by Kelly Boyce
“I will not allow him to ruin you.”
“Why do you care?” She asked, her voice filled with wonder, as if she couldn’t determine a good enough reason that made sense to her. “Before we became acquainted on the Windswept I meant nothing to you. Why does it matter so much to you now that you protect me?”
Because now you are everything to me.
But he could not tell her that. It would not be fair. “We are friends, are we not?”
“Yes.”
“Good friends, I think.” She was as dear to him as Nick or Bowen, even Grandmama and Grandfather, though the affection he felt for her was vastly differently. He did not fear what he felt for Nick or Bowen. They were like brothers to him. But Caelie…
“Very good friends,” he added and leaned closer until he could feel her breath on his skin and smell the sweet scent of wildflowers.
He feared what he felt for her. It had come upon him without warning and had turned him upside down until every nerve he possessed stood on edge. His feelings for her made him want things he didn’t want to want. Made him think of a future he had never envisioned for himself. It made him want to risk a lifetime of misery if only he could reach the peak of ecstasy with her for one day.
Had his father felt this way about his mother? Had it been worth it?
He remembered his father’s hand covering his mother’s as they lay in the scattered wreckage of the carriage. Before he died, his father had pulled his broken body over to where his wife laid and rested his hand in hers.
Had she known? Had she even cared? Or had the acrimony between them grown to such a fevered pitch she would have crawled away from his touch had she been able?
Spence shook the image from his head. He didn’t often think about that fateful night, and he didn’t want to now.
“I will protect you from Billingsworth.”
How, he had not determined yet. His thoughts had scattered. Being this close to her muddled his thinking and try as he might to regain control, he lost the battle before it even started. The moment he saw her sitting on the chaise with the sunlight haloed around her, he knew what would happen.
He knew he would end up here, sitting next to her, telling himself he would not kiss her, knowing full well he would anyway.
“I almost kissed you the other night,” he said.
“I know.”
“I didn’t, though.”
“Your grandfather interrupted us.”
“I thought I might remedy that.”
She said nothing.
He needed no further encouragement. His hand slid up the back of her neck and his lips brushed hers, softly, teasingly. Her breath caught, or had that been his? He couldn’t say. Didn’t care. When he kissed her again her tentativeness disappeared. Her mouth moved against his and her hand slid beneath his coat and waistcoat until its warmth permeated his linen shirt and burned into his skin.
She tasted as sweet as she smelled, though far more intoxicating, and in that moment he understood his father’s torment, about loving a woman who would never truly be his, about knowing her happiness resided elsewhere and not with him.
Caelie did not belong to him. It didn’t matter how much he wanted her to. In the end, he would never be able to make her happy. The Kingsley men weren’t built that way. But those facts turned to smoke caught in a breeze once he touched her, there one moment and gone the next. Forgotten.
He deepened his kiss and she responded. He pulled her closer until she reclined beneath him. She did not resist. The small part of him that knew of honor and character scrambled to find something to hang onto, but when her hand touched his face, so gentle and sweet, everything inside of him broke. He needed to lose himself, to forget his past and the damnable future hanging over both of them.
Spence settled himself over her and explored the length of her neck as his body reveled in the sensation of her curves and softness as they welcomed his weight. The feel of her against him turned him rock hard in an instant and the need to have her burned through his veins and incinerated any last scrap of restraint he possessed.
His hand ran down the length of her leg until it found the edge of her skirts and slipped beneath. With slow deliberation, he drew his palm over her stocking until it reached the bareness of her thigh. She gasped and for a brief second, she froze. Just as Spence thought to pull away, to end this madness, she relaxed and her legs parted further in invitation.
He was lost.
Need and desire and desperation pummeled anything good that might once have existed within him.
His hand moved to the juncture of her thighs. He slipped his fingers through the slit in her drawers. She was slick and warm. Welcoming and waiting. He slid a finger inside of her and she arched into his palm. He did it again, and again still until her rapid breath told him she was close. He reached between then and quickly undid his trousers, setting his erection free. He pushed her skirts out of the way and settled between her thighs.
“Look at me,” he whispered. He needed to see her, to gaze into her emerald eyes as he filled her, as he gave her a piece of himself he knew he would never get back.
She opened her eyes and gazed at him. Into him. And in that moment, Spence understood. This was it. He had found home. And suddenly nothing else mattered.
He pushed inside of her and let her soft heat envelope him. He held himself there for a moment, staring at her. What a wonder she was. He had been so blind to not see it at first, but bit by bit she had turned him around until he became so dizzy from discovery he could no longer remember how to run away. Nor did he want to.
Her hips arched and drew him further in, stoking the madness until any resistance he had left fell away. She closed her eyes and her head fell back against the pillows, exposing the delicate column of her neck. He kissed her heated skin and brought the rhythm of their bodies to a peak before driving them both over its edge into a sea of oblivion.
