He bent his head and his lips found hers again as his wicked fingers reversed direction and trailed slowly, delicately yet deliberately, up the inner face of her thighs. One hand continued its trailing rise to close about her hip, while the fingers of the other lingered, lightly brushing the curls at the apex of her thighs.
Then the hand at her hip gripped, anchoring her. Nudging her thighs apart, he slid his fingers past the screening curls and stroked.
Slowly exploring, testing and tracing. Learning anew. Impressing her, her so sensitive intimate flesh, with his touch anew.
His mouth supped from hers as his fingers played, on her senses, her nerves, as they stoked her desire. She fed from him, and fed him back the steadily rising heat of their passions, the surging, swelling desires, the burgeoning need. He took all she had to give and returned it in full measure, but . . . she wanted more.
Drawing one hand from the taut, steely muscles of his back, she slid her palm over his side, reached between their bodies and found the hard column of his erection, curled her fingers about the hot rigid length and boldly stroked.
His concentration fractured. She slid her fingers up, then sent them lightly skating over the engorged head. His chest swelled as he drew in a breath, but he didn’t stop her. Instead, he resumed his stroking between her thighs, refocusing on their kiss, on the increasingly intimate melding of their mouths, the probing plunder of his tongue mimicking the increasingly probing pressure of his fingers . . . and left her to her own play.
To her own delight in pleasuring him.
She threw herself into the game, one that quickly became a sensual tit-for-tat, where she repaid his increasingly intimate forays with provocative caresses of her own . . . even though she knew it couldn’t last, not for long, not with the swelling beat of passion thrumming ever more compulsively in their veins, she clung to the exchange, to the give and take.
The musk of their arousal, his and hers, wreathed around them.
Their skins burned, grew damp; their breathing grew harried.
She could take no more; pulling back from the kiss, her nerves afire, eyes closed, she gasped, “Now.” She licked her lips, then murmured, sultry and low, “How?”
He chuckled, the sound a gravelly rasp, then stooped, swung her up and into his arms, and carried her to the bed.
Stripping back the covers, he laid her down upon the sheets, straightened, and, a naked god in the darkness, looked down at her. His gaze slowly swept from her face to her toes, then back, then she saw his teeth gleam fleetingly in the dimness. He knelt on the bed, caught one of her calves in each hand, spread her legs, let himself down between, and put his mouth where his fingers had been.
She bucked, only just managed to hold back a shriek as the wave of sensation evoked by the touch of his lips and the rough rasp of his tongue crashed through her.
He swept her away.
Swept her from this world and into another where sensation ruled. Where the fires of passion burned and desire was a scalding whip driving her on.
Into a cataclysm of delicious pleasures that grew and built, swelled and rose, then imploded.
She saw stars, touched their sensual sun, but even as she crested and sensed the void waiting, she felt him move and forced her lids up. Watched as he rose, wedged his hips between her thighs, braced his body above hers, for one instant hung over her, then he thrust deep and sure, and joined them.
Closed his eyes and softly groaned.
She closed around him, clamped tight, and held him.
Raised her arms, reached up, and embraced him.
He drew a huge breath and withdrew, then pressed in again, slowly. He kept the pace slow, achingly intent, eyes closed, concentration and focus etched in his face as he thrust, deliberate and controlled, within her.
As he pleasured her, and himself.
Lids falling, her parted lips lightly curving, she gave herself up to following his lead, to meeting each invasion, taking him in, rising beneath him as they rode on.
And on.
Roscoe was determined to string the moments out, to extend the pleasure to the ultimate and beyond. To wring every last ounce of pleasure and passion from her, and himself.
To indulge as he never had before, not with any woman.
Only with her.
Why he had no idea; as he hung his head and, his breathing harsh with the need to hold back, to hold on and stretch the moments, he gave himself wholly to the sensual devotion, he only knew that it was unquestionably, irretrievably, and immutably so.
She was all firm, sleek flesh and heated skin, supple and giving; the scalding slickness of her sheath was a sensual wonder, the subtle clamping of her inner muscles an intimate embrace he felt to the depths of his soul.
That she was with him, openly, joyously, as immersed as he in the senses-stealing act was a fact imprinted on his skin, on his muscles, deep in his bones—utterly irrefutable. There was no surrender here, only a meeting, a mating, of equals.
