by Heather Boyd
“Today.” He let her go.
Whitney turned around, aware that the future was something they’d always avoided talking about. He’d only recently put aside his mourning clothes, and was colorfully turned out at last. She wet her lips before she spoke. “You’re not afflicted with consumption.”
“So it seems,” he said, then laughed softly. “No lingering death for me.”
She breathed out, allowing the tension in her to fade to nothing. “I am so glad. The world would be a lonely place without you in it.”
“I hoped you might feel that way.” He lifted his hand to her face and gently moved her red hair back from her cheek. He still wore gloves around her, and if the danger had passed there was no reason now that couldn’t stop. They could touch, kiss and become proper lovers.
She looked him up and down, longing for him. It had been a month since Everett had last posed for her. Nude, of course. “Remove your clothes, my good man.”
He grinned widely and tugged off his gloves. “In a moment.”
He took her hand in his very tenderly. It had been a long time since they’d kissed, or touched skin to skin, and the torture had been acute for Whitney.
He slid his palm over hers and then laced their fingers together tightly. “I want to do this right this time.”
Whitney was returning to a life of dull and proper behavior soon, to balls and dinners and morning calls and everything she’d ever resisted. Conforming to society’s expectations had never appealed before, but it was what Everett would want, and because she loved him, she intended to try to fit in. “We’ve done nothing else right, have we?”
He grinned. “These past months have been the best of my life, and I have only you to thank for that. I have discovered so many things about myself, and about you most of all.”
“Such as?”
“That you only have to look in my direction to make me happy. I never imagined this life, but I am grateful to you for showing me another way to live. I think I would have been very miserable if not for you.”
“I feel the same.” She leaned close. “And I feel I must confess that you only have to walk into a room to excite me unbearably.”
His grin widened. “Imagine making love where we actually touch?”
Her breath quickened. “I always do.”
They pleasured themselves in each other’s company only infrequently, and when they couldn’t, they would whisper about it in the most inappropriate locations. Whitney had never felt so beautiful as when Everett told her his desires.
“Tonight,” he promised. “Tonight, I will be with you.”
Tonight was hours away.
“Now,” she countered. “There is nothing to hold us back anymore. To hell with my reputation. I have waited long enough.”
His grip on her hand tightened. “Whitney, I need you.”
“I need you, too.” She leaned forward to claim a kiss but he drew back.
“Life is very relaxed here, but we cannot continue this way once we are back in England,” he warned her.
“Because people always gossip,” she agreed. Everett particularly did not like when the talk involved him or Whitney. He was rather funny when his feathers were ruffled by rumors and innuendo.
“People always do. I want to be with you so much that when we get home, I think we need to marry immediately.” He drew her hands upward and pressed soft kisses to her knuckles. He met her gaze, and Whitney’s knees almost buckled under the love she glimpsed in his eyes. “I know your dreams are not over, and that you will paint and sometimes scandalize the high sticklers, but I don’t care. I want to be with you, at your side forever. I hope there might be room for me in your dreams, too.”
“You are in them.” She slipped his grip and touched his dear face, sliding her fingers into the lengths of his hair. She adored this man because he had never asked her to change. “My dreams are filled with you and the life we can have together. I would be honored to be your wife.”
His expression changed to delight as he pulled her closer against his chest. He rested his hands on her hips and squeezed. “What do you dream for us?”
“Many things.” The feel of him against her at long last made her pulse speed up. She toyed with his cravat, trying to put into words the future they could share. “We’re going home to be married, to meet our mutual friends together as man and wife, and we are going to start the family you have always wanted. I have always known I would have children. I want yours soon.”
“What else will we do?”
“We will most likely spend part of the season in London, but most of the time we will be home at Warstone, moving your cattle from field to field, keeping your horses long after they are fit to ride. Making love under the stars or in the woods. Calling on your friends in the village and making sure they are well and happy, especially the Blakes.”
He grinned widely and spun them both in a tight circle. “I have loved you since the night we met.”
Whitney laughed. “Are you attempting to rewrite our history, my love?”
“Of course not.” He laughed with her, something she’d not thought him capable of the second time they’d met. “But upon reflection, I cannot believe I didn’t understand why seeing you always angered me. Why you laughing with other men annoyed me so much. I think I was plagued with the most horrid jealousy when you smiled at other men I unconsciously deemed unworthy and my rival for your regard.”
“You wanted to be the one I flirted with instead?”
“Of course,” he promised. “Not that I ever understood my feelings for you until it was almost too late.”
“Will you feel any better should I tell you that I fell for you the night we first met, and it was only out of friendship and loyalty that I had no choice but to detest you?”
He looked surprised at that. “You detested me?”
Whitney nodded. “I hated that you didn’t try to win me, because you know I do possess a fortune, so you could have married me instead of proposing to Miss Quartermane.”
“I know that now,” he agreed with another laugh. “Fortunately for you, I’ve never been interested in marrying for monetary gain. You have won my regard by your own merits.”
