Page 18 of A Gentleman's Offer
A few minutes later, Dominic and Meg were quite alone in a hackney carriage, making their way back towards Grosvenor Square. He’d procured the vehicle on Bow Street with efficiency and speed and told the driver to set them down on Davies Street, a little way short of their destination, considering the convenience worth the risk. If he also had a deep desire to be private with her in a small, dark, intimate space, he pushed away the treacherous thought. He needed to get her home safely, and he would.
‘If Jenny was right,’ she ventured, plainly made uncomfortable by the silence that was thickening between them, ‘it seems we may have had the answer in our hands, days ago, without knowing it. I thought she was telling the truth, as far as she knew it, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did,’ he said gruffly, shifting in his seat and trying to focus, which was difficult when she was so close that their bodies were almost touching. Were touching, when the wheels jolted over a pothole and her thigh brushed his. Hell and damnation. ‘And I can’t help you with this part of it. I think you’re going to have to call on Lady Primrose on your own, and press her more strongly than we were able to at the ball. A morning call between good friends – what could be more natural?’
‘And do you think I should reveal to her who I am?’ Her voice was soft, troubled, and good God, he wanted to take her in his arms and drive all those worries from her mind, and his. Embracing her would be crazy, and it would solve precisely nothing, but how badly he wanted it. He didn’t want totalk.
‘If Jenny has the right of it,’ he said with a concentration he could only marvel at, ‘she knows already, which must mean she also knows that your sister is gone, even if she doesn’t know where she is right now. And even if she is ignorant of whatever the bloody hell is going on, there can be little harm done – she’s a close friend of your sister’s, everyone keeps telling us, and therefore is hardly likely to spread the news of her disappearance far and wide.’ He paused and then said, almost despite himself, ‘But Meg, at this point it scarcely matters.’
‘What do you mean?’ It seemed she would force him to say it in plain words.
‘I mean that if we don’t find your sister very soon, it’ll all have to come out in any case. You know that the damn wedding is barely two weeks away.’
‘If Lady Primrose indeed knows where Maria is, it may all be set right,’ she said optimistically.
He gritted his teeth. ‘How? How may everything be set right?’
She didn’t answer him. She didn’t know.
He went on, his tone deep and intense, ‘I feel as though I’ve said this to you before, but it bears repeating – you cannot possibly think that your sister has any intention of marrying me, or that it would be a good idea if she did. Nor can you believe I have the faintest desire to marry her. I won’t say she’s the last woman on earth I’d wish to marry, but – no, actually, she is. The very last.’ He felt the truth of it bone-deep as he said it.
She was still silent. His heart was racing and his blood pounding in his ears. The carriage felt very small suddenly, and yet not small enough. She was close, but he needed her closer. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why?’ he said. His voice was ragged, hoarse, and very low. He scarcely knew what he was saying, apart from the fact that it was dangerous and forbidden, wrong and so perfectly right, and he could not stop it for the life of him.
‘Is it because you almost kissed me in the park?’ There. She’d said it.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s because I’m going to kiss you now. Shall you like that, Meg Nightingale?’
‘No,’ she responded, astonishing him, ‘and you shan’t do it, because I’m going to kiss you first.’
17
Meg turned to look at him properly at last. There was an inevitability to what was going to happen, now that they came to it. They were very close to each other – had they moved, drawn together by some irresistible force? – and the naked hunger in his face took her breath away, so closely did it match her own. No wonder she was shaking. It was odd, disturbing, to feel so strongly connected to someone she barely knew – she’d admitted as much to herself, not an hour since – and who barely knew her. She had secrets, and no doubt he did too. He must. She’d glimpsed the edge of something important earlier tonight, she thought: Annie, the regiment. And apart from all that, he was engaged to be married to her sister, however little he wanted it, and however little her sister seemed to want it. What a terrible coil they found themselves in, and he couldn’t see a way out of it, any more than she could. Perhaps there was no way, and they were all bound for disaster. But just now none of that seemed to matter in the least. Not compared with the irresistible temptation of touching him at last. Had she only admitted what she needed from him this morning? It seemed much longer; it seemed to have settled into undeniable fact.
‘Are you, now?’ he asked. His deep voice was amused, and there was something delicious in the way the warmth of that combined with his desire. And hers. They were alone, in a precious, fragile little bubble, as they jolted over cobblestones; the world seemed very far away and entirely unimportant. My cap over the windmill, she thought. How right you were, Mama. Here goes.
