Chapter 17

A year ago, Quinton would have been waiting outside of a hotel for an actress or widow, contemplating a night of carnal delight during which everything but kissing might be explored. A year ago, had it been raining as he waited, he would not have waited, leaving word he’d called off the assignation with the hotel’s concierge; the lady could have the room for the night, just not Quinton.

Tonight, he might as well be an entirely different man because he stood outside a hotel, in the rain, waiting for his future wife, and kissing was the only item on the agenda. He’d kiss her once. Perhaps twice. Keep it chaste. Then put her directly to bed. He wanted her well rested for tomorrow. Their wedding. And tomorrow night.

A hack rumbled to a stop in front of the hotel, and Lottie emerged, pulling her cloak low over her face, shielding it from the steadily falling droplets. She looked one way down the street, then the other way, chewing her bottom lip. Worried? Curious? He enjoyed watching her, admiring how she moved through the world with chin held high, defiant, lovely.

His. He peeled himself off the wall and swept toward her, pushing his hat back on his head, revealing his face.

“Quinton,” she said, catching sight of him. “Why have you brought me here? Hotel Hestia?”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and ushered her into the building. “It’s my wedding gift to you, Lottie.” He lifted her hand, kissed her knuckles.

“You’ve bought me a hotel for a wedding present?” She stopped and surveyed the interior—fashionably decorated in navy blues and gold, everything light and airy.

Quinton pulled her up the stairs. “Just a room. For one night. The hotel belongs to your brother-in-law. Not that Kingston takes an interest in it. Prefers his newspapers and printshops. He did secure me two rooms tonight, though.” He took a key from his pocket and opened a door at the end of a long hall.

“Two?”

“One for you.” He swung the door open and tugged her inside. “And one for me.”

She entered the room, scowling. How long would it take to kiss the frown from her face? He would not try to find out. He’d kiss her only briefly and hope that did the trick.

Then she laughed and ran across the room, sinking to her knees. “Princess dear! You have let this man cart you across London? It is a delight to see you, though.” She regarded Quinton over her shoulder, rubbing her hands up and down the dog’s neck. “You have disrupted her. For shame.”

“She comforts me. I thought she might comfort you, too. Offer you some lovely company.”

She patted Princess’s head, then stood. “And that brings us back to the matter of the two rooms. Why shouldn’t we share a room? Why exactly have you brought me here if you do not intend for us to—”

He sat her on the bed, cupping her sloped shoulders with his hands. “I intend for you to rest, Merriweather. A good night’s sleep. So, you’re ready for tomorrow night.”

“I’m ready, Chance, I assure you.”

When she said things like that, he wanted to pull her tight against him, demand she prove it. When she said things like that, his hardening body cried out for her. When she said things like that he wanted to drop to his knees before her, pledge himself forever.

Hell. When she said things like that, he knew he was lost, that this convenient marriage he’d imagined would prove more complicated than he’d bargained for.

He patted her shoulders and backed away. “Now, there’s a bath before the fire, and a maid will arrive shortly with a meal. I’ll return just before dawn to return you home so no one is the wiser.” He scratched the back of his neck, anything to keep from touching her. “It will be easier to ensure you rest once we’re wed. I won’t have to secret you away and return you in the morning.”

She stood and took his hands, kissed his knuckles. “I do not need to rest, Quinton.”

“You’re bruised.” He raised a thumb and traced it along the skin just under her eyes. Surely this gentle touch would not hold him captive. “And you yawn constantly. And in the last fortnight since everything happened, you’ve put every ounce of yourself into caring for your sisters, worrying over them. How many megrims have you had?”

Her gaze skittered away.

He cupped her cheek. “How many?”

“Three,” she mumbled.

“More like five. I’ve counted. Let me care for you now. Let me worry over you. Yes?” He grinned. “Yes. You’re already here. It would make no sense to reject my offer.”

“Your offer of a chaste evening in a hotel room while you sleep just down the hall a night before our wedding?”

