Penelope’s heart—as well as other equally unruly organs—began to pound. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”
“I don’t know.” He smiled and frowned all at the same time in that achingly contradictory way of his. “What do you think I’m doing?”
She was no green girl, but even she wasn’t sure. “Beech, you can’t—”
He slid to his knees in front of her. “Oh, I can. I will. Gladly and effortlessly.”
Effortlessly? Surely—
Beech settled his hand upon her knee and gently nudged her leg wider. Penelope knew she ought to be shocked at the openness of her pose and the sheer carnality of his intentions, but she felt heat spread under her skin, and her head went deliriously dizzy with anticipation. She was aching for his touch.
He lowered his head to feather kisses along the inside of her thighs, and she felt herself come slowly but surely undone, inch by tantalizing inch.
Oh, God, yes, he could—Penelope nearly shrieked at the first warm, wet lick of his tongue across her sensitive flesh. “Beech!” she whispered through the hand she had cast across her mouth to keep from saying anything more.
But he did not need her encouragement. “Yes,” he agreed, and she could feel his voice vibrate through her as his kisses grew more assured and intimate still.
When his hand joined his mouth, Penelope gasped and laughed all at the same time. She had never felt so vulnerable and so absolutely adored all at the same time. She closed her eyes and gave in to the sexual languor—she was afloat, buoyed along on a current of soft, infinitely pleasant sensation that stretched endlessly into the darkness. Their flight in the night, the cozy confines of the room, the bitter cold of the night—all was forgotten. Time ceased to exert its authority upon her. She belonged to no one but herself.
And Beech. Sure, clever, heroic Beech.
Seducing her with solace. Lulling her with love.
And then with a precise touch, he kissed her there.
Want blossomed within her like a weed, wild and tenacious, and she tangled her hands into his hair, pushing and pulling, encouraging him to press his lips—God, his beautiful clever lips—against that most sensitive place.
She felt herself grow so giddy under his unrelentingly gentle attention, that she let go of him, and dug her fingers into the linens covering the bed, grasping for purchase to keep from being carried off by the rising sensual tide. She was floating on the crest, her weightless body riding the rhythm of the waves until, with one elegant touch she tumbled over the top, and everything was light and heat and bliss within.
And she could only gasp his name, and let herself go down, pulled into the sweet wash of warmth.
After some time—she had no idea when—she came back to herself enough to discover Beech lying beside her with such a look of amused confusion—smiling and scowling all at once—that she couldn’t imagine what he was thinking.
As for herself, she could barely think at all, and frankly, didn’t want to. “Good Lord, Beech. You really are a bloody hero.”
Chapter 11
“Pease Porridge Sweet.” Marcus kissed her temple and let his gaze wander over the sublime lines of her beauty—her wide, plush lips, her gloriously arching brows—gathering his scattered thoughts to plot his careful course. “I wonder if I may ask pertinent question—just how ruined are you?”
Penelope blinked against the dim glow of the firelight and immediately started putting her clothing to rights. “Ruined is ruined.”
“I’m going to have to disagree, Pease Porridge.” He reached for her, stilling her hands by tucking her up against his chest. “Fact is, you are missing some telling attributes of a ruined woman.”
Her lovely heart-shaped face flamed with fresh color. “Am I? Shows what you know about ruination.”
“Yes, it does,” he affirmed gently. “Forgive my crude curiosity, but just how much did my brother importune you?”
She drew in a long breath. “Trust you to ask the dire direct questions, Beech.”
“My dear Pease Porridge, I don’t ask to censure. Far from it.”
She gave him no ready answer, but he was a man who had learned the virtues of quiet patience. He let the reassuring weight of the silence settle upon her for a long moment before he mused, “You see, I begin to think the term—ruined—is applied far too loosely to any young lady who might step her toe out of line and displease others who think to control her fate.”
“Beech, don’t make me out to be a saint. I am no innocent miss.”
