by Eve Silver
Slow and languid, he made love to her, shallow thrusts, his lips and tongue on her neck, her shoulder, and his fingers on the peaks of her breasts, gentle strokes, until she could bear it no more. She wanted all of him, all his passion, all his need.
“I want—” She broke off, bit her lip.
“Tell me. Tell me what you want.” A rough whisper, heavy with desire. The sound stroked her already inflamed senses.
She wanted to tell him. Wanted to demand that he pump hard and deep, faster, like he had last night. But somehow, the words caught on her tongue, and so she showed him instead.
Reaching back to hold his side, she drove her hips against his, working them both exactly as she wished. She determined the pace, the depth. She drew the feral sounds from low in his throat.
It was a heady power.
Lush, rich enjoyment spiraled through her.
Griffin stroked her breast, kneaded the fullness of it, took her nipple between his fingers, pinched lightly, then harder.
“Yes,” she whispered, the word little more than a hiss of delight. That. She wanted that and more.
Taking her breathy word as the plea it was, or perhaps as capitulation, a relinquishing of control, he altered the rhythm, thrusting deeper and faster, and—oh!—moving his hips in a lovely swivel that dragged a hoarse moan from her. He ran his thumb across her nipple, back and forth, then took the sensitive flesh between his fingers and pinched again.
“Yes,” she whispered again, lost in sensation, such pleasure. She had never thought to search for it, never imagined it existed.
He pinched a little harder, setting off a clamor in her blood. She clutched at his forearm where it wrapped across her, dug her fingers into the hard, corded muscle. Arching her back, she offered her breasts to his touch, while her bottom curved back, opening her more fully to his thrusts.
Close. So close. She felt the wild tempo beat through her and knew he was as close as she.
His lips moved on her shoulder, a damp kiss, and then his teeth.
Sliding his hand along her belly, into the curls at the juncture of her thighs, and then lower, to the folds of her sex, he touched her, a hard, pressing stroke that shoved her past bearing.
She shattered, crying out as he thrust once more, hard and smooth and deep, his body both frozen and shuddering, the breath escaping him in a harsh rush as he joined her in release.
Moments passed, and she lay in a pulsing reverie, a cycle of slowly fading delight, while he stroked her hair, her shoulder, her back.
Replete, drowsy, she lay in Griffin’s embrace. Such a lovely place to be.
She dozed, and awoke sometime later to a tentative tapping. The light was brighter now. Past dawn. How long had she slept?
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Griffin lay on his back, arms and legs spread wide, his face relaxed in slumber. So handsome, a dark bandit with his tousled hair and the shadow of his beard shading his jaw. She liked the look of him. No, more than liked. She adored the look of him.
The knock came again and Beth rolled from the bed, retrieved the sheet that had spent the night tossed aside on the floor, and wrapped it about her naked body. Crossing to the door, she opened it a crack to find that a maid had brought a pitcher of warm water along with Beth’s dress and stockings and petticoat, all freshly laundered and pressed, and her boots, cleaned and shined.
Clutching the sheet, Beth wondered how best to guard her modesty and to hide the fact that Griffin was sprawled across her bed. She opened the door only enough to take the pitcher then, bidding the maid wait, she closed it and crossed the room to set the pitcher on the washstand. Returning to the door, she opened it once more and accepted her clothing, struggling to maintain her hold on the sheet and the door and the clothes all at the same time.
As Beth closed the portal for the second time, the sound of Griffin’s laughter came from behind her, and she turned to see him propped up on the pillows, with absolutely nothing covering him.
“You are wicked,” she said, glancing away and draping her garments over the back of a chair.
“Yes,” he agreed, jovial. “Look you fill, Beth. I like when you look at me.” She fussed with her dress, ignoring him. “Are you not the least bit curious?” He paused. “Not even a bit?”
“No!”
“Liar.” He laughed again.
“Oh! Not only wicked, but arrogant!” She cut him a glance through her lashes, then away, tantalized and mortified at once, and amazed that she felt so easy with him. So free.
“Guilty as charged,” he agreed and then said nothing more, the silence and her curiosity growing apace.
Curiosity won, as he obviously had known it would, and she spun toward him to take in her first full sight of him in all his naked glory in the full light of day, hard muscle and taut golden skin, laid out like a sumptuous feast.
Tipping his head to the side, he held her gaze for a long moment, then uncoiled his tall frame from the bed. Supple muscle and tendon, sinew and grace. She could not help but stare, could not help but move her gaze down his broad, beautiful chest, his lean waist, the dark hair at his groin. Lower, to the bulge of his thighs and the well-built curve of his calves.
“I never knew a man could be beautiful,” she murmured.
He gave a strangled huff of laughter, and her gaze shot to his.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Beth.” He lowered his voice then, a soft admission. “And my eye beholds you.”
Not flowery or lush, the compliment was all the more lovely for its simplicity.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
With a dark, knowing smile, he lifted his arms out to the sides and spun a slow circle. So she could look at him. Her pulse bucked and raced.
He came about to face her once more, and with a lunge he caught the edge of the sheet, tugged, then tugged again, harder, when she resisted his attempts to divest her of it.