In an exchange of pleasure so deep it scored his soul.
And ripped away any veil.
She came to the exchange with unstinting honesty; he could do nothing less than match her, so there was no shield, no screen, not even a veil behind which he could hide his feelings. Or hide from them. Feelings so powerful he refused to name them, let alone acknowledge them and give them greater purchase, yet as he thrust deep within her and felt her rise to meet him, those feelings swamped him and overwhelmed his mind.
Miranda heard his breath hitch. Glancing up from beneath her weighted lids she saw the rippling clenching of muscles already rock-hard as he strove to prolong their mutual delight. Clinging to his rhythm, urging him on with her body and her hands, urgent and desperate yet willing to remain with him even at the excruciatingly slow pace, willing to brave the ravaging flames of their need as through his very slowness he whipped them to a raging inferno, breathless, gasping, she raised a hand and laid her palm against one lean cheek.
He turned his head and blindly pressed a hot, openmouthed kiss to her palm.
The intimate, evocative caress made her heart leap.
Made her fingers curl.
Before she could focus on it, on her response, he hauled in a huge breath—and increased the tempo. Set them and their passions on the rising, spiraling path to completion.
And drove them into the furnace of their ravening need. Into flames of desire that seared her skin, that flashed along her nerves and left her wits, her thoughts, all external awareness cindered. That seized her, body and mind, in a vise of sensation so demanding she knew nothing beyond the striving driving of his body into hers, the abrasive rasp of his hair over her burning skin, the sheer power that rocked her with every thrust—then he bent his head, captured her lips, filled her mouth, and raced her into the heart of their sensual sun.
Sensation imploded.
Her scream smothered by their kiss, her being, her reality, shattered into shards of brilliantly hued perception that flashed down her nerves, raced through her veins, and consumed her from the inside out . . . until there was nothing left but scintillating ecstasy, and the emotion that waited beyond.
The emotion that caught her, that embraced and enfolded her, that was not of her, not of him, but of them both . . .
Wracked and shuddering, he joined her in the glory, and they clung . . . held tight.
Wrapped in that powerful, potent joy, locked together,
feeling
together, they fell and spiraled back to earth.
To the tangled sheets, to each other’s arms, and the glow of aftermath that claimed them both.
H
e wasn’t going to think about it.
Later, much later, when he stirred enough to lift from Miranda and settle them both beneath the covers, with her sleeping, deeply sated, her head pillowed on his shoulder, he lay back and closed his eyes.
And rather less successfully tried to close his mind against the treadmill of unfruitful speculation his mother’s well-meant suggestion had raised and given life.
He didn’t need to revisit the prospect; he’d already thought it through, in depth, and had seen the flaw in his mother’s view. And even if he could revert to being Julian, it would be for naught—it wouldn’t get him what he wanted.
What he now knew he wanted most—the one element crucial to the future he would choose if he could. Yet nothing he could do would yield him the prize the last days had revealed as his holy grail.
Nothing he could do would turn back the clock and wipe out the last twelve years. The years he’d spent being Roscoe, slowly, steadily, purely by virtue of his wits and his innate talents becoming London’s gambling king.
He’d done it to save his family, but that didn’t make Roscoe any more respectable. Didn’t remake, and would not allow the man who had been Roscoe for twelve long years to be reformed into a suitable husband for any lady, let alone into the sort of husband a lady with a deep-seated belief that her future was contingent on her adherence to rigid respectability would accept.
He understood—none better—that respectability was a malleable thing, a concept governed by perspective. He didn’t need to ask to know that in Miranda’s view becoming his lover and indulging in a short liaison while away from her home, away from society, away from all who knew her, was quite a different matter to consorting openly with him in London.
Let alone marrying him.
More, one aspect he valued in all that had passed between them was her directness, her openness, her unguarded honesty. And if one tiny yearning part of him fantasized about finding some way in which they could continue their liaison and still keep that clear, open, and so wonderfully refreshing connection, the cynical and sophisticated majority of his mind knew there was no hope.
Knew that if he pushed to hold on to what they had, he would damage it, irretrievably tarnish it.
