Chapter Eighteen

“What do you mean by a dance?” Samantha asked in a whispered voice, for suddenly the mood in the room had shifted and tension fairly crackled through the air. His free use of endearments had almost addled her mind, or perhaps she was delusional from being deprived of air when she thought she might drown.

“Just this.” Cornelius stood up from the chair. He crossed the room then closed the door as quietly as he could. Once he returned to her bedside, he held out a hand. “If you are strong enough for a dance, I would like to claim this one.”

“Are you mad?” She frowned even as her heartbeat increased. “There is no music and nor are we in a ballroom. Neither of us is dressed properly.” Not that she minded, for he was deliciously handsome as he was right now. The shirt rolled up to his elbows made her mouth water from the vee of the open placket that allowed her a peek of black hair on his chest and arms while the black satin evening breeches without hosiery or shoes put her in mind of a pirate rogue and called attention to his muscled calves.

“I don’t care.”

“What about my father? He’ll be worried—”

“Aunt Beatrice went over there to check on him yesterday. He is as well as can be expected but apparently delighted to see her.”

“He remembered who she was?” How extraordinary.

“Yes, and from all accounts, they have made plans to visit again today.” The dratted man waggled his eyebrows, and she giggled. “Perhaps there is a romance in the offing.”

“Oh, I’m not sure if that is what Papa needs…” Almost as if she were entranced, Samantha slipped her fingers into his palm. Heated tingles shivered up her arm as he gently tugged her from the bed.

“It is his life, not yours. And right now, you are going to dance.”

“But my limp…”

“Will be accommodated for, but since I was cheated out of a dance last night, I want to claim it with you now… before I lay claim to other things this night.” The intensity of his gray eyes and the wicked gleam there promised lovely, naughty things later.

“Oh.” If she wasn’t already in love with him, this would have done it. “But I…” Words flew right out of her mind when he pulled her into his arms and began to move with her in small, tight circles since the floorspace was rather abbreviated in the room. And good heavens, he smelled so good. Always she would associate sandalwood and cedar with this man.

“Hush, Samantha. I am doing my part in trying for romance as well.” So saying, he slipped a hand down her back, and since her nightwear was thin—and probably borrowed from Annabelle—the heat of him seared her skin. When he came to the curve of her rear, he gave it a quick squeeze that had a squeak escaping her. “You are receptive to that, aren’t you?”

Was he serious?

She peered upward into his eyes, caught his budding grin, and nodded. “Yes, but…” There was no sense in denying this. Last night, she truly thought she was going to die, and she’d been beside herself that she hadn’t told him how she felt.

“Enjoy the dance. Then we’ll talk.” If possible, he held her closer until she was all but layered against him.

Then he did the only thing he could have in order to win her heart—he softly sang a Christmas carol into her ear, one of the same songs that her father used to sing for the family when times were good. All the while, he continued to move them in small circles through the free space in the room, going slow enough to accommodate her limp. During the last stanza, he pulled enough away that he could peer into her eyes, and she was lost.

They drifted to a halt, and when he finished with the carol, the silence in the room was almost deafening. And still they stared at each other as if they were the only two people in the world. Each breath she took, he gave her the air, and she did the same for him.

“Cornelius?”

That shook him out of the spell. “Right. As I said, there are things I would say to you, that I’d planned to tell you after the rout until everything was nearly taken from me.” As he spoke, he sank to one knee before her, and he took one of her hands in his. “Samantha, when I asked—or demanded—that we become engaged to make your father happy—”

“—and to keep an eye on me because you thought I stole the bracelet,” she helpfully added as tears formed in her eyes.

“There is that.” He chuckled, and that grin threatened to steal the strength from her bones. “It happened, and I wasn’t ready to accept any woman into my life in such a capacity. Except, there is something about you that made me want to know more. And you have this air of vulnerability that compels me protect you as well as bundle you in my arms for other reasons entirely.”

Heat filled her cheeks as a few tears fell. “I am only me.”

“Thank goodness for that.” His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow. “Everything I discovered about you as we went along only endeared you to me more, but then Annabelle told me you defended my reputation on the street, and that started my slippery slide into love, and sweeting, I have fallen in love with you, quite desperately in fact.”

