If only he would tell her, life—his and hers—would be considerably simpler, yet it was patently clear that he didn’t wish her to know. So she’d have to keep pressing, holding to her line, until she learned enough to understand.
“Miss Conningham!”
“Yoo-hoo, miss!”
Sarah halted and turned. Smiling, she watched three lads—well, they were young men now—come pushing through the crowd. Reaching her, all three bowed their best bow, then grinned at her cheekily.
“I say, miss,” Bobby Simpson said, “have you seen the half man–half woman? He’s in a tent over there.”
“He—or she. It’s really amazing, miss,” Johnny Wilson averred.
Naturally the boys thought that that was the most exciting sideshow. Sarah swallowed a laugh. “What else is there to see?”
They were only too happy to pour into her ears a catalogue of the carnival delights to be found on the perimeter of the fair. They’d known her through their formative years and felt no constraint; they eagerly gave her their young male views. They’d noticed Charlie by her side—how could they not?—noticed that her hand lay on his arm, but from the quick, uncertain glances they threw him, none of the three had recognized him.
Eventually their patter ran out.
“Thank you. Now I know what there is to see in the remaining time I have.” She indicated Charlie. “This is Lord Meredith.”
All three immediately tugged their forelocks; they recognized the title well enough.
“Now tell me,” Sarah continued smoothly, “how are you getting on at the tannery?”
They told her, but their eagerness in that was clearly not matched by their fascination with the fair. Smiling, she let them go. After quick bows to her and Charlie, they pelted off through the crowd.
Charlie watched them disappear. “There must be quite a few around here who know you through the orphanage.” They started strolling again. “How many such do you release into the world each year?”
“It varies. And there are girls, too. They go into the major houses, most often as maids but sometimes in training as cooks.”
They continued on down the alleyways of the fair, idly scanning the booths, resisting all inducements to draw near and sample the wares, or to view the numerous sideshows. The crowd of children before the Punch-and-Judy was considerable; they paused at the edge of it and watched for a time, more entertained by the children and their raucous reactions than the show itself, then walked on.
Nothing occurred to reinvoke their earlier clash of wills, for which Sarah was grateful. She saw no benefit in further prodding a point over which she knew he would react.
His uncanny, indeed ruthless and quite relentless habit of always getting his own way, regardless of his outward charm and apparently easygoing nature, was well recognized within his family and, courtesy of his sisters, had long been well known to her, too. Intriguingly, he hadn’t attempted to charm her. A wise decision; glib charm never worked well with her, and in his case, she saw through his veneer as if it were thinner than a gossamer veil.
She knew what he was, underneath the glamor; the closer they drew, the more time they spent together, she realized that that was true—more true than she’d realized. That her vision of him was…as clear and flawless as his family’s emeralds. She’d somehow always known him in a way she couldn’t explain.
And as she wasn’t yet able to tell him yay or nay, and from the occasional sidelong glances he threw her, his gaze sharp as a lance, studying her face, she knew that he was evaluating ways and means to bring her answer—the right answer—about, it was undoubtedly wise to let the question lie, unresolved and for now unapproached between them.
To night would be soon enough to push ahead with that.
Such were her thoughts. Her nerves and senses, however, were nowhere near as well ordered. As cool and collected.
She wished they were. Wished that her senses wouldn’t leap and jump whenever the crowd forced them close, that her nerves didn’t make her shiver with reaction when, in a sudden crush, his arm brushed her breast.
As the afternoon rolled on and the crowd grew denser, all Charlie’s misgivings over the outing were borne out. Unfortunately, he derived no joy from having been right in his predictions. Not even a perverse joy from knowing that Sarah was equally susceptible, that her nerves skittered every time he touched a guiding hand to her back, that her breath caught, suspended, when in the press of bodies his thigh brushed hers.
Then a rowdy group of journeymen came caroling and leaping down the crowded alleyway, their rush forcing all others to give way, to draw aside and let them pass.
The sudden movement threatened to bowl over those walking at the edge of the alley.
Charlie reacted instinctively, whipping an arm around Sarah and half lifting, half sweeping her out of danger, into the protective lee of his body, and then into the cramped space between two booths.
The wave of jostling humanity rolled through the crowd and past. To the sound of curses, the pack of overexuberant young men disappeared, leaving those scattered in their wake to right themselves, dust themselves off, and resume their more sedate progress.
Leaving Charlie and Sarah upright, but close. Very close.
He’d been watching the young men disappear; as he turned his head to look at her, he felt a shiver of sensual awareness, of sheer sensual anticipation, ripple through her from her shoulders to her knees. Felt his reaction—not a shiver—race through him, hot, ardent, hungry, and greedy, even before his eyes met hers.
And he saw his own need, his own flaring desire, mirrored in the cornflower blue of her eyes.
Her lips were parted, her breath caught, her hands raised between them, suspended before his chest; she didn’t know where to put them, knew well enough not to touch him, but she wanted to.
That last was a palpable, tangible thing, real enough to feel like a caress even without the contact. In response his own need rose in a surging wave, like a cat arching into that phantom caress. Wanting more.
For one definable instant, he teetered on the brink of surrendering—to his need and hers. Taking just one moment to let passion have its way—but it wouldn’t be for just one moment.
Dragging in a breath and easing back, deliberately breaking the spell, was the hardest thing he’d ever done. It was a wrench, a pain, a denial that hurt. Both of them.
He managed to step back; taking her hand, he drew her, unresisting, out of the cramped space, back into the alleyway. Linking their arms, he turned; after an instant’s hesitation, they resumed strolling.