Tonight had been their last at Ridgware. If they were lucky enough to find the right inn, tomorrow night would be the very last of their liaison.
They would reach London the following afternoon, and he’d go back to his house in Chichester Street, and she would return to Claverton Street, and . . . it was perfectly possible he would never see her again.
The thought filled him with a leaden sense of loss, but he was too much of a realist to pretend; for them, for this, for what had grown between them, the end was impossible to deny.
L
ate the next morning, Miranda sat on the box seat of Roscoe’s curricle, determined to make the most of every moment she had left with him.
The day was overcast, the air carrying the crisp brashness of an autumn that had finally trumped summer. Luckily, there was no rain and little wind to cut through their coats as they rolled along, making it a decent day to travel.
They’d left Ridgware shortly after breakfast; Lucasta, Caroline, Henry, and Sarah had stood on the porch and waved them away. With his leg propped up in the comfortable traveling coach, already drained by the rush of their departure, Roderick had slumped back against the seat and fixed her with an unreadable gaze. “You should ride with Roscoe. I’ll be no good company.”
She’d studied him briefly, then agreed. Roscoe had handed her into the curricle without question. Once they’d started on their way, driving through the estate to the rear entrance, with the curricle rolling steadily in front of the slower coach, Roscoe had said, “Kempsey and Dole worked on their own, but given we’re so near Birmingham and their families, and have to pass through Lichfield, it would be wise to keep your eyes peeled for any sign of recognition or pursuit.”
She’d nodded and done just that, but they’d encountered no villains or danger of any stripe. Once safely through Lichfield, they’d given Birmingham a wide berth and taken the road through Coventry, then turned south along the Banbury road toward Oxford. While the route through Banbury was a few miles longer, they’d agreed it was safer to go that way rather than via the route through Leamington Spa, a retreat favored by some of Roderick and Miranda’s country neighbors and by local gentry from near Ridgware.
If they hadn’t had Roderick to consider, they might have headed even further east before turning south for the capital, but given how difficult each hour of traveling was going to be for him, they’d elected to return via Oxford. As Roscoe had pointed out, “At least we know the Oxford to London road is in reasonably sound condition.”
They’d left Coventry behind and were bowling along a well-surfaced stretch, the coach wheels rumbling in their wake. With the likelihood of danger well past, and Roscoe intent on managing his team, on discouraging the powerful blacks from surging too far ahead of the coach, she grasped the opportunity to sit back, fix her eyes on the road ahead, and consider just where he and she stood. Vis-à-vis each other, now, tomorrow, and the day after.
He hadn’t said anything, but the prospect his mother had alluded to was not one she felt she could raise. Between Lucasta and Caroline, she now understood his past sufficiently well to comprehend his present, but neither his mother nor his sister-in-law seemed all that cognizant of the man he now was—of who and what Roscoe, as distinct from Julian, was.
To her mind that was crystal clear—Roscoe was the man who had from the first fascinated her, the man to whom she’d grown so attracted, the man she’d taken as her lover. It wasn’t Julian who sat beside her but Roscoe, and that distinction became only more definite with every mile they got closer to London.
Lucasta’s and Caroline’s insights were centered on Julian, but the man she had to deal with was Roscoe. And no matter how she analyzed all he’d said and done—all she’d sensed through the passionate interludes they’d shared over the last eleven nights, through the evolution of the closeness she could all but feel growing between them—she still had no idea what was in his mind, what direction he’d decided on regarding their liaison. Their affair.
She’d initiated it and had continued it at first solely because she’d wanted to know, because she’d been desperate not to have to live out her life as a spinster without ever knowing what it was that passed between a man and a woman in that sphere, and he’d been the only man with whom she’d ever felt she might learn those lessons. He’d been a willing and expert teacher, a devoted instructor, and she’d learned a great deal; indeed, she’d learned all she’d initially set out to discover in just a few nights.
But that hadn’t been enough, and still wasn’t enough. She now wanted more. More of him. Much more time with him.
To explore, with him, the nebulous but infinitely alluring potential she sensed now lay within their grasp . . . if they wished to reach for it.
And therein lay the rub. They both had to wish to go forward; it wasn’t just her decision, and it wasn’t a decision she could make for him, or even steer him toward. He had to want it—want her, want to continue their liaison—of his own accord.
