Daniel said nothing; he could tell from Claire’s expression that some painful revelation lay ahead. He wanted to reach across and take her hands in his, to give her comfort, but he reined in the impulse. She was having a difficult enough time facing her demons; she didn’t need distraction.
As if to confirm his guess, she drew in a slightly shaky breath. Her gaze still locked on her hands, she said, “I’ve never told anyone this—the only other who knows it all is my family solicitor. He handled the marriage settlements and helped me later.” She drew breath again, steadier this time. Raising her head, she stated, “Five months after we wed, Randall overturned his curricle in a ditch—he was participating in some race. He was killed instantly, leaving me a widow. What transpired… For that, I have only myself, and my naivety, to blame. Like me, Randall had been born to some wealth. He was an only child and had inherited some years before we met. Unbeknown to me, he was also a spendthrift, a profligate one. By the time he met me, he’d already run through his fortune and was deeply in debt. On marrying me and gaining access to my funds, he paid off his debts, then proceeded to run through what was left. When he died…his creditors immediately came calling. I was grieving, in shock, and to then discover that he’d left me with barely two pennies to my name—”
Abruptly, she looked up, blinking rapidly.
Daniel softly swore. Reaching across, he closed one of his hands over hers and gently squeezed. “You don’t have to tell me anything more.”
“No.” She met his gaze. “I want to. You deserve to hear it all so you’ll understand.” She paused, then went on, “My old solicitor helped me settle with all the creditors. After that…as I said, I had barely enough left to bless myself with. Lady Mott very kindly took me back into her home—I had nowhere to stay. She offered to sponsor me again, but even she could see I…simply couldn’t. Quite aside from being in mourning, I’d lost all taste for marriage—for trusting men. And I no longer had any dowry. My guardians wrote and offered to take me in, but I wouldn’t have been able to even pay them board. I would have been a penniless pensioner in their house, and they didn’t need or deserve that, and neither did I.”
Claire looked down at Daniel’s hand, warm and strong over hers. Shifting her hand, she stroked his with her fingertips. “The only skill or qualification I possessed was that I had been well educated—my parents had seen to that. The only path forward was to become a governess. Lady Mott steered me to the Athena Agency, which proved a godsend. They took me in, checked my background and abilities, then sent me to the Rupert Cynsters. Two days later, I was on my way to Somerset.”
For a moment, she held still, then, lips curving, met Daniel’s eyes. “I’ve been with the family ever since, and countless times have blessed my luck. I left my past behind long ago—I let it all go. All except…”
He tipped his head. “All except your entirely understandable distrust of marriage and of men who offer it?”
Her smile deepening, she nodded. “Indeed. And it’s you I have to thank for freeing me of that last shackle by asking me whether it was right that Randall’s memory should hold me back from knowing happiness for the rest of my life.” She held his gaze. “Until you said that, I had simply never seen it in that light. I’d only known that the distrust, not just of men who offered marriage but of my own feelings, ran deep, deep enough to stop me from moving down the path of matrimony again.”
“And now?” Daniel quietly asked.
Her smile broadened, her expression softened, and the glow he needed to see filled her eyes.
“Now,” she said, “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I never loved Randall. I thought I did, but I was merely infatuated—and even that was with the façade he projected rather than the man he actually was. I never really knew him. There never was any true connection—if there had been, he wouldn’t have done as he did, nor would I have been so unaware of his failings.” Focusing on Daniel’s eyes, she continued, “Now, I know what love is. It’s what I feel for you. It’s…very different from infatuation. It’s much deeper, more powerful, infinitely more riveting.”
He smiled. Tugging one of her hands free, he raised it; cradling her curled fingers between both of his hands, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I’m no callow youth. Although I’ve never felt this emotion before, I know what it is—I know that it’s love. I love you, Claire, and I will until I die.”
Her face glowed, radiant with that same emotion. Leaning closer, she raised her other hand to his shoulder. She slid it further to cup his nape as she shifted on the bed to face him.
He shifted, too, so that he could fully meet her eyes, could bask in the acceptance, the joy, the steady flame of her love that shone there.
Leaning closer yet, stretching up, she lifted her face, her lips, to his. On a breath, she softly said, “I love you. I trust you. And yes, Daniel Crosbie, I will most definitely marry you.”
With that, she closed the distance and pressed her lips to his.
She kissed him—and with a soaring heart, he recognized and accepted, drank in and savored, all the pent-up longing she allowed to pour out.
Into the kiss. Into the steadily heating exchange that fanned the flames of wanting, of need and desire that had smoldered, latent, between them.
He released her hand and reached for her, closed his arms about her and drew her closer, and she came. Eagerly, enthusiastically.
Exactly as he wished.
The kiss deepened, driven not by him or by her but by them both, into a heady, glorious melding of mouths, lips, and tongues that excited all their senses. That sent heat spreading beneath his skin, then sinking deeper.
Her hands, gentle but deliberate, framed his jaw, and she met and matched him in what had transformed into a battle of delight. One palm rising to cup her head, he held her steady as he parted her lips further and, slanting his lips over hers, with his tongue claimed every inch of her sweetness; she tasted of warmed honey laced with promise and spiced with joy. He couldn’t get enough, was already past addicted.
