Page 649 of From Rakes to Riches

“No.” He would overcome this hesitancy—this defect, this weakness. He would trust the impulse, the surety that told him she was the one—the one who would most let him be himself.

“Has no one else touched your arm?”

Marcus drew in a deep breath and let it out, and finally said what he had not—not in all the years since his injury.

“It is not an arm any longer—it is a stump.” He could not look at her but turned his gaze into the dancing fire. “And yes, someone has. My steward, Sealy Best, has. He was the surgeon’s assistant onAudaciousand nursed me back to health after?—”

Marcus had spent so much time trying to forget those searingly painful, angry early days that it was difficult to speak of them now. “He stuck with me, like a barnacle on my hull, becoming my steward when I was eventually posted to my own command.”

“I’m glad—glad you had such care. But I will care for you as well. I’ll learn,” she promised. “I’ll learn what you like. If you let me.”

This is what he admired about her—she did not retreat in the face of difficulties. No polite sidestepping of the problem—she would look him in the eye and hold him to account. Just as she ought.

But if he was prepared to trust her with his heart, why could he not trust her with his body?

Because he didn’t always trust his body himself.

Because despite the passage of nearly twelve years since he had lost his arm, sometimes he felt it burn and ache as if the whole of it were still there. Because he woke from sleep grippingthe sheets with a hand that was gone. Because the nightmare of the surgery visited him each and every time he closed his eyes.

Because he was not entirely himself. And he feared he never would be.

“Give it time,” was all he could ask.

“Dear Beech,” she whispered. “My time is entirely yours.”

He could answer only with a kiss, seeking the solace of her body. Kissing cross the line of her shoulder, pulling fabric away with his teeth, nosing into the soft perfume of her body until he found the shoulder laces of her stays.

And then her hands were over his, guiding him, aiding him in untying the laces and tugging her bodice down just enough that the tips of her breasts were bared to his gaze. And his mouth and his tongue.

He all but fell into the softness of her—he kissed each tight pink peak, delighting in the sweet scent of her skin and in the supple strength of her body as she arched her spine, her hands tangling in his hair as he sucked and tongued, moving from one tightly furled peak to the other.

“Oh Lord, Beech. I’m yours.”

He could only smile against her skin. “Not yet. Not until you marry me.”

She laughed. “And what, pray tell, will you do until then?”

“Oh, Pease Porridge, the night is young. And so are we.”

10

Now that true ruination was at hand, Penelope had a moment of doubt—but only a moment.

Loving Beech wasn’t ruination—it was fulfillment. The fulfillment of all her deepest, most secret desires. The fulfillment of every promise she had ever made to herself while relegated to sitting in ballroom chairs.

And Beech was kissing her with heat and a tenderness so kind and full of longing she had no defense against it, and she wanted none. She was empty of everything but a growing need that was fed by every taste of his smooth, clever lips.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and carried her to the bed, while he trailed hot kisses down the side of her neck, finding the secret place at the turn of her nape that made her shiver and sigh and angle her head away to give him greater access. Appeasing the low hum of want that built within, fanning the flames higher with every touch.

They sat on the bed with their legs enmeshed and their hearts entwined. His lips rounded to the hollow of her throat, and Penelope could feel her own heartbeat rise in response.

But it wasn’t enough just to be touched—she needed to touch him, too. Needed to taste the warm salt of his skin, needed to run her fingers through his long, snow-dampened hair, and tumble the unruly locks through her palms.

She kissed his dear, kind, achingly handsome face, letting her lips skate over that interesting little scar, across the high line of his cheekbones and down the strong line of his nose, taking little sips of him, as if he were hot spiced wine. As if too much at once might intoxicate her.

But she had already drunk too deep, because his clever fingers were at the four buttons at the back of her gown, and she was turning to make it easier.

Beneath the layers of chemise and stays and gown, her breasts grew full and tight with longing, and she closed her hands across the front of her bodice not just to hold her gown over her nearly-bared breasts, but to appease the needy sensation that swept under her skin.

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