Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

T hey marched toward Norton Hall as the enemy storms a castle, only with more hand-holding and less weaponry.

"What do you think?" Liam asked Cora. "Do we attack straight on or sneak in from the side?"

"I always recommend boldness."

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "Of course you do."

"And it's likely my father is gone by now. I can't see him leaving his mistress too terribly long."

"Yes, but the children are still about." Too many interferences between them and their bedroom door. Liam wished them all to perdition.

"The children could be anywhere. At any time. We must not let them think they intimidate us. We must show them we are the ones in control, Liam." She squeezed his hand, set her little chin at the most adorably defiant angle.

"The front door it is, then."

He ran for it, pumping his legs into action and tugging her along with him. She hiked up her skirts and ran just as quickly, fleet of foot and seducing him in a way he did not know he could be seduced. Because it was not the flashes of long, lithe legs beneath her lifted skirts that had him hard all over again, it was her little hiccups of laughter, the way she threw herself forward at his side with such gleeful abandon.

He flung the door open and not two steps into the entry hall, a booming voice welcomed them.

"Surely that's the viscount returned!" Mr. Eastwood cried from… somewhere.

"Sounds like he's upstairs," Cora whispered. "In the parlor?"

"No," Liam hissed. "I think he's somewhere on the ground floor." But where the hell was Angus? "Near the back of the—"

A door slammed, and the echo of footsteps chased toward them.

"Up the stairs! Quick!"

"That you, Norton?" Mr. Eastwood possessed such a cheerful voice. But it felt like a harbinger of doom.

"Nay!" Another booming voice joined the first. This one with a rich brogue. "Just me, I'm afraid. Thought I lost ye, Eastwood. The tour's no' done yet."

"Listen here—I came to visit my son-in-law. You won't keep me from him."

"Keep ye from him?" Angus laughed, loud and hearty. "I'm preparing ye for him, dear man. Think of how impressed the viscount will be when ye have more knowledge of the family history and wealth."

Silence.

"Angus has caught him," Cora whispered near Liam's ear. She squeezed his hand and tugged him up the stairs. "Come along. Quick."

They made it halfway up when they heard the patter of little feet.

"Oh no," Liam groaned, slowing their ascent. With each soft step upward, more of the child came into view. Bethy. With sticky fingers and jam of some sort running down her little apron. She opened her mouth and was scooped up into her stepfather's arms before she could utter even a single syllable.

"Ye have quite lost your way, Elizabeth," Angus said. "Ye're not finished with your tea and were only supposed to be gone a moment. Let me help you find the drawing room, my dear." He winked at Liam and Cora. "You must forgive me losing track of a child or two. Today I have more than usual to keep in line." He carried the child off beneath one arm, her legs dangling behind him.

"Norton!" Mr. Eastwood called from somewhere in the house.

"Let me show ye the good silver!" Angus cried as he carted Bethy back to tea.

Cora pretended to wipe sweat from her brow. "That was close."

"Let's just hope it's the only attack," Liam said.

Cora peered down the hallway in first one direction and then the other. "Empty. It appears we're safe. For now."

"Take no moment of solitude for granted." Liam hummed. "Children are very small. They can fit in places we'd never expect. And your father is crafty."

"Hm. Yes. Any one of them could be hiding, waiting. We should complete a thorough investigation of the room before…"

" Quite thorough. Quick. Make a run for it."

She released his hand, clutched her skirts with both hands, and they ran as quickly as they could toward the bedroom door, slamming it behind them. They fell onto the bed in a pile of laughter and searching arms. He caressed the curve of her face, and she drew her fingertips up and down the length of his torso, soft touches as their breathing evened out and gentle smiles as they made occasional flashes of eye contact. He cupped the back of her head and pulled her closer, set his lips to hers and—

Knock knock.

They froze, waiting with the sort of fear that drenched a body in sweat.

Knock knock.