As the blacks’ hooves drummed on the macadam and the curricle’s wheels rattled on, she spent uncounted minutes considering that and evaluating her options, only to reluctantly conclude that in the absence of any sign from him that he wished to shift their relationship to some more permanent arrangement, all she could do was to go along, to let their connection evolve as it would—as he permitted—and see what happened. See where their road led. She would acquiesce and encourage, but she couldn’t push.
The realization that she could do little to influence his decision even though said decision would significantly affect her wasn’t easy to accept.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
She realized she’d been frowning. Wiping the expression from her eyes and face, she looked at him; he’d glanced at her, but his horses had reclaimed his attention. For an instant, she let her gaze linger on his profile, then she looked ahead. “That would be a waste of money. I was just . . . mentally rambling.”
After a moment, he nodded down the road to where a conglomeration of roofs was drawing steadily closer. “That’s Southam. I suggest we stop for lunch there.” He glanced briefly her way. “Roderick could no doubt use the break, and Banbury’s still some way on.”
She nodded. “A halt for a little while would be sensible.”
They found an inn by the bank of a small river. A private parlor looked out over a grassy slope to the rippling water; weak sunlight flashed off the surface, lightening the room and giving the illusion of a more summery day.
After arranging for the parlor, Roscoe left Miranda, once more bedecked in her widow’s weeds and veil, to select suitable dishes for their meal, then returned to the coach to help Roderick down.
Accepting the assistance, Roderick swung his injured foot to the ground, then hobbled slowly along using one crutch. His balance had improved, and, Roscoe judged, he was no longer in quite so much pain.
“I managed to nod off.” Roderick limped through the parlor door Roscoe held open. “That helped. I don’t feel so wrung out anymore.”
“Excellent.” Miranda drew out a chair by the table. “I hope you have an appetite—the food here sounds quite good.”
So it proved. They spent a pleasant hour and a half over the meal, chatting about this and that. Seeing an opportunity, Roscoe grasped it, turning the conversation to the life brother and sister led at Oakgrove. From there, it was a small step to comparing likes and dislikes of life, to learning that neither sibling had ever seen the sea, nor had any experience of barge, boat, or ship.
When, after clearing the main course, the innkeeper’s wife asked if they wished for a platter of cheeses and fruits, and Miranda glanced his way, he nodded. “We’ve plenty of time—no need to rush.”
Miranda smiled and resumed her description of the gardens at Oakgrove, telling him which trees, plants, and flowers were her favorites. His next question was whether she was drawn to scented flowers, and if so, which.
Where the compulsion to use the minutes to learn all he could of her sprang from he didn’t know, but he felt it, along with the weight of knowing that time was running out, that too soon these moments of easy rapport would be past.
When they left the inn, Roderick smothered a yawn and waved Miranda to the curricle. “I’m going to nap, so you may as well ride with Roscoe.”
She acquiesced and allowed him to hand her up, and then they were off again, relaxed and comfortable. Having informed the coachman which Oxford hotel he’d decided to put up at for the night, Roscoe no longer needed to hold back his blacks, yet still he didn’t let them range ahead. Wouldn’t let them go faster and cut short the time he had to spend with her by his side.
“Tell me,” he said, “do you ride in town at all?”
She sighed. “No. I used to almost every day in the country, but in town . . . well, Aunt Gladys never was keen. Too much potential for disaster.”
“So what sort of horse do you prefer? Do you hunt?”
He kept the questions rolling, easily extrapolating from one to the next, and she slipped in several in return, yet the sense of this being a last hurrah, that the magical, unexpected interlude in Ridgware was over and, regardless of what he might wish, their personal association was therefore on the cusp of ending, hung in the air.
When the spires of Oxford rose ahead, the thought of simply driving on—driving off somewhere else and leaving both their lives behind—flared in his mind. After a second, he shook aside the silly notion.
He was who he was, and she who she was; changing their physical destination wouldn’t alter that.
H
e’d decided to stay at the very best hotel in Oxford. It wasn’t one of the large hotels that anyone in the ton might visit but a smaller and commensurately more exclusive, exceedingly private hotel run by a family who had multiple reasons for wishing him and his well.