Spence did not know how long he lay collapsed against her, their bodies entwined. His breath still came in rapid gasps and his mind spiraled in more directions than he could track, but one fact he could not deny.
He had done the unthinkable.
And he did not care. In fact he wanted to do it again. Every day. For the rest of their lives. He had never experienced anything like this before. He had reached a height he had never known existed and his heart swelled from even that one brief touch. He wanted to hold onto it forever, but as his breath slowed, reality crept in.
Could he make her happy for a lifetime? Did he even know how?
And what if he couldn’t?
He had seen the devastation of what failure looked like.
Not that it mattered now. He had sealed his fate the moment he walked into the room and saw the sunlight caressing her fair skin and fine features.
Caelie pushed at his shoulder and he lifted his head to look at those features once again, to know she had been as affected by what they had shared as he. But when he gazed upon her beautiful countenance, he found none of that. In truth, he found nothing at all save for a hint of color in the apple of her cheeks.
Her features were void of expression.
He shifted and sat up, adjusting his trousers at the same time she pushed down her skirts.
“Caelie.”
“Yes?” She didn’t look at him. Instead, she pulled herself back into a sitting position and moved so both of her feet hung over the edge of the chaise.
He did not know what to say. She acted oddly, as if the woman he knew had quietly slipped away when he wasn’t looking. “Are you…all right?” It seemed a foolish thing to ask, but her behavior threw him and he could think of nothing else.
“Yes, of course.” She tugged at the bodice of her dress to pull it back into place.
When had he lost her?
She slipped her small feet into her shoes. At some point, the book had slipped off her lap onto the floor and she bent to pick it up. He watched her as if he was a ghost she couldn’t see. S
he avoided his gaze and when she did meet it, all too briefly, she looked straight through him.
“I… We will marry, naturally.” He did not want her to think he took their actions lightly, or that he would have done such a thing without full understanding of how it would end. How he wanted it to end.
“Don’t be foolish.” Her voice remained calm, but distant. She smiled at him, the same polite smile he’d seen her give others over the past week at parties. It meant nothing. A façade she wore like a shield. She stood and he joined her but his legs felt strange, heavy and weightless at the same time.
“There is nothing foolish about it. I…we…” He waved a hand at the chaise. “There is but one solution.”
“I am not a problem that requires a solution,” she said and for a brief moment, fire burned in her eyes before the shade dropped down and shut him out once again.
“That is not what I meant. It is only that…we made love, Caelie.” And that was it. Love. Such an odd feeling. It defied description no matter how hard the poets tried to capture it. It filled you and emptied you. It made you whole and yet left you broken.
And it scared the bloody hell out of him.
“It was nothing of the sort.” Her words cut into him. She sounded nothing like the Caelie he knew. “Do not trouble yourself over it.”
Do not trouble himself over it? Had she lost her mind? How could she dismiss what they had shared as insignificant? It had been anything but insignificant. It was a landslide, pure and simple. It had scooped him up and tumbled him around then buried him completely.
How could she say it was nothing?
She touched her hair and tucked a curl back into place. “I should go ready myself for this evening’s party.”
Spence shook his head. “No. There is no need. I will marry you.”
She stood in front of him and stared as if he had suggested they take a walk in the pouring rain. “I will not marry you.”
“But…why?” Even he knew what a good catch he was. Why, he could have his pick amongst the unmarried women of the ton and be assured any one of them would say yes and be happy to do so. Yet Caelie, who needed a husband more than most and had few prospects to claim, refused him? It made no sense.
She lifted her chin. “We are not suited. You have said numerous times that you have no wish to marry, that you would be miserable. And I have no wish to live with someone who considers each day with me a misery—”
“I would not be even remotely miserable if we were to do this every day.” He waved a hand at the chaise.
“And on the days we didn’t, then what? Would you be miserable on those days? And what about when the children came and responsibilities weighed upon us and duties demanded our attention and made our tempers short and our time together even shorter? How would you feel then? How long before you began to resent your circumstances and me along with them?”
He stared at her. He did not know what to say. She drew a picture of the future he feared most and the effect left him cold.
“Do you love me?” She asked.
“I—I—yes, of course. I think so.”
“You think? Well, that’s a hearty endorsement of your feelings.”
Spence pursed his lips. Why was she being so difficult? He offered her the world. Or, if not that, then at least a way out of the world she had been living in, the one she may soon be consigned to if Billingsworth and Lady Franklyn had their way. If they married, she would never have to worry again about censure or exile or finances.
“Do you think Cranbrook or Shaftsbury love you? They barely know you!” Not like he did. He had learned what made her laugh, what hurt her heart. He knew her fears and her strengths and how dearly she loved her family.
“No, I do not think they do. Which is better.”
“Better? I thought you wished your husband to have an affection for you.” She had said that, had she not? Some nonsense about friendship and foundations to build on.
“Of course. But I expect that affection to grow over time.”
“But mine has already grown. It is here now. You should accept it.” He gave her his most charming smile, but it failed to penetrate the unreadable expression she wore.
