That Scandalous Summer (20 page)

Her face warmed as she said it. After what had just
transpired, she felt very awkward alluding to their original intentions for this meeting.

She had ruined everything. She had a talent for it, she feared.

He sat down on the narrow pallet. Propping his elbows on knees, lacing his hands loosely between them, he looked at her. “How did your mother die?”

She physically recoiled. “No.” She did not want to do this. That was not why she had told him of it. “That’s a cruel question!” For what if the answer revealed that someone else—that someone like
him—
could have saved Mama? She would not be able to bear it.

“You needn’t answer me,” he said gently. “But perhaps I could put an end to your fear.”

Fear?
She took a shaking breath, for suddenly she recognized he was right, and not just about Mama. Fears seemed to hem her in on all sides these days. Maybe they were all of a piece—her cowardice now, and the other one that kept her from visiting her mother’s grave, and the fear that kept her with Nello so long—months, really—after she’d first glimpsed the ugliness in him.

So say it, then. Quickly.
“An affection of the heart. That is what they called it.” She tried to smile and failed. “A queer turn of phrase, isn’t it, for something so awful?”

He lifted his braided fingers to his mouth, gazing steadily at her over them. “How did it present? What were the symptoms?”

Her nails cut into her palm. She kept her voice steady. “Dropsy, foremost. A great swelling of her legs. It was painful for her to walk, and for months she was weak, short of breath. I tried . . . I did everything to help her. I took her to London, to Her Majesty’s own physicians.
But she wanted to be here. And they said . . . they said Mr. Morris was doing everything he could.”

Did the line of his shoulders loosen a little? She tried to keep the naked longing from her face. But her eyes, perhaps, begged for her:
Tell me they were right.

“Yes,” he said. “They were right, Elizabeth. I’ve seen the same. It’s a common affliction in the elderly, and there’s nothing that can be done. Only make the patient comfortable, which I know you did.”

The breath went from her. For a moment she could not find her voice. Then she whispered, “You don’t . . . lie, to placate me?”

“No,” he said. A strange, rueful smile tipped his mouth. “I don’t lie about those matters.”

She exhaled. “Then . . . thank you.” There were no words for it but these: “
Thank
you.”

“I’ve done nothing,” he said. “That is only the truth.”

Such a truth! She turned her face away, toward the lake, to hide her tears. Were they of relief? She could not say.
Make the patient comfortable.
Mama had been so strong in the face of pain, but she had not liked Liza fussing over her.
She
had always been the one who fussed; to have their roles reversed had not suited her. And they had bickered because of it.
I am tired of your long faces,
Mama had told her.
You cannot remain shut up here forever. Go to London for the week. Bring me books; bring me something cheerful.

She had forbidden Liza to mourn for her.
My life has been mostly sweetness, dear girl.

She had said so many things.
If I could undo your father’s decision . . . if I could go back in time, I would not have let you marry him. Dear Liza, please forgive me for that.

But there had been nothing to forgive. Liza had gone to London for the books. But she should never have left. The very
night
she’d departed . . .

She had not made it five feet into her town house before the telegram came.

Bah! Such pathos! She dashed her hand across her eyes. What was done was
done.

She forced a smile onto her lips as she turned. “Now you will be thinking—”

He had crossed the room to kneel in front of her. The look on his face stopped her throat. Naked on his countenance was such open,
affectionate
compassion—

“By God,” he whispered. “Whatever makes you cry now . . . let me fix it for you.”

A strange sound escaped her. She put her hand to her mouth but it was too late; the tears were upon her now and they would not be stopped. A hoarse sob burst from her, and she buried her face in her hands, horrified. Where had this grief come from? Why now?

She knew why. Tomorrow she would look for a loveless connection, which meant . . . Mama’s love might be the last real love she would ever know.

Arms came around her, tightening to draw her close. Her nose came up against the rough wool of his suit. She shook her head and tried to pull away, for she
would not
be pitied, but his embrace only banded more tightly around her.

“Shh,” he said. “Tears are medicinal, I promise you.”

