An image of herself in her favourite blue gown at the church steps with George, beaming at her, standing in a high waisted jacket and top hat, flashed through her mind.
Her traitorous heart leapt. No, that was beyond unlikely. Had she not essentially asked him to marry her? A shameful thing – and if she was honest with herself, far more like her mother than she would care to admit.
“You feeling well, my lady?”
The gruff voice of the captain sounded behind her, and Florence turned to smile wanly at him. “Quite well, thank you. A little headache perhaps, nothing more.”
He grunted, and joined her in leaning at the handrail of the deck. “ ‘Tis a beautiful sight, Dover. I am not surprised you wanted to see it; last look at home, that is.”
“Your home, signore,” Florence said with a smile. “My home is before us.”
The captain nodded. “Aye, I remember now. ‘Tis a shame you cannot find a home here, in England; best place in the world, if you ask me, and I have seen rather a lot of it in my time.”
Florence smiled. The patriotism of Englishmen was indeed to be found the world over. “I have not found much joy in England, sadly.”
The arching of her back, the slow but steady movement of his hands, the tingle of his fingers as they caressed her body –
“Now that is a real shame,” came the captain’s voice, breaking into her memories.
“Yes,” said Florence, hardly listening now. The memories of George’s words were echoing in her mind still, but now she came to think of it, they were more full of love than she had noticed at the time.
“I am asking you to stay.”
The way he looked at her: hungrily, and not just for her skin but for her mind. Those conversations, baring themselves to each other, far more naked and vulnerable than when he had gently taken her into his arms and made love to her.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known.”
And if she was honest with herself, Florence knew the emotions stirring in her own breast were not just pain, and hurt, but care, and devotion, and . . . love.
She loved him. She loved the deep emotion he felt, she loved the wit that sparkled when he felt sure of himself, and she loved the awkwardness he descended into when he felt wrong-footed. She loved Lord George Northmere – she loved him, and she was standing on a ship about to take her hundreds of miles away from him!
“Captain,” Florence said quickly, turning to her companion. “I – I have to stay. I need to stay here, in England. I do not want to go to Italy anymore.”
And that was the truth. Her joy was all in England, and what did she have in Italy: memories, painful ones at that, and family stories. She could not live with stories, and stories would not make her happy.
Nothing and no one could make her as happy as George.
“Ah, ‘tis like that, is it?” The captain smiled at her. “I must warn you, my lady, this is the last ship going to Italy I know of for many months. If you disembark now, it will be many moons afore you have the chance again to – ”
“I will take that chance,” Florence said firmly. “I was completely lost when I boarded this ship, but now . . . now I know exactly where I need to be.”
There must have been something in her gaze that convinced him, because the captain nodded slowly and barked out an order immediately acted upon.
“‘Tis a long way back to London,” the captain said hoarsely as he stood with her on the Dover dock, handing over her luggage. “Are you quite sure you know the way?”
Florence beamed. “Not the faintest idea, I am afraid, but I am sure someone will be able to point me in the right direction. I cannot be lost, really. I will find him.”
11
A scream pierced George’s brandy-soaked head, and he groaned.
“What – what the . . ?”
He was lying face down on the sheets of his bed, fully dressed, and at an angle. He had evidently not made it to bed, and had either been carried and deposited there by his brother Luke, or his butler Morgan; and he could not think which was more embarrassing.
A torrent of angry words was being hurriedly shouted from what sounded like the bottom of the stairs, and George lifted his head slightly.
The curtains were not illuminated by daylight. It could not be morning yet?
A crash, the sound of breaking china. What in God’s name were they doing downstairs?
George rolled over and stared at the ceiling. Even now, head heavy from a night filled with more brandy than sleep, and with some sort of calamitous noise occurring in the hallway, all he could think about was Florence Capria.
She had completely enslaved his heart, and he was lost to it – was happily lost to it. If only he had not lost her also, there would be nothing on his mind whatsoever.
“No, Lord George is not to be disturbed!”
That voice was male, and slightly irritated. George closed his eyes and smiled gently. Morgan was such an eminent butler, it was always such a comfort to have him guarding the gates.
“Madam!”
The last cry was accompanied with another crash and glass-like tinkling as something that sounded to George’s ear very expensive had a swift introduction to the floor.
He sighed and opened his eyes. There was nothing for it. whatever it was, whoever it was, they were not going to go without seeing him. Well, they could see him for all of the ten seconds it took him to dismiss them, and then he could crawl back into bed, and properly this time.
Despite his best efforts, it took George two tries to sit up. There was a large glass of liquid beside his bed that looked disgusting, but was Morgan’s secret hangover cure, and after resolutely holding the glass under his nose for a full minute (during which another loud bang told him a door downstairs had been slammed), he swallowed it.
Coughing, and with a head now clear because it had been emptied of all his brains, George shook himself. Time to remove this rapscallion, and get back to bed.
“My Lord George, I apologise for the disturbance.”
