A Cinderella for the Viscount

by Liz Tyner

  He slipped his tongue against her lips and passion grew, heating her with a longing that would have protected her from the coldest storm.

  He touched her dress, releasing the hooks and slipping it from her shoulders, in one long, draping slide that teased her skin as the garment flowed from her body. In seconds, the corset fell to the floor.

  She spread her fingers, letting them trail over his chest, relishing the textures.

  Lifting her, he placed her on top of the bedcovers. He finished undressing, his trousers falling to the floor, and slid beside her, lips again touching. His movements created friction, teasing her nipples, sending molten lava sparks inside.

  She wrapped her leg around him, pulling him close. His fingers tangled in the chemise and the fabric glided over her head, giving her a chance to gasp a breath before their lips touched again.

  Caressing her breast, he moved gently back, yet she felt his member touching her, causing an insistent yearning she’d never felt before. Then he rocked against her, holding her hips closer, and then again and again he moved, until the intensity grew so that she couldn’t contain it.

  She released and as she did, he joined to her, moving inside, rocking together, slowing the intensity in his body, and he held her close, but instead of releasing, he pulled away. Then he lay beside her, her name a gasp on his lips, until he completed the moment.

  While he held her close, she shut her eyes and rested against him, sated in a way she’d not known existed, and she felt her lips curl into a satisfied smile.

  * * *

  She awoke. She’d had the most delicious dream. She stretched her arms wide and her fist bumped a body. A body nothing like her own except it had the necessary amount of appendages with one more.

  ‘Devlin,’ she gasped and saw a fortress of naked male, all bristly and furry and firm, propped against the pillows where he half sat.

  Her memories of the night inundated her. ‘I fell asleep. I’ve just been so busy. The parties at night. Learning during the day.’

  She had thought about making love to him. She had thought about him leaving her. But she had never considered that she might wake up beside him.

  He took the fingers of her left hand and brought them to his lips for a tender kiss, then pulled her into the curve of his arm. ‘I could have easily woken you.’

  ‘I was sleepy because I was up so late last night. There’s so much to get right.’

  ‘You have people to help you. Grimsley. Your father and mother. Me.’

  ‘I know. But everything is so different. So many changes. Even tonight. It’s as if I stepped into someone else’s life, but not my own. As if I’m still acting a part. I didn’t expect to feel that way. I expected to feel as if I was claiming my own future.’

  ‘Acting?’ The word snapped from his lips.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know how I should react. What I should say to you. I should tell you I love you, but I’m afraid to. I’m afraid that it might send you away from me. And what if I don’t, then it might drive you away, or make you unhappy.’

  Instantly, he pulled her close. ‘This is not about us making each other happy. It’s not. It’s about caring. It’s about sharing a part of ourselves. It’s about not acting, but being ourselves. The true us. Without that, we have nothing. Do you regret tonight?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She didn’t. How could she regret something that she couldn’t even comprehend fully?

  ‘Then don’t worry about anything else. Not anything.’ He ran a hand down the side of her body, soothing her. ‘You don’t have to concern yourself about what it felt like, or how you’re supposed to react, but about being together.’

  His words were meant to reassure her, she thought. But they didn’t. They rumbled the earth underneath her even more. She’d somehow always considered that two people would immediately separate to their own rooms after making love. That it would be something she could reflect on when she was alone in her room.

  Not. In. Devlin’s bed.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t have regrets?’ he asked again. The low rumble of his voice floated into the room.

  She did as he’d told her to do and repeated the question. ‘Regrets?’ This time, she contemplated the question and herself. ‘I don’t.’

  She just didn’t want to make the mistake of becoming lost in a new world that she was unfamiliar with. Of making a new life that was someone else’s.

  No, she didn’t regret being with him.

  But she imagined herself forced into a marriage because she had to save her reputation and steeled herself to stay on her own path. She did not want either of them forced into a marriage. Whether he resented her or not, she would believe he did.

  In one fluid movement, he pulled her to him again so that his lips could brush hers.

  ‘I can’t promise all that I will say will make you happy and I can’t assure you I will always think before I speak. But you will be able to look at my face. You will have more to judge than ink on paper. You will have me in front of you. I will not hide behind paper. Will you promise me the same?’ he asked. ‘If you wish to end our friendship, say so now. To my face.’

  ‘I don’t. I know I don’t.’

  Her voice was the merest sound that could have reached his ears. Her words lingered in the air like a fireplace ember sparked from the rest and which lay there glowing on and on.

  The last speck of the luxurious haze of romance evaporated and she saw herself plunging into another unsatisfying commitment.

  Another chance at a humiliating dissolution of a future.

  Then a clock chimed once, twice, three times. Then a fourth.

  ‘Four?’ She realised how long she’d been gone from her home and on the heels of that revelation others thundered into her brain, clearing the haze that had focused everything so that her mind had created a whirlwind with Devlin in the centre of it.

  ‘Blast,’ she said, rolling with the covers. ‘I’m... It’s...’ She gaped at the window. ‘I am not thinking clearly. This was a wonderful, beautiful between us and I wouldn’t have missed it—but where are my clothes?’

