Chapter Twelve

C HAPTER T WELVE

The next time Lady Long-Nose saw Sabinus, he exclaimed, “Oh, my lady, you’ll never guess! Sweet Christina has written me a letter so full of wit and poetry that I’ve fallen even more deeply in love with her. I believe such talent has never before been seen in a woman.”

Lady Long-Nose smiled and nodded and vowed to never tell her love the truth.…

—From Lady Long-Nose

A light tremble ran through her body. Elspeth wasn’t entirely sure what an experienced lady was expected to do in this situation, but she knew what she wanted.

“Come here,” she said, her voice so low it was husky. “To my side.”

He rose at once, prowling around the table as if he stalked her. He halted before her.

She tilted her chin to look him in the eye. “Will you kiss me?”

He knelt between her legs, his head on a level with hers, and brought his palms up to frame her face. She leaned forward, her hands braced on his shoulders, and then, finally, he kissed her.

She closed her eyes, feeling his mouth brushing over hers, causing her lips to tingle. She’d never realized how sensitive her lips were. How ready to part and receive him. But he didn’t take her invitation. He teased her, his touch so light over and over again until she thought she might go mad from the sensation.

She moaned, breathless, wanting, turning her face, pressing against him as if she could force him to go further.

He slid his mouth to beneath her ear, and the skin there was sensitive as well. She turned her face, giving him more access, and felt him nip her earlobe.

“You taste like honey,” he rasped, his breath on her wet skin making her shiver. “I might devour you. Swallow you whole.”

He murmured his erotic threats as he drew his lips down the cord of her neck, lighting the nerves there, making her press her thighs together. Could she come from just this? From only his words and his lips on her skin?

He widened his mouth and put his teeth to her tendon, but didn’t bite. Instead he dragged his teeth against her, the touch so light she could feel sparks along the trail he made.

She swallowed, the movement pressing against his mouth, and he traced her throat with his tongue, sinking lower until he licked between her collarbones.

She arched her head back at the sensation, groaning aloud, and her voice broke when she said, “Please.”

Only then did he retrace his steps, dragging his teeth over her jaw, until his mouth took hers again.

He devoured her, just as he’d warned, his open mouth startlingly hot. He licked over her bottom lip and into her mouth, his tongue meeting hers and battling, sliding, encouraging, until the room dissolved and she simply floated in the ether, her entire being focused on his lips.

Only his lips.

He dragged his teeth across her cheek, making her whine, and whispered roughly in her ear, “Come to bed with me.”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes.”

Julian stood, even as she reached for him, and took her hand, tugging her upright. His gray eyes were darkened, the shards of ice in them glinting as he led her swiftly from the kitchen, up the staircase, and into his room.

“Elspeth,” he groaned, suddenly stopping and pulling her into his arms again. “Tell me if this isn’t what you want. Send me away and leave me, but do it soon because if we go a step further, I’ll be unable to stop.”

“I won’t,” she whispered, touching his cheek, making him turn his face to mouth at her palm. Her heart beat almost painfully. “I can’t.”

He made no comment to that, simply waiting.

“Do what you want,” she ordered.

At that he stood and began unpinning her bodice. “You’ve driven me mad tonight, do you know that? Standing before the fire in only your chemise and stays.” He helped her off with the bodice and her skirts. “Flaunting these beauties in front of me.”

He lowered his face to her breasts, still bound in her stays, and she felt the faint scrape of his beard against her delicate skin. Her cheeks heated. Her entire body felt as if it were aflame, and she shuddered when he lewdly thrust his tongue between her breasts.

He groaned against her skin and whispered, “I hate these stays. I loathe them. They shall be burned as soon as I have them off you.”

“Would you leave me naked, then?” she asked, her voice low. “For I wouldn’t be able to wear my jacket without them.”

“Yes,” he said jealously, working at the strings of her stays. “You may wear only your chemise and what blankets I can find, and you’ll sit in state in the library and order me about.”