That was a sign of a good butler, I suppose, George thought with a rue smile as he rose to his feet. One simply did not hear them enter a room.
“It is quite alright, Morgan. What in heaven’s name is going on down there?”
“A small issue of an intruder, Lord George, but it is of no matter, the parlour maids and I – ”
“Not a gentleman with more bills of my father’s?”
His butler coloured slightly, as he always did at the mention of money, but shook his head. “No, sir, ‘tis a young lady. She is talking on so about Italy and a ship and not being lost; clearly not quite right in her mind, but she is harmless.”
George stopped tying his cravat instantly and let it fall to his chest. “Italy . . . ship . . . lost?”
Morgan nodded. “As I say, sir, we will soon have her moved along, and – ”
“It is Florence,” whispered George. He was not speaking to Morgan, not really, just himself. Could it be true; was it merely wishful thinking that heard her fiery anger in the uproar downstairs? Though it was her style, of course, any excuse for her temper to rise.
His butler was looking at his master, bewildered. “Florence, sir? The baker’s daughter, who brings around the bread on a Thursday?”
George burst into laughter. “Old MacIntosh’s daughter? My word, Morgan, no, would that not be a turnup for the books! No, Miss Florence Capria is a – well, an acquaintance, I suppose you would call her.”
To think she could be here – here, in this very house. In his house! Here, when he had thought her miles away by now, on her way to Italy to build a new life.
So what was he doing, standing here?
Rushing past Morgan who cried, “My Lord George!” who was roundly ignored, George threw open the door and reached the top of the staircase in seconds. There was a woman down there; a woman with long dark hair, unkempt and tangled, with a few leaves caught at the ends.
She was arguing fiercely
with his cook.
“ – and I do not care, non importante, it is so early!” She was saying, throwing her head back and glaring imperiously at the woman before her. “Lord George will see me, I say, all you have to do is – ”
“Tell him you are here.” George said quietly, but his deep voice cut across the space between them and Florence Capria broke off, and stared around her, looking for the source of the sound.
Her eyes widened when she saw him. “George!”
“Florence Capria, I must apologise.” George spoke quietly as he ran down the stairs, stopping just before the woman he loved and hushing away his cook who scampered back off to her kitchen. “Florence, what I fool I was! There you were, before me in all your glory, and I was too cowardly – too proud to do anything about it!”
For a moment, he thought he saw the flash of anger that he was beginning to know so well alight in her eyes again; but then they softened, and she smiled.
“Ah, amore, I hardly gave you a choice, did I? There you were, pouring your heart out to me about how lonely you were, and what did I do the very next morning?”
George swallowed, so painful was the memory. “You . . . you left me.”
A sparkling tear did fall from Florence’s eyes as she gazed up at him. “I did. It was the più stupido thing I have ever done; always I am on the move, always searching for something to fulfil me. And when I found it, I left it, like the fool I was.”
Florence could feel the stress and panic that had been her sole companion all those hours in that dark night slipping away from her, the balm of George’s presence enough to restore her.
“Thank you,” he was saying, “for coming to find me. For being so brave to be the one to come back, I should have gone after you, but I was so afraid I – I was not wanted.”
She smiled at him, and shook her head. “Yours was the face I wanted to see, the moment that you fell beyond my sight at the dockyard. Before I reached Dover, my heart knew I had made a mistake, and when I discovered there was no turning back if I continued on, I just had to disembark, I had to find you!”
Florence had been worried then; anxious she was making a wrong decision. She was not anxious now; every nerve in her body told her she was exactly where she should be.
“But how did you?” George was asking, a wondering smile creasing his cheeks. “Florence, there is a whole country here and it took you just one night to find me?”
“You forget,” she said coyly, “a very rude man threw a great deal of money at me recently. The captain had gathered it up, and decided that it belonged to me as I left him.”
He laughed, and shook his head wryly. “I have certainly met my match in you!”
Florence beamed at him. “It turns out money can not only speed up horses, but also loosen tongues. And I still have a little left, if you would like it back?”
Seeing him laugh, knowing she was the cause of it, knowing they were together: it was too much, too much happiness to bear! And it could all have been lost so easily.
“I am glad I was not a fool for too long,” she said quietly. “To think, the ship was but minutes from being too far from the coast to return.”
“We both were foolish,” he was saying, and her hands were in his and she was not sure who had moved forward or if they had both moved together. “But when . . . when you are in love, it is easy to be so.”
Her heart was pounding, stronger and more excited than it had ever been before. Her hands were warm, and her thighs hot, and she wanted to melt into a puddle before him and just adore him.
“Love?” She whispered.
George nodded, and slipped one of his hands over her cheek. “I love you, Florence Capria. I think I will never love anyone as much I love you, and we have a whole lifetime to get to know each other better.”
“You are not,” Florence said hesitantly. Was she actually going to say this? But she must, she must if she was ever going to know for sure, to be quite sure. “You do not think you will regret this? We have known each other for such a short amount of time, and – ”
He did not choose to answer her with words. Instead, his hot and thirsty lips caught up hers and he was kissing her, kissing her like she was water and he was drowning, his hand dropping hers so he could pull her towards him, her softness meeting his hardness as they stood in the centre of his hallway.