“We’ll be safe here.” Dropping his driving gloves on a sofa table in the sitting room of a well-appointed, quietly luxurious suite, Roscoe studied Roderick. Seated on the sofa, the younger man was massaging the muscles of his calf above his broken foot.
Feeling his gaze, Roderick looked up and grimaced. “Just stiff. Nothing serious.”
Miranda strolled out of the bedroom she’d chosen. “What’s not serious?”
“The reason I’m rubbing my leg,” Roderick replied. “No need to get worried.”
Roscoe watched her teeter on the brink of doing just that, but then she drew breath and nodded. “All right.”
He inwardly smiled; she was trying to let go. “I have the room beyond yours, but I don’t imagine we’ll have any nighttime visitors here.”
“The staff seem very attentive—not like at the hotel in Birmingham.”
“Indeed.” Roscoe looked at Roderick. “I suggest we have an early dinner served up here, and then we should get as much rest as we can. If we start at a decent hour tomorrow, we’ll have you in Claverton Street by midafternoon.”
Roderick nodded. “Good plan.”
Miranda didn’t look quite so eager, but she crossed to the bellpull and tugged it, then met his gaze. “Do you want to order, or shall I?”
“You can—I’ll go and check that they’ve brought up my bags.”
The rest of the evening passed comfortably. Roderick grew tired soon after dinner. He bade them a weary good night and, assuring them both he needed no assistance, limped into his room and shut the door.
Worry in her eyes, Miranda shifted her gaze from the closed door and arched her brows at Roscoe.
He hesitated, then offered, “It’s most likely the low-level but constant pain that’s dragging him down, rather than anything being wrong.”
She pressed her lips together but said nothing.
He cast his eyes over the local news sheet; she picked up a ladies’ magazine and idly flicked through it.
A maid arrived with the tea tray. They sat and sipped, neither, it seemed, inclined to conversation. For himself, he was content enough simply being in her company, able to glance at her whenever he wished, and he saw no reason to precipitately embark on what would be their last night sharing a bed. He could sleep any night; tonight he wanted to stretch each stage, each moment, to the fullest, to extract the maximum he could from each. To
not
let go.
Eventually, she balanced her cup on its saucer, then set both on the low table before the sofa. Sitting upright and raising her head, she looked at him, met his gaze.
He’d already deposited his cup and saucer on the tray, and had been sitting simply watching her for some time.
Holding his gaze, she rose.
Uncrossing his legs, he got to his feet.
She said nothing, simply held out her hand.
He read her eyes, then reached out and closed his fingers around hers, and let her lead him into her room.
Closing the door, he caught her gaze as she turned to face him. Raising the hand he held, fingers twined, he pressed a long, lingering kiss on her knuckles.
She smiled an innocently seductive smile and stepped into his arms. He closed them around her, bent his head as she raised hers. Their lips met, and desire flowed. That simply, that easily. That responsive to their call.
It was so easy, so effortlessly straightforward to step into the flames with her. To let the heat rise, to let passion lick over their skins and sink into them, to let desire set its spark and ignite their need.
For him, tonight, his goal was clear. This night was for laying up memories, for creating moments of quivering awareness and imprinting each second of her response, and his, on his mind.
Memories. Of the soft susurration of silks sliding to the floor. Of silken skin glowing pearlescent in weak moonlight. Of the contrast of his darker, hair-dusted limbs twining with her smooth, slender paleness.
Their bodies came together in heat and in passion, but again neither rushed. Both drew the moments out, not just savoring but examining and absorbing every individual scintilla of delight, every fractured second of pleasure, every moan, every gasp, each tensing grip.
The steady coiling of the inevitable tension, the swelling promise of its release.
He reached for each moment, enshrined each in his mind—every brush of her lips, parted and swollen from their kisses, every seductive caress, every grasp of hands, lingering yet urgent, every desperate pant, each harsh and ragged exhalation.
Every breath, every touch, every nuance of their loving.
He gathered them all in, assumed she was doing the same. This was, after all, the end—the extent of their forever. They’d reached the limit of what, for them, could be. These were their last hours, the last time they would savor the shattering moment when he slid into her body, the senses-stealing intimacy as, joined, they moved together, every last iota of their senses and wits focused on the link, on the giving and the taking, on the transcendent joy.