by Baird Wells
Beringar told her of Bath, as though she had never been there, and Tunbridge Wells and every other noteworthy place because they were new to him and he assumed that everyone delighted in them equally. By the time he had finished, James had launched a counter-attack and was counseling Avaline about her rheumatism.
Mister Hilton had at last found fertile ground with Margaret in the unexpected territory of a Bronte novel. When they advanced from the literal to the symbolic, Avaline was drawn in, duty-bound to offer her old-fashioned opinions, and Beringar swiveled his head between them from inside the fence of his limited English.
Hannah used the unobserved moment to dare a glance at James. He was staring at her, dangerously unabashed. His gray eyes fell to her hem and raked her, and she blushed and turned away. He had undressed her with his eyes as skillfully as he had with his hands. He knew her now, every inch of her. The only idea more thrilling was that they alone shared the secret, an invisible thread strung between them in the crowded drawing room.
She spared one more look and found his eyes still rested on her. He raised his brows in a challenge. When she didn’t accept, with no idea where to begin, he had the audacity to wink and her flesh caught fire.
“Lady Hannah, are you ill?” exclaimed Avaline. “You haven’t caught a winter cold, I hope?”
Hannah clutched at the strangling black lace of her collar and wished for an open window or any sort of breeze. “No. No, I didn’t sleep well last night. That’s all.”
She glanced to James, whose firm lower lip rolled out in a mock pout. Cad. He was a different color today, his usual somber gray replaced by something warmer since their afternoon together. She had enjoyed him as he was, and thrilled at new facets revealed by his slow thaw.
“Perhaps Doctor Grimshaw can advise you,” offered Avaline.
He nodded. “I don’t think Lady Hannah will mind my saying that we have an appointment later this evening.”
Lady Hannah minded very much since to her, as with the other guests, his announcement came as a complete surprise.
Avaline tsked. “Are you still having your headaches? Oh! And after that nasty blow to your face. How intolerable.” She snatched at her housekeeper’s sleeve as the woman retreated from settling their tea tray. “Bring Lady Hannah a small quantity of brandy.” She let go and reassured Hannah with a nod. “A brandy will settle your nerves and set you to rights. Don’t you agree, Doctor Grimshaw?”
“I do. Though I am a thorough advocate for fresh air. Lady Hannah, it would be my pleasure to walk you back to the garden. Lady Avaline has a very fine arrangement, even this time of year, which will make the effort all the more worthwhile.”
This earned a swat from Avaline, who colored and half-heartedly batted away his praise. “But you mustn’t keep her out too long, doctor. The air really is brisk, so close to Christmastime. Too much can hardly be good.”
“No,” agreed James, standing up and boring her without blinking, words heavy with meaning. “Only a moment or two is necessary.”
Hannah kept her face turned down and avoided their eyes as she excused herself and followed him out. She didn’t miss Margaret’s glance as they went, and coursed with delight that manners kept her from trailing them. James led her down the hall and didn’t take her arm or turn back the whole way to the terrace doors. He rested fingers on the brass handle with the same caress as he had on her skin and craned his neck left and right to examine the passageway. Then he opened the door.
One sturdy arm snaked her waist as she passed by. He drew her against him and cut her gasp with a finger to her lips. Her head rolled back into his shoulder, and James buried his face in her neck. Only his embrace kept her from crumpling when her limbs went slack.
“I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well,” he breathed against her ear.
“I slept perfectly,” she whispered, eyes closed. “Just, my dreams were more vivid than usual.” She reached behind and grasped his hip. “How did you know I’d see the invitation?”
“You never seem to have trouble finding me.”
Hannah relaxed into him, all that she dared, longing for more.
James kissed at her cheek in gentle sabotage. “I have thought about you all day. My hands ache with the want of touching you.”
“I got your bouquet,” she offered in return, confused.
His hands slipped from her waist, laced over her stomach, and pressed her closer. “I only wished to go slower, Hannah. Not to stop.”
