She went with him to his sitting room and saw the sofa where he’d held her when she was terrified by Ruffles. The recollection caused her to want his reassurance again.
She threw herself into his arms, burrowing under his coat and pressing herself against him, cloaking herself in his intoxicating scent and feel. She’d never known a man could emit power from his presence. His body was so much stronger than hers, a fortification of strength.
‘Your assistance with my father’s visit is greatly appreciated,’ he said.
Suddenly, a wave of sadness, and almost irritation at herself, overwhelmed her. She’d toiled to help Addison with his father’s visit and she would do it again, but she feared she’d hastened his departure from her life.
The thought caused her to clutch more tightly at his waist. ‘I wish...’
‘What?’
‘I just wish to be held,’ she said.
‘How long?’
‘Perhaps...until I fall asleep.’
He put an arm around her waist and put a kiss against her hair before they moved inside his bedchamber.
He angled her chin up, his breath warming her lips, and a whisper of peach flavoured his kiss.
A thunderstorm broke out around her, but she was sheltered, safe and secure and with all the searing intensity of lightning and the sensations of soft summer raindrops whispering against her skin.
He pulled away, studying her. ‘I’m afraid if I touch you, you’ll be gone in the morning.’
‘Not if you do it right.’
His mouth fell open and then a smile spread. ‘I will do my best to make certain you’ll still be here tomorrow.’
Her smile was enveloped by heated flourishes from his lips, softening hers.
His fingertips across her back brushed over the placket of her dress and his hand spread so that he clasped her, drawing her closer, and she strived to feel all the height and width of him that she could.
Finally, she breathed, aware of her senses flourishing and the famished feeling that he was sating.
She pushed herself back, fingers on his waistcoat pocket so she could not lose the connection to him.
‘Sweeting, is anything wrong?’
‘It’s so shocking to feel desire again. To want to make love. And be held close. A miracle I didn’t know I could feel. Kisses stronger than I am.’
He swept her up in his arms, carrying her to the side of his bed, until he could stand her on her feet and place the ledgers he’d left open on the counterpane on the bedstand.
Even as he released her, his presence kept her close to him. She couldn’t let him go, moving knuckles over him, needing the touch, unable to stop herself from stretching her fingers out so she could embrace him better.
Then he held her shoulders, caressing her lips with his. His fingers rested on the hooks at the back of her dress. ‘May I?’ he whispered against her mouth.
‘Yes.’ She moved her head slightly so she could speak, but burrowed against his neck, letting the slight stubble on his jaw brush against her, savouring the blunt ends and the roughness. She reached up, her fingers intermingling with the strands of his locks. ‘But you may not ask me any more such questions. I am able to speak and I’ll tell you if I want this to end.’
‘If you’re certain.’
‘Very. And I know I don’t want you to stop.’
He altered his stance, moving to undo each small hook, his fingers precise, and she kept a clasp on his waist.
Then he undressed and afterwards reached to help her from her dress and corset before pulling back the covers.
The sensual awareness multiplied and he lowered them on to the bed and began an exploration of her body, the curves reacting to his touch, giving her a voluptuous feeling she’d never experienced as her skin seemed to rise against the pressure of his hand. The boundaries disappeared between them into a swirl of sensations they both appeared to feel at the same time.
When they were side by side, he whispered her name mixed with endearments, her breasts excited by his touch, and when his palm brushed over her, she could tell he was aware of the hardened nipples through the fabric of her chemise, because he slowed, making the moment a joy to savour.
She lost awareness of anything but him and the feelings he created. Even the fabric of her shift moving against her heightened her senses more.
Then he ran his hands down her body, his fingertips bringing her even more alive as he cloaked her in his touch. Her thin shift moved aside as she pressed closer to him. He understood her needs and held her most intimate place, caressing.
Then, before she expected it, she felt her release and he held her so tightly they could have been intertwined.
‘Stop,’ she said, letting herself return to the moment, and he did, instead using his cheek against hers to keep their connection and his hand at her waist, holding her close.
She tugged her shift higher and he helped her remove it, then she pulled herself astride him, her moistness evident, and they slipped together, her joining with him as if she’d done the same each night a thousand times before.
She watched him, male beauty before her, his lashes closed and suddenly she was infinitely aroused again, more so than before.
They coupled, fevered moments, and she knew he was about to release, and she couldn’t contain herself, letting the waves carry her a second time.
Before he finished, he’d pulled aside, holding her tightly, a gasp escaping.
She lay beside him as their breathing relaxed, resting so that she could see his profile in the darkness.
