Chapter Eleven #4
She shook her head. “I do not think the blackmailer wants justice for Auguste. He wants money. The Hospital, or rather, the Hospital’s land.
” She looked around the room as if she could see through the delicate vine and shell-patterned paper on the walls to the rest of the Hospital beyond.
“I could not bear for all this to be destroyed because of me.”
“I know how you may protect it.” Gabe tightened his arm, drawing her closer.
Still, she resisted melting into him. “How?”
“Become my duchess.”
“Gabe. You have not been listening. The story I just told you— Those are all the reasons I cannot become your duchess.”
“If you marry me, no one can harm you. No one would dare haul away a duchess in chains. The old King is too busy dying, and Silly Billy will be too busy making himself the Sailor King to fret much about what his lords are doing. The Hospital will elect a new Matron—a woman of perhaps a less checkered past, and certainly less beauty. And, once I hunt down this Lord Véritè, I will ensure he never so much as thinks your name again.”
“If I marry you, and my past comes to light, I will drag you down with me,” Louisa said. “No one will listen to your speeches in the Lords—”
“I’ve never given a speech in the House of Lords. And no one listens to the speeches, anyway.”
“—you will not receive social invitations from the best people—”
“I hate parties.”
“—and you may not be accepted at the palace,” Louisa finished. “The Duchess of Clarence is a high stickler. Once she becomes Queen Adelaide, she will be anxious to re-establish morals for the court. She will not want her husband to be as reviled as George.”
“He will be ridiculed instead,” Gabe said. “You have not been listening to me, my darling. I do not fear your past.” He pulled her close and pressed kisses to her temple, then down the side of her face. “I only fear I will have to live the rest of my life without you.”
“Gabe.” Grief and desire tangled in her throat, twin vines that choked her words. “Don’t you see? That is why we cannot be together. Being with me would ruin you.”
“Then why do I feel like you are my redemption?”
He slid his hand to the nape of her neck and gently urged her head toward his.
She went. The kiss was soft, mindful of his bruised lips, but the fire roared through her veins all the same.
Desperation, a wild delight, joy like a blade that might split her open, and always, this fierce craving.
As if he were the answer to something she had wished for all her life, but never believed existed, until now.
His hand swept over her back, sure, seeking, and after a moment she realized he had undone the hooks on her gown. She pulled it off, discarding the fragile fabric and her ribboned belt on the floor. She would come up with some excuse for the state of it later. For now, there was only Gabe.
She climbed over him on the bed, bracing her knees astride his hips, and kissed every part of him she could reach, beginning with his face and moving down, pushing aside his shirt to kiss his collarbones, then lower. His chest rose and fell quickly, and he fumbled with the lacing on her stays.
She couldn’t wait. The fire consumed her, stoked by his ragged breath, his groan of need, and perhaps of pain when she hit a sore spot. But the need was greater. He dragged up her skirts as she yanked open his breeches and then she settled herself over him, a promise, a plea.
“Louisa.” His voice was sandpaper-rough, his hands reverent as they cupped her hips.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I—ah, Hell’s bones.” His eyes fluttered shut as she sheathed herself on him, and the cords in his neck worked as he swallowed.
“Louisa.” Her name was an incantation, his face a vision of ecstasy as she rode him, fast and hard.
The pleasure came all too soon, a collision, a wave that nearly knocked her over.
She clung to his shoulders and arched her back, and she might have called his name as she shuddered in the throes of a culmination more intense than anything she’d ever known.
He joined her, panting as the talons of pleasure racked him, too, and she held him, cradled him, wrapped her arms around him as he pulled her against his chest and buried his face in her neck.
“Louisa,” he whispered, his voice a shiver of delight. “It’s never been like this.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes and leaned against him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder, content to stay knitted to him for as long as she could. The binding of their bodies was a spell of protection, a healing for them both.
Her eyes flew open in the darkness. She hadn’t thought about preventing a child, and perhaps she ought to have. She only knew she hadn’t borne a babe to her husband. But what if the fault had not been hers, all that time?
“Stay with me,” he whispered as the wick in the lamp finally gave up and sputtered out, and darkness enclosed the room. “Stay with me always.”
She didn’t answer, because she wouldn’t lie to him. But she knew she couldn’t stay anywhere.
She loved him. She loved him to the depth of her being. But she couldn’t keep him—he wasn’t hers—and she couldn’t stay.