The edge to his voice made it clear he was asking why she’d found it necessary to reveal herself—what malady had Millie perceived in Cara that made it worth the risk.
“I’ve already told you I won’t answer that question. It isn’t mine to answer.”
“Edward grows more worried by the day.”
“Then he needs to speak with Cara.”
“He has spoken with Cara.”
“I’ll not interfere with the relations between a man and wife,” she said, thinking now of everything Cara had revealed, understanding now Winston’s concern and how much more worried he would be if he knew the truth. “Will you?”
She saw the moment he realized that, no, he wouldn’t. “At least urge Cara to be open with Edward,” he said. “Will you do that much?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Very well.” He turned to go, his dark eyes still troubled. “Until later, then.”
The room felt empty without him. A strong yearning filled her chest—so strong that she pressed her fingers to her heart as if she could ease the pressure.
She was here for his health, and only his health. Nothing about that had changed.
Nothing.
She returned briskly to her medical cabinet. Perhaps he imagined that because she was only his medic, because she was nobody of consequence and even her gender was hidden, that touching her as a woman didn’t count.
That he could do with her as he pleased beneath a cloak of secrecy—one small outlet for vice in the face of his self-denial.
Tell me to stop...
Forgive me...
He could touch her while denying himself what he really wanted, like exchanging silk for burlap.
And she had soaked up his attentions like a dry sponge in the rain.
She stared at the bottles, the instruments, the gauze, and a feeling welled up from deep inside. She loved these things, felt a deep connection to them. They made her happy.
It was as if her very soul recognized these things and leaped with joy at the sight of them.
It had leaped the same way in Father’s apothecary shop, as if each bottle contained magical secrets just waiting to be unlocked.
And once she left the duke’s employ, she would have none of these things. She would have to start over.
The idea of leaving squeezed her chest. It shouldn’t have. But she was dry. Dry and plain and alone and more than a little afraid of what the future would hold.
Yet last night, in his arms...
Even now, hot licks of desire smoldered in places she’d never imagined deriving any pleasure from at all. Between her thighs, a warm, heady feeling taunted her in the very place he’d touched, and already her mind drifted to an imaginary situation where he might touch her again.
Such as in a little while, after you inspect his wounds...
Oh, for heaven’s sake. She marched forward, shut the door. She ought to be angry with him. Furious. What he’d done last night—what he’d done the other day in his bedchamber, ravaging her—was ten times worse than any peeping.
And when he’d touched her, every scrap of intelligence had disappeared. She’d become just like all the others. Just another one of his many diversions.
She had only herself to blame for that.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, Millie was at the top of a ladder searching an upper shelf in the library when Winston came in.
“I’ve brought you a present,” he said, stopping at the base of the ladder.
“A present.” She climbed down and saw a paper-wrapped object in his hands.
“Or I should say, I had it sent,” he said. “I am acquainted with an excellent physician in London. I wrote to him that I had a passing fancy to learn about anatomy.” He held out the gift. “The rest of the volumes are upstairs in your rooms.”
Volumes? She took the gift, removed the paper. Could feel already that it was a book.
“He also sent some papers—some of the latest theories, apparently.”
A Treatise on Surgery and Medicine, including a Complete Survey of Anatomy, Volume 1.
Her breath caught. He’d brought her a treatise on anatomy? She looked up at him, barely daring to believe it. “How many volumes are there?”
“Ten.”
Ten. She looked at the bookshelves. “Certainly they should be added to your library,” she said, even as her hands tightened around the volume.
“What would I possibly want with them? They are yours, Mr. Germain, and I’ll not go to the trouble of sending them back.”
She felt light-headed. An entire set of medical volumes...hers? Even with the generous wage he was paying her, she never would have been able to afford this. She ran her hand over the spine. The gold lettering. Traced her finger along the bottom edge.
She looked up at him. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
But the moment the words were out she realized she could think of a way, and just that quickly she wondered...could that be why he—
“No thanks are necessary,” he said a bit shortly, as if he’d read the moment of suspicion in her eyes. “Of any kind. I had them sent because I thought you would appreciate them, and not for any other reason.”
She looked into those eyes that observed her too closely, and she felt a dangerous shift inside herself...a softening, opening, trusting.
“You are too kind,” she said, and meant it.
His lip curved up on one side, as if she’d said something vaguely amusing, and he bowed. “I shall leave you to your studies, then.”
Upstairs, Millie spent long minutes just looking at the volumes—all ten, stacked on her writing desk, with smooth new binding and crisp corners.
And they were hers. A giddy feeling skittered through her—a mad desire to read every word this very moment if it were possible. Each book felt like a treasure chest waiting for her to open the lid.
Winston didn’t think she was silly for wanting to be a surgeon. He couldn’t, or else he would never have given her these. Would he?
And the sight of them there on her table made her feel oddly close to him. As if somehow, by touching them, she touched him simply because he had given them to her.
* * *
“I WANT YOU to show me what you’ve been doing in the conservatory,” Winston called to her the next day, catching up to her on the walkway.
