Chapter Twenty-Nine

L ucy padded downstairs around eleven that night. The light from her single candle flickered and pushed against the shadows. Once she had reached the main level, the ever-present Herbert straightened from his watch near the front door.

“He’s in the library tonight, Your Grace.”

“Thank you. I’ll go get him so you can get to bed.”

When they returned that afternoon, she and Hart had met with Townson and discussed safety concerns for the house. This had included having a couple of men on guard outside at night and also which footman would be assigned as her new bodyguard of sorts. When she had argued that she could protect herself, Hart had insisted, saying it was for his own peace of mind. How was she to argue with him when his eyes had silently pleaded? Hart had not been himself since the afternoon. He seemed to withdraw into his own thoughts, telling her after they ate dinner that he would be up later. Well, this was late enough for her.

When she entered the library, it appeared Herbert had been mistaken; Hart was not in the room. Several candelabras had been placed around, and they illuminated the mess that had been made of the shelves. In the gaps where books had been unshelved, others lay on their sides or were shoved in backward so the spines faced the wall. There were books stacked haphazardly on the library table. The writing desk under the window had received the same ransacking. Lucy spun in a slow circle. Had a thief broken into the house?

Then she saw the painting, the one she had always admired, of the field of sunflowers leaning against the wall. Next to it, Hart sat on the floor, his legs bent and his forearms resting on his knees. “It isn’t here,” he said.

Above him, a safe built into the wall was open; its door swung ajar above Hart’s head.

“What is not here?” she asked.

“The journal. Today, one of the men said they were all meeting to find out if I had found my father’s journal. I looked in the safe. It took me a while to even remember where he kept the key. Then I searched through the shelves. It would be just like him to hide it in plain sight.”

His voice sounded hollow. He stared down at his hands.

Lucy walked over to crouch in front of him. “Hart, how long have you been sitting here?”

“What time is it?” His gaze lifted.

“Almost midnight.”

“A couple of hours, I suppose.”

Lucy moved next to him and lowered herself to the floor. “I know that today it was hard to be so close to the men who killed your family. But those men are all powerful peers. I’m not saying they are above the law, but unless we have proof of their involvement in what happened, it doesn’t make sense to confront them. You made the right decision to exercise caution.”

Hart was silent next to her for several minutes. When he spoke, his voice was low. “I feel as though I didn’t know him at all. Robert was always his confidant; I was just the spare son. But even though… I never expected all these secrets that he kept.”

“Do we ever truly know our parents? Why wouldn’t they shield us from the worst of themselves? They are humans who make mistakes. My father tried to shield me from what happened to my mother. She never fully recovered from the assault. He came home for a time after the news reached him. The longest the navy would allow him. I think he felt guilty that he had been so far away when she needed him. That’s when he taught me to fight. He said I should always fight even if the other person was bigger or stronger. That I should never give up.”

Hart intertwined his fingers with hers. “I don’t think I ever asked you what happened to your parents.”

Lucy swallowed around the memories lodged in her throat. “We lived near the sea, in a cove where the water sprayed up against the rocks at high tide. When I was young, my mother said that it was where the mermaids played. But the truth was that my mother felt connected to my father when she looked out to the ocean. She said that she could picture his ship sailing on the far-off waves. In the end, the sea took them both. One day, a year after the assault, she lost her internal struggle, and she jumped off the cliff into the water. My father and I were out rambling and saw her disappear over the edge. He raced over and dove in to save her. But the tide was too rough, and they both perished against the rocks.”

His hand flexed, squeezing hers. “Christ, Lucy. How horrible.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “It was. But it also was a long time ago. I have learned to think of them both as the best versions of themselves. I choose to remember them that way.”

“Ever since the accident last year, I have these terrible moments of anxiety. They creep up from behind me like a specter in the night. The fear that I experienced that night is too big to keep hidden inside. Just when I think I have mastered it, it rears its ugly head when I least expect. Perhaps, that is how your mother felt. Maybe it overwhelmed her that day.”

Lucy nodded. It made sense. At fourteen, she hadn’t been able to comprehend the depth of her mother’s pain. She had only understood that her mother had left her. And taken her father as well. The fear she felt that day, long buried, rose and squeezed her lungs making it hard to breathe. She couldn’t bear to lose another person she loved.

She twisted to face Hart. “Do you feel that way often?”

“Not as much as I did at first. I haven’t had a nightmare about that night in months.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. “The last few weeks lying next to you in bed has afforded me the best sleep of my life.”

“Then let’s go to bed.” She rose to her feet and tugged at his hands.

Hart stood up stiffly. He lifted his arms above his head and groaned as he stretched. “I’m too old to sit on the floor for so long.”

Lucy laughed, and some of the tension she felt drained. “Come on, old man. I’m going to get the salve and massage your shoulder. I bet you haven’t used it at all since I gave it to you.”

Hart shrugged. But he followed her, and together, they blew out the candles from around the room. Then with her single taper, she led him out into the corridor. Herbert looked relieved as they passed by. Now that the master of the house was going to bed, so could he. When they reached their suite Hart pulled loose the ties of her dressing gown and pushed it off her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor. He pulled her flush against him, peppering her neck with light kisses.

“Oh no, you go sit there.” She pointed to a rectangular footstool that sat at the end of the bed. “Pull it out here. It will put you low enough so that I can really work the salve into the muscles.” She crossed to the dresser where the jar of salve that she had gifted him sat unused, just as she thought.