“So why the rush to marry at all?” She grinned, knowing her question was foolish. They were in love, and love was the most troublesome of all emotions to contain.
“Because I cannot get you out of my mind and heart…and I don’t want to. I demand the right to tell everyone that you hold my heart.”
Everett lowered himself to one knee and produced a shiny bauble from his pocket. It was not an overly large ring, but Whitney loved it on sight. Rubies and diamond were her favorite stones. “I collected this last month from a silversmith. I had it made especially for you. I wanted you to finally have a ring of your own to pass down to our children, along with those of your aunts and uncles. No one else has ever worn this before.”
Whitney felt her eyes prickle with the warning of tears as he slipped it onto her finger and stood again. “Oh, Everett, that is so sweet of you to have this made, but I already have your ring.”
She fisted her fingers and waved his signet ring under his nose.
“One to claim you, one to keep you,” he whispered. “I made such a mistake trying to do everything that society expected of me, and I even asked the wrong woman to marry me, thinking I could learn to love her,” he confessed quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” she promised.
“But I need to explain. I grew up with the right example right before my eyes, and lost sight of that somehow.” He met her gaze. “My parents’ marriage was arranged, but they were a love match from the very start. My mother and father were never very obvious about it, but it was in everything they did and said, and sometimes what they didn’t say. They lived for each other, in later years they finished each other’s sentences too. They were never apart for longer than two days at a time. Wherever Father went, Mother was
at his side, and vice versa. I want that for us.”
“So do I,” she whispered, cupping his cheek. “I need you in my life so very much.”
A smile lingered on his lips. “Mother believed in waiting for the right moment, and this is it. She told me the love of my life would light a bright flame inside me and when I found her, that yearning would never go out. That flame is the love I feel for you.”
Whitney stared at her hand a moment, at his rings surrounded by those of her long-dead family, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh Everett. That is just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me. I’d love nothing more than to spend the rest of my life having you at my side, having you finishing my sentences. That could be very interesting…and wicked too.”
She threw her arms about him and clung to the love she’d been waiting for all her life.
Everett nuzzled her neck. “Are you ready for me, Whitney?”
“Indeed. Ready, waiting, quite impatiently.”
Everett swept her into his arms, carried her inside, and upstairs to her bedchamber.
He deposited her beside her bed and cupped her face. Slowly, painstakingly it seemed, his lips met hers. Their second kiss excited her more than she thought possible, and when his tongue swept past her lips and tangled with hers, she swooned against him.
Everett’s arms tightened around her as he plundered her mouth. She clung to him, kissed him back for all she was worth and more. She felt the tugs at the buttons on her gown and then the sweep of his hands across her bare upper back.
His touch was firm, possessive, and she could not get close enough. She began to undress him, removing his cravat and unbuttoning his waistcoat before sliding her arms about his narrow waist.
She relaxed her grip as he struggled out of his coat, let his waistcoat fall to the ground, and then he yanked his shirt over his head.
Whitney moaned as she laid her cheek against his bare chest. “I’ve missed touching you.”
“I’ve missed it more,” he told her with a laugh as he removed her gown and stays. Her chemise disappeared quickly, and then they were kissing and naked together, nearly fused from hips to lips.
They broke apart to remove his trousers.
Whitney fell backward onto the bed and lifted her legs high. Everett grasped her ankles briefly, then divested her of her shoes, garters and stockings. He crawled on top of her and pressed his whole body against hers. “I can’t believe I’m finally in bed with you.”
“Believe it, lover,” she whispered, winding her arms about his neck and pulling him down for a long, steamy kiss. Whitney widened her legs, her body already humming with lust. “You’ll stay until dawn,” she told him.
Everett cantered her hips and positioned himself where she needed him most. “Will that be long enough to sate us?”
Whitney squirmed, attempting to bring him into her. She admired his restraint, even if she didn’t need it. “I don’t think so. Come into me.”
“We have more nights ahead than this one, darling,” Everett whispered softly against her ear. “We have the rest of our lives. My God, I love you, Trouble.”
Whitney set her hands to the smooth curve of his bottom and tugged. “Start now,” she demanded, as she pulled him all the way into her and made them both moan.
Second Epilogue
At the Fairmont Ball
Once upon a time, making merry hadn’t come easily for the Earl of Acton. Everett had once lived a proper life of propriety and duty. Thankfully those dull, dreary days were long gone.
He sipped champagne slowly, casting an admiring glance over the lovely ladies who glided past his spot—certain he was where he was meant to be.
Those who’d come to enjoy the midsummer ball on the grounds of the Fairmont estate were having a marvelous time yet again.
Within the manor behind him had been the usual gathering of mystics and fortune-tellers, selling hopes and dreams, determined to predict anyone’s future in exchange for coin. He’d pressed through their number without partaking or being taken for a fool. He did not need a fortune-teller to determine what his future path would bring into his life. His happiness was already assured.