Minutes passed before they were breathing freely again.
He drew a deeper, still not entirely steady breath. Eyes fixed forward, he said, “To night.”
A statement, no question. He felt her gaze briefly touch his face; from the corner of his eye, he saw her nod.
She looked ahead. “Yes. To night.”
To night they would deal with what had flared between them.
For now…“This crowd is getting too dense for comfort.” Talk about stating the obvious. “Perhaps we should head for the meeting place.”
She glanced at the clock tower; the time was two-thirty. But she nodded. “The crowd might be less thick over there.”
To their mutual relief, that proved to be the case. Even more helpfully, the others had also found the increasing crowds off-putting; within ten minutes, they’d all arrived.
“How about a quick tea at the Arms before we take to the saddle?” Jon suggested.
The group agreed. They walked back to the Arms. After duly refreshing themselves, they mounted their horses, and headed north for their homes.
Sarah rode alongside Charlie and tried not to think. Not to dwell on that fraught moment between the booths, not to dwell on their interlude to night. To night would be time enough to think of that. Until they were alone, there was nothing more they could do.
Nothing to quell the urgency driving them, or still the insistent pounding in their veins.
7
He wasn’t there when she reached the summer house, sunk in the quiet of the night. She listened, but heard nothing beyond the soft slink of the water over the lip of the weir, no footsteps, no impatient strides approaching.
Pressing her hands together, straightening her curling fingers, she forced herself to calm; drawing in a steadying breath, she willed her wits from the whirl of anticipation they’d too eagerly allowed to claim them. She tried to think, to reason, tried to focus firmly on her goal, reminding herself of what that was and how she intended to pursue it.
How she intended to force him to reveal what lay behind his desire for her.
She’d barely formed the thought when a boot crunched on the path outside and he was there, taking the steps three at a time, an elementally male figure crossing the wooden floor in long, fluid strides.
And then she was in his arms, wrapped in their strength, and his lips were on hers. And she was swept away, into the beckoning heat, into the fiery furnace of their mutual desire.
Every night it burned hotter; every day the inevitable abrading of their senses, relief withheld until the dark of night, only stoked the flames higher.
And the urgency built.
Tonight she welcomed it. Tonight she had her own agenda and was relying on that driving pounding in their blood to give her the strength and the opportunity to pursue it.
She made no demur when he invaded her mouth and ravaged her senses, when he drew her flush against him, then evocatively stroked, one large palm gliding over the curve of her hip and derriere, then firming, cupping, and provocatively kneading.
Her breath caught as he molded her to him, her senses threatened to fracture as the hard ridge of his erection rode against the soft tautness of her belly. Heat flared; the furnace swelled. A hot empty ache yawned deep within her.
She only gasped when he tumbled them both onto the sofa; she landed beside and half under him, their legs tangled, hands grasping.
He flicked loose the buttons of her bodice. She wrenched the sides of his coat wide, ran her hands up to his shoulders to push the garment off. He muttered a curse, and pulled back enough to shrug free of the jacket. She fell on the buttons of his waistcoat; he muttered another oath and obliged.
But then he kissed her again and pressed her back against the sofa, rapidly dealt with buttons, bodice, and chemise—and then his hand was on her breast and she gasped again, louder, lungs tighter, tightening yet further as his palm cruised, stroked, then his hand closed and his fingers settled to play, to pluck her nerves, to orchestrate the pleasure that rushed through her. It was a swirling, mindless temptation of delight; she let it flow and wash through her, until she found her feet.
Until she could marshal and harbor and ultimately wield enough wit and will to kiss him back, to raise a hand and frame his face, meet his tongue with hers, and distract him.
Long enough to undo the buttons closing his shirt, long enough to slide her hand beneath the gaping linen, and touch him.
His reaction was instantaneous. He broke the kiss and sucked in a breath; his whole body hardened and stilled. But he didn’t pull away. In the darkness she couldn’t see his expression, yet his face seemed tight, lashes lowered, jaw clenched. As if her hand were burning him, as if her touch were something it pained him to endure…but it was he who was burning.
His skin felt like lava poured over solid rock, smooth, almost fluid, yet beneath it nothing moved.
Determined to know, to learn, she caressed, for a long moment gave her senses over to exploring the heavy muscles of his chest, sweeping both hands across, then lower to slide over his ridged abdomen, to glide farther and grasp his sides at his waist, to feel the naked skin like flame beneath her palms.
For one instant she gloried, filling her senses with the perfection of him, then he broke. He pressed her down into the sofa cushions, leaned over her and recaptured her mouth—and without quarter ripped her wits away.
Swept her will away, sent it spinning beneath an onslaught of feeling, of his actions and her reactions, of an exchange at a wholly different level of greedy rapacious need.
Of hunger more explicit, more definite, less controlled. She marveled and embraced it. Let herself slide into it, let it flow around and over and through her, fascinated and enthralled.
This was what she wanted to see, to know, to examine. This—his desire—was what she needed to explore.
Charlie kept her pressed into the sofa, kept her mouth locked with his, kept her wits whirling while he grappled with a conundrum he’d never before faced, not in this arena, not with any other woman. Contradictory compulsions rode him, each merciless and demanding—an instinctive desire to appease her, to happily fall in with her blatantly declared wishes and show her all she wantonly wished to know, if anything to encourage her even further, yet his plan called for something else. Dictated a different line of play—of attack.
Her small hands had pushed beneath the back of his shirt; her fingers gripped and pressed into his skin. Urgent, needy.
The innocent touch seared him. Called to that hunger, the prowling ravenous beast that she so readily aroused and sent raging.