Chapter 18

18

Two days. Lucien lasted two days before he was compelled to do something—anything—to get close to Chastity.

He knocked on her door. The flame of the candle in his hand was playing, jumping in the darkness from his quick breath. The hallway of the ladies’ wing was dark and quiet. The night was dark behind the window at the end of the hallway, as there was almost no moonlight.

Just like that night, when he was a boy and Chastity was a girl, and they were stargazing.

His best friend’s sister.

He waited, his breath caught. He should not be here. Not just because someone might see him, but also… What in the hell he was surely destined for was he doing?

When he heard no movement behind the door, he knocked again and leaned his head against the door, which was hard and cold against his skin.He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He’d thought of her every day of his life, simply because they grew up together.

But since that damned bet, it had become intense.

Since the night of the storm, it had become unbearable.

Since the moment he knew her kiss, it had become exquisite torture.

He’d fantasized about kissing her since he had first started having thoughts of the opposite sex. When she grew into a striking woman, he’d imagined her naked, in his arms, bringing her to a sweet oblivion.Yesterday, all that had become true.

But that was not why he’d spent every second of the past day thinking of her.

It was theglimpse of hope for happiness, for trust, and true intimacy with her that had shattered him. Like a madman, he kept thinking of her questions—questions that brought the most terrifying images into his head.

Of a home. Of a future…with her.

Earlier today, Miss Anne Rose had received a very public and very sweet confession of love and a marriage proposal from Justin, the Earl of Chans. Watching that had made his heart clench. He had watched Chastity today like a hawk.

Lord Wardrobe didn’t step away from her for a moment. Like a persistent specter, Lucien followed them, just a few steps away, listening to their conversations about medicine, research, recent theories that had been published and discussed. But instead of focusing on Lord Wardbury, Chastity’s eyes kept sliding to meet his own, a thrill of some kind of warm energy running through him every time he sank into the sky-blue depths of her eyes.

If he were a normal man, not plagued by his wicked demons, he’d pursue her. He wouldn’t have been forbidden by Dorian. He wouldn’t have had the insatiable need for connection through his body.

Lucien knocked at the door again.

Finally, he heard the rustle of footsteps, and his breath quickened. The door opened and Chastity’s face peered out through the frame. The sight of her made a jolt of joy burst through his body.

Her hair was in papillotes for curls. Her eyes were wide under her long eyelashes. He took in her adorable nose, her lips parted in shock. And just the sight of her in her chemise had blood rushing to his groin. Arguably, these days it didn’t take much to arouse him, but nothing did it like seeing her.

“Lucien,” she hissed, “you are mad! What are you doing here?”

He grinned. “I’d like to kidnap you for a picnic outside, Star.”

“Excuse me?”

He raised the basket with the quilt, a bottle of wine, bread, apples, grapes, and cheese. “The moon is a hair-thin strip, darling, and the stars…”

She gasped and glanced down the corridor. “You have lost your mind! What if anyone sees you here?”

“The more exciting the thrill, Star,” he said with a wink. “Live a little. Go on. I missed you all night and all day. I’ve got to have you all to myself for a while.”

“No.” She pushed slightly into his chest. “Go back to your bed!”

“Give me an hour of your time…thirty minutes. A little bit of Chastity for me,” he whispered. “So that I can live another day.”

She opened her mouth but said nothing.

“Besides”—he winked—“I have a present for you.”

She sighed out a harsh, loud exhale. “Lucien…”

“Go on. Either you come with me, or I’ll come in. Your choice.”

“You must leave.”

Then she closed the door in his face.

Rejection slapped him. He stood, gaping before the closed door, his chest tight and hurting like a horse had just kicked him. He had been rejected by women in the past, but he’d never cared. A body was a body. He could get another lady.

He could never get another Chastity.

And she’d just closed the door on him.

His hands curled into fists, the handle of the basket he held digging painfully into his skin. He ached to inhale but couldn’t.He glared at the door. He longed to break it down. To demolish it.To obliterate everything that lay between him and her, everything that made her forbidden to him.

To hell with it.

He couldn’t stand this, her pulling away. He marched down the hall, not caring if anyone heard him.

Let them.

He’d marry her if he had to. Would that be the worst thing in the world?

Oh yes, it would be , whispered a treacherous voice. It would be. Because marriage would destroy everything good that she means to you, like marriage destroyed your parents, and like their marriage destroyed you.

The only two good things in your life are Dorian and Chastity. Dorian is the one true friend you have, and he will hate you forever. And forcing Chastity into an unwanted marriage would make her resent you. The only sense of family you have… It would all be gone forever.

And then, you really will die alone like you deserve.

He shuddered. If he could cover his ears and shut that voice up forever, he would.

But even with the threat of losing everything he held dear hanging over him, he couldn’t stand being away from her. He had to save whatever happiness she had given to him.

And there was more than one way to enter a room… He marched out into the night air and around the back of the manor. It cooled his skin a little, but not enough to stop the boiling poison corroding his insides.

He wouldn’t let anything get between himself and Chastity.