‘I’ll send for French letters tomorrow,’ he said.
‘If you send someone for them... Are you comfortable with everyone knowing?’ She rolled to her side, bathing in the sound of his voice, the magnificence of his body—even the manly scent was an embodiment of his strength.
‘I don’t mind. And my schedule is so busy, I don’t have time to go myself. Plus, I don’t want you to feel forced into marriage as you might if a child was on the way. Because, trust me, I would try to persuade you into marriage. The child would be mine as well and I would want him near me.’ Then a soft laugh escaped his lips. ‘Or her. I definitely would want to be wed first if I were having a daughter.’
‘When I was a wife, at first I wanted a child, hoping my husband would see it and become a better man. And more mature. But after a few years, I could be thankful for not having one.’
‘He might have seen the baby and reconsidered his ways. I did without a child.’
‘Yes, but you wanted to. He didn’t. He would have been jealous of the attention it received. He never once mentioned wanting a baby and I never did either.’
She’d mourned after her husband’s death. Truly mourned the life lost on a few occasions when she could summon a happy memory. But she’d also felt equal parts relief.
‘My husband was young for his years. I didn’t expect that when we married because I was inexperienced, too. I didn’t grasp that he had grown as much as he ever would and I would keep maturing until I felt so much older than him. I’m sad that he died. But there was no lost romance. I was an always available audience and I soon lost interest in the same jests, day after day.’
He’d made a game of jumping out at her and making her flinch. But it was better than having a sullen child. And his mother had encouraged his nonsense. Sophia expected they were near the same age on the inside.
‘Do you think he would have ever matured?’
‘No. He was more than a decade older than I. It was who he was. The man-child his mother created. The sponge looking for attention.’
Sadness enveloped her as she considered options and her past. Surprisingly, she’d missed her husband in small fragments of memory. But it had been the occasional companionship, she supposed. Then she decided she was deceiving herself because those were the feelings a widow was supposed to feel. She was sorry for her husband’s death, but she never missed the marriage.
Alone, with all its uncertainties, now had fared better for her.
Marriage. Entrapment for women. A snare for men. Hardly worth the time it took to say the meaningless vows. And then there was supposed to be moments of sweetness afterwards. Not bitterness. Not finding out that your husband had forgotten to tell you he lived with his mother.
She admitted to herself she’d agreed to wed within weeks after they’d met, but then her options were dwindling and she’d seen the path Merry was taking.
Her husband’s frustration with his lack of success at the theatre had worn on him, but he had progressed to securing the role he’d always dreamed of—Hamlet. That had worked out as she should have foreseen.
She’d always envisaged she would have taken it well if he’d told her his truths beforehand. But she never would have got along with his mother. The woman blamed her for the few weaknesses she saw in her son.
He’d hero-worshipped Humphrey and Humphrey had introduced him to several others who could help him at the theatre, but memorising the words he was to speak bored him and he never wanted to give the same performance twice, he said, except his beloved Shakespeare’s roles. Yet he would play the same tricks on her time after time.
In truth, he’d scared her by diving out the window on occasion, tumbling down the offset roof to roll on to the ground. Then he’d pretend to be hurt and jump to his feet and pounce at her when she reached him.
She’d expected the charade the last time, but it had been in darkness and a cat had yowled. After nudging him on the cold ground with her foot twice, and pinching his nose, she’d screamed.
Addison sensed she was reliving her marriage and hugged her close. ‘Sweeting,’ he said. ‘Are you with me now, or in the past? I want you here with me.’
She put a palm flat on his chest, over his heart, and he clasped it, savouring the small hand in his. ‘I’m here.’
His lips found hers, completing him, and he lay back, his mind opened in a way it hadn’t been before.
‘Hell. I’ve just grasped that in the past, my mind was halfway out the door after lovemaking. But I don’t feel that way tonight. I never believed anything could affect me, in an instant, as much as the three days did.’
‘Three days?’
‘In gaol.’
‘You’ve been in gaol?’ She spoke as if she’d misheard him.
‘Not recently. Some day I will tell you about it, but there’s really nothing to mention except it stank more than any offal you can imagine. My father saw that I was released. He saved me and then work did. I needed to be busy.’
One of the other bankers wanted him to fail. It oozed from him. His eldest brother wanted him to fall flat on his face. ‘I embraced an awareness that some waited for my downfall and used it, and work, to keep me going forward when I wanted to relapse into old habits.’
He mused for a moment. ‘Gaol was just the exclamation point at the end of a life of revelry. I had nothing else and I had to replace my old forays with something to keep me occupied, and the bank was happy to keep me toiling. My old friends were rabble.’
