by Eve Silver
Tipping his head to hers, he kissed her, pushed his tongue into her mouth and the sensation of that cycled through her, lush and rich. His knees were between hers, nudging her open, spreading her. She let him. Liked what he did. The feel of the hairs on his thighs brushing her skin. The rasp of his stubble against her jaw. The thrust of his tongue, tasting her as she tasted him.
Shivery hot, she moved beneath him, undulating slowly side to side so her skin rubbed against his. Delicious. Her hands ran along his back, his buttocks, hard muscled and taut, and she closed her fingers, kneading. She knew he liked it from the way his hips shifted against her own, not just warm now between her thighs but feverish hot and hard. Him. His penis, the wide, smooth head she had glimpsed in the firelight. Pressing into her, a foreign stretch, stinging a bit, but somehow right.
Between her thighs, she felt strange, exotic, moist and aching.
She moved, gasped. He moved, back, then forward. Slowly, so slowly. A stretching and burning, a feeling of invasion, odd and a little painful and stimulating all at once.
“Don’t move, sweet Beth,” he rasped. “Christ, don’t move.”
She froze, her body arguing against that, trembling with the urge to piston her hips closer to his, to slide her heels around his back. A different sort of embrace.
Instead, she lay panting beneath him, trusting that he would take her where they were meant to go. Trusting. How odd.
Bending his head, he licked her breast, took her nipple in his mouth and sucked. Gently at first, then harder. Hard enough that she gasped and squirmed, the pleasure so keen she arched up off the bed.
It came quickly then, the fitting of bodies, his hand gliding down between them, his fingers touching her and stroking her, there, where the smooth head of his penis pressed a little deeper and again, deeper into her.
Into her. Inside her. A frightening and strangely scintillating concept.
Again, he stroked her, a lush, moist glide of clever, clever fingers until she did move, could not help but move, an urgent jerk of her hips forward, followed by a gasp.
Quick, sharp pain. Smarting. Stinging. And a feeling of fullness, of stretching, of accommodating him.
Her maidenhead, gone.
He held himself rigid above her, a dark angel gilded by firelight. So beautiful. Despite the discomfort, there was something lovely about joining with him, feeling him inside her. She arched up, ran her tongue along his throat, then fell back, smiling, letting the taste of him melt on her tongue.
He stayed very still, his weight balanced on the length of one forearm, his free hand between them, stroking, caressing, The sensation—only pleasant at first, and then fuller, stronger, more than pleasant—became delight, winding in an ever tightening coil. With a moan, she moved, following primitive, driving instinct, but he shifted his hip, his thigh, holding her still.
Moving his mouth along her jaw, her neck, her ear, he kissed her and murmured softly, things she could barely hear. His breathing was raspy, his body taut with tension. He held himself in check, and she wondered at that. Wondered why.
She ached to move. She needed to move.
Panting, she shifted beneath him, but he held them both still, only his hand working its sweet, aching magic. Pleasure drove her. She closed her fingers tighter and tighter in the hard muscle of his buttocks, writhing beneath him as much as his weight allowed.
Bright pleasure, almost beyond bearing. She trembled and ached, until the liquid stroking of his fingers made her shatter with a scream.
Closing her eyes, she let the waves crash over her, through her, casting her high and floating her back to the ground.
She thought she hung suspended for an eternity.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“Oh,” he whispered in return, the sound colored with a smile.
Which made her smile and bury her face in his shoulder, and lick the salt of his skin.
He was still there, inside her, hard and full, pulsing, his hips moving just a little. She understood then that he had not pushed himself as deep as he might go, that he had not floated on that same wave.
What he had just given her was a gift.
One she wished to share with him.
Tipping her hips to bring her as close to him as she could be, she gasped, the sound of her cry caught in his mouth as he kissed her, hard and deep. His hips pressed forward, back, a little deeper, a little faster, and she moaned, tension tightening her limbs. Lovely, seductive tension. A pleasure that built in sharp layers over the fading discomfort of his intrusion.
