22. Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-two

It was better this way.

Rosanna rested her forehead against the glass. Thin fingers of cold leeched into her skin. In the courtyard below, rain dotted uneven puddles amongst the pavers. Thunder rumbled low in the distance before building to groan and grumble against the windows and walls.

London wept the tears she would not cry.

The pain of watching Phineas climb out of the cab and make his hesitant hello to the woman he’d lost felt more at home in a rainy city. Occasionally, regret burst in her stomach, and she had to blink through the haze until it quietened. While she knew she’d never be happy if she hadn’t found Imogen, part of her scolded her stubborn self. Something had been growing between them, in an awkward and slightly haphazard way. But if she hadn’t told him the truth, she’d always have known that she’d been his second choice. And she hated being second to anyone.

Either way, she was bound to lose.

Rosanna picked up the travel book she’d taken from the library downstairs and thumbed through it until she found an entry for Brighton. They could expect warm, clear days, the odd drizzle, sometimes a slight sea breeze. Three light blouses, two jackets, just as many skirts, and one formal dinner dress should be sufficient.

Johannes would keep her busy looking at possible buildings to renovate, and hopefully he’d be too occupied with having a project of his own to make her talk about any of it.

Maybe the salt air would ease the ache in her chest.

This had always been the plan, and Phineas had kept his promise to see it through. Now he could start over with the woman he’d lost. He’d take on a new name, build a new life, and find some peace. He’d be happy. She wanted him to be happy.

As for herself and her plans—Father would process the paperwork, and the marriage would be annulled. She would move home and continue working at the Aster. And no matter what her stationery said, she’d be Mrs Babbage, possibly for the rest of her days. How could she imagine a future with someone else when she’d lost her stubborn heart to him?

Rosanna shook out a blouse, folded it, and placed it in her trunk. Thunder cracked again, so loud now that its vibrations filtered through her slippers. As it faded, a new chorus echoed against the incessant rain on the windows and the wind butting the sash. Thumping feet and shouts, high and panicked, reverberated through the house.

‘Rosanna! Where are you?’ Rain pelted the glass, and the wind screeched as it tried to pry through the gaps. ‘Rosanna! Mrs Babbage! Are you here?’

Dear Lord, he had returned. An anxious tremor rattled her bones, more potent than the grumble of the thunder. He hadn’t brought Imogen here, had he? Would he force her to leave to make room for his beloved in this house? She couldn’t stand the shame.

The door banged open, its crack against the wall accompanied by a flash of lightning that lit the walls with white clarity. Phineas stumbled into the room. Mist clung to the crests and points of his dishevelled hair, and he wiped a hand across his thin-set mouth to flick little droplets of water onto the floor. A splattered trail of mud ran from his hems to his thighs. Rosanna stared, transfixed by his disorder, her mind whirling with questions while his gaze jerked around the room, from her cupboard to her clothes spread across the bed, and on to the open trunk before finally landing on her.

‘Where is Felix? Letitia and Hugh? And the other one, the singing one?’ He pointed at the trunk. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Johannes and I are heading to Brighton tomorrow. A scouting trip to find a new location for another hotel.’ She dumped the blouse into the trunk. ‘I may be a spoiled shrew, but I can pack my own things. I gave the staff a half day. I needed some quiet.’

‘I looked out the window, and you had just gone. I was—’

‘Worried? As you can see, I am perfectly well. And with Lord Richard’s debts settled and the company with Iris, there is no reason for anyone to come after me.’ Rosanna crossed to the cupboard. She would not be sad in his presence. If she could not have his love, she would not settle for his pity. ‘Where is Imogen?’

‘At her cottage. Her home.’

‘When are you going back there?’ Rosanna flipped through her hangers in the closet. Maybe three jackets and another two skirts. That’s what she needed. More changes of clothes. More things to pluck from hangers and fold into rectangles and place in the trunk to keep her eyes and her hands busy.