“This,” she moved her hand between them. “This is not affection. It is…lust. Infatuation. It will wane and you will be left with resentment that you boxed yourself into a corner because of it and in the end, it will color any fondness you have for me. You are not the only one who has witnessed what resentment between two people can do to a marriage.”
“I will never resent this.”
She shook her head and the corners of her mouth turned downward. “You already do. You are just not aware of it yet.” Caelie turned from him and walked to the door, then stopped. “I am touched that you are willing to do the honorable thing by me, but you do not need to. My fall came well before you and is not your concern. This was a mistake best forgotten.”
Her words drove a sharp pain straight through his heart. Who would have thought a man could receive such a wound and still remain upright.
“Right, then. A mistake.” He did not know what else to say, or do. He glanced out the window unable to hold her gaze, to let her know how her adamant rejection had affected him. He cleared his throat. “Do you still intend to go to the Gardens this evening?”
“I do. Your grandmother thought it best that we concentrate on Lords Cranbrook and Shaftsbury and try to hasten an offer before Billingsworth can make his move.”
He nodded but every word, every gesture he made felt faraway. Removed. As if he stood outside of his body watching the events unfold. Had nothing that transpired between them affected her in the least?
“Of course. That is likely your best course of action.”
She said nothing at first, then, “I must go prepare for this evening, my lord.”
My lord.
“Spencer,” he whispered but she had already left. Her footfalls echoed down the hallway briefly then disappeared.
Humiliation and hurt curdled in his gut.
* * *
Caelie stood in the middle of her bedchamber and let the tears come.
She had failed. Miserably.
On such a catastrophic level there could be no going back.
She and Spencer had made love. She could have stopped him, but she hadn’t. Desire had swelled inside of her when he kissed her and she let it pull her under until it crested and broke into a passion she could no longer contain.
When she had arrived home after her encounter with Billingsworth and Lady Franklyn, she had sought refuge in her books and did her best to put the matter from her mind and quell the fears growing in her belly. Yet the entire time she wanted nothing more than to run into Spencer’s arms and find comfort.
Comfort.
Why was that always her downfall? Was she so weak and pathetic she could not withstand ugly emotions without needing someone else to bolster her? And when she did seek it, why did it always end with her allowing a man to use her body—
But no. That was not fair. This had been different.
Billingsworth had taken what he wanted and nothing more. When he left her, she had felt used and foolish and…dissatisfied. But with Spencer. Oh, it had been different indeed. He had not taken, he had given. He had touched her with an intoxicating mix of boldness and gentleness. He had stoked a fire within her that burned through every last inch and left nothing as it had been—not her body, not her heart, not her soul. He’d lifted her to heights she hadn’t even known existed and held her tight when everything broke away and left her unable to speak or think or move.
For the first time in her life she’d had something she wanted within her grasp and she grabbed for it. She clasped it to her and she basked in the glory it gave her while it lasted.
And what a glory it had been. She had never imagined such completeness could be found between a man and woman. Their hearts had entwined as much as their bodies. But when the coupling ended, when the ecstasy of th
eir bodies receded and disentangled, her heart had not returned.
She had left it with his.
She would not need it.
Oh, what a jumbled mess she had made of this! Reality intruded almost immediately. The weight of his body on hers, the slickness between her thighs, the horror of the consequences of what she had done crashed down around her.
How could she marry another man knowing she would never crave his touch the way she did Spencer’s? Knowing she would never be able to give her heart fully and completely, as it no longer belonged to her?
And what man would want her now that she had given herself to another man in such a way? Surely there were ways around that, but she did not have the heart for such trickery.
Yet she must. She had no other choice.
She swiped at her cheeks but it did no good. More tears fell to replace the ones she’d wiped away.
Spencer had proposed for honor’s sake, but she had honor of her own. She had made a promise—to Spencer, to Lord Ellesmere, and to herself. She would not marry him. For his sake, for his family’s sake.
Lord Ellesmere feared bringing more scandal into his family and Caelie did not blame him. She knew what damage it wrought and no matter how hard you scrubbed you could never fully wash it away. Her father’s scandal had been bad enough, but if Billingsworth had his way, the scandal that would captivate the ton’s attention next would be her own. She would not bring that into the Kingsley family after all they had done for her.
The mistake she had made had been her own, and she would be the one to wear it.
Even before Spencer had pulled away from her, Caelie had known what she must do. She must distance herself from him, put up a wall. Pretend she felt nothing, that what they had shared had not affected her.
It took every last bit of fortitude she had, and some she didn’t even know she possessed to pull it off and walk from the room as if what had happened between them meant nothing.
When in truth, it had meant everything.
She did not regret it. To her everlasting shame, she could not. For the rest of her days she would hold onto the memory of what happened between them and try her best to revel in the fact that for one afternoon she had known how it felt to be loved. To be cherished. No matter that it was only an illusion created in the moment.
