Page 9 of When a Duke Loves a Woman
Her reputation wasn’t the only reason he didn’t want to have to explain his presence here—not so much in her bed, but in this part of London. What did it say about him that his bride would choose to run off to Whitechapel rather than exchange vows with him?
When the time for the bride’s appearance had passed, Thorne had begun to have a bad feeling about things. Then her brother, the Earl of Collinsworth, had walked down the aisle to the front of the church without the bride on his arm and whispered to him that Lavinia had asked the coachman to deliver her to Whitechapel. The man, loyal to the earl, had refused, and so she’d gone off in search of a hansom. Thorne had announced to those in attendance, “It appears Lady Lavinia has taken ill. As I wish our wedding day to be one of fond memories for her, the nuptials will be postponed until she is feeling more herself.” Then with humiliation mingled with fury coursing through him, he’d stormed out to go in search of his bride, determined to locate her at all costs and discover why she had decided to make a fool of him in such an incredibly public manner.
In hindsight, he’d been an idiot to strive to find her on his own, under the misperception that if he just wandered the streets, eventually their paths would cross. As he’d gone deeper into the night, his stubbornness had asserted itself and he’d continued with his quest, even knowing it wouldn’t bear fruit. He’d had his carriage bring him to this area of London, and then sent his driver on his way, fully intending to hire a hack when he was ready to return to his residence. Obviously he’d not been ready soon enough. And it had cost him.
As oblivion beckoned, he answered the call and began sinking down into the welcoming fog, distantly wondering how what should have been the most important day in his life could have gone so horribly wrong.
She didn’t dare return to the room, not until she heard the snore. It was a soft hum, more the purring of a cat than the snorting she’d heard from drunkards who fell asleep in the corner of her establishment. Rousing them so they could stagger home was never any great enjoyment. If the chap was a regular customer, someone she liked well enough, she’d give him leave to sleep it off where he’d landed. Besides, it made Robin feel important when tasked with the chore of keeping an eye on the inebriated blokes for her, as though he were guarding her place from miscreants.
She’d considered rousing Robin, having him keep watch over the man known as Thorne, but doing that would force her to admit to her own cowardice. He troubled her in ways she’d never been bothered before, which was the reason that once she heard the snore, she quietly slipped into the room, stood beside the bed, crossed her arms over her chest, and studied him.
He was so incredibly lovely to look upon, every aspect of him—except for the injuries and bruises—a pleasure to behold. Never before had she simply wanted to stare at a man, and she certainly couldn’t allow him to see her gawking when he was awake. She wouldn’t marry him—or anyone, for that matter—because upon marriage her tavern would become his, and she wasn’t going to hand it over to a man who wouldn’t appreciate it or care for it as she did. Nor did she have any desire to become chattel. She’d been independent as long as she could remember, running through the mews with her brothers—all merely a year older than she was—and getting into scrapes alongside them. They’d never treated her like a girl, not like the way they treated their sister Fancy.
Gillie had been heading toward her thirteenth birthday when Fancy was born. At fourteen, her brothers were already strong, strapping lads. By the time Fancy was old enough to be playing outside without being under their mum’s watchful eye, no one wanted to run afoul of the Trewlove brothers. As a result, Ettie Trewlove had never felt a need to disguise the gender of the daughter to whom she’d given birth. With five of her children adding their earnings to the family coffers, she’d even been able to purchase proper frocks for her youngest. Everyone tried to protect her, perhaps because she was so much younger than they were. Or more delicate, more feminine. By the time Gillie had seen a dozen years, she was as tall as she was now, slender as a reed, but there was a firmness to her muscles that came from the hard work in which she’d engaged as a child, a firmness that had only intensified when she’d reached adulthood and begun hauling casks from the cellar and slovenly drunkards into the streets.
But for the tiniest of moments, when the stranger had expressed concern about her reputation, she’d thought how welcoming it might be to be cherished and protected by a man. Not that her brothers wouldn’t protect her if needed, but that hardly counted, as they were family and that’s what family did. None of them were related by blood, but their mum had raised them to understand some bonds were stronger than blood.
Like the bond that existed between a man and a woman, the connection that caused a woman to want to marry him, lie with him, and bear his children. Or lie with him without the benefit of marriage. It was the reason she and her siblings existed. By-blows who’d come into the world because some man had enticed a woman into his bed and then refused to do right by her. She wondered if this Thorne fellow was prone to that sort of abhorrent behavior. But if he were, would he worry about her reputation?
She didn’t like the way her insides had fluttered and her skin had warmed as she’d given him a sip of water and a spoonful of broth. She didn’t relish at all that she rather enjoyed caring for him, had experienced a sense of satisfaction when he’d seemed so pleased with the simple broth that hadn’t taken her any trouble at all to prepare.
Suddenly he moved, flailed about. With her heart hammering at his quick movements, she stepped briskly to the bed and pressed her palm to his forehead, grateful to find only tepid warmth. “Shh. Shh. It’s all right. It’s all right.”
His brow furrowed, but he stilled, his breathing shallow and rapid, and she wondered if he was reliving the attack, if the nightmare of it was visiting his slumber. “You’re safe,” she whispered. “I won’t let anyone harm you.”
Beneath her fingers, his brow relaxed. “That’s it. Let your worries go. They don’t exist here. Go to a peaceful place and let your body heal.”
