by Lisa Torquay
The housekeeper knocked and announced luncheon, breaking the stillness and giving Harriet the chance to jump to her feet and leave before tension rolled her insides into a knot.
After the meal, Sam headed to the campus’s green-house in large, heavy steps. The weather was crisp despite it being the end of May. Not even the view of Radcliffe Camera, his favourite place in Oxford, soothed him.
What the hell had happened just now?
Better. What the hell was he thinking to say those clumsy things in there? After the words were out had he realised the double entendre meaning they could have.
He would measure the plant and he would do well to finish the paper while he could still claw an inch of control. The last he had. No. He must hide in the college library and write it himself to avoid the risk of giving in to his unlawful instincts. And sleep in his very cosy lodging, staying away from her as much as possible. The strength to do it was sadly lacking. How would he dredge enough single-mindedness not to enjoy her company, not to see her? Not to gobble the beauty of her inch by painful inch? The craving was killing him, but he found it impossible to put distance between them.
When Professor Hayley came back, he would resume his usual life and would not be seeing so much of her. The thought brought no solace. Not seeing her caused more anguish than the excruciating effects of her nearness on him.
Forget it, you lunatic, he admonished himself as he stopped at the steps to the green-house. Unlike his rampant body, his mind needed to build a barrier between decency and these primal desires pulsing in his blood.
“Hey, McDougal,” Turning, he saw Michael Trent, one of his former classmates.
“Trent,” he answered absently. The other man stood to inherit a Marquisate and hung around Oxford more for carousing than for academic interests. “I was looking for you,” he said and patted Sam on the back.
“I’ve been busy with a paper.” He had joined the other man and his crowd for a pint a few times as an undergraduate, but his studious habits kept him away from them.
Trent smiled carefree. “You should take your nose off the books. Life is raging out there.”
Life for Samuel had a whole different meaning though he was not about to digress on philosophical matters with his shallow colleague. “If you say so.”
“Madame Drummond opened a new place in town.” Said Madame had a famous—or infamous, if you prefer—bawdy house in London. The woman must be branching out by the looks of it. University cities presented infinite opportunities for such ventures. “Care to join us there tonight?”
The idea disgusted him to be sure. The impersonal quality of this sort of transaction did not appeal in the least. “I don’t think so,” he replied and made to walk away.
“Come on, McDougal. Once in a lifetime won’t hurt,” with a smug expression Lord Trent spread his arms. “Too much study and no fun will make you, you know, explode.” ‘Explode’ being the exact term, in all its senses.
Sam wondered if he should not do exactly that to overcome this infatuation. Perhaps, all he needed was a mighty tumble to appease his…urges. “Alright, then,” he yielded, not too convinced.
“Excellent, man! I’ll see you there.” And left Sam with a wave.
Dressed in breeches, clean white shirt and hessians, Sam clattered down the stairs in the middle of putting on his coat. At the landing, he met Harriet in the drawing room. Something pierced him at the sight of her holding a cup of tea with a book on her lap. It felt too much like guilt. For what, he had no idea.
His eyes put an exceeding amount of focus on his buttons. “Trent invited me to join him,” he informed without raising his head.
Harriet had had the opportunity to meet the man in question when he visited the professor during his undergraduate years.
“Fine,” her voice came chillier than a February night.
It propelled him to lift his gaze. “Will you be well?” He did not look directly at her.
She did not look directly at him. “No doubt,” from chilling, she had gone positively frosty.
“Enjoy your evening,” he wished and turned quick to the entrance.
“Likewise.” He heard her just as the door closed behind him.
Sam did not have nights out, even when he stayed at his lodgings. A book and a dram of his father’s whisky were more than enough for his contentment. Noise and meaningless conversations did not do it for him. Since the professor travelled, he had been spending evenings in, and retiring early to keep the strained respectability he forced on himself. Even that seemed more preferable than carousing. That tonight he might find the relief he needed brought no enthusiasm. It was this or go crazy with the hunger eating at him.