She laughed helplessly at the silly image, catching his face gently in her hands, interrupting his labor at the gussets of her stays. “Is that what you’ll do?”

He stilled, watching her, his eyes almost calculating. “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

“I think I do,” she whispered. For now, in this place apart from the rest of the world. It was a pretty dream, after all.

“Then let me finish,” he growled, and attacked the strings once more, loosening them until he could draw the stays over her head.

He reached for her chemise, and she felt a small qualm for the first time. She knew her form wasn’t considered ideal by those in society. She’d overheard the nasty words a few ladies whispered about her. It had seemed childish. After all, she didn’t mutter about other women’s heights or noses or teeth or anything else they couldn’t help. Some women were thin and some wide. Why fret over how the goddess had made them?

But while such ideals were easy for her to know intellectually, it was harder when another was the judge—a man whose opinion she cared about. Would he find her unlovely?

So she held her breath as he raised her chemise, waiting.

She needn’t have worried. The look Julian gave her nude body was almost reverent, and when he gathered her overflowing breasts in his hands, it was as if he held a treasure.

“Soft,” he whispered, his thumbs caressing her skin. He looked up at her almost in wonder. “You’re so soft all over.”

Her lips parted in yearning. “You’re overdressed.”

He nodded jerkily and led her to the bed. “Lie down for me.”

She sprawled across the bed, watching as he tore at his clothes, his eyes roving over her, from her mouth to her neck to her nipples. Down to her belly and over the fine hair at the juncture of her thighs. He reached for his falls and stopped abruptly, closing his eyes as if to hold himself together. Then he stripped breeches and smallclothes and stockings all at once before he got in the bed, crawling to her.

He locked eyes with her as he lowered his mouth, watching her expression as he touched the tip of his tongue to her left breast.

She swallowed and then had to close her eyes to feel the way his damp tongue licked over her breast, making her nipple dimple and come awake. She was breathing fast, her breast pushing up into his face, asking for more. And she jerked convulsively when he opened his mouth and sucked.

Oh. Oh Goddess, she’d never known this small part of her could send such strings of desire throughout her entire body, linking her breast to her cunt, making her grow damp. He suckled at her, and she wanted… wanted to squirm. To touch herself as he drew on her nipple.

He stopped suddenly, and she almost cried out at the loss, but then he moved to her other breast, sucking at that nipple as he played with the one left behind.

And that… that was exquisite, pulling sparks from both tiny points that seemed to rush over her body. She found herself grasping at his hair, and for a fleeting second, she wished he’d unbound it so she could slide her fingers in and hold him, trapping him against her so he’d be forced to pleasure her until they both unraveled.

She was moaning now, she realized dimly. Arching against him, her body begging for more, and then he took her hand and dragged it from his hair, pulling it down her body and over her mound.

He lifted his head and gasped, “Please. God, please, touch yourself as I pleasure you,” before returning to her nipples.

The words, uttered in that crystalline accent with such obvious need, sent a bolt of sweet desire down to her center, making her clench her thighs and feel the wetness between her folds.

He sucked relentlessly, giving her no time to think, and almost compulsively, she teased her way through her curls and into that hot liquid. She found her point of pleasure and petted there softly for now. She was so close that the smallest movement might make her meet her crisis.

He switched back to her first nipple, roughly laving it with his tongue, and at the same time he took the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger and pinched.

She cried out, quaking with the sudden overwhelming pleasure, once, twice, a third time, her nerves all alight, her very being lost completely to the bliss, and then shuddered once more, almost delicately, a last shocking thread of exquisite feeling before slumping back, her eyes closed, her chest heaving with the aftermath of her orgasm.

It took her unknowing moments before she realized that he was pushing his penis between her thighs. Not penetrating her, but thrusting fiercely between, her liquid making the way slick.

She opened her eyes to watch.

He groaned above her as if in pain and glanced up at her, his face transformed into awful pleasure, teeth bared, the muscles of his chest and shoulders held in taut relief.