‘I cannot imagine you as anything but serious, dedicated and responsible.’
‘True. I’ve always been that. I was serious, dedicated and responsible to being the biggest rakehell in London. Failure wasn’t a consideration. The noose was.’
‘You?’ She pulled away and studied him. ‘A rake?’
‘Yes. A reformed one who has been tempted beyond satisfaction by the beautiful Sophia.’
Then she snuggled back against him. ‘It sounds like a jest to call you a rake.’
‘It’s not. But I changed.’ He ran a hand over the counterpane. ‘My father owned everything I had. I hated living on the Duke’s property and, in a short time, I discovered that it would be a relatively simple matter to set up my own household. At first, I endeavoured to support myself and I expected nothing but employment and an opportunity to step from my past.’
He’d been almost ashamed of living in such a grand place as he had because the town house had been handed to his mother, the Duke’s mistress.
‘Here, the surroundings are my own. Cook is here. The stable master, Caldwell, is an uncle I’ve never had. I have true uncles, but I’ve seen them no more than a few times. Proximity makes for family.’
He stretched and folded an arm behind his head. ‘I never had much awareness of it earlier. My own roof. My own walls. My own maturity.’ He examined the ceiling. ‘One day, I realised the numbers I laboured over were funds. And I watched as people made them bigger and it seemed easy enough. A challenge that I dealt with in numerical form.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I celebrated privately when the investments did well and people noticed. You want to keep the winning streak on your side. It’s gambling, but you can shift the odds if you think them through.’
‘You’re so alive when you speak of funds. It would have terrified me to gamble in such a way. I’ve seen some of the numbers on your papers.’
‘They called me the fortune teller. Behind closed doors, the owner of the bank still calls me Fortune. He said I’m the first person he’s known, besides him, who could wager and predict without a flicker and didn’t let my desire to win override sense.’
‘You don’t have to struggle with the numbers?’
‘I was born with wealth around me and it was only figures. But I enjoyed the challenge. The game. I never thought much of it until now. But it makes me feel alive to see the money and what I have accomplished. Early on, I didn’t grasp I was dealing with people’s livelihoods. Structures and houses and businesses with potential for bankruptcy and creditors. Homelessness for others.’ His words slowed. ‘By the time I understood, deep inside, what I was doing, I’d passed the uncertainty and knew if there was a gift to it, I had it.’
But nothing made him feel the same as Sophia did. As if he finally had the home around him. The past behind him. A companion in his arms.
Yet he dreamed of more.
‘Still, I can’t move forward. Even with my superior helping me all he can. I’ve been to the best estates and the best events, championed by the bank, and yet I am an employee caring for their money.’
He took her other hand and they were locked in a twinkling of time before he released her and the air chilled without her touch, but he had to explain.
He watched her, and hoped she comprehended. ‘My older brother will some day be in the House of Lords. Huzzah for him. The bank will be passed on to the owner’s heirs. But I am finding funds. I will not receive a gift of money or title from others. I’m making my own.’
Shutting his eyes, he relaxed. ‘I received a great inheritance from my parents, but I’m sure the Duke is conscious of it. Not property or lands, but the blood in my veins. A hidden heritage I can squander, or work with and make grow. I am proof that you can have everything...everything...and still be a wastrel. It takes more effort to keep the gifts than it does to lose them and blame others.’
He lay back with eyes closed and couldn’t stop his smile. ‘I have people against me and that helps. I want to do well to show them I can. To tip my hat at them. To give them a bow. My eldest brother is a marquess and some day he will be Oldston, the Duke. That’s as it should be. But I want to...’
He waited a bit too long. ‘My father said I always had rebellion in me when I was a child. Perhaps I’m letting that arrogance work for me now and not against me. I could be defiant enough to be proving I am worthy of a place in Oldston’s family. Perhaps not just to my father, or to society, but to myself.’
When he slid closer to her, he heard the pride in his voice. ‘To work hard doesn’t make a man wealthy. To have intelligence doesn’t bring riches. But to toil hard, use your head, keep an eye to the future and to have luck, those bring the best results—and the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of your labour. It’s probably wrong to want to do well to show others you can, but it’s like adding the spice in a chocolate drink. The extra bite of flavour.’
He took her hand a second time, watched her expression and he saw the sunshine in the darkness. ‘I am the most fortunate man I know. The luckiest. The head of the bank shares the secrets of wealth that he has learned from his father with me. My father cast me out when I needed it. And I am with you at this moment.’