“Turnabout is fair play,” he cajoled, a thread of laughter woven with his words.
Narrowing her eyes, she hesitated, then raised her brows. “Is it?”
She let the sheet fall and turned slowly, then faster, around and around with her arms held wide and her head tipped back until he caught her to him and hugged her, just hugged her, his arms wrapped tight about her, trapping her own arms at her sides.
Resting her cheek on his chest, she waited for it, for the sensation of confinement. For the fear. For the world to cave in on her in a black wall of terror.
Her heart raced from her reckless spinning. Her breath came a little faster than normal. But there was no tide of panic. No fear. Only a pleasant sensation of connection. Affection.
He held her with such gentle care.
More than affection. She had known she could love him if she dared. Known she might love him whether she wished it or nay.
Oh, on this road lay terrible folly. She knew it. What good end could come of this?
Drawing a slow breath, she pushed those thoughts aside. She would not spoil this fleeting joy by worrying about what would come when it was over.
Instead, she let herself enjoy the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, and that was a new and strange thing. Even her mother’s hugs had distressed her at times. Yet all she felt in Griffin’s embrace was safety and warmth and... physical interest. Again. Already. It seemed he was subject to similar emotion if the stirring of his penis against her hip was any indication.
Flustered, she pressed her lips together and dropped her chin. She could not recall a time when her secret terrors had not hovered just below the surface, ready to burst free without warning. Yet, standing here, held in Griffin’s embrace, those fears seemed, if not fallen by the wayside, at least paled to a less glaring shade.
Why? Because she was alive? Because she had come so close to the reaper, not once but twice, and lived to tell of it?
A measure of self-reproach came to her then.
How was it that she stood here now, with a vision of poor Sarah
Ashton so clear in her mind, and in the face of her horror she could still enjoy the sensation of Griffin’s touch, enjoy the pleasure of being alive in this moment and being with him?
Griffin kissed the top of her head, and somehow read her confusion.
“You have come through a horror, Beth, not unscathed, but undaunted,” he said. “Your curiosity, your intellect, your bravery are all far stronger than your fear. And to find pleasure in my body, to let me find pleasure in yours, is an affirmation of life.”
His words resonated with her, such simple truths. All these years, she had survived her memories, her nightmares, her fear. They were there, always there, eating at her like burning acid, but she had never given in. It would have been far easier to hide herself away, to sit by a window day after day and stare out at the sky. To never put herself in a position that triggered the crashing waves of terror. Never mingle with a crowd. Never go out past dusk. Never leave her home at all.
But that would have meant that she yielded. Surrendered. Admitted defeat.
She would never do that. Never.
She had escaped from the box once before. She would never allow it to lock her in again.
And she would not take Sarah Ashton’s tragedy as her own, though her heart bled with horror and dismay.
Why did she see this so clearly now? Was Griffin her crutch, offering her false confidence?
Snuggled against him, she felt the weight of his arms tight about her, and she thought that he was no crutch. Rather, he was the catalyst. If she was a cake, he was the powder that made her rise. And she thought that perhaps she offered a little of the same to him.
After a moment, Griffin kissed the top of her head once more, and swatted her lightly on the bottom, an action that both pleased and affronted her.
“Isobel will be wanting her breakfast, and wanting to see you,” he said, stepping away from her. “Best dress with all haste.”
Dress? Beth froze, sinking her teeth into her lower lip as she glanced at the privacy screen in the corner of the room and then at her pile of clothing. Finally, she looked at Griffin once more.
“Shoo,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?” His dark brows lifted.
“Shoo,” she repeated, mortified that he would think to remain here while she performed her ablutions or used the chamber pot. She flapped her hand at him, genuinely distressed by the thought. “Shoo, shoo, shoo.”
Laughing, he sketched her a graceful bow, the propriety of the action marred by his naked state. Then he turned toward the door that led from her chamber to his dressing room. Enticed, Beth leaned forward and swatted him lightly on his buttocks, then scooted behind the chair, putting it between them, a barrier.
“Turnabout is fair play!” she insisted, laughing, and when he made to walk toward her once more, she shook her head, wagged a finger. “Uh-uh-uh. Best dress with all haste. Isobel will be wanting her breakfast.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his face set with the oddest expression, solemn and pleased and puzzled all at the same time, and then he said, “You are the oddest woman, Beth. There is no other like you.”
Her heart flipped over, not for the words. The simple, silly, mundane words. But for the way he said them, carrying a wealth of emotion in inflection and tone.
She gasped, looked away, and barely managed to hold back her own emotions, her own words.
I love you.
To say them aloud would make them too real. She could barely comprehend the depth of her feelings for this man, She was not ready to divulge them. They were too new, too raw. She did not trust them, or herself. What did she know of love between a man and a woman?
An image of her parents danced in her thoughts. Laughing. Holding hands. Heads bent close together as they read from a shared book. Her father wiping a damp cloth over her mother’s brow when she had the ague. Her mother tending to her father in his wheeled bath chair.
Perhaps, then, she did know something of love.