“Tell me,” he begged, plunging eagerly into her thighs. She could feel that hard, heavy muscle demanding his release. “Tell me I can.”

Her eyelids were heavy, her body lax and slumberous, and for a moment, her mood was cruel. She smiled at him, biting her lip, wondering if she should keep him here in this state of strained desperation.

“Please,” he ground out, the word nearly unrecognizable. “Please let me.”

Only then did she whisper, “Come for me.”

He shouted, his entire body arcing up and back, his muscles stiff and frozen, his mouth open as if in agony.

And his cock pulsing, pulsing hot streams of his release across her thighs.

The clock on the mantel in Julian’s bedroom chimed eleven times and then made an odd clunk , which, Elspeth supposed, signaled midnight. He’d told her sometime before—at breakfast? At supper? In the library? That the clock was broken, but it seemed to keep time well enough.

Well. Except for that clunk .

She should be getting up, dressing, and either going straight to her own bedroom or continuing to search the house.

But she was so cozy in Julian’s bed. He lay snug against her back, a pile of blankets and coverlets over them, surrounded by darkness, only their breathing breaking the silence of the room.

Warm.

Relaxed.

Cocooned.

The outside world might be a hazy dream. They might be the only people on earth, together and perfect.

Julian was awake as well. She knew it from how his fingers tapped against her ribs every now and again.

She inhaled and asked quietly, “Is it that you need someone else’s permission to feel pleasure?”

He stiffened behind her, the hand on her side curling. “I don’t like talking about it.”

She nodded, though whether he could see or perhaps feel it in the dark she didn’t know.

For several long moments, the room was quiet, though his fist didn’t relax.

He blew out a breath against the back of her neck. “Perhaps. I… don’t think about it overmuch. Aside from fearing I’ll be found out.” His voice held self-loathing.

She frowned and turned to look over her shoulder, but of course she couldn’t see him. “Why would anyone care what you do in bed?”

His hand drew away. “You mock me.”

“No.” She turned over fully, catching the hand he tried to withdraw. “No, I didn’t mean to insult you, truly. I just don’t understand.”

She faced him now, their noses only inches apart, and still she could make out only the faint outline of his head.

She had no idea of his expression, but she could hear the bitterness when he said, “Society is only interested if the activities in the bedroom are not the usual, by which I mean a man with a woman, the man dominant and on top. Anything else is considered exotic or repulsive, and as a result, people are immediately deeply, obsessively curious. They enjoy discovering weaknesses. Passing judgment. Laughing with contempt.”

Elspeth knew well enough the base desire to hold something over another’s head. Most children felt the emotion and grew out of it, although some perhaps especially childish adults never left it behind.

Still… “They— you —consider what we do exotic? Repulsive?”

The word made her realize how hurt she was at the thought that he hated what they had done together.

“I…” His voice trailed away in the dark until he cleared his throat. “I don’t mean what you have done, understand. But a man who needs to bow before a woman, to be humiliated, sometimes hurt, is not a man at all. He’s a worm. The most disgusting creature alive. They would quite literally pillory me for it.”

“Then they are wrong,” she whispered heatedly. “Stupid and wrong.”

“Are they?” His voice was weary. “I think I should feel the same if I wasn’t cursed with this affliction. Often I do. I can’t be proud of my submission. It’s unnatural.”

Her brows drew together. “But if you consider yourself unnatural and the act itself unnatural, I don’t see how you can say I’m not unnatural, too. That I’m not disgusting.”

“You aren’t disgusting.” His tone was harsh. “You’re the most beautiful—”

“No.” She set her hand over his mouth, stopping him. “There are only two possibilities. Either our acts are normal, you are normal, and I am normal, or the act, you, and I are disgusting. There is no in-between.”

He kissed her palm, the simple gesture made powerful by the trembling of his lips, as if he tried to express all his longing in one act.