Simultaneously, they each lifted a single finger to their lips. Maybe if they stopped breathing and pretended to be sleeping—

"Liam?" Mary asked, her voice muffled behind the door. "Cora? Can we go out to the lake now? I want to take out the rowboat, and earlier Angus said we could—ack!"

"Apologies!" Angus cried. "I'm taking them all outside now. Nae more interruptions, I swear it. Have fun! If ye wake up with a wall before your door, I've had to build it to keep ye safe. Yell out the window for a ladder." The sound of footsteps, which grew weaker as they moved away from the door, and then silence.

Liam hid his face in his hands and groaned.

"Do you believe him?" Cora asked. "Are we truly safe from interruptions?"

"Yes, I rather think we are."

KNOCK KNOCK. The door shook with the force of the knocker's inquiry. "Lord Norton, perhaps we could walk to the village. The weather looks to be holding up!"

Cora stuffed her face into her pillow and screamed.

Liam slammed his feet to the flood and straightened his clothes. Murder was a sin. A mighty unforgivable one. But Hell seemed a small price to pay at the moment.

"Whatever you've planned with Cora," Mr. Eastwood said, "I'm sure you can do with me instead. Almost every activity is better with another man at your side. Women are tedious except when you're between their—"

Liam threw open the door, hand clenched into a fist, arm cocked back to lay his father-in-law flat.

But before he could let his fist fly, a hurtling blur slammed into the man, sending him crashing to the floor with an echoing boom.

Angus lay atop him, panting. "Eastwood? That ye? What are ye doing standing in the middle of the hallway? Didn't see ye when I came around the corner."

Liam craned his neck around the doorframe. The corner in question was a good three meters away.

Eastwood shoved Angus off and held a hand to his nose. "My nose hit the floor, you bloody arse! It's bleeding! Likely broken!"

Angus clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "I do apologize. Let me take ye to cook to fix that up." He hauled Eastwood to his feet, shoved him toward the stairs, then whispered to Liam, "The children are with their mother, and I'll drag Eastwood into town." He waved the back of his hands toward Liam, then disappeared in the banker's angry wake, mumbling reassurances as Eastwood grumbled complaints.

Liam shut the door, snapped the lock in place, and collapsed onto the bed, face first.

"Were you really going to hit him for me?"

He turned onto his side. "Should I not have? My impulses, you know. Difficult to control at times."

"I would have liked to see it, actually."

Liam propped his head up with his elbow. Cora lay on her back, her hair a messy dark halo, and her skirts wrinkled, her hands folded over her belly and a small smile lifting the corners of her lips. He traced that smile with his thumb.

The buzz from the boat was gone now, replaced with something softer, something that could wait, that wanted to because there was so much to do and see in this small stretch of time between them, and waiting seemed the best way to slow it down, to have more of Cora in whatever way he could.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

She nodded. "And I should like to freshen up."

"Very well. You do that, and I shall arrange for a repast in our room."

"Excellent." She rolled out of the bed and disappeared into her room. Would he be able to convince her to abandon that chamber? To sleep and dress and do everything else here with him?

Quickly, he undressed and slipped into his banyan, never looking away from the door separating them. Perhaps if he kept her entirely distracted, she'd never notice she'd not left his room in, oh, however long he needed to convince her. Or perhaps he could find something that needed to be stored in the viscountess's room. A necessity that required her to move chambers.

But perhaps duplicity was not required at all.

A maid arrived with a tray of steaming tea, bread, cheese, and pears, and Liam sat at the small table before the fire where she dropped the food before leaving. The porcelain of the teapot warmed his hands as he poured the steaming stuff into two cups. Cora was a bit like the teapot—cold and hard and elegantly curved on the outside but brimming with heat on the inside. It steamed forth in her actions and in her poetry, in her arguments and in her defiance. And he would not let it go cold once spilled into the open air. He'd lap it up and call for more and let her know, in every moment, she was wanted. He wanted her company and her conversation and her body.

And her heart.