A door closing farther off down the hall startled her, and she wrenched free.
When no one appeared, he claimed her hand. “Let me come to you,” he pleaded.
Hannah could hardly trust her ears, already pounding with her heartbeat. “When?”
“Friday?”
“No!” she rasped. It was too dangerous, too soon. Simon was still pricked by the riot, still turning the matter at angles so that it could be used against her. Granting the household a Christmastime holiday, arranged with a caliper to Margaret’s plans, had exhausted all the freedom she could safely dare.
“Then come to me when you can,” he insisted, pressing her fingers.
“Impossible. Margaret will know if I’m gone all night. I’ll be missed.” Would she? Since Mister Hilton’s appearance, Margaret had become an uncharacteristically social creature.
He pressed his eyes shut, words rough with the desperation she felt. “Then what, Hannah? These are rational arguments and I’m far beyond reason.”
She grabbed the door and stuck her head out into the frigid air, sucking in breath after breath as though preparing for a deep dive, and then slammed it shut again. She’d gambled safely for their time together, relatively speaking. If she wanted more, she grasped that real risk would be involved. “Help me work out how.” Wonderful fright jolted her heartbeat as the words passed her lips.
“This evening,” he promised. “I’ll come this evening and we can talk of it then.” He ran a knuckle across the high line of her collar, and she returned the favor by caressing his cheek. And then she packed all of her feelings safely away, straightened her face, and offered him her arm.
* * *
Self-discipline was not a particularly erotic trait, in his experience, but he was rethinking the matter by minutes.
Watching Hannah and trying not to watch Hannah, all through supper, had mapped the boundaries of his willpower. When he dared not look at her any longer, he faced his plate and drew up the illicit line of her naked back, her husky invitation, her perfume on his skin when he’d crept from her room in the small hours. When that had nearly obligated him to lay his napkin over his lap like a green adolescent, he’d made a game out of trying to ignore her entirely, which she had perceived and punished with hot stolen glances.
He forced himself to pay attention to Mister Hilton and the duc when the men had retired after the meal. When they returned to the drawing room to find Hannah already gone, the silent invitation had throbbed his pulse. She had left with no purpose but to wait for him, surely knowing that he faced an aching stretch before he could reasonably follow.
Free at last, he took her front steps one at a time, with the whole bottom of his shoe rather than rushing, a civil and proper drawing-out of his agony. He knocked with three short, distinct raps like a gentleman, and not the lunatic hammering his trembling fingers demanded. He exchanged pleasantries with Bethany, who took his hat and gloves, and Mrs. Delford, who showed him up. He burned when they reached the landing and he caught sight of Hannah’s bedroom door, before they turned the opposite way down the hall.
When they were apart through the day, memories of their time together struck like darts between his reasoned thoughts. A scent from the shops along the Strand recalled her perfume; the linen scrape of his shirt when he dressed was an echo of being half-naked with her; his hands reincarnated her countless times, the softness of her breasts and belly. When he saw her, though, at Avaline’s and now, those memories were a deluge that claimed him body and soul.
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They came into the drawing room and Hannah rose by regal movements. She was still in the gown she’d worn to dinner, a silk affair with a square neckline and long sleeves in a shade between lavender and lilac. It could cover her to the top of her head for all he cared; he knew the secrets it tried to conceal.
Hannah came to the threshold and thanked Mrs. Delford in cool tones. She shut the door behind the housekeeper, and by the simple act of turning the key as she always did, pounded his heart against his ribs.
He grabbed her waist and braced her to the door. A gilt frame scraped down the wall, struck the mantle and toppled something to the floor ahead of its fall. Her hands slipped inside his coat, and he flinched and found her lips with an ease that said they might have kissed a hundred times before. But it was still new, so new, and full of the awkward excitement born from two people learning how to touch each other. He traced her with his palms from hip to breast and kneaded her shoulders. Her fingernails raked up his shirt, over his back and beneath his waistcoat. He had fought for a moderate pressure against her mouth, but Hannah clutched his hair, and pulled his lower lip between her teeth, and he responded with violence.