“I don’t think of you as anything but perfect as you are,” he whispered into her hand as he let her go. “But the things we’ve done in this room are aberrant. I know this. All of society knows this, and if they found out, they would ruin you and me with absolute glee.”

“Who are these people?” she asked fiercely. “Who decides what is natural and what unnatural? What do they base this judgment on?”

“The Bible and what the majority of people think.”

“Where does it say in the Bible that a man should not want to be submissive to a woman for bedsport?” she hissed. “The Bible tells us it’s a sin for a man to spill his seed on the ground. Should we hang every male between ten and twenty?”

“No, of course not. That’s—”

“It’s ridiculous. They pick and choose what they want from the Bible,” she interrupted loudly. “They know it, and I know it. And what about this majority? If most of the people of London don’t eat oat porridge, but most of the people in Edinburgh do, then who is right? Is oat porridge inedible or edible?”

She felt his fingertips against her cheek. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Your arguments are sound in the abstract, but they don’t reflect the everyday. People do judge. People do gossip. People do ruin men—and women—on rumor alone.”

Frustration made her blurt, “But can’t you see—?”

His touch against her lips was featherlight. “If Augustus ever found out what I like in the bedchamber, he would have me disgraced and shunned within days. All your arguments and philosophical ideas will not change that one fact.”

His words sounded like a door shutting.

She drew breath and caught his fingers within hers desperately. “Can you at least admit that, aside from your uncle’s opinion and society’s rule, what you want isn’t awful? Your needs involve only the person you are with. You hurt no one. How can you be an abomination? Tell me you no longer believe such lies.”

Elspeth waited, her breath caught in her throat, for his reply. For his voice in the night repudiating his self-loathing.

In the silence, she heard nothing.

Finally she drew breath, her heart breaking. “Julian…”

His lips touched her own, as fleeting as a dragonfly alighting. “Sleep with me, Elspeth. Let the night bring us peace.”

And truly she would’ve continued protesting, but their space under the covers was warm and safe, and she’d had a tiring day.

She turned so that he could wrap his arms around her and draw her close to his solid heat, and despite herself, she was comforted.

But as she sank toward the dreams awaiting her, she couldn’t help an irksome worry.

That Julian’s thoughts about himself would bring disaster.

Julian woke to the faint sound of voices somewhere within the house.

Elspeth lay next to him, her pretty lips parted, her cheeks flushed with sleep. He wanted to stay here with her, his arms holding her, relishing her soft warmth, but of course that was sentimental foolishness. They were about to be discovered, and if nothing else, he needed to protect her and her reputation.

“Elspeth,” he said quietly, cupping her face, “wake up. We’re no longer alone.”

She moaned and turned her face into his hand, and the sight made his heart clench almost painfully.

“Elspeth, please.”

She opened her eyes then, blinking at the dawning light. “What is it?”

He removed his hand. Their ideal world was over, and it was time to return to reality. “I think the servants have returned. You must go to your rooms before they discover you here.”

“But why?” she whined under her breath, her eyes closing again.

“No.” He laid his hand on her shoulder and shook her. “You must wake up, Elspeth.”

“All right.” She frowned in what looked like irritation.

She must know she faced social disaster if found in his bed. “Come. Get up.”

He rose himself, swiftly throwing on breeches and a shirt and splashing his face with the ghastly cold water in his basin.

When he turned back to the bed, Elspeth had risen only as far as sitting on the edge. “Elspeth. Now. ”

She glanced up in alarm, his growled words no doubt startling her, but she was wasting time. Did she want to be caught?

He pushed the thought to the side and pulled her up, making her stand as he threw her chemise over her head and piled her arms with the remainder of her clothes. It took only a moment to find the hall empty before he hurried her to the room she’d been using.

“Get in the bed,” he ordered sternly as she stood just inside the room, blinking sleepily at him. “You need to make it look as if you’ve been here all night.”

With that he closed the door in her face and straightened, listening. He could still hear the voices faintly below, which hopefully meant the servants hadn’t left the kitchen.

