He was grateful that the moon was full enough for her to recognize him. At least he wasn’t going to be bludgeoned tonight.
“It’s me,” he said.
“Heel, Nan. Good girl. What are you doing here?” Her hair was in a plait and she wore a dressing gown.
“It took hours to get Leontine to sleep,” he said. “And at some point in the past week, half Lex’s household has moved to Pelham Hall. His secretary seems to be sleeping in my bedroom, and I can’t tell if this is due to confusion or if Lex is trying give me an excuse to spend the night here. As if I’d need the excuse. I missed you.”
She kissed him, and he could feel the promise in it. The feel of her hips under his fingers and the scent of her hair almost brought tears to his eyes. She was warm and solid in his arms and he didn’t want to step away, not now or ever. She pulled back enough to speak. “I love you. We’ll make this work.”
“We already are.”
She tugged on his sleeve, and he let himself be led inside. He let himself be led right up the stairs.
“You don’t mean to tell me you mean to do this in a bed,” he asked when she had shut the door behind them. “Although if you intend to keep holding that frying pan, I suppose it’ll add a bit of a frisson.”
She pantomimed hitting him in the shoulder with the pan, then put it aside on a table.
“Oh well. Guess we’ll do without the—”
She kissed him. “When did you become funny?” she asked. “You used to be so stern. All eyebrows and jaw and shoulders.”
“I still have all those things.”
“But they aren’t always cross.” She unwound his neck cloth and dropped it to the floor.
“It’s probably you. Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Oh, I already did.”
There went Sydney’s coat. He held still while she untucked his shirt and lifted the hem.
“Get it off,” she said, already applying her mouth to his chest. She bit his collarbone as she began unbuttoning the fall of his trousers.
The previous times they had been together, they had hardly removed any clothing at all, only loosened this and pushed aside that. Now, in the moonlight, he wanted to see her. So when he kicked off his boots and stepped out of his trousers, he took hold of the cord of her dressing gown. He raised a questioning eyebrow.
She hesitated. Not, he conjectured, from shyness; she had stripped him naked and currently had one pale hand wrapped around his cock. Under no circumstances would he think of her as bashful. He had seen that hesitation before, when she was deciding whether to be honest.
“I’m confident we can make do with your wrapper on,” he said. She could wear three dressing gowns and a riding cloak and he’d find a way to make her feel good.
She let the dressing gown fall. Her night rail, or chemise, or whatever it was called, was nothing more than a spiderweb of fine cotton lawn. With her back to the window, she was silhouetted by moonlight and he could make out the lush curve of her hip and the softness of her waist, the heavy fullness of her breasts and her plump arms. And that was through the gown—his mouth watered.
He put a hand at the small of her back and pulled her close, relishing the feel of her with nothing between them but that gossamer-fine cotton. He bent his head to kiss her throat, loosening the drawstring around the neckline, then skimming his hands over her breasts. He ran his hands over her nipples, heard her catch her breath, and then dropped to his knees. He slid his hand up her leg, then lifted the hem of her chemise and pressed a kiss to her stomach. He raised his eyes to make sure she liked what he was doing, and only saw hunger in response. He brought his mouth lower, kissing her thigh before seeking out the place where she would want his full attention. She let out a gasping, needy sound. “Sit on the bed,” he said softly, and she did so. He pushed her legs apart, putting one of her knees on his shoulder, and then kissed her. She let her legs fall open further as he tasted and explored her.
She sighed and weaved her fingers through his hair, then gave his hair a tug. That was what did him in. She wanted his mouth exactly where it was and was letting him know about it. Her thumb stroked over his cheekbone and he almost whimpered against her soft, wet skin. He looked up and saw that her shift was rucked up to her chin, and one of her hands was cupped over a breast, working a nipple between thumb and forefinger. His hips bucked helplessly with nothing to grind against, and he was afraid he was going to come right there, his cock untouched, his entire body alight with her desire. When she came, soft and gasping, he worked her through it, then hauled her up to the top of the bed. She grasped his hips and pulled him towards her, wrapping her legs around him, arching up to meet him.
They were being carefully quiet, so when he entered her and felt her clench around him, he buried his face in the pillow to muffle his moan. He braced himself on one forearm and looked down at her, her lips parted in pleasure. She stroked a hand down his bicep, and then her hands were everywhere, exploring the contours of his shoulders and the planes of his back. He gripped one of her hands, pressing it into the mattress, holding onto it like a lifeline. He was being undone, coming apart.