A ragged laugh escaped her, broken in half by another sob. “You contradict yourself. I thought you wanted to stop them.” Once again, she tried to pull free. “I’m fine, I promise you.”

Once again, he clasped her more firmly. As though
he wanted her there against him. As though he did not mind it. “You will be,” he said.

The quiet confidence in his voice overthrew her last reservation. She let herself sag into him. His chest was broad and hard, and his hands on her back made firm, soothing strokes. She relaxed further, and his fingers found the line of her spine and dug in, a pressure that somehow dislodged the greater pressure on her lungs, and allowed her to breathe again, a long clear breath free of weeping.

“You are too decent,” she heard herself whisper. “I haven’t earned it.”

“Not so decent,” he murmured. “I would not mislead you.”

“Kind, then.”

“No. Only for some reason, I can’t bear to see you weep.”

She lay against him a long moment, letting his words repeat in her mind.
I can’t bear to see you weep
. What a lovely world he must live in, to consider that anything other than the greatest proof of decency. She had wept a thousand times, and even people who cared for her—her closest friends—had grown impatient with her for it.

She could not blame them. How many tears she had squandered on cads! In the arms of an upstanding, honorable man, the memory made her feel angry with herself, too.

But as he pressed his hand down her back again, the feeling could not linger. How gently he touched her—how caressingly, as though the privilege were precious to him. Cheek to his chest, she listened to the steady beat of his heart and remembered the way Mama had flown into Papa’s arms after a separation, and put her ear to
his chest, and cried out to Liza, “There’s the music I was waiting for!” And her father, in reply, had laughed and said, “It had quite paused until I saw you there, dear.”

Liza had remembered that moment when ordering their tombstone to be engraved.
Set me as a seal upon thine heart . . . for love is strong as death
.

She straightened very slowly, catching his arm when he would have restrained her. Their eyes met. He looked steadily into hers, seeming not to notice the way tears made her face blotchy, seeming unafraid of whatever she might show him. In her grip, his sleeve was warm from his body, his wrist thick and sturdy.

Surely she deserved this. Just once.

She put her mouth to his.

He went quite still. The muscles in his forearm flexed; his entire body seemed to harden. His lips were soft, though, and his skin smelled clean and profoundly good, so profoundly right.

“You are distraught,” he murmured against her mouth.

“Yes,” she whispered, and threaded her hand through his silken hair, her fingertips tracing the clean, curved line of his skull. “But not alone. I don’t wish to be alone.”

As her thumb found the pliant lobe of his ear, his loosed breath bordered on a gasp. She kissed him again, harder, using her tongue to part his lips. Her own aggression somehow emboldened her further. It had never been her way to choose a man. Before, she had always been chosen. Before, it had never been right. But this would be.

She deepened the kiss, and the noise he made—a strangled sound deep in his throat, something between a gasp and a growl—caused warmth to flush through her.
She tasted his lips, his tongue, and for a brief, blissful moment he took the kiss from her, his mouth pressing harder against hers, bending her back in her chair as his palms around her waist supported her. Kneeling before her, he still topped her by a head; he was tall, broad, sheltering.

And then, on a loosed breath that sounded almost like a moan, he pulled back. “This is not right,” he said hoarsely. He wore a dazed look. “You aren’t thinking clearly. And I haven’t—”

“So clearly,” she said softly. “I’m thinking very clearly now, indeed.” She framed his face in her hands, looking again into his eyes. Every touch she initiated made her confidence strengthen. Decency, kindness, compassion: here in his face were the things her mother had told her to seek and value. Fashionable friends, a fine suit, a town house in Mayfair, a pedigree—all of those stupid things that had dazzled her before, what were they beside this?

Here was a
man
. Bold and raw-boned. Muscled arms that could lift a woman so easily, and hands that could save her life. Firm lips that would never speak false promises. A stern jaw and hair like silk. So many contrasts. His body might have kept her fascinated for days.

