She drew a shuddered breath. “Strider—”
He moved in even closer, the front of him brushing against her chest, his eyes locked on hers. “I have never been right, Pen. Not since I left you with the Flagtons. I have always been trying to get back to the happiness of our youth—only to find out that it is unachievable. And I’ve become ruthless—bitter—hard, because of it, and I didn’t even recognize how far I had sunk. And then you appeared at the Den and I realized something.”
“What?”
“There is no happiness. Not without you. Not for me. You are my happiness.”
Tears welled in her eyes, making her green irises shine. Her hands lifted to clasp onto the sides of his face and his eyes closed, her fingertips bringing heaven down to earth.
“And you have always been mine.”
His lips crashed into hers before the last word was out of her mouth. The second he’d seen her in the field, the knowledge that she was everything—everything—set so firmly into his mind that he’d been amazed he managed to hold back this long.
His mouth demanding against hers, she laughed—pure joy—against the kiss. The magical sound sent his cock long and hard—that he could possibly be the cause of the sound.
Not willing to break the kiss—he wanted to devour her for how he had missed her lips, the touch of her hands these past weeks—his hands slipped down her backside and he lifted her.
Her legs wrapped around him, her thighs resting on the cut of his hip bones, as her nails slid up along his spine and into his hair, spiking all of his nerves. With a guttural mewl, her head dropped away from his, her lips finding his neck, her teeth raking across his skin. She was as hungry for him as he was for her.
This. Now.
He turned toward the willow tree and charged across the field, his member straining uncomfortably against the crux of her with each step. Doubtful he’d even make it to the willow.
His feet pounding along the ground, he made it to the slight cover the long branches afforded.
He glanced over her head at the trunk of the tree.
He’d already imagined Pen with her back against the tree, his cock sinking into her. But now he wanted—needed more. He needed her body, all of her skin cool against the heat of his.
He wasted no time.
The laces on the back of her dress. The stays, the chemise.
He lifted her off of him for the moment it took to drag her clothes off. She grumbled at it, but then took to removing his clothing in a whirlwind, popping several buttons in her haste.
Their bodies free to the air, he dropped to his knees in front of her, fully intending to taste every inch of her skin.
She would have none of it. Her right hand solid against the center of his back, she slid down along his body, her mouth meeting his in a carnal kiss. Her legs wrapped around him as she lowered, easing herself directly onto his shaft. Bloody exquisite. And sending every raw nerve in his body to raging.
Balanced on his knees, his toes dug into the ground for stability as he leaned back.
She pulled up slightly, her eyes devouring his face with a wicked smile on her lips. “I’ve missed you.” Her hips started to swivel, sending his cock deeper into her.
“Bloody hell, you don’t know what missing is.” His hands clamped onto her hips and he lifted her, then set her down the length of him. A second time. Third. Fifth. Eighth. He lost count. Lost the world around him.
Nothing but Pen in front of him. Nothing but driving up into her again and again. Nothing but steeling himself against coming until her body found its release.
Her hands clasped around his neck and she leaned backward, the angle of her body allowing him even deeper access into her. Her hips found rhythm on every down sweep, nonsensical moans filling every exhale.
She sped and he slammed into her hard, sending her over the precipice. Her scream merged with a roar—his own—that filled his head as he exploded into her. Blackness and light converged in his head, his excruciating release taking control of every muscle, every thought.
Her body curled onto him, her hips still jerking as spasms hit her over and over, her nails still clawed into his back for support.
Heaven help him if he were to survive a lifetime of this.
But survive, he would.
“Why is it like that?” Her words muffled into the crook of his neck.
“Like death has surely come?”
She nodded into his shoulder, her lips kissing his skin.
“I can’t explain it. It’s the same for me, but it’s not usually like this.”
He could feel her smile against his skin. “I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
He kept her body locked onto his and shifted them, sitting and leaning back against the trunk of the tree. Through the long branches of the willow the far-off torches outside the manor house sparkled, helping to ward off the onslaught of darkness.
Her head lifted from where it had nuzzled into the crook of his neck and shoulder, and she set her face in front of his. “I didn’t understand it before, Strider. What you went through—suffering years of it. The desperation of how to survive all alone. That year we spent on our own—I always had you to depend on—and I didn’t understand.”
Her lips pursed. “But I understand it now. How alone you were. Everything you did to survive—the man it made you into and how you managed to keep that core of good in you—everything that Mama June wanted you to be. It was always in you. Always. No matter what you had to do. I understand now that when you are alone in the world with not a coin in your pocket—hungry, desperate—just what you would do to survive.”
His head jerked back, startled, and he grabbed the sides of her head, searching her face. “What did you do, Pen?”
“Nothing that I was prepared to do.” Her head shook. “Fortune intervened and I was spared from the rookeries, from selling my body. Spared. But I was on my way there—and I would have done it. I would have done anything to survive. It didn’t matter what I believed in—the good that I thought I was. Morals don’t put food in a belly—they don’t erase that gnawing hunger that makes one desperate. Made me desperate. I was walking right into the belly of sin, willingly. Desperately.”
