Chapter 27

27

To thine own self be true.

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

Bridger had given up on work for the day. He sometimes slept in his office, having made a crafty little nook behind the largest bookcase in the back corner. There had been a good deal of shame when Bastian unearthed it, but he could only afford to keep a cook and one maid, and sometimes the threadbare dreariness of his London townhouse was too oppressive even for a war-hardened man.

But it had cheered him tremendously to see Mrs. Ann Richmond and Miss Violet Arden. They had accepted his gift and letter for Margaret with something like wonder. At least, thank God, it wasn't pity. He tidied his desk. Pimm had written; he and Harris were ramming horns over the estate finances. It was nothing new, but Bridger was beginning to wonder how long Harris would put up with it all. He was happy to be away from Fletcher, though the occasional stab of guilt arrived with Pimm's letters, a feeling that he was somehow still abdicating or running away.

Will you come for Christmas? his brother wrote. The tone was impossible to discern. Was that a request or a fear? Bridger didn't know, anyway. Bastian trundled in from the east door with a stack of pages for him to review. It could wait until after he ate, or perhaps until the next day.

"Finished for the afternoon, sir?" the boy asked, noticing the gloves Bridger had just pulled on.

"I believe so. 'Tis too fine a day to spend it all indoors."

"Very good, sir." Bastian, facing the window, glanced away from him at the sound of carriage wheels over cobbles. "Someone's arrived, I think."

"I'm not expecting anyone." Bridger took in the somewhat scattered nature of his desk and sighed. "Am I?"

The boy didn't answer, trotting out the office door and down the corridor. He loved appointments. Bastian enjoyed chatting away with printers and deliverymen, refining his English, and practically erupting with glee when he stumbled upon another German. It was a busy Friday, for in the Row it always was, and it was bloody hard to tell who was coming for their little slice of the publishing business or for another's. He heard soft voices exchanged, a trickle of incoherent conversation traveling down the hall. The door to his office had been left open, shards of light thrown across the floor in the corridor outside, and the exterior somehow letting in a draft.

Bastian had found a German or something and wandered off.

"The door, boy!" he shouted, still poised over his brother's letter, gloved fists pushing into the desk. "There's a chill and these pages will scatter."

"Allow me," said a sweet, playful voice. A familiar voice. Bridger didn't allow himself to hope. He slowly raised his eyes, finding Miss Margaret Arden outlined with golden autumn light in the open doorway. "After all you have done, I owe you much." She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. "There."

Bridger straightened, bowed. "Miss Arden. I…I trust you received my gift?"

"It is the most wonderful thing." She held it out for him to see.

"I'm inclined to agree."

"The woodcut is just right," she said. His heart swelled. "You chose perfectly."

"I only did so with the author in mind."

She came forward a few steps and placed the book on his desk, removed her bonnet, and looked around. Seeing nowhere to put her hat, she held it at her side. "I have long wondered what Dockarty and Company is like."

"And what is your estimation of it?" he asked, watching her. Hawkish. She was thinner than he remembered, and it wounded him to think she had suffered while they were apart. But if their hearts were aligned, then she had languished as he had, and there was no escaping that.

Margaret shied and glanced down at her bonnet, inhaling deeply. "I'm glad you ask me that. It is good that…that you still want my opinion. I thought…when I…when we…" She closed her mouth so firmly her teeth clacked. "I have a feeling you were writing to me. Were you?"

"All the time," he assured her. Ducking down, he unlocked the drawer with her things and drew out the pile of letters. Maggie came to study them, gasping softly as if pricked or wounded.

"I knew it," she whispered fiercely. A storm brewed in her eyes. It heartened him to see her look stronger, defiant. That was the Margaret he knew and loved. "I knew she was guarding the post." Then something almost imperceptible, perhaps "the harpy."

Bridger swallowed with difficulty. "I meant to return to Pressmore directly. In June, I mean, after we…" He laughed at himself, at his own stubborn embarrassment. He shook it off. "After that lovely night we spent together. I was detained, unfortunately. My father died."

"I know," said Margaret, shaking her head. "I heard at Almack's."

His hands fell to his sides. "I saw you there, accompanied by your aunt and her party, and I dared not make myself known, but…I saw you. And I confess it comforted me to see you without a gentleman on your arm. I, um, I take it Mrs. Burton's attempts to match you have been unsuccessful?"

"Not for lack of trying."

"Ah." Bridger found a spot on his desk and rubbed it anxiously with his gloved fingertip. "And now that you are here, now that you have disrupted the terms that dictated her charity, what will Mrs. Burton do?" He squeezed his eyes shut. "I worry for you so, Margaret."

