AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Between the fluffy mattress and his powerful, attractive body, Sarah felt…safe, protected. It felt as if she became enclosed in a world that belonged to them alone, and nothing could come in and harm it. It could only be an illusion. She knew it. She did not incline herself to delusion. Her life too hard for that. From her early days, she knew there were no easy ways out. This had not been different. The sensation present there anyway.
His lips grazed down her neck, generating goose bumps on her skin. His hand came over her breast and she fast heated up. If she did not stop this now, she would be in hot water.
“My lord…” She uttered in a silky feminine voice, not capable of hiding the effect he had on her.
Hugh sighed in disappointment. “Damn it, Sarah!” His forehead touched her bosom. He seemed to yield and stood up.
Sarah could see the bulk of his erection straining under his trousers, right in front of her eyes. She wished she remained indifferent to it, as a shrill cut through her body. She swiftly left the heaven-bed and paced to the door. She turned, curtsied and emerged in the deserted corridor.
Hugh watched her go, all he could do not to rush, lock the door and keep her in his bed.
As he had intended, Hugh waited for the household to go quiet for the night. He and Adelaide had had dinner at home, there being no social invitation for the evening. As soon as silence overtook the house, he opened his chambers door and walked towards the servants’ stairs, with a candle in his hand. He disappeared through the door leading to the servants’ stair, without noticing that Adelaide watched his movements through a slit of her chamber’s door.
He entered Sarah’s cubicle. She had remained awake, waiting for him.
CHAPTER 7
The weeks went by and Hugh would never fail to show up in his nightly visits. They had stolen fulfilling moments which he anxiously looked forward to each day. It did not figure, of course, as his idea of a perfect liaison, but it felt excruciatingly satisfying.
It configured as an unknown experience, as well. Being able to meet her only at night evoked a kind of working-class life style. The only free time those people got in the evenings. And now he understood why they tried to make the most of it in the vulgar taverns around London. Not that he considered himself happy with that. Far from it. As much as he utterly enjoyed the nights they spent together in her hard cot, he was lost. He could not get enough of her. The more he had her, the more he wanted her. In the past, his experience with his former mistress showed him that he would cool off pretty soon. He would keep those mistresses just for practical reasons. That is, being settled, it appeared easier to carry on with them, than to start the process over again with another one.
But Sarah… Oh, she twisted his guts. Her passion, her surrender, her unsophisticated candid ways got under his skin. And he could not seem to tire of her. He walked a fine line he knew it. He did not deem himself comfortable with this situation. They might be discovered, with the nefarious consequences he feared. She worked as his maid and she deserved the chance to build up a normal life, find someone, marry, and have children. The mere thought got him so enraged that he had never mentioned it to her. He never even asked her opinion. He did not want to hear the answer.
They did some talking, though. She had told him about how her parents had been tenants somewhere in the countryside and how the tuberculosis killed them, making her move to her aunt’s. They debated: literature, philosophy, art. She would usually prove her logic right, defeating him shamelessly. He would kiss her as revenge and passion would overtake them over and over.
Sarah consumed with passion. Even avoiding overinflated romantic notions, she felt she dragged into a whirlwind which she could not stop. Lord Hawkmore inflamed her and it seemed she burned to ashes; only to repeat it all over again night after night. She would remember his body on her, inside her, the bliss, and the explosion. His voice, his stare, his smell, the taste of his kisses remained with her all day. As silence fell over the Hawkmore mansion, she would lie on her cot counting the seconds until he stepped in and took her to paradise. It WASan impossible situation that would not last, and when it came to be over, she would be in pieces. But she would not change a minute of it. Never.
The lack of sleep took its toll, she realised. She worked a backbreaking routine during the day and spent the night in his arms through to the small hours. She had a couple of hours’ sleep, which did not suffice for complete rest. So the backbreaking routine felt twice as heavy. On her days off, she would sleep as much as possible, and would feel better for a couple of days, but not the entire week. Nevertheless, she did not care. She knew for sure that this would be temporary. Lord Hawkmore would certainly tire of her sooner or later. Another woman would catch his eye in no time, as it invariably happened with lords.