‘I’m not returning. Imogen has built a new life. A neighbouring farmer brings her flowers. She’s happy.’ He pulled at his coat-sleeve, reached out, then curled his fingers into his palm. ‘Thank you for finding her.’

Rosanna willed her hands to keep sliding between the hangers, but her stupid fingers refused to cooperate. Her blue blouse, she should pack her blue…

Only his breath, still harsh and uneven, gave any indication that he had moved and was standing behind her. That and his scent, the familiar starch and fresh linen mingled with damp wool and wet hair, which collided with the lavender and cedar of her closet. A cocoon of familiarity, of comfort, of home surrounded her.

The lightest touch—not even a touch, just an indentation of fabric—sent a shiver over her skin. A sigh betrayed her, and no sooner had it made its traitorous escape from her lips than Phineas rested his hands on her waist, firm, anchoring, and possessive. Another soft breath of yearning, and he moved closer. Pressed a cheek to her ear. Rested his forehead against her neck. Flexed his palm and dared to pull her into him.

Rosanna forced a shallow breath. She would not lose herself. She would not lose.

‘If you think I will stay your wife because she is unavailable, you are wrong,’ she rasped, every syllable grating her throat as she willed her pride into silence. Still, even now she failed. ‘I will not be the woman any man settles for.’

A confident creeping, a sneaking embrace… and with a stolen kiss to the pocket behind her ear, in the secret place only he had discovered, he’d ensnared her in his arms.

‘My darling, when did I say I loved Imogen? I worried about her. I thought I had failed her. And when I was young, she was someone I could care about. Someone I could save. I loved the idea of her, of being needed, but it wasn’t love. I know it wasn’t because I have never in my life felt the way I feel for you.’

Rosanna clutched ineffectually at her blouse as it slipped from her grasp. Phineas captured her hand and interleaved her fingers with his own.

‘I want you to stay. Stay here, stay as Mrs Babbage. It’s a cruel ask, I know, as it’s a name that means nothing, that I pulled from a newspaper on a whim, but if you will have it, it’s yours. I want you to make this house our home. I want you to leave your dirty boots on the floor. I want you to stomp through the house and change the wallpaper every other week. I want to come home to a table covered in magazines and swatches. I want your family to invade as often as they need to, I want new crockery and a dozen different types of linens I can’t tell apart, and I don’t care about any of it as long as I come home to you. Not this house, not this street. You are my home. You.’

With a commanding tug and a twist, Phineas spun her to face him, and fool that she was, she let him. She could not lift her face to his, lest she read too much in his features and found him untrue. Drops of water had collected on the surface of a button. She tried to rub it clean but only smeared it onto his shirt. Phineas clasped her hand and kissed her knuckles.

‘I want to climb into your bed every night you’ll have me,’ he whispered. ‘I want to come down to breakfast and find you’ve spoilt the jam. I want a house full of noise and staff that sing and croissants for breakfast. I want a wife who bullies me into walks and picnics and things that I cannot control.’ Phineas raised her chin, forcing their eyes to meet. ‘Say something. Or are you going to make me blabber all afternoon?’

Normally so stoic, so unmovable, Phineas looked at her with his brow furrowed in fear, a hesitant smile, a whisper of worry in his eyes—and, like a struggling blossom at the end of a branch, a bud of bright, fresh love in that dimple that only showed on one cheek. So many emotions. They all sat so uneasily on him.

She smoothed his cheek with her thumb, then kissed the dimple. ‘You are a liar, Phineas Babbage. You don’t mean that about the jam.’

‘I don’t, I really don’t. Please stop mixing up the jam.’ He smiled properly, completely, all sunshine and hope. ‘But every other word is true. Please, be my wife. Forever.’