By the time he arrived, Madame Drummond’s parlour buzzed in full swing. Noblemen, gentlemen of means and the doves mingled in a merry atmosphere. The parlour boasted a refined decoration with thick rugs, brocade-lined furniture and crystal chandeliers.
“There you are,” Trent sighted him and approached with a girl on each arm. He half turned to his left. “This is Marie, and here is Amelie,” he said turning to his right.
“Bon soir, monsieur,” came their greeting.
Sam eyed both girls, appearing barely to be twenty. Obviously, they were not French by any stretch of imagination; they only must have received the proper training to behave and sound so.
“Amelie here was just asking me to introduce you,” Trent drawled airily.
True or not, she had a duty to welcome new guests. Sam surveyed the girl with a little more attention. Despite being draped in flawless finery, the dress displayed a low neckline and a vibrant colour that held a vague resemblance with the ones Marie Antoinette might have worn. He wondered how these doves ended up in a place like this. Unfortunate lives, broken families, or poverty might have something to do with it. And then he thought about the exploitation of their misfortune by the Madame and these men wandering in the parlour.
But Amelie’s brown eyes met his with a hint of sauciness as she disengaged from Michael and came to his side. Sociological considerations became secondary.
“Can I get you anything to drink, monsieur?” she ventured, weaving her arm in his.
Near him, he scented the strong perfume emanating from her, churning his stomach. “Not as yet, thanks,” he answered. He ran the risk of shaming himself if he tried to swallow anything.
A fire roared in the fireplace and the crowd gave off a mixture of body odours that polluted the air. Apart from the glittering decoration, there was no disguising the vulgar atmosphere that was getting to Sam in a rather undisguised way.
“Perhaps the gentleman would like you to show him your little nest,” suggested Trent to the girl.
The dove’s finely coiffured apple-moth hair glimmered in the candlelight when she nodded enthusiastic. “Of course, mon cœur,” and turned to take him upstairs.
Sam had not even decided if he was really going to do this. The whole place spoke of flitting pleasures and a bitter after-taste. To say he seemed completely as a fish out of water would be a huge understatement. In truth, he felt cheap as if he was worth merely the money in his wallet. But the first time to everything would prove awkward, would it not? With that thought, he followed Amelie, and tried to go through with his intention. There could be no use obsessing with a woman that would never be his. He needed to move on and starting here was as good as anywhere.
When his mind stopped roaming, he saw himself inside a stuffed bedroom. Heavy drapes covered the window, dark wallpaper decorated the walls, and dubious quality velvet surrounded the four-poster taking a whole side of the space. The perfume here gave off even stronger vapours, maybe to overlap other…odours.
Amelie turned her delicate, even if unremarkable, face to him. “What would you like me to do to you?” she asked pouting red-painted lips at him.
He gaped when she went on to undo the front ribbons of her dress, making it yawn to reveal a sheer chemise under i
t. Momentarily speechless, he followed her progress. She presented him with a knowing smile while opening the bodice wider.
“Shall we start from the beginning?” he blurted out, green orbs flared to their largest width.
Her feminine form sashayed to him. “Here’s a thorough gentleman,” she praised as her shapely arms wound around his neck.
CHAPTER TWO
Harriet lay on her bed scrutinising the darkened ceiling as she had done for hours since she forced herself to retire. Or she might have sat waiting for a certain man to arrive from wherever he decided to spend the night.
Spend the night, for pity’s sake. Samuel. That studious pupil as the boy he had been. A scholarly graduate keen on the advancement of science. A man who showed not an inch of tendency towards debauchery. The man whose quiet, intellectual posture had always elicited admiration from a woman who loathed carousing idiots.
Her insides twirled in a ragged mixture of feelings she did not try to decipher. Did not try or did not wish to, who knew. Her state of awakening told of restlessness, anxiety. And another emotion with a sour underlining she refused to call jealousy. Or rage. Or even hurt.
