With her pale blonde hair and blue eyes, Victoria was the visual embodiment of her every romantic ideal. Such a pity that sort of girl would be married off to her staid fiancé.
Sera’s fingers rose to the locket still at her neck. “Did you see his wedding gift to me?”
“No. It’s lovely.”
“It was my mother’s.” She couldn’t help the wistful joy that lightened the weight from her shoulders. She snapped it open and lifted her chin so Victoria could see it more easily. “See? Her portrait is inside.”
“Oh, that’s so wonderful,” Victoria nearly squealed. “You’d longed for something of hers.”
“I did indeed. It gets even better.” She released the secret catch to display the hidden picture. “Do you know him?”
“No,” Victoria said, drawing the word out so it sounded more like a question than a statement. “I feel like I should. There’s something quite familiar about him, isn’t there?”
“I thought the same. But you can’t place him?”
Victoria looked from the locket to Sera’s face and back again. “It’s entirely possible he looks familiar because he looks like you.”
A tumbling mix of excitement and disappointment turned her stomach. Despite her mother’s stories, she’d almost begun to doubt she had a father. Oh, she knew that biologically it was a necessity. She hadn’t sprung fully formed from her mother’s head like Athena. As for who he was…she’d never known about him.
“Truly?”
Victoria nodded. “It’s in his nose. Or yours, I suppose. The same straight line with the same rounding at the end.”
Disappointment began to win out, making her frown. “So it’s unlikely we know him. I won’t ever find him.”
“I’m sorry, darling.” She patted Sera’s shoulder. “I will think harder, but I’m doubtful.”
Sera nodded and closed her fist around the locket. She’d have to be satisfied with having the man’s image. Hopefully, it would be enough.
Chapter Eighteen
Fletcher began to think he was going to walk right out of his skin. He paced across his bedroom carpet over and over again. Through the connecting door, in the room next to his, he could hear quiet shiftings and the occasional voice.
Sera was in there. Preparing for bed.
Bed with him.
He’d spent more than ten years bouncing around a mostly empty house but for the servants. If he’d wanted female company, he went out to seek it, though he’d have been well within his rights as a bachelor householder to have anyone visit.
He’d intentionally never done so. Bringing her to his home had been a matter of time and circumstances that he knew he’d conquer.
The room Sera walked around as she prepared herself was unsullied, like her. Pure.
Until he fucked her silly.
The noises fell silent, and he couldn’t endure the anticipation any longer. For him, preparing for bed meant stripping his clothes and impatiently dumping them in a pile before donning a dressing gown. For Sera it apparently meant an hour’s worth of female mysteries. He knocked on the door and could barely breathe for fear of missing her reply.
He could still hardly believe he’d finally earned the right to touch her. Her soft voice floated through the door, bidding him to enter.
She’d frozen in the act of brushing out her hair, one hand holding a silver brush over her head. Even that simple act was intimate enough to unman him.
Dark hair tumbled down her back in a fall of waving abandon that struck him right in the guts. Suddenly he was perfectly and clearly aware that no other man in this godforsaken world had ever been treated to the sight—and that he’d practically stolen her. Appealing to her instincts to be saved was shady. Just the method for a crook like him.
The fact that she wore a diaphanous white peignoir became secondary. She’d wrapped it close to her neck, and the full sleeves concealed what they could of her slim curves. Despite the almost ridiculously girlish ruffles, the tight sash displayed her small waist.
Her eyes were as dark as a tenement’s windows. Her lips fell open, the bottom trembling ever so slightly.
He’d need to go slowly for fear of frightening her. If he didn’t make sure this first night was good, he might be put on low rations as she fled his hungers.
“Hello, my angel.”
That teased a smile out of her, though it appeared rather reluctant as it bloomed across her lips. “I’ve told you I’m no angel.”
He came to stand behind her and took the brush. He didn’t know how firmly he could stroke it, so he gathered the ends of her locks in one hand while he experimented. She faced straight forward again, toward the gilt-framed mirror above her dressing table.
“I realize you’re not part of the heavenly host.” He winked at her in the glass. “In fact, I’m rather thankful of that. You’d be even more inaccessible to the likes of me.”
“You shouldn’t say such things. The likes of you, indeed.” She stilled his motions with a hand over his. “If you wish to rise above your station, you must project the appropriate level of belief in yourself.”
Something twinged inside him, and the little boy who’d grown up without a mother pulled a face. For a moment he’d thought she was going to say that he was fine the way he was. But then, that was half of her appeal. The fact that she could help him grow. That she seemed so much better than him and set apart from his nasty world.
Not to mention she was the only person who’d ever said he didn’t evince enough belief in himself. If anything, he’d been called arrogant more times than he could count.
“I’ll endeavor to keep that in mind.”
Her eyes narrowed as she peered at his reflection. “Why does it seem you’re not taking me seriously?”
The smile lurking within him didn’t wish to be held back, but he managed. “I would never.”
She turned on the low bench, twisting her skirts with perfect modesty. “You would never take me seriously? I am all astonished,” she protested, but she also was holding back a smile.
Sinking to his knees, he cupped his hands around her ankles. “That’s not at all what I mean. And you know it.”
She ran her fingers through his hair. The soft touch sent a shudder down his back before lodging between his shoulder blades. A sweet torment. It had been a long time since anyone felt free enough to touch him. He hadn’t allowed it. Showing weakness was a risk.
With such a woman before him, the perfect blend of comfort and desirability, how could he not? He let his neck bend until his forehead rested on her knees.
Maybe he’d finally be able to lay down some of his burdens.
