by Anna Bennett
She rushed passed him, plainly relieved to have avoided detection. But now that she was in his bedchamber, she seemed curious. Barefoot, she padded around the large room, lingering over the small portrait of him and Thomas on his dresser. Eventually, she walked toward the pair of chairs in front of the fireplace. “How was the rest of your evening?”
He crossed his arms. “You should have stayed and seen for yourself.”
She winced at the unsubtle barb. “I deserved that. I’m sorry about tonight.”
He wanted to understand her, damn it. The dinner party had been an attempt to invite her into his world, his life. And it seemed she was rejecting him yet again—albeit in a different way. “Tell me this. Why is something as simple as attending a dinner party so difficult for you?”
Swallowing, she sank into a chair and tucked her feet beneath her. “I don’t know. I truly thought tonight would be different. That I might fit in. But then a chocolate splotch ruined Charlotte’s dress, and Uncle Alistair bungled three sentences in five minutes, and I was consumed with guilt over the way I’d treated Diana.”
Rubbing his head, Will lowered himself into the chair opposite her. He didn’t pretend to comprehend all she’d said, but he could read between the lines. “You’ve had a trying day.”
“Extremely.”
“And I contributed to your difficulties by inviting your uncle.”
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but it would have been easier if he hadn’t come.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I can’t believe I’m saying such a thing about the man who took in me and my sisters. I must be the most horrible, ungrateful person in all the British Empire.”
“I can think of a few people worse than you,” he said.
“I’d hoped to dissuade Uncle Alistair from hosting the ball, but now that he’s publicly announced it, my sisters and I will have no choice but to go through with it.” She paused for a moment. “Can I tell you something? Something I’ve never dared to say aloud—even to my sisters?”
“Go on.”
“Sometimes I worry … that he’s as mad as people say.”
The stark fear in her eyes made him choose his next words carefully. “Madness takes a variety of forms and afflicts us all, to some degree. Some may be more skilled at hiding it than others, but none of us is immune. It seems to me that your uncle is a fine gentleman with a generous heart. That’s hardly evidence of insanity.”
“I suppose that’s true. Oh Will, I would defend him with my dying breath. But no matter how well-intentioned he is, there’s no denying his tendency to make things … complicated.”
He propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “I know how much you care about him, and I thought inviting him tonight would make you happy. I’m sorry if I was wrong.”
Meg shook her head slowly and sniffled. “You weren’t wrong. Seeing him did make me happy. But the way some of the other guests treated him…”
“Made you angry?”
“And sad.”
He reached out, grasped one of her feet, and set it on his lap.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as though appalled.
“Making you feel better.”
He kneaded the arch of her foot, and she sighed contentedly. “Oh.”
After a minute, some of the tension drained out of her. He tugged lightly on her toes. “How do you like Mrs. Hopwood?”
“She seems very nice—perhaps too nice.”
Will arched a brow. “Too nice?”
“I’m afraid the girls will soon prefer her to me.” She smiled, but he could see the worry was real.
He reached for her other foot and massaged the heel. “I don’t think you have any cause for concern.”
“No? Well, you didn’t see how harsh I was with Diana earlier.”
“I’m certain the little hoyden deserved it.”
“Not this time,” she said, her expression grim.
“Listen to me.” He squeezed her calves firmly, willing her to look into his eyes. “You needn’t berate yourself just because you lost your temper with Diana. And you shouldn’t feel guilty about your uncle or the ruined dress either. Some things are simply out of our control.”
“Doesn’t that frighten you?”
He considered the question. “Occasionally. But the way I see it, I could waste a lot of time feeling guilty about things that have happened in the past and even more time worrying about things that might happen in the future. I prefer to spend my time in the present—finding happiness where I can.”
Meg let her head roll back against the chair. “I wish I could be like that.”
Jesus, she was beautiful. Though her dressing gown was modest, her breasts strained against the thin lawn. Her lips parted as though she, too, had wicked thoughts.
“I think I may be able to help you.”
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
Will’s soulful brown eyes held the promise of passion—and perhaps something else too novel to define.
He tugged lightly on her outstretched feet, set them on the floor, and knelt in front of her. “Untie your dressing gown.”
There were a dozen reasons why she should not do as he asked, but she ignored all of them and loosened the sash at her waist. He was right. Guilt and worry had not served her well. Tonight, she needed to be with him, seizing happiness while she could.
Possessively, he peeled open the sides of her dressing gown and growled when he discovered she wore nothing underneath. “Jesus, Meg.” He raked a hand through his hair like she’d be the death of him.
He looked at her with undisguised hunger, letting his gaze linger on her bare breasts and the juncture of her thighs. He didn’t touch her, but her body tingled like he did.
“You have no idea how much I’m going to enjoy this,” he said.
Oh, but she had an inkling. She leaned forward, intending to wrap her arms around his neck, but he clasped her wrists and placed her hands firmly on the arms of the chair. “Keep them here.”
She arched a brow at him, but smiled. “Very well.”
Nodding approvingly, he pressed her shoulders into the velvet cushions behind her. “Now make yourself comfortable.”
