Years from now, he wouldn’t brush her nose with his. He wouldn’t cup her face in his hand with that sweet tenderness. She wouldn’t feel her breath coming faster, wouldn’t feel her heart leap as his fingers brushed the edge of her bodice.
She wouldn’t feel the sweetness of his touch, wouldn’t taste the inevitability of their separation on his lips. She wouldn’t know the cycle of his breath.
In the years to come, she’d have only her memories. So she’d make those memories as robust as she could.
For now, she kissed him. She opened to him. He was like a radiant sun, spilling light in her life.
“You’ll see, Judith,” he murmured against her lips. “This is as it should be—you and I. We should never have given up on us.”
She couldn’t let him see her cry. He would stop kissing her, and she didn’t want him to stop. She leaned her head down, untucking the ends of his cravat.
“Judith. What are you doing?”
“What I wish,” she said. “Have you any objections?”
She let her hand slide down the linen of his shirt.
“None.” His eyes fluttered shut. “Absolutely none.”
“And this?” Her fingers reached the band of his trousers. Found the button holding it in place.
“Oh, God. Judith. I should say no.”
She halted.
“I won’t. I keep thinking of that night in the orchard. How much I would give to go back and do more, to never have to know these past years.”
“But then I wouldn’t know me,” Judith said. “I would not know what I was capable of doing. I wouldn’t trade me for anything.”
“I wouldn’t trade you, either. And I’ll have to convince you to keep me around.” He said this with a smile, as if it were a foregone conclusion that he had already won her over.
She undid a button. Her heart hurt. No; she wasn’t doing this just because she wanted to know what she would be missing. She wanted him to change her mind; she needed him to change her mind. God, if anyone could change the world with a kiss, it would be Christian.
“How do you think to convince me?”
He lifted her onto the sofa in her attic. “Here’s one idea.”
His hands slid her legs open, and he nestled between her thighs and licked her. He touched her so perfectly, so sweetly, she could have cried.
She did. “Oh, God.”
“Now you can see for yourself,” he said indistinctly, his tongue working against her. “What you have missed. How terrible it is. How impossible to endure.”
His hands pressed her thighs wider, opening her up. His fingers slid inside her. God, that felt so good, there, just right. His tongue continued, and then, there was a pressure, a growing pressure.
As if all she’d wanted from him was building up inside her.
“Oh,” she repeated. “Oh, God.”
He didn’t let up. He simply continued at the same leisurely pace. Nibbling her sensitive skin. Brushing his lips against her intimately, tasting her response with his tongue, until she wasn’t sure of anything—not him, not her own name—not a single thing except the inevitability of this moment. He brought her higher, until her breath stopped working. Until her muscles all tensed at once, and she burst into little sparks of pleasure.
This. This. This was what she hadn’t known, the pressure of his body against hers, the way he seemed to coax every last ounce of pleasure from her. The way he lifted his head in triumph with her last gasp, that self-satisfied silly grin on his face. The gentle caress of his hand on her hip.
He was hard again, almost impossibly so. She could feel his cock through layers of fabric, a heavy, solid weight against her thigh. He slid up her body to kiss her, and when she did she could taste herself on his tongue.
Her fingers found the button of his trousers again, circling round one. Undoing the first, then another. His hands undid the laces of her gown. For a brief moment, it felt as if she were drowning in fabric as he pulled her gown over her head.
Then he freed her.
His jacket was next, then her corset. They stripped each other bare, until his skin was warm against hers. Until his body pressed against hers, and he took her lips hungrily.
She could feel his member pressing against her, sliding as he cupped her face in his hands once more and kissed her deeply.
“We’d better stop,” he said softly. “We had better stop now, if we intend to leave anything for later.”
There could be no later. Judith shut her eyes. “No. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
His hands gripped her waist. “Judith. God. I want you so badly.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I want you, too. I have always wanted you.”
He bent his head and took her nipple in his mouth. She found herself gasping; she’d not known she could feel more pleasure after what had transpired.
But she could. His hand traced her hips. Very slowly, he notched his penis to the cleft between her legs. And, oh, God. There was even more. A stretching. A fullness. A togetherness. She was on the verge of tears.
He cupped her face with his hand.
“Sweetheart, is that…acceptable?”
“Yes.” She set her hands on his hips. “It’s very acceptable. It’s utterly lovely. I don’t want to stop accepting it.”
He grinned. “Well. Then.”
Her hands slid up his ribs to his chest, and he exhaled. He filled her; his body pressed against hers. This was what the wedding ceremony called two becoming one. In a sense, they were one. His body joined with hers. His mouth found hers. His breath escaped him and she inhaled it, turning Christian into Judith.
And yet she couldn’t give all of herself to him. If anything had ever kept them apart, it was that—that they could never quite give each other everything.
Even as she opened herself to him, even as he tasted her, kissing her mouth, her nipples, even as his hands gripped her hips and his breath came faster—even then, they were two separate people.
Separate needs.