He was waiting for her, and she liked that too. It was a little awkward, here in the carriage, but on the other hand she was wearing breeches, which ought to make it easier. She leaned forward, steadying herself with her hand on his shoulder, and brushed his lips with hers. It was a tiny, brief contact, but it set a bolt of electricity jolting through her, and she made a soft little sound and deepened the kiss. He tasted so good. His hands came out to hold her then, and this allowed her to put her arms about his neck and press herself to him in the darkness. She knew he wouldn’t let her fall.
She might have started it, but he was a most enthusiastic participant. His hands were under her jacket, strong and tight about her ribcage, linen and silk sliding under his touch. Not many layers covered her skin and came between them: just three – chemise, shirt and borrowed waistcoat – but that was still too many. She knew it would be glorious to be naked, with his hands exploring her and hers exploring him. That was impossible here and now – she was not quite so reckless yet – but there was no time to regret what they could not have, because he was tasting her lower lip, sucking on it, drawing it into his hot, wet mouth, and it felt wonderful. She anchored her hands in his glossy hair and returned the favour, then let her tongue slip into him, meeting his. God, it was good. Somehow they knew instinctively how to please each other, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle.
It seemed impossible to be close enough, no matter how she tried. She climbed onto him with clumsy urgency, one knee set on the carriage seat, her thigh pressed to his, her other captured tight between his spread legs. He must have felt that this was a precarious position in a moving vehicle, because his hands released her, but only to slip down her body and anchor themselves on her buttocks, holding her hard and strong against him, pulling her into his body. So good. His legs trapped hers, a most welcome pressure which she returned, gripping him with her thigh muscles. Heat grew at her core, and spiralled through her. She moaned against his mouth and pressed herself closer to him. She wasn’t sure how much could be done in a moving carriage in the darkness – her previous experience had all been sadly stationary – but she’d love to find out.
But a loud banging, sudden and shocking, dragged them rudely from their absorption in each other. The carriage was no longer moving. An impatient voice: ‘Davies Street, guvnor, like what you asked for!’
‘I wish I’d told him to drive to Dover!’ he whispered, the breath feathering across her lips and making her shiver.
18
Dominic looked down at Meg as the hackney carriage rattled away, leaving them standing close together on the pavement. The houses just here were silent and shuttered, but people were spilling noisily out of a mansion further up the street; carriages were waiting to meet them, and link boys with flaming torches stood ready to light their way home. Some of them would probably be heading in this direction soon enough. They were a few minutes’ walk from Grosvenor Square, and her father’s house. No more than that.
That ridiculous hat of hers had come off in the carriage – and no wonder – and she’d almost left it behind, scrambling back inside in a panic to get it as he’d paid the jarvey. She was clutching it now, looking dazed, dishevelled, her lips swollen from his kisses; he didn’t suppose he was in much better case. Probably worse, because at the start of this evening, which felt like several months ago, he’d been immaculate; she’d called him a dandy, but in reality he’d been a Corinthian ready to take on the town, while she, however adorable she looked in jacket and breeches, had never been anything remotely close to that. He couldn’t say, in fact, what she might look like to others – a scrubby schoolboy, an urchin, or very obviously and shockingly a beautiful girl in disguise? He was far past telling. All he knew was, he wanted, needed, to pick her up and carry her home with him. When they got there – it was a good twenty-minute walk, probably more if carrying someone, but he felt equal to anything just now – he’d bear her straight up the stairs and take her to his bed. It was a large, comfortable bed, which he’d never before shared with anyone, and perfect for what he had in mind. He wasn’t sure if he’d then strip her of jacket, waistcoat, shirt and breeches quickly, in his eagerness, or very, very slowly, to prolong the delicious, forbidden experience, but in either case, they were coming off and staying off. And she was getting in his bed, naked, and staying there, possibly for a couple of weeks. Months.
None of this was truly going to happen, of course. Not now and not ever. He’d walk her home like a gentleman and see her safely inside, and then he’d… go and throw himself in the Serpentine? That should cool him down nicely. Was it deep? Presumably he’d find out.
He had to say something. ‘I’m sorry, Meg.’ She’d ceased being Miss Nightingale to him some time ago, it seemed. This abrupt apology hardly demonstrated his perfectly polished manners, his icy self-control, but it was a start, he supposed.
‘Are you, really?’ she said, her voice still warm and intimate.Shedidn’t seem to be. He wanted to kiss her again. To eat her up. Perhaps he could kiss her while he was carrying her home. Perhaps she could wrap her legs around his waist…
‘No.’