She clasped his cheeks, pressing her lips firmly against his in reply, and he held her so tight he squeezed the breath from her lungs. His edges eased as he drew her close, and their bodies, so perfectly symmetrical in where knees bumped, hips rubbed, and chests pressed together, melded and buzzed with electricity, with the warm connection of belonging. She nodded, and through small bubbles of laughter, managed to squeeze out, ‘Be my husband. Be mine,’ until he banished her words with his kisses.

Rain lashed the windows, and the wind careened around corners. In the quiet, the scrunch of fabric in his palms and his little sighs and grunts quavered against her skin. Like a brewing storm, he stoked heat in the pockets of air between her clothes and filled each inhalation with expectation. He showered kisses over her with total abandon, and Rosanna greedily took all of them.

‘I love the taste of you,’ he murmured as he trailed his lips down her neck and plucked at her collar buttons. Those deft fingers, so meticulous and proficient, never fumbling, slipped each little fastening open and travelled down her blouse. ‘I’m going to kiss every part of you. Every little dip, every delicious, silken stretch of your body, every glorious inch. Thank heavens you sent everyone out. Can I take you to bed, my wife? Let me take you to bed. Let me have all of you.’

Something about the growl in his voice, about his hunger, threw the disparity between them into sharp relief. A chasm opened. For all her audacity, it weighed in her chest and stiffened her limbs. His wife. She would be his .

Phineas spun her by the hips so that she faced away from him. Tantalising and gentle, he skimmed the small bumps that rippled her exposed skin, and Rosanna sighed with longing. She bowed her head with the turbulent realisation of how lost she now was. Patient and delicate, Phineas wiggled the combs from her hair, slid out her clips and pins, and discarded them on the floor. Once they were free, he tickled his fingers through her curls, stroking her lengths until each disobedient ringlet draped smooth and easy down her back. Languorously, teasingly, he drew patterns between her shoulder blades and circled each bump of her spine. The whoosh of the cord as he untied her corset merged with another crack of thunder, and by the time the angry vibrations had finished sending their tremors through the house, he had loosened the ties. Rosanna raised her arms, and Phineas slipped her corset over her head. He unbuttoned her skirt, tugged her petticoat ribbons loose, and with a puff of fabric and layers, it all crumpled to the floor.

‘Why are you scared?’ he asked as he planted a line of kisses along her neck. She tilted instinctively to make space for him.

‘I’m not scared,’ she countered.

He flicked his tongue, as if tasting her temperament. ‘Uncertain?’

‘I’ve never been more certain in my life.’

The room flashed luminescent with lightning. Phineas spun her to face him. He took both her hands in his own and held them to his chest, looking at her with his firm stare. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You will have all the power. In everything.’

‘I will? Rosanna, Rosanna…’ He crooned her name against her skin, and with each soft brush of his lips, with each rough graze of his stubble, she weakened, losing herself even more. ‘I just ran three miles along rough country roads to the train station. Then I rode in the luggage van after bribing the ticket master because there were no seats. And at Paddington, in the rain, I had to fight off a country gent to get a cab. Then I paid the driver triple the fare to get me home faster than was legal. I was so scared I would arrive home to find you’d come to your senses and gone.’ Inching, teasing, he gathered her chemise into his palms. As soon as he’d drawn it over her head and discarded it, he splayed his hands over her nakedness, as if the small cover they provided might shield and conceal her. The chill air, the heavy rain, her dry mouth, his warm hands, the mingling of sweat and sweetness… all of them raged through her with increasing intensity.

‘I will sign any sheet of paper you place before me if it makes you feel secure. Better yet, I will write a promise here on your body so you can keep it.’ Starting on her left shoulder, he circled a fingertip, tapping and skating across the breadth of her back. ‘I, Phineas Babbage, aka Charlie Moffatt, aka Robert Callahan, and many other names that aren’t worth remembering, swear that I will never treat Rosanna as anything other than my equal.’ His body pressed warm while his fingertips glanced cold, like he was made of fire and ice. She shuddered as he stroked along her hips and over her ribs before circling her nipple with the lightest touch.

