Page 26 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

She couldn’t stay in her soiled gown any longer. It felt like a heavy net over her skin, a trap. She turned away from him and struggled with the hooks at the front of her gown.

“I was young. Very young. We had not been in England long. My mother was sick, and—and I couldn’t bear the trade she had taken up to support us. My father could not find work. There was a rich man, a merchant, who…offered for me. My mother didn’t condone it. But my father convinced me to take him.”

“Inez. What happened?” Joseph spoke softly as she stepped forward. He laid hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. His hands were so warm, his touch so gentle as he undid the pins at the front of her gown. She’d never known tenderness from a man.

She pressed her hands over her eyes, unable to look at him while he provided this small, kind service. Unable to think, or feel, anything but the graze of his ungloved hands at her breasts.

“He…died.” Best not to say how. She was already like to be hanged as a thief, so why add suspicion of murder to the stew?

“Do you miss him?” He gave her a handful of the straight steel pins, then let his hands fall to his sides. All the anger had soared out of him, leaving him almost wounded. The red bruise on his face was beginning to purple.

Heated from the memory, Inez pulled off her bodice and threw it over the washstand, then untied her petticoat and gave it the same fate. She whirled to face him in only her shift and stays. She kicked off her shoes and curled her stockinged toes into the rug.

She wanted a bath. She wanted to crawl into her bed and hide under the covers and hold her breath until she passed out and she could forget everything.

She wanted Joseph Illingworth to kiss her, and now that he knew she was soiled, he would never kiss her again.

“Miss him?” Her laugh was a strangled bark, like a kicked dog. “It was a blessing when he died.” She pointed to her bruised throat. “He was not kind. He never went so far as this, but his passing was a relief to most who knew him.”

All of a sudden he stood close before her, not an inch between their bodies, the tips of her breasts grazing his coat. He cradled her face in his hands, his expression haggard, haunted. “Inez. Shh. It’s all right now.”

She was weeping. When had she begun weeping? She wasn’t a watering pot. She never cried. Not when she’d buried her mother, not when her father packed and left her without looking back. Not when she’d realized what her husband was, and not when she realized she was free. Yet she stood here, pouring tears before Joseph Illingworth, and he wiped her cheeks with his hands.

“You’re safe,” he whispered. “No one will hurt you. You will stay here and be safe.”

It was her doing, again. She wondered, fleetingly, if it would always be her doing, drawing him into an embrace. But she pulled his head down to hers and he kissed her, and she thought of nothing else.

“Stay here with you?”

He groaned and surrounded her, and she was swept away. He kissed her as if their ride and the press of their bodies and the constant, hot contact had been as much a torment to him as to her. He kissed her as if he had stopped breathing when their mouths parted and only took in air once they connected.

She kissed him back as if she belonged in his arms and knew it.

He wasn’t an experienced kisser, but she would teach him. They had time. She cupped her hands around his cheeks, careful not to touch where Wigsby had struck him. He was such a strange and delightful contrast, the soft textures of him and his firm, hot skin. And his raw need fired her own want as nothing else could.

He dragged his hands into her hair, pushing against the pins that held the heavy coils, and she moaned at the press of his fingers against her scalp. His mouth followed hers as she tipped her head back, and she slanted her lips to fit more precisely against his.

Then he broke away, and she gave a little mewling cry. But he didn’t pull away, still stood with her arms wrapped around him. His hands cupped her head, thumbs stroking her throat. His eyes were hazy but wide with astonishment, and she stared at the dark ring around his iris, purple-black against the deep shades of brown.

“Inez. You’re so beautiful.” He sounded astonished, as if he had never realized this before. It was about time he did.

“Touch me,” she whispered, pressing herself against him. She looped her fingers around his wrist—so soft, his skin—and pulled his hand over her collarbone, down to her breast. She whimpered as his palm immediately closed around her flesh, sensitive and aching.

“Inez. You’re—I’m⁠—”

“I want you to kiss me there. Please.”

She’d never begged in her life, not for anything. Yet this man reduced her to groveling with no more than a hand on her breast—a hot, heavy hand delivering a pressure that made her mad and yet soothed at the same time.

He surged against her, as if her request had released something in him, and slid his other arm around her waist to pull her as close as skin. His arousal bloomed against her belly, and she gave a little moan of satisfaction. Oh, yes, he wanted her. He stared at her bosom as if he’d never seen a woman’s bare breasts before, and Inez felt warm between her legs at his look of amazement and desire. She wanted to stand here forever in this breath of anticipation, tilted on the brink of a fall into the moment that Joseph Illingworth finally made love to her.

And then she couldn’t stand to wait an instant longer.

“Come here.” She slid her hands to his jaw and kissed him again, unable to resist the look of wonder and delight and boyish greed on his face. His weight against her made her stagger, and she let herself fall onto her narrow cot, pulling him down atop her.

Yes. This was what she wanted. Had wanted for so long. Joseph Illingworth in her arms, pressed against her body, his weight a shield against the world, promising that nothing could hurt her.

“Inez.” He kissed down her face and neck to her breastbone, then dragged his lips across the tops of her breasts. The groan from him was raw need. She lifted her hips, pressing shamelessly into him, greedy for the evidence of his desire. His need for her.