She could not deny that her ears stood alert to any noise from the entrance. She willed Samuel to not fall for that sort of degenerate amusement. The perfect example of one carousing idiot could veer him into ending up in vice and death.
Oh, she knew that despicable Trent well, she did. A spoiled rascal with more money than morals and more lasciviousness than decency. In his undergraduate years, he had made a pass at her, certain that a lonely widow would yield to any proposition for lack of options or affection. He had learned a lesson with the decisive slap he got for his lecherous words. Her resounding ‘no’ had irritated him to the point of retribution, but there was nothing he could do to someone under his professor’s protection. So reluctantly he had let it be. Harriet did not allow herself to think what would have happened had she not been under the professor’s roof.
But Samuel had gone out with that crowd before and nothing came of it. As a young man, it was only natural he would seek diversion. Why she fretted now, she had no idea. The professor’s protégé came from the Highlands, days far from the nearest big city. He grew up in a bucolic place, hence his interest in botany due to his close contact with an agricultural life. Unlike Trent, who was London born and bred, the McDougal heir showed no enthusiasm for nightlife. Otherwise he would have been swayed years earlier when being away from his family was a novelty. She should trust someone who had been a constant student for several years.
Her musings were interrupted by a noise coming from downstairs. Boot steps weighed the wooden stairs and pounded on the carpet of the narrow hallway. A sigh of relief escaped her right before he walked by her door.
And then she scented it. A woman’s perfume, pungent and distinctive even from her closed chamber, one only a Cyprian would wear. The sickening smell threatened to make her throw up right on her crispy bedclothes. Her hand clamped over her mouth while she fought tears with brave determination. No man, not even this one deserved them. And she would shed none. Ever again.
However, she had no chance of avoiding the blistering emotions which washed through her at the certainty he had been with a woman, that sort of woman. That he preferred a nameless, faceless light skirt when he had so blatantly showed how he wanted her, hurt more than she would like to confess. It served only to prove that, even if Samuel seemed to be a decent man, he was still a man. Just like everybody else, one who would choose to assuage his urges in any manner he could. Sharp disappointment speared her.
As the cloying odour dissipated, she turned to the other side and made herself fall asleep.
Samuel threw his shirt at the furthest corner of his chamber, eager to get rid of the stench clinging to it. And sat on the bed while his large hands rubbed his face and spiked his hair.
He should not have set his foot in that place. That he did filled him with disgust and loathe. Guilt ripped him apart, for the defeated women he met there and for the sense of betrayal to his inner wishes. He wanted not a nameless woman, not a harlot, not a clan lass, not a debutante. He exclusively craved Harriet, only her.
Never would he cheat himself, his feelings again. Never. Or come so close to it. The moment Amelie touched him, revulsion took over poignantly. Not for her specifically, but for her not being whom he dreamed. The very opposite to arousal had erupted in his guts. His hands held her arms to unwind them from him. He stepped back, excused himself and left after throwing a sheaf of Pounds on the side table. Downstairs, he landed in the entrance hall where no one saw him hurriedly exit the place. Putting on his coat and hat, he sped home in the first hackney he found.
The damned perfume clung to his skin now. He rushed to the basin to wash himself. It would be inconsiderate to wake anyone to prepare him a bath. He would have to wait until morning. The professor kept only a housekeeper and a footman. The latter had travelled with the family, and Mrs Marsh deserved her rest.
His breath tried to ignore the alien essence as Sam lay down and fell into a fitful sleep.
By the time Harriet heard the study door click shut, she had been in it for a long time organising books and the notations for Samuel’s paper. The soapy scent floating inside told her he had taken a bath. A wise decision after what he had done. A hot wave of irritation nearly choked her. The delicate throat worked convulsively to tamp it down with resolute finality.
“Good morning,” came his smooth greeting.