He pulled her into him, hugging her. That she had thought—considered for one second—she’d have to sink to that desperate level curdled his belly. Rage seared into his veins. Rage at himself for believing his men were watching over her properly. Rage at his men. Rage at Flagton for forcing her into such desperation.
His hand wrapped along to the back of her head, his fingers burying into her hair as he clutched her to his chest. “I’m so sorry. I never should have left you.” He pulled back, finding her face but not letting her free from his arms. “Where have you been? Daphne Bannon—who is she?”
“Oh no—Flagton.” Her body snapped straight as her look shot up to him. “Percival cannot know what happened to me. He kicked me out of the townhouse and swore he’d have the magistrate set a hangman’s noose about my neck for stealing—I changed my name—but he—”
“He’s gone, Pen.” He threaded his fingers through the loose blond hair along her temple. “He and his mother scurried like rats onto the first ship they could find back to the Americas.”
Her body went limp against him in relief. “You had something to do with that?”
His mouth clamped closed as he shrugged.
She sighed, her head shaking at him. She pulled up slightly and set her hands on his bare chest. “Daphne Bannon—I made a friend—for the first time in my life, a real friend. And she gave me a job. She runs a business—a moving shop of sorts that caters to the ladies of the ton. She procures collections of items and the ladies buy them. It’s quite amazing what she has created—a business that doesn’t need a store—that is brought directly to the ladies. She holds events at Vauxhall Gardens and she has a waiting list of women that would like to attend the fêtes.”
His eyebrows lifted. He still didn’t trust this
Daphne. “And just what exactly do you do for her?”
“She pays me to haggle with the vendors. I help arrange the collections of items, catalog them, help her set pricing on them. And I was about to help show off some of the wares at the next show—which was supposed to be tonight.” Her bottom lip pulled underneath her top teeth. “Strider, I’ve abandoned her. She was counting on me to help today and then at the event tonight and I am here.”
“I am sure Jasper has already found and explained the situation to her—he was given margin to make your disappearance right in any way he could. If she’s a good businesswoman, she’ll claim a tidy sum that she’s owed by your disappearance.”
Pen chuckled. “She is a good businesswoman, so prepare yourself for that bill.”
A grunt of a laugh lifted through his throat. “Whatever I have to pay, it’ll be worth it.” His eyes squinted at her. “So, you haggle with vendors?”
“I do. And I’m rather good at it.”
“I could use you in my business.”
“Your business?” Her voice caught, her forehead dropping and hiding her eyes from him. “What exactly is your current business? Did your father’s letter…”
He captured her cheeks between his hands and tilted her face up to him. “Was what I needed. It was the proof I needed, and it’s now backed up by a witness testimony from the man that married my parents in Scotland—an apothecary of all things—and within another month, witness testimonials from the midwife that was at my birth and the clergyman in Belize will arrive. The solicitor in London verified everything in the letter. There is so much proof it will be impossible to deny me—I have already been assured of it by the House of Lords.”
Her head shook. “Strider…I cannot even imagine. All I have taken from you. If I had known, if I had been stronger, if I hadn’t been so scared, if I—”
His lips cut off her words, kissing her to silence. He broke the kiss, his eyes opening to her. “You are here now. I am here now. From this moment on, we are only forward. I never want to hear you flog yourself on this score again. My own sins are so many—far more than yours—I could spend years flogging myself for everything I’ve done. But I don’t want that. We can live in the past or we can live in the now. I want you. I want us. I want little girls that look exactly like you running about my legs. I want to drag you up to Scotland so we can have the same apothecary marry us that married my parents.”
Her eyes went wide. “You want to elope to Scotland?”
“I do. We can leave as soon as possible. I want to have you in my bed with all the propriety that you deserve—something my mother would much more approve of than what just happened under this tree.” His finger lifted, pointing at the branches shielding them from the world.
“Oh, no.” Both of her hands flew in front of her face. “Spirits don’t see everything, do they?”
He laughed. “I hope not. But truly, she would enjoy this—not the current nakedness we find ourselves in—but to know that we found each other again. That the bond of our family was battered but never broken. She would be happy with this.”
Pen nodded. “She would.”
“So you’ll abscond to Scotland with me?”
She smiled, nothing but the purest love shining in her eyes. “I will. Anywhere with you, I will go.”
{ Chapter 26 }
A string of beautiful, glistening horses walked in front of her and Pen looked down, smoothing the front of the pale green dress that Juliet had found for her from the wardrobes at the Willows. She still wasn’t accustomed to the color—of any color, truly, on her body.
To see her arm in peach or green or blue was disconcerting, so much so that she always assumed it wasn’t her own arm she was seeing. And she couldn’t quite believe the finery on her body and how it was on display for all the world to see.
Specifically, the world of lords and ladies and gentlemen that had gathered on these green fields. Instead of being safely ensconced in Strider’s naked arms in his bed, she was here. Here in a world she knew nothing about, other than the limited tutorial that Daphne had guided her through a week ago at Vauxhall Gardens.
