“Is there a man with a gun forcing you to say such reasonable things? I confess I’m shocked and a bit disconcerted,” Lex said. “I really thought I could count on you to make me feel properly ashamed.” He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the thought. “In any event, what I was trying to say is that I’ll turn three-and-forty this winter. I got rid of any residual angst over my amorous proclivities more than two decades ago, but I do regret not having had the opportunity to have children. I always thought there would be nieces and nephews. I was the oldest, and there were always children about. And now . . .” He shrugged. “It’s very pleasant to be around a child, especially at Pelham Hall. We were all shipped off here every summer, you know, and we reverted to a state of nature while my parents indulged us. The house was part of my mother’s marriage settlement, and when she married she left it to Penny. I have to imagine that Penny would have left it to a daughter.”
Sydney’s heart clenched. “I wish she had been able to.” If there had been any justice in the world, Andrew and Penny would still be alive, Pelham Hall would still be standing, and—he tried very hard not to think about that cradle in the attic.
Lex tilted his head. “What I was trying to say was that even though Leontine is no blood relation of mine nor of Penny’s, I find it doesn’t matter.” He spoke these words with something very near an actual smile.
“I’m not going to just take her away, all right?” Sydney said, because that was clearly what Lex was asking for. “I thought I’d have nieces and nephews too.”
“I was surprised to find that you hadn’t started a family of your own.”
Sydney laughed. “Are you in league with my mother?” he asked. “I seldom live in one town for more than a year. I work ten-hour days for months, then sit idly at home as I wait for another project to start up, which hardly seems the sort of domestic life most people would want for themselves.” That much was true, but he also doubted his ability to find a partner who wished to spend time with him. He was nearly thirty and hadn’t even come close. The idea of having domestic happiness himself seemed faintly ludicrous. If he were another man, a very different man altogether, he might have thought that whatever he had with Amelia might lead in the direction of homes and hearths; he might even have given it a name. That was for warmer, kinder people; Sydney had steam and steel. He told himself that was enough.
“I’m asking for one little detail,” Amelia pleaded. “A tiny little detail.”
“You’re a ghoul,” Keating remonstrated, crouching on the ground to remove a stone from his horse’s hoof.
“You’re hoarding gossip,” Amelia retorted. “You go up to Pelham Hall every day, for your own fell and mysterious purposes, which I’ve nobly refrained from asking you about, and still you won’t tell me a single thing that’s happening there. Janet says Pelham Hall has a ghost in its attic.”
“There’s a ghost in your attic,” Keating said, tapping his head.
“Janet says the family is cursed. Apparently all the sons of the ducal line are doomed to die before their twenty-fifth birthday,” Amelia persisted.
Keating snorted. “The duke is past forty, so I’d say the curse isn’t worth much.”
“So you have seen him,” Amelia said. She was frantically trying to assemble information about this duke before she and Georgiana had to meet him. It was dawning on her that however strictly they had confined their letters to historical matters, an unmarried woman’s correspondence with a man might open that woman up to rampant speculation. And for that man to have the social standing to dispose of a woman’s good name with a flick of his quill across some very costly paper, made the matter considerably worse. She wished she knew more about the character of the man who held Georgiana’s reputation in his hands. She could not remember ever having heard much gossip about him during her years in London, which could mean that he traveled in circles so exalted that even Alistair’s connections couldn’t gain Amelia’s family entrée, or could mean that he was a retiring sort of person.
“All I can tell you is that there’s a dozen workmen up there.” Keating got to his feet and dusted his hands on his trousers. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but if anybody here makes trouble for you, you don’t have to stay.”
“I can’t. I already ran away from London—”
“I know, love. But sometimes running is all you can do. We’ll pack up the house and find another place to live.” He looked down at her with a sympathy so far removed from his usual dry and short-tempered manner that she felt her eyes prickle.
“Right. You’re right.” She rubbed a tear with the back of her hand and strove to recover her composure.
“Look, there’s somebody waiting for you.” Keating gestured towards the lane.
Amelia actually let herself gasp out loud when she saw Sydney leaning against the fence post.
“You’re back!” she cried, going to meet him. “Did you get everything done you needed to in Manchester? You look terrible.” He had circles under his eyes. On the bright side, his scruff had grown into a proper beard. “I mean, relatively speaking. You started out looking perfectly well. Better than well.” She paused to catch her breath. “I think I’ve made my feelings clear on that score.”
He smiled, whether at her graceless rambling or the compliment, she did not know. When, she wondered, had she stopped trying to manage her reactions around him? She was very conscious of employing no artifice, no screen. Her honesty seemed to be enough for him.
“I spent six days arguing with businessmen about the impracticality of laying rails over a bottomless bog and then another six days repeatedly explaining why the path must be level.” He held out his arm for her, and she took it, relishing the solid warmth of him beside her. “That would be bad enough even if I hadn’t already had precisely those same conversations with precisely those individuals a month ago. Compounding matters, I don’t think I’ve slept more than a few hours straight since July. Last night a family of hedgehogs appeared from behind the wainscoting. And I’ve had nothing more nourishing today than a soapy tea cake.”