Striding swiftly back to his room, he threw on shoes and a banyan—the house was damnably frigid in the morning—and took the stairs down at a sedate pace.

By the time he’d made the kitchen, the voices had died. No doubt they’d heard him approaching.

Inside, the room was almost stiflingly warm. The fire was roaring, with Plum blissfully snoring on the hearth. Two women swiftly rose from the table where they’d been enjoying tea.

“A good morning to ’e, Mr. Greycourt,” Mrs. McBride said sturdily.

He nodded to her and the maid, whose name he’d forgotten. “Might I have something to break my fast? In the library, I think.”

“Aye, soon as the fire dies down enough to be cookin’,” replied Mrs. McBride. “But I can bring th’ tea in two ticks.”

Julian nodded. “I take it that the roads are clear?”

“Mostly,” that lady replied, sending a stern glance at the other woman. “Told Alice that we’d best be gettin’ back to Adders now that some of the mud has dried.”

“Indeed,” Julian muttered. Neither woman looked particularly eager to return to her labors.

He left for the library, thinking as he did so that he could’ve waited another couple of days for the servants’ return. Sharing the house with Elspeth had become natural so swiftly. He’d thought he’d had days left with her. To let go of his duties and the outside world and simply be .

But that was over now, and no use bemoaning the loss. Julian squared his shoulders as he entered the library and took a seat before the table. He stared out the window at the gray skies and the black tree trunks, ordering his thoughts.

He needed to return to London, discover if Lucretia had gotten safely away, and see what Augustus’s reaction had been. His uncle had never taken defeat meekly. Julian had to be ready to deflect whatever Augustus did next.

He felt a headache coming on.

He should discuss what to do with Quinn. Contact Hawthorne and Messalina to see if she was well. Be alert because Augustus would surely intensify his fixation on killing Julian. Perhaps Quinn should leave London as well. Find a safe place to hide while Julian somehow determined a method to stop the duke. Block the man from ever hurting his family again and keep everyone safe. Secure. Protected.

Julian sighed and laid his head back against the chair. It all seemed impossible. If only he had something to hold over Augustus’s damned head. If only he had his mother’s diary.

The door opened, and Mrs. McBride bustled in, laden with a tray. “I’ve eggs boiling on the fire, but I thought you could have this while you wait.” She set the tray on the table and unloaded a steaming teapot, a teacup, a saucer, a basket of sliced bread, and a small dish of butter. “Made the bread just last night at home. Thought you’d be glad of it after being trapped at Adders.”

“Yes, thank you,” Julian said quite gratefully. “You are correct as usual.”

The cook beamed before a too-innocent expression came over her face. “Will my lady be coming to breakfast? I saw she was still here.”

Mrs. McBride gestured behind her to Plum, who had silently entered the library, his gaze intent upon Julian’s bread.

“I don’t know,” Julian answered, busying himself pouring his tea. “Perhaps the maid should check?”

“Very well, sir,” the cook answered a tad too neutrally.

Julian waited until the woman had turned her back to watch her leave the room. Mrs. McBride had always been loyal to him, and he was almost certain she wouldn’t cause any rumors to spread about Elspeth, but he wasn’t so sure of the maid.

He grimaced and then burned his tongue with the tea. Too late now. There hadn’t been elsewhere for Elspeth to stay once she made it to Adders House. She could plead necessity if she had to, though most would then wonder why she’d made the trip in the first place to a bachelor’s house.

God! Why was that diary so important to her that she’d risk social ostracism? Was she simply naive, or did she not care what others thought of her?

Or had she laid a trap to force him to marry her?

No. He was cunning and cynical and had the direst view of the world, but even he could not imagine Elspeth stooping so low. She simply was too genuine to do such a thing.

He sighed, trying his tea again. Of the two of them, he was the only one worried for her honor, and he supposed he’d be the only one attempting to save it.

