Diana stepped up to look at her. Sarah smiled. “You must stop fussing,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“You drowned and were brought back to life thanks to my husband’s training. I will fuss all I like.”
Sarah sighed. “I should get up. Get back to work.”
She moved to sit up, but Diana placed a hand on her shoulder and held her steady. “I think not!”
“I cannot stay in the Duke of Kingsacre’s bed all day, Diana,” Sarah protested, though she didn’t fight the hand holding her in place. “It is unseemly!”
Before Diana could answer, there was a light knock on the door from the antechamber. Sarah tensed, fearful of who had come. Diana shot her a hard look and then slipped off to answer. She didn’t open the door all the way, but spoke to the person outside for a brief moment. Then she opened the door and Sarah caught her breath.
It was Kit. His gaze slid past Diana and speared her, unreadable. Unmovable. And she was suddenly painfully aware that she was in the man’s shirt and nothing else, propped up in his bed, her hair down around her shoulders.
“Diana,” he said without removing his gaze from Sarah. “I’d like to speak to Miss Carlton alone.”
Diana blanched and glanced back at Sarah. She could see the healer fighting a little war in her head between propriety and the fact that Kit was Sarah’s employer and could ask whatever he liked of her.
She arched a brow. “Let her rest,” she said, then smiled back at Sarah and slid from the room.
Kit reached back and shut the door behind her, and they were alone. In his bedchamber. Sarah had never felt so exposed, and she lifted the sheets just a little more as he took a long step toward her in the suddenly very quiet room.
She swallowed hard. “Your Grace, I apologize for all the trouble,” she squeaked out.
He kept moving forward, though his jaw tensed a fraction. “Hmmm.”
She worried her lip at the noncommittal response. Dear God, but he was tall. Had he always been so tall? Perhaps it was just that she’d never seen him from this angle.
She shook the odd thought away and focused. She knew what was coming—there was no use being a ninny about it. It was better just to face it and have it done with.
“I assume you have come here to sack me,” she said, happy that her voice was a little stronger than it had been a moment before.
The words stopped him in his tracks and he came to a halt at the foot of the bed. He stared at her, his eyes wide, and his cool demeanor cracked for a moment.
“Do you?” he asked.
“Of course. You’ve been looking for a reason, haven’t you?” She didn’t wait for his response as her high emotions, which had been held inside for so long, suddenly bubbled up. She supposed it didn’t matter anymore. She was done for, so she might as well just let it all out. “You don’t like me because of what happened all those years ago between me and the Duchess of Crestwood. Which isn’t fair! If I owe anyone an apology for that night, it is Meg, not you. And yet you have lorded it over me since that horrible moment when you threatened to destroy me.”
His cheek twitched. “Are you finished?”
She shook her head. Now that she’d begun, she realized she wasn’t finished. She wanted to say all these things. To be honest instead of afraid. She’d almost died today, so the consequences of anything else now paled in comparison.
“No!” she said, and he jolted in surprise. “I realize that I was very wrong with your sister today. She almost…” She blinked violently against the tears that returned to her eyes. “She almost died because of me. And if you sack me for that, it is no less than I deserve.”
One eyebrow lifted and he stared at her a long time before he said, “Are you arguing for or against my dismissing you?”
She blinked at the question. Then she shrugged. “I-I don’t think my opinion on the matter makes any difference. You shall do as you please. As you said to me earlier today, I serve at your pleasure.”
He let out his breath in a long, almost painful sigh, and to her surprise he sat down on the foot of the bed. His weight changed the feel of the mattress, his warmth seemed to seep through the blankets. Her breath was suddenly short and she tried to pretend that was only because of her precarious personal situation, but it wasn’t true.
He was just too close to breathe.
“Of course your opinion matters,” Kit said softly. “You—you would have died today for my sister, yes or no?”
She bent her head as memories flashed through her mind. Her terror for Phoebe, for herself. The horrible weight of her gown. The little girl’s thrashing. The way the water had felt as it filled her lungs.
“Yes,” she whispered as a tear slid down her cheeks.
“You did die,” he said slowly. “That means everything to me, Sarah.”
She caught her breath. In three years, he had only once called her anything but Miss Carlton. It kept a distance between them. But now her name was a caress. A prayer. And it moved her far more than it should have when he said it.
He got up but didn’t back away. He came closer, settling back into a seat next to her. Now she could smell him. A soapy, clean, fresh and masculine smell.
“I pulled you out of the water,” he continued. “And my world shattered when you weren’t breathing.”
She blinked. It was all she could do in the face of this unexpected confession, in the face of all the emotion in his voice and his dark eyes. She watched his hand lift, hesitate, and then he touched her cheek.
It was like someone set her body aflame. He slid his fingers along her cheekbone and tingles flared in their wake, making her aware, once more, of what a precarious position they were in. He ought not to be touching her while she lay in his bed.
But she wasn’t about to stop him.
Nor did she stop him as he leaned in, closer, close enough that his breath stirred her lips. And then he kissed her. For a brief moment, it was the lightest of touches. A chaste brush of lips on lips. Then his fingers burrowed into her hair, cupping her scalp as he tilted her head, and the world exploded.