“Precisely.”

She wrinkled her nose. He backed away from her once more, clasping his hands behind his back to keep from smoothing out that wrinkle with his thumb.

The last week had been too easy. Easy to convince the ton the book had been his, easy to convince them of Lottie’s wide-eyed innocence, easy to win suitors back into the duke’s house.

Easy to be with her. In her moment of need, he’d let down all his walls, burnt the gardens of thorns surrounding them, and woke up his heart to work for her. Terrifying. But also a bit like breathing—the easiest of all to do.

“I’ll be going now.” He took a few steps toward the open door. “The staff here is excellent. Everything is taken care of. You need only ask. I’m down the hall, as I said. I did not have to stay, but I didn’t want you to be entirely alone here. You’ll be my responsibility starting tomorrow. It’s safe of course. I wouldn’t bring you otherwise, but…” He was rambling. He snapped his mouth closed. “I’m here if you need me.”

She caught his arm at the door. “Stay for dinner? I’d like the company.”

“You’ve Princess for company.”

“And she is the best there is, but”—Lottie cupped her hand around her mouth as if to hide her words from the snoring dog—“she does not excel at conversation. It’s rather a weak point with her, and I’d rather have a little chat while I eat. I find it stressful otherwise.”

He crossed his arms in the hallway, the threshold of her door separating them. “You are attempting to manipulate me.”

She shrugged. “What you call manipulation I call cajoling. Or seduction. It’s all one and the same.”

“No matter what you call it, did it work last time?” When she’d let him kiss her cunny at the dinner party. When she’d stroked his shaft in the phaeton.

“A little. Is it working now?”

Yes, damn it all. Just as it had those times, softening him, promising him everything.

He slunk back into the room and closed the door gently behind him. “I’ll join you for dinner. Dinner only. You must rest.”

“Excellent. What shall we do while we wait?” She raised her eyebrows and opened her black cloak.

His mouth went dry. “What in hell are you wearing?”

“A gown, my lord. Can you not tell?”

“It’s missing bits.” Particularly those bits around the bosom. What little existed of the superbly cut, low-bodice gown shimmered with gold. The silk flared out over her hips, and the tiny cap sleeves gave way to long, gloveless arms he wanted tangled around his neck. Her hair was only partly up, and long, golden curls cascaded over one shoulder, flirting with her waist.

He swallowed. “You responded quickly to my missive, I see. Barely had time to dress. Or do your hair.”

Her smile as she sat at the small table between the fireplace and the bed was sly, knowing. “I had plenty of time. The gown is new. I had it made for my trousseau, and I thought to wear it after we wed. But when I received your note, I decided… why not tonight? I thought”—said with a sigh—“that we would be doing more than sleeping this evening.”

“You’ve a naughty mind, Merriweather.”

“You like it.”

He joined her at the table. “More than you know.”

“Do you like the gown, though?”

“The gown…” He drummed his fingers on the table, raking his gaze over every visible inch of her body, growing tight and hard. “It’s sublime. But not as beautiful as you.” That hair. Threads of gold. They’d twine about him, ruin him. And he’d enjoy it.

A knock on the door, and then it swung open and a maid with a large tray walked through, followed by another with a bottle of wine.

“Shall we ask for another plate of food?” Lottie asked.

The maid whipped the dome off the platter, revealing more bread than two people could eat.

“I think not,” Quinton said.

“It is too much. You should not have.”

“You need it. Eat all you like.”

“And you eat the rest.”

They beamed at one another over the mountain of food as the maids took their leave.

She ate with a gusto that gave him pleasure, flicking small bits at Princess, who gobbled them up better than she snagged them from the air. And when Lottie leaned back in her chair with a sated sigh, he rejoiced that he’d stayed to keep her company, glad to spend this last night of the first half of their lives together.

“Quinton?”

“Hm?” He sipped his wine, watched her with a growing sense that he was the one being relaxed, not her.

“The cottages, how are they coming along?”

