It Takes Two to Tangle (17 page)

“As were you,” Frances said. Henry could not see her face; his eyes were fixed on the polish of his top boots. Not Hessians. He would never wear tasseled Hessians now, like a dandy pretending to be a soldier.

“I was passable at best. A dislocated shoulder is nothing out of the common way. But I was too tired to bear the pain until a surgeon came, so I asked one of my soldiers to fix it. He was more tired than I, poor fellow, and he pulled wrongly, and far too hard. I don't know what happened. I only know it hurt terribly, as though my arm was being ripped off, and then it went numb. And it's been numb ever since.”

How he would have loved to come home whole, covered in glory. But he had not. For a long time, he hadn't even been sure whether he had really come home.

“You were at war, Henry,” Frances said at last. “Your soldiers knew the risks just as you did.”

Henry pressed on. “But they trusted me.”

“Then you must have been a good captain to them.”

Henry looked up at her, and she managed a little smile. “Henry, we can never know how our actions will turn out. We can only guess.”

“But I made such terrible mistakes,” he faltered. She could not have understood the significance of what he told her.

“We all make mistakes, Henry,” she said quietly, her eyes downcast. The thumb of one hand rubbed over the third finger of the other, precisely where she would wear a wedding ring. “If you knew my own past errors—well, I hope you know that I'd never think less of you for what you see as your faults.”

“But my arm…” He stepped close to her again, within reach, but he did not touch her.

“Yes, your arm,” she repeated. Her eyes flicked up and met his, suddenly hard. “What of it? If you could have waited in agony for heaven knows how long on the chance a surgeon would turn up, then your arm might be fine today. Or maybe it would not.”

He stared at her, stony. She didn't understand; he'd disappointed himself. The army was
his
, not his brother's. Not anyone else's. His captaincy was his responsibility alone, and he had ended his stint in failure. His arm was a daily reminder of that.

Maybe that was why he'd been so determined to make a success of his life in London. He needed something to make him feel whole again.

“Well,” he said quietly. “Thank you for listening to my sordid little tale. I do appreciate your time.” At least she hadn't been horrified. Only pitying.

Though maybe that was worse.

He turned toward the doorway, ready to leave.

“Henry, wait. Please.”

Reluctantly, he pivoted toward her. Her olive-tinted face was pale, her cheeks a hectic pink. Those lips, the dark rose of a madder pigment he could never again mix and mill with ease, were slightly curved. The expression looked sad somehow.

“Please, listen to me, Henry. I don't mean to belittle your loss. Only to say—such things happen during war. Terrible things happen to good men, and there's not always any way to prevent them. Even Wellington lost soldiers. It's not right, and it's not easy. It just…
is
.”

“Yes,” he said dully. “I know all of that. But don't you see, it wasn't chance. It was because of my own carelessness that they were killed. It was
my
fault
.”

“So you've said. If you'd noticed the lancers and called for your men to retreat, don't you think the French would have pursued?”

He stilled. The stone block of his body began to soften, deep inside. “I don't know. I suppose… they might have.”

She nodded. “They might have. We can't know. Or if you hadn't gone to the ball, maybe things wouldn't have gone differently after all. Maybe the lancers were very well hidden. Or maybe you did the best you could with the orders you were given. Maybe if
Wellington
hadn't gone to the ball and danced his feet off, he would have found a stronger place to make a stand than Quatre Bras.”

Maybe. Maybe. Something inside the stone-Henry crumbled at the sound of that word. It was a possibility word; a possibility that simple accident, simple bad luck, had killed his men. He would give his right arm to think that was true, that their deaths weren't his fault.

He had already given his right arm—another accident, more bad luck. Maybe… it was nothing worse than that. The loss would be bearable if it was not a reminder of lives thrown away, if it was his loss alone to bear and overcome.

Frances spoke on, her voice as quiet as a morning birdsong. “All through the war, Henry, terrible things happened, and lives were lost or saved on the slimmest of chances. Maybe if my late husband, Charles, had simply been able to slog through a swamp day after summer day without coming down with Walcheren fever, he would never have sickened and died. Or a bullet might have killed him instead. Or if I had been different myself, he need never have left me at all. He would never have wanted to.”

