Chapter 9

“And I’m not a lad.”

Thorne had just enough time to scoff at the claim—assuming Kit was trying to convince him of the ridiculous claim that he was a actually twenty-three, when he clearly wasn’t shaving yet—when his brain caught up with his mouth. Or more accurately, caught up with his fingers.

Instinctively, his fingers tightened, circling the lump he felt below Kit’s waistcoat. Nay, not a lump exactly, the hint of a lump.

Wool waistcoat. Cotton shirt. Then a thick—bandage? Perhaps? And beneath all of that, a lump.

Was it any wonder Thorne’s incredulous gaze was locked on Kit’s chest?

On…her chest?

Moving like an automaton, he lifted his other hand, and aye, sure enough, there was a matching lump on the other side.

So now he stood, not quite in the shadows, both his hands locked on his valet’s tits…and his gaze rose in amazement to meet the pale eyes he knew so well.

The eyes he’d come to love.

“What the actual fook, Kit?” he finally managed.

And his valet, the scamp, burst into laughter.

Granted, it was undeniably nervous laughter, but he—she—was laughing at him.

Thorne braced his weight against her and leaned forward. “Are ye mocking me? How long have ye been—?”

She tried to muffle her laughter, but it was apparently impossible. “Been a woman?” Her fingers—which, aye, he recognized not as slim and elegant but the hand of a fooking woman—rose to press against her lips. “My whole life?”

Her lips.

Oh Christ, her lips.

In his trousers, his cock had given up being merely hard and was now doing a happy dance.

Kit was a woman.

His valet was a woman.

He’d kissed a woman.

Those lips…those lips were a woman’s.

Nay, they’re Kit’s.

Well, aye, they were still a woman’s. But they were Kit’s first.

The logic was circling something important, but Thorne couldn’t quite grasp it. Couldn’t quite make himself—still reeling from the casual discovery—process through to the solution.

“I meant…” he managed, his hands still on what were undeniably tits, but then trailed off, uncertain what he’d meant.

I meant, how long have ye been lying to me?

But was dressing like a man a lie? She’d never said I’m a boy, he’d just assumed, based on how she dressed.

“Is this who ye are?” he finally managed, forcing himself to drop his hands. “Like Evie, are ye…?”

She was still smiling. She. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around it.

“I thought going into service would be the best way to spy on my father, honestly,” Kit confessed, “and my mother refused to agree to the plan if I went as myself. I look too much like her, you see. He’d be able to recognize me if I dressed as myself.”

“So ye became a man. A footman,” Thorne finished hoarsely, his gaze still darting over her incredulously, looking for more secrets. She hadn’t done this because she felt uncomfortable in her own skin, like Evie; the deception had just been a means to an end.

She shrugged, and the movement was so Kit that he was hit with a gut-punch of realization.

This was the same person.

This was the same person he’d been falling in love with.

Today, when Fawkes and Bull made him see what he’d really wanted, Thorne had to accept the fact that while he’d always assumed he’d fall in love with a woman—a woman he could make his wife—he instead was falling for a lad.

And now he wasn’t. I mean, ye are falling for her. She’s just no’ a man.

This was Kit. This was the person he laughed with, the person who’d cared for him. The person who held him, the person who saw him. The person who had seen him at his most vulnerable. The person whom he loved.

Damnation.

“I think…” Thorne rasped, then shook his head. “I think we need to leave. Now.”

He grabbed her wrist and tugged, Kit willingly trotting along beside him. In fact, by the time they reached the front door to the dance hall, somehow Kit’s fingers had become entwined with his, and they held each other as if they’d never let go.

“Take yer time getting home,” Thorne growled to his coachman as they climbed inside the town coach, and heard Kit’s muffled giggle.

Christ, she was giggling. That wasn’t a chuckle, wasn’t a masculine snort. But it was a sound he’d heard dozens of times in the last weeks, one of the things he’d liked so much about this new valet of his.

Kit had been his footman.

Then his valet.

Then his friend.

And now…

“Ye’re a woman.” The accusation was part amazed, part angry, as Thorne settled across from her.

It was dark in the carriage, but he could hear Kit shrug, the way he—she did when she was being practical. “I am. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you wanted to hear. I’m sorry I’m not a lad, but I thought it important to tell you before—”

“Fook,” he growled out, reaching blindly across the seat to her. His hand snagged hers. “I am thrilled. Delighted, Kit.”

A pause, and he could tell he’d confused her. “So when you thought I was a boy—”

“Christ, lass, I’ve been falling hard for ye. I told ye my friends suggested I woo ye, which confused the shite out of me, but I was ready to do it. I love ye, Kit, nae matter what clothing ye wear.”

He heard her little exhale of surprise. “You…what?”

Hm. Perhaps, if he never brought it up again, this clever little valet of his would forget he’d ever said the L-word. Or at least pretend to forget.

To distract her, he tugged Kit’s hand, and she slowly rose and shifted across the seat. But one of the wheels hit a cobblestone, or a hole, or possibly a stray llama, and when she lurched forward, he caught her. Caught her, and eased her down into his lap.

Where she belonged.

“A woman,” he murmured, running his hands up her arms. “It’s so obvious, and yet so hard to believe.”

Kit’s hand, a hand he knew so well, rose to his cheek, pressing her palm to his skin. “I’m still the same person.”

His bark of laughter surprised him. “Aye, I ken it…it’s just…”

He nudged the lapel of her jacket, and she helped push it over her shoulders. It pooled on the floor, and he tried to make a mental note to grab it, but then she was reaching for the buttons of her waistcoat, and he became rather distracted.