“No, how could you be?” he agreed philosophically. “Anyone our age who could live in this world and remain a complete innocent would be either remarkably stupid, or remarkably callous. You strike me as neither of those things.”
“Beech.” Her voice was nothing but a whispered plea—for quiet or continuation, he could not tell.
So, he stayed his course. “I am a man of experience and observation, Pease Porridge—a man of facts. And I should very much like to be apprised of the true facts of the situation, which only you possess.” He drew his fingers across her temples, as if he could see the truth writ large there. “Now, I collect you’ve kissed before, as you are—if I may compliment you—an extraordinarily enthusiastic kisser. But that may be my own enjoyment clouding my judgment of experience.”
“You were rather enthusiastic yourself,” she countered.
“I am delighted you think so.” He began to brush his fingers absently along the sweet sweep of her jaw—an intimate, soothing gesture. “And we shall return to that pleasing activity just as soon as you satisfy my curiosity. And my sense of justice.”
“Justice?” Her tone edged back toward bleak. “In the court of social judgment, justice is hard to come by. Rumor is evidence, verdicts are swift, and appeals are nonexistent.”
“Too damn true.” He hated that she was clearly bearing the cost of his late brother’s sins. “The world is an astonishingly dangerous and deceptive place, isn’t it, Pease Porridge? Full of traps and pitfalls for the unwary. You seem properly wary, and yet…” He shook his head, because he could not quite puzzle it out. “I must ask, Penelope, if you know how my brother died?”
“He was shot to death in Grosvenor Square,” she answered carefully.
“And do you know,” he pressed, “by whom?”
“Yes.” She let out a long sigh before she said, gently, “He was shot by his married lover, poor Viscountess Guilford, for the unforgivable sin of infecting her with the pox.”
“Devil take his soul.” Marcus heaved out his own sigh. “I feared as much, though I assumed he was shot by somebody’s husband. Although I had not seen Caius in ten years, I did know he was a libertine.” Still, Marcus had some sympathy for his unapologetic ruiner of a brother—bleeding to death in Grosvenor Square was a messy, merciless way to die. “Poor bastard.”
“Yes,” Penelope agreed.
The uneasiness he did not want to believe was jealousy weighed on his chest like a five-pound shot. But she had just called him a hero, so he had to act like one, and face his fears. “What I still don’t understand is why you went to him? And why then, you later refused him? Please tell me you did not know that—that he had the pox—when you went to him. Please.”
“I went to him,” she said carefully, “perhaps because I recognized another wayward soul. But I refused him—or more correctly, my father—because Caius warned me. He told me of his disease himself. I think perhaps he was already dying.”
Marcus was sure he could not have heard her aright. “My brother, Caius Beecham, eighth Duke of Warwick, known libertine and despoiler of any number of women—and who knows what else—acted the gentleman and warned you off?”
“Funny, isn’t it?” Her bittersweet smile did not reach her eyes. “And incredibly sad.” She took a deeper breath and turned to face him. “It was meant to be a very great secret—the truth of his death—so, of course, all of society now knows that Caius Beecham, Duke of Warwick, had the clap.” S
he did not shy from the vulgar truth. “And now they are also sure that I must have it, too, because I was shut away in a room alone with him for some time. No matter that he never actually kissed me.”
Something sharp and shameful eased, and then tied itself into a new knot in his chest. “Devil send himself to hell,” Marcus swore. “My dear Pease Porridge, you astonish me.”
“Do I?” She tried to muster a shrug. “It was none of my doing, I assure you. I did throw myself at Caius, if you must know, Beech, and he put me off. He saved my life.”
He would not excuse Caius of all responsibility. “But ruined it anyway, by making you a pariah by not speaking up for you,” he insisted.
“Beech. You really are the kindest man.” In the low firelight, her eyes looked dark and liquid and sad. “Did it never occur to you that I might have known what I was doing—or thought I knew what I was doing—when I went into a closed room with your brother? That I might have had caddish Caius Beecham, and the Dukedom of Warwick, in my sights?”