Obediently, she shifted on the soft seat, resisting the impulse to cover herself with her dressing gown. The sides of the robe gaped open, exposing everything but her arms and leaving her deliciously vulnerable. Though the room was warm, the peaks of her breasts tightened to hard buds. And as she drank in the sight of Will, her belly flipped in anticipation.
Gone was his formal dinner attire. He still wore trousers, but only a thin lawn shirt covered his torso. The beginnings of a beard darkened his chin, lending him a dangerous air. The dark slash of his brows across his face made him look more pirate than earl.
And though much of the evening had gone very wrong, she had the distinct impression that it was about to take a sharp turn for the better.
His expression intense, he sat back on his heels and gently nudged her knees apart. Heaven help her, he was practically eye level with her …
Good Lord. She hadn’t forgotten the wicked words he’d whispered to her that night in the garden. Sometimes, while lying in her bed at night, she’d tried to imagine, but the idea was beyond shocking. “Will, I—”
He bent his head and kissed the inside of her thigh. With a tenderness that nearly broke her heart, he looked up at her. “Give me this.”
Exhaling slowly, she nodded. She wanted to please him, and she knew he wanted to please her. She may not have fit in at his dinner party, but here, in the privacy of his bedchamber, they were perfectly attuned.
He seduced her thoroughly, caressing her legs, hips, and bottom as he kissed and licked a path up the inside of her thigh. He murmured naughty words against her flesh, setting her on fire.
Soon, she was gripping the armrests, squirming in her chair, eager to feel the warm pressure of his mouth. He spread her legs farther apart, eased one over his shoulder, and moaned as he bent his head
once more. She rocked toward him, just short of begging.
“Meg,” he said, as breathless as she. “You’re mine.”
“Y-yes.” She arched her back, desperate for release.
“Say it,” he demanded. “Say you’re mine.”
Her head spinning with desire, she speared her fingers through his hair. “Yes. I’m yours.” Always.
The first touch of his mouth almost sent her over the edge. He found the rhythm she liked best and did not stop. The sight of him kneeling before her, his dark head between her thighs was somehow both highly erotic and deeply touching. Release barreled toward her, fast and furious, almost frightening in its power.
And then she was gone—a thousand miles above the earth, where only the stars existed. She called out his name as her body convulsed in wave after wave of pleasure until, at last, she drifted to the ground, a feather floating in the wind.
She collapsed on the chair, utterly spent and totally sated. Will scooped her into his arms, carried her to his bed, and laid her gently across the mattress. “This is where you belong,” he whispered. “With me.”
He covered her with a sheet and kissed her forehead just as her eyelids fluttered shut and she lost the battle to sleep. Jesus, after the day she’d had, she needed to rest. And as long as she was in his bed, he’d never complain.
Hell if he knew where he stood with her, but slowly, he was breaking down her walls. Tonight she’d told him secrets and revealed her feelings—more than ever before. And she’d opened to him physically, too, making at least a dozen of his fantasies come to life.
He longed to claim her publicly, just as he had tonight in private, but he knew better than to pressure her to accept him. As long as he was making steady progress, he intended to stay the course. And if it was still difficult to envision his feisty governess as his future countess, well, he trusted Meg to work with him. To find a way for them to be together.
He hauled off his shirt, kicked off his trousers, and climbed into bed next to her, still painfully aroused—but inexplicably happy.
Meg slept straight through the night, so soundly that if Will hadn’t seen the subtle rise and fall of her chest, he might have worried.
He kept a close eye on the clock, and minutes before the servants would begin their chores, he reluctantly caressed her shoulder. “Meg.”
She rolled over to face him. In spite of her mussed hair and puffy eyes, he’d never seen a more beautiful sight.
“Oh no.” She bolted upright, clutching the sheet to her chest. “What time is it?”
“Not quite morning. But we need to return you to your bedchamber.”
Fueled by panic, she had already leapt from the bed and was scooping up her dressing gown.
It killed him that she had to go. “I wish we didn’t have to worry about what other people thought.”
“I’m afraid we do,” she said, grumpily thrusting an arm through the sleeve of her robe. “While I’m sure the ton would be all too happy to ignore your libertine behavior, they would gleefully crucify me. And my sisters would suffer for my mistake.”
He flinched, all too aware that he was her mistake. “I won’t allow anyone to speak ill of you.”
She scoffed as she cinched the sash at her waist. “Then you should plan on fighting duels by the dozens. I do hope you’re a good marksman.”
“I am an excellent shot.” Cautiously, he opened his bedroom door and checked the corridor. All clear. “Come. I’ll walk you to your room.”
She shook her head. “I’ll go alone. It will be easier to devise an explanation in the event I’m caught in the hall wearing my robe.”
“You won’t be caught,” he said soberly, “if you leave right now.” He kissed her quickly but soundly and guided her into the corridor. “I shall see you later today.”
“Good-bye,” she mouthed, the hint of a smile softening the worry in her eyes. Her hips swayed seductively as she glided down the hall, making him seriously question his own judgment in letting her leave his bed, damn it.