Rosanna tipped her head back, and a throaty groan of longing escaped her lips. ‘You swear it?’

He squiggled a line on her lower back, like he was signing his promise. ‘I am a shell without you. You send me insane, then fill me with terror. You make me grit my teeth, then laugh. I feel everything with you. Since you invaded my home, all I have done is feel .’ He twisted her to face him again and ran his thumb across her lower lip. ‘Rosanna, my beautiful Rosanna, my annoying, frustrating, and ever so intoxicating wife. The world may disagree, but I am in the palm of your hand.’

‘No wonder you never talk.’ Rosanna took a bold breath and unfastened his top button. ‘You become ridiculously sentimental.’

His low laugh cut through the next clap of thunder, and they settled into one another, a duel of hard-headedness, witty rhetoric, and sniping transforming to care, patience, and space. Men had so many fastenings, so many pieces holding them in place, and she searched for them with her eyes and fingertips, finding them down his shirt, at his waist, where they trailed into the long line of his underclothes. Phineas tilted his head to one side, his gaze flicking and dancing over her. He removed his coat, but when he reached for his shirt cuffs, she placed a hand over his.

‘I want to do this. All of it. I want to unstitch you.’ She unfastened his buttons, loosened his cuffs, and pushed his shirt from his shoulders. ‘Unravel and expose you.’ She kissed the line where his neck met his jaw, and on his next inhale, his breath rattled. ‘You will not hide from me again.’

‘You are torturing me. Fully naked while you take your time to undress me. Aren’t you cold?’ He caressed her inner thigh.

‘A little,’ she said, her confession devolving into a groan as he slid his finger inside her in one deliberate, penetrating stroke, then withdrew.

‘I shall have to be an attentive husband and warm you up. I do not ever want a cold wife.’ And he stroked her length, opening her delicateness and awakening each little nerve, every tiny bud of energy, of desire, of need. Finally, she’d untied all of him and tugged his shirt from him. His fingertips circled and teased, and with a growl he threw her against the mattress, its springs squeaking as she landed. He wrestled his trousers down, discarded his underclothes, and launched himself onto the bed beside her. He crawled her length and poised himself above her, palms pressed into the mattress on either side. Then he lowered himself to kiss and scrape her soft belly, tasting a trail between her ribs, and drawing a nipple into his mouth. Tongue flicking against the point, he grumbled, and the small reverberations ordered every follicle to attention. Through the veil of bliss and longing, Rosanna widened her thighs. Her core, pulsing with delicate want, grew wet, and she thrummed, needy and hungry for his touch—delivered by his mouth or his hands, she did not care. With a nip at her breast, he pushed two fingers into her.

Rosanna arched against the mattress, her moan drowning out the slap of rain on the glass. Phineas withdrew, then plunged his fingers inside her again.

‘Break for me.’ Phineas raised himself so that he was perched over her, their mouths seeking and meeting. With his free hand, the one that was not tapping and circling her clitoris before entering her again, he placed her palm on his cock. She tightened around him, his need familiar, his hunger for her written in every hard curve of his body. Rosanna drank in the sight of him—from his lean torso to his tense pectorals which rippled as he moved further and further from control—even as she thrust against his palm, her body demanding he conquer her.

Heavy breaths and searching lips. She chased the deep and primal need until an indelicate yearning coursed through every vein, surged into her belly, and pulsed hard at the tips of his fingers.

‘More, my darling. Let me taste your crisis.’ He moved so dexterously, without even upsetting the indentations of the mattress, and like a blur, Phineas settled his head between her splayed thighs just as the next vivid explosion of thunder and lightning hit almost simultaneously. Before the rumble had finished shaking the house, he’d drawn a slick line and buried his tongue inside her.