Her moan was a warning bell, a sound sure to draw attention, and he pulled away, panting into her neck while her breath heated his shoulder.
“I’m on fire inside, Hannah, every waking moment...”
She still cradled the back of his head, fingers massaging away some of his torment, but didn’t urge his face back to hers. For safety, he pulled away and moved to a chair across the room, tasting oranges on his lips, transferred from hers. Hannah stayed put, slouched with palms braced against the door for dear life, and watched him through hooded eyes, a storm cloud in their depths. “I thought you wished to go slowly.”
“I did,” he pleaded, and then laughed. “I did, but you’ve ruined me. Now, I just want to keep my sanity. Of all things, I have to be honest about you.”
She pressed the back of her hand to her swollen lips, still watching him. “Don’t rush something you’ll regret later.”
“I’ve no fear of regret.” At her quizzical look, he reached out a hand to her. “I went up to see Emily this morning.” His passion tempered, and Hannah took his invitation and moved to sit across from him. “I went to ask her blessing.”
Hannah clasped a hand at her chest, blue eyes brimming. “And?”
“And she gave me no sign. I suspect she’s letting me figure it out.” He laughed and stared back into the past. “She was never in the habit of telling me what to do.”
“That is where she and I differ,” Hannah teased. Her caress of his hand was gentle, in contrast to her words.
“That is where we differ,” he amended. “What I feel for you is different. It can’t heal Emily’s place, or fill it. And I don’t need it to.” He smiled, to reassure her. “You’re a whole other madness.”
Hannah frowned and pressed his hand, chewing the full bow of her lip. “I wish I felt something from her, some absolution. Everyone around us has a bias, a strange kind of stake in our futures. Emily’s blessing is the only one that matters, and she can’t give it.”
“Perhaps she did, long ago, when you found me at Meadowcroft. What made you come, and what made me hang on for your arrival without knowing to expect it?” He had seen Hannah’s silhouette in the glass and been terrified, though he wasn’t a superstitious man. He had believed Emily’s presence, her interference, possible, even in the length of a single gust of wind.
Her face fell into grave lines. “Is that her answer, or just the answer we wish to hear?”
James scrubbed his eyes. “You’ve grieved, Hannah. I’ve grieved; I’m still grieving. More is buried in Emily’s grave than…” He deflated, not able to go on. “She’s gone,” he finished, because it was the answer to everything, even the unspoken between them.
Hannah nodded. “When I think of her, I don’t think of a woman. She’s still a brown little acorn, a rowdy child. It makes her death worse,” she whispered, meeting his eyes, “And it makes me feel as though I’m taking something from a child.”
He wished he could explain, paint her a portrait of Emily from the night she’d conquered him at Braburn, to their last night together. “Emily had a whole life, pruned but wonderful. Your memories of her aren’t what she was when she left this world. No one could take what she insisted on keeping, and I don’t think for a moment that she’d wish us apart now. We could be telling each other what we most want to hear.” He shrugged, with no argument left. “I yearn for this, and if I can’t have it…” He raked at his hair.
Her smile was grim. “We’re well-schooled in punishing ourselves.”
“Are we punishing each other?” he wondered, lost in her stare.
“I’d like to imagine we’re taking care of each other. I felt so, when I asked you home with me.”
He shifted at the recollection, remembering how it had felt to exist half inside of each other. “There’s a space, and I don’t know how to bridge it, Hannah.”
“When you’re ready. When the time comes, you’ll know how.” She laughed softly. “Listen to me, as if I know. Or perhaps you’ll have to leap across. You’ll sort it out.”
He could toe at the edge forever, a kiss or a caress before withdrawing again. Hannah beckoned him with her wisdom, as always. He would have to push himself towards happiness. “Come here,” he whispered, holding her gaze a few heartbeats. “Draw me across.”
