Tears stung her eyes, and a few even escaped and rolled down her cheek, knowing how much heart and soul and strength went into those words. This is what she should have done for Matthew. On the ice that day. She had missed her moment out of stupid doubt and it took this moment to make her realize she was never going to get that day on the ice back. Not ever. “Jacob. I admire your strength and your heart. I’m ever so sorry that—”
“There is no need to say it.” Jacob held up a hand, not meeting her gaze. “I seized my moment when I thought I never would. And that is all that matters.” He half nodded and turned away. Retrieving his top hat from the floor, he angled toward the door and jerked it open. Stepping out, he quietly shut it behind him.
Bernadette closed her eyes, trying to steady herself in between uneven breaths. And so it was Jacob Astor, a boy—or rather, a man, for he had earned it—had taught her more about life and love in that one moment than she had ever been able to teach herself.
It was all about seizing your chance.
Even if it never amounted to anything.
Opening her eyes, she swung back to Matthew, who still lingered in the foyer. She paused, noting his disheveled hair and...that right hand of his, which he rigidly flexed, was swollen and smeared with scabbing blood.
She shook her head, angst overwhelming her. Ronan had rightfully predicted bloody knuckles. Striding toward him, she grabbed Matthew’s wrist hard and held it up rigidly toward his face. “Why would you do this to yourself?” she choked out. “What purpose does it serve? Would it have brought her back?”
He yanked his hand from her grip and stepped back. Glancing toward Ronan, who still quietly watched them, he rasped, “Ronan, can you give us a moment please?”
Ronan only stoically stared Bernadette down. “If we hadn’t come back when we did, Milton, who knows what would have happened. She probably would have been pounding into him by now.”
Bernadette’s eyes widened.
Matthew jumped toward Ronan and grabbed him by the collar hard, jerking him toward himself. “You listen to me, boy.” Matthew shook him. “You need to cease comparing every goddamn woman to your mother. You’re going to end up hurting far more than just the women around you. You’re going to end up hurting yourself. What you just saw there was a genuine exchange between a real gentleman and a real lady that would have played out the same if we were here to see it or not. Now, I want you to apologize to Bernadette. Because she is and will forever be a lady. And don’t you ever bloody forget it.”
Bernadette dragged in a much-needed breath. This was why she was in love with her Matthew. Because even in the throes of being tested by having a young boy fall upon his knee for her, he had, in the end, remained true to himself and to her, and was everything other men were not.
Ronan slowly pulled himself out of Matthew’s grasp. “I’m sorry, Milton. You’re right. I didn’t mean to—” He squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, then awkwardly met her gaze, tears now pooling in his brown eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to be a better person. I’m trying. I really am.”
She hurried toward Ronan and, still clutching her father’s letter, embraced him. As she pulled away, she forged a smile, if only to ensure him that she understood. She tapped at his chin. “It takes a real gentleman to apologize. Thank you.”
Ronan nodded, but wouldn’t meet her gaze as he scrambled away. Darting around Matthew, Ronan hurried up the stairs and out of sight.
She sighed and met Matthew’s stare, cradling her father’s letter against her chest.
Matthew’s gaze snapped to the letter she held. His square jaw tightened as he stepped back and back. Swinging away, he grabbed up his coat from the banister and jogged up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, and disappeared.
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat.
Oh, now that wasn’t fair.
For, now he appeared to be angry with her.
Still clutching the parchment, she hurried up the long staircase after him. “Matthew?”
Peering into every open door she passed, she eventually paused before what appeared to be his bedchamber. She blinked at what she saw within.
Matthew had stripped to mere trousers, leaving his clothing in a bundled pile on the floor a few feet from his bed.
She lingered in the doorway. “Matthew?”
He lowered himself to the floor and, to her astonishment, set both hands flat on the floor, with his long legs outstretched, and proceeded to lift and lower his entire body. Every muscle in his back and his arms tightened and flexed as he kept lifting and lowering, lifting and lowering without pause.
She stepped in, closing the bedchamber door behind herself to allow privacy. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t pause. “I’m ensuring I don’t hit any more walls. Given that it upsets you.” Perspiration beaded his forehead as he focused on the floor beneath him, pumping his arms up and down.
Sensing he wasn’t about to stop, Bernadette lowered herself to the floor beside him. “Matthew, please.”
He paused and glanced over at her, holding himself in midair. Pushing himself up and back, he landed on the floor across from her with a thud, sitting cross-legged beside her. He searched her face, but said nothing.
“Why are you angry?” She tried to keep her voice steady.
He leaned back. “Because I’m confused.”
“About what?”
“Do you plan on keeping it? And if so, why?”
She blinked. “Keeping what?”
He gestured rigidly toward the letter. “What he wrote to you. You’ve been cradling that goddamn letter from start to finish.”
That was why he was angry. He thought she was cradling a letter from Jacob. Even after what had happened. “Oh, Matthew.” She shook her head and held it out. “’Tis from my father. He didn’t have my new address. He was therefore forced to send it to the Astors. Jacob was delivering it. I’m afraid I must leave New York. I must go to him.”
