Maggie pulled his hand away, but didn’t let go of it. She liked the feeling of his warm palm flush against hers, and their fingers half tangled together. “Very funny,” she conceded.
Henry wasn’t smiling anymore. He was staring at her. The intensity of his gaze made her smile vanish too. The silence felt so heavy, and he felt so close. But his closeness didn’t frighten her. Not this time.
She watched his hand lift between them, before his fingertips softly grazed her lower lip. Her breath trembled out of her, brushing against the skin of his fingertips.
“Have I ever told you…” he whispered, as his eyes lowered to her mouth. “How captivating you are?”
Maggie was frozen, staring at his mouth just as he was staring at hers. She knew what was going to happen. She asked herself if she wanted it to and tried to summon her good sense.
But all she could think was yes. She wanted it.
Yes, yes, yes.
She felt him drawing closer, his fingertips sliding away from her lips and down her chin. It followed the path of her neck to the hollow of her throat, which made her breath catch audibly in her throat.
By the time the pad of his thumb brushed against her clavicle, he was so close that she could smell the honey scent of his breath. She remembered how sweet his taste was. And she craved it.
Her eyes slipped closed, and he kissed her.
It was barely a graze at first. The brush of a butterfly’s wing. Then he kissed her again, but this time his lips molded against hers as if they’d been made to fit together. A short, pitched sound bubbled up through her throat as he rose up onto his knees so that he could get closer to her. He did everything so slowly, so carefully. And she had to wonder how much it cost him to be so patient and tender with her.
They were both kneeling now, with their thighs flush against each other’s and their torsos aligned. She could feel the thump of his heart through their clothes, and she was certain that he could feel hers too.
His hand rose up the small of her back, sending a shiver dancing through her spine, until his fingers were curling through the hair pinned up at the back of her head. She felt a small tug, and then her locks fell free from their bun, spilling down her back.
“Henry…” she breathed, as his mouth began to scatter slow, warm kisses across the curve of her jaw. He was moving towards her ear, and then she felt the brush of his teeth against her lobe, and his hot breath in the hollow beneath it. The sensation made her suck in a breath. She’d never felt anything like that before, and it made her wonder what else he could make her feel.
Maggie anchored herself against his shoulders, gripping hard so that she wouldn’t melt into the ground. Her eyelids fluttered, and her head lolled back against her shoulders. He took this as an opportunity to access her neck, and began to kiss lower. She could feel her pulse hammering against his lips, and his arms binding around her lower back.
Her body curved into his, pushing her chest up against him while her fingernails dug into his shoulders. She didn’t mean to grip so hard, but she was quickly losing herself to his touch, to the soft puff of his breath on skin she’d never known to be sensitive before.
Henry reached the hollow of her throat, where he groaned. It was a gruff and animalistic sound that would have made her knees give way had she been standing.
She knew that she should be afraid of losing herself to him. Of letting him see her so entirely bereft of all her barriers. But she couldn’t summon that fear, and she didn’t want to. She wanted to savor this moment.
When his fingertips trickled down the curve of her spine, she wanted to be out of her dress almost as much as she wanted him out of his shirt.
As his lips traced the curve of her collarbone, Maggie found herself fixated on his clothes. With whisper-soft, hesitant hands, she peeled his jacket down his arms and let it drop to the ground. Then her fingertips moved to the top button of his shirt.
She popped it open, revealing a sliver of tan, velvet skin just beneath his throat. The sight of it made her hungry for more, and while his hands bunched up her skirts around her hips, her own continued to work at those buttons.
The heat that came off him was unexpected. He was like a burning fire, which made the room feel all the more chilly. She wanted to curl into the hearth of heat that he was and never leave. Never be cold again.
His hands were on her thighs.
Her mouth was on his neck, tasting the saltiness of his skin.
He lowered her down and pulled at the laces of her dress as he went, until the material was loose around her. She sucked in a breath when he set to work on her corset, and when she was free of it she knew what true liberation was. It was being with Henry, with nothing between them but skin.
The slow, elegance of their touching became fiercer as more skin was revealed, and she felt his desperation in the way that he moved. The way his hands gripped and travelled. He made her feel like his sustenance when he lay between her thighs. And when they were joined together, she felt his relief in the way his shoulders tensed and trembled.
She stroked his hair and whispered into his ear, telling him how it felt as he surged between her legs, making them twitch and shiver.
She bound him up in her, and it wasn’t like she’d ever imagined it to be. Maggie had always thought that this kind of intimacy with a man would take something from her. That it required submission. That was one of the reasons she’d always been so afraid of it.
But it didn’t feel like that. She felt like Henry was coming apart as much as she was. He was as vulnerable and open as her, needing to be soothed and reassured as they discovered their pleasure in one another.