Separate families.
“There,” he said. “There. I almost have you.”
And he did. He’d found that spot with his fingers, one that had her gasping and hoping, hoping, hoping that this wasn’t the end. Her second orgasm blazed up, so hot that it might have burned everything away. He made a noise deep in his throat and thrust hard against her, again, and then again.
And then it was done. For long minutes, they didn’t speak.
His chest heaved. A faint sheen of sweat covered his skin. She held him, not wanting to let go. Not yet.
But she couldn’t stop time, even if she’d wanted to do so. He pulled away eventually, and there was nothing between them, nothing at all. Nothing except the farewells they had not yet said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After the shooting pleasure, after the little aftershocks had faded, after he’d pulled out and found a cloth and cleaned her up, Christian started to realize that not all was as it should be.
Judith wasn’t talking to him
He tried to take her in his arms, but there was something in her eyes when he did, something that was both sad and joyous all at once.
“I’m glad we did this,” she said.
So was he. And yet.
“Glad is such a tepid word.” He reached for her fingers. “I’m not glad¸ Judith.” Her palm lay passively against his. She didn’t precisely resist when he pulled her close. She just didn’t…participate.
What had felt so perfectly right mere minutes before now seemed subtly wrong. He could smell her. He could feel her skin bare against his. He belonged here, like this, with her.
So why did it not feel as if she belonged here with him?
Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” he said again.
“As am I.” Her voice was low, and once again, it felt as if there were an unspoken and yet whispered after her words.
He waited, hoping he
was imagining it.
She inhaled. “I don’t know how I can walk away from this.”
He’d not been imagining that she was pulling away. “Don’t.” His hands closed around her. “Don’t. Stay forever, Judith.”
Her fingers flexed, her hands dug into his arm. Her grip wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but it held him in place.
“I’m sorry,” she said instead. “I’m so, so sorry.”
That was when he understood that she hadn’t taken him to her bed to say yes to his proposal. She hadn’t even kissed him thinking that yes was a possibility. She’d done it to say farewell.
His throat felt tight; his lungs seemed to hurt. “Why?”
Don’t, he wanted to say. Don’t go. Whatever it is, don’t go.
She drew her knees close, wrapping her arms around them when she could have been wrapping herself around him. She didn’t look at him. “There is something I believe about marriage,” she finally said. “When you take a vow, you promise to honor and obey and—”
“You know it won’t be like that between us,” he said swiftly. “Whatever it is you think, we can fix it.”
She looked over at him. “No. But you promise that it will last through sickness and health, through richer and poorer. Skip the actual words of the ceremony. What it all comes down to is that when you marry, you vow that you will put the other person first.”
His heart, already wretchedly low, sank further.
“If you could,” she said quietly, “if you could take the past back, as easily as you wound up a spool of thread, would you keep quiet about what you’d discovered about Anthony?”
He wanted to say he would. Oh, damn, he wanted to. If he’d kept quiet, if he’d said nothing at all, if he’d simply sat to one side like a useless lump and kept his discoveries to himself, her father would have gone free. She would have had her Season and he would have married her and they would be up to their ears in children at this moment, and oh, God, how he wanted that. He wanted it so much he could taste it.
But.
But he would have had to remain silent. Every day that he woke up, he would have known that her brother—his best friend—was a traitor. He would never have been able to let that knowledge go. What if Anthony had done something that threatened his family? His children? It would have been like a blade of ice between them. He would always have known that what he had with Judith was stolen.
Lies and falsehoods made a poor basis for a marriage.
“No,” he finally said. “No. I wouldn’t.”
She nodded. “I don’t blame you for it. Not anymore.” She gave him a sad smile. “You could hardly do anything else. But I believe that when you marry, you must be able to put the other person first.”
“In the past…”
“Not the past.” She looked away. “That’s the thing, Christian. You will never be first for me. I must think of Benedict, of Theresa. I don’t even know where Camilla is. My family must always come first.”
“I know. I don’t care.”
“What if Benedict decides one day that Anthony was right, and he too…” She shook her head. “What then?”
He had no answer, none that she would want to hear.
He tried another tack. “Judith, no man could meet your criteria.”
“I don’t expect anyone could,” Judith said quietly.
Hence the reason she’d allowed this to go so far. He understood it all too well, now. He’d been her one taste of the forbidden fruit.
A slow coil of anger began to burn deep inside him. Nobody ever asked the damned fruit if it wanted to be forbidden.
Judith stood. “Marriage means something to me. It means that I promise to put you before all others. I love you, Christian—I love you too much to make that promise knowing that it is false.”
“And too little,” Christian said, “to make it true.” Her eyes met his. She didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to. That much was clear.
She stood in front of him, her skin bare. He wanted to hold her so closely that she couldn’t walk away. But his arms had never been able to stave off reality.
It hurt. God, it hurt. It was like waking from a golden dream only to discover that it was all a lie.
Judith reached for her gown.
“Let me help,” he said.