  She heard the covers rustle and he sat alert.

  ‘As long as you’re not having second thoughts.’ His voice came through the darkness, reassuring in tone.

  ‘I’m not. I have to get home. Now.’ She jumped up from the bed, pulling the sheet with her, and wrestled her shift on. ‘Double blast it backwards.’ She switched it around without taking it over her head. She grabbed her corset and stepped into it. ‘Help me.’

  She moved to the side of the bed where he sat and turned away from him. She felt the tugs of her ties. In seconds he had her in the corset and she stepped into her dress, leaving the hooks undone as she reached for her stockings. ‘I must get home now.’ She couldn’t fall into his arms.

  As she slipped her stocking over her foot, she imagined the murmurs. If anyone heard of this, so soon after the broken betrothal, everyone would assume she was latching on to the Viscount to salve her pride. The very thing she feared when ending it with Tenney.

  She gave up on getting the cotton perfect, letting a snarl of it remain at her heel.

  ‘Rachael,’ he soothed. ‘It’s not morning yet. You’ve time. The driver will wait. He’ll drop us not far from the house and I’ll escort you inside. We’ll be dark shadows walking in the night, like a stableman and his beloved. No one will know tonight. We need to discuss this.’

  A discussion. She didn’t have time for a discussion.

  ‘The maid is to wake me at six.’ She slipped on one shoe.

  ‘Six?’

  ‘Of course. But I fell asleep. Where is my other shoe?’

  ‘Rachael.’ He rose from the bed. ‘Nothing is going to change in the next few hours. You’ve time to leave. But why would you have a maid wake you so early?’

  ‘My shoe?
Did you see it? Never mind.’ She didn’t want to answer.

  He bent over and picked up the shoe and handed it to her.

  ‘How do I get out?’ she asked, slipping it on.

  ‘Once I’m dressed I will get you safely home.’ He pulled up his trousers. ‘It will look better if I’m not walking along the street naked.’

  She handed him his shirt. His being naked would not be a bad sight, but it would certainly not keep the encounter secret.

  ‘Thank you.’ He took it, slipped it under his arm and twirled her around to do her hooks.

  When he finished, he hugged her tight. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Instantly, she stopped moving. The tone of his voice tore at her heart. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t, because she didn’t.

  She turned, cupping the bristly jaw in her hands. ‘I’m overwhelmed. So much has changed in the past few days. The past few moments. I have to have some time to catch up with what is going on in my life.’

  Clasping her fingers, he said. ‘As long as you don’t regret it.’

  ‘No. Not at all. Yesterday, I asked my maid to wake me early. I didn’t think about...this.’ Six o’clock would give her time to prepare before the tutor arrived. Those multiplications were challenging. Then the tutor would be gone by the time her father woke. Her father slept later and she didn’t want to risk him seeing her struggle and forbidding her to take the lessons. He’d told her before that education was difficult and his family would not have to struggle. ‘I’m having...lessons.’

  ‘Lessons?’

  ‘I never really did as a child. Except the ones in sewing and music and dancing. Now I’m having the ones about numbers and sums. Mr Grimsley arranged for his wife and her brother to help me and I am trying to learn as quickly as possible. There is more to business than I ever imagined.’

  He stilled, nodding, and she sensed respect, and maybe admiration, in his gaze.

  Someone else might not understand how much the Grimsleys did for her family. She imagined Mr Grimsley being let go. Mrs Grimsley without a home.

  If word got out that she’d been with Devlin...

  She could almost hear one of the women saying that she wished she’d caught on fire instead of Rachael, followed by giggles.

  With imagined laughter ringing in her ears, Rachael ignored the wadded stocking in the bottom of her slipper and tried to act as if she’d merely requested a carriage. ‘I must go.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Devlin sat in the vehicle. Rachael perched alert, unsure if she could touch him without making the situation worse.

  He took her hand and she relaxed inside, awash in the closeness.

  ‘You’re too far away,’ he said.

  Something tugged at her heart. She put her other hand over the top of his, switching, so she could lean into his arm on the seat.

  True, she’d needed his support, but she didn’t want to lose their friendship. To become a part of him so much that he couldn’t even see her.

  Always she would remain the woman he’d rescued. The woman he’d saved again and then again.

  She was so aware of the man beside her. Aware of the way he made her heart warm and her body burn and melt with desire. He’d changed her and touched her in a way no one ever had.

  ‘You saved me from the fire and have encouraged me to navigate in society,’ she said. ‘I’m grateful. But my gratitude, and your undertaking to assist me, created a friendship between us and maybe we’re mistaking it for something more.’

  Yes, she would always be the woman he’d trained to handle conversation. Perhaps he felt connected—even without realising it, because he’d saved her life and tasked himself with making her comfortable in society.

  The carriage wheels lurched after hitting a rut, a movement echoing the feelings tumbling along inside her.