They could have been kissing for hours, or just a few seconds. Florence could not tell.
When they broke apart, their hands were entangled in the other’s hair, and she saw the desire in his eyes.
“Now then,” she said with a warning smile. “You have not made an honest woman of me yet, George. Do not think you can – George, stop!”
But Florence laughed as her future husband swung her into his arms, and started carrying her up the wide sweeping staircase.
“I must insist,” George said with a grin. “I absolutely have to show you this old chest Morgan put in my room, ‘tis absolutely the best thing for barricading oneself in.”
Their mingled laughter echoed in the hallway as they moved towards the top step, where a shocked and confused man was standing, holding an empty glass.
“Would – would sir like another glass of recovery tonic?”
Florence tilted her head, so close as it was to his jawline already she could not help but brush against his cheek, and a shiver of anticipation fluttered through her. Was he actually going to . . ?
“No thank you, Morgan,” George said easily. “I think I have all I need to restore me right here.”
She could not help but laugh, and her laugh increased as she saw the astonished look on the man’s face.
“And who, exactly,” the man said pompously as they reached the top step, George pausing to speak to him, “is this?”
A raised eyebrow was all that was needed to display his confusion, but Florence did not mind. Nothing could hurt her today, not while she was resting in George’s arms.
“This?” George said, an air of mock confusion. “Oh, this. This, Morgan, is the future Lady George Northmere.”
Without waiting to hear the spluttered reply, George strode just a few more paces and carried her into a room lit by a solitary candle beside the bed.
“You should not have said that,” whispered Florence. She did not know exactly why she was whispering, but speaking any louder seemed wrong, somehow.
“Why not?” George whispered back, his breath warming her neck as he lowered his lips onto it. “Within five days, it will be the truth.”
Florence wanted to protest, to tell him she would need far more time to organise a wedding than that, and he would want his family to be able to attend, and anyway, he had not actually asked her yet: but all those thoughts melted away as his arms dropped her onto the bed.
“You saved me,” George said, his voice unsteady. “When I was lost, you found me.”
Florence whetted her lips as she stared up at him, warmth flowing through her body like a sun and parts of her pulsing like the last time they had made love. “I thought I was the one who was lost.”
In a swift movement, he was above her, but not overwhelming or heavy. Resting on his arms, he caressed her hair, tangling his fingers in it – and then loosening them so his fingers can dance closer, and closer to her collarbone, and then lower, until she was closing her eyes and arching her back once more in the hope he would eventually reach his goal.
When he grazed past her nipple through her gown, she could not help but cry out quietly.
“We were both lost then,” came his husky voice, and he lowered himself gently so she could feel the strength of him, the hardness of his body as it longed for her just as she longed for him. “But neither of us are lost anymore.”
“I never want to be again,” Florence gasped, her eyelashes fluttering as that same hand moved down her body, and flickered up her skirt to move beneath. “I never want to be without you again.”
His crushing kiss stopped her mouth, and she responded eagerly,
her hands clutching at him, drawing him closer, bringing him down to her. It was impossible not to moan as his hand reached her hips, lifting her, grasping her, and then caressing her once more, the medley of brusque and soft building in a rhythm that made her legs curl around him, keeping him close.
Florence had no idea how he managed it, but in a swift motion her gown was untied, and he wrenched it from her body like a man possessed.
“I have to have you,” he moaned in her ear as his fingers stroked past her breast.
She quivered at his touch and tried to reply, but she had no words, there were no words for this sort of pleasure. Frantic fingers moved to his shirt, but instead of trying each button she wrenched it off, sighing with unadulterated pleasure at the sight of him, at the feel of him as he kissed her once more.
Wave upon wave of sensuality was washing over her now, and Florence could not keep track, his hands and fingers moved so rapidly and so gently and then so strong on her body she thought she could not bear any more – and of course, she must.
She was naked, and so was he, and they were entangled in the bedding and she barely knew where she ended and Lord George Northmere began, and what did it matter because they were of one soul anyway.
“I love you,” she gasped, “please – please, George, this pressure, I cannot stand it – ”
George shuddered as he dropped his mouth to her breast and she cried out, and she did not care who heard her because this was torture, sweet torture, and it had to end and it could never end –
He entered her slowly and every inch of him sparked more jolts of desire across her body, and her hands found his buttocks and he cried out her name at the touch.
“Oh, Florence,” he breathed, “Florence – Florence I am going to give you such ecstasy – ”
But he could not finish his sentence because she had already captured his mouth with her own, and he was moving now, moving to their own heartbeats which were one and the same now.
Stars were exploding in Florence’s vision as she felt the heady pleasure building and building, and the crest of the wave was coming now and she grabbed hold of his shoulders as if she were to be swept out to sea, just as when they had first met.