His mouth became insistent. She opened to him without understanding why and tasted his tongue as he breached her lips. She reached for him, trying to find an anchor as she lost all sense of time, of space, of propriety, of everything but the feel of him as he touched her.
She was alive. Back from the dead. And she understood it now, felt what she had nearly lost under that dark water. This. This pleasure, this wicked bliss, this dark desire that pulsed through her entire body and settled in the most private and inappropriate places.
But she didn’t care about appropriateness anymore. Or whether he liked her or judged her. All she cared about was that she didn’t want this heated, sparkling moment to end.
All she wanted was more.
Chapter Eight
Kit knew he had to stop kissing Sarah. He had to stop because the desire that was burning in his blood was too powerful and in a moment it would sweep him away. Then God knew what he would do.
But pulling back felt physically painful, and it took every ounce of control in his shaking, throbbing body to do just that.
He remained close to her, though, their faces inches apart. Their lips so close he could almost still taste her. She stared at him, blue eyes bleary with desire that he’d tasted in her kiss. And confusion, which he understood. Five minutes before they were talking about his dismissing her, about their history…
And then his mouth had been on hers and nothing else in the damned world mattered.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” he said, his fingers still tracing her impossibly soft skin. He wanted to touch all of it in that moment. Feel her body beneath him as proof that she was safe and whole.
He had never been a libertine, but there it was. The truth in stark terms.
There was a knock on the chamber door and he released her, rising and turning away just as the door opened. Phoebe stood w
ith one of the maids, twisting with discomfort as she peeked into the room.
“Phoebe!” Sarah called out, her voice slightly hoarse.
The moment her name was said, Phoebe seemed to lose all shyness. She bolted into the room at full speed past Kit and launched herself onto the bed and into Sarah’s arms. He wondered if she should be so rough, but held his tongue and stepped away a fraction as the two embraced.
She cuddled into Sarah’s arms, and they stayed that way for a short while. Silent as they bonded in a way that didn’t require words.
Finally Phoebe glanced up into her face and whispered, “I’m glad Lucas saved you.”
Sarah’s expression softened. “As am I. And that the Duke of Tyndale saved you. We were both very lucky.”
Phoebe worried her lip. “It was my fault, Sarah.”
Kit kept his gaze on Sarah even as he tried to pretend he was not paying attention. There was no anger on her face, no blame. Just love. Just everything he would ever want for his sister.
“It was an accident,” Sarah said gently. “You didn’t mean to capsize the boat. I know that.”
“We will never go in the boat again,” Phoebe said solemnly. “Or the lake.”
Kit expected that Sarah would agree to that suggestion. Right now it seemed fine enough to him. He would burn that damned boat if it hadn’t already sunk to the bottom of the lake.
But to his surprise, Sarah shook her head. “Oh no, sweetling. We mustn’t be afraid of things, that is no way to live. What we must do is to learn from our mistakes. You learned a great deal today, I would think.”
Phoebe was nodding. “Oh yes. Not to stand in the boat.”
“Exactly right,” Sarah said, smoothing a lock of hair away from Phoebe’s forehead. “And to listen, yes?”
“And not to have a tantrum when I’m sad.” Phoebe glanced at Kit swiftly. “Kit says I can talk to him or to you.”
“A very good idea.” She glanced over at Kit and her expression was unreadable. Certainly he couldn’t tell what she was thinking about him now that he’d kissed her.
Something he wanted to repeat, especially since she looked so damn fetching in his shirt and in his bed. Just as pretty as she’d looked at any fancy ball over the years.
He swallowed those feelings and stepped up to the bed. “Phoebe, we must let Miss Sarah rest now. And you must rest, too. If you go to your room, I’ll come tuck you in for a sleep.”
Phoebe’s lips pinched, and for a moment he thought she might protest. Then she glanced at Sarah and nodded. “Yes, Kit.”
She leaned up to kiss Sarah’s cheek, then scuttled down from the bed and out of the room. To his chagrin, she left the door open rather than shut it. Which meant more kissing was out.
Probably for the best, but it didn’t change the unexpected desire that still boiled inside of him.
“I shouldn’t stay in your bed, Your Grace.”
“Kit,” he said softly. “And staying in my bed is exactly what you will do, Sarah, until Diana says you are free to get up.”
Her lips parted. “Your Grace—”
“Kit. Women who save my sister and who I kiss so thoroughly do not call me Your Grace.” He leaned in and brushed her cheek with his thumb, watching how her pupils dilated with pleasure at the touch. “Please.”
“Kit,” she whispered, like she was trying it out. Testing it. Then she shook her head. “I will stay for a while.”
“Good.” He backed away from her and headed for the door. There he stopped and turned back. “Oh, and Sarah?”
She glanced over at him. “Yes?”
“I’m not going to sack you. You should put that out of your mind.”
Relief flowed over her features instantly and stoked guilt in his belly. She had truly been terrified of that outcome, and obviously for a long time.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“But I do not promise that I won’t kiss you again,” he added. “Provided you give me permission.”