Hugh and Adelaide sat in the carriage, having left the opera. He loved the grandness of it, the music, the scene. Faust listed as one of his favourites. Tonight his mind did not rest in the opera, it focused in the time it would end so that he could go back home, to her. He guessed that she would love the opera, the whole experience of it. He wished he could take her to one. For Adelaide, such events were just opportunities to be on display, to show off her expensively attired beauty and watch other women envy her. His arranged wife had been too frivolous to appreciate the art showed there. What a waste! Whereas he saw Sarah as keen on art and did not have access to it, Adelaide took for granted all her privileges.
Of course, they had not left soon after the opera finished. They stopped to talk to an endless number of people, his peers. He played the part, naturally, as he did during the intervals. His impatience stood a breath away from bursting. He tried to keep it under tight control. He looked at his pocket watch for the third time since they left the theatre.
Adelaide sat ramrod straight across from him in the carriage and observed him checking the hours. She had a vague look of disdain about her.
“This has to stop. You know that.” She said drily.
Hugh snapped his eyes to hers in the near darkness of the carriage. He did not need to ask what she talked, not surprised she had found out. She must have seen him on his way up more than once. Good thing she had no way of knowing who he went up for.
“If I know, someone else might, as well.” Her cool hauteur annoyed him at that moment. “I refuse to become the banter of the Ton!”
He felt too vexed to answer. He looked outside at London’s passing gas street lamps. She was right, no question about it. The horses’ hooves echoed in the cobblestones and hammered an aching frustration into his head. How would he live without her? Without the feel of her body against his? Without her smart conversation? Her passion and her hunger for him? His body went as cold as death. A raw pain lanced in his heart.
He tried. Oh, yes, sir! He tried. For days and days in a row. It took him herculean effort, but he got down to it. He avoided staying home in the process. He spent the days practising all the sports he knew and more. He stayed long hours in his club and accompanied Adelaide to the social events. And drank, in an attempt to numb his senses and forget. It only made him remember. Every minute. Every word. Every moment of pass
ion. The pain lancinating.
When she happened to pass by him, he looked the other way, as if she had a contagious disease. On these occasions, he hid in the library, a glass in his hand. He did not have the stomach to dismiss her. It would be too cruel, and he wanted her around. At least he would be able to look at her, even though it hurt. Bitterly.
Sarah felt at a loss what to think. It seemed her predictions had come to pass sooner than expected. She missed him. Awfully. Her cot cold, her body in ardent longing and she felt so lonely, in the dark. The empty nights that went in succession did not help her to rest. She usually fell in a disturbed sleep full of dreams and steamy sensations that did not recover at all. Her heart sinking, her body, hollow. Not her place to ask him what had happened, she itched to do it, anyway. Still, she waited for him in the quiet of the night, her body aching for him. Vain hope, she would give in and dive in an unconsciousness that denied her oblivion.
Whenever she saw him, it felt like a corroding feeling washed inside her. She would lower her eyes to shut down what went inside her. The sight of him shook her, reminded her of the forbidden pleasures they had shared, and remained now, surely, out of her reach.
She also missed their talks. No boy from her world would understand her intellectual pursues, or care about them, for that matter. He had been the only man she had ever been able to converse about abstract matters. This had been truly precious.
Sarah cleared up the morning room after Lady Hawkmore had breakfast and left on a shopping tour. She knelt on the floor with a cloth when the door opened. She looked up startled. Lord Hawkmore.
She jerked up and curtsied. She glanced at him and this came to be her perdition. His tall frame stood, still holding the doorknob, his hair wet. Trousers and shirt, he smelled bath and man. She stuck there eyeing him, wide eyes, parted lips, wringing the cloth.
