Page 44 of Marry in Secret
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She tasted of rain and regret, and faintly, endearingly, of tooth powder. She slipped her hands over his chest, along his bristle-roughened jawline and burrowed her fingers into his hair, drawing him closer.
The taste of her, familiar, beloved and at the same time tantalizingly exotic burned through him. He’d married a girl; she was all woman now. He cupped her face in his hands, and she shivered, and abruptly he recalled his damned rough-skinned hands. “Sorry,” he murmured, and pulled them off her satiny-soft skin.
“No.” She grabbed his hands and put them back, pressing her palms over his. “I like the feel of them, of you touching me.”
“But they’re rough.” And her skin was so soft.
“I don’t mind. I like it.” She rose on her tiptoes to cover his mouth with hers. He groaned and angled his mouth to go deeper, exploring her, remembering, learning her again.
An aching need, one that he’d lived with for four long years, rose up and engulfed him. Heat spiraled through him, heat and hunger and need, desperate need.
She clung to him, pressing herself against him, showering him with kisses and caresses, with that heedless, bountiful, exuberant passion he remembered so well. Offering her all.
The ache in him grew, a kind of madness, burning away his resolve to protect her, dissolving all awareness except that he had her in his arms at last, Rose, his wife. He was all naked hunger and heedless, selfish greed. He pressed her into a lying position, positioning himself over her, lavishing kisses on her mouth, her neck, the delicate line of her jaw, working his way lower.
A loud banging at the door jolted him into sudden awareness. Without any further warning the door flewopen. “Your brrrreakfast,” Mrs. Baines announced dramatically. She eyed them with beady, knowing suspicion.
Scraping together some semblance of control, Thomas rose, his breath ragged. He clutched his blanket around him, hoping the thick folds would hide the evidence of his arousal. He felt like a naughty schoolboy caught out.
Rose remained draped languidly across thechaise longue. She stretched, smoothed back her hair and sat up, smiling, looking like the cat that ate the cream.
“We didn’t order breakfast,” Thomas pointed out. Truth be told, he was almost grateful for the interruption. Another few minutes and he’d have taken Rose on thechaise longue—and she would have done nothing to stop him. Quite the contrary, she was all eager encouragement. In that she hadn’t changed.
She was very bad for his self-discipline.
“I always bring Mr. Yelland his breakfast,” the porter’s wife said. “I don’t hold with my gentlemen going out without their breakfast. Put it on the table there, Baines.” Her husband sidled meekly in, carrying a large tray containing several covered dishes and a large coffeepot.
“Mr. Yelland left earlier,” Thomas told her.
She snorted. “Think I don’t know that?” She slanted him a glance that told him she knew exactly what he’d been up to and she weren’t having none of it. “I don’t expect your young lady, I mean yourwife”—there was a world of sarcasm in her voice—“will want any, so I’ll show you downstairs now, miss.” She gestured to the door.
“On the contrary, I’m utterly famished,” Rose said immediately, bathing the hostile little troll with the warmest of smiles. “You’re a perfect angel, Mrs. Baines. Everything smells divine.”
The perfect angel scowled. “Butter wouldn’t melt...” she muttered.
“Oh, is there butter, too?” Rose said with all the innocence of a kitten. “How delicious. I do like hot buttery toast, don’t you? And what’s under these?” She lifted the covers. “Ooh, sausages and bacon and eggs, Thomas—yourfavorites. And loads of lovely fresh toast, and is that a pot of marmalade? Lovely.” She sighed and added guilelessly, “But no giblets today, it seems. Oh, well, another time.”
Mrs. Baines swelled with indignation. “Barefaced cheek...” She looked at Thomas, who was trying to maintain a straight face, and said severely, “I hope for your sake she’s not your wife, sir, ’cause if she is, she’s going to lead you a right merry dance. A right merry dance.” She stomped to the door, saying, “Baines will be back to collect the dishes.” The implication was left hanging:Which won’t give you time to get up to anything else.
Rose skipped to the door and, thanking her charmingly for the lovely, lovely breakfast, closed it after her.
“You, miss, are a minx,” he told her.
She laughed. “I can’t resist it when people like that get all stuffy and bossy and interfering. But she’s right, I probably will lead you a merry dance. Now come on, let’s eat this food before it gets cold.”
He didn’t respond. A merry dance with Rose; it sounded like heaven. But she still thought him the man he’d been. The man he was now was a recipe for heartbreak. He’d hurt her enough already.
She was so brave. Dealing with a miscarriage with only a young maidservant to help her... And that cod liver oil—he could read between the lines there.
And she thought she must be hard-hearted...
“I’m sorry for leaving you in such an appalling situation. For leaving you to deal with it all on your own.”
“Let’s not worry about the past.” She looked up at him with a smile that almost broke his heart. “It was nobody’s fault. And anyway, you’re here now. I won’t be on my own again, will I?”
It was a stab to the heart.