She turned her face toward the window, as though the outside world held some answers for all her unknowns. The high-slanting remnants of morning sun found her profile, gilded her skin, and picked out bright tints in her hair. Henry forgot to think in colors; he only let himself look at her—proud as ever, and limned like an earthy angel.

Somehow, it lessened his pain to know he wasn't the only one who hurt.

Inappropriately, this talk of her long-dead husband made him want to touch her, stroke her, kiss her until she forgot the man.

He settled for a bit of comfort. “You cannot think that your husband went to war because he did not love you enough to stay.”

“Maybe.” That word again. Frances's mouth twisted up at one corner, though it was not a smile. “No, I suppose he went because he felt he had to. Because we are all human, and we must all eat and drink and have the means to live. And we cannot live in agony.”

With a swift, decisive shake of her skirts, she stood and grasped both of his hands across the swooping back of the sofa. “Henry, you enjoyed the familiar pleasure of a ball during war. This does not mean you should never have pleasure again. And you asked the soldier to help with your arm because you could not imagine living in pain.”

She rubbed her fingers over his right hand, and he almost thought he could feel it, so starved was he for touch. “I'm glad you did. I could not wish for you to live in pain either.”

“And I would not wish it for you,” he said hoarsely.

“So we do the best with what we have,” she said. “We carry on even though our lives alter.”

“Simple as that,” he murmured.

“Oh, there's nothing simple about it.” She dropped his hands and pressed hers together tightly in front of her chest. “Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing in the world. But what else is there to do?”

Now it was her turn to move about the room, fidgeting with the blotter on the desk, giving vases of flowers a little twist so the brightest blooms would face forward.

Just think of who makes you happy.

That's what there was to do.

Two steps brought him behind her, only a breath away from her tall body. She faced the orpiment-yellow wall, seemingly studying the painting of the hunting scene, but she knew he had drawn close. He could tell by the way her shoulders tensed, her head turned a fraction to the side.

“Frances.” His voice still sounded hoarse, as though the name itself was weighty on his lips. A few loose strands of her hair danced in the heat of his exhale. He rested his left hand on the wall, circling her as much as he could with his body.

His right arm hung motionless, of course; he couldn't encircle her completely. She could escape if she wished.

But she didn't even try. She simply turned around and tilted her face up to him, so they were almost nose-to-nose. “Henry.”

The movement of her lips as she spoke his name, the quick sweep of her lashes as she blinked only inches away—these were bits of everyday magic, wrapping him in a spell of peace. The whisper of her breath was warm on his face, the slight movement of air a promise. A beginning.

It was easy, within the spell, to lower his head, to brush her lips with his own. It was a gentle question.

Her answer was immediate. Her mouth was hot on his, her hands swift as they slid up his chest and gripped his shoulders.

“
Mmmm
.” A sudden nervous laugh tried to escape his throat, and he lifted his mouth from hers.

He breathed deeply, trying to banish the sudden weakness in his knees. She fidgeted, so he slid his left hand to her upper arm and rested his forehead atop her dark hair.

Inhaling the clean scent of her hair, all sweet citrus and soap, and the warmer smell of a woman's skin. One breath at a time.

“What is it?” She wiggled her head so she could fix him with those clear eyes, so true and honest. He would not hurt her with an excuse, making her feel as if she were not good enough.

“I'm afraid,” he whispered.

She didn't press him further; she only nodded and ran her thumb along his jawline. “I am too.”

“What do you have to be afraid of?”

She gave her own little
mmm
of a suppressed laugh. “You are golden,” she said. “You are young and noble. I do not know why you should choose me for your company and your confidence.” Her hand slipped over his body from jaw to neck to chest, and it felt like a blessing.

“You truly think that of me.”

“I do.”

I
do.
She spoke the words from the deepest of vows. She wanted him when he thought he would never be wanted again.

He chuckled at the marvel of it. “I think you do not see me accurately, but I cannot wish you to be less generous than you are.” Again, that startled warmth within his body of frozen stone. She had taken hold of his heart with her words. How glad he was that it still beat, that it still yearned for a women's passion and thudded in response to her touch.

Her hands were roaming now, pressing the planes of his chest, sliding beneath the heavy superfine of his coat, tugging at the fabric until they found their way beneath the barrier of his clothing. Ten fingers—beautiful fingers,
Frances's
fingers—touched his sides, slid up his ribs until his close-fitting waistcoat stopped her.