For the life of her, she did not have the ability to look at him. Pure revulsion churned her insides. Her head lifted, aiming at the painting behind him. “You’re late,” the unfair accusation escaped unbidden.
His brows crumpled at her dry tone, but he did not divert his eyes from her which provoked waves of multi-layered reactions in her badly-slept body. “It’s hardly eight in the morning,” he retorted more alert.
That he did not sleep in, even having arrived late, counted points in his favour. Points she refused to concede in the mood she found herself in at the moment. “Certainly, but we need to get on with this,” and lowered her eyes to the book she held in one hand. Her peripheral vision took in the damp hair, the warm hue of his skin, the lean torso in a pristine shirt. And the tight breeches that did not hide his long legs and, well, everything really. When had he grown to be so manly? So mesmerizing?
In large strides, he reached the chair across from hers, and sat with confident movements. The soapy essence with a hint of sandalwood became the quintessence her nostrils inhaled with eager pleasure.
She stalled her breath. Turned away and made an unsuccessful attempt to catch an ounce of neutral oxygen. The sandalwood accompanied it.
Blast it all!
“Let’s start, in this case,” he said as his spectacled gaze made a thorough perusal of her tightly coiled wheat hair, the pale skin as of this morning. His eyes rolled over the yellow morning dress she had clad herself in jerky movements after washing. She heard his forceful intake of air, and locked her muscles not to raise her eyes to him.
In her view, he lost the right to admire her.
The morning elapsed in awkward work while she tried to remind herself that they had no personal relationship whatsoever. She was his professor’s employee and he was a scholar making his way into academia. Just that.
But the acid feelings coursing through her in direct conflict with her body’s responses were taking a huge energy to manage.
“I’ll have to make a brief description of the variety of soil the species thrive in,” Samuel uttered. He must have realised her adverse mood for his behaviour sank into jagged moves and restless glances.
“Professor Hayley has a book on types of soil,” she replied as she stood up and reached the shelves to her left.
With a forefinger put forth, she looked for the tome. The books were organised by themes, and she remembered the one treating of soil lay on the top shelf. Extending her le
ft arm, she tried to reach it, but her five feet three inches of height made it impossible.
Samuel scrambled from his seat. “Allow me to help you,” and approached her back with a clumsy move.
He reached up for the volume, gluing to her spine in the process as the sandalwood enveloped her in a tempting cloud. The hot, flat planes of him touched her curves, and she froze. She was sure he did not realise it would happen until it did.
His long arm covered her extended one and the heat that suffused her skin made her go boneless. Her right hand grabbed onto the lower shelf edge in a futile attempt to cling to sanity. His head lowered and she sensed his lips so close to her hair. Air halted in her lungs while her heart skipped on a wild race.
Harriet felt something twitch on her hair as the flow of air told her it was his nose sauntering the loose strands. His left hand met hers on the higher shelf, covering it with his warm, big one.
She found nothing to say, found no voice to say it, nor the will. The sensation of his tall, imposing frame on hers was beyond description. And then his right hand spanned her waist to start a slow, so slow, glide towards her midriff, peppering goose-bumps wherever it went. His touch seemed stilted, almost as if he needed to contain himself, and held that white-hot incandescence that melted everything in its wake. But a reverent one, too, like he was touching something sacred, precious that he would find once in a lifetime.
His palm reached her flat, soft stomach, causing ripples of warmth to arrow downwards. Air escaped her in what could only be described as a sigh in the same second his mouth touched the shell of her ear. Without enough will to keep standing, she sagged on his lean chest, her head coming barely to his shoulder. That was when his hand closed on hers still stretched on the higher shelf, effectively trapping her between him and the books. The hand worshipping her midriff inched perilously upwards to the base of her breast. The simple notion that he might cover the puckered tip drove her nether regions to produce scorching, shameful moisture. On its own volition, her other hand covered his to halt it or to urge on, she could not tell.
