“Do you need food? I brought back a half dozen pasties.”
Victoria's stomach rumbled, but she said, “I'll have one later, if you don't mind.”
“Do you need anything”? He sounded almost desperate.
“No, not really, although—”
“Although what?” he said, very quickly. “What do you need? I'd be happy to bring it to you. Ecstatic. Anything to make you more comfortable.”
“Did you happen to buy me a new dress? I'm going to need something to change into. I suppose I could put this one back on, but it's terribly itchy with the salt.”
She heard him say, “Just one moment. Don't move. Don't go anywhere.”
“As if I had anywhere to go like this,” she said to herself, looking down at her naked body.
A moment later she heard Robert running up the hall. “I'm back!” he said. “I have your dress. I hope it fits.”
“Anything would be an improvement over—” Victoria gasped as she saw the doorknob turning. “What are you doing?” she shrieked.
Mercifully the doorknob froze in place. She supposed even Robert knew when he was going too far. “Bringing you your dress,” he said. But there was a hint of a question in his voice.
“Just open the door a few inches and drop it in,” she instructed.
A moment of silence, and then: “I don't get to come inside?”
“No!”
“Oh.” He sounded like a disappointed schoolboy.
“Robert, surely you didn't think I would allow you to come in here while I am bathing.”
“I was hoping…” His words trailed off into a big heartfelt sigh.
“Just drop the dress inside.”
He did as she asked.
“Now close the door.”
“Would you like me to drop a pasty inside, too?”
Victoria judged the distance between the tub and the door. She would have to get out of the bath in order to get the food. Not an appealing concept, but then again her stomach was roaring at the thought of a meat pasty. “Could you scoot it across the floor?” she asked.
“Won't it get dirty?”
“I don't care.” And she didn't. That's how hungry she was.
“Very well.” His hand came into sight, about an inch above the floor. “In which direction?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“In which direction should I push the pasty? I wouldn't want to send it out of your reach.”
Victoria thought that what should have been a very simple task was turning into a most complicated endeavor, and she wondered if he'd found some insidious peephole. Maybe he was stalling as he watched her. Maybe he could see her naked body. Maybe—
“Victoria?”
Then she thought of the scientific precision with which he approached everything he did. The crazy man probably did want to know which way to scoot the pasty. “I'm at about one o'clock,” she said, lifting her left hand from the tub and shaking it dry.
Robert's hand twisted slightly to the right, and he sent the pasty careening across the wood floor. It came to a halt when it smacked into the side of the metal tub. “Bull's eye!” Victoria called out. “You can close the door now.”
Nothing.
“I said you can close the door now!” she said, her voice a little more stern.
Another heartfelt sigh, and then the door shut.
“I'll just wait in the kitchen,” he said, his voice small.
Victoria would have answered him, but her mouth was full.
Robert lowered himself onto a stool and let his head drop dejectedly onto the wooden kitchen table. First he'd been cold. Then he'd been hungry. But now—well, to be frank, now his body was in perfect working order, and Victoria was naked in a tub, and he was—
He groaned. He was not comfortable.
He busied himself in the kitchen, putting away some of the food he'd brought home. He wasn't accustomed to the chore, but he rarely brought many servants with him to the Ramsgate cottage, so he was a bit more at home here than he would have been at Castleford or in London. Besides, there wasn't much to unpack; he'd made arrangements for the shopowners to deliver most of his purchases. He'd only brought with him what was ready-made and could be eaten immediately.
Robert finished his chores by popping two rolls into the bread box, and he settled back down onto the stool, trying very hard not to imagine what Victoria was doing right then.
He wasn't successful, and he started feeling so warm he had to open a window.
“Keep your mind off her,” he muttered. “No need to think about Victoria. There are millions of people on this planet, and she's just one of them. And there are a number of planets, too. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars…”
Robert ran out of planets in short order and, desperate to keep his mind on anything but Victoria, started in on the Linnaean system of taxonomy. “Kingdom, phylum, then…”
He paused. Was that a footstep he'd heard? No, he must have imagined it. He sighed, then resumed.”…class, order, family, and then… and then…” Damn it, what came next?
He started pounding the table with his fist in an attempt to jog his memory. “Damn, damn, damn,” he said, punctuating each pound. He was well aware that he getting a bit too upset over his inability to remember a simple scientific term, but the task had taken on almost desperate proportions. Victoria was upstairs in the tub, and—
“Genus!” he fairly yelled out. “Genus and then species!”
“I beg your pardon?”
He whipped his head around. Victoria was standing in the doorway, her hair still damp. The dress he'd bought her was a hair too long and dragged on the floor, but other than that it fit her quite well. He cleared his throat. “You look—” He had to clear his throat again. “You look fetching.”
“Thank you very much,” she said automatically. “But what were you yelling about?”
“Nothing.”
“I could have sworn you were saying something about the genius of the three seas.”
He stared at her, certain that his loins had sapped some of the energy from his brain, because he truly had no idea what she was talking about. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“I don't know. Why did you say it?”