“You have?” Never had any words felt as sweet as what he’d just said.

“Oh, yes. You crawled beneath my defenses, kicked down those walls around my heart, and you set up housekeeping, making me a better version of myself. You accepted me, flaws and all.”

“What else was I supposed to do? The man that you are is still valuable, still worthy, and when you allow him to shine through the cracks, it’s breathtaking.”

“Ah, dearest.” When he brought her hand to his lips, he kissed the inside of her wrist. Heated tingles followed in his wake. “And now, I…” He blew out a breath. “Well, will you marry me? For truth this time? Will you enter into an engagement with me knowing that marriage is the goal?”

“You want to marry me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“Knowing everything you know about me, knowing that I care for my ailing father, spend much of my time at the orphanage, have a limp, am not of the beau monde , and am a spinster?” When she listed out those things, there was nothing much to recommend her.

“Sweeting, I fell in love with you, not pieces of you, and if you were any different woman, I would never have noticed you .”

How much did she love him back? Her heart was near to bursting. “Well, then it is a handy thing to know because I have gone and fallen in love with you too. And there isn’t any one thing about you, I only know that I’m more myself when I’m with you.”

“That’s exactly it!” He vigorously nodded. “I have the freedom to be myself in your company. You have no idea how long I’ve needed that in my life.”

“So have I, and I knew when you kissed me that first time, everything would change. Oddly enough, I couldn’t wait, and now here we are, with everything indeed changing.” More tears fell, and she wiped them away with her other hand the best she could. “Because of you. There is no one that I would rather spend the rest of my life with.”

Joy glimmered in his eyes. It was one of the first times she’d seen him thusly. “Then that is a yes?”

“Yes! Oh, Cornelius, yes, I’ll marry you.”

He surged to his feet with a muffled shout of joy, took her into his arms, and then kissed her soundly. Several moments went by as they communicated without words while he brushed his fingertips along the ribbon-edged bodice of her nightdress.

“You have made me the happiest of men.”

“I’m so glad, for you deserve that.” How she’d missed him like this. She placed a palm on his chest. His heartbeat raced beneath her fingertips. She returned his kiss, touched her tongue to his, and hoped he felt all the emotion behind it. There was much she hadn’t told him yet, but she would when she could catch her breath. In him she would always be protected, needed… loved, and she hoped he realized the same from her.

Cornelius trailed a line of heated kisses beneath her jaw. He eased his lips along the column of her throat. At her collarbones, he nibbled the sensitive skin and a giggle escaped her. “I adore that sound.” But he wasn’t nearly done, for he pressed feather-weighted kisses to the cheek that retained slight bruising from Lady Stover’s slap. “I shall kill the woman for laying a hand on you.”

“Do hush, Timelbury. It is all part of what led me to you.” She traced a gentle fingertip along his cheek that had been abused so many times she’d they met. “I have a feeling we shall both be in danger until the threat of her is quelled, but we will fight.”

“Together.” Cornelius slid his fingers into her hair. “For I don’t intend to let you out of my sight any time soon.” With a tug, the ribbons that kept her wrapper closed came untied.

“Good. Someone needs to keep you from being lost to the nightmares, and the best way to do that is to make you exhausted with other things.” Was that too forward of her for what it implied?

“Clever girl.” He then caressed his fingers down her sides, pausing at each rib then smoothing then over her hips while the wrapper slipped from her shoulders with a soft sigh. “But then, I expected nothing less. After all, you did agree to marry a member of the Rogue’s Arcade.”

“I did.” Gooseflesh raced over her exposed skin as her nipples tightened. When would he touch her? “What are you doing?”

“Being direct enough to show you the depths of my regard.” Cornelius chuckled. The sound sent tremors down her spine. “A man is less likely to be misunderstood this way, and mark my words.” His gaze bored into her. Determination and desire burned in the depths. “I want you to understand exactly what I mean.”

“Oh, but I think I already know what you mean…” She made no protest as he pushed the night dress from her shoulders and guided it off her body. “Why am I the one standing naked but you aren’t?”

