Page 4 of The Lady Confesses
Like the male of any species, he had his vanity. And she’d certainly stroked it, whether that had been her intent or not. He couldn’t say whether or not she had been purposely flirtatious orif he was simply hearing in her words what he wished. What was the adage? If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. He was very much the beggar in their situation. It wasn’t a fact he could afford to forget.
Turning away from her, he spread their clothing out over the other pieces of furniture in the room so that it would dry during what was left of the night. And then he turned back, forgetting for just a moment that it wasn’t simply his nakedness which might be shocking to her. Her sharply indrawn gasp was all the reminder he needed.
He turned once more, but this time what she saw made her gasp not in appreciation but in horror. He knew what she’d seen, of course. He saw it every time he dressed or bathed. The large chunks of muscle and flesh torn away at his shoulder from Bechard’s pistol ball. All the smaller scars that surrounded it from where the fragments had to be cut out. Highcliff had informed them at a later date that it was Bechard’s practice to use iron rather than steel to promote fragmentation. He crafted those pistol balls in such a way that they would break apart and do as much damage as possible. As a result, his shoulder was simply ravaged. Through sheer force of will, he had some use of his arm, but not enough. Not enough to do and be what he once had been.
“It’s ugly as hell, but I don’t have the luxury of covering it right now.” The explanation came out short and sharper than it ought to have. He was reluctant to meet her gaze, reluctant to see her face etched with either pity or disgust.
Hesitantly, she asked, “Does it pain you still? The scars are still very red... and very new.”
He dared glance up at her then, and he didn’t see either of the things that he had feared. Concern, curiosity, appreciation. All of those things were plainly visible to him on her far too expressive and revealing face. And they only further complicatedthe unfortunate attraction he had developed for her. Not simply because of her courage or her beauty, but because of all that he’d learned about her while retracing her steps. She helped others. She genuinely cared for the wellbeing of those most in society would have snubbed entirely, including those like himself. Bastards from the street who’d thieved, pickpocketed, and done all manner of terrible things for the sole sake of survival. Yet, from everyone he had spoken to of her, he’d heard only of her kindness, of her lack of judgement. The simple truth was that everyone talked of charity, while few ever truly displayed it. But she did.
Attraction. But not simply that. No. There was desire there. It fired his blood when he looked at her, and not even the chill in that small room could prevent his body’s response to it. “I’m learning, Lady Ernsdale, to ignore all manner of discomforts. Now lie down before the fire. I’ll get us some blankets from the chest, and we’ll stay here until our clothes are dry and you’ve thawed a bit. Once day breaks, we’ll make our way out of the Mint and get you back to your sister.”
*
Henrietta did ashe said. Not because she didn’t wish to continue looking at him. She did. So very much. Long limbs, sinewy muscle, broad shoulders that tapered to a slightly leaner waist. There was no fat on him. Not an ounce of it. Nor would a tailor ever need to pad his clothes to make him look like a truly prime specimen of masculinity. The Scottish nanny they’d had as children would have called him a braw, bonnie man. And she would have been very, very right.
By virtue of being a married woman, she’d been permitted to see certain works in the British Museum that, as a younger and still unwed lady, she had been previously denied. And sheunderstood why. In truth, she hadn’t thought men could actually look like that. Her husband, on the very few occasions when he had actually made an attempt to consummate their marriage, had certainly born no similarity to them. But he did. Mr. Joshua Ettinger. Private Inquiry Agent. And no mere fig leaf would have served to conceal his masculinity.
There was no small amount of curiosity in her about the act that should have no longer been a mystery to her. But alas, she was married to a man who could never show her such things. Even if he could, she certainly wouldn’t want him to. And she could only imagine that the differences in such an intimate experience with Mr. Ettinger—versus one with her husband—would be tantamount to daylight and dark. They were not simply opposite in appearance, but in every way that a man might be measured.
She wished she knew more of such matters, that she could speak with another woman about them. Honoria would be of no aid to her. Her sister’s marriage had been just as wretched as her own. As for the women they associated with, the so-called ladies of the night, they could speak to pleasure and had often done so. But that was only part of it, wasn’t it? The strange awareness, the crackling connection that seemed to exist between them, that was something else entirely. And the transactional nature of what those other women experienced when with a man seemed to be very far removed from her present experience.