She came again, his name on her lips, and he felt like a genius, like he had done something cleverer than build bridges and dig through granite. He pulled out—there was no handkerchief, damn it, he looked around frantically. “Your sheets,” he said, and it was probably the least erotic thing anyone had ever whispered in the throes of passion, but his cock was aching in his hand and his ability to articulate himself had taken leave some minutes earlier.
“Here.” She patted her stomach. His brain exploded. He hardly needed that last stroke to bring himself off. Only the thought of it, and he was lost to his climax.
After, he looked down at her, trying to catch his breath, trying to process the image of her with his seed on her belly, her breasts. She wriggled the rest of the way out of her shift, then used it to clean herself up.
He wasn’t sure if he collapsed onto her or if she pulled him down, but either way they wound up in a tangle of limbs. “I’m crushing you,” he said.
“I like it,” she answered. “I like how big and heavy you are.”
His cock twitched at her words. “You’ll kill me,” he said into her hair. “You ruined your chemise. I was trying to spare your laundry.”
That must have been very droll because she laughed, and he felt very clever again.
It was Sydney’s last day in Derbyshire before starting work on the railway. It would be a fortnight or more before he was able to return, so he bid farewell to Lex and Leontine and waited for Amelia at the gatepost where he had met her so many times.
“Where will you take me today?” he asked when she approached him. He touched her sleeve, the feel of her plain cotton dress so familiar under his fingers, the scent of her soap nothing less than a relief. She was warm and soft and he couldn’t believe he had a lifetime of her to look forward to.
“You’ll see,” she answered.
They climbed to the top of the nearest peak in relative silence, he occasionally putting a hand to the small of her back to steady her as she made her way over some unstable rocks, she directing his attention to a fluffy owlet in a nearby tree.
“Look,” Amelia said when they had reached the apex. “You can see the river from here.”
And sure enough, you could: the River Wye was laid out like a silver crescent beneath them, its valley a deep green. In a few weeks, days even, the green would fade and the leaves of the trees that shadowed the valley would begin to turn. The summer was nearly over, and with it would go the sense of holiday unreality that Sydney had allowed to take over his life this past month. He turned from the river valley to the woman beside him, her bright hair loose in the wind, her skirts gathered in one hand to make climbing easier, and his heart stuttered in his chest with love for her. And when she turned to look at him, as if sensing his gaze on her, he saw the same thing reflected back at him.
“I love you,
” he said.
She kissed him again, needier and deeper this time.
Through the gaps in the trees, he could see part of Pelham Hall. It was just a house. A home, for some of the people who he had lost and then found, for a family he hadn’t known was possible. It was filled with the past, but also with the promise of the future. He turned to Amelia, made sure her shawl was tied securely around her shoulders, and walked with her down the mountain.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my editor, Elle Keck, for her endless patience with this book, and to Margrethe Martin for reading more drafts than I care to count and also for gently persuading me that I did not need to launch this manuscript directly into the sun. Felicia Davin kindly fixed my French; any errors and anachronisms are entirely my own. As always I’m grateful to my agent, Deidre Knight, as well as to everyone at Avon for their support and enthusiasm.
The Regency Impostors Series
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About the Author
CAT SEBASTIAN lives in a swampy part of the South with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. Before her kids were born, she practiced law and taught high school and college writing. When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s doing crossword puzzles, bird watching, and wondering where she put her coffee cup.
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By Cat Sebastian
The Regency Impostors Series
Unmasked by the Marquess
A Duke in Disguise
A Delicate Deception
The Turner Series
The Soldier’s Scoundrel
The Lawrence Browne Affair
The Ruin of a Rake
A Little Light Mischief (novella)
The Seducing the Sedgwicks Series
It Takes Two to Tumble
A Gentleman Never Keeps Score
Coming Soon
Two Rogues Make a Right
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
a delicate deception. Copyright © 2019 by Cat Sebastian. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition DECEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-282067-9
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-282162-1
Cover design by Patricia Barrow
Cover illustration by Christine Ruhnke
Cover photographs © Period Images (couple); © PinkyWinky/Shutterstock (background)
Avon Impulse and the Avon Impulse logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America.
Avon and HarperCollins are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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A Delicate Deception Page 22
