by Darcy Burke
“Yes, we should.” Anne joined him at the table, and they both sat.
He took a large bite of the biscuit and choked it down with a swig of tea. Anne did something similar, though she took a smaller taste. She also winced slightly as she swallowed.
“What’s your favorite kind of biscuit?” he asked.
“I don’t think I have one.” She tipped her head to the side. “I do love almond.”
“I like that too. I’m afraid I’m a glutton for marzipan.”
Her eyes glowed with amusement. “Oh yes, I can eat an entire tray at Yuletide.”
“I think I’m more partial to cakes than biscuits.” He crammed the last of the biscuit into his mouth and swallowed it down with the rest of his tea. “Especially after today.” He laughed, and she joined him.
He held out his hand. “Give me your biscuit. I’ll finish it.”
She hesitated, but only briefly, before depositing the half-eaten biscuit into his palm. “You are a gentleman, regardless of what you say.”
Perhaps he was. At least with her. She seemed to bring out the very best in him. This moment, this ordinary situation, had been mostly absent from his life. And wasn’t this what he wanted? Christ, he’d become far too maudlin since learning who he really was.
He ate the rest of Anne’s biscuit in two bites, then stood and offered her his hand. “Come, I want to take you somewhere.”
She put her hand in his and rose. “Shouldn’t we thank the children?”
“They’re probably listening.” He turned his head toward the stairs. “Thank you, Daniel, Bart, Charlie, and Annie.”
Anne giggled, her eyes lighting. He grabbed her bonnet and gloves from a small table against the wall, then led her to the back door and outside to a narrow alley that ran between the buildings.
Clutching her hand tightly, he guided her through the alley to where it met Warwick Lane. He located the cabriolet and helped her inside as the tiger held the horse. She set her bonnet on her head and brought down the veil as he settled in next to her.
He drove them out to Paternoster Row, but instead of turning west, he went east toward Cheapside.
“You’re not taking me for caviar, are you?”
He laughed. “No. We’re not even stopping along Cheapside.”
“That’s a shame. I thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon here.” Her head moved from side to side as they entered the thoroughfare, and though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she was delighted.
“This is perhaps my favorite part of London.” He hadn’t told her that when they’d come before. He’d always kept his guard up, but suddenly, perhaps because of what the children had tried to do, he just didn’t want to make the effort.
“Even more that Paternoster Row?”
He chuckled. “It’s close. Cheapside wins slightly, only because of its greater size. I imagine how it might have been hundreds of years ago when the streets earned their names—Ironmonger Lane, Bread Street, Milk Street. I wonder what those people who lived here would say if they could see it now.”
“They would be amazed. At all of London.”
Just before they reached Poultry Street, he steered them to the right onto Bucklersbury Lane. Partway down, he pulled the cabriolet to the side and came to a stop.
“You can see Mansion House quite well from here,” she said, gesturing to the end of the street in front of them.
“Yes.” Seeing that grand house had been one of the reasons he’d chosen Bucklersbury Lane for his own residence. He looked to the left at the house in front of where they’d stopped. “This is my house.”
She lifted her veil and took in the narrow brick façade. “This is where you lived as a child?”
He shook his head. “This is where I lived the past four years. Would you like to come inside?”
“Very much.”
He helped her from the vehicle and returned the cabriolet to his tiger’s care. Offering her his arm, he guided her up the steps. He inserted a key in the lock, and by the time they walked into the entry hall, Mrs. Watts came hurrying to greet them.
A short, stocky woman, the housekeeper also served as his cook. Her biscuits were never too salty, and she was, in fact, the reason he adored cakes.
“Mr. Bowles,” she said with a smile, her gaze flitting to Anne. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”
He’d stopped in on Saturday when he’d visited the bookshop. “This wasn’t a planned visit. Allow me to introduce my friend, Miss Anne Pemberton.” He realized he should not have used her real name, but as he’d learned on the way here, it seemed he didn’t particularly care about hiding things at the moment.
Mrs. Watts bobbed her head, her white mobcap pinned tightly to her gray curls since it didn’t move even slightly. Whereas Anne, after removing her bonnet, nodded, and a slender blonde curl fell against her temple.
“Welcome,” Mrs. Watts said. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m going to give Miss Pemberton a brief tour.” He took Anne’s bonnet and her gloves and set them on a narrow table beneath a mirror along with his own. “I’ll let you know if we require anything.”
“Very good.” Mrs. Watts turned toward the back of the house. “I have warm spiced cakes if that interests you,” she called before she disappeared.
“That is very tempting,” Anne said. “Much more tempting than salty biscuits.” She looked around the small entry hall, with its marble tile and solitary painting.
“You’ll find this house wanting after my residence in Upper Brook Street.”
Her eyes met his. “I don’t think I could find anything wanting about you.”
Her words heated him, and he let them, relishing the connection between them instead of resisting it. He showed her the dining room and the library, which looked rather sad since most of his books had been moved to Mayfair.
“You outgrew your library,” she said. “Is that why you moved?”
“I moved because I wanted to live in the best place.”