He set the wine down, frowned into the low fire in the grate. “Truthfully, I’ve not had time in the last fortnight to tend to the problem.” Guilt snapped at him with rabid teeth. “The plans have been sent to Bluevale with instructions for my estate manager to begin work. But I’ve not had time to send a letter requesting news on the project.”

“It’s my fault.” She twirled her wine glass between her fingers, staring into the deep purple liquid. “You’ve been tending to me. You must let me do something to help. The cottages are important.”

They were important, but he’d nearly forgotten them entirely after he sent the last communication to his estate manager. Not like him at all. No woman had ever so entirely consumed his waking hours that everything else melted away. But then no woman’s entire existence had been threatened by gossip, and he, the best person to save her. Entirely novel situation. No precedent.

He reached across the table and rested his hand over hers on the wine glass. “It is not your worry. In a few days, after I’ve left you to recover from a days-long bout of love making that will, Merriweather, be recorded in history tombs as one of the most energetic and creative ever experienced, I’ll write to Mr. Rilston, my estate manager. Then when the Season ends, we’ll go to Bluevale for the winter, and I’ll oversee the building and improvements.”

“Surely there is something I can do.”

“It is my duty.”

“And I’ve impeded it. Quinton”—she leaned forward, flipping their hands and trapping his against the table—“I am no stranger to duty. As a duke’s daughter I was raised to be a peer’s wife. And after my mother’s death, it was my duty to watch over my sisters, to find ways to alleviate their grief, and to encourage those little hobbies that gave them purpose and joy. I enjoy my duties to others. They are not obligations, they are privileges, and I would venture to guess you feel the same.”

Beneath her grasp, he turned his hand so that they were palm to palm, his fingertips pressing lightly against the pulse at her wrist. “That, Lady Charlotte, is why you deserve a night like tonight—all your own, no worries or cares, no duties, no matter how much you enjoy them. No cottages. I will manage matters more closely later.” Before the Book Drop Heard Across London, he would have already done so, requesting daily news from Rilston, taking short trips between parliamentary obligations. Many of his peers were less involved, but Barnaby had taught him better, taught him never to let distractions ruin what he was building.

And Quinton had been distracted the past fortnight, more than ever since his father’s death. But soon this scandal would be put to rest, Lottie would be resting in his bed, and he’d have the matter of the cottages, as well as everything else, well in hand.

Lottie pulled her arm off the table, away from his touch, and stared into the glowing fire. “A night recorded by history, Chance?”

“You doubt me?”

“Not at all. You have so much experience. Me… I’ve only book learning.”

He stood and found the book he’d tossed on a small chair across the room when he’d arrived before her earlier and checked the room to assure its quality and cleanliness. Kneeling beside her, he placed it in her lap. Leather bound, a deep brown that glowed against her gold skirts.

She picked it up and opened to the front page. “Empty.” She flipped through the pages. “Why have you given me a blank notebook?”

“Another wedding present. It’s for you to write your adventures in as you experience them. If you like.”

She held it out, ran her fingers along its spine, then along the creamy, blank pages within. “By adventures, I assume you mean—”

“Every naughty thing we do together,” he whispered in her ear.

She shivered, licked her lips.

He kissed the length of her neck between words. “You have long read of others’ exploits. It’s only fair you have a book of your own. Since you are more passionate than all the ladies in those books combined.”

Her breast rose and fell more quickly than before, and he swept her hair off her shoulder so he could kiss that dip where it met her neck, pull the sleeve of her gown lower to continue his journey across her skin. Not part of the plan, but creamy shoulders fair blasted plans apart.

She ripped her body away from his lips. Better that way because he would not continue what he was beginning. Not until tomorrow night. Cupping his face, she laughed, her eyes shining.

“You dear man. I would never have thought to ask for or even want such a gift, but it is perfect.” She kissed his lips. “Absolutely perfect.” She swooped in for another kiss, winding her arms around her neck, and using the embrace to pull to her feet, to mold her body to his, and sweep her tongue through his parted lips.