She moved as he moved, a dance of sorts, and she thought she had been right, that long ago day on the road. He moved like a dancer, a fencer, all grace and leashed energy.
No, not leashed. He was less controlled now, a wild excitement coloring his thrusts as he drove deep and hard, very slick, very wet, and she wrapped her legs about him, her heels pressed tight to his back. She knew now where this would carry her, and this time she meant to take him with her.
Tightening her fists in his hair, she pressed her face to his neck, inhaled him, bit him. It was the same as before, only different, better, deeper and stronger, a spiral winding her until she thought she would cry, scream, if she could only—
Oh, God.
He thrust into her, hard, and again, and her insides clenched on themselves. She could feel the pulse of him inside her, or was that her own pulse? Her own wild, sweet contractions, together with his. She followed him into the maelstrom by seconds. And they held on and on, together, straining against each other and with each other until with a gasp, Griffin let his weight down to her side and rolled her until she was confined in the circle of his arms, his legs.
Held.
Warm and replete.
And not afraid.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Stepney, London, March 15, 1813
Henry ran his finger around the inside of his starched high collar and glanced at the sparse and sad posy he had bought for a penny from the flower-girl at the corner. ‘Twould have to suffice, for it was the best he could find, and his task had a powerful urgency behind it.
A mizzling rain fell, cold and damp. The cold ate at him. He thought he had not felt warm since that night at the Black Swan, since a chilling horror had gnawed clear to his bones and never wormed free.
He was not the man he had been before, but he was still a man with a conscience and morals. He knew what needed to be done.
Making his way along the gloomy alley that led to the back of the shabby little house, he pondered the words he ought to choose, the best way to approach the matter. He had practiced it a dozen ways, and he supposed that any of them would do. He had thought of going round the front door today, for his errand seemed to demand it. But he knew Miss Smith would be in the kitchen, bent deep over the tubs of hot water, mangle in hand, scrubbing and dipping and wringing, sweat rolling down the sides of her face.
Miss Smith. Before today, he had not bothered to wonder if it was her true name. For months, he had brought her his shirts and picked them up a day later, paid her what he owed and gone on his way. Now, he did wonder. Smith was no gentrified name, and she was definitely quality. Or had been, once, though hardship had landed her here, working as a laundress in a tiny hovel.
She did not belong here. Her mannerisms and mode of speech gave her away. But she was here and he was here. She, with her scarred face and body. He, with his scarred heart. Together they might do some good.
The sound of his own footsteps thumping up the stairs seemed painfully loud, and Henry paused a long moment before raising his hand and knocking hard at the door.
He heard the scrape of the bolt. The door dragged open, slowly, slowly, and the strong smell of laundry soap carried through the crack on a waft of hot, damp air.
“Oh! Mr. Pugh! Are you back already? I had not thought you would come until next week.” Miss Smith barely met his gaze before glancing away, dropping her chin and tipping her head to the right to hide the side
of her face. Not that her efforts were particularly effective.
Many times had he noted the burn scars that marked her face, puckered and painful to see. She wore a cap each time he saw her, but he thought her hair on the right might have been burned away. Her sleeves were rolled back, and her right arm was red and marked with the badges of her suffering.
‘Twas no brilliant deduction to know she had been caught in a fire, but anything more than that was a mystery to him. From her pattern of speech and some innate elegance of manner, he felt certain that she had been beautiful and wealthy, pampered and cared for at some point in her life. So how had she ended up here, in an alley just off Ratcliffe Highway?
Before today, he had not wondered. But now, given his purpose here, he intended to ask her.
“Mr. Pugh?” she prodded, and he realized he had been standing about like a dolt for a very long time.
“These are for you,” he said, and shot his hand forward with the small posy clutched tight.
She looked from the flowers to his face and down again, her expression almost comical in amazement and disbelief.