She looked up at him. “And Mayfair is the best? I’d say the best is wherever you’re happiest.”
Then that had been the small house he’d lived in with Eliza near Blackfriars. The first place where he’d felt he belonged. “Where have you been happiest?” he asked.
“Right now. Here, with you.” She squeezed his arm. “I would ask you the same, but I doubt you’d tell me. Though, perhaps I’m mistaken. You’ve already revealed more of yourself today than in all the time I’ve known you. Thank you,” she added softly.
“I’ll show you the drawing room upstairs.” He escorted her from the library and up the staircase that wound back on itself.
Decorated in yellows and golds, the room was warm and inviting, or so Mrs. Watts told him.
“This is beautiful,” Anne said, taking her hand from his arm and walking around the perimeter. “But it looks as though you just furnished it yesterday. Everything seems so new and untouched.” She stopped at the marble fireplace with its gilt decoration.
“I rarely spent time in here. Yellow was Eliza’s favorite color.”
Anne faced him, her shoulders tense. “Eliza was your wife.”
“Yes.” He walked toward her. “But she never lived here. I bought this house after she died.” They’d dreamed of living in such a place. And they’d been so close. He’d started looking at properties in Cheapside just before she’d died.
“Yet you decorated a room for her.” Anne’s head tipped back slightly as he came to a stop just before her. “You loved her very much.”
He drew a stuttering breath. “More than life. She was going to have our child.” It was his fault they were gone, victims of the choices he’d made. He bit the inside of his lip, trying to make a physical pain overshadow the emotional one.
Anne took his hand and led him from the drawing room back to the staircase hall. “What else is on the first floor?” She’d recognized his anguish and sought to banish it.
“My private rooms. Do I nee
d to show them to you?”
“Yes.” She gazed up at him expectantly with perhaps a bit of silly exasperation that made him laugh.
Smiling in spite of the melancholy that had gripped him a few minutes ago, he took her into his sitting room.
“Now, this is your room,” she said, letting go of his hand and turning in a circle to survey the space.
“Why do you say that?”
“Dark, brooding colors with hints of brightness.” She picked up the bright orange pillow on the dark blue chaise. “Like this. It reminds me of your eye.”
Laughter did escape him then. “Well, that might have been on purpose. A friend gave me that.” A lover who’d come here on occasion but whom he hadn’t seen in months.
She waggled her brows. “So I’m not the first friend you’ve brought to your private rooms.”
He advanced on her, pinning her so the chaise hit the backs of her legs. “You’re the best one I’ve brought here.”
Her eyes lit with pleasure. “Well, that’s lovely.” She glanced toward the closed door that led to his bedchamber. “I can guess what lies that way. Are you going to show me that too?”
“I know you want to see it.”
“I’d like to do more than see it.”
He traced his fingertips down her cheek and across her jaw to her chin. “What did you have in mind?”
“I think I’d like to spend some time there. If you’re amenable.”
The stiffness of his cock and the desire pulsing through him said he was more than amenable. Even while his brain urged caution. “We shouldn’t.”
“We shouldn’t have gone to Paternoster Row today either. I think I’ve come to know you rather well, Lord Bodyguard, and you don’t always adhere to the rules.” She put her hands on his chest and, pressing her palms flat, slid them up to his collarbones. “And you know I don’t. The key is not getting caught breaking them.”
“You are a siren.”
“And I’m going to look at your bedchamber.” She slipped from between him and the chaise and went to open the door. With a glance over her shoulder, she smiled at him, then went inside.
He had no choice but to follow her into madness.
She stood near the wide bed and crooked her finger at him. Powerless to resist, he went to her.
A few strands of her hair brushed her nape, tempting him. She touched his cheek. “I know you don’t want me to say this, but I love you. And I want you to do what you told me before. With your mouth. Then I want to touch you. Please?”
Dear Lord, she was going to completely break him. Except he was already broken.
“If I do that, there will be no going back,” he rasped. “Do you understand?” At her nod, he started to unbutton the front of her costume, a long garment that covered her upper half and exposed the blue and ivory of her skirt. “You’re going to marry me, Anne.”
Her eyes rounded as her hand dropped down to his shoulder where she squeezed him tightly. “What?”
“If I’m going to put my mouth on you and you’re going to perchance do the same to me, we will wed. If you accept that, we may continue.”
She put her hands on his, stilling his movement. “That doesn’t seem a reason to marry.”
“It’s more than you had with your former betrothed, is it not?”
“It is.”
He didn’t move despite his body demanding he do so. “I await your decision.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Chapter 12
Rafe kissed her with a blistering heat as his fingers continued to unbutton her spencer. He moved quickly, with wondrous precision, divesting her of the garment with ease. His tongue lashed against hers, claiming her in a torrent of sensation. It was as if something had been unleashed inside him, that he’d let himself free of whatever bound him.
She wasn’t going to be the only one undressed this time. Tugging at his cravat, she pulled the silk loose and tore it from his neck. He drew back slightly, not quite breaking the kiss, as he removed his coat. His lips played with hers and he nipped her flesh before looking down at the laces crossing over her chest. “This isn’t a typical garment.”