“I’ve only been cataloging the medicinal plants,” she said. “Not particularly interesting.”
“You must find it so.”
They walked side by side now, and even in broad daylight in the middle of the open area between the east wing and the conservatory he felt...magnetizing.
There had been no hint that he planned to touch her again. And that fit perfectly with her theory about a vent for his frustration in the face of temptations he was trying to resist.
She hated that it cut a little bit, that she really had been...just a convenience.
Convenience for what? He took nothing.
He must have derived some pleasure from it, or else he wouldn’t have done it.
“Well, yes,” she said. “But I enjoy that kind of thing.”
Inside the conservatory, she showed him the small number of African plants that were listed in the treatise she’d found. She led him down the path to the far end of the conservatory—her favorite place, where the caretaker had allowed the lush tropical plants to overgrow the path, creating green hideaways where plants grew everywhere.
“When the princess was here,” she said, ducking beneath some low-hanging vines, “we found this one hiding among all this foliage.”
“The princess came here?”
“Yes, the morning you were away in town.”
“Yes, but...you brought her back here? In all these leaves?”
“I feared it might ruin her dress, but she insisted. And we found this,” Millie said, putting one knee on a bench that was tucked among the foliage, pointing to the tangle behind it. “There—growing beneath tha
t large leaf. Do you see it?”
She paused in the middle of an explanation when his attention strayed. “You find this boring.”
He looked at her as if only just realizing she’d stopped talking about the plant. “Forgive me. I was listening.”
“I didn’t imagine you would enjoy this,” she said in an I-told-you-so tone.
And he sat down on the bench, resting his elbows on his knees, letting his fingers lace together between them. “Even Princess Katja finds this fascinating,” he said in frustration.
He looked so defeated.
“There must be some upstanding pastime you enjoy. Perhaps...writing? You could pen a novel, or a book of poems.”
His eyes shifted from a spot on the ground to her face.
“All right, then, not writing. Is there no kind of sport that could occupy your time? Perhaps fencing, or...or hunting?”
“It isn’t that,” he said on an exhale. “I’ve done those things. For God’s sake, who hasn’t? But a man can’t fence and hunt every bloody minute of the day, any more than he can immerse his entire life in politics or scientific inquiry.”
“Some men do.”
“And where is their pleasure?” he demanded, looking up at her. “Where is their joy in life? Oh, indeed—I know men who immerse their entire lives in politics. One can hardly stand to have a drink with them, let alone spend any considerable amount of time in their presence. I’ll not become one of them.”
He leaned forward. Buried his face in his hands, and she heard him sigh. And she couldn’t help it—she closed the distance between them and touched his shoulder.
He looked up. There was a long moment when she looked down into his eyes, let herself look at his face, tense now with frustration and defeat.
Slowly she lifted her hand from his shoulder and lightly traced the worry lines on his forehead. Smoothed her thumb above his brows, just to comfort him.
Along his cheekbone.
Time and breath seemed to still, as if she were watching someone else touch the hollow of his cheek. His jaw. His chin.
And then, lighter than a whisper, his lips.
They were warm. Firm. She traced them with the tip of her finger, barely making contact.
His eyes closed.
She brought her other hand up and caressed his cheek. Ran her finger along the hairline at his temple.
And then his arms came around her thighs beneath her coat, his hands covered her bottom, and he pulled her into the vee of his legs. Rested his forehead against her belly, smoothing his hands over the curves of her buttocks, the sensitive backs of her thighs.
She stroked his hair, watching her fingers tunnel through the black waves on the top of his head, feeling the flesh between her legs come alive even though he hadn’t touched her there. Her belly felt soft, liquid, alive with yearnings as his hands circled, stroked, caressed.
Her hips.
Her thighs.
The front of her breeches.
Her breath stilled when his fingers found the placket. Worked the buttons.
She should stop him. This was a mistake.
But as he opened her breeches and pulled them low on her hips, pulled her shirttails free, it didn’t feel like a mistake.
It felt like exquisite anticipation. He pushed her breeches even lower. Exposed her completely to his view yet in the shelter of her coat falling around her hips.
She didn’t dare move. Her fingers rested on his shoulders. She closed her eyes, waiting for his touch...
And felt his hot breath against the lowest part of her belly. Felt his lips brush her skin, lightly...lightly...while his thumbs slipped into her woman’s folds. Parted her. And his head dipped lower, and now she realized what he intended but it was too late. His tongue found her, and—
Oh, heaven.
Her eyes fell shut and she gripped his shoulders. Felt him exploring. Stroking.
Oh.
Sharp pleasure ripped through her belly, and she arched her hips toward him. He held her wide with his thumbs. Tasted her more deeply. Her flesh came alive, pulsing with need. Pleasure spiraled tighter, hotter.
He circled, stroked. Found places she hadn’t known existed.
The pleasure keened through her, taking away sense. Reason.
He murmured something against her—told her to let go?
And there was something...something...
Oh, dear God.