When she returned, she found him sitting obediently on the footstool, which he had pulled out to the center of the rug. His lazy smile made him look like a dangerous jungle cat lounging on a toadstool.

She giggled. “Do you need a bigger chair to sit on?”

“No, I’m fine.” He unbuttoned his vest and pulled it off his shoulders. Next was the cravat pulled lazily from around his neck.

Lucy approached him and ran her fingers through his dark hair. She tugged until his gaze rose to meet hers. “It would be better if you removed your shirt as well. Then I could really see what I was doing.”

He stiffened, and she could see the denial in his eyes. She tugged again at his hair. “I do not care about your scars, Hart. I care about you, the man you are inside. Nothing on the outside can change that. Can you trust me?” She held her breath.

*

Hart stared up into Lucy’s eyes and felt the truth in her words. Her fingers threaded through his hair, holding him in place, and her grip tightened as she asked her question. Lucy was the first woman he’d ever been with who cared not a whit about his title, his reputation, or his money. What she asked for was much harder to give. She wanted him to bare himself. She wanted the whole of him, not just the shiny, pretty bits.

He had never considered himself a coward, so he reached down and tugged his shirt from his waistband. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he pulled the shirt over his torso and then up over his head. He braced for her gasp.

But it never came. Lucy stood before him, her eyes still locked on his face. She reached out and traced his cheek with the back of her fingers. Then her gaze drifted down, and her fingers followed their path. Over his red, mottled skin and puckered scars. Her fingertips fluttered down his neck, curved across his shoulder, and then down his chest.

“Oh, Hart.” She sighed. “I can’t imagine the pain that you endured.”

He sucked in a ragged breath as her palms smoothed over his chest. Her touch unlocking a part of him he thought he had firmly suppressed. The part of him that needed. Needed to be touched, needed to be seen. She leaned down and kissed him, her lips sliding against his slowly. But he didn’t want gentle kisses; he wanted to let loose the deluge of emotions her touch unlocked.

Grasping the back of her neck, he changed the angle of their kiss and, with a deep moan, took control. She responded immediately to his passion-fueled desperation. Her tongue tangled with his as he plundered her mouth. Lucy climbed into his lap and ground herself against his hardening cock.

He ached to feel her bare skin against his. Taking handfuls of her nightgown, he ripped it off over her head. Exposing all that smooth skin drove him wild. He dragged her fully against him, exulting in the soft press of her breasts against his bare chest.

He stroked his hands up and down her back. “Lucy, I can’t get enough of you. You are more addictive than any vice I’ve found in London.”

“Don’t deny yourself. I’m yours.”

Christ, this woman would kill him with her words, with what she offered. He rose, taking both of them over to the bed. Laying her down, he ran a hand down the center of her body, enjoying the gentle swells and dips. Then, he undressed, toeing off his shoes and dropping his trousers.

“Spread those pretty thighs for me.” His gaze latched onto the dark curls that hid the glistening pink of her pussy as she opened for him. “Good girl,” he murmured as he slid his hands up her thighs and bent to bury his nose between her legs. He tongued her opening, enjoying the taste of her arousal. Then continued to lick up to that perfect pearl of a clit.

“Oh god, Hart!”

He grinned at her shout. Lucy didn’t know how to be quiet when she was aroused, and he loved it. She moaned and screamed his name. She had a mouth that would put a sailor to shame when she instructed him on what felt good. After her first blush of embarrassment the morning after their wedding, she hadn’t held back any of her pleasure. Right now, he lapped it up, feeding on her passionate abandon.

“Hart.” She grasped at his hair.

He raised his head to look up at her. “Yes?”

“Come here and fuck me properly. I want to feel your hard cock inside me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned and climbed onto the bed and over her body.

She pulled her knees up and thrust her hips up to meet his slow slide into her. They both moaned. Being inside her tight sex was like coming home. Lucy’s hands frantically roamed over his chest and upward to trace over his shoulders and then down his back as if it were her last chance to touch him.

He captured one of them against his heart. “Lucy, having your hands roam my body feels amazing. You have opened a floodgate. I want to make love to you for hours. I wish to drown in your tender touch.”

She sighed and met his thrusts, taking him deep. They made love slowly. The intimacy of her touch saturated every fiber of his being as she stroked his damaged skin with soft fingertips, learning the grooves and the smooth, shiny stretches. He leaned over to take one of her breasts in his mouth and flicked the pebbled tip with his tongue. A strangled cry of pleasure escaped her lips, and with that plea, the time for going slow was gone.

He pumped into her, angling for the spot inside that made her writhe. His mouth moved to her throat, and he scraped his teeth down the pale column. Wanting to mark her. Mine. He bit down. Lucy climaxed with a shout. With another deep thrust, he followed her over the edge. Filling her up with his seed. Marking her again as his.

Rolling over, he took her with him. She lay sprawled on him, her head on his chest. Then he felt the hot caress of her breath as she began to pepper his chest with light kisses. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself, with each brush of her lips, to believe that Lucy was telling the truth when she said that his scars did not change how she saw him. To believe that somehow this precious woman cared not about what he looked like on the outside. What a damn gift she was.

Hart ran his fingers slowly through her hair. He would protect her at all costs. Even if it meant sending her away to Belstoke with an army of guards until he could figure out how to deal with his father’s so-called friends. He needed to locate that journal. If it truly contained secrets he could use to destroy the others, then it could be the key to keeping all that was his safe.