Chapter 6

"Christ," he breathed. "I want you, but this isn't the place for your first time."

"My first time for... oh!" she replied, her eyes widening with understanding. She stroked one hand down his body, lightly cupping his shaft as it pressed against the front of his trousers.

He groaned as she explored the feel of him. "Keep doing that and I'll have trouble controlling myself," he warned.

But she didn't stop teasing him—far from it. He turned her away from him, pressing himself against the bustle at the back of her gown.

"Do you know why women accent their bottoms with bustles?" he asked. He grasped her waist with one hand as his other gently moved up to her throat, touching it lightly with his fingertips.

"Why?" Tabitha asked, her voice breathless.

"Because it entices a man, reminds us of what we love. When I take a woman from behind, I pound into her, my hips slamming into the plushness of her backside. It feels glorious." He breathed into her neck, smelling the sweet scent of her, and she trembled beneath his touch. "This damn bustle makes me want to bend you over right here and take you in the dark with the flowers all around us. Here, we could be as primal as the beasts that dwell in the ancient forests."

Her responding shiver wasn't one of fear.

"I must confess something," she said, and he held his breath. "But I worry you will pass judgment on me when you hear it."

He tightened his hold on her waist, wanting to show her he wouldn't let go or cast her away no matter what she might say. Perhaps now she would explain her connection to Hannah Winslow.

"What if I confess something to you first?" he offered. "Then we shall be on even ground."

She nodded. "That would help." She pushed her back against his chest again, leaning into him, and he enjoyed that continued trust she gave him.

"I spoke of always being right," he began. "But I'm discovering that perhaps I'm not always right about everything."

"Oh?" She tried to turn around, but he kept her facing away from him. He couldn't bear to see her face if he disappointed her.

"Yes. It seems that meddling in the lives of my friends has had unintended consequences. I was not ready to deal with that." He paused, considering his next words carefully. "I'm facing the hard truth that perhaps sometimes other people know their own lives better than I do and are therefore better suited to make decisions for themselves than I am. It is a newly discovered flaw in myself that I do not like admitting it, except to you."

He nuzzled her hair and breathed in the sweet scent that clung to her. It was as though she had bathed in flower petals that morning.

"That sounds like a terrible flaw indeed," she said. "But perhaps you will still wish to be free of me when I speak my truth, should it outweigh your own."

Fitz couldn't imagine what she could say that might drive him from her.

"When you touched me, and I experienced pleasure, it was for the first time, but it wasn't the first time that I have been with a man. There was someone a long time ago, when I was younger."

"Ah, I see." She wasn't a virgin, but this revelation did not disturb him. "You must have been very young." That was the part that worried him more. Men often took advantage of young women and it was wrong.

"I was sixteen... the young man I was with was seventeen," Tabitha admitted.

"Did he hurt you?" That was a thing that Fitz feared. Sixteen was terribly young, and it was possible the overeager boy could have hurt her.

"No. It was a little uncomfortable in the moment and there was a brief pain, but it soon eased. I was willing to be with him, and it seemed to give him comfort to be with me. I had no one to offer me advice, no one who explained that intimacy of the heart is not guaranteed. But he and I found comfort that night, where we'd both been cold and lonely before."

"I understand that more than you know. I have had mistresses in the past, and while I have held an affection for them, there was never anything more than a physical intimacy for me, despite my wish to feel more for someone. I never felt that way about anyone."

Until you, he added silently.

He finally allowed her to turn in his arms, and she clutched his coat in her hands.

"You truly don't judge me for having been with someone?" Those cornflower-blue eyes spoke the language of flowers for her, forever asking him to be gentle.

"I have my failings, but judging you won't be one of them. I'm glad to hear that you haven't been hurt and that if we... Well, I wouldn't want to cause you any pain."

Her hand slid up his chest to curl around his neck. In that moment, he knew he would wait forever if he had to, to have this woman.

"I've ruined our moment, haven't I?" Her blue eyes filled with tears, but she didn't cry. He was relieved. If she'd cried, he wasn't sure he could have survived it.

"No, darling, you haven't. I still want you desperately, but it's made me want to wait for the right time. When you're ready, I can make that moment all the things lovemaking should be." He didn't care that he sounded like a romantic fool. It felt right to speak what lay in his heart now that she'd exposed it to the world.

"When, not if?" she asked. "You promise me that? I've never been so stirred in my life as you have stirred me now, Your Grace."

"Fitz," he said.

Her lips curved in a smile that melted his soul. "Fitz. How are you wicked and sweet all at once? I've never met a man like you."

