Three Nights with a Scoundrel
Page 33

“You feel,” she glimpsed. A bit later, “Can’t help—” Then “beautiful” and “so wet” and “God” and “I love.”
“I love this,” she told him, running her hands over the straining muscles of his back and pulling him close. “I love you.”
His tempo increased, and she felt him growl against her neck. Then he shuddered, stroking into her deep—once, twice—and was still.
He lay spent and heavy atop her. And that was a good thing, because without his weight, Lily thought she just might float away. Such happiness.
I am a wife, she thought. I am Julian’s wife.
After a moment, he rose up on his elbows, smoothing the hair from her face and pressing tender, breathless kisses to her brow and cheeks. “Are you well?”
She nodded. “Very well indeed. And you?”
“Never better.” He touched the corner of her lips. “And I say that with all honesty, Lily. Never better.”
Joy lifted her heart.
He withdrew from her and rolled aside, wrapping his arm about her midsection to keep her close.
She turned on her side to face him. “Will you teach me to converse in signs, the way you spoke with Anna at the coffeehouse?”
He blinked at the abrupt change of topic.
“I mean,” she went on, “I only ever learned the finger alphabet and never practiced it much at that.” Although, after her night at the coffeehouse, she’d excavated the crumbling pamphlet from her bureau drawer, practicing the signs for each letter until she could recall them from memory.
He rose up on his elbow. “Of course I’ll teach you, if you wish. Bear in mind, it’s rather like a dialect. The signs I use are one part my mother’s local language, and one part learned at the coffeehouse. Finger-spelled English is more standard, if you ever mean to use it with anyone else.”
“Perhaps we could practice both.” She trailed a finger down the center of his chest. “We are married now. We have a lifetime ahead of us, and I hate the thought of missing a single word you say.” She pushed herself to a sitting position, folding her legs under her bottom and pulling the counterpane over her lap.
Carefully, and embarrassingly slowly, she signed letters with her hands.
I … L … O … V … E … Y … O … U
Smiling, he took her hands and kissed them each in turn. Then he sat up beside her and said, “There’s a way to signal the end of a word. Watch carefully.”
She stared intently at his hands, noting the subtle wrist motion and slant of gaze he used to separate each cluster of letters.
I. L-O-V-E. Y-O-U.
And then, T-O-O.
She blinked furiously, her eyes misting with tears.
His hand cupped her chin, tilting her face to his. “For God’s sake, Lily. Don’t cry. Is it such a terrible thing?”
“No. It’s wonderful.” She wiped her eyes with her wrist. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to weep. We love each other. We’re husband and wife. It’s the happiest day of my life, truly. It’s only … I wish it hadn’t taken us so long to figure it out.”
He stared at her for a moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“What?” She sniffed. “What’s so amusing?”
“Lily. You have no idea.” He scratched the back of his neck, still grinning. “Answer me this. Do you know that you rub your left ear when you’re vexed?”
“I do? No, I don’t. Do I?” Suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her fingers away from that same ear he’d just named.
“Yes, you do.”
He began signing along with his speech. She couldn’t decode the rapid motions just yet, but she adored watching them, in much the same way she loved watching him play the pianoforte so masterfully.
“The night we met,” he said, “it was your twenty-fifth birthday. A pleasant Wednesday evening, warm for April. You wore a gown of violet silk with gold braid trim. White gloves. Your hair was lovely. It was twisted into a knot at the center, with a smaller coil and ribbons encircling the chignon. You used to wear that style often, but I haven’t seen you do so of late. Have you changed lady’s maids?”
She nodded numbly. “This past May.”
“I thought so.”
“But how did you …” Lily frowned, not understanding him. “Last week, you said you didn’t even remember the night we met.”
“Your menu was inspired by Indian fare,” he went on. “All these exotic curries and chutneys and spiced lamb. I remember marveling at the fact that you’d ordered a birthday meal of entirely unfamiliar dishes, when most would ask for old favorites. It told me you have an adventurous spirit.”
“Me? I don’t have an adventurous spirit.” Lily wasn’t an adventurer. She was a keeper of lists and ledgers. She only wished she possessed an adventurous spirit.
“Not adventurous?” He teased her with a look. “In the past week, you’ve danced in assembly rooms and crude taverns, attended the theater in outrageous disguise, flung yourself at me in carriages and dark alleys. If that’s not proof of an adventurous spirit, I don’t know what is. But back to that first night. You took us all on a culinary adventure to India. Our place cards had little elephants drawn on them. I still have mine, somewhere.”
“Leo didn’t care for it.” She chuckled, remembering the way her brother’s face had flushed beet-red after one bite of the spicy curry. “He declared an end to Hindu sympathies and asked the footman to bring cold roast beef.”
“He did. And though he’d just thrown over all your hard work, you smiled and said nothing. The conversation floated on to something else, and you rubbed your left ear. And then, for some reason, your eyes sought mine. In that moment, I knew three things. First, much as you loved your brother, you occasionally found Leo a bit trying and dull.”
