by Galen, Shana
But throughout the day, he’d caught her looking at him. Confused, as she’d said, and sometimes biting her lip. Remembering the kiss, or the taste of strawberries, or the honeycomb he’d found carefully wrapped and hidden behind the new sugarloaves in the pantry.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one with urges.
Marianne pivoted to face him, a foot of space between them on the mat. “Your manly urges didn’t keep you from being thrown like a—how did you put it? A sack of cabbages?”
All right, maybe he was the only one with urges. “Do your worst, Cook. I’ve handled more cabbages today than you, and I’m not a bit afraid.”
“You were going to have me on my back, I think you said. Would you like to try it?”
Through the wide windows, the sky still held the final shreds of daylight, while branches of candles kept their corner of the ballroom glowing warm and welcoming. Oh, she looked saucy, her eyes shining and hair glinting auburn in the candlelight. She still wore her faded work dress from the day, but her hair was plaited now and pinned into a coronet about her head. It looked playful yet regal, and if she didn’t stop laughing, he just might pluck out those pins and give reality to his promise.
“I’ll not only try it,” he said, “I’ll make it happen.”
He scrutinized the other pairs for clues, soon understanding why the footmen were willing to allow themselves to be flung about. Miss Carpenter was settling the hands of one of the students on a footman’s wrist, instructing the young woman to tug the man’s arm forward. As the student obliged, putting pressure on the man’s elbow joint, his expression looked anything but discomfited. It was half an embrace, the lucky fellow.
As Miss Carpenter moved along to the next pair, demonstrating the lunge and tug, Marianne faced Jack.
“You’re watching what they do? Let’s give a different move a try. Come at me as if you’d like to kick me in the midsection.”
Jack regarded her doubtfully. “I like your midsection. I don’t want to kick it.”
“If I’ve learned my lesson from Miss Carpenter, you won’t even come close.” She looked about. “Here, we’d better stand over one of the mats.”
Dubious still, Jack stepped back. Then he strode forward, one great step and another, and turned on the ball of his foot to kick out sideways toward Marianne.
Though he’d expected some skullduggery, he hadn’t foreseen her quick movement. She seized him about the leg in a tight embrace. Thus pinned—though not unhappily—he struggled to keep his balance. “You’ve made your point,” he said. “You’re strong and clever. Now let go. I look like a ballerina.”
Over the line of his leg, her frank eyes met his. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. A second later, a kick to his standing foot knocked that leg out from under him, sending him to the mat flat on his face.
Only then did she let go of his leg. As he groaned, stunned, she crouched next to him. “All right?”
“You’re a terrible human being.”
“I did apologize,” she pointed out. “But wasn’t it clever? You could use the same tricks if anyone ever attacks you.”
“No one would ever attack me in Lincolnshire. And the only person who attacks me in London is you.” Settling his hands under himself, he pushed up into a plank, then slid his feet beneath him and stood.
Miss Carpenter stopped beside them then. “Another good f-fall, Mr. Grahame.” She looked to Marianne. “A-are you comfortable trying the throat grab?”
“Throat grab?” Jack’s brows shot up. “No. I’m not comfortable trying the throat grab. No one grabs my throat.”
“It works the other way. With you grabbing me.” Marianne’s cheeks went pink. “Jack, take hold of me as if you want to throttle me.”
With a knowing smile—just what did she think she knew?—Miss Carpenter moved off to work with another pair. And Jack faced Marianne, less than an arm’s length away.
He stepped closer. “You said ‘as if I want to throttle you.’ Taking it for granted that I don’t, after what you’ve put me through?”
“You said you wanted to see what sort of academy this is.” Her eyes were fathomless, lovely. “And I’ve hurt you only today, and only your pride.”
Which meant, he supposed, that he had hurt her far more over the years. It must have seemed to her, gone from Lincolnshire and knowing his life only through vague rumor, that he’d got everything he wanted and moved along from her.