“It is my prerogative to gaze at my soon-to-be wife, for I finally have you all to myself.” He kissed a path from her ear to her collarbones. “I want to explore every inch of your body with my hands and mouth, my tongue and teeth.” He cupped her breasts, brushed her nipples with the pads of his thumbs. “Are you of the same accord? After all, you nearly died last night, and I don’t want to rush this…”

“I swear that I am nearly as good as new. Perhaps tired, but I need you quite desperately.” She moaned and would have stumbled if not for his strong form keeping her steady. At the next pass of his thumbs, she shuddered.

“Ah, then we must somehow find a remedy for that.” Without hesitation, he went to his knees before her, gripped her hips and placed a kiss on the soft swell of her stomach. “Is there any wonder why I’m a besotted fool for you?”

A stilted sigh left her lips as he pressed a kiss into the curls hiding her sex. “You could merely be unlucky.” Her knees had the strength of porridge and liquid heat ran through her veins, but oh how she couldn’t wait to feel his hands on her! “Or deluded.”

“You might not be far from the mark.” He urged her legs apart, and when she resisted, he licked a loop around her navel until she did as he bid. “I would rather find misfortune with you, lose bits of my mind because of you than enjoy anything else without you. Come what may, we have each other.”

“I’m glad of that, for I’ve been alone for much longer than I’ve wanted, and when Papa dies…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, mostly because her limbs shook with reaction.

“I will always be there for you, in whatever way you need.” He caressed the inside of one thigh followed by the other. Tingles trailed in his wake. “Because I love you.”

Warmth suffused her blood that had nothing to do with his erotic ministrations. “I love you too, and I never thought that would happen to me.”

“Do you think it was fate, then, that brought us together, or my mother’s machinations?” He eased his hand upward and his fingers found her sensitive folds.

“It is difficult to say, but if it was your mother, perhaps we shouldn’t let on that is so.” She grasped his shoulders to remain upright, gripping him, forcing him to look at her as her heartbeat accelerated.

When he chuckled against her skin, reverberations tickled through her chest. “You are absolutely right about that, for I’d never hear the end of her bragging.” He encouraged her left leg over his shoulder, her knee resting near his ear. Obviously, his physical needs didn’t distract him as they did her. How unfair! “Not that it matters. We are here now, and I’m delighted with the results.” Adoration shone in his eyes, mixing with a hunger that left her shaking.

“As am I.” Her body heated more from those words than from his attention.

When he glanced up into her face and smiled, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “The moment I thought I’d lost you…” His swallow was audible as horror reflected on his face. “I was ready to follow you into that void. That’s how much I didn’t want to be without you.”

“Oh, Cornelius, I’m so sorry.” Her breath came in tiny pants. “But I wouldn’t want you to do that.”

“Thankfully, we are both still here, and we have a future.” A wicked grin curved his lips. “And now, I’m going to make you fly, because I have wanted nothing else since our last scandalous meeting.” Cornelius leaned in. His breath steamed her mons, and she shook from the exquisite anticipation. “Then I’m going to make love to you on the bed, taking care not to wake my aunt, but I can’t go another night without knowing you are exquisitely, exclusively, eternally mine.” With his fingers, he spread her quivering flesh, his mouth a whisper away from her throbbing button.

A shiver lanced down her spine. “Why are we still talking then?”

“Still leading me on a merry chase?” He chuckled and the sensation vibrated through her lower limbs.

She thought she might faint dead away when he touched her with his tongue. She tugged at his hair, but he didn’t stop. “Merciful heavens, that was as lovely as the last time.”

“Lovely, eh?” With a stroke of his tongue, her thoughts scattered. “Then I need to apply myself more. And I was rushed that time.” He nibbled at the places no one had ever laid eyes upon, that no one had ever touched but him, licked her opening and dared to penetrate her with that talented organ, but when he encouraged the tiny bundle of nerves that was the center of her pleasure out of hiding and suckled it, Samantha shattered from the exquisite wonder of it all.

