Page 85 of Seductive Reprise
The thought overwhelmed him, her being so near. He hadn’t seen her for a fortnight now, and it had been miserable. Part of it was the physical lack of her—no beautiful gap-toothed smiles and eyes dancing with mirth, no gorgeous, shining hair to wrap around his fingers, no long legs to wrap around his waist. But it was also the lack of knowing anything of her, of what she was doing or thinking, as if she’d dissipated into the air like a curl of smoke. Just as before, during the ten years that had passedwith almost nothing to mark her existence—no letters, just the infrequent pieces that turned up in the galleries on occasion.
Yusef sighed, and allowed himself the disgrace of slouching his shoulders and cradling his head with one hand, as he nearly collapsed into a pathetic blunderbuss of a man. He couldn’t bear it much longer. But he must. Rickard’s forthright plan had gotten him this far, and now she was so close, perhaps even on the other side of the wall before him. He stared at it, fervently wishing he could see her, even if just for a moment.
The sound of a door opening behind him startled him out of his reverie of self-pity, and he jolted upright, appalled at the idea that anyone, even one of his sister’s servants, might see him thus. He adjusted his cuffs, waiting for a sign that the maid had scurried past so he could once again move without humiliating himself.
No such sign came. He was just about to turn around and look when he heard her voice.
“Yusef?”
A warm, honeyed feeling immediately came over him.
“What in God’s name are you doing here?!”
He turned slowly.
Leaning out of a doorway, with one hand braced on the knob, was Rose. His beautiful, charming, challenging Rose.
All sense left his head, along with the last of his control. He went to her and gathered her up in his arms.
Right there in the passage, he kissed her.
In one moment, she’d been anxiously working herself up into a lather, wondering just what she ought to do with the remains of the tray of cold cuts and cheese that had been brought to her room out of consideration for her travel-weariness. And in the next, she’d been staring at the back of a strangely familiarfigure in the hallway. Confused, Rose had stared at the slouched, deflated man, hardly believing that Yusef would be here, or that he would appear so overcome if he were. But even with the poor posture, his fine figure was apparent, along with his thick, lush head of hair.
She finally called out to him.
He turned. For a moment she saw his face, and the air was knocked from her lungs.
Then she was enveloped in his arms, his warmth, the heat of his mouth as his lips fiercely took hers. Questions of how and why fell away into nothing. The only thing that mattered was that he, the only man she’d ever loved, was here.
The thought brought her back to herself. She’d meant to wait. To use this week as a respite from everything: London, Ruth’s suffocating prissiness, the frustration of Silas’s moderate success, her own mire of self-doubt, Flixton Hall and Icknield Court, both of her fathers. And him—Yusef.
She’d meant to apply herself here, among people of his class. If she could manage this, charmingly and politely, then not only would she be able to continue making her own way even as she’d allowed the earl to recognize her, but perhaps she could learn to manage living in Yusef’s world.
The thought sobered her enough to pull back, breathless, her lips wet and swollen. She felt forward and loose, kissing a man so brazenly in the hall of a stranger’s fine house. She blushed.
“Not out here,” she murmured, stepping back into the tidy and charming room she’d been allotted.
Yusef followed. He shut the door and threw the lock without taking his eyes from her, a wolfish expression on his face.
It struck her, the ferocity with which her sudden need cut through her jumble of thoughts. She shook her head in a vain attempt to think clearly. He wanted her to be his wife. Then she envisioned his gallery of her paintings.Didhe want her to behis wife? Or did he merely want to possess her, as easily as he’d obtained those canvases?
“How did you find me?” she gasped. Then, frowning as the reality of the situation came back to her, “How is it that you’re here?”
“We ought to sit,” he said, glancing at the pair of armchairs before the fire.
She seated herself in one, and he in the other. For a moment she was both dismayed and relieved that there was no couch where they could sit alongside one another. Rose drew her bare feet up underneath her. She’d already let her hair down and removed her boots and stockings, having done so the moment she’d been ushered into her accommodations, so glad was she to relax someplace with a thick carpet and high ceilings. But now her corset felt too tight and her blouse far too starched, and she wished she’d already donned her thin nightgown. But how was she to have known he was a guest here as well?
“Is she—is Lady Clewer hosting some sort of party? Do you know her? The maid said her husband is a baronet, and I confess I’d wondered if perhaps you might’ve crossed paths.”
Yusef closed his eyes and sighed. It was strangely intimate, and she felt her cheeks color. He rarely allowed himself to appear so defeated, like he had in the hallway. Worried for him, she leaned forward and reached for his hand.
“Are you well?” she whispered. She was on her knees before him, holding his limp hand against her cheek, feeling for the unnatural heat that spoke of illness rather than desire.
“No,” he admitted, and curled his fingers against her, one thumb brushing her cheekbone.
Rose leaned into him, stifling a sigh. They remained like that for several moments, reveling in one another’s presence. She hadn’t expected to feel this way when she saw him again. To feelso unequivocally safe and comforted. Then at last Yusef spoke, his voice low and tinged with remorse.
“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t bear it any longer.”