"I don't know what she will do," she said, reaching for him. "Right now, I can't care."

Bridger reached, too, gathering Margaret up in his arms, and kissed her. It was not like their first kiss, tentative and exploring, but an unleashing of time spent too long apart. He was hungry for her, claiming, tugging on the hair at her nape to tilt her head to greater advantage and allowing him to plunder her sweet mouth with all the unspent need burning, screaming, thundering…

He let go of her, gratified that she clung afterward to his waistcoat, holding him fast. Laughing, half-crazed, half-elated, he bit the ends of his gloves and yanked them off. "I want to feel you with my own hands. Let there be nothing between us."

He kissed her again and again, guiding her toward him, and then watching her ease back against his desk, sitting upon it and kicking his chair away. The noise it made clattering against the nearest bookshelf only drove the spike of desire deeper into his chest. He felt like an animal, like a man denied his true craving and nature for too long. She was his, and he would be damned before another obstacle came between them.

Margaret came up for air, leaning back, exposing her neck. He eagerly took the invitation, biting and sucking at the sweet, soft flesh of her throat. "I gave your boy a shilling and told him to buy something sweet," she whispered. "And I told him to be slow about it."

"I love you for so many reasons, you wicked girl, I shall never have time to list them out."

"How can I be blamed for wanting this time with you?" She sighed and covered her face with her hands. "It may be taken from us again! I have been brave this once, but—"

"Shh-shh." He peeled her hands back, beholding her lovely face and bright blue eyes. How he had missed it. Tenderly, he plucked the gloves from her fingers, then kissed the tips, noting they were stained with ink, the enduring and endearing feature that always appeared in his dreams. "You have shown your courage many times, I've seen it with my own eyes. When you stood your ground for your friend, proved your loyalty and wisdom where Ann was concerned, when you thrust that book into my hands at your aunt's salon, when you threw yourself at Pimm to protect me." He listed off the events, kissing a finger for each demonstration of bravery. On the last, her right forefinger, he sucked it into his mouth and groaned at the delicious sound she made. His teeth rasped the pad, and she shuddered, falling back against the desk, sending pages and quills flying.

He thought of the ink-stained gloves of hers in his desk drawer and fancied that perhaps this second pair would be a fine addition. But treasures and little precious things could be considered later. Margaret was before him, and writhing so beautifully, he could not take his eyes off her. Kneeling behind the desk, he rolled her skirt and petticoat up until they were bunched around her waist. She made a breathy, questioning sound that was briefly silenced, then transmuted into sighs as he kissed his way up her ankles, the delicate architecture of her knee, her inner thigh, traveling toward the very center of her heat. When he arrived there, placing a firm, insistent kiss over her mound, Margaret squirmed and shot up off the desk.

"More?" he asked, lips moving against her.

"Ever so much more, yes, please, if you will," she squeaked.

Bridger vented a deep laugh against her inner thigh, resting his forehead there for an instant before returning to his hungry work. He parted her with his lips and explored with his tongue, listening to the sweet, rising music of her cries. Her strong hands grabbed fistfuls of his hair, urging him closer, more, faster, and he obliged. When her thighs clamped around his head and tightened, he helped her tip over the edge into ecstasy completed. She relaxed, both of them filmed with sweat, but he stayed on his knees, using his tongue to spell a playful message against her thigh.

"Love," she laughed. "Whatever you just did must certainly be love." Margaret propped herself up on her elbows, gazing down at him, grinning muzzily with pleasure. "When you first rejected me so outrageously, I never thought I would see you on your knees before me."

Bridger slowly rose and leaned over her, wiping his mouth with his coat sleeve, then shucking it and tossing it to the side. "And when you handed that damp manuscript to me, I never imagined I would see you again, let alone hold you closest and dearest in my heart." He brushed a few errant blond curls from her cheek and kissed her chin, pressing down against her. "But now, with this book, the world will see you as I do."

"Oh dear, that's worrisome. Skirts up, sitting exposed upon your desk?"

Snorting, he shook his head. "As a skillful writer," he said, and drew her hips to his, warming her with his whole body. "And soon, I think, as my wife."

She helped him raise her skirts the final few inches and busied herself with the buttons on his clothes that needed undoing. "But you will not leave tomorrow."

"Oh, don't remind me," he murmured, brow furrowing. He pushed his nose against her temple, breathing her in. "I thought I had lost you."

"Never."