She could see the emotion in his face as he moved. The sheer openness. Maggie had never seen such bare, raw truth in him before, and yet he wasn’t speaking at all. His body was communicating with hers, drawing her towards some unknown peak.
It surged, and she felt like Icarus getting too close to the sun. She wanted to go higher and higher, no matter the consequences.
And then she melted. They shared the peak, and muffled their cries against each other’s skin.
Chapter 31
Lord Henry Rivers, the Earl of Radingley
In the aftermath, there was this sweet, sharp satisfaction. With other women, he’d always felt deflated afterwards. Relaxed, but diminished. With Maggie, though they’d reached their completion together, the peak of it continued. He felt blinded by it, living in this prolonged sensation of pleasure.
They were lying beside one another on the floor of the library, in the narrow space between the bookshelves. They were shoulder to shoulder, their breaths coming in rapid puffs.
Neither of them had spoken. They were each staring up at the ceiling, with flushed skin and parted lips. Henry hadn’t known that physical intimacy could feel like that. It made his heart feel sensitive and tender, as if a single word of affection from her would make him weep.
“Was that…” he whispered, in a raspy voice.
“It was wonderful,” she assured him, without him needing to finish the question. He smiled and turned his head so that he could look at her. She looked at him too. Her eyes were glistening, and she was smiling softly.
Maggie touched his hand with hers, twining their fingers together against the ground. “We should go,” she murmured. “Before someone finds us.”
Henry knew that they should leave, but he could hardly stand the prospect. He didn’t want to leave this place, which suddenly felt sacred. What if, when they were outside, everything was different? What if the moment they stepped out into the hallway, they left what they’d just shared behind them? It was a silly, but intensely emotional thought. One he knew better than to listen to.
He nodded reluctantly and started to sit up. But he didn’t let go of her hand. As he stood, Henry helped her get to her feet. For a moment, they just stood there, looking at each other. He suddenly felt strangely shy, as if it had been his first time, which was absurdly far from the truth.
They both looked down at their twined fingers, then Henry cleared his throat and let go. “We should probably go to bed,” he murmured, his voice still husky.
“We should,” she agreed. But again, neither of them moved. He wanted her to come to bed with him, so that he could hold her in the aftermath of what had just happened between them. At the same time, he didn’t want to overwhelm her. And he certainly didn’t want her to get caught.
In truth… what he wanted more than anything was to tell her how he felt about her. He wanted to make her his, in every possible way. But he didn’t want to say it here. When he finally admitted how he felt, and that he wanted to be with her, he wanted it to be special.
With obvious reluctance, they each picked up their clothes and got dressed. He glanced at her as she did this, feeling his heat rise again just at the sight of her. When she was dressed, he missed the sight of her naked skin more than he could stand.
Once again, they faced each other, but this time fully clothed.
After a moment, Maggie rose up onto her tiptoes and cupped his face in her hand. She kissed the corner of his lips and lingered there before stepping back. “Goodnight, Henry,” she whispered.
And then she left.
Henry stayed in the library a little while longer. He leaned his back against one of the bookcases and expelled a slow breath. Then he started to smile, because he realized something as he stood there.
He was in love.
***
Miss Magdalene Riley, Daughter of the Baron of Brambleheath
Maggie went to her bed chambers and flattened her back against the door once it was closed. Her heart was still thundering wildly in her chest, and she couldn’t make herself feel entirely calm.
She put her hand over her heart, to feel it flutter, and closed her eyes. In a vivid instant, she relived every moment of him touching her. Of his muscles coiling around her, his taut thighs, his firm body. How his arms had felt like a shelter and the curls of his hair had felt like a nest of velvet around her fingers.
Maggie waited for the regret to come. For the shame, or the fear, or the sense of failure. But she felt only rapture, in its purest form.
She slipped into bed, feeling as if she was already dreaming. She hugged her pillow and smiled to herself, remembering the way his face had changed as he’d found his pleasure.
Lord Henry Rivers had done what she’d thought was impossible. He’d warmed her to him, and she’d fallen in love.
When the morning came, it felt like she’d been reborn into a different world. She felt jittery with excitement at the prospect of seeing him again and had every intention of spending the entire day with him.
That was until she stepped out of her bed chambers and bumped into his sister. Rachel looked as if she’d been awake for hours and was beaming. “I’m so glad you’re awake!” She chirped.
Maggie frowned. It was still so early. She’d woken up at the same time as the other household staff, but she hadn’t expected Rachel or Henry to be awake for at least another hour. “Were you waiting for me, my Lady?” She asked, blinking in surprise.
“Oh, don’t call me that,” Rachel insisted, with a wave of her hand. “Call me Rachel. And take a walk with me, would you? I’m terribly bored.”