Her body forgot everything except the scrunched linen that she bunched into her palms, the heavenly play of his fingers as they moved faster, so unrelenting, and his mouth, kissing hard as if her body was his breath. And when she grunted, moaned, and struggled to inhale, the frenetic crescendo rumbled through her, loud with lust and release. Her cries wound through the melody of the rain. As the delicious spasms eased a little, Phineas lowered himself atop her. His cock pressed into her wetness, which was still pulsing with release, still craving more.

‘Yes?’

Barely a question, one word full of so many possibilities, and all of them stormed in his eyes, slate grey and full of love and longing. It was an infinite question about tomorrows, about family, about the possibility of children, his children. A question about her life spent beside him and his introspection, his quiet and his particularity. A man of so few words, and yet this one held an eternity. They’d spoken about the life they were holding one another back from, but in his question, he was abandoning himself to her and asking her to do the same. There were no secrets or unexpected sacrifices. Only tomorrow.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Forever and forever. I want all of it. I want to take every next step with you.’

Slow and gentle, Phineas entered her. He held himself tight, balancing on his forearms, but even with his delicate thrust, she cried out as pain bit low in her body. The centre of herself that still echoed with the perfection of his touch tore and split with agony. How could such an exquisite moment turn so brutal?

‘I’m sorry,’ Phineas panted. ‘Dear heavens, you feel so beautiful.’

Rosanna wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. His weight pressed into her, his body tight with anticipation, yet waiting. With her next inhalation, she let her body loosen. He moved deeper inside her, and now he stung a little less.

When he thrust again, tender and restrained, a whimper escaped his lips. He pushed his fingers through her hair as he sought her mouth, and all of her felt opened and exposed, weighed by his body. He moved inside her hesitantly, and she rose to meet him, searching for harmony. Every touch turned into an invitation, and like each moment of reckless passion they’d shared, he listened not for her words, but for her body to sing.

‘Do you still hurt?’ He withdrew, snatched a kiss, then moved inside her again with that same aching restraint.

She shook her head. ‘You feel nice. It feels… complete.’

‘My wife will feel more than nice in her bed.’ A slightly wicked glint twisted his mouth into a wry smile, and Phineas, his cock still inside her, his grasp possessive, leant back onto his haunches. As he moved, he hitched her body onto his thighs. Rosanna pushed the hair from her eyes and stifled a nervous laugh. ‘Spread a little more for me,’ he commanded. Rosanna stretched her thighs, and with his next thrust into her, he grasped her arse and pulled her higher.

A groan burst from her lips, high and surprised at the unexpected exhilaration. He bent his head and stared at the meeting of their bodies, lasciviousness drawing dark lines across his face, and when he caught her watching him watching them, he didn’t hide, he merely licked his lips. ‘Rosanna,’ he said, his tone strangled elation. ‘Look at me.’

Rosanna forced her eyes to remain open through the cacophony of perfection and the pounding that tensed her body, all of her moving to his rhythm. He held her gaze, his own demanding and fierce, and when she tried to close her eyes to surrender to the sensations raging through her, he grasped her chin and held her firm.

‘Me. You and me.’

His eyes fluttered as his thrusts slowed, but he did not break his determined gaze. She caught his cheek in her hand. He leant into her and planted a kiss in her palm. He spoke so softly that she only heard the indistinct shape of his confession, but she felt his love like a brand on her skin as he whispered what he might never say aloud.

I love you.

Rosanna reached for him, and he collapsed against her chest. She pulled him tight against her like she might absorb him, the two of them an incredible catastrophe of writhing, quaking ecstasy. If only she could dissolve into the mattress, meld into its comfort and his compression…. She would disappear into his strength, his vulnerability and his heaving breaths, and lose herself in every way. Lost and found, weary and rested. Still her own, but now also his.

Rosanna drew him against her. They settled in together, sharing her pillow, snug under his grey and black blankets.

‘Don’t ever leave me,’ Phineas whispered. ‘Promise.’

‘Where would I go?’ she asked. ‘I am already home.’