Matthew paused. He quickly leaned back in, taking the unfolded parchment, his rugged features now anguished and soft. “Now I feel like a dolt. I didn’t mean to accuse you of...” He sighed, set aside the letter, reached out and dragged her over to him, shifting against the floor they still sat on.
Bernadette buried her face against the warmth of his chest.
His lips trailed from the top of her head to her forehead. He paused. Releasing her, he grabbed her face so as to better look at her. “Do you know how damn hard it was to watch that? To remain calm? To doubt what you would say or what you would do?”
Tears blinded her, feeling and seeing the emotional intensity in his face and in those large hands that held her rigidly in place. And she knew what she needed to do.
She grabbed his hands and dragged him and herself up off the floor. Angling him toward herself, she let out a shaky breath and then, as Jacob had done, lowered herself onto her knees, her gown bundling around her. “If you must know, Matthew, that should have been me kneeling before you. As I am now. I should have done it that day on the ice when you kept me from falling and the world stood still. For that is when I knew I was yours and would forever be yours.”
He stared down at her, his bare chest rising and falling in uneven takes. “What are you saying?”
Through tears that were now overwhelming her at realizing just how momentous this moment truly was for her, given she never thought she would ever love or find a man like him, she grabbed his hands and choked out, “Marry me, Mr. Matthew Joseph Milton. For I love you.”
“Bernadette.” He stumbled down to his knees, joining her back on the floor and grabbed her face with both hands again.
His mouth hovered close. “Bernadette. Surely you already know how I feel.”
A sob escaped her at knowing that, by seizing her chance, she had seized him.
He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. Gently, he parted her lips by sliding his tongue into her mouth, silently announcing that he was in
deed forever hers.
His hold tightened as his hot tongue now fully roamed hers. He molded and remolded his mouth against hers, his fingers digging harder into her.
She melted. And she not only melted but almost slumped against him in agonizing bliss she’d never felt in all her life. Wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, she reveled in the heat of his mouth and the dominance of that hot tongue that raked her teeth and the inside of her own mouth.
They kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed.
It was like kissing him for the first time.
His large hands rounded from her waist to her backside, his palms roving up her back and into her hair and back down again.
He jerked her toward him. Releasing her mouth, he jumped to his feet, bent and swung her up and into his arms with a tilt and a sweep.
She clung to him as he veered straight toward the mahogany four-poster covered with white linens and pillows.
He paused and captured her mouth again, tightening his hold on her and crushing her body against his chest. Even though that crushing hold pinched her dangling legs against his muscled arms, she didn’t mind at all.
He set her gently atop the mattress. Holding her gaze, he stepped back and stripped the last two pieces of clothing from his half-nude body—his trousers and the undergarments beneath them. He now stood gloriously naked.
She sank back against the mattress, feeling rather faint in between ragged breaths she couldn’t seem to take. From that broad chest and that scar she remembered all too well, to his narrow waist, to—
Climbing onto the bed with her, he grasped her ankles, tossing off one slipper then the other. Shoving his hands up the length of her stockinged legs, he dragged her gown, along with all of her petticoats and chemise, up, up to her waist, watching himself do it.
She had never felt more aware of him or of them.
He pushed all the material to the side of her waist, completely exposing her lower half and climbed on top of her, pressing her into the mattress with his own naked body. “Bernadette,” he murmured from above. He smoothed away her hair from her forehead with both hands. “I’ve loved you ever since you kissed me in front of that bastard Royce and saw past every single broken window of my life.”
This glorious man had loved her all along.
He searched her face and ground his erection against her exposed lower half. “I want to change everything between us. Let me.”
“How?”
Spitting into his hand twice, he leaned away and lubricated his rigid length well, holding her gaze. He lowered himself back onto her and, still holding her gaze, pressed the tip of his length against her bum. “I want this.”
Her eyes widened as he rigidly held the wet tip of his erection against her, waiting for permission. She’d never let any man penetrate her there.
She swallowed, still holding his gaze.
Matthew leaned down and licked her mouth, then kissed it, making her fade with the eroticism of it. “Hurting you is the last thing I’d ever want to do. If it hurts, I’ll stop.”
Her breaths escaped in shallow takes. He wanted it and so she wanted it. She wanted to give this incredible man something no man had ever taken from her. She slid her hands across his shoulders, savoring him against her fingers. “Yes. Simply know that I have never...” She couldn’t say it.
His jaw tightened. “And that is why I want it.” Wetting and rewetting his hand with the moisture of his mouth, he covered the tip of his length until it was fully slick and, capturing her gaze from above, pressed gently against the opening no man had ever touched.
She could feel his wet length slowly sliding in. Though it felt uncomfortable, it didn’t hurt given that rigid length was wet and going in very, very slowly.