Secondhand news never got the details right. Sometimes he hadn’t known what to make of his own life, and he was the one steeped in it.
He stepped forward and set one hand to each side of her neck, cradling it in a gentle collar. Her skin was smooth and warm; he stroked it with the pad of his thumb, up and down, until her head tipped to one side to allow him greater range of motion.
“I’m throttling you,” he said quietly. “What do I do now?”
She blinked slowly. “Ah…now I take hold of you.” She grabbed his arms above the elbows and pulled him tightly against her body.
“Dear me,” Jack said thickly. “Which of us is attacking which?”
“Now…now we lie on the floor.” She was still blushing.
“You mean I get you on your back.” He knew he was smirking.
“I mean I pull you to the floor.” She leaned backward, taking them down in a swift tangle of limbs.
For once, it didn’t hurt to fall—or maybe the aches merely faded in the face of arousal. His hands were still on her neck, and he slid them to her collarbone, to the lovely sliver of uncovered skin above the bodice of her dress. She clutched him about the arms, preventing him from freeing himself—as if he’d be fool enough to want to when he lay over her like a lover in bed. Just a fraction, he dipped his head, and when her lids fluttered shut and lips parted, he decided fighting was his new favorite subject.
Another inch, and he’d claim her mouth, and then he would—
“No, n-no. That’s not it at all, Mr. Grahame. Mrs. Redfern. James, come here.”
Jack’s head snapped up. Marianne’s eyes snapped open. With what probably seemed like suspicious speed, they untangled themselves and scooted away from each other on the mat.
Miss Carpenter was the one who had spoken. Reluctantly, one of the footmen shuffled away from his pliant, smiling partner and toward the instructor.
Once Jack and Marianne moved aside, this pair took up places on the mat. What followed was the throat grab and arm grasp, a sudden yank back, and some sort of collapsing somersault on the part of the teacher, and the unfortunate flip of James, heels over head, to land on his back.
The young teacher bounced to her feet, then extended a hand to her partner and heaved him upright. “See the difference? Y-you need to fold at the w-waist, Mrs. Redfern, and place a foot at his m-middle. Make a spring of your body to propel him into the air.”
“Don’t listen to her. Don’t fold at the waist,” Jack murmured into Marianne’s ear as they sat at the edge of the mat. “Don’t place a foot in his middle and propel him into the air. Let him lie on top of you instead.”
She snorted. “That wouldn’t be much of a defense, would it?”
“And why would you defend against me?”
“Many reasons,” she said with a sigh.
That didn’t sound like a bad thing, but he stood and offered Marianne a hand to help her up. Instead of rising to her feet, she took hold of his hand, then his arm at the elbow, and pulled him down again. One of her feet came up to catch his belly, not as a kick but as balance, and instead of his body flipping over hers, they again collapsed in a heap.
“N-not quite how I meant it,” said Miss Carpenter.
But if their instructor said anything else, Jack didn’t notice as he looked into Marianne’s face. He noticed only the swiftness of Marianne’s breathing, the wicked curl of her lips. The softness of her breasts beneath his chest and the length of her limbs entangled with his.
And she thought she had to defend against him.
“Had we best be done with today’s lesson?” he asked, addressing his words not to Miss Carpenter, but to the lovely woman who had tugged his body against hers.
“I think we had, yes,” Marianne replied, a hitch in her voice.
That was that. And a wise thing, too. Regretfully, slowly, Jack levered himself up from their prone position and helped Marianne upright. After he thanked Miss Carpenter for her instruction and bade good night to the others, he and Marianne exited the ballroom. “I’d best be off to my hotel, so I can be ready to work at first light.”
She didn’t quite look at him. “Not yet. There is more work I need of you here. Tonight.”
“Truly? There cannot be a vegetable in London left unchopped.”
Still, she didn’t look at him, and the candles in the corridor sconces left her face in shadow. “It’s not chopping vegetables I have in mind.”