But while he’d lain awake all night, he’d thought of at least one thing he could do this morning that would help him pass the time until he saw Meg again. It involved a trip to the attic where his father’s old things had been stowed, locked away, and mostly forgotten.
Somewhere in that collection of rusty-hinged trunks, a single priceless item was hidden. And Will intended to find it.
* * *
Mrs. Lundy fumbled with the large key ring at her waist, clearly distressed. “It’s been an age since anyone’s been up here. Shall I have one of the footmen dust off the trunks and take them down to your study?”
“No need,” said Will. “I’ll go through them here.”
The housekeeper frowned as she slipped a black iron key into the attic door lock. “If I’d known you needed something in this room, I would have sent a maid up to dust, at least.”
“I’m certain you and the staff have more pressing matters to attend to. A little dust won’t kill me.”
Ignoring that bit of blasphemy, Mrs. Lundy swung the door open and sighed in dismay.
The closet-sized room had steeply sloped ceilings and a small round window near the roof peak. Tiny specks floated in the shaft of light that shone above half a dozen stacked chests and boxes.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lundy. That will be all.”
She coughed and waved the dust away from her face. “If you’re sure. Please let me know if you require anything, anything at all.” She hurried off as though the sight of the dirty, cluttered room was simply too much to bear.
In deference to the low ceilings, Will ducked as he entered and dragged one of the sturdier trunks closer to sit on. He shrugged off his jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and stared at the stack of boxes before him.
His father’s entire life had been distilled into this sad pile and relegated to a distant corner of the house. After he’d died, servants had packed up his things; neither Will nor his mother had seen to the task themselves because they didn’t need keepsakes or mementoes. Didn’t want them. They’d just as soon forget the man and the things he’d done.
Will unlatched a large trunk, gripped the lid, and hesitated. Despite the room’s stifling heat, a chill stole over him. His father couldn’t hurt him from his grave, but rummaging through his personal belongings was sure to conjure memories better left buried. Drunken rants about his lazy, stupid son. The stinging smack of his palm across the face. The disgusted looks he shot across a silent dining table.
Will shook off his apprehension. He was not his father, and certainly not doomed to repeat his mistakes. Of course, he hadn’t the slightest clue how a good husband or father should behave, and that scared the hell out of him. He wanted to do the right thing … the problem was knowing what the right thing was.
The old earl had been a miserable bastard. But five years had passed since his death, and Will was no longer a fly trapped in his diabolical web. True, he might have sustained a few scars during his youth, but lately he’d felt a glimmer of something unexpected and completely foreign: hope.
Will threw back the lid of the trunk and began examining the contents, determined to find something good in the sorry remnants of his father’s existence—for Meg’s sake and his own.
Two hours later, sweat dripped from his forehead and dampened his shirt. He leafed through a stack of letters in the second to last trunk, most of them from hard-working estate tenants or poorer relatives begging assistance from his father. Will would bet they’d all gone unanswered.
The next layer in the trunk consisted of his father’s old, treasured articles of clothing. He spotted a small, faded blue jacket that his father had worn in a childhood portrait and a powdered wig, the likes of which he hadn’t seen in decades.
And then, beneath an assortment of hats, shoes, and boots, Will found it: a large, water-stained satin pouch.
His heart pounding, he loosened the drawstring and spilled the contents onto the dusty floorboards. A colle
ction of snuffboxes tumbled out, but there, in the middle of them, was a small, antique hinged box, inlaid with pearl.
His hands trembled as he opened it.
Nested in folds of velvet, his grandmother’s diamond ring sparkled in the light. The diamond was not huge, but it was a fine stone, and any pawnshop would have paid his father a fair price for it.
But the old earl had held on to it. Even when he’d been willing to sell everything in the house that wasn’t nailed down, he couldn’t bring himself to part with Grandmamma’s wedding ring. She had been the best part of their family, showing Will love and kindness when her own son had been unable to.
Meg was like her in many ways. Loyal, generous, and stubborn. Unwilling to bend her principles for anyone, but willing to sacrifice anything for those she cared about.
Will wanted her to wear his grandmother’s ring, the ton be damned. All he had to do was convince Meg that, this time, she’d be better off with him than in a convent. But he knew better than to take her agreement for granted.
Now that he’d found what he was looking for, he was eager to leave the stuffy room and maybe pay a visit to the nursery to see Meg and the twins.
Invigorated by his success, he tucked the ring box into his pocket and tossed the snuffboxes and clothes back into the trunk. He threw the stacks of letters on top, but as he did, one of the strings binding them broke, and the letters spilled everywhere. He was tempted to leave them on the floor, but poor Mrs. Lundy had been distraught over the state of the room even before he’d created this additional mess. Cursing to himself, he scooped up handfuls of paper and threw them into the trunk.
And then one particular scrap of paper caught his eye.
Dated nine years ago, it appeared to be a note promising payment of a gambling debt. There was nothing odd about that; his father had written scores of them, and often collected them when—and if—he paid off his debts. But this one was different from the rest. The payee was Mr. Gregory Lacey—Meg’s father. And the amount owed was a staggering ten thousand pounds.
Will’s fingers went numb. For Gods’ sake, how could his father have played so deeply with the local vicar—and lost?