When a dream ended, there were only two choices. You could burrow under the covers and try to recapture it, replaying the fragments of false memory over and over, pretending it had actually happened. Or you could be a man and face the day, however cold it was.
So he did up the buttons of her gown. He found his trousers, his coat. And when she said it was time for him to leave, he went.
It didn’t matter.
That was what Christian told himself as he stood at the window of his office, the curtains open wide, looking down at the park. Behind him, his man rustled papers.
“A curious list you’ve given me,” Mr. Lawrence said. “What is this list again?”
Christian had been holding his secrets close. “Just some people I should like to talk with. Have you discovered their whereabouts?”
“I have.”
“Then let me hear it.”
Once, he had told himself that all he wanted was Anthony’s journals. He’d wanted to make a list of the men Anthony thought deserved justice, to see what he could do. Now that Christian had seen the names, he suspected that what he could do would not be satisfying.
Nothing would feel satisfying if Judith couldn’t forgive him. He’d told himself that he wasn’t doing any of this with the prospect of reward. That all he wanted was to right past wrongs.
And look—the Worths were well. He’d helped her in her search for Camilla. He’d sent out advertisements. He’d assisted her in ascertaining the truth about her solicitor, and the money had been returned to her family.
The Worths were well. His dreams were losing their power. Oh, he still had them—but with every step he’d taken forward, he was learning to fall back asleep again. What else could he ask for?
Her, his heart whispered.
“Of the thirty-six men you identified,” Mr. Lawrence said behind him, “I have information regarding twenty-nine.”
“Go on,” Christian said. “I’m listening.”
He was. It was no surprise that he’d fallen in love with Judith again. He’d never fallen out of love with her, and over the years, she’d become…more. More beautiful. More capable. More sure. More of everything he respected. She’d become so much that she scarcely had need of him.
“First,” said Mr. Lawrence, “Mr. Alan Wilding, late of Wilding and Wilding Transportation—now bankrupt. Second, Mr. Jeffrey Clawson, living in Bristol under reduced circumstances.”
Lists. Lists were soothing, even now. Maybe he could make a list of ways to forget Judith, something numbered from one to ten. One. He could… Um.
Um about covered all his ideas. He’d have to populate items two through ten with similar throat-clearing. Ah, perhaps. Ahem. Everything except agh—that was reserved for legal chicanery.
“Three. Lord Palmerston, deceased some months past. Four, Mr. Lyle Wilson, bankrupt and a suicide.”
Christian was trying to make an impossible list. He was never going to forget Judith, no more than he could forget his sums or his childhood. All he could do was move past her.
“Five. Mr. William Shoreditch.”
“Let me guess,” Christian said. “He’s living in some sort of reduced circumstances.”
“Debtor’s prison,” Mr. Lawrence said.
Strange. More than strange.
Christian turned back to him. He had been paying attention after all. “Are any of these men still in trade?”
Mr. Lawrence frowned. “Five or six.”
Strange did not cover it.
The hair on Christian’s arms prickled. For a moment, a snippet of one of his old dreams came back to him—a remarkably vivid image of him reaching over the deck of a ship. Of grasping wha
t he thought was Anthony’s hand. Of looking into his own face.
He exhaled. “How likely is that, do you think?”
“I couldn’t say, sir, having conducted no extensive surveys. But it seems somewhat improbable. What is this a list of again?”
“Just some men,” he said. “Men who were known to be involved in trade with a company that has asked me to invest.” Christian held out a hand. “There’s no need to continue. Clearly, investment would not be a good idea.”
Mr. Lawrence smiled and handed over the papers. “I should say not.”
This is not a good idea. If Christian had any sense, he’d stop here. He would ask himself no more questions. He would burn the list and never think about it again.
But it was…unusual. So many of them had been ruined, bankrupted, or otherwise imperiled. It was…no, not unusual. Unlikely. Unimaginable.
Unbelievable, even.
It was almost as if someone had the same list, and was systematically ruining…
His breath caught. It was exactly as if someone had the same list, and was systematically seeking vengeance on the worst players.
Judith hadn’t the means, and she hadn’t realized Anthony’s journals would allow anyone to construct such a list. Only one other person could have known these names.
“Agh.” Christian’s knees suddenly felt weak.
Mr. Lawrence cleared his throat. “My lord?”
For a moment, Christian could see himself in a dream, looking at Anthony.
Who are you? Anthony asked.
Christian didn’t know. He felt himself reaching for his own hand. Grabbing hold. Wondering whether he should keep holding on, or if he should let go.
He’d ruined everything once, but he hadn’t any choice in the matter. He didn’t want to have to do it again. But what else was he to do?
Then he remembered Judith—her smile, when he coaxed a laugh from her. Her clockwork mice. That annoyed shake of her head when her sister burned scones. The way she’d looked at him when she sent him away for good.
He thought of Judith, and reason came back to him in a great gasp.
“Are you well, my lord?” Mr. Lawrence frowned at him.