She sighed into the kiss and leaned into him.
For an instant, they swayed, then, locked together, he tumbled them down onto the bed.
She allowed it, falling with him and laughing softly as they landed with their heads on the pillows.
He would have come up on his elbow to hover over her, but she moved first. Rising to lean over him, her soft weight on his chest, she looked into his face; with one hand, she brushed aside the lock of hair that had tumbled across his forehead.
Smiling, her heart lighter than she’d ever known it to be, Claire looked down into Daniel’s eyes—eyes that promised her all and everything she’d ever wanted in life. A husband, a happy marriage, and if they were so blessed, a family of their own—but most important of all, she saw love.
Solid, unwavering, immutable, his love was so strong it caught her breath and left her wanting to plunge giddily in and bathe…the curve of her lips deepening, she said, “I suspect that by now Melinda will be sound asleep. I really shouldn’t wake her.”
His brows arched. “She was kind enough to absolve you of the need to check on your charges. In the circumstances, it seems appropriate to avoid disturbing her well-earned rest.”
“So”—she arched her brows—“where should I rest my not-so-weary head?”
His smile lit the room. “I have a suggestion, Mrs. Crosbie-to-be, if you’ll entertain it—why not spend your night here with me?”
She laughed, and even to her ears, the sound was joyous. “I believe, sir, that I should, indeed, do just that.” Propped above him, she looked into his eyes, and all that was in her heart welled. She felt the power of what lived there, now a palpable thing, and let it show. Her tone serious, her diction clear, her eyes confirming the depth of her conviction, she said, “I came here determined never to marry again—never to take the risk of loving again. Yet here I am, so deeply in love that I feel giddy and breathless, and I can’t wait to be yours and have you be mi
ne. You’ve been my salvation—you’ve saved me from my past. You are and will always be my love. You will always hold my heart.”
She didn’t give him a chance to reply but swooped and covered his lips with hers. She kissed him and let all the sheer need—the need to love and be loved that she’d been holding within her through all the years—pour out. Let it free.
Let it consume her. Let it drive him.
Let it guide them both on.
He met her, held her, as she knew he always would.
He drew her down, rolled them over, and then he was kissing her and her head spun.
Her senses waltzed as, with slow, reverent care, he learned her curves. They were both experienced enough, it seemed, to hold back the urgency, to better and more fully savor every little step along their passionate journey. While the end of that journey was not in any doubt, she was grateful that he’d chosen a longer route. She wanted their first time to be a glorious memory, an interlude steeped in the passion they would each bring to their marriage bed for the rest of their days.
His passion. Her passion.
The former surged hot and strong in the languid stroking of his tongue against hers, in the heavy heat of his hand as he cupped her breast through the fine wool of her gown.
He found her nipple and gently squeezed. She arched beneath him.
Deep within her, her own passion stirred, long forgotten but lured to life by him, by the supping of his lips, the claiming of his tongue, the artful caresses of his hands on her body. He drew back a little from the kiss, not releasing her lips but releasing her senses enough that she was exquisitely aware as he splayed his hand across the width of her waist, lightly gripping, then releasing and skating lower to span her taut belly.
Then his hand drifted lower, tracing her limbs, the hollows and curves, making them his.
She shivered and rejoiced. They were both still fully clothed, yet he commanded her awareness utterly, to the point where every last iota of her conscious mind was filled with the moment, focused on the drift of his fingers over her body and on the sensations that provoked to the exclusion of all else.
His fingers skated on a long light caress from her knee upward, lazily tracing the long length of her leg before lightly delving into the hollow at the apex of her thighs.
Heat bloomed in her belly, pooling low.
Lovemaking had never been this all-consuming.
The thought pressed her to send her own hands searching to see what more delights—what more depths—she could uncover and explore. She unbuttoned his coat and waistcoat, then spread her hands greedily over the expanse of linen-draped chest within. Although his lips didn’t leave hers, her touch caused him to pause in his own explorations; she seized the opening, the moment, to extend her discoveries. To exult in the width and breadth of his chest, to test the resiliency of the heavy muscles that banded it.
Then to sweep her hands lower, learning the rigid corrugations of his abdomen before, with one hand, reaching farther…
He sucked in a breath when she found him, hard and rigid and, even through the fabric of his trousers, scalding hot. She palmed his length, and he made a guttural sound.
She traced his erection, with her fingers circled the broad head.
He groaned and caught her hands, leaned into her and kissed her hungrily as he raised her arms and anchored her hands, one trapped in each of his, on the pillow to either side of her head.
His hunger evoked and incited hers; abruptly, the kiss turned ravenous, both of them wanting more.
More.
Daniel mentally swore and hauled back his desire, reined his passions—too close to slipping their leash—back, in. Not yet. He wanted this night to be everything it could be, not just for him but for her. They had the night for themselves; why not make it perfect?
Even without words, with just the communion of their mouths and bodies, she seemed to understand; her hands shifted beneath his, and her fingers lightly gripped his—in reassurance. In agreement.