Her underdress had been constructed as a sort of full petticoat and wasn’t meant to be worn without the spencer over it. The laces in the bodice kept the garment snug and allowed her to don it without assistance. “It comes loose quite easily.” She untied the front, and it fell open, revealing her corset. He pushed the straps of the garment over her shoulders and down her arms. She slipped out of the dress and gave it over to him.
He carefully took the dress and the spencer he’d cast on the bed and draped them over a chair. Perching on the edge, he pulled his boots off and set them aside. “Come here,” he said, his eyes glittering with promise.
She went to the chair and stood between his parted legs.
“Your foot, please.” He reached down, and she placed her foot in his hand. Scooting back on the chair, he lifted her foot and placed it between his legs on the seat cushion. Her toes grazed him as he unfastened her half boot. When he’d removed the boot, he moved to perform the same task on her other foot, exchanging one for the other.
Except when he finished with that one, he didn’t let her go. Instead, he curled his hand around her ankle and pulled her foot around his thigh and set it on the cushion behind him. Though she still wore her corset, petticoat, chemise, and stockings, she felt incredibly, thrillingly exposed in this position.
His hand moved up her leg, pausing behind her bent knee. Shivers of anticipation danced along her flesh, and desire pooled in her sex. With his other hand, he pushed the skirt of her petticoat up, revealing the leg propped on the chair.
“Come closer,” he whispered, wrapping his palm around her thigh and sliding it up to her backside. He grasped the side of her clothing that fell against her standing leg. “Hold this side up at your waist.”
Unable to take a deep breath, she did as he said, clutching the fabric at her waist. This completely opened her sex to him.
He trailed his hand down her backside, his fingertips gliding along the crease between her cheeks. She inhaled sharply before he moved back up the side of her thigh and brought his hand around to her front. “Beautiful.”
He stroked along the edge of her folds, his thumb finding her clitoris. His other hand clasped the hip of her standing leg, urging her closer to him so that she could feel his breath against her.
She moaned softly as he gently massaged her flesh. He swept his finger inside her.
“So wet and ready. I could take you right now. But I want you wetter still.” He pumped into her, finding a spot that made her see white as she clenched her eyes closed. “Hold on to me, Anne. But don’t let go of your skirt.”
She switched the garment to her other hand and used her right to brace herself on his shoulder. His left hand slid from her thigh to her backside as he licked her sex. She was not prepared for the sensations that swept through her or the sudden quiver that overtook her legs. Now she understood why he’d told her to hold on to him.
His cheek brushed her thigh as he kissed and suckled her flesh. The intimacy of it, how very exposed she was, shocked her. But she didn’t retreat. If anything, she dug her fingers into his shoulder and arched into him. Perhaps he knew what she wanted. Of course he knew. He thrust his tongue inside her, and she cried out.
His hand moved to cup the back of her thigh, holding her elevated leg in a firm grip as his mouth moved over her, licking and teasing her flesh. Bringing his other hand back over her hip, he slid his finger into her as he sucked at her clitoris. Ecstasy rolled over her, and she felt the rush of an orgasm fast approaching.
Before it came, he gentled his touch, retreating just enough that the pleasure remained but didn’t overwhelm her. She wanted the tide to sweep her away and whimpered.
He parted her sex, holding her open for his tongue as he thrust in and out. Her muscles tensed as she babbled incoherently, begging for release.
&
nbsp; Still, he didn’t let her come. He abruptly stood, gathering her into his arms and taking her to the bed. He set her on the coverlet with a roughness that matched the tumult raging inside her.
Shoving her skirts up, he spread her legs and buried himself between them. He clasped her thighs and set them on his shoulders as his mouth plundered her sex. The pleasure built until she perched on the edge. He stroked her clitoris, and she tumbled into sweet, dark oblivion.
She clutched his head, pulling at his hair as she bounced back up, cresting higher than before, spasms racking her body. There was no time to find the earth before he was gone from her.
Opening her eyes, she saw him unbuttoning his waistcoat. She pushed herself up, eager to see him. But when she reached for him, he wrapped his hand around her nape and pulled her mouth to his. “I told you what I would do.” He kissed her, as he said he would, and she tasted herself.
He’d been right. There was no going back after this. She didn’t want anyone to see or feel or taste her the way he had. And she didn’t want anyone doing the same for him.
She unfastened the two remaining buttons on his waistcoat and pushed the garment open. He dragged his mouth from hers to discard the clothing. She clutched at his shirt, tugging it from his waistband, and narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re mine.”
His left brow arched, and his expression was so handsome, so seductive, she nearly whimpered with need again.
“Mine,” she repeated, pushing at his shirt.
He ripped the garment over his head and dropped it to the floor.
Anne surveyed the muscled expanse of his chest and abdomen. From the contoured planes of his shoulders to the soft discs of his nipples and lower to the ridges of his ribs and the muscles that rippled down to his waistband. There were scars, like the one on his face, small, pink clues to the life he’d led before. She longed to ask him about them, and she would, but not now. Now, she wanted to see all of him.
She glanced at his breeches. “Are you going to take those off, or should I?”