The door opened, and Elspeth wandered in. She’d donned her gown and kerchief and put up her hair, though rather haphazardly.

“Oh, hullo,” she said to him, and then ignored him to greet her dog. “Good morning, Plum. Did you have a good night in the kitchen?”

She knelt to rub the dog’s ears briskly, which Plum seemed to find very pleasurable.

“What have you been feeding him?” Julian asked, telling himself he wasn’t jealous of a hound.

She shrugged, attention still on Plum. “Oh, scraps I found in the kitchen. Eggs, some of the bread, and a carrot or two.”

Julian wrinkled his nose and stared at the animal. “Dogs eat carrots?”

“This one does.” She looked up at last, beaming.

It caused something to relax in him that she didn’t hold a grudge for his rough waking of her. “Does Mrs. McBride know that you’re up?”

“I passed a maid in the hallway,” she said, sitting down, “and she assured me that Mrs. McBride would bring me breakfast in here.”

He nodded, not entirely certain what to say next. He had a desperate urge to kiss her. To tell her she looked beautiful in the morning light. To whisper that he’d enjoyed holding her all the night long in his arms.

He could do none of that now. That was over. Instead he must play the coldly distant host, formal and reserved. Mrs. McBride might suspect something, but that did not give him leave to flaunt their intimacy before her.

It wasn’t done.

No, it wasn’t done.

“Are you all right?” she asked him, peering at him worriedly. “You look sad.”

Did he? Obviously, he’d not entirely recovered his emotionless mask.

He shrugged. “Just considering how much of the library we’ve covered and yet haven’t found my mother’s book.”

“Oh, of course.” Her gaze shifted away from him and seemed to fixate on Plum, now lying by the fireplace.

He’d never taken second place in a lady’s attention to a canine.

Mrs. McBride came in again, breaking the strange air of tension the room had somehow gained. “Good mornin’, my lady. I’ve made you and sir some lovely boiled eggs, laid fresh this morning.” She put down the eggs, propped in small wooden eggcups, two tiny spoons, salt, more bread, and a pot of jam, and then proceeded to refresh the teapot.

The cook scanned the table and nodded to herself. “There. That should be everything you need, but if you want more, you know where to find me.”

“Thank you,” Elspeth said brightly, already helping herself to the jam.

“Not at all, my lady,” Mrs. McBride replied before leaving.

It hadn’t missed Julian’s notice that the cook seemed on far friendlier terms with his guest than with him.

He cleared his throat. “Now that the roads are passable, you should take your leave as soon as you can.”

Elspeth paused, her knife in the air holding a generous blob of jam.

The jam dropped to her plate with a splat.

“But I haven’t found the diary,” Elspeth said. “I told you it was of the utmost importance. I have to stay.”

“And I told you,” Julian said, leaning forward, “that your reputation would be ruined if anyone discovered you here alone with me.”

She rolled her eyes as if they were playing a game of charades and the outcome mattered not at all. “I don’t care. You know that.”

“ I care,” he ground out, attempting to keep his voice as low as possible. “I care about my reputation, and I care about yours. You need to leave.”

Her lower lip trembled. “Do you want me gone so much?”

“Don’t.” He lifted his lip. “Don’t pretend that this has anything to do with how I feel. If you stay, it’ll be all but impossible to keep where you’ve been a secret. It’s hard enough with how long you’ve stayed thus far.”

“Then let me stay longer.” She leaned across the table, all but putting her bosom in the butter. “If I’m already ruined, then what matters a day or two more?”

“Because I’m trying to keep you from destruction,” he said in despair. “Can’t you see that?”

“I can see, but I don’t appreciate your work. I’ve no need for a reputation, good or otherwise. I’ve never intended to remain in London.”

“What?” His immediate, visceral reaction was denial followed closely by a sense of loss. Foolish. He’d never had this woman to begin with. “Where would you go?”

“Back to where I was raised,” she said. “Away up in the north of Scotland. Where the Wise Women live.”