Love. She needed it like a hungry body needed a feast. Some, denied too long, starved themselves into bones and bitterness. But they could be revived. If she let him, Liam would have the great honor of reviving her.

The door between their chambers opened, and Cora slipped through, wearing nothing but her shift and rose-pink dressing gown, her hair in a long, dark plait down her back.

Most of the time they'd spent together had been fast and desperate, as if time marched more quickly forward when they touched, and if they did not take all the touches and kisses at once, the end would come more quickly than desired.

Not now. Now a lazy river on a hot afternoon, a soft snowfall on a winter morning when there was no place to be, an excellent book on an early evening before a cheery fire.

"Join me," he said, picking up a knife and pear and beginning to peel it.

She sat across from him and took up the cup of tea he'd poured for her.

"Cold?" He winced. He should have waited to pour it.

She inhaled the steam with closed eyes, then took a sip, and shook her head. "It's perfect. But I find I am no longer thirsty." She rose and settled herself in his lap, winding an arm around his neck and taking his lips for a kiss as he settled his hands at her waist.

This kiss, these touches, not of desperation, not of rabid need. She felt the same slowness he felt, and she wanted to drift in lazy sensuality as he did, every touch an eternity, every kiss a lifetime. The silk of her hair as he wrapped her braid around his hand and tugged so he could kiss the lovely slope of her neck. The flutter of her fingers against his chest. The weight of her body against his. Every bit of it driving desire higher like the summer sun warming a lake. It took time, but the building heat proved delicious.

He stood, and—God, yes—she clung to him, scattering little kisses across his jaw with a husky laugh. As he laid her across the bed, she kissed him still, and when he stretched out beside her, he took her lips, deepening the kiss, giving her everything. With a hand beneath her knee, he bent her leg, tightening as the hem of her shift and dressing gown fell down her thighs to pool at her hips. Long legs, lean and lovely.

"I could spend eternity kissing these legs."

"Very well," she said, her voice breathy, "I suppose I shall let you."

He nipped at the top of her knee, making her laugh. And then he slid his hand down her inner thigh, making her gasp as his fingers parted her. "And do you suppose you'll let me do this?"

"Yes." More exhale than word.

"Yes, I will. But first, wait ."

She groaned. "You are not going to leave are you?"

"No." He pulled his thumb down her shin.

"The door is locked?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then. I'll wait," she said with a sigh.

"You won't regret it." He stood and pulled her to her feet as well. Then he hooked a finger beneath the neck of her dressing gown and shift and dragged it until the round of her shoulder was visible. He placed a kiss on it, then dropped his hand to the tie at her waist. Finding the right end, he pulled slowly until both ends hung limp on either side of her. A slow revealing of a beauty he'd long imagined but not yet fully seen. Anticipation buzzing along his fingertips, he pushed the dressing gown off her shoulders, and it fell to the floor behind her. Then he turned his attention to the remaining shoulder of her shift, and when he began to pull it down, her arm she stopped him, pulled it back up, and nestled close to her neck.

"Not yet," she said. "We're not even."

She set to work unknotting the tie of his banyan, but he did not stop touching her. Could not. So as she tugged and unwound, he rubbed his palms up and down her neck, across her revealed shoulder, growing tighter each second.

The banyan was all he wore, so when the ends of it swung loose at his sides, she could see everything. She stepped back, forcing him to release her. The loss of her like an attack. He needed her again. Immediately. But she was biting her lip as she stepped nearer, tracing her fingertips down his neck, pausing at his chest to flatten her palm against the muscle. With her other hand, she pulled back the edge of the banyan and gave a little gasp.

Her gaze flew to his face, then back to the two small swallows inked forever onto his skin just above where his heart beat. "What are these?"

"Tattoos."

"Yes, but… why? I've never seen…" She caught her breath, bit her bottom lip, traced the birds in flight with the lightest touch of her fingertips.

That touch felt like fire, burning the symbols even deeper into his skin. "Do you dislike them?"

