Page 99 of The Lyon Returns
“Hm?”
“You said, earlier, you’d already decided to tell me about Fannie. Why?”
He slit his eyes open and grasped a handful of bedcovers, pulling them back to slide between the sheets. He rolled to his side and pulled the lithe, sleek woman lying beside him into his arms. “I told you why,” he murmured.
“No, not precisely,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck. She wove her cool fingers into his hair and feathered kisses along his collarbone.
This time, the shiver would not be contained.
Gwen shifted her body against his, and he groaned as every part of him thrilled with the satiny feel of her. As he’d predicted not an hour ago, he went hard.
“I want you, Gwen,” he murmured. “Let me make love to you.” He heard the near plea in his voice and could not bring himself to care.
In answer, she pressed her mouth to his and curled one sinewy leg over his hip, opening herself to him.
He brought himself to the entrance of her sex and sank himself into her, inch by slow inch, not driven by the feverish rush he’d known earlier, but an equally fierce need to claim her as his. His chest burned with an unknown ache that only she could assuage.
“Gwen,” he murmured, “you feel so…I need…please…” He broke off, unable to form a coherent thought beyond this moment, this woman, this unbearable yearning to possess her.
“I know,” she whispered against his lips. “I’m here. Yes, Oh, Gideon,yes.”
Her release came without warning, triggering his own. Together, with him holding her, her clinging to him, their breaths mingled, their heartbeats, he could swear, melded, they tumbled into ecstasy.
Much later, as Gwen slept, her head pillowed on Gideon’s arm, he lay awake, thoughts and too many damned emotions churning.
Everything had changed tonight. Perhaps, it was more apt to say it changed the moment Gwen walked through his front door, claiming to be his wife. He had never met any woman he wished to marry, including his late wife. She had simply been thrust upon him.
In a matter of speaking, so had Gwen. He not chosen her, had never laid eyes upon her before entering his home to propose they make a pact to sort their individual affairs. Afterward, he assumedthey’d go their separate ways. It had all seemed so logical, so simple.
That was no longer the case. Gwen had made it clear from the beginning she did not want a husband. A woman of means, she had no need of one. If Gideon cared about her, one could argue, he’d accept her wishes. Not doing so would be exceedingly selfish considering what she’d lived through in her first marriage.
Call him selfish, then. He needed the light she brought into his life. The odd sense of freedom. He could not,wouldnot let her go.
He only had to find a way to make her want to stay.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Two days later,Gwen and Georgina walked arm in arm along the riverbank where, following breakfast, the house party guests had been dispatched via horse-drawn carts—whether they wanted to frolic near the river or not.
Evidently, the duke required absolute secrecy to implement whatever surprise he had planned for his guests back at Averly Abbey. He made it clear he did not want anyone “poking about,” and no one was to return until the appointed hour of high noon. At that time, guests were instructed to go directly to their chambers to dress in formal attire before reconvening in the upstairs parlor.
It was all very mysterious.
“Are you enjoying your time here at the abbey, Gwen? You seem to have a particular glow about you this morning,” Georgina said, her voice conspiratorially low.
“I am, rather, yes,” Gwen admitted. Despite the morning’s chilly, damp air, and dull gray skies typical of late fall above, Gwen had the sense of spring in the air. The birds were singing, the water below, rushing, and a light breeze riffled her skirts.
In mutual silence, they strode up an incline toward an escarpmentformed over years of erosion, as the river cut its swath through the white chalk earth and clay soil abutting it.
Nearing the edge, the river came into view, the water rushing and frothing, swift and lively, and beyond that, the vast Weald, stretching as far as the eye could see. Little wonder Gideon, as a boy growing up, had chosen this as a favorite spot for writing in his journal.
“I hope you are not too inconvenienced relocating here for the weekend, Georgina. I know how you like to keep to your writing schedule.”
The younger woman shrugged and straightened her spectacles. “It makes no difference to me where I am, so long as I have my pens and notebooks. The others and I all agreed we wanted to come here to support you.”
“Thank you, Georgina. Your friendship means so very much to me.”
Georgina drew her to a halt, shifting to face her. “Gwen, may I ask you something?”
