fell over hers where she clung to his brace, keeping her in place. As if she had any intention of letting him loose.
The rain had slowed a little, but they were still wet through. A shiver ran down Bella’s spine—no matter, Miles would warm her soon enough.
At last, she reached the peeling paint of the dower house door. She pushed it open with one hand, the other still dragging her captive. To the right was a dusty but serviceable sitting room.
A settee and two chairs, draped with a white cloth, curved around an enormous stone fireplace. Through the window, the rain still streamed over the gutters—Miles would have to clean those. There was a great deal for him to do to make this place habitable.
She strode toward the fireplace, grateful to whomever left a few logs all those years ago. “Light a fire.”
Miles blinked dully at her for a moment before springing into action, placing logs with an alacrity the task did not require. With that chore underway, Bella set about pulling the sheet off the settee, shaking the dust away from the fire.
She examined the burgundy upholstery, dotted with golden flowers, topped with a matching pillow. It would do. Certainly better than the pallet they’d used their first time.
“Bella?” he repeated, turning after he set the wood alight with abandoned matches.
She turned to face him, feeling a hint of nerves well up in her belly for the first time. But her mind was made up. “I am making a choice.”
“Alright,” Miles nodded, shifting on his heels in that way of his.
“Take off your shirt.”
His throat bobbed, but otherwise, he made no sound as he shucked his braces and pulled the damp fabric over his head. The overgrown strands of his hair fell over his forehead, dancing between his darkening eyes.
He stood before her, his heaving torso the only sign of his unease. Bella closed the gap between them in a single step. She drew a surprisingly steady hand to the center of his chest before sliding a few inches to the right.
Beneath her fingertips, Miles’s heartbeat kicked into a gallop.
His tongue dipped between too full lips.
The effect she had on him was a delicious, heady reminder.
Luxuriating, she traced the lines of his chest and shoulders as she rounded his form.
Gooseflesh rose in the wake of her fingers along the warm skin of his back.
Satisfied with her inspection, she straightened in front of him once more. “Unbutton my dress.”
His jaw ticked, but he nodded, then reached out to turn her by the waist. He seemed to have cottoned on to her scheme, because he skimmed his hands up her sides until he reached the buttons lining her spine. His breath tickled the damp skin of her neck as he worked.
His warmth seeped through the space between them, air crackling as he worked the fabric loose.
“Kiss me,” she breathed. As if his tether had snapped, he’d fallen to her neck before she finished the second syllable. His lips branded her skin, searing hot as his hand slid along her belly to tug her back against his chest.
Lust coiled in her belly as she reached back to clutch him tighter to her throat. He scraped the tendon he found there with his teeth before soothing it with his lips and tongue. Shivers ran down her spine and left her unsteady.