"Not at all. I… why?"

"I met a chap once, a sailor traveling through the village. He had all sorts of them, all over. Each one a different meaning. He had several of these. Said each swallow represented how far he'd traveled by sea. So many, many swallows. So many, many miles. But the swallow, he said, always found its way home again. So, it means that, too. I didn't think much about it or him after he left. Not until the night before I left Oxford to return here and be my father's curate. All of a sudden, I couldn't stop thinking about it. And on my way through London the next day, I learned where I could acquire a tattoo, and I went there and asked for this." He rubbed his thumb over it.

She kissed the place on his chest still warm from his thumb's heat. "For miles traveled? Or for home?"

"I'm not sure. It was a compulsion. Like I needed to mark the journey."

"What is home for you?"

"I… I'm not sure. I'm not sure I've ever had one." Ridiculous thing to say. He'd always had one. The vicarage. Then Norton Hall. He'd never been without.

But Cora nodded, as if it was not at all ridiculous, as if she understood.

"I acquired the second swallow," he said, "after finding out I was to be the viscount."

"Another journey. Another promise to return home."

He laughed, an airy sort of sound. "But where is that?"

"Today," she said, cocking her head to the side, "it's right here." Her hands covering his heart, her eyes gleaming up at him… God, yes. It was right here. It was her .

He kissed her, slipping his tongue past her lips to taste the tea and something distinctly Cora, something he adored. And she slid her hands down his chest, his abdomen. He wanted to devour her, but he kissed her slowly, finally removing the sleeve of her shift from her remaining covered shoulder. The shift gave way with ease, and she smoothed her hands up his torso and under the shoulders of his banyan, swept the garment off his body. And then there they were—naked and open to one another in every way. As they always should have been.

Slowly, because everything must be slow in this moment, he set his hands around her ribs and pulled her close, taking in every inch of her. What a gift to be allowed to see her, to be seen by her. Desired by her. His thumbs played up and down her ribs, his fingertips learned the feel of her skin, and he dragged them across her waist as he made a slow circle of her. Everywhere pale, smooth skin, a contrast for her dark hair, and curves that made him grateful for life. When he stood before her once more, she made her own circling perusal of his body, tracing her fingertips down the line of his arse when he lost sight of her, laying her palm flat on the tightened muscles of his abdomen when she stood in front of him again.

He dipped his head to kiss her, spearing his fingers into the hair at her nape. It was like they disappeared into the dark of night, and when she pressed her body against his, skin against skin and heart beating next to heart, he groaned against her lips.

"Cora. This is what I've wanted. You are what I've wanted."

What did he expect? Perhaps for her to go wild, for her to kiss him with more urgency.

But she curled her body into him, hiding her face in his chest. "But why, Liam? I don't understand. Why do you feel such loyalty to me?" Each word was placed methodically against his skin. Her lips, brushed whispers of doubt against his skin, aroused him, but what she said peeled like warning bells in a stormy sky. Something shook her, and he must banish her doubt. He hugged her close, and she hugged him back, asking, "Is it simply your sense of duty? You married me so you are compelled to please me the way you do your family and your tenants? Being a husband who gives his wife pleasure is merely another of your obligations you are determined to carry it out to the best of your ability?"

He clung to her as he chose his words carefully. "I am a careful sort of man, eager to do things right because, otherwise, I'll muck it up. And I won't lie. Duty had driven me in my pursuit. But it certainly did not in the garden. Our first kiss… entirely impulse. Inadvisable."

"A mistake."

"No. Something can be inadvisable and… right at the same time. Duty has driven me, but… you are no obligation. I knew you before the garden as Lady Prudence's friend, as a young lady on the marriage mart, but it was not until we kissed in the garden that I knew you. Lost, hiding behind a veil, looking for something you could not find. The veiled woman was not Prudence in that moment, nor any particular woman. She was herself alone—unknowable, yet so familiar at the same time, as if she had stepped out of my soul, become a manifestation of my fears, and… I could not stand the idea that this lady in black, the midnight vision of myself might feel as lost as I did, might feel as lonely."