“I didn't say it. I said, ‘genus and species.’”
“Oh.” She paused. “That would explain everything, I suppose, if I knew what it meant.”
“It means…” He looked up. She had an expectant and slightly amused expression on her face. “It's a scientific term.”
“I see,” she said slowly. “And was there any reason you were shouting it at the top of your lungs?”
“Yes,” he said, focusing on her mouth. “Yes, there was.”
“Was there?”
He took a step toward her, and then another. “Yes. You see, I was trying to keep my mind off something.”
She nervously wetted her lips and blushed. “Oh, I see.”
He moved ever closer. “But it didn't work.”
“Not even a little bit?” she squeaked.
He shook his head, so close to her now that his nose nearly brushed hers. “I still want you.” He shrugged apologetically. “I can't help it.”
She did nothing but stare at him. Robert decided that was better than an outright rejection and moved his hand to the small of her back. “I searched the door for a peephole,” he said.
She didn't look surprised when she whispered, “Did you find one?”
He shook his head. “No. But I have a very good imagination. Not”—he leaned forward and brushed the lightest of kisses onto her mouth—” as good as the real thing, I'm afraid, but it was enough to lead to my current state of extreme and prolonged discomfort.”
“Discomfort?” she echoed, her eyes growing wide and unfocused.
“Mmm-hmm.” He kissed her again, another light touch intended to arouse, not invade.
Again she made no move to pull away. Robert's hopes soared, as did his arousal. But he held his d
esire in check, sensing that she needed to be seduced by words as well as actions. He touched her cheek as he whispered, “May I kiss you?”
She looked startled that he'd asked. “You just did.”
He smiled lazily. “Technically I suppose that this”—he brushed another of those feather light kisses across her mouth—” qualifies as a kiss. But what I want to do to you is so different it seems a crime against words to call them the same thing.”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
Her curiosity thrilled him. “I think you know,” he said, smiling. “But just to refresh your memory…”
He slanted his mouth against hers and kissed her deeply, nibbling on her lips and exploring her with his tongue. “That is more along the lines of what I intended.”
He could sense her being swept away on the tide of his passion. Her pulse was racing and her breath was coming faster and faster. Beneath his hand he could feel her skin burning through the thin fabric of her dress. Her head fell back as he kissed her neck, trailing hot fire along the line of her throat.
She was melting. He could feel it.
His hands moved down and curved around her backside, pulling her firmly against him. There was no denying his arousal, and when she didn't move immediately away, he took it as a sign of acquiescence. “Come upstairs with me,” he whispered in her ear. “Come and let me love you now.”
She didn't quite freeze in his arms, but she did go uncommonly still.
“Victoria?” His whisper had grown harsh.
“Don't ask me to do this,” she said, turning her face away.
He cursed under his breath. “How long are you going to make me wait?”
She didn't say anything.
His grip on her tightened. “How long?”
“You're not being fair to me. You know I can't simply…It's just not right.”
He let go of her so abruptly that she stumbled. “Nothing has ever been more right, Victoria. You just don't want to see it.” He looked at her for one last hungry moment, feeling too angry and rejected to care about her anguished expression. Then he turned on his heel and left the room.
Chapter 19
Victoria had closed her eyes against his bitterness, but she couldn't close her ears. His angry footsteps pounded through the house, ending with the loud slam of his bedroom door.
She leaned against the kitchen wall. What was she so afraid of? She could no longer deny that she cared for Robert. Nothing had the power to lift her heart like one of his smiles. But letting him make love to her was so permanent. She would have to let go of that little piece of anger she'd been holding inside for so many years. At some point that anger had become a part of who she was, and nothing terrified her more than losing her sense of herself. That was all she'd been able to hold on to when she was a governess. I am Victoria Lyndon, she would tell herself after a particularly trying day. No one can ever take that from me.
Victoria covered her face with her hands and exhaled. Her eyes were still closed, but all she could see was Robert's warm expression. She could hear his voice in her mind, and he kept saying, over and over, “I love you.” And then she breathed in. Her hands smelled like him, like sandalwood and leather. It was overwhelming.
“I need to get out of here,” she muttered, then crossed the room to the door leading to the cottage's back garden. Once outside, she took a deep breath of the fresh air. She knelt in the grass and touched the flowers. “Mama,” she whispered. “Are you listening?”
Lightning didn't crash through the sky, but a sixth sense told her to turn around, and when she did she saw Robert in the window of his room. He was perched on his windowsill with his back to her. His posture looked desolate and bleak.
She was hurting him. She was clutching onto her anger because it was all she could depend on, but all she was doing was hurting the one person she—
The flower in her hand snapped in two. Had she been about to say loved?
Victoria felt herself rising to her feet as if lifted by some invisible force. There was something else in her heart now. She wasn't sure it was love, but it was something gentle and good, and it had pushed the anger aside. She felt freer than she had in years.