“The conditions at the Swan are worse than I realized,” she said, aghast. His arm went stiff under her touch and she looked at his face, which was sterner than usual. Every now and then she ran up against a brick wall when talking to him. Probably she ought to ask what it was that distressed him, but she decided he’d have already volunteered the information if he wanted to. The ease of their rapport was partly due to the fact that they didn’t ask one another difficult, prying questions. They took one another as they were, without demanding explanations or excuses. “Well, at least you’ll have some proper food today. I brought cucumber sandwiches and cold chicken.”
“You’re an angel,” he said softly. “I did miss this. Thank you for your letters.” His voice was gruff, his gaze intent on her, and she realized that he was . . . fond of her. Well, she already knew he enjoyed being with her and liked the looks of her. This other thing, this softness in his eyes, this angel business, that was only to be expected, she supposed. She had to acknowledge that she probably had a corresponding set of emotions. But it all felt somehow regrettable, a reminder that they couldn’t go on like this forever, and however it concluded would be unpleasant in one way or another. She resolutely shoved all that aside; she was an expert at getting rid of inconvenient feelings.
“Did you hear that there’s a duke living at Pelham Hall?” she asked, striving to make light conversation.
“I don’t want to talk about dukes.” His voice was low, almost a growl. “Bollocks on every last one of them.”
“Are you a radical? What a relief. One doesn’t like to ask, but what if I had kissed a Tory?”
He huffed out a laugh. “Yes, but that’s not why I don’t want to talk about dukes.” He slipped his arm loose from her grip and instead took hold of her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I missed you, Amelia.”
“Oh,” she managed, hope and desire and nerves all mingling togeth
er to cloud her thoughts. “Dare I hope that what you have in mind is more kissing? Is that how you sweet talk all the girls? Bollocks on dukes, let’s kiss? Unconventional but extremely effective, if so, because I’m—”
She broke off because he turned to face her, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. His eyes were lit up with laughter and she was glad his earlier seriousness had passed. “I do like you, Amelia. I haven’t laughed like this in years. Maybe ever. Thank you for that.” Before she could point out that he hardly laughed at all, he stepped nearer, and she could smell his soap, the smell of him, and her words disappeared from her tongue. “For two weeks, all I’ve been able to think about is how you kissed me.”
“How I kissed you,” she said. “That’s rich. I do recall you kissing me back.”
“I certainly did, and I’ll do it again.” He bent his head to kiss her and she almost moaned into his mouth at the contact. His beard was rough but his lips were gentle and soft. She opened her mouth a bit, hoping for more, and felt his hands clamp down on her hips. He was holding himself back, and she didn’t want any part of that, so she put a hand to the back of his head and held him close. She licked into his mouth, tasting and exploring and wondering at how something so basic and unmysterious could act like a key in a lock.
“We’re in the middle of a path,” he said, murmuring the words into the edge of her mouth, as if he didn’t want to pull away far enough to speak the words properly.
“That way,” she said, indicating a point over her shoulder. “There’s a spot a little bit further up the hill.” She had found it when Nan chased a hare through the bramble.
Neither of them made any move to leave the path, though. He still looked down at her with an intensity that made her want to shrink away, or diffuse the tension with a silly remark. But instead she let him look at her, and she tried to return the look with one as open and honest. She couldn’t do it, though. She felt bare and unprotected. Instead, she pulled him close and their lips met, no hesitation or gentleness this time. His chest was solid and warm against hers, his hands strong and sure on her waist. He kissed her as if this—this moment, this place, Amelia—were all he wanted, all he cared about. And she kissed him back with the same need.
This was the most honest she had ever been, the least artifice she had ever deployed, and she didn’t know if it was because she was thinking with her body or because she was beyond thought altogether. Or maybe it was that Sydney let her be honest, let her be truly herself. Maybe he liked her the way she was, and that let her be truthful to him and to herself.
And that, more than anything, made her want this. She wanted a chance to see what happened if she kept being honest.
Chapter Eight
Amelia took his hand and led him through a stand of trees to what had once probably been a stable or barn but was now four stone walls in various stages of disintegration, each overgrown with ivy. Because of course Amelia thought this was an excellent place to—Sydney’s thoughts skittered wildly around—to do whatever she wanted with him, frankly.
She leaned back against one of the walls and looked up at him with a smile that was halfway to a laugh, as if they were in on the same joke.
“Amelia,” he breathed.
She was smiling fully now, wickedly, as if she knew exactly what she wanted and intended to have it, and Sydney found that he was very, very supportive of that, even though apparently what she wanted was to seduce him behind the ruins of some kind of barn in broad daylight. He had barely enough reason left in his brain to reflect that this was not the most prudent idea he had ever had. It was secluded, and they’d hear anyone coming, but Sydney was not sure he’d object even if they were in a shop window.
There was no coyness in her demeanor, no hesitation either. She raised an eyebrow, and as if a puppet on a string, he put a palm flat on the stone wall behind her head. The wall seemed solid, at least. That was good. He had just enough time to be satisfied with his forethought when she took hold of his collar and tugged him forward.
