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He hadn’t meant to touch her, only to comfort her. Oh, deep down, he knew how powerful the force of desire was between them. How they both ached to unchain it…and themselves.
The tip of his tongue slipped out, unable to refrain from lapping away the salty evidence of her torment. He wanted to take away all her suffering, to soothe her pain. Even when her tears were gone, however, she held him to her, her breath fracturing as he kissed and tasted his way back up to her mouth.
But when his lips hovered over hers, their breath mingling, so much lay between them, they both stilled. Part of him believed seduction was the answer. That the rapture they would discover together would heal them. That it would unleash within them both an insatiable hunger that would bind them forever.
“How I desire you,” he said, his tone dark but no longer burdened with guilt or reluctance. “How I’m tempted to carry you upstairs and taste you everywhere. To show you how much I love and want you…until neither of us can stand.” Without regard for either her intricate hairstyle or the meticulous efforts of her ladies’ maid, his fingertips slid into her silky hair, mussing it and loosening pins.
“Then do it,” Bea urged, her hands gripping his biceps through his jacket.
“I will,” he promised. “But not yet, Lady Candleton. What we’re going to share in the bedchamber”—the breath left his body at the thought of the paradise that awaited them—“is but one part of what I seek from you. What I have to offer.”
She melted back into the cushions, panting lightly. “What do you seek? What do you offer?”
“God, Bea!” Ten years had passed since he had asked those very questions of her in a crowded ballroom during their courtship, but she hadn’t forgotten. He lifted one of her hands and kissed it. “If you can say those words to me now…”There’s hope.
“Whatdoyou seek from me, William? What do youoffer?”
“Every. Damn. Thing.” He heard his own fierce tone, was horrified by his vulgar language, but there was no holding back. Not anymore. “Every drop of everything within me. Within you.”
Her sweet mouth parted, drawing his eyes…and his thumb. Caressing her pliant lip, watching her gaze fill with love and pining nearly undid him. He gently released her against the cushions and picked up the abandoned letter.
∞∞∞
Bea sat up, suspended in a haze of sentimental and erotic longing. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she ought to muster hurt or offense at having been let go by her husband once more. Hadn’t he stoked her desire and then pulled back?
Examining him as he stared down at the letter, she realized he hadn’t retreated. He was closer to her than ever. When he looked up, she saw more disquiet than when he had been preparing for the most important speech of his parliamentary career to date.
“I’m here, William. I’m listening,” she said with quiet encouragement.
Their eyes locked and his smile lifted her soul. After nodding, he turned his attention back to the words written in his own hand. “How you first captivated me…”
The first surprise came early in the letter. All along, she had believed they shared a similar recollection of the first evening they met. In her memory, they had become aware of each other at exactly the same moment. Bea had been standing with Clara, trying not to appear too animated as they discussed an upcoming piano recital they planned to attend together. She had known they were being foolish to an inadvisable degree, for their attention should have been wholly applied to attracting a marriageable peer, not to the repertoire being performed the following week at the Hanover Square Rooms.
Suddenly, she had sensed someone observing her, and had been shocked to look up and catch a stunningly handsome blond man showing polite but unmistakable interest.
Harriet materialized out of nowhere to hiss, “That’s the Marquess of Candleton, Beatrice! Quickly! Signal for an introduction!”
But her hands seemed disconnected from her mind, and she couldn’t raise her fan. Besides, he had to have been peering at Clara, not at her.
But a minute later, her cheeks in full bloom, their eyes met once more. Harriet had manufactured a reason to separate her from Clara, and this time, Bea knew—sheknew—those green eyes were trained onher. She shifted her silk-and-lace fan to her left hand and splayed it, signaling her desire for an introduction to be arranged between them, changing her life forever.
Only now, a decade on, it turned out their story had begun even earlier, before she had even been aware of William.
“When I first saw you, I was on my way to fetch lemonade for Lady Cecilia…”
Bea listened raptly, shocked to the core by what followed. She’d heard the whispers later that night. Lady Cecilia was not only a duke’s daughter; she had been, and still was, utter physical perfection. For a brief time, Society had been abuzz at the possibility of such a scintillating match.
Even in her darkest moments, she had never wondered if William regretted pursuing her instead of that great beauty, no. He left her in no doubt he was confident in his choice of marchioness and mother to his children. But during the loneliest nights of her marriage, shehadtortured herself by believing that if he had selected a woman of Cecilia’s…charms, he wouldn’t have been able to push her hands away from his body.
The news that he was serving the lady refreshments wasn’t the bombshell in his letter. His mention of this other lady was fleeting; a mere recordation of the fact that he had been on a one-time errand for her…before forgetting her.
“Suddenly, there was a commotion in the corner, one for which I am eternally grateful…”
Bea had nearly forgotten the event—a painfully shy girl had tripped on the hem of her gown and fallen. Bea and Clara had helped her up while the girl’s own mother fled, leaving her on the floor and to the mercy of the surrounding vultures, who watched as they tittered or worse.
“Paying no heed to the meanness around you, you not only comforted the girl. You treated her with dignity. Distracted her, undoubtedly, for she eventually went from being in tears to smiling. You didn’t leave her side until the horde’s attention had moved on and the girl was settled. I delivered the lemonade to the lady in question after quite a delay, along with my regrets that I was no longer at liberty to converse that evening.”
The rest of their story unfolded much as she remembered it. Their brief introduction, performed by a Society matron, was entirely proper, and Bea produced her dance card upon William’s request.
“From that first night, your virtues shone like the sun, casting warmth, and I wanted to be near you. To know your goodness.” He looked up with near contrition before continuing. “But if I’m honest, some of my motivation was less than noble, for when you assisted that girl up, I couldn’t help but notice not only your generosity in spirit, but in”—he cleared his throat—“bosom.”
Bea covered her mouth.
“I will never be able to recall the color of your gown that night, and it changes in my recollections, for the shade matters not. Burned into my memory, however, is your shape. But more than that, my excitement. Before I even knew your name, I wanted to know the beautiful lady I had witnessed offering kindness to someone in need.”
By the end of the letter, Bea was overwhelmed with affection, but also sadness. Since the night they had met, such potential had existed! She was grateful for the family they had created, for the friendship they had cultivated during most of their marriage, but it was heartbreaking to acknowledge that all those years, they had lost the prospect of…even more.
Whatever they were or were not going to nurture together in the future, nothing could change their past.