Just as he had remembered, a rose-covered trellis reached up the wall of the manor, straight to her windows. Shoving the basket higher up his arm, he began climbing. He cursed when thorns pricked him, but a little pain wouldn’t stop him.

The trellis trembled when he reached the window. He looked down and then wished he hadn’t. Ignoring the slight nausea in his stomach, he knocked against her window.

When the window sash slid up, and Chastity’s astonished face appeared in the gap, he whispered angrily, “You just closed the door on me, Star! Don’t you dare.”

She stared at him, still in shock. “Whatever do you mean, don’t you dare ? I will dare to close the door—or the window—if I wish!”

He growled in exasperation. “Will you let me in or not?” he demanded. “I’m climbing the walls here.” The trellis shook in his grasp, and he swayed.

A look of concern appeared on her face as she looked down from the window. “Very well.” She stepped to the side. “I don’t want you to fall and break your neck, though that may be exactly what you deserve!”

He climbed in and dropped the basket onto the floor. Then he stood, panting, looking her over, searching for words.

“What is it, Lucien?” she demanded in loud whisper. “What was so important that you had to climb the wall? I’m tired, I’ve been making notes for Mr. Audley’s poem all night.”

He struggled to contain his hard breathing. No matter how much oxygen he tried to take in, he had to hungrily gasp for more.“I had to see you. You shut me out.”

“Because you’re behaving like a scoundrel.”

He blinked. “I—I thought we were friends. After the day of the storm.”

Her eyes were filled with sadness. “The day of the storm was wonderful, and I…I have the most regard for you, and…love…”

She couldn’t have knocked more wind out of him if she’d kicked him in the solar plexus.

Love? She had love for him…

Wasn’t that something one was told in a letter of a polite rejection from a romantic interest? That the lady one was courting had love for her suitor but was not in love with him.

Chastity had been in love with him in the past, but she couldn’t love him now, not after he had ruined everything.Not the man he had become.

“I will always be your friend,” she said, and his ribs ached. He was receiving a rejection letter out loud to his face! “But, Lucien, I will not be your mistress. And you do not want to be my husband. Besides, what about that letter…what if you do have a child?”

“No, that is nonsense. I have no children. I’ve always been very careful.”

“But what if you do? It’s a responsibility, it’s life-changing. Are you ready for it?”

His blood chilled at the thought of having a little human being that was part him. All the ways he could unwittingly turn an innocent child into a disgrace such as himself. He shuddered. “No, Chastity. Let’s stop talking of things that don’t matter?—”

“But it does matter. So our…er…physical relationship—as beautiful as it was—is of no consequence. We must think of Dorian, too. But even if it wasn’t for Dorian, the only way we can be together is marriage. And neither of us wants that. So there’s no point climbing my walls, making picnics under the stars, or trying to seduce me.”

He felt like a fencing sword had pierced straight through his chest.

He walked to her, took her face in his hands, and looked straight into her eyes. Her skin was soft and wonderfully warm against his palms. “It’s the other way around, darling. What is of no consequence is all these excuses.”

Her lips parted, her blue eyes, deep as the sky, sparkling.

“And what is of consequence is…this.”

He leaned down to her lips and took them. For a moment, she didn’t move, and he thought she’d pull back.

But then her soft lips parted for him, letting him into the plush heaven of her mouth. His skin touched hers, and the world came back to its rightful position, like the broken pieces of reality slid back together and were restored.

She shuddered against him and leaned into him. He pulled her into his arms, pressing her into his embrace, afraid he’d crush her. If he could, that was what he’d do—wrap around her, drink her in, make her part of his system forever.

He tasted her lips again, his body already hard and on fire. He ached to resume what he’d started in the groundkeeper’s cottage, to arouse her and make her his. He burned to enter her depths, to feel her squirm and tighten around him in her release.

He caressed her back, up and down, sculpting her thin, beautiful waist, and her small, perfect breasts. When he lifted the skirt of her chemise and dragged his fingers up her naked thighs, she shivered.

“What are you doing?” she murmured.

The only thing he knew to feel close to her.“I want to be with my star.”

She panted. “Lucien, you’re supposed to be celibate.”

“I never broke your rules,” he replied, his hand delightfully nestled against her sex. She was warm and wet and so ready for him. “I never got my pleasure—not with myself, nor with anyone else.”

He gently inserted his finger between her folds, and she gasped. There, he could see the bliss spilling in her eyes, in the open O of her lips, in the deep moan that came out of her throat. There it was, the connection he craved. She was open to him, and he was right with her, the closeness that he ached for to soothe his soul like a balm.

Making him feel worthy, important, significant. And safe.

“No matter how much I want to take you,” he said softly as his finger began rubbing her sweet clit. To his immense satisfaction, she gasped louder, sagging against him so that he held her and supported her with his arm. The muscles of her sex moved as she no doubt was clenching inside. He needed to bring her to her release. Show her how good it would be with him. With one finger, he kept rubbing her, with another he made his way to her entrance. “To put my cock right here, to feel your tight entrance welcome me, feel you stretch around me.” While he kept rubbing, he circled gently around her entrance, feeling her abundant slickness, and his cock was twitching, so hard and so thick, he could feel every little crease of his breeches. “To sink into your tight, warm depths, feel you take me in and hold me, and quiver around me as you find your release.To take you like an animal, get lost and forget everything just for that moment where you and I would be one.”