“Why?” she whispered, extending a hand toward him, then dropping it back to her side where she scrubbed her palm up and down against her skirt. “Why?”
He stared down at her in mute dismay. He had planned this, every word of it, but now that he stood here, he knew not what to say.
Swiping the back of her hand across her forehead, she huffed out a breath.
“Do you play a nasty trick on me, Mr. Pugh?” She raised her gaze to his then, such a depth of pain and wariness in her huge brown eyes.
“No trick, Miss Smith.” He glanced beyond her into the kitchen that served as a laundry. “May I come in?”
She shook her head, and he thought she would decline, but in the end, she dragged open the door enough that he might enter.
Henry’s pulse quickened, and he felt a spark of hope. He could make this work. He must make this work.
A memory slapped him, sharp and unkind, terrible recollections of the bed in the child’s room at the Black Swan Tavern, and the great crimson blot in the center of the white sheets. Of his horror and sick regret, and the salt taste of his own tears.
Miss Smith went to the fire where she was warming a flat iron. She pulled it free, and with a self-conscious glance in his direction, she spit on it to test the heat. It sizzled and popped and, satisfied, she began to press and fold a shirt.
That glance tugged at Henry’s heart, proof in his mind that she was from a different world, a place where ladies did not spit. She had built a life here, Miss Smith, but Henry wondered what ashes of her old life she had left behind.
“Uh... the... uh... posy...” Henry offered it to her once more.
With a sigh, she set the flat iron back in the fire and turned to face him, but made no move to accept the flowers. Henry stepped to the side and set the posy on the small table in the corner.
“Out with it, Mr. Pugh,” she said.
Henry felt as though his breath was caged in his chest, trapped there, unable to tear free. Finally, he exhaled in a noisy rush.
“Well,” he said, and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I find myself in need of a wife, Miss Smith, and I was hoping you might see your way clear to accept the position.”
She stared at him so long, he wondered if he’d actually said the words or only thought he’d done.
“I am scarred. Not only my face, but my arm, my back, my leg. Why do you want such a wife?” Her tone was steady, calm.
“You are available... er... convenient... that is, you are unlikely to receive an offer from—” He paused, ran his finger along the inside of his collar. It was exceedingly warm in here. Exceedingly warm.
“You are a businesswoman,” he tried again. “And my proposition has somewhat of a business bent—” He broke off once more, thinking that none of his words were stringing together in the way he had imagined. He was making a terrible hash of this.
“And you think that to marry a laundress is as good as a fortune?” she demanded. “Then you are a fool, sir. I survive on my earnings, but am far from wealthy.”
“No, no! You misunderstand. ‘Tis not your money I want, but you.” Her brows rose so high they almost disappeared under her cap. Suddenly, a thought came to him, one he had not considered before. “You are not already married, are you?”
Dark and derisive, a low puff of laughter escaped her. “No. Nor did I ever think to be. Not since the fire. Those dreams burned with the pretty dresses and the dolls... all the trapping of the girl I once was.”
Henry nodded, and gentled his voice to ask, “How did you end up here, Miss Smith?”
“Well, you are full of strange and unexpected questions today, Mr. Pugh.” She exhaled delicately, then shrugged as though it was of no matter to her, though he suspected the memories tore at her still. How could they not?
“The fire took everyone,” she said. “My mother. My father. My three brothers. Only I escaped. The title and property went to my father’s cousin, a twisted old man who thought my scars an abomination. A punishment for unspecified sins. He wanted me consigned to a madhouse for the remainder of my life. One night, I heard him speaking with two gentlemen who run a private asylum. They were there to examine me and take me away.”
Pressing her lips together, she glanced at the posy, then asked in a low, weary tone, “Have you ever been to a madhouse, Mr. Pugh?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “No, but I have heard tales...”
