Page 69 of A Secret Consequence for the Viscount
He was still dangerous to her, the attack from the early hours of yesterday morning leaving him agitated and on edge. He should make her go home to her brother and to safety, but in her words there were things he could no longer ignore. Nicholas had to tread carefully for it seemed that last time he had not.
‘Our daughter looks like you, but her eyes are mine.’
He could see her listening. Lucy was the centre of her world and it was a way in.
‘She has dimples, too.’
That brought a nod.
‘Could I meet her as her father, Eleanor? I would very much like to do that.’
He was gentle with his request. He took nothing for granted with his rights to see his daughter. It was her decision alone to allow it...or not.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, her eyes meeting his exactly and the fright there eased.
The soup was finished now and he knew he should open the door and ask for the next course to be brought in, but he couldn’t move.
One finger ran across the length of her thumb and across to the forefinger. She had freckles on the bridge of her nose and he looked at the smattering with a smile.
‘How could I forget this, Eleanor? How could I forget you?’
His whole mind struggled for a glimpse of her from back then, at Gunter’s or Lackington’s or here, but there was nothing save the ache of the trying for recall in his temples.
‘Last time we were here it was summer and the candles were warm because there were so many. After the dinner you loosened my hair...’
He stood at that and drew her up with him, their bodies almost touching as his hands rose to the pins she had tied it back with and he carefully drew them away. The brown curls fell in a curtain down to her waist, unravelling into silk.
Unravelling like his caution and his ever-present distance.
* * *
The floor tilted as he pulled her to him and took her mouth, not with softness but with a hard and desperate need, his hands at her nape as he slanted the kiss.
‘Eleanor.’ Her name was groaned in a broken whisper as he brought her closer.
He kissed her completely differently now. Before he’d left England he had been more careful and softer, but now he held a scorching sensuality that made her head spin.
She clung to his heat and took the offered breath as he seized what he wanted, quick and desperate. She heard the guttural sounds she made, but could not stop them, her breath slowed into only desire, her body melting into need.
‘Nicholas?’ Breathed out as his tongue came around the fullness of her lips, the feel of it shocking.
Her own mouth opened and she let him in to taste and to savour. There was no reason in their kisses now, logic lost beneath feeling until he turned her abruptly and his teeth fastened on the skin of her throat. She keened into the silence and pressed into him with demand.
Every touch he gave her left her more naked in spirit than the one before. She was stripped down into an intensity that held no fight whatsoever.
He could do as he wanted with her and he knew it. She could see it in the velvet brownness of his eyes which were so like her daughter’s.
‘Let me make love to you, Eleanor.’
When she nodded he took her up into his arms, striding towards a door at the far end of the chamber and opening it.
His room was filled with blueness, the same wallpaper as before with its patterned cut flock. The bed was a different one, however, the coverlet now a patched quilt of mismatched fabrics.
It was here he placed her before crouching down at her feet so that their heads were level.
‘This time it is your choice, Eleanor, and I need you to be sure...’
‘I want you.’ She gave him her answer without thought because she did. She was certain in a way she had never been before.