"You keep saying things like that. I can't be certain if I'm honored or insulted," he chuckled.

She pressed her face against his waistcoat and her hands curled into his sleeves as she clung to him.

"Just kiss me," she breathed. He gently tilted her face up to his and saw the ghost of tears clinging to her lashes.

His mouth came down on hers, hard, desperate, filled with a longing he knew he should hide, but he couldn't. Her lips parted beneath his questing tongue as he delved deeper, tasting her until she was imprinted on his very soul. He cradled the back of her head in one hand while his other grasped her lower back, holding her close to him. The flowers around them seemed to whisper soft, sweet words in their quiet language of wild beauty. Tabitha's lips were softer than the petals of any bloom, and the heat that kiss created lit a spark of desire once more inside him.

How had he been so cold and not known it? The chill that had encased his heart and kept him hard and frozen these last few years was now fading beneath the heated touch of her lips. He was not a man given to thoughts of divinity, but in that instant, he believed and finally understood what some people meant when they said that to love someone was to bask in the divine.

Did he love her? Could someone love another so quickly? Surely it was madness, some trick his mind was playing upon him because he'd secretly longed for a deep connection to another soul.

Their mouths broke apart, and he struggled to regain his breath and his senses, as the experience of kissing Tabitha grew more intense each time.

Those cornflower-blue eyes held his gaze, and he forgot why he had demanded to know any of her secrets. A woman should always keep her mystery, wearing it like a fur-lined cloak or donning it like a glittering diadem upon her brow.

Finally, he found his voice. "Come, let me take you back to the house." He pressed one more lingering kiss to her lips and sighed. "Blast and damn, I hate being a gentleman sometimes." That drew a gentle laugh from her. "But rest assured, Tabitha, I will ravish you."

"And I shall let you," she replied with an adorable cheekiness that made him want to crush her in his arms again and never let her go. Where the devil had this perfect woman come from, and why couldn't he let the matter of her past simply remain a question that needed no answer?

* * *

Tabitha bidthe duke good night as he went to join the other gentlemen in the billiard room, leaving her alone at the foot of the grand staircase. Rather than go to the salon where the ladies would be gathered, she snuck up to her bedchamber to rest and prepare for the coming mission.

She called for Liza to come up and help her undress and bathe. Liza was technically Hannah's maid, but she was sweet enough to help Tabitha in addition to her duties to Hannah. She was one of the few people who knew the truth about the Merry Robins, and she was more than happy to keep their secret.

"Thank you, Liza. I'm planning to try for the diamond later tonight, to see if I can take it or at least get a better idea of where and how it's secured. The duke's study appears to have a guard posted outside, so that's where I'm going to start my search. I'm going to retire early and try to get some rest first."

"What time are you going to go look for the diamond? Would you like me to come back and wake you?"

"Yes, please. Around three?"

"Of course, Miss Tabitha. Let's get you out of this gown and into the bath."

As the maid helped her undress, Tabitha found her thoughts drifting back to those stolen moments in the hothouse with Helston. It had been years since she'd thought of the night she'd shared a bed with young Joseph.

He had been the one who had taught her the art of the light-fingered trade. He had walked her home to make sure she wasn't snatched. At sixteen, she was vulnerable to men, especially those looking for fresh girls to enslave in prostitution.

He'd offered to stay the night. It had been so very cold, the other girls were gone for the night, and she'd been lonely enough to accept. One thing had led to another, and she and Joseph had fumbled together in the candlelight, tugging at each other's clothes until they had stumbled into the nest of her little bed. It had been an awkward and sweet moment, the way he'd tried to make sure he hadn't hurt her. She hadn't even minded sharing her bed as they'd both fallen asleep.

Joseph died six months later from typhus, and while she had not loved him, she'd mourned his loss and had buried those memories deep until tonight. He was among the many reasons she'd been so afraid to let her guard down. But Hannah and Julia had torn down so many of those barriers that someone like Helston had been easily able to storm the battlements of her heart.

With Helston, she'd broken all of her rules. He made her want to trust her heart to someone, to lie beside him at night and be assured he would still be there in the morning.

He made her feel a hunger for wild, primal things that a man and woman could do together. She'd never let herself think about that before, but tonight she'd practically begged Helston to take her with a desperation she'd never thought possible.

She'd thought she had no interest in men, but the truth was she'd simply not met the right man yet. And Helston was indeed the right man... and it was damned unlucky that he was also the wrong man at the same time.