“You’re an early riser,” Maggie noted.
Rachel hooked their arms together and started leading her outside. Maggie threw a wistful look over her shoulder, having hoped to spend a moment or two alone with Henry in his bedroom before doing anything else. But she knew that she couldn’t say no, so she allowed Rachel to lead her out into the gardens.
Rachel kept Maggie occupied for almost the entire day. She could chat for the whole of England and seemed stubbornly determined to keep Maggie by her side. “I really should head in and see Alicia,” Maggie remarked, after a couple of hours spent walking.
“Nonsense!” Rachel said. “I’m sure Henry is with her. And besides, I think we’re becoming friends.”
Maggie supposed that was true. She did rather like Rachel, it was just that she was so desperate to see Henry again. Later in the afternoon, Rachel took Maggie back inside for lunch, but they didn’t stop for long. Maggie had hoped this would give her an opportunity to see Henry, but they were only there long enough for Rachel to ask Alfred to arrange a picnic for them.
Then within minutes, they were back outside.
They sat down on the ground on top of a blanket when Alfred brought the picnic basket out for them. Maggie looked back at the house, hoping Henry would spot them and come join them.
But he didn’t.
“So, have you anything further to say about my brother’s character now?”
Maggie blinked out of her daydream of Henry walking across the garden towards them. “Pardon?”
“I asked you what you thought of my brother. Has your opinion changed at all?”
The last time Rachel had asked her this question, Maggie hadn’t had the confidence to find out why it was of such importance to Rachel. But now, she suspected why, and longed to have it confirmed.
“I wonder why you keep asking me that,” Maggie admitted.
Rachel shrugged. “As I said, I think you are a good influence on him. And I think he likes you.”
When she’d last said that, Maggie had barely held back a scoff. But now she saw the truth in it. Henry did like her. He liked her very much, she thought. “So I suppose I want to know if you like him too.”
“I do,” Maggie replied, though she kept her voice light, as if she considered both the question and the answer to be largely frivolous and unimportant. “All of his staff seem to like him,” she added.
“But none so much as you do,” she remarked, and then she took a sip from her water. Rachel cast her a knowing look over the top of her glass.
She knew.
Maggie didn’t know how, or how much, but it was clear that Rachel had at least an inkling that there was something between her and Henry.
Maggie didn’t know what to say in answer. She felt like she’d been found out, but at the same time she felt certain that Rachel wasn’t reprimanding her. Was she encouraging this Maggie’s relationship with her brother? The thought seemed too good to be true.
“Anyway,” Rachel went on, before Maggie could put her concerns into words. “I wanted to spend this afternoon with you before I left.”
“You’re leaving?” Maggie blurted.
“Yes.” Rachel smiled as she said this. “I ought to go back home to my husband.”
“Oh,” Maggie said, feeling strangely disappointed. “That’s a shame,” she added, honestly.
“It is,” Rachel replied. “I would have liked to get to know you better.”
“And I you.”
“Perhaps in the future then,” Rachel replied, as she reached out and squeezed Maggie’s hand. Again, their eyes met… and she felt like there was a shared secret between them. “I imagine that I’ll have ample opportunity.” With those words, she winked.
Winked.
She knew. And she didn’t mind. Maggie started to smile and squeezed her hand back. “I would like that.”
Chapter 32
Lord Henry Rivers, the Earl of Radingley
Henry expected to spend the day with Maggie, but it wasn’t to be. There were things he needed to say to her. Promises and assurances he needed to make. He went looking for her in the house initially, checking all of the places she’d usually be, but had no success. When Alicia was awake, he asked her if she wanted to help him find her, and she agreed most enthusiastically.
After a little while spent searching, they decided that she must be in the gardens and went to look for her there. As they walked hand-in-hand, Henry said, “Is it not unusual for her to miss lessons?”
“Yes,” Alicia replied. “She never misses lessons. And she says that if I’m to depend on her to be at every lesson, than she must be able to depend on me to be at every lesson.”
This made Henry smile. “Wise words,�
�� he answered.
In truth, Henry was a little concerned. He felt that his relationship with Maggie was still extremely delicate. What if she was regretting what had happened between them? The longer they spent looking for Maggie, the further his thoughts escalated. What if she was so upset about what had happened that she’d decided to leave? What if the shame was driving her mad, and she’d gone roaming the grounds alone and gotten lost?
Just as his worries turned towards paranoia, he caught sight of them. “She’s with Auntie Rachel,” Alicia observed. She started towards the pair, smiling brightly, but Henry tugged on her hand lightly to draw her back.
“We should let them spend time together,” Henry said. “How about you and I do something fun?”
The Sinful Secret 0f A Broken Earl (Historical Regency Romance) Page 23