His breathing slowed, went deeper. She had no reason to keep touching him, yet she seemed incapable of removing her hand. His dark forelock had fallen over her fingers, and it was as though the silken strands had captured her as effectively as the coarsest of ropes.
Before him, she’d never touched a man. Oh, she’d slapped her brothers on the shoulder, hugged them, even come into contact with their skin when she tended to the numerous wounds they’d received in their youth during a time when their actions were guided more by anger at their circumstance than common sense. But she’d grown up with them; they were familiar. She’d certainly never looked at one of them and thought, “I’d jolly well like to skim my fingers over him, test the cords of his muscles, the silkiness of his flesh.”
She found it difficult to swallow with the realization she could touch every inch of the fellow, in secret, him unaware of her actions. All she had to do was move aside the sheet, and he would be presented to her like a gift. Naturally, however, if a man took those liberties with her, she’d bloody well kill him—slowly and most painfully. If she even suspected those thoughts had entered his head...
The riotous musings invading her mind were unconscionable. Still, she seemed unable to prevent her hand from slowly trailing down his cheek and lightly brushing over his shadowed jaw. She rather liked his unkempt state, which made him appear dangerous, strong, a man to be reckoned with—even if the four thugs had managed to drop him to his knees. She hadn’t seen the entire encounter, but she’d seen enough to know he hadn’t gone down easily.
Of their own accord, her fingers traced his lips. His warm breath fanned over her knuckles, causing an unsettling sensation in the pit of her stomach, lower still to an area between her thighs. Once, when she was no more than seven, she’d nicked an apple from a vendor’s cart. She’d run off feeling both satisfied and ashamed. In the end, she hadn’t eaten her bounty, but had passed it off to a dirtier urchin. It hadn’t lessened her guilt. She hadn’t stolen anything since.
But this felt like stealing, these precious moments of caressing a man. How many nights had she gone to sleep, aching to be held, to have her limbs entwined with another’s, to touch and be touched? While she’d always telegraphed that she had no interest in men, wouldn’t take kindly to their advances, her actions didn’t lessen her loneliness, didn’t make her yearn any less for what she knew could take place between a man and a woman.
She wanted to run her hand over his shoulders, his chest. Instead, she balled it up tightly and placed it in her lap, only then realizing she was holding his other hand there. He wouldn’t do right by her. He’d stated as much. Not that she’d want him to. She didn’t need a man. Well—looking over her shoulder, she shifted her gaze to his hips—she needed a portion of him.
She nearly laughed aloud. Whatever was wrong with her to entertain such lascivious thoughts? Her mum would be appalled.Shewas appalled.
Perhaps if he didn’t smell so good. Beneath the blood, sweat, and dirt she’d washed away was a woodsy scent that reminded her of the freshly turned earth in her mum’s garden. And with it mingled the essence of him, sharp and tangy.
With care, she turned his hand, clasping it palm up, within hers. So smooth. Not a scar or callus to be found. But not weak. There was strength in those long, slender fingers. She imagined them slowly caressing, stroking, squeezing. Touching a woman, loving her.
Trailing the fingers of her other hand over his, she could feel the potency housed there. If she pressed the heel of her palm against his fingertips and flattened her hand over his, she could almost reach his wrist. All parts of her had always been long and lanky, but the width of his hand compared to the slenderness of hers made her feel almost delicate, almost—
He shifted, closing his fingers around hers, drawing their joined hands up to nestle in the center of his chest as he started to roll slightly, groaned, and halted. His eyes fluttered, then settled into stillness. She barely breathed, waiting for him to awaken, to fling her hand aside when he realized he was cradling it as though it were an injured dormouse. She had one as a pet when she was a girl, and at that particular moment, she wondered if it had felt as trapped when she’d first held it as she felt now. Trapped and comforted in the same instance, as though this injured person would protect her. She’d never taken much physical comfort from men, viewing them as being more trouble than they were worth, but she had an odd urge to wiggle her way up beneath his arm and snuggle against him.
These strange musings were only because it had been a long, stressful night, and she should be abed by now. Only he was in her bed, holding her hand against his chest as though he treasured it. Faintly, she could feel the beating of his heart, reaching between his ribs to thrum against her fingers where they furled against his skin.
She should shove herself off the bed and settle onto the sofa in the other room, but never before had a chap held her hand. Even though this one did so lost in the realm of dreams, unaware of whose hand he actually held, she couldn’t quite bring herself to break free of him. It was lovely really, to have the warmth of another human being—of a man—seeping through skin and muscle and bone to heat her throughout. Oddly she felt as though he held all of her. Perhaps that was the reason she seemed unable to move.
Lost in slumber, he appeared younger, more innocent, more approachable. Leaning forward, with her free hand, she combed back the silken strands of dark hair from his brow. “What the devil were you doing in this area, alone, so late at night? What was so important you couldn’t wait for a more reasonable time of day?”
In response, he released a soft snore. She imagined how comforting it would be to hear that snuffle occasionally through the night, to know another person was about to share the sheets, the dreams, the troubles. What fanciful thoughts. She had her mum, her brothers, and on occasion her sister. She certainly didn’t need a stranger who caused her to wonder about the delights that might not be in her life. If not happiness, at least contentment filled her days and nights. She wanted for nothing more.