“Heavens!” she cried out and froze, her fingers clenching around the coat on his shoulders.

She was finding her release. He could feel the muscles of her sex moving quickly as she buried her head in the crease between his neck and his shoulder, and her whole body was shaking.

Then she sagged against him like a doll, and he picked her up and brought her to the bed and laid her there. He stretched out next to her, his erection now very uncomfortable.

Damn bet. He didn’t think he regretted anything in his life more than he regretted not being able to plunge into her and make her his.

He pulled her onto his chest, where she belonged, and she sighed against him. He stroked her hair, as she lay melting.

“Lucien…” she whispered. “You can’t keep going like this. Why did you truly come here?”

“I wanted to be close to you.”

She raised herself on one elbow and looked at him. “You’re cheating. I didn’t consider you doing this, but this is not celibacy. You’re still replacing emotional closeness with physical.”

His throat tightened in a hard knot. She was right. Every word. How could she see through him like that?

“Maybe.” He reached out and playfully undid one of her papillote papers, letting a dark lock fall along her face. “But look at you, you have climaxed after a minute or two of me touching you. How could you have ever denied yourself this side of life? Did it not feel good?”

She pressed her lips together. “It felt good, of course. You’re a master at this—is that a surprise?”

“You’re very sensitive, darling. You needed this.”

She sighed. “Perhaps. But you need to talk, not engage in physical pleasure. What did you want to say to me? What was so important that you had to climb the wall?”

He swallowed and lifted her dark lock in his fingers. What did he want to say? That he couldn’t bear a moment without her. That he hated how easy it was for her with Lord Wardbury. That he despised the fact that the man seemed perfect for her. That Wardbury could—and likely would—propose.

He hated that all of it was his own fault.

That he couldn’t stop thinking of her, breathing, walking, blinking for her.

That he found himself thinking recently that he was put on this earth to be with her.

And yet, she was one woman he could never have.

“I…er…” He looked at the basket he had brought. “I have a present for you.”

He left her side, rummaged around in the basket and fished out a folded piece of paper, then handed it to her.

“This is not much, but…I have a building in Bloomsbury. It’s not in Mayfair, of course, but it’s a respectable area. If you wish, it’s yours. I wrote to my solicitor in London today asking him to transfer the deed into your name. It’s empty now as I had been considering what to do with it, so you can do anything you wish. Build a laboratory. Start your own hospital. Open a research center. It’s yours.”

She frowned as she lit a candle standing on the side table and brought the paper closer. “Lucien, this is a deed that you wrote,” she said.

“Yes, because it obviously takes time to arrange a deed, but we are nearly halfway through the house party, and your deadline is coming soon. It’s just to show you that you don’t need to marry Lord Wardbury or anyone else to achieve your goals. You don’t need to put yourself in danger and risk your reputation by going to Whitechapel and working there. You have my support, Star. Help those people who require it. Reduce their suffering. Show every prejudiced man in London that you don’t need any of them to do what you’re good at, what you were born to do.”

She stared at him, eyes wide. “No. This is too much. A building!”

“Yours.”

“I can’t accept this.” She handed the paper back to him. “I doubt Dorian would ever gift me a building, even though he has several in London. This is far too generous.”

“But would you like it?” he asked. “You’d take it, correct, if you didn’t feel it was too much?”

She twisted her fingers together. “Yes. To own a whole building… We could have our Misses with Microscopes meetings there… We could support more women scientists… Yes, it would be lovely…”

He gave the letter back to her. “Then it’s decided. Let this be one meaningful thing that I can actually do in my life. One thing on which, when I’m dying alone, I can look back and think I did well. Please, Chastity.”

She bit her lower lip and looked at the letter. Then back at him. Then again at the letter.

“Please, accept it.”

She nodded. “All right. Thank you, Lucien.” She leaned down and kissed him. “As long as you understand I will never be your mistress.”

He chuckled. “No. Of course not. As long as you understand I don’t—er—” He didn’t believe he was about to say the words. “I don’t put ‘never’ next to ‘being your husband’ anymore.”

She blinked several times. “Wait, what did you say?”

“I do not completely exclude the word…er…‘husband’ … being applied to me as long as it is next to your name.”

What was he saying? What had come over him? He was going to ruin everything.

But she was right. He didn’t want her to be his mistress, either. And he couldn’t imagine being near anyone else for the rest of his life.

He just needed to change. Like she said, to stop replacing emotional closeness with physical. To stop protecting his heart by sleeping around. And, somehow, thanks to her, he could see a glimpse of that possibility.

But could he actually do it?

“Don’t exclude me from your list of suitors, Star,” he whispered.

She blinked as she stared back into his eyes. “All right, Lucien. I won’t.”