Page 19 of Courting Trouble
He no longer sought.He claimed.
Nora found herself beneath him, felt her legs open so he might settle between as she stretched with a liquid, boneless languor brought on by thorough attentions.
His movements and kisses had been so entirely masculine. Fervent. Arduous.
Possessive.
This new dynamic from him had excited her with such ferocity it had almost frightened her.
Because she wanted to claim him as well.
She wanted ownership of the heart that, even now, felt as though it were locked away in some hollow place. Sometimes, when he seemed very far away, she wanted to rip him open and lay him bare. If only to understand what constantly remained out of her reach.
Was this love? This desperate, wanton need? This endless curiosity?
This relentless infatuation?
As he hovered above her, this man who was barely not a boy, she smoothed a dark forelock away from his face, and smiled as it fell right back in place.
His arms trembled. His eyes burned with need. With the question. With a flame that matched the one burning in her heart.
She wrapped her body around him, welcoming him in.
Not a word was said in the darkness, as their virtue was relinquished to the other. They communicated in sighs and hitches of breath. They spoke with their fingertips and their features, the language that was created the moment one human had ever desired another. And though there was a flash of pain, there was pleasure, too.
And Nora knew he would forever own her body, heart, and soul.
The Next Morning
Nora decided to forgo a ride in Hyde Park, as she twinged and ached in secret places. The need to see Titus was overwhelming today; not only did her physical body feel a bit raw, but so did her soul. His quiet eyes would soothe her as they always did. His voice would lend her the reassurance she needed. It was silly, she knew, this desire to be certain that now that he’d had her body, his heart was still true.
She tried to find him in the stables, if only to tell him not to bother saddling her horse and to suggest a stroll, instead, to somewhere neither of them would be recognized.
They might even walk arm in arm like a true couple and discuss things that were not so idle. Like their dreams for the future.
Finding the stables empty of all but the horses, she mounted the narrow steps to his room above the mews, overlooking the hubbub of the street. Often, she would find him there poring over a medical text, and she’d have to distract him with soft kisses to his neck before convincing him to do something frivolous with her.
She knocked on his door before depressing the latch. “Titus? You’re not still sleeping, are you? I thought we might—”
“Honoria.”
That one word pinned her boots to the shabby wood floor as her father stood like a titan in the middle of the room, advertising just how small and sparce it truly was.
Glacial blue eyes speared her with such abject condemnation, her legs threatened to give way.
“So it’s true,” he spat, reading the guilt that must have splashed across her face with a fiery crimson hue. “Really, Honoria, your behavior is beyond the pale.”
“Where is he?” she gasped, taking in the empty cot and the one scarred trunk now open and devoid of all personal effects.
“He’s been thrown onto the streets like the rubbish he is.” His boots made such a terrible thunder against the rickety wooden loft floor as he moved to the window to survey Mayfair, as if to make certain Titus was not still out there.
Nora’s heart did a swan dive into her stomach as tears pricked her eyes. He was already gone? She knew that she stood on the precipice of a life-altering cataclysm, and she did her best to rein in her thoughts, which bucked and galloped like a panicked horse. Now was not the time to be irrational or overwrought. Clarence Goode did not react well to emotion or sentiment. He needed her to be logical. Amiable. Measured. Disciplined.
She took a deep breath. “Allow me to explain what is—”
“There is only one plausible explanation when a boy is climbing down from your balcony in the wee hours of the morning,” he said with a lethal calm, though his jowls trembled with a barely leashed anger. “Asondallying with the help is understandable, I’ve done it myself from time to time, but youknowbetter!”
He whirled away from the window to stab an accusatory finger at her. “A woman’s worth is her virtue, as it says in the Good Book. And I don’t care to know how far you’ve carried on with this boy, but you’ve shamed me, Honoria, and you’ve disgraced yourself. I can barely stand to look at you.”