They stood face to face, her hands halted. She raised her eyebrows, wicked and gleeful, asking.

The worry vanished from his body, burned off in a swift fire of hunger. He wasn't stone anymore, but skin and bone and muscle and sinew, all eager man. Her wanted her hands moving over his body; he wanted her body moving over his. He wanted to touch and wake her most secret places, now that he'd told her his most secret truths.

“Yes,” he said, in answer to the words she hadn't said. “God, yes.” His thumb traced the straight, sweet line of her jaw.

“Then we are agreed,” she said with a smile. “How glad I am that you asked me to lock the door.”

It took both of them to shrug Henry free from his coat, to coax the tight-fitting sleeve down the unbending length of his right arm.

Miraculously, this didn't bother Henry in the slightest.

It was as though the soldier part of his brain that worried and analyzed had been shut off; now the artist part could take the lead. The artist part with every sense alive, that could savor the whisper of the still, warm air through the thin linen of his shirtsleeves, that could notice the spreading flush on Frances's skin as her eyes roved over his body—face to chest to groin to feet, and back up again.

He hardened. How could he not?

“I could positively eat you,” she murmured. “It's simply not fair that you look so good.”

Henry shivered and shut his eyes for a brief moment. “That is a matter of opinion,” he said with a choked laugh. “I'm of the opinion that you'll look good enough to eat once we take off a few of your clothes.”

She raised her eyebrows. “All in good time.”

With a wicked smile, she faced him, her nimble fingers teasing at the knots of his cravat. She stood closer than close, so close that his vision went hazy and she was just a blur of darks and roses and the blue of her gown, the press of her long, soft body against his hardness. He tilted his head as the tugs and pulls pressed at his neck, scratched starched linen against his skin.

Any more of these tiny ecstasies and he would embarrass himself. He took a half step back, away from the tantalizing pressure of her body, and studied her face as she picked apart the mathematical folds of his cravat. She was biting her bottom lip, concentrating on her work. Her cheeks were the loveliest tint of rose, and her thick dark hair was springing from its pins.

He could never capture life in oils again; he knew that now. He hoped only that if he looked his fill, he would remember it indelibly. This sparkling moment when a woman had chosen him, and he had chosen her.

The cravat fell open, and Frances ran cool fingers over his throat. The light scrape of her nails on long-untouched skin woke nerves throughout his body, and he had to shut his eyes against the bright shock of it.

Amazing.
As she drew gentle fingers over his neck, he let himself feel. Let his body wake and remember.

It had been years since Henry had been with a woman. He'd never been a rake about Town, never sought the company of whores or willing widows while in the army. When he'd taken a lover to his bed, it had always meant something.

This time, it meant everything. It meant everything to be home again, to be honest. To be naked, yet still to be wanted.

His throat closed, and he caught Frances's hand, interlacing their fingers.

“Are you all right?” she asked. Her eyes were clear as a mirror. In them, he could bear to look at himself again.

Yes. Yes, he was all right. He nodded and coaxed her mouth to his again.

She fit against him like the piece he had been missing. Her lips parted for his kiss, her belly brushing against his as he gathered her tight in the cradle of his arm. They were body against body, heat against heat, and even through layers of fabric, Henry could feel her form—the soft press of her breasts, flat against his chest; her fingers gripping his shoulders, tighter with every kiss.

He could have kissed her for hours, sinking into the wonder of it. The magic of human hands, of mouth on mouth. The way lips fit together, nipped and pulled. Such small gestures that could wake such tremendous needs. This time, his need came not from starvation but from fullness. He was brimming with awe, sipping gingerly at the pleasure of her touch, then drinking it in greedily.

Frances tugged her hand free from his and slid her arms around the middle of his back, encircling him and pressing their chests more tightly together. She wiggled her hips, her breasts, and the friction buried Henry under a torrent of sensation. The whisper of linen over his skin. Her heat against his hardness.

All right, enough kissing. He had to get her clothes off.

Her mouth clung to his and opened, licking him with tiny flames, and he felt as if he must swallow all of her. He fumbled for the buttons of her gown, but even if he had two hands, they would have been shaky with need.