Chapter 12
Penelope felt him draw away from her.
“No,” he answered. And then, “Why?”
His voice was packed tight with hurt, but no accusation, and so she gave him the truth.
“Because I deserved no better. I told you I was no saint, Beech. I liked to dance. I liked to flirt. I loved to kiss. And I got caught. More than once, or even twice.” Now that their passion had cooled, she curled herself into a ball against the chilling draft. “My father told me no decent man would have me, so I decided upon a cad—a cad who might take me as I was. Your brother might have been many things—most of them bad—but he was no hypocrite.”
Beech shook his head as if he didn’t want to believe her. “If that was so, then why didn’t you marry the blighter when he proposed?”
“Because Caius didn’t propose.” Penelope closed her eyes, as if that might help her sort out the truth from the convenient lies. “But there was my father saying it had all been arranged, with your mama’s blessing. That I had no choice, and neither did Caius. But of course, I had a choice, awful as they tried to make it. And I chose to show Caius the same mercy he had shown me: I refused. I insisted nothing had happened, though nobody believed me.”
Beech stared at her as if he were finally seeing her as she was and not as he wished her to be. “How extraordinary.”
“Hardly.” Her own opinion was that she had been rather mercenary—both in going to Caius, and in refusing the proposal. “I had no want to end up dead of the pox.”
“Who would? Very prudent of you,” he agreed on a deep exhalation.
“I’m not prudent,” she insisted. “I’m damaged goods, as they say, Beech. I am ruined—nothing will take that stain away.” Especially not if she eloped with his brother. People would say she had bamboozled poor Beech into marrying her.
He seemed to finally hear the irredeemable truth about her. “Devil take me.” He drew away.
“Yes. So, you may put away your need for justice, and ask yourself if you still think we should marry now that you know all the sordid details that only I possess. If you truly want a ruined wife.”
He took another deep breath. “What I ought to ask myself is if I want you to wife.”
“Yes.” Straight to the dark heart of the matter. “You deserve better.”
He leaned closer, as if he were trying to see her more clearly in the shadowed bed. But it was she who saw him more clearly—saw the light of something more ferocious than justice lighting his eyes. “Now, don’t make me out to be a saint, my dear Pease Porridge. I have my own selfish needs as well.”
For a wonderful moment she thought he was speaking of attraction, of that marvelously giddy feeling of glad rightness she felt when she had been in his arms. But then he touched his empty sleeve again, in that involuntary, instinctive gesture of reminder.
And she understood. The truth stung like a slap, hard and unforgiving. “Oh, Beech. That’s what you think, isn’t it—that you’re the damaged goods? That you’re so altered, that only someone like me—who has no other choice—would ever agree to have you.”
The yawning gulf of silence that stretched out between them like a chasm was his answer.
“Oh, Beech.” Penelope had never felt more defeated. She ached for him—and for herself. “A fine pair of idiots we are.”
His laugh was tinged with suppressed pain. “And that, Pease Porridge, is my solace and my hope—that we are indeed a fine pair.” He shoved his hand through his disheveled hair, as if he were quite literally getting a hold of himself. “I have asked myself that question you posed, and I find that I do want you, and only you, for a wife. No matter your disadvantages or my disabilities. No matter what society, or my mother, or your father may say. Only you will do. Of this I am sure—I will have you or no other. But only if you will have me.”
Hope was a persistent flame that sparked hot and hungry. “Do you really mean it, Beech?”
“I always mean what I say, Penelope.” He met her eye squarely, no trace of mockery in their grey-green depths. No evasion. “Always.”
“Beech.” A month ago, she would have leapt at the chance to secure such a man. But the long weeks of her humiliation had taught her not to be so hasty or reckless. And he was such a man—an honest man whom she liked very much. Almost too much.