What had Daphne said to her? She had to pretend no one was looking at her, had to think of all of these ladies and gentlemen naked before they got dressed.
When everyone was naked, everyone was equal.
Those were the words she needed to quell the little voice inside her head that screamed that she was a fraud. That she didn’t belong amongst these people. That every one of them was watching her, judging her.
The warm heat of Strider suddenly blanketed her from behind, shielding her from the crisp of the day, and she looked over her shoulder to him. He was in the finest clothes she’d ever seen him in—impeccably tailored tailcoat and trousers in the blackest black, a waistcoat that had the thinnest stripes of copper lending it a dash of color, and a masterfully tied cravat. Not to mention the crisp top hat on his head. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him in a hat. Even when they were young, Mama June would always hand him a cap in Belize that he would always drop outside the front door.
A cutting figure, he made in this crowd.
Fighting down her rising apprehension at the people about them and how out of place she was, she smiled at him. “Tell me again why we are here.”
“I thought you might enjoy the races today. They’re held so close to the Willows that I thought it would be a fun escape.” He moved to her side, pressing a glass of pink-hued punch into her white-gloved hand. “Plus, it is giving Juliet a day to gather up a proper wardrobe for you for our journey to the Scottish border. She said last night she needed more than a few hours to do so and I want you in only the finest. In addition, I hate it when I cross her. She can be a bear.”
Pen chuckled. She was liking Juliet more and more. “You must know I don’t care what I’m wearing, Strider.”
“But I care. I want you never to have to think of dull, black, scratchy clothes again. Give me this?”
The right side of her face quirked into a smile even as she shook her head at him. “Another day won’t hurt a thing.”
“We leave tomorrow with the sunrise.”
She nodded and then pointed to the horses parading in front of them. “But why horse racing instead of lying about in your bed for the day?”
He leaned down to nip at her neck, his words heating the sensitive dip behind her ear. “Because I can barely walk for all you’ve put me through in the last fourteen hours.”
She laughed. “I doubt that. If anyone is limping about, it’s me.”
He stood straight as he gave a nod to a passing gentleman. “We’re here because I remember how much you liked to gather up the crabs at the shore in Belize and then race them. I especially remember how you would always lose bets to me.”
“Lose?” She chuckled. “You do not recall correctly, my addled almost-husband.”
He shrugged with a grin. “We’ll have to remember that one differently, then.” He took a sip from his own glass and then pointed out to the field. “And we are also here for that one—a horse of mine is running.”
“It is?” Her look swiveled to him and then shot out along his pointing finger to the sleek, dark brown mare stepping lively as its groom tried to keep it calm. “You never said you owned race horses.”
“I don’t. I usually just fix the races.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye with a devil smirk playing at his lips. “But my cousin, Frederick, the soon-to-be ex-duke, entered one of the finest horses in the Leaven stables in a race today. He knows what is coming for him—complete ruin after the title is stripped from him—and if my hunch is correct, he has placed a healthy wager on his horse winning—and then an even healthier wager on his horse losing.”
She took a sip of her punch. “Why two bets?”
“One private bet to make money on, one public bet to make it appear as though he isn’t having the jockey throw the race.”
Pen exhaled, watching the horse. “Cle
ver.”
“Either way, it’ll be my horse in another month. I just want to make sure it isn’t overrun.”
Her eyebrows lifted at him. “So, you have no nefarious purposes here today?”
“Unless you count dragging you behind that far-off line of coaches and having my way with you, then no. No nefarious purposes. In another month I’ll have to sell off most of my current…unsavory…investments as it is. There’s no time like the present to start walking the straight and narrow path.”
Her free hand threaded into the crook of his arm. “I am proud of you.”
An awkward half-smile lifted the side of his face. He wasn’t convinced the straight and narrow path was the one for him, but he was doing it for her. She’d take it.
Pen took another sip of her punch and looked at the crowd out to her right. The races hadn’t started yet, so the people were still in full mingling mode, conversations abounding. “Is he here?”
“Who?”
“Your cousin.”
“Yes.” Strider stepped to his left and spun her to face the roadway into the racing grounds. “He’s near that line of carriages, skulking about, as is his character.” He scanned the field where the coaches were lined, one after another, then pointed. “There. By the tail end of that odd curricle painted purple. Frederick is the one that doesn’t have a hat on.”
Pen found the purple curricle, then spotted the man, his top hat in hand, talking to two other men with top hats in place atop their heads.
Her blood froze in her veins.
She squinted and moved forward, her legs as heavy as stones, step after step until she could see the man clearly. Until she could see what she couldn’t believe.
Every nerve in her body spiked, her breath choking away, and she started to pant, gasping for air. “Who, who is he?”
Strider had followed her steps, his brow furrowed. “Who? What?”
The glass in her fingers dropped to the ground and her voice screeched, her hand waving, her forefinger jabbing in the air toward the men by the purple carriage. “That man—him—the one with the hat in his hand. The one on the left, talking. That one.”
Exiled Duke: An Exile Novel Page 19