"I do not appear lonely ." She rustled then, poking her chin into his chest to look up at him with one haughty brow raised. "Ever."

He nuzzled her behind her ear. "You do not right now. But then you did, whether you wanted to or not. I thought that night if I could relieve your loneliness, mine would be lessened, too. And so, I kissed you. An impulse, yes. I knew you were not who I'd been searching for. But after the kiss, I knew I'd been searching for the wrong woman, the wrong thing all my life. I have been driven by duty, but you are no obligation. I will always be pleased with you, Cora. Aloof or purring against me, you please me." He took her hand and placed it on his hard length. "Do you feel how you please me, Wife? Tell me, what can I do at this very moment to magnify your happiness exponentially?"

She threaded her free hand behind his head and pulled him down until their noses touched. "Come inside me, Husband."

He swept her up and into his arms, and she laughed, clinging to his neck, but all laughter ceased as he laid her on the bed, crawled atop her, and kissed her.

Alone together. No boat to rock them. No open sky to threaten rain or discovery. No little hands knocking at the door. No father's bellowing. He must make use of the moment. But slowness still wound through him, and he lowered to her side to love her better, to love her everywhere.

To touch her where he was learning she liked it best. His hand on her breast and hers on his chest. His smoothing down her belly and hers burning his back. He parted her sex as she cupped his neck, and he massaged the place between her legs that made her arch and press against his palm.

Still not enough connection. Still too much space, so he straddled her, one hand still between her legs, stroking in and out of her as his thumb rubbed slow circles around her nub. Her nails trailing down his chest with a moan until he lowered over her to taste her breast, lovely and warm and just slightly salty from the sweat of their lovemaking beneath the sun. Her hands in his hair, pinning him to her. She liked that, then. Excellent. He did, too. So very much. Too bloody much. Because he was spiraling toward chaos again, losing control, and he wanted her to shatter first, as she had in the boat. He needed it.

"Cora, look at me." She did, and words from the poem she'd recited on the boat rose to his tongue. He rubbed her faster, stroked her until she moaned, and then he gave her words back to her. "The man had broken every rule, and yet he loved her so, and where the rules of the heart began, his name was writ in stone."

Her words. From her poem.

Her eyes widened in recognition.

He kissed her, and her body bucked, and she cried out his name, her nails digging into the skin at his hips where her hands wrapped. As she shook, he placed himself at her opening. One thrust of his hips brought them entirely together. He froze in rapture for one stolen breath of time, and then he moved, releasing control. She moved, too, and they fought each other for a moment of breathy laughter before finding a rhythm to sink into, and then they rocked together, eyes locked on one another, hands refusing to let go, and as his climax tore him apart, he sank his lips into hers for a kiss that felt more like a ritual, a giving over of the soul into someone else's keeping.

Cora couldn't sleep. She lay in Liam's arms, quite, quite awake. He'd drifted off almost immediately, and she'd been on the edge of satiated sleep as well at first, but then her body had plummeted, not off the cliff of slumber but back into wakefulness. His arm stretched out under her head, and she rolled slightly to kiss the warm skin of his muscled forearm.

It had not been perfect, like Liam wanted. They'd struggled to find a rhythm. They'd laughed through it and found delight anyway. They were learning one another. And not a single other person had been in the room with them. He'd not mentioned Madame Juliet, and she'd not referenced her books. There'd been only him and her, and the sensations they gave one another.

And that had made it perfect. That was what she wanted. Not to compare themselves to others but to forget every other when in one another's arms.

She rolled to lean against his chest, to kiss his ribs one by one. Why not since she could not sleep. No. She could think of one other thing she'd like to do. Many others, actually. In fact, she might as well make a list, or she'd forget them all. She removed herself from his embrace and tiptoed to the door separating their rooms. She slipped through into darkness and found a candle and tinderbox. Once she'd brightened the room with a single candle's flame, she sat at her writing desk, readied a quill, and found a bit of paper.