Maggie held Bridger close, feeling him, reveling in the reunion she had imagined a thousand times. His tailcoat whispered to the floor, his shirt and waistcoat following soon after. There was no pretense of shyness or hesitation. They were not practiced at lovemaking, not yet, but eagerness and need more than made up for habit. His arms rippled at her light, seeking touch. She gloried in the way his eyes scrunched up and his nose twitched when she opened her thighs wider and invited him in. His need for her was overpowering, those brutish kisses returning to mark her, to make her lips tingle pleasantly, a lingering, unforgettable embrace.

Her head fell back, loose on her neck as she anticipated their joining, but Bridger, maddeningly, made her wait. She opened one eye to see him admiring her, flushed and wanton on the desk. He jerked hard on her bodice, baring her breasts to the dusty light of the office and his gaze. It was terrible and wonderful to be looked at, and she blushed, perfectly exposed. His lips followed his interest, tongue coasting along heated, tender flesh, the first graze of his teeth over her nipple sending her jolting off the desk.

"Then you'll marry me?" he asked, kissing a trail up her collarbone to her neck.

His hard, branding heat was hovering near hers, tantalizingly close.

"I'll consider it," she whispered.

Bridger's hips dodged away. Merciless. "Margaret…"

Complex ideas melted before she could express anything more intricate than "Please."

"I will have you, forever, not to be undone by deals or distance."

"Please."

His warm laugh gusted across her ear, and she shuddered, gasping again when his chest brushed against hers, the friction sending a thrill through her. Her entire body thrummed with a ragged heartbeat. "London's most exciting new writer reduced to this," he teased. "I never thought I would live to conquer her."

Maggie's eyes flew open. Conquer?

She wrapped her legs around his waist, dragging him into her. The moment their bodies touched, the moment he realized how much slicker and ready she had become, Bridger relented. There were no more coy games as he eased her back on the desk and pushed inside, filling her, drawing a winding groan from her throat as she clung to him. Her feet dug into his lower back, urging him deeper; if there was deeper to go then she wanted to experience it. She wanted to leave no part of herself untouched.

Even as Bridger moved inside her there was no relief. She planted her palms on the desk and thrust out her chest, crashing back against him, chasing the tingling in her cheeks that intensified the more she had of him. He found his way back to her mouth, kissing her, the two of them passing back and forth the fevered sound she made with each crescendo. His pace increased. She could chase the swell no longer and risked freeing one hand to smash his cheek against hers, crying out. He groaned and spent himself inside her, and Maggie shuddered under him. She panted and laughed, heedless of the noise, loudly in love with him and all his flesh and passion and heat provided.

"Of course, I will marry you," she said, watching him lift his head and gaze down at her. His stormy eyes were the softest they had ever been. "For who else would publish my books?"

Bridger rested his head on her chin, sighing with feigned exasperation. "Only if they are as good as the last. You know I will always tell you honestly what I think."

"The greatest gift of all." Maggie sat up, pulling the bodice of her stays back into place and wiggling until her skirt fell back down, replacing some of her modesty. Bridger yanked up his trousers and half sat on the desk beside her, reaching for her hand and cradling it in his. "Did you mean what you said in that note?" she asked, suddenly a bit serious. The sparkling fog of lovemaking had faded, and she found herself retreating to the most naked parts of her heart. "That you would love me even if I could not write?"

"I meant it, Maggie—I will always be plain with you, always frank."

She nodded, believing him, for no eyes that dark and serious could lie. His returned letters had spilled across the desk. She chose one, picking it up and scratching at the wax. At once, Bridger snatched it away. "Not that one," he said, turning scarlet to the roots of his dark, soft hair. "It was the last. By that time, I had somewhat lost faith."

"Always plain?" Maggie smirked. "Always frank?"

Bridger relented and let her have it.

It was full of his hurt, his fear, swinging between blaming her for not telling off her aunt and lamenting the timing of his father's death keeping him from her at the crucial moment. Her eyes filled with tears. She knew this circle of hell intimately, and folded up the letter, then swished it away, aiming vaguely for the fireplace. It bounced harmlessly against the stones and fluttered to the ground.

"What are we to do?" she asked, trying not to be miserable.

"Whatever we must." Bridger cleared his throat and stood and rummaged in the desk, withdrawing a tattered ledger that, in all honesty, probably needed replacing, or at least some repair. Dropped, it thudded down onto the desk near her thigh. His eyes were blazing when he next looked at her, and for a moment, she thought anything might be possible. And perhaps it was, for this man had found a way to publish her book and make a dream something she could hold. "Here is the income we've already received from volume one of The Killbride, and we shall publish the second volume in the coming year. How quickly, dear one, can you write another book?"