He finally eased a button free at the back of her bodice. Then another and another, more quickly. As soon as the bodice was loosened, Frances pulled and tugged, and her clothes began to slide to the floor. Her gown was first, and he saw the stays he'd imagined in the Blue Room, the stays that had so frustrated him. Her breasts were lifted high, separated, two gifts in a fine linen wrap. He ran his hand up her arm, savoring the warm pliancy of it, then slipped a finger inside the top of the stays. He stroked the soft skin, finding the edge of her nipple, but he could do no more than torment them both.

“Help me,” she gasped, and she turned to present him with the back of her stays.

A foot or more of tight lacing, and he with one hand.

Well, if there was anything to motivate a man to new feats of dexterity, it was the promise of seeing the naked body of a woman. Henry went to work, tugging at each loop with a swift dexterity that surprised him.

“My goodness,” Frances breathed as the fabric parted and fell, leaving her only in a thin linen chemise. “I do believe not even a lady's maid could have done that so quickly.”

“A lady's maid has not my incentive,” Henry said low into her ear. She still faced away from him, her head turned roguishly over one shoulder. He placed his mouth at the curve where her neck met her shoulder, slid his lips over its softness and licked it with the tip of his tongue. Her skin was damp and faintly salty from the heat. She smelled of oranges, sweet and tangy.

He liked the taste of her, the scent of her. He licked her again, then blew on the moistened spot. She shivered and laughed, and the sound of her delight was a victory.

He was pleasing her. Thank God, because he could not keep his mouth from her now. He lipped at the curve of her neck, sucked at it, bit it gently until her head began to sag and she made a low sound of need.

His hand roved over her unseen breasts. They were soft and full, with hard little gems at their tips. His fingers caught and plucked at her stiffened nipples, rubbing the light fabric of her chemise over them. She gasped and staggered at the touch. “Yes.”

Yes.
That just might be his favorite word. There was such pleasure in hearing that
yes
.

Henry fit himself more closely behind her. He rubbed himself against her soft bottom, dipped his hand inside her chemise and found her nipple with his bare fingers. Frances's skin was sleeker than satin, her puckered nipples enticingly taut. She filled his every sense: the little gasps she gave as he palmed and stroked her breasts; the light citrus smell of her, growing heavier with the musk of desire. The warm taste and smooth glide of her skin. Her dark hair, fair face.

He wanted to know her every intimate secret. Whether her body was a different color in her most private places. What shade her nipples were. Whether she would flush when she came.

She fit so tightly, so rightly against him. And she was gasping, leaning into his hand. He could take his time; he would do this well. She should climax before she saw him. She'd be kinder, more generous, looking at his maimed body through a haze of bliss.

Many times every day, Henry wished for two arms that obeyed his command. Right now would be an ideal time. He wanted one to flick at her nipples, one to titillate her moist center. An assault of pleasure on two fronts, so to speak. The idea made him smile.

“You're smiling,” Frances said. Her voice sounded thick and honeyed.

“How could you tell?”

“I feel your lips curving against my neck.”

That made sense. He nipped her neck, pressed one more kiss to it, and rested his head against hers.

“Are we going to finish undressing you now, Henry?”

He couldn't keep himself from flinching. “I wanted you to finish first.”

She plucked his hand away from her breast, pulled it free from her chemise. “Nonsense. We're doing this together.”

Two arms gave her an advantage over him. She could pinion his arm in her grasp while pushing at him with her other arm, pressing him backward until his calves found the edge of the room's long sofa and he could back up no more.

“Stop,” he said. “I'm—”

She pressed him in the center of his chest, shifting him off balance. He sat down heavily on the sofa.

“Do you truly want me to stop?” She still held his left hand. She was looking down at him with curiosity. Hope. Hunger.

Delicious.

He'd wanted to delay his own pleasure, but maybe a change of plans was in order. All the sensation in his body seemed to be in his twined hand and in his cock, so hard and constrained that it was almost painful. He was taut as the wires of a pianoforte. He wanted release.

“Don't stop.” He had become the vulnerable one again.

But as he looked up at her, saw her warm eyes crinkle and her delighted grin, it didn't matter how nakedly he pleaded. As she'd said, they were doing this together.