"What are you doing?" Liam spoke dismayed yet sleepy from the door, his banyan hanging open off his broad shoulders, the beak of an inked swallow just barely visible beyond its edge. Quite the discovery, those tattoos. Quite the shock.

"Liam. You're awake. Excellent."

He padded to her side and wrapped his arms around her, settled his chin onto her shoulder. "You scared me. You were gone." He kissed her neck, nuzzled it. "Don't like that."

Every time this man spoke, she fell a little more than before. Where would she end, eventually? No knowing, except that he'd be holding her.

"I was about to compose a list. You can help."

"How so? What kind of list?"

"Of things I'd like to do. Things we would like to do. Together."

He scowled and dropped his gaze to her paper where she'd only had time to write one item. He squinted, and his lips moved slightly as he read. Then he whistled, long and low. "Well, damn. You'd like to do that?"

"Yes. I have often read of it. And you… you did it to me. It felt wonderful. For you to kiss me there. And I must know if it will feel as wonderful for you."

"It will." The words were guttural. "You'd like me to add to this list?"

"You have an education from a source I've not had access to. Madame Juliet. I'd like to know what you learned from her."

He cleared his throat. "She suspected you might."

"Did you take notes?"

He took the quill and scribbled it across the paper before snapping it down to the desk once more. "There. I'm sure we can come up with more, though."

He'd added three lines to the paper below her one. "Garden. Drawing room. Stable. These are all locations. And rather public ones at that."

He kissed the side of her neck. "You make me wish to give into my every impulse. Oh." He reached across her shoulder and added something else to their quickly growing list.

"Watching? What does that mean? Like at the brothel?"

"No. As in you pleasuring yourself. And me pleasuring myself. At the same time."

"Ah." More awake now than she'd been earlier, every atom of her body alive and tingling. So she twisted and wrapped her hands around his neck. "I knew I shouldn't have kissed you in the garden."

His head tilted. "Well, of course, you should not have."

"No, you don't understand. I knew who you were that night. I recognized you despite the domino. And I knew you were courting Prudence. But I thought, why not? Prudence does not want him, and it will be research for my next poem. And then once the kiss began, there was not a poem existing in the world that I could remember, not even my own. Only kissing existed, only your lips and mine."

His hand on her cheek was an unexpected comfort, allowing her to continue. "I've only been courted once, you know. Before my father decided I needed to marry for a title. A man of my own class, a cit. It was nice, and when he proposed, my father refused. And then my mother declared I was to have a Season. It was the only thing they'd ever agreed on in my entire life. How could I tell them no? How could I tell them I'd rather be courted for myself than hunt someone else for a title? And then when you kissed me… I realized what I really wanted was not courtship but kissing. I craved it, though I had never had it before. I craved… something more basic, I think. Touch. And then we were married, and I did not even have kissing and touching anymore. I hadn't had courtship before and—"

"Stop. Please." He closed his eyes. "I will court you. Right now and our entire lives. I will court you every morning, and I will court you every night, and I will kiss you and touch you all you can desire until you feel… whole and wanted because you are, Cora. Some things cannot be explained. Some things just are , and one thing that exists like the sunrise is that I want you. Your body and your mind, your distance and your closeness when you choose to give it."

She laughed. "An impossibility, but perhaps for just a while I shall believe in impossibilities, in happy endings."

He nudged her nose with his own. "You have no choice but to believe in happy endings because here I am."

She threw her arms around him. Her heart felt light and lovely, airy and glad, and she kissed him to share her giddiness.

"Shall we try something from the list?" he asked against her lips.

"Oh yes. But not the last thing you wrote down. Not that yet. I need to touch you, and I need you to touch me." Because every time he did, she knew—all the way to her bones, she knew—as she never had before, that she was wanted, that she was loved.