Oh. Oh. He thought he understood her meaning, but decided to toy with her a bit. “Indeed? Could you be more specific?”
“Come on, Jack,” she said with some impatience. “I know you liked lying on top of me. I—could tell.”
“Of course I liked lying on top of you. Remember? Manly urges.”
“Are you still having them? The manly urges?”
She tipped her face to look up at him, and he couldn’t be flippant anymore. Not with her eyes on him, so beautifully familiar in shape, so vulnerable and seeking. They’d grown apart; she was offering them a chance to be together again.
Even if he hadn’t had manly urges—which, by God, he did—he’d be a fool to say no.
“For you?” he replied, smoothing back a wisp of her dark hair, loving the feel of her, real, here. “Always. Forever.”
She laced her fingers with his, then, and pulled him through quiet corridors and through the door that separated the main part of the academy from the servants’ quarters below. They descended the narrow steps to the basement kitchens, silent under the weight of wanting that filled the space between them. Every stride was too short to cover the distance remaining; every breath was too long to wait to touch her more.
When they reached the kitchens, still and empty for the night, Jack was following her blindly, his eyes wide against the pressing darkness. His footsteps rang heavily on the flagstone floor, obvious and blundering. Marianne guided him through the warren of small rooms, through a doorway, then closed it behind her. She struck a flint and tinder, then lit a lamp to reveal a tiny chamber beside the butler’s pantry.
“What room is this?” Jack asked, eyeing the simple bed, the screen, the washstand on which Marianne had replaced the lamp.
“It’s mine,” Marianne replied. “I’ve this chamber, and the housekeeper and butler have a great large room at the other end of the basement. The other servants are up in the attics.”
“This is where you live?” Curious, Jack studied the space. There was nothing to show this room belonged to Marianne, or indeed to any particular person. Besides the clothes hanging on hooks behind the screen, it might have been a bare chamber left unused.
“No. The kitchen is where I live. This is where I sleep.” She reached her hands out to him. “And where we can…”
“Ah. You want me to slake my manly urges with you,” he said lightly, though the sight of the room troubled him. She was a gentleman’s daughter, and she lived with almost nothing. Was she at the edge of poverty? What would happen to her if she couldn’t work anymore?
Questions he’d never thought to ask until he’d realized his family had no more money. Questions he felt compelled to resolve now that his finances were secure.
“Come with me to my hotel room,” he offered. “There’s a feather bed, with more than enough room for you to stay the night, and—”
“Jack. No.” She lifted a hand, laid it gently over his lips. “This is where I live. It’s where I belong now.” She gestured broadly, encompassing the servants’ quarters as a whole. “If you want to be with me, be with me here.”
He pressed a kiss to her hand, then pulled it from his face. Taking her into his arms, he replied, “I want to be with you.”
So he was. And after much undressing, and kissing, and caresses and laughter and a pleasure almost shattering, he had to admit that there was nothing at all wrong with a narrow bed in a plain room, as long as one shared it with the right person.
In a tangle of limbs, they fell asleep.
Chapter Four
MARIANNE AWOKE WHEN the lamp guttered out, her eyes snapping open in the darkness. Without lamplight, it was always dark in this windowless room, but she’d a good internal clock, and she knew it wasn’t yet time to awake for the day.
Who was she fooling? Not only the sudden fall of darkness had awoken her. The press of Jack’s warm, lean body against hers—almost nudging her off the edge of the bed—had unsettled her sleep too. The sensitive space between her legs, the tingle of her skin where he’d touched it—these things had pervaded her dreams and made her wakeful, wistful.
“Marianne,” he said quietly, and his arm came around her to settle beneath her bare breasts.
“The lamp went out,” she whispered. “It woke me, but I’ll drift off again.”
“I want to tell you some things,” he replied, “and it’ll be easier in the dark.”
She wiggled under his arm, apprehensive. “Bad things?”
“No. Just…old things. Honest things.”