How long had it been since she’d been intrigued by a man? Not since she had been a much younger and infinitely more hopeful woman. In truth, she’d been nothing more than a girl then. It was the loss of innocence which marked the passage from girlhood to womanhood, and there were, sadly, more ways to lose one’s innocence than simply sacrificing virginity.
It seemed a lifetime ago that she’d been a young woman just moving into society. There had been flirtations, of course, andsome degree of interest in her. In some cases, there had been reciprocity of that interest, but nothing that compared to what she currently felt for the man who occupied this small room with her.
Was it simply because he’d rescued her? That was likely part of it. She wasn’t so foolish as to think it had not swayed her. Life and death situations forged deep bonds. Any man who’d been to war would certainly agree with that assessment. But it was more than that. He’d been so steady, so constant since that first fraught meeting while she’d battled her fear and the river itself. His calm had seeped into her, had let her feel secure in a way that she never had with anyone else.
When he laid down behind her, his large frame wrapping around her, she became conscious of the heat of his body, of the firmness of muscle under skin that was surprisingly soft when everything about him appeared so very hard. He covered them with one of the moth-eaten blankets, and his arm remained draped over her. Though he made no other move, it was the most natural thing in the world to relax against him. The rightness she felt at letting him shelter her completely as she absorbed his heat and strength was a problem to be picked at and dissected another time.
The river hadn’t claimed her. Neither had the cold. Somehow, against all odds, she had survived the ordeal and would be reunited with her sister soon. And in the meantime, she could pretend. She could pretend that she wasn’t married to a man like Ernsdale. That, instead, she was married to a man like the one who now held her cradled against his broad chest.
With that thought playing in her mind, she drifted to sleep. It was the first peaceful sleep she’d been blessed with in a very long time.
Chapter Three
It was neardawn when he awoke. His shoulder ached, his neck would likely remain at an unnatural angle for some time to come. While a morning erection was not unusual, he’d never woken up harder in his life—with no sight of relief in the future, near or far. Making some attempt to adjust himself so that at the very least he wasn’t poking and prodding her with his rebellious cock, he had to stifle a groan.
Whether it was the sound he’d made or the movement, she stirred in his arms and turned from her side to her back. This new position offered him a moment to study her, to truly take in everything about her. There was some light seeping in through the boarded up windows, and some still from the stove. It was enough. Even in the darkness he’d thought she must be impossibly beautiful. But in his wildest imaginings, he could not have envisioned a creature so perfect.
Even under the remaining grime deposited by the river, her skin was like porcelain—pale, smooth, unblemished. The color of her hair was lighter than he’d imagined. Not a coal black like her sister’s, but a soft brown with hints of gold and red buried within it—strands which seemed to capture the light, or what there was of it, and amplify it.
Against his will, his gaze drifted to her lips. The cupid’s bow shape of them was exaggerated by the lush plumpness of her lower lip. It turned out in a slight pout, even as she sleptpeacefully. Despite his best intentions, the thought of kissing those lips was inescapable. He couldn’t put it from his mind, try as he might. And then her eyes opened. He was caught. Completely mesmerized by those emerald depths, he could not look away.
“You’re staring,” she said. But it wasn’t accusatory or scathing. It was simply an acknowledgment of the fact.
“So are you,” he replied. And it was true. Her gaze roamed him like a caress, and his body responded to it as if it had been an actual touch.
“You did it first.”
His lips twitched with the hint of a rare smile. “I can’t help it. You are a remarkably beautiful woman, Lady Ernsdale.”
“Don’t call me that. I detest that name.”
Her obvious disgust at the moniker was a surprise to him. The man? No. He could easily enough understand why she would revile her husband. But the title was what most women aspired to. But then again, it wasn’t difficult at all to see that she was quite different from anyone else he had ever known. “Then what would you have me call you?”
“Hettie... that’s what Honoria has always called me. It’s far preferable to either Henrietta or my husb—tohistitle.”