Voracious waves of desire smacked into her each time Cornelius worried that nubbin. She dug her fingers into his shoulders. He was her anchor in a world that had suddenly gone topsy-turvy, her compass when she couldn’t find her way, her home when she required a place of safety. “I can’t bear it any longer.” She tried to pry him away, but he wouldn’t be deterred. Pressure banded and coiled tight within her again. His touch was as steady as everything he did with her, always guiding her, always protecting her.

“Have I convinced you that I love you?” Cornelius smoothed his free hand up the back of her thigh then stroked her buttock. He flicked his tongue over her flesh, teasing, taunting, torturing. He chuckled while he worked, and the sound vibrated through the heated skin to kick off an avalanche of pleasure.

“Yes!” She cried out, whether in encouragement or affirmation to his question as her defenses crumbled along with her strength. Her knees buckled as blessed relief swept through her, bigger than anything she’d known before. Fluttering bands of ecstasy rippled along every nerve ending leaving her pliant.

“The best is yet to come.” As he stood, Cornelius caught her into his arms and lifted her. He carried her the few feet to the bed, where he gently deposited her onto the mattress. “I’ll join you in one moment.” After moving the tea tray to the bureau top, he then slipped onto the bed, rolled onto his back, and then pulled her on top of him so that she straddled his waist. When she glanced at him with surprise clouding her eyes, he claimed her lips with his. Never would he tire of kissing her; he’d finally won that right.

“I am feeling quite naughty, Timelbury, and since you started us on this journey, I need you to finish me rather more sooner than later.”

Was there any wonder why he adored her? She was his perfect match in every way. In her he would have someone to protect and coddle, as well as depend on her to pull him from being lost in the nightmares. “Do you doubt that I will?” He grinned as need tightened his shaft. “We will have such fun together.”

“I think so, too, but please don’t tell Papa our first engagement was a sham.”

“Of course I won’t.” He pressed a line of feather-weighted kisses beneath her jaw. Damn but her silky skin called to him like a siren’s song. “Besides, I like him. We should probably marry more sooner than later in the event his mind leaves him permanently.”

“Agreed.” As tears welled in her eyes, he pulled her down for another kiss. “At least we can do that for him. He’ll be so proud.”

“Haven’t you realized by now that I would do anything for you?” He drew his hands up her sides to cup her breasts and grinned when she shivered. The mounds of flesh were the perfect size to fit into his palms.

Fate or the magic of Christmas? It did matter when she was the greatest gift he could have been given?

“I do, and I adore that you wish to spoil me.”

“Someone has to.” Just thinking about how happy she was when they ice skated in the entry hall sent another round of awareness over him.

“You’re such a sweet man.” Her kiss-swollen lips curved into a smile. “I cannot wait to be your wife, and I welcome everything we’ll encounter on this new path.”

“As do I.” For long moments, he nipped and nibbled the skin of her throat, beneath her jaw, under her ear, followed the slopes of her breasts before she stirred restlessly on his lap.

“You turn me into an insatiable vixen,” she whispered then giggled. “I rather like it.”

“So do I.” Not able to resist her charms, Cornelius kneaded her beautiful breasts, fondled them, practically worshipped them.

“Ooh, I adore your hands on me.” A shiver racked her shoulders. “However, my mind is far too muzzy when you do that.”

“No thoughts. I want you to enjoy every moment of this.” He encouraged her onto her knees so he could better suck a pebbled nipple into his mouth. A squeal came from her as she snaked a hand to his nape. “You’re mine, Samantha. Now and always.” Damn, he’d never thought to feel so possessive, but he was with her, and he would protect her with his life. “Not forced together, not out of obligation, but freely chosen.”

“I love how protective you are, how you make me feel wanted,” she whispered as her back arched and she dug the fingertips of one hand into his shoulder while encouraging him closer with the fingers at his nape. “Oh!” A moan followed when he rolled the other tempting rosy bud. “I like that too. More, please.”

It was so damned erotic when she begged so politely. It still stunned him that his mindset regarding love and marriage had changed so drastically since meeting her. When she wriggled on his lap, his shaft tightened to the point of pain. “I’ll see about securing a license later this week, and I want the rogues to attend our ceremony.” Unaccountably, moisture welled in his eyes. “They are my family.”