Accepting her encouragement, he eased his lips from hers and sent them trailing over the delicate curve of her jaw, then down, tracing the long column of her throat as she arched her head back, giving him better access. Inviting his next touch, his next direction.
Her shawl had fallen open; it lay beneath her, spread across the bed. He left it where it was and instead set his fingers to slipping free the tiny jet buttons closing the front of her gown. He opened the gown to below the line of her hips, then drew his lips from the soft silk of her throat and eased back.
Looking into her face, into her eyes, luminescent with burgeoning desire and just visible beneath the fringe of her lowered lashes, he eased his hand past her gaping bodice and cupped her breast.
The fine cotton of her chemise was no real barrier to the heat of his touch, to the inherently masculine strength of his hand as he closed it about the peaked mound; Claire caught her lower lip between her teeth, let her lids fall as she arched into that oh-so-welcome caress. Her breasts were swollen and heavy, aching for more caresses; her nipples had ruched so tightly, every time he brushed them, sensation flashed through her. For the first time in her life, she fully comprehended the concept of being driven wild.
Then he pressed aside her bodice, cupped her breast, dipped his head, and through the thin cotton, laved her nipple.
She cried out. She was shocked by her own sensitivity—if he could set her nerves afire with lightning even before they were skin to skin, what would it be like when…
Suddenly, she had to know.
She reached up, caught his head and, rearing up, planted her lips on his. Kissed him with her own brand of demand, made her own claiming. Palms cradling his lean cheeks, holding him captive she delved deep into his mouth, and with every feminine wile she possessed, she called to him, her counterpart, her mate.
And on a surge of molten passion, he responded, meeting her fire with his. Their desires waged a sensual war, first his, then hers in the ascendancy, control of the kiss passing from her to him and back again, yet neither held any supremacy in this sphere.
Neither could hold onto their reins, either.
They snapped and cindered in the erupting heat.
Released, passion welled and swelled.
Between them, the heated tide swirled dizzyingly higher, hotter, sizzling and scalding as they both poured every ounce of their need onto their fire.
Every last iota of their urgency—of their urgent, escalating need to be one, to join, and share, and ride the wave of their runaway desires to the passion-filled end.
Their fire roared and flames licked their flesh, tempting, cajoling. Ravenously riveting.
They broke from the kiss, gasping, panting, chests heaving like bellows as their eyes briefly met and they sensed the onrushing tide.
On a hitched breath, on a wordless cry, they dove back into the kiss and the wave of their need crashed over them both.
Heat escalated, flames seared, and the conflagration expanded. Senses heightened, muscles tightened and locked, they clung together in the maelstrom, lips fused, desires matched, and in desperate accord let the swelling power sweep them up and on, until one and only one consuming need filled them.
More.
They were greedy, ravenous, desperately wanting.
All control went tumbling. Hands shaking, fumbling, heated and panting, she pushed his coat wide and back off his shoulders. Fired with need, he slid her gown over her shoulders and down her arms.
They had barely enough sense left not to rip their clothes; it was a wonder no buttons went flying.
This garment, then that, fell to the floor. He had to sit up to remove his boots. He hissed with pleasure when, clad only in her fine chemise, she pressed herself to his back, reaching around him to run her hands over his naked chest.
His boots hit the floor, dropped any old how. He stood and, his back to her, stripped off his breeches and undergarments; her busy hands were already caressing his hips and buttocks
as he tossed the clothing aside.
Then he turned—and saw her look directly at his jutting member, saw delight spread wide across her face as she reached—
He caught her hand, tumbled her back on the bed. Leaning over her, he wrestled and worked and finally drew her chemise away. He held it out from the bed, suspended from the fingers of one hand as he looked down on her, looked his fill at all he’d revealed.
Wonder dried his mouth.
Desire seized him by the throat.
Need—pure and unadulterated—sank its spurs deep.
“You are…glory personified.” The words were gravelly, harsh and low.
The siren he’d had no notion lived inside prim Mrs. Claire Meadows looked up at him from her honey-gold eyes.
Then her lips curved in the most wanton smile he’d ever seen, and she reached up and drew him down to her.
He went. He had no will left beyond the compelling need to have her. To love her. To make her his.
She welcomed him with her arms, with her eyes, with her lips, with her body.
They fell into each other, back into the kiss.
Back into the still-swirling maelstrom of their passions.
Urgency pounded in their heads, in their hearts, in their blood, yet…
Despite being in a room at the top of a tower, despite the fire in the hearth, despite the flames that even now heated their skins from the inside out, the air was too chilly to lie naked and exposed.
Both realized and accepted that at the same time. Between them, with swift, urgent, jerky movements, they stripped back the covers, then tumbled beneath.
Straight into each other’s arms.
He settled upon her, and she held him close. He parted her thighs with his, and she shifted and made space for him there, cradling his hips between her silken limbs. Even as he reached down to fit himself to her, the scalding wetness of her welcome bathed the head of his erection.
She shifted, tilted her hips in the same instant he pressed in.