Everett had come to this unholy revel in pursuit of his eccentric bride-to-be, but had not yet captured her. She was a wily one, for all the softness of her heart.
He would take a bride with a fortune tomorrow and live happily ever after.
But not quietly, he suspected.
His intended bride, Miss Whitney Crewe, was somewhere about the place, basking in one last night of spinsterish freedom, she’d teased, while in the next breath inviting him to come and be wicked with her.
He could barely hide his excitement, for this was the place they had first met, where he’d lost his heart to a beautiful and maddening creature who had lightened his soul with her nonsense and love.
A flash of long bright red hair caught his eye at the edge of the darkness, and he wasted no time in setting off in pursuit. Whitney liked him to chase her about, but was always willing to be captured if he delivered kisses when he did.
Whitney wore gypsy garb again—with silk caressing the curves he adored and gems glittering on every finger under the torchlights as she spun about. Even her thumbs sparkled with gold bands, treasures of the family she had once, long ago. But among them now were two additional rings—one that had belonged to his family for generations, and another that was new from him alone.
She lifted her skirts a little as she danced with careless abandon, revealing slender calves and bare feet gliding upon the neatly trimmed lawns.
He drew closer, beguiled by the way she moved with unhindered sensuality and confidence.
He wasn’t the only man who noticed her, either, and he was very glad he’d already staked his claim. She always drew a crowd of admirers, handsome gentlemen, and even ladies flocked to her. People stared, smiled at her transparent energy, and made a game of trying to copy her movements with varying degrees of success.
Everett was as entranced as he’d always been, and found a spot to watch as she grabbed a lady by the hand, swinging her into her dance. They laughed in giddy joy, and soon the entire crowd was swaying along with her.
That was Whitney’s gift. She made everyone fall in love, but none more than him.
Whitney suddenly held out her hand to him, as she’d done that first night, fingers wriggling in invitation. The gems winked and he swayed forward, helplessly spellbound still.
Redheads were his weakness, but only this particular one had brought him to his knees.
He took her bare fingers in his and raised them to his lips to kiss them all. “Enjoying yourself, darling?”
“I am now,” she promised, sliding into his arms as she always did.
Her body was soft and warm under his palms, and he didn’t ever want to let her go. “Are you thirsty yet?”
She nodded, and led the way inside by taking his hand. He admired her hips gently swaying under her gown, and then requested punch for both of them.
She drained her glass quickly. “Why did you not join me in dancing?”
He requested another beverage for his lady. “I had something on my mind.”
Her smile widened and her eyes glowed with delight. “You are too adorable, my lord. Did you not read your invitation? Guests were supposed to leave their cares at the door.”
“Life cannot be all fun and games.” He grinned. “Sometimes we must be serious.”
“You did enough of that before,” she insisted as she set her glass aside. “A little fun never hurt you.”
He pulled her close. “Do you think so?”
“I know so. Come, I want to show you something.” Whitney caught his hand and pulled him across the room and into a familiar long gallery. Holding his hand firmly, she ignored the paintings of their hosts’ ancestors this time and marched him toward an adjoining room they were both quite familiar with.
The door closed with a resounding snap that sent a shiver over hi
s skin. “I think you’ve lured unwary gentlemen to this room before.”
“Perhaps I have. Only once, though, and I’m sorry to say I left him in an unforgivable condition last time.” She threw aside her shawl. “I stole the poor fellow’s breeches, too.”
“He has forgiven you for that. A long time ago,” he promised. Everett grunted as Whitney pressed against him.
“Do I have to I remind you this is a bachelors ball and indiscretions are expected? You’re a bachelor, and I’m a willing and amorous spinster.”
“But I am an engaged man, about to marry an eccentric heiress,” he warned her.
“A devoted heiress,” Whitney corrected him, as she unbuttoned the fall of his breeches. “Now where did I stop the last time I had you here?”
He looked down at himself. “I had less clothing on, I believe.”
“Hmm, I think that can be arranged.” Whitney made short work of stripping him off until their appearances matched the very night they met, and the precise moment they parted company. “What would have happened next?”
“You had me in hand,” he whispered, and moaned as she reenacted the events of that night in exquisite detail. “I wanted to kiss you but you refused me.”
“Not tonight,” she whispered, lifting her eyes from the cock she stroked. “Tonight I am feeling very romantic toward you.”
Her eyes twinkled with mirth as she squeezed him a little harder.
“Such a relief,” he whispered as he lowered his lips to claim hers. They had of course kissed many times since he’d proposed. There was no reason not to, since his intentions were honorable and hers always urgent. The journey home to England had been very pleasant and very satisfying for both of them.
He turned Whitney against the nearby wall and hitched her skirts above her knees, even as he pressed his hips against hers.
Whitney smoothed her hands over his shoulders and then stared at his face. “Has anyone every told you that you are a very pretty fellow?”