Hannah rose from her seat in a threat, leaned in, and braced one hand then the other on the arms of his chair. She closed the distance by inches, forcing him to tip and then to crane his head. When he’d exhausted all space to flee and given up pretending to, she brushed her lips over his in a slow line from one corner to the other. The move was innocent, deceptive, so that he was unprepared when she repeated it with her tongue. He groaned and held his breath, trembling.
“Waiting is an unspeakable anguish,” she breathed against his mouth, a damp heat that made him think of rucking up her skirts and jumbled him further inside. “Should I still come to you?”
“When?” he gulped.
“Whenever it can be arranged.” Hannah licked her lips and stared at his mouth as though waiting to read his words.
It was a simple thing, to press the small of her back until her hands slipped. He grabbed her waist and turned her into his lap in a swish of silk net, under a subtle weight that made him flinch and hold his breath and throb.
Her arm hooked his neck, and they bumped against each other with beautiful enthusiasm, lips and hands and cheeks and elbows. He found the pulse in her throat with his mouth and ran wild to its hollow and then the first soft swell that fled her bodice. He wanted more than what it offered, craved what he had tasted in the daydream of her bedroom.
Hannah tore from him and slipped from his lap, leaving a chill where they had touched a breath before. He tipped his head against the chair’s plush back and waited for his blood to simmer, and then followed her with his eyes to the door. Her snapping over the key telegraphed a message as clear as when she’d turned it the first time.
Her smile flayed him alive. “I think you should go now.”
He half turned in his chair and grinned but didn’t stand up. “Until when?”
She rested her hand on the knob, smile shifting to one side of her mouth. “Good night.”
Now he got to his feet and stalked her, rested his hand on hers and leaned until their noses brushed. “If you want me to go, I’ll need an incentive.”
Sooty lashes fanned shadows across her cheeks, and breath from her parted lips warmed his face at short intervals. “Soon.”
“When?” he demanded, only certain of surviving his agony if there was a conclusion in sight.
Hannah shook her head and her lips worked. “Sunday,” she breathed, handing down his sentence.
“Sunday.” He brushed a kiss to the apple of her cheek, slipped his fingers between hers and made her turn the knob. She clenched him with h
er knuckles when he tried to pull away and raked him head to toe with a last glance when he’d stepped out into the hall.
And as always, he was at her mercy.
.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The door to the meeting house on Gower Street was unlocked, but Hannah still crept in quietly. It was likely just Millicent inside, but women in other parts had learned the hard way that detractors would lie in wait to ambush suffragists confident of being in a safe harbor. Vandalism, arson, and beatings from intruders had sparked grave warnings throughout their chapters. Such violence was a reminder to be vigilant, especially when coupled with dire reports that often the victims had been held culpable.
Inside the small front room, Millicent sat alone, poised over her sturdy desk and making the most of pale December light to pen a letter. “Hannah!” She reached out a hand and squeezed Hannah’s fingers, infusing them with a warmth that was more than physical, and chasing away some of the chill. She cocked in her seat while Hannah took a chair near the stove and appraised Millicent’s faded bruises, her hand going to her own wound in reflex. “It’s fortunate that your face is so pretty; it can withstand a good deal of abuse.”
Millicent formed a quirky smile and pressed at a yellowing shadow beneath one eye. “Doubly fortunate that the left side is the prettiest.” Sometimes the best they could do was to laugh; otherwise it all got too much to bear.
She would miss the meeting house. Its plainness was beautiful to her, with its cast-off chairs and tables mended and arranged with pride in the bigger of the two parlors. Its white walls were mostly bare, except above the stove at Millicent’s back, where a handful of frames displayed articles and letters, visible encouragement on the hardest days. When she sat inside the house, filled with a sense of purpose and identity, Hannah felt that it was more home than any other place.
She nodded belatedly at Millicent’s jest, and raised her chin at the letter. “What are you about there?”