  She put her hand over his knuckles, amazed at the raw strength she felt contained in him. ‘Our moments together meant everything to me. Something I’ll always cherish. You’ll always be in my memory, but I don’t think you or I could be happy rushing into something,’ she said.

  Her blood thundered in her ears and emphasised the quiet walls of the carriage, and she shifted from being with him to being alone.

  Her hand still rested on his knuckles, but now she could feel distance seeping between them.

  Rachael heard a whispered curse. A masculine chuckle followed. ‘I’ve said that before.’ He turned his face to the world outside the window.

  She’d said the words, yet they’d made her feel rejected and a little broken. And alone.

  She couldn’t speak for the emotions inside her that she couldn’t understand.

  The coach rolled closer to her house and he didn’t alert the driver to stop until they’d passed it and turned the corner.

  He was perfection, lifting her from the carriage as if he’d spent a lifetime training for the moment. Perhaps he had.

  Then he rushed her home through the darkness, his touch never leaving her as he held the small of her back.

  Outside the door, he stood in the shadows, brushing a kiss over her cheek, asking her if she was well.

  She nodded, though she felt it a lie.

  ‘What will you be doing later?’ he asked. ‘After the lessons. When you have time to yourself?’

  She grasped his hand and he rested his forehead against hers.

  ‘I will likely be studying metals,’ she said. ‘I’ve told Grimsley to expect me.’

  They stood, lingering.

  Now, her greatest fear unfurled in her mind. The realisation settled.

  She had been jilted by a man she didn’t particularly care about. Devlin was different. She didn’t want to tie her heart to him and find herself telling him she loved him, and hear the words come back to her that she’d said to him that night. Words about how much the person meant to you but, really, less than they’d expected and only a fragment more than anyone else.

  ‘But it’s not necessary to check on me,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’ As long as she didn’t fall in love with Devlin and stumble off the ends of the earth.

  And yet, forcing herself to move one step inside the door seemed herculean. Impossible.

  He helped her, opening the door and letting his hand slide from her. One kiss and he was gone.

  The butler stood in the shadows with a lone candle, holding it for her ‘Miss Rachael. I heard a carriage roll past and thought it might be you, and you’d need a light.’

  Out of habit, she thanked him, took the candle and walked up the stairway.

  She heard the rasp of the key in the lock and she paused at the top of the stairs. The butler had locked the door and, without another word, retreated to his quarters.

  She sat the candle down on the floor and knelt to sit, her feet resting on the treads below.

  The butler’s kindness to her had reinforced the fact that he, and every servant in her house, depended on her family, just as the Grimsleys did. If her father’s business failed, so many other people would be affected.

  It wasn’t just about the soirées she wouldn’t be invited to, the dresses she would not be able to purchase and the trinkets that wouldn’t appear.

  Many people depended on her father and she’d seen the accounting books and understood enough of the numbers, and the hope in Mr Grimsley’s eyes.

  Now she knew why he’d not brushed her aside with an admonishment that this was best left to men.

  She was his last hope, and his wife’s last hope, and her family’s.

  She just wished to be held in Devlin’s arms and to be reassured that all was well. But nothing felt well any more. Nothing had felt safe since she’d spoken those words to Devlin. Words she meant, but had sounded hollow when Devlin laughed.

  They had to sell some costly pieces soon. Grimsley had only taken half the pay
he’d been promised for the last year. He told her that her father had been generous, practically overpaying him, and he and his wife had needed so little, but the winter had been cold, requiring more to heat than usual, and a window had been broken, and he’d named so many little things he’d had to purchase but which had added up. Her father didn’t know that.

  Grimsley had had tears in his eyes when he’d told her that her father was the best man he’d ever worked for.

  Devlin would never understand what it had meant to witness Grimsley’s face. The feeling of pride she felt when someone believed in her abilities.

  Hannah Humphrey had managed a print shop and Rachael remembered walking by the window and seeing all the pictures. It had been grand, she thought, and her father had expressed amazement that a woman could do such a thing and sadness that Mrs Humphrey hadn’t married and been able to let a man take those trials from her.

  It hadn’t seemed like a trial for Rachael, but an interesting life and much more fascinating than her father’s ownings of mostly pots, and silver buckles and kettles. Even the jewellery hadn’t fascinated her much.

  Yet now her viewpoint had changed.

  Likely no one would even consider her as having failed...as they would have if she’d been a man. She had no risk in that area as she wasn’t expected to succeed or even try. But she would always know.

  She knew she couldn’t do it. Alone.

  She squared her jaw. She’d survived the Duchess of Highwood. And while she might not be able to learn the business fast enough, she had an army she could muster to contribute. Her father. Her mother. Grimsley. The former apprentice. Her grandfather’s book. Together, they would make a force.

  She jumped up and ran to her room, hoping for a chance to read over the studies before Mrs Grimsley’s brother arrived.

  But with the book in front of her, all she could think about was Devlin and the feel of being in his arms.

  * * *

  Devlin left the carriage in a deft lunge, avoiding the steps while the vehicle stopped at the ornate main entrance as he’d requested. He gave a quiet goodnight to the driver and suggested he sleep the morning away.