“They truly are,” she whispered to him, and her breath steamed his ear.

“We shall tell my mother tomorrow at dinner.” Then he spent the next several minutes taunting and teasing Samantha’s breasts, reacquainting himself with the feel of those pebbled tips against his tongue. There was so much he didn’t know about her, but a lifetime ahead to discover. When her breathing hitched and she pressed kisses to the side of his neck, he took back control, found her lips with his, and set out to make her forget her own name.

As was true with the whole of their history, it was him who soon found himself lost. The warmth of her in his hands, on his lap, the faint sounds of pleasure she made, the way her fingers curled into the hair at his nape, the elusive scent of roses all worked to hurtle him close to the edge and they’d yet to couple. This one woman had managed to not only turn his world upside down and change his mindset. It was no wonder he’d fallen for her.

“Mmm, Cornelius, yes.” She pressed a line of tiny kisses to the underside of his jaw, and every time she moved, his engorged shaft grew and pulsed. “I want all of you.” She parted the placket of his shirt and pressed her lips to the hollow of his throat. “I want to feel you everywhere.”

The urgency in her whisper stoked the fires already burning through his blood. “As if I could deny you anything.” Then he spent the next several seconds kissing and licking her neck, the slope of her shoulder, exploring the curves of her breasts until she quivered with need.

“So charming.” Samantha tugged the front shirttails from his breeches, and when she put her hands on his bare skin, he hissed from the contrast of feelings suddenly coursing over him. “I want to see you, taste you, learn your secrets.”

“We have time enough for that. And remember, you are supposed to be resting.” He was moments away from exploding, but he wanted to prolong the foreplay, to feel her satiny skin against his. Because he couldn’t wait, he continued his exploration until his fingers furrowed into the curls hiding the swollen bud at her center.

“Oh…” Her eyes briefly closed, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

With a groan, Cornelius once more claimed her mouth for the sheer joy of kissing her. With his free hand, he tangled his fingers into the waterfall of her hair. Once he opened her flesh, he strummed his fingers along that all-important tiny button, and as she gyrated her hips against his hand, he continued to kiss her, taking every sound of pleasure into himself, gathering them all as if they were the finest jewels.

“I want to see you spend,” he whispered against the delicate shell of her ear. “Show me that I am exactly what you want.”

“But you already know…” When Samantha hit release, it was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. She threw back her head and arched her spine while grinding her hips into his. To know that he’d done that to her, stole his breath. While she was still lost to bliss, he played with her nipples until he’d brought her to the edge once more. “Cornelius!” That soft hiss of his name spurred him onward.

So damned perfect. He nibbled the side of her neck. When he withdrew his hand from between her thighs, she protested.

“No!” Samantha’s hands were at his frontfalls, pulling, yanking the buttons from their holes. “I will explode if you don’t finish me.” The petulant annoyance in her voice tugged a grin from him.

“I wasn’t going to leave, love.” He batted her hand away in order to complete the task of freeing his hardened shaft.

“Good. I don’t think I could bear that.” Her eyes winked with wicked promise. “Tonight, though, I am doubly thankful I’m here with you instead of at the bottom of the Serpentine.”

“So am I.” You have no idea.

She nipped at his chin, pressed tiny kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, the side of his neck then finally claimed his lips, he was gone.

It was amazing how rapidly he’d fallen down that slippery slope and still did, continually going tip over tail in a relationship that was so much different than the last time. With her, he knew she would be there to catch him, to claim him, to help him put the pieces back together when his mind felt all too shattered. She was the balm he never knew he needed.

“I love you.” Truly, there was nothing more to say, and it left him with a lump in his throat. Encouraging her onto her knees, he guided the head of his member to her opening. She had done this to him, shown him there was another way, that there was hope, that he wasn’t a broken product of the war. As she slowly, so damned slowly, impaled herself on his length, a shuddering sigh left his throat.

Would that he never forgot how grateful he was for this chance.

“This is so different and lovely.” Up and down, she moved her body, sliding with exquisite perfection along his shaft, over and over and over with her gaze holding his with each pass while he guided her with his hands on her hips. Her breath came in small pants. “I need to feel you more deeply, to know you would choose me again and again.” Desire mixed with love in the blue depths of her eyes. “Show me that you will always protect me, take care of me, that you have no regrets.”