She gasped. “No. Leo? I never—”
“Secondly,” he went on, undeterred, “I knew that a band of vicious outlaws could storm the dining room and hold you at knifepoint, and you would deny that fact to the gruesome end. Just as you’re doing now. But thirdly, and most remarkably, I knew you couldn’t hide it from me. Didn’t even wish to. I can’t explain exactly how or why, but I understood you, Lily. And I felt certain, somehow, that you would understand me.”
She knew exactly what he meant. Lily had recognized their connection too, even when she’d called it nothing more than friendship. She’d always felt safe baring her emotions to him.
“I was in love with you by the time the third course was served. I’ve been in love with you ever since.” His lips quirked in a little smile. “So you see, it did not take me so very long to figure it out. Perhaps an hour, all told.”
Truly? He’d known himself to be in love with her all this time? She hardly knew how to respond. A lump rose in her throat, and the taste was bitter. If he’d been in love with her, how could he have wasted so much time—so much of himself—on all those others?
W-H-Y, she signed with halting motions. “Why did you never say anything?”
He gave a defeated shrug. “I’m a bastard. Isn’t it obvious?”
If that was meant to be a joke, Lily wasn’t laughing.
“I don’t know,” he finally replied. “Why do you rub your left ear when you’re vexed? Out of pain at first, or perhaps fear. After a while, it just became habit.”
He went still for a moment. When he began again, his signs were expansive, animated. Deeply felt, she supposed.
“I’ve spent so much of my life wanting. As a boy, wanting food, wanting warmth, wanting shelter. Wanting my mother back, for even just one day. Then as a man, wanting wealth, wanting esteem, wanting revenge. By that night of your birthday party, I’d accomplished everything I’d set out to do by entering the ton. And as much as I’d taken for myself, I still wasn’t satisfied. Always, I wanted more. That insatiable hunger … I reveled in it. I pretended to enjoy what I could not control. Let it become my life, my identity.”
He paused a moment before continuing. “I saw you that night, and we had that moment of understanding over chutney and whatever else. And a little voice in my soul said, ‘This. If I had this—if I had her, I would want for nothing. She would be enough.’ And I think it scared me witless.” He gestured around them, at the rumpled bed linens and their naked limbs. “This was something I never dreamed could happen. Not with you.”
Lily could hardly fault him for that. She’d never encouraged him to dream of it, and she’d kept her own imagination tightly laced—always so careful to label their connection as friendship, affinity. Never attraction or love.
Perhaps she’d been scared witless, too.
A question danced on the tip of her tongue. She shouldn’t ask it. They’d been married all of an hour, after all, and it wasn’t fair to put him on the spot. But she couldn’t help herself. “So, now we’re here. Together. And am I enough?”
He stared intently into her eyes. “You’re everything.”
Oh, dear. Thrilling and romantic, those words, but also intimidating. Being a man’s everything was no small task. Especially when that man was Julian, with his fathoms-deep capacity for passion and devotion.
“Am I doing it right?” she asked, raising her hands and spelling, I. L-O-V-E. Y-O-U … Feeling the need to lighten the moment, at the last instant she added an R.
He chuckled and gave her a naughty look. “You love my what?”
Your heart, your mind, your complex, wounded soul.
She took her time with the letters, teasing him. Arching her back to thrust her breasts for attention and forming the signs just below her right nipple.
B … I … G.
H … O … T.
H … A … R … D.
S … T … R … O …
She could have gone on all day and all night, stringing adjectives together. But before she could start on the fifth, he had her tipped flat on her back, pressing his big, hot, hard, strong body to hers.
She didn’t fault him for interrupting.
Chapter Eighteen
Bells.
Bells, bells, bells. More bells. Church bells.
Jesus God, no.
He was late. Mother was late. He’d fallen asleep when he should have been listening for the bells, and now it was too late for them both. The man with the ginger hair had wagged his finger at them Tuesday last, shouting himself bright red. If Mother was late to her post one more time, he’d said, she would be sacked.
They would have no more money. They would have to leave this rented room, which, even without a hearth, had been a far sight warmer than huddling under the steps. And perhaps their place under the steps was taken now. It was a plum spot. This was all his fault. He hadn’t been listening, and now it was late, too late. Where would they go? What would they eat? The Italian butcher’s scraps would all be claimed by this hour, gone to feed the dogs of noblemen. He couldn’t risk nicking bread from the market again, not so soon after—
Something grabbed his arm. Julian lashed out in panic. He kicked, only to find his leg restrained, too.
He opened his eyes. Daylight blinded him momentarily before revealing his enemy … the tangled nest of bed linens. He was not in a barren, rat-infested rented room in Spitalfields, but a richly appointed bedchamber in Mayfair. He was, undoubtedly, late to wake his mother—by more than twenty years.
He took deep, rasping breaths, struggling to calm his racing heart.
“What is it?” His wife of two blissful days turned to him, rubbing her eyes and rising up on one elbow.
“Nothing but church bells.” He hastily wiped the sheen of sweat from his brow. “Go back to sleep, love.”