Page 50 of A Baron's Scandalous Quill
I have to get out of here.
She abandoned her endeavor to find William, knowing the only thing that could make this night now worse was to be seen crying, thanks to Lady Heather’s words.
Spinning on her heel, Becca made her way for the nearest door. She had no idea what was behind it and stepped through hurriedly, finding a corridor filled with candles. There was such a blinding yellow light, that with the tears in her eyes, her vision was blurred. Holding up a hand against the light, she staggered away, desperate to find somewhere else to go.
Further down the corridor, she heard two gentlemen laughing about something. She had no knowledge of what they found humorous, but her imagination played tricks on her, and she imagined that they were cruelly laughing at her. She darted for the nearest door and stumbled inside.
This room was dark, and as she shut the door, staggering away from it, she collided with multiple things. There was a desk and a chair, then a fine settee and a bookcase. Books fell off the shelf, and she yelped in surprise, clambering to pick those books up in the darkness and return them to their place.
The door creaked open, and a light fell on the shelf.
“Becca?” William’s voice made her frantic movements still. She didn’t turn to face him, fearing what he would make of the tears now running down her cheeks. “Becca? Why have you come here?”
He shut the door behind him, placed the candle he was carrying down on a table with a light thud, then hurried to her side. She returned the final book to its place in what she could now see was a library bookshelf as he stopped beside her. He gasped when he saw her face.
“What did she say to you?”
“Will, it does not matter—”
“Of course, it matters.” He stepped toward her. Before she could dry her own tears, he snatched his handkerchief out of his pocket and dried them for her. “Becca, what did Lady Heather say to you?”
Yet Becca didn’t answer. She leaned into his hold on her cheek instead, wishing she could think of this and nothing else. At least alone in this room, far away from the ballroom, they could be as they had always been. Here, it did not matter that she was as separate from William as the earth was the stars.
Chapter 18
“Will,” Becca murmured his name as he moved toward her. He pulled her against his chest, and she cried, her breath hitching. His arms came up around her, enveloping her tightly.
“What did she say?” he asked with urgency, though his voice was still somehow soft. He rocked her gently from side to side, the movement comforting.
“She just reminded me of something, that is all.”
“Of what?”
“Of…” She struggled with how to say the words. Lifting her head a few inches, she wiped her own tears with her fingertips before he thrust the handkerchief into her hands and urged her to use that instead. “Of how far apart we are,” she said eventually, refusing to look him in the eye. She stared into the center of his chest instead. This was the fear she had been so afraid to voice for so long now. “Of how different we are in…station.”
“What of it?” he asked with a sudden shrug. “Becca, if it does not matter to you or I, why should I care if it matters to Lady Heather?”
“Be serious, Will. We met in the first place because you care very much what thetonthink—”
“Not of this,” he spoke firmly now. “This,” he gestured between them, “is something else entirely. It is our matter, and no other’s. Ignore Lady Heather. Ignore everything she said. What should I care for her good opinion when there is this in the world?”
“This? What do you mean? Oh!” She gasped in surprise as he jerked his head toward her.
The sudden kiss nearly knocked her over, though she hardly minded. Her hands clutched at his jacket all the more as they ended up plastered against the bookshelves. In the effort to get closer to one another, they scrambled there. One of her hands went to the shelf to support her as his other gripped at her waist, holding her to him.
Becca couldn’t think straight. She didn’t think about Lady Heather or the fact that the members of thetonwere just a short distance away beyond that door. She thought only of Will as he kissed her, his body moving against her own. When his fingers splayed across her hips, reaching down to her rear and lifting her an inch off the bookshelves, she arched her chest into him, wanting more and more of this feeling.
It was a delicious escape, forbidden and tantalizing. Despite the danger, she couldn’t stop herself. She just kissed him more and more, feeling her tears dry up as his lips explored her own, their tongues tangling, fighting for some sort of dominance, though it was a fight she was not afraid to lose.
“Wait there,” he urged, parting from her kiss.
“What—ooh.” She nearly fell over as he suddenly released her. She staggered, bracing both hands back against the bookshelves as he crossed the room. He grabbed a nearby chair and thrust it against the door, jamming the back of the chair under the door handle so it could not be opened from the other side. “We are alone,” she whispered as he moved back toward her.
“We cannot be disturbed.” He walked toward her, taking off his tailcoat as he did so, slipping it down his shoulders and tossing it over the nearest chair.
“Then let us stay here,” she pleaded, moving away from the bookshelves and meeting him in the middle of the room. They met in a clash of lips and grasping hands. Both of his hands went for her dress at once, pulling at the laces at her back, trying to get her out of it. She jerked at his waistcoat, too, popping open the buttons in the effort to feel his skin on hers, to be his completely, without anything between them.
When the gown was pushed down her body, she stepped out of it, breaking their kiss in order to move. She next reached for his waistcoat, pushing it off his shoulders where it dropped into the pile of clothes they were making.