She sank to her knees on the floor before him, and he could only hope that he didn't gulp. The front of his breeches was tented, obvious.
Touch
me
. He wished, hoped, feared.

Instead she tugged, far more prosaically, at his boots. He watched her round arms flex and pull, her breasts press and bob under the frail cover of her chemise. The translucent fabric offered tantalizing hints of her form.

“Damn these boots,” she muttered, pulling with both hands, and Henry laughed. Ah, it felt good to laugh and smooth away a little of the tightness inside him. He might not shatter with embarrassing speed.

With a final heave, she pulled the second boot free, rocking back onto her heels. Then she slid her hands up his legs—just as she had in the Blue Room, only this time he would not stop her.

The rest of the world could be damned for all he cared, for he was alone with her in heaven as she gripped the muscles of his thighs, then slid her hands up further to swiftly unbutton his waistcoat, slip the braces from his shoulders, tug at the waistband of his breeches until they slid down his hips.

He felt distant, amazed, as this bright and lovely woman freed him from his clothing. He quaked like the ground during a deadly fusillade of cannon fire. His vision was clouded; his muscles trembled. He did not know whether he felt terror or ecstasy. His clothes were his armor, his uniform; they made him resemble everyone else. But each layer was a false skin that separated them.

Then she grazed his length with her hand, and he was drawn back to the present with aching force.

“God,” he gasped.

She knelt before him again, still wearing her chemise. “Do you want to take your shirt off, or would you rather leave it on?”

Another gift. She offered him herself, and the chance to hide his weakness. She would be joined to him either way.

But no. If he truly trusted her, he had to show her his very worst. He had already told her so much; showing her his body was not much more to do.

Right. If only it felt that way.

He clamped down ruthlessly on that doubt. “I will be naked if you will.”

She grinned. “That sounds fair to me.” In an instant, her chemise was a white fabric puddle on the floor.

Oh, he should never have made that promise. Every shade and shadow of her body was lovelier than he could have imagined. Her breasts were round and heavy for his hand, tipped with nipples the pink-red of a damask rose. Her skin was cream and
verdaccio
, the warm color Italian painters used to tint flesh. She was art come to life, her waist and hips a gentle dip and flare. And between her legs… his mouth grew dry. Perfect. She was strong and whole in her nakedness, and he could only repay her with the broken proof of his own folly.

But he
had
promised. He owed her something in exchange for such beauty, even if he could only give far less than she deserved.

“Can you…” He shut his eyes again, not able to watch her face, and jerked his head to the right. He couldn't pull his long sleeve over his wasted arm. He had trouble enough just gathering the full linen shirt and lifting it over his head.

He couldn't do it alone. They had to do it together.

His eyes still closed, his skin seemed to come alive. The fine woven cloth glided up his chest, bunched over his head, slipped down his arm. A sickening instant of suffocation, then he was free.

So. She saw him bare, and she had neither gasped nor groaned nor left him. Instead, hands stroked down each side of his face, neck, shoulder. It was there all feeling disappeared on the right, but on the left, her hand continued down, down, until it clasped his.

He opened his eyes and saw Frances crouching before him once more. Her hands were holding his. Both of them.

His right hand looked disproportionately large, wrenched oddly at the end of his stiff and wasted arm. The biceps of the arm were flat, the bones prominent. Too still for life, too warm for death, and far too thin for a man's body after weeks of disuse.

“I'm sorry. It's not…” He choked. “It's not what I would wish for you.”

“It's not what I would wish for
you
,” she replied, her eyes fixed on his. “But for myself, I would wish for you to be nothing other than what you are.”

She slid her hands back up to his shoulders and pulled herself onto the sofa, straddling his legs. He held her close with his arm, a firm embrace, and breathed in her warm scent. Sweet oranges and the tartness of desire. He would remember it forever.

Her breasts were right before his face, nipples pressing out, wanting to be tasted.

And so he tasted, sucked, tugged, nipped at the hard little tips. Frances gasped and quivered and writhed as if he was drawing all control out of her body, as if the sensations were unbearable, but she could not bear for him to stop. He cupped her bottom, pulling her closer. She nestled her hips against his, tipping his erection vertical, and she rocked and rubbed his hardness between their bodies while he kneaded her skin, feasting on her.