Chapter 31 #2
She sank her head into her hands. ‘Ugh, how embarrassing. How much did you read?’
‘Not enough. You’re a very good writer. Very … imaginative.’
Etta raised her head, hearing amusement in his voice, and dared herself to look him in the eye.
She suddenly felt alone, as though balancing at the edge of a vast, crumbling, dangerous cliff. ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me. It wasn’t just me kissing you in that carriage. You kissed me back. I know it.’
Max was serious as he reached forwards and cupped her face with one hand. Etta shivered as her skin tingled under his touch and found herself leaning towards him.
Perhaps it was the way the moonlight barely lit the scene, perhaps it was the anchoring effect of his touch, or perhaps it was the way he looked at her. The fear melted away and Etta felt daring. She couldn’t be afraid any more, only slightly audacious.
‘Fine. Well done, I kissed you, and looked a fool, and now you found my diary. Perhaps I’m an idiot. But don’t think I don’t see the way you look at me.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Like … like I’m raspberry trifle.’
Max grinned at her, his thumb lightly stroking her cheek. ‘Well, I do love Mrs Baggins’ raspberry trifle.’
Etta groaned, partly in memory of the evening’s pudding but mostly in relief at not being outright rejected. ‘Oh my god, I know, right? Jesus. It’s even better than the Marks and Sparks version. I swear that’s ginger cake at the bottom, you know.’
He leaned towards her; all of a sudden he felt terribly close. His hand left her face and gripped her waist.
‘I didn’t understand the half of that, but do you know, I think you might be right? There must be something truly magic about it,’ he whispered into her ear, right before he kissed her.
It was unlike any kiss Etta had ever experienced in her life.
At first chaste and tentative, it seemed to quickly deepen as every feeling slowly unravelled.
It felt to her as though tendrils of lust – and even perhaps, something stronger – were uncurling from a tangle inside her and winding themselves around Max.
He suddenly pulled back, looking as dazed as she felt.
‘Etta … we shouldn’t … Just by being here alone, I have wholly ruined you. Tonight. That night in the carriage – it should never have happened. It’s not fair. We shouldn’t kiss.’
‘I can’t not kiss you, Max.’
He groaned and stood up suddenly, pulling her to her feet. ‘You can’t be seen here with me. If we were caught …’
‘I’m so cold. It’s very cold out here. Come in for a moment and help me get warm. You won’t need to marry me, I promise.’
‘I – we shouldn’t.’
Indecision crossed his face. She could tell he was weighing up his impulse for chivalry against desire.
‘It’s so cold, Max.’
Etta led him inside and up the back stairs to her bedroom door, tugging him in by the hand. He closed the door behind him and looked down at her, his eyes dark with uncertainty, but also with longing.
God, how desperate was she? Very, very desperate, it seemed. ‘Warm me up. Then you can go home to your bed.’
At the word ‘bed’ Max seemed to lose all restraint.
He swept her up into his arms, kicking off his boots, and sat her on the edge of her mattress, pulling her into a deep kiss that seemed to make every hair on the surface of her skin stand on end.
Then every thought left her body, an overwhelming need to remove every piece of fabric taking over.
She pulled open his shirt, running her fingers over his hard chest.
‘Muscles! So many muscles. What have you been doing?’
‘Boxing,’ he mumbled into her hair, before groaning as she slipped her hands into his breeches. She realised she was moaning too, delighted with what she found. He pressed against her for one brief, delicious moment.
Then he was moving lower, tugging at her chemise, his hands at her ankles, her knees, her thighs. Etta groaned with pleasure as she felt his fingers right where she needed them most.
‘Oh good god!’
Etta leapt back. ‘Oh no! I’m so sorry. Is it that I couldn’t shave? I had no idea where I could even get a razor.’
‘What? Shave what?’ Max blinked, then shook his head, as though coming back to himself. ‘Etta, I have defiled you!’
He started pulling his clothes back on, eyes wild and anxious.
‘My lack of control was abominable! Why, I have acted in the most ungentlemanly way …!’
‘Because I asked you to!’ Etta stumbled over the bed towards him, laying a calming hand on his shoulder as he yanked his boots back on. ‘Because I wanted you to. Didn’t you want to as well?’
‘Of course I wanted to!’ Max turned to her, boot in hand. ‘It is all I have wanted from the moment I pulled you out of that cellar. But I am a gentleman, Henrietta. A gentleman does not ravish a lady – not under any circumstances.’
Oh god, Etta thought. So there was a male version of the Ladies Do Not list. Of course.
‘Nobody has to know, Max. Nobody has seen us. It’s absolutely fine.’
But his mouth was set in a firm line as he pressed her back into her bed, tucking in her sheets.
‘No, Etta. This has gone far enough for tonight. We shall speak tomorrow.’
He gave her one last, lingering kiss, then tore himself away and rested his forehead on hers.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said again, almost to himself, and then left.
Etta sighed, then blew out her candles. Hopefully, by tomorrow, Max would have chilled the fuck out.
But who knew? She didn’t have a contemporary copy of the Gentlemen Do Not list handy.
She’d read plenty of Regency romances, but it looked like Georgette Heyer rules applied here: chaste kisses and gently pulled curtains over secret trysts and midnight romps.
Unless she was missing something, there was an awful lot of historical inaccuracy going on in her favourite reading matter.