He brought his mouth close enough that he could feel her breath on his lips. It was she who closed the gap, brushing her lips over his. He pressed in closer, then ran a hand down her side, feeling where she was trapped between his body and the wall. He deepened the kiss and she opened for him, tilting her head back as far as the wall would allow.
He kissed her some more, one hand on the hard stone wall and the other on the softness of her waist, then kissed down her neck until he reached the edge of her gown. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked into the smooth skin of her throat, mortified to discover that it came out more a desperate question than a teasing threat.
Her fingers threaded through his hair, holding him close to her, and the tug at his scalp caused all his thoughts to careen wildly off the rails. That was—not something he knew he wanted. She did it again and he heard himself make a pleading noise into the skin behind her ear. A few strands of her hair had come down from her knot, and he pushed them off her neck to clear the way for more kisses. She tilted her chin up to give him better access. Now that he had his hands on her, and her hands on him, he felt like he couldn’t get enough. He had been imagining this for longer than he cared to admit, even to himself. “What do you like?” he asked, deliriously proud of stringing those four words together.
She let out a breathy little laugh. “I don’t think there’s anything you could do that I wouldn’t like.”
He skimmed a hand along her bodice, her breast soft and heavy in his hand. “This all right?” he murmured.
“Not even close,” she said, and reeled him in by the lapel for another kiss. She tasted of strawberries and sunshine, sweet and bright and lovely. He wanted to lay her down and strip her, taste every inch of her, learn every part of her. But she was panting against his mouth and he was hard in his trousers. He cupped her breast in his palm, running his thumbnail over the peak of one nipple. She groaned and—oh, God help him, she wrapped a leg around his waist. He got a hand under her hips and lifted, holding her against him so she could feel his hardness. She worked her hand under his shirt, feeling his back, his sides, as if she were trying to touch as much of him as possible. This felt precious and impossible, too good and bright and soft to be happening to him. Her fingernails dug into his skin, sharp and insistent.
“Amelia,” he said, his still untouched cock twitching in his trousers. “You’ll kill me.” He kissed her again, as if they were in a sensible place for this to be happening, as if this were a sensible decision in the first place. But the softness of her hips under his hands, the sharpness of her teeth against his lower lip—these were arguments that superseded anything like reason.
“Please,” she said. “I need more.” She looked frantically at him, gray eyes blown wide.
If Amelia needed more, he was going to give her more, whether they were on a hilltop or a rooftop or the middle of the bottomless bog itself. He found the hem of her dress and slid his hand up her calf. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes,” she said. And then, of all the damned things in the world to do at that moment, she laughed. “Sydney,” she said, “it’s not even noon. Whatever will your liege lord say?”
“He’s dead,” he said bluntly. “Tragic. What a loss.” His hand cupped the back of her knee, lifted it.
“Are you being droll? Whoever would have—”
He kissed her and could feel her smile against his own. He caressed up her thigh until he found the wet heat of her, then traced his thumb along her opening. She made a desperate noise and pressed against his hand. “Tell me how you like it,” he said.
“Inside,” she said in a choked-sounding voice. He slid two fingers into her and she buried her face in his neck, kissing the sensitive place where his throat met his beard.
He moved his thumb to stroke her clitoris and she bit his neck. “Sweetheart, so good,” he babbled as he continued to stroke her, his thoughts completely unraveled by the feel of her around his fingers, the contrast between the sof
tness of her body and the sharpness of her teeth, her nails.
“Do that again,” she said, pushing against his hand, “and don’t stop.”
He tried to memorize every sound she made as her need ratcheted up, which touches made her breath catch and her grip tighten. Then she was biting hard on his collarbone, clenching around his fingers, and then, finally, limp in his arms. He gentled his touch, reluctant to pull away.
“That was,” she said after panting against his chest for a minute, her face buried in his coat, “a good start.” Then she moved her hands to the fall of his trousers and unfastened them. He was as hard as a pikestaff and trying his best not to think about it. “May I?” she asked.
“You may do any damned thing you wish,” he managed. “Enact any of your fantasies. Do your worst.” And that was the last sensible sentence he said, because by then she had her hand wrapped around his erection, tentatively stroking it as if it might break. “Harder,” he muttered. She increased the pressure marginally, and he was too desperate for friction to care for manners, so he wrapped his own hand around hers and showed her. “Yes,” he groaned.
“Is that good?” she asked.
“Amelia, sweetheart—” He wanted to tell her that if she kept going, she’d see how good it was in about ten seconds, but the words wouldn’t form. All he managed was a hoarse “Keep your skirts clear, I should think.” She let go, the infernal woman. “Why,” he begged. “Why?”
“I want you inside me,” she said in a tone that carried no hesitation.
For an instant all the objections presented themselves in a swirl of judgment: they were outdoors, it was the middle of the day, she could fall pregnant, she could lose her reputation, it could be a ghastly and disappointing experience. But Amelia knew those things, and she was asking for this, and they both wanted it. And he was falling in love with her. He knew he shouldn’t think about that. There were good reasons not to let his mind go to that place, and he’d remember whatever they were later.
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