After her bath, the lady's maid left her to get some rest before her late-night mission to look for the diamond. As she drifted off to sleep, her thoughts kept returning to Helston.

When it was close to three o'clock in the morning, there was a light knock upon her door. Tabitha eased the door open and allowed Liza to slip inside the room with her.

"Thank you for waiting up, Liza," she said once the door was firmly closed.

"Here, Miss Tabitha." Liza helped her don her black trousers and black blouse. Each of the Merry Robins had their own outfit just like this that they could wear during their thefts if those thefts couldn't be done with practical lifts during balls or parties. Whenever a jewel couldn't be stolen during an afternoon tea or ball, they'd returned at night and used a servants' entrance to access the house, taking the jewel with relative ease.

Tabitha finished dressing quickly and pulled a black hood over her head that covered her entirely except for her mouth and eyes. This kept any of her skin from showing if she needed to hide in the shadows, and it also kept her identity as a woman concealed by not showing her hair. She'd cut eye slits in the mask and she used a bit of dark soot to conceal the skin that a person could see through the slits to disguise her even further.

"I drew a map of the grounds for you, Miss Tabitha. You are right about the duke's study being under guard. He has two footmen and his valet taking turns watching the door." Liza placed a sheet of paper down on the little table by the chair facing the fire, and Tabitha bent over to examine it closely. It was a detailed drawing of the house and its many passageways and staircases, which, along with her previous tours of the house and grounds with Fitz, gave Tabitha a quick understanding of where she needed to go.

"The guards are only on the outside of the room? Not the inside?"

"I believe so, but I cannot be certain. I have only seen the footmen standing outside the door. I suppose they think that's enough." Liza shrugged.

"It might be for some, but I will get into the study using the window outside." Tabitha gave the lady's maid a quick hug. "Wish me luck." Tabitha then snuck out of the bedchamber and crept down the back servants' stairs.

Helston Heath was quiet as she moved soundlessly through the corridors. She made her way beneath the cover of night until she reached the back door that would take her to the gardens. She met no servants along the way, given the late hour. The scullery maids would not be up to light the fires for another two hours.

She exited the door that Helston had used earlier that night when he'd shown her the hothouse, because it also faced the duke's study. Once outside, she counted the windows of the house and made her way to the room that she was certain was the right one. When she reached it, she crouched down in the flower beds beneath the windowsill.

Her heart raced and she felt strangely sick at the thought of taking Helston's diamond. A flash of a memory from earlier tonight, when Helston had held up the cornflower in the hothouse and spoke of her eyes, made her lips tremble. She'd seen a gentleness in him, this man who could be so domineering and dictating to those around him. And he'd shown that gentleness to her. He'd even admitted to faults and spoken of confessions and desire that transcended mere physical need.

She closed her eyes, trying to strengthen her resolve, but it didn't come. Instead, she saw Helston again. She was back in the hothouse and could feel his arms around her as he dared to ask if she'd been hurt that first time a man had lain with her. How could he not have judged her? Gentlemen prized virgins, but that hadn't seemed to matter to him. He'd even sounded relieved to learn she had not suffered.

No. She couldn't do this. She couldn't take his diamond. She pushed away from the wall of the house and crept back inside. She found Liza waiting up for her in her bedchamber.

"Did you get it?" the maid asked, her voice hushed.

"No. The window was locked. I will try again tomorrow." The lie felt bitter upon her lips. Orphans, widows, and wounded war veterans were relying on her, and tonight she had let them down.

"Are you all right?" Liza asked as Tabitha flung herself back onto the bed with a heavy sigh. "You look a bit peaked."

"Yes... I am. Why don't you go on to bed, Liza" she urged. "It's late. We'll try again tomorrow. I can change back into my nightgown on my own."

"Very well then. Good night, miss."

Liza left her alone, and Tabitha stared up at the ceiling. It was only then that she saw the bouquet of flowers that sat on one of the tables by the window. The vase was overflowing with red tulips, and she knew the meaning of tulips.

Tabitha rose from the bed and went over to the table. Had the duke left these for her? The unique arrangement had to be from him. The flowers must have been delivered while she'd bathed after their time in the hothouse when she'd been in the adjoining room. Liza must have taken the flowers and put them over here and forgotten to tell her about them.

She buried her face against the velvety soft blooms and whispered the message the flowers carried. "I declare my love." She noticed that mixed in with the tulips were clovers. They too carried a message. "Will you be mine?"

What was she going to do? She nuzzled the flowers again and let out a breath.

Damn you, Helston,she thought. Damn you for making me fall for you.