“You know I will.” He kissed her, claimed her mouth with urgent passion. “There are no regrets.” As if she were made of the finest china, he urged her off his lap and helped her to lie back on the bed. He was primed and ready to explode, and damn if this coupling wouldn’t end in embarrassment. The flush over her chest and cheeks was darling, her spread legs as he followed her down were divine.

She lifted her arms and pulled him close, and there was the sudden feeling of homecoming he hadn’t expected. “I love you, and you were correct. There is nothing else to say.”

“Ah, sweeting.” Cornelius settled between her splayed knees, planted his elbows on either side of her to encompass her body within the cage of his arms while holding her head in his palms. “Is this what you need?” With a powerful thrust of his hips, he speared into her, burying himself in her tight honeyed heat so deep he didn’t want to find his way out.

“Yes!” The enthusiasm was muffled when she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. A sigh escaped her as she wrapped her arms about his shoulders and held his hips between her knees.

There was no more need for words. Cornelius set out to worship her body with his, to show her how much he adored her, and that he couldn’t wait to begin their life together. Over and over, he stroked into her, losing himself in the wonder of his fiancée. She held him close and that caring shook him to his very core. With the subtle tightening of her fingers and legs, she told him where she needed him to be. And still he stroked into her, couldn’t have enough.

Thanked her with his actions for everything she’d given back to him.

As he stared into her eyes and she gazed back with all the trust in the world, a piece of his soul flew into her keeping, and with a gasp he realized he had received that same thing from her. She was the piece he’d unconsciously been missing since he came home from the war, and it was damned overwhelming to feel whole again.

Emotions clogged his throat. Cornelius pressed his forehead to hers, cradled her to him as best he could while he continued to work her body. When a moan escaped her, that precious sound broke the hold on his control. Need tingled through his stones; his shaft pulsed with urgency. He changed his rhythm, quickened his movements, and after delving a finger between them, played at her nubbin with varying degrees of friction until she bucked beneath him. He stroked into her harder, faster, deeper, almost demanding that she go over that edge ahead of him.

So he could catch her when she fell.

“Cornelius!” That squeaky utterance was the last before she hit release. Samantha slipped into bliss with a muffled scream that made her beyond adorable.

“Beautiful.” He kissed her, selfishly took her sounds of release into himself, and with another deep, powerful thrust, he joined her in pleasure. The swirling vortex sucked him under, and for the next few seconds, he was lost with her.

In her.

Because of her.

After minutes, hours, perhaps another lifetime, he came back to himself. She still clung tightly to him, and slowly he untangled their limbs merely to move them into a more comfortable position in which he pulled her to him and covered them both with the bedclothes.

Eventually, the candle guttered out. The scents of candle wax and smoke filled the air, and he put his nose to her hair. Unexpectedly, moisture welled in his eyes and a few tears escaped to his cheeks. He’d been given a second chance at life, at love, at living since meeting Samantha, and he didn’t intend to muck it up.

“I should probably leave you to your rest,” he whispered, but didn’t make a move to leave the bed.

“Stay with me until I fall asleep.” Her arms about his waist were comforting and provided a level of safety he never thought he’d attain.

“Of course I will.” Then he pressed a kiss into the top of her head. “Thank you.”

“For letting you bed me?”

“No.” But he snorted with laughter. “For everything, but above all, for not giving up on me. I know throwing your lot in with mine is daunting.”

“Everything worth having in this life will come with challenges. Why should loving you be anything less?” She brushed her lips over his and then snuggled more closely into him. “Love is like snow, Cornelius. It blankets all things and gives you a fresh start.”

“And when the snow melts?” Would she eventually think him too much?

“Then spring comes, and the flowers grow, because that is when everything you’ve hoped for manifests in your soul.” With a pat to his back, she sighed. “All will be well. As long as we go through it together.”

Wise words, indeed. He couldn’t wait to see where they would both go from here. No longer was there fear and darkness there.

Because of her.