As he edged in deeper, his hand slid from his cock to her wet folds. He spread them and commenced fingering her nub, intent on pleasuring her as he pushed deeper into her. She closed her eyes, giving in to the tight, stretching sensation of her backside being entered and being fingered at the same time. It was a twisting of pleasure and pain that wildly heightened with each breath she took.
It was incredible.
He pushed all the way in with a groan, fingering her faster. “You are now my virgin. Mine.”
She gasped, unable to think as he slowly stroked into her bum and fingered her at the same time, using equal rhythm for both. She felt as if both strokes would be her undoing. Her pleasure and climax were already so close at hand even though he’d barely started.
She gripped his smooth, muscled shoulders and slid her hands down, down to his naked waist, digging her nails into him.
He groaned and groaned again, stroking his length into her backside more and more.
Those constant strokes and incessant fingering finally made her burst. She cried out in awed anguish, bucking beneath him and the pressure that made her writhe. She extended her throat and body in an effort to feel every last inch of his length inside her, not wanting it to end.
He slid out completely, releasing her, and with a breath, penetrated the wetness leading to her womb. He savagely held on to her, pressing her hard into the mattress, and pounded into her relentlessly. He dug his teeth deep into her shoulder and with one last thrust, stilled, groaning out his climax as his seed filled her. He clamped his teeth into her shoulder harder.
The sting of his teeth made her wince before it lulled as he loosened his bite. She tightened her hold on him.
He kissed her shoulder twice where he had bitten into it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bite so hard.”
She smiled. “I didn’t mind.”
His chest heaved against hers as he rolled them both over on the mattress. He tucked her against his chest, settling on his back. He drew in a breath, his fingers digging into her. “I owe everything that I have to you. Even the air I’m breathing.”
She nestled her head against that solid, warm chest. “Cease.”
He kissed the top of her head several times. “Are you sore? I tried not to...overdo it.”
She choked on a rather awkward laugh. “I will not lie. I feel like any virgin would after her first encounter.”
He tightened his hold. “Did you enjoy it?”
Why did she feel so awkward talking about it?
“I... Yes. I will admit I did.”
“Good.”
She smiled and traced a finger from his nipple down toward one of his scars, happy to know he was no longer a part of that rough life on the street and living in bare rooms with broken windows. She shifted herself against him so as to better glance up at him.
His features were relaxed, though in deep thought. He stared up at the upholstered canopy of the bed.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“You.” His brows came together. “I never answered. Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”
Her heart squeezed knowing that marrying this man would be marrying into a lifetime of everything she had ever wanted. It was hard to believe she ever could have doubted that the promise of matrimony could bring her such happiness. But then again, Matthew himself was hard to believe. “To be your wife will be the greatest honor I will ever know as a person and as a woman. I want you to know that.”
He glanced down at her, capturing her gaze. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.” He squeezed her against himself, kissing her forehead. “So much for our courtship.”
She let out a laugh. “It was glorious while it lasted.”
Grabbing her face, he kissed her on the lips several times. “I want five children. Maybe six if we get around to it. Are you up for it?”
Bernadette’s lips parted, realizing she had yet to share that particular detail about herself. “Matthew. I...” Lowering her gaze to the scar on his chest, tears stung her eyes. Fighting against the burn, a sob escaped her. “I’m so sorry.”
He stiffened. Grasped her chin, he jerked it toward her. “What? Why are you crying?”
She sniffed, annoyed with herself f
or having no strength. “I am incapable of having children, Matthew. My husband and I tried for twelve years. I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
“I didn’t realize that...” He grew quiet.
When he still said nothing, she choked out, “Say something. Say what you really feel. Please. I need to hear it.”
He released her chin and kissed her hand hard, digging his lips into her skin. “It doesn’t matter how I feel,” he murmured against her hand, even though she sensed it meant everything to him.
Her lips trembled as she fought against sobbing again. “A man who hosts charity events for children and becomes the guardian to a boy that isn’t his own clearly longs to be a father.”
He shook his head. “Stop. No. It doesn’t matter.”
He swiped away the tears running down her cheeks with his thumb and softly said, “Don’t cry, luv. I already have everything I could ever want. Ronan needs us. Other children need us. There are so many orphans, we shouldn’t be selfish and think our love ends with us. And what of this thing you call hope? We have time to try.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she savagely clung to him and those beautiful words she hoped were, in fact...true.
“Bernadette,” he whispered.
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
A choked sob escaped her. “And I love you.”
He kissed her forehead. “We’ll marry at once and go straight from here to London. It’s important you see your father. I’ll have Kerner take over the paper while I’m gone. That way, you and I can arrive before your father, not in shame, but as husband and wife.”
She nodded against him and prayed that whatever was left of the father she once knew—the one who would lovingly set her upon his knee and kiss her forehead—would accept them both.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A wife will say that her husband forgets to honor and cherish her, to which the husband says, he did not forget, she merely forgot to obey. With this sort of rancid perception, gentlemen, ’tis no wonder the world is in the state it is in. Honor and cherish not only your wives but your children.
Forever a Lady Page 25