Her body tightened, shattered in a thousand pulsing, brilliant pieces, and she strained against him, cried out raggedly as he caught each pulse with his mouth, drawing the exquisite sensations out of her until finally...finally...
There was only her breath in the silent conservatory.
I could make love with him, came a reckless thought. She could let him make a woman of her, right here, and nobody would ever have to know.
The pulses thrummed inside her, more quietly now, while Winston brushed his lips across her sensitive, pulsing folds, easing his tongue gently over her, caressing his hands over her tender thighs now with a softness she wouldn’t have thought him capable of.
Would he be that gentle if she gave herself to him?
She felt him move to her inner thigh. Kiss her there, lingering. And then drawing her breeches up over her hips. She was weak-kneed as he silently helped her put her clothing to rights and fasten her breeches, and all the while she didn’t dare look at him, couldn’t think of a single thing to say, could scarcely think at all.
He put his hands on her hips. Urged her back a step, and another, and then he stood and put his fingers beneath her chin. He lifted her face so that there was no more avoiding his eyes.
“That, Miss Germain,” he said, “is the pleasure of life.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“WILL YOU NEVER again dress as a woman?” Cara asked the next day when Millie stopped by to make sure the new herbs were agreeing with her. The vicar was out for the afternoon visiting, so Millie and Cara talked freely in the downstairs drawing room.
Millie shook her head. “I could never do the things I wish to do otherwise.”
“I can’t believe you enjoy it as much as you claim,” Cara said, tucking her chin. “No ribbons, no lace... Surely there must be some female trappings you long for.”
Millie thought of her scarves, tucked away at the bottom of her trunk. Of Winston. That, Miss Germain, is the pleasure of life. She shook her head, unwilling to admit to Cara her longing for womanhood.
“Come with me,” Cara said now, and led Millie upstairs to her dressing room. “I have a gift for you.”
Cara opened a chest at the foot of her bed and lifted out a folded bundle. She shook it out and held it up.
A nightgown.
“I worked the lace myself,” she said.
Millie reached out to touch the delicate lace cuffs. The linen was soft, decorated with pale green ribbons and more of the intricate lace.
“It’s beautiful. But I couldn’t possibly—”
“I want you to have it,” Cara said, pressing the nightgown more firmly into Millie’s hands. “You can at least indulge yourself as a female in the privacy of your bedchamber.” She reached out and touched Millie’s arm. “You deserve that much for yourself.”
Nobody had ever given her anything this special.
“Being a woman is a good thing, Millicent,” Cara said, and smiled. “You should embrace it. For one thing, it means you’re not stubborn or pigheaded.”
“Edward isn’t pigheaded.”
“Bullheaded, then.”
Millie held the nightgown in her hands and imagined putting it on tonight. Twirling in front of the glass and seeing it swirl around her. But she didn’t dare.
It would go in her trunk with her scarves and the silver earrings.
“How is Winston?”
“Very well.”
“Who was this visitor you spoke of yesterday? The one who left?”
“An acquaintance of his. Princess Katja, of Prussia.”
�
��Mmm. She sounds like the kind of person Winston would be acquainted with. Did she look like a princess?”
Millie tried to smile. “Very much so.”
“Oh, dear...I’ve pained you.” Cara reached for her arm. Squeezed it. But pain was the last thing Millie felt when she was with him. When Winston touched her, she felt alive. Desired.
“Not at all,” Millie said, because nobody could ever know what she’d let him do with her.
“Has he given any indication of how much longer he’ll keep you?” Cara asked.
“I can’t imagine it will be too much longer.” If Winston’s recovery was the measure, she should have left a week ago. “I fear he’s only imagining his complaints now.”
Cara looked worried. “I wish he would keep you on until...” She put a hand to her belly. “And not just because you’ve been helping me with this.” She reached for Millie’s hands, grasped them around the nightgown. “I like to think we’ve become friends”
Friends. Millie held the word in her mind like a delicate glass figurine while emotion welled up, making it difficult to speak. She thought of the camaraderie aboard the Possession. The vigil at her bedside after her brother had nearly beaten her to death. India’s easy chatter. William’s laughter. Katherine’s trust.
She’d had friends once.
“Yes,” she managed. “I like to think so, too.”
But they couldn’t be friends, not really, because Cara knew nothing about her. Cara didn’t know that Millie had betrayed every friend she’d ever had—stolen from them, lied to them, even assaulted them.
Cara didn’t know that Millie didn’t deserve any friends.
* * *
FOR A MAN who had no interest in England, William Jaxbury bloody well seemed to find himself here often enough.
Twice in as many years was two times too many.
He practically leaped from the hired hack, dodged his way through the teeming wharf—handcarts, wagons, people wheeling crates and barrels and sacks in every direction. There were ships moored side by side as far as the eye could see, their masts a chaos of crisscrossing lines and yards.
He found the Possession and took its gangplank in long strides. In moments he was in his cabin, raking his hands through his hair, glancing out the window at the river and the sharp angle of the setting sun.
A Promise by Daylight Page 18