She stroked and petted over his head, playing with the short ends of his hair. Exploring in a way he couldn’t wait for her to do all over his body.
“It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?” She traced over the nape of his neck, dipping her fingers along the hollow there in a tentative touch, drawing his body tight like an archer’s bow.
He murmured his agreement into the length of her thigh. She smelled flowery again. Damn it, he’d forgotten to figure out the scent. It would drive him mad if all he could think of his wife was “flowery”. He sounded like an idiot, even in his own head.
“Perhaps we should…go to sleep.” Her voice was softer than kitten fluff, but there was no way he’d miss that.
Raising an eyebrow, he looked up. “You don’t really expect that’s what we’ll do?”
“Maybe?”
The pale lengths of her feet were bare. He traced the delicate bone arching up from her toes. His fingers spanned easily around her ankle. “Is that what you want?”
Though she said nothing, the muscles in her sleek legs relaxed a fraction. He’d have much rather heard a vehement denial, or even her sweet voice begging him to stay, but he’d settle for what he could get.
He ran his fingers up the back of her calves, wondering at their softness and her silk skin. The distinct differences between them made him marvel every time.
Her knees pressed together again on a shiver. Her hands went back to his hair, this time moving much more tentatively. Memories of the ardent way she’d responded to his touch two weeks ago in the parlor—which had rapidly become his favorite room—warred with the quiet voice that warned her tender sensibilities dictated consideration. He’d have to keep things soft and slow if he didn’t want to frighten her.
He’d never had the responsibility of taking away a woman’s virginity. The prospect verged on daunting.
He couldn’t resist one last stroke of her leg, this time venturing up to the even more tender skin behind her knee. Her mouth dropped open on a silent gasp. Beneath her layers and layers of proper behavior there was a fire. Stoking it would incinerate them both.
“Would you like to move to the bed?” The question cost him untold restraint. He’d much rather bury his head beneath the full skirt of her dressing gown and lick all the way up her legs.
She nodded in a jerky push and pull of her chin. He leaned back on his heels so slowly it felt like his bones creaked. As soon as there was enough space between them, she hopped up and scurried to the bed. She practically leapt into it and yanked the covers to her chin.
Underneath, she wiggled and tugged. Her hand suddenly emerged, dangling her white dressing gown over the side of the bed.
Fletcher pushed to his feet, the better to see her face.
A tiny smile curved her mouth. It was obvious she was frightened from the large dark pools her eyes had become, but she seemed determined as well. She’d not be put off by something as petty as fear. That would be un-English of her.
She dropped the dressing gown, and it floated to the floor to make a white puddle of ruffles. Fletcher’s blood fired with curiosity. Had she been wearing anything underneath it?
“I don’t particularly like that thing,” she said in a squeaky voice.
“No?” Fletcher tipped his head, remembering the dark shadow of her legs beneath the thin fabric. Personally, he’d thought it had its appeals.
She shook her head. She wasn’t a particularly tiny person, but the huge bed and piles of pillows dwarfed her. The Lady’s Suite had a large, half-canopied bed, with draperies that hung down as a nod to the curtained beds of bygone years. He’d never been enamored with the idea of sleeping in a fully enclosed space—there was no telling who could sneak up on one—but suddenly he could see the appeal of being closed away from the world, as long as Sera tucked in beside him.
“All those ruffles and ribbons. It looked like something a little girl would wear.”
She verged on babbling, her nerves shining through. He’d have to do something about that. His hands went to the tie of his own dressing gown of heavy burgundy silk, but her eyes somehow managed to go even wider.
“Do you think we might put out the lights?”
His immediate instinct was to reply bloody well no. For weeks he’d been wondering whether the tips of her breasts were rose pink or dusky brown, and he’d die of curiosity if he didn’t get an answer.
He wasn’t alone in this. He had to take her desires into consideration. If she wanted the lights off, that’s what he’d do. He turned the gaslight sconces off with a twist before stripping his dressing gown from his shoulders. He dropped it over the back of a chair on his way to the bed.
He still wore a pair of loose trousers, though he normally didn’t bother wearing anything to sleep in. He sat on the edge of the bed. Even with the lights out, the moonlight streaming through the window and the fire in the grate combined to enable sight. She was a watercolor palette of smudged shadows topped by wide-held eyes.
“I didn’t take you for lily-livered,” he murmured.
That got her ire riled enough to wiggle up a fraction. She leaned more upright against the piles of decorations on the bed. A tassel caught gently in her hair, and she flicked it away. “I most certainly am not.”
He bit back his smile. Laughing at her would probably push her from annoyance to full-blown fury. “If you’d buried any further under the blankets, I’d have had to mount a search party to rescue you.”
“You’re a ridiculous man.”
“Sometimes,” he answered blithely. “When it suits me.”
She picked at the embroidered edge of the blanket, which appeared as shades of orange in the firelight. “And it suits you now?”
“No,” he said, unable to keep the rumble from his chest as everything within him drew down. He angled one knee onto the bed, the better to hide his erection.
Her chin lowered, and she looked up at him from under her lashes. “What would suit you then?”
“You.”
The firelight reflected in her eyes, which burned even hotter than flame. Her shoulders rolled as she lifted her arms to him. The nightdress she wore was white as well, with tiny, capped sleeves that showed off the slender lengths of her limbs, opened for him.
He planted one hand on the far side of her shoulders and leaned in to kiss her. Light. Soft. He played his lips across hers, sipping at her mouth.
Jesus Christ, this was bloody difficult.
His muscles fairly shook with trying to hold back. He wanted to scoop her up, to crush her to his chest. To turn the lights back up so he could see every inch of her. Strip her like the present he’d never had.