“And I suspect that what you have heard is better than the reality. They are dark places. Evil places. Even the private asylums which are supposed to be better than most.” She shuddered. “I suspect they are worse. My brother’s wife was... unable to bear children. He put her there, in an asylum. I think she was not mad when she went there, but she was quite far gone by the time she died there.”
Finding that he had nothing of value to say, Henry held his silence and listened.
Miss Smith sighed, and squared her shoulders. “The cook took pity on me. She had her brother help me sell what jewelry I had left. ‘Twas all done very quickly. Very efficiently. My mother’s pearls. My father’s watch. There was little enough left, for my father’s cousin had taken almost everything. But the cook’s brother got enough to satisfy.”
“Ah.” Henry met her gaze and cast her a sardonic smile. “For a price, yes?”
“Of course.” She did not smile in return. “Half the money was their fee, and there was little enough paid for the pieces. They were not diamonds or emeralds or rubies, after all. But there was enough to satisfy his greed, and my need.” She gestured about her to encompass the kitchen. “I had no skills, no training for this life. My skills lay in polite conversation and the choosing of a menu and the best seating for a dinner party. Excellent skills for a lady. Worthless skills for a scarred girl who wants to survive. But I was lucky enough to have taken a fancy when I was small to the laundry maid, Molly. I used to follow her about and sit on a stool watching her while she worked. So, I had money to purchase lodging and enough knowledge to wash clothes.”
“A hard life,” Henry said.
She shot him a genuinely amused look. “Yes, but I should think that life in a madhouse would be harder still. Given my choices, I do not regret the path I took.” She folded her arms across her waist and stared at him, full in the face. Slowly, she reached up and drew the cap from her head, showing the place above her ear that was bald and puckered. No more hiding. She let him see the whole of it.
He thought her incredibly brave.
“So I have told you my sad story, Mr. Pugh,” she said. “It is your turn to tell me yours.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wickham Hall, Burndale, October 7, 1828
Beth opened her eyes to find that dust motes danced and swayed in a beam of sunlight. She frowned, disoriented. What—Where—
Of a sudden, all rushed back at her like the contents of a bucket sloshe
d in her face. She recalled the sad and terrible tragedy of the girl in the woods.
She recalled Griffin, finding her, bringing her to Wickham Hall, to a chamber that adjoined his. Drawing the sheet from her body. Touching her. Kissing her. Making love to her.
She closed her eyes, a wash of confused emotions swamping her. Everything felt so normal, and yet so different. Outside, birds chirped, and behind her, the sound of Griffin’s breathing, even and smooth. Her back was against his chest, her buttocks cradled in the crook of his flexed hips. He was sleeping here. With her.
And they were both entirely naked.
That was definitely outside her usual morning routine.
Perhaps he still slept. Perhaps—
“Good morning,” he said, his voice gravelly, his breath tickling the back of her neck. His erection stirred against her bottom.
She closed her eyes, judged her options, and chose the one that most appealed. The lure of him was like strawberry tarts in the baker’s window. And just as she would plaster herself to the window to be close to the tarts, she wiggled in his embrace, pressing her bottom against his hardness, his warmth, the contours of him that so fascinated her.
“Good morning,” she whispered back.
He ran his hand along her side, over the flare of her hip, then up to her breast, cupping the weight of her, smoothing his thumb over her hardened nipple. She wiggled back a little more, her buttocks rubbing the silky length of his erection, and she smiled as he moved closer against her to ease his entry, settling his penis between her thighs, prodding her, and finally pushing inside her just a little, withdrawing, pushing in a little more, rocking slowly.
She angled her hips in what she hoped was an encouraging manner. But he was lazy in his thrusts, unhurried and relaxed, and though each stroke brought him closer to filling her, she was impatient. Lustful. With a moan, she arched her buttocks back and took all of him in a lovely, smooth surge.
The feel of him stretching her, filling her, was bliss. He made a sound in the back of his throat—pleasure, approval—that shimmered through her to lodge in the pit of her belly.