She did not have days. But she had this one. This single day, and an opportunity to take what, for once, she knew she was
right
to want. For there was no doubt in her: Michael Grey was everything a man should be.

She leaned in to kiss him again, making the kiss a soft invitation, a temptation to him. “Do you wish me to be alone?” she said into his mouth. “Shall you go?”

“God, no,” he whispered. “But I must tell you—”

“You are not kind,” she reminded him. “Not decent.”

His laughter was ghost-soft. “You have no idea.”

“Show me,” she whispered.

He took her by the elbows and drew her to her feet. Their bodies came together, a sweet contact that radiated in small shocks through her limbs, making her knees weaken. His grip shifted to her back, slid down to palm her buttocks through her skirt.

“There is something I must tell you,” he said.

“Tell me later.”

“No. Before we proceed—”

She seized him by the hair and brought his mouth down to hers. Now he did make a noise, a rough and desperate sound, and his mouth was no longer gentle. Yet once again he broke away to speak into her ear.

“I am not who you think I am,” he said.

She smiled. Would he apologize for his lack of experience? “It doesn’t matter.” Nothing mattered but this moment. Tomorrow her guests would arrive, and before she went to greet them, she would sit before her dressing table and evaluate her flaws. The lines and spots that grew more numerous by the year, the blemishes her maid must conceal—she would disguise them, and reassemble herself piecemeal, with powders and rouges; she would put her beauty on the market for a wealthy bidder. But for now, in this moment . . . she was not a beauty, but a woman.

She slid her hand around to palm his buttocks, and her breath caught as they tensed, pure muscle. He made a low noise and his mouth found hers again, his arms wrapping around her as he stepped into her. Were it not for his grip, she might have swayed backward like a flower. She felt like a flower, something delicate and beautiful.

His mouth slipped down her chin, her throat, sucking and laving. “Farther,” she whispered.

His growl raised goose bumps along her skin. His teeth closed lightly over the spot where throat joined to shoulder. He pulled down her bodice and laved the upper slope of her breast, sucking hard, and it caused her to smile, a strange smile of delight that only the ceiling witnessed. Her country doctor knew what he was about.

But when she pulled free in order to kiss him, she found the angle difficult. She was so much smaller. On her tiptoes she could not reach his mouth. “I want—”

He lowered his head to her shoulder and spoke into her throat, his voice purring. “What do you want, Elizabeth?”

He was too tall. But she knew how to fix it. She took his wrist and pulled him toward the narrow bed, tugging him down, reclining before him in an invitation he leapt upon, planting one knee by her hip, his hand by her face. His face was intent, hard with need.

She had never seen that look on his face before. For the space of a heartbeat, uncertainty dimmed her hunger. In some ways, all men were the same . . .

But when his head dipped, the gentleness of his lips on her neck made her sigh and forget her worry. Her eyes drifted shut. So delicately his mouth traveled down her throat, his hot, moist breath trailing to her clavicle, lingering there. His hand closed over her upper arm, drawing a firm, steady stroke down to her wrist, which he lifted. Turning his head, he planted a kiss on the sensitive skin at the base of her palm. For a moment he remained like that, the ragged gusts of his breath tickling her.

“You are certain,” he said unsteadily. “
Certain
you will not regret this.”

Tenderness uncoiled in her. What other man, lying over her, would think to ask such a question? What other man, so importuned by a widow, would hesitate?

“Never,” she said.

“Thank God.” His hands grew eager now, lifting her to unlace her blouse. She had dressed strategically, donning a suit dress for ease. It was an easy step from pulling the blouse over her head to unlace her corset, and then to free her of her linens.

Cool air washed over her naked torso. She watched his face as he beheld what he had uncovered, watched his lips part, his eyes fixed to her. Slowly he laid his bare palm over her breast.

She sucked in a breath. His skin was hot and slightly rough.
Calluses.
She arched into his grasp, then took his head and pulled it to her breast.

His lips closed over her nipple.
Yes.
This was what she had wanted. A fierce, animalistic urge made her slide her fingers through his hair, threading tightly, pulling harder to hold him in place.