“I am tempted, Beech. Beyond thought, beyond reason. If I were to consult only my feelings—”
“You can trust me, Penelope.”
“I want to, Beech. But—” Trouble seemed to follow her like a dark angel. Bad decisions, impulsive action, disastrous results.
“Do you doubt your constancy? Do you think you will stray to another man—a whole man?”
“No!” Of this she was sure. “Your arm, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with it. It is my own lack—lack of prudence, want of character—that would make me a terrible duchess.”
“I don’t want a duchess. I want a wife.” He closed his eyes, as if he were consulting some internal barometer. “Do you know, that for all the years that I was away, I never suffered homesickness? My fellow midshipmen, and later my fellow officers, often talked of home, of the family or loved ones they missed. I never thought of Warwick, or my family like that. I frankly felt relief to be away from Caius. I liked being forgotten for the most part—it suited my sense of freedom and independence. Even when I was injured, I had no thought of going home. But when I received my mother’s letter about you and Caius, my peace was absolutely and irrevocably shattered. Shattered,” he repeated as if he still could not fathom why. “But I did not have enough time to understand why before I received another letter, calling me home. The whole of the trip I feared the event that precipitated such alarm was your marriage. You cannot imagine my relief—my horrible, guilty, profound relief—when I found the cause was instead Caius’s death.”
“Beech.” She wanted to warn him to stop, to cease with such useless remorse.
But he went on. “Imagine me, if you will, receiving the news that I was now the duke—that I was now the one who needed to marry.”
Anticipation, astonishment, and even a little fear began to beat hard in her chest.
“Imagine that the moment I was told I must marry, I set out directly from London for Warwickshire. Then imagine that I waited only until I received an invitation to Sir Harold Pease’s ball to accept. Imagine then that I attended, and let people stare at me as I searched the rooms for some sign of the young lady to whom I most wanted to speak, and when I could not find her, imagine I retreated to the library in defeat.” He finally turned his gaze back to hers. “And then imagine that you, the object of my unrequited and unsuspecting obsession, simply appeared to me, like the vision from a merciful, generous God.”
She could not draw breath—all the air stopped up in her throat, hot and thick and aching.
“Imagine all that, and then imagine that you, of all the people in the world, were the first person to be clear-sighted and honest and
caring enough to ask me about my arm.” He took her hand very carefully in his. “Imagine my relief at such honesty. And then imagine that you kissed like an angel and made me laugh and forget myself enough to be happy.”
He kissed her hand. “And then tell me what I should do next.”
Tears of regret for all the years lost, mingled with tears of gratitude for all the years that just might be yet to come, scalded her eyes and streaked down her face. “You should kiss me, dear Beech, and marry me.”
Chapter 13
Relief and gratitude buoyed him up. “In the morning, my darling Penelope.” Marcus kissed her forehead. “Get under the covers and stay warm. I need to see to…things.” Like giving Martins instruction on caging a marriage license out of the Bishop of Warwick at first light.
Able Martins was a font of information, as well as discretion. “A regular license, Your Grace, is what is required. It shall be done at the earliest possible moment, Your Grace.”
“I thank you.” Marcus had no choice but to return as quietly as possible to the chamber where his darling Penelope had fallen soundly asleep. He didn’t want to sleep, of course. He wanted to crawl in beside her and make love into the wee small hours of the morning. To take solace in her body. To keep the unquiet dreams at bay, if only for a night.
But they would still come—the dark memories he could not forget. The necessary violence and blood of battle. The pain and instant understanding the moment he had been hit. The endless torment that followed.
And so, he did not join her in the bed. He did not sleep.
Instead, he sat in a chair before the hearth dozing on and off, as was his way, for the rest of the night, until the gray light of dawn roused him out of his self-imposed purgatory. The crystalline sunlight slanting through the window told him the storm had broken, and the sound of footsteps trailing off toward the stable told him Martins was already on his way.
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