His fingertips traced the skin of her jaw, then her throat, as she pulled her necktie away and tackled her shirt buttons. Somewhere along the way, Kit had straddled his thighs instead of merely sitting on his lap, and Thorne…

God Almighty, Thorne was more than happy to give her free reign.

When her shirt and waistcoat gaped open in the dim light, the pale wrapping she wore around her chest gleamed.

“Kit,” he whispered, almost reverently, reaching for those wrappings. He watched his hands against the cotton as they plucked at the strips, almost without his guidance, finding the end and tugging it free.

She arched into his touch. “Please, Thorne.” Her whimper cut through his haze, piercing his arousal with something like desperation, and then he was yanking and tugging, until the cotton strips fell loose and pooled around her hips.

He sucked in an awed breath. To be presented with so much perfection…

With a nearly silent groan, his palms closed around her small breasts, cupping them reverently.

Her moan wasn’t nearly as quiet.

“Thorne, I— Dio Benedetto!”

Her exclamation came when he brushed both his thumbs across her nipples, and he could feel himself smirking in the darkness. He didn’t know the words—presumably Italian, picked up from her mother?—but he loved that she was reacting this way to him.

“Aye, lass. Let me love these beauties, hm?” He slid his hands around her bare back, under her shirt, pulling her closer. “A shame to hide their light away from the world,” he murmured, right before his lips found her skin.

She hissed and arched into his touch, her hands rising to his hair, her fingers digging into his scalp to hold him in place.

As the carriage rocked slowly through the streets of London, Thorne used his tongue and his fingers to show Kit his talents. He might struggle to keep a dukedom afloat, he might not be able to singlehandedly bring down Blackrose… But he could love a woman with his eyes closed, as if his life depended on it.

Aye, his hands and his mouth knew all the right things to make her moan and pant, but his mind… Dear Christ, his mind was a pleasant sort of beige pudding, still amazed this woman in his arms was the valet he’d been falling in love with.

This was Kit.

And therefore, the well-practiced moves seemed somehow stale and boring. He wanted to bring her something new and special, something which showed her how new and special she was to him.

His hand swept lower, past her waist in the back, to her arse, pulling her closer. Pulling her against him.

And when she gasped, he knew she’d felt why.

His cock strained against his trousers, throbbing in time to her pulse, which he even now tasted at the base of her throat. “Aye, Kit,” he growled, urging her to move against him, craving it. “That’s the way. Ye feel that?”

“Thorne! Oh, fook,” she groaned, rocking her hips forward and back in a steady rhythm.

And he had to grin at hearing his own word from her lips. He caught her by the back of the neck and pulled her mouth to his, claiming her once more, as he pulled his hand from behind her to reach for her breast again. When he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, she released a moan, low in her throat, which he caught on his lips and echoed right back to her.

It was the strangest sensation, to be holding a woman, kissing a woman, feeling a woman’s heat cradling his hardness…and for her to be wearing trousers. This wasn’t Thorne’s first assignation in a carriage, far from it, but usually by now in this position the woman had her skirts up around her hips and he could plunge his fingers—or something else—into her damp heat.

This? This was torture.

Delicious, delightful, delectable torture.

He was in heaven.

His cock ached, pushing closer and closer to where it needed to be. The barrier their trousers provided was a tease, mocking him. So close, yet so far.

But for Kit…Kit didn’t seem to mind it at all.

Each time she rocked forward, sliding the seam of her trousers—and the hot little seam of her thighs—along his hardness, she let out a little gasp. He wanted to unbutton her trousers, to shove his hand inside, to cup her desire, to urge her to let go.

But this was on her terms. She had to ask for—

“Please, Thorne,” she whimpered.

“Aye, lass.” His lips were on her jaw, then her temple, then her ear, as she pressed closer. “Take what ye need. It’s my turn to give ye what ye—”

“Thorne!” Kit lurched forward suddenly pressing her bare chest against him, clutching at his arms, taking her weight on her knees so she could slam her hips forward.

She was coming.

She’d come on his cock, and he couldn’t even feel it, because her delicious little cunny was hidden inside clothing that looked too much like his.

Thorne couldn’t decide if this was fittingly hilarious, or a reason to wail and gnash his teeth. Perhaps both.

With a sigh, Kit slumped against him, her cheek coming to rest on his shoulder, her breath fluttering the hair at his temples.

“Dio Benedetto,” she finally murmured, her breathing slowing.

Thorne’s cock still throbbed almost painfully against her warmth, straining, straining…but he didn’t mind. This was what she’d needed, what he’d wanted. Days ago, this cheeky little valet of his had brought him to orgasm using nothing but her words. The least he could do was allow her to use his body to find pleasure.

When the coach turned, he recognized the approach to Stroken House, and shifted unconsciously. Kit slowly sat upright, pale eyes wide in the dim light.

“Almost home,” he murmured, and she cursed under her breath.

In the scramble to get her shirt and waistcoat re-buttoned, Kit slid from his lap. Thorne stuffed her neckcloth into his pocket, hoping the coachmen wouldn’t recall exactly how his valet had been dressed when “he” entered the carriage, and stooped to feel around for the dropped coat.

“Here,” he offered gruffly, and he thought he saw her smile right before she shoved her arms into the sleeves.

Kit was righted moments before the door opened and light spilled in. Both of them were breathing heavily, scrambling about like naughty little children.

In the sudden illumination, Thorne wondered if anyone else could tell she’d been thoroughly kissed. Wondered if he looked as unraveled as she did.

The way she began to chuckle told him aye.

And God help him, he joined in.