“All right. I can listen to old and honest things.” She rolled toward him on the bed. Though she couldn’t see his face, she knew it to be close. His arm cradled her, tugged her against his body so her nipples brushed his chest.
“When I was twenty-one, twenty-two…before you went away,” he began, “I had nothing to offer but the circumstances of my birth. My maleness. Connected to that were the responsibilities of my father’s land, the tenants my grandfather and his father had placed there, and all the generations of tradition before that.”
“I always thought you had more to offer than that.” She rocked her torso, liking the feeling of his chest hair against her breasts.
He didn’t seem to notice; he must have been deep in thought indeed. “My father arranged the marriage with Helena Wilcox so I could safeguard them all. I felt cheap for doing it, yet it helped so many. Two of my sisters have married well, and all three of them found love. I have nieces and nephews. The tenants’ cottages are in good repair, the land is healthy, and the crops have been more than fair.”
If he’d sounded proud, she would have thought him boasting. But he didn’t sound happy at all. “Why are you telling me all this?” she asked. “I don’t care. That is—I do. I’m glad for those people. But it’s no part of my life, and I never thought it would be.”
“Exactly.” His breath tickled her ear, making a wisp of hair dance. “You agreed to marry me without thinking of what it would mean in the years ahead. You agreed only because you liked me.”
“I loved you,” she said faintly. Not knowing whether she ought to speak the phrase in the past tense, or the present.
“My father didn’t understand that. He didn’t marry for love. Not that he was a bad man; he was a responsible landowner and respectful husband and dutiful father. But—it didn’t matter to him that I loved you. Not compared to making a marriage that would help our family in the present and future.”
“This might be too honest for me.” Marianne pushed against his chest, putting space between them. “I don’t want to hear that I weighed too little against your father’s wishes. I already know that. I lived it.”
He trailed his fingers lightly over her shoulder, her ribs, letting his hand rest at her waist. “Then I haven’t explained it well. I could have turned my back on him for you, and had it only been a matter of his will, I would have. But it was tenants. Livelihoods. The future. Hungry bellies and hopeful eyes.
“If it were only up to me,” he added, “the scale would never balance against you. Not then, not now, not ever.”
His hand on
her waist was a weight, making it hard for her to draw breath. “But it’s not only up to you.”
“Not then, not now, not ever.” His tone was quiet. “But the hope’s now in my eyes, and the scale is yours to balance, Marianne. I’ve seen everyone else taken care of but you. And me.”
“I don’t expect or want you to take care of me.” After his low tone, she sounded harsh.
He hesitated. “I know you don’t need it.” Then his hand stroked Marianne’s side again. Quick trailing fingertips, halting movements. “My marriage wasn’t really anything of the sort. Helena—she loved my sister Viola. Not me. And Viola loved her in return.”
This was unexpected news. “Your wife…loved your sister?” Marianne had always assumed Helena Wilcox, pretty and rich and kind, had given her heart to Jack. Who wouldn’t? And of course, living as man and wife, he would have come to love her in return.
“Her love for Viola is why Helena agreed to marry me.” His hand went still, the palm flat and heated on her side. “I thought you might suspect, when after Helena’s death, you addressed letters of condolence to my mother and sister.”
“I did that to show how proper I was. That as a spinster, I wouldn’t write to a man.” Her thoughts were in a jumble, as if she were trying to sort out parts of two different recipes and combine them into one. But how did this fit—? And did that mean—?
“You were so proper that I completely misunderstood,” Jack said dryly.
“That’s half the purpose of manners.”
“Maybe so.” Jack chuckled. “We had separate chambers, Helena and I, from the moment of the wedding. Her chamber was…much closer to my sister’s than it was to mine. Both women were happier that way.”
“Oh,” was all Marianne could say. There had been a great deal to balance against the possibility of her marriage to Jack. Even more than she’d realized.
“When Helena died,” Jack said, “Viola grieved her as a spouse. I grieved the loss of a friend who had done me a great kindness.”