He groaned and pulled away, escaping arms he wanted to cling to. “I’m leaving now.” He strode for the door. “Sleep well, Merriweather. I’ll—”

“Quinton.”

His hand on the doorframe, he turned, knowing he shouldn’t. She stood tall and regal, wearing confidence and determination like a crown.

“Stay,” she said, and what should have sounded like a question absolutely did not.

He swallowed hard, squeezed the frame so tightly the bones of his fingertips screamed. “I cannot.”

“Will I have a maid to undress me for a bath? Or must I somehow wiggle out of this gown on my own?” Her gaze settled on the large tub pulled before the flames “The water is likely cold. I’ll have to build the fire as well. Or call a maid. Or—”

“I’ll do it.” She’d known he would. “Minx,” he grumbled as he knelt by the fire, poked and prodded it into a roar. When he finished, he found her fondly smiling.

She turned her back to him, peered at him over her shoulder. “Undo my tapes? My stays?”

“Then I must go.” His hands hesitated at the skin above her gown, but he steeled his resolve and found the ties, pulled, undid them all and undid himself in the process. When the gown slumped on her figure, she let it fall in a puddle around her feet. He loosened her stays, let those drop to the ground as well until only her shift remained. “Now I leave, Lottie.” His voice had turned gruff and raw.

She sauntered toward the tub, the golden flames of the fire beyond it illuminating her body beneath the thin muslin. “If you must. Or…”

“Hell.” He ground the curse between his teeth. He was trying to be good, to do right by her and by himself.

“Or,” she continued, ignoring his curse, “you can stay. And watch.” She lifted the shift above her head, let it flutter to the ground, then lifted one thick, shapely leg into the tub followed by another. Curves and curls and firelight. And he could not leave.

He sat on the bed, every muscle tight.

“An excellent decision if you ask me, Quinton. How else will you know if I truly relax as you desire? Unless you stay. And watch.”

He closed his eyes, his body tight with desire, his last sight of Princess curling up for a nap in a warm corner near the fire.

“Shall I show you how I like best to relax?” Lottie asked.

“If it pleases you.” Said into the darkness because, while he could not leave (his legs simply would not let him), he could shut himself off from the decadent sight of her.

“I promise you, it does.”

The sound of water sluicing across skin. A tiny splash. A husky chuckle. Water lapping up the copper sides of the tub. He tried not to imagine the color of it all, the curves of her, the wicked glint in her eye. Tried and failed.

A moan. Hers. And so deep and beautiful, he had to see. His eyes opened in a flash, and he found her in a moment, as if she were the only sight on earth to see—sank low in the tub, head resting against its rim, knees poking up above the edge. So much better than he’d imagined. She bit her bottom lip, her own eyes closed, and her hand beneath the water, lower than her navel, moved in a rhythmic motion.

His hands gripped tight as talons on the bed’s edge. “What are you doing?” Foolish question. He knew. And it drove something in him tight and wild.

“I’m imagining you touching me.”

He had a choice in this moment. Stand and walk out the door and commit to his plan—a celibate evening before his wedding day. Or he could stay and bear witness to the most erotic sight he’d ever encountered, a sight he’d likely never recover from. Even in his dreams, where Lottie moved supreme, a teasing phantom of his every delight, he’d never imagined this—Lottie laid out and wet, pleasuring herself as he watched.

A choice…

Not really.

“Your imagination must be faulty, Merriweather, because you’re doing it wrong.” No going back now. His plan abandoned with a new, better one in place. He would not leave her this night.

Her head shot up and her eyes popped open, and that water-hidden hand froze. As she surveyed him from his perch on the edge of her bed—their bed tonight—she raised a single golden brow.

“I assure you,” she said, “my imagination is quite adequate.”

“Not if you’re imagining what I would do should my hands have free range of your body.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

He stood slowly and prowled a careful circle around the tub where she lay splayed out and open to him. Hell. How would he do it? Let her stay there instead of throwing her over his shoulder, bouncing her onto the bed and taking her in a heady rush. Like a green boy with no patience.