She looked back up to the window. Robert's head was in his hands. This wasn't right. She couldn't keep hurting him this way. He was a good man. A bit domineering at times, she thought with a wobbly smile, but a good man.
Victoria reentered the house and quietly made her way to her room.
She sat motionless on her bed for a full minute. Could she really do this? She closed her eyes and nodded. Then, taking a deep breath, she moved her shaking hands to the fastenings of her dress.
She slipped into the blue nightgown, sliding her hands down its silky length. She felt transformed.
And she finally admitted to herself what she had known all along—she wanted Robert. She wanted him, and she wanted to know that he wanted her. The question of love was still too scary for her to confront, even in her own mind, but her desire was strong and impossible to deny. With a steadiness of purpose she hadn't felt in some time, Victoria walked to his chamber door and turned the knob.
He'd locked it.
Her mouth fell open. She tried the knob again, just to be sure. It was definitely locked.
She nearly fell to the ground in frustration. She had made one of the most momentous decisions in her life, and he had gone and locked the damn door.
Victoria had half a mind to turn around and head back to her own room, where she could sulk alone. He would never know what he had missed, the blasted man. But then she realized that she would never know, either. And she wanted to feel loved again.
She raised her hand and knocked on the door.
Robert's head shot up in surprise. He thought he'd heard the doorknob rattle, but he'd assumed that it was merely the creaking of an old building. Not in his wildest dreams did he imagine that Victoria would come to him of her own volition.
But then he heard something different. A knock. What could she possibly want?
He crossed the room in swift, long strides and pulled open the door. “What do you—” He sucked in his breath. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. Victoria had donned the seductive gown he'd given her, and this time she wasn't covering herself up with a quilt. The blue silk clung to her every curve, the neckline plunged to reveal her delicate cleavage, and one of her legs was visible though along slit in the side.
Robert's body went instantly taut. Somehow he managed to utter her name. It wasn't easy; his mouth had gone dry as death.
She stood before him, her bearing proud but her hands shaking. “I've made a decision,” she said in a low voice.
He inclined his head, not trusting himself to speak.
“I want you,” she said. “If you'll still have me.”
Robert froze, so unable to believe what he was hearing that he couldn't move.
Her face fell. “I'm sorry,” she said, misinterpreting his inaction. “How ill-bred of me. Please forget I—”
The rest of her sentence was lost as Robert crushed her to him, his hands roving wildly up and down the length of her body. Robert wanted to devour her—he wanted to wrap himself around her and never let go. So all encompassing was his reaction that he was afraid he'd frightened her with his passion. With a ragged breath he pulled himself a few inches away from her.
She looked up at him with huge, questioning blue eyes.
He managed a shaky smile. “I'll still have you,” he said.
For a second she didn't react. Then she laughed. The sound was almost musical, and it did more for his soul than the Church of England ever had. He took her face in his hands with reverent gentleness. “I love you, Torie,” he said. “I will always love you.”
She didn't say anything for a long moment. Finally she stood on her tiptoes and brushed a feathery kiss across his lips. “I can't talk of ‘always’ yet,” she whispered. “Please don't—”
He underst
ood, and he saved her from having to finish her sentence by claiming her mouth once again in a fiercely possessive kiss. He didn't mind that she wasn't yet ready for “always.” Soon she would be. He would prove to her that their love was a forever emotion. He would do it with his hands and lips and words.
His hands slid up the length of her body, the silk of her gown bunching under his fingers. He could feel her every curve through the thin material. “I'm going to show you what love is,” he whispered. He leaned down and pressed his lips against the soft skin of her breast. “I'm going to love you here.”
He moved his lips to her neck. “And here.”
His hands squeezed her buttocks. “And here.”
She moaned in reaction, a hoarse, sensual sound that came from deep within her throat. Robert suddenly doubted his ability to remain standing. He swooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. As he laid her down, he said, “I'm going to love you everywhere.”
Victoria sucked in her breath. His eyes were burning into her, and she felt terribly exposed, as if he could see into her very soul. Then he came down beside her, and she was lost in the heat of his body and the passion of the moment. He was hard and strong, hot and overwhelming. Her senses were swimming.
“I want to touch you,” she whispered, barely able to believe her own boldness.
He grasped her hand and guided it to his chest. His skin burned, and she could feel his heart pounding under her fingers. “Feel me,” he murmured. “Feel what you do to me.”
Overcome by curiosity, Victoria sat up, tucking her legs underneath her. She saw the question in Robert's eyes, smiled, and murmured a soft “Shhh.”
She let her fingers slide down to the taut skin of his abdomen, mesmerized by the way his muscles leaped at her touch. She sensed that he was exerting incredible control. It was an awesomely powerful feeling to know that she could make him like this, his breathing hard and ragged, his every muscle straining and tense.
Victoria felt daring. She felt wild and reckless. She wanted the whole world, and she wanted it that afternoon. She swayed forward, teasing him with her nearness, then pulled back, feeling giddy and off-balance. Her hand dipped lower until it brushed against the waistband of his breeches.