Her mouth dropped open, but he did not allow a reaction. He strolled from the room, his step just a little lighter.
Sarah stared at the closed door from which Kit had just departed. She was…astounded. He had kissed her. Thoroughly. Oh, so thoroughly. Her mouth still tingled, her body still burned, and for the first time in her life, she understood why someone would throw everything away for just a taste of such passion.
Not to mention he’d said he wouldn’t sack her. The weight that removed from her chest…she felt like she could take a full breath for the first time since she was hired and realized Kit would soon hold the keys to her fate.
But now that both those things had been done, now that he’d left her with a promise of more kissing, she was flummoxed. Where the hell did they stand since the world had been turned on its head?
It seemed they were no longer enemies, but what could they be if not that? That had been her entire definition of what they were for three long years.
She got up slowly, resting her hand on the high edge of his bed to steady herself. She really felt fine, just a little tired and achy, like she’d run a long way. Run from death.
Pushing those thoughts away, she looked around the room. It had been the room of Kit’s father until a few weeks ago, when the old duke requested to be moved to a chamber that overlooked the orchard rather than the garden. What a solemn day that move had been, for everyone had known that he would never return to his own bed.
The chamber already felt like Kit’s. It was masculine, the walls in dark colors with wood accents, but understated. It was filled with his personal things. She glanced over her shoulder at the door to be certain no one was going to see her spy. Then she stepped up to a little table near the fire. It was covered with miniatures of his family and his friends.
She leaned in and examined the one of Phoebe. It had been painted a few years ago—the little girl could not have been more than two, but she still had the same wide smile and bright eyes. There was a miniature of his father, as well. A younger man, healthier than the one who had hired her and treated her so kindly. There was a miniature of a woman beside the other two, and she picked it up carefully.
This must have been his mother. Sarah had researched the family over the years. She would have loved to say that her questions were only about taking this position, but it had been long before that. After Kit had caught her speaking so sharply to Meg, she’d looked into his life. Obsessed over it, some would say…if they knew.
She shook the thoughts away. Kit’s mother had died when he was just fifteen, and the miniature reflected a younger woman. Beautiful. That was where Kit had inherited those fine cheekbones, clearly.
She set the picture down in just the place where she’d found it and sighed as she glanced at the other pictures, set back from the ones of his immediate family. His friends, pictures old and new.
He loved them like brothers. She’d seen the bonds between the men during the last days of Kit’s father’s life. She envied that he had so many to love him, to comfort him as he grieved.
She walked away from the pictures and back toward the bed. On the bedside table she spied a stack of books. She hesitated. Looking at his reading material seemed almost more intimate than the portraits of those he loved. One could judge a man by what he read. It said so much about his soul.
There was a book on the history of Kingsacre, well thumbed through, by the looks of it. But beneath it was a slim volume, Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Her heart skipped a beat, for she had brought the same volume of poetry with her in her scant belongings. There was a page marked, and she opened it to find it was the ballad “Strange fits of passion have I known.” She read the flowing words, though she already knew them by heart.
Strange fits of passion have I known.
And I will dare to tell.
But in the Lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.
She set the book aside
with a shiver. Kit had always appeared to her to be not a man of passions. He’d always exhibited such coldness toward her…until today.
Today his obvious love of the poem made so much more sense. The idea of Kit with strange fits of passion…well, it made her body tingle as much as his lips had.
He’d said he wanted more of those kinds of passions with her. What could she do about that? Was it truly possible to accept his advances? Accept that he wanted her? Would it one day cause her more grief than she’d already felt? And what about her reputation, such that it was? She’d been trained to protect it, but she was no longer a young lady on the marriage mart. Could a governess give in to desire without destroying her life?
She moved away from his side of the bed and back to the other. The shadows outside were starting to loom and after the day’s events, she was ready to rest. To dream. She slid between Kit’s sheets and sighed. She still had no idea what to do about any of it. But perhaps tomorrow her next move would be clearer.
Perhaps tomorrow she would have some answers.
Kit stood in the antechamber between his dressing room and his bedroom, and stared at the door that separated him from Sarah. In the hours since he’d left her, as the evening grew long, she was all he could think about. Her heroics, her near death, and most of all, the sweet surrender of her mouth and body when he claimed her lips in a shocking display.
He should have been ashamed of what he’d done, for it was against his character entirely. He wasn’t.
He cracked the door and peered inside. The fire had burned down low, but the dim light still cascaded over Sarah’s form in his bed. His body reacted of its own accord, tightening with desire as he looked at her in his shirt, half covered by his sheets, blonde hair wild from sleep.
She looked like a woman who had been well loved. And God, how he wanted to be the one who had put her in that kind of state.
But he wanted other things, too. Dangerous things like to protect her. To keep her close and never let anything bad ever happen to her again. He wanted to see her laugh, be carefree in a way she couldn’t when she was a servant employed under the fickle pleasure of a master like him.
The Last Duke (The 1797 Club Book 10) Page 8