That’s how he’d manage to deny himself. Because she deserved every ounce of control and precision he could manage. Every kiss he’d envisioned over the past six years and failed to take because he could not forget her, he’d lay across her skin tonight. It would take time to give her six seasons of life, but he would manage.

With pleasure.

She looked up at him, her hair around her face damp and curled, her lips slightly parted, one hand slipped and hidden between her legs, the other resting over her navel at that sweet curve of her belly. The water sluiced at her breasts. And there he would begin.

“If it were I, Merriweather,” he said, still prowling a slow circle around her, “your breasts would not be so neglected.”

Her inhale was sharp, and her nipples puckered. When he stopped between her and the bed at his back, he crossed his arms and raised his own brow. A challenge. Their gazes meeting strong and soft at once, she lifted her hand from her belly, cupped her breast, squeezed, then flicked her thumb across her nipple and swallowed a strangled cry as her head fell back once more, and her hand beneath the water continued its work.

Need tingling in every extremity of his body, he began to untie and unravel his cravat, his movements born of mechanical memory not intent. His body would combust if he did not disrobe, every bit of him screamed with the leaping flames of desire. And he could not look away from his soon-to-be-wife writhing in the tub—that, not the fire, what consumed him.

Her hands moving over her body on a languid wave, he unwound the last circle of his cravat, revealing a strong neck that made her fingers itch and her breath catch. Moving with more purpose, he dropped the cravat to the floor and flicked open the buttons of his waistcoat, her gaze trailing after his fingers. When he shrugged the garment to the floor and untied his shirt, she licked her lips. She liked watching him, as he adored watching her, then.

And like him, she found no contentment in mere watching.

She pulled the hem of his shirt free from his pantaloons. Graceful and long, capable, clever. He’d remember what they did and how she liked it when he touched her later. They worked at a more frantic pace as he slipped his shirt up over his torso, tossed it to the floor. His cock pressed hard against his fall, demanding release. Should he? He released a button, and that button, undone beneath his fingers, seemed to undo her. She cried out, her hands flying frantic over her cunny, her breasts, her belly, trying to touch everywhere at once. Then that cry became a whimper, and that whimper into heavy breathing as she lay, her muscles loose and sated in the tub.

She’d had her turn. Now it was his.

He gathered her out of the tub, dripping and heavy in his arms. He set her on unsteady legs before the fire and snatched the linen draped over the back of a nearby chair. Every inch of her he dried, he kissed after, searing warmth into her skin. Hair, neck, shoulders, the valley between her breasts, her ribs, her navel, and lower, linen and kisses and the shadows of flames everywhere.

When he hit his knees before her, positioned as he had been so many times in the past few months, he grasped her hips and looked up. Her head lolled to the side, her eyes closed, a pleased, unconscious smile curving her lips.

“Lottie.”

With the barest of movements, she met his gaze, that lazy smile growing. “Mm?”

“You’re mine tonight, and every night after.”

Her hand tangled in his hair, fingers stroking it away from his forehead, his temples. “I’ve been yours every night for a very long time, Quinton Chance. It’s about time you caught up with me.”

He surged to his feet and picked her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he crashed a kiss against her lips and stole her away to the bed. He pinned her to the mattress and tangled his hand in her damp hair, held her in place with those golden strands.

“I tried to wait till our wedding night, Merriweather, but you have teased me past my breaking point.”

“Good.” She bent her knee, her thigh behind him, bumping him forward, lips falling into lips, a laughing kiss.

He tried not to think about what she’d said as she flicked open each button of his fall and pushed his pantaloons down his hips. But as he scrambled to yank off his boots, and she watched him with laughter on her lips, the words would ring like church bells across London.

I’ve been yours every night for a very long time.

He’d known that. Somehow. Though he’d ignored it best he could. How had he known it?

Likely because, for a very long time, he’d been hers as well.