Wetting her lips, she dropped her gaze. After a moment, she heard the door between their chambers close with a soft snick, and she was left to her privacy and her confusion.
o0o
Hours later, Beth walked by Griffin’s side under the mid-day sun. The air was fresh, perhaps too fresh, for she felt the bite of it through her clothing.
They had breakfasted with Isobel. The girl had smiled at Beth, and her gaze had not been distant and dreamy but sharp and pleased, her eyes shimmering. There had been untold pleasure in that moment, a wealth of hope released like a thousand butterflies to flit about the room on gossamer wings.
The only bittersweet moment had come when Beth had glimpsed the yearning in Griffin’s expression and realized that he ached for his daughter to smile at him. Not for the first time she wondered what tragedy marked this small family, what horror had driven Isobel so far into herself and so far from her father.
After breakfast, the Magistrate, Squire Spencer, had come with four men, and Beth had told her story with Griffin standing close behind her, his hands closed over the back of her chair. There had been comfort for her in that, in his mere presence, in the unspoken implication that he would let none distress her. In the end, she had answered all their questions, even the ones that made her heart twist with aching horror and her eyes burn with unshed tears.
The sad part of it was she doubted anything she told them would be of use in finding the killer. It was clear to her by the time they left that Squire Spencer and his men were still harboring the idea that all three killings were the doing of some wild beast.
How could they not see it was the work of a man... a monster in human guise? She had made every effort to suggest it to them, but they had simply stared at her, challenged her, asked for proof of her suppositions. Of course, she had none... not without revealing too much. Revealing her secrets, her fears, her past. And that, she would not do.
Shaking her head now, Beth pushed aside the memory of the squire and his men. She glanced first at Griffin, and then at Isobel, who walked ahead of them pushing a miniature pram with a porcelain baby doll inside.
“I almost forgot,” Griffin said, and drew forth a folded, sealed note. “This came for you earlier.”
Frowning, Beth took it from him and scanned the contents.
“‘Tis from Miss Percy,” she said, glancing at Griffin to judge his reaction. “She bids me rest this day, and she will send Mr. Waters with the cart this evening to fetch me back to Burndale Academy. She writes that I am sorely missed.”
His expression remained bland, but Beth detected a slight tensing of his shoulders.
“I see,” he replied, and turned his gaze to a point behind her. “I suppose you are indispensable to the headmistress.”
“I suppose I am.” Beth tried for a jaunty smile and cheeky tone, but she suspected she fell flat on both counts. What had she expected? That he would ask her to stay here at Wickham Hall? In what capacity? Governess? Mistress?
No, in truth, she was far too pragmatic to have expected anything of the sort, but expectation and hope were not at all the same thing.
Still, it made leaving him no easier.
He continued to stare at something behind her, Beth turned to see what he saw. There was only the looming bulk of Wickham Hall, the windows catching the sunlight, the brick adorned by creeping ivy, thick and green and strong. The front of the house was higher than the rear, lending the whole a somewhat romantic air. But there was something unsettling about the place, as well.
Not precisely grim, just... unsettling.
Frowning, she realized that one part of the roof was lopsided, covered by dark green moss, and the chimney there had toppled so all that remained was a jagged outline of tumbled brick.
“Why does the roof look so strange?” Beth asked, pausing to turn fully and study the line of the house.
Griffin shrugged. “The ceiling of the Long Gallery collapsed years and years ago. Almost no one goes there now. ‘Tis a dusty, neglected place
, boarded over by slats of wood.”
There was something in his tone that gave Beth pause.
“Do you go there?”
“At times,” he replied. A heartbeat, and he continued, “To brood.”
Beth might have laughed at that, but his words were not said in a tone that implied humor. She thought he offered them more as a warning, a glimpse into a part of his nature she had yet to see. They conjured an image of Griffin, sitting alone in a cavernous, disused hallway, brooding over his sins, staring out a window, thinking moody thoughts. She wanted to scoff, to disbelieve him inclined to such melancholy, but there was a different side to him she sensed, an element of darkness. He made no effort to hide it.
In fact, he named himself the villain quite readily, as she recalled.
The wind swirled down, and she drew close the blue cashmere shawl that draped her shoulders, her fingers sliding over the soft, fine weave. Griffin had handed the garment to her as they left the house, his expression strangely flat.
“This shawl is heavenly,” she said, and glanced at him to find him watching her with a tight, controlled look.
“It belonged to my wife.”
“Oh... I...” She had suspected it might, but had not dared to ask, had not thought to hear him speak of her. Her curiosity surged, and given that he had opened Pandora’s box, she had every intention of asking what questions she could. “What happened to her, Isobel’s mother?”
“Amelia. Her name was Amelia.”
For a time they simply stood on the lawn, side by side in the sunshine, their breath forming little white puffs before their faces as they watched Isobel walk her baby doll in its pram.
“I warned you that I am a villain. Do you recall?”
“Yes.” Beth pressed her lips together to keep from pointing out that she had seen nothing of his villainy and much of his kindness. He would not like her to say it, and she would do nothing to preclude his telling of this tale. She felt an urgency to know him, to understand what had shaped him.
