Page 51 of A Lady's Wager
She was in the parlor catching up on her correspondence when she heard the knock at the door just before eleven o’clock. She stepped to the doorway and watched as Wynn Firth came into the foyer, handing his hat to the butler. He looked upthe stairs and saw her, paused, then smiled, causing those butterflies to rise back up in force.
“Might I have a word, Mr. Firth?” she asked from the doorway.
He nodded and she turned into the parlor, confident he would follow, which he did.
When she turned to face him, he was pulling the door closed—she hadn’t quite expected that. Or his crossing the room to her in four steps and pulling her against him so quick and hard that she gasped. With one hand holding her uncorseted waist tight against him, he used the other hand to touch her hair, trace her jaw, and then run the backs of his fingers along the neckline of her dress.
“Wynn,” she said with a nervous laugh, surprised at his forwardness but not displeased.
He leaned down and kissed her neck and her collarbone and she gasped again, then put her hands against his chest and pushed him back. “You’re going to make me forget everything I planned to say.”
He kept his arm around her waist. “This is…you. It is amazing.”
“I feel half naked without my usual toilet.”
“Mmm,” he said, leaning in to plant another kiss at the hollow of her throat.
“Wynn,” she said again, though there was a longing quality of her tone that surely was not supporting her objection.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back again. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Shrewsbury,” she said.
“Come,” he said simply, smiling. “Come with me to Shrewsbury. Build a life with me.”
“I have lived most of my life in London, Wynn.”
“Yes, with wigs and frames and fripperies. You don’t need any of those things in Shrewsbury. You can be…this.” He looked her up and down, then met her eyes. “If that is what you want.”
She swallowed, then nodded, then kissed him to seal the promise.
She went to Shrewsbury.
Women of a Certain Age, you see, were allowed to change their mind and step into a new beginning with the wisdom of experience, the knowledge that things did work out, and the understanding of themselves being sufficient to give everything and lose nothing all at the same time.
